RealClearMarkets Articles

Stablecoins are no longer a crypto curiosity. With dollar‑denominated stablecoins already exceeding $250 billion in circulation and projections reaching into the trillions, they are rapidly becoming a mainstream component of the U.S. financial system. Much of the public debate frames concerns about stablecoins as little more than banks “whining” about competition and asking for tight restrictions to be slapped on a fast‑growing rival. That framing misses the point. Competition in payments is healthy. The issue is not that stablecoins challenge banks. It is that, once they pay...

Social Security is not going bankrupt, and by extension benefits won’t be cut. Not now, not in four years, not in forty. The irony in all of this is that existing and future retirees wouldn’t much care even if benefits were reduced. More on this in a bit, and why it’s better for U.S. taxpayers that benefits not be shrunk. For now, it’s useful to address bankruptcy and benefit cut rumors. The frequently wise Washington Examiner columnist Tiana Lowe Doescher wrote there recently that a failure to do anything about Social Security means bankruptcy in four years and 28%...

In 2022, Alex Epstein released "Fossil Future," his treatise on why humanity requires more coal, oil and natural gas to flourish. When the book appeared, the Biden administration was making extravagant pledges to fund global climate initiatives. Executives of major financial institutions and energy firms were making theatrical commitments to reducing their use and production of fossil fuels.  But four years later, those same industry titans are scrambling for excuses to delay or abandon net zero goals and seeking to develop the energy sources they had publicly disavowed. Business leaders...

Community banks like mine offer essential services across America to consumers and small businesses, including credit card programs that provide real advantages like local customer service, reward programs, and fair terms. Those services face a significant threat from big-box retailers and their allies in Congress, who want to enact harmful new regulations on credit cards.   Recently reintroduced legislation from Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) would grant large retailers the authority to process credit card...

Ohio has long promoted itself as a state that welcomes investment, encourages innovation, and rewards the companies that fuel its economy. Unfortunately, recent actions by Ohio Tax Commissioner Patricia Harris are sending a very different message – one that threatens to undermine commercial trust and trigger long-term capital flight across the state. At the heart of the issue is the Rover natural gas pipeline, a major interstate project completed in 2018 to meet rising energy demand in Ohio and several surrounding states. When planning the budget and projected rate of return for...

This week’s residential construction report — with housing starts beating expectations and single-family starts rising again — signals that Trump’s policy shift is beginning to unwind the housing distortions of the Biden era.  Housing inflation was one of the clearest affordability failures of those Biden years.  For working families, rent or mortgage payments are not discretionary expenses — they are the single largest component of consumer spending. When housing costs surge, everything else feels expensive.  You cannot import millions of illegal...

According to the New York Times, global warming isn’t a threat. About what you just read, the Times didn’t acknowledge the latter as much as it implied it. In a recent article, the Times reported that coastal areas are home to almost 40 percent of the U.S. population. Which is very telling about many things, including the threat (or lack thereof) associated with so-called global warming. That’s because where we live is a rather pure market signal calling into question the perceived threat of global warming. Think about it. Warming theorists have for the longest time told us...

Administrations have repeatedly tried to shine a bright light into the business practices of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). But those efforts have not been successful – until President Trump set his sights on lowering drug costs for the American worker. Thanks to his leadership, the Department of Labor is piercing the veil of secrecy that PBMs have hidden behind to introduce transparency in prescription drug pricing. PBMs were established in the U.S. in the 1960s to help insurers and employers manage their prescription drug benefits. The Employee Retirement Security Act (ERISA) of...

As a longtime professor and leader of the College of Public Affairs at the University of Baltimore, I spend a good deal of time thinking about power – who exercises it, how it’s employed, and whose ox gets gored when it’s constrained. Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) provide a classic case study in the politics of power. The faculty I lead are hardly trying to wall AI off from their classrooms. Indeed, my university took the opposite approach by launching a Center for AI Learning and Community-Engaged Innovation (CAILI) and then purchasing...

West Virginia’s relative poverty isn’t an effect of California’s enormous wealth. The better way to look at it is to consider how much poorer the Mountain State would be minus all the advances hatched in California, and for that matter around the world. What matters is that people are producing, not where they’re producing. The more that “hands” and machines the world over are productive, the better the odds that American hands get to realize their enormous potential. Trade is not war, rather it’s mutual enrichment that makes war less...

