Alan Greenspan, America’s most powerful central banker and an apostle of freedom and free enterprise, passed away at age 100 on Monday — may he rest in peace. He served as Federal Reserve chairman for nearly 20 years from 1987 to 2006.
He was a great man and a friend and mentor to me and many other conservative economists. And during his tenure as Federal Reserve chairman, he successfully piloted our economy through 3.2% annualized real GDP growth and an average inflation rate of 2.5%, even as he successfully navigated us through a number of crises.
Meanwhile, job creation boomed during his tenure, stock markets soared, and real incomes rose. Greenspan was at heart an old-fashioned conservative business economist with a strong belief in limited government, lower taxes, and minimal regulation.
At bottom, Greenspan’s intellectual compass was rooted in free-market laissez-faire libertarianism. As a young man, he was part of Ayn Rand’s Salon, as were other Reagan advisors, Martin and Annelise Anderson.
When he accepted Richard Nixon’s offer to be chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors (Nixon was forced to resign almost immediately after), Greenspan insisted that wage and price controls be abolished. They were, although they crept back in during the Jimmy Carter years.
As a Reagan campaign adviser, Greenspan agreed with supply-side tax cuts. Perhaps he’s best known as a forceful critic of fiat paper money and an advocate for a hard dollar backed by gold. For him, gold was the preferred guarantor of monetary and fiscal discipline.
And in his many Congressional appearances as Fed Chairman, he frequently referred to gold as a measure of dollar value and an indicator of future inflation.
During his chairmanship, the philosopher Greenspan turned into the government realist Greenspan. He put out a number of fires and saved markets during the 1987 stock market crash. He later eased money during currency crises and the dotcom bubble.
Now, some people blame him for the mortgage meltdown that occurred after he retired, but that’s too simplistic, and in many respects, completely untrue.
His attempts to rationalize the financial meltdown got him into hot water after he retired from the Fed. But I still believe the biggest culprits were Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the idea of subprime lending that permeated mortgage markets and somehow allowed home loans to be issued without sufficient income, job, or credit histories from borrowers.
Greenspan opposed all of that while in office.
He believed in a sound dollar, even one linked to a gold-and-commodity price rule, along with limited government and reduced federal spending. And Greenspan served successfully under Democrat and Republican presidents, but Democrats at that time were Bill Clinton Democrats, not today’s socialist Democrats.
Today’s Democrats, like Senator Bernie Sanders, or Washington, D.C.’s mayoral nominee Janeese Lewis George, or socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s preferred Congressional candidates, are about as far from Alan Greenspan’s prosperous freedom and free enterprise creed as you can get.
They support open borders, abolishing ICE, a universal basic income, free government care for everything — childcare, schools, colleges, healthcare, and abortion — federal rent controls, federal freezes on electricity, national wealth taxes, packing the Supreme Court, no voter photo ID, and on and on.
All his life, Alan Greenspan fought big government socialism and totalitarianism of any kind.
His philosophy made America an enormous success. But if given a chance to govern, today’s crop of Democratic socialists will once again show why totalitarianism is always a failure.
***
Larry Kudlow served as Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of the National Economic Council under President Trump. Previously, he served as chief economist and senior managing director of Bear Stearns and was an associate director for economics and planning at the Office of Management and Budget during the Reagan administration. He currently serves as the host of Kudlow on FOX Business Network.

Alan Greenspan Retires As Chairman Of The Fed

Larry Kudlow: Alan Greenspan Was A Defender Of Freedom And Free Markets And A Friend

