Reconciliation: How the Democrats Can Run the Table
Congressional Democrats will take office in January with the broadest mandate since the post-Watergate midterms in 1974—twice the popular-vote margin the Contract-with-America Republicans won in 1994. The work begins with dismantling most of what Donald Trump and his corrupt, incompetent administration have done over the past two years. Much of what Trump wrought came through his One Big Beautiful (sic)… Continue reading
Why Big Banks Want Americans to Pay More for Everything
Once again, the nation’s big banks are working hard to have their own way with some of the most consequential issues before Congress. Tucked into the small print of Paul Ryan’s budget plan for 2012 and beyond are provisions to roll back the key regulatory steps taken to make another financial meltdown less likely, especially higher capital requirements tied to…Continue reading
Forget about Spending and Get Serious about the Economy
Washington today, especially the Congress, has a textbook case of cognitive dissonance. A confluence of black swan developments may well threaten the American and global recoveries. There’s the civil war in Libya and unrest across much of the Middle East that could disrupt world energy supplies, the natural catastrophes in Japan may upend the world’s third largest economy, and several…Continue reading
The Aftershocks for the U.S. Economy from the Disaster in…
As the damage to Japan and its economy from the recent natural disasters deepens, we can begin to see serious potential aftershocks for our own economy. In certain respects, the United States relies on our broad and intricate financial and trading relationships with Japan. China has surpassed Japan as the world’s largest buyer of U.S. Treasury securities. But Japan remains…Continue reading
The Economic After Shocks of the Disaster in Japan –…
Natural disasters can strike anywhere, but the heart-wrenching tragedy unfolding in Japan may be unique for modern times, at least economically. In today’s post, we focus on what makes last week’s earthquake and tsunami so different from other natural disasters and why they have put Japan’s economy at real risk. Later this week, we will lay out the implications for…Continue reading
The U.S. Economic Debate Gets a Failing Grade at the…
At the private conference this week convened by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), 30 world-class economists talked for two days about “Macro and Growth Policies in the Wake of the Crisis.†Their discussions provided a reality test for the current economic debate in Washington, and the last decade of U.S. policymaking flunked. Economic ideology not only blinded American policymakers to…Continue reading
Deficits Matter — But Right Now, Not So Much as…
The conventional Washington wisdom is that the key to economic policy today is deficit reduction for 2011, and battles over spending cuts almost certainly will dominate our politics for the next several months. This so-called wisdom is the economic-policy equivalent of snake oil. Britain and Germany both tried it, and now both are struggling with significant slowdowns. The U.S. recovery…Continue reading
The Economics and Politics of Cutting Deficits
The 2011 battle over the budget brings to mind the U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms talks of the 1970s and 1980s. The issue is not whether the antagonists can settle everything at once, but whether each will accept modest concessions and keep on talking until the next round, when more incremental compromises can be reached, and so on into subsequent rounds. Â The…Continue reading
The Real Economic Implications of the Uprising in Egypt
Thanks to globalization, the uprising in Egypt raises serious questions about the impact on Western economies, including America, as well as Egypt’s political and economic development.  The precipitating event for the current unrest almost certainly was a facet of globalization — steadily rising worldwide food prices which hit record levels just before the unrest broke out.   An average household in…Continue reading