Latest news with #Reaganomics
Yahoo
24-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Does Trumponomics exist? His economic policies are incoherent
It's the mark of an influential president that economists attempt to distill their various policies into a coherent school of thought. Reaganomics meant trickle-down tax cuts and tight monetary policy; Clintonomics focused on fiscal discipline and free trade; and Obamanomics meant middle-class tax credits and expanded access to health care. Then there's President Donald Trump, whose policies don't fit neatly into a straightforward explanation. In his first term, Trump stuck to standard conservative fare of tax cuts and deregulation. Despite vowing to fight for America's 'forgotten men and women,' his $1.9 trillion tax cut package largely benefited top earners and multinational firms. His most dramatic innovation was reviving the use of tariffs and threatening trade wars, but he mostly backed down in favor of tinkering with a free trade deal with Canada and Mexico. But if Trumponomics 1.0 was a slightly more bellicose version of trickle-down economics, it's clear that his second term is a much different animal. One that's broken free of its cage. So far this year, Trump has enacted tariffs on nearly every country on the planet; started major trade wars with China, Canada and Mexico; and launched an enormous deportation campaign with still-unfolding consequences for industries such as farming, construction and hospitality. The Republican megabill that includes most of his domestic agenda would slash taxes for the wealthy and cut benefits for the poor, while massively increasing the national debt. What Trumponomics engineered so far is an economy divided by itself, with promises to accelerate expansion using new revenue sources like tariffs that directly hit that same growth. It's a mess of contradictions. Trump has a taste for lobbing attacks at Republicans who annoy him. But he's also pursuing the most aggressive version of standard GOP economic policy in decades. He broke with Republican orthodoxy in 2016 by vowing to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. But the Elon Musk-led DOGE effort sought to make it harder to access Social Security benefits, and his 'big beautiful bill' would add new hurdles to Medicaid. The central animating belief of Trumponomics is that working-class Americans are being cheated by other countries, immigrants and bureaucrats. To that end, his policies seek to punish other countries, kick out immigrants and fire federal workers. But they also do little to help those same working stiffs and, by cutting programs that do, leaving them worse off overall. Trump and his allies have targeted the "administrative state," arguing that the federal government has abused its power, but they've also sought a dramatic shift toward centralizing economic policy — among other powers — in the White House, testing the guardrails of American democracy and adding an unpredictable element to every decision. That approach can be seen most directly in Trump's Truth Social post Monday after the attack on Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend. "Everyone, keep oil prices down," he wrote. "I'm watching!" This appeared to be directed at oil and gas companies and other oil-producing countries. The vague threat, though, didn't have teeth. Regardless, it cast off Adam Smith's invisible hand of the marketplace in favor of the strongman's steely fist. Indeed, much of Trump's economic policy seems to be based on fleeting whims. He claimed that his campaign proposal to end taxes on tips started with a conversation with a waitress. His other campaign proposals also seemed to be written on the back of a dinner napkin, Arthur Laffer-style: No tax on overtime! End inflation! Cap credit card interest rates! At one point, he pitched exempting police officers, firefighters and active-duty military members from federal income tax. Some of these ideas have a shot at getting embedded in law; others were never mentioned again. Trumponomics has also prompted some to reach into foreign history books. Economists such as former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have compared Trump to a modern version of Juan Perón, a strongman leader from 20th-century Argentina. He cited Perón's appetite for tariffs, robust deficit-spending and efforts to consolidate control over Argentina's central bank, and Trump has pursued identical goals with much gusto. He's pressured the Federal Reserve so much that the Supreme Court went out of its way to argue the Fed could retain its historic independence in a decision that undermined other agencies. The term Trumponomics may be a misnomer, as it implies an enduring set of principles that other politicians could apply on their own. But Trump's economic policies are centered on personal grievance, applied inconsistently and justified by wildly misleading rhetoric. In the end, Trumponomics is whatever Trump says it is until he changes his mind, which he inevitably does, and even then, its actions often don't match its own stated goals. For that reason, it's unlikely that turbocharged Trumponomics will last beyond Trump's presidency. Subscribe to the Project 47 newsletter to receive weekly updates on and expert insight into the key issues and figures defining Trump's second term. This article was originally published on