Alan Greenspan

DW Opinion

Economics

Fed Chairman

Federal Reserve

Reaganomics

Adam Smith once said that there was a great deal of ruin in a nation. 250 years since he said these words of consolation, Great Britain, his country and mine, seems to be trying to test that hypothesis to destruction. A few days ago, whilst the U.K. was reeling from yet another horrifically violent attack, The Atlantic published an article, “How Britain Became as Poor as Mississippi.” Whilst it is true that the British economy is in almost as parlous a state as its social fabric, the article makes several key mistakes when trying to work out what is breaking Britain.
What is really going on? As The Atlantic notes, by some measures, Brits were better off than their American cousins in the run up to the Great Financial Crash. We had nudged ahead in GDP per capita, and that’s with shorter working hours, more holiday, and the “socialized medicine” that many Americans seem to desire (more on that later).
The crash hit Britain particularly hard, however. The last Labour government has run huge deficits in the good times, sold off gold reserves, and overextended itself in Iraq and Afghanistan, whilst pouring money into unreformed public services and welfare. The national debt literally nearly doubled.
When the tide went out, we were in a desperate situation and in need of serious fiscal retrenchment, regardless of which party won the 2010 election. The Left will tell you that the bone-crushing austerity that brutalized the population caused this. The truth was that real spending was cut just 3%, over four years, from the highest base in British history.
The real problem with the crash, beyond an explosion in debt and the cost of servicing it, was the spread of a safetyist culture that prevented the bounce-back growth enjoyed by the U.S.A. and other countries. Instead, traumatized by the subprime mortgage scandal, regulators seized control of huge swaths of the economy and prevented the kind of robust economic growth needed to sustain a large welfare state and improve living conditions.
As growth left the equation, so too did a belief that things could get better. And this doomerist safetyism extended to a Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organization, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), that held a sword of Damocles over every budget. The OBR scores tax cuts as almost pure cost, crediting them with virtually no growth feedback, while scoring mass immigration as a fiscal positive; so the official arithmetic blesses one and damns the other before any minister opens his mouth.
More important even than the loss of understanding in economic growth is the way the British state operates. The fusion of the executive and legislature has traditionally given government powers that the U.S. presidency could only dream of. Britain has been famously described as an elective dictatorship in a mode that would have pleased Thomas Hobbes. In Britain’s uncodified (and in parts entirely unwritten) constitution, it is Parliament which is sovereign.
But the growth of the managerial (deep) state has gone much further even than in the U.S., and absent the federalism that allows America to build and compete, unitary Britain and its Parliament have become paralyzed from doing anything.
Lilliputian lawyers, charities, and NGOs have bound Leviathan, making it impossible to build data centers, aqueducts, houses, runways, and power plants. This, combined with net zero fanaticism, means Britain has the most expensive energy in the world (of course, we banned fracking years ago). To its credit, The Atlantic highlights some of the most absurd stipulations that overmighty Non-Governmental Organizations have insisted on, like the bat tunnel over a train line to allow bats to safely pass (there is in fact some evidence that it became a bat-killing tunnel as the poor creatures couldn’t escape it, but of course, no one lost their job over this).
Perhaps most alien to American readers is the fact that when Keir Starmer and Labour took over in July 2024, only 200 people across the whole of the British state changed jobs. One hundred ministers (including the PM and cabinet) drawn entirely from the 411 Labour MPs and 215 Labour Lords, and 100 “special advisers (SpAds),” the only political appointments allowed in the whole system. As a former SpAd myself, I can attest that the civil servants would always outnumber and outlast us. Not that it mattered much anyway; SpAds have no legal power to direct officials; we can only advise the minister.
In this way, all the same people, bar a minuscule number of figureheads, stay in post regardless of who wins the election. And because they never leave the system (it’s a job for life), they are extremely hostile to capitalism and the private sector, and frankly to outside ideas of any kind. It is, of course, fanatically fond of mass immigration.
This “blob” is the biggest hindrance to Britain’s prosperity and security. It breaks the Lockean feedback mechanisms that meaningful elections provide, and ruins the Hobbesian idea of the Sovereign&#8217;s power to act decisively. It never suffers if the economy does, and any scandal sees the elected minister (essentially a figurehead) fall on his sword, not them.
The reason for Brexit was that the European Union had become sovereign over Parliament. Now it is the officials who are sovereign and in control of the economy. Until there is a true restoration of the sovereignty of Parliament, Britain will remain poor, insular, and at risk from threats both at home and overseas. There is a great deal of ruin in a nation, but Britain cannot survive these problems endlessly without utter ruin.
***
James Price is a former Chief of Staff to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and a senior fellow at the Adam Smith Institute.

UK Money close-up.

The One Thing That Could Save The British Economy From Complete Ruin

Great Britain

Keir Starmer

Parliament

It&#8217;s time to say a bunch of stuff that&#8217;s going to get me in trouble in the too-online sphere right now; people on the Left who live in mansions, who hate capitalism, and also people on the Woke Right, the New Left, who also live in mansions, who also hate capitalism but like to pretend that they like capitalism.
Here we go.
I&#8217;m going to defend private property and free markets and basic common sense, because these are the things that allow you to succeed economically in life. It is good to make more money by providing people with better goods and services. It is good to be fiscally responsible. It is good to make smart decisions about your money.
Most Americans know all that stuff.
But a lot of Americans are being lied to these days. They&#8217;re being told a bunch of garbage that makes their lives actively worse. And increasingly — particularly if they are young and too online — Americans believe those things.
The Left and the Woke Right are going to get angry when I say you shouldn&#8217;t spend too much money eating at a restaurant if you&#8217;re unable to pay your rent. They&#8217;ll say that I&#8217;m saying that because I don&#8217;t care about people.
(You see, it&#8217;s better to be poorer and also keep eating at Wolfgang&#8217;s Steakhouse.)
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ben-shapiro-show-ep-2431?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-981859" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif" alt="" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-768x128.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
They will get angry when I say that Amazon makes your life better and cheaper. They&#8217;ll say it&#8217;s better to yell at Amazon, try to shut down their business, and tax them more because “Jeff Bezos is bald and rich and has a yacht!” or something similar. They&#8217;ll get angry when I say that billionaires aren&#8217;t inherently bad because they&#8217;re billionaires, and that instead, genuinely immoral people are bad and moral people are good. Tax returns have nothing at all to do with any of that.
The billionaires are typically billionaires, not because they are stealing from the poor — spoiler alert: the poor don&#8217;t have much money to take — but because they make a lot of people&#8217;s lives better. They make goods and services for cheaper.
So get ready. Here comes the blowback. It comes every time I talk about this stuff.
Remember that time I said young people who couldn&#8217;t afford to live in New York City might think about moving if policies don&#8217;t change because it&#8217;s more productive to search outside of New York City and find some success than to sit there in your expensive apartment with your two roommates and pizza?
People got super-duper mad.
Remember that time I said that Social Security needs to kick in later in life — especially for people who are currently 40 and under — because people are now living 20 years longer, and then Social Security kicks in, which is really expensive and is bankrupting the country? And also that when you hit retirement age, sure, you can retire, especially if you&#8217;re working a backbreaking job, but you should continue to do productive things in your community because it&#8217;s good for you on both a mental and spiritual level?
People got super-mad again.
Well, here&#8217;s the thing. I don&#8217;t really give a crap about how people feel about reality. And here is the reality: the only way your life gets more affordable is 1: You make more money; 2: Your expenses get lower, and 3: Products and services get more plentiful and better and cheaper.
All of these rely on free markets and common sense.
When Americans don&#8217;t feel good about the economy in general, they tend to think that things are “unfair.” “Unfair” is just a substitute for “I don&#8217;t feel good about things.”
This is human nature. It applies to us. It applies to our children. Whenever something happens that my kids don&#8217;t like, it&#8217;s unfair, right? They deserved something, and it didn&#8217;t happen.
It’s possible for two things to be true: The economy is not doing what it should be doing right now, and there are problems in the economy; regulatory problems, subsidy problems, market distortions, etc.
But generally speaking, the economic system in this country is mostly fair.
It is fair because you have property rights in this country. You have the equal rule of law in this country, as opposed to the vast majority of other countries around the Earth and in all of human history.
Politicians love lying to you. It is their favorite thing to do because the way that you win votes is by appealing to the lizard part of the brain, the part that says, “A bad thing happened and it&#8217;s unfair. It&#8217;s the system,” as opposed to, “A bad thing happened. Life is full of bad things.”
How do you solve poverty? The answer for most politicians is to yell at rich people and pretend the rich people got rich by causing poverty, which is untrue.
Poverty is the natural state of all mankind; for all of human history, everyone was poor. The question is not why there are poor people and rich people; the question is why even the poor people in the United States are, by any historical marker, very, very rich. That is the real question.
We now live in a world where, if you give basic financial advice, like “Move elsewhere if you can’t get a job in your area,” if you say things that reflect reality, people get mad, especially if there is a group of people telling them they don&#8217;t need to live in the world of reality.
Is Jeff Bezos the bad guy? Amazon directly employs 1.6 million people globally. People who use Amazon to sell products account for another 2 million jobs. Elon Musk’s global workforce consists of 150,000 people. Mark Zuckerberg&#8217;s Meta has 70,000 employees.
The notion that you kill private property and modern finance and somehow the economy gets better is absolute stupidity. But it is part and parcel of a lie that is being sold to you; that if only you had more power to centralize government, if you gave more power to Bernie Sanders or Tucker Carlson or people who want control over the economy, they would bring you back to some placid, agrarian past in which you can fish in the evening and write poetry in the morning.
It&#8217;s just trash. It&#8217;s stupid, and it does not comport with reality.
And as I’ve been saying for decades: in the end, reality always wins.

