Recent New York Times Columns
Betraying the Planet
Climate change poses a clear and present danger to our way of life. How can anyone justify failing to act?
Not Enough Audacity
President Obama has eloquently explained the case for health care reform, but will he compromise so much to get a plan through Congress that it won’t do the job?
Health Care Showdown
American voters are ready to change the ailing health care system, and “centrist” Democrats who oppose the public option run the risk of undermining effective reform.
The Conscience of A Liberal Blog
Yes, we can
Get more or less universal coverage, that is. The CBO scoring on an incomplete bill sent everyone into a tizzy - and also led to an avalanche of bad reporting, with claims that it said terrible things about the public option. (There was no public option in the bill.) Now the real thing has been scored [...]
Smells like deflation
The grim jobs number wasn't the only scary thing in today's BLS report. Here's the rate of wage change over the past three months, expressed as an annual rate: Bear in mind that inflation usually runs below the rate of wage change, thanks to productivity growth. So we're really heading into Japanese-style deflation territory.
Carbon tariffs - the legal aspects
Testimony on the issue from a real trade lawyer (thanks to Richard Baldwin, who pointed me to this document). The bottom line: In sum, if carefully calibrated along the lines suggested above, carbon equalization measures at the border, imposed on certain imports, can be modeled in compliance with WTO non-discrimination rules and/or the WTO's environmental exception. So [...]