We live in an nth-best society. It's neither fully libertarian (though libertarians disagree over exactly what that would mean) nor totalitarian like the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Maoist China, or North Korea. It's somewhere in between, closer to...
Economics
And the Winner Is…Not You
by Joseph Solis-Mullen | Feb 22, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles
Of all the government or quasi-government institutions, there is perhaps none as openly opaque in its operations and unaccountable for its failures as the Federal Reserve. For, unlike its top rivals for this most dubious of distinctions, like the CIA, NSA, or DOD,...
CPI Numbers Aren’t Just Bogus, They’re Oppressive to Individualism
by Owen Ashworth | Feb 20, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles
The British government and the BBC are celebrating that there has been “the first monthly fall in food prices since 2021” due to inflation remaining flat. It's being welcomed as a huge win in the government’s battle against inflation; they had set a target to halve...
TGIF: Tariffs Tax Consumers
by Sheldon Richman | Feb 9, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
We seem to forget that a tariff is a tax. It is formally levied on importers, not on foreigners or things, but since it can usually be passed along, it ends up as an indirect tax on consumers. The point of tariffs is to protect certain domestic businesses and their...
Rate Cuts Are Coming, Ready or Not
by Joseph Solis-Mullen | Feb 5, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles
According to the Fed’s “preferred” inflation measure, the Personal Consumption Expenditures Index (PCE)—you know, the one that excepts those extraneous things you never buy, things like food and gas—well, according to recent PCE readings the Fed has been doing a...
Public vs Private Performance Standards
by Owen Ashworth | Feb 1, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles
There is an interesting paradigm in political culture where we seem to hold differing standards for private versus public entities. If you were to ask your average person walking down the street whether we should bail out a random, private company that is not...
New Merger Guidelines Could Make 2024 a Difficult Year for Business and Biden
by Norman Singleton | Jan 31, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles
A common way politicians and government officials bury bad or controversial news is to release it at a time when it is guaranteed to receive limited attention, such as 4:45 p.m. on a Friday or right before a holiday. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the...
Josh Hawley Is Protecting the FTC from Accountability
by Norman Singleton | Jan 24, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles
Last March, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) board member Christine Wilson resigned following publication of an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal detailing FTC Chair Lina Khan’s mismanagement of the agency. The op-ed details possible violations of federal ethics...