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Persistent Inflation and Unhappy Consumers
Allison Schrager, E21 Inflation may finally be coming down. The newest inflation report suggests inflation may have peaked, but inflation coming down and returning to 2% are two different things. Read more here....
The Fed’s Rate Hikes Could Soon Be Coming to an End
Steven B. Kamin | CNN.com The slowing pace of monetary tightening likely means that the Federal Reserve’s rate hikes will soon be coming to an end. That would be great news for the economy and a smart move for a few different reasons. Full Story
The Fate of the American Conservative
Matthew Continetti | Deseret News The Republican Party of the early 21st century is barely recognizable. What is the GOP’s future? Full Story
A Declining Goldman Sachs
Camillo Padulli, E21 2023 began well, with the IMF significantly increasing global growth projections. However, even as the economic outlooks improves, Goldman Sachs has become an outlier among investment banks due its high coverage ratio. Read more here....
John Cochrane On The Fiscal Theory Of The Price Level, New Keynesian Macroeconomic Models, Consumption-Based Asset Pricing, And Economic Growth
interview with John H. Cochrane via The Capitalism And Freedom In The Twenty-First Century PodcastHoover Institution fellow John Cochrane discusses his career, his new book, The Fiscal Theory of the Price Level, about how inflation can be explained by fiscal and monetary policy, New Keynesian macroeconomic models, consumption-based asset pricing and institutional barriers to economic growth.
Book Club: How Policies Make Interest Groups: Governments, Unions, And American Education
In our latest installment, watch a discussion between Senior Fellow Terry Moe and Hoover Fellow Michael Hartney, author of How Policies Make Interest Groups: Governments, Unions, and American Education  
Edward Chancellor has given us a colorful and provocative review of the history, theory, and the profound effects of interest rates.
READ MORE ›
Mad Money: How to Fight the Inflation Tax
Sita Nataraj Slavov | Peter G. Peterson Foundation Sita Nataraj Slavov considers the impact of the current macroeconomic environment on fiscal policy, the federal debt, and individual well-being.
Steven B. Kamin examines the current state of the US financial system and says that although the US seemingly faces an inevitable financial crash, there is a middle way.
If you think the federal deficit is bad now, you're in for an unfortunate surprise, because it's only going to get worse. Mark J. Warshawsky finds that the 2023 deficit will come in at 6.4 percent of gross domestic product, nearly 70 percent higher than the Congressional Budget Office's projection.
James Pethokoukis responds to critiques of “neoliberal globalization” and addresses populist praises of a "new, postliberal paradigm." Michael R. Strain praises Liz Truss for rejecting populist economics of grievance and instead opting for a policy centered on growth, opportunity, and personal responsibility. Pethokoukis explains the importance of productivity growth and demographic change and considers their implications for economic growth in India, China, and the United States in the coming century.
James C. Capretta breaks down key market-based reforms that would make the American health care system more efficient—by providing patients with high-quality care while incentivizing providers to keep their costs low. Andrew G. Biggs analyzes the Social Security Administration's recent announcement that retirees will receive a cost-of-living adjustment of 8.7 percent and how this doesn’t bode well for Social Security's long-term future. Considering how inflation has made health care even more expensive for many Americans, Brian J. Miller says policymakers can lower health care costs for patients without increasing government spending by giving hospital markets a dose of competition.
Are We Faced with a Choice Between a Financial Crash Soon or a Financial Crash Later?
Steven B. Kamin | International Economy Magazine The US financial system faces two critical risks: The first is that the Federal Reserve will be forced to sharply tighten monetary policy in response to continued elevated inflation, and the second is that it won’t. Given the current state of the financial system, the US seemingly faces a choice between a financial crash soon or a financial crash later. But there is a middle way. Assuming inflation and output evolve as currently expected, Steven B. Kamin says, the Federal Reserve should plan on taking the policy rate back to neutrality within the next two years.
