We are aware that Donald Trump does not take advice from anyone in his cabinet or inner circle. But when it comes to sanctions, tariffs and red lines, it appears he takes his cues from Russian president Vladimir Putin, Fox & Friends and the voices in his head. When Trump tweeted that he was going …
Tag: tariffs
Nov 24 2008
The U.S. Economy in Decline: What Stagflation Tells Us
(Cross-posted from Daily Kos)
Our economic situation has been all over the news. Banks are failing, credit is contracting, the auto industry is crying for a bailout. Clearly, the U.S. economy has gotten derailed, and we’re now faced with the unenviable task of getting it back on track. The trouble is, we don’t know which track is the right track.
Or do we?
Suppose there exists a valid interpretation of economic forces and outcomes, one that explains our current situation, yet one that no one will acknowledge, even to knock down.
About 12 years ago I picked up Cities and the Wealth of Nations: Principles of Economic Life by Jane Jacobs (better known as the author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities) at a used bookstore in upstate New York. Jacobs wrote this book in 1983, in response the emergence of stagflation. As an informed and educated layperson, she examined economic history with a critical eye and an urbanist’s heart, looking for the laws that explained what was going on — which the economic theories of the time did not.
Jan 09 2008
Responding to Strking Farmers, Mexico’s Calderon Pimps NAFTA
Mexican Farmer Protests Price Of Corn
Another disgrace. On January 2, I wrote that dozens of Mexican farmers had blocked a lane of the border bridge from Ciudad Juarez to El Paso for 36 hours to protest the removal of Mexico’s last tariffs on US and Canadian farm goods. And now Mexico’s President, Felipe Calderon, has responded to the protests by saying that there’s no problem, NAFTA’s good for Mexican workers. He has to be joking, right?
Join me across the Rio Pequeno.