# ![@AlanReynoldsEcn Avatar](https://lunarcrush.com/gi/w:26/cr:twitter::790330998.png) @AlanReynoldsEcn Alan Reynolds

Alan Reynolds posts on X about tariffs, federal reserve, wall street, rates the most. They currently have [-----] followers and [---] posts still getting attention that total [-----] engagements in the last [--] hours.

### Engagements: [-----] [#](/creator/twitter::790330998/interactions)
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- [--] Week [-------] +49%
- [--] Month [-------] +1,014%
- [--] Months [-------] -25%
- [--] Year [---------] +270%

### Mentions: [--] [#](/creator/twitter::790330998/posts_active)
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- [--] Months [--] -26%
- [--] Year [---] -39%

### Followers: [-----] [#](/creator/twitter::790330998/followers)
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- [--] Week [-----] +2%
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- [--] Months [-----] +4.20%
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### CreatorRank: [-------] [#](/creator/twitter::790330998/influencer_rank)
![CreatorRank Line Chart](https://lunarcrush.com/gi/w:600/cr:twitter::790330998/c:line/m:influencer_rank.svg)

### Social Influence

**Social category influence**
[finance](/list/finance)  64.34% [countries](/list/countries)  11.63% [technology brands](/list/technology-brands)  3.88% [stocks](/list/stocks)  3.1% [cryptocurrencies](/list/cryptocurrencies)  1.55% [travel destinations](/list/travel-destinations)  1.55% [currencies](/list/currencies)  0.78% [ufc](/list/ufc)  0.78% [automotive brands](/list/automotive-brands)  0.78% [social networks](/list/social-networks)  0.78%

**Social topic influence**
[tariffs](/topic/tariffs) #308, [federal reserve](/topic/federal-reserve) 7.75%, [wall street](/topic/wall-street) 7.75%, [rates](/topic/rates) 7.75%, [$reyn](/topic/$reyn) 6.98%, [inflation](/topic/inflation) 6.2%, [in the](/topic/in-the) 5.43%, [china](/topic/china) 4.65%, [fed](/topic/fed) 4.65%, [donald trump](/topic/donald-trump) 3.88%

**Top accounts mentioned or mentioned by**
[@lincoln_cog](/creator/undefined) [@jimiuorio](/creator/undefined) [@jk_lundblad](/creator/undefined) [@honeyboy103109](/creator/undefined) [@aledinola](/creator/undefined) [@philwmagness](/creator/undefined) [@stevenrattner](/creator/undefined) [@taxfoundation](/creator/undefined) [@jklundblad](/creator/undefined) [@computersagejab](/creator/undefined) [@realejantoni](/creator/undefined) [@musserryan](/creator/undefined) [@vitaliyk](/creator/undefined) [@patrickwebb](/creator/undefined) [@morganwarstler](/creator/undefined) [@noahpinion](/creator/undefined) [@methodofkeynes](/creator/undefined) [@justinwolfers](/creator/undefined) [@rameshponnuru](/creator/undefined) [@gop](/creator/undefined)

**Top assets mentioned**
[Reynolds Consumer Products Inc. (REYN)](/topic/$reyn) [Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)](/topic/microsoft) [Alphabet Inc Class A (GOOGL)](/topic/$googl) [Dave Inc. (DAVE)](/topic/$dave)
### Top Social Posts
Top posts by engagements in the last [--] hours

"1. When the world loses confidence and trust in the U.S. Government the U.S. dollar falls. [--]. Since internationally traded commodities are priced in dollars a falling dollar makes those goods cheaper in terms of foreign currencies. That bargain to foreign purchasers in turn bids up dollar commodity prices paid by Americans. So too do U.S. tariffs on commodities which lift the price of raw and semi-finished goods as inputs for American industries above the world price. [--]. A sustained rising trend in dollar commodity prices is most often followed later by higher U.S. inflation."  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/2020233380223184987)  2026-02-07T20:29Z [----] followers, [----] engagements


"But Truflation isn't true. "The main problem is that Truflation adjusts the weights for different commodity groups monthly. This creates significant jumps in the data particularly visible at the start of each month when these weight adjustments take effect." Look at the Truflation estimates -- alternating big spikes and valleys with neither providing a clue what comes next. https://marketmonetarist.com/2025/02/13/credibility-problems-the-fed-isnt-convincing-and-truflation-isnt-true/ Back under 0.9% - rents plunging but CPI wont show it for months:"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/2020236548373946447)  2026-02-07T20:41Z [----] followers, 48.1K engagements


"In the first quarter of [----] President Donald Trump began raising tariffs on specific goods (like washing machines steel and aluminum_ and on specific countries (like China the EU Canada and Mexico). In [----] he imposed more and higher tariffs on many more manufactured goods and more countries. Manufacturing accounted to 11% of U.S. GDP. when this one-man war on trade began. By the second quarter of [----] manufacturing had shrunk to 9.4% of GDP. https://twitter.com/i/web/status/2020853912664776795 https://twitter.com/i/web/status/2020853912664776795"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/2020853912664776795)  2026-02-09T13:34Z [----] followers, 38.6K engagements


"Trumps First-Term Tariffs Crushed US Manufacturing https://www.cato.org/blog/trumps-first-term-tariffs-crushed-us-manufacturing https://www.cato.org/blog/trumps-first-term-tariffs-crushed-us-manufacturing"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/2021965758855803285)  2026-02-12T15:12Z [----] followers, [----] engagements


"As a part-time grad student at Sacramento State in [----] mainstream economists' noisy advocacy for devaluation tariffs and price controls got me so agitated that I wrote "The Case Against Wage and Price Controls" in July -- shortly before Nixon really did it on August [--]. Bill Buckley later put my article on the cover of National Review and later hired me during a gracious hotel room lunch in San Francisco. I have not stopped sounding off about bad economic policy ever since (even at 83). AIER kindly posted my 50-year retrospective about that fateful day in August 1971:"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/2021983602511060999)  2026-02-12T16:23Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"No matter how often the President and his minions keep repeating the Big Lie about Trump having personally "brought in" $18 Trillion from someplace for some purposes those chanting that ridiculous number never even try to explain what they mean by it. $18 Trillion is after all a sum equivalent to the entire GDP of China in [----] ($18.7 trillion) and as @PhilWMagness adds total federal taxes in [----] were only $5 Trillion. The Trump loyalists' mysterious $18 Trillion boast certainly does not mean direct foreign investment or even combined foreign and domestic business investment. The government"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/2017234898717655308)  2026-01-30T13:54Z [----] followers, [----] engagements


"SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler did not merely echo the President's $18 trillion canard during the last TV performance of pandering Cabinet officials; she also invented a fake number of her own. Loeffler declared "We will have 7% GDP growth. Its probably being underestimated. . ." The underestimate in question undoubtedly referred to the widely hyped Atlanta Fed's January [--] "GDP NOW" estimate of 5.4% growth rate in last year's fourth quarter. Was that underestimated The Atlanta Fed didn't think so. They cut their estimate to 4.2% three days later. And on January [--] the New York Fed's own"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/2017698405083164881)  2026-01-31T20:36Z [----] followers, 74.8K engagements


"Trumps Eighteen Trillion Dollar Hoax https://www.cato.org/blog/trumps-eighteen-trillion-dollar-hoax https://www.cato.org/blog/trumps-eighteen-trillion-dollar-hoax"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/2019021738487779602)  2026-02-04T12:14Z [----] followers, 132.6K engagements


