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  Jason Furman, who chaired the White House Council of Economic Advisers under Barack Obama and now teaches at Harvard, recently published a thoughtful critique of former President Joe Biden’s economic policy.  https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/post-neoliberal-delusion The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, signed in 2009, cost more than $800 billion,  but some economists argued at the time (and still believe) that it should have been bigger, saying it helped make the recovery from the 2008 recession needlessly slow. ---  Stephanie Kelton  berättar om att Obamas rådgivare ville ha ett stimulanspaket på minst 1,3 trillion för att undvika en utdragen recession.  Andra rådgivare ansåg, förmodligen med rätta, att ingenting som slutade på “trillion” skulle gå igenom i kongressen. ” In the end, Obama lost his nerv”, skrev hon. Det blev 787 miljoner i stimulanser – och en långvarig recession.  https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2020/10/guldet-e...

  Trumps motståndare försökte mobilisera – men egentligen är proteströrelsen mot honom försvagad, anser Emma Ricknell, USA-kännare och statsvetare vid Linnéuniversitetet i Växjö.  – Jag uppfattar att han har mycket större stöd än många inser i Sverige, och jag tror att han kommer att ha fortsatt starkt stöd ett bra tag framöver, säger USA-forskaren Frida Stranne. Emilia Lindell SvD 18 februari2024 https://www.svd.se/a/al0p74/experten-protester-mot-trump-saknar-tydlig-frontfigur Tillbaka till Rolfs länktips 18 Februari 2025 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/02/rolfs-lanktips-18-februari-2025.html

  Such a speech has been unthinkable for the last 80 years, thanks to the trans-Atlantic alliance. Europe must now assume that that’s over. Even NATO itself is called into question. Speech by US Vice President JD Vance to the Munich security conference was one of them. You can read it all here, and view it here. This was the most important line: The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia. It’s not China. It’s not any external actor.  What I worry about is the threat from within — the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America. John Authers Bloomberg 18 February 2025 https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-02-18/vance-speech-there-s-no-template-for-the-shock-europe-just-got Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk varnade för att ifrågasätta Europas allians med USA efter en turbulent vecka som har fått många länder att frukta att de inte längre kan räkna med stöd från Washington. http...

The US State Department has dropped a statement from its website which stated that Washington does not support Taiwan's independence - a move which has sparked anger in China. China said the revision "sends a wrong... signal to separatist forces advocating for Taiwan independence", and asked the US to "correct its mistakes". https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyzy300vlzo What is the 'One China' policy? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-38285354 1997 Clinton-Jiang Summit and U.S.-China Joint Statement https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2021/10/1997-clinton-jiang-summit-and-us-china.html

  US federal government debt is projected to surpass  its World War II-era peak. Welcome back to The Forecast David Wessel, a senior fellow at Brookings  The chance of a debt crisis was low, the authors wrote, “so long as the US retains its strong institutions  and a fiscal trajectory that isn’t vastly worse than the one currently projected.” Walter Frick Bloomberg 16 February 2025 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-02-16/could-the-us-have-a-sovereign-debt-crisis Tillbaka till Rolfs länktips 15-16 Februari 2025 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/02/rolfs-lanktips-15-16-februari-2025.html

All five presidents who followed him—six, if we count Donald Trump twice—don’t really seem like presidents as much as simulacra of presidents.  They all knew—or know—how a president is supposed to sound and act and gesticulate, and tried their best to do that. But Bush Sr. was not a simulation of anything Remarks to the Supreme Soviet of the Republic of the Ukraine in Kiev, Soviet Union 1991 https://bush41library.tamu.edu/archives/public-papers/3267 The Free Press 16 February 2025 https://www.thefp.com/p/things-worth-remembering-a-new-world

  German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the European Union is strong enough to counter any US tariff threats  but that he hopes for a negotiated agreement that can avoid a trade war. Bloomberg 15 February 2025 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-15/scholz-says-eu-will-hit-back-on-trump-tariffs-but-deal-is-better

