Christmas in July. Share prices, measured by the S&P 500 index, collapsed by 34% between a mid-February peak and late March. The gift for investors: they have roared back to within 7% of the peak, and within 4% of where they were when investors were recovering from the New Year’s libations, and before China had […]
No need to wrestle with statistics on new cases of COVID-19. Or the results of testing. Or hospitalizations. Just look up Apple. No, not the share price, which is up 58% from its March low. Instead, for a sense of where the virus is re-emerging in force since many states began reopening their economies. Two […]
The initial euphoria over last week’s announcement that retail sales in May jumped a record 17.7%, and enthusiasm for the re-opening of the economies of several states are ebbing. The jump in sales concealed continuing weaknesses, and the re-openings are producing anticipated but nevertheless anxiety-producing increases in the incidence of COVID-19. First, the May sales. […]
As the glee over adding a few million jobs in May gives way to a more measured reaction, the question for a still hard-hit economy becomes whether the green shoots of May will become sturdy plants during the halcyon days of summer. And, as lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman would put it, survive summer’s “last […]
Irwin Stelzer discusses the U.S. Economy, Election 2020 and the Civil Unrest.
It’s the economy, stupid. And the coronavirus. And the riots. And, above all, it’s about Trump. Know that, and you will know a great deal about the state of political play in America, and about the coming presidential election. Presidents generally get the credit for a strong economy. Trump planned a campaign based on an […]
ANNE CASE & ANGUS DEATON The Princeton economists behind the “deaths of despair” thesis-Anne Case and Nobel Prize winner Angus Deaton-talk with Irwin Stelzer and Jeffrey Gedmin about their new book, the flaws of our economic and health care systems, and whether our national crisis could spur needed reforms. Irwin Stelzer and TAI Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey […]
A new battle for the direction of the economy is underway. The desire for freedom from doctor- prescribed sheltering at home is wrestling with fear of contracting the COVID-19. Pity the poor economist peering through the fog of that battle to determine which will prevail, whether the economy will resume its healthy upward trajectory as […]
LAWRENCE H. SUMMERS The former Treasury Secretary speaks with Irwin Stelzer and Jeffrey Gedmin on China, “decoupling,” reforming capitalism, and the shape of a post-pandemic fiscal policy. Published on: May 22, 2020 Irwin Stelzer and TAI Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Gedmin recently spoke with former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers in a wide-ranging conversation. They discussed […]
Certain: “settled, to be depended on” according to my OED. Certainty is a blessing reserved for the doctors predicting that doom awaits if several governors go through with plans to re-open their states’ economies. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government immunologist and telegenic spokesman for his colleagues, was so certain of their dire prediction that their […]