WASHINGTON — It’s time to take a brief break from Donald Trump. Whatever you think of him, there’s no denying that he dominates the news cycle. We seem to assume that the nation’s future depends on Trump’s fate, for better or worse. The reality is otherwise: The nation’s future also hangs on larger economic and […]
Robert Samuelson
Posted inOp-Eds
Report shows what really happened with coal
WASHINGTON — The coal-mining jobs that President Trump thinks were destroyed by government regulation — adopted to combat air pollution and global warming — were actually lost to old-fashioned competition from other American firms and workers. Eastern coal mines lost market share to Western coal, which was cheaper. And natural gas grew at coal’s expense […]
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Global warming a ‘collective action’ problem
WASHINGTON — There was no need for President Trump to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement to achieve his goal of overturning the Obama administration’s global warming policy. This had already occurred through court rulings and executive orders, which effectively halted higher vehicle fuel economy standards (up to 54.5 miles per gallon) […]
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Preparing for the next panic — or not
WASHINGTON — When the next financial crisis hits — an event that may be years or decades away — we will learn whether this Congress and the president drew the right lessons from the 2008-09 financial crisis. Congress is arguing over whether government can avoid “bailouts” of large financial institutions and still prevent a full-blown […]
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Maintain faith in America’s political system
WASHINGTON — I am not a big or even a little fan of President Donald Trump. Many of his policies strike me as undesirable, some in the extreme. His background and temperament have not prepared him for the presidency. He is largely ignorant of many issues he must face. And yet, for all this, the […]
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We must recognize the dangers of internet reliance
WASHINGTON — The United States seems to have escaped most digital damage from the global “ransomware” virus, though cyber experts fear more attacks. The unmistakable lesson of recent years is that the internet is a double-edged sword. Despite enormous benefits — instant access to huge quantities of information, the proliferation of new forms of businesses, […]
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Economic growth won’t salvage budget
WASHINGTON — Almost everyone has a simple cure for America’s stubborn budget deficits: faster economic growth. The Trump administration is particularly keen on this. It argues that its proposed tax reductions and regulatory cuts will accelerate economic growth and shrink the deficits. No doubt faster growth would help. But a more realistic appraisal is that, […]
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Influential economist’s prediction hasn’t occurred
WASHINGTON — The death on May 8 of Allan Meltzer, 89, deprives the country of one of its most influential economists in the past half-century. A professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh since 1957, Meltzer played a crucial role in convincing much of the economics profession to abandon policies that led to rising inflation […]
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Global trade has provided significant benefits
WASHINGTON — Globalization has gotten a bad rap. The Trump White House associates it with all manner of economic evil, especially job loss. The administration has made undoing the damage a central part of its economic strategy. This will almost certainly fail and disappoint, because globalization’s ill-effects have been wildly exaggerated. A new report shows […]
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Study debunks fears about automation
WASHINGTON — We have yet another study that debunks the widespread notion that robots — and other forms of automation, including “artificial intelligence” — will destroy our jobs and lead to a future of permanently high unemployment. According to the study, that would completely rewrite history, which has shown job creation to be an enduring […]