Commentary Why is economic output per person seven times higher on one side of the U.S.–Mexico border than on the other? Why is per capita income in Taiwan almost three times higher than it is in China? What explains the fact that the average Canadian is 12 times richer than the average Moroccan? We are…

Commentary What is inflation doing to the culture? For a clue, have a look at trends in household economics. Start with credit card debt, which is now rising 14 percent per year in the United States, after having fallen dramatically during 2020 lockdowns. People wisely used stimulus payments to pay off some debt. That is…

Commentary Consumer retail spending right now is one of the few measures of economic activity that has not hit the skids. It rose two months ago, was flat last month, but there is every indication that it is rising again, as people dig deep to cough up to pay much higher bills while trying their…

Commentary If you were on vacation last week, good for you. You missed one of Congress’s greatest-ever scams. They just approved some $750 billion (do these numbers even mean anything anymore?) to “transition” us from fossil fuels and coal over to reliance on the wind and sun, and also to subsidize a bunch of chip…

Commentary The debate about whether we are in a recession—it dominated the news over the weekend—has become a war of words with high political significance but low real-world meaning for the average person. The real story is about what people are doing to survive the times. They are bailing on high-end groceries and raiding the…

News Analysis Now that the lockdown, mask, and mandate wars have died down, I’m getting calls from friends who two years ago cut me off because of my writings and views. They are also looking for insight into the unfolding economic chaos around them. And of course they want some insight into how best to…

Commentary WALL, South Dakota—Everything about Wall Drug, arguably the most iconic and long-lasting drugstore in America, exemplifies a doggedness. It took persistence to not only survive, but also thrive against insurmountable odds in a place few thought a small business had any business starting an enterprise in the first place. In 1931, when Ted Hustead…