Subsidiarity and Family Policy
Andy Smarick | National Affairs When families struggle, the state's top goal shouldn't be to solve their problems for them; Instead, the state should focus on strengthening the institutions closest to them so that those institutions can strengthen families in turn.
Play By The Rules: EXAMINING VARIATIONS OF THE TAYLOR RULE
America Is More Fragile Than The Left Understands
by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness Like a stunned adolescent whose reckless incompetence totaled the family car, the Left seems shocked that America proved so fragile after all.
The Federal Reserve has begun taking decisive action to combat inflation. Desmond Lachman explains why the Fed should not overly commit itself to a pre-determined policy course at a time when economic surprises are all too likely to occur. James Pethokoukis discusses how even officials in the Biden administration were reportedly concerned in private about the inflationary risk posed by the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. And James Capretta considers the fiscal implications if the Fed reverses its decade-long reliance on quantitative easing to support the economy.
Lawmakers face a variety of issues related to health care policy. Capretta explores how Medicare’s trust funds are so flawed they could be impeding reforms that would stop the program from pushing the federal government toward a debt crisis.
Medicare’s Fiscal Challenges: A Look at the 2022 Trustees Report
James C. Capretta | Bipartisan Policy Center  'An Economist’s Outlook: Essays by John H. Makin from a Transformative Era' John H. Makin, Carmen M. Reinhart, and Vincent R. Reinhart | AEI Press This collection is an invaluable guide for both the beginner who wants to understand economic history, concepts, and policymaking and the seasoned expert who will appreciate John Makin’s impressive range and always thoughtful perspective on a transformative economic period. Order the Book The Fed and Crypto: Back to Basics
Editorial of The New York Sun | January 20, 2022 https://www.nysun.com/editorials/the-fed-and-crypto-back-to-basics/91956/
The ECB’s Dilemma
John Cochrane, The Grumpy Economist Industrial Policy Is Unwise But Not Impossible Alexander William Salter, National Review
City Journal’s Eric Kober critiques the proposal for reducing the viability of mixed-income housing while implementing and maintaining economically inefficient policies.
Reverse Repurchases Soar Amidst Pandemic
Allison Schrager, E21 Since 2008 the Fed changed how it conducted monetary policy. It started paying interest on reserves and did more reverse repurchase agreements. This is when the Fed sells a security to an eligible party (often financial institutions that do not have a reserve account at the Fed) with the agreement to buy it back the next day for a different price. Read more here....
ALLISON SCHRAGER
Course Correction? The Federal Reserve has announced a tighter monetary policy, but its stance remains accommodative.
A False Choice
Biden’s top labor economist suggests a trade-off between inflation and employment.
The Rising Tide of Government Transfer Payments
Joseph Sullivan, National Review Fed’s Infighting Shows Lack of Answers About Inflation Brian Chappatta, Bloomberg Connecting the Dots in China Stephen Roach, Project Syndicate
James Capretta assesses the fiscal risks of the Build Back Better plan, and Phil Gramm and Mike Solon contemplate the return of stagflation.
