WASHINGTON — For some time, I’ve been collecting news stories about robots and jobs. By robots, I mean almost any automated process that substitutes machines for people. Here are some examples: • The restaurant chain Chili’s installed 45,000 computer tablets in its U.S. locations, says The Washington Post. The tablets enable customers to pay their […]

WASHINGTON — Fed bashing — strident criticism of the Federal Reserve — is back in style, and it’s taken a new turn. Traditionally, it’s been a liberal sport. When the Fed raised interest rates, liberals attacked it for driving up unemployment and oppressing small businesses. Liberal Fed bashing abated in the 1980s and ’90s, as […]

WASHINGTON — As a young reporter in the 1970s, I covered the Interstate Commerce Commission. Created in 1887, the ICC regulated the nation’s railroads and sought to protect the public against abusive freight rates. Congress deregulated the railroads in 1980 and ultimately abolished the ICC. The verdict was that the agency had so weakened the […]

WASHINGTON — The political paralysis in Washington is often ascribed, depending on partisanship, to Republican obstructionism or President Obama’s arrogance. But there are deeper causes to the stalemate. Both parties have had a hard time creating agendas that appeal across ideological, racial and ethnic lines. There’s been a fragmentation of power and purpose that transcends […]

WASHINGTON — If you’re wondering what the 2016 presidential election will be about, here’s one dark-horse possibility: the family-friendly workplace. As millions of Americans struggle to balance family and job demands, proposals requiring paid maternity leave and emergency sick leave have an obvious appeal for Hillary Clinton or any Democratic candidate. The subject is thornier […]

WASHINGTON — Given the obsession with economic inequality, you might think it’s the main force squeezing the middle class. It isn’t. We have this not from some right-wing think tank but from President Obama’s top economists. The bigger culprit, they show, is the slow growth of productivity — that messy process by which the economy […]

WASHINGTON — To the long list of economic mysteries can now be added interest rates. They’ve been at rock bottom, as everyone knows. But now we’ve encountered something novel: negative interest rates. Lenders are actually paying for the privilege of allowing someone to borrow their money. It’s occurring outside the United States, and the Federal […]

WASHINGTON — We are not getting our money’s worth from “creative destruction.” For history buffs, the phrase will be familiar. Coined by Joseph Schumpeter (1883-1950) — one of the 20th century’s towering economists — it defines a central characteristic of capitalism. Capitalism expands material well-being by replacing existing technologies, products and business methods with superior […]

WASHINGTON — One of the legacies of the 2008-09 financial crisis is a world awash in debt — and this explains much of the confusion and acrimony of today’s debates about the global economy. Almost everyone wants faster economic growth and lower unemployment. But there’s deep division over whether less or more debt is the […]