Irwin M. Stelzer

Seers at the Congressional Budget Office are guessing that due largely to the recent tax cuts, the economy will grow at an annual rate of 3.3 percent this year and 2.4 percent in 2019. Federal Reserve Board monetary policy gurus agree, and expect the tax cuts and the recent budget deal to give the…

"I will do such things, what they are yet I know not, but they shall be the terrors of the earth."

President Trump's use of the presidency to pursue a private vendetta with Amazon is appalling. But that doesn't mean policymakers shouldn't take a close look at the internet giant's power and competitive tactics.

We don't hear much from Donald Trump about the stock market these days. Odd, that. There was a time when he took credit for its spectacular rise after his election. "The reason our stock market is so successful is because of me. I've always been great with money." Perhaps he has been absorbed with…

“Believe me,” said—well, not really “said,” but posted—Mark Zuckerberg. Raising Chico Marx’s old question, Who are you going to trust, me or your lying eyes?

“Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows,” wrote Shakespeare. Although the odds that President Trump was reminded of that observation when re-reading The Tempest must be regarded as low, they are somewhat higher that he might at one time have stumbled across the modern variant, about…

Moving forward while backing down is no small feat. But the president managed it last week. On live TV.

Jay Powell and Donald Trump combined last week to shake investors to their core.

To ask coherence of President Trump is to ask too much of a man with the attention span of a tweet, and for whom cognitive dissonance is not something he spends nights losing sleep over. So we have had large tax cuts, putting money into the pockets of consumers, which will enable them to increase…

The president is setting the theme for the November congressional elections: We—he prefers “I” but might deign to share credit with Republican incumbents—have upped the pace of economic growth from below 2 percent to above 3 percent, created millions of new jobs, and cut taxes to put more money in…

The bad news is that share prices have been plummeting, wiping billions in value off the holdings of investors and pension funds. The good news is that share prices are plummeting by thousands of points on the Dow, taking froth off markets and restoring monetary policy to its proper place in our…

So regulation is not always a bad idea after all.

Rarely have both exuberance and anxiety run simultaneously at the high pitch evident these days at gatherings of investors. The exuberants are the noisiest right now. Trump tax cuts have produced a surge in business after-tax profits—which even before the tax cuts were up double digits compared…

It’s time for the January 2018 Hypocrite of the Month awards. The nominees are . . .

Returning from Davos, the gathering of the global elite who had never before seen fit to invite this exhibitionist television celebrity, familiar with the bankruptcy courts, to eschew Big Macs in favor of canapés for a few days, Donald Trump faces a more demanding test next Tuesday, when he…

In that wonderful movie Patton, George C. Scott’s title character imagines himself in a one-on-one tank battle with Field Marshal Erwin Rommel—the winner wins the war. Donald Trump, who hates the Washington Post and therefore its owner, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, may have a similar vision of…

The New Normal. Slow growth. Persistently low inflation threatening to morph into Japanese-style deflation. Stagnant wages. Rising inequality. The American Dream converted to a nightmare. All the result of the metastasizing of the regulatory and entitlement states, say the Republicans. No, it’s the…

“Forgive me Lord, for I knew not what I was doing.”

If Trump set your teeth on edge in 2017, prepare for a grinding 2018. The story coming out of the White House is that the need to garner congressional support for his tax cut forced the president to restrain his reformist-populist-belligerent instincts until his signature legislation was on the…

“Mournful, dazed, sullen, traumatized, self-absorbed, defensive, remote, morbid, bleak, bummed-out, alienated, unprotected, besieged.” That’s how a leading pop music critic describes the music of choice of “millennial and younger listeners . . . making their way into an era of accelerating income…

Second Thoughts: London’s Metropolitan Police Service, aka Scotland Yard because its original entrance was located on Great Scotland Yard, is re-considering two rules that seem to have had consequences that could easily have been foreseen.

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the land, pundits are trying to figure out where the voters stand—now that Republicans have passed their tax bill, Santa Trump’s gift to his adoring fans.

Since Europeans have taken to professing amazement and horror at the doings of our president, it seems appropriate to tell then what amazes us about their doings.

It was a close call, but China finally edged out Congress for the Hypocrite of the Year Award. Congress grabbed the lead when Republicans, who bemoaned the wreckage President Obama did to the nation’s credit by adding some $7 trillion to $9 trillion to our national debt, decided that adding to our…

There was a time in the not-too distant past when the government’s monthly labor report was the most eagerly anticipated and influential of all economic data, and could move markets. Unemployment and a rising number of workers dropping out of the labor market meant the Great Recession had not run…

It is the worst of times, it is the best of times. The worst of times if you follow American politics. All is turmoil.

Thanksgiving has come and gone, diets have been broken, and some 88 percent of us have eaten turkey, carving up some 46 million birds in the process. The hunter-gatherers are safely home from the malls—or at least most of them are. The less courageous stay-at-their-computers are resting their…

Had enough of theoretical arguments about free trade—of complaints by establishment Republicans and the business community that President Trump is leading us from the glorious era of free trade into a recession induced by his protectionist policies? Well here’s a tangible example that should help…

It was a busy news week.

