Overview for weak-economy

More Jobs, Better Pay: What the GOP Can Do

In my column for CNN, I explain why Rick Perry's record on job is both his greatest strength and weakness: Gov. Rick Perry enters the presidential race with one big advantage and one big impediment. The advantage: his record of job creation in Texas. His impediment? His record of job creation …

Written by David Frum on Monday August 15, 2011

Res Judicata: Legal Immigration is Not the Answer

The bad economic news, especially persistently high unemployment, requires an examination of our immigration policy. The U.S. currently admits about 800,000 legal immigrants per year, all of whom are authorized for employment. This goes on year in and year out, regardless of the level of …

Written by Howard Foster on Monday August 15, 2011

Be Euro-Scared, Very Euro-Scared

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Written by David Frum on Thursday August 11, 2011

Obama's Self-Destructive Optimism

A simple theory of why Obama didn't come out fighting in 2009: he expected an economic turnaround in four years. My co-bloggers John Sides and Josh Tucker responded yesterday to a recent newspaper article in which psychologist Drew Westen argues that Barack Obama made a mistake by making …

Written by Andrew Gelman on Monday August 8, 2011

What the Voters Want

Do Americans want more money from Big Government? Mickey Kaus insists no , citing a column by Michael Barone, who in turn relies on research by Stanley Greenberg . But as the evidence passes from Greenberg to Barone to Kaus, a fascinating game of broken-telephone is played. Greenberg …

Written by David Frum on Monday August 8, 2011

Canada's Uneasy Quiet

My column in today's National Post expresses worry whether Canada's relative prosperity can continue to survive global economic turbulence: Canada increased its exports by $26.7-billion in 2010 over 2009. Almost 80% of that increase was driven by sales of automotive products into the U.S. …

Written by David Frum on Saturday August 6, 2011

My Life at the Bottom of the Food Chain

I have a friend who has recently graduated from the University of Toronto with a B.A. in History. I've been living with him this past summer, and he has been unemployed for most of it. About a month ago, he came home happy. He had found a job at an upscale restaurant in the city. After a bit of …

Written by Daniel Alexandre Portoraro on Saturday August 6, 2011

Dysfunctional Politics Have a Price

S&P has now downgraded the US government from AAA to AA+, a historic downgrade. The effects of this downgrade will no doubt echo throughout the US and global economy. Zero Hedge posts the full text of the S&P statement. Contrary to what you might read in some quarters of the media , …

Written by Fred Bauer on Friday August 5, 2011

Another Conservative Economist Goes Rogue

Carmen Reinhart is the co-author with Kenneth Rogoff of the immensely important history of financial crises, This Time It's Different . (Read it!) She's married to AEI Senior Fellow Vince Reinhart, the former senior Fed official cited in this space yesterday . If the words "free-market …

Written by David Frum on Friday August 5, 2011

Yes, Obama is to Blame

David Frum has challenged conservatives to identify which of President Obama’s policies have prolonged and worsened the recession. David focuses on what has happened, or not happened, without considering that people in the real economy (beyond the federal government and Washington punditry) …

Written by Jeff Burk on Friday August 5, 2011

Less Politics, More Economics

Over the past few days, I've written on this site about the inadequacy of conservative thinking about the economic crisis that has beset the United States and the world. I've argued in particular that conservatives often overstate President Obama's culpability for the severity of the …

Written by David Frum on Friday August 5, 2011

Signs of Progress

Charles Krauthammer endorses abolishing both the healthcare exclusion and mortgage interest deductibility. Add a carbon tax or VAT and you've got a Republican offer enticing enough to gain meaningful Democratic concessions on entitlement spending - while still meeting Republican goals of holding …

Written by David Frum on Friday August 5, 2011

Enough Washington Drama

These certainly are interesting times. The United States is in an increasingly precarious position. Growth at home is anemic. There’s not much in Europe to be up about either. Markets are increasingly skiddish, and yesterday plunged. But America just fought a great battle! The forces of …

Written by Bryce McNitt on Friday August 5, 2011

Economists vs. Economic Commentators

Vince Reinhart is a former director of the monetary division of the Federal Reserve. Now he's a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He explains in this video that the debt problem is long term, not immediate; that tax increases have to be considered part of the policy mix; and …

Written by David Frum on Thursday August 4, 2011

Is it 1937 Again?

Ezra Klein asks a good question : Where will the recovery come from? The problem is that no one has an answer. And as one hopeful hypothesis after another is dashed, the markets are beginning to panic. It won’t come from the United States. Our recovery has slowed, and updates to the …

Written by David Frum on Thursday August 4, 2011

Why 2012 is the Republicans' to Lose

As we get closer to 2012, there is one chart that pundits and columnists need to constantly refer back to in their writing - a scatterplot that shows how changes in real disposable income correlate with the success of the incumbent party in presidential elections: ( Courtesy of Seth …

Written by Noah Kristula-Green on Thursday August 4, 2011

Obama: Already a Lame Duck?

Politico has a piece discussing the "big drags" on the Obama re-elect effort. Nothing too surprising: there is the lack of economic growth and the bad political map. The usual suspects. What caught my eye was this: A top Democratic strategist who is close to the White House said that Obama’s …

Written by Zac Morgan on Thursday August 4, 2011

The Debt Deal's Biggest Losers

In my new column for The Week I discuss who has lost the most in the new debt deal: The first and most obvious loser: National security. The economist Herb Stein used to advocate a simple model of federal budgeting: a) Decide how much it costs to defend the country. b) Pay for it. …

Written by David Frum on Thursday August 4, 2011

Were Our Enemies Right?

In February 1982, Susan Sontag made a fierce challenge to a left-wing audience gathered at New York's Town Hall: Imagine, if you will, someone who read only the Reader’s Digest between 1950 and 1970, and someone in the same period who read only The Nation or The New Statesman . Which …

Written by David Frum on Wednesday August 3, 2011

Government Spending: Better Than No Spending

In my column for The Week , I write about how even wasteful government spending is better then no spending at all: Government spending is often wasteful. But it's still spending. When the Department of Waste, Fraud & Abuse buys toothpicks for the office cafeteria, that money is …

Written by David Frum on Thursday July 21, 2011