"@StevenRattner notes that investment returns such as dividends and rent accounted for a large share of the pretax income above $1 million reported on "individual" tax returns in [----] and reasons that a higher tax rate on realized capital gains would be an easy way to get them to pay much more. Actually this has often been tried. Examine the green line in the ancient graph on the left I have been doing this work since the 1970s. It shows that the amount of capital gains reported on tax returns invariably fell whenever the red capital gains tax (CGT) rate rose. Conversely the amount of"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/2019131640518226257)  2026-02-04T19:31Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"Most comments on Aaron Rupar's post below focused on a claim by Congressman Bill Foster's (D-IL) that manufacturing employment growth is causally linked to the party that wins the presidency. Actually what happens to such cyclical jobs more often depends on what the Federal Reserve was doing when the presidency was changing hands (such as the 19% federal funds rate when Reagan was inaugurated) Foster's comment about the stronger dollar under Democrats on the other hand makes sense at least once. In Clinton's second term Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin's strong dollar policy (the green line)"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/2019149850991022455)  2026-02-04T20:43Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"Matt Yglesias claims "wage stagnation coincided with the runaway political success of Ronald Reagan's political coalition." But that is not what his graph shows. It shows stagnant real wages from about [----] to [----]. That "era" coincided with Nixon's devaluation and price controls in 1971-73 and five recessions notably the Volcker Fed's twin recessions of 1980-82. One of the technical difficulties with mean and median real wages in Matts graph is not including increasingly important benefits in worker pay. We need to look at total real hourly compensation -- the green line in my graph. The red"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/2019463057898950821)  2026-02-05T17:28Z [----] followers, [----] engagements


"On my graph mote the huge gain in real average pay during the horrific [----] pandemic contraction and lockdown. That illustrate a problem with averages. The pandemic restrictions did not stop skilled professionals and managers from working at home but they did end many lower-wage jobs in retailing restaurants transportation travel and recreation. When you remove the lowest wages from any average the average wage must be higher even if those with jobs are not making any more money than before. The statistical fluke of rising average real wages when so many businesses were shut down by law was"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/2019477109094097046)  2026-02-05T18:23Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"I posted some disagreements about your data and timing (blaming Reagan for Nixon). But real progress in 1973-82 was often worse than stagnant and certainly worse than 1962-67. Your chosen mean/median real wage series use an obsolescent CPI-W. And all CPI's (unlike PCE) are somewhat incomparable before and after the huge [----] change in measuring housing inflation by rental equivalence. I don't recall the 'fifties so fondly as young folk imagine-- it seemed like we were in recession half the time and everything was scarce with few choices. Also price controls in the ephemeral 1951-53 Korean War"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/2019509488047259850)  2026-02-05T20:32Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"Since the Federal Reserve's creation in [----] a key interest rate on commercial bank reserves (federal funds rate since the early 1950s; the discount rate before then) was raised periodically to engineer recessions and/or stock market crashes. Once accomplished the policy rate is then greatly reduced. Since Nixon broke any link between the dollar and tangible assets (gold) in 1971-73 the Fed has been more patient between planned recessions and more inclined to push the policy rate to zero after painful rate hikes. The U.S. central bank has too much discretionary power over the U.S. and world"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/2019760089486246146)  2026-02-06T13:08Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"Tourism (and hosting international business conferences) used to be a major U.S. export"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/2019805577862603155)  2026-02-06T16:09Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"And guess who you know named Don who was the great male lion king of the jungle Still sticking a snippet of the money clip into a video claiming the [----] was "rigged" was weird. Together doubly weird. For Trump to repost it whether or not he saw the short money bit at the end was the poorest of his often-poor judgement on Lies Unsocial. https://twitter.com/i/web/status/2019928859337011214 https://twitter.com/i/web/status/2019928859337011214"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/2019928859337011214)  2026-02-07T00:19Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"This hearsay "Leading Report" headline about $955 saved (attributed to CBS without a link) is utter nonsense. The chart below shows what the Federal Reserve survey found for [----] for retirement saving which is only part of financial wealth much less total wealth. Owning a home furniture and car obviously helps with retirement too. The average retirement savings at ages 55-64 was well over half a million dollars in [----]. Of course young people have not yet saved much. It takes time. But if you make 7% a year on your IRA or 401(k) investments in stocks it doubles every ten years aside from what"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/2020127657988379122)  2026-02-07T13:29Z [----] followers, [----] engagements


"Even if Kaizen is right about a technical glitch the two-minute video Trump intended to post was foolish and ridiculous --even without the quick clip near the end (from a longer cartoon with Trump as Lion King) depicting the Obamas as apes. The video Trump wanted to post on Untruth Unsocial pretended to show that Biden's victory in the [----] election was stolen from Trump due to "rigged" voting machines. Mike Lindell lost a fortune peddling that old balderdash with his pillows. https://twitter.com/i/web/status/2020162043551117740 https://twitter.com/i/web/status/2020162043551117740"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/2020162043551117740)  2026-02-07T15:45Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"The Truflation index is extraordinarily erratic despite it being a smoothed 12-month average. The blue box to the left of the graph says the highest figure Year to Date was 1.95% but that means highest in [----] --meaning January. Less than two months ago (Dec 12) the Truflation 12-month average was 2.7%. A year ago (Feb 16) it was also a high 2.4% before falling by half to 1.2% a few weeks later (Apri 6) right after Trump's Independence Day. But that ephemeral 1.2% low point did not tell anything about the future. Since a year of new highs and lows in this price index did not reveal a trend in"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/2020260111881474323)  2026-02-07T22:15Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"But Antoni may well be right about rents. CPI shelter lags reality by many months as I've been harping about it both directions (inflation ex-shelter was even worse than headline numbers showed in 2021-22)"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/2020264055483851185)  2026-02-07T22:31Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"Letter to the Editor Wall Street Journal. "President Trump didnt destroy the system. It was destroyed long before he entered the White House by extremely aggressive industrial policies from China and a few other countries. Their policies created perpetual gigantic trade surpluses for them and similarly large deficits for others primarily the U.S. Global imbalances were the norm not the exception. It was partly because of votes from American workers forgotten by this broken system that Mr. Trump won the election in [----]. In his first term he did everything possible to change the dynamic. He"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/2020856407810039956)  2026-02-09T13:44Z [----] followers, [----] engagements


"Thanks James. I had forgotten about that but do recall the paradoxical title (implying that a high e/p yield could mean bond yields are expected to fall). Like a lot of my early writing for fun and profit (unsigned at Argus & First Chicago) this was only seen by a small number of money managers who kindly paid me a few grand a year. In the quest for fame and fortune I went for the bucks (top 1%). https://twitter.com/i/web/status/2021199056425361757 https://twitter.com/i/web/status/2021199056425361757"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/2021199056425361757)  2026-02-10T12:26Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"@JK_Lundblad @ComputerSageJAB Manufacturing output was a mix of up and down in [----] partly thanks to huge zero-tariff AI investments. But factory jobs just kept falling"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/2021201163987951918)  2026-02-10T12:34Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"Attorney Robert Lighthizer Trump's US Trade Representative in his first term shares considerable responsibility for the stunning drop in manufacturing output and jobs soon after August [----] when Trump's first trade war began in earnest. Trump's first year [----]. ended on a promising note with a bold reduction of the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% and a minor trim of the top personal rate to 37%. The prospect of growth-friendly taxation was already anticipated in the last quarter of [----] with 4.6% rate of GDP growth. In [----] unfortunately Trump's attention shifted to nasty unpredictable"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/2020965587141394550)  2026-02-09T20:58Z [----] followers, 10.6K engagements


