Author: Norman Leahy

The energy headlines out of Europe for the last few months have all told a similar story: Supply disruptions – thanks to Putin’s war on Ukraine – are driving prices through the roof. And higher prices threaten to push the European economy into recession. For the most part, the U.S. – as a net energy exporter – has avoided Europe’s heating problems. But that may be changing. According to The Wall Street Journal: Americans should expect bigger home-heating bills compared with last winter, thanks to higher prices for natural gas, heating oil, propane and electricity as well as slightly colder…

There’s a steady drumbeat in some quarters of Wall Street and the commentariat for the Federal Reserve to back off or at least slow down its effort to tame inflation. While some of this can be dismissed as traders talking their own books, some of it is a real concern that an anti-inflation Fed will wreck the economy. As Harvard’s Jason Furman writes in The Wall Street Journal, this is nonsense: A growing chorus is urging the Federal Reserve to slow down lest it “break things.” If you’re paying attention, you should be nervous about growing financial strains in the…

Even as Western Europe struggles with how to meet its near-term energy needs this winter and in 2023, there is a potential solution sitting right under its feet – the largest natural gas field on the continent. One might think the West would rush to put this resource to maximum use. Instead, it’s in the process of completely shutting down production. As Bloomberg reports, the reason is earthquakes, and despite the crying demand for non-Russian gas, the locals are against keeping the field active: Dutch mining minister Hans Vijlbrief says that it’s dangerous to keep producing but that the country…

The world’s central banks are (mostly) raising interest rates to fight off inflation. That’s a good thing, as inflation erodes living standards across the board. Or so most people think. The United Nations says rising rates are a threat to global stability and will devastate developing economies. As such, it’s calling on central banks to stop raising rates: In its annual report on the global economic outlook, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development said the Fed risks causing significant harm to developing countries if it persists with rapid rate rises. The agency estimated that a percentage point rise…

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is going badly, could get worse and may yet end with him reliving the last days of Nicholas II. What’s an ambitious but rubbish autocrat to do? Play the nuclear blackmail card, of course. The possibility that a truly desperate Putin may break a long-established international taboo against using nukes on a battlefield has the foreign policy commentariat wondering if he might really do it. And if he does, how Russia’s otherwise complacent elites might react. As the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Tatiana Stanovaya writes in Foreign Affairs: Putin’s nuclear ultimatum and…

The Federal Reserve is making what seem to be all the appropriate noises to go along with its actions about taming inflation. But there’s a stubborn belief in the markets that, somehow, the Fed will engineer a so-called “soft landing” in which there’s a brief recession, followed by a rapid return to the good old days of loose money, low inflation and full employment. Former New York Fed President Bill Dudley writes this is all hogwash, and that the Fed is not being honest about just how much pain is coming. The blame lies in the Fed’s still way-too-rosy outlook…

It’s possible you may have heard that natural disasters have silver linings. Most often it’s how the reconstruction – with new and better things – will create an economic boom. This, and other economic fallacies, are hard to root out of the public consciousness because they get repeated so often. But let’s say it one more time: disaster is a bad thing – full stop. But if you want a more thorough look at such fallacies, FEE’s Patrick Carroll tackles the top three. Including the broken window fallacy: The broken window fallacy is a classic hurricane-season misstep. “Hurricanes may do…

It’s both amusing and deeply distressing to read about self-described “conservative” politicians demanding government action to thwart market forces. But such continues to be the case in the 21st century, as this anecdote from Cato’s Scott Lincicome shows: Last week, more than a dozen Florida legislators, including Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, filed a petition with the United States trade representative asking that it investigate fresh fruit and vegetable imports from Mexico and provide “relief” for Florida growers under “Section 301” of the Trade Act of 1974. The lawmakers claim that government programs and low labor wage rates have…

President Joe Biden has said he will make a decision on whether to run for reelection following the November midterm elections. While that makes political sense for Team Biden, that doesn’t mean Democratic voters have forgotten about him. Hardly. According to a Washington Post/ABC News poll, they want Mr. Biden to step aside and let someone else take the nomination in 2024: …just 35% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents favor Biden for the 2024 nomination; 56% want the party to pick someone else. Any major party incumbent would look at such a number and start revising the ol’ resume. There’s…

Electric vehicles (EVs) are, in some form, going to become a dominant presence on our roadways. Probably not as quickly as EV advocates want, or government mandates require, but still, a real presence that will change the way we get from point A to point B. Or they will if there’s enough lithium to go into the batteries that power all those present and future EVs. Lithium is an essential ingredient in batteries and producing it is not exactly the most environmentally friendly process. But there are some huge natural lithium deposits in the U.S., potentially worth billions of dollars.…