According to the Treasury Department’s monthly report on spending and tax revenue, the US Federal government is still very much on track to finish the fiscal year with more than two trillion dollars in new debt. Nor is there any sign so far of any significant change in spending patterns since Donald Trump was sworn in in late January.
The Spring 2025 issue of the Independent Review—a quarterly journal published by the libertarian-leaning Independent Institute in Oakland, California—features several papers presented at a retrospective symposium on Robert Higgs’s contributions to our understanding of government expansion during times of upheaval or crisis. Higgs’s original work—and the symposium’s comments on it—can help economists and historians looking ahead to possible future trajectories for the country.
Jamaica has emerged as a prime destination for investment under the leadership of Prime Minister Andrew Holness. The country has fostered a business-friendly environment, and recent legislative reforms suggest that conditions for investors will continue to improve.
My book The Austrian School of Economics. Concepts and Theories has just been published as part of the Palgrave Studies in Austrian Economics series, edited by David Howden and Philipp Bagus. The book provides a comprehensive overview of the Austrian School at an intermediate level, aiming to bridge the gap between introductory texts and the advanced treatises by Böhm-Bawerk, Mises, and Rothbard.
Anyone who follows college football is aware of the unceremonious divorce between the University of Tennessee Volunteers and the team’s star quarterback, Nico Iamaleava. Just as the original multi-million-dollar NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) deal with Iamaleava a few years ago was considered to be ground-breaking, this also is the first time that we have had a “holdout” situation in which an athlete refused to play unless he received a pay raise.
Homebuyers rush to riskier loans, as tariff turmoil pushes interest rates higher: The share of borrowers applying for adjustable-rate loans jumped to the highest in over two years, mortgage rates jumped 20 basis points in one week, homebuyers pulled back, despite much higher inventory of homes for sale.
According to press accounts, the Trump administration, which some right-wing libertarians have humorously described as being “antiwar,” is now contemplating dropping bombs on Mexico.
The Trump adviser who wants to rewrite the global financial system: Stephen Miran, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, outlined his idea in a 41-page essay titled “A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System”.
