by jpitney | Sep 6, 2025 | Economic Policy, Trade
Wall Street Journal: Nearly all of the new jobs last month were in social assistance and healthcare (46,800), which rely on government spending. Industries with high tariff exposure shed workers, including manufacturing (-12,000) and wholesale trade (-11,700)....
by jpitney | Sep 5, 2025 | Economic Policy, Reagan, Trade
Forty years ago, President Reagan said: My own feeling is that protectionism just leads to a restraint in trade and a lowering of prosperity for everyone involved. And I know in our own Great Depression back in the early thirties, I believe that depression was...
by jpitney | Sep 2, 2025 | Economic Policy, Trade
Michael Strain at AEI: Protectionists can appeal to intuitive economic logic. Tariffs are a tax on imported goods, but not on domestically produced goods. By increasing the relative price of imported goods, price-sensitive consumers will substitute away from imports....
by jpitney | Aug 30, 2025 | Constitution, Economic Policy, Judiciary, Madison, Taxes, Trade
Tony Romm and Ana Swanson at NYT: A federal appeals court ruled on Friday that many of President Trump’s most punishing tariffs were illegal, delivering a major setback to Mr. Trump’s agenda that may severely undercut his primary source of leverage in an expanding...
by jpitney | Aug 11, 2025 | Business, Economic Policy, Trade
Patricia Cohen at NYT: Smaller firms, for instance, not only have fewer resources to weather unexpected costs, they also lack the bargaining power of megastores like Walmart to pressure suppliers to lower prices. They may also lack access to lines of credit available...
by jpitney | Aug 10, 2025 | Economic Policy, Statistics
At WP, Former CEA chairs N. Gregory Mankiw and Cecilia Rouse explain the need for nonpartisan, trustworthy economic data: The collection and analysis of federal statistics is complex. Often, the first numbers produced are revised as more information is gathered. And...
