RealClearMarkets Articles

No one just chooses to borrow money. What an obnoxious conceit, one that imagines lenders are blithe about those loaned to. More realistically, those with title to money decide who can and cannot borrow. And they’re very strict. Individuals with credit cards know this well. We don’t choose how much debt to run up, rather we’re told how much we can. Businesses similarly don't choose their level of debt, it's chosen for them. Established ones sometimes have “credit lines” at banks, and even bigger institutions go into the markets to borrow or raise much bigger...

Late last month, Australia passed a new law forcing streaming platforms to bankroll local content just to stay in business. And they’re not alone—Brazil, Canada, and the European Union are all following suit with similar rules. Disguised as support for domestic entertainment industries, these mandates are really a global shakedown of predominantly American streaming services, making them foot the bill for content worldwide. If more countries keep copying this playbook, the real losers won’t be Hollywood—they’ll be everyday viewers, who face higher costs...

As the nation’s only research center of its kind focused on the performance and competitiveness of middle market companies, the National Center for the Middle Market (NCMM) tracks issues related to growth including access to capital, private equity investment, and working capital management. Recently, we completed a study on private equity and private credit in the middle market in collaboration with Future Standard, a global asset management firm based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Based on the survey findings of 400 middle market leaders, private credit has become an increasingly...

With the recent stroke of a pen, President Trump took what could be one of the most consequential steps toward returning Corporate America to its investors: the American people. For years, foreign-owned proxy advisors ISS and Glass Lewis—together controlling more than 90 percent of the market— have exercised near total dominance over the proxy advisory industry. That dominance has been used to weaponize the retirement savings of ordinary Americans. By leveraging their outsized influence over shareholder voting, ISS and Glass Lewis have pressured companies to adopt...

She hasn’t yet completed her Ph.D., but mental health clinician Karen Paul, founder and CEO of Lily Health AI, is already making strides toward expanding access to and destigmatizing mental health support in the United States, particularly for immigrant and underserved communities  that are often excluded from traditional systems of care. Paul’s interest in psychology was shaped by her lived experiences and by observing the mental health struggles of family members and community members within South Asian immigrant contexts, where mental health concerns are often unspoken,...

The Man of Steel may soon have a new home. Netflix, which began as a DVD-by-mail rental service and is now the world’s leading streaming site, is seeking to acquire Warner Brothers studios. The merger will give Netflix access to Warner Brother’s film library and other properties—including DC Comics. This will enable Netflix to expand its offerings to include classic movies like Casablanca, Blazing Saddles, and The Exorcist—as well as franchises like Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings (and did I mention Superman?) The deal would thus enable Netflix to...

In 2022, Mexico’s politicians banned vaping products, hailing it as a public health victory. In practice, it did the opposite — pushing millions into an unregulated black market now controlled by powerful cartels. By outlawing a less harmful alternative to traditional cigarettes, the government handed criminals a new revenue stream and empowered corrupt police to extort citizens. Worse still, Mexico’s consumers are now inhaling liquids of unknown origin, erasing the health gains seen globally when smokers switch to safer alternatives. Vaping has become big business...

Patricia Andrews Fearon and Friedrich M. Götz from Stanford University and the University of Cambridge have published an important article entitled “The Zero-Sum Mindset”, in which they present the results of nine studies spanning six countries with 10,000 participants. They define a zero-sum mindset as a mental conception of success in which another person’s success automatically comes at your expense, and your failure is their success. Such situations do exist in life – a tennis match is one example: if you want to win, the other person must lose. However, there...

Bill Dally dropped out of high school. Something about history class. He didn’t want to sit through it. Dally subsequently went to work as an auto mechanic, though high test scores eventually secured him admission to Virginia Tech despite him having not received a high school diploma. A master’s degree from Stanford followed, and after that a PhD from CalTech. A tenured professor at MIT by his early thirties, Dally is now Chief Scientist and Senior Vice President of Research at Nvidia. Dally’s career path amid yet another periodic convulsion on the American right about...

In a bipartisan victory for entrepreneurs and small businesses, the U.S. House of Representatives has overwhelmingly passed the Destroying Unnecessary, Misaligned, and Prohibitive (DUMP) Red Tape Act, a bill designed to slash the regulatory shackles that have long strangled small businesses.  The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Tony Wied (R-Wis.), cleared the chamber last week with a resounding 269-146 vote, marking a rare moment of unity in a divided Congress.   As small business owners grapple with inflation, supply chain woes, and a post-pandemic recovery,...

