Trump’s Perfect Storm that Could Sink the American Economy
Donald Trump has steered the American economy into a perfect storm. In the book, film, and now in real life, a rare combination of destructive forces comes together and magnifies the damage. This storm could break the U.S. economy. Trump’s tariffs are the most destructive force. Their first-order damages begin by arbitrarily driving up the prices of every product and… Continue reading
Deciphering the Crisis in Greece and Its Significance for America
With the world’s stock and bond markets thoroughly roiled by Greece’s sovereign debt problems, it’s only natural to ask the perennial question, how does it affect us? The outlines of the crisis are certainly familiar. As I've been warning in this space for more than a year, governments around the world would inevitably face serious fiscal problems, dealing with the…Continue reading
How Toyota and Goldman Sachs Stumbled — and We Could,…
Powerful and wildly-successful institutions sometimes act like teenagers and addicts, unable to recognize their own self-destructive behavior. This year’s top two examples are Toyota and Goldman Sachs. After investing decades to develop a sterling reputation for safety and quality, Toyota squandered its brand not by accident, but by myopic design: In a benighted chase for higher profits, Toyota’s top brass…Continue reading
A New Progressive Economic Strategy, Part 4: The Global Economy
In a global economy, even the world’s largest economy by a factor of three (that’s us, compared to Japan and China) cannot by itself ensure job opportunities for everyone and healthy incomes gains for everyone who works hard and well. We may wish it were otherwise, but the United States and the forces of globalization now share control over America’s…Continue reading
A New Progressive Economic Strategy, Part 3: Tax Reform
The most dispiriting feature of this year’s economic debates, apart from their fierce partisanship, is the absence of a broad and encompassing view of what the American economy needs. In this series of essays, we're laying out a new, progressive strategy to advance the central goal of an economic policy — namely, to ensure ample job opportunities, strong and widespread…Continue reading
A New Progressive Economic Strategy, Part 2: Spending Reforms
You don’t have to be a Nobel economist to see that the United States needs a serious, new economic approach if we hope to restore what once seemed part of the American birthright — ample job opportunities, strong and widespread income gains, and broad upward mobility. Last week, we sketched a package of initiatives to equip businesses and workers with…Continue reading
A New, Progressive Economic Strategy, Part 1
uLooking out onto the smoky, endless skyline of Seoul, Korea, I think about our two nations’ similar economic paths, from abject underdevelopment to world-class modernization and wealth. In the 19th century, there was one place in the world that managed to move all the way up from low-income to high-income, and that was the United States. From 1870 to 1970,…Continue reading
A New Jobs Program for America
We have a really, serious problem with job creation. It’s been more than a half-year since the economy began to grow again — including several months of very strong, stimulus-fueled gains — but private sector employment continues to fall. The truth is, these results shouldn’t surprise anyone with a long memory. While businesses began to create more new jobs than…Continue reading
The President’s Reforms and the New Politics of Containing Health…
The health care reforms enacted this week are an unequivocal political triumph for President Obama. He turned back the most intense and dogged partisan campaign to stop a piece of legislation seen in this era, enhancing his own popularity and power until at least the next setback. More important, the reforms as passed constitute the most serious social-policy achievement in…Continue reading