Michael J. Hicks
@HicksCBER
Father of 3 marvels. Lucky husband. Parent lottery winner. Ret’d infantryman. George & Frances Ball Dist. Prof. of Econ, VMI '84, UT ‘98, personal account.
The ideals of the Enlightenment returned to an enslaved French beach by the wretched refuse of her teeming shores. June 6, 1944. goo.gl/images/d3bKZI
“Superman” is a movie about adoption, and if adoption is woke, then consider @DavidAFrench woke. nytimes.com/2025/07/17/opi…
In which @ATabarrok utterly destroys the Zephyr Teachout op-ed on grocery prices: marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolu…
"AI can’t generate genuine prices, account for opportunity costs, or bear entrepreneurial risk. Economic vitality still depends on free exchange, not on optimization routines run in sterile data centers." @Marian_L_Tupy & @PeterBoettke wsj.com/opinion/algori… via @WSJopinion
Excited to appear on @trendspodcast to work through tariff and fiscal policy with Larry Rifkin. americatrendspodcast.com/2025/07/23/ep-…
Weird that any conservative can look at this chart and conclude that, in the name of fairness, we need to cut taxes on Social Security benefits and exempt seniors from local property taxes. Those policies just accelerate a massive intergenerational wealth redistribution.
The US government taxes younger workers trying to start families, and gives their money to wealthier retirees. There is no moral or economic justification for this abomination.
This is the biggest own-goal unforced error in US economic policy since Smoot-Hawley. A period of slower growth translates into trillions of lost economic value. Americans will be poorer, businesses will be slower to hire, and our country is set back. A blow to the United States.
The U.S. economy is headed into a period of noticeably slower growth thanks to the tariff impact on inflation and consumer spending, according to Goldman Sachs. nbcnews.com/business/econo…
The way that Teachout's terrible NYT op-ed was aggressively mocked, the disappearance of MMT, the YIMBY's understanding deeply the costs of regulation, tariffs losing all support on the left... It feels to me neoliberalism is gaining steam on the left
Take @ZephyrTeachout's observations (rather than her muddled arguments) seriously, and you'll become even more convinced Costco is a force for good.
Would Americans be better off without Costco? Zephyr Teachout says yes. I say no. marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolu…
The entire officer corps of an average small-sized country. You might expect to lose 4,681 keen, enthusiastic junior officers in a long war, but 1,066 colonels-majors, presumably all staff-trained planners & career men must be particularly worrying.
6 666 ☠️
NYT today on steel tariffs: "as imports have declined, American producers have more power to opportunistically increase their prices" "data shows that domestic steel producers have raised prices 16% this year" "American-made steel is the most expensive in the world"😲
Trump has signed legislation cumulatively adding $13 trillion in debt in his 4.5 years as president - dwarfing every other president in our lifetime. Give me a break.
Britt: We are $37 trillion in debt. It’s not just fiscally irresponsible, it is morally irresponsible and I'm so grateful to President Trump and his leadership for saying the buck stops with me and we’re starting to rein this in..
Lots of really bad economics in today’s NYT op-ed on grocery store competition. Take this passage for example:
Would Americans be better off without Costco? Zephyr Teachout says yes. I say no. marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolu…
Bessent says Aug. 12 China tariff deadline likely to be extended, talks planned in Stockholm cnbc.com/2025/07/22/bes…
Bessent says Aug. 12 China tariff deadline likely to be extended, talks planned in Stockholm cnbc.com/2025/07/22/bes…
🧵Now available! My paper with Ashruta Acharya and Alek Psrurek on the most generous engagement with the most influential "model" of degrowth. TLDR: It doesnt hold empirically. It predicts the opposite.
Cash transfers are not having the effects that the advocates said they would have.
1000 low income adults were randomly selected to receive $1000/month for 3 years, with a control group receiving $50/month over that same period. Many of them had children in the household. How did it affect how they parented and their kids?
“Uncertainty clouds how rigorously the US will be able to enforce transshipment restrictions. US definitions of localized goods remain vague, and details on verification are lacking.” bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Fewer.
We need more electricians and less sociology majors.
One of the things I love about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is its capacity to turn children into the super-soldier equivalent of a functioning adult. Consider the advantages of a typical LDS childhood: