RealClearMarkets Articles

Two years after their confirmations, there can't be any doubt that U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan share a lot in common. Both have transformed sleepy federal agencies into headline machines, sending Google trendlines for their respective offices into cardiac arrest.  They're alternately described as "hardliners" and "the new sheriff in town." They have a penchant for big cases. And yet, for all the regulatory gunslinging and New Yorker profiles, they share something else in common:...

Where are people supposed to live in the United States?  Rents are increasing while wages remain stagnant. Meanwhile, the cost of buying food, paying for gas, and keeping the utilities on is going up. Most people are in the midst of a crisis trying to figure out how to keep a roof over their head while paying for other basic necessities.   Rent payments are stretching budgets like never before, so much so that the typical American renter is now “rent-burdened” for the first time ever, crossing the threshold where housing eats up 30 percent (or more) of...

The White House has declared war on so-called “junk fees,” i.e. add-on fees to transactions that increase complexity and decrease price transparency as opposed to rolling all relevant costs into one “all-in” price. Regulators such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and Federal Trade Commission have followed with their own rules implementing that command. But if the Biden Administration claims to be in favor of simpler pricing, why do they keep pushing regulations that will increase the use of exactly the sort of practices...

Over the past year, Congress has spent a conspicuously large amount of its limited legislative time in efforts to constrain the activities of pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs. Four different House committees and three Senate Committees have held hearings or marked up proposed legislation that addressed PBMs. With many must-do items and looming deadlines (such as avoiding a government shutdown, for example) and not a lot of legislative days on its calendar, it’s worth asking why it has focused on this industry. The flurry of motion on the issue suggests it has little to do with...

On September 19, 1796, George Washington published his famous Farwell Address to the nation. Toward the end of his address, Washington writes “Europe has its own set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation… Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns.” While Washington is primarily referring here to the danger of European military entanglements, his advice may just as well have applied to any type of foreign entanglements that is not in America’s best...

Overspending on credit cards is weighing on the American consumer as the cost of living continues to rise, making it a good time to consider personal strategies to keep those balances under control. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York tracks consumer debt closely. Its quarterly Household Debt and Credit Report, issued this month, revealed that Americans’ credit card balances topped $1 trillion for the first time ever last quarter. Interestingly, mortgage debt held steady and student loans decreased. But credit card debt jumped by $45...

For more than four decades the Iranian regime has mastered the art of lies and deception. But now they have a leader who has taken duplicity to a new level. In an address to a press conference at the end of August, Ebrahim Raisi, the Iranian president, assured 85 million hungry and impoverished Iranians that the nation’s economy is booming. Raisi, dubbed ‘The Butcher of Tehran’ for his notorious role as an executioner, boasted that economic indicators have grown and progressed in all fields. He claimed that inflation was...

Quick, what television shows do the Big Three (or four?) networks air on Friday and Saturday nights? Tick tock, tick tock. Other than being aware that ABC and Fox televise college football in the Fall, it would be difficult to name a single prime time show. How things have changed. In the 1970s and 1980s, the networks reserved some of their most popular entertainment for Friday and Saturday. Why are weekend evenings now a television desert? There’s surely an economic story within the question, and the guess here is that soaring disposable income has enabled much more outside-the-home...

For the last year or so, since inflation hit its highest level in forty years, Washington policymakers have been focused on slowing the economy down. The economic experts at the Federal Reserve, in the Biden administration, and the mainstream media all believe that economic growth causes inflation, and that slower growth is necessary to curb rising prices.Federal Reserve Board Chairman Powell said last summer that reducing inflation would require a “sustained period” of slower growth. Treasury Secretary Yellen said last winter that “economic growth has to slow” to...

It’s that time of year. Fall. College football. Major League baseball playoffs. How bout those Orioles! One of my favorite events is my college fraternity, St. Anthony Hall’s fall pig roast. It’s always before a Virginia football game. Naturally, the boys in the “Hall” have the hottest dates on Grounds, and the absolute joy I feel at these events puts me in a top of the world mood for about 3 weeks. To see these nice, well-dressed and well-mannered kids having fun, drinking beer, eating pig and listening to the exact same music my crowd did makes one feel like...