Why Reality Keeps Crashing Into America’s Economic Debate

Ben Shapiro

Capitalism

Opinion

wealth

British commentators have a habit of looking at both Britain and the United States through the same distorted lens, which needs a good clean: that they are “poor societies with a few very rich people.” It is a comforting story for those who want to emphasize inequality over prosperity. But it does not survive contact with the data, and it certainly does not describe the United States. If anything, it more closely describes Britain itself.
The uncomfortable truth is that many British observers struggle to grasp just how wealthy even working-class Americans are in material terms. This is not about billionaire comparisons or Silicon Valley extremes. It is about the baseline standard of living: income, consumption, housing space, and access to goods and services that define everyday life. When asked where they rank in terms of wealth with their American counterparts, Brits said they would be the 7th wealthiest state. In reality, we rank 51st and yes, even below Mississippi.
On almost every measure of disposable income and consumption, American households, including those in the middle and working classes, are significantly better off than their British counterparts. Homes are larger. Car ownership is higher. Access to goods is broader. Energy use, appliance use, and overall consumption levels reflect a society with far greater purchasing power. Anecdotally, I was stunned when I landed at JFK Airport by how huge Uber cars were. You would never have a Cadillac as an Uber in Britain.
And yet, much of the British commentary ecosystem continues to assume the opposite. Part of the confusion comes from how wealth is perceived rather than measured. Britain, especially in its post-industrial form, has developed a narrative of relative restraint: smaller homes, denser cities, and a strong emphasis on public provision. That creates an impression of fairness and stability, but it can also obscure stagnation.
The United States, by contrast, is often misread as a society defined only by extremes, billionaires at the top and insecurity everywhere else. But this misses the scale of American middle-class affluence, which remains unusually high by global standards despite real challenges like healthcare costs and housing pressures.
The reality is that neither country fits the simplistic “rich and poor extremes” model. But the balance of misperception is asymmetric. Britain increasingly underestimates American prosperity while quietly struggling with its own long-term growth constraints.
This debate is not happening in isolation. It comes at a moment when His Majesty’s state visit and broader efforts to reaffirm the U.K.–U.S. “special relationship” are drawing attention to what still binds the two countries together: a shared commitment to liberal democracy, open markets, and the idea that free societies generate prosperity through competition and innovation.
That shared tradition matters more in the post-Brexit era than it may have in decades. Outside the European Union, Britain must increasingly define its economic identity on its own terms. That means competing for investment, talent, and growth in a global system where the United States remains the dominant engine of innovation and wealth creation.
The comparison is therefore unavoidable, not as a cultural insult, but as an economic reality check. The United States continues to demonstrate the extraordinary capacity of a large, open economy to generate wealth at scale. It does so unevenly and often imperfectly, but the outcome is still clear: high levels of consumption, strong productivity in key sectors, and a middle class that, despite pressure, remains materially affluent by international standards.
Britain, meanwhile, faces a different trajectory. Wage growth has been sluggish, productivity growth has been weak, housing has become increasingly constrained, and infrastructure investment has been uneven. The result is a society where perceptions of middle-class comfort often mask underlying economic stagnation.
This divergence is not just about policy. It is about philosophy. Both Britain and the United States are heirs to a liberal tradition built on the idea that economic and political freedom is the foundation of prosperity. Markets, property rights, entrepreneurship, and institutional stability are not abstract ideals; they are mechanisms for generating sustained growth.
But that philosophy only works if it is actively maintained. In the post-Brexit era, Britain has an opportunity to reassert that tradition, not by imitating America, but by recognizing what actually drives prosperity in free societies. That requires moving beyond narratives of managed decline or moralized inequality and focusing instead on growth, productivity, and competitiveness.
The UK–US relationship, symbolized in part by royal diplomacy and state visits, is often described in sentimental terms. But its real significance lies in something more practical: two of the world’s most influential liberal democracies demonstrating that open societies can still outperform closed or centrally managed ones.
That example is increasingly important in a world where authoritarian models present themselves as efficient alternatives to democratic capitalism. If Britain and America are to continue offering a meaningful model, they must first be honest about what prosperity looks like. It is not defined solely by equality, nor by headline inequality figures, nor by isolated measures like healthcare access or housing costs. It is defined by the overall capacity of a society to generate wealth and improve living standards over time.
On that measure, the United States remains far wealthier than it is often given credit for, including among working-class households, while Britain faces the more difficult challenge of reversing long-term stagnation.
The point is not that one country “wins” and the other “loses.” It is that both countries are shaped by tradeoffs that they often misunderstand in each other. But if Britain continues to view itself and the United States through the same flattened narrative of inequality without prosperity, it risks misreading both its ally and itself. And in an era defined by global competition, economic uncertainty, and shifting geopolitical alliances, misreading is not just an intellectual mistake; it is a strategic one.
***
Mike Salem is the UK Country Associate at the Consumer Choice Center, an independent, non-partisan consumer advocacy group promoting innovation, consumer choice, and competitive markets. His analysis has appeared across British media, including GB News, LBC, the Telegraph, the Mirror, City AM, and BBC Arabic.

