The Rose Bowl and the Execrable College Football ‘Playoff’: A Counterfactual

As is well-known now, the shortsighted powers-that-be in college football are soon to announce a 12-team college football playoff. The only hold up to the agreement up until now has been the Rose Bowl...

What If Congress Gave Every American $1 Million?

The title of this week’s opinion piece is a question that frequently comes up on the matter of inflation. As readers of these columns know well, the view here is that we presently do not have an infla...

The Federal Reserve Is Surely Not the Cause of Silicon Valley’s Swinging Ax

While the exclamation “that’s impossible” gives rise to a lot of slammed doors in the normal world of commerce, it cannot be stressed enough that the business environment in Silicon Valley is anything...

Meta Shareholders Should Be Relieved Mark Zuckerberg Isn’t Living In a Facebook Past

In the broadly owned but mostly unread The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith properly focuses on stationary versus ascendant economies. What’s stationary is an investor repellant simply because in commerc...

The Essential Dick Ebersol’s Excellent ‘From Saturday Night to Sunday Night’

On November 30, 1974 I attended my first college football game. It was Notre Dame vs. USC at the Los Angeles Coliseum. Notre Dame was up 24-6 early, only for USC to storm back and crush the Fighting I...

While Daniel Snyder Must Go, It’s Perhaps Time to Give the Washington Commanders Owner His Due

The New York Post reported last week that actor Matthew McConaughey has expressed interest in joining one of the ownership groups set to bid for the NFL’s Washington Commanders. McConaughey is one of ...

Bitcoin’s Proponents Promise a Future That It Cannot Provide

In World War II’s aftermath, Germany was in desperate shape. To say that words don’t measure up to the country’s devastated state is a good example of understatement. All the post-war rubble alone, if...

David Malpass’s Proper Admission That He’s Not a Scientist Isn’t Enough for the Science-Reverent

In 2008 Nigel Lawson published An Appeal To Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming. The Tory radical who served as Margaret Thatcher’s Chancellor of the Exchequer was promptly attacked for having the t...

As Mark Zuckerberg Looks Into the Future, the FTC Nips at His Ankles

How easily we forget. What do we forget? It’s that the future of commerce is the living definition of uncertain. If you doubt this, consider Amazon’s market capitalization. As this piece is being writ...

Despite What the Experts Told You, This Was Never ‘Inflation’

“Dell has too many computers, Nike is swimming in summer clothes. And Gap is flooded with basics like t-shirts and shorts.” So wrote Washington Post reporter Abha Bhattarai last week. Bhattarai perhap...

As Amazon Automates for Safety and Speed, Its Employee Ranks Will Logically Grow

Back in the early 2000s, a reporter followed AmazonAMZN founder Jeff Bezos around with an eye on better understanding the indefatigable entrepreneur. In following Bezos, the reporter found himself wit...

The World Is Far Too Creative and Dynamic for the Sclerotic Planning Theory That Is ‘NGDP Targeting’

In his speeches, George Gilder regularly makes a crucial point about creativity. The latter is, among other things, what economic planners can’t account for. There’s quite simply no telling what free,...

A Rising, or ‘Strong Dollar’ Is Not What’s Holding Down Equities

If you’re a Forbes or a Forbes.com reader, odds are you’re an investor. And if you’re an investor, you’re likely familiar with the popular narrative at the moment that a rising dollar helps explain tr...

Alex Epstein’s Excellent and Essential ‘Fossil Future’

In his wonderful book American Happiness and Its Discontents, George Will wrote that Founding Father John Adams began each day with a tankard of beer. The anecdote read as incongruous. How could Adams...

Uber Creates Abundant Supply, Price Controls Create Shortages

Do you ever wonder why there’s generally always an “UberUBER ” when you need one? Don’t worry, the post-lockdown exception to this rule will be discussed at conclusion. For now, think about why Uber i...

On the Matter of Inflation, We Have a Problem of Definitions

With inflation we seem to have a problem of definitions. More specifically, everyone seems to want to give inflation a definition as opposed to accepting the definition. It’s the word equivalent of va...

