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Writing by John Tamny and Parkview contributors, from the latest commentary to the collected archive.
58 essays · Newest first
Clear filtersCato Institute co-founder Ed Crane turns 81 today, which is a good time to talk about him and how he has helped to shape how we think, view policy, and ideally how we will vote in the future. There’s…
How to get rich? The single best way is to live a long time, ideally working much of that time while amassing savings that compound, and compound some more. The vast majority of Warren Buffett’s…
GDP is a worthless calculation. It goes down as imports increase, it goes up as government spending does, and it increases not due to productivity, but if production of any kind has happened. In…
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…
It cannot be said enough that economic growth is defined not by what people do, but by what they don’t. Which certainly helps explain the big declines in future-seeing equity prices in concert with…
The future will be defined by economic growth that will make the present appear limp by comparison. Driverless cars will loom large precisely because they’ll free humans from so much work. It’s what…
“I have such easy access to my fans and customers.” Those are the words of Kylie Jenner, from a 2018 Forbes profile. Jenner was on the path to billionaire status, but in many ways the billionaire…
Jobs are the easy part. It’s worth remembering every time a politician talks about “jobs created” by his or her economic program. They’re missing the point. True economic growth is an effect of the…
If the U.S. were ever so foolishly intent on shrinking inequality, doing so would be easy: abolish usage of cars, planes, computers, smartphones and the internet. Presto, inequality shrunk…
It’s been said before by many inside and outside of science that so-called “global warming” is a good thing. Usually it’s pointed out that warming associates with more food production, not to mention…
“We better hang up. This call is getting very expensive.” It’s something no one says anymore, but it was the norm right up to the dawn of the 21st century, and realistically beyond. Long distance…
A recent front page story in the Wall Street Journal told the story of a courageous entrepreneur who impressively got in the proverbial door with Costco. She had what Journal reporter Ruth Simon…
Back in the 1980s and 1990s, and likely before that, the University of Southern California (USC) had the reputation of a “safety school.” The biggest challenge to what some referred to as the…
Humans don’t take wealth, they create it. And they create it by virtue of dividing up work with other humans and machines. It’s called specialization, and it’s the root of productivity. These…
It wasn’t long after Donald Trump’s recent proposal to reverse his $10,000 cap on the State and Local Tax deduction (otherwise known as SALT) that critics on his right flank criticized the move.…
According to Ip and GDP, savings are a global problem. For the countries in receipt of the savings. The inflow of capital quite literally brings down GDP. Yes, the more one looks at GDP the dumber it…
Tipping has gotten a bad rap of late. Lots of op-eds and commentary more broadly from left and right about tips, and perhaps worse, the expectation of tips.
Trump’s assertion that “SENIORS SHOULD NOT PAY TAX ON SOCIAL SECURITY!” is more pro-growth than the 2017 Keynesian cuts foisted on him by Paul Ryan.
The masses may be revolting, but collectively they’re smart. That they’ve chosen unserious candidates signals a future quite unlike the one predicted by the pundits. Who are you going to believe?
Cut taxes. Waiters and waitresses should be taxed less, but entrepreneurs and CEOs should be taxed much less.
The erasure of work won’t put mean we’re not working, but it will mean we’re working in ways that maximize our ability to showcase our unique skills and intelligence.
In his 2006 book Who Really Cares, Arthur Brooks wrote of how the late Robert Byrd’s generosity with the money of others could be found all over the state of West Virginia. There was the Robert C.…
There was a time when it was accepted wisdom at the Hoover Institution that market interventions slowed economic output. How things change.
The killing of Ukrainians by Russians, and Russians by Ukrainians could in no way stimulate growth in the United States. What annihilates human capital annihilates the knowledge that powers growth…