It’s time for a budget policy U-turn
Desmond Lachman | The Hill
Migration, Islam, and Western Atonement
An Interview Eesti Päevaleht (Estonia) (pdf) December 13, 2021 https://www.danielpipes.org/20883/the-west-tries-to-atone-for-its-great-sins
The Great Thomas Sowell
featuring Thomas Sowell via Prager U He’s an economist, a historian, a philosopher, and one of the greatest social theorists America has ever produced. His name is Thomas Sowell, and he might be the most important scholar you’ve never heard of. Jason Riley, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, tells his inspiring story.  The Rise (and Fall) of the Modern Bank of England Making a Modern Central Bank recounts the different—and sometimes contradictory—roles that the Bank of England has played. READ MORE › Kevin Warsh: Is Inflation Back? interview with Kevin Warsh via AEI Hoover Institution fellow Kevin Warsh discusses the Fed's loose monetary and fiscal policies and how that will affect the economy, taxes, and growth. Surging Inflation May Herald Start Of Long-Term Price Trend, Economists Say quoting Kevin Warsh via CFO Dive A recent surge in inflation likely heralds a decades-long trend of rising prices, fueled by a retreat in globalization, the aging of populations in China and developed countries and the costs from servicing swelling government debt and adapting to climate change, economists said in an American Enterprise Institute webinar. Teaching the APA at 75
There is a staggering mismatch between the APA’s text, on the one hand, and administrative law doctrine and regulatory practice, on the other. READ MORE › An Unnecessary “Stimulus” by David R. Henderson The proposed bill not only won’t stimulate; it will actually slow the recovery.  Single-Payer Health Care featuring Scott W. Atlas, Richard A. Epstein, Lee Ohanian, Lanhee J. Chen, Tom Church Single-payer health care is when the government acts as the only payer of health care costs in the economy. Rather than individuals purchasing insurance for payment of medical expenses through their employer or on the open market, the federal government typically covers all such costs. Paper, Silver, Deficits And Inflation -- Chinese History Version
by John H. Cochrane via The Grumpy Economist
Despite wishful thinking, cities won’t come back without major reform
Samuel J. Abrams and Joel Kotkin | AEIdeas
https://americanconsequences.com/economic-collapse-john-tamny/
https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2021/01/26/as_tom_brady_reaches_his_10th_super_bowl_does_inequality_still_bother_you_657839.html
STEVEN MALANGA
Remotely Competitive Cities and regions are betting that working from home is the next big thing in economic development
How Markets Make the Common Good Possible
by samuel gregg If we truly want to promote America’s common good, even more government intervention than we already have is probably not the way to do it. READ MORE ›
Lee Ohanian On Scientific Sense
interview with Lee Ohanian via Scientific Sense Hoover Institution fellow Lee Ohanian discusses whether Phillips Curves are useful for forecasting inflation as well as New Deal policies and the persistence of the Great Depression, and much more.
What Goes Wrong When The Government Mandates Prices
featuring Russ Roberts, Richard A. Epstein, Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, Lee Ohanian, John H. Cochrane, Daniel Heil via PolicyEd Prices contain vital information. Too often, governments interfere with them. In an attempt to protect consumers, politicians mandate lower prices. Other times, governments push prices up to benefit certain industries. These efforts might be well intentioned, but they distort the information that prices convey and tend to make us poorer.
The Classicist: An Exhausted Civilization
interview with Victor Davis Hanson via The Classicist Victor Davis Hanson examines the confluence of trends — a contempt for American history; the decline of the rule of law; the intellectual rot of the academy; the rise of ingratitude and cultural contempt — that are weakening the foundations of American society.
Low Interest Rates And Government Debt
by John H. Cochrane via The Grumpy Economist This is a talk I gave for IGIER at Bocconi (zoom, sadly) Jan 11 2021. Olivier Blanchard also gave a talk and a good discussion followed. Yes, some content is recycled, but on an important topic one must go back to refine and rethink ideas. This post has mathjax equations and graphs.
Is Inflation Still A Thing?
quoting Charles I. Plosser via National Review Not so long ago, during the age of Milton Friedman, the chief concern of monetary policy was inflation. The Federal Reserve’s job was seen as a balancing act: Too low a money supply would slow spending, and too much would erode purchasing power. Of course, given the inoculation of monetary economists against anything resembling deflation, we really only worried about erring in the other direction. Good monetary policy meant open-market operations to keep the money supply on a predictable path, which gives markets a stable foundation for short-term and long-term contracting, facilitating economic coordination.
Germany: Meet Angela Merkel's Second Successor by Soeren Kern
Inflation is coming. That might even be a problem.
Michael R. Strain | Bloomberg Opinion Prices rising faster than the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target would be welcome, but too much price growth could be a problem. If that happens, the Federal Reserve could be in a bind.
The Uncertain Future of Inflation
Allison Schrager, E21 The 10-year breakeven inflation rate returned to its 2018 level this week. The 10-year breakeven is the difference between the 10-year nominal and 10-year inflation-linked bond, it is a measure of what the market thinks inflation will be in several years. The higher rate could mean people may think inflation will return soon. Read more here....