President Trump has made no secret of his desire to employ Most Favored Nation (MFN) pricing for American pharmaceuticals to reign in drug costs. But tying the U.S. to prices in Europe would restrict Americans’ access to new medicines—just as it has in Europe. Rather than importing Europe’s failed ideas, President Trump and Congress should focus on the domestic policies driving U.S. drug prices up. MFN is effectively an extreme version of Europe’s pharmaceutical reference-pricing system, in which countries cap drug prices based on the prices in other European...

At Luke Russert's college graduation, Tim Russert (1950-2008) joked about the fake ID used by his son during college to get into bars. Apparently the ID was quite good. Laughter at Tim Russert’s recall was said to be widespread, and knowing. Most Americans entering bars for the first time at age 21 have endless stories of getting into drinking establishments before the legal age. It’s hard not to think about the lived experience of most adults as Australia’s “Social Media Minimum Age Act” becomes law. As of December 10th, Aussies under the age of 16 no longer...

On Thursday, December 11th, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the U.S. was pushing Kiev to make territorial concessions to Russia to stop the war, letting Russia get eastern parts of Ukraine, which would then become a “demilitarized free economic zone.” It is astonishing that the negotiations are about percentages of territories, whether it is 2½ per cent or, with Crimea, another 4½ per cent that Ukraine should allegedly give up. All this talk of percentages, but there is no mention of Ukraine’s drastic demographic changes – as...

In 2026, America will mark a remarkable convergence of anniversaries. It will be the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, which explained how free people, trading freely, could generate prosperity on a scale the world had never known. It will also be the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the bold assertion that liberty, not power, is the rightful foundation of a just society. It will be a consequential midterm election year, shaping the direction of American policy for years to come. That convergence should give Americans pause—because...

iRobot, manufacturer of the Roomba robot vacuum, has filed for bankruptcy. This is not unexpected. In October, after negotiations with a potential buyer fell through, the company announced that, “we may be forced to significantly curtail or cease operations and would likely seek bankruptcy protection." iRobot’s decline was partially due to the rise of new entries into the robot vacuum market, in particular the Chinese-made Roborock.  In 2024, Roborock led the global electronic vacuum market with 16% of global unit sales and 22.3% of the market's...

A new public opinion poll has been released, measuring the most important issues facing the country today. Not surprisingly, inflation and the economy are voters’ top concerns. According to the Harvard CAPS Harris poll, inflation and affordability is the number one issue, followed closely by the economy and jobs.For Democrats, the poll confirms their strategy to focus on affordability. They have been buoyed by the surprise victory of Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayor race, who ran on a platform focusing on affordability issues. His agenda included substantial tax increases on...

“That’s really scary.” Those are the words of Neil Carey, a retired social worker who is 87. Carey is describing his occasional memory lapses that aren’t due to traditional Alzheimer's. As Carey explained it to the New York Times, he formerly had a “wonderful vocabulary,” but presently his “field of words is far reduced.” While he still reads, exercises and socializes, Carey increasingly forgets names and details, and recently forgot a minister’s homily at church despite listening very closely. Mentioned previously is that Carey...

Conservatives need to relax. See their ranting about Netflix’s proposed purchase of Warner Brothers Discovery (WBD). Podcaster Benny Johnson described the possible deal as “the most dangerous media consolidation in American history.” Trump “loyalty enforcer” Laura Loomer wrote on X that if the “Trump administration doesn’t kill off the merger, CNN will be transformed into the Obama News Network,” while “activist” Jack Posobiec lamented that the merger “is all about the Obamas taking over media.” If we ignore that CNN...

Jamie Dimon’s warning about Europe’s dwindling competitiveness was entirely accurate.  It would have been even more so had he singled out the primary reason: Europe’s adherence to the Paris Climate Agreement.  Recently at the Reagan National Defense Forum, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon delivered a hard truth to Europe.  “They’ve gone from 90% of the GDP of America to 65. That’s not because America did anything bad to them. It’s their own bureaucracy, their own cost… They do some wonderful things on their safety nets, but...