Trying to prevent an increase in tax rates on the richest 1% of Americans looks to me like a losing strategy for the Republicans.
“Solving America’s Debt Crisis”
That’s the title of a piece my colleague Andrew Reschovsky has in the Fall La Follette Policy Report. With the admission of failure by the Supercommittee, it’s important to recall the basic choices facing the Nation.
Implications of the recent rise in oil prices
The price of West Texas Intermediate has risen almost $10 a barrel since the start of September, and briefly bumped back above $100 a barrel this week. Here’s why I think that development may not be as worrisome for the U.S. economy as it might sound.
Dispatches (XV): Wisconsin Macroeconomic Indicators
Here are some macro indicators for the Wisconsin macroeconomy. In sum, civilian employment is rising (to essentially 2011M01 levels), but nonfarm payroll employment is declining; private sector employment (ex-farm) is flat, while government employment is declining; and leading indicators are pointing to a downturn.
The Economy Slows Here and Abroad
And what we can do about it
From Macroeconomic Advisers and e-forecasting, some recent reads on the macroeconomy:
Links for 2011-11-15
Quick summaries of a few items of interest.
Exports in the Recovery (II)
Following up on my previous post on the export contribution in the recovery (averaging 2.6 ppts since the trough), here are some additional observations. First, export growth in the current recovery has been substantially greater from the trough than in the last three recoveries.
Greece, Italy, and financial stability
The drama began in Greece. Where is it going to end?
I Killed Some Brain Cells Today
I ran a regression of ΔY on ΔX and ΔZ, over the 1967Q1-2011Q3 period. I found that the coefficient on ΔX was 0.007, and on ΔZ was -0.080. Neither coefficient was statistically significant at conventional levels, so I concluded that neither affected ΔY.
Decisions, decisions
The U.S. State Department received the application from TransCanada for permission to build the Keystone XL Pipeline Extension over 3 years ago. Today, the White House made a firm decision not to decide just yet, with the State Department indicating that an actual decision is at least another year away.
Nice to see the President is focused like a laser on how to get Americans back to work.