2018 Comes in Like a Lion

If there is one thing about which most economists understand and agree it's the law of supply and demand. A derivative of that law is that demand and velocity of transactions tend to diminish as costs increase. While few individuals disagree about this, many in the collective body of economists have become so politicized that when it comes to the cost of variables such as taxes and regulations, that consensus all but vanishes. Indeed, to listen to many of the pundits and experts there seems to be notable confusion, denial and disagreement about how the cost of regulations and taxes actually affect economic activity. Last year a University of Chicago Booth School of Business survey of so-called top economists--including Nobel Prize winners and former presidents of the American Economic Association--found that only one in 42 economists polled thought that the Republican tax reduction bill would boost the economy. Recently, Princeton economics professor and former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Blinder stated in the Wall Street Journal that there was "little economic evidence" that "tax benefits showered on corporations will translate mostly into higher wages and vastly faster economic growth."