The housing sector has triggered this question ever since housing bubbles popped across the country in 2007 to launch the Great Recession. The question remains as the housing sector is showing distinct signs of slowing. Traditional, convenient explanations, like rising mortgage rates, don’t wash as the current rate on the 30-year fixed rate mortgage is…

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Overall trade deficits may pose a danger; bilateral trade deficits don’t. One can easily see how this can be confusing.  As Maurice Obstfeld of the IMF wrote recently, A country’s overall trade balance is a macroeconomic phenomenon that mirrors whether it spends less than its income or more. A person who spends more than he or…

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For many, many years, Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) insisted it could not produce credible analysis showing how the economy’s trajectory would alter under a material change in tax policy such as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act now working its way through Congress. With the recent release of its dynamic analysis of the…

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The Commerce Department reported Thursday the economy grew a puny 0.5 percent in the first quarter of 2016, following the nearly as bad 1.4 percent of 2015’s fourth quarter. The cover of this week’s Economist magazine reads, “Could She Fix It?” – the “she” being Hillary Clinton and the “it” being the economy. It’s an…

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