RealClearMarkets Articles

There’s an old African proverb that says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Its origins trace more specifically to a Luo tribal saying from East Africa: “Alone a youth runs fast, with an elder slow, but together they go far.” It’s a truth leaders have recognized for centuries and one we’re in danger of forgetting today. CEOs from companies like Apple and PepsiCo have said what a lot of us feel: Leadership can be lonely. Oftentimes, the higher one climbs on an organizational chart, the greater...

“While the music industry continues to get buffeted by technological change – here comes the AI wave, next.” That’s how media visionary John Malone describes the relentlessly changing circumstances of the music business in his remarkable new book, Born To Be Wired. Though Malone’s Liberty Media has prospered in the music space, including with an investment in SiriusXM that has turned out to be “one of the biggest returns on investment in the history of business,” Malone is repetitive about the dangers of believing you’re bulletproof....

This is the first installment of “Auditing the IRS," a series of dialogues focusing on the IRS, its mission, and its challenges and opportunities. Host Bruce Willey is a CPA, attorney, and CEO of American Tax & Business Planning. He regularly observes and analyzes IRS news for Real Clear Markets. Today’s guest: David Ransom, Washington DC-based attorney and Shareholder at the powerful law and lobbying firm Brownstein, Farber, Hyatt, Schreck. Ransom is one of Brownstein’s top advisors to tax services industry clients, giving him unique insight into the state of the...

President Trump's commitment to establishing America as the global leader in cryptocurrency represents exactly the kind of policy for the United States to be at the forefront of this financial innovation that can provide a faster and cheaper method of transacting compared to existing alternatives.  This is demonstrated by the achievement of the GENIUS Act, signed into law by President Trump with strong bipartisan support, creating a regulatory framework for stablecoins. However, a loophole in its implementation threatens to provide a neutral competitive environment in which financial...

“We thought Grease was going to be a disaster.” That’s how Barry Diller bluntly puts it in his memoirs (Who Knew) about one of the many blockbuster films that Paramount Pictures released during his tenure as CEO. When it comes to audience tastes, it’s frequently true that no one knows. All of this is worth remembering as the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page continues to promote the notion that the Chinese, seemingly for being Chinese, are not restrained by historical absolutes involving the marketplace. To read editorials and op-eds on the page is to...

Luddites were a 19th century movement of textile workers who protested the adoption of automation by breaking into factories and literally smashing the machines. The Luddites believed automation would lower their wages and eventually cost them their jobs. In fact, the opposite happened. The increased productivity made possible by the use of machines led to higher wages and better working conditions. Unfortunately, opposition to progress did not stop with the original Luddites. One industry that has been particularly prone to both innovation and Ludditism is the movie...

A weak dollar will sap Donald Trump’s presidency like no other policy. This is something Steve Moore, a top outside economic adviser to Trump, knows well. So does Moore’s great friend, Larry Kudlow. Back in 2008, Moore and I published a piece titled “Weak Dollars, Weak Presidencies.” It made a clear case that presidents who make a sound currency (Reagan, Clinton) a policy priority thrive economically, while those who don’t (Nixon, Carter, George W. Bush) ultimately fail economically. At the time that we published the piece, Kudlow was so enthused that he sent it...

South Africa’s once dominant ferrochrome industry is on the brink of collapse and requires a government bailout. That decline is not because the world no longer needs ferrochrome. It is because South Africa’s leaders tied their industrial policy to a “green” agenda that undermines reliable, affordable energy and sacrifices economic strength. What is happening in South Africa should concern every country that still cares about manufacturing jobs, supply chains and energy costs for ordinary people. Ferrochrome – made largely of chrome ore, coal products and with...

How does a country with the world’s largest oil reserves go from being the richest country in Latin American to being one of the poorest in a few short decades?  As with almost all the countries which went from being relatively rich to impoverished,  the answer is one word – “socialism.” After the U.S. military and law enforcement performed the flawless abduction of Venezuelan dictator Maduro and his wife, President Trump went on TV to explain what happened.  Unfortunately, during his remarks, he said we will now be...

Central planning is bad, which means government spending is bad. Contra the most prominent number in economics (GDP), government spending is by its very name an economic wrecking ball. These truths rate repeated mention, particularly given the rising tendency of natural government skeptics to cheer more tax collections for the U.S. Treasury. In a recent piece published at the libertarian Cato Institute, its excellent immigration specialist David Bier wrote what’s true about the highly positive economic impact of foreign workers, but puzzlingly added that immigrants are additive when it...

