The Case For Agnostics

When Progressives and Conservatives Compete, Agnostics Win: "While progressives and conservatives duel in the arena of certainties and are willing to place individual liberties on hold in support of their social ambitions, agnostics navigate an ever-shifting political landscape with a compass turned always toward the polestar of individual liberty." ~Paul

Mythologizing Markets And Low Income Customers

Are Entrepreneurs Insufficiently Incited to Compete in Markets that Serve Low-Income People?

Biden Cooking The Benefit-Cost Analysis Books

Even More Ways to Cook The Benefit-Cost Analysis Books

Jobs Created By Trade

The Jobs You Don’t Want to Be Destroyed By Trade Were Created By Trade: "By keeping prices down, and outputs and product varieties up, trade makes every dollar earned go further." ~Donald J. Boudreaux

A Therapeutic Middle East Versus A Tragic One

A Therapeutic Middle East Versus A Tragic One

Government Can’t Handle Loneliness

An Epidemic of Loneliness?: "In addition to overstepping its bounds through potential regulations, censorship, and bans, government has itself contributed to the problem of loneliness." ~James Peterson

Iran’s Own Growing Danger

Does Iran Realize Its Own Growing Danger?

The Progressivist Support Of Extermination

Hamas and Amoral Clarity

Catch-up Inflation

Catch-up Inflation: "Where there is collective bargaining, workers go on strike to demand higher wages in order to catch-up to inflation. Elsewhere in the economy, individual workers bargain for higher wages with their current employer, or begin searching for better-paying jobs." ~Clifford Thies

The Scam Of Weasel Words

Do I Own What Is Mine?: "We should rethink the deference we give what may be the shortest, but not the least damaging weasel word in common usage today." ~Gary M. Galles

Joe Biden, Shifty Economists, and the Big Lie

Joe Biden, Shifty Economists, and the Big Lie: "America’s federal tax system remains steeply progressive, and no politically motivated data manipulation will ever alter that fact." ~Phil Magness

Price Controls Don’t Fight Inflation: 40 Centuries of Evidence

Price Controls Don’t Fight Inflation: 40 Centuries of Evidence: "Price controls do not stop inflation; they only make things worse. If prices are going up, it's either because monetary policy is too loose or because the economy suffered a decline in productivity."

Financial Crisis in American Cities

An Insider Untangles the Causes of the Financial Crisis in American Cities: "Balancing budgets without reassessing what municipal governments should or should not do, and the long-term benefits and costs of their activities is insufficient." ~Jason Sorens & Robertas Bakula

Rebutting Robert Gordon’s ‘The Rise and Fall of American Growth’

Eyes, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes: Rebutting Robert Gordon’s ‘The Rise and Fall of American Growth’

Falsifying A Free Market Economist

Academic Lies about Free-Market Economists: "They treat history as 'an armoury from which to ransack politically expedient weapons.' In the process of that ransacking, they cross the line into willful misrepresentations of their source material, all in the service of a modern-day political cause. " ~Phillip W. Magness

The Real Trouble with the Trump Indictment

Lawyers are being indicted for doing legal work.

Protecting Competition or Preventing It?

Protecting Competition or Preventing It?: "If you can’t reduce competition in the sense of harming rivals, you cannot engage in rivalry seeking to benefit consumers. " ~ Gary Galles

“Global Boiling”: An Assault On Reason and Science

“Global Boiling”: An Assault On Reason and Science: "Unfortunately, the promotion of the “climate narrative” has been successful in inducing citizens to ignore how their liberties and rights are in jeopardy from the imposition of repressive public policies that are being answered as a solution." ~ Christopher Lingle

What Progressivists Don’t Understand

What ESGers Don’t Understand: "ESGers & Co., in short, want the power to free favored individuals or groups from having to play by the rules of the market." ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

Rent Control Recidivists Refuse To Get Real

Rent Control Recidivism: "The campaign to tighten rent controls in California, as in every other jurisdiction where the issue is in play, relies on voters’ ongoing ignorance and misunderstanding of the realities of the rental housing market." ~ Gary Galles

Why the Profit Motive Must be Preserved

The Charge to Change Capitalism and Why the Profit Motive Must be Preserved: On September 13, 2020, Imperative 21 launched the RESET Campaign with an aim of resetting our economic system away from a profit-oriented approach to one that focuses on the common good. The launch date was deliberate, given that it was the 50th anniversary of Milton Friedman’s notorious New...

