Today’s headlines announced Donald and Melania Trump “tested positive” for covid-19. Another claims nineteen thousand Amazon workers “got” covid-19 on the job. Both of these pseudostories are sure to ignite another absurd media frenzy. As always, the story keeps changing: Remember ventilators, flatten the curve, the next two weeks are […]
When someone asks what the price of gold is, the answer depends on which gold market he means. In most cases, the different gold markets are close enough that the minor differences are insignificant. TV news anchors just want to know if the price is in a major trend, up […]
The Federal Reserve has potentially had the most memorable year in its more than a century–long history. What started out as a year of “Will they or won’t they cut interest rates?” blossomed into a time of slashing rates to near zero, unleashing unlimited quantitative easing, purchasing corporate and municipal […]
The welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery couldn’t do….And that is to destroy the black family. –Walter E. Williams, the Wall Street Journal On August 14, the Commission on Social Status of Black Men and Boys Act was signed into law. It establishes a nineteen-member panel within […]
The welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery couldn’t do….And that is to destroy the black family. –Walter E. Williams, the Wall Street Journal On August 14, the Commission on Social Status of Black Men and Boys Act was signed into law. It establishes a nineteen-member panel within […]
The US Fed is considering lifting its inflation target above 2 percent in order to revive the economy. Contrary to the accepted practice, the Fed is not expected to raise an alarm if the measured price inflation begins to rise. The US central bank is not expected to counter this […]
This is astonishing, even by 2020 standards. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, operating under the US Department of Health and Human Services, has asserted jurisdiction over private residential leases nationwide. It intends to curtail evictions until at least the end of the year, and in fact its new […]
Much has been written about the economic consequences of covid-19, yet, just as in many of the analyses of the Great Depression and the 2008 crisis, the years of accumulating debt preceding the event do not attract the attention they deserve. Covid-19 — or to be more precise, the lockdown — has initiated a […]
The recent economic downturn has created the environment for a new round of bailouts by the government and the Fed. Last time they did this they told us it would be the last one, but anyone who knows our history knew that was not going to stand. Now we are […]
During the current coronavirus lockdown, I’d pay good money to see just one public official be asked: “How many lives are you willing to sacrifice to prevent one coronavirus death?” Thomas Sowell has repeatedly written that in a world of scarcity there are no solutions, only tradeoffs. The lockdown debate […]