  JD Vance speaks with Ursula von der Leyen during a bilateral meeting at the US embassy in Paris, on Feb. 11.Photographer: Ian Langsdon/AFP/Getty Images European powers are struggling to forge a response to Trump It was an attack of unbridled ferocity in the name of free speech that laid bare the long-stewing hostility that Donald Trump and his most senior aides feel for the European Union  — they see the bloc as a symbol of big government that constrains US companies. French President Emmanuel Macron is looking to convene an emergency meeting of European leaders in an attempt to come up with a response. Vance, in bilateral meetings in Munich, left open the possibility of US involvement in security guarantees  if Europe significantly stepped up its support, people familiar with the matter said. Bloomberg 15 February 2025 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-15/russia-ukraine-war-trump-rushes-toward-a-deal-with-putin-as-europe-left-in-dust Tillbaka till Rolfs l...

I don’t think it’s contagious, but many of my friends are suffering similar symptoms. “Of course, I know Trump has a different leadership and negotiating style. I get that. My confusion stems from trying to figure out which is the negotiating part, and which is just bad policy.”  Trump Confusion Syndrome, or TCS, is distinct from Trump Derangement Syndrome in which afflicted people feel outrage about everything the president says or does. For me, the top source of confusion is the president’s tariff fixation.  We did lose some better-paid manufacturing jobs to China, Europe, Brazil, etc. It’s a fact that it is just cheaper to manufacture some automobile products and do assembly in Mexico. A low standard deviation means answers are more tightly clustered around the average. For inflation expectations, this was generally the case from 2000 up to 2021–2022. Then the standard deviation zoomed higher, indicating the guesses were wider apart. Trump is, if nothing else, a risk-taker....

Förra året hade den federala staten knappt 7 000 miljarder dollar i utgifter men bara 5 000 miljarder i inkomster.  Under högkonjunktur, alltså. Det är klart att tillväxten blir hög. Inflödet av kapital och lån blåser samtidigt upp dollarns värde.  På tio år har den stärkts med nästan 40 procent mot andra valutor. Att dollarn är övervärderad är en ganska vanlig uppfattning bland bedömare.  Frågan är hur mycket – och när – den kan tappa i värde. Carl Johan von Seth Text Stefan Rothmaier Grafik Dagens Nyheter 13 februari 2025 https://www.dn.se/ekonomi/carl-johan-von-seth-sa-overskattad-ar-usas-ekonomi/ US Budget Deficit Hits Record $840 Billion  the first third of the fiscal year Interest on the debt continued to be a key driver, as the Treasury refinances low-yielding maturing debt with securities paying out much higher rates.  Bloomberg 12 February 2025 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-12/us-budget-deficit-hits-record-840-billion-over-past-fo...

 As a single person myself, my first reaction was indignation. Then, after a few moments, another thought occurred to me: Maybe that’s not a terrible idea. Americans aren’t getting married as much as they used to. Why more people are unpartnered   One popular theory is that men have just become less compelling to women. The sexual revolution and the shift to a more service-oriented economy resulted in a rise in stature for women:  They have more education and more well-paid jobs, while many men are struggling in the new economy. Women find these guys unappealing, the theory goes, and see singlehood as a better alternative. For most of human history, marriage was a necessary economic and social agreement, especially for women. Consider France between the world wars. It lost about a fifth of its young male population in World War I, which meant there were fewer men to marry.  And yet marriage rates spiked after the war and stayed high for the next decade.  Re...

