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.

AIER’s Editorial Policy.

When Ideological Bubbles Trump Economic Thinking

“That a Nobel Prize-winning economist can hold these naïve views and fail to use simple economic reasoning should give us pause about how ideology and echo chambers can dull our reasoning.” ~Paul Mueller

‘Consumer Reports’ Jettisons Objectivity on Climate Change

“Scaring the public into action simply does not work — indeed, Chicken Little can proclaim only for a short time that the sky is falling until people begin to see through the ruse that Chicken Little is really Chicken Liar.” ~David Legates and E. Calvin Beisner

April’s Disinflation Delivery

“In the first quarter of 2024, the US economy expanded at a rate of 1.6 percent per year. That’s hardly an impressive growth rate, but it’s significantly faster than money supply growth. Money looks somewhat tight.” ~Alexander W. Salter

Private Governance Will Make You Free

“Enforcement of these emergent rules can be accomplished largely by what Adam Smith called ‘propriety,’ rather than by armed employees of the state.” ~Michael Munger

Sloppy Utopia

“The book is irrelevant in the exact meaning of that word: It does not answer the question it sets for itself, does not rise to the task of chronicling the big economic changes of the extended twentieth century, does not adequately and accurately capture a believable grand narrative.” ~Joakim Book

AIER Everyday Price Index Rises for Fifth Consecutive Month

“April’s core CPI data represents the lowest of 2024 and may signal the resumption of disinflation, particularly where shelter costs are concerned. Despite some favorable signs, though, there remains a persistent inflationary pressure in certain categories.” ~Peter C. Earle

Japanese Immigrant Exclusion: 100 Years Later

“Scientists and academics nationwide embraced these outward intentions to divide the ‘desirable’ immigrants from those more susceptible to crime, disease, and incompetence.” ~Will Sellers

Is The Fed Manipulating the Market?

“We cannot just look at the Fed’s target rate to determine whether it is manipulating the market. We must consider its target rate relative to the natural rate.” ~Bryan Cutsinger

Substitution Effects and Steering-Wheel Daggers

“Because of substitution effects, we should always be aware that outcomes quite different from those that seem most obvious are possible. Mandating greater automobile safety might reduce traffic fatalities. Or it might not.” ~Donald J. Boudreaux

Illiberal Youth Threaten Freedom

“Like National Socialist youth, individual rights mean nothing to young people today. The loss of talented people with different opinions was a plus for the Nazis.” ~Barry Brownstein

Importing Votes, Not Steel 

“Cooperation between conglomerates can be swept aside by the government for political gain. Ultimately, it is the public who pays for these political plays.” ~Stefan Bartl

Climate “Reparations” Numbers Are Rigged

“Human living standards have improved in unprecedented ways over the past 300 years. These remarkable improvements in human welfare are not limited to wealthy, developed economies but are enjoyed around the world.” ~Paul Mueller

Every Village a Republic

“Article I, Section 10 might protect local communities from federal abuse, as intended by the Founders, but offers no tools to simultaneously protect ourselves from local tyrannies.” ~David Gillette and Thaddeus Meadows

Chairman Powell and The Fed’s Limits

“Congress should applaud Chairman Powell’s candor on uncertainty and strongly support his principle of operating the Fed within the limits of its mandate.” ~Alex J. Pollock

The Magic Food Cupboard

“Every small aspect of the work that people do to deliver and stock those Whole Foods grocery shelves is noble, in its own way. Dismissing the parts as meaningless fails to understand the power of the larger system.” ~Michael Munger

The Bourgeois Deal Brought Us More than Pie in the Sky

“We didn’t need a worker’s revolution to get and enjoy pie in the here and now… Innovation and profit-seeking in a society that embraced the Bourgeois Deal made workers so much more productive that the pie grew. A lot.” ~Art Carden

How the Subsidy Straw Is Sucking The Colorado River Dry

“A trifecta of farming-sector entitlements have incentivized producers to grow thirsty plants, underpriced water extraction, and created moral hazard….Subsidies have made water 10 times cheaper in Arizona than in Michigan.” ~Peter Clark

20th Century Ideology, Modern Mixed Economies

“Neither the Chinese communists nor the Russian communists ever redistributed significant resources from the able to the needy. If anything, they did the reverse.” ~John Goodman

Quality Boosts in Sports Collectibles

“An hour of labor today might not buy many more baseball cards than an hour of labor a generation ago, but it would be a mistake to conclude that living standards haven’t changed much because the quality has improved so much.” ~Art Carden

Principleless, Panicked and Power-Hungry

“The authoritarian response to COVID amounted to the biggest inroads on our civil liberties in two hundred years… the judges were as frightened and panicked as most everyone else.” ~James Allan

US Manufacturing is Doing Just Fine

“Faced with the increased prosperity that has correlated with lowered trade barriers, making the case that trade liberalization has led to widespread harm is no easy task.” ~Colin Grabow

Eating The Rich Won’t Feed the Beast

“The hungry behemoth that is the US federal government is already eating the rich… Jeff Bezos’ great fortune would finance the government for… less than a week. ” ~Joakim Book

Inflation Remained Elevated in February

“Market participants continue to expect three cuts this year — and that those cuts will begin in the first half of the year. But they have adjusted the odds.” ~William J. Luther

Baseball, a Beer, and a Dog

“The most expensive beer in the major leagues is found where everything seems to be most expensive: Washington, DC. At Nationals Park a single beer will set you back $14.99.” ~James R. Harrigan

Red Alert: Biden’s Biggest Chips Act Expense Yet

“When politicians resort to deficit spending to bankroll industrial ventures, they put upward pressure on interest rates by issuing more debt and competing with scarce private funds.” ~Vance Ginn

Fixing A Big Mistake in Risk-Based Capital Rules

“Both long Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by government agencies are in current regulation included as ‘High Quality Liquid Assets.’ But of course they both can and have created plenty of interest rate risk.” ~Alex J. Pollock

“The Price of Time” and Broken Central Banking

“The unique value of Chancellor’s book, beyond tracing this intellectual history of interest and illustrating it by financial debacles up and down the centuries, is to connect the social and market outcomes with the broken money markets.” ~Joakim Book