Entries by Jon Miltimore

Why Corporate America’s Retreat from Social Activism Is Good for Everyone

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Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes

In July, John Deere announced that it was stepping away from DEI efforts and would cease sponsoring “social or cultural awareness” events. The announcement came a week after Business Insider reported that Microsoft had laid off its entire DEI team. Microsoft’s action, in turn, had come just weeks after Tractor Supply, a Brentwood, Tennessee-based company, decided to pull the plug on its social activism efforts in the face of a social media campaign targeting the company. The backlash against DEI has been so intense that the term itself appears to be going the way of the dodo. The Society for Human Resource Management recently announced it was ditching the word equity from its acronym.

Jimmy Lai’s Imprisonment Is a Blueprint for How Authoritarians Use ‘National Security’ to Crush Political Dissent

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Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

As Hong Kong slipped slowly into authoritarianism, media mogul Jimmy Lai did something extraordinary: he continued to resist Beijing. Today the 76-year-old Hong Konger remains in solitary confinement in a Chinese prison. When Jimmy Lai was a child working the streets of Canton (Guangzhou), China, in the 1950s, he received a bar of chocolate as […]

Lawmaker: ‘It Is Not Anti-Science’ to Hold NIH Accountable for Coverup

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Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

Whether justice will be delivered to those involved in the effort to avoid oversight and deflect scrutiny from EcoHealth Alliance’s research at Wuhan is uncertain. What’s clear is that the NIH is a broken institution. The effort to get to the bottom of the origins of COVID-19 is more than four years in the making. And while […]

New Study Calls into Question Whether DEI Programs Really Boost Corporate Earnings

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Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

The replication crisis strikes again. It’s safe to say that diversity, equity, and inclusion is one of the more controversial ideas of our time (and a multibillion-dollar industry). Some such as Elon Musk argue that DEI — which definitionally speaking means addressing structural inequalities in society — constitutes blatant racism. Others contend that DEI is simply about creating more […]

The Results of California’s New $20 Fast Food Minimum Wage Are Already In

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Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

Thousands of jobs have already been eliminated by California’s law to raise the minimum wage to $20 for restaurant workers, which goes into effect April 1. For eight years, Michael Ojeda delivered food for a Pizza Hut in Ontario, California, using the income he received to support his family. In December, the 29-year-old received a letter from […]

The Cost of Inflation: History Shows Inflation Erodes More Than the Value of Money

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Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

Across the world, people are struggling under the specter of inflation. In Venezuela, the inflation rate is 360 percent. In Argentina, it’s 160 percent. In Turkey, inflation is about 50 percent, about 10 percent higher than its neighbor Iran. In Europe, inflation of the euro has finally cooled to about 3 percent, down from more than 10 percent a year […]

Meet the Economist NPR Interviewed to Explain Why America’s $34 Trillion Debt Is Definitely Not a Problem

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Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

In late December, after US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen borrowed $90 billion in just one day, the federal government’s public debt eclipsed $34 trillion for the first time in history. The steady accumulation of public debt has become a mainstay in modern America, seemingly as inevitable as death and taxes. But something strange happened when the […]

Fauci Admits to Multiple COVID-19 Missteps during Closed-Door Hearing

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Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

Editors’ Note: It is amazing to us that Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief proponent of the “Great Covid Panic”, can give closed-session testimony, reveal his errors in judgement,  and so little consequence follows from those admissions. Here is a man who funded the research that set this plague loose on the planet, working hand in […]

Why the EV Market Is Sputtering

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Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes

Ford’s struggles in the EV market are an important reminder of who the real boss is in a free-market economy. It’s not Ford. And it’s certainly not the federal government. Last month Ford announced it was slashing in half its production goal for its most popular electrical vehicle, the F-150 Lightning pickup truck. Bloomberg News reported that the […]

Nature’s Proximal Origin [Covid] Paper Was a Work of ‘Fraud and Scientific Misconduct,’ Say Scientists Demanding a Retraction

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Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

A trove of recently published documents reveals that authors of the Proximal Origin paper believed that the lab leak scenario was not just possible, but likely.   A growing number of people, including prominent scientists, are calling for a full retraction of a high-profile study published in the journal Nature in March 2020 that explored the origins of […]

Why EVs Are ‘Piling Up’ at Dealerships, Despite Massive Taxpayer Subsidies

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Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

Federal lawmakers created a glut of EVs with their meddling, and it’s likely to have an adverse impact on both the auto market and the environment. Ford Motor recently announced it is slashing prices on its F-150 Lightning, an electric vehicle the company rolled out in 2021. The Lightning now carries a suggested retail price of […]

The US Government Sent Millions of Grant Dollars to Alleged COVID ‘Patient Zero,’ Documents Show

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Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

In June, The New York Times ran an exposé detailing the tragedy that we may never know the origins of COVID-19. “For three years, the U.S. government has been tied in knots over the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, frustrated that China’s hindrance of investigations and unwillingness to look critically at its own research have […]

