NewsTrust - U.S. Economy - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

President Obama Should Seize the High Ground

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Thomas Friedman - May. 27 (Opinion) - President Obama has quite a record of accomplishment to run on for re-election if he would only run on it. During a recent discussion in Seattle with a group of educators, one of them surprised me when she pointed out that even though their state did not win President Obama’s education “Race to the Top,” that program was critical in spurring education reform in Washington State. As I listened to her analysis, the thought occurred to me: I wonder how Barack Obama would do if he ran for president as himself. ... How he would do if he ran for re-election on all the things he’s accomplished but rarely speaks about.

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The Facebook Illusion

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Ross Douthat - May. 27 (Opinion) - There were two grand illusions about the American economy in the first decade of the 21st century. One was the idea that housing prices were no longer tethered to normal economic trends, and instead would just keep going up and up. The second was the idea that in the age of Web 2.0, we were well on our way to figuring out how to make lots and lots of money on the Internet.

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JPMorgan Chase’s $2 Billion Loss

Sun, 13 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - May. 13 (Editorial) - The lesson of JPMorgan’s stunning $2 billion trading loss is that the banks haven’t learned their lesson, and neither have the politicians. Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, can be clear as a bell when he denounces financial reform. But on an emergency conference call with analysts on Thursday to announce the bank’s stunning $2 billion trading loss, his message was frustratingly vague.

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Easy Useless Economics

Thu, 10 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - May. 10 (Opinion) - So all this talk about structural unemployment isn't about facing up to our real problems; it's about avoiding them, and taking the easy, useless way out.

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Bernanke Gets 75% Approval From Investors in Global Poll

Thu, 10 May 2012 00:36:00 -0700

Bloomberg - May. 10 - Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, delivers his semi-annual monetary policy report to the Senate Banking Committee in Washington, D.C., on March 1, 2012. Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, delivers his semi-annual

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The pace we've come to expect

Sun, 06 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - By G.I. - May. 06 (Opinion) - For the second month in a row, America’s labour market has disappointed, once again raising questions about whether the economic recovery is truly entrenched. Nonfarm payrolls rose just 115,000 in April from March. While the unemployment rate dipped to 8.1%, the lowest since early 2009, from 8.2%, it did so for the wrong reason: the labour force (those working or looking for work) shrank by 342,000. Private payrolls rose 130,000, but government payrolls shrank, something of a setback because the state and local government austerity that had created such a drag in the past two years had shown signs of easing this year. However, manufacturing payrolls did rise again, suggesting that the industrial sector, and exports in particular, remain a bright spot. Retail employment also recovered, suggesting the recent rise in petrol prices to around $4 a gallon has yet to take a big bite out of the consumer.

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Obama launches campaign against Romney, but his real opponent is the economy

Sat, 05 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Dan Balz - May. 05 (Opinion) - The president took on Mitt Romney as he formally launched his reelection campaign, but the former Massachusetts governor won’t be Obama’s most stubborn rival.

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The incredible shrinking labor force

Sat, 05 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Brad Plumer - May. 05 (Opinion) - If the same percentage of adults were in the workforce today as when Barack Obama took office, the unemployment rate would be 11.1 percent. If the percentage was where it was when George W. Bush took office, the unemployment rate would be 13.2 percent. That helps explain a seeming contradiction in the unemployment numbers: The rate keeps dropping even though job creation has been soft. In April, the U.S. economy added a mere 115,000 jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In a normal month, that wouldn’t even be enough to keep up with new entrants into the labor market. But in this economy, it was enough to drive unemployment from 8.2 percent down to 8.1 percent, the lowest point since January 2009. The reason why resides in a little-watched measure known as the “labor force participation rate.” That tracks the number of working-age Americans who are either holding a job or looking for one. Between March and April, it dropped. A lot. There were 342,000 fewer Americans sending ...

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The Vanishing Workers

Sat, 05 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - May. 05 (Editorial) - The economy turned in another lackluster month for job creation in April, with 115,000 net new jobs, 130,000 in private business (less 15,000 fewer in government). The unemployment rate fell a tick to 8.1%, albeit mainly because the labor force shrank by 342,000. This relates to what is arguably the most troubling trend in the April jobs report, which is the continuing decline in the share of working-age Americans who are in the labor force. The civilian labor participation rate, as it's known, fell again in April to 63.6%. That's the second decline in a row and the lowest rate since December 1981. That's right—more than 30 years ago, longer than Mark Zuckerberg has been alive. The nearby chart shows the disturbing round trip the workforce participation rate has taken since 1980 and the precipitous drop in the last three years.

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Op-Ed Columnist: The Amnesia Candidate

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Apr. 22 (Opinion) - Does the Romney campaign really expect Americans to blame President Obama for his predecessor’s policy failure?

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As tide of illegal immigrants goes home, will US economy suffer?

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Christian Science Monitor - Apr. 09 - The illegal immigrant boom has fizzled; and as Mexican migrants go home, the question is whether it will drain the labor pool and hurt the US economy. ...

