Tag Archives: US economy

On October 5, the White House released a 139-page report, "Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States." The report had been originally due to be completed in April, but the deadline was extended, due to the importance of the study and the involvement of the Defense Department, the Commerce Department, the Treasury Department and the White House in researching and writing it. The report is unclassified (there...

In handicapping the US-China conflict, Keynesian demand management is a better guide than comparative advantage. In principle, China can avoid any damage at all from US tariffs simply by responding with a full-scale Keynesian stimulus.... Trump’s surprisingly successful rhetorical technique of “shout loudly and carry a white flag” helps to explain the consistent inconsistency of his foreign policy. The US-China trade war is likely to provide the next example. Project SyndicateWhy the US...

The recovery has since picked up speed, so the deficit should be falling especially fast right now. Unfortunately, the FRED data site does not have updated figures, but the deficit is no longer falling. Indeed it’s exploding, expected to reach $1.1 trillion in 2019. Nothing like this has ever happened in America during a period of peace and prosperity. There is such a firehose of spending that Washington is hardly able to shovel dollars out the door as fast as they are being...

Summary The US budget deficit is $214 billion in August 2018; this is a net add of income to the private sector and a bumper month. The good news is that dollars are being added to the economy by the Federal government, allowing the private sector to post a $214 billion surplus. Further, net inflows are expected for the rest of the year from the Federal government and private credit growth. Private credit growth is a big surprise, growing strongly despite Fed rate rises. Seeking...

President Donald Trump presides over an administration that has seen an enormous level of controversy that could overshadow a burgeoning economy. He has delivered on promises to cut taxes and regulations and promote activity through more aggressive government spending. Critics believe that it won't last because the fiscal stimulus is aimed only at near-term growth. The results, though, have been impressive: a surge in company profits and near-record levels of optimism from consumers and...

The Project Syndicate is held out as an independent, quality source of Op Ed discussion. When you scan through the economists that contribute you see quite a pattern and it is the anathema of ‘independent’. There is really no commentary that is independent, if you consider the term relates to schools of thought that an economist might work within. We are all bound by the ideologies and language of those millieu. So I assess the input from an institution (like Project Syndicate) in terms of...

In a previous post (Milton Friedman: A Man of the Past?), I concluded that Milton Friedman, an extreme advocator of "free market" and individualism, is mostly an economist of the past. In this post, I will highlight John Maynard Keynes, a balanced advocator of both "free market" and "managed market", as the best economist since 1899.... Frank Li is a Chinese ex-pat now a businessman in the US, has a BE, ME, and PdD in electrical engineering. So cut him some space on the economics. He is...

It’s rare for a fiscal policy wonk to attain political celebrity status, but economist Stephanie Kelton, a professor at Stony Brook University in New York, is one of the hottest names in Washington right now. Though her ideas were considered radical just a few years ago (Paul Krugman flatly rejected the premise of her research in a 2011 New York Times column), several of the policies she helped popularize, such as nationwide student debt cancellation and a federal jobs guarantee, have...

Last Friday July 27, 2018), the US Bureau of Economic Analysis published their latest national accounts data – Gross Domestic Product: Second Quarter 2018 (Advance Estimate), which tells us that the annualised real GDP growth rate for the US was a very strong 4.1 per cent in the was 3 per cent in the June-quarter 2018. Note this is not the annual growth over the last four-quarters, which is a more modest 2.8 per cent (up from 2.6 per cent in the previous quarter). As this is only the...

According to NBER, the four longest expansions in U.S. history are: 1) From a trough in March 1991 to a peak in March 2001 (120 months). 2) From a trough in June 2009 to today, July 2018 (109 months and counting). 3) From a trough in February 1961 to a peak in December 1969 (106 months). 4) From a trough in November 1982 to a peak in July 1990 (92 months). So the current expansion is the second longest, and it seems very likely that the current expansion will surpass the '90s expansion...