Peter's Blog

Labor Day’s History of Violence

Every first Monday in September, Americans get a three-day weekend. Barbecues fire up, stores run sales, and politicians give speeches about “the dignity of work.” Labor Day is sold as a straightforward tribute to the American worker. But, as with most official retellings of historical turning points, the real history of Labor Day is a […]

Jobs: QCEW shows over 2M jobs lost in Q1

The analysis below covers the Employment picture released on the first Friday of every month. While most of the attention goes to the Headline Report, it can be helpful to look at the details, revisions, and other reports to get a better gauge of what is really going on. Current Trends The jobs report showed […]

When Economic Stabilizers Destabilize the Economy

Mainstream economists insist that recessions can only be cured by increasing government spending, a doctrine popularized by Keynes and his followers and defended even by prominent economists who have only half-jokingly suggested manufacturing crises to justify it. Murray Rothbard’s Austrian analysis turns this on its head, showing that government intervention prolongs downturns by further distorting […]

The Return of a Failed Wealth Tax Experiment

California’s proposed billionaire tax promises to raise $100 billion by taxing the state’s wealthiest residents, but Sweden and Colombia already ran this experiment for decades, and both saw wealth taxes chronically underperform while accelerating capital flight. Confirmed departures from California billionaires like Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Peter Thiel have already erased a large share […]

Fed Governor Concedes Next Rate Move Is a Coin Flip as Inflation Stays Well Above Target

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller told Reuters on September 3rd that inflation “remains meaningfully above” the Federal Open Market Committee’s 2 percent goal, even as he pointed to what he called recent signs of disinflation. The remarks, delivered at a Reuters NEXT Newsmaker Interview in Washington, D.C., come less than two weeks before the FOMC’s […]

Private Hiring Grinds to a Near-Halt as Job Growth Hits Seven-Month Low

U.S. private employers added just 38,000 jobs in August 2026, according to the ADP National Employment Report released this week, the slowest pace of hiring since January. The report, compiled from aggregated and anonymized payroll data covering more than 26 million U.S. employees in collaboration with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, showed weakness spreading beneath […]

Labor Market Data Keeps Getting Revised Down

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for July 2026 on Tuesday, September 1st, showing job openings “little changed” at 7.3 million. That phrase, along with its close cousins “essentially unchanged” and “held steady,” appeared throughout the report, describing nearly every headline metric. Hires and total separations both […]

Warsh Vows No Excuses on 2 Percent Inflation

Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh used his Jackson Hole podium on Friday to draw a bright line around the central bank’s credibility, declaring that the long-promised 2 percent inflation goal on the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index is “a firm, fixed target.” Price stability, he said, “is not self-executing…it’s the Fed’s job to deliver stable […]

The Fed Has Added $344B in Treasury Bills in a year

The following analysis breaks down the Fed balance sheet in detail. It shows different parts of the balance sheet and how those amounts have changed. It also shows historical interest rate trends. Breaking Down the Balance Sheet The Fed has quietly been doing Quantitative Easing since February. The pace of accumulation has slowed in recent […]

How Regulation Creates the Illusion of Competition

Politicians consistently defend business regulation as a shield for consumers, but the airline, healthcare, and banking industries show how these rules actually protect incumbent firms from real competition. The result is a state-enforced cartel that limits market entry, keeps service quality at the regulatory floor rather than pushing it higher, and leaves consumers footing the […]