Category: Economy

A surveillance state is being erected around the American public at an alarming rate. In many urban and suburban settings, anyone traveling on public streets or sidewalks will have his image captured by the ubiquitous surveillance cameras. A leisurely stroll around the neighborhood, as well as any conversation along  the way, might be recorded if…

A surveillance state is being erected around the American public at an alarming rate. In many urban and suburban settings, anyone traveling on public streets or sidewalks will have his image captured by the ubiquitous surveillance cameras. A leisurely stroll around the neighborhood, as well as any conversation along  the way, might be recorded if…

The most important thing a book on the economic history of the world must emphasize, again and again, is the incredible, unbelievable, unrivaled improvement in the standard of living since preindustrial times. Economics terms like “growth,” “wealth,” or “division of labor” just never seem to do that shift justice. Up until fairly recently, almost everyone…

It took the world — and stock markets — a while to grasp that Trump’s tariffs aren’t primarily intended to achieve reciprocal tariff parity. Rather, they focus absurdly on rectifying individual trade deficits with specific countries. Notably, these tariffs target only imbalances in goods, conveniently overlooking America’s substantial surplus in services. Examining the rhetoric of…

We just made it through another tax season. Congress has begun debating whether and how to extend the Trump tax cuts from the 2018 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. While many elements of that tax debate are worth commenting on, I want to highlight the standard deduction because it sheds light on an underappreciated part…

President Donald J. Trump recently signed an Executive Order directing the Secretary of Energy to rescind certain restrictions on water pressure established by his predecessors.  As the White House put it, the president was ending the “Obama-Biden war on water pressure and [making] America’s showers great again.” This isn’t the final salvo in the decades-long…

President Trump is not happy with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. With the economy likely to slow under the weight of the administration’s tariffs and corresponding uncertainty, the president thinks the Fed should be cutting rates preemptively. Powell, in contrast, prefers a wait-and-see approach, at least partially out of fear that inflation will resurge if…

President Trump is not happy with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. With the economy likely to slow under the weight of the administration’s tariffs and corresponding uncertainty, the president thinks the Fed should be cutting rates preemptively. Powell, in contrast, prefers a wait-and-see approach, at least partially out of fear that inflation will resurge if…