Boston Globe
17-06-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
Craig Breslow, Red Sox desire to rid themselves of Rafael Devers was greater than their will to win
To represent the right choice, Breslow needs to deploy the Duck Boats for a championship joyride during his tenure. Otherwise, the Sox committed another critical error in continuing a trend this decade of emphasizing the minds in baseball operations over the men in uniform. Advertisement Give Breslow credit, dealing Devers in the middle of a five-game winning streak and hours after his team authored the first sweep suffered by the first-place Yankees this season is an unflinchingly bold move. This trade is now Breslow's version of Reaganomics — an unyielding ideological stance forever knitted into his legacy. It will define his tenure. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'A lot of the moves he has made have been bold and decisive and rooted in what is in the best interests of the baseball team,' said Sox president and CEO Sam Kennedy, ownership's PR proxy. Breslow believed so deeply in the culture-undercutting divisiveness created by Devers's refusal to play first base following a season-ending injury to Triston Casas on May 2 that he excised him from the clubhouse at the expense of this season and for a tepid return. Advertisement Despite what Breslow and Kennedy tried to sell in a Monday media session, this wasn't a baseball trade. It was a calculated dumping of Devers, both personality and paycheck. The Sox freed themselves of his insolence and pricy salary. The Giants assumed the rest of his salary this season and the remaining $254.5 million left on the 10-year, $313.5 million extension the Red Sox blithely handed him in 2023 to save face after the departures of Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts. It's worse than the MLB version of the Mavericks jettisoning Luka Doncic (Luka and Raffy do sport similar physiques, no?) because Two of the three pitchers the Sox acquired, Jordan Hicks and minor leaguer Jose Bello, profile best as relievers. All the chips are on lefthander Kyle Harrison, a highly-touted prospect who has yet to live up to the hype. Prospect James Tibbs is another left-handed hitting outfielder; the Sox need those like you need another streaming service subscription. Players are people, and people are imperfect. Devers displayed warts that would make a dermatologist blanch, initially balking at moving off third base for Alex Bregman and extending to his standoffish stance with team personnel and the media. Rafael Devers (right), speaking with assistant general manager Eddie Romero, made it clear that he saw himself as the Red Sox' third baseman, even after the team signed Alex Bregman. Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff But the team was winning, and he was producing at DH. It's not his fault the thought leaders at Fenway didn't recognize that he's not a franchise frontman, a leader, or a winner. He's only a hitter. Devers's recurring recalcitrance bothered ownership, led by John Henry (you know what else he owns), and Breslow, Advertisement It 'I do think that as we think about the identity, the culture, and the environment that is created by great teams, there was something amiss here,' said Breslow. 'It was something that we needed to act decisively to course-correct.' The timing feels tone-deaf. Just when fans think they're turning the corner, the Sox throw it in reverse by telling Raffy to hit the road. Whether you believe in Breslow or not, this trade simply doesn't jibe with Suddenly, that line feels like British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain pledging he has secured peace for our time. Trading your best hitter in June for pieces that don't improve your major league roster displays the antithesis of 'extreme urgency.' Both Kennedy and Breslow worked assiduously — yet unconvincingly — to put that toothpaste back in the tube. 'I think it's important to point out that this is in no way signifying a waving of the white flag on 2025,' said Breslow. 