Recent multi-billion-dollar infrastructure investments like Meta’s plan for another gigawatt AI data center in El Paso, Texas, signal that the Lone Star State plans to defend its 20th-century dominance of the energy industry and convert it into the 21st-century nexus of tech and computing. This shouldn’t surprise anyone. In fact, using its massive size and geography to position itself at the intersection of revolutionary tech seems to be as Texan as beanless chili. Before the world associated it with cattle drives or Permian crude, Texas sat at...

Approximately 3.2 million Americans suffering from cancer, heart disease, and other serious or life-threatening diseases benefit from home infusion therapy. As the name suggests, home infusion therapy allows these patients to receive intravenous treatments at home instead of at a hospital. This improves the patient’s quality of life—as well as their health—by reducing their risk of contracting infections from spending too much time in hospitals. Infusion therapy is also more cost effective than hospital-administered treatments, and can be as much as 12 to 24...

America stands at a crypto crossroads. We can lead the next era of financial innovation, expanding opportunity for hardworking Americans to grow their savings and investments and strengthen U.S. economic leadership. Or we can fumble this opportunity, allowing regulatory uncertainty and disagreement on a small fraction of crypto market structure legislation to push innovation abroad. As a former member of Congress, I understand that legislating is difficult, especially when tackling complex issues like establishing a market framework for digital assets. But deciding to do...

Recently, two perspectives on merit-based hirings were presented. Lydia Polgreen deplored the increasing attacks on the employment of Indian professionals who gained admissions to the U.S. on H1-B visas.  Colin Wright claimed that U.S. firms have dramatically reduced the share of hires going to white men.  While Polgreen infers that H1-B holders are merit-based hires, this may not be the case. Though a modest share of hires does go to extremely skilled workers, many go to those who substitute for comparably-skilled U.S.-born workers. The New York...

Calls to weaken the U.S. dollar have resurfaced in policy debates, framed to boost exports and reduce the so-called “trade deficit.” President Trump was reported as saying in a recent Wall Street Journal article  that a cheaper dollar would restore American competitiveness abroad. The logic may sound intuitive to some, but it is economically flawed and historically dangerous. As I have argued previously, the U.S. trade deficit is not an isolated failure. It is the accounting counterpart of a capital surplus. When the United States imports more than it exports, foreign...

Now that Epiphany has begun and Christmas is over, perhaps it’s time to stop being so excessively nice to “groups” that do the most damage to an orderly and civilized world. The greater good requires us to hurt some feelings.  Remember in Star Trek when the Klingons attacked the USS Enterprise and Captain Kirk raised a force field so enemy weapons couldn’t penetrate the ship? That is precisely what the clever jackals on the Left have done to public discourse. A generation ago, importing 100,000 Somalis into Minneapolis would have been rejected...

In an ideal world, every credentialed economist would spend a day, week or semester in Orlando as a way of facing up to the myriad fallacies that stalk their profession. What gives Orlando life is reality about how economies work, and it runs counter to what economists teach. Think the popular notion about the role of small business in the economy. Though not economists themselves (and that’s decidedly not a critique), Harriet Torry and Justin Lahart write at the Wall Street Journal that “Small businesses – those with up to 500 workers – employ nearly half the U.S....

They’re both wrong. Who is? Trump supporters who’ve long defended mindless tariffs, along with economists wisely against mindless tariffs, but who now claim they didn’t really mean what they said about President Trump’s tariffs at the time.  Take a recent letter-to-the-editor at the Wall Street Journal by economists Scott Burns and Caleb Fuller, professors respectively at Southeastern Louisiana University and Grove City College. Among other things, they write that “Higher import costs give consumers less bang for their buck.” Yes, very true.  It...

“Definitely wasn’t interested in going to insurance or anything like that.” That’s how former University of Texas and University of Utah quarterback Cam Rising explained his decision to get into football coaching. Though formerly a Rose Bowl quarterback, a top Heisman candidate, and an NFL prospect, a variety of injuries, including an insurmountable one to his throwing hand, ultimately ended Rising’s football playing days in 2024. But he’s still in the game. Contrast this with Tom Brady. As is well known, Brady was drafted in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL...