Well, 2025 has already come and gone. Hard to believe, isn’t it? It was not a great year for the US economy, but it was a very good year for The Daily Economy.

More than a million readers have enjoyed TheDailyEconomy.org since it spun off from AIER.org in 2024, where our headlines previously appeared. Visitors are greeted with the latest on economic ideas shaping everyday life in America: inflation, interest rates, government spending, monetary policy, and more. Along the way, we expanded our roster with 50 new contributors and contributing fellows, sharpened our editorial focus, and reached a broader audience than ever before.

We’d like to thank our many authors and you, our readers. And before 2025 is over, we’d like to leave you with a sampling of our most-read articles of 2025 (in no particular order).

1. How Congress Created the Doctor Shortage by Laura Williams

Laura Williams explores the artificial scarcity of doctors in the US, which drives up health care costs. Why, with demand rising and hospitals desperate for staff, are thousands of “perfectly qualified doctors-in-waiting” locked out of the system? What created this massive bottleneck of healing potential, which is expected to result in a shortage of at least 86,000 physicians by 2036?

The answer is depressingly simple and mind-bogglingly shortsighted: in 1995, Congress made it illegal to train more doctors. 

2. How Germany Became the World’s Worst-Performing Economy by Mohamed Moutii

Mohamed Moutii breaks down how a one-time economic powerhouse slid into stagnation. Germany’s economy — once the engine of Europe — is now struggling with slow growth, high labor costs, and a bloated welfare burden that saps competitiveness.

“The welfare state as we know it today can no longer be financed by our economy,” declared Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

So what sank the German miracle? Mohamed traces the decline to policy choices that expanded welfare faster than wealth creation — and the political reluctance to confront these decisions.

3. Delistings Surge as Housing Market Teeters Toward Correction by Pete Earle

As the spring housing market should’ve been heating up, Pete Earle dug into a troubling shift: a rising tide of home delistings.

“Sellers are holding out, but buyers aren’t showing up,” Pete wrote. “The standoff signals a dramatic drop in prices might be closer than you think.”

What’s driving this stalemate between buyers and sellers? Pete traces the trend to a mix of stubborn price expectations, high borrowing costs, and broader economic strain. Even ten months later, this is a juicy read on where the housing market is swiftly heading. 

4. Milei’s Economic Miracle: How Argentina Slashed Inflation to 1.5% by Emmanuel Rincon

Emmanuel Rincon breaks down Argentina’s “economic miracle”: how President Javier Milei dramatically brought inflation under control after years of runaway price increases. Under Milei’s free market reforms, monthly inflation fell to just 1.5 percent, the lowest in five years, after peaking at hyperinflation levels above 200 percent when he took office. 

So how did he do it? Emmanuel points to sweeping spending cuts, fiscal discipline, deregulation, and ending monetary expansion — moves that slashed inflation, strengthened the peso, and even helped reduce poverty as prices stabilized. Don’t miss this story, which explores one of the most overlooked economic reversals in modern history. 

5. DEI: Five Hallmarks of a Hustle by Paul Mueller

Paul Mueller takes aim at what he calls the biggest “hustle” in academia and corporate America: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs that have expanded into costly bureaucracies with little to show for it. Paul says that while corporations and universities are publicly backing away from DEI, the underlying systems and incentives that support it are still deeply entrenched and expensive.

“Corporations and universities are distancing themselves from social virtue‑signaling,” he writes. “But behind new branding, the grift is alive and well.”

Paul documents how DEI initiatives became lucrative sinecures and consulting gigs siphoning money from students and taxpayers, while encouraging counterproductive attitudes and failing to address genuine abuses on campus.

6. There’s a New Sheriff at the Fed by Bryan Cutsinger

In June, Bryan Cutsinger highlighted a noticeable shift at the Federal Reserve, as Michelle Bowman stepped into her role as Vice Chair for Supervision.

So what’s actually changing at the Fed? Bryan examined Bowman’s first public speech for clues on how she plans to oversee banks and how her approach could reshape the Fed’s regulatory priorities.

7. The Economics of Divorce: A New Paper Examines the Harm to Children by Peter Jacobsen

Peter Jacobsen explores an important but often overlooked cost of family breakdown: the economic harm divorce can inflict on children. Drawing on new research, he shows that children from broken homes tend to face lower educational attainment, reduced lifetime earnings, and higher chances of poverty compared with those from intact families.

“These results shouldn’t be surprising. Parenting is a long-term, team project. Early in childhood, parents make plans and establish routines. These plans and routines lay the foundation for the rest of the child’s life. Like any joint project, whether in family, business, or politics, plans are made because the planning process adds value. Scrapping plans is akin to removing an essential part of the foundation.”

