The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model has steadily dropped from above 3% growth forecasted for Q1 2017 down to just barely positive as of today: 0.2%. Here is the reasoning from the Atlanta Fed:

April 27 marks the birthday of Herbert Spencer, which is worth noting in several respects. He was a polymath who made important contributions in many areas, including political theory and philosophy. He achieved greater widespread popularity than any other English philosopher, and is thought to be the only philosopher to sell over a million books in his lifetime. In the famous Supreme Court case of Lochner vs. New York, the majority opinion and Oliver Wendell Holmes’ dissenting opinion both related to him.

Many analysts are venturing to link the crisis that plagues the Venezuelan economy with the fall in the price of crude oil. With oil being one of the most important commodities in Venezuelan production and the country’s main export product, it seems that the fall in the price would bring any country with an economic structure similar to Venezuela’s into a crisis. Similarly, many assume that the problems in Ecuador have the same root as those in Venezuela, although less pronounced.

Many left libertarians demand open borders. Nations have no significance, they tell us. To think otherwise, to recognize any limits to immigration, arbitrarily restricts people’s liberty. Those of us who think otherwise, they say, are no better than fascists.

Joe Salerno’s brilliant and comprehensive article, “Mises on Nationalism, the Right to Self-Determination, and the Problem of Immigration” shows that Mises rejected the extreme anti-nationalist, open borders position.

“Science,” the method by which we understand the world and apply knowledge to improve human existence, is the latest casualty of the Progressive agenda. On April 22, 2017, several million people gathered at March for Science rallies across the United States to “stand up for science.” But surely science needs no publicity stunt in the industrialized world, where the benefits of scientific advancements — cars, electricity, cell phones, and the internet — are widely accepted. So what exactly are these demonstrators promoting?

Paul-Martin Foss has put together a great overview of possible Fed appointees should Trump replace Yellen upon expiration of her term as Fed Chair. One individual who has come to the surface since Foss’ article is former Goldman Sachs CEO and quintessential Wall Street establishmentarian Gary Cohn.

CNBC:

Following up on his successful and highly regarded James Madison and the Making of America (St. Martin’s, 2012), Kevin Gutzman has returned with a fresh look at Jefferson in Thomas Jefferson, Revolutionary: A Radical’s Struggle to Remake America. It could well have been called The Jefferson Nobody Knows.

Minneapolis Fed President Neil Kashkari spoke on Monday and came out against the idea that infrastructure spending was going to lead to economic growth. No, this doesn’t mean he has been keeping up to date with David Stockman, or cracked open Mises’s Theory of Money and Credit.

As Americans were spending time scrambling to give the IRS their annual protection fee, the court system in the United Kingdom, at the behest of National Health Service bureaucrats, abducted and murdered an 8-month-old baby. This brazen abduction was done in broad daylight with full press coverage and the UK government and courts claimed loudly this was humane and the right thing to do.