  Sedan Donald Trump svors in som president i januari har han skrivit under fyra presidentdekret som gäller just transfrågan. Viktigast är offensiven mot så kallad könskorrigering för barn.  Bland annat ska vårdgivare som får federala pengar inte längre kunna ge personer under 19 år sådan kemisk eller kirurgisk behandling. Biden-administrationen har tidigare slagit fast att skolor som uppbär federalt stöd måste tillåta transsexuella idrottare att tävla inom den könskategori som de själva identifierar sig med. Trump gör nu helt om: Biologiska pojkar och män kommer inte att tillåtas tävla med flickor och kvinnor. Visst finns det skäl för klassiska feminister att beklaga att vänstern på det här sättet har gett Trump en promenadseger. Men man kan också observera att det krävdes en Trump för att få slut på vansinnet. Paulina Neuding SvD 12 Februari 2025 https://www.svd.se/a/vgGvRm/vanstern-gav-trump-en-promenadseger-om-damidrotten Tillbaka till Rolfs länktips 12 Februari 2025 https...

  – Vi kommer att skydda våra arbetare, våra företag och våra konsumenter,  säger handelskommissionären Maros Sefcovic. Exakta detaljer om hur EU tänker svara har ännu inte presenterats  – Vi säger ingenting i dag, säger Olof Gill, kommissionens talesperson i handelsfrågor. SvD/TT 11 Februari 2025 EU:s svar på Trumps hot om tullar FN-experter har i en lång rad rapporter till säkerhetsrådet slagit fast att Rwanda tjänat mångmiljardbelopp på plundringen av Kongo. Parallellt med FN har flera oberoende organisationer dragit samma slutsatser.  Ändå valde EU att i fjol sluta ett avtal med Rwanda om leverans av så kallade kritiskt viktiga råvaror, som kan komma från krigets Kongo. – Det handlar inte bara om handel och investeringar: det handlar också om planeten och människorna som kommer att dra nytta av en hållbar, transparent och motståndskraftig förädlingskedja för kritiska råvaror,  sade den dåvarande EU-kommissionären Jutta Urpilainen. Dagens Nyheter 11 februari ...

EU 200 miljarder euro i atsning på AI-teknik – Det kommer att bli det största privat-offentliga partnerskapet i världen för utvecklandet av AI som går att lita på, talar EU-kommissionens ordförande Ursula von der Leyen. Tanken är att mobilisera 200 miljarder euro (motsvarande cirka 2 250 miljarder kronor) i investeringar för AI-tekniken, bland annat i form av en ny europeisk fond på 20 miljarder euro för att bygga upp ”AI-gigafabriker” – en slags storskaliga serveranläggningar – över hela Europa. SvD/TT 11 februari 2025 https://www.svd.se/a/3MeWgq/eu-s-storsatsning-pa-ai-over-tva-biljoner France will not give up on its digital tax  that hits major US tech multinationals to appease Donald Trump amid heightened trade tensions, Finance Minister Eric Lombard said. Revenues from France’s tax have become a significant source of income for Paris, growing to around $722 million in 2023. Trump ordered protective measures if an 60-day investigation finds tax rules that are “extraterritorial ...

  On the campaign trail, Trump capitalized on an unprecedented wave of border crossings that peaked in 2022 and 2023 to stoke anti-immigrant animus.  His pledge to crack down on illegal immigration and carry out the biggest deportation plan in US history helped seal his return to the White House. From 2005 until 2022, the number of undocumented immigrants hovered around an estimated 11 million.  An estimated 8 million of them were in the labor force, accounting for roughly one in four foreign-born workers. Most of that growth came in 2022 and 2023 as a result of both an unprecedented number of people crossing the southern border  and the government working through years of visa backlogs. Bloomberg 22 januari 2025 https://www.bloomberg.com/features/how-immigration-affects-us-economy/ Tillbaka till Rolfs länktips 8-9 Februari 2025 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/02/rolfs-lanktips-8-9-februari-2025.html