Bud Light’s Sales Implosion, Explained (by Mises)

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Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

I stopped drinking Bud Light decades ago, so when the Dylan Mulvaney controversy exploded last month, I didn’t need to consider if I’d stop drinking Anheuser-Busch’s most popular product. What’s clear is that many others have decided to quit the beer over the brand’s decision to wade into transgender politics. According to figures reported in The St. Louis […]

A New Fed Report Holds a Clue on Why Banks Are Collapsing

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Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

Federal regulators seized the struggling First Republic Bank on Monday [5/1/23], which they promptly sold to JPMorgan Chase. Reports show First Republic had some $230 billion in financial assets which quickly evaporated, making it the second largest bank collapse in US history, exceeding the recent bankruptcies of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. You read […]

The Government’s Sprawling Effort to Censor (True) Information During the Pandemic

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Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes

In July 2022, Twitter permanently suspended Rhode Island physician Andrew Bostom after awarding the epidemiologist and longtime researcher at Brown University a fifth strike for spreading “misinformation.” A July 26 tweet alleging that there was no solid evidence Covid-19 vaccines had prevented any children from being hospitalized—”only RCT data we have from children reveals ZERO […]

Weekend Read: European Author Explains the Massive Disconnect between Young and Old Americans on Capitalism

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Estimated Reading Time: 10 minutes

FEE recently sat down with German author Rainer Zitelmann to discuss his latest book, the global financial crisis, and the future of capitalism.   The great writer Henry Hazlitt once observed that the path to prosperity is achieved through production, and the best way to achieve production is to maximize incentives. “And the way to […]

Is ‘Wokeism’ to Blame for Silicon Valley Bank’s Demise? No and Yes

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Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

Within days of Silicon Valley Bank’s swift and shocking collapse, a narrative formed that “wokeism” lay at the heart of the California bank’s sudden demise. It began with a Fox News appearance by Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus. “I feel bad for all of these people that lost all their money in this woke bank,” […]

Proof That Western Progressives Loved Stalinism and Maoism, Despite Their Horrors

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Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

Modern socialists may prefer to distance themselves from Stalin and Mao, but progressives were singing a very different tune in the twentieth century. I recently had the opportunity to travel to the Texas Tech University School of Law to debate the merits of capitalism versus socialism with Ben Burgis, a columnist for Jacobin and philosophy […]

Kevin O’Leary on Inflation: You Printed $7 Trillion in 30 Months. What Did You Think Would Happen?

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Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

Americans are facing 40-year high inflation and there’s been no shortage of discussion on the topic. It’s the number one issue on the mind of Americans heading into [ the recent] midterms, and every day on TV and in newspapers pundits are debating how long it will last and deciding who is to blame. What’s most astonishing […]

The 5 Cities With the Highest Inflation in America

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Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

In each of these cities, inflation is higher than 10 percent.   My wife and I recently were out for our morning walk and she commented on how weird inflation is. Some prices are sky high, she observed, while others have barely budged. A carton of eggs is up 33 percent over the last year, while tomatoes […]

The Biden Administration Says US Not in a Recession, but Federal Statutes Say Otherwise. Who is Right?

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Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

Is the US economy in recession? The answer is, paradoxically, both easier and more complicated than you might think. As expected the United States posted negative growth for the second consecutive quarter, according to government data released on Thursday. “Real gross domestic product (GDP) decreased at an annual rate of 0.9 percent in the second […]

The Federal Government’s Own Study Concluded Its Ban on ‘Assault Weapons’ Didn’t Reduce Gun Violence

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Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

Other studies, including two published in 2020, reached similar conclusions. Do something. This is a response—and perhaps a natural one—to a human tragedy or crisis. We saw this response in the wake of 9-11. We saw it during the Covid-19 pandemic. And we’re seeing it again following three mass shootings—in Buffalo, New York, Uvalde, Texas, […]

How Government Created the Baby Formula Shortage—and a Black Market for ‘Unapproved’ European Imports

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Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

Editors’ Note:  As well as the reasons cited below, other news outlets, such as Town Hall report the U.S. government has accumulated a large amount of baby formula and is shipping it to the Southern Border for use by illegal immigrants. As usual, Americans come last in their calculations. ***** As Christina Szalinski reported in […]

Sweden—Once Mocked for Its COVID Strategy—Now Has One of the Lowest COVID Mortality Rates in Europe

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Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

Sweden, which avoided strict lockdowns, now has a lower COVID mortality rate than 29 countries in Europe alone. Early in the coronavirus pandemic, I asked a simple question. Could Sweden’s laissez-faire approach to the coronavirus actually work? Unlike its European neighbors and virtually all US states, the Swedes had opted to not shut down the economy. The […]

Economist Offers Harsh Assessment of Elizabeth Warren’s Inflation Theory

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Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

Harvard economist Jason Furman said the notion that “corporate greed” is driving inflation is not grounded in sound economics. Over the weekend, Jason Furman, a former top economist for President Barack Obama, threw cold water on Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s claim that “corporate greed” is driving inflation. “Corporate greed is a bad theory of inflation,” Furman […]

