George Will Hates Government Subsidies for Newspaper, Is He Opposed to the...
George Will used his Washington Post column to go on a diatribe against proposals for subsidizing local news outlets. After noting the plunge in the number of local newspapers, and an even sharper drop...
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The Sham “The Economy Is Awful” Story
The media are pushing the economy is terrible story pretty much 24-7. They refuse to let the strong labor market and rapid real wage growth get in their way. They seem to want everyone to think things...
View ArticleMillions of People Who Could Benefit from Obamacare Don’t Because They Don’t...
Most people don’t keep up on the details of government policy. This is understandable because they have lives to live, and can’t spend all their time following the structure of various government...
View ArticleCan the State of Texas Force Facebook to Post Lies About Joe Biden?
That is effectively what the state of Texas and Florida are arguing before the Supreme Court this week. This argument goes under the guise of whether states can prohibit social media companies from...
View ArticleThe Estate Tax Exemption is $27.2 Million for a Couple
The New York Times had a piece on the tax code changes that will take effect next year unless Congress acts to extend current provisions. One of the items on this list is an increase in the amount of...
View ArticlePeople Are Completely Clueless on How Much We’re Spending on Ukraine
The Washington Post had a news quiz that included the results of a survey showing how much money people thought we had given to Ukraine. What is striking is not just that people were wrong, but rather...
View ArticleBiden is on the Mark in Trashing Junk Fees
The Wall Street Journal is unhappy with the move by President Biden to go after “junk fees,” by setting up a task force to uncover abusive pricing. It complains that this will interfere with companies’...
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Is “Greedflation” Over?
Peter Coy used his column yesterday to beg President Biden not to use the term “greedflation” to explain the runup in inflation since the pandemic. I am sympathetic to much of his argument, most...
View ArticleIn a Free Market, Drugs are Cheap, Government-Granted Patent Monopolies Make...
This simple point was left out of a Washington Post article on the legal battle surrounding the Biden Administration’s efforts to negotiate lower prices for drugs purchased by Medicare. This point is...
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If China’s Economy Is a Basket Case, What Do We Call Mexico’s?
There have been lots of reports in the media about China’s economic problems in recent months. Most of these pieces imply that it is facing some imminent disaster. I will claim no special expertise on...
View ArticleInflation and Auto Insurance
When we hear about inflation most of us probably think of items like food, gas, and rent, but when it comes to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the most frequently cited measure of inflation, auto...
View ArticleA Free Press Would Ask Donald Trump About His Plans for Cutting Social...
We know that the media are busy covering the fact that President Biden is 81, but if they ever have a reporter, or maybe an intern, with a few spare minutes perhaps they could ask Donald Trump about...
View ArticleTaxing Share Buybacks, the Most Efficient Tax Ever
President Biden’s budget calls for quadrupling the tax on share buybacks to 4.0 percent. This is a great way to raise revenue, since it is probably the most efficient tax ever devised. The neat thing...
View ArticleMaybe Wages Being Up 21 Percent Has Something to Do with Prices not Going...
The media have run endless pieces about people being upset because prices are not falling back to their pre-pandemic level. They treat this as some great mystery that has people endlessly annoyed. The...
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Correcting the Washington Post’s 11 Charts That Are Supposed to Tell Us How...
The Washington Post made some serious errors or omissions in its 11 charts that are supposed to tell us how Covid changed the economy. Wages Starting with its second chart, the article gives us an...
View ArticleThe New York Times Answer to the Collapse of the News Industry: Free...
Yes, I am serious. That is the answer that the New York Times opinion page gave us this morning. The argument is that if students leaving school didn’t have so much debt, it would be easier for them to...
View ArticleI Hate to Defend Private Equity, but When it Comes to the Music Industry, I...
Okay, I’m not really defending private equity, but I do have to point out that Marc Hogan has badly misrepresented the problems in the music industry in his New York Times column this morning. Hogan...
View ArticleSenators Push the Increase Inflation Act (A.K.A. “The Patent Eligibility...
There is an old saying that in Washington, no bad idea stays dead for long. The Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA), proposed by Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Chris Coons (D-DE) seems designed...
View ArticleTech Layoffs Are Down, So the NYT Has a Major Column Telling Us Tech Layoffs...
The New York Times opinion section seems determined to promote an alternative reality about the economy. Today it featured a column by Ashley Goodall, a former executive at Cisco Systems, telling us...
View ArticleIf We Reduced the Government Debt Through Tax Farming, Would the New York...
The New York Times ran one of its obligatory pieces on the horror story created by the growing government debt. The immediate instigation was a new report from the Congressional Budget Office that the...
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