If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Blog
As we sit back and blithely watch Greece's death by debt, it's easy to assume it can never happen here. It can, and it will.
Let's talk about the fiscal cliff -- you know, the one everyone's all wound up about? Well, the Congressional Budget Office just released their analysis of its potential impact on the economy and it ain't pretty. Add up all the stuff that's scheduled to turn into fiscal pumpkins at midnight on December 31, and you could get a serious impact on the economy. Unemployment would reverse course and start rising if that fiscal scenario remained in place -- but that's a big, important "if." All of the estimates assume we go off the cliff and don't climb back. But if, as Gail Collins imagines it, there's a bungee jump instead of a cliff dive, we can avoid the worst of this. One hopes that Congress can hammer the kind of compromise that has eluded them thus far -- the one that adds tax revenues to any agreement -- before the end of the year, or early next.
This meeting will not issue a rallying cry for bold growth policies to put America to work. And we should try to make sure that Democrats do not buy into what the organizers are selling -- because the voters certainly won't.
We continue to believe that investors are underestimating the risks inherent to the bond market at this stage in the game. Bond investors are not being compensated for the risks they are assuming when they are not even able to earn the expected rate of inflation.
If you're 30 or older, stop reading. This isn't for you. This is for America's sacrificial lambs -- our children.
The quest for lasting financial stability is still fraught with risks. The latest Global Financial Stability Report has two key messages: policy actions have brought gains to global financial stability since our September report; but current policy efforts are not enough to achieve lasting stability.
Who'd have thought that voting to add trash cans on the street or renovate public housing could be a democratic milestone?
But why does Mr. Paul -- an iconoclast of the right and a person who sees himself as a "fiscal conservative" -- feels comfortable putting forward proposals that would likely boost our national debt by a significant amount?
The Pentagon's new strategic guidance and the budget projections it informs suggest the United States has reached "an inflection point" along its fiscal/military trajectory -- a time to pare back spending.
The Purple Tax Plan is a simple, transparent, efficient, and progressive tax system. It will help the economy save, grow, produce jobs, and deliver higher wages.
We need fundamental structural reforms of our fiscal and financial institutions to preclude such draconian measures and protect our children from an economic future we would not seek for ourselves.
Advanced countries face difficult choices as they undertake fiscal adjustment. While pension reforms will certainly need to be part of the picture, we must keep in mind the vital role pensions play in reducing old-age poverty.
Nearly all advanced economies plan to reduce their deficits this year. But if growth slows more than expected, some may feel inclined to preserve their short-term plans through additional tightening, even if hurts growth more.
With the right set of measures, the worst can definitely be avoided, and the recovery can be put back on track. These measures can be taken, need to be taken, and need to be taken urgently.
The evidence is as strong as it is puzzling: countries that have a lot of natural resources -- things like oil, gas and minerals -- tend to be poorer than those that don't.
The most important deficiency among Democrats and Republicans alike is the lack of awareness of the "inconvenient economic truth" that the time-honored remedies to our woes -- whether they are tax cuts or government stimulus packages -- are irrelevant in this global economy.
