economics

Free markets have allowed the West to have unprecedented economic growth and send standards of living up and up, year after year. We often forget that things that we consider everyday items now, not even the richest among us possessed 100 years ago. John D. Rockefeller was one of the richest men to ever live, …

If Donald Trump’s sister is right that he “has no principles,” he does at least have a few enduring instincts. Perhaps the most persistent is the president’s conviction that American greatness is threatened by voluntary economic exchange, the most powerful engine of peace and prosperity in human history. Each of us has a fundamental right …

A news commentator once observed that “any half-dozen economists will normally come up with about six different policy descriptions.” It certainly does seem that way! If economics is a “science,” then why does it defy the precision, the certainty, and the relative unanimity of opinion which characterize so many other sciences—physics, chemistry, and mathematics, for …

When it comes to diagnosing the causes of the Great Depression and prescribing cures for our present recession, the pundits and economists from the biggest schools typically argue about two different types of intervention. Big-government Keynesians, such as Paul Krugman, argue for massive fiscal stimulus—that is, huge budget deficits—to fill the gap in aggregate demand. …

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow on Thursday said he expects the US unemployment rate to return to single-digit levels as early as this month and growth in the third quarter at 20 percent or more as the economy recovers from the recession triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. “The key point that I would make …

In your foray through the culture wars, you’ve likely come across the term “woke capitalism.” Or the associated adage “get woke, go broke.” A term popularised by New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, woke capitalism refers to a clever ploy where corporations pay homage to the cultural Left in return for leniency when fulfilling their …

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), global fiscal support in response to the crisis will be more than $9 trillion, approximately 12 percent of world GDP. This premature, clearly rushed, probably excessive, and often misguided chain of so-called stimulus plans will distort public finances in a way which we have not seen since World War …

This month, under the guidance of Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve announced it is cutting rates for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis. This rate cut of 25 basis points is a decline from 2.5 percent to 2.25 percent. Powell’s reasoning for the rate cut was to provide a “mid-cycle adjustment” in an …

“If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert,” the economist Milton Friedman once quipped, “in five years there’d be a shortage of sand.” The U.S. Mint, to its credit, had a much longer run. The Federal Reserve, which purchases coins from the Mint and distributes them to depository institutions, announced it would begin …

The intense pressure to politicize every aspect of academia will not spare economics, and why would it? A society willing to topple statues is hardly one to worry about pulling down a body of knowledge, especially one skillfully characterized by the Left as a political program rather than an actual social science.  Keep in mind …