California political leaders’ latest plan to combat inflation involves flooding the state with free money. Late Sunday evening, Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, announced that he and the leaders of the state legislature had agreed to a budget deal that would send “inflation relief” checks of up to $1,050 to 23 million state residents. “California’s […]
Hours after the federal government released data showing that inflation hit a 40-year high in March 2022, President Joe Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin was responsible for “70 percent of the increase in prices.” Biden was partly right: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which caused much of the world to reduce or stop purchases of […]
Watching the finale to Obi-Wan Kenobi on Disney this week, with its grating mix of canned nostalgia and self-defeating grandiosity, I was reminded of New York Times columnist Ross Douthat’s argument that America has entered an age of decadence, effectively squandering its cultural and social inheritance. But in some ways what we’re seeing now is […]
Raise your hand if you’re surprised that the trillions of dollars spent on COVID-19 relief gave way to billions of dollars in government waste, fraud, and abuses. I’m not, but based on recent reporting, you might think this type of carelessness with taxpayers’ money has never before happened. Sadly, such waste and fraud are normal […]
In the hours before President Joe Biden held a press conference to officially call on Congress to approve a 90-day federal gas tax holiday, several prominent members of the president’s own party effectively killed the idea. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D–Ore.), chairman of the House Transportation Committee, released a statement Wednesday morning calling the idea “well-intentioned” […]
Skyrocketing inflation, a historic Fed interest rate hike, rock-bottom unemployment, employers begging for workers—and just about everyone else scared to see what the stock market has in store tomorrow. It’s unclear whether the economy is just suffering from a case of monetary and fiscal policy indigestion or if something deeper is going on. Can the […]
Interest rates are now 1.5 percentage points higher than they were a few months ago. On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point, following a 0.5 percentage point increase in May and a 0.25 percentage point increase in April. Yesterday’s rate increase is the single biggest interest rate hike […]
Bitcoin is trading under $23,000 as I write this, which means the value of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency has lost about $45,000 per coin since last November, when it was at about $68,000. Though the recent slide in the price of bitcoin has sent many speculators scrambling back to fiat currency, it’s done nothing to cool […]
This week on The Reason Roundtable, senior editors Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, and Peter Suderman discuss the beginning of the January 6 hearings, the inflation crisis reaching new heights, and the results of the June 7 elections. 1:24: The January 6 hearings 20:23 Inflation reaches its highest level in 40 years. 31:01 Weekly […]
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) went up again in May. Over the last year, prices across the economy increased an average of 8.6 percent, up from 8.5 percent in April’s year-over-year reading. And yet, inflation might be starting to go down. The reason for the paradox is that CPI, which tracks price changes in a […]