"My post and blog are all about debunking Lighthizer's unqualified claims about rising manufacturing output and employment in the wake of Trump's first tariffs in [----] (it is not about 2025). He might blame [----] on the Fed easing too little or late (which may be your point) but that would still leave his claims of tariff success as untrue. https://twitter.com/i/web/status/2022006226796646703 https://twitter.com/i/web/status/2022006226796646703"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/2022006226796646703)  2026-02-12T17:53Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"@RealEJAntoni Manufacturing jobs began "trending down" (falling) in late [----] with Trump's first one-man trade war. That history repeated itself in [----] during Trump's second trade demolition derby. https://www.cato.org/blog/trumps-first-term-tariffs-crushed-us-manufacturing https://www.cato.org/blog/trumps-first-term-tariffs-crushed-us-manufacturing"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/2021975878293762483)  2026-02-12T15:53Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"@MusserRyan @vitaliyk The early battle was to be the home "portal" -the place you start from which includes mail search shopping and (most importantly) ads. The tech-challenged antitrust case against Microsoft missed the point - it was ever about browsers unless Netscape became a monopoly portal"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1546995832746115080)  2022-07-12T23:12Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"@patrickwebb Congress alone has the power of the purse including tariffs (U.S. sales taxes on imported goods). Presidential proclamations such as "no taxes on tips" or "restoring the pre-1986 TRA deduction for interest on car loans" are irresponsible and indefensible"  
[X Link](https://x.com/anyuser/status/1917230420514505000)  2025-04-29T14:52Z [----] followers, [----] engagements


"The House Votes to Rein in Trump's Canada Tariffs. "The passage of the resolution revoking the presidents national emergency declaration is a symbolic victory that shows why Congress struggles to constrain presidents." That's a good start. A Congressional branch trying to regain its Constitutional control of the purse strings. This reawakening of the legislative branch would not just be symbolic if the Senate likewise revokes the bogus "national emergency" excuse for waging another nasty war against our good neighbors to the north (in the military U.S. invasion of Canada in 1812-14 the U.S."  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/2022062412074033386)  2026-02-12T21:37Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"The belief that our protective tariff policy makes possible the comparatively high wage scale in the United States was never more widely held than at present. . . For the so-called international bankers of New York the crude protectionist arguments are as transparent as a window pane. They are beginning to murmur at our governmental stupidity. The Economic Bulletin of the Chase National Bank August [----] assures us as follows: "There is no mystery about the high wage scales in America. These high wage scales are not begotten by the tariff nor are they dependent upon the tariff. They grow out"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1916850725864276101)  2025-04-28T13:43Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"The @morganwarstler bookkeeping example shows the tariff on Vietnamese goods being applied to the original producer or seller not to the price paid by a U.S. importer. That is not the way it works. A tariff is a sales tax imposed on the buyer. It is a distortionary sales tax precisely it discriminates against domestic equivalents and thus makes the market less efficient at meeting consumer demands. Buyers not sellers pay tariffs and other sales taxes (except stamp duties on cigarettes and liquor). Contrary to the illiterate illogic of some Trump advisers a VAT is nothing like a tariff"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1916902318148145457)  2025-04-28T17:08Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"Fearsome Fentanyl Fantasies. Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed in a cabinet meeting that the Trump administration has saved [---] million lives through fentanyl seizures. This may be the worst math blunder of all time. [--]. The estimated U.S. population is [---] million so AG Bondi is claiming 83% of us would have died were it not for recent police reductions in the supply of one synthetic opiod. [--]. U.S. annual drug overdoses fell below [------] a year. At that rate if would take [----] years for overdose deaths from all opiod drugs legal and illegal to add up to [---] million. "CDC's . . . Provisional"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1917909193903767553)  2025-05-01T11:49Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"Today's Wall Street Journal editorial Tariffs Shrink the Economy says "Personal consumption rose only 1.8%" in the first quarter while "Imports subtracted a startling 5.03% from GDP." That unfortunate error repeats a common confusion about the way the GDP sausage is made. Personal consumption includes imports (of course) which means much of that 1.8% annual rate of increase reflected consumers rushing to stockpile imported cars iPhone appliances TVs and much more. The same was true of business investment which was bloated by stockpiling of essential parts and materials for U.S. manufacturing"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1917961666341298596)  2025-05-01T15:17Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"A serious media misunderstanding of real GDP numbers claims federal spending fell sharply in the first quarter. Some commentators even suggest that Trump's mythical frugality (not Trade War) is the Keynesian reason we are racing into recession. Unless the tariffs are repealed however the initial spark for the Trump recession will become apparent as households increasingly rely on goods they stockpiled before the tariffs force them into retrenchment. Look at what CBS News reported about the "Impact of DOGE cuts": "Growth in the first quarter was impacted by . . . a 5.1% annualized rate of"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1918760245431783473)  2025-05-03T20:11Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"@Noahpinion The Great Depression was great for cutting down on electric power use and nasty fumes from industrial smokestacks trucks and cars"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1920248803401109697)  2025-05-07T22:46Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"I recently read a post on X about the collapse of U.S. furniture making due to Asian imports. It cited the alleged demise of Bassett Furniture in Virginia near the North Carolina border. Moving to Raleigh my wife recently furnished an entire apartment by visiting one of many Bassett Furniture stores this one in Estero Florida. Made in the USA since [----] and highly recommended. A previous condo in Reston VA was largely furnished by Hardwood Artisans which is handmade locally"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1920251298881921290)  2025-05-07T22:56Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


