Inflation Is Not a Simple Story About Greedy Corporations

The word “Bidenflation” appeared in the news last summer, politicizing inflation and assigning blame for it. By December, the Consumer Price Index had risen 7 percent from a year earlier, the largest annual increase since the end of the Great Inflation, the period of entrenched inflation from 1965 to 1982.

Read more

Stock, Bond and Real Estate Prices Are All Uncomfortably High

The prices of stocks, bonds and real estate, the three major asset classes in the United States, are all extremely high. In fact, the three have never been this overpriced simultaneously in modern history.

Read more 

Looking Back at the First Roaring Twenties

We are in a second Roaring Twenties, or so you might think, from the countless comments suggesting that we are entering an exuberant decade that echoes the one of a century ago.

Read more

How to Navigate the Coronavirus Real Estate Market

There are signs that pockets of the U.S. housing market are heating up, particularly in the suburbs and fashionable exurbs, to which people have been fleeing to escape the coronavirus.

Some first-time buyers are feeling a sudden hurry to buy, fearing higher prices if they wait. But they are also worried about the long-run outlook for home prices.

Read more

Why We Can’t Foresee the Pandemic’s Long-Term Effects

Longer-term analyses of the coronavirus pandemic emphasize that there is a good chance that it will fade within a year or two, especially if a vaccine or effective treatment appears.

I hope that’s true. But even if it is, I’m worried that the economy may not return to normal within that time frame.

Big events like a pandemic have the potential to leave behind a trail of disruption. They can create social discord, reduce people’s willingness to spend and take risks, destroy business momentum and shake confidence in the value of investments.

Read more

Predictions for the Coronavirus Stock Market

One prediction seems solid: The coronavirus epidemic will get much worse in the United States in coming weeks. But where the stock market is heading is much less certain.

It is too simple to assume that with its steep decline, the market has already discounted epidemiologists’ forecasts for Covid-19. By this logic, the stock market would fall further only if the virus turns out to be worse than forecast.

Read more

What People Say About the Economy Can Set Off a Recession

When will the next recession arrive?

Economists are evaluating such factors as President Trump’s endlessly shifting tariff policy, the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve and other central banks, and such “leading indicators” as the yields in the bond market.

Read more

Modern Monetary Theory Makes Sense, Up to a Point

The term “modern monetary theory” has been talked about so much lately that we mainstream economists need to try to understand it.

We’re having trouble, though I’m beginning to suspect that it may be because M.M.T., as it’s often called, is really just a voguish name for a group of old and, for the most part, sensible ideas, repackaged in a new form.

Read more

The Housing Boom Is Already Gigantic. How Long Can It Last?

We are, once again, experiencing one of the greatest housing booms in United States history.

How long this will last and where it is heading next are impossible to know now.

Read more

The Economy Grew Even Faster in Truman’s Presidency. So What?

Based solely on a few headline numbers, the American economy looks good. But it would be a mistake to read too much into the data — or to give too much credit to President Trump.

Read more

Once Cut, Corporate Income Taxes Are Hard to Restore

The Trump corporate income tax cuts are the latest in a decades-long trend of tax reductions that have been substantially reversed mainly during times of war.

Read more

The Next New Thing in Finance — Bonds Linked Directly to the Economy

When the next big recession comes, we’ll be much better off if governments have established a new kind of bond tied to the ups and downs of the economy.

Read more

The Trump Boom Is Making It Harder to See the Next Recession

When big shifts like recessions are on the way, economists just aren’t very good at predicting them.

The truth is that we really can’t foresee where the economy will be heading in a year or two, a limitation that is particularly troubling right now, in the midst of what may be called the Trump economic boom.

Read more

Consumer Confidence Is Lifting the Economy. But for How Much Longer?

Amid the constant turmoil in domestic and global politics these days, the economy’s steady expansion has been a source of comfort. But look more closely and you will find that economic growth rests on a surprisingly amorphous base: consumer confidence.

Read more

What Is Bitcoin Really Worth? Don’t Even Ask.

Dabbling in Bitcoin lies somewhere between gambling and investing.

After all, true investing requires a rational appraisal of an asset’s value and that is simply not possible at present with Bitcoin. Real understanding of the economic issues underlying the cryptocurrency is almost nonexistent.

Read more

A Stock Market Panic Like 1987 Could Happen Again

Oct. 19, 1987, was one of the worst days in stock market history. Thirty years later, it would be comforting to believe it couldn’t happen again.

Yet that’s true only in the narrowest sense: Regulatory and technological change has made an exact repeat of that terrible day impossible. We are still at risk, however, because fundamentally, that market crash was a mass stampede set off through viral contagion.

Read more

Mass Psychology Supports the Pricey Stock Market

Canny stock investors are like judges in a quirky beauty contest. They aren’t looking for real beauty but for qualities that other people believe still other people will find beautiful.

Read more

The Transformation of the ‘American Dream'

“The American Dream is back.” President Trump made that claim in a speech in January. They are ringing words, but what do they mean? Language is important, but it can be slippery. Consider that the phrase, the American Dream, has changed radically through the years.

Read more

In Long Run, There’s No Such Thing as an Einstein Investor

There are no easy answers in investing. It is tempting to replicate a successful strategy — one created by an outstanding investor, like Warren Buffett, or through in-depth statistical analysis of the wisdom of crowds — and such approaches can actually work for long periods.

Read more

How Tales of ‘Flippers’ Led to a Housing Bubble

There is still no consensus on why the last housing boom and bust happened. That is troubling, because that violent housing cycle helped to produce the Great Recession and financial crisis of 2007 to 2009. We need to understand it all if we are going to be able to avoid ordeals like that in the future.

Read more