PERIODIC ECONOMIC REVOLUTIONS REQUIRED TO CLEAN OUT THE ROTTEN AND EXCESSIVE GOVERNMENT OSLO, Norway — Norway would be almost the ideal country if it were not a bit cold for my tastes. This country of 5½ million with almost no crime has the fourth-highest per capita...

Which is the correct statement: A. Almost all of the current global warming is caused by human activity. B. Human activity is having a minor effect on climate change. C. No one precisely knows how much of the current warming is caused by man? The correct statement is...

XI HAS PUTIN RIGHT WHERE HE WANTS HIM President Xi Jinping of China is probably looking at the Russian debacle in Ukraine and thinking, “Putin needs me, but I don’t need him.” China has ten times the GDP and population of Russia. China produces almost everything, and...

KEEP THE BRITISH MONARCHY AND THE QUEEN ON THE MONEY With the passing of the queen, there has been much discussion about whether the monarchy and all the various paper currencies with a portrait of the queen should be replaced. I have a one-word answer: Never! At one...

The annual Economic Report of the World was just published by the Fraser Institute and a number of other think tanks. The authors of the Report measure economic freedom on a number of dimensions, including the size of government and taxation, legal system and property...

Do you understand quantum physics? I didn’t think so! There are few physicists who claim to fully understand it, and there is still much disagreement among them about some core aspects of quantum physics. Nevertheless, much of it is proving to be very useful, and the...

Over the period from 1980 and 2018, “the world’s population rose by 71.2 percent, yet the average working time to earn enough money to buy 50 kinds of energy, food, raw materials, and metals fell by 71.6 percent. Put differently, the amount of effort required to buy 1...

The good news is that the world will be awash with clean and inexpensive energy; the bad news is that utopia may be up to a century off due to government drag. All too many people think you can just wish or legislate outcomes, such as “zero-carbon emissions by 2050,”...

If you had been aware of the following facts, would you have voted for the just-passed climate and health care bill? The bill includes major tax increases (including tax increases on people at all income levels), greatly increases government spending and will provide...

An economic and/or hot war between China and Taiwan will be a global economic and political disaster. Upon taking office, President Biden took actions to implement his promised war against the oil and gas industry. He shut down the Keystone Pipeline, restricted oil...

What is a recession? Who is to say? What is an economist, and who is to say? For many years after completing my graduate education, I called myself an economist with a certain pride — but these days not so much. I thought I was following in the footsteps of many great...

FOOD SHORTAGE AND SUBSTITUTIONS WILL IMPACT THE POOREST NATIONS THE MOST There is a tendency to call political opponents racist these days. The Biden folks are particularly prone to label those who disagree with them as having racist motives, when in fact people can...

LOOK TOWARD SRI LANKA AND THE NETHERLANDS Last week, there was a revolt against the government of Sri Lanka, where the president was forced to flee the country. During the past half century, Sri Lanka became a global success story — from a poor country to a...

Why is it that a major airplane crash gets so much press coverage? The main reason is that it is so rare. A century ago, flying in an airplane was very risky; now there is almost no way you can spend your time in greater safety. Why this remarkable change? Early on,...

A funny thing happened on the way to the “greens’ nirvana” of a zero-emission future without fossil fuels. Energy shortages started occurring, the cost of gasoline, heating oil, natural gas and electricity soared — and the voters did not like it. Many things sound...

INFLATION IS HERE TO STAY, BUT INNOVATORS WILL HELP MITIGATE SOME OF ITS PAIN AND DESTRUCTION Where does the world economy go? Inflation is rampant, with a global recession almost a certainty. And then there is the problem of endless growth in government — that saps...

Great inflations almost always end with a recession or depression. Some governments manage the end of inflation by creating policies to set the stage for a quick recovery and rapid growth, even though some months of pain are unavoidable. The best example of this was...

In a market economy, persistent shortages of goods and services are not supposed to occur, unlike in socialist economies. In free markets, if demand begins to exceed the supply for something, producers will raise prices until the point where supply and demand are in...