The U.S. is nearing the fourth year of the post-COVID-19 world. While the coronavirus remains a pandemic, its evolution into endemic status is within sight and some degree of normalcy has returned to daily life in most places. While it…
Sophisticated market economies require their participants to possess increasingly specialized skills. Gone are the days of polymathic craftsmen and service providers; the “barber-surgeon” of the Middle Ages is no more. As modern economies have grown larger and more complex, the…
While I am not ordinarily an active Twitter participant, Elon Musk’s takeover bid for the social media company has kindled a desire for a better understanding of the platform and its most active users. As its popularity soared during the…
The entire world — or at least that portion free from state-directed censorship — has been mesmerized by the 24/7 reporting on the events unfolding in Ukraine over the last two weeks. A brutal Russian invasion and the valiant Ukrainian…
I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me? – Beck, “Loser,” 1994 Bite my lip and close my eyes Take me away to paradise I’m so damn bored, I’m going blind And loneliness has to suffice – Green…
Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the bankruptcy of Enron, which at the time was the largest chapter 11 filing in U.S. history and one with economic, financial, law enforcement, and public policy ramifications still felt to this day….
As Democratic congressional leaders advance their $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package, shopworn tropes have been dutifully trotted out to support the proposition that “debt and deficits don’t matter.” While such arguments have been with us at least since the federal…
A curious phenomenon has begun to emerge in the wake of the CDC’s recent updated guidance on mask-wearing related to COVID-19, or its “Interim Public Health Recommendations for Fully Vaccinated People,” as stated on the CDC’s website. Specifically, the CDC…
The arts have rarely been kind to commercial activity, and visual media are no exception. Businesspeople are typically depicted as venal and immoral, and even when not playing the villain their line of work is usually at best incidental to…
In an excellent piece in the Wall Street Journal last week, Phil Gramm and John Early made a convincing, fact-supported case that, contrary to what is repeatedly asserted and widely believed, income inequality in the U.S. is lower now than it was 50…