No, the Economy Cannot Be Talked Into a Recession
Businesses fight consumers every day for access to precious capital. Yes, you read that right. The businesses economists tell us are reliant on consumption are in a battle for capital that would…
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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 filtersThe FTC’s Andrew Ferguson Sounds Too Much Like Lina Khan
“Let’s get out of here. I don’t want to see anybody.” Those were the words of polymath thinker, actor, entertainer and director Mike Nichols (1931-2014) at the June 21, 1966 premiere of Who’s Afraid…
A Gold Standard Is Great, But It Doesn’t Force Fiscal Discipline
A gold standard would do wonders for economic growth, but would almost certainly not limit the growth of our federal government. The view that it would insults markets at least three times, but…
Forget the Negative Income Tax, How About a Negative Tariff?
Milton Friedman was incorrect. About the negative income tax, specifically. The great Nobel Laureate (1912-2006) viewed a negative income tax as something that would encourage work. While most people…
Tether & Bitcoin Have a Big, Routinely Ignored Dollar Problem
Private, or “crypto” money will eventually replace government money. Bank on it. As written in The Money Confusion, profits from the trading of fiat currency chaos ($7 trillion per day worth of…
We Don’t Know What Will Happen, But We Do Know What Won’t
When we look back on 2025 in 2030, rest assured that we’ll have forgotten or moved beyond what had us so scared in 2025. While what will happen next week is nearly impossible to predict, it’s much…
Pancreatic Cancer, Daraxonrasib, and the Suffocation of Knowledge
In the seriously great news department, pancreatic cancer is expected to pass colorectal cancer as the second biggest cause of cancer-related death by 2030. Yes, it’s great news. To see why, look…
Forget Fauci, Forget China, Panicky Politicians Were the Covid Villains
Panicky politicians caused the coronavirus crack-up, period. If not for their tragic inability to keep their cool, the coronavirus scare would have been anything but. To ignore the seminal role of…
Apple Should Be Free To Hire Whomever It Wants
Apple should be free to hire whomever it wants, and without regard to what its critics think. The previous assertion is about private property and freedom, but it’s worth adding that depending on the…
A Tax On Stephen Schwarzman Is a Tax On Us All
A federal tax levied on a New York City resident is a tax on a Floridian. The previous truth is rarely discussed by economists and pundits focused on Floridians who’ve escaped blue state taxes, but…
AI Will Be An Artificial Wall Keeps Talent In West VA
In 2020, West Virginia University president E. Gordon Gee memorably quipped to the New York Times that he wanted “to build a wall around West Virginia and keep all the kids here. A state can’t…
If Inflation Is Truly Higher Prices, Then the Fed Cannot Fight It
The economic consensus of the moment is that higher prices are the same as inflation, and the Fed is the only governmental entity situated to bring down higher prices. It’s a dangerous consensus.…
New Yorkers Are Too Talented To Be Restrained by Bad Policy
“He was just the waiter.” That’s what one of the owners of legendary New York steakhouse Peter Luger said about Wolfgang Zwiener. “All” he’d done over the decades was wait tables at Luger’s, and this…
Alarmists On the Left and Right Can Relax, Debt and Default Are Priced
Whatever worries you about what’s going on in the world, stop. The advice is wise not because your fears aren’t potentially valid, but precisely because they’re potentially valid. If they are, rest…
Book Review: Philip Gefter’s Spectacular ‘Cocktails with George and Martha’
It always interested Cato Institute co-founder Ed Crane that while left-handed writers represent roughly 11 percent of the population, something like 40 percent of Cato’s staff wrote left-handed.…
‘Carried Interest’ Is the Opposite of Income, and Shouldn’t Be Taxed Like It
“Carried interest” is extraordinarily misleading. It implies a fixed and very certain income stream in the way that interest bearing accounts at banks do. Which is the problem. Carried interest is…
Why Is Musk Being So Stingy? Return 100% of DOGE Savings
100% percent of any Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) savings should be returned to taxpayers. This shouldn’t even be a debate, but sadly it will be since neither side of the ideological…
So-Called ‘Bidenflation’ Is What Happened After ‘Bidenflation’
There was no “Bidenflation” from 2021 to 2022. History books will make clear that there were rising prices, not inflation. There’s a difference. Just the same, the dollar has declined fairly…
Michael Dirda Is Incredibly Fortunate To Be Working All the Time
“I keep a button on my desk that says ‘Life?’ Of course I have a life. It’s a life filled with books.” Those are the words of Michael Dirda, Pulitzer Price-winning book critic for the Washington…
It Matters Not One Bit Which Country ‘Wins’ Artificial Intelligence
Roughly a fifth of Apple’s iPhones are sold in China. Repeat the previous anecdote over and over again, and ideally convey it to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Matt Pottinger, chairman of the China…
Book Review: Samuel Graydon’s ‘Einstein In Time and Space’
Laments about the state of education are arguably as old as education is, or close to it. And they’ve always been a waste of time. That’s because knowledge isn’t bestowed on us as much as it’s…
Jamie Dimon Is Absolutely Right About Coming To Work Each Day
When Donald Keough took over as President and COO of Coca-Cola in 1981, one of the first things he did was walk the halls of the company’s headquarters to get to know the employees. He asked each…
With U.S. Budgeting There’s No Such Thing As ‘Fake Math’
The U.S. has a massive budget and eye-popping debt precisely because Congress annually fleeces the rich. To believe otherwise is to believe in Santa Claus, ferociously dumb markets, or both. What’s…
Can Donald Trump Become the Next Jimmy Carter?
The Trump Administration is off to a fast start. While closing the border, DEI reversal, needed tax legislation and the work of DOGE are getting the headlines, the area that I am most excited about…