The Fed can never be independent. Economists should spare readers of any further commentary calling for what can’t be. Long before the Fed existed, and just the same to this day, there were and are all manner of private, profit-motivated sources of credit ready to liquefy financial institutions enduring near-term liquidity problems despite quality […]
Say It Routinely, The Fed Isn’t Nor Can It Ever Be ‘Independent’ Read More »
It’s so easily forgotten that people aren’t a cost. They’re an input, always and everywhere, and this truth won’t lose any validity as robots proliferate. Quite the opposite. Which is why it’s useful to respond to Manhattan Institute (MI) president Reihan Salam’s recent observation in the form of a question about immigration in an opinion piece
Robots Will Make the Need for Immigrants More Urgent Than Ever Read More »
A show about a charismatic chef? Who would watch that? Those are two questions formerly asked by studio executives far more than most will ever realize. Evidence supporting the above claim can be found in how often often the highest of high-end chefs refer to themselves as “cooks.” Let’s just say that the self-deprecation
Hulu’s “The Bear” Points To a Brilliant Work Future Read More »
West Virginia must be rich, right? All that federal money that flows there year after year. Hopefully readers see the obvious flaw, or contradiction. Government spending saps economic growth, by its very description. Precisely because it signals the central planning of market goods, services and labor by politicians, it’s economically harmful. Only an economist
John Maynard Keynes Resides Inside Right-of-Center SALT Critics Read More »
If Zohran Mamdani could “ruin” New York City, then it wouldn’t be worth saving. And New York City doesn’t require saving, except to the willfully blind. What you’re about to read isn’t a defense of Mamdani, or his government grocery store policies, wage floors, and soak-the-rich socialism. Not at all. At the same time
Finding Abundant Optimism In the Zohran Mamdani Mistake Read More »
“You can spin your political base, but you cannot spin the economy or the bond market. Those two are unforgiving – and eventually voters might be too.” Those are the words of Manhattan Institute scholar Jessica Riedl in a recent Washington Post opinion piece. Riedl was critiquing Republican spin related to their tax bill. As she has
While Correctly Decrying ‘Big Beautiful’ Spin, Deficit Hawks Should Look In the Mirror Read More »
Credit is produced. Repeat the previous truth over and over again. And then internalize the obvious, that we borrow money for what it can exchanged for. That we borrow dollars to get things ridicules the popular notion within the various economic religions that an “easy” Fed is an inflationary Fed. No, that’s not how
If Fed Cuts Fuel Inflation, Then Powell Has Nothing To Fear Read More »
Immigration to the U.S. is by its name a wage positive. It’s tautological. Higher wages are what instigate immigration, so to pretend as some do that the arrival of immigrants pushes down wages implies that the purest of market signal of all (the migration of humans) is a stupid one. No, not likely. More
Love or Hate Immigrants, They Do Not Drive Down Wages Read More »
“You know, people think that because I’m Mike Nichols, I don’t need praise. I need a lot. Nobody gets that.” The previous quote comes from Mark Harris’s excellent 2020 biography (review here) of – you guessed it – Mike Nichols. To read about the polymath was to marvel at how much he was venerated by
Book Review: Ian Leslie’s “John & Paul: A Love Story In Songs” Read More »
Orforglipron is an oral drug from Eli Lilly that’s in trial stage. The New York Times reports that in a trial of over 500 patients, those “who took the highest dose lost an average of around 16 pounds after nine months.” The Times added that roughly “two-thirds of people who took the drug also saw their blood sugar
We Haven’t Scratched the Surface of Weight-Loss Drug Advances Read More »
