Another year has brought another record United States trade deficit, along with the usual dismissal of it as anything but a symbol of American excellence and a booming economy. It is true that, in our modern monetary system, a balance of payments deficit is simply
The political and financial class breathed a sigh of relief when Congress passed the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. The bill suspends the debt ceiling for two years, thus avoiding the establishment’s nightmare of a government default on its debt. Rather, it allows the government
Clark Packard On the heels of Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine in early 2022, the Biden administration temporarily exempted Ukrainian steel from the Trump administration’s bogus “national security” tariffs imposed under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (at the behest of the domestic
The Bureau of Labor Statistic (BLS) released new jobs data on Friday. According to the report, seasonally adjusted total nonfarm jobs rose 339,000 jobs in May, well above forecasts. The unemployment rate rose slightly from 3.4 percent to 3.7 percent (month over month). Headlines in the mainstream media
The Durham report reminds us it is well past time for a more realistic assessment of the FBI for what it is: a costly, unnecessary, unconstitutional, and incompetent agency. Original Article: "End the FBI"
Volume 1, Number 4 (1977) New York's current financial woes have a precedent, and perhaps a solution, in the pages of the distant past. Well back in its history, in the late 1830s, New York State was spending and lending money lavishly. By the early 1840s,
Nicholas Anthony Last week, I wrote about how there is a lack of official statistics regarding the effectiveness of the Bank Secrecy Act and how what little information exists is troubling. However, a few folks were kind enough to point out that the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) defines money
Gabriella Beaumont-Smith and Alfredo Carrillo Obregon On May 31, 2023, legislation was introduced to lower U.S. barriers to imports of infant formula and infant formula base powder. As we and our colleague Scott Lincicome have explained (repeatedly), eliminating tariffs is one of several smart policy reforms
Friedrich Hayek’s essay “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” published in 1945 in the prestigious American Economic Review, is often hailed as an important contribution to economics. Rightly so, because it provides important “meat” to the price theory “skeleton.” However, Austrian economists often exaggerate its
Jeffrey A. Singer Writing in the Australian journal The Quadrant a year and a half ago, I criticized the Australian government’s plan to prohibit residents from purchasing e‑cigarettes without first getting a state‐licensed health care practitioner’s permission slip (aka, a prescription). I wrote: It makes no sense to require medical permission slips for