AUSTIN, Texas (Project Syndicate)—In his bid to become speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy apparently agreed to a demand, voiced by Republican Congressman Ralph Norman of Sout...
Tag: commentaries
Opinion: Opinion: Trump’s low tax payments are what happens with a too-complex tax code
People tend to have one of two reactions to the revelation that former President Donald Trump paid little to no taxes in recent years: He’s either an amoral tax cheat or he’s smart. To me, it reveals ...
Opinion: Opinion: FTX was a warning. We must plug the other holes in the Swiss cheese.
FTX’s unraveling should not have come as any great surprise. When an unregulated market like crypto is opened to financial novices, mistakes are bound to be made and fraudsters are sure to take advant...
Opinion: Opinion: What Bullard got wrong about a 7% fed funds (and why he said it anyway)
An influential Federal Reserve official briefly spooked the stock SPX, -0.31% and bond TMUBMUSD10Y, 3.769% markets on Thursday by warning that the central bank may have to raise interest rates much fu...
Opinion: Stop misreading the Fed: It’s not getting cold feet about wrestling inflation to the ground
The Federal Reserve isn’t as mysterious as it’s made out to be. It’s not hiding coded messages in its communications. It’s not using obscure metaphors that seem to say one thing but actually mean the ...
China’s Slowdown Could Tamp Down Global Inflation
China’s slowdown may have a silver lining for the rest of the world: weaker inflation. Growth in the world’s second-largest economy has tumbled this year as Covid-19 outbreaks triggered mass lockdowns...
Opinion: Stocks could drop 50%, Nouriel Roubini argues. Things will get much worse before they get better.
NEW YORK (Project Syndicate)—The global financial and economic outlook for the year ahead has soured rapidly in recent months, with policy makers, investors, and households now asking how much they sh...
Not So Easy to Follow the 4% Rule in Retirement
April 26, 2022 12:19 pm ET Photo: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg News “It’s Time to Rethink 4% Retirement Rule” (Personal Journal, April 20) is fascinating, especially the revelation that Bill Bengen, now re...
The Fed Wants to Raise Rates Quickly, but May Not Know Where to Stop
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is shifting monetary tightening into a higher gear. His goal sounds straightforward—lift interest rates to “neutral,” a setting that neither spurs nor slows grow...
When Quitting Normalizes, Benefit to Low-Wage Workers May Subside
Low-wage workers capitalized on the rare opportunity of a tight labor market with a burst of job-switching. That wave shows signs of easing now and economists say that, apart from a one-off rise in wa...
California’s French Four-Day Workweek – WSJ
The popular book “The 4-Hour Workweek” provides tips on how to make more money by working less. Now California Democrats are taking a page from the book by proposing to mandate a four-day week, which ...
Opinion: Why the United States is reluctant to become the Saudi Arabia of natural gas
OXFORD, England (Project Syndicate)—With images of Russian aggression and war crimes in Ukraine continuing to dominate the media in Europe and around the world, Germany has pledged to cut its imports ...
Opinion: Ukraine war is a wake-up call to ditch oil and gas forever
That invasion, and the subsequent U.S. ban on oil imports from Russia, are partly responsible, but they aren’t the only reason. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the impact of t...
Older Americans, Flush With Housing and Stock Portfolio Wealth, Poised to Revive Spending This Year
Covid-19 kept many older Americans on the sidelines of the recovery in consumer spending as they held back from in-person services like dining and travel. But their spending is picking up as the Omicr...
Is the Dollar in Danger?
The U.S. is sitting on top of a horizontal empire, capitalism’s self-organizing, incentive-based structure with its layers of value. It’s not the Marxist mush of “to each according to his needs.” You ...
Opinion: The Fed needs to target a floor for the 10-year Treasury, in addition to radically raising the fed funds rate
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell faces the toughest task since Chairman Paul Volcker tamed the Great Inflation of the 1970s and early 1980s. And a lot of the pressures driving the most virulent ...
Calling Out ‘Emperor’ Larry Fink
When you’re 98 years old you can say things others can’t, so bravo to Charlie Munger for daring to speak an important but too muffled truth about today’s financial markets. “We have a new bunch of emp...
Opinion: Biden borrows too much, while America’s economy hollows out
It’s easy to be distracted by Russia’s provocations in Ukraine and the Federal Reserve’s new war on inflation but as the economy recovers from the delta and omicron variants, difficult post-pandemic c...
Charlie Munger would be more bullish on bitcoin if he had time to study it, Michael Saylor says
“‘Charlie and the other critics, the members of the Western elite … are continually prodded for an opinion on bitcoin, and they haven’t had the time to study it.’” — Michael Saylor, co-founder and CEO...