USA and Britain flag together. USA UK relations

Why A Prosperous America Is Hard For The British To Grasp

America

Britain

Free Market

Prosperity

In current foreign-policy debates on the Right, some have pushed for dividing the world into “spheres of influence.” The United States would get the Americas, the People’s Republic of China would be granted sway over Asia, and Vladimir Putin would have carte blanche to intervene in European affairs. Far from being steely-eyed “realism,” splitting up the world in that way might actually not take the national interest seriously enough.
The “spheres of influence” gambit has a superficial logic. By some measures, the United States is a smaller portion of the global economy than it was fifty years ago. It faces growing fiscal burdens. Its industrial infrastructure has withered. Some of its longstanding allies have hit economic and demographic slumps. The growth of other regional powers means that the geopolitical landscape has become more multipolar. Yet withdrawing from much of the globe would hamper the ability of the United States to respond to those changed circumstances and would also undermine the policy aims of American populists. International networks will be critical for renewing American industry and reinforcing national sovereignty.
While some European partners need urgent reforms (from cutting red tape to hiking defense budgets), the continent remains a major global economic hub. The White House’s recent <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf">National Security Strategy</a> observed that Europe “is home to cutting-edge scientific research and world-leading cultural institutions” and that it retains robust manufacturing and technology sectors. A full-scale American withdrawal from Europe could close down a crucial market for American industry (including defense sales) and could also threaten regional stability. Ending NATO and shuttering American military bases would create a power vacuum in that continent and also hurt the ability of the United States to project power abroad.
Nor can the United States afford to ignore Asia. Responsible for about half of <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/media-center/cusp-of-new-era-in-asia">global manufacturing output</a>, Asia has become the workshop for the world. The People’s Republic of China is already a manufacturing powerhouse, and it could consolidate industrial dominance if the United States severs its commitments to allies in the Pacific. That is especially the case for the advanced technologies that are the building blocks of the digital economy. A link in countless international supply chains, Taiwan produces about <a href="https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/taiwan-semiconductors-including-chip-design-ai">90%</a> of the world’s most advanced semiconductors. If the People’s Republic of China conquered that island, it would have a chokehold on the American and global economies. It could cut off the chips that are needed for cars, computers, missiles, and phones. Beijing is already trying to use its control of key market sectors to influence policymaking in the United States. Responding to American tariffs and industrial policy, China has floated restrictions on some critical minerals, including those that are essential for <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/chinas-new-rare-earth-and-magnet-restrictions-threaten-us-defense-supply-chains">defense technologies</a>.
Populists have rallied around the claims of national sovereignty, but allowing the Chinese Communist Party to cut off the American economy at a whim is the antithesis of national independence. While building out American domestic semiconductor production is a national-security imperative, that’s also a very long process. The United States cannot afford to surrender economic self-governance for the indefinite future while it waits for some eschaton of economic autarky.
Conversely, coordinating with allies in Europe and Asia can bolster economic agency. For example, the PRC is responsible for over <a href="https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2025/mcs2025-tungsten.pdf">80%</a> of the global annual production of tungsten, which is used for drills, computer chips, aerospace, x-rays, and more. The United States has not even mined tungsten commercially in over a decade. In addition to bringing back domestic tungsten production, American allies could help de-risk the tungsten market. Australia has massive tungsten reserves, and South Korea’s <a href="https://www.mining.com/sangdong-tungsten-mine-in-south-korea-returns-to-production-after-30-years/">Sangdong Mine</a> has returned to production for the first time in decades. Accessing those resources will require keeping Pacific alliances strong — and not surrendering that region to Beijing.
Likewise, allies in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East will continue to be important for American national-security aims. Even as it has stressed the need to reform certain geopolitical arrangements, the Trump administration’s foreign-policy strategy is premised on the United States being a global great-power. Losing the hard power that backs the dollar’s reserve-currency status would cause an immediate economic crisis at home, but a global defense infrastructure also helps target American foes abroad. The Jacksonian tradition of foreign policy — which prioritizes the targeted use of military force to defend the national interest — has achieved a renewed prominence in the Trump presidencies. Jacksonianism could be a way of rebalancing global commitments by keeping America’s rivals off-balance without tying down the United States. International alliances can help optimize such Jacksonian exertions of force.
From its very founding, the United States has prioritized having access to global markets. When the Barbary pirates threatened American ships, Thomas Jefferson sent frigates to Tripoli. To open up Japan, Commodore Matthew Perry brought the United States Navy to Edo Bay. The network of alliances in the aftermath of World War II could be seen as an extension of a long-term strategic imperative: that the Stars and Stripes should be able to move freely throughout the world and that those who live under that banner should be safe from both foreign and domestic threats.
We now face a very different political landscape from 1946 or 1999. Implementing “liberal democracy” in a country is a lot harder than getting an Amazon package there. If policymakers had sought to integrate the world into some post-historical bazaar, their dreams have been sorely disappointed. Great-power competition is back, and populist movements have roiled political establishments on both sides of the Atlantic. Those changes indicate the need to rethink international alliances without abandoning them entirely.
Yes, the United States needs to recognize the limits of power and to try to defer existential conflict with its competitors. It also needs to understand the interests of those competitors. At the same time, the United States needs to understand its own interests. Cutting itself off from allies in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere would squander a major geopolitical advantage and undercut efforts to build a stronger nation at home.
* * *
Fred Bauer is a writer from New England. Find his work at National Review, City Journal, The Atlantic, UnHerd, and The Washington Post. @fredbauerblog

