The Clintons are again suggesting that they might not agree to a deposition after previously yielding to the threat of…
“I Will Not Sit Idly as They Use Me as a Prop”: Is Bill Clinton Moving Back Into Contempt?
“I Will Not Sit Idly as They Use Me as a Prop”: Is Bill Clinton Moving Back Into Contempt?
08 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics, politics - USA
Police Thwart Alleged Assassination of OMB Director Russell Vought
08 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics, politics - USA Tags: crime and punishment, law and order, criminal deterrence, regressive left
There is a chilling story out this morning that another assassination attempt may have been averted. This time, the target…
Police Thwart Alleged Assassination of OMB Director Russell Vought
The Washington Post Hit With Massive Layoffs As Guild Suggests the Need for New Owner
08 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, entrepreneurship, financial economics, industrial organisation, politics - USA, survivor principle Tags: creative destruction
The Washington Post has announced layoffs affecting one-third of its workforce, including most of the sports and foreign news desks.…
The Washington Post Hit With Massive Layoffs As Guild Suggests the Need for New Owner
Trump’s Pharmaceutical Plan
07 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, health economics, politics - USA Tags: price discrimination
Pharmaceuticals have high fixed costs of R&D and low marginal costs. The first pill costs a billion dollars; the second costs 50 cents. That cost structure makes price discrimination—charging different customers different prices based on willingness to pay—common. Price discrimination is why poorer countries get lower prices. Not because firms are charitable, but because a…
Trump’s Pharmaceutical Plan
Part I(b): Yes, Taxes Change Behavior
06 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, fiscal policy, macroeconomics, politics - USA, public economics Tags: taxation and entrepreneurship, taxation and investment
The death tax presumably is the most destructive tax on a per-dollar-collected basis, but I suspect the capital gains tax is in second place. Like the death tax, the capital gains tax is pure double taxation, thus exacerbating the tax code’s bias against saving and investment. And the capital gains tax is particularly foolish since […]
Part I(b): Yes, Taxes Change Behavior
STEVE MILLOY: 20 Years After ‘An Inconvenient Truth’
05 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of climate change, economics of natural disasters, economics of regulation, energy economics, environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming, movies, politics - USA Tags: climate activists, climate alarmism
Jan. 24 marked the 20th anniversary of the release of Al Gore’s alarmist global warming movie “An Inconvenient Truth.” Gore has surfed the movie and climate alarmism to a net worth estimated at $300 million and a Nobel Peace Prize.
STEVE MILLOY: 20 Years After ‘An Inconvenient Truth’
Tariffs and Inflation: Where Are We?
05 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, international economics, politics - USA Tags: free trade, tariffs
One of the predictions made by economists when President Trump announce the start of his freewheeling tariff policies in April 2025 was that the costs of the tariffs would ultimately be passed through to consumers, leading to overall higher inflation. Well, President Trump has been tossing out tariff threats, keeping some and withdrawing others. However,…
Tariffs and Inflation: Where Are We?
Debunking Trump’s Error-Filled WSJ Column
04 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, budget deficits, economic growth, economic history, fisheries economics, history of economic thought, income redistribution, industrial organisation, international economic law, international economics, macroeconomics, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: free trade, tarrifs
Donald Trump, who describes himself as “Tariff Man,” recently wrote a column in defense of his protectionist trade policy for the Wall Street Journal. After reading the column, my first thought was that Trump was trying to show he is more economically illiterate than Joe Biden (a big challenge, as seen here and here). And […]
Debunking Trump’s Error-Filled WSJ Column
Netflix, WBD, and the Myth of the Streaming Monopoly
03 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, law and economics, politics - USA Tags: competition law
The proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) assets by Netflix is already being cast as a landmark antitrust “test case.” If past deals are any guide, the critiques will follow a familiar script: narrow market definitions, selective data points, and headline-friendly market-share claims designed to trigger alarm. Yet in a video ecosystem defined by…
Netflix, WBD, and the Myth of the Streaming Monopoly
Vance on the Greens
03 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: regressive left
This column by Andrea Vance was actually last March but I only just discovered it, and it is so good it needs repeating. She writes: In the Chlöe Swarbrick era, the Greens have been reduced to a caucus of anarkiddies posting out a flood of social-justice clickbait. They indulge in culturally progressive obsessions, moored in…
Vance on the Greens
Border Security Type I and Type II Errors
03 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, economics of crime, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, politics - USA, Public Choice Tags: economics of immigration
One way of looking at the a policy of increased ICE enforcement of US border security is as a debate over decision error costs. The expressed goal is to remove the worst of the worst criminals. Few would disagree with this goal. However, in this dragnet, immigrants without criminal backgrounds have also been detained. The…
Border Security Type I and Type II Errors
Newsom talking across the aisle
31 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in politics - USA Tags: 2028 presidential election
Politico reports: Gavin Newsom is fully embracing his status as his party’s foremost podcast bro. … It got off to a polarizing start last March, with a succession of friendly interviews with conservative influencers like Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon. And while the headlines that tended to enrage Democrats have fallen off, the California governor’s […]
Newsom talking across the aisle
Michelle Tandler on NYC rent control
28 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, income redistribution, law and economics, politics - USA, property rights, Public Choice, regulation, rentseeking, urban economics Tags: rent control
This is what I’m seeing: + 2.4 million rent-controlled apartments in a city with a massive housing shortage and 1.4% vacancy rate. + A huge % of these tenants are wealthy, white boomers using the units as pieds-a-terres while they spend their weekends and summers elsewhere. + Meanwhile, the government is using rent control to…
Michelle Tandler on NYC rent control
Some Links
26 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, history of economic thought, international economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA, Public Choice
TweetPhil Magness’s new essay on the origins of the vague and derogatory term “neoliberalism” is superb. A slice: While most versions of the neoliberal label still come from the academic left today, the term has come back into favor within a certain, curious strand of the right. Conservative writers such as Patrick Deneen, Adrian Vermeule,…
Some Links
Poor whites used to vote for Democratic presidential candidates while rich whites voted Repulican. This has now reversed
24 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in politics - USA Tags: 2016 presidential elections, voter demographics
See Entertainment got too good by Eric Levitz of Vox. The article has some interesting ideas on why this happened along with some useful graphics. I have links to several related posts on the attitudes of Democrats & Repulicans, what shapes their views, how they differ, how they affect their daily lives and why they change…
Poor whites used to vote for Democratic presidential candidates while rich whites voted Repulican. This has now reversed
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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