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
Is the May Unemployment Report a Case of Lying Statistics?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) surprised the markets and most economists Friday with an announcement that the unemployment rate fell from 14.7 percent in April to 13.3 percent in May. President Donald Trump had the temerity to boast that George Floyd, the unarmed black man killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis, was “looking down from heaven” to…Continue reading
The Economy Will Not Cooperate with Trump’s Re-Election
It is not surprising that the Trump administration’s top economist promised this week that huge, historic gains in jobs and growth are coming in a few months. He is not alone. Even some Democratic economists think that economic growth and jobs could come roaring back before the November election. They are wrong. The truth is that the economy’s near-term path…Continue reading
The Official Unemployment Numbers Are Technically Fake News
April’s 14.7 percent unemployment rate, announced by the Labor Department last Friday, is awful by any standard. The official tally shows that unemployment increased by 15,938,000 people last month—to 23,078,000 overall—resulting in the highest jobless rate since the Great Depression. As depressing as that may be, it’s not the full story. The Labor Department also reported Friday that the number…Continue reading
How Much Trump Has Cost Americans in this Pandemic
Most of the economic carnage we see Americans suffer today is the result of measures that federal, state, and local governments have had to adopt to stem the spread of COVID-19—the social distancing, social isolation, and closing of borders and businesses. It follows that how great the damage is depends in important part on how quickly and effectively a country…Continue reading
To Ever Get Back to Normal, We Will Need Universal…
The Trump administration has failed miserably to test and track the initial spread of Covid-19 infections, as South Kora did. Its failure has brought terrible suffering to thousands of Americans and enormous economic costs. That’s why dramatic measures are necessary to establish a nationwide system for universal testing and tracking. Otherwise, we will continue to live in a state of…Continue reading
The Shape of the Economic Crisis and What Can Really…
The future shape of the economic crisis driven by the federal government’s inadequate response to the coronavirus pandemic are coming into focus. The widespread social isolation that has sent both the demand for and production of goods and services into a free-fall reflects our spotty knowledge about the contagiousness and lethality of the virus. At the same time, we don’t…Continue reading
The Federal Reserve Can’t Rescue the Economy from the Coronavirus
The Federal Reserve’s interest rate cut on Tuesday certainly won’t hurt the financial markets or the real economy, but as the subsequent steep drop in stock prices shows, the cut won’t help much, either. Three forces stand in the way. First, when a country suffers a big shock — from a terrorist attack, a hurricane or a doubling of oil prices —…Continue reading
The Threat the Coronavirus Poses to the Economy
In 2005, the National Science Foundation, World Bank and other American and global organizations convened to discuss the threat of avian flu. The scare turned out to be short-lived and isolated, involving about 300 cases and 175 deaths worldwide. The economic effects were largely confined to chicken producers in China and Vietnam. The potential economic and human threat from the…Continue reading