The Myth Of Greedflation

Does Greedflation Fit the Facts?: "While an increase in market power would certainly affect real income growth, the magnitude necessary to explain inflation is implausibly large." ~ Bryan Cutsinger

Socialism Dictates, It Doesn’t Achieve

The Essential Ethic of Socialism: "In a socialist regime, I must seek the permission of others — whether state officials or one’s fellow workers — before I serve them in a novel way." ~ Adam Martin

The Artificiality Of Housing Shortages

No Place to Lay Your Head: How Economic Policy Makes Housing Unaffordable for Young Working Families: "There’s artificial scarcity in housing markets, but in that case it’s the planners themselves who put housing in such short supply – and at consequent high prices." ~ H. Shelton Weeks and Victor Claar

Admiring Disingenuousness about Affirmative Action

Why Libertarians Should Admire Universities’ and Colleges’ Disingenuousness about Affirmative Action: "I regard disingenuous efforts to continue the practice of racial and ethnic preferences to be the kind of noble action that libertarians should respect. The schools are simply making every effort they can to avoid the restrictions of what they consider an unjust law." ~ John Hasnas

In Defense of Allowing Collusion

In Defense of Allowing Collusion: "We understand that if markets are to serve consumers as well as possible, entrepreneurs and investors must enjoy wide freedom to experiment with different organizational and contractual arrangements." ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

If We Live by Lies, We Will Demand Deceitful Politicians

If We Live by Lies, We Will Demand Deceitful Politicians: "When we choose to live in an inner world governed by our self-deception, we get a government ruling by deceit and vigorously stifling alternative views. " ~ Barry Brownstein

Slavery Reparations Cui Bono

The Surprising Beneficiaries of American Slavery: "The late economist Walter E. Williams said that slavery was the worst thing ever to happen to his ancestors, but the best thing ever to happen to him." ~ Charley Hooper and David R. Henderson

Cash, Crime, Minimum Wage, and Unintended Consequences

Cash, Crime, Minimum Wage, and Unintended Consequences

The Social Justice Swindle

A Brief History of Social Justice: "The underlying problem with social justice is the failure to distinguish between negative rights, which protect liberty and property, and positive rights, which provide a license to violate established negative rights." ~ Robert F. Mulligan

Underestimating The Cost Of Lockdowns

Appropriately Measuring Inflation and Deflation Teaches Humility!: "Had we used the true price index, we would have found a larger contraction due to lockdowns. That means that we understated the cost of lockdowns." ~ Vincent Geloso

The Affirmative Action Game

The Affirmative Action Game: "The Equal Protection clause is inarguably textually neutral. To interpret equal protection for all as meaning extra protection for some requires some political heavy lifting that a strictly textual argument does not." ~ James E. Hanley

The Fourth of July Did Not Promise What Can’t Be Delivered

What the Fourth of July Was Not

Fauci’s Ministry Of Lies Exposed

How AIER Helped to Hobble Fauci’s “Ministry of Truth”: "Government officials advanced a smear campaign against the GBD, its authors, AIER, and other critics. Judge Doughty says the case 'arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.'” ~ By Phil Magness and Robert E. Wright

The Wire Turns Twenty

The Wire Turns Twenty: "In the end, The Wire offers Baltimoreans no hope, and statist policymakers no path forward. But surely a smaller city government would mean a better Baltimore." ~ Robert E. Wright

The Harmonizing Sentiments of the Day

The Harmonizing Sentiments of the Day: "When was the last time a politician of any description used the phrase 'sacred honor' with a straight face?" ~ James Harrigan

The “Fair Share” Lie

No, Joe, There is No Such Thing as a “Fair Share” of Taxes: "Tax rates are largely politically motivated and arbitrarily chosen, and stacked with exemptions and penalties to help incentivize behaviors favored by the politicians writing the voluminous tax code. Regardless of the rates, there is no 'fairness' to be achieved." ~ Brian Balfour

A Timeless Method for Resisting Tyranny

A Timeless Method for Resisting Tyranny

On the Mercantilist and Monarchial Origins of the Concept of the ‘Balance of Trade’

On the Mercantilist and Monarchial Origins of the Concept of the ‘Balance of Trade’

I See Dead Policies

I See Dead Policies

Norway’s Wealth Tax Is Backfiring. Are Americans Paying Attention?