""At the [----] Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis annual conference Alan Reynolds was a commentator on a paper by IMF economist Peter Hooper and World Bank economist Catherine Mann. Reynolds questions the theory and evidence behind exchange rate explanations of sustained current account deficits (and matching capital surpluses). He also challenges the then-popular "twin deficits" theory that trade deficits are caused by budget deficits. He argues that changes in trade and capital flows reflect changes in therealeconomy. Superior investment opportunities in the U.S. following lower marginal tax"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1921704832642990559)  2025-05-11T23:11Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"@jimiuorio And Estonia has a great supply-side tax policy rivaling Hong Hong in the good old days (or Singapore Botswana Maurius etc.)"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1921705354821292112)  2025-05-11T23:13Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"When a Dollar Was Silver: I was given a dollar when I graduated from Junior High in [----]. But it was not just another IOU-nothing Federal Reserve note. It was issued by the U.S. Treasury and promised "one dollar payable in Silver to the bearer on demand." Until [----] dollar coins contained about eight-tenths of an ounce of silver. I recall visiting Las Vegas with my parents at age [--] (1963) and putting some in a slot machine. But I kept a few"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1924773656812470563)  2025-05-20T10:26Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"Justin Wolfers claims three of the four major U.S. reductions in individual and corporate marginal tax rates (neglecting JFK in 1964) supposedly "blew out the deficit." The graph shows what actually happened to real inflation-adjusted federal receipts by fiscal year since [----]. The phased-in Reagan rate reductions essentially consisted of two broad 10% rate cuts in January [----] and [----] followed by a top individual rate of 28% in [----]. Adjusting for inflation real revenues nearly doubled from $599 billion in [----] (in [----] dollars) to $1032 billion in fiscal [----]. G.W. Bush likewise foolishly"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1941580604413190406)  2025-07-05T19:31Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"Since revenues are about 16% of GDP the only way they can rise in real terms (faster than inflation) is with rapid growth of real GDP. If real revenues don't rise then real spending can't either A flat % of GDP does not mean "flat" -- that depends on GDP growth"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1941637790367694874)  2025-07-05T23:18Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"@MethodOfKeynes @JustinWolfers And rose in real terms with faster real GDP growth"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1941795028101222885)  2025-07-06T09:43Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"In his Jul [--] Wall Street Journal column Alan Blinder predicts "the larger estimated budget deficits caused by the new law will likely drive interest rates higher the dollar lower. Few Americans will view either as good news." That could be "likely" to happen only if higher interest rates are what usually happens when budget deficits grow larger. However the graph shows that the prolonged drop in U.S. bond yields from [----] to [----] had no visible connection to the ups or downs of budget deficits. In fact yields stopped falling during the surpluses of 1998-2000. Blinder goes further and"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1943677810079375849)  2025-07-11T14:24Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"A dollar exchange rate index. Contrary to the novel Blinder hypothesis the dollar certainly did not fall in 1980-84 while the Volcker Fed was frequently pushing the fed funds rate to 14-19% (raising the budget deficit thanks to Fed-bloated interest expense)"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1943685267824460027)  2025-07-11T14:54Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"Does the $26 million budget surplus in June suggest that Trump tariffs are making a big dent in the $1.3 trillion annual budget deficit Of course not. Tariff revenue is much too trivial. Tariffs do raise revenue from custom. But the damage tariffs do to the U.S. economy (by distorting decisions and by raising the cost of production and cost of living) reduces the revenues we would otherwise have collected from taxes on personal income business profits and payrolls. Federal revenues from big sources that matter -income and payrolls- are highly seasonal but the data are not seasonally adjusted."  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1944014331684724976)  2025-07-12T12:41Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"The economic loss from Whipsaw tariffs is not adequately described as "uncertainty." Whipsaw tariffs involve increased insecurity of property rights - particularly ownership of affected inventories. U.S. firms must purchase goods for resale or as inputs into producing other goods without knowing if future tariff changes will raise or lower the prices at which their products can later be sold. Just-in-time inventory practices reduce costs and improve economic efficiency. Trying to strategically time inventories to minimize capricious tariff expenses raises costs and reduces economic"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1945472918592655779)  2025-07-16T13:17Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"No hedging. Baiting and switching. Hassett used casual past impressions to talk about the effect of tariffs on consumer prices then switched to someone's heroic future estimates to describe the hoped-for booty from allegedly harmless sales taxes on trade (paid by sellers in Trump's model)"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1945538112878231675)  2025-07-16T17:36Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"I have long been arguing that CPI inflation has been seriously overstated due to dubious lagged estimates of the cost of "shelter" --rent and owners' equivalent rent. In the first half of [----] this is no longer true. The blue area of the graph shows annualized rates of Shelter inflation by quarter as belatedly estimated in the CPI. The red area shows the inflation rate for everything except shelter. CPI less shelter was only 2% higher in June than a year before. But the second half of that 12-month average is not so sanguine. The annual rate of inflation for CPI less shelter averaged 4.1% in"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1947268486889164964)  2025-07-21T12:12Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"The quarterly graph is not meant to show decisive trends. There are perils in converting a quarterly changes into an annual rate and those perils become acute when annualizing monthly changes. The CPI less shelter is quite volatile on a monthly basis and even smoothing it into a quarterly average may still be misleading. CPI less energy (the dotted green line) is much less volatile precisely because it includes shelter which is notoriously slow to budge. On a monthly basis the annual rate of inflation for CPI less shelter was 6.2% in January for example but negative (-2.4%) in March. The"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1947319692378403159)  2025-07-21T15:36Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"We don't have the June PCE inflation yet but here is annualized PCE inflation less housing and energy through the first quarter. It is not clearly improving"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1948707052299104561)  2025-07-25T11:29Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"The Trump-Lutnick concept of a great trade deal is to exact some soon-forgotten promises from foreign government "leaders" to buy more rice or cars from the U.S. or to invest many billions in the U.S. somewhere someday. But those foreign leaders have no mandate or money to spend local tax receipts on U.S. goods or factories. Such handshake "deals" are just meaningless political publicity stunts. The vast bulk of international trade and investment is of course planned and financed between private companies and consumers in different countries-- not between national presidents or prime"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1948806166600995171)  2025-07-25T18:02Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"@RameshPonnuru The [----] Presidential election was November [--]. By January [--] [----] a 19%+ fed funds rate was the Volcker Fed's inauguration gift to President Ronald Reagan"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1949174430313439545)  2025-07-26T18:26Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"The graph on year-to-year trends in residential construction spending seems a serious glitch in optimistic visions of the economic outlook. New housing accounted for over 16% of GDP last year. That compares with 8% for oil and gas production 3% for new motor vehicle manufacturing and 10% for all manufacturing. Tariffs on building materials like lumber and copper won't boost building any more than tariffs on aluminum and steel will boost manufacturing of products that depend on those metals. The Trump Administration may be looking for luck in the wrong places (like "domestic" cars)"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1949934956249280784)  2025-07-28T20:48Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"A post on Reddit says it's The Shining. "Its a reference to the book. Horace Derwent had a guy who was in love with him and followed him around and allowed himself to be humiliated by him for sexual kicks. He dressed as a dog for a party once. Jack sees their ghosts in the ballroom.""  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1949976285658194364)  2025-07-28T23:32Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"The even better way to look at it is to replace GDP with Real Final Sales to Domestic Purchasers which excludes tariff-induced inventory and import gyrations. That measure makes it clear that both the illusory first quarter GDP decline and phony second quarter rise were all about (1) importing inventories before the dreaded April [--] tariffs then (2) selling off those tariff-free stockpiles in place of buying new imports after that "Independence Day" deadline for punitive tariffs comparable to "sanctions" on military/diplomatic targets was delayed until August [--] - with selective and limited"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1950694432338325543)  2025-07-30T23:06Z [----] followers, [----] engagements


"I buy everything on credit cards that pay 2% cash back then have my bank autopay the outstanding balances each month. This is a proven way to get 2% discounts and a credit score of [---]. Evidently endless media angst about credit card debt in general has long been foiled by similar prudent strategies. Breaking: Credit card debt is in the same 3-4% of GDP band it has been in for [--] years. https://t.co/JWCSflgp4a Breaking: Credit card debt is in the same 3-4% of GDP band it has been in for [--] years. https://t.co/JWCSflgp4a"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1950697633594347577)  2025-07-30T23:18Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"The self-awarded power to impose frequently changing sales taxes on imports (taxes that vary enormously by product and country) is nowhere more dangerous than in the hands of someone who imagines he is sufficiently omniscient and incorruptible to be capable of expertly rearranging the world economy week by week at whim. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/01/another-late-night-trump-trade-twist-hours-before-the-world-hit-go.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/01/another-late-night-trump-trade-twist-hours-before-the-world-hit-go.html"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1951248440878383205)  2025-08-01T11:47Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"@GOP The GOP could at least have used a picture of Detroit's equivalent of the Lada. . . like this:"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1951340245859049728)  2025-08-01T17:52Z [----] followers, [----] engagements