Fortunately, laying a positive new foundation is not impossible, Peter writes, but it can be difficult and costly. Read Peter’s analysis to learn more about the hidden economic costs of divorce, an under-discussed element of poverty and inequality. 

8. How Did 108 Economists Predict Milei’s Results Exactly Wrong? by Jon Miltimore

In February, Jon Miltimore looked at (yet another) striking forecasting failure: before Argentina’s economic turnaround, a group of 108 economists predicted outcomes that ended up being almost the exact opposite of what actually happened under President Javier Milei’s policies.

“…we believe that these proposals, rooted in laissez-faire economics and involving contentious ideas like dollarization and significant reductions in government spending, are fraught with risks,” the economists warned. 

Despite these dark predictions, Milei’s fiscal and monetary changes slashed inflation and grew the economy far beyond what experts expected. How did these 108 economists get things so wrong? Read Jon’s analysis to learn more.

9. Saudi Arabia Didn’t Learn Anything From China’s ‘Ghost Cities’ by Stefan Bartl

Saudi Arabia’s futuristic megaproject The Line — a state-driven, top-down attempt to engineer an ideal city — exemplifies how grand government planning fails to respond to real economic signals and human preferences.

Stefan Bartl explains how true urban success stems from voluntary economic activity, market forces, and individual incentives, not utopian design. As a bonus, Stefan reviews what Aristotle taught: a city requires three things — a citizenry, their economic means, and a shared concept of “the good life.” Without those, all you’ve got is empty buildings.

10. The Penny Problem Has a Third Option: Buy Them Back (With Interest) by Mike Munger

Mike Munger asked back in July why, instead of wastefully minting new coins at a loss, the government shouldn’t “offer to buy back existing pennies from the public at a small premium.” The minting has since been ended (the penny, like the dollar, has lost 97 percent of its purchasing power since 1913) but we could put many back into circulation if we wished to. Let individuals decide whether to turn in their coins — a pragmatic, voluntary solution.

11. Soros and USAID Have Been a Match Made in Hell by Matt Palumbo

Amid media controversy about cuts to the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Matt Palumbo argued the organization had strayed too far from its humanitarian mission. Instead, USAID had become a siphon to divert taxpayer money into politically driven, ideological projects rather than genuine economic development. He provided significant examples of USAID’s meddling around the globe, including attempts at outright regime change.

12. NIH: The $47-Billion Sacred Cow Is Scared by Walter Donway

If there’s nothing more permanent than a temporary government program, there’s nothing more predictable than special interests holding tight to their sources of funding. Walter Donway profiled some of the major institutions and leading laboratories that capture much of the National Institutes of Health’s $47 billion annual budget.

No surprise, the pattern of funding rewards prestige and politics, and neglects genuine innovation. One quoted scientist said, “The current NIH funding mechanism discourages innovative research and perpetuates a cycle where only established investigators receive grants.” That’s pretty backwards for anyone hoping to make real scientific progress.

13. $42 Billion Broadband Boondoggle Brought Internet to Zero Homes by Joel Griffith

Joel Griffith detailed the absurdity of the federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, which spent $42 billion without actually connecting a single home to the internet. 

“Even if we presume all the 24 million households currently without access will benefit from increased access and affordability, this comes to $1750 per household,” Joel pointed out.

Mandates and bureaucratic requirements deter private investment and distort incentives. Meanwhile, private markets have steadily expanded internet access and lowered prices without subsidies, including by expanding alternatives like satellite broadband.

14. BRICS 2025: Expansion, De-Dollarization, and the Shift Toward a Multipolar World by Pete Earle

Pete Earle has been among the foremost commentators on the trend toward de-dollarization, and on the rise of an alternative international currency.

Originally composed of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, BRICS has since expanded to include ten countries. The bloc now accounts for a substantial portion of global GDP and represents over half of the world’s population. By expanding its membership, Pete writes, “BRICS is positioning itself as a more inclusive and powerful alternative to Western-led financial institutions.”

America’s economic bullying has motivated many global players to seek alternatives to trading in dollars, accelerating the geopolitical shift toward a multipolar world. But true prosperity arises from open competition and voluntary use of currency and financial systems — outcomes unlikely to be consistently achieved by political blocs engineered by governments, regardless of how many countries join.

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From all of us at The Daily Economy, we wish you a new year full of every good thing: health, happiness, cherished civil liberties, and sound ideas. We hope you’ll keep coming back for plenty of smart, readable economics in the year ahead.

New research strongly suggests teachers’ unions are driving the skyrocketing administrative bloat that’s sucking resources away from classrooms. By diverting additional funding toward hiring more people, they starve effective educators of the raises and support they need, all to pad their own power structures. Unions benefit enormously from inflating the number of employees in the system, turning public schools into top-heavy bureaucracies that serve adults — not our kids.

Teachers’ union bosses gain in two major ways from the rapid expansion in administrative hiring — which also siphons resources away from teachers, students, and classrooms. 

First, a larger workforce means a bigger voting bloc in local and state politics. Public school employees can be mobilized to push for ideological agendas, from changing curricula to boxing out alternatives by blocking school choice. 

Second, more employees mean more revenue. Membership dues from 40 percent more administrators aren’t chump change — they add up to hundreds of millions of dollars annually, giving union leaders immense financial clout.

Has that money brought down student-teacher ratios or rewarded excellent teachers with raises? The latest LM2 report from the National Education Association (NEA), the largest labor union in the country, paints a damning picture. Out of more than $400 million in annual revenues, less than 10 percent goes toward representing teachers — the very people the union claims to champion. Instead, those funds are funneled into left-wing causes and Democratic campaign coffers.

The nation’s largest teachers union only spent 9% of their funding on representing members last year.

They spent $431 million overall. pic.twitter.com/yeyTXNToVu

— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) November 17, 2025

According to the latest data from OpenSecrets, more than 98 percent of the NEA’s campaign contributions went to Democrats in the last election cycle. At this point, the teachers’ union has become nothing more than a money laundering operation for the Democratic Party, using educators’ hard-earned dues to bankroll partisan agendas.

The self-serving system explains why teacher salaries have remained flat since 1970, even after adjusting for inflation. Meanwhile, spending per student has ballooned by about 170 percent in real terms over the same period. If the money were truly going to improve education, we’d see it reflected in better pay for teachers or enhanced classroom resources. But it’s not.

The unions actively push to funnel that funding toward hiring more people — administrators, support staff, and other non-teaching roles. Why? Because if the money went toward increasing salaries for good teachers instead, school systems would have less to spend on expanding headcount. That means fewer dues-paying members and lower total revenues for union bosses to control and redirect toward their political allies.

According to the latest data from the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University, student enrollment in US public schools has dropped by about 750,000 since 2014. In the same period, public school employment has increased by more than 600,000 people. Fewer kids, more adults. The government school system has morphed into a jobs program for grown-ups, with education for children as an afterthought. The situation isn’t sustainable, and it’s certainly not in the best interest of families or taxpayers.

My new peer-reviewed study, coauthored with Christos Makridis and published in Politics and Policy, confirms the unions’ role in this mess. We found that K-12 administrative bloat is more pronounced in places with stronger teachers’ union influence, all else equal. When unions hold sway, districts prioritize empire-building over efficiency, leading to layers of unnecessary bureaucracy that drain budgets without benefiting students.

Look at union-controlled Los Angeles public schools as a prime example. The Edunomics Lab data show that staffing there has increased by about 19 percent since 2014, even as the district has lost about 26 percent of its student population over the same period.

Los Angeles public schools have lost 26% of their students since 2014.

Yet they’ve increased staffing by 19%.

The government school system is a jobs program for adults. pic.twitter.com/BiXACtzAgk

— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) December 14, 2025

In what other industry do you go on a hiring spree just as you’re losing more than a quarter of your customers? Such decision-making would bankrupt a private business overnight. But public schools aren’t subject to market forces — they’re near-monopolies, insulated from competition by law. Without school choice, these unwise spending decisions hurt everyone: taxpayers foot the bill for the bloat, parents see their kids stuck in underperforming systems, and children suffer from misallocated resources. There’s no recourse because families can’t easily take their education dollars elsewhere.

The pattern holds in other union strongholds. In California, where unions dominate, staffing has increased by 11 percent while student enrollment has dropped about eight percent. Compare that trend to a state like North Carolina, which has banned collective bargaining for public employees. There, staffing has only risen by about four percent since 2015, with student enrollment remaining essentially unchanged. The difference is stark: without union pressure to inflate headcounts, districts focus on stability rather than expansion at all costs.

Teachers themselves are the forgotten victims in this scheme. Many of them feel left out by the one-size-fits-all system that prioritizes politics and union bosses over educators and kids. Teachers who are tired of seeing their dues siphoned off can join alternative representation like the Teacher Freedom Alliance — for free. By exiting, they would send a powerful message, incentivizing unions to refocus on fighting for higher salaries rather than just adding more boots on the ground to bolster their power.

