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☆ Opinion | The Case for Letting Mortgages Move With Us
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-06 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

At the moment, the market for existing homes is partly frozen because people who have 3 percent mortgage loans don’t want to give them up for 7 percent loans on new homes. Making mortgages portable sounds unrealistic. After all, mortgages are tied by contract to particular pieces of property. “We’re getting this question a lot, even from our own members,” Mike Fratantoni, the group’s chief economist, told me. Nevertheless, he said he couldn’t imagine that owners of securitized loans would go along with the idea.

Persons: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, “ We’re, ” Mike Fratantoni, there’s Organizations: Federal Housing Finance Agency, Mortgage Bankers Association

☆ Opinion | What Would Happen if the U.S. Suddenly Seemed Like a Risky Investment?
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-03 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Financially speaking, the United States has been a Teflon nation. Bad things happen — near defaults, giant budget deficits, a Capitol invasion — but nothing sticks for long. If the United States becomes dysfunctional enough, global investors will rationally conclude that the safe haven isn’t safe anymore. Financing costs in the United States will rise, economic growth will slow, and living standards will fall short of expectations. “Promoting democracy is also good economic policy.” I assume her speech is at least partly politically motivated, but I also think she’s right.

Persons: Janet Yellen, ” Organizations: Capitol Locations: United States, Canada, Germany, Japan, China, Arizona

☆ Opinion | When Banks Fail, Why Do We Keep Bailing Out Uninsured Depositors?
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-01 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Another bad result is that zombie banks stay in operation longer than they should because uninsured depositors happily supply them with funds, knowing the F.D.I.C. is experiencing “mission creep,” taking on a responsibility for uninsured depositors that it was never assigned. In a footnote of a 2001 document posted on its website that’s intended to provide guidance to other nations’ regulators, it says that making uninsured depositors whole can be least costly “in rare cases.” (Which means: not more than 90 percent of the time.) staff members, referring to full bank liquidations in the period before the financial crisis, said “a least-cost resolution almost always includes imposing losses on uninsured depositors.” Another F.D.I.C. So I have to go by what the agency has stated in the past about its resolution practices.

Persons: Ohlrogge, F.D.I.C, “ Organizations: Deposit Insurance Fund, Office

☆ Opinion | Class of 2024, It’s Not in Your Head: The Job Market Is Tough.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-29 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Here is a brutal fact for the college class of 2024: There aren’t enough college-level jobs out there for all of you. Others will have to settle for jobs that don’t require a college education. And history shows that many of those who start out in a job that doesn’t require a college education are still toiling in that kind of job a decade later. One mystery is why college grads’ lifetime earnings are so much higher than those of people with just a high school degree or less, if indeed so many college grads don’t do college-graduate-level work. I invite college seniors to tell me about your job searches and how you feel about what you learned or wish you had learned in college by filling out the form below.

Persons: grads, I’ll Organizations: Burning Glass Institute, Strada Institute

☆ Opinion | The Mostly Persuasive Logic Behind the New Ban on Noncompetes
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-26 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Federal Trade Commission used two very different rationales to get to its near-total ban this week on noncompete agreements. The easy prong of the ban for the F.T.C. to justify is the one that applies to nurses, hairdressers, truck drivers — actually, every kind of worker except for senior executives. They typically have some power in the employment negotiation and know how to use it. Many won’t sign a noncompete agreement unless they get something in return, such as a sweetened pay package.

Persons: ” Organizations: Federal Trade Commission, Federal, The Times, Street, Food

☆ Opinion | The Volkswagen Union Win Shows That Labor Is Becoming a Bigger Tent
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-24 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

There’s a vote on whether to join the United Automobile Workers union, giving organized labor its first factorywide foothold at a major foreign automaker in the South. We know now that the pro-union side won with nearly three-quarters of the vote in an election that ended on Friday. I think what we saw in Chattanooga is workers voting on the basis of economics rather than party alignment. If that continues to happen elsewhere, the South could some day become as unionized as the rest of the country. It won’t happen quickly, though, because government officials and corporate groups are likely to continue to fight back.

