ISSUES & HOT TOPICS

ECONOMY

Amid Collapsed Demand for Existing Homes, New Listings Come out of the Woodwork

By Wolf Richter Housing market is frozen, people have gone on buyers’ strike, and sellers are hoping that this too shall pass. The median price of existing single-family houses, condos, and co-ops in the US whose sales closed in December dropped to $382,600, down by 7.5% from the peak in June 2022, according to data from […]

Electric Vehicles are Fleecing Us Out of Billions

By Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow When you buy a new internal combustion vehicle, you are also paying for someone else’s electric vehicle. While the subsidies are egregious enough, it turns out EV manufacturers are fleecing us out of billions, and doing it with government help. Attorneys Michael Buschbacher and James Conde explain at The Wall […]

On Comparative Advantage and International Capital Mobility

By Donald J. Boudreaux Editors Note:  We recently ran an article by Oren Cass, questioning the validity of free trade.  To balance that view, and provoke thinking, we offer this rejoinder.  We will have our own take on this issue forthcoming. Two decades ago, economist Paul Craig Roberts joined forces with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) […]

Fauci Admits to Multiple COVID-19 Missteps during Closed-Door Hearing

By Jon Miltimore Editors’ Note: It is amazing to us that Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief proponent of the “Great Covid Panic”, can give closed-session testimony, reveal his errors in judgement,  and so little consequence follows from those admissions. Here is a man who funded the research that set this plague loose on the planet, […]

Poll Finds Americans Worried About National Debt

By Brett Rowland Americans are worried about the national debt, according to the results of a new poll. Americans have the national debt crisis as one of their top concerns along with war, inflation, and crime. Those polled think the overspending has a direct impact on their personal security and also has an impact on […]

Our Drunken Sailors Push Back Against Rate-Cut Mania

By Wolf Richter Armed with income increases that outran inflation by a wide margin in 2023, they continue to splurge, no matter what. Total retail sales jumped by 0.6% seasonally adjusted in December from November, and by 5.6% year-over-year, to $710 billion. Not seasonally adjusted, retail sales jumped to $771 billion, according to Census Bureau data today. […]

Meet United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby

By The Geller Report Expose the powerful cabal installing these mental patients in enormously powerful positions in society? Fly United. DEI the friendly skies…. “Woke airline policies need to end”: Scott Kirby in drag pictures surface as United Airlines CEO comes under fire online over DEI video By Amrita Das, Jan 15, 2024: United Airlines CEO […]

Unrestricted Immigration Is a Real Problem

By Steven Camarota Pretending it’s not happening will only make the consequences worse The Biden administration’s continuing effort to conceal or lie about the historic rates of immigration into the country is fast becoming a crisis in its own right—a socially-toxic version of The Emperor’s New Clothes. “It’s not unusual,” White House Press Secretary Karine […]

Weekend Read: Free Trade’s Origin Myth

By Oren Cass At Harvard University in the late 1930s, the mathematician Stanislaw Ulam used to tease the economist and future Nobel Prize winner Paul Samuelson, “Name me one proposition in all of the social sciences which is both true and non-trivial.” It took Samuelson years but, eventually, an answer occurred to him: the Ricardian […]

BLM Aftermath: Washington, DC The Myth Behind the Movement

By Capital Research Center Staff In our fifth and final chapter, BLM: Washington, DC—The Myth Behind the Movement, we examine the protests in DC and the dawning realization that the aftermath of George Floyd’s death was, at its heart, a missed opportunity. While the BLM national organization raised millions of dollars, the local chapters—and other community […]

New Labor Edict From Biden Regime Declares War On Independent Workers

By The Geller Report Biden declares war on the so-called gig economy and countless companies that use freelancers. “(Biden) Admin proving it’s an equal-opportunity jobs killer.” The labor market is cooling while more Americans are using side hustles like driving for Uber to cope with rising prices. Yet now the Biden Administration is declaring war on […]

Inflation Under Biden Hiked The Massive National Debt In A New Way In 2023, Experts Say

By The Daily Caller Interest rate hikes to combat sky-high inflation under President Joe Biden have led the Federal Reserve to run over a hundred billion dollar deficit, adding to the national debt, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation. The Federal Reserve in past years has operated a net surplus, remitting those excess earnings […]

Stealing Russia’s Assets To Pay For The War In Ukraine

By Neland Nobel It has been quite a while since we addressed the issue of the war to defend Ukraine’s borders.  Making predictions can prove painful when you put them in print.  But our assertion some time ago was that Ukraine would not likely prevail in a war against a larger adversary when the West […]

FAA’s Diversity Push Focusing on Hiring People With ‘Severe Intellectual’ and ‘Psychiatric’ Disabilities

By The Geller Report This is so dangerous and deadly. America’s elite have lost their minds.  By Emma Colton, Fox News, Jan. 14, 2024 The Federal Aviation Administration is actively recruiting workers who suffer “severe intellectual” disabilities, psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the […]

Why the EV Market Is Sputtering

By Jon Miltimore Ford’s struggles in the EV market are an important reminder of who the real boss is in a free-market economy. It’s not Ford. And it’s certainly not the federal government. Last month Ford announced it was slashing in half its production goal for its most popular electrical vehicle, the F-150 Lightning pickup truck. […]

22 States Raised the Minimum Wage: What Does This Mean for Low-Skilled Workers?

By Vance Ginn On January 1st, 22 states and 38 cities and counties raised their minimum wages, sparking some celebration for 10 million workers who get a pay hike, and many doubts for the rest. While this is perhaps a well-intentioned policy, intentions don’t indicate a policy’s effectiveness. Many economists argue that this decision will disadvantage the people it […]

Airlines Prioritize Wokeness Over Safety: But at What Cost?

