Recently in Economics Category

Against all odds, President Obama was elected president of the United States in large part due to his unflagging ability to stay on message. So why is he having so much trouble staying on message now? Enough of this overstated talk of a catastrophic economy and dire predictions of long, hard times. Americans need straight talk, true enough. But there's a difference between being honest and being such a naysayer that you end up discouraging the economic activity we so desperately need.

President-elect Barack Obama needs to pull off a very difficult trick -- act aggressively and bring about change, especially on economic issues, while governing from the middle. He has pledged to do that by seeking out creative, pragmatic solutions to problems regardless of their ideological roots. He's in luck -- some of the most interesting ideas for rejuvenating struggling economic areas and spurring entrepreneurship come from conservative and mainstream Republicans. And some of those folks are looking for work.

Washington is a different kind of place in an election year, as politics begins to color every event and activity. That's certainly true of government economic reports. Jobs and prices capture heightened attention. And then there's GDP, the overall measure of how things are going.

 

The collapse of global trade talks could have the odd effect of helping both Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama. If an agreement had been reached in the Doha Round of talks, each presidential candidate would have had to take a detailed position for or against it and the debate could have inflamed pro- and anti-trade forces nationwide. But this way they can both claim a victory for their view of how trade should work.

Barack Obama spends a lot of energy making sure voters know he's all about change and that he isn't just a black male version of Clinton. He even picked Elizabeth Edwards, not Hillary, to be his key adviser on health care. But his choice for chief economics adviser is a protege of the chief architect of Clinton administration economic policy. What kind of change does that represent?