As in the stagflationary 1970s, the US Federal Reserve is once again denying that its own policies are the reason for a recent surge of inflation, even though there is good reason to think that they are. It is not too late to learn from past mistakes and reverse course – but the clock is quickly ticking down.
The U.S. Treasury is effectively ganging up with international bureaucrats and like-minded foreign governments to bully countries into increasing their taxes.
Respect for free speech must be cultivated because it does not come easily to human beings. We have a strong propensity to prefer our opinions to other people’s opinions and our ways to other people’s ways.
The Supreme Court has once again upheld the Affordable Care Act. Now, President Biden and congressional democrats are looking to put their own mark on the nation’s health care system. The administration recently proposed lowering Medicare’s eligibility age, and Senate Democrats are apparently eager to include the reform in their forthcoming $6 trillion reconciliation bill.
Debt is suffocating us. Our currency is on its way to being Lebanonized. Most major American cities are broke, dirty, unsafe, and run by either corrupt incumbents, neo-Marxists, or both. The law is optional, and applied asymmetrically on the basis of race and ideology. The past is found guilty by the laws of the present and so it is being undone.
Should he survive a recall election later this year, would California Governor Gavin Newsom preside more cautiously, having survived the political near-death experience, or push even harder to the left?
The U.S. Department of Labor reports that for the year ending on May 21, the U.S. inflation rate rose to 5 percent — pointing uneasily to continuing rises in the coming year. Key experts inside the Federal Reserve fear inflation will exceed the benchmark 2 percent “core” inflation rate — a number that excludes highly variable prices for goods such as food and energy.
The acrimony and disorder of contemporary American politics, according to a host of conservative commentators, stem in significant measure from progressive elites' incendiary words and antagonistic conduct.
In California, as elsewhere in America, school’s out for a majority of the summer months. And while California schools aren’t out forever, nor have they been blown to pieces (yes, we’re channeling our inner Alice Cooper), there’s the uncomfortable question of what happens when the next academic year commences in mid-August.
The Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) presents itself as a protector of civil rights; the guardian of America’s Muslim community. Its vision, it claims, is “to be a leading advocate for justice and… to enhance understanding of Islam, protect civil rights, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.”
Today I published an article in Project Syndicate. It starts with a memo sent fifty years ago, on June 22, 1971, by Fed Chair Arthur Burns to President Richard Nixon. Inflation was rising and Burns wrote to Nixon that the Fed was not to blame. Rather the economy had changed and a new policy – a wage and price freeze and controls—was needed.
Journalist and author Sebastian Junger talks about his book, Freedom, with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. The book and conversation are based on a 400-mile walk Junger took with buddies along railroad rights-of-way, evading police, railroad security, and other wanderers. Junger discusses the ever-present tension between the human desire to be free and the desire to be interconnected and part of something. Along the way, Junger talks about the joy of walking, the limits of human endurance, war, and why the more powerful, better-equipped military isn't always the winner.
An assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma, Daniel Hamlin, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss the Conference on the Post-Pandemic Future of Homeschooling, which was recently hosted over seven weeks by the Program on Education Policy and Governance at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Hoover Institution fellow Niall Ferguson discusses how and why we're trapped in a COVID web of bureaucratic inertia and control, which might cause long-term risks to our liberty including free expression and free speech.
Hoover Institution fellow Victor Davis Hanson discusses how to bring the country together through appreciating those who have come before us to give us the freedoms and great country that all of us can enjoy.
Hoover Institution fellow Victor Davis Hanson discusses the problems he sees plaguing American society today, from the assault on meritocracy to the “Frankenstein monster” of moral relativism.
