The Wall Street Journal writes on tomorrow’s FOMC rate announcement that “[a] long era of ultralow interest rates and bond-buying programs may be drawing to a close.” This is remarkable. The minuscule uptick from the .5-.75% range to a .75-1% range is hardly leaving behind ultralow interest rates. As can be seen in the chart below, a quarter percent rise in the federal funds rate will barely show up, when looking at rates from a longer-term perspective.

Nobel Laureate Kenneth Arrow has passed away at the age of 95. There are few people who can lay claim to a more profound influence on 20th-century economics. In fact, Arrow was the mainstream economist par excellence, contributing to many fields over the course of an almost seventy-year career.

The Congressional Budget office today reported that 24 million people would lose health insurance coverage under the Ryancare bill. Mainstream Republicans were not pleased to hear that.

After climbing to $1.315 trillion by July 2011, China’s holdings of US Treasuries have been in a downtrend closing at $1.058 trillion by December last year — a fall of 19.5%.

As a percentage of total foreign holdings of US Treasuries, China’s holdings fell from 28.2% in July 2011 to 17.6% by December 2016.

There is a strong consensus view that a sharp fall in China’s holdings of US Treasuries could seriously weaken the US dollar and cause a significant rise in the US interest rate structure. How realistic is this view?

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a magic bullet that would simultaneously raise wages and employment while also lowering prices for consumers?

In fact, those are just some of the benefits that reforming overly burdensome occupational licensing laws would provide, according to a report published by the White House Council of Economic Advisers, the Department of the Treasury, and the Department of Labor.

Since Donald Trump’s election, some leftists have been trotting out analyses showing that many states that voted for Trump are also states where federal spending plays a disproportionately large role in the statewide economy. In other words, many of those states that talk a lot about states rights and less federal government — it is pointed out — also receive an especially large amount of federal spending in that state. 

Perhaps one of the more interesting aspects of the Trump administration has been the way that the CIA and the American intelligence establishment has come under public scrutiny in a way not seen for decades. Due to Wikileaks and other whistleblowers such as Edward Snowden, the activities of these intelligence agencies have increasingly come to light. In turn, even some of the more outlandish charges against intelligence agencies appear increasingly plausible.

The BBC reports today that Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon has announced she’ll seek a new referendum on Scottish independence to be held in late 2018 or early 2019: