Keating’s CyberColumn

SMALL BUSINESS INSIDER by Raymond J. Keating – The pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing industry has the reputation for being all about large businesses. This mistaken view is widely pitched in political circles. However, while large firms, of course, are critical to the industry, and to the life-saving, life-enhancing treatments it produces – firms that grew […]

by Raymond J. Keating – Labor union membership has been on a long decline, and that drop resumed in 2021 after a brief, unique respite in 2020, according to a new report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Indeed, as a share of employment, union membership in the U.S. peeked in the early 1950s […]

SMALL BUSINESS INSIDER by Raymond J. Keating – The state of Washington has enjoyed a huge competitive advantage over most other states. But part of that advantage is in danger of being lost. Washington’s Competitive Advantage What has the state’s advantage been? Washington has imposed no personal income, capital gains and corporate incomes taxes. Only […]

by Raymond J. Keating –  The latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics brought more bad news on inflation. CPI inflation raged at 0.8 percent in November, and that came after a 0.9 percent jump in October. For the past 12 months, inflation registered 6.8 percent. (See the following […]

by Raymond J. Keating – Markets are forward looking. Elected officials would do well to keep this in mind when they rail against various industries, and threaten increased taxes and regulations. Indeed, while businesses, industries and the economy are undermined when taxes and regulations are imposed and the full costs of these government command and […]

by Raymond J. Keating –  When government steps in with a massive regulatory scheme to control prices in an industry, the effort equates to a Rube Goldberg machine, that is, a way of doing something in an unnecessarily complicated way. Imposing Rube Goldberg price controls on the pharmaceutical industry means that lives will be diminished […]

by Raymond J. Keating – The current economic recovery from the initial shock and lingering effects of the pandemic requires significant, consistent gains in terms of, for example, economic and employment growth. While the most recent report on second quarter GDP was disappointing, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistic’s employment report for October was solid […]

by Raymond J. Keating – In the latest report on personal income from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, real personal consumption expenditures (PCE) grew by 0.4 percent in August. However, the overarching story from this set of data was not positive, specifically, after factoring inflation into the equation, personal income declined in August. Consider […]

by Raymond J. Keating – Regulations – including price controls – always fall heaviest on smaller, entrepreneurial enterprises. That is very much the case in the biopharmaceutical industry. Price controls on prescription drugs would undermine entrepreneurship and private investment in the industry, and therefore, would undermine the creation of new and improved drugs, medicines and […]

by Raymond J. Keating – Starting in April 2020, the U.S. Census Bureau’s Small Business Pulse Survey has been providing some valuable information on the impact of the pandemic on small businesses. Let’s look at some of the results from the latest survey week, which were released on September 9th. Pandemic Continues to Negatively Impact […]