High gas prices over the past three years have contributed to record oil company profits. Yet domestic oil production has not surged in response. The Biden Administration blames corporate greed while critics blame Biden’s anti-energy agenda. Recent research suggests another possibility, our very own oil cartel. Gas prices stand about 60 percent higher than January […]

We continually hear that climate change is making extreme weather – from wildfires in Canada and Maui to Hurricane Hilary – worse. Unfortunately, this allows politicians to evade responsibility for their inaction and mistakes. Researchers have long emphasized that nature’s action and human exposure together produce disasters. A hurricane striking an uninhabited island is not […]

College football illustrates many economic concepts. A dispute over the Atlantic Coast Conference’s (ACC) television deal illustrates one way we use contracts. The controversy also highlights the challenge of long-term deals in a rapidly changing economic landscape. The ACC contract runs through 2036 and pays the 14 conference members around $30 million per year, with […]

Recent news stories detail incidents of squatting, or illegal occupation of a home. These rights violations plausibly reflect public discourse demonizing landlords, promoting rent control, and even proposing the abolition of rent. I have no statistics on squatting and so will not call this a crisis. The rights violations are problematic regardless of the proportion […]

The U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic will hold a hearing Tuesday on “Investigating the Proximal Origin of a Cover Up.” The recent Federal District Court injunction against government censorship of social media increases this hearing’s significance. The hearing will not decide if a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) started […]

America celebrates 222 years of independence this July 4th. Our current political polarization makes many question whether Americans are still united in freedom. I think freedom is still widely embraced just two distinct visions. The leaders of America’s founding generation studied lessons from political theory and history concerning lost freedom. They were rooted in English […]

Economists debate whether typical Americans are better off now than 50 years ago. The debate concerns the reliability of the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The Cost of Thriving Index (COTI) from American Compass and Oren Cass think tank contends that middle class prosperity is becoming unaffordable for American families. Cass gained attention with the publication […]

The transfer portal is changing college sports, particularly in combination with Name, Image, and Licensing (NIL) deals. The portal also illustrates the role of philosophies of life and work in our decisions. College athletes (and students) have long transferred. Previously players transferring from one Division I (or FBS) program to another had to sit out […]

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reached a debt ceiling compromise with President Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Unsurprisingly, fiscally conservative Republicans are criticizing the Speaker. Economics helps understand the  challenges in attaining the best bargain possible under given circumstances. House Republicans’ Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 revealed their debt ceiling wish list. Items included […]

Economists think about jobs in a seemingly counterintuitive way. While noneconomists see job creation as a primary goal, economists view labor as a scarce resource to be conserved. This leads to differences of perspective on everything from government incentives to businesses to the impact of automation, including artificial intelligence (AI). To understand the economic perspective, […]

The United States faces potential default in June as we run up against the debt ceiling, currently at $31.4 trillion. Whether the debt ceiling is good policy depends largely on one’s attitude toward Federal spending. Is our national debt sustainable? I will defer to the judgment of financial markets. Interest rates compensate savers for being […]

The Biden Administration is battling what it terms “junk fees.” Is this consumer protection, or will it simply create additional costly regulation? The answer depends largely on how one views competition in markets. The term junk fees include bank overdraft fees, credit card late fees, airline baggage and seat selection fees, hotel resort and destination […]

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) is imposing fees on mortgage applicants with high credit scores to assist applicants with low credit scores and small down payments. The 2007 housing crisis illustrated the potential costs of “helping” people buy homes they could not afford. The proposal offers insight on the politics of government favors. The […]

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives in business and higher education have become controversial. Texas A&M and Texas Tech recently ended DEI statements for faculty hiring and tenure. What is problematic about being welcoming and inclusive? Let’s consider the underrepresentation of women in engineering. According to the National Science Foundation, in 2016 women earned 21 […]

Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and Stability AI founder Emad Mostque have signed an open letter calling for a pause in cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) research. But can we halt research, whether on AI or the gain of function research that may have produced the SARS-CoV-2 virus? How much control would be necessary, and […]

The House Energy and Commerce Committee grilled ByteDance CEO Show Zi Chew as Congress seeks to either force a sale of TikTok to a U.S. company or ban the app. Multiple factors are producing a coalition to ban something enjoyed by millions of Americans. One factor is social media’s alleged impact on anxiety and depression […]

Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) became the second largest bank failure in American history this month. How has the government responded and does this constitute a bailout? Washington gave all SVB depositors access to all their money. We have a system of government deposit insurance, administered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), established after 9,000 […]

Comments from U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene have brought attention to the idea of a national divorce. A national divorce would enable the enactment of the economic agendas of the left and right and is worth thinking about. National dissolution has been broached via calls for secession following the 2012 and 2016 elections. Michael Anton […]

Birmingham-Southern College, founded in 1856, has requested $37.5 million in assistance from the state, the city of Birmingham, and Jefferson County. President Daniel Coleman warns that without assistance the school could close in May. B-SC’s troubles afford state lawmakers an opportunity for bold higher education reform. I will first mention but not evaluate several relevant […]

The artificial intelligence platform ChatGPT has created a sensation since debuting in late 2022. ChatGPT can produce papers of comparable quality to college students. AI’s progress raises the specter of humans possibly becoming redundant. ChatGPT’s creator, OpenAI, was started in 2015 with a founding board including Elon Musk and Peter Theil. OpenAI was originally a […]

From the Business Roundtable to the World Economic Forum to leading business schools, many voices promote replacing corporations governed by stockholders with “stakeholder” capitalism. Laws empowering stakeholders might disrupt the social cooperation of corporations. The cutthroat world of business seems decidedly uncooperative. But businesses enable voluntary cooperation between people trying to improve their lives. Never […]

The Biden Administration is exploring imposing rent control nationwide via executive order. This is yet another questionable policy measure by our governments. Despite the joke, “if you line up all economists end to end, they still wouldn’t reach a conclusion,” economists largely agree on the effects of rent control, minimum wages, and student debt cancellation. […]

Everyone should be empowered to craft a life of their choosing. Do the conditions for this differ for men and women? The provocatively titled “Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism” suggests that government must help women. Recent voting patterns suggest that American women increasingly believe this. Professor Kristen Ghodsee of the University of Pennsylvania […]

In December, a winter storm grounded Southwest Airlines for nearly a week, even though major airlines quickly resumed service. In January, all flights were temporarily grounded due to the crash of a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) system. The consequences of these debacles illustrate accountability in markets and politics. A winter storm across the northern United […]