'We are as committed as we were six months ago to putting a winning team on the field, to competing for the division, and to making a deep postseason run.' We must call the yearly pledges of prioritizing contention what they are — the mendacity of hope, misleading messaging inconsistent with the club's actions. While the Sox were preoccupied with the message Devers's defiance/aversion to sacrifice sent to the clubhouse, what's the message delivered by trading their best hitter during a winning streak to cultivate a culture suited to baseball baptizing prospects Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer, and Kristian Campbell? Advertisement Kids over wins. Among the first teammates to congratulate Roman Anthony (right) on hitting his first career home run on Monday night was fellow rookie Marcelo Mayer. John Froschauer/Associated Press A disconcerting disconnect between baseball ops and the clubhouse remains. A former Sox pitcher, Breslow was supposed to bridge the gap that his predecessor, Chaim Bloom, couldn't. Instead, he managed to alienate the team's highest-paid player and last link to World Series success. Bravo, Bres. It's worth remembering Devers isn't the only intransigent party here. There's a fine line between intelligence and conviction vs. arrogance and obduracy. To his credit, Breslow acknowledged, 'I need to own things that I could've done better.' There's zero reason Breslow and the Sox couldn't have at least tried uber prospect Anthony at first base in Triple A. Also, the team hastily pulled the plug on using Campbell at first, right before he was slated to debut. The only 'alignment' — a business-speak buzzword justifying the trade — Breslow foresaw for a roster problem he's responsible for was Devers sliding to first, knowing another position shift was anathema to Devers. That pushed the detonator on this relationship implosion. Breslow got the final word in his standoff with Devers, but the 2025 Red Sox and their fans got a raw deal. Christopher L. Gasper is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at
Black America Web
16-06-2025
- Politics
- Black America Web
Arizona School Board Under Fire For Updated Curriculum That Includes BLM
Source: Mario Tama / Getty As someone who's resided in Arizona for most of my life, I'll tell you that it is a deeply confusing place. You'll meet some of the most left-leaning folks you could ever know, and then turn around and see a house decked out in Trump flags. This conflict plays out in our state politics on all levels. Take, for instance, the Scottsdale Unified School District, which is currently under fire for a new social studies curriculum that acknowledges Black Lives Matter and protests against police. According to ABC 15, Arizona State Superintendent Tom Horne gave a press conference on Wednesday to challenge a social studies textbook that will be used in Scottsdale schools for the upcoming school year. Maricopa County Sheriff Jerry Sheridan, as well as Jim Hill, the president of the Maricopa County Colleges Police Association, were also in attendance as they felt the curriculum was anti-police. Horne called the curriculum a 'DEI-oriented textbook,' and labeled the school board as 'woke.' Why? Because the textbook acknowledges that over the last decade, we experienced events ranging from NFL players like Colin Kaepernick protesting police violence, to the racial uprisings in 2020 stemming from the murder of George Floyd. Apparently, simply talking about these things is seen as 'anti-police.' These are all events that have occurred in modern American history. History shouldn't be ignored because you don't like it or agree with it. As a millennial, my economic mobility has been stifled due to the long-lasting effects of Reaganomics. Do I like it? No. But thanks to history class, I know exactly who to blame for the socio-economic hellscape that is current-day America. The more you know, you know? Scottsdale Superintendent Scott Menzel pushed back against Horne's claims. 'To label them woke without having ever read what was the 1,250 pages in the textbook is a problem from my perspective,' Menzel told AZ Family. Source: Erik McGregor / Getty 'We would never adopt a curriculum that was anti-police,' said Menzel. 'We do have historically situations where some people argue that we should defund the police. Here in Arizona we had people who removed school resource officers. That's not something that we would ever contemplate, but from a historical perspective our students should be able to wrestle with why someone might have made that argument.' Wow, a curriculum designed to allow students to consider all the different viewpoints they coexist with on a daily basis? You know what? I take it back, that does sound like indoctrination to me. The curriculum had already been discussed by community members during the May board meeting where it was approved, and for the most part people seemed on board with it. 