Tag: Analysis

4 Underused Tools to Stop School Shootings

Commentary In the aftermath of school shootings, media outlets often amplify calls for gun control while ignoring or spurning evidence-based ways to protect students. Here are four life-saving tools they are missing or dismissing. Shatter-Resistant Entryways As documented in the academic journal Victims & Offenders, an “immediate and economical” way to protect students “is to tighten” access to school buildings. Many school administrators have…


Is This Finally Some Tolerable Inflation News?

Commentary For reasons I don’t get, the whole of financial markets is obsessed with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) but the Producer Price Index (PPI) is largely ignored. It hardly makes the headlines. That makes no sense because everything we consume (except maybe bugs) has to be produced. The consumer experience of inflation is downstream…


The Inflation Tax Keeps Rising

Commentary They keep telling us that the Fed is fighting inflation. Month after month, they say that it is cooling, softening, easing, pulling back, losing its edge, calming down, and gradually going away. These claims have been consistent for 28 months. And yet when you look at the big picture, the dollar has lost nearly…


Another COVID Fail: School Budget Cliffs With Gaping Holes

New York City’s school system went on a spending spree during the pandemic, thanks to the $7.5 billion in federal money it received as part of a $189 billion national relief package aimed at addressing education problems incurred by lockdowns and school closures. Although the funds were nonrecurring, the nation’s largest school district used some of…


US Fatalities for 2022

We now have U.S. fatality data for 2022, which should be mostly complete. Fatalities for the year still ran well above pre-pandemic levels but were down from 2020 and 2021. Prior to the pandemic, there were about 2.8 million fatalities each year in the United States. For many years, fatalities have grown consistently at a…


Job Openings Fall the Most in 2 Years

Commentary With labor participation rates still far below pre-lockdown norms, and with the rising investment we should be seeing, one might suppose job openings would be growing. Trends are going in the opposite direction. Job openings for March fell the most they have in two years. This data, however, needs to be unpacked a bit…


Why Hasn’t the GOP Yet Walked the Walk on Its Mayorkas Impeachment Talk?

It’s almost an understatement to say that Republican candidates campaigned hawkishly on border control in the runup to the 2022 midterms: As they decried the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs from Mexico, many vowed to impeach the man they largely blamed for the mess, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Republicans have continued hammering Mayorkas…


Chinese Media Claim Hong Kong is a Safe Place to Invest Amid Global Banking Crisis, Expert Disagrees

News Analysis Amid low investor confidence due to recent bank failures in the United States and Switzerland, Chinese state-owned media reported that many wealthy American and Swiss investors closed their onshore accounts and rushed to move their funds to Hong Kong. Financial analysts suggest that Hong Kong remains “an unsafe place” for asset holding and…


Kindergarten and School-Aged Pupil Enrolments Drop Sharply Amid China’s Decline in Births

News Analysis China’s kindergartens and elementary schools have seen student numbers decreasing dramatically following the year-by-year shrinking of China’s birth rate. The trend is expected to intensify and extend to higher grades in middle schools and colleges in the upcoming years. On March 23, the Ministry of Education said in a press conference that in…


The Big DEI Gulf on Campus: It’s Much More Than He Said/Ze Said

The fight over academic freedom on campus increasingly comes down to a fight over three letters—DEI—which goes a long way to explaining the fissures now tearing higher education apart. For progressives committed to social justice advocacy, academic freedom must shield the prevailing academic consensus on race and gender from outside political pressure. Nowhere is that…