"@jimiuorio I might buy a "Sell the BLS T-Shirt" but fear few know what BLS means. On the other hand a "Sell the Fed" shirt could be a viral best seller. The building's new owner could turn the ground floor into a shopping mall saving a bundle in planned remodeling costs"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1951708336010715312)  2025-08-02T18:15Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"China runs massive trade deficits in pharmaceuticals importing $41 billion from June [----] to May [----] while exporting only $12.5 billion ($2.7 on that going to the U.S.). President Trump thinks America's poor little pharmaceutical companies can't compete and need super-tough tariff protection. During a phone interview with CNBC's "Squawk Box" Trump said he'd raise import duties on computer chips and drugs potentially up to 250% to drive manufacturing in those industries back sic into the U.S. Switzerland he said "makes a fortune with pharmaceuticals and they sicmake our pharmaceuticals in"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1952820249608298719)  2025-08-05T19:53Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"Stephen Miran's nomination to the Federal Reserve Board looks like another unearned reward for a paper he wrote last November blaming the long decline manufacturing jobs not output on "unfairness" in trade --which he equated with a strong dollar. Miran proposed using presidential tariff threats to force other nations to agree to a coordinated effort to deeply devalue the dollar as Nixon did in [----] (with stagflationary consequences). Miran also proposed imposing country-specific fees on foreign holders of U.S. Treasury bonds to discourage them from accumulating dollar reserves. And he"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1953872779767324976)  2025-08-08T17:35Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"@wileyar @RapidResponse47 The [----] Crash was trivial compared to what happened to stocks banks and the economy in [----] after Hoover surprised Wall Street by signing the Smoot-Hawley tariffs. https://www.cato.org/blog/benjamin-anderson-1949-crowning-financial-folly-hawley-smoot-tariff https://www.cato.org/blog/benjamin-anderson-1949-crowning-financial-folly-hawley-smoot-tariff"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1953953153524847017)  2025-08-08T22:55Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"Miran's scheme for "restructuring the global trading system" by sinking the dollar used an ironic argument to defend Trump's first round of tariffs. He wrote the 2018-2019 tariffs a material increase in effective rates passed with little discernible macroeconomic consequence. The dollar rose by almost the same amount as the effective tariff rate nullifying much of the macroeconomic impact but resulting in significant revenue. Because Chinese consumers purchasing power declined with their weakening currency China effectively paid for the tariff revenue." The irony is as the first graph shows"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1954155157140214253)  2025-08-09T12:17Z [----] followers, [----] engagements


"@charliebilello The p/e ratio on stocks (shown inverted here as an e/p ratio) was much less volatile and unpredictable before [----] when we were doubly cursed by both federal income taxes and a blunder-prone central bank -- The Federal Reserve"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1954222890653565221)  2025-08-09T16:46Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"The Treasury estimates that customs duties will amount to 2.7% of federal revenue in Fiscal [----]. That is up from last year and the tariff share has risen to 3% mostly recently. That is indeed higher than last year as the graph shows. But the share of revenue from tariffs may not be any higher than it was in [----] or in 2021-2022 when nominal tariff rates were much lower and often limited to specific countries (China) or specific goods like washing machines and steel. Tariff revenues fell of course in the pandemic recession of [----] as did the other 97% of federal revenues (e.g. from incomes"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1954266220854710480)  2025-08-09T19:39Z [----] followers, 68.3K engagements


"The New York Post recently argued the sweeping new Trump tariffs of August [--] are nothing to fear because the crashing stock market and economy calmed down and partly recovered after Trump backed of his April [--] "Independence Day" fiasco. This is one of the worst examples I've seen of using the past to predict the future. The stock market crashed at the April [--] launch of Trump's antique brass age and it's still way below par. With tariffs getting far broader and deeper on August [--] don't count your chickens before they're overcooked. https://t.co/raQuB9yvDA The stock market crashed at the April"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1954272807980060728)  2025-08-09T20:05Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"The federal income tax on personal incomes has been a remarkably constant percentage of personal income in the postwar years. I used to call this "Reynolds' Law." The graph shows that from [----] to [----] the personal income tax averaged 9.5% of personal income --rarely rising above 11% in prosperous times and only once falling below 8% (2009-10). Egalitarian fans of Piketty and Saez should have noticed that this tax on individual (and small business) income kept bringing in about 9% of income regardless of whether the top tax rate was cut to 28% or raised to 91%. Yet steeper tax rates on added"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1954635084809593080)  2025-08-10T20:04Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"Yes the personal income tax is separate from the payroll tax. People apparently find ways to report less taxable income when tax rates are brutal and find ways to earn and report more income when rates come down (like 1983-84 and [----] or the capital gains tax in 1997). https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/fall-2019/optimal-top-tax-rates-review-critique https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/fall-2019/optimal-top-tax-rates-review-critique"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1954680599156752630)  2025-08-10T23:05Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"The green bars show the ups and downs in real inflation-adjusted federal revenues since [----] in billions of [----] dollars. The red bars show that real revenues from tariffs were and are a tiny share of revenue even in the Trump years. Yet the President and others assume wrongly that raising the red bar by X-billion must raise the green bar just as much. That is bad accounting and terrible economics. It would be a sophomoric error for an economist to assume or predict that all revenue from tariffs (taxes on foreign trade) is necessarily a net addition to total revenue. That could only be true"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1954919182153195982)  2025-08-11T14:53Z [----] followers, [----] engagements


"Trump extends China tariff deadline by [--] days after pausing Mexico tariffs by [--] days on July [--]. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/11/trump-china-tariffs-deadline-extended.html He just announced the [--] day pause after the [--] day pause that headed off the trade war he knew how to start but still can't figure out how to end. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/11/trump-china-tariffs-deadline-extended.html He just announced the [--] day pause after the [--] day pause that headed off the trade war he knew how to start but still can't figure out how to end"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1955004823524479342)  2025-08-11T20:34Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"The producer price index (PPI) is not a measures of prices paid by consumers but of prices received by U.S. businesses. Because prices for imports are received by foreign businesses import prices are not included. Tariffs cannot directly affect the PPI. The PPI also did not include any service prices until [----] and it still excludes many services including education and housing. The PPI uses profit margins as a dubious proxy for prices of "trade" services (wholesale and retail). That technique is particularly problematic this year because of potentially massive inventory profits from (1)"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1956043592775922119)  2025-08-14T17:21Z [----] followers, [----] engagements


