“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 calling used to be very expensive. So were computers very pricey. The typical desktop on offer in the 1990s cost […]
A Falling Oil Price Is a Beautiful Sign of Progress, Not ‘Recession’ Read More »
If the question at the top of this opinion piece reads as flippant, that’s because it is. How else to respond to Columbia economics professor Glenn Hubbard than with flippancy born of mystification? In an opinion piece of his own titled “The Trump Economic Awakening,” Hubbard chose to speak for all Americans in platitudes: “They want
Why Don’t Americans Just Move To Flint, Michigan? Read More »
Inflation is all over the news and commentary today, particularly after a presidential election that was allegedly all about it. The problem remains that few who utter the word grasp its singular meaning. This includes Stanford professor Jennifer Burns, who not-so-ironically wrote a book about Milton Friedman. Friedman had his own problems with the
Inflation Is a Shrinkage of the Monetary Unit, Nothing Else Read More »
Lazard chief executive Peter Orszag recently published an opinion piece in the Washington Post that exists as an essential economics lesson for left-leaning Keynesian economic thinkers, along with their erstwhile opposites on the supply-side right. Keynesian and supply-side have been in agreement in recent years that President Biden’s surely wasteful spending at the beginning
Peter Orszag Discredits Keynes…AND Supply-Side on ‘Inflation’ Read More »
Cato Institute co-founder Ed Crane has long said in print, on television and in person that a focus on economic growth misses the point. Paraphrasing Crane, if the people are free they’ll have all the economic growth they could ever want. It’s something to remember as Cato stages an online policy forum focused on Argentina, and
Javier Milei Needn’t Dollarize, He Only Needs to Set Argentina Free Read More »
It was recently revealed that lefty economist Robert Reich is not – gasp – an economist. It turns out he’s just a left-wing lawyer. The joke is on those who think Reich’s lack of a PhD is the source of what some deem ignorance. In truth, some of the most economically ignorant individuals on
The U.S., IMF and Greg Ip Get Into a Fight With Basic Economics Read More »
Gold is referred to as a constant for good reason. It’s price doesn’t move. What moves are the currencies in which it’s priced. Which is a reminder that when the price of gold in dollars declines, that’s the sign of a rising dollar. Conversely, when the price of gold rises, that’s the sign of
With Gold Rising, It’s Time for Trump/Harris To Be Presidential Read More »
Honore de Balzac observed in seemingly acidic fashion that “Behind every great fortune there is a crime.” Eventually FDR latched onto Balzac’s nonsensical notion, and now it seems to be gaining currency among neo-Austrians. Austrian School economist Peter St. Onge is disappointly one of those. In a Twitter post, St. Onge asserted that “Federal spending, open borders,
Who Needs Balzac When We Have the Austrians? Read More »
In a video that’s gone viral, the late Milton Friedman correctly asserts about inflation that “consumers don’t produce it,” and “producers don’t produce it.” Only for Friedman to go off track with the observation that “too much government spending” does produce inflation. Ignored by Friedman was that governments aren’t some kind of other capable of extracting spending power from Pluto,
As Economists Do Now, Milton Friedman Got Inflation Wrong Read More »
Responding to the failures of Enron and Worldcom within six months of each other, failures that didn’t spook the markets much at all, President George W. Bush zestily signed into law Sarbanes-Oxley (legislation that most certainly did spook the markets), thus criminalizing failure in an economy that had long derived its dynamism from – you guessed
Does the Economy Really Perform Better Under Democratic Presidents? Read More »