By Family Research Council My dad is a certified physician assistant. As such, he often shares spontaneous medical advice with me (although part of that is just because he’s my dad and cares about my wellbeing.) For instance, some advice he’s given me that he would give to anyone is if you or someone you […]

What Would Happen if Climate Alarmists Enact Their Full US Agenda?

By Tyler O’Neil The global climate is always changing, but contrary to the popular narrative, the science of the exact causes is far from settled. Alarmists claim that humans burning fossil fuels for energy will catastrophically ruin the climate, and they demand a “net-zero” future to save the world. What would happen if the climate alarmists succeeded […]

KEVIN MOONEY: Biden Admin’s New Climate Rules Could Mean Big Payday For His Buddies, Burden For American Businesses

By The Daily Caller In a setback for former government officials and attorneys poised to cash in on proposed climate disclosure rules, the Securities and Exchange Commission continued to kick the ball down the road last year. Many of the objections raised in public comments revolve around so-called Scope 3 emissions that are not directly produced by companies and instead […]

Name the Enemy: Globalists. What do they want? Everything

By Karen Schoen I think I am beginning to dislike the word “Sustainable” . I think it is the most overused words in the past 3 years. Everything we touch or do, all products, actions must be sustainable. Yet does anyone know what Sustainable ,means`. according to the dictionary sustainable means: able to be maintained at a […]

America’s CEOs Are More Scared Of Country’s Huge Debt Than Anything Else

By The Daily Caller U.S. CEOs believe the country’s national debt and deficit are the greatest geopolitical risks to business operations in 2024, according to a survey from the research group organization The Conference Board. The U.S. national debt was put ahead of other top risks for CEOs, including the potential for an increase in […]

Inflation Soars As High Prices Continue To Squeeze Americans

By The Daily Caller Inflation rose year-over-year in December, even as the Federal Reserve projects interest rate cuts by the end of the year, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) release on Tuesday. The consumer price index (CPI), a broad measure of the prices of everyday goods, increased 3.4% on an annual […]

Second-Largest Foreign Owner Of U.S. Land Is A Chinese Communist Party Member

By The Daily Caller The second-largest foreign landowner in the U.S. is a Chinese billionaire who it has been determined is a member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), according to a Daily Caller News Foundation review of Chinese-language news reports. Chen Tianqiao, the founder, chairman and CEO of global investment firm Shanda Group, owns approximately 200,000 […]

New Report Highlights Green Failure In Europe And Warns America

By Editors of CFACT Editors’ Note: You may think that these are national and international issues only. They are not.  Your selection of who serves on the Arizona Corporation Commission is critical. In our Federal system, thankfully, still, some of these decisions are made on a state level. Arizona does not want to follow California […]

Used-Car Wholesale Prices Have Given Up 53% of their Crazy Pandemic Price Spike: Historic Plunge Continued in December

By Wolf Richter Used vehicle prices at auctions fell another 0.5% in December from November, seasonally adjusted; and by 2.0%, not seasonally adjusted, according to the Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index today. Manheim is the largest auto auction house in the US and a unit of Cox Automotive. Its auction venues sell about 5 million […]

$34 Trillion and Climbing

By Peter C. Earle Just before the start of 2024, the US Federal debt surpassed a new milestone: $34 trillion. In 2023 the US added $2.65 trillion in debt, the second largest annual increase in history after the 2020 increase of $4.5 trillion. Going back to 1995, Federal Debt has increased by just over $1 […]

‘True’ Unemployment Rate Is Double What The Gov’t Is Telling Us, Economists Say

By The Daily Caller A large section of Americans left the workforce following the COVID-19 pandemic and have not returned, and if the workforce returned to its previous size, the unemployment rate would be nearly double, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics analyzed by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The official unemployment […]

Two Things That Worry Me to Start 2024

By Bruce Bialosky There are more like how well my baseball team will do this coming season, but we need to focus on a couple of big issues that affect us all and our entire country. The first issue is our insane national budget deficit. One would think that since the effects of the pandemic receded […]

A Crisis Ignored Is A Crisis Fulfilled: A U.S. National Debt Odyssey

By Neland Nobel The question of debt and deficits has been vexing the US political system since chronic deficits began to be realized after the Great Society legislation of the 1960s.  But while troublesome, the issue has moved apparently to irrelevancy. The term “existential threat” gets tossed around easily today while the real existential threat […]

JOBS REPORT: IRS is the #2 Hirer in the Country, Government and Nationalized Healthcare Added the Most Jobs

By The Geller Report Private sector is in trouble. Manufacturing shed the most jobs. Despite government media lauding the jobs report, 683,000 fewer Americans were working last month and four to five million have simply disappeared from the workforce. – opted out. Job Gains Picked Up in December, Capping Year of Healthy Hiring Unemployment held […]