RealClearMarkets Articles

Immigration to the U.S. is by its name a wage positive. It’s tautological. Higher wages are what instigate immigration, so to pretend as some do that the arrival of immigrants pushes down wages implies that the purest of market signal of all (the migration of humans) is a stupid one. No, not likely. More on this in a bit, but if the inflow of people pulled wages down then there wouldn’t be an inflow. Conversely, a lack of immigration is bad for the country that’s not receiving the inflow of people. Think about it. And in thinking about it, ask yet again why immigrants are...

Democrats in New York City have nominated Zohran Mamdani, a state assemblyman from Queens and member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA),  for Mayor. Mr. Mamdani delivered a stunning blow to former Governor Andrew Cuomo, a significant pushback against the Democratic Party establishment and moderates inside the party. Mr. Mamdani offered New Yorkers a radically progressive agenda; one that has tried and failed in cities around the world – and even in New York already. His election is also a microcosm of what is wrong with American politics today.  Among Mr....

Through ESG – Environmental, Social and Governance – mandates, the titans of global finance positioned themselves as the arbiters of corporate virtue. They pressured companies to divest from fossil fuels. They built an entire moral and financial architecture around the concept of decarbonization. But this June, two major events confirmed the slow demise of the great North American decarbonization experiment.  First, Nippon Steel finalized its historic acquisition of U.S. Steel, signaling a massive resurgence of energy-intensive manufacturing on American soil. Up North, the...

As the Senate moves forward on the tax bill debate, Senators should resist any impulse to turn to the corporate tax rate as a new source of revenue. The real world experience of the last seven years shows that the lower 21% rate has been enormously successful in increasing investment and growth, boosting wages and jobs and increasing U.S. global competitiveness.A number of major U.S. companies have been sharing with Senate offices their specific real world examples of how the lower corporate tax rate helped contribute to increased investments in U.S. operations and increased wages and...

Congress isn’t getting a summer vacation until the One Big Beautiful reconciliation bill is passed. Debate continues as the House and Senate clash on key priorities, including rolling back the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)’s solar and wind subsidies (enacted in the form of tax credits). At least 21 House Republicans signed a public letter in March opposing a full repeal of the IRA energy subsidies. Numerous Senate Republicans support a more tapered version of the repeal, claiming they will “phase out” certain provisions over time. But...

Buying a home is among the most consequential transactions most Americans will ever face. It is also among the most stressful. From working with a broker to negotiate a price, to securing a mortgage and title insurance, the process is riddled with middlemen, endless paperwork, and a cascade of nagging closing fees that ensure buyers remain within arm’s reach of the Maalox. With tech having transformed nearly every industry in our lives the past decade, it’s fair to wonder why home buying remains frozen in the carbon copy paper world of the 1970s. Well much-needed innovation is now...

"You know, people think that because I'm Mike Nichols, I don't need praise. I need a lot. Nobody gets that." The previous quote comes from Mark Harris’s excellent 2020 biography (review here) of - you guessed it - Mike Nichols. To read about the polymath was to marvel at how much he was venerated by the best and seemingly brightest. As no less than Oprah Winfrey once said, Nichols was the individual that everyone wanted to be seated next to at dinner parties dense with people whom every would want to be seated next to. Apparently, Nichols had that certain something. Which perhaps...

Since Inauguration Day, the White House has led what the Washington Post calls a “vast deregulatory effort” to streamline or remove thousands of unproductive, overreaching regulations.  On a parallel track, the House and Senate are completing the One, Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) that will avoid a $4.5 trillion tax hike. What do these efforts have in common? Working together, regulatory reform and tax reform can mutually strengthen each other’s chances of success. Federal regulations now cost Americans 12.3 billion hours annually to comply with and more than $188...

Orforglipron is an oral drug from Eli Lilly that’s in trial stage. The New York Times reports that in a trial of over 500 patients, those “who took the highest dose lost an average of around 16 pounds after nine months.” The Times added that roughly “two-thirds of people who took the drug also saw their blood sugar levels fall to target range.” Which is at first glance a comment that markets work. Diets and exercise have long failed exactly because they’re non sequiturs relative to the true cause of weight gain: appetite. That’s why weight for so many...

