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
The Economics and Politics of Contemporary Inequality, Part 1
Barring some unforeseeable event, Mitt Romney is virtually certain to be the GOP nominee for president. Judging by President Obamas decision to make inequality a main theme of his State of the Union address, the White House has been counting on facing Romney. More than anyone else in national politics, Mitt Romneys own deeds and words may be said to…Continue reading
The State of the Union and the Power of Technological…
President Obama made inequality a major theme of his State of the Union address last night, an unsurprising choice as he prepares to face Mitt Romney. Everyone now knows that just last year Mr. Romney paid a smaller share of his $21 million income in taxes than the average American paid on a $50,000 salary. But if inequality was the…Continue reading
The Bankruptcy of Austerity Economics
Conservative conventional wisdom collided this week with a dose of economic reality, and the winner is reality. For two years, every Republican congressional leader and presidential hopeful has proudly insisted these days that austerity is the cure for a sluggish economy like ours. It is an approach embraced most memorably, of course, by Herbert Hoover, although Angela Merkel also pushes it…Continue reading
Obama Channels Clinton on the Economy, But Will it Work…
In Kansas last week, President Obama laid out the economic brief for his reelection. Its substance plainly recalls the program Bill Clinton offered in 1992. Both plans are built around new public commitments to education, R&D and infrastructure, some fiscal restraint to finance the public investments and unleash more private investment, plus some modest redistribution of the tax burden from…Continue reading
Will Europe Step Back from the Brink this Week?
On the edge and the eve of a financial market meltdown, Germany seems to now accept that the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis poses the greatest danger to the European, American and global economies since the early 1930s. Yet, the world still is far from out of the Euro-woods. Yes, Angela Merkel’s Chancellery has finally signaled that she and her government will permit the European Central Bank (ECB) to stabilize the value of Italy’s public debt. But first, Italy, France and 14 other…Continue reading
The Truth about Job Creation under Obama and Bush
Everyone knows that unemployment is high today and unlikely to fall by much soon. Yet, a longer view of the official jobs data would startle most people, including virtually everyone in the media. Nearly three years into Barack Obama’s presidency, his record on private job creation has actually been much stronger than George W. Bush’s at the same point in his first…Continue reading
Is This the Final Countdown to a Global Financial Calamity?
Ground zero of the European sovereign crisis has moved from Greece to Italy, and that’s very bad news for Europe, the United States, and most everywhere else. For a year, Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy have looked for some way to both prevent Greece from defaulting outright and reassure bond investors that Italy’s sovereign debt will remain sound. This week,…Continue reading
The Economic Appeal of the Occupy Wall Street Movement to…
Seemingly out of nowhere, economic inequality is no longer the political issue that dares not speak its name. Since the days of Ronald Reagan, politicians who talk about reducing disparities in incomes or wealth have been promptly charged with “class warfare.â€Â The stunning success of the Occupy Wall Street movement in attracting adherents and sympathizers could change that, at least for…Continue reading