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☆ What if the A.I. Boosters Are Wrong?
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-13 | by ( Bernhard Warner | Sarah Kessler | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

would contribute only “modest” improvement to worker productivity, and that it would add no more than 1 percent to U.S. economic output over the next decade. That pales in comparison to estimates by Goldman Sachs economists, who predicted last year that generative A.I. The bullish camp has great hopes for A.I. Sam Altman of the ChatGPT maker OpenAI sees A.I. of Nvidia, the dominant maker of the chips used to power A.I., says the technology has ushered in “the next industrial revolution.”

Persons: Daron Acemoglu, Acemoglu, Goldman Sachs, Sam Altman, OpenAI, Jensen Huang, ” Organizations: A.I, Nvidia Locations: O.E.C.D

☆ Opinion | NATO Has to Change. Here’s How.
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-07 | by ( Farah Stockman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, NATO’s first supreme allied commander Europe, felt strongly that his mission was to get Europeans “back on their military feet” — not for American troops to become the permanent bodyguard for Brussels and Berlin. Of the $206 billion in military and nonmilitary aid allocated to Ukraine by countries around the world, $79 billion has come from the United States, according to the Ukraine Support Tracker database. Since about 1960, the United States’ share of allied G.D.P. has averaged roughly 36 percent, while its share of allied military spending has been more than 61 percent, according to a Cato Institute report. The supreme allied commander Europe has never been a European.

Persons: Ike, Dwight Eisenhower, NATO’s, —, ”, “ Organizations: NATO, Cato Institute Locations: Europe, Brussels, Berlin, United States, Washington, Germany, Italy, Britain, Ukraine

☆ How Britain Changed Over 14 Years of Conservative Rule
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-03 | by ( Josh Holder | Ademola Bello | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +14 min

How Britain Changed Over 14 Years of Conservative RuleSince Britain’s Conservative Party took power 14 years ago, most things have not gone the way it planned. The Economy Has StagnatedAverage productivity growth has declined since 2010…0.0% 0.5% 1.0% 2.0% 2010 2015 2017 2019 2024 Source: Office for National Statistics. 2010 2015 2017 2019 2024 Source: N.H.S. 50% 60% 70% 80% 2010 2015 2017 2019 2024 Source: N.H.S. 2010 2015 2017 2019 2024 Source: Trussell Trust … and thousands more people are sleeping on the streets than in 2010.

Persons: Conservatives ’, England …, Boris Johnson, —, Hong Kongers, Rishi Sunak Organizations: Conservative, Britain’s Conservative Party, Conservatives, Local, gov, Conservative Party, European Union, National Health Service, National Statistics, Institute for Public Policy Research, Public Services, Labour, Commons, Department, Loans Company, Higher Education Statistics, YouGov Locations: Britain, Thursday’s, Germany, United States, London, Ukraine, England, Rwanda, United Kingdom

☆ Opinion | Why You Shouldn’t Obsess About the National Debt
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-06 | by ( Paul Krugman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The United States government is more than $34 trillion in debt. Did you know that our government owes $34 trillion? That’s $34 trillion! So I thought it might be useful to talk about how I see the issue of public debt and why it doesn’t loom larger in my concerns. isn’t unprecedented, even in America: It’s roughly the same as it was at the end of World War II.

Persons: I’m, hypocrites Organizations: United Locations: United States, America, Japan

☆ Opinion | This D-Day, Europe Needs to Resolve to Get Its Act Together
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-04 | by ( Bret Stephens | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Thursday’s D-Day anniversary — the 80th — is occasioning somber and anxious reflections about the fate of the Atlantic alliance. Somber because the last of the Greatest Generation will soon no longer be with us. Anxious because Donald Trump, and his evident disdain for that alliance, may soon be with us again. Europe today faces four great challenges that typically determine the fate of great powers. 28 — the 27 countries currently in the European Union, plus Britain — accounted for 36.3 percent of global gross domestic product.

Persons: Thursday’s, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Xi, Trump, Kennedy Organizations: European Union, Microsoft, Nvidia Locations: Europe, Britain, United States

☆ U.S. Economic Growth in First Quarter Was Milder Than Initial Reading
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-30 | by ( Ben Casselman | More About Ben Casselman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Economic growth slowed more sharply early this year than initially estimated, as consumers eased up on spending amid rising prices and high interest rates. That was down from 3.4 percent in the final quarter of 2023 and below the 1.6 percent growth rate reported last month in the government’s preliminary first-quarter estimate. The data released on Thursday reflects more complete data than the initial estimate, released just a month after the quarter ended. The preliminary data fell short of forecasters’ expectations, but economists at the time were largely unconcerned, arguing that the headline G.D.P. figure was skewed by big shifts in business inventories and international trade, components that often swing wildly from one quarter to the next.

