Author: DailyWestern
Fittingly enough after writing an extended review about a book about the pitfalls of rules that don’t allow for exceptions, I came across a recent news story about a recall issued for the recent ID.Buzz electric van from Volkswagen. Vehicles can be recalled for all kinds of reasons, of course. A vehicle I bought a couple of years ago recently had a recall issued to address a software bug that could make cruise control unexpectedly accelerate to dangerous levels in rare cases. This was clearly a good basis for a recall and for a fix to be issued. So, what…
WEI continues to decline. Figure 1: Weekly Economic Index (blue), and Baumeister, Leiva-Leon, Sims Weekly Economic Conditions Index plus 2% (tan), both annualized %. Source: NY Fed via FRED, Baumeyster et al. I think that the tumult due to the on-off-on again tariffs provides a cautionary note about using past correlations to infer current conditions. Note that the Weekly Economic Index (Lewis-Mertens-Stock) jumps around “Liberation Day”; did this represent actual higher production sales? I think partly no, insofar as the weight on railroad freight is 0.3, and so part of the movement in WEI is due to front-loading imports and…
About Me Name: Greg Mankiw Location: United States I am the Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics at Harvard University. I use this blog to keep in touch with my current and former students. Teachers and students at other schools, as well as others interested in economic issues, are welcome to use this resource. View my complete profile
Millions would lose Medicaid coverage. Millions would be left without health insurance. Signing up for health plans on the Affordable Care Act marketplaces would be harder and more expensive. President Donald Trump’s domestic policy legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that cleared the House in May and now moves to the Senate, could also be called Obamacare Repeal Lite, its critics say. In addition to causing millions of Americans to lose their coverage under Medicaid, the health program for low-income and disabled people, the measure includes the most substantial rollback of the ACA since Trump’s Republican allies tried to…
Few Democratic lawmakers have been as publicly vocal in their criticism of the Trump administration’s first six months as Ro Khanna. The congressman representing California’s 17th District—which includes much of Silicon Valley, including tech giants Apple and Nvidia—has been hosting town halls with voters in Republican districts and rallies around the country at a cadence that has already started fueling speculation of a 2028 presidential run. He’s also publicly feuded with former Silicon Valley darling and his onetime friend Elon Musk, who aligned himself closely with U.S. President Donald Trump for much of the last two years and recently left…