Price discrimination by needless complexity
(This is another script for a forthcoming weekly rant. Recycling disclaimer.)
Economics
The Grumpy Economist.
News, views, and commentary from a free market point of view.
Recent essays
30 of 65Some simple principles for taxation and spending
This appeared in the Hoover Freedom Frequency, and Commons Dispatch, but for any of you who don’t read that, here it is, with a few tweaks.
Saving the Welfare State
I was invited to the “Festival Internazionale dell’ Economia” in Turin, to speak about inflation and debt.
Two New Papers
It is still thrilling when a paper is finally published.
Affordability Trilogy, Part 3. Why is the free market so unpopular?
[This is a third post based on scripts for the “weekly rant.” ]
Affordability Trilogy, Part 2
[This is based on a second script for an upcoming “weekly rant.” Part 1 explored an interesting WSJ survey on how popular populist policies are.]
A Great Nobel
As you may have heard, Mike Woodford and Bob Hall won the 2026 Nobel prize.
Affordability Part 1
[This is based on a script for an upcoming “weekly rant”.
An Inflation-Protected Balance Sheet
A Substack lets me share fun new ideas.
Political economy in financial regulation
Interest-paying electronic money, completely safe without deposit insurance, would be a great thing.
Better Debt
The dog that didn’t bark is often meaningful.
Media Update
The link to Barron’s was wrong in my previous post. The correct link below:
Media
I’ve done a variety of video and other media lately that (some) readers may find interesting.
More on lower rates
This follows up my last post on lowering rates to lower inflation.
Reasons to Lower Rates
Is there a coherent story in which the Fed should lower interest rates now?
French Fables
An interesting brouhaha has broken out in France, lately famous for reinvigorating the idea of wealth taxes: The French government should default on (“annul” “cancel” — the left is great at euphemisms) its debt held by the European Central Banks.
Interest Rate Surge?
US long term interest rates are surging.
Wealth Tax 2.0
Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Ro Khanna just introduced a bill proposing a permanent national 5% wealth tax on billionaires, along with an ambitious spending program for the results.
Three news items and a lesson
Today, a few small recent economic news items add up to a bigger picture.
Raise rates? Warsh's conundrums
Inflation is stubbornly high, and the Fed mulls whether to raise rates.
AI regulation
I prepared two “weekly rants” on AI which will come out in a few weeks.
Pay Your Debts: Alexander Hamilton
This is an essay I wrote for Hoover’s Freedom Frequency substack, in their series on the founders.
Trade Basics
Follow the money past the initial recipient.
Warsh's Challenges, Financial Regulation
I wrote two opeds on the future of the Fed for the Washington Post. Full text of the first one, focusing on monetary policy, in my previous post here. The second focusing on financial regulation is joint with Amit Seru.
Sluggish expectations
As part of a big revision of “Inflation”, a short book resulting from last year’s Brunner lecture, I wrote the following short section.
Warsh's Challenges: Monetary Policy (full version)
This is an OpEd at the Washington Post. Their title: “How to protect the economy from the ghosts of 1979.” (Really 1951!) I posted an excerpt a month ago. Here is the full version.
On a report to the G7
The G7 (Group of 7) economic confab is on in the lovely Evian-Les-Bains, France.
Wealth tax equilibrium accounting
The recent Piketty-Saez-Stiglitz revival of wealth taxes, ostensibly to improve the lot of the poor, makes many mistakes.
Shock Accounting.
The lab-leak shock really caused inflation
Supply Shocks and Nominal Anchors
Updating “Inflation,” I took “supply” and “demand” shocks more seriously, in a FTPL framework.