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The article discusses the looming fiscal crises facing the United States in the coming years. It highlights various factors contributing to the budget blowout, including the expiration of tax cuts, the end of income limits for Obamacare subsidies, and the need to raise the debt limit. The article emphasizes the growing national debt and the lack of attention given to the budget and debt in political debates. It also mentions the long-term impact of entitlement programs on the national debt and proposes potential solutions, such as spending cuts and modest tax increases. The article concludes by urging politicians and voters to address the budget problems and make informed decisions. [Extracted from the article]

"The Week" is a document that covers a wide range of topics, including political events, cultural issues, and international conflicts. It discusses Donald Trump's stance on abortion, Taylor Swift's political endorsements, and an altercation at Arlington National Cemetery involving Trump's campaign team. It also covers Hunter Biden's guilty plea in a tax trial, indictments against Russians and Hamas leaders, and Mark Zuckerberg's apology for Facebook's censorship. The document explores migration trends, personnel shortages in the U.S. Navy, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It presents a variety of perspectives and provides readers with a comprehensive overview of current events and issues. [Extracted from the article]

"The Week" is a document that provides brief news updates on a range of topics. It covers Hunter Biden's conviction on gun charges and his upcoming trial on tax charges, as well as President Biden's executive order on border policies, which some argue does not effectively address undocumented immigration. The document also mentions Donald Trump's upcoming sentencing on multiple felonies and speculates on potential vice presidential candidates for him. Other topics include Nikki Haley's changing stance on Trump, Larry Hogan's campaign in Maryland, allegations made by Trump regarding the FBI's search of Mar-a-Lago, a defamation lawsuit related to the 2020 election, President Biden's refusal to release audiotapes of interviews, concerns about Biden's age and fitness for office, Steve Bannon's legal situation, and Dr. Anthony Fauci's testimony on Covid-19 measures. It also discusses Harvard University's decision to no longer take official positions on controversial public policy issues, aligning with the University of Chicago's stance on institutional neutrality during times of campus protests. The article covers various other topics such as the lab-leak theory of the pandemic, changes at the Wall Street Journal, Twitter's new rules on pornography, a controversial commencement address by an NFL player, criticism faced by basketball player Caitlin Clark, changes in college sports conferences, the surprising victory of the US cricket team, the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the death of libertarian David Boaz, and the death of basketball player Bill Walton. Additionally, it mentions the limited impact [Extracted from the article]

This article covers a wide range of current events and political topics. It discusses the potential for a presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, criticizing Trump's rhetoric and policy proposals. It provides updates on Trump's criminal trial and the issue of presidential immunity from prosecution. The article also mentions Trump's promise to release another list of potential Supreme Court picks and his intention to roll back Biden's Title IX rewrite. It briefly touches on the lack of discussion about the national debt and fiscal issues in the current presidential cycle. The article concludes by calling for candidates to release their medical records or allow a medical correspondent to review them. It also mentions a failed motion to vacate the speakership against Mike Johnson and criticizes Biden's announcement of new China tariffs. The text also discusses the war in Ukraine, the plight of Russian political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza, the Chinese government's involvement in the fentanyl crisis, organ harvesting in China, the harassment of Israeli athletes and musicians, the Washington Post's controversial series on the AR-15 rifle, the low salaries of WNBA players, MIT's decision to no longer require diversity statements, the transformation of the Boy Scouts of America, the United Methodist Church's repeal of a prohibition on gay clergy, Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd's ideas on using AI in dating apps, a newly deciphered papyrus scroll about Plato, and the defense spending of China. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses how the tax code and regulatory environment in the United States favor the success of tech companies. The tax code discourages investment in physical capital and instead incentivizes investment in human capital. The regulatory apparatus, including environmental regulations and labor laws, creates obstacles for businesses in industries other than tech. The article argues that instead of vilifying tech companies, policymakers should learn from their success and undo regulations and tax incentives that hinder non-tech industries. The Biden administration's increased regulation is criticized, and pro-growth policies are proposed to empower workers and reduce government interference. The article concludes by emphasizing the importance of private innovation and the need to remove regulations to allow all industries to thrive. [Extracted from the article]