When President Trump talks tough on trade to one or several of our “partners,” he is being rude and wrecking the world trading system—in the words of the New York Times, adopting a “starkly unilateralist approach.” Yet when he politely raises America’s problems with that system in private, praises…

They have come to Bonn, Germany, some 25,000 diplomats, scientists, and lobbyists from some 200 nations to put flesh on the bare bones of the climate agreement signed two years ago. That’s when members of the congregation, gathered in Paris, pledged to limit further global warming to 2 degrees…

“Janet, thanks for dropping by the Oval Office. It’s a dump but I’m packing to leave for China to see my new best friend Xi Jinping, so I couldn’t get away to my New Jersey country club. He really likes me. I tricked him into letting us sell some beef in China while he is distracted by building…

Uber comes along and ends the rainy days and nights of waving fruitlessly at cabs with flashing “off duty” signs, and governments respond to pressures from threatened incumbents by making life difficult or impossible for the welfare-enhancing newcomer.

I am an admirer of Larry Summers. And of Kevin Hassett. Which is why I mourn Larry’s descent from civility into dismissive name-calling, and Kevin’s ill-considered attack on the Tax Policy Center, an organization with which I often disagree but is staffed by what Larry calls “highly respected…

Leave Trump country, fly about 2,000 miles east to Washington, D.C., and you enter a different world. In Trump country 88 percent of Trump voters approve of the job he is doing as president according to a poll by the Democracy Fund.

So that’s what it’s come to: Dueling IQs on the White House lawn.

American trade policy is focused on steel, gasoline-powered cars, and coal; China’s is focused on robots, electric vehicles, and solar panels.

The stock market rockets ever-upward, as well it should, what with the president’s tax package destined to make corporate America great again. Sure thing.

It’s put-up or shut-your-tweet time for the president. He has been promising to Make America Great Again by replacing free trade with protectionism, and now has enough opportunities to do just that in cases involving aircraft, dishwashers, solar panels, steel and cars from Korea and, of course,…

Before we get into a brawl over whose tax cut is better than whose, wouldn’t it be wise to ask: Should we cut taxes at all? And if so, why?

“I was very proud of the Senate Democratic Leader, Chuck Schumer. He could speak New York to the president.” So said Nancy Pelosi, showing the distance between hard-left San Franciscans, for whom every belief is a red line they cannot cross, and pragmatic New Yorkers of both parties.

If you think monetary policy is getting boring, think again. True, Fed chair Janet Yellen had no surprises for us earlier this week. To contain the 2008 financial crisis, the Fed printed more than one trillion new dollars to finance its purchase of the assets that it now plans to sell. That took…

There has always been one feature that distinguishes Lindsey Graham from his almost-peers in the Senate: a self-deprecating sense of humor. This characteristic often obscures another engaging characteristic of Graham’s: raw courage.

The President has decided that enough is enough. Until a few weeks ago, he relied on Republican leaders in the Senate and House—majority leader Mitch McConnell and House speaker Paul Ryan—to convert his wish list into legislation. They assured him they could do so relying solely on Republican…

And then there were four. Vacancies on the Federal Reserve Bank’s seven-person board of governors, that is, now that vice-chair Stanley Fischer has tendered his resignation for “personal reasons”—widely believed to be his wife’s health.

“This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast—man's laws, not God's—and if you cut them down . . . d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.”

Canada’s NAFTA negotiator has now demanded that new chapters be inserted to the agreement which reflect the Trudeau government’s “commitment to gender equality and . . . improving our relationship with indigenous peoples.”

Circuses feature sideshows and main events. So it is with the circus that performs daily at the Trump White House when it comes to trade policy. The sideshow currently on offer is the renegotiation of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that creates a more-or-less free trade area…

Central Bank, est. 1913, seeks new Chair, to assume duties Feb. 5, 2018: Applicants will be considered even if they have graduate training in economics, although a doctorate might prove a deterrent to selection. Patience to sit through long staff meetings discussing arcane forecasting issues…

The New York Times is upset with EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. It seems that under the cloak of “rampant secrecy” has set out to “weaken an agency once known for transparency.”

Ten years ago, almost to the day, something went wrong with the American banking system. So horribly wrong that it almost brought down the entire system of international finance and caused what is now known as the Great Recession.

Over the years Irwin Stelzer has been one of my favorite economists. He is a direct, yet graceful, writer, a clear thinker, and an analyst possessing large amounts of both humility and charitability. I like to think of him as the anti-Krugman.

Enough, already! It is time for the commentariat to stop attributing every vulgarity erupting from this administration to the fact that the president, like his now-defenestrated potty-mouthed spokesman, is a New Yorker.

Who says that President Trump refuses to accept responsibility for anything? Just last week he bravely accepted responsibility for the soaring stock market and the good news emerging about the American economy, which grew at an annual rate of 2.6 percent, more than double the first-quarter anemic…

Enough, already! It is time for the commentariat to stop attributing every vulgarity erupting from this administration to the fact that the president, like his now-defenestrated potty-mouthed spokesman, is a New Yorker.

If you wonder what is supposed to happen when the demand for labor outruns the available supply, take a look at the picture below. It’s a Starbucks plea for baristas—the usually young people who make your latte, americano, or coconut milk mocha macchiato every morning. True, this particular branch…

“The trusts are hijous monsters. On the one hand they must be crushed underfoot; on the other hand not so fast.” So spake Mr. Dooley, the fictitious Irish bartender and font of wisdom created by Finley Peter Dunne in the late 19th century. Trusts were the form monopolies took at the time. Dooley…

No rest for the wary. Fearful of facing constituents with nothing but months of intra-party wrangling to offer, senate Republicans decided not to recess for the usual full month of August, and instead stay in Washington for an extra two weeks.

