Marshall Auerback
Verified
As seen in:
Independent Media Institute,
HuffPost,
The Toronto Star,
New Straits Times,
The Daily Caller,
RawStory,
The Nation,
RealClear Politics,
Zero Hedge,
Common Dreams,
AlterNet
and
Covers:
Finance, economics, trade, health care policy, immigration
Market analyst, Levy Institute researcher, Blue Jays fanatic: muckrack.com/marshall-auerb…
Articles by Marshall Auerback
“Tariffs Create Scarcity and Higher Prices.”
A leading scholar on trade history and former president of the Economic History Association, Irwin is the author of seven books, including Clashing over Commerce: A History of U.S. Trade Policy, which The Economist and Foreign Affairs selected as one of their best books of the year, and Free Trade under Fire. Given the renewed outbreak of U.S. protectionism, let’s start with a brief historical overview on tariffs.
New Hampshire revealed America's true divide
New Hampshire, then, was far from Donald Trump’s difficult second album. If anything, it was another performance of his Greatest Hits. His path to the White House is firmly in sight; Nikki Haley’s primary challenge, by contrast, has been rendered all but nominal. After Trump scored his first thumping victory in the Iowa caucuses, widespread concern about his looming presidency resurrected the idea of a “national divorce”, if not full-on civil war.
New Hampshire revealed America's true divide
AmericaDonald TrumpNew HampshireNikki HaleyRepublican Party New Hampshire, then, was far from Donald Trump’s difficult second album. If anything, it was another performance of his Greatest Hits. His path to the White House is firmly in sight; Nikki Haley’s primary challenge, by contrast, has been rendered all but nominal.
This time, the EU could collapse
EUEuropeEuropean UnionGeert WildersPopulism Over the last decade it has become an inevitable cycle: every election that shocks the interests and expectations of the EU’s technocrats is met with predictions of the bloc’s inevitable break-up. I’ve been guilty of this myself — even though, in every case, the EU has survived or at least lingered. Despite this trend, the shock victory of Geert Wilders’s Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Dutch general election last month feels different.
This time, the EU could collapse
EUEuropeEuropean UnionGeert WildersPopulism Over the last decade it has become an inevitable cycle: every election that shocks the interests and expectations of the EU’s technocrats is met with predictions of the bloc’s inevitable break-up. I’ve been guilty of this myself — even though, in every case, the EU has survived or at least lingered. Despite this trend, the shock victory of Geert Wilders’s Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Dutch general election last month feels different.
Inflation Is Falling. So Why Are the Fiscal Austerians Back in the Headlines?
|
Like the aftertaste of a bad meal belched up the following morning, calls for fiscal austerity are moving back up the economic agenda, even as inflation continues to decelerate from last year’s levels.
By Marshall Auerback Verified, Steve Phillips Verified, Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, Chris Lehmann Verified
|
The Nation
Verified
Stop panicking about the pound
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. It was meant to be the announcement that trumpeted Liz Truss’s vision for Britain, cemented her position in Downing Street, and heralded a new era of boom-time growth.
Stop panicking about the pound
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. It was meant to be the announcement that trumpeted Liz Truss’s vision for Britain, cemented her position in Downing Street, and heralded a new era of boom-time growth.
What does Liz Truss see in Canada?
Faced with soaring costs of living, increased collateral damage from the war in Ukraine, and widening national inequality, Liz Truss seemed curiously optimistic in her first speech as Prime Minister. What could possibly be driving such bullishness?
What does Liz Truss see in Canada?
CanadaConservative partyEconomyEnergyGermanyLiz Truss Faced with soaring costs of living, increased collateral damage from the war in Ukraine, and widening national inequality, Liz Truss seemed curiously optimistic in her first speech as Prime Minister. What could possibly be driving such bullishness?
It’s Time to Protect Children from Big Tech
Social media’s unseemly interest in children, and legislators’ hesitance to confront it, resembles nothing quite so much as the dynamic surrounding the child labor practices of the 19th century. In the late 1800s, new technology emerging from the Industrial Revolution offered commercial interests a new opportunity to monetize childhood—and those commercial interests took it. At the time, there were about 765,000 American child laborers, many working in extremely unsafe industrial conditions.
Pass the CHIPS, Please
Sign up to receive The Commons posts in your inbox. Congress finally appears poised to make progress on a competitiveness bill that focuses squarely on an especially pressing need: support for the domestic semiconductor industry.
“Recession and receding hopes.”
13 JUNE—Over the long Memorial Day weekend, President Biden described inflation as his “top economic priority” and outlined a three-part plan to lower costs for Americans.