The Growth Machine West of the Hudson
Nolan Gray, City Journal A Physicist Claims Everything About Modern Economic Theory Is Wrong Brandon Kochkodin, Bloomberg How to Fix American Capitalism Edward Glaeser, City Journal 
Who Will Succeed Merkel?
by Josef Joffe via Project Syndicate Germany's Christian Democrats are poised to choose a new party leader, and that person is almost certain to replace Chancellor Angela Merkel when she steps down in September 2021. All three contenders must somehow distinguish themselves from their rivals while boldly campaigning for continuity.
Erdogan Will Play Biden, But Stick To Putin
by Soner Cagaptay via The Caravan A key foreign policy challenge for President-elect Joe Biden is going to be getting along with Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and managing Washington’s ties with Ankara. To this end, Biden needs to understand the dynamics and fears that inform the decisions of Erdogan, Turkey’s powerful president, including the latter’s view of Russian president Vladimir Putin.
What AI Can and Cannot Do for the Intelligence Community // Zigfried Hampel-Arias and John Speed Meyers: A realistic appraisal of artificial intelligence shows limits but real promise.
Niger is holding three days of national mourning after more than 100 civilians were killed in attacks on two villages near the border with Mali this past Saturday, AP reported Tuesday.
What you need to know: "The attacks are among the deadliest in Niger and come on the heels of several others, including one by the Islamic State West Africa Province in the Diffa region a few weeks ago in which dozens of people were killed. While no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, Islamic State in the Greater Sahara has increasingly staged assaults in this region." More here.
Jean-Baptiste Say And Henry Brougham, M.P. Discover The Laffer Curve
by David R. Henderson via EconLog In 1804, the English government raised the duties on sugar 20 per cent. It might have been expected, that their average product to the public exchequer would have been advanced in the same ratio; i. e. from 2,778,000l. the former amount, to 3,330,000l.: instead of which the increased duties produced but 2,537,000l.; exhibiting an absolute deficit. Speech of Henry Brougham, Esq., M. P., March 13, 1817.
Virginia Postrel On Textiles And The Fabric Of Civilization
by Russ Roberts via EconTalk Author and journalist Virginia Postrel talks about her book The Fabric of Civilization and How Textiles Made the World with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Postrel tells the fascinating story behind the clothes we wear and everything that goes into producing them throughout history. The history of textiles, Postrel argues, is a good way of understanding the history of the world.
Steven Levitt On Freakonomics And The State Of Economics
by Russ Roberts via EconTalk Author and economist Steven Levitt is the William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago and host of the podcast "People I (Mostly) Admire." He is best known as the co-author, with Stephen Dubner, of Freakonomics. The book, published in 2005, became a phenomenon, selling more than 5 million copies in 40 languages. Levitt talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the book's surprising success, the controversy it generated, and how it shaped his career.  Thinking About Long-Term Debt by John F. Cogan, John H. Cochrane, Michael J. Boskin, Joshua D. Rauh, Richard A. Epstein, Daniel Heil via PolicyEd Whether they’re overlooking skyrocketing federal debt or unfunded state pension obligations, lawmakers continue to make short-run budget decisions that will disproportionately burden future generations. How big are these problems, and are there any good solutions? 'In Order To Export, You Have To Import': Raghuram Rajan Cautions Against Import Substitution
featuring Raghuram Rajan via The Hindu Former Reserve Bank governor Raghuram Rajan on Wednesday cautioned against import substitution under the ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ initiative of the government, saying the country has gone down this route earlier but could not succeed.
Properly Political Scientists: The Great Barrington Declaration
By David Deavel on Oct 14, 2020 04:00 pm Science does not give us all the answers. When it comes to forming policy, there are no technocratic answers. The Great Barrington Declaration is a sensible statement by a group of scientists daring to stand against the “consensus” of experts. It is based not merely on science but on prudent thought based on a ... Read in browser »
Don't bet against the dollar
Desmond Lachman | The Hill
Is the Federal Reserve out of ammo to fight the coronavirus economic slowdown?
