Cheers, There Will Never Be Another Norm Peterson
Who was Norm Peterson? You’re aging yourself if you know the answer to the question. More realistically, you aged yourself by clicking on an opinion piece with “Norm Peterson” in the title. About…
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Essays
Writing by John Tamny and Parkview contributors, from the latest commentary to the collected archive.
1053 essays · Newest first
Clear filtersThere’s No Such Thing As ‘Exorbitant Privilege,’ There’s Just Production
Debt is an effect of wealth, not desperation. That’s true for individuals and corporations, but also governments. The power of compounding vivifies this truth, and explains why Apple has lots of debt…
If They Know Why Treasury Yields Are Rising, Then They Don’t
Everyone’s got an answer for why Treasury yields have jumped recently. Yet no one knows why. Crucially, they don’t know why precisely because they think they have an answer for the movements of the…
More ‘Cheating’ On Schoolwork Is a Feature of AI, Not a Bug
The more that kids can cheat thanks to AI advances, the better education will become. Yes, you read that right. No need to read it again. AI-enabled cheating on homework, term papers and tests will…
Book Review: Michael Arkush’s Excellent “The Golf 100”
In Men at Work, George Will observed that “The history of baseball is littered with stories of failures by players who thought that their natural physical endowments would be sufficient.” The…
SALT Shrinkage Is Bad for Red State Taxpayers Too
People in Texas pay taxes too. So do workers in Florida, Tennessee and other states that don’t impose an income tax. This has seemingly been forgotten in the ongoing debate about state and local…
Facebook Is Powerful Evidence That Meta Is Not a Monopoly
Meta used to be Facebook. Why state the obvious? The answer is that what’s obvious very much calls into question the FTC’s antitrust case against Meta, the corporation formerly known as Facebook. Ok,…
What Market Signals Can Teach the National Debt Alarmists
“Rising yields on the back of the U.S. credit downgrade is indicative of what will occur if Washington does not curb its appetite for unsustainable spending and low taxes.” Those are the words of…
Low Birthrates Are a Market Signal of a Rich, Rich Future
Low and falling birthrates are not an economic threat. Not remotely. The latter is not a Malthusian or Paul Ehrlich-ian statement as much as it’s a statement about production. The babies being born…
Donald Trump Vs. Joe Biden: Who Was Better On Inflation?
Inflation is not rising prices. Deflation is not falling prices. The more production expands across a rising number of hands and machines, the lower the price. And vice versa. The Apple iPhone is an…
Albania, Greece, and the Rich Person Mindset of Immigrants
Immigrants are almost monolithically poor, but they have the mindset of a rich person. That’s why they’re immigrants. They want better, and will do what it takes to get better. What’s written above…
A Tax on Harvard and Harvard Professors Is a Tax on You
It’s so easy to forget that Congress taxes us not so that it can stare at our money, but to spend it. Which means every dollar Congress extracts in taxes is an extra dollar of control politicians…
Book Review: Butch Meily’s “From Manilla to Wall Street”
“We wouldn’t be where we are without Mike.” The Mike referenced was the one and only Michael Milken, but what was said about Milken could have realistically been said by countless people. Such was…
Cheer the Four New York Republicans Engineering a Massive Tax Cut
Reps. Nick LaLota, Andrew Garbarino, Elise Stefanik, and Michael Lawler, four House Republicans, are holding up the extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). Good for them. To understand…
Even If Trump Gets Them to ‘Zero,’ Americans Will Be Worse Off
“What will you say about Trump and his tariffs if he gets high-tariff countries to zero?” Trump supporters have asked the previous question endless times since “Liberation Day” and surely before. The…
George W. Bush Lit Dollar Fire On Which Trump Throws Match
Presidents get the dollar they want, and George W. Bush wanted a weaker one. Bush’s departure from the Reagan/Clinton era of a largely strong, stable dollar as a measure of constant objective value…
The ICE Raids Are Anti-Business, Anti-Conservative, and Anti-American
“Acouple employees left for the rest of the day. They were pretty rattled.” Those were the words of multi-restaurant owner and Georgetown Events Hospitality Group president Bo Blair, in a Washington…
Xi Jinping May Be An Authoritarian, But He’s Not a Magician
From the minute the money is spent, government spending slows economic growth. That’s because central planning of resources is central planning of resources. That government spending is an…
Book Review: Graydon Carter’s ‘When the Going Was Good’
“You better let me take this. They’d never believe it coming from you.” That’s legendary New York Times editor R.W. Apple at the end of a particularly expensive dinner with Times colleague Joseph…
It’s In the Pessimism and Policy Errors That Recovery Can Be Found
He may still turn things around, but it’s a shame about President Trump and the economy. All he had to do was nothing, and what they refer to as “the economy” would be soaring now. Of course, Trump…
“Macroeconomists” Don’t Despise Trump, They Despise “Macroeconomics”
“Macroeconomics” purpports to break “economies” down to cities, states, and countries. Remember this as economists react with horror to President Trump’s surface, or actual economic ignorance. They…
Kevin Warsh Seen as Another Trump Adult: That’s Dangerous
High prices beget low prices. It’s the high prices that summon more supply, more innovative production processes that ultimately result in lower prices, and often both. That high prices foretell…
To Libertarians, Noah Smith Was More Patronizing Than Apologetic
Noah Smith led off his recent “apology” to libertarians with a truncated list of things he’s long disagreed with libertarians about. For instance, he claims (without evidence) that a society defined…
GDP: A Worthless Number Meets Mindless Economic Policy
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a worthless number. The previous truth isn’t a defense of Donald Trump after the 0.3% Q1 GDP decline. Instead, it’s a defense of reason that requires the reasonable to…