"Inflation isn’t a ‘Putin Problem.’”
4 MAY—Inflation is soaring again, dominating the economic headlines in a manner that evokes the aftermath of the OPEC oil shocks of the 1970s. Ever eager to invoke the Russian bogeyman—which Democrats have been reflexively doing since the days of Russiagate—President Biden has sought to characterize this phenomenon as “Putin’s price hikes,” even though the cost-of-living increases now besetting Americans were in evidence well before Russia’s intervention in Ukraine on 24 February.
No Joe, the looming economic crisis is not all 'Putin's problem'
The economic news of late has largely focused on the impact on Americans at the gas pump and grocery store in the context of ever rising inflation. Less discussed is how the Biden Administration’s geopolitical goals and positioning (sanctions, fueling resistance in Ukraine, pressuring countries to join the coalition sanctioning Russia) are colliding with and causing more economic volatility, as well as undermining other goals, such as the efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change.
"Another leap forward."
Give me your wheat, your oil, your gas, your strategic metals. Shanghai. (Tibor Végh, cc by 3.0/ Wikimedia Commons.) 18 MARCH—The intensifying Russo–Ukrainian war will almost certainly end poorly for Ukraine. There has been a huge exodus of Ukrainians into neighboring countries fleeing the war (3 million and counting), and what’s left of the country is likely to be dismembered.
“The world just turned.”
Thinking with history. Xi and Putin, 2017. (The Kremlin/ Wikimedia Commons.) 9 FEBRUARY— It is always difficult to understand the present as history for the simple reason we are living it and cannot see it historically without a great effort. But we are living through a passage of the 21st century whose long-term significance is hard to overstate. The future is arriving, to put the point another way. Who would have guessed it would come to us by way of the ongoing morass in Ukraine.
“Back to the future.”
Just the point. "People's Unemployment Line,” Philadelphia, 2020. (Joe Piette, Flickr/ cc by NC-SA 2.0.) 26 JANUARY—The current turbulence in the financial markets, combined with ongoing inflationary pressures, suggests we’ve reached a dangerous economic inflexion point—and not for the first time.
Black Agenda Report
The crisis of legitimacy is becoming more and more obvious. Joe Biden exemplifies oligarchic rule and a system in decline. COVID-19 continues to spread with rapid ferocity across the United States. On January 14th, the U.S. surpassed 850,000 COVID-19 deaths. More deaths from the pandemic have accumulated under President Joe Biden than his predecessor, Donald Trump.
“For a national development plan.”
Then… Bethlehem Steel Works, n.d.(Library of Congress/ Wikimedia Commons.) 10 JANUARY—President Joe Biden’s popularity has fallen despite the best jobs market in recent history and an increase in household wealth with no precedent.The usual determinants of consumer sentiment are super positive. At 3.9 percent, the official unemployment rate is close to postwar lows.
"NATO's Waterloo."
Neo-Nazis in command. The Azov Battalion at the Ukraine front. (Carl Ridderstråle, cc by SA 4.0/ Wikimedia Commons.) 15 DECEMBER—Lord Hastings Lionel Ismay famously said that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created to “keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” Ismay made this remark in 1949, prior to becoming the organization’s first secretary-general in 1952.
The West must stay out of Ukraine
Lord Hastings Lionel Ismay, Nato’s first Secretary General, famously said that the organisation was created to “keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down”. Given the demise of the Soviet Union, and the reunification of Germany, Nato has long outlived this raison d’etre. Even committed Atlanticists, such as Senator Richard Lugar, concluded as early as 1993 that Nato must go “out of area or out of business”.
"Where have all the workers gone?"
Guess the hourly wage. (unk's dump truck, cc by SA 2.0/ Creative Commons. 12 NOVEMBER—An abiding conundrum for policy makers as we emerge from the Covid–19 pandemic is the ongoing shortage of workers and the corresponding fear that today’s inflationary problems are less than transitory—and that they are more a product of decades of degraded social capital.
"Where have all the workers gone?"
Guess the hourly wage. (unk's dump truck, cc by SA 2.0/ Creative Commons. 12 NOVEMBER—An abiding conundrum for policy makers as we emerge from the Covid–19 pandemic is the ongoing shortage of workers and the corresponding fear that today’s inflationary problems are less than transitory—and that they are more a product of decades of degraded social capita…
Gimme Shelter - American Compass
Photo by stevepb on Pixabay Only the Rich Can Play: How Washington Works in the New Gilded Age, by David Wessel (PublicAffairs, 352 pp., $14.99) The rapper T.I. may never have read Kevin Williamson’s infamous suggestion that struggling communities need “real opportunity, which means that they need real change, which means that they need U-Haul,” but he is clearly familiar with the mindset.
