Category: Economic Crisis

Croatian Government Does Not Learn from Distant Past (or Recent Past) That Price Controls Do Not Work

In Croatia, as in the United States, inflation resulted when each government “flooded the country with cash” to buy votes during the Covid pandemic.

(p. 4) In 301 A.D., the Emperor Diocletian made a bold but ultimately unsuccessful bid to address the inflation that was rampaging across the eastern half of the divided Roman Empire.

Prices of everything from purple thread and feathers to slaves and cattle were dictated by his Edict on Maximum Prices. Violators faced the death penalty. Diocletian gave up power about four years after issuing his edict, watching his measure fail from his sprawling retirement palace in the heart of what became the city of Split in Croatia.

Now Croatia’s government is trying a similar tactic to rein in prices that have soared in recent years and sparked protests and retail boycotts by the country’s beleaguered consumers.

. . .

The rules that came into effect this month are the Croatian government’s third attempt at controlling prices by fiat since September 2022. The first two efforts were largely ineffective, with retailers simply refusing to stock most price-controlled goods.

. . .

Economists blame the increases on a three-headed hydra of pandemic-era economic rescue packages that flooded the country with cash, increases in public sector wages and retailers rounding up prices after Croatia adopted the euro in 2023.

. . .

John H. Cochrane, an economist and fellow at the Hoover Institution, a research center, pointed to the role Diocletian’s edict played in causing shortages and fueling a black market.

“It’s like trying to stem the symptoms rather than treating the underlying disease,” Mr. Cochrane said of price controls. “It offers people the appearance of help for a while, and then it takes a few weeks or, a month or two, for all the problems to break out.”

For the full story, see:

Joe Orovic. “A Croatian Plan to Rein In Prices Echoes the Tack of an Emperor.” The New York Times, First Section. (Sun., March 9, 2025): 4.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version was updated March 10, 2025, and has the title “Echoing a Roman Emperor, Croatia Tries to Cap Soaring Prices.” Where there is a slight difference in wording, the passages quoted above follow the online version.)

Covid Handouts Raised Government Debt, Leading to Higher Inflation

During Covid, Democrats in Congress pushed for ever-greater government handouts to voters, that often were handed out to fraudsters, and substantially increased the U.S. debt. Former Democratic Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers predicted that this would fuel inflation. Recent research by Ernie Tedeschi, the former Chief Economist at President Biden’s Council of Economic Advisors, confirms that increased debt results in higher prices.

The New York Times article summarizing Tedeschi’s research is:

Colby Smith. “Research Shows Link Between High Government Debt and Rising Prices.” The New York Times (Thurs., March 13, 2025): B3.

(Note: the online version of the article has the date March 12, 2024, and has the title “High Government Debt Is Seen as Stoking Inflation, Research Shows.”)

Colby Smith identifies Tedeschi as the author of the following research paper. The Budget Lab web site, where the paper is posted, does not identify the author:

“The Inflationary Risks of Rising Federal Deficits and Debt.” The Budget Lab at Yale. March 12, 2025.

S.B.A. “Forgives” Most Covid “Loans” Even Though at Least 17% Were Issued to Fraudsters

We used to handle suffering during crises by mutual aid societies or by giving philanthropy to those we know best–our friends and neighbors. The potential fraudster is less likely to defraud their brother or neighbor, than some unknown taxpayer in a distant state. And the local philanthropist is more likely to be able to judge which relative or neighbor will benefit from aid. Giving billions to fraudsters fueled the future inflation that ordinary decent citizens would latter struggle with.

If the federal government wanted to reduce the pain from the pandemic, the best way would have been to reduce the number, and shorten the length, of mandates. Handing so much money to fraudsters, with so little due diligence, is outrageous.

[Admission: I was the victim of identity theft when the S.B.A. gave a fraudster, using my name, tens of thousands of dollars for a potato farm supposedly run by me. Then the S.B.A. had the audacity to start sending me threatening letters about my alleged failure to pay back the loans they had given to the fraudster.]

