Failure Won’t Hurt China, a Bailout of Country Garden Will
China’s Evergrande has been staring bankruptcy in the face since 2021. More recently, media members have fingered Country Garden as yet another large China property company that could fall.…
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Essays
Writing by John Tamny and Parkview contributors, from the latest commentary to the collected archive.
994 essays · Newest first
Clear filtersNo, There’s No Near-Term ‘Sugar High’ From Government Spending
Governments can only centrally plan the direction of resources insofar as they’ve taken them from us first, and they can only offer tax incentives insofar as they’ve overtaxed us first. The economic…
The Boundless Foolishness Underlying ‘Soft Landing’ Mythology
It’s a waste of words to say the central planning that underlies Fed conceit always fails, not to mention that the surest path to lower prices is economic growth as is.
To See the Problem, the Freedom Caucus Must Look In the Mirror
Good arguments gradually win. The Freedom Caucus lacks them. It will never succeed so long as it doesn’t understand its argument.
TikTok Faces Suffocating Government Authoritarianism…In the U.S.
If we’re free-speech absolutists, we’re by definition absolutists about the sources of speech. What’s being done to TikTok is embarrassing, and it won’t redound to its political critics in the U.S.
If the Economy ‘Collapses,’ Biden Should Go To Bed, Trump Should Golf
If voters really want to avoid a future “financial crisis,” they would vote for Biden if he promises to go to bed after the next financial institution failure, and Trump if he promises to play golf.
Five Words That Kept Ross Perot From Becoming the World’s Richest
In the late 1970s, Ken Langone connected Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank with Ross Perot. They were trying to raise money for what became Home Depot, and Perot was offered the chance to purchase 70%…
Chinese Economists Disagree With Xi Jinping. But Xi Is Right.
The consensus among the allegedly wise is that China is “enduring its worst economic slowdown in years.” If the latter described the United States, economists and pundits would be calling for massive…
The Fed As the Inflation Fix? Sorry, But Markets Aren’t That Stupid
That markets are incredibly stupid is pretty much implied in all the Federal Reserve commentary from the various economic religions. Think about it.
Why Are Members of the Right So Fearful of Inequality?
Americans are mostly wrestling with “keeping up with the Joneses.” If he’s right then he, his fellow libertarian inequality apologists, along with Ahmari, Rubio Cass, should praise inequality to the…
Government Continues to Reap the Bitter Fruits of Its Lockdown Hysteria
If the arrival of the virus was a crisis as lockdown proponents so confidently asserted back in 2020, their hysteria offered the best case for government doing nothing.
Budget Deficits Don’t Power Economic Growth, They’re a Consequence of It
The implied point in the Post headline was that government spending makes most sense when the economy is weak, a supposition suggesting that central planning of resource allocation is most needed…
Retirement Plans Should Protect Employees From Retirement-Plan Experts
Ian Ayres and Quinn Curtis are law professors at Yale and UVA. Their area of expertise is retirement, and as they see it, the typical employee paying into retirement funds must be saved from himself.…
Whistleblowers As the New Ambulance Chasers, Only Much Worse
Corporate “whistleblowers” are billed by media types as innocents beset by scoundrels as they expose alleged wrongdoing inside corporations.
The Discredited Phillips Curve Cannot Be Discredited Enough
Talking to the New York Times recently, AEI’s lead economist in Michael Strain observed that “good news” for the Fed would be a recession. Since the credentialed near unanimously believe that job…
All Decisions Are ‘Business Decisions’: College Football Made a Bad One
In reality, all decisions are business decisions, which means all business decisions are “about the money.” The bigger question not being asked is if the business decision was a correct one in light…
“Cheap Labor” Is the Most Expensive Labor of All
The left-leaning imagine against all reason that businesses are out to exploit workers with low wages. The right-leaning disagree with the left rhetorically, all the while making the left’s case for…
A Lesson From Hong Kong For Those Who Worry China Hides Bad News
According to Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell, “The Chinese economy has hit a rough patch.” On their face, comments like these always rate a raised eyebrow: I can’t measure the economy of…
Savers and Financiers Are the Economy’s Lifeblood, So Treat Them Well
In his memoirs about the remarkable rise of The Home Depot, the great Bernie Marcus oh-so-thankfully went against the grain of seemingly all modern thought in writing that “bankers put their careers…
Economists, and Their Comical Search For a Higher ‘Inflation Target’
To say that Harvard’s Jason Furman believes mass unemployment and bankruptcy is the answer to inflation is a waste of words.
‘Low-Birthrate’ Pessimism Will Soon Embarrass the Pessimists
The birthrate alarmism that has infected the various economic religions won’t age well. Nothing against procreation, but lower birthrates don’t in any way signal country decline.
The Russians Have Stolen Our ‘Whip Inflation Now’ Buttons
The story on Russia these days is that the economy is booming, with inflation breaking out as a consequence of all the government spending that is said to be stimulating the economy.
Biden’s Chinese Investment Crackdown Vandalizes Foreign and Economic Policy
President Biden’s recent move to ban U.S. investment in “sensitive” Chinese companies will not work. As is, U.S. investment funds all sorts of Chinese innovations despite all manner of rules in China…
Mark-to-Market is Not as Simple For Banks as is Assumed
Cato Institute co-founder Ed Crane and I have been discussing mark-to-market accounting for banks in the aftermath of SVB’s troubles. Crane is not seeking force on the matter, but does think…