Persons: —, Donald Trump, Republicans — Organizations: United Automobile Workers, Republicans Locations: Chattanooga , Tenn, Tennessee, Chattanooga

☆ Opinion | Elon Musk Wouldn’t Be the First Car Company Founder to Flame Out
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-22 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Before there was Elon Musk, there was William Crapo Durant. It’s highly unlikely that Musk, one of the world’s richest people, will die penniless, but in other respects he and Durant have a lot in common. One thing I found out is that the world is not always kind to visionaries with self-control issues. Durant flamed out at G.M. In contrast, the prudent organization man who eventually succeeded him, Alfred Sloan, went from success to success.

Persons: Elon Musk, William Crapo Durant, Billy Durant, Durant, It’s, Durant flamed, Alfred Sloan, ”, Steve Blank Organizations: General Motors, Chevrolet, Durant Motors, Tesla, Harvard, Stanford Locations: G.M

☆ Opinion | What Would the Economy Look Like Under a Second Trump Term?
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-19 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Speculating about how the economy would perform under a second Donald Trump presidency normalizes the candidacy of a deeply flawed human being. So it seems important to talk about the economic outlook under another Trump term. They told me that a Trump 2.0 administration would be a lot like the Trump 1.0 administration — except, they hope, more disciplined and more effective. Trump has said he wants to extend in full the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, parts of which are set to expire at the end of 2025. The hope: If Trump can pull down inflation, the Federal Reserve will gain confidence to lower interest rates, which will boost the economy’s growth.

Persons: Donald Trump, normalizes, Trump, hasn’t Organizations: Trump, Federal Reserve

☆ Opinion | What Would the Economy Look Like Under a Second Biden Term?
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-17 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

President Biden is campaigning on four more years of yummy stew. A lot of voters are saying, “I like you, but I don’t like your stew.”The performance of the U.S. economy should be a winning issue for Biden. Economic growth is so strong that the Federal Reserve is putting off plans to lower interest rates. Biden can’t credibly promise to turn things around — to make things much better in the coming term — because they’re already good by standard measures. It’s just that many voters don’t see it that way.

Persons: Biden, “, Biden can’t credibly, they’re, Donald Trump’s, ” Organizations: Federal Reserve, The New York Times, Siena College Locations: U.S

☆ Opinion | To Fight Climate Change, We Need New ‘Political Technologies’
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-15 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Science alone won’t stop the planet from overheating. But science coupled with political science just might. That’s the theme of a new book, “Long Problems: Climate Change and the Challenge of Governing Across Time.” It’s by Thomas Hale, an American political scientist who teaches at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government. Hale argues that people are too quick to throw up their hands because the political will to stop climate change is lacking. He calls them, at one point, “political technologies,” a phrase I like.

Persons: “, It’s, Thomas Hale, Hale, ” Hale Organizations: University of Oxford’s Blavatnik, of Government Locations: American

☆ Opinion | Our Inability to Predict Inflation Is an Embarrassment to Economics
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-12 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

We were surprised when inflation rose. We were surprised when inflation fell. And we were surprised again when inflation stopped falling. The shakiness of our understanding is no small problem because inflation matters, a lot. Aside from those practical considerations: If we don’t understand inflation, then we also don’t truly understand anything else about the business cycle (if there even is one), because growth and inflation are intertwined.

Persons: —, Biden Organizations: Federal

☆ Opinion | The Economic Luminary Who Loved Solar Eclipses
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-08 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In 1857, William Stanley Jevons was 22 years old and was working as an assayer for the Sidney Mint. Two eclipses passed over Australia that year, and Jevons enthusiastically tracked both. I think it’s interesting nonetheless, because Jevons went on to become one of the most important economists of his century. Your first glass of orange juice tastes great, the second less so, and the third you pour down the drain. So don’t buy that third glass of orange juice.

Persons: William Stanley Jevons, Jevons, “, ”, Léon, Carl Menger Organizations: Sidney Mint Locations: Australia, Bellevue Hill, Switzerland, Austria

☆ Opinion | If A.I. Takes All Our Jobs, Will It Also Take Our Purpose?
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-05 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

What would life be like if artificial intelligence solved all your problems? Death would become almost optional because you could take on digital form and keep going for a billion years. We human beings dislike our problems, naturally, but if we had no problems to solve, what meaning would life have? in the 10 years since Bostrom’s last book on the topic, “Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies.” A.I. The idea that it will change the world has gone from a nerdy obsession to conventional wisdom.

