Free Republic

The President’s economic agenda, the “Build Back Better” package being debated in Congress, would provide vital public investments in the nation’s physical and human infrastructure, as well as in our tattered safety net. These investments are long overdue—they were needed before the COVID-19 pandemic, and their necessity has been highlighted by the virus and the economic shock that came with it. Some, however, have invoked fears of inflation as a reason to not undertake these investments. This view is short-sighted. These are importantly supply side measures, increasing the ability of more Americans to participate productively in the economy, helping to...

The outlook of Americans on the economy has turned increasingly pessimistic, mirroring the view of economists who see less growth next year. Back in January, when asked by pollsters for the Economist/YouGov survey whether they thought the economy was getting better or worse, half of Americans chose worse. Around 18 percent said they thought it was getting better. Twenty-four percent said it was staying the same. Nine percent said they weren’t sure. In the most recent Economist/YouGov poll the share saying the economy was getting rose was 54 percent. The share saying it was getting better was 17 percent. The...

Economists no longer expect inflation to come down as rapidly as they forecast earlier this year. The median expected rate of inflation moved up to 4.2 percent in 2023, higher than the forecast of 3.9 percent the survey predicted in February, the National Association for Business Economics survey found. That is more than twice the Fed’s target inflation rate of two percent. The Fed raised its interest rate target rapidly last year in an effort to bring down inflation.

Expert panel deciding how much black Californians are owed include a professor who believes black Americans are owed $14 trillion Others on the panel have said that economics is inherently racist and the plight of Native Americans are 'irrelevant' to payouts The panel has calculated how much they believe black Californians are owed for racial injustices in the state A Reparations Task Force will now make its final report to the State Legislature at the end of June The five economists who will determine just how much the state will pay black Californians for historic injustices include a professor who...

On Thursday’s broadcast of NBC’s “MTP Now,” Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) defended President Joe Biden’s student loan program and said she’s “really tired of these armchair economists who love to take the shots and get attention, but aren’t really working hard to try to solve some of our nation’s problems.” Host Kristen Welker asked, “I would be remiss if I didn’t ask you about the other big news today, which is the President’s announcement on student loans. He’s extending the pause. He’s giving relief of $10,000 to those who make less than $125,000. Some economists, though, are warning that it...

Renmin University professor Jin Canrong has Washington’s attention. The senior director for China at the US National Security Council, Rush Doshi, cited him two dozen times in a new book entitled “The Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order.” Professor Jin’s warning on Friday at the “Observer” (guancha.cn) website that US inflation might lead to the bankruptcy of the US government will be read carefully in Washington – especially because Jin claims that China can help America out of its economic problems. “The United States is in a state of mental transition,” the Chinese academic averred, citing the...

May’s jobs numbers released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics Friday shocked economists, who expected something starkly different from the 2.5 million payrolls added and lower 13.3% unemployment rate. Economists estimated that the country would lose 7.5 million jobs. The unemployment rate was expected to hit 19%. In notes circulating following the release, dumbfounded economists struggled to get their jaws off the ground. “In one line: Rather startling,” wrote Pantheon’s Ian Shepherdson. “The biggest payroll surprise in history, by a gigantic margin.” ING’s chief international economist James Knightley called the report "simply astonishing." “Somehow the US jobs market has come...

Pray for an Easter Miracle.The CDC has overblown the coronavirus pandemic EVERY STEP of the way since January when Dr. Fauci said Americans should not be worried about the coronavirus.The experts told the American public the masks did not work.Now the experts want everyone to wear a mask when you go outside your home.The Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort docked in in New York City on Monday, March 30, 2020. The ship was expected to bolster a besieged New York City health care system by treating non-coronavirus patients while hospitals treat people with COVID-19.But after three days in the harbor only three patients had been transferred to the...

A growing share of U.S. business economists think a recession is unlikely before 2021. In a report on Monday, 38% of economists surveyed by the National Association for Business Economics said they believe a slowing economy will tip into recession in 2020. That's down from 42% in a survey taken in February. Only 2% of those polled expect a recession to begin this year, while roughly a third of respondents foresee one hitting in 2021. One reason fewer economists expect a recession next year—the Federal Reserve's move last month to dial back interest rates for the first time since 2008....

Supply side economics works, and if one can keep the government out of the way, all boats will truly rise on the rising tide As much as I am eager to celebrate the American economy coming back into the land of the living, I am also cautious about getting into the Conga line until I can look at some of the internal numbers associated with those who are striving to achieve the American dream. What is not often discussed by the pinheads on TV is that the level of participation in the labor force is perhaps as important as the...

