The U.S. economy grew at a 3.3% pace in the fourth quarter
The economy grew at a much more rapid pace than expected while inflation eased in the final three months of 2023, as the U.S. easily skirted a recession that many forecasters had thought was inevitable, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. Gross domestic product, a measure of all the goods and services produced, increased at a […]
Turkey hikes interest rate again to 45% after inflation nears 65%
Residents waiting at a bus stop under a large Turkish flag in Istanbul, Turkey, on Sunday, April 30, 2023. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images Turkey’s central bank on Thursday hiked its key interest rate by another 250 basis points to 45%. The hike to the benchmark one-week repo rate was in line with economists’ expectations. […]
The false promise of friendshoring
Listen to this story.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. Your browser does not support the <audio> element. Each year the 193 member states of the United Nations General Assembly vote on dozens of resolutions, earnestly setting the world to rights. Last month, for example, they voted in favour of reducing space threats, […]
How American states squeeze athletes (and remote workers)
Listen to this story.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. Your browser does not support the <audio> element. Sports are big business in America. The country’s four largest professional leagues generate about $45bn in revenues a year, more than half of the total produced by leagues worldwide. That makes for plenty of richly […]
Why sweet treats are increasingly expensive
Listen to this story.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. Your browser does not support the <audio> element. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the arrival of war in one of the world’s breadbaskets sent the price of foodstuffs soaring—with one exception, sugar. But last year was worse for folk with a sweet […]
Bidenomics and the Slippery Erosion of Economic Freedom
President Biden signs 30 executive orders in the Oval Office in his first evening as President, January 20, 2021. (The White House / Public Domain) Bidenomics is a moving target. The sheer numbers are staggering, as the regulatory factory on the Potomac spews negative externalities, polluting the economy. 2023 closed with 90,402 pages of rules […]
A Statue Worth Preserving; A Man Worth Honoring
While the peak of threats against every statue celebrating American history seems to have passed, one recent example stood out to me. The National Park Service announced plans to remove the statue of William Penn in Welcome Park (named for the ship he sailed to America on) in Philadelphia, in the state named for his […]
Terrorists Mock America While Crossing The Border
A migrant who illegally crossed into the United States threatened me, saying “You find out who I am very soon,” simply because I asked him where he was from. These are the people @AliMayorkas @POTUS @DHSgov and @CBP are letting in. pic.twitter.com/iblMnNndpa — 1strespondersmedia (@1strespondermed) January 21, 2024 The argument that people crossing the US […]
Investors may be getting the Federal Reserve wrong, again
The interest-rate market has a dirty secret, which practitioners call “the hairy chart”. Its main body is the Federal Reserve’s policy rate, plotted as a thick line against time on the x-axis. Branching out from this trunk are hairs: fainter lines showing the future path for interest rates that the market, in aggregate, expects at […]
Tales of a Heterodox Conservative
Milton Friedman may be of the most recognizable economists across our Econlib family, and especially so here at EconTalk. Friedman was a teacher of our beloved host Russ Roberts (as well as one of his first podcast interviewees), a Nobel laureate, a popular political lightning rod, and a best-selling author. When historian Jennifer Burns undertook […]
