Commentaries

Warsh and Bessent should be comfortable with such a banking maneuver from their days on Wall Street.

The Fed chairman fixates on the possible effects of tariffs but has said nothing about other tax hikes.

The shale story goes that the easy targets have all been drilled. But today’s easy targets were yesterday’s hard targets. The skeptics, as always, are blind to the roles of shale experience and technology.

‘The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.’

Their economic effect is minimal, but reordering the world-trade system would be dangerous.

Why doesn’t he get credit for strong growth? In part because he can’t defend his immigration policies.

An appeals court rejects the CFTC’s arbitrary order to shut down the political futures market.

Price increases would have eased without the Fed’s tightening, which we will soon see was overkill.

Regulators shut down an online market for futures contracts related to political outcomes.

It will keep inflation high—and markets know it.

The Fed should ask Milton Friedman. When growth of the money supply slows, so does the increase in prices.

The Fed has done nothing that the Treasury couldn’t have done on its own.

Some big companies rose to the occasion during the pandemic and did well. But there were losers too.

New data suggest that social distancing and reopening haven’t determined the spread.

They’re good for ordinary investors and for economic growth.

Central bankers insist on promoting inflation. What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.

OPEC would have had to cut output anyway, given the dramatic increase in American production.

Sure, the size of the balance sheet is holding steady, but leaving riskier assets in the market will slow growth.

The chairman made the case last year for easing if the yield curve inverts—as it did in March.

It’s like a drinking contest: You harm yourself and hope your opponent isn’t able to withstand as much.

P/E ratios may seem high, but policy changes augur much better earnings in the coming years.

Proposing to abolish the state and local tax deduction is the best GOP reform hope.

With three Trump appointees, the Fed is likely to move toward rules-based policy.

Instead of making the tax ‘border adjustable,’ simply lower rates to 15%, as the president-elect proposes.

The economy depends on whether the protectionist or the tax-cutter shows up.

After 16 years of malaise, voters are responding to his call to make America competitive again.

Will Trump be a madman for capitalism?

Misery for oil incumbents from the fracking boom is spilling into the global economy. But there is cause for optimism.

Oil production is becoming a modern manufacturing process, with frackers using the ‘just-in-time’ approach.

The labor market is now the least dynamic it's ever been, thanks to multiple policy errors.

The banking crisis in Cyprus prompted an overdue financial reckoning that, with luck, will spell the end of "too big to fail."

We can estimate the value of stock purchases the Fed is enabling.

Do the math on dividend taxes. Yields lower, stock prices lower — maybe by 30%.

Following Germany's lead, euro-zone nations are pursuing pro-growth reforms that Reagan and Thatcher would admire.

This is Romney's moment to distinguish himself by making a moral case for free-market capitalism.

No one ever questions George Soros money, but apparently this $1.5 million gift violates academic freedom.

The author of "Atlas Shrugged" was an individualist, not a conservative, and she knew big business was as much a threat to capitalism as government bureaucrats.

The 30% price spike to date isn't big enough to be a major shock, and the economy is less vulnerable today than it was in the expansion's late stages in 2008.

Tariffs against China and failure to extend the Bush-era tax cuts would repeat the worst mistakes of the Great Depression.

Stock prices show we've dodged another depression, but toxic, antibusiness rhetoric and policy errors like the Dodd-Frank bill are hurting the still-fragile recovery.

Mass conversions to Roth IRAs could produce a gusher of revenue, reducing our budget deficit by as much as half next year.

The reaction to Scott Brown's victory has been a lurch toward antibusiness rhetoric. The stock market doesn't like it.

Everyday investors shouldn't be punished for a subprime fiasco fueled by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The Fed fears unemployment more than rising prices.

It's no different from selling your house without a real estate listing.

The New York Fed’s president says it can. If only it were that easy.

How botched bailouts doomed companies that didn't need to fail.

The evidence on presidents, economic growth and stocks.

A nation of exaggerators: Things today just aren't that bad.

How more taxes now will mean more taxes later.

Investment funds are not hoarding gas.

Hmmm. Perhaps Charlie Rangel is on to something.

The last thing Ben Bernanke should be worrying about is what his predecessor would have done.

The revenue maximizing tax rate is almost surely zero.

Why slap a windfall profits tax on oil companies when they are already paying one?

The death of income mobility has been greatly exaggerated.

Despite reporting distortions, a congressional report shows the rich pay proportionately more in taxes while all income earners do better.

Gone are the hopes that Schwarzenegger would bring his own brand of Austrian economics.

The legislative attack on accounting fraud isn't about accounting — it's about political power, and higher taxes.

Luskin and Brenner strike back, answering a critic of their approach to accounting for options expense.

The zero-expense frying pan or the fair-value fire? There's a better solution.
 

Options induce management to dedicate much effort and time to managing perceptions rather than the company.

The current push to "expense" stock options is economically wrong. The right solution is to put them on the company's balance sheet.

Options are risky derivatives that represent risky claims on human capital — they should appear on companies' balance sheets.

Legislation masquerading as a post-Enron financial reform conceals a monstrous multi-billion-dollar tax hike.

Under Senate Bill 1940, every company that issues stock options would be hit with an enormous tax hike — but technology companies that use options extensively would be hit especially hard.

Kicking Silicon Valley when it’s down with a huge tax increase is a dangerous idea.