By an 11-10 vote, Biden labor secretary nominee Julie Su has advanced out of committee. While a vote of the full Senate awaits, workers and taxpayers might take stock of what Su leaves behind, the fallout from some $30 billion in unemployment fraud on her watch. John Kabatek, California state director for the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), traces it back to the pandemic. 

Argentina must be one of the few places on the planet where, along with the time, temperature, and humidity, the radio stations report the price of the dollar every half hour. This exhausting concern for knowing the price of the U.S. currency originates in decades of monetary and economic disasters that have made Argentines choose it as a unit of account for their transactions in the market and a refuge of value when thinking about their future.

It was time to file federal income tax returns for 2022 last week. Brian Riedl calculates what the average cost is projected to be for an American household before dropping the hammer.

In a weak economy, with inflation rising, few American workers had time to watch Biden labor secretary nominee Julie Su field questions from the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee last week. Fortunately, Katy Grimes of the California Globe provides a detailed report.

There is a difference between expanding commercial ties with other countries irrespective of their ideological persuasion, preparing for the day when the US dollar will not be the reserve currency of the world or pursuing a foreign policy not beholden to Washington, and sending every signal that your affinities lie with powerful dictators with geopolitical ambitions, justifying the worst aspects of those regimes, facilitating their insertion in your region and directing a significant amount of public hostility against western liberal democracies. Brazil’s Lula da Silva understands the difference and has consciously opted for the latter.

The news that the Oakland Athletics have announced plans to leave Oakland for Las Vegas has been met with overall poor reactions from fans of the team and sports enthusiasts. A’s fans no doubt hold the team’s owner John Fisher primarily accountable. Still, many fans also blame the City of Oakland for not doing more to keep the team. While some are sad to see the team leave after such a rich history in Oakland, there is still a modicum of a silver lining, considering the economics of professional sports and their impact on their home cities.

Back in 2018, in his first testimony to Congress, Mark Zuckerberg was asked if Facebook had ever taken down a page at the government’s request. “Yes, I believe so,” said the Facebook CEO, without revealing what the page contained, which government officials had demanded its removal, and when it occurred. Zuckerberg also said, “I want to be careful here because our work with the special counsel is confidential.” Something similar was going on over at Twitter.

I am continually amazed at the amount of nonsense that I’ve been reading on the subject of moral hazard. Here are a few examples:

If you are in a crowded airplane, flying in coach, is it okay to lean your seat back? If you’re in the middle seat, should you just assume you get at least one armrest as your very own? And which one? Both? What if the schlub beside you won’t give up the space?

We are halfway through the U.S. government’s 2023 fiscal year. The U.S. Treasury Department’s Monthly Treasury Statement documenting the federal government’s tax collections and spending has both good and bad news about the federal government’s fiscal situation.