Multiple efforts to remake the transportation sector and turn private freight railroads into a public utility via regulation will likely lead to higher consumer prices for goods shipped, encourage bad faith lobbing by powerful shippers, and reinstate onerous rules that were removed some forty years ago. The idea is rooted in the idea that our nation’s railroads are monopolies that do not compete and thus need the government to supplant market decisions. The problem, however, is such a view of a market that continues to quickly evolve, particularly in the face of automation, is grossly...

At the end of last week Apple shed over $200 billion in market value. Its decline rendered it the worst performing member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.   Why the correction in its share price? It’s always a bit of a fool’s errand to explain the movements of shares processing endless amounts of news from all over the world, but the most frequently cited culprit for Apple’s woes involved China. Various media accounts (since walked back) indicated the Chinese government was leaning toward banning the use of iPhones by government-backed agencies and...

My family moved to the United States from the Caribbean in 1985. About eight years later, my parents saved enough to purchase a two-family home in the quiet outskirts of Boston far away from our crime-ridden neighborhood. As landlords, my parents charged modest rents—enough to “help with the mortgage”—and ensured that the first-floor apartment was always well maintained for our tenants. Three decades later, I am a landlady. I charge market rent prices to cover the mortgage, HOA fees, local property taxes, landscaping, maintenance fees, and other...

The freer the society, the more wealth unequal it is. This is basic stuff, and it’s stuff that redounds to the genius of freedom. A city, state, or country “economy” isn’t some blob, rather it’s just a collection of individuals. When individuals are free to showcase their unique genius without restraint, it’s only logical that wealth inequality will emerge. This is a good thing. Very good. Freedom to excel generally is. Despite the undeniable societal good that inequality represents, it’s under attack; that, or it’s being run from. Most...

Leading up to the 2020 election, polls consistently showed that American voters trusted Donald Trump more on economic issues than Joe Biden. But while President Biden’s handling of the economy justifiably has a low approval rating, Donald Trump just gave voters reason to believe that if wins the GOP primary and then beats Biden in 2024, his economic policy could be even worse. Trump recently announced that if elected to a second term, he would impose a staggering 10% tax on all imports. This won’t play well with the business community, economically conservative...

After decades of waning influence, the labor movement in the United States appears to be having a resurgence. In July, UPS averted a strike by its largest union, the Teamsters, by agreeing to a contract that gave sizable raises to all of its 340,000 workers, with experienced drivers now earning at least $100,000 a year.  The number of strikes and the number of workers who have gone on strike has increased for the third consecutive year, with the Hollywood actors as well as the screenwriters having been on picket lines for months. Starbucks and Amazon have...

Have you ever heard of the Trabant? Assuming you’ve heard of the defunct East German automaker, it’s a safe bet you’ve never driven a Trabant. You haven’t because it never could have competed in the hyper-competitive U.S. car market, and it couldn’t have because the cars were creations of the East German state. Laughing as I type, the 1950s design of the Trabant was still the design in the 1990s! This is government in operation. Governments are constrained by the known, while in capitalist, largely free-market economies innovative minds are endlessly pursuing the...

After considering a pilot program that would grant certain mortgage lenders a waiver on title insurance requirements for loans it purchased, Fannie Mae officially scrappedthe program in August. The program would have effectively turned the government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) into a de factotitle insurer, with the goal of allegedly reducing closing costs for certain borrowers under its Equitable Housing Finance Plans.  While wanting to reduce costs for people trying to afford a home is a worthy goal, expanding Fannie Mae’s potential obligations by...

Colorado is unique in having the strongest protections against misuse of taxpayer money in the country in the form of its Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR). But while its protections have been steadily whittled away over the years, a ballot measure set to appear before taxpayers in November could make TABOR’s condition terminal. Generally speaking, TABOR requires excess revenue to be refunded to taxpayers and necessitates direct taxpayer approval for tax increases. Unsurprisingly, that’s proven to be a substantial nuisance to legislators intent on pushing tax-and-spend...