ArcaMax

The recovery stage for our economy is finally here, and now the policy priority has to shift to getting people back on the job and getting businesses up and running. The best incentive to get businesses hiring again and get workers off unemployment is to suspend the payroll tax for the rest of the year.

So far, Congress' "stimulus" plans have ...Read more

America is starting to reopen for business across the country -- except for a handful of states where lockdown orders are expected to remain in place for weeks to come. With very few exceptions, the cities and states that have ordered their businesses to remain comatose and their millions of workers to go without paychecks are blue, blue, blue. ...Read more

Usually, when a CEO severely underperforms peers, he or she is fired or handed a gold watch and given a quick retirement party. In the Democratic Party, a rotten performance is a qualification for the presidency.

I'm referring to the bizarre infatuation inside Democratic circles with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo as a possible replacement for Joe ...Read more

The U.S. economy is at last moving into the recovery stage from the coronavirus, at least in most states.

One definite pattern has emerged: Republican states are reopening much more swiftly than Democratic states. A most notable case in point is the revival strategies of the four largest states. California and New York are closed for weeks to ...Read more

Battle lines are getting drawn up between the two parties on the next round of "stimulus" for the economy. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are demanding as much as $1 trillion more in federal money to bail out state budgets. The blue states of California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York are lining up to be ...Read more

We've known for years that China lies and cheats and steals when it comes to international trade. Now we've learned that it also spread the deadly disease COVID-19. Donald Trump ran for president five years ago as the ultimate China hawk on trade, and he was way ahead of the curve for protecting against China's devious behavior. He saved ...Read more

America's domestic energy producers are under siege. The price of oil fell to below $5 a barrel on Monday, down from roughly $50 a barrel a year ago. This 90% drop in price is sending nearly the entire oil and gas industry into bankruptcy.

What is going on here?

Saudi Arabia and Russia have flooded the international market with cheap oil at ...Read more

It would be natural to believe that nearly everyone on the planet is horrified by the death and economic destruction wrought from the COVID-19 pandemic. But some see the body bags and the shutdown of economic production as a weird kind of blessing in disguise.

These are the proponents of a radical and increasingly chic movement on the left ...Read more

There is nothing worse than the government bailing out private industries. I've spent a career opposing corporate welfare giveaways. When an industry gets in financial trouble because of its poor business practices, the owners, shareholders and executives should bear the cost -- not the taxpayers.

The coronavirus crisis is a bit different ...Read more

"Government help to business is just as disastrous as government persecution. ... The only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off." -- Ayn Rand

Congress has just approved an economically bloated $2.2 trillion spending relief bill, an amount more substantial than the GDP of all but a handful of ...Read more

In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, everyone should read Robert Higgs' economic classic "Crisis and Leviathan." The critical warning of this masterpiece is that government always uses a crisis -- from the Civil War to the Great Depression to World War II -- to expand power, not only during the emergency but also afterward. Emergencies tend ...Read more

It was just a little over 10 years ago, at the height of the 2008-2009 financial crisis, that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said one of the dumbest things in modern times. The best way to stimulate the economy, she declared, was with "unemployment insurance and food stamps." Right. Paying people not to work will get more people to work.

Now here ...Read more

The Democratic presidential field is down to two old, white males, former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders. Though they are said to represent two polar-opposite wings of the party, on one issue, they are in complete agreement. They both have solemnly pledged to destroy millions of blue-collar jobs across Middle America's oil ...Read more