(p. A1) When J. Bryan Quesenberry first learned that the federal government was sending out hundreds of billions of dollars to help businesses survive during the Covid-19 pandemic, he thought: “There’s going to be fraud here. There just has to be.”

A few months later, Mr. Quesenberry started sifting through a list of businesses that received Paycheck Protection Program loans, which were intended to help small businesses ravaged by the pandemic continue paying their employees. The Oregon lawyer said he knew businesses were not allowed to receive more than one loan during a single round, so he searched for “double dippers.”

He soon found dozens of businesses across the country that appeared to improperly obtain P.P.P. loans. During the summer of 2020, Mr. Quesenberry started suing those firms to try to help the government recover funds.

“It just blows my mind,” Mr. Quesenberry said. “That’s tax money that comes out of your pocket and that comes out of my pocket.”

As federal officials try to retrieve billions in stolen pandemic relief funds, private citizens are scouring public data, company websites and social media pages to help identify potential cases. Those who have filed suits say they are motivated by the desire to root out wrongdoers and expose corporate fraud.

But there is also a strong financial incentive. Under the False Claims Act, private citizens can file lawsuits on behalf of the federal government against those who may have defrauded the United States. If the government recovers funds, those citizens can typically earn between 15 and 30 percent of that amount.

. . .

(p. A15) The armchair sleuthing highlights how widespread pandemic fraud was and how federal investigators have struggled to keep up with it. In its haste to stave off an economic crisis and provide immediate aid to Americans, Washington distributed billions of dollars with few strings and little oversight. The Small Business Administration’s inspector general has estimated that more than $200 billion — or at least 17 percent of the pandemic loans the agency distributed — was awarded to “potentially fraudulent actors.” The majority of P.P.P. loans have been forgiven by the federal government.

While federal investigators have gone after some of the biggest perpetrators of fraud, limited resources have hindered their ability to go after the estimated thousands of people who improperly took government money.

. . .

Some private citizens said that it often took hours to investigate leads, and that they were unearthing cases that might otherwise slip through the cracks. Although Mr. Quesenberry said he relied primarily on information available on the internet to build cases, he said it was a time-intensive process that often required combing through government websites, Yelp pages, news articles and LinkedIn profiles. He said he thought he added value because he was pulling together evidence to “paint the picture of fraud.”

Mr. Quesenberry has earned more than $400,000 from 10 cases that have helped the federal government recover more than $3 million, according to a review of documents from U.S. attorney’s offices. Mr. Quesenberry said he had been investigating pandemic fraud for about four and a half years and was now working on his cases full time.

. . .

Hadar Susskind, the president and chief executive of Americans for Peace Now, said officials thought they had qualified for the loan because they did not consider the nonprofit to be a political organization. He said they had settled because it could have been costlier to go to court.

Mr. Susskind said he had never met Mr. Abrams, but he believed the complaint was “very much ideologically motivated” because of the nonprofit’s work to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace.

In an email, Mr. Abrams said: “In America these anti-Israel organizations have the right to spin, distort or even outright lie about Israel. However, they do not have the right to subsidize their activities with government monies for which they were not eligible.”

Mr. Abrams said he had long done other activist work, including recently representing a Jewish high school student who was the victim of antisemitic bullying. He said that he did not charge fees in those matters, and that the “whistle-blower cases do generate significant revenue so things more or less balance out.”

For the full story see:

Madeleine Ngo. “Fraud Hunters Earn Windfalls Tied to Covid.” The New York Times (Monday, November 25, 2024): A1 & A15.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Nov. 23, 2024, and has the title “They Investigated Pandemic Fraud, Then Earned Thousands.”)

Sweden’s Restraint in Mandating Covid Lockdowns Resulted in Much Lower Excess Mortality Than the U.S. Suffered

(p. A17) The best measure of health performance during the pandemic is all-cause excess mortality, which captures the overall number of deaths relative to the expected level, encompassing Covid and lockdown-related deaths. On this measure Sweden—which kept most schools open and avoided strict lockdown orders—outperformed nearly every country in the world.

