Stock markets hit record highs this week, and yet most people aren’t excited about it. Google “the most hated bull market in history” and you’ll find many reasons for pessimism–we just don’t trust this market. In normal times, this would indicate we are still healthy, as legendary investor Sir John Templeton once said: “Bull markets […]
Archives
-
-
I hate to beat a dead horse, but the issue of trade keeps coming up in the news, whether from Donald Trump and the Trumpists or from Paul Ryan or from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, all claiming to have the right position on trade and the place of the United States in the global […]
-
In a National Review article of June 21, 2016, Michael Barone explored the question of whether the United States economy has shown any growth, and if not, why not. The article, entitled “Why We have—and Probably Will Keep Having—Sluggish Job Growth,” relies on a recently published book by the economist Arnold Kling, Specialization and Trade: […]
-
The Obama Economy: The first president ever without a single year of 3% economic growth.
28 Apr 2016
The good news is that Mr. Obama’s economic record is not the worst; he’s ahead of four other presidents: Assuming 2.67% RGDP growth for 2016, Obama will leave office having produced an average of1.55% growth. This would place his presidency fourth from the bottom of the list of 39*, above only those of Herbert Hoover […]
-
Minimum Wage, Minimum Work, Minimum Dignity
11 Apr 2016
California, predictably, has passed a $15/hour minimum wage. New York is likely to. A few cities have done it already. Bernie Sanders wants a Federal wage of $15, while Hillary Clinton wants a $12 wage. And so the issue is once again on the table, at a time when wages are stagnant and unemployment is […]
-
It seems this blog overlaps one just published by my colleague Jeff Haymond. But I will publish mine anyway, since it nicely supplements his. Donald Trump has been saying quite a bit recently about the disappearance of (especially) manufacturing jobs in the South as well as the “Rust Belt,” blaming those lost jobs on the […]
-
Mr. Trump: Economic Leadership MIA
15 Mar 2016
Today we find ourselves watching and wondering, after eight years of what I consider failed leadership, will we get an improvement? There are so many huge issues our country faces, and they have been exacerbated by our current Divider-In-Chief. Pitting one group of Americans against others, while lamenting partisanship, has been a hallmark of Mr. […]
-
Frederic Bastiat as Prophet
28 Feb 2016
I have been reading quite a few articles lately in which the individuals (politicians, bureaucrats and just ordinary citizens) are asked about various issues related to the presidential campaigns. One answer I have heard quite a bit is simply that “the government” should do something. Sometimes the issues are even cast in terms of a […]
-
The Robots are Coming, the Robots are Coming!
23 Feb 2016
So warns Mr. Obama in this year’s Economic Report of the President. And the fear is that this accelerating automation will replace low-skilled jobs. It’s intuitive that automation will take low-wage jobs.But the White House, in its annual economic report of the president, has broken down just how much that is so. There’s an 83% chance that […]
-
When all the institutions of public policy remain committed to Keynesian economic fallacy, what hope have we that we will have real recovery? I’ve written before about my despair that public discussion of inflation/deflation is almost completely backwards, with inflation now a good thing and deflation something that will be very harmful. The reality is […]
Bert Wheeler
Jeff Haymond
Marc Clauson
Mark Caleb Smith
Tom Mach