Han har vid olika tillfällen talat om deras användbarhet för att öka intäkter, för att återuppbygga USA:s tillverkningskapacitet och för att få mer samarbete om immigration och narkotikabekämpning. Min egen uppfattning är att han ser tullar främst som en hävstång han kan använda för att förhandla om andra saker. Lagen ger presidenten bred makt att påtvinga dem efter eget gottfinnande. I Trumps tankar skulle det vara synd att inte använda den makten. Det är ett snabbt och enkelt sätt att tvinga fram en överenskommelse om vad han vill. Uppriktigt sagt är det bättre än att hota med militära åtgärder. Det verkar som att vissa länder helt enkelt inte svarar på artiga förfrågningar. Men det här verktyget är användbart bara om de andra partierna tror att Trump faktiskt kommer att använda det. Vad vi vet är att den här presidenten och administrationen inte har något emot att använda dimma, kaos och osäkerhet i jakten på sina mål. Det är inte den strategi jag skulle välja, men jag kandiderade i...

 which he seems to announce and put on hold at whim — are symptomatic of a deeper challenge to U.S. manufacturers that I want to write about today: how U.S. companies keep pace with China in the industries of the future — artificial intelligence, advanced logic chips, electric vehicles, clean tech and autonomous cars   And they have to make those bets while competing against China, where the government wakes up every day and asks manufacturers:  How can I help you? And: Let’s take the long view together on how we win globally. To understand that better, I visited Ford Motor headquarters in Dearborn, Mich., last week to see how it is competing with China’s E.V.  Let me repeat that a little slower: To be globally competitive in the cars of the future, U.S. automakers need battery tech transfer from China. We are talking about a total reversal from 25 years ago, when China needed tech transfer from GM and Ford to build internationally competitive cars. My fellow Am...

 Google Translate: Hur fentanyl blev en del av tullekvationen beror på produktion och smuggling av en opioid som har orsakat hundratusentals amerikaners dödsfall i överdoser. USA har länge pressat Mexiko, den överlägset största källan till fentanyl, att göra mer för att stoppa drogens produktion och export och de penningtvättsaktiviteter som är avgörande för droghandeln. Kanada kom in i bilden på grund av den växande närvaron av mexikanska karteller där. How fentanyl became part of the tariff equation comes down to the production and smuggling of an opioid that has caused the overdose deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans.  The U.S. has long pressured Mexico, by far the main source of fentanyl, to do more to halt the drug’s production and export, and the money-laundering activities that are vital to the drug trade. Canada entered the picture because of the growing presence of Mexican cartels there. Wall Street Journal 4 February 2025 https://www.wsj.com/politics/how-fen...

Markets didn’t want to believe that Trump really meant broad tariffs, because they’re such a plainly bad idea. At the time of writing, dramatic moves in all three affected currencies make clear that doubt persisted even after President Donald Trump’s verbal announcement Friday Trump himself suggested to reporters Friday that the levies weren’t meant as fentanyl or border bargaining tools, but were rooted in large trade deficits That’s an argument for sustained tariffs, which would have sustained effects.  If that’s right, the longer-term consequences for the global order are profound… John Authers Bloomberg 3 February 2025 https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-02-03/how-stupid-is-this-trade-war-let-me-count-the-ways The FT View The absurdity of Donald Trump’s trade war Donald Trump has fired the first shots in what threatens to become a devastating trade war. He made use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, yet that law has not previously been used to enact...

He is a conservative — absolutely not the MAGA kind — who has advised government officials and gets read by lots of important people. He is now a doomsayer. “We have to be able to consider,” “that literally anything can happen to us.”  he writes in a new book entitled  Waste Land: A World In Permanent Crisis Waste Land: A World in Permanent Crisis: Kaplan, Robert D.: 9780593730324: Amazon.com: Books Kaplan’s message is that our only hope as human beings in a chaotic and dangerous world moving at breathtaking speed is to act with moderation and restraint. Max Hastings Bloomberg 2 februari 2025 https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-02-02/the-us-must-avoid-isolationism-a-path-to-nowhere Trump, US decline, and global chaos - Robert D Kaplan interview | US politics | The New Statesman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wad8J2hRdpo&t https://robertdkaplan.com/robert_d_kaplan_bio.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Kaplan Konservatismer och Carl-Oskar Bohlin https:...