A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that the U.S. “would have had 1.60 million fewer deaths if it had the performance of Sweden, 1.07 million fewer deaths if it had the performance of Finland, and 0.91 million fewer deaths if it had the performance of France.” In America, states that imposed prolonged lockdowns had no better health outcomes when measured by all-cause excess mortality than those that stayed open. While no quantifiable relationship between lockdown severity and a reduction in Covid health harms has been found, states with severe lockdowns suffered significantly worse economic outcomes.

. . .

The economic costs of lockdowns were also staggering. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as many as 49 million Americans were out of work in May 2020. This shock had health consequences. A National Bureau of Economic Research study found that the lockdown unemployment shock is projected to result in 840,000 to 1.22 million excess deaths over the next 15 to 20 years, disproportionately killing women and minorities.

For the full commentary see:

Scott W. Atlas and Steve H. Hanke. “Covid Lessons Learned, Four Years Later.” The Wall Street Journal (Tuesday, March 19, 2024): A17.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date March 18, 2024, and has the same title as the print version.)

The “recent study” mentioned above is:

Ioannidis, John P. A., Francesco Zonta, and Michael Levitt. “Variability in Excess Deaths across Countries with Different Vulnerability During 2020–2023.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120, no. 49 (Dec. 5, 2023): e2309557120.

The published version of the National Bureau of Economic Research study mentioned above is:

Bianchi, Francesco, Giada Bianchi, and Dongho Song. “The Long-Term Impact of the Covid-19 Unemployment Shock on Life Expectancy and Mortality Rates.” Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 146 (Jan. 2023): 104581.

During Black Death Only 7 of 21 Regions of Europe Had Catastrophic Decline in Agricultural Activity

(p. D4) In the mid-1300s, a species of bacteria spread by fleas and rats swept across Asia and Europe, causing deadly cases of bubonic plague. The “Black Death” is one of the most notorious pandemics in historical memory, with many experts estimating that it killed roughly 50 million Europeans, the majority of people across the continent.

“The data is sufficiently widespread and numerous to make it likely that the Black Death swept away around 60 percent of Europe’s population,” Ole Benedictow, a Norwegian historian and one of the leading experts on the plague, wrote in 2005. When Dr. Benedictow published “The Complete History of the Black Death” in 2021, he raised that estimate to 65 percent.

But those figures, based on historical documents from the time, greatly overestimate the true toll of the plague, according to a study published on Thursday [Feb. 10, 2022]. By analyzing ancient deposits of pollen as markers of agricultural activity, researchers from Germany found that the Black Death caused a patchwork of destruction. Some regions of Europe did indeed suffer devastating losses, but other regions held stable, and some even boomed.

. . .

Losing half the population would have turned many farms fallow. Without enough herders to tend livestock, pastures would have become overgrown. Shrubs and trees would have taken over, eventually replaced by mature forests.

If the Black Death did indeed cause such a shift, Dr. Izdebski and his colleagues reasoned, they should be able to see it in the species of pollen that survived from the Middle Ages. Every year, plants release vast amounts of pollen into the air, and some of it ends up on the bottom of lakes and wetlands. Buried in the mud, the grains can survive sometimes for centuries.

To see what pollen had to say about the Black Death, Dr. Izdebski and his colleagues picked out 261 sites across Europe — from Ireland and Spain in the west to Greece and Lithuania in the east — that held grains preserved from around 1250 to 1450.

In some regions, such as Greece and central Italy, the pollen told a story of devastation. Pollen from crops like wheat dwindled. Dandelions and other flowers in pastureland faded. Fast-growing trees like birch appeared, followed by slow-growing ones like oaks.

But that was hardly the rule across Europe. In fact, just seven out of 21 regions the researchers studied underwent a catastrophic shift. In other places, the pollen registered little change at all.

. . .

Monica Green, an independent historian based in Phoenix, speculated that the Black Death might have been caused by two strains of the bacteria Yersinia pestis, which could have caused different levels of devastation. Yersinia DNA collected from medieval skeletons hints at this possibility, she said.

