Here’s an interesting take on what the government really should do to fix the economy. The writer
suggests a little bit of everything.
Can’t say I agree with all of the writer’s ideas, but some — value added tax, infrastructure investment, new stimulus for housing, controlling entitlement costs — make a lot of sense.
U.S. News & World Report: What Bernanke Wants Congress To Do
Finding a reasonable, spin-free explanation of what the debt-ceiling debate and credit downgrade really mean is next to impossible.
But the Milken Institute has given it a try. The nonpartisan, independent think tank has published a thoughtful commentary from a panel economic experts from the left, right and center.
Here are a couple of comments about S&P’s downgrade of the US credit rating that I found particularly interesting (Phillip Swagel worked in the Treasury Department during the G.W. Bush adminstration. Jared Bernstein was chief economist and economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden from 2009 to 2011.)
Does it really matter that Standard & Poor’s Rating Service has lowered its outlook on U.S. government debt to “negative”?
Here are two interesting and very different answers to the question.
Wall Street Journal MarketWatch blogger Cody Willard doesn’t think too highly of S&P, while Republican economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin says it’s good that S&P cares.
Government number crunchers always provide fascinating reading.
Today, for example, the Commerce Department said the GDP from 1998-2007 was on average actually 2.7 percent, or $301.5 billion, higher that we thought.
Higher, that is, “if research and development (R&D) spending was treated as investment in the U.S. national income and product accounts,” according to the the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
So, does that mean if we count R&D spending the recession really wasn’t all that bad?
A year into the recovery, the U.S. economy is getting stronger and is poised for better-than-expected growth in the next couple of years.
That’s the updated forecast released earlier this week by the National Association for Business Economics.
The forecast is upbeat in its overall tone, although NABE forecasters remain concerned about the federal deficit and economic troubles in other parts of the world.
If you are anti stimulus and determined to be pessimistic, stop reading. If you’re more open minded here are some highlights from the NABE forecast:
The Curious Capitalist asks an interesting question: Is Inflation Coming Back?
Hmmmm….
Pain was widespread during the Great Recession, but the one bright spot experts and pundits always talked about was the absence of runaway inflation.
A few months ago in my News Sentinel column on the up-and-down recovery, University of Tennessee economist William Fox asid that until consumer demand perks up inflation would be minimal.
“(Inflation) might eventually be a problem, but you have to think of it in phases and over the next year or two it’s not going to be a problem,” Fox said.
Let’s hope that’s the still the tiemtable. The economy — and my bank account — could use a little more cushion before inflation becomes an problem. And you know that eventually it will.
CORRECTION. The original post had the incorrect percentage drop in Tennessee personal income. The error has been fixed.
If you found it harder to make ends meet last year, there’s a reason. State personal income in the U.S. fell an average of 1.7 percent in 2009, the Department of Commerce said today.
In Tennessee, the decline was 1.26 percent. In raw dollars, per capita income in Tennessee dropped to $34,089 in 2009 from $34,833 in 2008, according to a press release from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Here’s a chart of the Knoxville MSA stats.
