RealClearMarkets Articles

Earlier this month, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded to Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion, and Peter Howitt for “having explained innovation-driven economic growth.” Their work emphasizes that growth thrives in environments that reward risk, allow failure, and encourages invention. The seminal paper from Aghion and Howitt argues that economic progress is driven by creative destruction. This continuous process of innovation and displacement creates competitive markets. Policymakers who fear industrial disruption, they warn, are likely to suppress the...

The perennial challenge in the realm of banking regulation is to strike the proper balance between two worthy goals. Those of us on the left and center-left want to make financing more readily available to working-class applicants looking to earn their way up the socio-economic ladder. To that end, we want to give banks and other lending institutions greater security in knowing that they can responsibly take risks on those who might not otherwise qualify for a loan. At the same time, we don’t want to undermine those same potential working-class borrowers by steering lenders into the...

The U.S. could be 100% bereft of “rare earths” while at war with and embargoed by rare earth rich China, but we’d still have all the rare earths we want stateside, and as though they were all sourced here. It’s simple because economics is simple. To see why all the rare earth hysteria is much ado about nothing, consider a recent report from the Wall Street Journal's Jon Emont and Raffaele Huang that read like this: “China plans to ease the flow of rare earths and other restricted materials to the U.S. by designing a system that will exclude companies with...

From silly memes to cutting-edge scientific research, artificial intelligence (AI) is intricately linked to American life. However, this emerging technology is nothing without the data centers that house the infrastructure needed to deploy AI applications. And thanks in part to misguided activism and historically high land values, companies relying on data centers are facing an increasingly-hard time finding viable land for their operations. A recent analysis by real-estate investment management firm Hines found that the world will need about...

Deportations and border closures were political losers for President Trump and the Republicans. That’s because voters vote their pocketbooks. More than a few who read this opinion piece’s opening will disagree with its assessment, as will pundits seemingly. Right or left, they seem to monolithically believe that President Biden’s failure to secure the border hurt the Democrats. The speculation here is that the consensus is all wrong. Let’s start with a basic question: if work in the U.S. were legal without regard to citizenship, does anyone seriously think would-be...

Senators Bill Hagerty and Angela Alsobrooks have introduced legislation that would raise the FDIC deposit insurance limit on noninterest-bearing transactions account balances from $250,000 to $10 million. This increase has the support of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Senator Elizabeth Warren. Raising the deposit insurance limit without charging an actuarially fair premium for the additional insurance coverage creates moral hazard risk for the FDIC deposit insurance fund (DIF). This risk can be mitigated if newly insured fund balances are required to be deposited in...

To the relief of some and the dismay of others, late last month President Trump successfully punted a global energy tax down the road, forcing a delay on a vote to adopt an international carbon tax on global shipping. The motion to delay was initiated by Saudi Arabia, with the majority of the member countries in favor of waiting a year.   The International Maritime Organization (IMO), a London-based specialized agency within the United Nations (UN), was hoping to approve the Net Zero Framework (NZF) measure whose main objective was to charge companies for exceeding thresholds...

Economic freedom is a vital component of a prosperous society. Defined as the ability to make economic decisions without undue government influence, people in free societies can work, transact, and contract with others, as well as own and use productive property. The United States has traditionally been one of the most economically free countries; however, measures of economic freedom from Freedom House, The Heritage Foundation, and the Fraser Institute in Canada, demonstrate a troubling pattern: over the last 30 years, economic freedom in the United States has declined...

Social Security was a bad, big-government mistake. As argued in The Deficit Delusion, a much worse, much bigger big-government mistake would be to lower its annual cost by pushing the retirement age up to 70, 75, or name the higher number. Skeptical? Please read on. The Social Security hysterics claim the federal retirement program faces “insolvency” in 2035. No, it doesn’t. The surest sign it doesn’t face insolvency can be found in all the nailbiting about its looming insolvency. It implies that the Social Security Administration has all along been stockpiling funds...

What if the best leverage over a rising China isn’t a ban, but a leash? Washington’s moves to wall off China from American technology may feel decisive, but strategy rooted in exclusion rarely endures. The United States holds greater power when Beijing remains tethered to American innovation — dependent, constrained, and engaged — than when it is forced into self-sufficiency. Chinese firms have been largely reliant on U.S. chips, software, and precision manufacturing tools. This...

