Daily economy news from the American Institute for Economic Research: data, stories, research, and articles touching on economics, politics, culture, education, policy, opinion, technology, markets, healthcare, regulation, trends, and much more.
The 1980s Called, And It Wants Its Industrial Paranoia Back
“Sad about it all is that formerly free market conservatives have joined the echo chamber this time around, and turned the volume way up. A $250 billion industrial policy bill reminiscent of ‘80s paranoia is the result. Good work, conservatives.” ~ John Tamny
Consumer Sentiment Rebounded in Early June as Consumer Grew More Optimistic About the Economy
“Consumer sentiment recovered some of the May decline in early June, driven by improving expectations for the economy, jobs, and income. However, fears of rising prices are also weighing on consumer attitudes.” – Robert Hughes
What’s the Matter with Cambridge?
“It is not just well-paid academics that exhibit this (presumably) counter-intuitive voting behavior. The top 300 wealthiest zip codes, those with the so-called ‘one-percenters,’ tend to favor Democrats over Republicans both in terms of financial contributions to campaigns, but also in ballots cast.” ~ Anthony Gill
The World May Be Getting Darker, But We Must Carry on the Light of Liberalism
“Liberalism is not merely an abstraction we fight to advance for its own sake, but rather for the sake of the flesh and blood of humans of the world, and in remembrance of those who have fought the good fight before us. As ‘society is sweeping towards destruction’ let us keep in mind our own limited knowledge of the future and thrust ourselves ‘vigorously into the intellectual battle’ once more.” ~ Zachary Yost
A Conversation About Human Progress and Innovation
“On this episode of the Authors Corner, Ethan Yang speaks with Marian Tupy, a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and the editor of HumanProgress.org. The topics discussed touch on issues such as the rapidly improving living standards across the world, the causal factors of prosperity, the pace of innovation, and why the common narrative often distorts perceptions of human progress for the worse.” ~ AIER
Bureaucracy as Constituency
“As long as the federal bureaucracy remains largely unchecked, expect to see that bureaucracy grow unabated. Expect to see laws getting longer and more complex by the year. And expect to see no one in Washington taking responsibility for a federal government that has been out of control for the better part of a century.” ~ Antony Davies & James R. Harrigan
With Capitalism, Cooperation Is Just as Important as Competition
“Unlike the common condemnation of markets as the antithesis of cooperation, Leonard Read recognized, with Ludwig von Mises, that competitive markets comprise ‘a system of mutual cooperation,’ where ‘the function of competition is to assign to every member of the social system that position in which he can best serve the whole of society and all of its members.'” ~ Gary M. Galles
Seven Deadly Economic Sins: A Review
“Seven Deadly Economic Sins is a must read for the general public, policymakers, and students of economics who wish to gain an understanding, at a philosophical level, of the economic fallacies that continue to circulate in common thought and among certain policymakers, along with a convincing rebuttal of each, placed in the context of why getting it right matters for human progress.” ~ David Waugh
Everyday Prices Rise at the Fastest Annual Pace Since 2011
“AIER’s Everyday Price Index posted a sixth straight monthly increase, reflecting a wide range of materials shortages, logistical, supply chain, and labor problems. As these issues are worked out, price pressures are likely to ease.” – Robert Hughes
Go East, Young Man.
“What matters now is whether California will do anything at all to make it a more palatable possibility for people who would be inclined to live there. If not, we’ll see continued erosion of the tax base, as it is only people who pay taxes who are inclined to leave, and a smaller congressional contingent with each passing census.” ~ James R. Harrigan
What’s New is Old: The Left Turns Originalist
“The New/Old Antitrust Paradigm would reverse the presumption of legality in mergers and acquisitions, placing the burden of proof on economic actors to want to do…well, almost anything. Any economic restructuring of a business is contingent on obtaining the permission and chop of the appropriate bureaucrats and, incredibly, other ‘stakeholders’ such as competitors and labor organizations.” ~ Michael Munger
New Leak of Taxpayer Info Is (More) Evidence of IRS Corruption
“What’s especially disgusting is that the Biden Administration wants to reward IRS corruption with giant budget increases, bolstered by utterly fraudulent numbers. Needless to say, that would be a terrible idea, and sadly, Republicans in the past have been sympathetic to expanding the size of the tax bureaucracy.” ~ Daniel J. Mitchell
Adam Smith Takes Cancel Culture in Hand
“By rejecting the controlling fist, we can accept the prosperity enabled by the invisible hand—Smith’s metaphor for the way in which individuals pursuing their own interests through ethical, mutual exchange leads to the prosperity that was not consciously designed by any intellectual. No person has that much knowledge. In short, it’s time for cancel culture to read some Smith. Instead of ranting on social media, talk to the (Invisible) Hand.” ~ Caroline Breashears
Gerontocracy and Geezernomics
“Most babies born today will (one hopes) live to see at least the opening of the 22nd century. Why should some self-interested geezers with ‘one foot in the grave’ born before the mid-20th century be able to diminish the quality of their lives?” ~ Robert E. Wright
The Super-Rich Are Not Who You Think They Are!
“The work of Scott provides a powerful illustration of the importance of the qualification proposed by defenders of the super-rich. It is not wealth that is problematic, it is wealth generated by muting the forces of the market process (i.e. by rent-seeking). In other words, the policies that produce inequality matter!” ~ Vincent Geloso
Stinky Stuff Happens, but How Do We Prepare?
“The problem is that we don’t know what disasters are lurking on the horizon, and preparing for all the possible ones we can reasonably foresee is impossible and excessively costly. Even if we somehow managed to, individually or as a society, it still doesn’t guarantee protection against the truly black swans, i.e. the disasters of kinds and magnitudes that nobody could foresee.” ~ Joakim Book
Job Openings Soar to Another Record High in April
“Job openings soared to a new record in April, suggesting a tightening labor market.” – Robert Hughes
Support for Lockdowns: A ‘Bootleggers and Baptists’ Phenomenon
“This goes a long way toward explaining the behavior of white collar professionals during the pandemic: they have been acting out of a genuine sense of virtue, but they have also done rather well out of doing so, at least in the short term. It’s not one or the other, and high and low motives are not mutually exclusive – it’s both in combination that does the trick.” ~ David McGrogan
