Central planners have a way of brushing unpleasant and inconvenient questions away without bothering to come to an answer. Those promoting electric vehicles (EVs) are no exception. One of those awkward questions concerns how already shaky electricity grids, undermined by the decarbonization process, are going to cope with the extra demand ...

NPR: The U.S. economy shrank in the last three months by 0.9%. This is the second consecutive quarter where the economy has contracted. In the first quarter, GDP, or gross domestic product, decreased at an annual rate of 1.6%. While two consecutive quarters of negative growth is often considered a recession, it's not an official definition. ...

The week of June 13, 2022: Why energy companies could go private, inflation, the Fed, antitrust, and much, much more. I think that it's fair to say that Harold Hamm has had enough. Harold Hamm? In a recent Wall Street Journal article Hamm, (who has written for NR in the past) was described as the billionaire fracking pioneer who helped launch ...

We're always being told by the Joe Bidens and Boris Johnsons of this world about the tremendous employment opportunities that will be created by the new green economy, claims that normally focus on new jobs rather than (unsurprisingly) jobs lost. When I hear those claims, I often find myself wondering what the net picture will be. ...

There was a time when the Biden administration used to claim that the surge in inflation was a brief “transitory” thing, something to be deplored, but something that did at least have the merit of being temporary. That didn’t work out. And now, gas prices. . . . The New York Post quotes President Biden as follows: “When it comes to the gas ...

The buck may have stopped at Harry Truman's desk, but today's eroding dollar is having trouble finding a berth in Joe Biden's Oval Office. For much of last year, the president insisted that inflation was temporary. (To be fair, the Federal Reserve claimed something similar.) But with prices likely to continue rising at a brisk pace for some time ...

We've all become rather too used to hearing sermons from BlackRock's Larry Fink on the importance of including ESG as part of every responsible investor's toolkit. ESG? The idea that portfolio companies or potential portfolio companies should be analyzed to see how well they do when measured against various environmental, social, and ...

A Tax Hike So Destructive that It Needs (But Won't Get) a Cartel to Contain the Damage Cartels generally operate in predictable ways. One of those predictable ways is that they attempt to keep prices high. Part of the price of government is tax. It is unsurprising, therefore, that Janet Yellen has floated the "bold" (NPR's adjective, not ...

Welcome to the Capital Note, a newsletter about business, finance and economics. On the menu today: the Fed joins the climate club, the end of the free Internet (maybe), California (still) looking at tax increases, New York’s food vendor crunch, and a worrying case for leveraged buyouts. The Fed Crosses A Green Line This has been well flagged, ...

The 'Great Reset' masterminded by the World Economic Forum is just corporatism by another name. Writing for The Spectator US, Ben Sixsmith gets to grips with “the Great Reset” now being proposed by the World Economic Forum (“Davos”). And yes, despite a name that sounds as if it were conjured up in some of conspiracism’s danker fever swamps, ...