The student debt crisis isn’t a natural market phenomenon; it’s the predictable result of decades of government interference. Since 1980, average tuition and fees have increased by 1,200 percent, while consumer price inflation has risen only 236 percent over the same period. This massive increase has left students and families struggling to keep up, often forcing them to take on substantial debt just to attend college.
Economics, at its core, is the study of cause-and-effect relationships—analyzing how scarce resources, which have alternative uses, are allocated. Individuals respond to incentives, costs, and opportunity costs based on the subjective value each individual places on the choices they make. It is these choices that shape the outcomes we observe in society. Thomas Sowell reminds us, “Incentives are not just monetary—they include prestige, risk, fear, power, and pleasure. People respond to all of them.”
We’re now in the second week of Trump’s so-called “takeover” of Washington, DC, where he’s formally federalized the city’s police and mobilized national guard troops and federal agents to help crack down on crime. So far, a few hundred people have been arrested.
According to the July Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, prices rose by 2.7 percent over the past year, and by 3.1 percent when the “volatile” food and housing sectors are removed from the calculation.
Markets rose following the release of the CPI since the increase in price inflation was not as high as expected. This led to an increase in expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates next month.
In a candid interview with The Times of India, Steve Hanke, Professor of Applied Economics at Johns Hopkins and Distinguished Senior Scholar at the Mises Institute, calls the Trump–Putin Alaska summit “a photo-op,” arguing Russia already holds the upper hand in Ukraine. He explains why Moscow has the leverage and what it means for U.S. strategy and global security.
“If government spending is cut too fast, we’ll end up in a recession,” is a popular warning against cutting massive federal spending. But is it true? Will cutting federal spending really sink the economy into a recession? To answer this question, we need careful economic analysis.
The price of table rice in Japan has skyrocketed. As of June 2025, the average wholesale price had reached 27,102 yen per 60 kilograms. That’s 452 yen per kilogram —or roughly $3.12 at the current exchange rate. In retail, the average price of a 5-kilogram bag had surpassed 4,285 yen ($29.50). Compared to 2021, the price of table rice had more than doubled, causing widespread unease among the Japanese public.
The passage of Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” has once again raised the issue of tax loopholes.
Founded in 1971, Amtrak set out on a bold adventure to see if passenger trains could be profitable. Fast forward to today, and this experiment has been unsuccessful. Politicians have often chosen routes to win votes rather than attract riders. As a result, Amtrak has been squandering taxpayer money for 54 years.
In his book Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, the Marxist historian Eric Foner advances a revisionist history of the Reconstruction Era. In his preface, he explains why revisionist history is important:
