11/29/22 02:43PM - Fed policymakers talk about expectations every chance they get. The Federal Reserve should do more, say less and be more modest. Although inflation, as measured on a year-over-year basis by the consumer price index, declined from its 9.1.% June peak to 7.7% in October, the Fed continues to confront tough structural challenges. The Russian …more…

11/29/22 09:20AM - The Federal Reserve is conducting an aggressive war on inflation, with a risk that its policies will trigger a recession, as it did in 1980. The basic strategy is to get "you" to spend less, which will reduce the pressure on prices (so would producing more stuff but that's not in the Feds toolbox). With (real) sales weakening and …more…

11/29/22 06:00AM - Recent layoffs are a sign not just of over-investment in the sector, but of deeper, structural issues that may take many years to resolve. It's tempting to dismiss the mass layoffs and collapsing stock prices in the tech sector as just another blip in the tech boom-and-bust cycle. Technology firms may make up 36% of the S&P 500, but they …more…

11/29/22 12:00AM - The data-analysis company aimed to use deals with startups to jumpstart its non-government business. There were some misfires. Palantir Technologies Inc.'s raison d'etre is identifying patterns hidden within mountains of data. Yet somehow it didn't spot the risks in its own investment strategy or the danger that startups might not be able to …more…

11/28/22 06:40PM - Democrats hope to expand this bad policy in the lame-duck session. Congress is returning to Washington for a lame-duck session, and Democrats think they’ve found the perfect holiday gift for hard-to-shop-for American voters: Subsidies for children. The left and some Republicans will argue that only childless ghouls could oppose cash for kids, …more…

11/28/22 06:00PM - Do you remember when Covid was going to establish China as the world's dominant power? As late as mid-2021, my inbox was full of assertions that China's apparent success in containing the coronavirus showed the superiority of the Chinese system over Western societies that, as one commentator put it, "did not have the ability to quickly …more…

11/28/22 01:08PM - I introduced the idea in a 1993 Heritage Foundation paper. It was a lot better in theory than in practice. Advocates are pushing Congress to extend and make permanent the temporary expansion of the child tax credit included in the American Rescue Plan of 2021, claiming this would reduce childhood poverty. I was one of the inventors of the …more…

11/28/22 12:09PM - The New York Fed president points to signs that price pressures are easing, but sees inflation remaining above 3% in a year. A senior Federal Reserve official said he expects inflation pressures to recede over the next year but cautioned the central bank will continue to have its work cut out because prices may decelerate to levels still above …more…

11/28/22 10:47AM - Planning for a range of outcomes is preferable to relying on a shaky prediction. You would think that, after the chastening delivered by last year’s transitory inflation call, consensus forecasters would be more open-minded in how they describe the US recession they see coming in 2023. Yet they are confidently asserting that this recession …more…

11/28/22 09:30AM - If we want to understand economic fluctuations and business cycles, we need a disciplined way of thinking about how the nominal economy (denominated in current-valued dollars, e.g. market prices and interest rates) interacts with the real economy (denominated in dollarless quantities, e.g. unemployment and output). Economists have a pretty …more…

11/28/22 07:43AM - Crude has tumbled to the lowest in almost a year as traders digest China’s Covid turmoil — it may force OPEC to act this weekend. As in politics, a week is an awfully long time in the oil market. Seven days ago, Saudi Arabia was denying a report that OPEC+ members were discussing an output increase ahead of their meeting this weekend. But …more…

11/28/22 07:31AM - The right goal for central banks in advanced economies such as the US might be 3% a year. Back in 2010, Giovanni Dell’Ariccia, Paolo Mauro and I argued for a 4 per cent target for inflation. At the time, central banks overwhelmingly rejected the idea. The reason was not so much disagreement with the logic, but the perception of a risk that, …more…