I had another dream, I had another life
I’m no political expert, but here is my thinking as to why Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats may have decided not to even try to impeach and remove President Trump (this time): they want him right where he is. Before the mob breached the Capitol yesterday, Trump was powerful enough within the GOP that he … Read more
Over at the Peterson Institute, there is a rundown of Elizabeth Warren’s “A Plan for Economic Patriotism.” You can read the analysis for yourself here, but I wanted to point out three things that jumped out at me: The comparison to Trump (see the photo above). The number of “Good idea, but…” Almost every potentially … Read more
I’ve touched on one of these papers before, but NBER Digest has a nice rundown of recent work on Trump’s trade war. One study finds that the costs of the new tariff structure were largely passed through as increases in U.S. prices, affecting domestic consumers and producers who buy imported goods rather than foreign exporters. … Read more
A new working paper confirms what economists have been saying about tariffs all along: Economists have long argued that there are real income losses from import protection. Using the evidence to date from the 2018 trade war, we find empirical support for these arguments. We estimate the cumulative deadweight welfare cost (reduction in real income) … Read more
Nathaniel reviews Woodward’s inside look at the Trump administration.
Well, this is disappointing: President Donald Trump received well-above-average job approval ratings in 2017 from Mormons and Protestants, and well-below-average ratings from those who identify with a non-Christian faith, including Muslims and Jews, and from those who have no formal religious identity. Catholics’ approval of Trump roughly matched the national average. Mormon: 61% Protestant/Other Christian: … Read more
So we’ve got a lot of people acting as though the election of Donald J. Trump represents a seismic shift in the American electorate and–just maybe!–a prelude to the Fourth Reich. This is just a reminder that the data don’t bear that out. It’s not exactly news–Slate Star Codex carried it right after the election–but … Read more
It’s no secret that I was, am, and will remain #NeverTrump. But two stories I saw today made me think of a possible upside to the Trump presidency. Trump Revealed Highly Classified Intelligence to Russia, in Break With Ally, Officials Say Ann Coulter trashes Trump: ‘This is the great negotiator?’ Now, I’m not saying Coulter … Read more
[Trump’s] nationalistic view reminds me, of course, of [Juan] Peron, in some regards. – Sebastion Edwards Financial Times‘s Cardiff Garcia has an incredibly enlightening interview with UCLA economist Sebastian Edwards on the economics of populism. Garcia: …Americans have been taken off-guard by some of the phrasings of Donald Trump and what he says is part of … Read more
I’ve been feeling Trumped-out since before the election, and I had hoped post election (perhaps naively even after he won) that the Trump obsession would dwindle to a hum. I’ve been dissapointed to say the least (please, Facebook, bring back memes about cats and tacos, I’ve had enough Trump.) I have, however, managed to come … Read more