Sports socialism? This column examines NIL, the transfer portal, and congressional proposals that could reshape college football and player

Strait of Hormuz turmoil is driving oil prices higher as shipping insurance dries up and global energy markets face growing economic risk.

Working to stop production is a strategy used by environmental NGOs through litigation, regulation and advocacy targeting industrial

Economist Daniel Sutter explains why economic policy should prioritize good-paying jobs that allow families and communities to thrive.

While biologists see benefits from depopulation, some economists fear reduced investment, slower economic growth, and stress to social assistance systems.

Government ownership has deficiencies relative to private ownership, beginning with the lack of a residual claimant.

The fraud cases involving Minnesota’s Somali immigrant community highlight nonprofit non-governmental organizations (NGOs) providing social services for government. Do private NGOs improve social services?

The national debt exceeds $36 trillion with a projected $1.9 trillion to be added in 2025. Critics contend that placing entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare off limits dooms Uncle Sam to bankruptcy. Can we contain entitlement spending? Let’s first be precise about entitlement programs. Despite the name, the U.S. recognizes no right to […]

Elon Musk has stepped away from DOGE to run his companies full time. Numerous commentators suggest that DOGE has failed. I see DOGE as a crucial step in disrupting Washington’s culture of spending. DOGE could never cut spending by $2 trillion by itself. Discretionary Federal spending, the portion approved by Congress annually, was only $1.8 […]

The murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson and subsequent arrest of Luigi Mangione have provoked wide-ranging reactions.  Sympathy for Mr. Thompson’s family and condemnation of a cold-blooded murder are normal, human responses.  Elevating Mr. Mangione to folk hero status is disturbing and invites exploration of the anger toward American healthcare. The murder of Mr. […]

Billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will lead President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).  Will the DOGE find the promised $2 trillion in wasteful spending to cut?  Eliminating “wasteful” spending may prove harder than expected.

Each side in the recent presidential campaign accused the other of not only promoting ill-advised policies but threatening democracy. While perhaps just campaign hyperbole, let’s consider who might oppose democracy based on their views and values. Losing candidates to start. They may contend that voters failed to fully comprehend the issues at stake. But because […]

Vice President Harris’ campaign has proposed $25,000 in government downpayment assistance to help Americans afford homes. Many economists, however, have criticized this. Why might government cash not help families buy homes? Housing has certainly become less affordable. The National Association of Realtors’ affordability index hit an all-time low in 2022 and got worse in 2023. […]

Home ownership, a core component of the American Dream, appears increasingly out of reach for many. Much of the concern involves affordability, driven partly by high mortgage interest rates. But corporations own an increasing number of homes which are available only for rent. Are Americans becoming captive renters? I have some statistics on corporate ownership […]

The new twelve-team College Football Playoff (CFP) has colleges seeing dollar signs. But will the increased revenue prove sustainable, and will the best team now win? All top teams should land playoff spots, and if no team with a good chance of winning gets excluded, the best team should be determined on the field. However, […]

The Harris campaign’s economic plan includes a national law against price gouging and excessive profits in the grocery industry. Are grocery stores gouging consumers and can price controls prevent inflation? Attributing inflation to a sector or corporate greed is dubious. As the great economist Milton Friedman observed, “Inflation is everywhere and always a monetary phenomenon.” […]

Whether the rich pay their fair share of taxes remains contentious. Regardless of your position on this, accurate numbers on the rich’s current tax burden should inform this discussion. I will consider percentages of Federal individual income tax revenue from Tax Foundation analysis of IRS data. These numbers are sometimes inaccurately described as of all […]

President Biden and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren recently criticized “shrinkflation”. The details are secondary to the larger question of who decides how to respond to changing economic conditions, businesses, or government officials? I will consider Sen. Warren’s comments here, as President Biden largely repeated her points. If you have never heard the term, shrinkflation refers […]

Economic growth in 2023 far exceeded economists’ expectations. Has the Federal Reserve engineered a “soft landing” while reducing inflation? And is the economy as strong as the Biden Administration insists that growth number demonstrates? Real GDP growth in the fourth quarter was 3.3%, putting growth for the year at 2.5%. The latest quarterly figure may […]

The federal government issues thousands of pages of new regulations annually (over 90,00 in the Federal Register in 2023). The costs of regulation are largely hidden but can be estimated them. A recent study from the National Association of Manufacturers puts the total at $3.1 trillion annually, over 10% of GDP. The study was undertaken […]

The rhetoric is certainly ramping up approaching the presidential election. Many Americans think poorly of their fellow citizens on the opposite side of the political spectrum. A recent Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports poll provides more evidence, with the headline, “One-in-Five Democrats Want Donald Trump to be Permanently Imprisoned, Exiled, or Executed if Convicted over […]

A recent Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports poll found widespread irregularities in the 2020 election. While whether this proves theft of the presidential election is debatable, it certainly demonstrates serious issues with voting by mail. The poll was conducted during the first week of December with 1,085 respondents. Thirty percent of respondents claimed to have […]

Everybody makes mistakes, but government accountants seem particularly error prone.  With 70 million Americans receiving Social Security payments annually, mistakes are inevitable. But the Social Security Administration aggressively pursues repayment years or even decades later as detailed in Social Security Horror Stories by Lawrence Kotlikoff and Terry Savage. The repayment efforts can cause immense hardship. […]

Is the economy booming?  Economist Alan Blinder recently argued that the economy is strong despite many Americans’ claims to be struggling.  Paul Krugman believes that claims of malaise reflect Republican hostility to President Biden, not reality. Do the numbers validate the lived experience of struggling Americans? Statistics, at best, reflect averages across the economy. Life […]