Economic Trends
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Rethinking the Fed’s Framework: Lessons from the Post-Pandemic Inflation
The paper evaluates alternative frameworks and argues that the Fed should adopt either a nominal spending target or a symmetrical average inflation target.
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The Incoherence of ESG: Why We Should Disaggregate the Environmental, Social, and Governance Label
“Conceptually, no reason exists for why the fundamental ideas within the ESG label should correlate with one another.” ~Paul Mueller
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Fed Rate Cuts Are Unlikely to Goose the Stock Market or Prevent a Recession
“Rate cuts based on hindsight instead of foresight can confirm a recession but can’t prevent it.” ~Richard Salsman
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The End of Restaurants as We Know Them?
“If accelerating US unemployment registers the impact of contractionary monetary policy measures on the broader economy, the current difficulties faced by the restaurant sector are likely to escalate.” ~Peter C. Earle
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Foot Voting Reconsidered: How Should I Think About Leaving?
“Compared to ballot voting, moving has larger individual impacts, which mean greater incentives to acquire knowledge; it provides a better signal to both the country you’re leaving and the one you’re joining.” ~Joakim Book
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“Stabilization” Is Just Bad Old Rent Control
“Just about the worst way to ‘help’ renters is by punishing property owners for providing rental housing, which is just what rent caps do.” ~Jason Sorens
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Childless China: Coercive Population Plan Implodes
“That China’s downfall stems from its own collectivist policies is no small irony, but it should come as no surprise. It stems from the same flawed thinking that led to the fall of the last communist empire.” ~Jon Miltimore
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The Fed (Almost) Ruined Black Friday
“A record $1.3 trillion in credit card debt may be masking a weaker economy than the top-line spending numbers suggest, as consumers accrue debt to maintain a standard of living being crushed by rising prices in housing, groceries, and energy.” ~Spence Purnell
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Another Year, Another Crisis
“From inflation to a Fed tightening cycle, to banking losses and now real estate tremors, we again find ourselves climbing tenuously out of one hole only to collapse limply into another.” ~Peter C. Earle
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China is Scaring Away Investors
“Xi expects business as well as people to serve the CCP. As authoritarian controls metastasize throughout the economy, everyone suffers.” ~Doug Bandow
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$34 Trillion and Climbing
“The US government will never, ever, voluntarily cut spending. For our self-preservation, American citizens will need to find a means of arresting the Beltway’s profligate instinct.” ~Peter C. Earle
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A Short Guide to ESG: Legislation
“Proponents of ESG would like to see more legal requirements for companies to reach net zero, to hire more diverse boards and employees, and to cater to a variety of stakeholder interest groups rather than the interest of shareholders.” ~Paul Mueller