In their study, Dr. Izdebski and his colleagues did not examine that possibility, but they did consider a number of other factors, including the climate and density of populations in different parts of Europe. But none accounted for the pattern they found.

“There is no simple explanation behind that, or even a combination of simple explanations,” Dr. Izdebski said.

. . .

“What we show is that there are a number of factors, and it’s not easy to predict from the beginning which factors will matter,” he said, referring to how viruses can spread. “You cannot assume one mechanism to work everywhere the same way.”

For the full essay see:

Carl Zimmer. “Questioning the Toll Of a 1300s Pandemic.” The New York Times (Tuesday, February 15, 2022 [sic]): D4.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)

(Note: the online version of the essay was updated Feb. 15, 2022 [sic], and has the title “Did the ‘Black Death’ Really Kill Half of Europe? New Research Says No.”)

The book cited above as over-estimating the death toll of the Black Death is:

Benedictow, Ole J. The Complete History of the Black Death. Martlesham, UK: Boydell Press, 2021.

The academic article co-authored by Izdebski and mentioned above is:

Izdebski, A., P. Guzowski, R. Poniat, L. Masci, J. Palli, C. Vignola, M. Bauch, C. Cocozza, R. Fernandes, F. C. Ljungqvist, T. Newfield, A. Seim, D. Abel-Schaad, F. Alba-Sánchez, L. Björkman, A. Brauer, A. Brown, S. Czerwiński, A. Ejarque, M. Fiłoc, A. Florenzano, E. D. Fredh, R. Fyfe, N. Jasiunas, P. Kołaczek, K. Kouli, R. Kozáková, M. Kupryjanowicz, P. Lagerås, M. Lamentowicz, M. Lindbladh, J. A. López-Sáez, R. Luelmo-Lautenschlaeger, K. Marcisz, F. Mazier, S. Mensing, A. M. Mercuri, K. Milecka, Y. Miras, A. M. Noryśkiewicz, E. Novenko, M. Obremska, S. Panajiotidis, M. L. Papadopoulou, A. Pędziszewska, S. Pérez-Díaz, G. Piovesan, A. Pluskowski, P. Pokorny, A. Poska, T. Reitalu, M. Rösch, L. Sadori, C. Sá Ferreira, D. Sebag, M. Słowiński, M. Stančikaitė, N. Stivrins, I. Tunno, S. Veski, A. Wacnik, and A. Masi. “Palaeoecological Data Indicates Land-Use Changes across Europe Linked to Spatial Heterogeneity in Mortality During the Black Death Pandemic.” Nature Ecology & Evolution 6, no. 3 (March 2022): 297-306.

California Regs Requiring Electric Trucks at Ports, Raise Supply Chain Costs, Fueling Inflation for Consumers

(p. B1) Neri Diaz thought he was ready for a crucial juncture in California’s ambitious plans, closely watched in other states and around the world, to phase out diesel-powered trucks.

His company, Harbor Pride Logistics, acquired 14 electric trucks this year to work alongside 32 diesel vehicles, in anticipation of a rule that says diesel rigs can no longer be added to the list of vehicles approved to move goods in and out of California’s ports. But in August the manufacturer of Mr. Diaz’s electric vehicles, Nikola, took back the trucks as part of a recall, saying it would return them in the first quarter of the new year.

“It’s a brand-new technology, first generation, so I knew things were going to happen, but I wasn’t expecting all my 14 trucks to be taken back,” he said. “It is a big impact on my operations.”

. . .

(p. B5) Large companies, with deep pockets and big facilities, are best positioned to make the green transition. Mike Gallagher, a California-based executive at Maersk, the Danish shipping giant, said the company had a fully electric fleet, comprising some 85 vehicles made by Volvo and BYD, the Chinese automaker, for transporting goods up to 50 miles out of the ports of Southern California. And it has worked with landlords to install scores of chargers at its depots.