"To say that tariffs have no direct effect on PPI (because imports are excluded) is not to say they could not have an indirect effect. First of all tariffs are intended to reduce competition for U.S. manufacturing firms thus inviting them to raise prices with much less risk of losing market share. Second tariffs on essential production materials --such as aluminum steel copper or lumber-- raise the cost of production for affected import-using manufacturing and construction. Higher unit costs must either raise prices or shrink profits (or a little of each) which is stagflationary in either"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1956074760368218129)  2025-08-14T19:25Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"The number of publication mentions in Google Books seem a populist metric based on poll ratings as a measure of influence rather than accuracy. By this standard some rise and some fall -- except the top dog in the graph below. The orange line at the top of the graph below is Karl Marx always highest and rising most recently. The dark green line is Milton Friedman and light green is Keynes. Milton had the lead in the 1970s but the race with Keynes has been tight since about [----]. The blue line is Ken Galbraith an entertaining writer like Friedman and Galbraith who was as frequently quoted as"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1956150410537849058)  2025-08-15T00:26Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"@Jon_Hartley_ It's better with Paul Krugman in the mix. Google Ngrams: John Kenneth Galbraith Milton Friedman Paul Krugman Karl Marx John Maynard Keynes 1970-2022 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graphcontent=John+Kenneth+GalbraithMilton+FriedmanPaul+KrugmanKarl+MarxJohn+Maynard+Keynes&year_start=1970&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graphcontent=John+Kenneth+GalbraithMilton+FriedmanPaul+KrugmanKarl+MarxJohn+Maynard+Keynes&year_start=1970&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1956326554440507758)  2025-08-15T12:06Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"The title of the Steve Moore graph instantly reveals that whoever produced it (not Steve) was not an economist and had no idea what he was talking about. The graph title says "the difference between the BLS initial monthly jobs estimate and the actual number is terrible and getting worse" emphasis added. The trouble is there is no "actual number" of jobs-- only newer revised estimates from a survey. The payroll survey covers only a sample of about [------] employers (out of [--] million or more). Only about 43% of the few firms chosen to be surveyed respond. And many of those survey responses"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1956383045583573419)  2025-08-15T15:50Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"Questions: [--]. Are you investing your own money on this investment advice (which is not in the book) by making leveraged bets on long-term Treasuries or just advising others to make that leap of faith [--]. Did you offer only a 10-year bet to prove you're wrong just because my maximum life expectancy is [--] years"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1957939206547992709)  2025-08-19T22:54Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"Regardless of what Federal Reserve chairmen (or the minutes of FOMC meetings) may say they are going to do in the future; the Federal Reserve has always cut interest rates in every recession since 1920"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1959237395020222637)  2025-08-23T12:52Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"On Christmas Vacation in [----] Dave Stockman came to the First National Bank of Chicago (where I was a VP) to recruit me to work on Ronald Reagan's first Transition Team. I was impressed with him back then. And this post makes me particularly proud to have known and worked with David Stockman. If I was nitpicky critical in the past I take it back. Like constitutionalist/federalist conservatives real libertarians I'm both also do not like to see armed federal troops patrolling American city streets in 16-ton MATVs (Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected All-Terrain Vehicles). Let me school you JD."  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1960122373832917360)  2025-08-25T23:29Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"This graph updates a previous post. The green line shows that quarterly increases or declines in the U.S. current account deficit (a broad measure of foreign trade) are intimately matched by changes in the capital account surplus shown annually in red. There were strong surges of foreign investment in 1983-87 1997-2000 2002-2006 and 2021-2022. In each case there were matching surges in trade/current account deficits. When U.S. economic growth was anemic in 2011-2019 by contrast both capital accounts and current accounts were also flat. Foreign capital inflows fell in every recession and so"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1961881619712618819)  2025-08-30T20:00Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"Top Fed officials may claim to be targeting an index of prices but really base all directional changes of managed interest rates on the labor market. And those changes (up or down) are always too timid tiny and slow. The graph shows growth of private payrolls and the JOLT survey's hiring rate. Both data series tell us that private job growth nearly stopped after Trump took office and was usually zero or negative since "Liberation Day" tariffs were announced on April [--]. Whether or not the Fed "should" lower overnight rates on bank reserves their "reaction function" to a moribund labor market"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1964035809692061935)  2025-09-05T18:40Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"Why Trump's tariffs and investments can be misleading figures https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/why-trump-s-tariffs-and-investments-can-be-misleading-figures/ar-AA1M1ITT https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/why-trump-s-tariffs-and-investments-can-be-misleading-figures/ar-AA1M1ITT"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1964752801944436796)  2025-09-07T18:09Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"Convertibility of dollars into a fixed weight of gold (a gold standard) is indeed the only historically proven rule. That golden rule also gets broken by politicians and wars of course but at least families and firms sometimes enjoyed decades of predictable tranquility between devaluations. I do not support trying to order the U.S. central bank to try to "peg" the dollar price of gold on world markets by changing the overnight interest rate the Fed pays banks for holding reserves at regional Fed banks (nor by buying and selling T-bills in open market operations). Such a gold "price rule" for"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1964823881170211226)  2025-09-07T22:51Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"As often happened in 1973-84 from [----] to mid-2008 the Fed thought it should fight rising oil prices with high interest rates on bank reserves (fed funds). Even in July [----] FOMC minutes show no concern about recession only about oil prices fueling more inflation. That recession caused the "financial crisis" not the other way around"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1965070485747544492)  2025-09-08T15:11Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"After [----] "Foreign countries were flattened by higher U.S. tariffs on things like olive oil (Italy) sugar and cigars (Cuba) silk (Japan) wheat and butter (Canada).The impoverishment of foreign producers reduced their purchases of say U.S. cotton thus bankrupting both farmers and the farmers banks. It should be obvious that an effective limit on imports also reduces exports. Without the dollars obtained by selling here foreign countries could not afford to buy our goods (or to repay their debts). From [----] to [----] U.S. imports from Germany fell by $181 million; U.S. exports to Germany fell by"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1965734439599681890)  2025-09-10T11:09Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/classic-american-farm-brand-john-deere-is-seeing-prices-rise-and-profits-drop-and-trump-s-tariffs-are-making-things-worse/ar-AA1McyIt https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/classic-american-farm-brand-john-deere-is-seeing-prices-rise-and-profits-drop-and-trump-s-tariffs-are-making-things-worse/ar-AA1McyIt"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1965736975459295555)  2025-09-10T11:19Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"My [----] Mont Pelerin Society remarks about excess political cynicism - as a comment about on papers by the late James Buchannan (who later became a Nobel Prize winner) and Paul Craig Roberts (who later became Assistant Treasury Secretary). @ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335022270_Comment_on_papers_by_James_Buchannan_Paul_Craig_Roberts_Mont_Pelerin_Society_Sep_7-12_1980 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335022270_Comment_on_papers_by_James_Buchannan_Paul_Craig_Roberts_Mont_Pelerin_Society_Sep_7-12_1980"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1965772781804826970)  2025-09-10T13:42Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"https://reason.com/volokh/2025/09/09/supreme-court-will-hear-our-case-challenging-trumps-tariffs-and-two-other-related-cases/ https://reason.com/volokh/2025/09/09/supreme-court-will-hear-our-case-challenging-trumps-tariffs-and-two-other-related-cases/"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1965774425493754206)  2025-09-10T13:48Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"A classic by the late Robert Keleher (1983)"Supply-Side Tax Policy: Reviewing the Evidence" https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/frbatlreview/pages/66440_1980-1984.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314601781_Supply-Side_Tax_Policy_Reviewing_the_Evidence https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/frbatlreview/pages/66440_1980-1984.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314601781_Supply-Side_Tax_Policy_Reviewing_the_Evidence"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1965810629681553670)  2025-09-10T16:12Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"In this paper Bob Keleher (who also did notable work on monetary policy with former Fed Vice Chairman Manuel Johnson) kindly cited some of my early writing on tax policy such as "Individuals and the Tax Question" in The Wall Street Journal October [--] [----]. But Keleher also noted that little evidence was available back in [----] of the impact of the Mellon tax rate cuts of the 1920s on growth of both the economy and real tax receipts. I recently remedied that in "The Economic Impact of Tax Changes 19201939." https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/winter-2021/economic-impact-tax-changes-1920-1939"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1965815053745111149)  2025-09-10T16:30Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"While working on a belated autobiography for Wikipedia I found some of my earliest writing was not about tax rates or income distribution but about destructive government regulation of oil and gas prices. I warned of the risks of Middle East energy chaos in National Review in [----]. And in the aftermath of the subsequent Arab oil production cuts I surveyed the bumbling U.S. mismanagement of energy prices and supplies in The New York Times in [----] (my previous article at the Times by invitation was about McGovern's tax proposals). Seems like only yesterday. Some Preliminary Effects of a Heavy"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1967556450051408045)  2025-09-15T11:49Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"@jimiuorio Pam Bondi is no libertarian constitutional conservative or classical liberal. She's Miss Bossypants"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1968038065441738846)  2025-09-16T19:43Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt thinks the "Trump effect" explains world oil prices How The price of oil (and therefore gasoline) is set on world markets by global supply and demand. Increased U.S. oil production might help moderate oil prices at times. But the previously rapid growth of domestic crude oil production (before and after the [----] pandemic lockdowns) has flattened out since President Trump took office. The Trump Effect: Gasoline's burden on Americans' wallets lightest since [----] https://t.co/ayOOPhkTxn The Trump Effect: Gasoline's burden on Americans' wallets lightest since 2005"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1968993558934814933)  2025-09-19T11:00Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"By continually "penciling in" the rational expectation that rates will be lower later for those who wait the FOMC's foolhardy "forward guidance" encourages procrastination and delay. This worsens the labor market risks they hope to avoid. If Mr. Kashkari believes he knows that "natural rate" for overnight bank reserves is say [--] basis points lower than it is now then he should support lowering it [--] basis points and (most importantly) provide zero forward guidance about what the Fed might do in the future. Outside the FOMC of course we all know from experience what they will really do once"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1969006979692540308)  2025-09-19T11:53Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"The Moodys graph in Charlie Bilello's post --estimating the share of consumer spending accounted for by those "in the top 10% of income distribution"-- leaves a lot to be curious about. The elastic scale of dates at the bottom looks randomly numbered about [--] [--] [--] or [--] years apart. Nearly all of the rise in the top 10% share of consumer spending (by some measure) happened between [----] and [----] when it jumps from roughly 35% to 45%. Then the affluent share of spending was mostly lower from [----] to [----] then up in the weak recovery of 2011-17 down with the first Trump tariffs in [----] and COVID"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1969144851624325628)  2025-09-19T21:01Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"When economists find a national economy that quickly went from terrible to terrific for reasons they cannot understand they add it a list of "economic miracles." But economic miracles have a lot in common"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1969347934845018584)  2025-09-20T10:28Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"Here is a link to a PDF of my Feb [------] Wall Street Journal article "A Baedeker to Better Living" "A Michelin Guide" might have been clearer but authors rarely get to pick their titles. Abstract: Reynolds surveys many national "economic miracles" from [----] to [----] in which economic performance quickly changed from terrible to terrific. What did they have in common In most cases they sharply reduced the highest income tax rates and pegged weak currencies to a stronger currency or gold. Several also eliminated price controls and reduced tariffs."  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1969389421905522947)  2025-09-20T13:13Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"I was never fond of Consensus Economics ("most economists agree"). Reality is not a matter of opinion. In this [----] note for a Claremont Review of Books symposium with George Gilder and others I disagreed with mainstream economists that the recession was caused by a previous decline in home prices. Nor could I believe that a recession that started in December [----] was caused by much later "financial crises" such as Lehman Brothers' fall on September [--] [----]. Bank failures are a familiar consequence of recessions-- just like deflated prices for homes stocks and other assets. Failure of two big"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1969487402222715372)  2025-09-20T19:42Z [----] followers, [----] engagements


