This has been an amazing turn of events.

When China was taking jobs and destroying U.S. businesses, we were told that people should “learn to code” and that new, better jobs would replace the old ones.

Now we’re supposed to be in a panic because businesses are import dependent on China. If you’ve built your business on imports from China and are facing ruin from tariffs, you made an incredibly risky business decision and then stuck with it even when the risks became too obvious to overlook.

Trump’s enemies push this line—that Trump is threatening to undermine Fed independence—because they see it as a way of defending other agencies. It’s a sort of slippery slope argument: if you let Trump boss around US AID, the Fed is toast.

But I don’t think that’s right.

https://twitter.com/semaforben/status/1894386318592901183

The logic that it is unconstitutional to shield the CFBP or the FHFA from executive control does not imply that it is unconstitutional to shield the Fed in a similar way. The resemblance is only superficial.

After more than 50 years, legendary broadcast journalist Chuck Scarborough stepped down from his daily duties anchoring the news at NBC 4 New York.

So now seems a good time to finally tell everyone the true story of Scarborough that no one knows. Some background.

I’m a journalist myself. I started out at the very edge of journalism. I worked for a blog called Dealbreaker. We had no access and no one knew who we were.

Every story we broke was built on literal shoe leather. That’s how I found out about Scarborough.

Ooooh!

Let's play: Who is more wrong about economics according to economists?

Round 1:

The same survey @JustinWolfers points to below shows that ZERO economists disagree with the statement: "There is little empirical evidence that price gouging is causing high grocery prices." Round 2.

What share of economists agree that capping rent increases by corporate landlords at 5% would make middle-income Americans substantially better off over the next ten years?

Two percent.

What does Robert Reich think happens when a company spends its funds to buy back stock?

He writes as if he thinks the money is just set on fire.

Of course, that is not what happens when a company buys back its stock. We actually know what happens.

Let’s explore. A thread.

https://twitter.com/rbreich/status/1826307038063796691

Let’s start with why companies buy back stock in the first place.

When a company has a profit—meaning it makes more than it spends on overhead, materials, and labor—it must decide what to do with the money.

First of all, it pays its taxes.

So what else can it do?

I see a lot of people are wondering why the government bothers to issue bonds when it could just print money to pay for the labor and resources it needs for its projects.

The answer is deceptively simple but I doubt even a half dozen economists could explain it to you.

So here's a thread. Let's start from the beginning.

The government needs real resources to carry out its projects. It needs labor and it needs stuff. Maybe it wants to build a dam or take Normandy back from the French.

I think a big problem for the Fed has been the persistent projection of a 2.5% fed funds rate. There’s zero volatility in the longer run projection, which is highly unusual. What’s more, the steadiness is implausible. The zero-vol projection means that businesses can always plan that the policy rate will fall to 2.5 percent. This means higher rates are temporary and therefore have much less of a drag on activity.

Especially true because projects can be refinanced later.

Here’s a risk about minting the coin or 14th Amendment.

There’s a lot of discretion in tax collection. An anti-tax President could deprioritize tax collection, driving down revenues, and then simply fund it with the coin. (Or with 14th Amendment bonds.) Our system prudently denies the executive branch the power of the purse in most cases. This means taxes, debt, and spending each need separate authorizations from Congress.

Congress can’t just vote for spending and tell the executive to figure out how to finance it.