You may recall during Reagan’s first term when U.S. policymakers convinced the Japanese automobile manufacturers to limit their exports to the U.S. BBC reports we may seen round two of VERs: Toyota boss fears US trade fury Japan’s carmakers should consider giving their US rivals a breathing space to avoid the risk of a political […]

Paul Krugman examines the President’s progressive price indexing proposal.

The OECD published a new report today entitled “Pensions at a Glance,” which compares national pension programs across developed nations. Highlights from their press release: In most countries, earnings-related pension arrangements are designed to help older people maintain a reasonable standard of living. For people who have spent a full career on average earnings, the […]

The trade balance for March will be released on May 11th. There are reasons to expect that the March deficit will set another record. Even with the recent slowdown in the US economy, the global economy appears to be slowing even faster with Japan and Germany both either in recession or close. Therefore exports for […]

Today’s Meet The Press had two prominent Republicans distancing themselves from the Pozen plan. Senator Allen seemed sincere about his opposition to cutting benefits for the middle class. When Andrew Card was presented with the size of these cuts, he told Tim Russert: Now, the plan that you put on the table is really not […]

OK, my apologies for the clownish way of spelling “contradict”, but if we read Larry’s latest, you’ll realize he did not at all challenge Kash: Three months ago the first government estimate of gross domestic product for the fourth quarter of 2004 came in at 3.1 percent at an annual rate. At the time, the […]

It’s time for “fair and balanced” so we’ll let Donald Luskin tell us why Bush’s proposal makes sense by noting two of his posts today. In one, he noted a couple of privatization principles: Replace The Empty Promises Being Made to Younger Workers With Real Money. Younger workers should have the option of putting a […]

As we congratulate Duncan Black for correctly calling that Bush would endorse the Pozen plan, let’s review how George Bush defined the Social Security problem: Congress also needs to address the challenges facing Social Security. I’ve traveled the country to talk with the American people. They understand that Social Security is headed for serious financial […]

You know that people are a bit on edge regarding China’s exchange rate policy when this story is one of the top news items (at least as of 1pm EDT) on the Financial Times: China says no change in monetary policy China’s renminbi currency traded briefly outside its tightly controlled band on Friday, triggering a […]

Apparently, February’s incredibly low savings rate was not the bottom for the US, because in March it went even lower. Since I’m in a charty kind of mood today, here’s the picture… (Note: the bump at the end of 2004 is due to Microsoft’s one-time dividend payout in December.) This incorporates the most recent data […]