“We’re well ahead of the curve,” he said.

But smaller trucking fleets do most of the port runs — accounting for some 70 percent at the Los Angeles port — and they are going to find the transition hard. The California Trucking Association has filed a federal lawsuit against the state’s trucking rules, including the one focused on port trucks, contending that they represent “a vast overreach that threatens the security and predictability of the nation’s goods movement industry.”

Matt Schrap, the chief executive of the Harbor Trucking Association, another trade group, said the port truck rules lacked exemptions that would help smaller businesses survive the transformation. Getting access to chargers is particularly difficult for smaller fleets, he said: They are expensive, and the truck yard landlords may be reluctant to install them, forcing the operators to rely on a public charging system that is only just getting built.

“The landlord is, like, ‘There’s not a snowball’s chance in Bakersfield that you’re going to tear up my parking lot to put in some heavy-duty charging,’” Mr. Schrap said.

Concern exists beyond the trade groups. Mr. Gallagher, the Maersk executive, said that if the clean truck rules caused serious problems for smaller operators, it could be “a significant disruption to the supply chain.”

. . .

Mr. Diaz, the operator whose Nikola trucks were recalled, said that charging the trucks cost roughly 40 percent less than diesel, and that he was impressed with their performance. Even with the help of state grants, he estimates that the electric trucks cost him as much as 50 percent more than diesel models. During the recall, Nikola has been covering the payments on the loans Mr. Diaz took out to buy the trucks, but he said he was concerned about the truck maker’s financial situation.

. . .

Rudy Diaz, president of Hight Logistics, said the new regulations had pushed up some of his costs as his company brought drivers onto its payroll and reduced its reliance on contract drivers using their own diesel trucks.

“It’s extra headaches, extra costs,” he said. “But consumers are asking for products that are more sustainable, and they’re willing to pay the price.”

For the full story, see:

Peter Eavis and Mark Abramson. “California Is Pushing E.V.s As the Future of Freight.” The New York Times (Saturday, December 30, 2023): B1 & B5.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated Dec. 29, 2023, and has the title “California Pushes Electric Trucks as the Future of Freight.”)

Highly-Taxpayer-Subsidized Lincoln Airline Collapses After Three Months

The “American Rescue Plan Act” was also called the “Covid-19 Stimulus Package” or the “American Rescue Plan.” (To paraphrase Shakespeare on a rose: a “boondoggle” by any other name smells just as foul.)

(p. B2) LINCOLN — Red Way, the startup airline that had been providing service from Lincoln to destinations such as Las Vegas and Orlando, is ceasing operations at the end of the month.

. . .

The Lancaster County Board issued a written statement Wednesday [Aug. 23, 2023], saying it “is deeply disappointed and troubled at this unexpected and sudden turn of events.”

The board said there are “many unanswered questions regarding the Red Way project, (and it) looks forward to receiving a full accounting of this situation as the Lincoln Airport Authority charts a new path forward to serve our community.”

Board member Matt Schulte lamented the $3 million in lost American Rescue Plan Act funds — $1.5 million each from Lancaster County and the City of Lincoln — but called the air travel experiment a chance worth taking.

“I personally voted for this project believing that the air service would develop long term service,” he said. “Unfortunately, it didn’t work. I hope this failed experiment does not have a negative impact on the ability to expand service to the city of Lincoln.”

. . .

Airport officials had seemed optimistic about the airline’s prospects, noting that it had sold 10,000 tickets in just its first two weeks of operation.

In fact, Red Way flew just over 13,000 total passengers in June and July.

But cracks had started to show recently.

Red Way announced in July that it was dropping seasonal flights to Atlanta, Austin and Minneapolis in early August, months earlier than planned, because of poor ticket sales. That news came just two days after the airline had announced new flights to Tampa and Phoenix over the winter months.

Nick Cusick, who resigned from the Airport Authority Board in July after serving more than 10 years, confirmed to the Lincoln Journal Star on Wednesday that Red Way had already burned through most of a $3 million incentive fund provided through ARPA dollars.