America, the New York Times groans (chortles?), was "ostracized" by the other G20 countries at the recently concluded meeting in Hamburg. And with Angela Merkel leading the band of ostracizers. And on not one but three issues: immigration, climate change, and trade. These are all worth examining in…

So it’s come to this. The monetary policy gurus at the Federal Reserve have decided to reduce the size of the bank’s swollen $4 trillion balance sheet in a gradual process—initially $10 billion per month, rising steadily thereafter.

Chinese president Xi Jinping is headed to the G20 meeting in Hamburg later this week planning to paint the town—no, not red—but green. Using President Trump’s decision to withdraw America from the Paris climate deal as an excuse, Xi will present himself as the new savior of the environment. As he…

With the president once again managing to divert attention from a sensible policy to a vulgar tweet, you might not have noticed that this past week has been “Energy Week.” The immediate result has been a lot of speeches, including one by Harold Hamm, the Trump-supporting oil-and-gas man who played…

Just when it looked as if the professionals in the Trump administration had taken over administration of trade policy, leaving the president to handle the rhetoric, someone in the Trump camp recalled that some 70 years ago—in 1947—23 nations signed the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT),…

It was a bad week for the president of the United States and might prove to have been a career-ending week for the chair of the Federal Reserve Board. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is investigating whether Trump obstructed justice in connection with the FBI probe into Russian activities…

The president remains a protectionist. His administration? Not so much. That is possible because there are two strong and often opposing forces at work in Washington. One is the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, sometime resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The other is the Trump…

We're out. But we might come back. That's what President Trump has decided to do about the Paris climate accord. We're out because the accord is unfair: It allows China to pollute while we can't. It kills millions of jobs. It requires us to pay tens of billions of dollars to foreign countries. And…

President Trump is no dummy. He chose to exchange gifts with the pope in Rome while leaving his budget director and Treasury secretary in Washington to respond to critics of his budget. Let them take the heat while he takes the bows for a successful trip.

I leave it to others to sort out who said what to whom about Russia, loyalty oaths, secrets, and other matters now roiling Washington. Instead, here is an attempt to sort out the economic consequences of the doings of our political class.

There is something dispiriting about the debate over trade policy, and the problem does not lie with Donald Trump, or his tweets, or his on-again, off-again threats to various trading partners, or his fickle choice of partners to head the negotiating queue: EU to the front, Brexiting Britain to the…

There is no lack of drama in the Trump administration when it comes to trade policy. The ingredients are there: interesting players, uncertainty of outcome, the rise to and fall from favor. The principal actor and star, a man who brooks no rival for the spotlight is, of course, President Donald J.…

There is no lack of drama in the Trump administration when it comes to trade policy. The ingredients are there: interesting players, uncertainty of outcome, the rise to and fall from favor. The principal actor and star, a man who brooks no rival for the spotlight is, of course, President Donald J.…

Monetary policy is on hold: The Fed has set a pattern of interest rate increases and is sticking to it. Fiscal policy is also on hold. Republican scorpions bottled in the House of Representatives are split between deficit hawks and deficit doves, and those favoring a border tax and those joining…

Monetary policy is on hold: The Fed has set a pattern of interest rate increases and is sticking to it. Fiscal policy is also on hold. Republican scorpions bottled in the House of Representatives are split between deficit hawks and deficit doves, and those favoring a border tax and those joining…

Barack Obama thought a 28 percent corporate tax rate is about right. House Republicans think 20 percent would make America competitive again. Donald Trump thinks a 15 percent rate would Make America Great Again. And for comparison, Britain's prime minister Theresa May thinks 17 percent would make a…

The impending end of Donald Trump's break-in period is as good a time as any to see where he will go from here. The first 100 days are typically a honeymoon, during which the political knives remain sheathed. Not this time. Political back-stabbing, intra- and interparty, is rife. Democrats are…

In two weeks Donald Trump will serve his one-hundredth day as President of the United States of America. He approaches that milestone with an approval rating of 40 percent, the lowest of any modern-day president at this stage of his tenure. The man who made his reputation, and part of any fortune…

The American economy added a mere 98,000 jobs last month, less than half the number expected. Not good enough for President Trump, who not only wants more jobs: He wants them for coal miners and those horny handed sons of toil who once were the backbone of the American manufacturing work force. To…

Nothing erodes the power of a bully as much as a victory by those he threatens. Nothing erodes the reputation of a negotiator as much as a failure to succeed in cutting a deal he dearly wants to complete. Which is why President Trump enters negotiations over tax reform in a seriously weakened…

Saudis, Russia, shale. That is all ye need to know in order to understand the oil market. The Saudis lead the OPEC oil cartel, Russia is their largest potential fellow traveler, and the Permian Basin in the Southwest is the oil-rich shale that stands between the other two and $100 per barrel oil.