'Is it messy? Yes. Is it uncomfortable? Yes. You may not like the fact that George Floyd is brought up, but Derek Chauvin is serving time for murder. So, if you have a problem with that being discussed and that is somehow anti-police, then I don't know what to tell you,' one community member said during the meeting. Another community member read from a petition signed by 100 students, alumni, and parents in Scottsdale approving the new curriculum. 'Now more than ever, it's vital to provide students with a comprehensive education rooted in trust and fairness. The adoption in this curriculum is a critical step in ensuring all SUSD students receive the education they deserve,' she read. Not everyone is on board, though, as Scottsdale resident Karen Martinson stood beside Horne during the press conference. 'As a Black lady, I don't want my son learning about Black Lives Matter because it is too violent,' Martinson said. Man, wait till she finds out about what they were doing at Klan rallies. Horne has said he will report the curriculum to the federal government as he believes that the school is violating an agreement not to have DEI in K-12 classrooms. It really feels like I'm watching what likely happened in the '70s and '80s when schools began teaching about the Civil Rights Movement of the '60s in my own backyard. Arizona, what a strange place you are. SEE ALSO: Texas Is The Latest State To Censor Higher Education Over DEI Concerns UNC Asheville Dean Of Students Fired For Pro-DEI Comments SEE ALSO Arizona School Board Under Fire For Updated Curriculum That Includes BLM was originally published on Black America Web Featured Video CLOSE
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The 'traditional family' financial structure is back, thanks to Gen Z
Two seemingly disparate topics dominated media during the 2024 presidential election: gender roles (the male loneliness epidemic; tradwives) and the economy (the cost of living or, its shorthand, eggs). But these threads might have been weaving a single narrative all along: The renewed fixation on traditional gender roles was a canary in the late capitalist coal mine, warning that the neoliberal era's social contract was leaking noxious gas. As of 2024, almost half of Republican men and one-third of Republican women believed that 'women should return to their traditional roles in society,' a cultural prescription that's doubled in popularity since just 2022, in part due to the grim outlooks of disillusioned young people. This vision was particularly seductive for young men, who voted for Trump in record numbers: Gen Z men report regressive gender views (like 'a man who stays home with his children is less of a man') at more than twice the rate of their baby boomer counterparts. This context makes otherwise unobjectionable family-friendly proposals — like that of a $5,000 baby bonus — seem more sinister, meager attempts at restoring the single-earner, single-caregiver family structure associated with a bygone era of American prosperity and dominance. In the world that Reaganomics built and over which 14 billionaires now run roughshod, it's certainly an alluring theory. Wouldn't it be convenient for those struggling in the tightening fingertrap of modern life if embracing the supposedly natural traits downstream of one's reproductive system was enough to raise wages and make housing affordable? But we shouldn't forget why we left the so-called 'traditional' family structure behind in the first place. The last time gender's cold war erupted into a battle fought on such explicit terms was around 50 years ago. Two years after Silvia Federici published her seminal work "Wages Against Housework," a woman named Terry Martin Hekker took to the op-ed pages of The New York Times to bemoan the state of homemaking — not because she wasn't being compensated for her time and labor, as second-wave feminists like Federici suggested she ought to be, but because she felt too few women were choosing to do it anyway. Examining household income trends, she muses, 'I calculate I am less than eight years away from being the last housewife in the country.' Betty Friedan, avert your eyes. Hekker, the author of the 1980 book "Ever Since Adam and Eve: The Satisfactions of Housewifery and Motherhood in 'an Age of Do-Your-Own-Thing,'" was the ur-tradwife. Her writing adopted the defensive, defiant tone that will be familiar to anyone who's had the displeasure of viewing the infamous "Ballerina Farm" response to the Times of London article about the modern 'queen of the tradwives.' (The more things change..) Of course, Hekker may not have realized at the time that many of her housewife contemporaries were entering the workforce not because they had read a time-machine-faxed advance copy of "Lean In," but because inflation was creeping higher and their families needed another