Tag Archives: Featured

Government censorship has shifted to the forefront of American conversation with the recent passing of H.R. 752, which would essentially ban TikTok; this development, which has passed the House and is on its way to the Senate, is igniting debating on how much involvement the government should have in social media.This debate is not new, considering the government has been intervening in social media for years. For example, this is not the first time the federal...

According to a new report from the federal government's Bureau of Labor Statistics this week, the US economy added 303,000 jobs for the month of March while the unemployment rate fell slightly to 3.8%. In what has become a familiar pantomime, reporters from the legacy media were sure to declare this a "blowout jobs report" while Richmond Fed president Tom Barkin described the report as "quite strong." This report showed, however, that the jobs economy continues to...

Thirty major central banks are expected to cut rates in the second half of 2024, a year when more than seventy nations will have elections, which often means massive increases in government spending. Additionally, the latest inflation figures show stubbornly persistent consumer price annualized growth.In the United States, headline PCE inflation in February will likely grow by 0.4%, compared with a 0.3% rise in January, and consensus expects a 2.5% annualized rate,...

In the vast pantheon of history, black people have been both victims and oppressors. Yet history has been so politicized that we hear endlessly about the former and almost never about the latter. Rhetoric has eclipsed facts. It is a fact, for example, that Africans participated in the transatlantic slave trade. History is now frequently used as a cudgel to hammer white people into submission.Instead of recognizing nuance and complexity, many who should know better...

The March US employment data were stronger than expected and lend support to the re-acceleration hypothesis and an extension of US exceptionalism. In Q1 24, nonfarm payrolls rose by an average of 276k. It was the strongest quarter in a year and compares with an average monthly job gain of about 251k in 2023. The unemployment rate slipped as the household survey jumped around 500k after falling in the previous two months. The workweek increased, and the participation...

Every year, thousands of Nigerian youths who are below the age of thirty and who’ve completed their undergraduate studies—whether in Nigeria or abroad—are compelled by law to give up one year of their working time in active duty to the country under the auspices of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), an agency of the government.It has now been fifty years since the establishment of the NYSC mandatory program under Decree No. 24 of May 22, 1973 by the...

What happens when war shuts down the Strait of Hormuz? Mark looks at the economics and causes of a growing list of problems with the "chokepoints" of international trade: the Panama Canal, the Suez Canal, and Baltimore harbor. Will these chokepoints become scapegoats for the Federal Reserve, and could war closing the Strait of Hormuz become a genuine world crisis?Be sure to follow Minor Issues at Mises.org/MinorIssues.Get your free copy of Dr. Guido...

Who’s Afraid of Gender?by Judith ButlerFarrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024; 308 pp.Judith Butler is a well-known feminist theorist, and one approaches her latest book with interest, all the more so because of its puzzling title. By “gender,” Butler means the view that the roles of men and women in society are not determined by biology but vary in different cultures and times and, further, that there are some people who do not fit within the “binary” categories of men and...

Day-to-day we don’t hear much about the commercial office property crash. As The Fed’s Michael Barr said at an event hosted by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition in Washington, “This is the kind of thing where it’s likely to be a very slow-moving train as the financial sector and commercial real estate market move forward,” he said, adding that refinancing deals will play out in the next few years. “It’ll take some time.”Barr, the vice chair for...

“Genocide Joe” and the foreign agents knowns as the “American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), whose Israel-First focus makes them a fifth column; Trump with Jared Kushner and his better-half: These are America’s 2024 election options.The Biden-AIPAC bloc has begun whispering sweet nothings in the ears of Israel’s Benny Gantz (National Unity Party), ostensible rival of Bibi Netanyahu (Likud). The AIPAC-run Biden bloc would like you to believe that a chasm in...