Has the U.S. Passed Peak Car?
Clive Crook is a senior editor of The Atlantic and a columnist for Bloomberg View. He was the Washington columnist for the Financial Times, and before that worked at The Economist for more than 20 years, including 11 years as deputy editor. Crook writes about the intersection of politics and economics. More
Crook writes about the intersection of politics and economics.
The Fed's latest unorthodox intervention-- "Operation Twist", which involves selling $400 billion in short-dated debt and using the proceeds to buy longer-dated debt--did not go over too well in the markets. I'm guessing the problem was the mismatch in the announcement between (a) the strong signal of increasing Fed anxiety about the state of the economy and (b) the relative timidity of the response. The Twist is certainly better than nothing. The amount was… More »
How to retire at 50 from a $56,000 public-sector job and collect $5m in taxpayer-funded pension. (Thanks to James Taranto for the link.) The Chicago Tribune reports on some pretty impressive financial engineering: Liberato "Al" Naimoli, president of the Cement Workers Union Local 76. He retired last year from a $15,000-a-year city job that he last held a quarter-century ago. Today, Naimoli receives more than $13,000 a month from the city laborers' pension fund… More »
The strongest case against the death penalty, I have always thought, is simply that it is irreversible, and criminal justice is prone to error. The thought that an innocent man might be put to death is appalling. I don't know whether Troy Davis, scheduled to be executed tonight, is innocent, but according to what I read about recanted testimony and questionable physical evidence it I cannot believe he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt--let alone beyond all doubt,… More »
The president vacillates between centrism and pleasing his base. After his latest jobs proposal, he should be wary of Democratic glee. More »
On Monday the Obama administration has promised to spell out its thinking on long-term deficit reduction. Something to read while you're waiting: "What we hope to see from the Super Committee," courtesy of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. "Go big" sums it up. Might support for that actually be building? A news conference with Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles from earlier in the week is worth watching. More »
An event at the Brookings Institution launched a new report, Rethinking Central Banking, by a team of economic eminences including Barry Eichengreen, Raghu Rajan, Eswar Prasad, Carmen Reinhart, Kenneth Rogoff, and others. I've only skimmed it so far but the presentation was interesting and the report looks valuable. The basic thesis is that central banking has become a lot more complicated than it used to be, and the "dominant framework guiding central… More »
In a column for the FT I explain why I like the American Jobs Act, and offer the president a bit of advice on how to sell it.Mr Obama cannot lead effectively unless he is honest with the country about what it will take, when the time is right, to get borrowing under control. He promised to offer such a plan next week, but one wonders how specific it will be. In his speech he mentioned higher taxes on the rich, and the need for spending restraint in Medicare. It… More »
President Obama's speech to Congress was impressive. Good to see some leading from the front, for a change. The tone was commanding, confident, and purposeful. Crucially, he took the initiative and presented a detailed plan. No more, "I'm willing to consider this." No more, "I'd like to see that." Instead, again and again, "Pass this bill." They won't, but the point of last night's speech was not to persuade the House that this or any other new jobs plan… More »
The president needs to be bold -- and that means offering ideas, like more stimulus, that even members of his own party won't like More »
It's not every day that you see the editors of the Wall Street Journal agreeing with the leaders of the AFL-CIO on an issue of economic policy. Both authorities deplore the Justice Department's action against AT&T's takeover of T-Mobile. The Journal objects on standard "let the market have its way" grounds; AFL-CIO objects because it says the merger would create jobs (and, as AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka put it when the deal was first announced, … More »
In a new FT column I discuss some of the arguments for and against additional monetary stimulus. On balance, I'm for it--and I wouldn't bet against it happening in the next month or two. The August 9th FOMC minutes released today confirm what we already knew: since QE2 ended in June, the Fed has learned that the recovery is slower and more fragile than it previously thought, and that inflationary pressures have eased. There you have it: what else does the Fed… More »
Apple's share price shrugged as though the resignation of the company's visionary leader hardly mattered. That surprised me. Of course it helps that Jobs will still be chairman--though how active a chairman, and for how long, remain to be seen. And the top of the company is full of exceptionally talented people: that's clear. But it seems to me that Jobs's personality and the astonishing success of his company are as tightly integrated as...well, you know… More »
A lot of Tea Party types want to put the US back on the gold standard. One wonders how many of them even know what this means. Barry Eichengreen examines this "oddball proposal" in A Critique of Pure Gold, in the new National Interest. Two other economics readings: Vincent Reinhart, Is the Economy Freefalling?, in the AEI Economic Outlook series; and the CBO's updated Budget and Economic Outlook. More »
There's a lot to digest about Rick Perry and the Texas Miracle/Unmiracle. ProPublica has a nice reading guide on the topic. It mentions Paul Burka's indispensable advice to Yankee journalists and National Journal's thorough review of Perry and the Texas economy. The Economist's Erica Greider has written a good piece on the state's record of job creation. I agree with her: it's a complicated story but the achievement is striking nonetheless. In general, the Texan… More »
In my column for the FT this week I write about a subject which is freshly topical in the US but which takes me back 25 years to the debate in Britain in the 1980s about the right operational target for macroeconomic policy. To make the case for new stimulus, the Fed needs better arguments. The past few weeks have settled, to my satisfaction at least, a long-running debate on this very topic. Rather than targeting inflation, central banks should keep nominal… More »
Its members are not incapable of compromise, but a stalemate over spending and taxes could be the most likely outcome More »
Hint: Don't spend time bashing Mitt Romney, and don't try to sell Americans on more stimulus spending More »
I've been watching the news from London and the UK with dismay -- but not, altogether, with surprise More »
The downgrade didn't tell us anything new about U.S. finances More »
