Category: economics

Bolivians Say Economic Shutdown Is About Freedom From Socialist Government and Resources

Empty streets and closed store-fronts and offices stretch as far as the eye can see in Santa Cruz, Bolivia’s largest city. The normally traffic-clogged avenues remain vacant, save for the occasional biker or motorcycle. The reason things have come to a standstill is because residents have erected roadblocks at dozens of intersections throughout the city,…


Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland to Deliver Fall Economic Statement on Nov 3

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland will deliver an update on federal finances in the fall economic statement to be presented in the House of Commons on Nov. 3. The fiscal update will also share the government’s outlook for an economy facing high inflation and staring down a potential recession in the coming months. Freeland has stressed…


Odds of Recession Rise to 100 Percent Despite Biden’s Claims of a ‘Strong’ Economy: Bloomberg Economics

The chances that the U.S. economy will tip into recession at some point in the next 12 months have jumped to 100 percent, according to a model projection from Bloomberg Economics, with the grim forecast standing in sharp contrast to the Biden administration’s upbeat tone on the economy ahead of the midterms. The updated recession…


Meet the ‘Adam Smith of Ancient China’

Commentary The book of Ecclesiastes tells us that “there is nothing new under the sun.” The quote reminds us that few things we think of as new are actually new, and economic philosophy is no exception. While Karl Marx is considered the father of communism, his ideas were not as original as many think. His…


Upskill Not at Migration Expense: Australian Treasurer

Increasing the migration cap to help ease Australia’s skills shortages cannot come at the expense of training up the workforce, Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers says. The Business Council of Australia is urging the government to boost the permanent migration cap to 220,000 temporarily to make up for the shortfall in migration during the pandemic. Chalmers…


New Economic Research Study Sees No Tax Policy Impact From 2010 ‘Citizens United’ Decision

A new study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) finds the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision did not, contrary to repeated claims by Democrats and progressive activists, enable corporations to buy favorable tax policies. “Across all outcomes, we find no statistically or economically significant effects of independent political contributions on tax…


GDP Prints at a Technical Recession

NEW YORK (July 28th)—GDP printed at -0.9 percent this morning, 1.4 percentage points worse than market expectations of +0.5 percent. We had estimated the GDP to print up between nil to 0.5 percent up in our June Jobs Report.  We attribute the “miss” to a continuing anomaly from the ports being cleared, discussed more below. The…


Economic Failures Topple Sri Lanka’s Government After Months of Protests

Civilian outrage in Sri Lanka has been simmering since 2021 over the effects of commodity shortages, inflation, and economic policy failures that erupted into widespread protests beginning in March. Thousands of demonstrators in the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo stormed the president’s official residence and burned the prime minister’s home on July 9, after which…


The Deadly Wisdom of Economics

Commentary The war in Ukraine has emphasized Western Europe’s dependence upon Russian energy exports, and a group of mainstream economists decided to consider what might happen to the German economy if Russia effectively reduced the supply of energy to Germany by 10 percent. Their conclusion, in a working paper entitled “What if? The macroeconomic and…


The Triumph of Economic Ignorance

News analysis The Commerce Department reports that inflation-adjusted spending declined by 0.4 percent in May. It’s the first decline in real spending since December and a real foreshadowing of what’s coming. The trajectory is now well-established: depleted savings, real income flat and declining, consumers worrying, investors rethinking everything, and the public ever more demoralized and…