Irwin M. Stelzer

Just wait till Obama finishes reforming the economy

In the days when it was still necessary to explain to one’s parents just what an economist does, my first job was to crank out a forecast of economic activity, interest rates and other variables in the coming quarter. Get it wrong often enough, and you were gone. More senior employees assigned themselves the longer-term outlooks: their forecasts would be long forgotten by the time actual data became available. That was then and this is now. So I will exercise the prerogative of seniority and for this week at least leave it to others to decide whether the green shoots will bloom or wither. Instead, let’s take a look at what the world will look like when President Barack Obama...

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Are Obama's apologies good for America?

“If I made you cry, I’m sorry. From the bottom of my heart, I apologize if I caused you pain, I know I’m to blame…. I apologize….Please let me make amends….” So warbled Billy Eckstine many years ago, and so sings our President today. The Obama team feels compelled to express regret for most of American history. We must say “sorry” for on-going racism, never mind that we now have a black President; for Hiroshima, never mind that Truman saved millions of American soldiers’ lives by using a nuclear weapon to make it unnecessary to invade Japan; for inattention to the wishes of our European allies, never mind that our troops...

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U.S., China headed toward becoming the G2

Barack Obama heads into the G-20 meeting in London next week having been told by his top advisers that the US economy is showing signs of recovery. New home sales rose by 4.7 percent last month, applications for mortgages are soaring in response to low mortgage rates, and durable goods sales increased last month. A few brave souls think the real economy might lead the financial sector out of recession, rather than the other way around. The President also travels to London confident that his decision to push for a budget that splatters trillions in red ink across the government’s ledgers won’t depreciate the dollar or trigger inflation. He is sticking with his plan to...

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