Norway’s Wealth Tax Is Backfiring. Are Americans Paying Attention?

Corporate Culture Wars

Corporate Culture Wars: What Mastercard’s shareholder proposals reveal about politics in the boardroom

Bushfires and Floods Aren’t From Clinate Change

A Look Back from Canadian Wildfires to Australian Bushfires and Floods

The Collapse of the USSR Was One the Best Things that Happened to the Environment

The Collapse of the USSR Was One the Best Things that Happened to the Environment: "These proportions suggest that the collapse of the USSR was an incredibly cheap climate-change mitigation 'policy.' Indeed, the mitigation was itself a benefit to economic growth rather than a cost." ~ Vincent Geloso

Can the CDC’s Reputation Be Restored?

Can the CDC’s Reputation Be Restored?: The opportunity available to the agency’s new leader

2023 Indy 500: Full Race - Call by IMS

Capitalism’s Cure for Economic Sins

Capitalism’s Cure for Economic Sins: "Anyone who takes economic ideas and their moral implications seriously would do well to clear space on their bookshelf for Seven Deadly Economic Sins." ~ Richard Morrison

Totalitarianism and the Five Stages of Dehumanization

Totalitarianism and the Five Stages of Dehumanization

The Trouble with Politics in Pop Culture

The Trouble with Politics in Pop Culture: "With massive audiences and considerable influence, these networks and productions are responsible for the misinformation they distribute." ~ Blake Ball

NPR, BBC, CBC, Their Propagandizing, And Real Independence

Media Independence Does Not Really Mean Media Independence: "No politician needs to bribe a journalist. All that is needed is a politician’s power to sculpt the shape of the news market in ways that are to his advantage." ~ Vincent Geloso

2023 NCS: Geico 500 / Full Race - Call by MRN

Continuing to Get Straight the Facts About the American Economy

Continuing to Get Straight the Facts About the American Economy: "Despite governments at the local, state, and federal levels all obstructing, in various ways, the process of entrepreneurial wealth creation, the robustness of the American economy continues to impress."

Without Economic Freedom, None of the Others Matter

Without Economic Freedom, None of the Others Matter: "Forbidding entrepreneurial ventures that have not been granted prior approval and design review by unelected officials is, practically speaking, state ownership of the means of production." ~ Paul Schwennesen

America’s Long Depression

America’s Long Depression: "US economy may continue to grow or shrink a few percent from year to year, but it will remain mired in a deep depression compared to what it could have achieved." ~ Robert E. Wright

How the Morlocks Seized New York

How the Morlocks Seized New York: If, in 1984, an inventive New Yorker set his time travel machine to the year 2023, the city in which he arrived would confound him.  Although the New York City of today looks much like that of 1984, our time traveler would have a hard time ...

Americans have a seriously messed up understanding of the debt ceiling

Americans have a seriously messed up understanding of the debt ceiling: The Wall Street Journal reported that its poll vis-à-vis raising the debt limit indicated that

Is Israel Facing the Iranian Threat on Its Own?

Is Israel Facing the Iranian Threat on Its Own?: In a briefing to defense reporters in mid-April, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant noted that under his stewardship, Israeli attacks on Iranian infrastructure had significantly increased. 'Since I took office,' Gallant said, 'in the first quarter of 2023 we

Biden Wants Housing Irresponsibility

An Astonishing Proposition: "Does the Biden administration believe that home buyers have the moral duty to sacrifice their own objectives in order to help others achieve their goals, and the government should enforce this moral duty?" ~ Peter J. Wallison

Job Gentrification: Three Questions as a Way of Teaching About Minimum Wages

Job Gentrification: Three Questions as a Way of Teaching About Minimum Wages: "If you force much higher wages — and a 'living wage' of $15/hour for an entry-level job in fast food is much higher — then you will 'gentrify” jobs.' ~ Michael C. Munger

The Political Cleverness of Envy-Driven Housing Policies

The Political Cleverness of Envy-Driven Housing Policies: "This is a recipe for housing stagnation. Strangling the supply of new market rate housing through these various programs means that existing market rents (whenever they are not regulated), must reach stratospheric levels." ~ Raymond C. Niles