Nov. 24, 2024 –When the US election was called for Donald Trump the night of November 5, the stock market rose but the bond market fell. The yield on 10-year US government bonds increased from 4.3 % to 4.4%, where it remained 10 days later. The long-term rate had been below 4.0 % in September. The combination – stock market up but bond market down – strongly suggests that the news of Trump’s victory was seen as implying higher government budget deficit and debt numbers in the future.
December 13, 2017 — Evidently House and Senate Republicans today agreed on a tax bill. It is really awful. If you want to understand why economists are confident that the tax cuts will not pay for themselves and why Republicans are disingenuous to claim otherwise, I recommend what Jason Furman and Larry Summers have been writing, e.g., in this column in the Washington Post.
The angle I have focused on over the last two weeks is the light shed on the tax plan by the historical precedents of several decades. Here is a Table of Contents, with links for potential watching, listening or reading.