A Very Erroneous Chart in the Economic Report of the President Menzie Chinn has been reading the latest Economic Report of the President and finds a very erroneous and misleading chart, which is figure 1-6 from this this document (see page 45), which states: Equipment investment, in particular, exhibited a pronounced spike in the fourth quarter of 2017, […]
Tariffs and Monetary Policy: Moral Hazard and Rent Seeking President Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on Mexico over immigration has pushed Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell to say that if the tariffs lead to economic growth slowing, the Fed will cut interest rates. While the bump may be about to end, this announcement was followed […]
The sources of the next recession While we are waiting for the ISM May manufacturing survey and construction spending data to be released later this morning, both of which will give us important clues to Friday’s jobs report, let me write down some thoughts on the nerdy question I ruminated about this weekend: what is […]
A Tariff Laffer Curve? Douglas Irwin is a very good economist. Let’s highlight his Historical Perspectives on U.S. Trade Policy: The Civil War marked the beginning of a long period of high U.S. tariffs. These tariffs served the dual purpose of raising revenue for the federal government and keeping out foreign goods, ostensibly for the protection […]
Kenneth Thomas (an AB contributor) was quoted April 7 in the Journal a second time on the general question of how to solve the problem of subsidy bidding wars. Unfortunately it is behind a paywall…but worth pointing to… WSJ.COM Opinion | Pass a Law to Combat Rent-Seeking Congress could invoke the Commerce Clause to limit […]
Trump’s Latest Mexican Tariff Tirade Irks Senator Grassley Senator Grassley rebukes the latest idiocy from the White House: President Trump dropped a trade war bomb on Thursday when he announced his intent to put in place new and harsh tariffs on goods from Mexico until the “illegal Immigration problem is remedied.” And among the many worried, […]
Does anyone know why coal production is falling out of bed? It is down some 40% from its August level. But coal employment is still near its’ recent peak, which implies that productivity is horrible. I suspect the problem is exports to China. Maybe someone needs to ask Trump about this.
Will China Play The Rare Earth Card In The Trade War? The rumor that China might play its “rare earth card” was the rumor today that helped push down both stock and oil markets according to a variety of reports. The trigger for this seems to have been a visit on May 26 by China’s […]
Conservative Economists Discover the Baumol Cost Disease A little over a year ago Mark Perry wrote this nonsense: The chart above (thanks to Olivier Ballou) is an update of a chart we produced last year about this time, and shows the percent changes since January 1997 in the prices of selected consumer goods and services, along with […]
Emoluments As Grounds For Impeachment I have said this before, but am saying it again. The clearest grounds for impeaching Donald Trump are not his obstruction of justice on which so much attention is being focused, but in my view his blatant and unequivocal acceptance of emoluments from foreign governments, with this most clearly evident […]