paycheck. In short, for reasons people have always worked: for money. In the piece, Hekker alternates between playful and indignant. Her argument — that the 'do your own thing' mantra of the women's movement should extend to homemakers, a group she saw as at risk of becoming 'extinct' — seems fair enough, though at times it's plain that Hekker believes being a stay-at-home mother is not only her thing, but the right thing. Putting the ambitions of her peers in scare-quotes in one particularly biting parenthetical, she writes, '[There's no getting even for] years of fetching other women's children after they'd thrown up in the lunchroom, because I have nothing better to do, or probably there is nothing I do better, while their mothers have 'careers.' (Is clerking in a drug store a bona fide career?).' Speaking of her foremothers, she writes, 'They took pride in a clean, comfortable home and satisfaction in serving a good meal because no one had explained to them that the only work worth doing is that for which you get paid.' On this, it's hard to argue: Care work, the work that makes all other work possible, is invaluable — though it certainly isn't valued. But the harsh reality of spending decades out of the workforce in our current paradigm — which, as Hekker rightly argued in 1977 and which remains true today, views work only as that for which you can be paid — is zeroes in the Social Security records, little or no retirement savings of one's own and a slim chance of being able to find meaningful employment later, should one need it. While married women over 65 are about as likely to be poor as married men, divorced women are 56% more likely to live in poverty than their counterparts. (A 2024 Social Security office analysis projects that offering credits to caregivers would increase the monthly benefit of a quarter of the population living in poverty by 14%, a modest but important step in the right direction.) Hekker wrote this op-ed in 1977, a time when the U.S. economy had stalled. Now — 40 years deep in the great neoliberal experiment, in which wages have long grown stagnant, most federal spending has accumulated in sky-high asset prices and labor protections have become so brittle there's hardly anything left to weaken — it's never been more popular to wonder whether the promise of trickle-down, hustle-bustle economics was a trap (it was!). But rather than yearning for the strong unions, high corporate and marginal tax rates and illegal stock buybacks of yesteryear, many cling instead to the ahistorical, rosy image popularized by 1950s nostalgia porn, that which Hekker valorizes in her piece: the superiority of the 'traditional,' single-income family, in which a (male) breadwinner works for a family wage, and a (female) caretaker manages life at home. This is the image cosplayed today by many-an-alt-right grifter on social media, propped up by the bounty of Amazon storefronts and AdSense (did their patron saint Betty Draper have affiliate links, too?). This conflation of gender orthodoxy with American prosperity is popular for a frustratingly simple reason: A politics which refuses to engage with a rigorous economic analysis in the face of parabolic wealth and income inequality has no choice but to attribute the creeping void of American precarity to cultural explanations instead. In other words: Do the gender roles again, a growing contingent of Americans seems to believe, and the prosperity will return! In this accounting, feminism made women selfish and undesirable, men no longer exhibit sufficient 'masculine energy,' and the result is .. wage stagnation? But gender role orthodoxy as a solution to economic problems confronts the same shortcoming today it's always faced: Dependence on the long-term, unwavering benevolence of another person is an abjectly risky financial strategy. Even Reagan, who, as governor of California, signed into law the first 'no-fault divorce' statute in the country, knew trapping people in marriages was a bad idea. Widespread adoption of such unilateral divorce laws saw a drop in the female suicide rate of 20%. So set aside the fantasy that cultural capitulation to this 'traditional' vision would fix the nation's economic issues (it wouldn't), and you're still left with a proposition that balances the heavy burden of long-term security for roughly half the population on the temperamental, one-legged stool of another person's affection. This is a lesson Terry Martin Hekker learned the hard way. In 2006, she returned to the pages of the Gray Lady to write a follow-up called 'Paradise Lost (Domestic Division)' in which she provided a somber update. After her original column had experienced the 1970s version of virality, she wrote a book and toured the country 'lecturing' to 'rapt audiences' about 'the rewards of homemaking and housewifery,' enacting a less overtly political but equally ironic interpretation of the Phyllis Schlafly playbook. 