Governance

The US Supreme Court on January 13 blocked President Joe Biden’s attempt to mandate that businesses must require their employees to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or else wear masks and be tested regularly.  This “emergency standard” was to have been applied by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, carrying out its responsibility under long-standing legislation to protect workers facing serious danger in the workplace.

Are the US and other advanced countries experiencing stagflation?  Stagflation is the unfortunate combination of high inflation with low growth in output and employment that characterized the mid-1970s.  Are we back in that decade?

Recap of James Snyder in Conversation event "Israel and the Middle East through a Literary Lens"

Recap of MEI event "The Future of Palestine - A Conversation with Dr. Hanan Ashrawi"

Recap of MEI event "UNRWA, Its Mandate, Successes, and Challenges"

It has been a year since the US and the world went into recession.  Because of its origins in the sudden pandemic, it was possible to reliably discern the advent of the recession before it was reflected in any of the standard economic statistics, which is rare.  (I hope it shocks no one to learn that economists can’t normally predict recessions.)

By the end of the second quarter of 2020, US GDP had fallen 11 %. This record plunge took the US economy from a level that is estimated to have been 1.0% above potential output at the end of 2019, to a level 10 % below potential in mid-2020.  Potential output is the level of GDP that is produced when unemployment is at its so-called natural rate, the capital stock is operating at the capacity for which it was designed, buildings have their normal occupancy rates, etc.

High among the many priorities of newly-inaugurated US President Joe Biden are the challenges of an economy that appeared to be slowing down as the new year started, with the latest employment numbers looking bleak.  A fourth-quarter slowdown in the US recovery from the horrendous second quarter could be attributed to the expiration of some of the bipartisan stimulus programs that were passed by Congress in March of 2020, or to the third wave of Covid-19, or to both factors.  Even if Covid-19 abates during the course of 2021 and pent-up consumer demand then kicks in, the US faces challenges right now, in such areas as schools, infrastructure investment, state and local finances, and especially the fight against the pandemic itself.

In few elections has one been able to assess such a big difference between the two candidates in the likely quality of their economic policies.  Biden’s are better.

It was quite a surprise, three years ago, when Donald Trump won a majority in the US Electoral College, thus becoming the 45th president.  In the search for explanations, one immediately dominated:  Democrats had not been sufficiently aware of the problem of income inequality or had neglected to propose good solutions to it.

This is presumably the logic behind radical proposals coming from some of the leading contenders for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 presidential election. Senator Elizabeth Warren, for example, has proposed an annual tax on the wealth of the wealthiest Americans (originally to be 2 % per year, but now up to 6 %).

A century ago, the gold standard was considered a guarantor of monetary stability.  That golden era is long-gone.  (If it every really existed at all.  The general price level fell 53% in US and 45% in the UK during 1873-1896 due to a dearth of gold deposit discoveries.)

Continuing my thoughts on the Fed candidacy of Stephen Moore: he has said several times that he favors a return to gold.  In true Trumpian fashion, he recently denied having said it despite the clear video evidence.