RealClearMarkets Articles

A new Rosenberg Research indicator shows that only 18 percent of the U.S. population now lives in regions classified as economically expanding—the lowest share since May 2020. This collapse in the breadth of growth is one of the clearest statistical signs that the United States may already be in a hidden or rolling recession, even as headline GDP and employment data indicate otherwise. The eighteen percent matches levels observed only during sharp downturns in 2001, 2008, and 2020--each of which corresponds to a deep recession.  The 18 percent validates a 2023...

The United States is in the midst of a housing crisis. Increases in the cost to buy or rent were the largest driver of inflation since 2020. But now, instead of taking the problem head on, lawmakers want to limit our options and exacerbate this crisis. Across the nation, elected officials from both the right and the left have laid blame for the housing crisis onto single-family rental institutions, claiming that large Wall Street-backed companies are snapping up homes, inflating prices, blocking access to the American Dream, and creating a housing crisis. Their solution? Ban or cap...

Virginia Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger won the election by portraying herself as a moderate or centrist Democrat whose priority was “affordability.” This is nothing new for her. Spanberger first came to national prominence after the 2020 elections when she blamed Democrats' poor performance in House and Senate races on the association of too many Democrats with radical positions—like defunding the police and an open embrace of socialism. However, a look at her actual record in the House shows she is far from a moderate. For example, Spanberger received an F...

“Literally put me in front of a whiteboard, and I can come up with 100 ideas in an hour.” That’s what Amazon founder Jeff Bezos told a gathering of technology entrepreneurs last month in Italy. Bezos’s restless mind rates extra thought on Thanksgiving. While Thanksgiving is a national holiday decreed by government, it’s important to remember that the abundance Thanksgiving embodies is a tribute to the doers like Bezos who can’t sit still. With Amazon, Bezos quite literally brought the plenty of the world to the doorsteps of the world. Notable about...

What, pray tell, is a Land Acknowledgement? It is a public statement made by woke land owners. In such a declaration they in effect maintain that they do not really own the territory to which they have legal title. In effect, they opine that while, indeed, they hold rights to their properties, these are not really justified. Instead, in justice, in their opinion, their legally held terrain properly belongs to the descendants of those who occupied the land in question thousands, maybe tens of thousands of years ago. Who issues such announcements? So called progressives (they are really...

Remember in 2008 when the experts were calling for nationwide housing destruction to allegedly save the U.S. economy from falling housing prices? It’s something to contemplate as experts like Ezra Klein ask in 2025 “How many more homes” we Americans supposedly need. What producers of smartphones, cars and bananas would give for Klein’s crystal ball… Briefly pivoting away from a consumptive market item the quantity and complexity of which no one, including actual developers, can possibly understand, we can think about another source of excitement for pundits who...

Politicians have long been tempted by price ceilings. From rent controls to gas price caps, legally restricting prices has always offered an easy applause line: “We’re helping you, the little guy.” But every economics student quickly learns something very different: price ceilings do not make goods less scarce. They simply suppress the best means we have to cope with scarcity, producing harmful consequences. A good illustration is the growing bipartisan bloc in Congress, led by Sens Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Josh Hawley (R-MO), that is pushing to cap credit-card...

In the past, home ownership has been an important part of the American dream. Buying a home was the most important investment decision that citizens made. That investment could provide for one’s retirement; and equity in the home could be used to borrow for education, health care, and emergency expenditures. Unfortunately, for many citizens, and especially for younger generations, the dream of home ownership is disappearing. Inflationary increases in home prices are pricing many citizens out of the housing market. Inflationary increases in property taxes are taxing some citizens out of...

Bloomberg recently reported that Amazon is set to raise $15 billion in an upcoming bond sale. The funds will be used to continue Amazon’s AI buildout. Better yet for the purposes of this piece, the sizable bond issuance signals impressive market confidence about Amazon’s future. Entities that are doing well, and expected to do better, can borrow a little or a lot very easily. Those with a less certain future can’t borrow. Money is ruthless. Amazon shows us why. Traveling back in time to 2001, Amazon could claim roughly $2.17 billion in debt. Notable about the previous number...

