Category Economics

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank has some policymakers considering expanding government deposit insurance to cover all deposits. Those advocating such a move believe it will help stabilize the banking system and prevent future bank runs. While these are desirable…

After two worrisome months, we are finally getting some better news on the inflation front. The Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (PCEPI) grew at a continuously compounded annual rate of 3.2 percent in February, down from 6.9 percent in January.…

In one of the nation’s greatest blunders, we (that is, our representatives in Congress) decided to subsidize higher education with easy-to-get loans for anyone who wanted to give college a try. The total of student loan debt is $1.7 trillion;…

No one knows who John Cowperthwaite is. No one who is not a classical liberal that is. Among that small subset of the population, Cowperthwaite is an unsung hero. As the civil servant who essentially directed the economic policy of…

The Biden administration has floated another bloated budget, one that will put the US national debt at $43.6 trillion by 2033, assuming its optimistic growth and interest-rate projections pan out and the Ukraine war ends. If this budget passes, the…

The past three years did quite a number on my once-high optimism about the future. The eagerness and ease with which governments locked us down, combined with the accompanying monetary and fiscal incontinence, cannot help but dampen the spirits of…

Is fractional-reserve banking inherently unstable? Over at National Review, Edwin Burton, a visiting economics professor at the University of Virginia, argues that the “mismatch between the maturity of the source of funds and the maturity of the use of funds”…

Note: An earlier version of this article appeared at Economic Forces. Anyone who has followed macroeconomic debates of the last half-century is surely familiar with the Phillips Curve, a name given to the supposed negative relationship between the unemployment rate…

Included in President Joe Biden’s recently released budget proposal are several tax increases, among them an increase to the top marginal income tax rate. While the rate change, from 37 percent to 39.6 percent for income above $400,000 for single…

In Cleveland, OH, during his bid for the presidency, Walter Mondale blamed his opponent’s policies for turning the region into a “rust bowl.” Journalists latched on, and America’s Northeast became infamous as a region in terminal decline, earning the moniker…