June 30, 2021 — One obstacle to productive public discourse and deliberation is a syndrome whereby the media, whether mainstream or otherwise, present policies in a manner that could be called “false imbalance.” No, I don’t mean “false balance.” False imbalance is quite different. It refers to the temptation to cast in a negative light, policies that in fact are reasonable attempts to balance competing objectives. Examples can be drawn from health care, fiscal policy, and monetary policy.
August 24, 2020 — The price of gold reached an all-time record high of $2,000 per ounce this month. Mainstream economic thinking has treated gold as a side-show since the world went off the gold standard. Nevertheless, the recent spiking in the price signals some important trends. It is not merely “sound and fury signifying nothing,” as sometimes seems true of financial markets.
There are three ready explanations for the historic increase in the price of gold: (i) monetary policy, (ii) risk, and (iii) a spreading desire for an alternative to the dollar as a safe haven. Each of these explanations contains some truth.
August 12, 2019 –The US-China trade war heated up in the first week of August. On August 1, Donald Trump abruptly announced plans to impose a 10 % tariff on the remaining $300 billion of imports from China that he had not already hit with earlier tariffs. The Chinese authorities then allowed their currency, the renminbi (RMB), to fall in value below the highly visible line of 7.0 RMB/$. The US Administration promptly reacted on August 5 by naming China a “currency manipulator” — the first time any country had been given that designation in 25 years. Pundits declared a currency war, while investors responded by immediately sending stock markets down.