Who’s out of touch with reality, again? Will the Democratic presidential nomination go to a centrist or a progressive? Which choice would give the party the best chance in next year’s election? Honestly, I have no idea. One thing I can say, however, is that neither centrism nor progressivism is …
Trump’s biggest supporters are his biggest victims. Donald Trump is unpopular, but he retains the loyalty of some important groups. Among the most loyal are America’s farmers, who are a tiny minority of the population but exert disproportionate political influence because of our electoral system, which gives 3.2 million Iowans as many …
Are Democrats hexing the Trump boom with bad thoughts? Almost four decades ago then-candidate George H.W. Bush used the phrase “voodoo economic policy” to describe Ronald Reagan’s claim that cutting taxes for the rich would pay for itself. He was more prescient than he could have imagined. For voodoo economics …
The debt obsession that ate the economy. You might think that recent events — market turmoil, weakening growth, declining manufacturing production — must be producing some soul-searching in the White House, particularly over Donald Trump’s view that “trade wars are good, and easy to win.” That is, you might think that if …
The smart money thinks Trumponomics is a flop. Last year, after an earlier stock market swoon brought on by headlines about the U.S.-China trade conflict, I laid out three rulesfor thinking about such events. First, the stock market is not the economy. Second, the stock market is not the economy. Third, …
They sold their principles a long time ago. Before going to the White House, Donald Trump demanded that the Fed raise interest rates despite high unemployment and low inflation. Now he’s demanding rate cuts, even though the unemployment rate is much lower and inflation at least a bit higher. To …
The Democrats aren’t radical, but Republicans are. Last week’s debates clearly weakened Joe Biden and increased the odds that a more definitively progressive candidate — probably Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren — will win the nomination. And you can hear the wailing from much of the Beltway, the claims that …
How not to repeat the mistakes of 2011. In a couple of days I’m going to be participating in an Economic Policy Institute conference on “excessive wealth disorder” — the problems and dangers created by extreme concentration of income and wealth at the top. I’ve been asked to give a …
Like it or not, its next move will be political. In late 2015 then-candidate Donald Trump accused Janet Yellen, chair of the Federal Reserve, of being part of a political conspiracy. Yellen, he insisted, was keeping interest rates unjustifiably low in an attempt to help Hillary Clinton win the presidency. As …
Why “tariff” isn’t a “beautiful word.” Donald Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on Mexican exports unless our neighbor does something — he hasn’t specified what — to stop the flow of asylum-seekers is almost surely illegal: U.S. trade law gives presidents discretion to impose tariffs for a number of reasons, but curbing …
Brazil’s economy shrank in the first three months of the year for the first time since 2016, when the country was in recession. It contracted by 0.2% compared with the last three months of 2018. Compared with a year ago, it grew by 0.5%. The fall comes at time when …
Come back capitalism, all is forgiven Brad hooper quit his previous job at a grocery in Madison because his boss was “a little crazy”. The manager threatened to sack him and other cashiers for refusing orders to work longer than their agreed hours. Not long ago, Mr Hooper’s decision to walk …