I owe President Trump an apology. I made the mistake of taking him seriously. See, earlier this month when the president pledged to implement steel and aluminum tariffs worldwide, I wrote: These tariffs are gonna happen. I seriously doubt there will be any scaling back. And contrary to the airy dismissals of advocates such as […]
This generations idiotic trade policy is about to be born
With apologies to Joss Whedon: Into every generation a truly moronic trade policy is born: one completely counterproductive idea in all of America, a chosen one. This policy alone will wield both the stupidity and the political opportunism required to undercut both the US economy and American foreign policy. It is the Nickelback of trade […]
How long will the soft data support Donald Trump?
One of last year’s Albie winners was Ken Rogoff’s Boston Globe op-ed arguing that a Trump administration could stimulate a serious economic recovery by unleashing the “animal spirits” of investment. Even he acknowledged, however, that, “all of this is an optimistic spin on a Trump economy. If the new administration proves erratic and incompetent (a […]
What does the stock market tell us about the Trump administration?
Ever since Donald Trump won the 2016 election, there has been an undercurrent of confusion in some quarters about why financial markets have been so relaxed – or evenenthusiastic – about what the president-elect will do once he is in the Oval Office. Many economists predicted a financial panic if Trump was elected – and […]
I have a story to tell about Buy American
Economists are just now beginning to appreciate the power of narrative in explaining how people believe the economy actually works. These narratives are not always the truth, and certainly not always the whole truth. But a compelling narrative can profoundly influence how people think the economy functions. Robert Shiller, the new president of the American […]
Why Harvard Business School alums are not the best source of information about the US economy
Last week, Harvard Business School released a Very Somber Report entitled, “Problems Unsolved and a Nation Divided” about the deteriorating state of U.S. competitiveness in the global economy. Professor Michael Porter, the godfather of the idea of competitiveness, was the lead author of the report. Its conclusions are pretty serious: While a slow recovery is […]
The twilight of the West Wing economy?
Yesterday Noam Scheiber wrote in the New York Times about the Obama administration’s new overtime work rules and the ways it will affect the ‘prestige’ economy gigs — a.k.a., the kind of grunt assistant jobs that Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt so expertly portrayed in “The Devil Wears Prada.” Scheiber writes: For decades, bosses at […]
So you want to know more about economic sanctions
The hard-working staff here at Spoiler Alerts has noted the increased interest and attention that economic sanctions have been receiving in D.C. Last year, sanctions played a surprisingly prominent role in the U.S. National Security Strategy. This month, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew gave an excellent speech outlining some general principles on the subject – the […]