Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jake Scott
“India has entered 2026 facing more economic challenges than headline growth figures alone would suggest. While the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has upgraded India’s growth projections for the 2025-26 economic year to 7.3% (up from 6%), the composition and durability of that growth is increasingly hostage to external shocks, policy trade-offs, and structural constraints, especially as the global economy grows more volatile. The challenge for New Delhi is not whether the Indian economy can grow — that is clearly evident — but whether it can seize the opportunities to continue this growth in an era of global instability.” (01/23/26)
Source: Cato Institute
by Ryan Bourne and Nathan Miller
“In recent years, I’ve offered several critiques of inflation theories variously described as ‘greedflation,’ ‘sellers’ inflation’ or ‘profit-led inflation.’ The economist Christopher Conlon has now offered a more formal treatment in a forthcoming paper in the International Journal of Industrial Organization. He comes to the same conclusions.” (01/23/26)
“You hear that, MAGA? You got that, America Firsters? Your Dear Leader acknowledges that he has not been an America Firster at all, but a Nobel Peace Prize for Trump Firster. His goal wasn’t to Make America Great Again, but to make his White House or Mar-a-Lago mantelpiece great.” (01/23/26)
“Last year, a controversial pest control bill started making its way through the General Assembly. The legislation, which passed through the senate, would prevent civil ‘failure to warn’ liability lawsuits from being filed against pesticide manufacturers and sellers in Tennessee as long as they have an EPA-approved label. Toward the end of last session, the House Judiciary Committee voted to place the bill on 2026’s calendar. The legislation was on the committee’s agenda for this Wednesday, with rumors that a new amendment rewriting the bill would be introduced by Rep. Johnny Garrett (R-Goodlettsville). But when Wednesday rolled around, the bill was taken off notice, pausing its progress once again. The Lead Up Groups in favor of the GOP-sponsored legislation include the Tennessee Farm Bureau and the Modern Ag Alliance, which Bayer founded to protect, defend, and ensure continued farmer access to crop protection tools (specifically glyphosate) amidst mounting legal challenges.” (01/23/25)
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Garrett Gravley
“In 2023, FIRE raised the following question: What’s going on in Florida? In light of recent affronts to academic freedom in the Sunshine State, we regret to raise this question once again.” (01/23/26)
“Since Donald Trump entered the American political fray, his opponents have been debating what kind of threat he poses to democracy, and what to do about it. In the New York Times last week, Michelle Goldberg declared that debate over in a column headlined ‘The Resistance Libs Were Right.’ The obvious question is: About what? Were they right to label him a fascist? That depends on what you mean by the term. As the Justice Department prosecutes Trump’s enemies, the military stages smash-and-grab raids on foreign countries and masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents storm through U.S. cities, it’s hard to deny that the resistance libs were correct about some important things …. But when ordinary people hear ‘Trump is a fascist,’ they aren’t primed for an academic debate …” (01/23/26)
“Modern governments send a clear signal to their workers: individual citizens do not matter very much. Feedback for government is often collective rather than personal, delayed rather than immediate, and symbolic rather than material. As a result, government bureaucrats rationally optimize for rule compliance and blame avoidance, not for responsiveness, goodwill, or basic courtesy. … Suppose taxpayers received a small share of their yearly taxed salary, say 1%, that they could allocate annually to adjust the compensation (up or down) of specific government employees, agency heads, or even departments as a whole.” (01/23/26)
“The title of Robert Bidinotto’s bracing new collection, Rebel in Eden: The War Between Individualism and Environmentalism, may occasion objection to the word ‘environmentalism.’ Of course, if ‘environmentalism’ pertained only to how best to reduce pollution and litter and so forth, who would have need to combat it? Freedom-minded individualists, for example, would debate means, not ends. But that’s not the kind of thing that the environmentalists themselves — or ‘radical environmentalists,’ to distinguish them from people who manage cleanup crews — focus on.” (01/23/26)
