The full effect of Western sanctions is starting to be felt in Russia and officials in Vladimir Putin's government have been forced to admit the impact. Newsweek: "Alexei Kudrin, chairman of Russia's accounts chamber, a parliamentary financial body, said that preliminary estimates showed base rate inflation could reach as high as 20.7 percent in the 2022/2023 financial year." ... "This is a crisis that is bigger than the 2009 crisis, bigger than the pandemic crisis," Kudrin s

The current labor shortage is driven by multiple factors such as early retirements, lack of affordable child care for workers, population trends, and Covid fears. However, as we noted last Fall, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis has documented that the immigration policies of the Trump administration exacerbated the problem. Washington Post: "Immigration inflows slowed sharply during the Trump administration and then collapsed under the

There are a lot of misconceptions about the price of oil and for decades Republican politicians have tried to score points by blaming Democrats for spikes in gas prices. Their argument is that regulations meant to conserve wildlife and the natural environment push up prices. Today they argue that Democrats are too worried about the climate. 30 years ago they claimed liberals were too concerned about reducing smog and protecting wildlife in environmentally sensitive areas. It'

This week Mississippi's Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed legislation to reduce the state income tax over four years, beginning in 2023. Even before the cuts, Mississippi had a relatively low income tax rate and struggled to provide its citizens with even minimal public services. It's one of the poorest states in the nation with decrepit infrastructure, struggling rural hospitals, and perpetually underfunded schools. It's about as close as you can get to the third world with

We have reported on the aftermath of Brexit before in these pages and the results are fairly bleak. Brexit has driven the desire for Scottish independence, tanked British exports, reduced the available labor force, and led to shortages throughout the economy. The whole thing was an amazingly bad idea. Bloomberg: "Brexit has been a drag on growth. It brought new red tape on commerce between Britain and its largest and closest market, and removed a large pool of EU labor from t

The pre-holiday predictions of empty store shelves and disappointing sales numbers were overly pessimistic. 2021 holiday sales jumped 8.5% from 2020, the largest increase in 17 years. And, sales rose by 10.7% compared to the pre-pandemic 2019 holiday season. Online sales rose 11% from 2020 and 61% over 2019. Clothing and jewelry were especially popular with sales increasing by more than 30%. Retailers largely found ways to get around the supply chain problems that have plague