WITH metronomic regularity, gauzy accounts extol the return of manufacturing jobs to the United States. One day, it’s Master Lock bringing combination lock fabrication back to Milwaukee from China. Another, it’s Element Electronics commencing assembly of television sets — a function long gone from the United States — in a factory near Detroit. Breathless headlines […]
Originally published in the New York Times. Looking back on 2013, many of the economic and political themes seemed familiar: a weak economy. Growing income inequality. Gridlock in Washington. Partisan wrangling over fiscal policy. But others, like the disastrous rollout of the Affordable Care Act HealthCare.gov website and the government shutdown, were new or at […]
Originally published in the New York Times IF you’ve been wondering whether it’s possible to regularly beat the stock market averages — a natural question with the market at an all-time high — you didn’t get any guidance from the Nobel Prize committee this year: Two of the winning economists disagree on that perennial issue. […]
Originally published in the New York Times The government shutdown and debt ceiling crisis inflicted a toll on the American economy, but that cost is only a fraction of the total damage that the federal government has been causing to the American economy. Without exaggeration, the single biggest impediment to a stronger economic recovery has […]
New York Times
Let me start by getting the disclosure stuff out of the way. I’ve known Larry Summers for 20 years and have watched with particular interest as his multifaceted career has unfolded. More recently, I worked for him in the Obama administration, when he was director of the National Economic Council and I was the lead adviser on the auto bailout.
New York Times
For months, the question in many minds has been not whether Detroit would file for bankruptcy, but when.
New York Times
ONE sure sign that federal regulations and policies are out of whack is when companies start making a business model out of gaming them. That’s particularly true in two areas of government rule making — drug regulation and corporate taxes.
New York Times
With each month of steady employment growth — in May, 175,000 jobs were created — the feeling of lassitude around the issues facing the American economy takes hold a little bit more.
New York Times
WHILE a Senate report detailing Apple’s aggressive tax sheltering of billions of dollars of overseas income grabbed headlines this week, little notice was paid to a surreptitious thrust at tax minimization that was announced at nearly the same moment.
Originally published in the New York Times Let’s stipulate that the scandal involving the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative nonprofit groups portrays government as if drawn in caricature — an almost Keystone Kops-style comedy of errors on the part of low-level staffers, with a vein of possible political bias. Of course, the matter needs […]