It seems that President Trump handed German Chancellor Angela Merkel a bill when she visited the United States—for almost $400 billion. That represents the amount Trump reckons is due to cover Germany's failure to meet its commitment to support NATO to the tune of 2 percent of its GDP, plus…

This is a revolt of the masses, in this case masses of economic students from around the world who came of age during the 2008 financial crisis and have united in a movement they call Rethinking Economics. The leaders of the movement, which according to the Guardian has grown to 43 student…

When America sneezes, the world catches a cold. When our Federal Reserve Board raises interest rates, world currencies move, commodity prices jump or slump. When America changes its trade policies, world leaders worry and try to respond. And when an American president who believes climate change is…

This is a revolt of the masses, in this case masses of economic students from around the world who came of age during the 2008 financial crisis and have united in a movement they call Rethinking Economics. The leaders of the movement, which according to the Guardian has grown to 43 student…

Saudis, Russia, shale. That is all ye need to know in order to understand the oil market. The Saudis lead the OPEC oil cartel, Russia is their largest potential fellow traveler, and the Permian Basin in the Southwest is the oil-rich shale that stands between the other two and $100 per barrel oil.

At some point, our border will be secure, resistance to deporting felons will collapse, and we will have accepted the fact that Dreamers will be allowed to stay in this country, probably on a path to citizenship. That's the easy part.

The president's health care reform and his radical budget: RIP. And with them perhaps the era of The Donald as we have come to know and love or hate it.

At some point, our border will be secure, resistance to deporting felons will collapse, and we will have accepted the fact that Dreamers will be allowed to stay in this country, probably on a path to citizenship. That’s the easy part.

Who would have imagined that it would come to this? Leftish activists are campaigning to have the Confederate flag removed from statehouses, statues of southern statesmen removed from campuses and public spaces, and the names of campus buildings changed to remove any they deem racist. These very…

Fifty is only half as good as one hundred, but it's twice as good as twenty-five. That's how anyone who is anyone in the international oil business saw it earlier this week when they gathered in Houston for the annual CERAWeek conference sponsored by HIS Markit, the data and information firm. They…

Donald Trump might turn out to be a blessing in disguise for the environmental movement. As Winston Churchill replied when his wife suggested his party's loss might turn out to be just such a blessing in disguise, "At the moment it seems quite effectively disguised."

There is only one way President Trump can square a circle, a circle in which he will meet himself coming around as he tries to deliver on his promises. Call it the 3-1/2-percent solution. No, not a cocaine shot half as potent as the 7-percent solution self-administered by the world's most famous…

Donald Trump might turn out to be a blessing in disguise for the environmental movement. As Winston Churchill replied when his wife suggested his party’s loss might turn out to be just such a blessing in disguise, "At the moment it seems quite effectively disguised."

Who could be against a rule that requires investment advisers to act in the best interests of their retiree-clients? Donald Trump, the Washington branch of the Goldman Sachs alumni association, the Wall Street Journal, and well-intentioned policy wonks who have never met a regulation they like,…

The American economy has taken the shape of an iceberg. The visible part glistens in the reflected sunlight of Donald Trump. Beneath the surface lurks a structure that might not long be capable of supporting the glistening tip.

Who could be against a rule that requires investment advisers to act in the best interests of their retiree-clients? Donald Trump, the Washington branch of the Goldman Sachs alumni association, the Wall Street Journal, and well-intentioned policy wonks who have never met a regulation they like,…

Donald Trump says he is for free trade. But it has to be fair trade. He sees himself not as a protectionist but as a protector of American workers from the ravages of unfair competition, somehow defined. In 1964 Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said when he was asked to define pornography, "I…

A spectre is haunting America, the spectre of TDS. That is the acronym for the plague that is afflicting half of our adult population, more than half if truth be told, and many youngsters whose parents have exposed them to the disease. According to Bernard Goldberg, writing in his column, some…

Most presidential honeymoons are characterized by congressional and presidential vows of everlasting cooperation, but the policy cohabitations are soon torn asunder by the healthy re-emergence of political differences. President Trump's honeymoon period was different. He chose to abuse his…

"Apple would not exist without immigration," warns Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. His colleagues in the board rooms of Silicon Valley agree, and tremble at the rumored issuance of a Trump executive order that might reduce the number of H-1B visas issued to skilled foreign workers. These titans of the…

He means it. The President of the United States of America Donald Trump says he will use the power of his office to tear up the post-WWII international and domestic settlements. No more world policeman, spending blood and treasure to protect nations that won't defend themselves. No more…

Accusations that French bureaucrats are insufficiently innovative are simply untrue. With Brexit forcing American bankers to reconsider maintaining their presence in London, the French finance minister hastened to New York to persuade Wall Street leaders that Paris is the city best positioned to…

The symbolism of President Donald Trump's pre-inaugural appearance before the Lincoln Memorial was part of his effort to show that he is sympathetic to the aspirations of the black community even though one of its leaders declared him "illegitimate" and added a boycott of Friday's swearing-in to…

A week from Monday, when the post-inauguration revelries, which include a "Deplorables Ball", are no more, Donald J. Trump, the forty-fifth President of the United States of America, will for the first time become fully aware of the 115th Congress of the United States of America. Although he has…

It promises to be a fracking good year in some of our oil producing regions. To understand why, you need to keep four numbers in mind: $100, $25, $50, and $60. The first is the approximate price of a barrel of crude oil in the summer of 2014, the second the price to which it plunged early in 2016,…

Ring out the old. Please. Only 18 percent of Americans say things got better for the country in 2016 than they had been in 2015. Ring in the new. Please. Some 55 percent of Americans expect 2017 to be better for them than was 2016, up twelve points on last year's poll. Consumer confidence is at a…

Israel is in real trouble. Not because of Obama's parting shot at the Jewish state and its prime minister. No, the real trouble for Israel, says the New York Times, comes from the fact that Donald Trump is about to become president. It seems that Trump's ascension to our highest office and his…

'Tis the season to be jolly. And for governments to show their concern for the governed, not all of whom have granted their consent to be governed by the in-crowd.