Strategic world map with shipping infographics, flags and dice

The Plan To Split The World Into Spheres And What It Means For America

The Plan To Split The World Into Spheres And What It Could Means For America

China

Europe

National Security

Russia

U.S. Military

U.S. Navy

President Javier Milei’s economic revolution represents more than a policy pivot; it’s a moral restoration of economic freedom in a country long suffocated by political patronage and false populism.
For over half a century, Argentina sabotaged its own potential through destructive experiments in statism. Now, at last, a government in Buenos Aires is aligning economic reality with moral clarity: wealth is created by entrepreneurs, not bureaucrats.
This return to first principles is rekindling optimism not only among Argentines but across a region desperate for proof that markets and democracy still deliver shared prosperity.
One crucial reform remains for President Milei: fulfilling his campaign promise to replace the discredited peso with the U.S. dollar, which would slay the inflation dragon once and for all. Other Latin American nations have successfully done this.
This weekend, President Milei will join <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/world/trump-to-host-latin-american-leaders-including-milei-in-miami-on-march-7.phtml__;!!PxibshUo2Yr_Ta5B!1lj03JOV51ushNRZ8I6bEicd-MCjFM8_7oSRvGjC-ZdxY1yQmBNK7tvJUriYzI4RmGou_Pok0uqJL1psbIsm4g$">President Donald Trump in Miami</a>, where several Latin American leaders will discuss a renewed hemispheric push for pro-growth cooperation. The very fact that Argentina now sits at such a table signals how far it has come in restoring credibility. A nation once dismissed as ungovernable is suddenly at the center of regional attention, reminding the world that bold ideas grounded in free markets can reshape national destiny. The discussions will also test whether Argentina can sustain reform momentum amid political resistance at home.
Shortly afterward, Milei&#8217;s administration will host “<a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://x.com/ArgMilei/status/1992720098612940853?s=20__;!!PxibshUo2Yr_Ta5B!1lj03JOV51ushNRZ8I6bEicd-MCjFM8_7oSRvGjC-ZdxY1yQmBNK7tvJUriYzI4RmGou_Pok0uqJL1qR77feuw$">Argentina Week</a>“ in New York, showcasing opportunities for American investment in energy, agriculture, and finance. The symbolism is powerful: Buenos Aires is stepping out of its long isolation and back into a world governed by trust and transparency. For many investors who had written off Argentina years ago, this gathering marks the ultimate test of Milei’s reforms under political and legal scrutiny that past regimes failed. Clear progress will bring capital home, along with the modern infrastructure, technology, and competition needed to reinvigorate Argentina’s middle class and stabilize its currency.
Markets, however, are built on trust, not slogans. The outcome of the <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-08/argentina-ordered-to-pay-at-least-8-4-billion-in-ypf-lawsuit__;!!PxibshUo2Yr_Ta5B!1lj03JOV51ushNRZ8I6bEicd-MCjFM8_7oSRvGjC-ZdxY1yQmBNK7tvJUriYzI4RmGou_Pok0uqJL1rXv1ks2w$">Petersen v. Republic of Argentina</a> case — a $16 billion judgment tied to the Peronism-driven seizure of the energy company YPF — will test Argentina’s commitment to the rule of law. YPF’s nationalization back in 2012 was another failed experiment of Argentina’s Peronist past – one that resulted in major fallout for American investors. If the government honors that judgment and turns this costly dispute into a milestone of legal redemption, it would signal that the old habits of expropriation are truly over.
Refusing to honor that decision would risk undermining the very revival Milei seeks. It would chill investment just as confidence begins to return and cast doubt on Argentina’s reliability as a trading and financial partner. Upholding accountability, by contrast, would not only calm financial markets but also energize entrepreneurs at home, eager to build without fear of arbitrary intervention. It would confirm to foreign investors that Argentina’s new age of reform is anchored in institutions, not personalities.
The United States has already shown its faith in Argentina’s reform course. President Trump‘s $20 billion swap line was more than financial aid — it was a vote of confidence that free people and free markets can succeed where socialism failed. That confidence, however, will last only if Argentina maintains predictable legal and economic rules.
Milei has shown rare determination by slashing spending, ending price controls, and dismantling the bureaucracies that choked private enterprise. But lasting success depends on consistency: clear rules, sound money (hence the need for dollarization), and dependable institutions. Property rights are the oxygen of capitalism. When governments confiscate, investment dies. When they keep their word, growth flourishes.
The temptation to cut corners in the name of short-term relief always lurks nearby. But the only sustainable path forward is steady adherence to economic liberty and institutional reliability. The meetings in Miami and New York offer the ideal stage for Milei to affirm those values — and to show that Argentina’s new direction is not a passing wave but a permanent shift in national character.
If Argentina stays this course — resolving old debts, deepening ties with the United States, and proving that freedom and responsibility are inseparable — it can once again become a beacon of prosperity in the Western Hemisphere. The world is watching, and this time Argentina has a real chance to prove that freedom works.
* * *
Steve Forbes is Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Media.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Javier Milei Opens 2026 Legislative Sessions