Planning the fiscal future of the country around the assumption that interest rates would remain the lowest they've been in 4,000 years, as bond-market researcher Jim Grant has described the interest-rate policies of the 2010s, was not a great idea. "Every point that interest rates rise costs about $30 trillion over 30 years in higher interest costs", Riedl says. FEATURES The current argument over government funding and the risk of a shutdown is small potatoes. Riedl was sounding the alarm on the danger of higher interest rates when they were still low and spending advocates were saying the government would be stupid not to spend. [Extracted from the article]

One of India's top entertainment exports is cricket, and it has come to America in the form of Major League Cricket (MLC), which played its championship game near Dallas on July 30. The Indian Premier League (IPL), which was founded in 2008 and now has ten T20 cricket franchises spread across India, was the first successful attempt to bring the American franchise-sports model, with all its revenue potential, to a cricket mass market. FEATURES THERE'S a sport beloved by well over a billion people around the world. [Extracted from the article]

Because that deficit was much smaller than the ones in the previous two years, which included trillions in Covid spending, the 2022 deficit was celebrated by the Biden administration and probably treated too kindly by most in Washington. About two-thirds of the projected increase in borrowing costs is due simply to interest-rate increases, and one of the reasons that the CBO cites for an increase in interest rates is the ballooning federal debt. ARTICLES At his State of the Union address in February, President Biden got a bipartisan round of applause when he urged Republicans and Democrats to promise not to reform Social Security or Medicare. [Extracted from the article]

According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the payroll-tax rate would need to be raised by 35% in order to fully fund Social Security. Currently, Social Security is funded by a 12.4% payroll tax on taxable earnings and income tax paid on Social Security benefits. The CBO projects that Social Security revenue will remain stable at around 4.5% of GDP for the next 75 years, growing at the same rate as the economy. However, the increase in outlays is projected to cause a long-term deficit, with benefits potentially needing to be cut by 23% in fiscal year 2034. To avoid this, the CBO estimates that Congress would need to raise the payroll-tax rate to 16.7%. [Extracted from the article]

The Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States contains 4,392 pages as of August 2024. This schedule is used by the International Trade Commission to classify imported merchandise for duty rates and statistical purposes. The document includes 22 sections and 99 chapters, with codes assigned to each category of product according to international standards. The schedule also includes notes and rules for interpretation. The article provides examples of specific tariffs on imported meat and knitted fabrics, highlighting the complexity and variety of tariffs in the United States. This information challenges the notion that U.S. trade policy is solely influenced by "market fundamentalists" or "doctrinaire free-traders." [Extracted from the article]

We've seen trimming of rates in other taxes, including 13 states with corporate-income-tax cuts, a couple of states with sales-tax cuts, and trimming other taxes as well." "After adjusting for inflation, state tax collections were 9.3 percent higher in 2022 than they were in 2017, even though 17 states had lower top income tax rates in 2022 than they did in 2017, to say nothing of cuts to corporate income taxes and other state taxes", Walczak wrote in a February article. The TCJA also capped the state-and-local tax (SALT) deduction, so high-income earners and some middle-income earners in high-tax states now feel more of the burden of their states' policies. "The past three years have seen the largest wave of state-tax cuts in the modern era, certainly since income taxes were created over a century ago at the state level", says Jared Walczak, vice president of state projects at the Tax Foundation. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the issue of increasing budget deficits in the United States, which have been growing consistently since 2002 regardless of the state of the economy. Despite President Biden's claims of fiscal responsibility, his budget for fiscal year 2025 requests a $1.8 trillion deficit, with projected deficits of $1.4 trillion to $1.9 trillion each year through 2034. The article explains that the increase in deficits is due to mandatory spending, which includes Social Security, major health-care programs, and interest payments on the debt. Mandatory spending already consumes 73 percent of the federal budget and is projected to grow every year, limiting Congress's ability to make changes to how the money is spent. The article concludes by stating that the national debt is expected to increase by $119 trillion in the next 30 years, with the majority of the increase coming from mandatory spending. [Extracted from the article]

David Leonhardt's book, "Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream," explores the American economy and argues for a greater role of government in guiding economic decisions. Leonhardt supports unions and sectoral bargaining, believing that workers need protection from businesses. He also advocates for government-directed investment, criticizing private investors for being too profit-oriented. Leonhardt sees the period after World War II until the 1960s as an ideal time when both parties worked together on economic policy. However, critics argue that his views on income inequality are not supported by recent research. [Extracted from the article]