Ultimately, the solution lies in introducing real competition through school choice. When families can vote with their feet — and take their education funding with them — districts will be forced to spend money wisely. Teachers will be financially free to find models they can believe in and that serve students well. Resources will flow into classrooms and toward training and retaining effective teachers, not toward unnecessary administrators and bloated staffs. It’s time to break the unions’ stranglehold and put kids first.

The Supreme Court has been systematically dismantling the modern administrative state. In several decisions, the justices have pushed back against the idea that executive-branch agencies can be insulated from presidential oversight. The constitutional principle is straightforward: Executive power must be accountable to the president.

Yet the court has hesitated to apply this logic to the Federal Reserve, easily the most important independent agency. That exception is increasingly hard to defend.

Recent Supreme Court cases such as Seila Law v. CFPB and Collins v. Yellen reject the notion that Congress may create powerful agencies whose leaders are shielded from removal by the president. The Court has been clear that technocratic expertise, political convenience, and even good policy outcomes do not override the Constitution’s separation of powers. If an agency exercises executive authority, it must ultimately answer to the elected chief executive.

Monetary policy would seem to fit squarely within that framework. The Fed regulates banks, influences the availability and price of credit, and controls the nation’s ultimate settlement asset. These decisions materially shape markets for labor, housing, and securities, which include the market for Treasury debt. If this does not count as executive power, what does?

And yet the Court appears willing to carve out an exception for the central bank. Defenders of Fed independence point to history, especially the First and Second Banks of the United States, and to the dangers of presidential meddling with monetary policy. They warn that subjecting Fed decisions to democratic accountability would invite political interference, with the likely result of excessive dollar depreciation.

But these are not constitutional arguments. They are prudential ones. They do not change the basic matter of what the Constitution says about executive authority. If the Constitution rules out conventional central banking, it is central banking that needs to change, not the Constitution.

History alone cannot justify departures from constitutional structure. Contrary to the Supreme Court’s claims, the First and Second Banks of the United States bore little resemblance to today’s Federal Reserve, as even Fed Chair Powell recognized. They lacked modern macroeconomic stabilization powers, operated under government charters, and existed for limited terms. Invoking them as precedent for an unaccountable central bank with sweeping discretionary authority is an historical solecism.

Nor can expertise supply a constitutional warrant. The Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected the idea that technical competence licenses insulation from political control. If Ph.D. economists qualify for special treatment, why not epidemiologists, climate scientists, or national security analysts? The argument has no limiting principle.

The real issue, though perhaps uncomfortable, is simple: Either the president runs the executive branch, or he does not.

If we believe that presidential interference with monetary policy is so dangerous that it must be prevented at all costs, the Constitution offers two solutions. One is to place the Federal Reserve firmly under executive control and accept political accountability for monetary outcomes, just as we do for every other entity that enforces laws passed by Congress. The other is to eliminate discretion altogether by binding monetary policy to strict, automatic rules—ones that leave no room for judgment calls by policymakers, however credentialed.

What the Constitution does not permit is what we have now: discretionary macroeconomic governance by financial insiders who answer to no elected official.

The Fed’s defenders often invoke “constrained discretion” as a middle ground. But discretion is still discretion. Choosing inflation targets, interpreting economic data, timing interventions, and deciding when to bend or suspend rules all involve judgment. Those judgments often have significant distributional consequences, benefiting some groups at the expense of others. Exercising such power without political accountability is precisely what the Court has rejected in other contexts.

To be sure, markets have grown accustomed to an independent Fed. But market expectations do not confer constitutional legitimacy. Investors once took Chevron deference and expansive agency authority for granted, too. Stability is desirable, but it cannot come at the expense of constitutional government.

The uncomfortable truth is that the Federal Reserve survives not because it fits neatly within our constitutional order, but because the alternative frightens us. Presidents might pressure the Fed to run the printing presses before elections, just as President Nixon had Fed Chair Arthur F. Burns do. Yes, inflation might follow. These are real concerns—but they are not legal ones.

If discretionary monetary policy is incompatible with democratic accountability, the answer is to reform monetary institutions so that discretion is radically constrained, not exempt those institutions from constitutional scrutiny. Alternatively, we should rethink whether a centralized monetary authority is compatible with the letter and spirit of constitutional law in the first place.

The Supreme Court has rightly insisted that the separation of powers means what it says. If that principle stops at the doors of the Federal Reserve, it is not a principle. It is an exception born of fear. And fear is a poor foundation for constitutional self-government.