In 1977, Congress amended the Federal Reserve Act to instruct the Federal Reserve to employ monetary policy to achieve a dual mandate: maximum employment with price stability. This has frequently been interpreted as a directive to keep the unemployment rate (U-3) at roughly 4% and inflation (core CPI) at roughly 2%. This balancing act has … More Monetary Policy and the Dual Mandate
Last week, Tom Content, the executive director of the Citizens Utility Board of Wisconsin, addressed a local Sierra Club group on the subject of how the Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission (PSC) considers requests for data center energy use. He encouraged the audience to submit comments to the PSC by Tuesday, February 17th. Below you will … More The Public Service Commission and Data Warehouses
Some (e.g., Elon Musk and Yuval Harari) have claimed that AI could eliminate the need for humans, at least in terms of the production of goods and services. In “Technology and the Human” MIT labor economist David Autor begs to differ. Autor provides a history of the relationship between technological advances and the role of … More AI and the Changing Role of Labor
Bill McLaughlin, Egide Nimubona, Jason Schulist, and I spent a week in the Netherlands in October 2025 to see how the Dutch handle various contemporary global challenges. We met with numerous people and discussed a variety of topics to gain a sense of how potential change is addressed and implemented. This brief posting will not … More Amsterdam 2025
“Cheap money can’t buy a strong economy” – R. Samuelson This posting argues that the monetary policy implemented by the Federal Reserve has limited influence on the level of employment in the economy. First, here’s some background. A few years ago, Mohammed El-Erian, author of The Only Game in Town, argued that pressure was being … More Is The Federal Reserve The “Only Game In Town”? If So, How Effectively Can It Play Its Limited “Cards”?
In a June 17, 2025 guest essay in the New York Times, economic historian Barry Eichengreen argues that governmental support for stablecoins will undermine rather than underpin economic stability. Here are a few of the major points in his essay. How much Walmartcoin, Amazoncoin, or Trumpcoin would you want to hold? My answer is zero.
Below you will find summaries of six short essays published by Project Syndicate evaluating the potential decline of the U.S. dollar as a global reserve currency and some of the resulting implications. Below each summary, I note (in italics) other important points made in the essay. May 14, 2025 PROJECT SYNDICATE‘S EDITORS“If we lost the … More The U.S. Dollar’s Fall From Grace
Today I signed a letter authored by two economists with opposite political affiliations (Larry Summers and Phil Gramm.) Their letter states the case (to Congress) for opposing the use of tariffs as a general tool for economic policy. Two snippets from their letter close this posting. In my previous posting on the proposed Trump tariffs, … More Tariffs and Capital Flows
On January 14th, I participated in a Lawrence University Povolny Lecture Series Panel on how various aspects of U.S. foreign policy might change under the Trump administration. Panelists were asked to address the first two questions below; I added a third question. My sole focus was on trade policy.1) Which policies will likely stay the … More U.S. Trade Policy: Continuity or Change
In an April 2024 piece published in Project Syndicate, Dani Rodrik addresses this question. My posting, based on Rodrik’s article, adds information to support the following primary claim that Rodrik makes: It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that boosting manufacturing employment is like chasing a fast-receding target. The world has moved on, and the … More Why Are Policy-Makers So Fascinated by Manufacturing?
No Con Economics 