"AlanReynolds commented on WSJ: "Javier Milei got a lot right but missed the memo about the [----] supply-side revolution that Wall Street Journal e." https://www.openweb.com/share/3370p0qorcryXame83KFw9BNxQB https://www.openweb.com/share/3370p0qorcryXame83KFw9BNxQB"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1970559629114396928)  2025-09-23T18:43Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"Alan Reynolds My note to the WSJ: Javier Milei got a lot right but missed the memo about the [----] supply-side revolution that Wall Street Journal editors Bob Bartley and Jude Wanniski launched in1976-77 with a little help from a friend from National Review. Their message was simple: Marginal tax rates matter a lot. In Argentina the highest national individual tax rate of 35% applies to all income above [--------] Argentine pesos (ARS) about $39371 in US dollars. For labor add a 37.4% Social Security tax. The corporate income tax is 35% and applies to capital gains if the company has a"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1970810084243476624)  2025-09-24T11:18Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"Alan Reynolds "Monopoly Myths" The Wall Street Journal April [--] [----]. The Justice Department's [----] antitrust case against Microsoft was based on a claim that Windows ran 93-95% of the world's personal computers. But that was based on defining "the market" to include only "Intel-based" single-user computers. Apple "devices" were no competition because Apple does not make Intel-based PCs. The first smart phone in [----] the IBM Simon was neither Intel-based nor a PC. Neither were Palm Symbian or BlackBerry phones not to mention the iPhone in [----] and Android phones later. So by the DOJ's myopic"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1970940652167836003)  2025-09-24T19:57Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"The FOMC never set short-term targets or a long-term goal for Core PCI which was prudent since it has been dominated by lagged and questionable rent estimates. The 2% target was for PCE inflation not core and not CPI. That number was obviously not binding from April [----] to July [----]. when inflation soared. To get back to a 2% target starting from the pandemic/lockdown mini-deflation of [----] would indeed require a few negative inflation numbers in future years -- mostly falling prices on average. Nobody is "counting on" that. Does Mr. Gundlach think such deflation would be a good idea to"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1970947143989915975)  2025-09-24T20:23Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"https://aeon.co/essays/the-surprising-truth-about-wealth-and-inequality-in-the-west https://aeon.co/essays/the-surprising-truth-about-wealth-and-inequality-in-the-west"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1971241285756518462)  2025-09-25T15:52Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"Alan Reynolds "Less is More" The Wall Street Journal January [--] [----]. Abstract: To finance growth of real government spending requires growth of real revenues. The conventional practice of measuring tax revenues as a percent of GDP (the average not marginal tax rate) is too static. Revenue growth could be zero yet be a high percentage of GDP because real GDP growth is zero. Reynolds compares Tax/GDP ratios for [--] countries with a proxy for real revenue growth by measuring them all by a common standard constant [----] dollars (since foreign debts and trade are commonly paid in dollars)."  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1971548903846637854)  2025-09-26T12:14Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"@EconMan3 Governor Reagan clearly won that debate with my old boss Bill Buckley which was never easy. This revealing "Federal Reserve History" rightly blames much of oil price surge of 1973-74 to Nixon devaluing the dollar in terms of gold (and everything else). https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/oil-shock-of-1973-74 https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/oil-shock-of-1973-74"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1972987306681541019)  2025-09-30T11:30Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"Shutting down government over such totally unclear explanations of how the CR would supposedly increase health benefits to illegal immigrants looks foolhardy. Just another example of the hasty "shoot first ask questions later" nature of recent rash decisions from the White House and Congress. Only the dreaded "mainstream media" meaning anything other than Fox News is helpful": "Republicans may be referring to the law changing the eligibility requirements for certain immigrant groups. Under the tax cut and domestic policy law certain groups of lawfully present immigrants are no longer eligible"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1973397948655440306)  2025-10-01T14:41Z [----] followers, [----] engagements


"The abstract for my [----] Policy Review article "The Trouble with Monetarism" reads: "For all practical purposes 'Reaganomics' Means Whatever the Federal Reserve is Doing. If interest rates were remotely close to historical normality the budget would be in surplus.The United States has no long-term monetary policy at all --nothing that inspires confidence.Monetarism is properly a method of analysis or prediction not a policy." By [----] at a Joint Economic Committee Hearing on "Supply-Side Economics After [--] Years" I put theory aside but kept the skepticism. I simply depicted Fed policy with a"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1973475982171324646)  2025-10-01T19:51Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"The Trump-Vance obsession with Manufacturing e.g. of heavy products or objects seems unaware that food product manufacturing is an American powerhouse -- accounting for much of the growth of U.S. manufacturing establishments and jobs. "About half of the manufacturing sectors increase in employment over the past [--] years was driven by the food manufacturing subindustry. That subindustry also contributed the most to the increase in manufacturing establishments during this period. In terms of geography Florida and Texas were the engines of the revival jointly explaining 32% of the increase in"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1974199475813167571)  2025-10-03T19:46Z [----] followers, [----] engagements


