As President Donald Trump's trade war continues to escalate, it's perhaps worth remembering his tweet from back in March:
It was 10 years ago in September 2008 that the worst of the financial panic crashed through the US economy. Where might the next financial crash be lurking? In a speech last week, Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard pointed to some possible candidates. She said:
Motor vehicle production and ownership is one window for looking at differences and changes in the world economy. Here are some snapshots from the Transportation Energy Data Book, produced by Oak Ridge National Laboratory for the US Department of Energy, updated August 2018. (For the record, the book includes many more figures about energy, motor vehicles, and other types of transportation, with a primarily US focus.)
As the US continues to wrestle with the aftermath of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 and to contemplate future changes in its health insurance programs, one useful starting point is the facts about health insurance coverage presented by Edward R. Berchick, Emily Hood, and Jessica C. Barnett of the US Census Bureau in the annual report, Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2017 (Current Population Reports, September 2018, P60-264).
Trivia question for today: What denomination of US currency has the largest number of bills in circulation? Up until 2016, the correct answer was the $1 bill. Now, it's the $100 bill.
One of the ongoing puzzles of the US economy in recent decades is why inflation has stayed so low. Even former Fed Chair Janet Yellen has highlighted this puzzle.
Is the rise in economic inequality around the world during the last few decades mainly a matter of economic forces that have affected wages, or a matter of political forces that reduced the extent of redistribution? What are the long-term patterns across the world in income redistribution? Does more redistribution happen in the more unequal countries?