Global Investors Are Telling Donald Trump His Deficits and National…
Washington is unnerved these days about budget deficits and the national debt. Deficit angst comes along periodically, often as a pretext for cutting social spending. This time, however, there’s genuine cause for alarm. Outsized deficits are par for the course when the economy is in recession or reeling from a shock like the pandemic or the financial collapse; most of… Continue reading
Income growth and decline under recent U.S. presidents and the…
The condition of most American households, and of the country as a whole, is set largely by people's income – both the levels, and the income progress that people make as they age from their 20's to their 30's, 40's and 50's. For generations, most Americans have believed that if they work hard, they'll have real opportunities to earn steadily…Continue reading
The Peculiar Economics of Falling Oil Prices
The sharp fall in worldwide oil prices is a silver lining with a silver lining, even if the linings are a bit tarnished. The price of the world's most widely-used commodity has fallen sharply over the last five months, from a spot market price of $115 per-barrel in late June to $77 last week. For consumers everywhere, that means major…Continue reading
The Economic Foundations of this Year’s Mid-Term Elections
The usual explanations for the Democrats' drubbing in this year's mid-term elections have focused mainly on the lopsided number of Democrats up for reelection, especially in red states; low turnout among important parts of the Obama coalition; and the President’s depressed popularity. But there’s also one very basic and underlying issue that played an important part; not only in this…Continue reading
Are Financial Crises the New Normal?
The policy-making committee of the Federal Reserve Board meets again tomorrow, and the news won't be encouraging. The one-percent decline in GDP in the first quarter disposed of the Fed's forecast for 2.9 percent growth this year, and they have to lower it to the range of 2.0 percent to 2.5 percent. That’s just what the IMF did yesterday, forecasting…Continue reading
World Bank Shocker — China’s GDP to Top the U.…
The World Bank shook up a lot of people this week with its declaration that by a new accounting, China’s GDP will top America’s this year. But the meaning and significance of that accounting remain at best elusive. Last year, the World Bank reported that using prevailing exchange rates, China’s GDP in 2012 was barely half that of America ($8.…Continue reading
Zero Day Exploits — Can We Control the Arms Race?…
Yesterday, a new stage of the "roaring debate" over cyber policy made the news, thanks to David Sanger of the New York Times. He revealed that the U.S. government is now one of the biggest purchasers of information about “zero days,” which are software coding flaws that can be used by cyber criminals to penetrate computers and (potentially) wreak havoc…Continue reading
Republicans Maintain Hard Opposition to Obamacare at Their Own Political…
The political struggle over Obamacare has reached a critical inflection point as real events have overtaken its opponents' basic arguments. That opposition has always drawn on doubts about the public's real interest in a federal guarantee to health insurance and their tolerance for a mandate to enforce it. After the program’s fitful start, it is now clear that large numbers…Continue reading
Beyond the Sabre Rattling, Will Russia or the West Bail…
The crisis over Ukraine is quickly becoming a geostrategic conflict. As Vladimir Putin maneuvers to restore Russia's right to behave with a superpower's impunity, particularly in its own backyard, the West pushes back. But economic forces also have shaped this confrontation, especially Ukraine’s record as the world’s worst-performing industrial economy over the last twenty years. It was popular discontent with…Continue reading