Peter's Blog

Although deregulation is not often supported by those who support big government, it is actually the most realistic path forward for those who support an expensive state. Decades of deficits and poor management have led to a massive national debt and ever-growing interest payments. The interest payment is now similar to traditionally large expenses like […]

Austan Goolsbee, President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, delivered remarks on September 21st at the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum in London that challenged one of the central tenets of modern monetary policy. Goolsbee argued that the post-1970s doctrine of “looking through” supply-driven price shocks needs revision, stating plainly that […]

Even when we know what is right, we consistently fail to do it. The human mind is incredibly prepared to diverge from responsibility. The ability to recognize the world as it is, and hold the conclusions that one must necessarily draw from it, while not acting on those conclusions is both comfortable and easy. Because […]

The European Central Bank (ECB) marked the 25th anniversary of euro cash this month with a speech from Executive Board member Piero Cipollone, delivered September 14th at the House of the Euro in Brussels. Titled “The future of euro cash: trusted today, designed for tomorrow,” the address celebrated the currency’s 2002 launch, when 308 million […]

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday that the Producer Price Index (PPI) for final demand rose 0.4% in August, a sharp acceleration from July’s 0.1% gain and June’s 0.1% decline. On an unadjusted basis, wholesale prices are up 5.4% over the past 12 months, more than double the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. The report […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]