Persons: Nick Bostrom, Bostrom’s Organizations: Oxford Locations: A.I

☆ Opinion | What Janet Yellen Needs to Tell China’s Leaders
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-03 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It would be great if Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had a copy of “The Portable Karl Marx” with her on her trip to China this week. China was “among the most unequal countries in the world” in 2018, another I.M.F. working paper released that year said. While Xi Jinping name-checks Marx, it’s clear from his behavior that what he really pursues is national greatness under the direction of the Chinese Communist Party. That’s more in line with Lenin, who believed that a “vanguard” party would lead the proletariat, than with Marx or Engels.

Persons: Janet Yellen, Karl Marx ”, Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, ” Marx, Xi, Marx, it’s, Lenin, Engels Organizations: International Monetary Fund, Chinese Communist Party Locations: China, Brazil

☆ Opinion | Unproductive Agriculture Is Holding Africa Back
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-01 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

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☆ Opinion | Can Intel Serve Two Masters?
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-29 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

This week I interviewed Pat Gelsinger, the chief executive of Intel, which is one of the most important companies in the United States. To Biden and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, the special thing about Intel is that it doesn’t just design chips in the United States, as, for example, the current stock market darling Nvidia does. It’s planning to spend $100 billion over five years on manufacturing and research and development projects in Arizona, New Mexico, Ohio and Oregon. While all three of those rivals have some U.S. production, Intel is the only one that has U.S. headquarters and its most advanced production and process technology R & D in the United States. Raimondo, at the announcement in Arizona, called Intel “America’s champion semiconductor company.”

Persons: Pat Gelsinger, Biden, Gina Raimondo, “, Raimondo, ” Organizations: Intel, Biden, Nvidia, Commerce Department, T.S.M.C, Samsung Locations: United States, Arizona , New Mexico , Ohio, Oregon, Taiwan, South Korea, Abu Dhabi, Arizona

☆ Opinion | What Does True Consent Look Like for Consumers?
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-27 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A man with a squeegee cleans your windshield while your car is stopped and then asks for money. Society expects that when we sit down in a barber chair, we’re implicitly agreeing to exchange money for a shearing. What constitutes consent is an unsettled aspect of law, and there are big economic implications. There are also debates about express consent, which seems like it would be cut and dried but actually isn’t. There are several spheres of life where questions of consent are bubbling up.

Persons: we’re, Henrietta Lacks Organizations: . Society

☆ Opinion | Why I Can’t Wait for the Sun to Go Dark
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-25 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In 1991, I went to Teotihuacán, Mexico, to watch a total solar eclipse from the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon. At the time of totality, it just got really dark. I didn’t see a hole in the sky surrounded by a shimmering corona or any other eclipse phenomena: Baily’s beads, the diamond ring. Eclipse-watching, on the other hand, is very much like economics in that it’s vulnerable to all kinds of uncontrollable effects. “People laugh, cry, stare dumbfounded, jump up and down,” Peter Tyson, editor in chief of Sky & Telescope magazine, wrote in a special issue this year.

Persons: …, dumbfounded, ” Peter Tyson, ” Kate Russo Organizations: Sun, Sky & Locations: Teotihuacán, Mexico, Plattsburgh, N.Y, Lake Champlain

☆ Opinion | Will A.I. Take All Our Jobs? This Economist Suggests Maybe Not.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-22 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Let’s say for now that the day comes when robots and artificial intelligence can outperform human beings at every conceivable job, from waxing floors to waxing eyebrows to waxing philosophical at a lectern. “It’s very possible that regular humans will have plentiful, high-paying jobs in the age of A.I. dominance — often doing much the same kind of work that they’re doing right now,” he wrote Sunday on his Substack. I ran Smith’s argument by several economists who think a lot about these issues, and they were skeptical. But there’s so much pessimism around the future of work these days that Smith’s take comes as a welcome ray of sunshine.