One of the many complaints the free market right had with Lina Khan’s performance as Chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was her use of federal antitrust and consumer protection laws to advance progressive goals. For example, one of the pillars of Khan’s “neo or hipster Brandeisian” approach to antitrust was focusing on how a merger or acquisition would affect workers as part of the FTC’s approval process. In practice, this meant the FTC would claim that a merger or acquisition would harm workers by decreasing wages, worsening working...

President Trump recently declared that “people should live in homes, not corporations,” echoing a widespread frustration with rising housing costs and the belief that Wall Street landlords are crowding out families. The sentiment is understandable. But it is largely aimed at the wrong target—and risks distracting policymakers from the federal policies that are quietly making homeownership harder for first-time buyers. The House Financial Services Committee just considered legislation on February 10 to codify the president’s executive order on...

The rich of tomorrow will happily be quite a bit richer than today's rich. That’s because the proliferation of AI meant to do and think for us will unearth superhuman qualities in a growing number of us. Even better about a rising wealth gap is that as it grows, the lifestyle gap between rich and "poor" will shrink. Oh, to be poor in America in the future... So many oddly fear what Nvidia’s Jensen Huang says about AI representing “work,” and more crucially “thought,” but Huang is in truth signaling a beautiful future in which individual weaknesses on the...

Conventional investment advisors generally recommend that seniors delay taking Social Security as long as possible to maximize their lifetime benefit. The logic is simple: waiting until age 70 locks in a higher "bond-like" guaranteed return. However, this advice relies on a critical assumption: that the U.S. dollar will maintain its purchasing power. THE "MELTING ICE" OF FIAT CURRENCY Watch an ice cube in a glass of cola. Within minutes, it begins to melt—disappearing into the liquid, never to return. This is exactly what happens to the purchasing power of your Social Security benefits,...

If “the border” informs your thoughts about immigration, then your mind is wandering. Seriously, how often have you crossed the border (on foot, no less) to go to work in or visit any other city, state, or country? Which is why the immigration debate is so ridiculous and sad. Some in the debate are said to be for “open borders,” others are said to be for “secure borders” with a very wide entrance for “legal” entrees, and still others are for “closing the border.” President Trump is famously on the “closing the border”...

For decades, marketing has often been treated like a game of psychological chess. Companies spent millions learning how to outsmart consumers, crafting scarcity, urgency, and clever persuasion tactics to get us to click, buy, or subscribe. The prevailing wisdom was that attention was everything and conversion was king. But that mindset, built on manipulation and mind games, is crumbling.  Today’s consumers are more skeptical, more informed, and more connected than ever. They can spot insincerity from a mile away, and they’re not interested in being sold to. They want to be...

The recent 10% credit-card interest-rate cap proposed by Donald Trump triggered a frenzy of responses from the financial giants. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warned of an “economic disaster,” a view echoed by Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, who said the cap would “slow down credit availability”. While the public debate focuses on balance sheets and macroeconomic impact, what is most concerning is that the banking industry’s digital plumbing is fundamentally incapable of absorbing a policy shock of this magnitude at speed.  A Policy Shock that Breaks...

People travel from around the world to visit Brooklyn. The “outer borough” formerly known as “Crooklyn” is increasingly a destination for travelers the world over. As David Ibsen, executive director of Americans for Free Markets explains it, family members regularly visit him without entering Manhattan. Ibsen lives in Manhattan, and while living there has long been tantamount to having an endless string of visitors, his family and friends prefer the bars, restaurants and skyline views that Brooklyn provides. Ibsen shares their adoration. Which is the point, though not...

Headline consumer prices rose just 0.17 percent for the month, pulling year-over-year inflation down to 2.4 percent. Core inflation came in contained at 0.30 percent for January and 2.5 percent over the past year. For business leaders and investors focused on trajectory rather than noise, the direction is unmistakable: price pressures continue to ease while growth remains intact.  That supply side mix changes the policy calculus—and once again reminds the Fed it is waiting too long to further cut rates.  Energy again did much of the heavy lifting. Prices fell 1.5 percent in...