U.S. Economy

After a quick review of the key points in this article's sister paper ("Donald Trump: Apostle of America's Civil Religion"; also on this site), this article reviews Trump's appointments and early policies to sketch out his strategies and aims. It suggests that his prime tasks are to maintain both the monied and populist blocs of the Republican party, as losing either would diminish the party's political strength, and to maintain his personal political hold. The article looks at how Trump is achieving these aims and concludes that his presidency is neither Hobbesian nor Schmittian but is the highlighting of division, fears, and uncertainty by tapping into nativist, populist, "small government" beliefs for the political and financial gain of those whom the Republican party usually benefits.

There has been a mismatch between rising wealth and the pace that new assets are created and incorporated. Secular stagnation  hypotheses offer explanations for this. Public debt and its partial monetisation by central banks has played a stabilising role by boosting the net supply of assets available to meet demand. The US big balance sheet economy has been on a growth path dependent on the continuity of low real interest rates, as well as stretched price-earnings ratios of stocks and high corporate debt. Periodic episodes of downward adjustment in asset prices have been countervailed with lax monetary policies.

According to the online article “Will Higher Oil Prices Fuel Inflation,” author and cultural economist Ronald R. Cooke states, “The essential claim is that in 2005, higher oil prices will not drive up the rate of inflation as much as they did in the 1970’s because oil consumption, as a percentage of GDP, has decreased by half since then” (Cooke 2005).  Within a year of this writing, the geopolitical unrest in the Middle East coupled with worldwide demand for oil, and natural disasters due to global warming threatens to raise the U.S. price per barrel to over $100.00 as predicted by Goldman Sachs one year ago.  What can the government do to help both businesses and consumers alike minimize the effects of commodities inflation?

U.S. economy has taken many hits and there have been methods invented to prevent the problem from becoming a recurring scene. Our research will be a close and thorough examination on one of the approach that Federal Reserve uses to manage the U.S. economy, the Quantitative Easing program. It all started back in November 2008, when the U.S. financial system was still faced with serious trouble due to the failure of the investment bank Lehman Brothers. The Federal Reserve had almost run out of its traditional tool, cutting interest rates and the like. Thus, the Fed has come to an understanding that creating a new program is necessary. Consequently, the program Quantitative Easing was brought to the table in the hope to boost US economy to pull the U.S. economy out from its downturn. Even though even one simple policy would mean differently in the eyes of many in terms of its influences, and that it will yield different results as it is used under different circumstances, we are here to endorse the idea that the QE program has undoubtedly served to be successful and, most importantly, helpful in the process of maintaining a healthy economy. To follow up on that, the presenting argument...

On March 1, 2013, President Obama and congressional leaders failed to come to an agreement that would avert automatic across-the-board government spending cuts as required by the 2011 Budget Control Act.  The Act requires the government to cut at least 1.2 trillion dollars in spending from fiscal year 2013, through fiscal year 2021.  The budgets cuts also known as the sequester/sequestration requires eighty five billion dollars of spending cuts for fiscal year 2013, with the Department of Defense taking the brunt of the cuts, cutting forty six billion dollars – more than half of all government spending cuts and an additional fifty to fifty five billion dollars per year until 2021.  Furthermore, these cuts are arbitrary, which is having a negative affect on the U.S. Armed Forces’ military readiness, which in turn is negatively affecting individual Americans, certain communities and groups, and nations allied to the United States.  This paper will explore, in three parts, how the sequestration is negatively affecting military readiness, determine the stakeholders involved, and explain how a combination of revenue creation, eliminating un-needed programs and contracts, and overhauling the military benefit system will reduce or eliminate the sequestration’s negative effects on military readiness.

In 1931, the noted historian James Truslow Adams defined the American Dream as a lifestyle that "should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement."

The above clearly implies that these opportunities would not be based on social class or circumstances at birth.

Nearly two hundred years prior to Adams, the very essence of the United States Declaration of Independence proclaimed, "...all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Clearly, this does not mean more food stamps or longer unemployment lines that we see so abundantly today.