After a couple of tough years, 2022 felt like a step back from the brink. The terror of Covid receded. A new president who had seemed on the precipice of failure basked in a fistful of legislative successes. And perhaps most important, Donald Trump’s grip on a large segment of the country showed signs of finally beginning to loosen.
But let’s not uncork the champagne just yet. Inflation continued to bedevil the economy, leading to large interest rate increases and stock market declines. International issues — from the stalemate in Ukraine to rising tensions with China — intensified. The belligerent voices of the extreme right seemed to only get louder.
Originally published in The New York Times. The Treasury Department reported last month that the nation closed its fiscal year with the national debt having reached a record $31 trillion, a stunning rise from a comparatively modest $20 trillion just six years earlier. The announcement elicited little notice. Given the rate at which our obligations are […]
Originally published in the New York Times. Early in my deal-making career, a Wall Street veteran counseled me to “never let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, may have had similar advice in his head as he relentlessly corralled his 49 Democratic colleagues into passing the Inflation Reduction […]
Originally published in the New York Times. Even in Washington, miracles sometimes happen. Less than a week ago, any tax and spending deal in Congress — let alone a meritorious one — seemed utterly implausible. But the new package announced on Wednesday is a step in the right direction on several of our pressing economic challenges. While substantially […]
Orginally published in the New York Times. The Federal Reserve’s powerful Open Market Committee will conclude a regular two-day meeting early Wednesday afternoon with an announcement on its next move on interest rates. The direction is surely upward; the only question is by how much. Until Monday afternoon, Fed leaders were signaling a half-percentage point increase. But following an […]
Orginally published in the New York Times. The debate over whether the recent surge in inflation is transitory or permanent has been settled. Now the question is whether the Federal Reserve can tame increasing inflationary turbulence and bring the economy to a soft touchdown. Mounting evidence suggests a hard landing — in other words, a recession. We […]
Originally published in the New York Times. While the extraordinarily strict sanctions imposed on Russia constitute an admirable policy response to its appalling invasion of Ukraine, we should not be complacent about the potential boomerang effect on the global economy. The shunning of Russian petroleum has already caused oil prices to jump. Prices of corn […]
Originally published in the New York Times. In an interview with Lester Holt of NBC last week, President Biden hewed closely to his talking points on inflation, which over the past 12 months has risen at its fastest rate in 40 years. “The reason for the inflation is the supply chains were cut off,” he […]
In his tenth annual “Year in Charts” for The New York Times, Steven Rattner surveyed major trends in a tumultuous year that was marked by an ongoing pandemic and a steady – albeit imperfect – economic recovery. Please click here to view.
Originally published in the New York Times. Enough already about “transitory” inflation. Last Wednesday’s terrible Consumer Price Index news shifts our inflation prospects strongly into the “embedded” category: Prices are up 6.2 percent from a year ago, the largest increase in 30 years. While not likely to morph into the double-digit inflation I covered for The New York Times […]