"@VincentGeloso Once gigantic meddlesome governments stuff both feet and a fist into everyone's front door it's not easy or quick to shove the beast out"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1974201671795540110)  2025-10-03T19:55Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"Historical tax policy lessons from my [----] Cato Journal paper "International Comparisons of Supply-Side Tax Policies": In ancient Greece Xenophons Oeconomicus advised that encouraging commerce would improve tax revenuesthe Xenophon Curve. But Will Durant (1939 p. 466) describes what instead occurred (and is still occurring) in Athens: The politicians strained their ingenuity to discover new sources of public revenue. . . . The results of these imposts was a wholesale hiding of wealth and income. Evasion became universal goods were seized men were thrown into jail. But the wealth still hid"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1976355116434555305)  2025-10-09T18:32Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"@1CoastalJournal The housing "bubble" peaked long before [----]. It was oil that bubbled to a gusher and then burst in the second half"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1976363030494744710)  2025-10-09T19:04Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


""People never leave the gold standard" means gold is the standard by which they judge the credibility of government currency. People cast votes of no confidence in fiat currencies by repeatedly trading more dollars pesos or rubles for fewer ounces of gold (or other hard assets that are relatively easy to store and resell). It is almost like "voting with your" feet against other oppressive taxes except you can more easily vote against the expected inflation tax with your wallet and a GLD ETF. Saying that only "governments do" leave gold standard commitments was not meant to suggest they did"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1976373434931417564)  2025-10-09T19:45Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"I wrote "Marx and Engels on Taxes" about the time the Soviet Union ended [----] or [----]. It was never published. It was intended as a talk for a conference in Moscow. But it was rejected as too touchy (or too hot). So rather than redo it I didn't make the trip. I haven't reread the whole thing but recall that it might be of interest or amusement. It contains interesting quotes from Marx Engels and Trostsky to indicate they were not fans of high taxes - on the rich or anybody else. https://www.academia.edu/28826074/MARX_AND_ENGELS_ON_TAXES"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1976631331288125645)  2025-10-10T12:50Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"@JohnHCochrane We elders know respect and admire Sowell and Loury. Just in case they don't know Freyer here is a quick introduction. https://jimgeschke.substack.com/p/the-rise-fall-and-redemption-of-roland https://jimgeschke.substack.com/p/the-rise-fall-and-redemption-of-roland"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1976663748309045523)  2025-10-10T14:58Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"When an obsequious Treasury Secretary needs to resort to the desperate "it will hurt them even more than it hurts us" blather --about playing Russian roulette over (mutually beneficial) trade between U.S. and Chinese businesses-- Trump has at least one "Yes Man" too many. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/global-markets-tumble-as-beijing-imposes-new-ban-on-u-s-shipping-bessent-vows-china-will-be-hurt-the-most-if-it-doesn-t-surrender/ar-AA1Or4uI"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1978236282514891174)  2025-10-14T23:07Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"Trump is great about Middle East peace not so much on U.S. vs/World trade peace. He might gain job approval if he spent much more time in distant foreign lands and much less time talking . . . endlessly (even there). https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/donald-trump-approval-rating-polls.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/donald-trump-approval-rating-polls.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/donald-trump-approval-rating-polls.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/donald-trump-approval-rating-polls.html"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/1978242636851843358)  2025-10-14T23:32Z [----] followers, [---] engagements


"Federal Reserve made HUGE profits from "QE" (aka monetizing the debt). An incestuous deal shares loot with Treasury"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/736567070469591041)  2016-05-28T14:37Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"Claims a Trump/Ryan tax reform would "lose trillions" are based on fanciful CBO projections. http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/campaign/291003-donald-trump-pushes-fiscally-sound-economic-plan http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/campaign/291003-donald-trump-pushes-fiscally-sound-economic-plan"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/763461249497649152)  2016-08-10T19:45Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"Anarchy means without a chief. It doesn't mean rioting in the streets to protest any threat of restraint in government spending &/or taxes. https://x.com/SheldonRichman/status/797857182612156416 When did dictionaries change the definition of anarchist to: one who smashes shop windows to expand the power of the state https://x.com/SheldonRichman/status/797857182612156416 When did dictionaries change the definition of anarchist to: one who smashes shop windows to expand the power of the state"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/797877818097106949)  2016-11-13T19:04Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"GDP Growth was stronger after tax increases on the wealthy via @CatoInstitute https://www.cato.org/blog/gdp-growth-was-stronger-after-tax-increases-wealthy https://www.cato.org/blog/gdp-growth-was-stronger-after-tax-increases-wealthy"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/809927902838095872)  2016-12-17T01:07Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"Falling Mexican peso raised inputs costs so "manufacturing companies indicated.intense pressure on margins." https://www.markiteconomics.com/Survey/PressRelease.mvc/9853951cf19241f3bdb954861c8d41ca https://www.markiteconomics.com/Survey/PressRelease.mvc/9853951cf19241f3bdb954861c8d41ca"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/837090652605284352)  2017-03-02T00:02Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"Robt Lucas Jr: "Supply-side economists have delivered the largest genuinely free lunch I have seen.it works." http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/Lucas2000.pdf http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/Lucas2000.pdf"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/887014887863529475)  2017-07-17T18:23Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"The highest tax rates do the most damage. Reducing the lowest rates also "helps the rich" = but not the economy. http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/11/expositional-challenge.html http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/11/expositional-challenge.html"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/915537249491574784)  2017-10-04T11:21Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"Feldstein introduced me to Summers in [----]. They battled soaring tax rates on profits dividends & capital gains. http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2534397.pdfrefreqid=excelsior%3Add20cccaf0fd174f7f46aeed4b8704a3 http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2534397.pdfrefreqid=excelsior%3Add20cccaf0fd174f7f46aeed4b8704a3"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/922487065505419264)  2017-10-23T15:37Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"@swinshi But wouldn't such an unlikely breakdown make you sound center-left"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/937719785105838080)  2017-12-04T16:26Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


""Trump administration officials have often said that tax cuts would pay for themselves by spurring economic growth." That's only about half-right. Revenue feedback depends on elasticity of taxable income which depends on tax avoidance too - not just GDP. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303916904577376041258476020 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303916904577376041258476020"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/941345459129540608)  2017-12-14T16:33Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"Can you ever get too much Milton Friedman He left me in Chicago in the 70s for boring weather at the @HooverInst. But Hoover assembled an awesome collection of his work for those with more years left than I have before reaching [--] (as he did). https://miltonfriedman.hoover.org/collections https://miltonfriedman.hoover.org/collections"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/963215089234071552)  2018-02-13T00:55Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


""Im sure it is interesting to discover for example that people who watch Chuck Norris movies and own a goldfish are on the whole more receptive to Trumps messages (or whatever claim is being made) but its hardly witchcraft or mind-control." https://x.com/feeonline/status/976445990164205568 Modern data analytics is no doubt a powerful marketing tool. But it doesnt turn firms like Cambridge Analytics or Facebook into a combination of the Illuminati and Derren Brown the illusionist. https://t.co/PAiOKbCvBD https://x.com/feeonline/status/976445990164205568 Modern data analytics is no doubt a"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/976471766452367360)  2018-03-21T14:53Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"From a business point of view the interest rate on Treasury bonds is not what matters"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/978991200547082240)  2018-03-28T13:44Z [----] followers, [--] engagements


"Looking at the graph those who imagine Tax Revenues mainly reflect changes in Tax Laws would think the biggest "tax increases" were enacted in 1981-82 [----] and [----] while the biggest "tax cuts" were enacted in [----] [----] [----] (briefly correct) and 2009-2012 (correct)"  
[X Link](https://x.com/AlanReynoldsEcn/status/987356461666881536)  2018-04-20T15:44Z [----] followers, [--] engagements

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