STEVE FORBES: Argentina’s Reinvention Depends On Faith From Free Markets

STEVE FORBES: Argentina's Reinvention Depends On Faith From Free Markets

Argentina

finance

Miami

New York City

South America

US dollar

You know, between the rapid pace of news events these days and the ubiquitous proliferation of media outlets, it’s very easy to get so overwhelmed with information that you lose your focus and let your mind drift to meaningless side issues like whether if you continually rewind &#8220;The Housemaid&#8221; so you can watch the Sydney Sweeney sex scene over and over, it will somehow show up on the feed so your wife will find out when she goes to watch one of those movies she likes where none of the women even takes her shirt off so what the hell’s the point.
I’m sorry. What was I talking about?
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you can lose your focus — and not even realize that you don’t really understand the issues in play. So now and again, we here at the Daily Wire like to take a moment to try to explain to you some of the important subjects that we ourselves know absolutely nothing about.
For instance, President Trump says the economy is doing great, but polls show that many people disagree. So today we want to try to unpack the principles of economics so you can answer basic questions, like who’s right, who’s wrong, how the hell should I know, and why can’t you people just leave me alone?
Economics is a science, like pinball or craps. The word comes from the Greek root “omics,” meaning “something you read in the newspaper that is so ridiculous it makes you laugh.” That’s the same root that gives us words like “comics,” and “New York Times opinionomics.”
Now, here at The Andrew Klavan Show, we know that some people in our audience are functionally illiterate, but the rest of our audience can only aspire to being functionally illiterate, so in order to explain the principles of economics in the simplest possible way, we’re going to take you through an ordinary day in the life of an economist.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1268-the-andrew-klavan-show?elementPosition=1&amp;row=6&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974735 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-1024x171.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-1024x171.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-768x128.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-1536x256.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now.jpg 1800w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
Ordinary economist Wolfgang Startle wakes up a little after 6:00 AM. He opens the shades in time to see the sun cresting the eastern horizon. “Oh my God,” says Wolfgang Startle, “what the hell is that?”
“That’s the sun coming up in the morning,” says Mrs. Startle.
“Wow,” says Wolfgang. “That’s surprising. Yesterday, I predicted that artificial intelligence would cause the moon to turn to blood while the sun refused to shine. So this development is very unexpected.” 
Soon after, Mrs. Startle puts breakfast on the table. “Whoa!” cries Wolfgang Startle. “Are these fried eggs? I did not see that coming.”
“But I make you fried eggs every morning,” says Mrs. Startle.
“Yes,” says Wolfgang. “But last week, I predicted that Donald Trump’s tariffs would drive the price of eggs up way beyond what we can afford, so this is completely unexpected.”
An hour later, Wolfgang Startle arrives at work at the Wall Street Journal, where he’s greeted by his editor, Hyman Panic. “I’m sorry, Wolfgang,” Panic says. “I’m going to have to let you go, because every single prediction you make turns out to be wrong.”
“Well, this comes totally out of the blue for me,“ says Wolfgang Startle. “I predicted that Trump’s anti-immigration policies would cause a minor rise in unemployment&#8230; for some reason&#8230; but now my unemployment is unexpectedly at 100%.”
And just wait till you see how startled Wolfgang Startle is when he gets home, because he did not predict that Mrs. Startle would unexpectedly run off with the guy who writes the horoscope pages for the New York Post, after she discovered that his predictions were more accurate than Wolfgang’s, so he still has a job.
I hope this glimpse into the daily life of an economist has given you a better sense of whether you should believe Donald Trump when he says the economy is great, or your wife when she tells you she had to sell the kids for rent money.
The important thing to remember is that whether you vote for Trump’s Republicans or for the people who want to reduce America to dust while destroying every vestige of our prosperity and freedom, you can never be totally sure about the future, unless you read the horoscope page in the New York Post.
* * *
This excerpt is taken from the opening satirical monologue of “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Andrew Klavan Show</a>.”
Andrew Klavan is the host of “The Andrew Klavan Show” at The Daily Wire. Klavan is the bestselling author of numerous books, including the Cameron Winter Mystery series. The fifth installment, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/After-That-Cameron-Winter-Mysteries/dp/1613166869/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3EGZUC370LG46&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Y_NI0mDOKeowShheDQTVx5NH-fAeimJoCD56_T0Acpl8C0mup7uJf-nGGSRLEItaaekoDnvS2vWLMa4Zd2UBXQ8Y-g-P502jOWz-Y8IX3ZQsdlO7WMLrg1xIhNoKmjCorSWUR4C2l_RbiZ7apJ1MfPzGOrrEf7AdAXX6xwnJRVP_XqUfWuMuVthTWscaU3P4vgmS86-96n-721enHfX12CFQWTajqFbVnrsDkexfUf4.6_gTH6h1Bb9Pn375QdF_VAVZSayDvjQBBKGXE-MTiFo&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=klavan&amp;qid=1754049918&amp;sprefix=%2Caps%2C80&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">After That, The Dark,</a> is NOW AVAILABLE. Follow him on X: <a href="https://x.com/andrewklavan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@andrewklavan</a>.
The views expressed in this satirical piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Stressed businessman overwhelmed by work