It used more than $900,000 in the first month and it withdrew even more in the second month, Cusick said.

For the full story, see:

MATT OLBERDING, Lincoln Journal Star. “Red Way Airline Ceasing Operations.” Omaha World-Herald (Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023): B2.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated Sept. 30, 2023, and has the title “Lincoln’s Red Way ceasing operations less than 3 months after inaugural flight.”)

Chinese Communists Suspend Release of Record High Youth Unemployment Rate

(p. B1) The Chinese government, facing an expected seventh consecutive monthly increase in youth unemployment, said Tuesday [Aug. 15, 2023] that it had instead suspended release of the information.

The unemployment rate among 16- to 24-year-olds in urban areas hit 21.3 percent, a record, in June and has risen every month this year. It was widely forecast by economists to have climbed further last month.

The decision to scrub a widely watched report could exacerbate the concerns expressed by investors and executives who say ever-tightening government control of information is making it harder to do business in China.

Fu Linghui, a spokesman of the National Bureau of Statistics, said at a news briefing that the government would stop making public employment information “for youth and other age groups.” He said the surveys that government researchers use to collect the data “need to be further improved and optimized.”

China’s youth unemployment rate has doubled in the last four years, a period of economic volatility induced by the “zero Covid” measures imposed by Beijing that left companies wary of hiring, interrupted education for many students, and made it hard to get the internships that had often led to job offers.

The announcement drew more than 140 million views on the Chinese social media site Weibo within a few hours. Many people (p. B3) commenting online, some turning to sarcasm, said they believed the government suspended the report to try to hide negative information. Others said they believed the public had the right to be informed.

. . .

Young people in China are facing a big gap between labor demand and supply. According to official data, 11.6 million students were expected to graduate college or university this year — the most ever and nearly one million more than last year. Future classes are expected to be even larger, while economic growth had started to slow even before the pandemic.

. . .

Even becoming an entry-level civil servant working for the government is harder these days. Last year, a record 2.6 million people applied to take the national civil service exam to compete for only 37,100 entry-level positions.

Xi Jinping, the country’s top leader, has called for young people to go to remote areas to find work — to “eat bitterness,” a Chinese expression that refers to enduring hardship.

For the full story, see:

Claire Fu. “China Scraps Jobs Report On the Young.” The New York Times (Wednsday, August 16 2023): B1 & B3.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)

(Note: the online version of the review has the date Aug. 15, 2023, and has the title “China Suspends Report on Youth Unemployment, Which Was at a Record High.”)

The Talented, Wealthy, Ambitious, and Hardworking Vote with Their Feet Against Communist China

(p. B12) Is China reopening to the world or turning inward again?

Many would argue the latter, but in one important way, the country is still going global: Residents appear to be leaving at a faster clip than they have in years, including a significant number of the wealthy and well-educated the nation needs to keep modernizing and investing.

. . .

Rebounding emigration is also striking in the context of a declining overall birthrate, and suggests that Beijing must do far more to convince talent, both domestic and foreign, that China is a good place to put down roots if it wants to avoid a steeper growth slowdown in the years ahead.

. . .

Rising net emigration also mirrors much smaller influxes of foreign talent in recent years—another trend that threatens to slow China’s climb up the technological ladder. Foreign residents of Shanghai and Beijing numbered just 163,954 and 62,812 in 2020, according to official data, down 21% and 42%, respectively, since 2010. The pandemic is clearly a major factor. But given the well-publicized rising tensions between China and the West, slowing growth and the rising risks of detention and investigation for what used to be considered routine business by foreigners in China, a portion of that decrease seems very likely to persist.

For much of the new millennium, China has been a place where the ambitious, hardworking and lucky could often get ahead. But in today’s China—more focused on security and control, less on growth—it is no longer clear how true that really is.

Some people, at least, seem to be voting with their feet.

For the full commentary, see:

Nathaniel Taplin. “HEARD ON THE STREET; China’s Brain Drain Threatens Its Future.” The Wall Street Journal (Thursday, July 6, 2023): B12.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date July 5, 2023, and has the same title as the print version.)