ARTICLES When President Biden appointed Lina Khan as chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission in June 2021, there was talk of a revolution. Muris, the former FTC chairman, wrote that Khan wishes to restore the Robinson-Patman Act and 1960s merger rules. Wilson's resignation letter noted Biden's campaign promise to reduce partisan divisiveness and questioned whether his choice of Khan to lead the FTC fulfilled it. [Extracted from the article]

American workers, when allowed voluntary unionism without government putting its thumb on the scale, by and large do not choose to join unions. The U.S. has mostly been able to avoid strikes of that kind, in large part because Taft-Hartley prohibits many of the tactics that lead to them and conservatives have effectively defended the law. FEATURES ON February 27, Representative Joe Wilson (R., S.C.) introduced the National Right to Work Act, a one-page bill to amend federal labor law and enshrine at the national level the right-to-work protections that 27 states already have. The Taft-Hartley Act amended the NLRA to prohibit many of organized labor's most destructive practices, such as jurisdictional strikes (striking over the way work is assigned between unions), secondary strikes (striking against companies that do business with a company that is being struck against), and solidarity strikes (striking in support of another union's strike or for a general political purpose). [Extracted from the article]

The U.S. Secret Service, known for their expertise in security, has a history of failures and misconduct. Recently, they failed to prevent a shooter from entering a Donald Trump rally and causing harm. This incident is just one example of the agency's track record of allowing dangerous individuals to slip through their security measures. Over the years, Secret Service agents have been involved in scandals involving prostitutes, pornography, and drunkenness while traveling with presidents. Despite calls for increased training and more agents, little has been done to address these issues. It is important to hold this federal agency accountable for their dysfunction. [Extracted from the article]

According to a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), 47 percent of the aid to state governments under the American Rescue Plan Act has not been spent yet. The American Rescue Plan Act, enacted by Democrats in March 2021, allocated $350 billion for the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund. However, many states are struggling to figure out how to spend the money since they didn't really need it in the first place. The proportion of money spent varied widely by state, with eight states spending less than 25 percent of their awards and eight states spending 75 percent or more. Interestingly, the low spenders voted for Trump in the 2020 election and currently have Republican governors, while the high spenders voted for Biden and currently have Democratic governors. The State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund has been criticized for functioning more as a blue-state relief program rather than a pandemic-relief program. [Extracted from the article]

As promised, Gensler has moved fast in pushing more government regulation, even when the regulation would overstep the SEC's authority. McHenry was skeptical of Gensler from the start, saying when Gensler was nominated in January 2021, "I fear Democrats want to steer the [SEC] away from bipartisan common-ground in an attempt to achieve their most partisan goals." Sixteen GOP governors, many from oil-and-gas-producing states, wrote to Gensler in May 2022 about the consequences of the SEC's proposed climate rules. [Extracted from the article]

According to the Congressional Budget Office's long-term budget outlook, the number of deaths in the U.S. is projected to exceed the number of births in 2040. However, the U.S. population is still expected to increase from 342 million to 383 million over the next 30 years, primarily due to net immigration. The population growth rate will be about 0.4 percent per year, which is lower than the average rate over the past 30 years. The aging population will continue to increase, with the proportion of Americans over 65 rising from 17.8 percent to 22.3 percent by 2054, while the proportion of Americans aged 24 or younger will decline from 31.1 percent to 27.7 percent. The current entitlement system for seniors is facing challenges in terms of funding, as there are too few working individuals contributing and too many retired individuals benefiting from it, and this issue is expected to worsen over the next 30 years. [Extracted from the article]

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2023, 49% of union members in the United States worked for the government. This challenges the common perception that union members are predominantly blue-collar workers in trades or heavy industries. In reality, only 6% of private-sector workers are union members, while 32.5% of public-sector workers are. Even within industries traditionally associated with unions, such as manufacturing and construction, the majority of workers are not unionized. Overall, 90% of U.S. workers are not union members. [Extracted from the article]

According to a report from the Department of the Treasury, the United States accumulated the most recent trillion dollars in national debt in 111 days. The total public debt outstanding broke $34 trillion for the first time on January 4. While this is not the fastest the U.S. has ever accumulated $1 trillion in debt, it is still a significant increase. The fastest trillion was accumulated in 29 days during the Covid pandemic. Overall, it took 1,265 days to accumulate the most recent $10 trillion in national debt, compared to 219 years to accumulate the first $10 trillion. [Extracted from the article]

