Capitalism

Just look at all the power she wants to give the executive branch in the legislation she pushes in Congress.

A guide for the perplexed.

Alan Jacobs on how Silicon Valley came to dominate our vision of the future.

You’ve got to admit it’s getting better.

'Suicide of the West' is a big, baggy, sometimes brilliant case for gratitude and perpetuation.

The Scrapbook is old enough to remember when socialism was popular the first time. It went out of fashion when even liberal intellectuals noticed that it produced only misery wherever it was tried, but now it’s popular again. An avowed socialist captured the hearts of young voters in 2016 (and…

Investment companies that run index funds—which merely seek to replicate the ups and downs of a broader market index and that entail no investment strategy by any managers—are becoming ever more popular, with a greater proportion of our retirement savings are going into them. Forty percent of all…

Oakland, Calif.

Oakland, Calif.

Over the years Irwin Stelzer has been one of my favorite economists. He is a direct, yet graceful, writer, a clear thinker, and an analyst possessing large amounts of both humility and charitability. I like to think of him as the anti-Krugman.

French Guiana

In the heart of Wall Street, a new statue is causing quite a kerfuffle. Sponsored by State Street Global Advisors, one of the world’s largest asset-management firms, the "Fearless Girl" was installed earlier this year to stand in front of the famous "Charging Bull" in Bowling Green Park, just a…

In the heart of Wall Street, a new statue is causing quite a kerfuffle. Sponsored by State Street Global Advisors, one of the world's largest asset-management firms, the "Fearless Girl" was installed earlier this year to stand in front of the famous "Charging Bull" in Bowling Green Park, just a…

Picture in your mind, for a moment, the Monopoly man. You know, the guy in the Parker Brothers board game who has a top hat and white handlebar mustache. He makes his money in real estate and railroads. Think how he probably invested that money.

For several years I enjoyed an affiliation with a "lifestyle" magazine that specialized in the toys and enthusiasms of the well-to-do. As a result my email address fell into the twitchy fingers of several thousand—or so it seems to me—public relations firms with names like Chill Strategics and…

For several years I enjoyed an affiliation with a “lifestyle" magazine that specialized in the toys and enthusiasms of the well-to-do. As a result my email address fell into the twitchy fingers of several thousand—or so it seems to me—public relations firms with names like Chill Strategics and…

Irving Kristol famously wrote in 1978 that we might offer "two cheers for capitalism"—an insight borrowed from E.M. Forster's similar suggestion about democracy. The phrase is a call for restraint among supporters of free-market economics. Kristol himself said he and his fellow neoconservative…

“If you think you can stop me," Edison said softly, "go ahead and try. But you'll have to do it in the dark."

The American system of market-based capitalism is in trouble. And the reasons are not the ones commonly cited. The trouble is not that the financial system came close to collapse in the fall of 2008: We have experienced panics before, and the ability of the political and regulatory authorities to…

In one of his gag appearances, this one as a 2000-year old man, Mel Brooks was asked to name the greatest invention he had witnessed in his long life. “Saran wrap,” he shot back. A useful product, surely, but if environmentalists had the power they now have, unlikely to have emerged from the lab…

They are men, mostly. They are young, mostly. They are visionaries on a mission -- to systematize and make all the world’s knowledge accessible (Google); to connect all the world’s people with each other (Facebook); to change the way books are read and the sound of music is heard (Apple, Amazon);…

Free trade is a huge benefit if you are a Walmart shopper. All those microwave ovens, lamps, sneakers, and other stuff available for a relative pittance. It’s a tragedy if you are a domestic manufacturer or worker attempting to compete with cheap labor and subsidized Chinese manufacturers pouring…

At long last we are emerging from the blind alleys down which the debate about income inequality seems to have wandered. The first such dead end was marked “fairness.” The top tenth of one percent of earners feel the tax system unfairly expropriates too large a portion of their incomes, bloated…

This week we have entry #5,740,412 in the ledger documenting "Why Not Every Market-Based Outcome Is Optimal." And that’s the Yahoo purchase of Tumblr.

Two recent news items highlight the issue of income inequality in America. First, a study by the Pew Research Center found that the net worth of the upper 7 percent has risen by 28 percent since 2009 while the net worth of everybody else has dropped by 4 percent. Second, a recent poll conducted by…

Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren backed away from her statement that supporters of hers from Wall Street tell her she could "save capitalism." The Boston Herald reports on the Democratic candidate's walkback:

Massachusetts Democrat Elizabeth Warren says Wall Street types tell her she could "save capitalism" if she wins her race for U.S. Senate. Here's what Warren recently told a reporter, National Journal reports:

Last week I wrote a long exegesis on microtasking and the future of temporary, remote workers. I only dabbled in microtasking on Amazon's Mechanical Turk exchange, but reader D. Bush uses it often and writes in about her experience:

President Obama, envious of China’s economic model, proclaimed his admiration for the high-speed railways, bridges, skyscrapers, and solar panels that China is building.  (“That used to be us,” he famously said – a line apparently so powerful it became the title of a book.) But even the Chinese…

Remembering Friedrich Hayek, whose birthday is today. He was a philosopher and economist and wrote many wise things, including this:

"We have no plan” and “we are unable to act” have become common refrains among influential Americans who grumble about the decline of U.S. power in the 21st century. On both fronts, they lament, China is doing better. From President Barack Obama to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman to trade…

America’s more or less free-market capitalism is not under threat from Marxist-Leninism: That system’s demonstrated failures have consigned it to the ash-heap of history. Nor is it under threat from China’s system of managed economy plus political repression: We can’t even abide police breaking up…

There’s a lot of silliness on all sides of the Bain Capital debate.

There’s a line of thinking you often hear from Republican-types about how markets are never wrong. You think a certain CEO’s lavish compensation is ridiculous? Nonsense, those types tell you. You think that a CEO’s VORP—that’s a baseball stat that translates, in this case, to the CEO’s marginal…

Two very important changes have occurred in America, and indeed in other Western economies. My guess is that they will prove to be permanent phenomena, just as permanent as the changes introduced by Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Newt Gingrich has adopted an anti-free market argument—a favorite of the political left—to criticize Mitt Romney. Gingrich accused his rival of making money by “bankrupting companies and laying off employees” in his years at Bain Capital.

Via Josh Trevino's twitter feed, I see that Michael Moore has another screed about Occupy Wall Street up at Daily Kos. These things are usually best ignored, but this bit where Moore defends his sizable personal wealth is priceless:

As Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s prepares to speak at the United Nations, it is tempting to dismiss his anti-American rants as just another propaganda stunt. But what makes his remarks difficult to ignore is that large segments of the Iranian population will buy into them. And that…

Wealth & Justice: The Morality of Democratic Capitalism