In 2021 Summers and Blanchard Worried That Biden’s Covid Stimulus Would Fuel Inflation

(p. A2) When Congress passed President Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan in early 2021, which included checks to households, enhanced jobless benefits and aid to state and local governments, inflation was around 2% and unemployment, though coming down, still above 6%.

At the time many forecasters thought the stimulus could push demand above the economy’s potential to supply goods and services and unemployment below its long-run natural rate of around 4%. Yet few thought this would meaningfully raise inflation. In previous decades unemployment had remained similarly low without raising price pressures.

A few disagreed, notably former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and Blanchard. Both warned the stimulus was so large it would push the economy dangerously into overheating territory.

For the full commentary, see:

Greg Ip. “CAPITAL ACCOUNT; Why Did Inflation Take Off? Two Top Economists Answer.” The Wall Street Journal (Wednesday, May 24, 2023): A2.

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date May 23, 2023, and has the title “CAPITAL ACCOUNT; Why Inflation Erupted: Two Top Economists Have the Answer.”)

A 2021 article that documented Summers’s and Blanchard’s worry that Biden’s huge stimulus might fuel inflation is:

Ip, Greg. “Inflation Risk: Little Now, but Some See Danger Ahead.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., March 2, 2021).

Towns Flourish When Entrepreneurs Want to Live in Them

(p. B1) SIDNEY, Neb. — The forest green roof and pair of bronze stags frozen in combat are impossible to miss as you drive down Interstate 80.

. . .

For 54 years, Cabela’s made its home here, a juggernaut that kept the town humming. But in 2017, the sporting goods store sold for $5 billion to Bass Pro Shops — a takeover that eventually made 2,000 jobs vanish in a town of roughly 6,600 residents.

. . .

But Sidney’s staying power still surprises experts, who say it’s driven by two factors.

One: Former Cabela’s employees opening their small businesses, diversifying the economy in a formerly one-company town.

Two: A recent influx of new (p. B3) residents, both retirees and remote workers.

. . .

Each spring, high schoolers from Nebraska and neighboring states flock to Sidney searching for the perfect prom dress. Their destination: Charlotte & Emerson, a downtown boutique — and one example of Sidney’s rebirth from the ashes of Cabela’s.

Co-owner Sarah Kaiser and husband Kurt Kaiser both worked at Cabela’s. When the company was swallowed by Missouri-based Bass Pro, the family relocated there as Sarah Kaiser ran the combined company’s human resources.

But in 2020, they decided to return to Sidney, her hometown. Sarah Kaiser opened Charlotte & Emerson with her sister. Her husband launched an online fitness store, Frost Giant Fitness. They’re two of many Sidney-based companies run by ex-Cabela’s employees who decided to stick around and start something new.

“The corporate experience of these young folks really was key to this particular recovery,” said David Iaquinta, a Nebraska Wesleyan University sociology professor who has researched Sidney’s economic development. “. . . they combined that talent with a strong desire for the lifestyle that they had. They said, ‘We’re here. We’re rooted here.’”

Budding companies are being boosted by E3, a Nebraska Community Foundation program meant to aid entrepreneurship in rural Nebraska.

Already, new businesses have remodeled once-dilapidated buildings, said Sarah Sinnett, the program’s community lead.

. . .

Economic development in Nebraska “used to be about cheap land, cheap labor and cheap incentives” to nab big companies, Stinnett said.

Now: “If you want small towns to start thriving … really it needs to be focused on entrepreneurship,” she said.

For the full story, see:

Natalia Alamdari, Flatwater Free Press. “Sydney Shows Staying Power.” Omaha World-Herald (Sunday, April 23, 2023): B1 & B3.

(Note: ellipses between paragraphs, and bracketed date, added; ellipsis internal to paragraph, in original.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated April 28, 2023, and has the title “Six years after ‘Cabela’s debacle,’ Sidney’s lights are still on.”)