Organizations: Commerce Department

☆ Britain’s Snap Election: Bad News for Tories. Good for Labour? - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-29 | by ( David Wallace-Wells | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

But perhaps it will also be an indictment of the Labour Party opposition, which seems remarkably uninterested in seizing the moment. is 8.4 percent below its 2007 peak — a significant decline, which has helped make the country outside of London poorer than Mississippi. And although the prolonged slowdown in productivity may be the worst Britain has experienced since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, the country’s struggles aren’t purely economic. Britain has been governed by austerity-minded Tories now for 14 years, and the results have been bleak. Brexit was another self-inflicted wound from the British right and is now lamented by a large majority of the public.

Persons: Rishi Sunak, Brexit, Boris Johnson’s, it’s Organizations: Conservative Party, Labour Party, Britain, National Health Service Locations: Britain, London, Mississippi, British

☆ Britain Shakes Off Recession as Economy Grows Faster Than Expected
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-10 | by ( Eshe Nelson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In the first three months of the year, economic growth was driven by the services sector, which expanded for the first time in a year, statistics agency said. Transport services, legal services and scientific research all grew strongly, but services that include hotels and restaurants fell slightly, and the construction sector contracted sharply. per person grew 0.4 percent in the first quarter, following seven consecutive quarters of decline. Some sectors like professional services and technology have been doing well, but others like hospitality have struggled, she said. Household spending, adjusted for inflation, grew 0.2 percent, following two quarters of declines, the statistics agency said.

Persons: ”, Tera Allas, Ms, Allas Organizations: Transport Locations: McKinsey’s Britain, Ireland

☆ America Is Writing Checks That Mere Optimism Won’t Cover - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-25 | by ( David Brooks | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Interest rates have risen. According to The Wall Street Journal, America is expected to spend $870 billion, or 3.1 percent of gross domestic product, this year on interest payments on the federal debt. According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the government will spend more on interest payments than on the entire defense budget. When money is tight, as it is now, government borrowing competes with private borrowing, driving interest rates up for everybody. ratio results in an increase in interest rates of two-tenths to three-tenths of a percentage point.

Organizations: Wall Street Journal, Federal Budget, Social Security Locations: America

☆ Did One Guy Just Stop a Huge Cyberattack?
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-03 | by ( Kevin Roose | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The internet, as anyone who works deep in its trenches will tell you, is not a smooth, well-oiled machine. It’s a messy patchwork that has been assembled over decades, and is held together with the digital equivalent of Scotch tape and bubble gum. Last week, one of those programmers may have saved the internet from huge trouble. Recently, while doing some routine maintenance, Mr. Freund inadvertently found a backdoor hidden in a piece of software that is part of the Linux operating system. The backdoor was a possible prelude to a major cyberattack that experts say could have caused enormous damage, if it had succeeded.

Persons: Andres Freund, He’s, Freund Organizations: Microsoft, Linux Locations: San Francisco

Politicians and auto executives on both sides of the Atlantic are calling for more protectionist measures. After Tesla lost its crown to BYD as the world’s biggest E.V. Otherwise, the Tesla C.E.O. said, Chinese E.V. The continent’s auto sector employs 13 million people and generates 8 percent of the bloc’s G.D.P.

Persons: China Tesla, —, Warren Buffett, Tesla, Elon Musk, ” Luca de Meo, Vivienne Walt, DealBook, ”, June’s E.U Organizations: Renault Group’s, Airbus Locations: China, Europe, June’s

☆ Russia’s Brutal War Calculus
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-24 | by ( Paul Sonne | Josh Holder | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +7 min

Russia’s Brutal War Calculus Freedoms Wages The costs of two years of war in Ukraine have been enormous. Here is a look at how Russia at war has changed — suffering enormous costs by some metrics but faring better than expected by others. But Mr. Putin has convinced many that in invading Ukraine, Russia is defending itself against an existential threat from the West. Blood and TreasureIn the early months of the war, Mr. Putin’s military made grave mistakes, but it has regrouped. But despite their stated support for the war, many Russians would be happy for it to end.

Persons: languish, Instagram, Vladimir Putin, Putin, ”, “, Putin’s, Aleksei A, Navalny Organizations: Daily Life People, Facebook, Travel, Trade, Russia, Military Locations: Ukraine, Russia, China, Soviet Union, India, Moscow, Europe, Turkey, Ukrainian

☆ U.K. Economy Shrank as 2023 Ended, Tipping Into Recession
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-15 | by ( Eshe Nelson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Why It Matters: Little or no economic growth. Other Economic Data: Inflation stuck at 4 percent in January. report was the last in a trio of key economic data about the British economy published this week. On Tuesday, the nation’s statistics office reintroduced official estimates for unemployment and other labor market measures after a four-month hiatus because of difficulties collecting data. It showed that the labor market was tighter than previously thought, with the unemployment rate at 3.8 percent at the end of last year.

