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
The New Fight over Access to Higher Education
As President Obama focuses this week on education, it seems an appropriate time to examine recent criticisms of the fastest-growing segment of American higher education, the private for-profit colleges, universities and institutes. From 1995 to 2008, the student bodies of private for-profit institutions increased from 240,000 to 1.8 million, a jump of 750 percent. With my Sonecon colleague, Dr. Nam…Continue reading
The Illogic of the Current Economic Debate
In early June of 1992, I sat in the living room of the Governor’s mansion in Little Rock with Bill and Hillary Clinton and a half dozen other advisors, hashing out the economic program he was preparing to take to the country. Clinton had just won the California primary and sealed the presidential nomination, but he was running third in…Continue reading
Why We Learned So Little from the Collapse of Lehman…
On the second anniversary this week of Lehman Brothers’ spectacular collapse, it’s instructive — okay, frustrating and dispiriting — to see what policymakers learned from it. Based on what unfolded then and the trillions of dollars lost, you would expect that even conservatives could now acknowledge that unregulated financial markets are not always the optimal arrangement. Yet, that’s not how it’s…Continue reading
Time for a Midcourse Correction in Economic Policy
The economic proposals unveiled this week by the Administration suggest that the President’s determination to target his policies for the long-term has led the White House to misread the economy today.  Allowing firms to deduct their capital investments in the year they occur instead of slowly depreciating those costs, and expanding the R&D tax credit and making it permanent are…Continue reading
Why the Value of Your House Moved Global Markets This…
This week’s housing news was a primer on globalization. U.S. existing home sales fell 27 percent in July, twice as sharp a drop as Wall Street analysts said to expect. (Of course, they’re the same geniuses who didn’t see their own meltdown coming; didn’t expect the long, deep recession that followed; and couldn’t figure out that the recovery would be…Continue reading
How to Remain the Number One Economy as China Ascends…
The news that China’s GDP will surpass Japan’s this year, making China the world’s number two economy, raises important issues for the United States.  There’s no prospect of China taking over the number one slot anytime soon: Even in our present shape, the United States will produce at least $14.3 trillion in goods and services this year, compared to China’s…Continue reading
Who’s Really to Blame for High Unemployment, and What to…
An economic slowdown is now here – one we repeatedly cautioned would come – so even the Federal Reserve is downgrading its forecast.  Alas, the United States isn’t alone.  The prospects for Europe look even worse, especially with their largest banks so heavily invested in the bonds of EU member countries still skirting the edge of sovereign debt defaults. And…Continue reading
Rebuilding a National Consensus for Economic Reform
The Washington politics around America’s economic policies has become dysfunctional. In Barack Obama’s first 18 months, the broad support for Democrats expressed in the 2006 and 2008 elections, the big congressional majorities they produced, and the public’s loud demand for change from the Bush era were enough to enact major stimulus, followed by health care and financial reforms. The full-throated…Continue reading