How Biden Can Save America
By: Marshall Auerback Joe Biden is starting to panic — and not just because of his dwindling approval ratings. More than 18 months since Covid struck, the shocking dependence of the United States on fragile global supply chains — and the corresponding absence of a functional manufacturing system — has been exposed. The White House has responded with talk of creating more “robust” supply chains and reviving American manufacturing with its “Build Back Better” agenda.
How Biden can save America
Joe Biden is starting to panic — and not just because of his dwindling approval ratings. More than 18 months since Covid struck, the shocking dependence of the United States on fragile global supply chains — and the corresponding absence of a functional manufacturing system — has been exposed. The White House has responded with talk of creating more “robust” supply chains and reviving American manufacturing with its “Build Back Better” agenda.
"Economic war crimes."
Where China gets it done. Ningbo Institute of Technology. (Nbfreeh, cc SA 4.0/ Wikimedia Commons.) This is the third of a three-part series on China and the West’s obsession with its emergence as a regional and global power. Part 1 can be read here and Part 2 here.
Gavin Newsom's Hollow Victory
(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) California's governor has survived — but voters are fed up with progressive politics Read Full Article » Show comments Hide Comments
Gavin Newsom's hollow victory
Canada and California might be more than 4,000km apart — but their respective electorates have been forced to endure strikingly similar political torments. In both cases, seemingly glamorous, progressive leaders now find themselves under assault from electorates who remain in a highly surly and volatile mood.
How to Put Woke Capital Out of Business
Photo by Sebastiano Piazzi on Unsplash Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam, by Vivek Ramaswamy (Center Street, 320 pp., $15.99) Vivek Ramaswamy opens his book on the perils of woke capitalism by declaring himself a traitor to his class. He’s got the perfect elite resume: Harvard undergrad, partner at a hedge fund, Yale Law School, and founder of a biotech company today valued at $7 billion.
"Inflation and its perils."
Thar’s trouble in them hills. Ansel Adams’s Tetons. (Wikimedia Commons.) 31 AUGUST—Even though this year’s annual gathering of central bankers and scholars didn’t take place near the dramatic backdrop of the Tetons, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s virtually delivered speech points to a mountain of trouble ahead for the U.S. economy. And the chairman himself is part of the problem, which makes a cure even more problematic. Diagnosing a sickness is a prerequisite for recovery.
“And now?” - by Marshall Auerback and Patrick Lawrence - The Scrum
Organizing principle. Haji Abdul Rahman Mosque, Kabul. (Daniel Wilkinson, State Department/ Wikimedia Commons.) 17 AUGUST—Americans are alive with questions now that Kabul has fallen, though “fallen” does not seem quite our word any more than it was in late April 46 years ago: Saigon did not fall; it rose. Vietnam became Vietnamese. Now Afghanistan will become Afghan.
What the West must learn from China
The Chinese government has made an existential choice: rather than surviving by betting on the markets, it is going to produce stuff instead. It wants a nation full of engineers, not financial engineers; computer chips, rather than chocolate chips; innovation over financial experimentation.
“China manufactures things and social cohesion."
It would rather be a bank. Jack Ma’s Alibaba. (CC BY-SA 3.0/ Wikimedia Commons.) 8 AUGUST—What has been described in the American press as a Chinese crackdown on private enterprise is more in the nature of an existential choice for Beijing. The government has decided to live by producing stuff instead of by betting on financial speculation.
Don’t Leave Social Media Regulation to the Platforms—Bring in the FCC - American Compass
Sign up to receive The Commons posts in your inbox. Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash Coming to terms with the importance of free speech means coming to terms with the reality that free speech will sometimes be used for abhorrent purposes. We protect bad speech on the grounds that the alternative—censorship—is even worse.
Harnessing the Private Sector for the Public Good
Sign up to receive The Commons posts in your inbox. Photo by Science in HD on Unsplash Markets do not naturally tend toward “equilibrium.” They are wrecking balls if not properly harnessed.
Reflections on the Digital Revolution
Sign up to receive The Commons posts in your inbox. 123levit - stock.adobe.com “In the real world outside economic theory, every business is successful exactly to the extent that it does something others cannot. Monopoly is therefore not a pathology or an exception.
“Jobs and prices.”
When the Deal was New. (Dsdugan, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.) 12 JUNE—In 1964, Potter Stewart, then mid-career as a Supreme Court Justice, famously described how he recognized obscenity. “I know it when I see it,” he said. This somewhat vague, subjective, reply hits at the heart of the current economic debate in the U.S. and beyond—the inflation debate, this is to say.
