Blog
I believe the most important thing Americans must do is to secure their economic well-being in an increasingly challenging, complex world. What I have written about all these years is the process of creating wealth, not for any one individual, but for the United States as a whole. Ever since I was a young correspondent witnessing the emergence of China after the country opened in 1979, I’ve believed we have to get more serious about creating wealth. I retain faith in the resiliency of the U.S. economy and the enterprise of American people. If Americans have the right strategies, we can once again create widespread wealth. Come with me on this journey.
The New York Times Almost Blows It a Third Time On the Economy
May 11, 2016
There goes the New York Times and Eduardo Porter again–trying to sell us on the notion that there is no future in American manufacturing. This is the paragraph that just downright offends me: “The nation is well on its way through a second transition, this time to a postindustrial economy with little factory work to […]
The New York Times Blows It on The U.S. Economy–Take Two
May 2, 2016
The fair-haired boy of the Times’ financial coverage, Andrew Ross Sorkin, scored a big interview with President Obama that was the cover of the Sunday Magazine yesterday. (Oh boy, he got onto Air Force One. He tells us that a lot.) But more substantively, the piece reviews many of the major decisions Obama made regarding […]
The New York Times Blows It On The Economy–Take One
May 2, 2016
I’ve been doing a slow burn about the New York Times coverage of the issues facing the American economy. They have run two spectacularly stupid pieces, very prominently, in the past week. Here is the first. With a headline, “The Mirage of a Return to Manufacturing Greatness,” reporter Eduardo Porter puts forth the proposition that […]
Wall Street Journal Does An Ideological Hatchet Job
April 15, 2016
Author Antoine van Agtmael and journalist Fred Bakker have a new book out entitled, “The Smartest Places on Earth: Why Rustbelts Are The Emerging Hotspots of Global Innovation.” This is a familiar theme to me because I was the editor of the 1992 Business Week cover story that discovered the phenomenon, entitled simply “Hot Spots.” […]
Our Collective Amnesia on Trade
March 31, 2016
I see that trade has emerged as an issue in the presidential campaign. How droll. It’s an issue I’ve been following ever since the mid-1980s. We Americans seem to have these spasms of consciousness when we arouse ourselves and confront a serious issue. What I don’t see mentioned in any of the current crop of […]
Concrete Economics has a very important message
March 23, 2016
In this crazy political season, which seems increasingly permanent, two narratives are being established on both ends of the political spectrum and both are misguided. This new book, Concrete Economics: The Hamilton Approach To Economic Growth and Policy, has a very important contribution to make. On the right, the narrative that has been established for […]
