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.
New Single-Family Home Sales Jump in August, but Headwinds Intensify
“New-home sales bounced higher in August, but inventories rose again. Elevated prices and surging mortgage rates reduce affordability and are likely to weaken future demand.” ~ Robert Hughes
Consumer Confidence Rose Again in September, but Risks Remain
“Consumer confidence improved in September, and inflation expectations eased slightly. An aggressive Fed tightening cycle, elevated price pressures, and the fallout from Russian aggression in Ukraine remain risks for the economic outlook.” ~ Robert Hughes
G.K. Chesterton on the Fundamentals of Liberalism
“Chesterton’s liberalism holds that technocratic control of the economy is inherently wrong because it denies something fundamental in human nature: the responsibility to make moral choices of right and wrong.” ~ Daniel Betti
Real Nondefense Capital-Goods Orders Remain in a Flat Trend
“Real manufacturers’ new orders trend growth remains weak. Rising prices, Fed policy tightening, and global turmoil sustain elevated risks.” ~ Robert Hughes
Luxury Beliefs Death Spiral
“Short of welcoming the brutal circumstances that would force everyone to experience the immediate pain of decades-long cost shifting and debt spending, how can we reduce the social costs of sharing poor man’s beliefs?” ~ Max Borders
Robespierre and Us
“One of the strengths of Gauchet’s book is the way it continually emphasizes the inability of Robespierre and his fellow fanatics to give serious thought to the art of governance in a political order at once popular and representative.” ~ Daniel J. Mahoney
LOL!
“Among the full set of arguments offered for government intervention into the economy, those that are serious and credible are the exception rather than the rule. Most arguments for intervention are simply not credible, with more than a few being downright silly.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
Revisiting the Pokéflation
“During the massively expansionary monetary response to the Covid outbreak, the price of Pokemon cards and other assets shot to unprecedented levels. Contractionary monetary policy now has the opposite effect.” ~ Peter C. Earle & April Liu
Ludwig Erhard: Architect of a Miracle
“Erhard’s legacy was forged in the decade and a half after the war’s end. He forever answered the question ‘What do you do with an economy in ruins?’ with the simple, proven recipe: ‘Free it.’” ~ Lawrence W. Reed
Biden’s Impoverishing Americans To Cut Emissions Won’t Even Touch Climate Change
“Americans have been cutting more emissions than any other nation. We just didn’t do it the ‘right’ way, through government mandates. For our reward, we’ve been sold into worse inflation, worse energy poverty, and a worsening environment for rolling blackouts.” ~ Jon Sanders
Fed Up With the Fed
“The Hamilton-Bagehot rule was superior to the modern Fed practice of flooding the markets with cheap money because it allowed insolvent firms to go bankrupt while supplying emergency loans to troubled but solvent companies.” ~ Robert E. Wright
It’s Time to Undo the Harm the CDC Has Done to Pain Patients
“When a government agency ‘recommends’ a policy, it’s akin to a recommendation from Tony Soprano; it is inevitably interpreted as a mandate, obeyed by state and federal agencies, health insurers, and even pharmacies.” ~ Jeffrey A. Singer & Josh Bloom
Milk Crate Law?
“Too many of us in this nation are willing to accept, even chuckle at, laws we know we’ll keep on breaking, confident the law will happen to someone else.” ~ Laura Williams
The Myopia of Antitrust
“Intellectuals and officials arrogantly suppose that any contractual term or organizational arrangement that they cannot immediately understand as serving competition must therefore be devious exercises of monopoly power or attempts to secure such power.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
What Is Financial Literacy and Why Is It Important? (Video)
“On this episode of Liberty Curious, Robert Wright, historian and Senior Research Faculty at AIER, joins Kate Wand to discuss his new book: Fearless: Wilma Soss and America’s Forgotten Investor Movement.” ~ AIER
4,000 Years of Failed Price Controls
“The people of ancient Eshnunna can be forgiven for not understanding why setting the price of a kor of barley at a shekel of silver was a harmful policy. Today’s policymakers, who have the benefit of history and economics, have no excuse.” ~ Jonathan Miltimore
The Great Authoritarian Arms Race
“Now is not the time to ‘retire the both-sides-ism trope.’ It’s time that an anti-authoritarian coalition turns against affective polarization and the impulse to pick a team. It’s time we call out authoritarianism anywhere it rears its head.” ~ Max Borders
Tribalism and Electoral Politics
“Humans still have those tribal instincts, and politicians can play them differently by defining who they include in their ‘us’ group and who they define as ‘them.’ Their strategies are fully intentional.” ~ Randall G. Holcombe