The most pleasant surprise in my first year teaching economics and government full-time was being asked to take-on a financial literacy course as well.  My friends and family tease me about keeping the thermostat at 78 during Texas summers, but it looks like it paid off. Current events have helped illuminate the content of that class just as they have for econ and gov.  The Wall Street Journal recently detailed how consumers are making “every penny count” on groceries.  Some are diluting household cleaners, while others are merely dabbing their...

It’s late afternoon in Menlo Park. Mark Zuckerberg’s senior infrastructure team is camped out in one of Meta’s glass-walled conference rooms. The slide deck peers back from the screen. Zuck, as everyone knows him, appears from 2,500 miles away, on the lanai of his 1,400-acre compound on Kauai. Palm trees tilt in the trade winds. The Pacific catches the last low morning light. He doesn’t need a virtual background. Zuckerberg leans toward the camera and asks a question. The faces in the room look perplexed. Then he sees the red icon, unmutes it, and starts...

One of the great misperceptions about federal tax policy is that the United States is a low-tax country. Every left leaning Washington think tank and most of the media promote this notion, and use it to push for higher taxes on the American people.This low-tax claim is at best misleading, if not outright deceptive. In reality, the U.S. is a high-tax country, with average U.S. tax rates on individuals, corporations, and investors higher than the average tax rates in the rest of the developed world.The argument that the U.S. is a low-tax country relies entirely on the simplistic calculation...

Meta’s big win Tuesday is a victory not only for the company, but also for anyone who believes antitrust law should be grounded in realities, not ideology. A federal judge struck down the Federal Trade Commission’s high-profile antitrust case against Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, on Tuesday. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s message was clear: the FTC failed to demonstrate that Meta holds monopoly power. The digital landscape has evolved too much since the case was first filed five years ago. As the ruling put it, quoting...

On the heels of the 2025 Blockchain Futurist Conference, make no mistake - the conversation around tokenization, AI, and real-world assets (RWAs) is no longer theoretical—it’s operational.  The next wave of decentralized finance (DeFi) isn’t about speculative coins or hype cycles; it’s about bringing transparency, efficiency, and liquidity to asset classes that have barely evolved in decades. One of those asset classes is life insurance. For most people, life insurance is something purchased around the kitchen table—a family plan meant to provide security in...

The International Olympic Committee is considering a blanket ban on trans athletes.  Economics will soon enforce one in women’s professional sports, regardless.  According to The Times, the IOC is moving toward a transgender ban in the wake of scientific reviews showing “there were physical advantages to being born male that remained with athletes, including those who had taken treatment to reduce testosterone levels.” When transgenderism first became a sports issue, it was about biological boys playing girls’ sports.  It tellingly...

In October the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released a draft of their Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2026-2030 as required by the government’s Performance and Results Act. Passed in 1993 as part of Bill Clinton’s efforts to “make government work better and cost less,” the program required federal agencies to prepare a “strategic plan” detailing their “mission, goals, achievement methods, and evaluation efforts.” The FTC may have satisfied their duties under the Government Performance and Results Act. However, as Alex Reinauer of the...

“My why was: Get the hell up out of this situation.” That’s how Carmelo Anthony described his path to becoming the first NBA Hall of Famer from Baltimore.  Thinking about how Anthony got himself out while so many of his Baltimore peers did not, some will say Anthony is an extraordinary exception. And they’re right. The extraordinary don’t stand still. They get themselves to where they can achieve. Which is worth remembering when people attribute the failures of certain people to where they came from, or when failures themselves ascribe their mistakes to...

What do today’s CEOs actually believe—and does it shape how they lead? This fall, Barna Group released a new study, Faith Forward CEOs: Research and Insights on Executives Who Lead Differently, which surveyed more than 350 diverse context CEOs to understand how they think, lead, and define success. While much of the data confirmed what we already suspected—CEOs are generally purpose-driven and culture-focused—it also exposed a growing tension in the moral and motivational core of business leadership. The key fault line? Belief. Or rather, the wide and often...

Those residing in the Pacific Time zone will have the interest rate of their loans fixed at 5%; Mountain Time will be 6%; Central Time, 7%, and Eastern Time, 8%. Yes, the above decrees sound absurd, but they also reflect the ridiculous reality in which we find ourselves.  The Federal Reserve’s price control of just one interest rate for the entire country is somehow regarded as all well and good, but we’re likely far more outraged at changing our clocks twice per year.  The physical pain endured after changing the clocks is much more tangible than the price...