Donald Trump’s ascent to the presidency precipitated a rift of unprecedented proportions in American conservatism. To prevent a permanent split, conservatives must recover an appreciation of the enduring tensions that constitute their movement. Too few conservatives, however, are focusing on conciliation.
An important part of the Fed’s normalization policy is to reduce its holdings of securities and thereby reserve balances—deposits of banks at the Fed—used to finance these holdings. As I argued when quantitative easing began in 2009, this reduction should be predictable and strategic. That view was given some empirical support by the “taper tantrum” in 2013, when Ben Bernanke abruptly said in a congressional hearing that the Fed’s purchases of securities would taper in “the next few meetings.”
With the end of the fiscal year deadline (June 30) looming ever closer Governor Rauner and House majority Democrats will have to come to an agreement to get the budget passed and prevent Illinois’s bond rating from being downgraded to junk, causing Illinois to lose investment-grade status.
Last week, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Asra Q. Nomani testified before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. During the hearing, they weren’t asked any questions about political Islam by the Democratic women on the panel — an experience they argue is emblematic of a troubling trend among progressives to overlook the brutal reality of Islamist extremism.
Robin Feldman of the University of California Hastings College of Law and author of Drug Wars talks about her book with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Feldman explores the various ways that pharmaceutical companies try to reduce competition from generic drugs. The conversation includes a discussion of the Hatch-Waxman Act and the sometimes crazy world of patent protection.
One of the shortest, simplest yet deepest books I have read on politics is The Three Languages of Politics by Arnold Kling. It’s a mere 146 pages and you can have it on your Kindle for a mere $3.99. This is a new and (slightly) expanded edition.
In the last week alone, terrorists have attacked or attempted to attack targets in European nations we call allies and friends. One of the main railway stations in Brussels, Belgium was targeted. So too were innocent civilians on the Champs-Elysees in Paris.
Answer: It depends. Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman, and also my long-time friend, reminds us of one of the most important principles in economics: There's no such thing as a free lunch. Indeed, this principle is so important that I've made it Numero Uno in my Ten Pillars of Economic Wisdom.
Nancy Maclean’s book, Democracy in Chains, describes Nobel laureate James Buchanan as a shill for the Koch Brothers who worked to advance a far-right agenda that threatens democracy to this day.
My friend and blogging competitor Don Boudreaux writes: You say that China's agreement to buy more beef from America is "a big win for us." Well, these beef exports from the U.S. are mostly a win for the Chinese people. From the perspective of us Americans, the beef that we export is a cost.
There's a lot of buzz on the Internet lately (see here for my recent commentary on Sam Tanenhaus's review) about the recent book by Nancy MacLean, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America. MacLean sees economist James M. Buchanan as the key figure in the rise of the "radical right."
Hoover Institution fellow Richard Epstein examines the gerrymandering case that the US Supreme Court agreed to decide concerning whether electoral maps drawn deliberately to favor a particular political party are acceptable under the constitution, which could have huge consequences for future US elections.
Hoover Institution fellow Lanhee Chen examines the proposals from congress and the Trump Administration to replace the Obama Administration's Affordable Care Act.
Despite knowledge of election interference efforts directed from the highest levels of the Russian government, the Obama administration responded in mostly small and symbolic ways in its final weeks in power. The responses, outlined in a comprehensive Washington Post report Friday, included the expulsion of Russian diplomats in the U.S., the closure of two Russian facilities, and a set of very limited economic sanctions.
Women’s rights activists Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Asra Nomani have accused four female Democratic senators of ignoring them during a committee hearing last week, complaining the lawmakers did not ask them a single question.
It wasn’t long after a gunman opened fire on members of a Republican congressional baseball team on Wednesday that the emotional calls for unity began.
When Ro Khanna won his seat in Congress last November, it was the culmination of three congressional campaigns, a decade of political organizing and thousands of hours knocking on doors.
Last week, Sen. Kamala Harris became the left’s designated victim of the month because she was interrupted by Republican Senators during a hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Harris kept interrupting the witness, Attorney General Jeff Session, so it’s debatable whether she had a genuine grievance. Nonetheless, the Democrats and their media allies were quick to level hackneyed allegations that, once again, sexist patriarchs have tried to silence a woman “speaking truth to power.”
A small group of moderate Republican senators, worried that their leaders' health-care bill could damage the nation's social safety net, may pose at least as significant an obstacle to the measure's passage as their colleagues on the right.