If you thought the heated political atmosphere would cool after voters made their decision, think again. If anything, the tone of political life has turned nastier. Democrats know they can't persuade electors that Hillary really is a better choice than The Donald, but they hope to make enough noise…

There's going to be a new sheriff in town, or as one businessman put it, "We now have to plan for the big fist in the sky." Doug Oberman, CEO of Caterpillar and chairman of the big-businessmen-only Business Roundtable told his members, "Some of us may bear our turn in the bullseye." And some…

Protectionism, I once said to Irving Kristol, is a bad idea. It benefits producers, but it harms consumers. “Where," he asked, "is it written that the welfare of consumers takes precedence over that of producers?" Reflection required, not a new experience after an encounter with Irving. And in this…

Donald Trump has three big problems, two of his own creation, one created by a ticking time bomb that Obama is leaving for him.

History matters, except to politicians.

That's the easy part. President-elect Donald Trump went on YouTube to announce two of his goals. The first was to show the print and television moguls who have been coming and going from Trump Tower in an effort to work out a modus vivendi with the president-elect that he doesn't need them to get…

It's impossible to pick up a newspaper or magazine without finding another story about Fox News journalist Megyn Kelly. Ms. Kelly secured her place in the pantheon of star reporters/pundits/celebrities by her fearless grilling of Donald Trump and, lately, by helping to unseat Fox supremo Roger…

So much ink and punditry is being expended on gossip about how President-elect Trump might cast his play, that too little attention is being paid to the plot. Not that the cast won't matter: Those with roles at key agencies can contribute to the success or failure of the drama now unfolding here in…

Apocalypse now. “Dear God. What have you done? After Brexit and this election … a world is collapsing before our eyes. Dizziness," was the cri de coeur of Gerard Araud, France's ambassador to the U.S., apparently unaware that anything that discomfits the French pleases a vast number of Americans.…

Three days hence those Americans not too lazy, or not seriously unhappy with the choice before them, will join the 37 million who have already voted. Hillary Clinton is hoping they will have taken on board Friday's jobs report. The economy added 161,000 jobs in October, and the reports for the past…

In only ten days the voters will have spoken and Donald Trump will be planning his move to Washington—to the new Trump International hotel, in which he says he will be spending lots of time. The hotel is spitting distance from the White House where the Obamas are making certain everything will be…

Republican Abraham Lincoln waged his Civil War with malice towards none. Republican Donald Trump is waging his intra-party civil war with malice towards just about everyone. Bodies will be strewn across the political landscape, and the projected body-count is rising.

The American economy continues to grow, albeit slowly, and the jobs markets has been generating enough jobs to keep us at or close to full employment without triggering inflation. The economy added 156,000 jobs last month, not seriously out of line with the 75,000-125,000 jobs that observers such…

The French have a term for when the best lines occur to someone after leaving a meeting or a dinner party. They call it L'esprit de l'escalier, the wisdom of the stairs. Here is Donald Trump's morning-after-the-debate version.

The New York Times, which enjoys poking fun at Fox News for claiming to be "fair and balanced," outdid itself in fairness and balance on Sunday. In its Review section it offered its readers two long columns, one laying out how Donald Trump might win the first debate, another on how Hillary Clinton…

When you buy a shirt and the shopkeeper tries to sell you a necktie, that's cross-selling. When you pick up your to-eat-at-the-desk sandwich and the guy at the register persuades you that you need some potato chips, that's cross-selling. When thousands of Wells Fargo employees respond to pressure…

There are times when inordinate importance is attached to a data release. Those are times to follow rules: averages can be deceiving: you can drown in a lake with an average depth of three feet; and disaggregate to get an understanding of the real-world significance of the data.

The winner: John Maynard Keynes, the advocate of government spending to boost growth. The loser: Angela Merkel, the austere fighter for balanced budgets. Host at the loose fiscal celebration at Harvard University: Larry Summers. Chief mourner at the austerity funeral: Jens Weidman, at the German…

Ideas travel, both the bad and the good. One is shared by two life-long members of the ruling class, Hillary Clinton, standard-bearer of the Democratic party, and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, two politicians who feel threatened by the new revolt of the masses.

Exactly fifteen years ago today I was settled into my seat on a British Airways flight 178, scheduled to head from JFK to London in a few minutes. It was not to be. My cell phone rang: It was my wife, Cita, telling me that a plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center's twin towers, and…

More questions to help you decide whether to vote, and if so, for whom. Those who shared their answers to the last round were split just about 50-50 between the two candidates.

President Obama will tolerate a lot for an opportunity to push his climate-change agenda. At this weekend's G20 summit meeting of the world's developed (aka "rich") nations, which account for 85 percent of the world's economy, his Chinese hosts really poured on the humiliation.

