Source: The Daily Economy
by Antón Chamberlin
“GM’s production cuts and layoffs show why factories, equipment, and workers cannot adjust overnight. Industrial policy can leave lasting economic costs.” (10/14/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Ninos P Malek
“In a free market, businesses must satisfy customers to earn profits. Persistent losses can signal that resources would be better used elsewhere. Rather than rescuing failing firms with taxpayer money, the free-market perspective is to allow the market process to work. As I sometimes jokingly tell my students when explaining this principle, it’s time to say, ‘Bye-bye, die-die!’ to businesses that fail to satisfy consumer needs. (Figuratively speaking, of course.) Some call government favoritism crony capitalism. I dislike that expression because it still associates the problem with capitalism.” [editor’s note: Free markets and capitalism (“a mixed, state-regulated, industrial economy”) are opposites, and “crony capitalism” is a redundancy – TLK] (10/14/26)
https://fee.org/articles/stop-calling-it-capitalism-when-its-government-favoritism/
Source: Jonathan Turley
by Jonathan Turley
“Today the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a major case pitting privacy advocates against media companies. By any measure, Salazar v. Paramount Global is a blockbuster case in the making. At issue is the use of viewing habits by companies offering free subscriptions and material to the public. These companies make money by then using that history for tailored marketing programs. Michael Salazar is arguing that a Blockbuster-era law should prevent such sharing of his viewing history, a ruling that would have a massive impact on media and entertainment companies. Salazar involves a law passed 40 years ago after a controversy during the confirmation hearings of Robert Bork, who was nominated by President Ronald Reagan.” (10/14/26)
Source: Wired
by Noah Shachtman
“A mysteriously named political action committee has started running ads reminding voters in Colorado about that time GOP representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado and her date were caught on camera in 2023 getting handsy during a performance of the musical Beetlejuice. That same PAC is producing a spot hitting Anthony Constantino, a Trumpist congressional candidate in upstate New York, because someone used his sticker-printing company to briefly make stickers that read, ‘Kill the Police.’ Attack ads are everywhere in the last month ahead of November’s election. But these spots are a little different. The semi-anonymous PAC that’s funding and making the ads, the Invest in Tomorrow Coalition, is a pro-solar-energy outfit.” (10/14/26)
Source: Independent Institute
by Brady Leonard
“All eyes are on the Upper Midwest as both parties battle for control of Congress this November. Democrats need to flip four Senate seats to take control of the upper chamber, and the hotly contested race between former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers and progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan could be the deciding factor. The RealClearPolitics polling average has El-Sayed up by over three points, although many recent polls have the race well within the margin of error. Interestingly, in an attempt to make up ground, Mike Rogers has released a new ad this week that directly breaks with President Trump’s trade policies, explicitly targeting the 50% tariff imposed on Canadian goods.” (10/14/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/10/14/republican-candidates-trump-tariffs/
Source: EconLog
by Jon Murphy
“Under the Keynesian model, a given increase in income will mechanically generate a given increase in consumption, and thus national output. Readers with a background in economics will recognize this as the Keynesian multiplier. But what Hall showed, building off Friedman, is that such a mechanical relationship is conditional, at best. Whether the change in income was anticipated or unexpected, permanent or temporary, will influence how effective the policy will be.” (10/14/26)
https://www.econlib.org/econlog/a-nobel-for-microfoundations
Source: Law & Liberty
by James Hankins
“William F. Buckley may not have fully subscribed to liberal principles, but he lived them.” (10/14/260
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Orlando Pérez
“President Donald Trump likes to say he is ‘nine for nine’ with the candidates he has backed in Latin America and the Caribbean, and Brazil’s Oct. 25 runoff could make it ten. Senator Flávio Bolsonaro led the first round on Oct. 4, and Brazil under his leadership could seek to join the Shield of the Americas, the security coalition Washington launched in March and now presents as proof that the hemisphere has turned its way. How much support do the coalition’s current members have at home? Less than Trump’s scorecard suggests.” (10/14/26)
Source: Common Dreams
by Greg Pence
“On October 11, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to stop using taxpayer funds for television ads featuring the president. Yet two commercials continued airing past the court’s deadline. By the following evening, Justice Department lawyers had apologized, explaining that agency counsel had not seen the order in time. What had been a political accusation had now become a judicial intervention. And now even the government’s response to the order was under scrutiny. For President Donald Trump, the larger danger is electoral. His presidency has turned expansive executive authority into a political calling card. But when that authority appears to serve the president’s campaign interests rather than the public as a whole, it can become a liability. What began as a dispute over advertisements could help turn the November 3 midterms into a contest over where government ends and Trump’s political operation begins.” (10/14/26)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-gov-power-election
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Jonathan Newman
“The Keynesian paradigm suffered in the stagflation of the 1970s. Price inflation and unemployment surged simultaneously, which resulted in broad skepticism of the old Keynesian models while loyal Keynesians scrambled to offer explanations. Moreover, it became apparent that the Keynesian consumption function didn’t hold up to empirical scrutiny—disposable income wasn’t as good of a predictor of aggregate consumption as early Keynesian models assumed. This watershed moment in the history of economic thought produced new tributaries and strengthened some existing ones. … The mainstream consensus that has emerged out of this hodgepodge is that Keynes was right about a lot, but his framework needs ‘microfoundations.'” (10/14/26)