America’s bruising trade battle with China may have reached a temporary pause, but if the United States intends to win the 21st-century space and tech race, much more must be done. The tariff strategy presents a new diplomatic opening for Washington to build stronger coalitions and close loopholes that Beijing is using to bypass bipartisan restrictions on emerging technologies. If this opportunity is wasted, the U.S. will have taken on economic pain without meaningful strategic returns, a failure that could haunt American interests for decades. Now is the time for policymakers and...

New York City is the second most congested city in the U.S.  For the New York Metro Area, commuters spend an additional 92 hours sitting in traffic costing them over $2000 in wasted time and gasoline each year. This past January, the City’s leaders decided to do something about congestion.  New York became the first U.S. city to implement a system that charged a toll on vehicles entering its central business district. The policy is designed to reduce travel time within the central business district of the city.  While New York is the first U.S. city to use this...

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently held a summit on “The Attention Economy: How Big Tech Firms Exploit Children and Hurt Families.” The summit’s purpose was to “examine how big tech companies impose addictive design features, erode parental authority, and fail to protect children from exposure to harmful content,” and “explore how the FTC, Congress, state governments, and other organizations can help support parents and protect children online.” This sounds like a worthy endeavor. After all, what reasonable person could oppose...

Supreme Leader: Fellas, no need to worry about anything. I know what I’m doing. Have I ever steered you wrong? Didn’t I manipulate the West—and that hick peanut farmer—back in 1979? Remember when Tehran was just like any Western city under the Shah? I organized violent street protests to make it look like the whole country was against him, and that fool Jimmy Carter ate it up! I’m telling you, boys, U.S. Presidents are pushovers! Remember when one of our proxies killed 241 U.S. Marines in 1983? Malcolm the Mullah: But Supreme Leader, I’m worried about...

Let’s start with the obvious, now and in the future Social Security payments aren’t remotely imperiled. It’s said here over and over again, but rates saying once again, that the surest sign that present and future Social Security payments (including COLA increases) are safe and sound is the certain lack of a “lockbox” or “trust fund.”  In the past, Social Security collections that weren’t sent out to retirees were predictably spent by politicians who exist to spend. In the future, shortfalls in Social Security collections relative to...

“Balanced budgets” have nothing to do with limited government. Neither does a budget surplus. As with most notions crafted by economists and the budgetary scolds they’ve long enabled, the notion of balanced budgets as inhibitors of big government is a massive fraud. Yet the idea persists. See a recent Wall Street Journal news account about how we got here, the “here” being budget deficits and debt born of unbalanced budgets. The report indicated that “In 2000, the federal government actually ran a surplus, and the Congressional Budget Office, Capitol...

When Americans imagine the future, it always has a lot to do with flying cars, robot housekeepers, and just about anything else first seen on TVs, “The Jetsons”. When it came to healthcare, the Jetson family offered an early glimpse into telemedicine and robotic pills that, when taken, could diagnose just about any internal ailment, but they didn’t ever go so far as suggesting a future without the 7-day prescription pillbox.  One of the latest medical breakthroughs is a “one-and-done” gene-editing therapy that slashes LDL cholesterol (the bad...

Following Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement on tariff increases, there was an immediate claim that tariffs would increase prices on imported goods.  The reason this claim was made is because it is correct.  It does not take an economics degree to realize that if a pair of shoes with an import price of $50 from China has a 100% tariff imposed, then the cost to the US retailer increases to $100 which will in turn cause them to raise their price.  This is easy to see and understand in several other tax types as well.  Gasoline taxes obviously increase...

If you’ve applied for a mortgage recently, you’ve probably also received a dozen cold calls from brokers trying to get you to apply for a mortgage with them. For the past few years, mortgage brokers have been paying credit bureaus to give them instant notifications — known as “trigger leads” — when people with a certain minimum credit score apply for a home loan. Then they barrage the applicants with phone calls in an attempt to get their business.  Consumer advocacy groups and bank lobbyists alike have been pushing for limitations on trigger leads for...

They’re cheap, candy-flavored, and marketed as all-natural. They can also be up to 13 times more potent than morphine. Sold for less than the price of a sandwich and stocked in corner stores across America, the street drugs collectively known as Gas Station Heroin encompass a range of dangerous substances: tianeptine, nitrous oxide, intoxicating hemp, and synthetic isolate alkaloids. But don’t be fooled by the colorful packaging and affordable price tag. Gas Station Heroin isn’t safe; it’s a global cartel built on misleading claims, deceptive branding, addictive...