In my recent talk at Texas Tech’s Free Market Institute I used a 1975 Sears catalog to challenge the oft-repeated assertion that ordinary American families today are economically no, or only a very little, better off than they were in the mid-1970s. (It’s a theme that Mark Perry and I addressed a few years ago in the Wall Street Journal.) Cafe patron D Edwards sends along this link that documents that we Americans today also spend less of our disposable income on food than we did when in the middle of the disco decade. (And, trust me as someone who remembers well the mid-1970s, both the quality and the range of food choices that ordinary Americans today enjoy are far better than they were 40 years ago.)
Ilya Shapiro and Randal John Meyer expose the dangers of police militarization.
James Pethokoukis explains that Bernie Sanders proposes economic policies that are truly dangerous.
I think that the drop in spending during a recession is like the thunder that comes during a storm. The thunder does not cause the storm, nor does the drop in spending cause the recession. See may essays on PSST if you need my views in more detail.
