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
Bloomberg’s Education Reforms Will Be His Legacy
As Michael Bloomberg prepares his exit as New York City's mayor, a new analysis suggests that his signature reforms of public education will comprise much of his legacy. Unsurprisingly, the reason is hard economics. Under his reforms, the share of NYC youths earning their high school diplomas and the share going on to college both rose sharply. For some 71,000…Continue reading
Unravelling America’s Problems with Incomes, Inequality and Upward Mobility
President Obama deserves at least two cheers for his recent economic address. In an unusually clear-eyed assessment of how the economy has shaped our current politics and national mood, he traced most people’s disillusion with government to their “daily battles to make ends meet.” The “defining challenge of our time,” he declared, is to make “sure our economy works for…Continue reading
Statement on the November Employment Report
Today's upbeat jobs news is, simply put, really good news. Yes, the sharp dip in unemployment from 7.3 percent in October to 7.0 percent in November, with gains of 203,000 nonfarm jobs, reflects in part the return of furloughed federal workers and those whose jobs depend on them. But the November gains were so substantial, because the government shutdown obscured steady…Continue reading
Why Corporate Tax Reform Is So Desirable–and So Hard to…
In a political environment most notable today for its partisan trench warfare, serious conversations across party lines are nonetheless taking place over a major reform of corporate taxes. This unusual instance of comity comes from a genuine consensus that lowering the corporate tax rate — the favored goal would move it from 35 percent to 28 percent — would be…Continue reading
Will Tea Party Insanity Cost America $3 trillion and 2.75…
The budget and debt end games are still playing themselves out on Capitol Hill; and judging by its current behavior, Congress has developed the political equivalent of a brain tumor. A toxic byproduct of an ongoing power struggle inside the Republican Party, the cancer has caused incapacitating seizures that have virtually crippled the national government’s capacity to take care of…Continue reading
Are Republican Leaders Suffering from Stockholm Syndrome?
With a good part of the federal government closed for business, the pathologies driving it are too obvious to ignore. The diagnosis begins with the fact that there is no partisan argument this time about overall federal spending. The White House and congressional Democrats have simply accepted the arbitrary cuts of the sequester process, despite evidence that they’re slowing the…Continue reading
The Biggest Risks to the U.S. Economy Now Come from…
As summer ends, and investors and policymakers look ahead, the American economy faces a range of downside risks. Most of these risks are what economists call "exogenous," which is a fancy way of saying that they come from sources outside the economy itself. Left to itself, the economy appears set to maintain its current path of moderate growth. GDP grew…Continue reading
Washington — or Its Accountants — Finally Accept the Idea-Based…
Today, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) will put in place a set of critical changes in how it measures America's gross domestic product (GDP). The most important change reclassifies what businesses spend on research and development, which now will be counted as an economic investment rather than an ordinary business expense. By so doing, the country’s official national accounts…Continue reading