Economics Is A Science, Like Pinball Or Craps

Andrew Klavan

Donald Trump

Humor

Satire

I’ve been fortunate to build a career as a working musician in the music industry for more than thirty years now.
Over the course of my career, I’ve experienced the music business from the inside on every level. I&#8217;ve written, produced, and performed chart-topping songs not only for myself, but many other platinum artists.
What I’ve seen is simple: the system isn’t working the way it should for the people who actually perform the music.
Because of a loophole in the law, terrestrial radio has managed to avoid paying artists for the use of their music for more than a century. Today, American performers are being asked to give their work away under outdated rules, while everyone else in the chain gets paid. That imbalance doesn’t just hurt artists — it devalues the very creativity that sustains our culture. When music plays on the radio, songwriters and publishers are paid, but performers receive absolutely nothing.
Meanwhile, Big Radio corporations like iHeart, Cumulus, and others pull in nearly $14 billion each year, selling advertising wrapped around the performer&#8217;s talent and work. They’ve built their entire business on the backs of American artists, yet still tell us we should be grateful for the “exposure” that comes from being played on the radio. &#8220;Shut up and be happy that we&#8217;re playing your music! You have no right to the income stream.&#8221; This is their mantra.
Don’t get me wrong: radio has played an important role in my career as a country artist, and I appreciate the foundational place it holds in American music. There’s no better feeling than hearing your song on the radio for the first time. But gratitude for the radio’s role doesn’t mean we should accept a system that only lets one side of the table participate in the success.
As of today, the United States is the only major democracy that does not pay artists when their music is played on terrestrial radio — putting us in league with countries like Iran, North Korea, and Cuba. So would it be fair to say we have a &#8220;Communist business model when it comes to terrestrial radio in America?&#8221;
This question answers itself.
What’s more, many nations that do pay artists are now withholding hundreds of millions of dollars owed to American performers because our own system refuses to recognize their rights. Money that should be coming home to American artists is instead being held overseas.
To me, this issue is just common sense: If you use the music and leverage it to make money for your company, you should pay the artist. That’s how things work in this country. If you work hard, your work deserves to be honored with fair pay. That’s a core American value — AM/FM radio knows this, but they have the benefit of antiquated rules allowing them to take a free ride. 
So they do.
They’ve protected that free ride for decades with armies of lobbyists and political contributions designed to keep the system just the way it has always been. But now, we have a President who understands this fight.
President Trump knows the entertainment business because he’s worked in it, and he has been a true friend to American artists. In 2018, he signed the Music Modernization Act to improve compensation and copyright laws for the digital era. Now, he’s supporting the next step: a bill that will finally ensure artists are paid fairly when their music is played on terrestrial radio.
The American Music Fairness Act, introduced by Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) in the Senate and Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) in the House, would require AM/FM radio corporations to start paying performers, just as digital radio already does. Royalties would go directly to artists.
What about the mom and pop stations? Well, small, independent broadcasters would pay only a few hundred dollars a year for unlimited access to music, and Big Radio would finally pay its fair share.
It’s no surprise this bill is already supported by conservative policy groups, more than 300 major recording artists, and community broadcasters alike. In December, Gene Simmons of Kiss testified before the Senate on behalf of the American Music Fairness Act, telling lawmakers, “If you are against this bill, you are un-American.” I believe he’s right.
All of us deserve an America where hard work still matters, and fair pay still means something. Passing the American Music Fairness Act would send that message clearly. It would tell the world that we stand with artists — not with the Big Radio companies that continue to profit by exploiting them.
It’s time for Congress to take action and finally right this ship. No more delays. Send the American Music Fairness Act to President Trump’s desk and deliver a victory for every American who believes that hard work and fair pay go hand in hand.
* * *
John Rich is an American country music songwriter, artist, and producer, best known as one half of the duo Big &amp; Rich.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Editor&#8217;s note: The title of this article has changed.

Volunteer Jam: A Musical Salute To Charlie Daniels

The Billion-Dollar Radio Free Ride Faces A Reckoning

Congress

Entertainment

John Rich

Marsha Blackburn

Money

Radio

U.S. Senate

College ed

Why America’s Colleges Are Far More Fragile Than They Appear, Part II

American Universities

College

Education

Ivy League

Student Loans

Students

College decay

Why America’s Colleges Are Far More Fragile Than They Appear, Part I

President Donald Trump announced Friday that he was nominating economist Kevin Warsh to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve. 
Warsh, a critic of the current chair Jerome Powell, will need to be confirmed by the Senate. Trump has battled with Powell over interest rates and has even floated firing him. 
“I am pleased to announce that I am nominating Kevin Warsh to be the CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “I have known Kevin for a long period of time, and have no doubt that he will go down as one of the GREAT Fed Chairmen, maybe the best. On top of everything else, he is &#8216;central casting,&#8217; and he will never let you down. Congratulations Kevin!”
Warsh is currently an economist at the Hoover Institution, a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and a partner at the Duquesne Family Office investment firm.
He was previously an economic policy advisor to President George W. Bush. He became the youngest Fed governor ever at 35 when he was nominated to the board of governors in 2006, a role he served in until 2011.
The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/economy/central-banking/the-long-campaign-of-kevin-warsh-e5bd26d6?siteid=yhoof2&amp;gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=AWEtsqdRm4kYWggpj1R8e-KL3-W5GGSrzrk8qvYRGFi75VF3a2FY2TDC4cc4OLjNu40%3D&amp;gaa_ts=697ca692&amp;gaa_sig=Kknzr6M6zFvuYJQa1uZKanpbHXZdkVYTZ_KmKd3E2YI43hUqQsdYQY9i8O-plIHPTtP1BAdEV3IAHER_y7HSZA%3D%3D">reported</a> that Warsh played a “crucial behind-the-scenes roles in Washington’s rescue of Wall Street during the financial crisis&#8221; of 2008.
If confirmed, Warsh would take over from Powell when his term as chair ends in May. Trump again <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115978487020569325">ripped</a> into Powell on Thursday for not cutting interest rates, accusing him of damaging the economy and undermining national security. 
Trump on Friday commented on speculation that he would nominate National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett. 
“There was great speculation that highly respected Kevin Hassett was going to be named Chairman of the Fed, and a great Chairman he would have been but, quite honestly, he is doing such an outstanding job working with me and my team at the White House, that I just didn’t want to let him go,” Trump wrote soon after announcing the Warsh pick. “Kevin is indescribably good so, as the expression goes, ‘if you can’t do better, don’t try to fix it!’ Thank you Kevin for doing such a great job!”
Trump has battled with the Federal Reserve throughout much of his second term. Earlier this month, the Justice Department launched a criminal probe into Powell over statements he made to the Senate about a costly renovation of the Federal Reserve. The Supreme Court is also considering whether Trump has the authority to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook.

