For the last 60 years, we’ve seen consistently low productivity growth rates in the US and across the Western world. Meanwhile, recent scientific discoveries seem to be less fundamental to our understanding of the world than previous breakthroughs have been. While the growth of digital technology has been tremendous since the 1990s, it’s the only significant part…
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Apple announced this morning that it is reducing its commission on paid apps and in-app purchases from 30% to 15% for qualified small businesses and independent developers. This move obviously has plenty of implications for competition policy and business models. But from the perspective of macroeconomic recovery, this commission reduction comes at just the right…
New North Carolina collided with Old North Carolina in the 2020 election. It was a split decision. The battle goes on. New NC – younger voters, Blacks, urban residents, suburban women and college graduates – reelected Governor Roy Cooper and (apparently) Attorney General Josh Stein. New NC helped President-elect Joe Biden come within 1.3% of…
No one expected Donald Trump to be a gracious loser. But his hysterical and groundless claims that Democrats are stealing the 2020 election dishonor his office and sully the image of American democracy around the world. Sadly, they are par for the course. Whining, lying and suing is what Trump reflexively does whenever he’s cornered.…
If Joe Biden defeats Donald Trump this week, it will begin to repair our country’s badly tarnished image around the world. An even tougher challenge will be reviving Americans’ confidence in their long-running democratic experiment. Most countries are bound together by ethnicity, language and religion. What makes America exceptional is that it was founded on…
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned the Trump administration yesterday that if they do not reach another coronavirus relief deal, at least five million people (and potentially more) will lose their unemployment benefits, largely because two new unemployment expansions are scheduled to expire on December 26. Yet any deal they strike to extend that aid would…
The U.S. and China continue to battle it out over semiconductor manufacturing as part of the larger tech war between the two countries. While the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) estimates U.S. firms account for 45 to 50 percent of annual semiconductor sales worldwide, their share of global semiconductor manufacturing capacity has declined from 37 percent…
Last night’s showdown in Nashville between President Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden won’t go down in history as one of the great U.S. presidential debates. It was an anti-climactic affair that didn’t tell us anything new about the candidates or what’s at stake for our country in next month’s election. I’ll leave it to…
Regulation is much in the news these days. But even as we look towards the future, the 40th anniversary of the Staggers Rail Act of 1980 on October 14 gives us an opportunity to consider how light touch regulation can benefit industry, customers, and the economy as a whole. That law, enacted under President Jimmy…
The House of Representatives recently passed the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) which would require that most employers provide reasonable accommodations for pregnant employees – similar to what is required by the Americans with Disabilities Act. This bill is a sliver of good news for women who have disproportionately born the brunt of this pandemic.…
