A familiar conservative argument is back: inflation is the result of government printing and overspending. Too many dollars, too much demand, not enough goods. It is a tidy explanation, one that has the advantage of clarity and a long intellectual pedigree. It is also incomplete.

That story assumes a stable, globalized economy in which ...Read more

Two truths and a lie: America is getting older, leading to an increasing number of older Americans relying on a shrinking labor force; American farmers are in trouble because of a shortage of talent and shrinking margins; and, artificial intelligence is too unreliable to assist with solving these and related public policy concerns.

Truth: The ...Read more

We live in an age of both scientific miracles and superstition about science, increasing more or less in tandem. One year we’re creating novel vaccines that arrest a global pandemic, and four years later we’ve got measles outbreaks because people believe nonsense about vaccines, disseminated by the nation’s chief health official.

Solar ...Read more

The global hierarchy of innovation is undergoing a structural shift that Washington is dangerously slow to acknowledge. For decades, the prevailing narrative in the United States was that China was merely the "world’s factory"—a nation capable of mass-producing Western designs but inherently lacking the creative spark to invent its own.

...Read more

Anyone who has spent time in criminal court knows this: One of the characteristics of lawbreakers is a poorly developed sense of cause and effect.

At the low end, the folly of the defendants is always on display. The young man who takes a gun with him on a night of drinking. He has increased his chances that he might use it and spend the rest ...Read more

Suddenly, artificial intelligence is everywhere we look. Three years ago, I had no exposure to it personally, but now it tries to auto-populate my emails, shows up at the top of my online searches and answers my consumer queries (or tries to, at least).

Any new disruptive technology comes with costs and benefits and growing pains, but AI seems...Read more

As a people, we feel lost. Our political life is full of division and animosity. Our society struggles to find its sense of meaning. Violence erupts far too often. And beyond our borders, we find ourselves embroiled in conflicts with enemies and allies.

We are a nation divided and adrift. Our Declaration of Independence can help us refocus on ...Read more

There is much debate around the world regarding both physician-assisted dying legislation—often called "Death with Dignity"—and expanding the circumstances in which it is applicable. Eight countries and 19 states already permit it in some form.

It is controversial for many reasons. Part of the controversy stems from our cultural discomfort ...Read more

We Americans have always felt anxious about our democracy. As Benjamin Franklin famously said, ours is only “a republic, if you can keep it,” and we’ve been plagued by a nagging feeling ever since that we can’t. The latest bout of handwringing is brought on by declining literacy and the threat it poses to liberal democracy, and—aware ...Read more

School’s almost out for summer, great news for class-weary kids looking forward to a break. For Chicago Public Schools, though, the year is winding up in the red.

CPS is projected to end the current school year with a $45 million deficit, WBEZ reported, following a $102 million deficit last year, a shift that returned the district to deficits...Read more

The Iran war, which Donald Trump started in February for no good reason and which could flare up again at any moment, broke a streak of easy American military wins. This raises a question for other countries that the U.S. president might coerce or attack, from Cuba to Nigeria, and from Danish Greenland to North Korea: Will the strategic fiasco ...Read more

The hype surrounding the psychedelic drug ibogaine reached a fever pitch in April, when President Donald Trump talked up its potential at a White House event promoting increased access to psychedelics. Ibogaine, which comes from the root of a West African shrub, has long been used for ceremonial and spiritual purposes. Now, for the first time, ...Read more

Artificial intelligence might be the most transformative technology ever devised. Exactly how its effects will work through the economy is impossible to say, but serious disruption of one kind or another seems likely. Millions of jobs — in the end, maybe most jobs — could radically change, and many will disappear entirely.

How should ...Read more

“A whole bunch of everything for both, especially going wrong,” said a friend who didn’t want to be named, and declined to give examples. I had gone to our local place and asked people to name one thing they think is going right in America and one thing going wrong.

She views the world from a resigned distance, I think, and doesn’t see ...Read more

No amount of advertising money can sell a bad product — or at least, a product that consumers have determined they don’t want (see: New Coke). This time-tested business principle also applies to American politics.

That’s helpful to remember as midterm elections proceed.

The Democratic and Republican parties, their candidates and their ...Read more

A wise man — possibly Winston Churchill — once said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” And if he’d lived long enough to see President Donald Trump in office, he might have added, “Especially if you can turn it into a real estate project.”

In the aftermath of the chaos at the White House Correspondents’ dinner, Trump was ...Read more

Conservatism is in decline. True, it’s not dead — in 2025, a larger share of Americans described themselves as conservative (35%) than liberal (28%) — but this seven-point difference is the smallest Gallup has measured since 1992.

This is bad news for American politics. As a philosophy, conservatism possesses the key virtue that’s ...Read more

If you take the long view, America’s economic outlook is pretty bleak. Like a lot of rich countries, it is overwhelmed by debt it has no plans to reduce. Even more troubling is its aging population, which will reduce growth and leave fewer people to pay all that debt.

There is only one hope: a sudden increase in productivity that will boost ...Read more

Few any longer dispute that America’s public debt is growing unsustainably and that, sooner or later, the task of reining it in will be unavoidable. Oddly, this presumption of inevitability has bred a kind of complacency. In the end, whether we like it or not, the problem will have to be solved. Therefore, it will be solved. So what’s the ...Read more