author - oman observer

THE third item on the 2024 Republican Party platform, after promises to seal the border and engage in mass deportations, is a pledge to 'End inflation, and make America affordable again.'On the first...

THE third item on the 2024 Republican Party platform, after promises to seal the border and engage in mass deportations, is a pledge to 'End inflation, and make America affordable again.'On the first...

By normal standards, the US economy continues to look very good. Unemployment has now been below 4% for 27 months, and inflation remains fairly low, albeit somewhat higher than the Federal Reserve’s...

It feels like years ago, but actually only a few months have passed since many big Republican donors seemed to believe that Ron DeSantis could effectively challenge Donald Trump for the Republican...

When Hamas attacked Israel, Republicans knew whom to blame: President Joe Biden. Donald Trump asserted that the attack wouldn’t have happened if he were still in the White House; Mike Pence, while...

So, will artificial intelligence transform the economy? Today I thought I’d take a break from my usual preoccupation with ongoing crises to engage in a bit of bigthink about how technology may...

Are the United Auto Workers justified in seeking higher wages and benefits? Definitely. Is the union overreaching? I don’t know — partly because I’m not an expert on auto industry economics,...

I’ve been writing about economics and politics for many years, and have learned to keep my temper. Politicians and policymakers often make decisions that are simply cruel; they also often make...

On Friday morning, I spoke to a conference of the Regional Science Association in Alicante, Spain. Notice the choice of preposition: “to,” not “at.” Given family commitments, I couldn’t...

If you’ve seen the movie “Oppenheimer,” which you should — trust me, it’s gripping even though it’s three hours long and you know how the story ends — you probably noticed several...

Back in the 1970s, Arthur Okun, an economist who had been a policy adviser to Lyndon Johnson, suggested a quick-and-dirty way to assess the nation’s economic condition: the “misery index,” the...

Almost a year has passed since the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which estimates gross domestic product, announced that real GDP had declined over the previous two quarters — a phenomenon that is...

The US dollar is, in a real sense, the money of moneys — that is, in many ways it is to other national currencies what money in general is to other goods and assets. Most of us rarely engage in...

Robert F Kennedy Jr is a crank. His views are a mishmash of right-wing fantasies mixed with remnants of the progressive he once was: Bitcoin boosterism, anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, assertions...

Seventy-nine years ago, Allied paratroopers began landing behind the beaches of Normandy.World War II was a long time ago, but it still lives on in America’s memory. And the anniversary of D-Day, on...

The Biden administration’s signature policy achievement, at least so far, has been the Inflation Reduction Act, enacted last August. Despite its deliberately misleading name, the act was mostly a...

BLURB: The immigration surge has probably been a significant contributor to the economy’s ability to continue rapid job growth without runaway inflationAlthough many politicians will never admit it,...

Recently ProPublica, a nonprofit, independent newsroom that has partnered with The New York Times on occasion, released a remarkable report about the relationship between Justice Clarence Thomas of...

“Artificial intelligence (AI) is already having a significant impact on the economy, and its influence is expected to grow significantly in the coming years.... Overall, the effects of AI on the...

My latest column was about President Joe Biden’s remark that some Republicans want to sunset Social Security and Medicare (and, indeed, all federal legislation) after five years, and the howls of...