The Last of the Baby Boomers Are Turning 65, And…
Between now and 2030, nearly 30 million Americans born between 1959 and 1964 will turn 65, the tail end of the Baby Boom generation. As the largest cohort on record to reach retirement age, they are often called the “peak boomers.” In a new study supported by the Alliance for Lifetime Income, my co-author Luke Stuttgen and I found that… Continue reading
President Obama Begins to Take on Climate Change
Within one week of taking office, President Obama has dispelled any doubts on whether he’s serious about tackling climate change. His stimulus plan will direct more tax and spending subsidies to climate-friendly technologies and fuels over the next 18 months than the Bush administration did over the last eight years, and the federal government will offer itself as a model…Continue reading
A Serious Thought or Two on the Inauguration, from Halfway…
I'd rather be spending this week in Washington celebrating with friends and my country the politically and spiritually invigorating elevation of Barack Obama to our presidency. These feelings lie very close to the heart of patriotism, and they are an exquisite pleasure to feel again without reserve. Instead, I find myself in one of the coldest places on earth, Mongolia’s…Continue reading
How to Find a “Free†$420 Billion to Stimulate the…
President-elect Obama says he’ll consider any good idea to address our accelerating economic decline and help stabilize the financial system. In fact, there’s a huge, untapped resource to do both sitting on the balance sheets of America’s multinational companies: Their foreign subsidiaries are holding about $1 trillion in past earnings, because our tax laws defer the U.S. corporate tax until…Continue reading
Politics and the Economic Crisis
Barack Obama's historic election as a new, national agent of change will face a daunting test as the economic crisis continues to accelerate, and the political pressures arising from what must now be called “The Great Recession†begin to reshape the response. The latest evidence is today’s unemployment data: One million jobs lost in two months; the sharpest eight-month rise…Continue reading
Christian Science Economics
The Bush administration, long known for faith-based initiatives, has embraced a new form of faith-based economics to address the financial crisis and cascading recession: We’ll call it an economic version of Christian Science, prescribing modest steps to make the patient comfortable while largely leaving us to heal ourselves. It’s only an analogy, but play along. A succession of debilitating infections…Continue reading
The Politics of Trading Recession for Inflation
On virtually everything economic, the Bush administration and much of Congress have become the gang that can’t shoot straight — and their stray bullets could take down a good piece of the nation’s economic prospects. They have directed hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to financial institutions (and soon, auto companies), and they’re getting ready to direct several hundred billion…Continue reading
The Financial Crisis and Crony Capitalism
The financial crisis and the profound economic reversals reverberating around the globe caught up last week with Citigroup, the world's largest financial institution. Citigroup is still solvent, but it holds several hundred billion dollars of heavily-leveraged, troubled assets — and once the market began to focus on the potential losses, as it did last week, the bailout became a foregone…Continue reading
If Detroit Goes Down, Will It Take the Economy —…
In a remarkable spectacle, an Administration with a sustained record of economic blunders and failures finds itself aghast at the mistakes and mismanagement of U.S. automobile companies. Imagine Confederate General John Pemberton, after leading his forces to an historic defeat at Vicksburg, dismissing his cook for squandering the rum rations. Yes, America’s big three automobile makers (with an assist from…Continue reading