When It Comes to Prescription Drugs, the Washington Post Can’t Even Conceive...
Like many self-imagined “free-traders,” the Washington Post editorial board cannot even conceive of free trade when it comes to prescription drugs. They demonstrated this fact yet again in discussing...
View ArticleHow Does a Person’s Lived Experience Tell them the Local Economy Is Good, but...
All the normal economic data tell us that people should feel pretty good about the economy right now. Unemployment has been below 4.0 percent for 21 consecutive months for the first time in more than...
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Profit Shares Defy Projections, Not Coming Down
The revisions to the third quarter growth data were striking. After an initial report showing GDP grew at a very strong 4.9 percent annual rate, the revised data show growth was actually somewhat...
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Issues With the Saving Rate: The Falloff May be Over-Rated
The reported saving rate has fallen sharply from its pandemic peaks, causing many commentators to speculate that people are running out of savings. At first glance, that is what the data show, with...
View ArticleShould Taxpayers Be Subsidizing the Artistic Tastes of the Rich? Questions...
The Washington Post ran a lengthy article about how Ava DuVernay is having her latest film financed by the Ford Foundation, as well as foundations supported by Melinda French Gates and Lauren Jobs. The...
View ArticleIn the Case of Prescription Drugs, a Resilient Supply Chain Is not a Domestic...
The NYT had an interesting column today on the growing problem of drug shortages by Emily Tucker. The piece made several important points, but one of them could use a bit more attention. Tucker notes...
View ArticleNYT Columnist Misleadingly Trashes the Economy, To Explain Why People View...
New York Times columnist Steve Rattner told readers that people think the economy is terrible and then gave some not very plausible reasons why. As Rattner explains: “As I’ve engaged with my many...
View ArticleBiden’s Move on Bayh-Dole: Important First Step in Dealing with Patent...
Government-granted patent monopolies have become pretty much sacred in the United States. In fact, when high drug prices become a political issue, most discussion, including from progressives, turns...
View ArticleNate Cohn Says People Don’t Like Biden Because It’s Harder to Do Things Today
There is a clear disconnect between how people rate the economy (the general economy, not their own economic condition – which most say is good) and standard measures of economic performance. This...
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NYT Tells Us that, As Homeownership Rate Among the Young Rises, It is...
In keeping with its apparent commitment to ignore the data and insist homeownership is no longer possible, the New York Times ran yet another piece on how homeownership is becoming impossible for young...
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Wages and Prices: Who Is Keeping Up with What?
Since President Biden took office, the media have run a constant stream of news stories about how high various prices were and telling their audiences that this has led to mass suffering. These stories...
View ArticleThe National Debt, Tax Farming, and Patent Monopolies
It increasingly looks like the Fed and the Biden administration have nailed the notoriously difficult soft landing, with inflation rapidly falling towards the Fed’s 2.0 percent target and the...
View ArticleNPR Nails It: Highlights Two Programs That Make a Difference to Millions
I’ve complained a lot about how the major media outlets seem to highlight every piece of bad news about the economy, while downplaying or ignoring altogether the positives. Given my complaints, I want...
View ArticleThis Economy Has Landed, We Are at the Fed’s Target
The November Personal Consumption Expenditure Deflator (PCE) should be a pretty clear sign that we have achieved the soft landing the Fed has been looking for. The year-over-year inflation rate in the...
View ArticleThe Problem for Musicians and Writers is the Internet, not Monopolistic...
We all know the old line about intellectuals having a hard time dealing with new ideas. The New York Times set out to prove this point with a column by Kim Scott warning that Spotify may do to the book...
View ArticleGovernment-Granted Patent Monopolies are Not the Free Market
It is amazing how ideology can be so thick that it prevents even highly educated people from thinking clearly. We saw this fact on display in a Washington Post piece on prescription drug prices by its...
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Contrary to What the Washington Post Tells You, Homeownership Rates for Young...
It may not qualify as “The Big Lie,” but the media feel the need to constantly claim that young people can no longer afford to buy homes. The latest salvo is the Washington Post telling how young...
View ArticleNew York Times Continues Its Crusade Against Government Debt
In the NYT’s Morning Newsletter, German Lopez told readers that “the debt matters again.” The story is that the economy has changed so now we have to get seriously worried about the size of the...
View ArticleThe Really Big Lie: No One Supported a Free Market Policy on Trade
I have a lot of respect for Ro Khanna. He is an articulate and energetic progressive from the belly of the beast, Silicon Valley. I also appreciate the sentiments behind his latest op-ed in the NYT on...
View ArticleNeo-Liberalism Is Not Dead, It Never Lived
A friend called my attention to a piece by Dan Drezner disputing the current fashion that neo-liberalism is dead. Drezner makes several good points, and gets some important things wrong, but like most...
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