If firms didn't exist, each employee would have to contract with every other employee and every manager and every supplier; instead, the firm acts as a central contracting agent. That means employees need to sign only one employment contract with the firm, and the firm then has power to tell the employees what to do. Upper-income workers are more satisfied, at 57 percent, but 45 percent of lower-income workers are extremely or very satisfied with their jobs. [Extracted from the article]

In the article, the author discusses the modern monetary theory (MMT) and the reasons why the criticisms by economists like Paul Krugman, Larry Summers and Noah Smith against it are not accurate. Other topics include the need to welcome new concepts in macroeconomics, and MMT's philosophy that promotes the printing of money by the government as long as its economy can produce the needed goods and services.

According to an article in the National Review, the United States had the highest net export of crude oil since 1990 in the week of March 31, 2023. However, this is a negative number because the US is a major importer of crude oil. The US exported 4,946,000 barrels per day and imported 6,214,000 barrels per day during that week. The article argues that the US should not strive for energy independence from imports, as crude oil and petroleum products are traded globally, and the US being a major player in the international trade of energy is beneficial. [Extracted from the article]

In 2021, China's population was 323 percent higher than the United States', yet its manufacturing output was only 95 percent higher. Grabow calculated that in 2019 the U.S. was by far the leader in manufacturing output per worker, at $142,000. The U.S. has about 4 percent of the world's people but does 16 percent of the world's manufacturing, trailing only China and contributing more than Germany, Japan, and South Korea combined. [Extracted from the article]

In the last quarter entirely before the Covid pandemic, the fourth quarter of 2019, the federal government made interest payments of $564 billion on an annualized basis. Interest rates are much higher now than they were in 2019, and the federal deficit is larger as well, so more borrowing at higher rates will mean higher interest payments. Sixty-one percent - the amount by which the federal government's interest payments increased between the fourth quarter of 2019 and the second quarter of 2023, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. [Extracted from the article]

You want to buy a crypto token for $10; FTX acts as a middleman to find someone who has that token and wants to trade; FTX makes the trade happen and charges a fee. ARTICLES FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange, and Sam Bankman-Fried, its 30-year-old now-former CEO, were supposed to change the world. As the market caught on to Bankman-Fried's shenanigans, the value of FTT and Serum tanked, as did any hope that FTX had of paying back its customers. [Extracted from the article]

SPECIAL ISSUE: THE MIDTERMS After the 118th Congress is sworn in in January, the newRepublican majority in the House of Representativesshould begin impeachment proceedings againstSecretary of Education Miguel Cardona. Cardona's general counsel produced a speciousopinion according to which Cardona had authority under a2003 law, designed for first responders and members of thearmed services, to authorize nearly unlimited federal spending. [Extracted from the article]

Near the end of his life, in a 2010 essay reflecting on the Chicago school of economics, Buchanan wrote, "It is indeed sobering to recognize how little our discipline - "economics" or "political economy" - has advanced beyond Adam Smith. But the economists discussed here who criticized mainstream economics remained, fundamentally, economists. Wild Problems: A Guide to the Decisions That Define Us, by Russ Roberts (Portfolio, 224 pp., $27) Russ RobeRts is having second thoughts about economics. [Extracted from the article]

Gregory Collins mounts a case for Burke as an economic liberal and concludes that, while Burke "did not promote abstract natural rights theory animated by orthodox laissez faire doctrine", he nonetheless offered an "endorsement of market freedom." Burke was conservative in polity reformation - fundamental changes to the constitution of the state and of the citizenry - but he was not particularly conservative in policy reform. Russell Kirk said that Burke "steadfastly opposed all policies calculated to reduce private liberties", and he repeatedly called Burke a liberal. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the possible effects of U.S. President Joe Biden's energy policy on gas prices. Also cited are how the U.S. became a net exporter of crude oil and other petroleum products, the high refinery of the U.S. petroleum industry, and the shortage of sand that adversely affect the production of the country's oil and gas sector.

In the article, the author discusses inflation in the U.S. and the effects of factors like money supply, the COVID-19 pandemic and real gross domestic product (GDP). Also cited are the Federal Reserve's (Fed) monetary policy, how inflation rate can be lowered, and the National Bureau of Economic Research data on the COVID-19 recession.