Persons: Rishi Sunak, Thursday’s G.D.P Locations: Britain, United States

☆ U.S. Economy Grew at 3.3% Rate in Latest Quarter
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-25 | by ( Ben Casselman | More About Ben Casselman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The U.S. economy continued to grow at a healthy pace at the end of 2023, capping a year in which unemployment remained low, inflation cooled and a widely predicted recession never materialized. Gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, grew at a 3.3 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department said on Thursday. That was down from the 4.9 percent rate in the third quarter but easily topped forecasters’ expectations and showed the resilience of the recovery from the pandemic’s economic upheaval. Instead, growth accelerated: For the full year, measured from the end of 2022 to the end of 2023, G.D.P. (A different measure, based on average output over the full year, showed annual growth of 2.5 percent in 2023.)

Organizations: Gross, Commerce Department Locations: U.S, G.D.P

☆ Opinion | China’s Economy Is in Serious Trouble
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-18 | by ( Paul Krugman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Many economists (though not me) argued that getting inflation down would require years of high unemployment; instead, we’ve experienced immaculate disinflation, rapidly falling inflation at no visible cost. But the story has been very different in the world’s biggest economy (or second biggest — it depends on the measure). Instead, China has underperformed by just about every economic indicator other than official G.D.P., which supposedly grew by 5.2 percent. Democratic nations like the United States rarely politicize their economic statistics — although ask me again if Donald Trump returns to office — but authoritarian regimes often do. Even the official statistics say that China is experiencing Japan-style deflation and high youth unemployment.

Persons: we’ve, Donald Trump, It’s Organizations: Democratic Locations: U.S, China, United States, Japan

☆ It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year (for the Economy)
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-22 | by ( Ella Koeze | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

This shows inflation-adjusted monthly retail spending for the past three decades. You can see the pattern even more clearly by looking at each month’s spending as a percentage of the yearly total. In the midst of the Great Recession, people cut back on nonessential holiday spending, and end-of-the-year purchases took a significant hit. This seasonal trend is robust enough that it’s visible in our economy beyond just end-of-the-year retail shopping and food. Americans’ ability to spend their way through the darkest months of the year is a key component in the health of the economy.

Organizations: ust

☆ A Major Economic Challenge
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-20 | by ( Amanda Taub | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

There is one change, so simple it can be described in just six words, that could lift millions of people out of poverty and expand the world’s fifth-largest economy: Get more Indian women paid jobs. In many other countries, female labor-force participation has propelled economic growth. But India has one of the world’s lowest rates of formal employment for women. The percentage of women doing paid work has dropped sharply in recent years. Much of the country’s recent economic growth has been concentrated in small, family-owned firms that employ few outsiders.

Persons: ”, Shrayana Bhattacharya Organizations: World Bank Locations: India, China, “

☆ Opinion | I’m a Climate Scientist. I’m Not Screaming Into the Void Anymore.
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-18 | by ( Kate Marvel | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Two and a half years ago, when I was asked to help write the most authoritative report on climate change in the United States, I hesitated. Did we really need another warning of the dire consequences of climate change in this country? The answer, legally, was yes: Congress mandates that the National Climate Assessment be updated every four years or so. But to me, the most surprising new finding in the Fifth National Climate Assessment is this: There has been genuine progress, too. I’m used to mind-boggling numbers, and there are many of them in this report.

Persons: I’m Organizations: United Nations, Renewables Locations: United States

☆ Why Great G.D.P. Growth Isn’t Good Enough for Bidenomics - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-16 | by ( Karen Petrou | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Bidenomics’ mortal enemy isn’t Donald Trump — it’s a reliance on aggregate and average numbers that masks the nature of the economy Americans experience. Although the Fed’s most recent Survey of Consumer Finances showed that wealth inequality has dipped a bit because of recent, generous fiscal spending, income inequality is worse than ever. In a nation this unequal, the income generated by a growing G.D.P. may look robust, but 64 percent of households live paycheck to paycheck from time to time, according to a March consumer survey. These families are barely making it through the week, let alone accumulating the wealth essential for financial resilience and, over time, financial security.

