Category Archives: Free Market

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, September 18, 2020:  

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy says he doesn’t hold a grudge against anyone making more than a million dollars a year in his state.

It’s just that he needs their money more than they do. It’s their duty to “sacrifice”: “We do not hold any grudge at all against those who have been successful in life. But in this unprecedented time, when so many middle-class families and others have sacrificed so much, now is the time to ensure that the wealthiest among us are also called to sacrifice.”

Murphy made the announcement on Thursday, adding that he expects the two-percent increase — from 8.75% to 10.75% on incomes of a million and up — will raise $390 million this year alone. He’s using his state’s $10 billion shortfall in revenues as an excuse.

He expects the increase to fall on about 16,500 residents, assuming that they stand still for the plucking.

Most are likely to stand still for the shearing, but

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, September 4, 2020:  

The recovery of the U.S. economy from the coronavirus pandemic shutdown continues to outpace forecasters’ expectations. On Friday the Labor Department reported that nonfarm payroll employment rose by 1.4 million in August, exceeding forecasters’ predictions of 1.2 million. In its separate household survey, the department reported that nearly 4 million people returned to work.

The increase in employment pushed the unemployment rate down from 10.2 percent last month to

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, July 27, 2020: 

Bookings for durable goods orders — those designed to last at least three years — jumped another 7.3 percent in June, following May’s 15.1-percent surge. Economists were expecting a 6.9-percent increase.

Behind the jump were orders for motor vehicles and parts, which leapt 85.7 percent in June following May’s 28.8-percent gain.

The two-month rally suggested that

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, July 17, 2020: 

Speaking on the South Lawn of the White House on Thursday afternoon, President Trump celebrated his administration’s success in rolling back regulations that were stifling the economy under the previous administration:

Before I came into office, American workers were smothered by a merciless avalanche of wasteful and expensive and intrusive federal regulations.

He has promised that, if elected, his administration would roll back two regulations for each new one proposed. But his administration has greatly exceeded that promise, he said, by rolling back nearly eight regulations for every new one enacted. Said the president: “What an incredible achievement!”

Sounding like a politician on stump the president ticked off a few of the regulations that his administration has either softened or removed altogether: the rollback of vehicle emissions standards which reduce the cost of a new car by an estimated $2,200; cutting the time for environmental assessments from four and a half years to just one year; and the deregulation of prescription drugs.

He also allowed incandescent lightbulbs to be sold again: “I brought them back. They have two nice qualities: they’re cheaper and they’re better. They look better. They make you look so much better. That’s important to all of us.”

Overall, said the president, his administration’s success in rolling back regulations is adding an estimated $3,100 a year to each household’s income. He added: “The previous administration added over 16,000 pages of heavy-handed regulations to the federal register. That’s why nothing got done. Under my administration we have removed nearly 25,000 pages of job-destroying regulations, more than any other president by far in the history of our country.”

That may explain why the economic bounce back from the COVID-inspired lockdown continues to exceed expectations and has put to rest any conversation about the shape of the recovery. It’s clearly a “V.” According to various sources:

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, July 1, 2020: 

Wall Street celebrated its best quarter since 1987, with the Dow gaining 17 percent from April through June, the S&P 500 Index rising 20 percent and the small-cap NASDAQ leaping 30 percent.

The news came on top of the latest report from the country’s largest payroll processor ADP, which reported that private-sector employment increased by more than 2.3 million from May to June. This came on top of employment gains in April of three million.

Job gains were across the board, with a million new jobs being reported by small companies employing fewer than 50 people, more than 550,000 by midsized companies, and nearly 900,000 reported by companies with 500 or more employees.

The goods-producing sector gained 457,000 jobs, with most of them in construction and manufacturing, while the service-sector employment jumped by nearly two million. The bulk of those, as expected, were in the “leisure and hospitality” sector as restaurants opened and customers flocked to take advantage.

To top it off,