Prices

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Douglas French

The U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) recently announced that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.5 percent in January, its biggest increase in nearly a year. The CPI core rate, which excludes energy and food prices — like any of us can go without gasoline or food — rose 0.2 percent. Both increases surprised analysts, but normal people — people who actually pay money for goods and services — weren't surprised.

D.W. MacKenzie

New Jersey has the dubious distinction of having the worst automobile insurance system in America. It is literally the most expensive, and provides poor service to its customers. Despite these high premiums, many automobile insurance companies have exited this market. In the past ten years, twenty insurers have left New Jersey. D.W. MacKenzie predicts reform won't help either. 

Joseph R. Stromberg

Economists talked blithely of privatizing Iraqi assets, writes Joseph Stromberg, without considering the bureaucratic implications of the method, the motivations of the public authorities, the long and disgraceful history of imposing a pre-set view of what constitutes a free market, and the reality that dividing up assets in a conquered country is probably contrary to international law. There are better ways to bring freedom to the world.

Jude Blanchette

Back when the pegged currency was deemed to provide the only bastion of stability during the Asian crisis, and hence, a stable economy for which to sell American goods, no one cared a whit about establishing a "free market" for the Chinese yuan. While no one is ever safe so long as Congress is in session and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is occupied, this administration's policy, more so than any other in recent history, has been "buy here, sell elsewhere."