Category: Economy

When it comes to economics, we know two things about Donald Trump. He is obsessed with the US trade deficit. And he thinks tariffs, or import taxes, will solve the trade deficit problem. Trump is wrong on both counts. The trade deficit is not a pressing problem facing the US economy. And to the extent […]

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George Bernard Shaw quipped that if you lined up every economist, they would never reach a conclusion. Pshaw has always been my response to this. In August Donald Trump decisively proved Shaw wrong. He fired Erika McEntarfer, Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and claimed to fire (its legality is being litigated) Federal Reserve […]

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There have been five major tax cuts since the income tax was established in 1916. When this new Republican/Trump tax bill passes, it will be the sixth. Every major tax cut bill has been sold as good for the economy. Since Ronald Reagan, they even have promotional titles—The Economic Recovery Act; Economic Growth and Tax […]

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As the world continues to digest Donald Trump’s haphazard announcement of wide-ranging tariffs that threaten to upend the global economy, reshape capital markets, and decimate individual retirement accounts, one vulnerability is becoming clear: the MAGA coalition is not united, and contains exploitable fault lines. Voices as diverse as Mike Pence and Elon Musk have expressed […]

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In 1971, a lawyer named Dr. Peter Beter claimed that the vaults at Fort Knox had been emptied of their gold. Beter, who had run for governor of his home state of West Virginia in 1968 (and lost) said that he had heard this from two British intelligence officers he had encountered after establishing a […]

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