The Atlantic Claims ‘More People Carrying Guns Tends to Result in More Shootings.’ Decades of Data Show They’re Wrong

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Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

The Atlantic recently suggested the surge of violence in 2020 was the result of the increase in firearms sales in 2020. The claim is pure fiction. A couple of months ago, The Atlantic published an article written by staff writer David A. Graham that explores the surge of violence the United States experienced in 2020. Overall the […]

The Scariest Inflation Chart You’ve Ever Seen

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Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

Editors’ Note: This article was written in late November and notes inflation in the US hit a 30 year high. Last week, it was reported that inflation is at a 40 year high. That didn’t take very long, did it?   History teaches us something important about inflation: it can spiral out of control just […]

Biden Thanks Unions for Promising to Help Solve a Supply Chain Mess They Created

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Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

Two ports that account for 40% of all US imports haven’t been operating on weekends during the biggest supply chain crisis in generations—because of a union contract. In the East Room of the White House last week, President Joe Biden announced the Executive Branch was taking decisive actions to resolve the supply chain issues plaguing […]

What Is the True Vaccine Breakthrough Rate? The CDC Doesn’t Want You to Know

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Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes

By refusing to track most vaccine breakthrough cases, the CDC arrived at the strange conclusion that collecting and providing less public health information is in the public’s interest. Over a recent 12-day period the Milwaukee Brewers had nine players test positive for COVID-19. While we don’t know the vaccination status of all the players, the […]

And the Number #1 Housing Market in America Is …

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Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes

The average population of the top 20 metros on the WSJ/Realtor.com Housing Market Index is just 300,000. That’s not the whole story, however. For the first time in more than a decade, my wife and I are looking at moving. So it piqued my interest when I stumbled upon a Wall Street Journal article examining […]

Harvard Business Review: Minimum Wage Hikes Led to Lower Worker Compensation, New Research Shows

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Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

New research published in the Harvard Business Review reveals (once again) that minimum wage laws achieve unintended results. Opponents of minimum wage laws tend to focus their criticism on one particular adverse consequence: by artificially raising the price of labor, they reduce employment, particularly for the most vulnerable in society. “Minimum wage laws tragically generate […]

MIT Data Scientist: Lockdowns Not Correlated With Fewer Deaths (But Are Correlated With More Unemployment)

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Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

Coming to grips with the failure of lockdowns is important for several reasons. Dozens of studies show that lockdowns were an ineffective pandemic response. The list just got longer. In May, Youyang Gu, an MIT-trained engineer, and data scientist released data showing that government restrictions were not correlated with lower COVID mortality in America. Government restrictions […]

Bitcoin Uses Half the Energy of the Banking System: New Paper

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Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

Editor’s Note:  This discussion of bitcoin or any other use of  electrical power  presupposes the existence of a connection between some types of power production and climate change.  We are not convinced of that connection.  Secondly, once gold is mined, no further energy is needed for it to  function.  Gold is created in nature.  We […]

The US Government’s Debt-to-GDP Ratio Is Worse Than Greece’s Before the 2008 Crash (And It’s About to Get Worse)

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Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

The US is in uncharted debt territory. That should worry us. President Biden on Wednesday pitched a new plan to Americans before a joint session of Congress: more spending. The just-released $1.8 trillion plan, presented just weeks after Biden signed a $1.9 trillion in COVID relief spending into law, includes “free” community college as well as […]

New Study Reveals That Stay-at-Home Orders Backfired. Here’s Why

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Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

US households had the highest COVID-19 transmission rates, a new economic analysis says. Here’s why. Last summer, NBC News reported that New York state health officials were stunned by the number of hospitalized patients who said they had contracted COVID-19 while staying at home. The data, collected from 113 hospitals who surveyed patients over a three-day span, […]

Economist: Lockdowns ‘Greatest Peacetime Policy Failure’ in Canada’s History

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Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

Canadian economist Douglas Ward Allen recently ran a cost-benefit analysis of lockdowns. The trade-off hardly seems worth it. Earlier this month, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease official in the United States, struggled to explain why COVID cases and deaths in Texas were continuing to fall even though the Lone Star State had lifted the […]

Sweden Saw Lower Mortality Rate Than Most of Europe in 2020, Despite No Lockdown

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Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

New data from Europe suggest Sweden’s laissez-faire approach to the pandemic was far from catastrophic. Few people in 2020 came under more heat than Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s top epidemiologist. But the man who forged Sweden’s laissez-faire approach to COVID-19 early in the pandemic says new international data reveal a hard truth about government lockdowns. “I think people […]

The Myth That the US Leads the World in Mass Shootings

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Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

To understand the misleading narrative, we must look to the era of narrative-driven journalism and the politicization of society, both of which subjugate truth to ideology and politics. If you asked me this morning which nation has the most mass shootings in the world, I would have said, with perhaps a flicker of hesitation, the […]

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