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Writing by John Tamny and Parkview contributors, from the latest commentary to the collected archive.
993 essays · Newest first
Clear filtersLeave Nancy Pelosi alone. Or at the very least, leave Pelosi alone to trade stocks. To muzzle her apparent skill when it comes to picking stocks is to blind the rest of us to crucial information. No…
The top 400 American taxpayers pay more in federal taxes than the bottom 70 percent of U.S. taxpayers combined. The previous truth is a friendly reply to Cliff Asness and Michael Mendelson’s recent…
The brilliant thinking of Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) has been unfairly besmirched by a rather absurd “money multiplier” theory puzzlingly embraced by his more modern followers. Mises’s…
They thought Elon Musk was retarded. That’s what Walter Isaacson reports in his biography of Musk about the teachers at Musk’s elementary school. Musk’s response to Isaacson was “I wasn’t really…
“While the music industry continues to get buffeted by technological change – here comes the AI wave, next.” That’s how media visionary John Malone describes the relentlessly changing circumstances…
“We thought Grease was going to be a disaster.” That’s how Barry Diller bluntly puts it in his memoirs (Who Knew) about one of the many blockbuster films that Paramount Pictures released during his…
A weak dollar will sap Donald Trump’s presidency like no other policy. This is something Steve Moore, a top outside economic adviser to Trump, knows well. So does Moore’s great friend, Larry Kudlow.…
Central planning is bad, which means government spending is bad. Contra the most prominent number in economics (GDP), government spending is by its very name an economic wrecking ball. These truths…
Economists and their obtuse theories have been the overwhelming driver of reduced progress since 1971. Market-friendly economists (think Milton Friedman) are paradoxically the biggest offenders since…
In an ideal world, every credentialed economist would spend a day, week or semester in Orlando as a way of facing up to the myriad fallacies that stalk their profession. What gives Orlando life is…
They’re both wrong. Who is? Trump supporters who’ve long defended mindless tariffs, along with economists wisely against mindless tariffs, but who now claim they didn’t really mean what they said…
“Definitely wasn’t interested in going to insurance or anything like that.” That’s how former University of Texas and University of Utah quarterback Cam Rising explained his decision to get into…
As has been said here before, the most important line in Henry Hazlitt’s Economics In One Lesson has rarely, if ever, been referenced. Hazlitt wrote, “What is harmful or disastrous for an individual…
“And on the tax front, it’s time for rich people like me to pay more.” As some may know, but exponentially fewer than he surely hoped, that’s what 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney…
The Federal Reserve is a full employment act for economists, both inside the central bank and outside of it. Please keep this in mind amid all the debates about what the Fed will do, how independent…
It was 1994, and the Republicans had just taken control of the House of Representatives. After the change Cato Institute co-founder Ed Crane received a call from Fannie Mae, one in which he was told…
“We are all faced with a series of great opportunities—brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.” – John W. Gardner Rich people are the most important buyers in the world. That’s why it’s…
Working recently in a manufacturing facility outside of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, Chandra Das entered a debate at the factory’s inspection table. Das, a Hindu, apparently made a negative…
The fraudulent number that is Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a substantially shrunken number relative to the true size of the U.S. economy. See the “surge” in GDP reported yesterday for evidence.…
No one just chooses to borrow money. What an obnoxious conceit, one that imagines lenders are blithe about those loaned to. More realistically, those with title to money decide who can and cannot…
“Increased cash flow allowed TCI to borrow more money and pay higher total interest costs on it, which we used to buy still more cable systems.” That’s how cable television visionary John Malone…
Bill Dally dropped out of high school. Something about history class. He didn’t want to sit through it. Dally subsequently went to work as an auto mechanic, though high test scores eventually secured…
At Luke Russert’s college graduation, Tim Russert (1950-2008) joked about the fake ID used by his son during college to get into bars. Apparently the ID was quite good. Laughter at Tim Russert’s…
“That’s really scary.” Those are the words of Neil Carey, a retired social worker who is 87. Carey is describing his occasional memory lapses that aren’t due to traditional Alzheimer’s. As Carey…
