My colleague Martin Walker wrote last week of the possibility that U.S. economic profligacy could have its principal adverse effect on the European Union economy, through the deflationary effect of an overvalued euro. Fun though this might be for President George W. Bush to contemplate, and attractive though it is to think of French president […]

The U.S. savings rate was a dismal 0.2 percent of Gross Domestic Product in the third quarter of 2004, and nobody but economists seemed to care. Once foreign central banks stop financing the United States’ twin trade and budget deficits, this will have to change, or crisis will ensue. Changing the ingrained U.S. spending habit […]

According to exit polls, the most important single issue to the U.S. electorate on November 2 was moral values. It thus probably wouldn’t be smart for the re-elected George W. Bush administration to indulge in a wholesale relaxation of corporate reform measures – it’s likely that committed Christians oppose business fraud as much as they […]

Election campaigns always involve sweeping under the rug a lot of long term questions, particularly economic questions. The election is now over, the rug looks pretty lumpy, and the day of reckoning has arrived, when problems that cannot be left for another four years must be addressed.

According to Peter Wallison of the American Enterprise Institute, traders regard Fannie Mae (NYSE-FNM) stock as the best pure punt on the election, sure to benefit if Democrat John Kerry wins. Punters who try this, and are able to use Fannie Mae’s accounting, can then decide post facto Wednesday whether the punt was a speculation […]