We are having two crises. One is in the boardroom of the Federal Reserve system. In a speech to her central bank colleagues at Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen was believed by others than this writer to say that she was preparing to raise interest rates, subject of course to…

With Labor Day upon us—meaning the election is around the corner—ask yourself: "Who would I rather see in the White House?"

They should have known better, those central bankers and policy-watchers who thought that Janet Yellen's speech at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on Friday would mark a volte-face. Yellen, who skipped last year's meeting, came to Jackson Hole under pressure from important colleagues to commit to raising…

With President Obama's plans for improving the lives of each one of us stalled by a recalcitrant, mean-spirited Republican congress, liberals and progressives are concentrating on using the tools available on the local level to enrich our lives. None more determined than Mayor Bill de Blasio, who…

"Let Reagan be Reagan" conservatives cried when their champion made his first run for the White House, and it turned out to be good advice. "Let Trump be Trump," cries none other than Donald Trump himself, who has decided to replace the team of professional campaign advisers who want him to be…

Poland's government has passed a law, upheld by its constitutional court, "that significantly limits the rights of people whose property in Warsaw was seized during or after World War II, and their descendants, to apply for restitution," according to the New York Times. The law sets up hurdles…

Earlier this week both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton revealed the broad outlines of their plans for the American economy. Trump aims to accelerate growth, Clinton to redistribute the economic pie. Both have serious political problems. The Donald managed to trump his own economic plan with what…

Policy makers here in Washington, badly shaken by the anti-American tone of Turkish president Recep Erdoğan, want the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund—the so-called Troika—to get Greece's finances settled and the country on a path to stability. And…

The French have a clear vision of how want Britain's decision to leave the EU should play out: British businesses out of the EU, French businesses into the U.K.

In 1965 the average CEO earned 20 times what the average worker took home. Now, with globalization expanding the reach of CEOs and depressing the wages of factory-floor workers, that ratio is over 300-to-1. This rise in inequality has caused critics of the American capitalist system to begin to…

The twin pillars of the administration's environmental policy have collapsed, but the Democratic platform is calling for a doubling down on that policy of regulation and subsidization in order to achieve "climate justice" and transform America into a "clean energy superstar". Nothing less. The…

July 12 just might have been the day on which the retail sector as we have known it here in America came to its end. If not its end, surely the beginning of its end. Amazon has an estimated 54 million Prime customers in the U.S. who pay $99 per year, and millions more around the world who pay about…

Polls show that we are approaching our date with the November 8 election as a 50-50 America when it comes to choosing between a self-styled billionaire who might initiate a major war if some foreign leader insults him, and a woman whom the FBI has demonstrated has not even a passing acquaintance…

So we will not add to the world's Brexit woes by having a recession here in America. At least not soon. The U.S. economy added 287,000 jobs in June, compared with a meager 11,000 in May (revised down yesterday from 38,000). Since we are deep into the political season, cheers from the Obama-Clinton…

President Obama thinks Britain made a mistake by voting to leave the European Union. So does Secretary of State John Kerry. So do most on the left of American politics. Most on the right see Britain’s so-called Independence Day as a sensible democratic decision to shed the protectionist and…

It didn't take Brexit to make forecasters take a dim view of the future of the U.S. economy. A cloud considerably larger than a man's hand hovered over the computers of most forecasters before Brexit shocked markets into a deep but transient swoon. The Federal Reserve Board said it dare not raise…

It is fashionable these days, and not only in America, to blame the woes of the electorate, and the consequent rise of politicians playing on those woes, on "the Establishment." It is the fault of this never-really-defined group that Britain is leaving the European Union, with consequences only now…

At times it is better to be lucky than good. And yesterday Donald Trump was lucky indeed to find himself in the UK for the re-opening of one of his hotel/golf courses, on what the tabloid Sun calls Britain's "Independence Day". Trump is not alone in believing that Britain's decision to leave the…

Janet Yellen, keeper of the Federal Reserve Bank's money store, announced on Wednesday that free money remains on offer, at least for a while longer. Even cash-rich companies such as Apple can't resist accepting that offer, and our deficit-ridden government can keep on borrowing at phenomenally low…

We are about to prove that two negatives make a positive. According to most polls, almost 60 percent of voters dislike or hate Hillary Clinton, while a bit more than that dislike or hate Donald Trump. One out of every three voters who plan to vote for either Trump or Clinton say they are doing so…

The Federal Reserve Board's good ship Raise-the-Interest-Rate sailed into an iceberg Friday when the government reported that a mere 38,000 new jobs had been created in May—the lowest total since November 2010. And that the figures for March and April had been revised downward by 59,000 jobs. And…

Donald Trump is against the TPP trade pact because he did not negotiate it, but “incompetents" did. Hillary Clinton is against TPP, sort of, at least in its present form, because Bernie Sanders is. Time to take a look at where the national interest might lie, with the help of the 788-page…

The New York Times is to be applauded for its inventiveness. With the State Department Inspector General's finding that she lied when she said she sought and received approval to use a private email server confronting its editorial writers, they had to find a way to continue standing by their…

The upcoming election will match low-tax, high-spending Donald Trump against high-tax, higher-spending Hillary Clinton. By all responsible reckonings, the next president will preside over rising deficits, funded by increased borrowing. That, of course, is what latter-day Keynesians such as…

