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
Halloween Special: How Hillary Can Handle Scary Interest Rate Hikes
Looking past this weekend’s kerfuffle over Huma Abedin’s emails, Hillary Clinton’s success in her first term as President will depend in large part on whether the incomes of most Americans keep rising. As readers of this blog know, my studies tracking people’s incomes, year to year as they aged, found that the median household incomes of millennials, Gen Xers and boomers…Continue reading
Obama’s Expansion Is Finally Paying Off
There’s no debate that the tough economic times of the last decade have helped frame the 2016 elections. In fact, many Americans are so accustomed to seeing the world through their experience of tough times, that it’s hard to recognize when conditions have changed. Yet, here’s one sign that times are different: American businesses have created almost 9.2 million net…Continue reading
On Economic Growth, Hillary Delivers and Trump Pretends
To prepare for tonight’s debate, I decided to think through Donald Trump’s promise to deliver 4% annual economic growth. First off, if this is Trump’s goal, then his program is as much a fraud as his foundation or university. If anything, his proposals would slow our already modest growth. To be sure, no one has a silver bullet to raise the…Continue reading
The Trump and Clinton Foundations Are Character Tests that Hillary…
Donald Trump’s charge that Hillary Clinton used her office as Secretary of State to service donors of the Clinton Foundation exemplifies a regular Trump tactic: Preemptively charge your opponent with what you know you’ve done. So, fully aware that his own family foundation is a shoe-string operation that breached IRS regulations, or worse; Trump and his surrogates charged for months that the…Continue reading
The Economic Outlook for the Election and Beyond, and How…
With nine weeks to go, the economic conditions for the election are set — modest growth, low inflation, and continuing job gains. A few Wall Street forecasters rate the odds of a 2016 recession at one-in-three; but unless a major shock wrenches the economy off its present course, bet with Janet Yellen and Ben Bernanke on the economic expansion continuing…Continue reading
Sorry, Donald – The Incomes of Minority Households Grow More…
Donald Trump says that Democrats have failed American minorities, so let’s test his claim by the most basic economic criteria: What happened to the incomes of African Americans and Hispanics under Democratic and Republican administrations over the last 35 years? The data do not lie. The incomes of minority households — and in most cases the incomes of white households,…Continue reading
What You Earn Does Not Depend on Whether You Attend…
Young people respond to incentives like everyone else; and years of evidence showing that most well-paying jobs go to those with post-secondary degrees have been followed by rising numbers of young people attending college. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reports that from 1995 to 2015, the share of Americans ages 25 to 29 with an associate’s degree jumped…Continue reading
Get Ready for Cyberattacks across Many Critical Networks
In a recent interview, I said that America’s adversaries “may not do us the kindness of attacking only a single infrastructure sector” in future cyberattacks. Let me take you through this dark scenario. Until now, electric utilities, telecom companies, financial institutions and other vital sectors of our economy have each focused on strengthening their own cybersecurity. These efforts are important,…Continue reading