Persons: Donald Trump — Organizations: Consumer Finances, White, Harris Locations: United States

☆ What Long-Term Care Looks Like Around the World
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-14 | by ( Jordan Rau | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

Provinces and territories fund long-term care services through general tax revenue. Notably, Canada’s long-term care system is separate from its national health care system, which pays for hospitals and doctors with no out-of-pocket costs to patients. on long-term care, 80 percent more than the United States spent. Britain has also taken steps to shield people from losing all of their wealth to pay for long-term care. Singapore recently instituted a system of mandatory long-term care insurance for those born in 1980 or later.

Persons: D.P., 🇸 🇬, ove, —, Kath l Organizations: Uni, pla, Citi, emi Locations: D. data, nis

☆ U.K. Economy Stagnates as High Interest Rates Take Toll
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-10 | by ( Eshe Nelson | More About Eshe Nelson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

The services sector contracted last quarter as the highest interest rates since 2008 have weighed on the housing industry. Britain’s weak economy mirrors the stagnation in Europe, where eurozone economies contracted 0.1 percent in the third quarter. Across the region, high interest rates intended to drive down inflation are weakening economic activity, with demand for loans dropping and consumer spending slowing. This contrasts with the United States, where the economy is growing strongly and defying expectations for a slowdown prompted by high interest rates. This weak outlook is driven by high interest rates, which are expected to have an increasingly heavy toll on the economy.

Persons: ”, Stephen Millard, Jeremy Hunt, Hunt Organizations: Bank of England, National Institute of Economic, Social Research Locations: Europe, United States, Germany

☆ Opinion | Why Voters Are So Down on the Biden Economy
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-08 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

When she thinks about the direction of the country right now, what she’s most worried about is the economy. On diabetic medication, for example, there’s actually good news. But the part I want to focus on is what Sara and other Americans who aren’t economists mean when they use terms like economy, inflation and unemployment. It’s often not what economists mean. Ask a macroeconomist how the economy is doing and you might get a number, such as 4.9, which is the percentage increase in G.D.P.

Persons: Sara, Donald Trump, they’re, there’s, Lilly, It’s, Biden Organizations: Republican, Washington , D.C, Trump, Novo Nordisk, Sanofi Locations: South Carolina, Washington ,, G.D.P

☆ Israel Is in Crisis. These Authors See Reason for Hope.
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-01 | by ( Ethan Bronner | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The citizens’ faith in their political leader, a prime minister charged with bribery and fraud, was plummeting even before the attack. The answer: a mix of risk-taking newcomers and the culture of innovation fostered among young Israelis by their mandatory military service. “Israel has been exposed to constant trauma,” the authors write, and yet the country has some of the lowest rates of alcohol abuse, opioid death and suicide in the world. Israel’s citizens also consistently rank among the happiest on the planet. They have long lives and produce, far and away, the most children per family of any rich country.

Persons: Dan Senor, Saul Singer, Israel, Singer, Israel’s, “ Organizations: Jerusalem, “, Nasdaq Locations: United States, Britain, France, Japan, “ Israel, Canada

☆ Opinion | What Happened to the American Dream?
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-27 | by ( Ross Douthat | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

number — third-quarter growth at a 4.9 percent rate — coexists with data showing disposable personal income actually dipping just a bit, suggesting that the post-Covid stagnation in real earnings hasn’t fully broken yet.) Whereas the Trump era was less complicated: For a few short years, the American economy performed in ways Americans once took for granted, closer to the long post-World War II boom than to the decades of recession-punctuated deceleration we’ve experienced since the 1970s. Lately, I’ve been reading a portrait of that long age of disappointment — “Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream,” a new book by my Times colleague and former podcast sparring partner David Leonhardt. The book’s argument belongs to a genre, reconsiderations of neoliberalism, that’s somewhat familiar by now but is usually more narrowly polemical, where my colleague offers sweep and detail and depth of historical narrative. And the genre’s entries usually come from predictable “outsider” ideological perspectives, from the far left or lately the populist right, assailing the neoliberal age in the voice of its traditional enemies.

Persons: Donald Trump, Trump, Covid, Trump’s, they’ve, I’ve, —, David Leonhardt, It’s, Leonhardt, Wright Mills, Robert Bork, Barbara Jordan, that’s Organizations: White House, Biden, Times

☆ The Restaurant Industry Is Undergoing a Badly Needed Revolution - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-20 | by ( Anthony Strong | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

I eventually struck out on my own, deciding to play it safe by opening a restaurant with a normal business model. in the United States but has been stuck in a deeply flawed business model with sadly outdated practices. It was also emptying grocery shelves; a friend asked to buy three flats of eggs. My egg friend also desperately needed paper towels, since evidently grocery stores were out of those, too. I took his order, took this as a sign and flipped our space into a general store.

Persons: affordably Locations: United States

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