Neal McCluskey Over the years, many people have inquired about updating the chart below, which plots change in academic achievement for the nation’s 17-year-olds—the “final products” of our education system—against change in public school spending. The chart shows that spending grew precipitously while performance was basically flat. There are a couple of significant problems with updating the chart, and today I offer a stab at a new version that attempts to deal with them. The first problem is that […]
With James J. Puplava, CFP®, CTS™, CES™, CIS™, CFS™, CAS™, CSS™, FPWM™ Mar 7, 2025 – Jim Puplava and technical analyst John Roque at 22V Research dissect a faltering stock market as the MAG7 stocks, once index darlings, stumble—Nvidia stagnant despite stellar earnings, Microsoft sliding, and tech sectors…
In December 2024, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released its final guidelines for what foods can be labeled as “healthy” in American grocery stores. The new rule, which is the FDA’s first substantial update to healthy labeling requirements since 1994, sets stricter limits on added sugars—the 1994 rule had no limit on sugar (added or natural)—and sodium. It also removes caps on total fat (but not saturated fat). With these limits in place, the FDA has deemed […]
Mention a dystopia to most people and they’ll probably think of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Thought Police and Big Brother. That’s understandable, because there are worrying hints of it in our own society – are ideas like no-platforming, safe spaces and misgendering really so different from wrong-thinking and thought-crime? – but there’s a different kind of dystopia that’s a lot more common. Unfortunately it’s just as scary. The word dystopia itself just means a society that’s unpleasant or frightening. That can mean a brutal, highly […]
From yesterday’s decision in Doe v. Combs by Judge Lewis Liman (S.D.N.Y.) (for more on the split among the Doe v. Combs judges on this, see this post; for more on the split among federal judges generally on pseudonymity in lawsuits alleging sexual assault, see PDF pp. 78-85 of this article): Plaintiff alleges that nearly 30 years ago, in or around June 1995, she was raped by Combs at a party at Elks Plaza in New York City…. […]
I wrote a series of posts about the Supreme Court’s decision in the USAID case. Most of the critics focused on my criticisms of Justice Barrett, but as could be predicted, they completely missed why I was criticizing Justice Barrett. Here are the facts. The Solicitor General made two requests. First, the government sought an immediate administrative stay of the District Court’s ruling. Second, the government sought to vacate the order issued by the District Court. Chief Justice Roberts […]
The US and China came closer to a full-fledged trade war last week when China imposed tariffs of up to 15 percent on key US agricultural exports. This was retaliation for President Trump’s increasing of tariffs on Chinese exports to the United States from 10 percent to 20 percent. China’s retaliatory tariffs show how export-dependent industries are harmed by protectionist policies. Even if other countries refrain from imposing retaliatory tariffs, exporters can still suffer from reduced demand for […]