Tweet [1]
Arnold Kling takes on Oren Cass (who continues to deeply misunderstand the case for free markets) [2]. Here’s Arnold’s opening sentence:
In “When Market Economists Fail” (Fall 2020), Oren Cass sets up a strawman version of free-market economics, which he proceeds to burn up in a blaze of rhetoric.
Pierre Lemieux tries to demystify the mysterious shortage of microchips [3].
My colleague Bryan Caplan asks “What does the success sequence mean?” [4]
Nobel-laureate economist James Heckman will discuss the role of families in human flourishing [5].
Scott Lincicome and Revana Sharfuddin ponder the demise of the department store [8]. A slice:
As we’ve discussed here previously [9], other data on middle-class wages and incomes show that the primary cause of the “shrinking” middle class is Americans moving up, not down, the financial ladder. Thus, there’s little data to suggest that “the collapse of America’s middle class crushed department stores.” Instead, this is far more likely a simple case of – pandemic aside – increasingly wealthy Americans preferring the convenience and variety of e-commerce or the uniqueness of brick-and-mortar niche retail over the traditional department store model – a preference that anyone who’s recently wandered a cavernous department store looking for a shirt or toaster, only to find it’s out of stock, probably understands. (And don’t even get us started on the parking garages.)
Here’s John Cochrane on the reaction to the death of Rush Limbaugh [10].
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, John Greenwood and Steve Hanke worry that inflation is on the horizon [11]. Here’s their conclusion:
So we already know that the money supply will likely increase by at least another $2.3 trillion over the current year. In other words, even without any new lending or further purchases of securities by banks, the M2 money supply will grow by nearly 12% this year. That’s twice as fast as its average growth rate from 2000-19. It’s a rate that spells trouble—inflation trouble.