By William Yeatman, Cato Institute All told, Congress has authorized about $5.9 trillion in spending to address the social and economic fallout from the pandemic, of which $4.1 trillion has been disbursed or committed through the present, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget’s “COVID Money Tracker.” By now, more than […]
Tag: deficit
Economy Continues to Soar, Though Inflation Looms
By Robert Genetski Today’s employment report for May confirms that the economy continues to soar. Average hourly earnings rose at a 10 percent annual rate from the first quarter, a further indication of upcoming inflation. The Week That Was Economic news this past week continue to show business activity soaring in May. […]
How ‘functional finance’ becomes heavier taxation
by Enrico Colombatto, Austrian Economics Center Even before Western governments decided to fight Covid-19 by freezing their economies and inflating their debts, many countries had problematic public finance situations. Now, public debt is soaring almost everywhere and dealing with it has become a major issue. The solution so far has been to resort […]
Blackouts, Increasing Crime, Rampant Homelessness, And Man-Made Drought: Is This California Or A Third World Nation?
By Kerry Jackson, Pacific Research Institute While still trying to process the unwelcome news that we’re going to have to grind through yet another year of drought, California energy officials told us to also be ready for the power to go out when the days grow long and warm. “The managers of […]
Greenland’s Welfare Trap Replays in Canada
By Peter Holle, Frontier Centre For Public Policy This month, there was an unusual amount of international attention given to the Greenland election. This is a vast country with a tiny population of only 50,000. Every year, Denmark transfers $700 million to help fund Greenland’s government. This is a huge amount of […]
Biden’s Programs Would Fail for Many Reasons
By Chris Edwards, Cato President Biden is proposing to expand federal intervention in many areas that are the responsibility of state and local governments and the private sector. His $2.3 trillion jobs plan would subsidize broadband, automobiles, the electric grid, manufacturing, highways, transit, water systems, and much else. His $1.8 trillion families plan […]
Central Bank: A Blurred Entity
By Enrique Blasco Garma of Libertad y Progreso DATA CLAVE- The main purpose of the Central Bank of Argentina (BCRA) is to preserve the value of the currency. Inflation, which is now 75 years old, confirms the failure of BCRA. Why can’t it deliver? The State subordinates the value of the currency to finance the […]
EU should sell “safe” and “junior” bonds based on risk
“An option for the EU: blow up debt inside a bunker” By Sergio Baggiani, courtesy of IREF Debt mutualisation is an option to manage the expected rise of sovereign debt and the need for a greater supply of low-risk bonds. Yet, this option could run into political difficulties. European Bonds (details here, 2016) are […]
Time to start worrying about 2021 deficits
“Don’t worry about today’s borrowing numbers. It’s next year’s that should worry us” By Carl Emmerson, Benjamin Nabarro, and Isabel Stockton, courtesy of the IFS The ONS will release its latest monthly public finance estimates at 7 a.m. on Friday 19 June. They will show that across April and May government borrowing ran […]
Washington Beyond the Headlines: Feds Shouldn’t Cover State Budget Shortfalls
By Andy Blom, TES Washington Editor They say bad things come in threes. Well, we’ve had a pandemic, a wave of protests and riots, so what else does 2020 have in store for us? But no matter the obstacles, free market policy people keep right on working, offering perspective and policy options to lead […]