An important victory for national sovereignty has gone largely unnoticed. Perhaps because the European Union bureaucracy is too worried about the coming referendum when Britain will decide to Remain in or Brexit the EU, the eurocracy finally bowed to a British demand. It seems the Brussels…

Incomes are up. Jobs are so plentiful that employers complain they cannot find workers who have the right skills and can pass a drug test, and college graduates are entering the best market in years. Industrial output is rising. Housing starts rose 6.6 percent and building permits 3.6 percent in…

From Buenos Aires to Buckingham Palace to Beijing to right here in America, economists are an endangered species. A few years ago the Argentine government began fining economists whose reports differed from official government figures. Inflation, said the government, is running at an annual rate of…

Call it pessimism. Or gloom. Or a feeling of being dispossessed. Or as Churchill labelled his periods of depression, Black Dog. Or, to be more modern, cognitive dissonance. It's palpable. Many businessmen here are peering into their always-clouded crystal balls and seeing a bleak future for…

Now we know. It will be Hillary Rodham Clinton vs. Donald J. Trump only some seven months from now, when election day arrives and puts a merciful end to our elongated campaign season. The winner will inherit an economy that, in all probability, will be continuing its slow crawl, with growth at or…

"There will always be an England," sang Vera Lynn in the dark early days of World War II. Probably true, unless the nation becomes subsumed in the EU, which has as its goal the elimination of the nation-state. But it is surely true that there will always be a Paris, or, as Rick so famously put it,…

To death and taxes add a new certainty: Starting next year we will watch the size of our government expand. We Americans, one-time disciples of the theory that that government is best which governs least, will have to choose in November between two paths to bigger government. The Democratic…

As Sinatra might put it, this time we almost made some sense of it. We almost made that long hard climb to reduced dependence on Saudi Arabia for our oil supplies and diminished its ability to affect the fate of the American economy. Not that the technological feat of our frackers made us…

Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton have all come to the same conclusion: no more nice guy when it comes to trade. Voters are convinced free trade is inimical to their interests, and even if it were a good thing our trading partners don't play fair. They have a point. China…

There ariseth a little cloud out of Minneapolis, smaller than the hand of a central banker, but worrying nevertheless. Neel Kashkari, newly appointed president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, wants to break up the big banks. Kashkari has taken to introducing himself with an…

When tales of an Italian codista combined with the NCAA tournament, I was afflicted with remembrance of sports events past. In post-WWII New York City, basketball was the sport of obsession with Jews, in part because it was a low-cost, low user of space. The City College of New York, known as the…

"I must do it. But I fear to do it. Upon my soul I do." So said Alec Guinness' King Faisal to Peter O'Toole's Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia when faced with demands that he place his Bedouin fighters under British command. And so in effect said Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen to the…

Karl Marx, Joseph Schumpeter, and Irving Kristol have two things in common. All three recognized the extraordinary ability of market capitalism to produce goods, services, and wealth. And they hoped, believed, and feared, respectively, that capitalism contained the seeds of its own destruction.

With Brussels under attack by Islamic terrorists, it takes a truly self-regarding president to believe that he, not the Islamic terrorists, was orchestrating a world-historic event. If you missed the news while following the doings of terrorists in Belgium or our presidential wannabees scrambling…

Those of us who follow economic news as well as politics were treated to a view of two sides of this country. Turn on a news channel and there is Donald Trump, burly, blonde, braggadocious, belligerent, rude to hostile questioners, promising things he cannot deliver, but doing so in clear, easily…

In descending order of the magnitude of the theft:

Into the home stretch. Unless we aren't. The Republican nomination fight could be all but over on Tuesday. Or if not then on April 19, when New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and other voters with 1,299 delegates decide whether they want Donald Trump to make a run at gilding the White House while…

Seymour Lipkin, the pianist/composer who left this world recently, was once asked if he had always wanted to pursue a career in music. "I never considered anything else," he said. "There was never any … thought that I would be, say, an economist, God forbid." At times like this I can't help feeling…

The Democratic candidates, one a professed Socialist, offer a different road to fiscal disaster – more spending. There is a slight variation on the spending theme. Bernie Sanders would ramp up spending by $18 trillion in the next decade by lowering interest rates on student loans, providing free…

This is not a good time to be a banker. Any kind of banker. Our central bankers are alternately accused of having kept interest rates too low for too long, and of raising them too soon. Overseas they are accused of being unable to drive down their currency so as to rescue an economy from decades of…

The science of climate change may or may not be the certain thing that the president claims it is, but surely certain is the fact that he can push the Constitution only so far before the Supreme Court pushes back. Which is what it has done by granting the request of 29 states and several business…

The Times of London reports that for a mere $43,500 per year your child can attend Avenues: The World School in Manhattan, where 4-year olds sit in swivel chairs and are taught in Mandarin or Spanish half of the time. Every student is expected to become a responsible "global citizen" from a "world…

Who'd a thunk it? That's what a famous ventriloquist's dumbest dummy was made to ask on a now-gone radio program whenever he confronted anything new and, to him, inexplicable, although obvious to anyone else. It came to mind when the central bankers of Sweden decided to take current interest rates…

Investors and traders here were hoping that a spurt in job creation would dispel some of the gloom that has stock markets in turmoil, investors watching a decline in the value of their savings and pensions, and Federal Reserve Board chairwoman Janet Yellen and her monetary policy committee…

