Mitch Kokai

Steve Forbes‘ latest contribution to Forbes magazine faults central bankers for their “insolvent thinking.” THE UTTER INTELLECTUAL bankruptcy of most modern economic policymakers was starkly displayed when European Central Bank boss Mario Draghi recently and unexpectedly announced that the ECB would be making a new round of cheap…

Warren Henry asks in a Federalist column whether rank-and-file Democrats will be willing to stick with increasingly radical leaders. The data suggesting the Democratic Party is an upstairs/downstairs coalition in which a small faction of disproportionately white progressives dominate a more diverse rank-and-file has been piling up in…

Jim Grant writes for Barron’s about the impact of a decade-long Fed policy of suppressing interest rates. Medically speaking, low interest rates are disinhibitors. They stir the blood, liberate the imagination, and quiet the still small voice of reason that can’t seem to get a word in edgewise.

Dan Way reports for Carolina Journal Online that state treasurer Dale Folwell’s proposals for protecting the state pension plan divide groups representing state employees and teachers. John Hood’s Daily Journal challenges popular myths about manufacturing’s decline in North Carolina.

Anthony Hennen of the Martin Center probes higher education developments in a neighboring state. As the cost of college creeps up and more small colleges close, consolidation has become a lifeline of last resort. To survive, dozens of small institutions have either merged or have been absorbed into larger…

Paul Bedard of the Washington Examiner reports on a potential independent presidential candidate’s critique of Vermont socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders. Independent presidential candidate Howard Schultz expanded his assault on Sen. Bernie Sanders as a “far-left” Democratic White House front-runner whose Medicare for all plan would bankrupt the country…

Joe Schoffstall of the Washington Free Beacon details left-of-center preparations for 2020 election campaigns. A secretive group of top liberal donors has budgeted $275 million to be injected into progressive infrastructure leading up to the 2020 elections, confidential documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show. The Democracy…

Victor Davis Hanson of National Review Online takes aim at his home state. For over six years, California has had a top marginal income-tax rate of 13.3 percent, the highest in the nation. About 150,000 households in a state of 40 million people now pay nearly half of…