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Op-Ed Columnist: Not Enough Inflation

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Apr. 05 (Opinion) - Republican attacks on Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, are a destructive effort to bully the Fed into doing exactly the wrong thing.

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Income inequality does matter

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

USA Today - By Philip Meyer - Mar. 27 (Opinion) - Despite its emergence as a concern in the 2012 presidential campaign, the issue of income inequality does not bother most of us. Maybe we haven't thought about it enough. A recent Gallup Poll found that only 46% believe it "extremely important" or "very important" for the federal government to enact policies that would reduce the gap between rich and poor.

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GOP Releases Plan to Save America From the Poor

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Magazine - By Jonathan Chait - Mar. 20 (Opinion) - The House Republicans unveiled their new budget today, complete with a spooky video pressing home the point that only the House Republicans and their leader Paul Ryan stand between us and CIVILIZATIONAL COLLAPSE. Yes, the peril of rising debt is that bad. No, it’s not so bad that it’s worth restoring Clinton-era tax rates to prevent. But so bad that it’s worth throwing tens of millions of people off health insurance? Oh, yeah.

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Economic pie grows, but workers' slice shrinks

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By Robert Reich - Mar. 18 (Opinion) - First, the good news. The economic pie is growing again. Growth in the fourth quarter last year hit 3 percent on an annualized rate. February's 227,000 net new jobs marks the third month in a row of job gains well in excess of 200,000. Here's the bad news. The share of growth going to American workers is at a record low. Although the nation is producing more goods and services than it did before the slump began in 2007, we're doing it with 6 million fewer people.

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Fair Game: W.T.O. and Barriers to Financial Change

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Gretchen Morgenson - Mar. 17 (Opinion) - The battle to remake the financial markets faces new obstacles in — of all places — the World Trade Organization. Even now, after all we’ve been through, something is still wrong with Wall Street. That’s the takeaway from the extraordinary — and extraordinarily public — resignation of Greg Smith from Goldman Sachs last week. His criticism of Goldman, made in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times, suggested that some of the business practices and inherent conflicts in the financial industry are as troubling today as they were before all of those taxpayer bailouts.

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Op-Ed Contributor: Chinese Labor, Cheap No More

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Michelle Loyalka, New York Times - Feb. 18 (Opinion) - The cheap labor that has made China’s factories nearly unbeatable is not so cheap anymore.

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LZ: Michigan to Romney: Go away

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

CNN - By LZ Garnderson - Feb. 14 (Opinion) - That's why the characterization of Rick Santorum polling well in Romney's backyard is a bit misguided. The truth is, many of us disowned that two-faced liar years ago. We remember how, back in 2008, Romney came home promising to do all he could to save the auto industry. And we believed him and voted for him and he won the primary here. Then, after he dropped out of the race, he wrote a New York Times op-ed that carried the headline "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt." The opening sentence: "If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye."

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Op-Ed Columnist: Things Are Not O.K.

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Feb. 05 (Opinion) - The unemployment report was genuinely good, but there’s a downside: the calls to stop focusing on job creation.

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The Austerity Debacle

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Jan. 30 (Opinion) - Britain is doing worse this time than it did during the Great Depression. Four years into the Depression, British G.D.P. had regained its previous peak; four years after the Great Recession began, Britain is nowhere close to regaining its lost ground.

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Op-Ed Columnist: Jobs, Jobs and Cars

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Jan. 26 (Opinion) - Gov. Mitch Daniels got so much wrong in his reply to the president State of the Union address. To really create jobs, it takes a cluster, not just heroes.

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Op-Ed Columnist: Taxes at the Top

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Jan. 19 (Opinion) - As Mitt Romney dances around calls for him to release his tax returns, a question about U.S. tax policy comes up: Why do the rich bear a startlingly light tax burden?

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Editorial: The Republican Contest

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Editorial - Jan. 10 (Opinion) - From Iowa’s social conservative fight to New Hampshire’s economic fantasies, the presidential hopefuls are deluding themselves and trying to delude the voters.

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The economic illiteracy of economists | Mark Weisbrot

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Mark Weisbrot - Jan. 10 - The American Economic Association's annual meeting is red-letter day for 'the dismal science'. And dismal it proved The American Economic Association's annual meetings are a scary sight, with thousands of economists all gathered in the same place – a veritable weapon of mass destruction. Chicago was the lucky city for 2012 this past weekend, and I had just finished participating in an interesting panel on "the economics of regime change" , when I stumbled over to see what the big budget experts had to say about "the political economy of the US debt and deficits". The session was introduced by UC Berkeley economist Alan Auerbach, who put up a graph of the United States' rising debt-to-GDP ratio, and warned of dire consequences if Congress didn't do something about it. Yawn. But the panelists got off to a good start, with Alan Blinder of Princeton, former vice-chairman of the US Federal Reserve, describing the public discussion of the US national debt as generally ranging from "ludicrous to ...

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Op-Ed Columnist: Bain, Barack and Jobs

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Jan. 05 (Opinion) - Mitt Romney says that President Obama has been a job destroyer, while he was a job-creating businessman. But those claims border on dishonesty.

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