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“Today’s Conventional Wisdom”: It’s Not The Left That’s Changed, It’s The...
Have American liberals moved too far to the left? That’s long been the contention of conservatives contemplating liberal positions on a host of social issues, such as gay marriage and the legalization...
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“Cheating Our Children”: The Deficit Scolds Are Actually The Bad Guys In This...
So, about that fiscal crisis — the one that would, any day now, turn us into Greece. Greece, I tell you: Never mind. Over the past few weeks, there has been a remarkable change of position among the...
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“A Failure To Hold Congress Accountable”: Economic Policy Is Largely Being...
President Obama is reportedly planning to nominate economist Jason Furman to replace Alan Krueger as the head of the Council of Economic Advisers. Like Krueger and, for that matter, Austan Goolsbee and...
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“What We Need Now”: A National Economic Strategy For Better Jobs
Jobs are returning with depressing slowness, and most of the new jobs pay less than the jobs that were lost in the Great Recession. Economic determinists — fatalists, really — assume that globalization...
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“Fight The Future”: Influential People Need To Stop Using The Future As An...
Last week the International Monetary Fund, whose normal role is that of stern disciplinarian to spendthrift governments, gave the United States some unusual advice. “Lighten up,” urged the fund. “Enjoy...
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“Defining Prosperity Down”: At This Point, It’s Clear That Monetary Hawkery...
Friday’s employment report wasn’t bad. But given how depressed our economy remains, we really should be adding more than 300,000 jobs a month, not fewer than 200,000. As the Economic Policy Institute...
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“Suffering Under The Weight Of Inequality”: Reaching The Point That Endangers...
A report released this week by an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, shows that income inequality in the U.S. economy is at a new high. As the economy struggles in the wake of the...
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“Give Jobs A Chance”: To Err Is Human, But To Err On The Side Of Growth Is Wise
This week the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee — the group of men and women who set U.S. monetary policy — will be holding its sixth meeting of 2013. At the meeting’s end, the committee is...
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“The Damage Done”: Estimates Of Damage From GOP Hostage-Taking Understate The...
The government is reopening, and we didn’t default on our debt. Happy days are here again, right? Well, no. For one thing, Congress has only voted in a temporary fix, and we could find ourselves going...
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“The Mutilated Economy”: Anyone Who Talks About How We’re Borrowing From Our...
Five years and eleven months have now passed since the U.S. economy entered recession. Officially, that recession ended in the middle of 2009, but nobody would argue that we’ve had anything like a full...
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“Ignoring The Elephant In The Room”: No, President Obama’s Policies Are Not...
Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger had fun this week arguing that President Obama’s problems implementing health reform pale next to his problems getting the economy back to health. The...
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“Ignore The Prophets Of Economic Doom”: Why The Government Should Help The...
The United States is now starting its sixth year of mass unemployment, a grinding economic disaster that shows no sign of relenting. As Brad DeLong has written, very soon our current mess will result...
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“Fear Of Wages”: For Some People, It’s Always 1979
Four years ago, some of us watched with a mixture of incredulity and horror as elite discussion of economic policy went completely off the rails. Over the course of just a few months, influential...
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“The Timidity Trap”: The Best Lack All Conviction, While The Worst Are Full...
There don’t seem to be any major economic crises underway right this moment, and policy makers in many places are patting themselves on the back. In Europe, for example, they’re crowing about Spain’s...
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“The Alleged Socialists Are Saving Capitalism”: Why You Don’t Know Obama Has...
The terrific June jobs report may be the signal we’ve been waiting for that we’re finally turning the psychic corner. The overall jobs number was great at 288,000, and the unemployment rate was down to...
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“Who Wants A Depression?”: The Rich Believe That What’s Good For Them Is Good...
One unhappy lesson we’ve learned in recent years is that economics is a far more political subject than we liked to imagine. Well, duh, you may say. But, before the financial crisis, many economists —...
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“The Forever Slump”: The Debate Between The ‘Too-Muchers’ And The...
It’s hard to believe, but almost six years have passed since the fall of Lehman Brothers ushered in the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. Many people, myself included, would like to move on to...
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“The Same Supply-Side Ideas”: Republicans Have Known All Along That Their...
If you’ve read my work over the past few months, you’ve probably heard me argue that Republicans don’t have a jobs plan. I’ve said it a few times. Never has that point been clearer than in the New York...
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“Rock Bottom Economics”: The Inflation And Rising Interest Rates That Never...
Six years ago the Federal Reserve hit rock bottom. It had been cutting the federal funds rate, the interest rate it uses to steer the economy, more or less frantically in an unsuccessful attempt to get...
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“Uh Oh”: With GDP Growing Strongly, Republicans’ Economic Dilemma Gets More...
We got the latest quarterly economic growth numbers today, and they’re pretty striking: The U.S. economy grew at its fastest rate in more than a decade between the months of July and October, helped by...
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