Persons: Noah Smith, “, ”, Smith, Martha Stewart Organizations: Revolution

☆ Opinion | What Makes a Coincidence Meaningful?
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-18 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

There are two kinds of people in the world: People who say, “What a coincidence,” and people who say, “Just a coincidence.” Same facts, different reactions. I attended an economics conference in the World Trade Center on Sept. 10, 2001, and decided not to go back for the second day. (The conference was below ground level, so everybody who stayed for Sept. 11 got out safely, for what it’s worth.) For example, rolling a die and getting 6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6 seems more surprising than getting, say, 6-2-4-5-1-3-2-5-4-6, but the two are equally probable. Remember that it’s any two people, not necessarily you and someone else, so there are many potential pairs.

Persons: I’m, It’s, you’d Organizations: World Trade Locations: Eldena ,

☆ Opinion | Working in Old Age Can’t Be the Only Answer to the Retirement Crisis
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-15 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“Is this what America’s retirement system has come to?” she asks. “Are we heading for a TikTok pension system?”Ghilarducci argues that working longer is not the solution to America’s retirement crisis, in which millions of people don’t have enough money for a comfortable old age. The most important fix, she says, is to shore up Social Security and complement it with a new automatic-enrollment pension plan for workers who lack access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan. I’ve been arguing that working longer kind of is the solution for the retirement crisis, or at least part of the solution. “Yes, Granny deserves a good job if she wants one,” she writes, “but working until you drop is not a civilized plan for a civilized society.”

Persons: Teresa Ghilarducci, —, Ghilarducci, I’ve, I’m, Granny, ” Organizations: Walmart, Social Security, New School for Social Research Locations: New, New York

☆ Opinion | Yes, the Internet Is Broken. But What Does a Fix Look Like?
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-13 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Tuesday was the 35th anniversary of the day that Tim Berners-Lee of the European Organization for Nuclear Research wrote the memo proposing what became the World Wide Web. I think it’s fair to say, though, that most people are not in the mood to celebrate what has become of Sir Timothy’s invention. It’s common to hear that the internet is broken and that social media is a dumpster fire. A lot go in the right direction, but I haven’t seen anything that seems likely to fully solve the many problems of today’s internet, from invasions of privacy to incitements of violence. Lasting solutions, if there are any, are likely to come from a combination of technological, legal and cultural approaches.

Persons: Tim Berners, Lee, Elizabeth II, Sir, I’ve Organizations: European Organization for Nuclear Research Locations: United States

☆ Opinion | Flau’jae and Wyclef Jean Are Rapping About Personal Finance. Good.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-08 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Flau’jae, the 20-year-old star of basketball and hip-hop, does not manage $1.3 trillion in assets for clients. She also does not have an army of financial advisers and economists at her disposal. Listen to “Paper Right,” a recently released hip-hop track recorded by Wyclef Jean, a founding member of the Fugees, with guest appearances by artists including Flau’jae, Pusha T, Lola Brooke and Capella Grey. I wrote on Monday about a program that teaches math through personal finance and personal finance through math. You have to keep your eyes on the prize — and to know that there’s a prize you should want in the first place.

Persons: ”, Wyclef Jean, Pusha, Lola Brooke, Capella Grey, TIAA’s, there’s, Jean Organizations: Teachers Insurance

☆ Opinion | Please, President Biden: Don’t Blame Corporate Greed for Inflation
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-06 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

I hope President Biden doesn’t show up for his State of the Union address on Thursday with a Snickers bar. Biden is obsessed with high prices because voters are, and he knows that to beat Donald Trump in November he needs to make a strong case that he’s wrestling inflation to the ground. But there are good ways and bad ways to fight inflation. One of the bad ways, I think, is to put the blame on price gouging and corporate greed, as Biden has done on numerous occasions. Gouging refers to abrupt, extreme price increases to take advantage of temporary scarcity, often accompanied by hoarding.

Persons: Biden doesn’t, Biden, Donald Trump Organizations: Politico, Times

☆ Opinion | The Key to Better Math Education? Explaining Money.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-04 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

I offer to pay you $200 in one year if you give me $190 today. It’s the kind of math problem you might encounter in real life, as opposed to, say, whether the cosecant of a 30-degree angle is 1 or 2. Math and personal finance make a perfect fit. A survey in 2022 funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation found that 61 percent of parents of students said math education should be “relevant to the real world” but that only 21 percent said it was. Some of America’s top universities are incorporating personal finance into their curriculums.

Persons: Bill, Melinda Gates Organizations: Melinda Gates Foundation

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