Hoover Institution fellow Victor Davis Hanson discusses socialism and notes socialism is "contrary to human nature" and capitalism is the only proven economic system.

Jeff Clemens offers a "roadmap for navigating recent research" on minimum wages in a nice CATO policy analysis. A review and a doubt.

As presidents go, Donald Trump is unlikely to be remembered for his principles. But he has one. In “Fear: Trump in the White House,” Bob Woodward describes how the president wrote “Trade is bad” in the margins of a draft speech. When his economic adviser Gary Cohn asked why he believed this, Trump replied: “I just do. I’ve had these views for 30 years.”

Markets do not have the best of past records in pricing in major systemic risks to the global economy that later materialized and that then caused substantial market declines. Judging by how sanguine markets currently seem to be about the unusual constellation of major risks facing the world economy, we could very well be on the cusp of another episode on which we will look back and ask ourselves what were the markets thinking.