President Trump announced on Truth Social that a $2,000 “tariff dividend” would be paid to Americans excluding “high income people,” promising that remaining funds after these payments would be used to “substantially pay down national debt.” The announcement …
President Trump signs executive order revoking previous competition and antitrust enforcement policies, clearing path for increased corporate consolidation and monopolistic practices without federal oversight.
McKinsey Global Institute issues a comprehensive report titled ‘Moving Saudi Arabia’s Economy Beyond Oil’ in December 2015, which becomes the foundation for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 economic transformation plan. The Saudi government hires McKinsey as the …
During a critical congressional testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 6, 2013, Attorney General Eric Holder revealed the Department of Justice’s emerging doctrine of ’too big to jail’, acknowledging that prosecuting certain financial institutions could …
The Argentine Congress passes the Zero Deficit Law under intense IMF pressure, delivering drastic cuts in public spending including 13% reductions in state salaries and pensions in a desperate attempt to satisfy creditors and maintain access to IMF loans. The law represents the culmination of four …
IMF completes its systematic economic restructuring of Southeast Asian economies, fundamentally transforming corporate landscapes. The intervention results in unprecedented foreign corporate access, weakened local economic sovereignty, and a permanent shift in regional economic power dynamics.
Key …
President Jimmy Carter signed the Chrysler Corporation Loan Guarantee Act of 1979 into law on January 7, 1980, following House passage on December 13, 1979 (271-136 vote) and Senate passage on December 21, 1979 (53-44 vote). The legislation provided up to $1.5 billion in federal loan guarantees to …
On October 6, 1979, Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker announced dramatic steps to combat inflation, fundamentally transforming monetary policy by switching from targeting interest rates to targeting the money supply. Appointed by President Jimmy Carter in August 1979 to replace William Miller, …
After three decades of wages rising in tandem with productivity (1948-1979), the fundamental relationship between worker productivity and compensation breaks down completely beginning in 1979, marking the start of 45+ years of wage stagnation despite continued productivity growth. Between 1948-1979, …
At the National Press Club on October 29, 1975, President Gerald Ford gave a speech refusing to provide federal assistance to New York City, which was on the verge of bankruptcy after losing nearly 600,000 jobs and hundreds of thousands of residents fleeing to the suburbs or Sunbelt. The New York …
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Saudi Crown Prince Fahd signed a framework agreement in Washington DC establishing the US-Saudi Arabian Joint Commission on Economic Cooperation. This historic agreement created both economic and military commissions aimed at promoting Saudi investments in the …
On August 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon announced his “New Economic Policy” in a televised address, unilaterally closing the gold window and ending the convertibility of U.S. dollars to gold at the fixed rate of $35 per ounce established under the Bretton Woods system. The …
Economist Milton Friedman publishes his landmark essay ‘A Friedman Doctrine: The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Its Profits’ in The New York Times Magazine, establishing the intellectual foundation for shareholder primacy and profit maximization as the sole corporate …
President Truman signs the Employment Act of 1946 on February 20, a dramatically weakened version of the Full Employment Bill of 1945. The original bill would have guaranteed a federal job to every American seeking work and required the government to maintain full employment. After intensive …
The American economy enters a severe recession in May 1937, lasting 13 months through June 1938, after President Franklin D. Roosevelt accepts the advice of his conservative Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. to slash government spending by 17% over two years in an effort to balance the federal …
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Revenue Act of 1935 (49 Stat. 1014) into law on August 30, 1935, over strong opposition from business, the wealthy, and conservatives from both parties, introducing the “Wealth Tax” as the first major New Deal effort to reform federal taxation …
President McKinley signs the Dingley Tariff Act into law, establishing the highest protective tariffs in U.S. history at an average of 52% in its first year of operation (57% increase on average). The act shields domestic industries from foreign competition by hiking duties on sugar, salt, tin cans, …
At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, 36-year-old former Nebraska Representative William Jennings Bryan delivers the electrifying “Cross of Gold” speech supporting “free silver” (bimetallism) against the gold standard, concluding with the famous peroration: …
Just two months into Martin Van Buren’s presidency, major New York state banks refuse to convert paper money into gold or silver on May 10, 1837, having exhausted their hard currency reserves. Other financial institutions across the country quickly follow suit, triggering the Panic of 1837—a …
President Andrew Jackson orders Treasury Secretary Levi Woodbury to issue the Specie Circular, an executive order requiring that payment for public lands be made exclusively in gold or silver (specie) rather than paper currency, effective August 15, 1836 for purchases over 320 acres. The policy aims …
President Andrew Jackson vetoes legislation to renew the Second Bank of the United States’ charter, four years before its scheduled expiration, delivering a “popular and effective” message declaring the Bank “unauthorized by the Constitution, subversive to the rights of …
Congress passes the Tariff of 1816, the first explicitly protective tariff in American history, taxing imported goods at a remarkable 25% rate to protect emerging domestic industries from cheap British goods flooding American markets after the War of 1812. The tariff represents the first pillar of …