There will certainly be a recession this year. Unless there won’t. That is the consensus view of economists. The bad news is that even the optimists are having difficulty explaining away the reams of incoming data, and that even the cheeriest of the bunch are predicting a no-to-low-growth outlook…

A sign of what might be called “progress" jogged some memories of battles fought. In reporting Governor Andrew Cuomo's nomination of a new chief to a state regulatory agency, the New York Times identified the appointee as being a litigator in "the white-shoe law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind," et al.…

Many Americans are watching the gains racked up in their pension accounts in the last five years wiped out in the past few weeks. And fretting that no one seems to know what to do about it. The president says that economy is just fine. The Congress says the president is detached from reality in…

The final State of the Union address of any president evokes thoughts that vary with his success while in office. For the successful, such as Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, it is a moment on which to look back with some satisfaction. For President Obama, with only 27 percent of…

The Chinese are wrong to overlook North Korea’s broken promise not to test nuclear weapons, in the interests of "trying to warm long-strained relations." So they are told by John Kerry. But I, the Secretary of State of the United States of America, am right to overlook Iran's repeated provocations…

Americans are convinced that things are not going well, and are not likely to improve soon. Gerald Seib, who follows these things for the Wall Street Journal, says Republican pollsters report the national mood as “Sour and dour. Nervous, on edge, a feeling of vulnerability and a lack of control."…

The BBC reports that organized gangs of young men assaulted, groped "between their legs", in at least one case raped, and robbed some 100 women in Cologne and Hamburg. Similar attacks were reported in Stuttgart. Cologne's police chief reported that the men were of Arab or North African appearance.…

Historical analogies are the last refuge of politicians seeking to justify a policy indefensible on its own merits. Such is the case when it comes to determining policies towards prospective Muslim immigrants. Proponents of allowing these refugees into the country are in difficulty. It seems (1)…

2015 was a bad year for Warren Buffett, oil and natural gas producers, U.S. coal companies, taxicab companies and their lenders, currency traders who thought the yuan could only go up, the New York Giants, Marissa Mayer, university administrators, and Trump haters.

Ntokozo Qwabe, the student at Oriel College, Oxford, co-founder of Rhodes Must Fall, wants the statue of Cecil Rhodes removed from the campus because Rhodes was a "racist, genocidal maniac … as bad as Hitler." Mr. Qwabe is attending Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship.

Guilty as charged. That's my response to anyone who accuses me of having spilled too much ink writing about what Janet Yellen might do, has done, and will do now that she has raised the Fed funds rate for the first time in a decade. By way of expiation, here is a look at some less-heralded…

Monday's editorial would be hilarious if it were not that so many liberals fail to see the humor. The Old Grey Lady is concerned about "A New Cuban Exodus," driven by "hopelessness at home …and fear that the unique treatment Cuban immigrants receive from Washington could end, now that diplomatic…

If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done slowly. That is official Federal Reserve Board going-forward policy. The announcement of the Fed's first interest rate increase in almost a decade, an upward move of 0.25 percent from near zero, says, and twice, that future increases…

At minimum it is unseemly, at maximum an example of chutzpah as practiced in Silicon Valley. Having shot themselves in the foot, some prominent tech billionaires want the president to bypass Congress and minister to their wound. They have poured cash into his campaign coffers, and now is payback…

The international conference on climate change attracted thousands of delegates from almost 200 nations. The Conference of the Parties21, so named for the parties that signed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992 and had come to Paris for what was their 21st conference, came to an…

"I'll build a stairway to Paradise," promised songwriter George Gershwin decades ago. Fed chairwoman Janet Yellen is about to try to do the same, taking interest rates up that stairway, from the zero level set during the hellish days of the financial crisis to the Paradise of normality or…

To understand Donald Trump's surprising ability to remain at the top of the polls, it is necessary to understand why the attacks of his critics misfire. The best place to start is with the continually uncomprehending New York Times. A story on page 1 et seq. levels what its authors must consider…

Christmas came early this year for Janet Yellen and those of her monetary policy committee colleagues eager to begin raising interest rates. Just a tiny bit, but enough to show that they remember how to do that after eight years of holding rates to just about zero. First gift: Santa, disguised as a…

There are lots of good reasons for conservatives to cheer when various Republican candidates propose a consumption tax, or a tax on spending as some call it, or, in one of its most used forms, a value-added tax (VAT).

California is reeling from a drought, rather like the one suffered by Israel in 1998-2002. California, with an 840-mile coastline on the world's largest ocean, has a water shortage; Israel, with a mere 170-mile coast line, does not. Israel invests in desalinization; California is building a…

On the surface, little seems to have changed as the opening bell rang for the retailers’ battle that is the holiday shopping season. On Thanksgiving day we carved some 46 million turkeys and downed 50 million pumpkin pies despite a shortage of pecans created by Chinese consumers who imported the…

It is not for an economist to adjudicate between the president of the United States, who feels he is appealing to our better angels by asking our blessing for his plan to grant 10,000 refugees from the Syrian wars entry into our country, and his critics who fear that the wave might include…

Retailers are having difficulty moving apparel these days. One analyst attributes the groaning shelves and racks to two successive years of warm weather. So retailers’ worries will soon be over: the world’s leaders are about to assemble in Paris to end the trend to global warming, a bigger threat…