Alan Reynolds
Author of the 2006 book Income and Wealth, Alan Reynolds has written for countless publications since 1971, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Harvard Business Review, The Public Interest, National Review, Regulation and The Cato Journal.
Articles
We Are Measuring Inflation All Wrong: Non-Housing Inflation is Very Low
“Lagged OER and rent overstated inflation by more than two percentage points over the past ten months – raising it to 3.3 percent from 0.6 percent.” ~ Alan Reynolds
Inflation in Oil Prices Will Soon Slow to Zero
“One thing we can confidently project about 2022 is that year-to-year measures of ‘inflation’ in prices of used cars and energy will be near zero by the third quarter, if not below zero. That is nearly a sure thing, baked-in-the cake.” ~ Alan Reynolds
The Fed’s Higher Fed Funds Rate Projections Mean What?
“It is rarely prudent to assume that a central bank’s central planners can predict the future better than you can, or that they really know what they are doing and why.” ~ Alan Reynolds
A Smarter Debt Limit Bill
“Senate Republicans are expected to indulge in yet another futile game of bluff poker over the symbolic debt limit. They always fold in the end because Congress has no choice but to pay for obligations it has already incurred.” ~ Alan Reynolds & Steve Stein
Asia, Not the US Is the Main Source of Global Warming
“Spending endless billions on lucrative subsidies for electric cars, solar and wind farms, and other boondoggles could not possibly make much difference to future worldwide greenhouse gas emissions that will continue to depend almost entirely on what Asia is doing, not the U.S.” ~ Alan Reynolds
Nixonomics in Retrospect: Devaluation and Wage-Price Controls, August 15, 1971
“Many costly tax and other economic policy mistakes were made in the seventies, but the worst problems of the 1973-82 stagflationary era by far were the legacy of terrible monetary and regulatory blunders made in 1971.” ~ Alan Reynolds
Does “Expected Inflation” Explain or Predict Inflation?
“There might be higher inflation ahead, but neither year-to-year CPI changes, the 2020 lockdowns, or news-based monthly opinion polls about expected inflation provide reliable advance clues about what lies ahead. Meanwhile, the low break-even rate offers a good reason to be skeptical of high inflation forecasts.” ~ Alan Reynolds
Central Planners Send Vaccines to Places Seniors Don’t Live
“Federal officials monopolized the purchase and distribution of vaccines which were sent to state governments, which micromanaged distribution of vaccines to their counties. Vaccines were then rationed by political preferences (such as defining some jobs as more essential than others) and by random luck after spending hours searching for an appointment.” ~ Alan Reynolds
CARES Act Stimulus Did Not “Replace Lost Wages”
“Far from stimulus checks, PPP loans and jobless benefits ‘replacing lost wages,’ it was instead a swift increase in private wages during the reopening that replaced a swift withdrawal of ‘fiscal stimulus.'” ~ Alan Reynolds
Did State Reopenings (and Closings) Have Little Effect on Spending?
“Vaccines alone cannot thaw frozen state economies unless and until they in some way encourage governors to reopen. If any lockdown-prone governors do reconsider their orders, there is a distinguished team of Ivy League economists who stand ready to advise that reopening closed economies could make little “immediate” difference. That would be terrible advice.” ~…
