The Martin Hutchinson Place
President Trump has proposed a universal 10% tariff on U.S. imports and has been met by universal derision among professional economists. Not so fast! High tariffs were a feature of Republican governance before the Great Depression. While they operated on a “beggar my neighbor” basis against the British steel industry, for example, they have retained […]
At the end of 2019, the Standard and Poor’s 500 index of U.S. share prices stood at 3221.29. Since then, the United States has been subjected to a devastating epidemic, has wasted trillions of dollars in response to that epidemic, driving its debt to GDP ratio up to 108%, has suffered debilitating inflation that has […]
Jason Furman, in the Wall Street Journal, is just the latest former senior financial official (Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, 2013-17) to suggest the Fed should raise its inflation target above the current 2%. We know what these people want – a target high enough that rates can be reduced to zero again, […]
In 1830, Britain was completely economically dominant, the only significant industrial power. Since that time, it has steadily lost its industrial dominance and that relative decline, while to an extent inevitable, was hurried along by a grossly malign approach to policy which persists today. Unless it is reversed, further accelerating decline is ahead.
Fitch last week was the second rating agency to downgrade the U.S. government’s long-term debt rating from AAA to AA plus – Standard and Poor’s had already done so in 2011 and only Moody’s remains at the highest level. But the U.S. debt to GDP ratio has risen by nearly half since 2011, and the […]
Georgia Power’s Vogtle 3 nuclear power station went into full operation this month, the first new U.S. nuclear station in 30 years. However, its cost, together with its twin Vogtle 4 has ballooned from $14 billion to $30 billion, with a six-year delay in completion due to innumerable harassing lawsuits from environmentalists and others. It […]
The subject of Artificial Intelligence has filled the media for the last six months, with both optimistic and dire predictions of its gigantic effect on the world. Yet not all innovations are world-changing, however profitable they may be to their inventors, while some innovations – social media, for example — have changed social mores […]
For decades after 1945, and especially after 1991, the United States was a role model for the world. Not only was its economy the world’s strongest and most prosperous, but its economic management, while falling short of true capitalism, represented an attainable model both for sluggish European nations and for fast-growing emerging markets. Its diplomats […]
Passively invested funds now account for 45% of all assets of U.S. stock-based funds, up from 25% a decade ago, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Indexed funds also account for 25% of bond funds. Between them, three large investment managers, BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street, manage over $20 trillion of assets and they […]
Monthly Payments will resume on $1.8 trillion of U.S. student debt beginning in October, after a 3-year payment holiday for the Covid-19 pandemic. Since President Biden had been talking of more widespread debt relief (last week nixed by the Supreme Court) this will come as a nasty shock to 27 million ex-students, some of whom […]