Put Away the Smelling Salts, the Fed Doesn’t Threaten Washington’s ‘Solvency’

Russia presently has total government debt of $190 billion. The U.S. can claim total debt somewhere north of $30 trillion. Are the Russians “Classical” in economic thought relative to the Keynesianism...

Amazon Prime and Thursday Night Football Is About So Much More Than Football

The September 15, 2022 the NFL matchup between the Los Angeles Chargers and Kansas City Chiefs is being “televised” on AmazonAMZN PrimeD2D . Please stop and think about the abundant meaning of this de...

Despite What Economists Believe, Putting People Out of Work Does Not Reduce ‘Inflation’

Recently the New York TimesNYT reported on the ShotMaster Pro, a remarkable piece of machinery that can make eight different espressos at a time, or 700 per hour. The cost of this modern “robot” is $5...

Despite What Politicians Tell You, Credit Cards Are the Embodiment of ‘Main Street’

Hollywood Shuffle made it into movie theaters in 1987. It was a film that attacked racial stereotypes (and the casting that resulted from those perceptions) in cheerful fashion. Try to watch it now wi...

The Fed Isn’t Moving the Stock Market, or the Price of Credit

In a meeting with pollster Brett Lloyd last week, he indicated that a number of U.S. Senate seats increasingly lean Democratic. After which, House seats are far more in play than is normally the case ...

Prices Regulate Activity. Let’s Empower Insurance Companies To Save Young Lives

The memory is hazy as to the exact year, but seemingly ten or fifteen years ago an auto insurer offered a novel option for drivers: lower prices if the insurer could track the driving style of the ins...

If Economists Fear Inflation, It’s a Sign You Should Not

It was a running joke in the late 1990s at Goldman Sachs that its well-to-do clients would call the investment bank to learn the predictions of the firm’s economists, only to commit capital to outcome...

John Talty’s Very Excellent ‘The Leadership Secrets Of Nick Saban’

The NFL is a copycat league, as are professional and collegiate sports leagues in general, and the surest evidence of this is the annual race to hire the assistants of successful head coaches. Bill Be...

Despite What You’re Told, Banks Do Not ‘Create Money’

In addressing what’s ridiculous, it’s probably best to start with something basic. Let’s imagine you the reader possess $1,000 in cash. As the owner of those funds you have no limits on what you can d...

Martin Sixsmith’s Brilliant ‘The War of Nerves’

At some point in every calendar year I re-read Cato Institute co-founder Ed Crane’s 1981 essay, “Fear and Loathing In the Soviet Union.” A recap of his visit to the communist country, it astounded for...

Alan Greenspan’s Genius at the Federal Reserve Was In Hiding How Little He Knew

It’s a bit of unreported on history that will eventually vanish, but back in 2005 Ben Bernanke went on a “listening” and “courting” tour. This thoroughgoing Keynesian who believed deeply that economic...

Central Planning Fails Just As Much When Conservatives Are the Planners

It’s a popular narrative on the Left at the moment to say that members of the Right have an unhealthy disdain for “experts.” Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell is a notable critic on the matt...

David Sokol and Adam Brandon’s ‘America In Perspective’

The question about whether America is in decline is arguably best answered by those who aren’t American. The reason for this is very simple: when all you know is the staggering abundance that defines ...

Japan Is a Reminder of How Situational Today’s Inflation ‘Hawk-ery’ Is

What happens when words lose their meaning? Confucius made plain that freedom is what suffers under such a scenario, and it seems he might be vindicated yet again. For background, let’s consider the p...

The True Inflation ‘Crisis’ Is a Redefinition of the Word ‘Inflation’

The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell should in a sense be cheered for her willingness acknowledge an inflation that’s said to be happening on the watch of President Biden. There’s not enough inward...

Those Predicting a ‘Fed-Induced Recession’ Misunderstand the Meaning of Recession

“You’re joking? How big is your fund?” Those questions were posed by a top Lehman Brothers investment banker in the early 2000s. He was on the phone with a top Australian investment banker; albeit at ...