The Washington Post ran a column last week that blamed the baby boom generation for global warming. Even for the Post this was extraordinarily low. This is not an issue of defending my generation; it is a question of how bad policy persists. And the answer puts the...

Some of the folks watching the Republican presidential debates were struck by the fact that Donald Trump was apparently unfamiliar with the concept of the nuclear triad: that the United States maintains a nuclear force composed of land based missiles, submarine based missiles, and strategic bombers that can deliver nuclear...

Jeff Bezos, the CEO and founder of Amazon, is routinely touted in the media as an entrepreneurial genius. That assessment may well be correct. After all, Amazon has made huge breakthroughs not only in Internet marketing, but also in promoting the spread of e-books, and more recently as a new...

The idea that robots are going to take our jobs is all the rage among intellectual types these days. Large numbers of elite thinkers are running around terrified that we will have millions of people who have no work because the robots have eliminated the need for their labor.

In the last couple of weeks the prospect of a 0.2 percentage point increase in the payroll tax has become a major issue separating the two leading contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination. Senator Bernie Sanders has proposed an increase of this size to pay for system of paid family...

Last week United Health Care (UHC), the country's largest health insurance company, announced that it was considering leaving the health care exchanges set up under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). It claimed that it was losing money on the plans it offers in the exchange, so it might decide to...

The Obama administration is sponsoring a forum this week on the problem of high drug prices. The purpose is presumably to express concern about a rapidly growing problem for both people in the United States and around the world. It seems likely that the point is to quite literally express...

The concept of the children's table has moved from Thanksgiving dinner to presidential politics with the networks having a separate debate for the low-polling candidates for the Republican nomination. But the concept of the children's table is also useful for understanding trade policy and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

The...

The federal government has long been a model employer. It often has taken the lead in providing workers with benefits like on-site child care, paid family leave, and flexible work-time options in addition to more standard benefits like health care insurance and pensions. After seeing that these sorts of benefits...

Everyone has seen the news stories about how Representative Paul Ryan, the likely next Speaker of the House, is a budget wonk. That should make us feel good, since we would all like to think a person in this position understands the ins and outs of the federal budget. But...

Last week, the Democrats received an unexpected gift from the Federal Reserve Board. Lael Brainard, a member of the Fed's Board of Governors, gave a speech in which she questioned the need for the Fed to raise interest rates. Brainard pointed out the asymmetric risks in the current...

The Export-Import Bank is one of those issues like the TARP, the 2008 bank bailout. The big money types really want it, and they are going to keep pressing Congress until it gets it right and reauthorizes the bank.

Those of us who don't think it's the best use...

Last week, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump released his plan for changing the tax code. Trump wants big across the board tax cuts, with the largest tax cuts going to the wealthy. He claimed that his tax cut won't lead to a loss of revenue since it would lead to...

In a speech last week, Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen inadvertently told us why Congress should set a 4 percent unemployment target for the Fed in its conduct of monetary policy, as is proposed in a new bill put forward by Michigan Representative John Conyers. The context...

It takes a lot of courage to defy the folks who make tens of billions a year selling drugs. We will find out soon whether President Obama has the backbone to stand up to Merck, Pfizer, and the other major drug companies in order to protect the health and lives...

This week marks the 7th anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the huge investment bank. This collapse set off the worldwide financial panic that brought Wall Street to its knees. The anniversary of this collapse, September 15th, is the day set aside to ridicule the people who warned of...

The celebration of Labor Day is a good time to remember the role that labor unions have played in raising living standards and improving the quality of life for working people in the United States. While most people recognize that unions have been beneficial for their members -- raising pay,...

The financial markets have been through some wild and crazy times over the last two weeks, although it appears that they have finally stabilized. The net effect of all the gyrations is that a serious bubble in China's market seems to have been at least partially deflated. After hugely overreacting...

There has been much talk in recent years about inequality and the poor life chances of children who grow up in poverty. Even many conservative Republicans have been putting forward proposals that are ostensibly designed to give people the opportunity to raise themselves out of poverty and into the middle...

Discussions of economic issues in policy circles often suffer from a "which way is up?" dilemma; it's not clear what the problem is that needs to be solved. The massive fretting over China's devaluation of its currency last week is one such example.

Just to line up the bases, the...