“‘The Blob,’ anatomized.”
28 MAY—We were delighted to be joined last week by the editor and journalist Kelley Vlahos for a Scrum webcast. Vlahos, editorial director of the online magazine Responsible Statecraft and senior advisor at the Quincy Institute, is one the most astute diagnosticians we have of how “the swamp” we know as Washington actually operates. Her close-to-the-ground insights take us several layers down from what is ordinarily visible to those outside the Beltway—and to many within it, indeed.
Does Bitcoin’s Recent Crash Spell the Beginning of the End for Cryptocurrencies?
Are cryptocurrencies on their last legs? The leader of the pack, Bitcoin, has lost almost half its value since reaching an all-time high in mid-April, and others have also collapsed in the wake of the Chinese government’s decision to crack down on all cryptocurrency-related transactions. The Securities and Exchange Commission has also signaled tougher oversight.
What Republicans Can Learn from the UK’s Conservative Party
Photo by Eva Dang on Unsplash Political trends in the U.S. and United Kingdom have mirrored each other for decades—and Britain’s recent local elections (and the Hartlepool by-election) are no exception. Predictably, there has been much discussion of the stunning collapse of working-class support in areas that have long been staunchly pro-Labour and the implications for the Democratic Party across the pond.
Is Sweden a Free-Market Welfare State?
Forget American exceptionalism. Tiny social democratic Sweden is the country that embodies humanity’s future in the eyes of much of the global liberal left. A generation ago, the liberal economist Robert Heilbroner famously described his utopia as “a slightly idealized Sweden.” Now, the Niskanen Center’s Samuel Hammond has tried to draft Sweden for the libertarian team.
The Bully Platform
natanaelginting - stock.adobe.com The Tyranny of Big Tech, by Josh Hawley (Regnery, 200 pp. $30) Since his election in 2018, Senator Josh Hawley has distinguished himself by his broad-ranging criticism of Big Tech. In his new book, The Tyranny of Big Tech, he attempts to revive the spirit of trust-busting exemplified by Teddy Roosevelt against the companies he identifies as modern-day robber barons.
If We Can’t Agree on a Global Minimum, Abolish the Corporate Tax
Along with his proposals to raise the U.S. corporate tax rate to 28% (President Trump cut it to 21% from 35%), President Biden has offered something up to his global counterparts that has been around for a while, but which no U.S. president had heretofore seriously contemplated: a global minimum corporate tax rate of 21%, which would be paid by large businesses wherever they operate.
If We Can’t Agree on a Global Minimum, Abolish the Corporate Tax
Photo by Floriane Vita on Unsplash Along with his proposals to raise the U.S. corporate tax rate to 28% (President Trump cut it to 21% from 35%), President Biden has offered something up to his global counterparts that has been around for a while, but which no U.S. president had heretofore seriously contemplated: a global minimum corporate tax rate of 21%, which would be paid by large businesses wherever they operate.
Justice Thomas, Countervailing Power, and Big Tech
Sign up to receive The Commons posts in your inbox. In a non-binding concurrence, Justice Clarence Thomas (joined by no other justices), argued that social media platforms could be labeled “common carriers,” and should therefore be treated like phone companies or similar utilities. Thomas’ commentary accompanied a Monday Supreme Court order instructing a New York district court to dismiss as moot a lawsuit against former president Donald Trump over his blocking of some Twitter followers.
The Fed’s Most Harmful Statistics Error
Sign up to receive The Commons posts in your inbox. Government economic statistics are critical to understanding the economy and making policy. For example, the Federal Reserve relies on accurate information about inflation to make monetary policy. Accurate statistics are also important for understanding structural economic changes and economic performance. Nowhere is this more important than in understanding what has happened to manufacturing output and business investment.
“Did somebody say ‘jobs plan?’”
From My Studio Window. John Kane, 1932. (CC0/ Wikimedia Commons.) 4 APRIL—The boldness with which the Biden administration acted on its $1.9 trillion Covid–19 relief package gave many progressives hope that the Democrats’ break with the old Clinton/Obama governing paradigms had been decisively consolidated.
Bad Stimulus - LA Progressive
Government Payments to Individuals Are a Terrible Way to Solve America’s Structural Economic Problems The new Democratic administration is poised to make its first proud step in delivering on its electoral promise to build back (America) better: the successful adoption of a $1.9 trillion stimulus package, the main components of which are a third round of stimulus checks, a renewal of federal unemployment benefits, and a boost to the child tax credit, as well as funding for school reopenings...
Show More
loading
Actions
Get in touch with Marshall
Contact Marshall, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack