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
America’s Path and the Rise of the Rest
The perennial question of America in decline is back. It’s the subject of new books and the cover story of the Atlantic Monthly, where James Fallows does his usual credible job with it. As usual, the forces animating the current sense of national malaise about the future seem to be everywhere, from the chronic disrepair of our infrastructure and the…Continue reading
The World Is Watching and, Oops, There Go Our Interest…
Here’s a piece of dry financial data that could herald big changes in our politics and economy: Over the last five weeks, yields on 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds have risen nearly two-thirds of a point. The interest rates the U.S. government pays are rising across the board, and quickly, and it’s not because the Federal Reserve is tightening credit —…Continue reading
Two Thoughts for President Obama on his Way to Copenhagen
With the President getting ready for Copenhagen, the EPA did what Congress would not: Put in place a policy to ultimately reduce carbon emissions. The EPA finding that greenhouse gases (GHG) pose a danger and thus trigger a process to reduce the risks through direct regulation has become the president’s only “deliverable†in Copenhagen. More important, the only forces that…Continue reading
One Way to Create 1 to 2 Million Jobs without…
At last week’s Jobs Summit, President Obama said he’ll consider any good idea to create jobs. I heard him say it, and I believe him. His speech yesterday at the Brookings Institution offered some decent, standard approaches, including more infrastructure spending and tax breaks for small businesses. The President would be well-served to cast his policy net a bit wider.…Continue reading
How to Create New Jobs in a Troubled Economy
The inconvenient truth that lies behind this week’s White House jobs summit is that there are no magic bullets for an economy thrown over the cliff by a huge financial crisis. Even with all of our stimulus, bailouts, tax breaks and special Fed lending programs, job losses continue to mount, dampening investment and overall demand. That’s not all: Despite the…Continue reading
Storms on the Economy’s Horizon
The high economic anxieties that most Americans felt six months ago may have faded, but count me among economists who are still very concerned. Sure, the last GDP report came in at 3.5 percent, and the next one should show comparable gains. Virtually all of those gains, however, come from the temporary stimulus and unusual inventory corrections. Once those factors…Continue reading
Health Care’s Raw Deal for Middle-Class Families
Health care reform advocates often point out that the costs of reform should be weighed against the costs of doing nothing. Unfortunately, that’s very hard to do, since our health care and tax arrangements mask those costs so well. I suspect that if middle-class Americans had a better grasp of what health care really costs them, and how those costs…Continue reading
A New Economic Strategy for Hard Times and Good Times
You might not know it from what passes for economic commentary on cable TV, but the U.S. economy remains pretty sick. Last week’s report of 3.5 percent GDP growth in the third quarter seemed like cause to celebrate — until you looked more carefully at the data and saw that virtually all of the upside came from temporary government stimulus.…Continue reading