Desmond Lachman | The National Interest
The CEE is also available online at Econlib, and the online version includes several online-only entries, including:
Irving Kristol lecture honoring Nicholas Eberstadt Kristol.AEI.org
Global economic stimulus will lead to stagnation
Derek Scissors | InsideSources The enormous amounts of credit extended to people and companies are not “stimulus”; this is fiction. Even when necessary, borrowing will slow global growth for many years to come.
Steven Kamin explores long-term monetary policy challenges, and Desmond Lachman adds that the Federal Reserve may be out of ammo to fight the economic slowdown.
The wall and the bridge
R. Glenn Hubbard | National Affairs New ideas, openness to trade, and technological advances have propelled the US economy to new heights. While America's dynamic economy has been the engine of our prosperity and opportunity, it has also been a source of our political division. Instead of constructing walls of protectionism and regulation, policymakers should work to build bridges to opportunity.
Milton Friedman was right about shareholder capitalism
Michael R. Strain | @MichaelRStrain | Bloomberg Opinion In 1970, economist and Nobel laureate Milton Friedman wrote that a business' social responsibility is to increase its profits. This view, now under attack by a group of politicians and business leaders, is well grounded in solid economics, common sense, and practical considerations.
A Partial Defense Of Milton Friedman's 1970 NYT Essay
by David R. Henderson via Econlib To understand my story, you first need to understand Friedman’s basic point. Here it is in a nutshell: Managers are employees of corporations. In the decisions they make with corporate resources, they should be responsible to the corporation.
The myth of stability: Why the economic golden age of postwar America was not as golden as we remember
James Pethokoukis | @JimPethokoukis | AEIdeas Critics of Milton Friedman's doctrine often view the immediate postwar decades as an economic golden age that never turned into a golden century. And that failure, they say, is partly because of the rise of short-sighted capitalism that Friedman supposedly recommended. But what if this economic golden age was not as golden as we remember?
How the State Can Guide NYC’s Fiscal Recovery
E.J. McMahon, Manhattan Institute In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, New York City is facing its biggest economic and fiscal challenges since the mid-1970s. The Big Apple’s recovery prospects are uncertain and hotly debated, but this much already is clear: with tax revenues cratering, the city government’s pre-pandemic spending trends are simply unsustainable. Personal service costs, inflated by fringe benefits and inefficient work rules, are by far the biggest chunk of New York’s nearly $90 billion budget. Read more here...
The Four Paths of US-China Relations
Yuen Yuen Ang considers the possibility that either or both countries could experience a change in leadership.
The Crowding-Out Myth
Robert Skidelsky rejects the orthodox economic view that public investment is bound to be less efficient than private capital.
Are We All Keynesians Again?
Andrés Velasco asks what an era of larger, more robust state intervention in the economy can and should mean.
China’s Digital Currency Will Rise but Not Rule
Eswar Prasad explains why a new version of the renminbi will fail to challenge the US dollar’s global dominance.
The End of Western Opportunism
Joschka Fischer says that US and European policymakers and businesses have no choice but to accept that China as it is.
Checking in on the American Dream: 3 charts that show US living standards and upward mobility are far from stagnant
James Pethokoukis | AEIdeas
5 questions for Glenn Hubbard on the COVID-19 pandemic, productivity growth, and US fiscal policy
R. Glenn Hubbard and James Pethokoukis | AEIdeas Faster wage growth? A lighter debt burden? Is there anything faster productivity growth can’t accomplish? James Pethokoukis | AEIdeas |
SOLZHENITSYN & HAYEK: NOBEL PRIZE; BOTH MEN DEFEATED POSITIVISM.
AuthorAn authority on Southwest Asia political economy, and international columnist. covering 'the long war'. INSTITUTIONS & CULTURE = MARKETS
HOOVER INSTITUTION FRIEDMAN FUNDAMENTALS
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