It has to be one of the driest policy topics ever in the banking and financial services space, and yet it’s caused a flood of controversy for 15 years: a small part of the massive Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 that requires financial institutions to provide consumers with access to their financial data and governs how that data is shared with other parties. Now, this provision—Section 1033—is in the news again, after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) recently wrapped up yet another public comment period on a new rulemaking to...

Why do Silicon Valley startups never rate loans? Because money is ruthless, and there’s not an interest rate high enough to compensate lenders for loans to business concepts that fail quickly over 90 percent of the time. Why is money ruthless? See the genius of compounding. It reveals the substantial cost of losing money. Which is a useful pivot to the idea that federal tax cuts since 1981 have "starved the beast," and that by extension the starvation of the beast led to enormous amounts of borrowing to make up for reduced tax inflows. No, quite the opposite, and the surest sign...

While tomorrow in commerce is opaque, it's presently true that microchips are key to winning the commercial future. In a bid to deprive China of this technology, some well-meaning Republicans are playing right into the CCP’s hands.  The GAIN AI Act, sponsored by Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) and Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), has already passed the Senate as part of the annual defense bill. It would essentially give American companies right of first refusal to buy advanced AI chips from American producers before they are exported.  This may seem a good idea on the surface: a...

New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani won his election running on affordability, and pledging to make New York City more affordable for working people. Yet one of his core campaign promises—increasing the New York corporate tax rate—would actually make New York City and State less affordable, leading to lower wages, fewer jobs, and higher prices.Although it likely sounded appealing to his supporters, economic studies show that raising the corporate tax rate is the most economically harmful tax to increase. A higher corporate tax rate would make New York employers less competitive...

Donald Trump calls tariffs “the most beautiful word in the English language.” That alone in and all by itself ought to establish him beyond doubt as belonging in the loony bin of economics. Trade is necessarily mutually beneficial at least in the ex ante sense and almost always ex post as well. Trump has recently gone berserk with his tariff threats. How should Canada react? Before I get to that, let me just say that Doug Ford, the Ontario Premier, was entirely justified in stuffing down Trump’s throat the undeniable fact that Ronald Reagan opposed tariffs. There are four...

The outlook for crypto finance improved dramatically with the change of administrations and the passage of the GENIUS Act. From January through the end of the “crypto summer of 2025”, outstanding $US stablecoins increased by $80 billion, to a total $280 billion in circulation. The recent surge in stablecoin issuance has caused some market experts to estimate that, by 2030, under base-case assumptions, the volume of outstanding $US stablecoins will reach $1.9 trillion. Under more bullish assumptions, stablecoins in circulation could reach $4 trillion. Some argue that the...

Imagine doing the same thing the same way repeatedly not just for months or years, but centuries. Such is the way of education, whether public or private. Worse, education’s immutability is prized. If this is doubted, see how parents and children alike covet the oldest, most “old school” of schools. No doubt this is great for teachers and professors. That’s because change is difficult. Most would prefer to do things as they’ve always been done. Which is of course a sign that education’s impact on the past, present and future of economic life is vastly...

From Coldplay’s board scandal to Nestlé’s CEO investigation and the ongoing fallout from FTX’s leadership collapse, headlines have been littered with stories of leaders whose organizations crumbled under poor accountability at the top. These implosions destroy reputations, erode trust, and carry enormous financial and cultural costs. Which raises the question: Who holds the CEO accountable? It’s easy to shake our heads from the sidelines, analyzing the wreckage like a Monday morning quarterback. However, scandals don’t just explode...

Don't trust economists to manage the economy. Read the musings of Fed Governor Steven Miran if you’re skeptical. Except that we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Before contemplating Miran and his odd musings about economic growth and inflation, it’s useful to reference a recent opinion piece by George Will at the Washington Post. In "363 miles that transformed America," Will informed readers of what they can’t be informed of enough: falling prices aren't an effect of Fed fiddling, rather they're a sign of soaring economic growth reflecting production spread across a...