Day Five Of The Spring Meetings Of The International Monetary Fund And World Bank

Trump Names Next Fed Chair Pick: ‘He Will Never Let You Down’

Jerome Powell

The Trump administration did a victory lap on Wednesday as new data shows America&#8217;s trade deficit with foreign countries plummeting, but multiple economists told The Daily Wire that reducing the trade deficit does nothing to move the U.S. economy in the right direction.
A new report from the Commerce Department showed that the U.S. trade deficit decreased by 24% in August as the president&#8217;s tariffs hit countries around the globe. The White House <a href="https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1991158360280826034">highlighted</a> the new trade data and said it is &#8220;more proof that President Trump’s trade and economic agenda continues to pay off for the American people.&#8221;
&#8220;As the President’s historic trade deals and pro-growth policies continue to take effect and trillions in investments to make and hire in America continue to materialize, Americans can rest assured that the best is yet to come,&#8221; White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement shared with The Daily Wire.
A trade deficit occurs when a country&#8217;s imports — the products it brings into the country from other nations — exceed its exports — what it ships to other countries to be sold in their markets. Trump has <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/regulating-imports-with-a-reciprocal-tariff-to-rectify-trade-practices-that-contribute-to-large-and-persistent-annual-united-states-goods-trade-deficits/">argued</a> that the United States has been unfairly treated by its trading partners, partially due to &#8220;large and persistent annual U.S. goods trade deficits.&#8221;
The data, released by the Commerce Department&#8217;s Bureau of Economic Analysis and Census Bureau, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/us-trade-deficit-narrows-sharply-august-imports-fall-2025-11-19/">shows</a> that as Trump&#8217;s tariffs took hold, U.S. imports decreased 5.1%, while exports remained flat. For comparison, U.S. imports rose in July while many of the president&#8217;s tariffs were still in limbo, suggesting that American companies were stocking up on products before the tariffs went into effect. Now, companies are importing fewer products and machinery as they seek to avoid paying high tariffs for their goods, which could be a concerning sign about the future of the U.S. economy, according to Colin Grabow, associate director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the libertarian Cato Institute.
&#8220;It was reported that the decline in the trade deficit was more specifically due to U.S. firms reducing their purchases of machinery, industrial supplies, pharmaceutical ingredients, and telecom equipment, and this really speaks to the misplaced obsession some people have with trying to reduce imports or thinking that reduction is a good thing,&#8221; Grabow said. &#8220;These are all imports used in the production of stuff. We take foreign machinery and we put it in American factories and we make stuff. Well, if we&#8217;re importing less of that, it tells me we&#8217;re going to be producing less stuff.&#8221;
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E.J. Antoni, the chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, said that while a deficit is usually a negative term when talking about money, a trade deficit can often be a good thing. Antoni argued that trade deficits driven by foreign investments are positive for the United States and have been the norm for most of American history.
&#8220;From even before our nation was founded, before the Revolutionary War all the way through the Gilded Age in the late 19th century, we ran a trade deficit in every single year except for seven years. And of those seven years, in four of them we were at war with Great Britain, so obviously they didn&#8217;t want to trade with us very much, and the other three were banking panics when Americans were basically so poor they couldn&#8217;t afford anything from abroad.&#8221;
Antoni explained that it&#8217;s more important for Americans to look at how and why the trade deficit is shifting, saying it&#8217;s better for a trade deficit to be driven up by foreign investments than for the deficit to come down because the United States sold off revenue-generating assets.
&#8220;When it comes to international trade, much of the assessment of whether things are good or bad for Americans comes down to not just the numbers themselves, but why the numbers are moving in one direction or another,&#8221; Antoni said. &#8220;Again, a trade deficit is not in and of itself bad. It&#8217;s a complete misnomer.&#8221;
Dr. Wayne Winegarden, senior fellow in economics at the free-market Pacific Research Institute, told The Daily Wire that he was confused by why the Trump administration was celebrating a decrease in the trade deficit.
&#8220;When we&#8217;re saying the trade deficit is smaller, we&#8217;re simultaneously saying the capital surplus is smaller.&#8221; Winegarden said.
&#8220;Over the last three months, exports have basically stagnated, we&#8217;re not selling any more overseas,&#8221; he added. &#8220;Imports are down, meaning consumers have less access to affordable goods and manufacturers have less access to the materials they need, so I&#8217;m trying to figure out how that&#8217;s a good thing.&#8221;

Photo of Trump: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images / Illustrated by The Daily Wire

America’s Trade Deficit Is Dropping Thanks To Trump’s Tariffs. Will That Improve The Economy?

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