Democrats declare that Obama is responsible for the current economic growth we are witnessing. Republicans counter that President Trump’s pro-business actions over the last year are to credit for the current economic climate. We hear the arguments from both sides of the aisle as to why their man and their party was to credit for the continued prolonged economic expansion including steady job growth and record high stock market prices. Fortunately for President Trump, the professionals agree with his argument that he is most responsible for the recent economic gains. According to a Wall Street Journal poll asking 68 business,...

I first read Thomas Sowell in college -- no thanks to my college. At the majority of America's institutions of "higher learning," reading Thomas Sowell was a subversive act in the early 1990s when I was a student. It remains so today. Why? Because the prolific libertarian economist's vast body of work is a clarion rejection of all the liberal intelligentsia hold dear. Among the left's most corrosive ideas is the concept of perpetual and permanent racial victimhood, which social engineers pretend to rectify through federally mandated, taxpayer-subsidized preferential policies. Sowell's groundbreaking academic analyses of these programs in the...

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On Monday, I joined with 305 economists from universities, think tanks and businesses across the country to convey a message to the American people: “Hillary Clinton’s economic agenda is wrong for America.” Our statement, printed below in its entirety and signed by some of the country’s most prominent economic theorists and practitioners, bemoans how “misguided federal policies have produced one of the slowest recoveries on record.” It warns that Clinton, the Democratic nominee, “promises to repeat almost all of [President] Obama’s policy mistakes” and her “outdated policy prescriptions won’t return our economy to the faster growth rates it once enjoyed.”...

Earlier today Donald Trump, who despite lagging Hillary badly in the most recent polls, remains perceived as the presidential candidate who is better equipped to do a "better job on the economy"... ... even though a majority believes that Hillary is "more qualified" to be president (suggesting that to Americans the economy is not really a core part of the presidential mandate) unveiled his all-male economic team which in addition to boasting 6 guys named Steve, also includes billionaire hedge fund manager, John Paulson, to help guide the GOP presidential candidate's economic policy. The 13-member group, whose average member has...

Politicians everywhere promised too much to naive, uninformed electorates and ultimately committed everyone to debtor's prison There is an almost unanimous consensus among economists worldwide that the most worrisome disease infecting somewhat less than healthy and truly sick economies on almost all continents is low, non, or negative growth. How to correct that situation frustrates and consumes the thinking of political leaders and central bankers everywhere, regardless of which economic school provided the latters’ indoctrination. Pushing on strings has failed. Nothing seems to work. Securities markets are described as boring and directionless. It is like being in jail. You may...

<p>Donald Trump vows to bring back the millions of American jobs lost to China and other foreign competitors if voters put him in the White House.</p> <p>Economists say he wouldn’t stand a chance: Trump’s boundless self-confidence is no match for the global economic forces that took those jobs away.</p>

The best environment for man is the environment of liberty.” – Václav Klaus Liberty is a fundamental human right and the cornerstone of our existence. But in our current world, liberty is being attacked from all directions, whether through higher state control or individuals themselves. Liberty is in search for its protector. Those that value and actively promote the ideals of freedom and liberty are few in such an enclosing environment. In the following article, Claudio Grass, Managing Director at Global Gold Switzerland, ventures into a discussion with one of the vanguards of liberty, former President of the Czech Republic,...

Lou Cannon has a nice remembrance in RealClearPolitics of Martin Anderson, the economist and adviser to Ronald Reagan who died last week at 78. He touches on all of Anderson's accomplishments, from his successful advocacy in the Nixon White House to abolish the military draft to his unearthing, with his wife Annelise Anderson and Kiron Skinner, the handwritten drafts of Ronald Reagan's radio speeches, which show the impressive breadth of Reagan's reading and depth of his thinking. Let me add one more item to the list: Anderson's 1964 book "The Federal Bulldozer: A Critical Analysis of Urban Renewal 1942-1962." When...

French economist Thomas Piketty's book "Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century" has been inspiring a lot of comment and controversy. The English translation published last month zipped to No. 1 on amazon.com. It has given a lift to economists on the Left who have cheered on Barack Obama's flagging attempts to make income inequality a voting issue. They have hailed it as "truly superb" and "extraordinarily important." Others, not all on the Right, have taken a jaundiced view. "All wrong" was the verdict of one. "The main argument is based on two (false) claims," concluded another. Piketty's title echoes Karl Marx's...