In the wake of last week’s job report, there has been a flurry of new debate about what precisely is keeping job creation in the United States so anemic.The pivotal issue is whether the challenges facing the job market are cyclical or structural. The cyclical hypothesis is that we are still suffering an employment hangover from the financial crisis and sharp recession of 2008–09, made worse by limp or insufficient government responses.
Read moreWhy Washington's growing irrelevance is good for the country
After three years of sclerosis, Congress is poised to at last pass an actual budget. We’ve been so consumed with the dysfunction of the parties on Capitol Hill that this feat appears significant. In fact, it should be routine. Yet in the context of the past few years, it is anything but.
Read morePaul Krugman’s Dismissal of Structural Causes for U.S. Employment Problem Is Misguided
The Nobel laureate insists our unemployment problems are part of a chronic cycle and require government action—and says arguing the issue is structural is an excuse for doing nothing. Zachary Karabell on why that stance is misguided.
Read moreKrugman Is Wrong: Why China Won’t Revalue
For years, Americans have been fulminating about China and its policy toward currency. While many of the debates are technical and laden with econo-speak, they boil down to the simple conviction that China is unfairly manipulating its currency to keep it undervalued against the dollar. The result is to give China unfair advantages in trade - flooding the US with cheap goods, hurting labor wages world-wide, and accumulating massive surpluses in the process.
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