'So I was predictably stunned and devastated,' she revealed, 'when, on our 40th wedding anniversary, my husband presented me with a divorce,' trading her in for a 'sleeker model.' She wasn't alone. 'There were many other confused women of my age and circumstance who'd been married just as long, sharing my situation.' But 'divorced' wasn't the right word for how she felt — 'canceled' was more fitting, as it described what happened to her credit cards, health insurance and finally her checking account. Her ex-husband took his younger girlfriend to Cancún. She became eligible for SNAP benefits and published a second title: "Disregard First Book." The collective longing for a sturdier system, currently molting in tradwife TikToks and behind the paywall of Andrew Tate's Hustlers University, is supported by a scaffolding of legitimate critique. When the U.S. moved to a dual-earner economy, it did virtually nothing to address the question of caregiving, a critical component of any functioning society. In the absence of a robust, systemic approach to care as a public good (save for the dangling carrot of a one-time $5,000 baby bonus), we shouldn't forget the real, if imperfect, protections available to us. For people who want to have children and continue to participate in the labor market, this might look like using a high-yield savings or money market account to begin saving for the climbing expense of child care before a child is born, to defray some of the unmanageable costs. And for those who think they may want to work inside their homes and provide this care themselves, it means building terms around spousal support into a prenuptial agreement that outline what happens if your marriage (and, by extension, source of income) goes away someday — like how much money you'll receive, and for how long, while you look for employment again. These steps — as well as those which can help women earn more money without working harder than they already are — are the focus of my new book, "Rich Girl Nation." But if there's anything this state of affairs should teach us in the meantime, it's that the game of inventing cultural explanations for material shortcomings will always assign the shortest sticks to those least able to demand long ones. That is a feature, not a bug, of the far-right's vision for women's futures. Forgive us if we don't want to play along.
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Business Standard
07-06-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Best of BS Opinion: Sizing up the present and prepping for tomorrow
Have you noticed how a good tailor doesn't just note down size. They examine the grain of the fabric, test its stretch, study how it drapes and where it may crease. Precision in measurement matters, but it's the understanding of the material that determines how well a garment fits in motion, not just on paper. Much like today's world where the complexities don't lie in their surface figures, but in the hidden tensions, subtle shifts, and structural weaves beneath. Stitching the world together requires more than tape measures, it demands feel and a keen eye for detail. Let's dive in. Take Donald Trump's proposed second-term economic plan, for instance. On the surface, it's just another size-too-big tax cut, but Kenneth Rogoff reminds us the fabric is strained, federal debt is at 122 per cent of GDP, interest payments outpacing defence spending, and the bond markets growing increasingly restless. The stitchwork that held Reaganomics together no longer fits. Yet both parties seem reluctant to tailor in tighter fiscal seams, even as the dollar's credibility frays. In Tamil Nadu, Kamal Haasan's foray into politics reveals the limits of star power when not matched with political grain. Aditi Phadnis traces his trajectory which contains flashes of brilliance but little drape with the electorate. His alliance with the DMK may buy him a Rajya Sabha seat, but it's clear that charisma alone isn't a cut above unless it's lined with deeper grassroots stitching. Sandeep Goyal draws the contrast between Zeenat Aman's nostalgia-laced but weak Netflix return and Bobby Deol's sharply recut villainous turns. Reinvention requires understanding not just the old silhouette but today's fabric. Campa Cola nailed that, relaunching not with sentiment but with savvy pricing and strategic placement, showing us how legacy can be re-tailored to fit modern demand. Meanwhile, Shekhar Gupta threads through the geopolitical shift along India's borders. Pakistan's brief military flare-up wasn't a standalone patch, but a piece from China's strategic pattern. The drape of conflict has changed, subtle, layered, and stitched from multiple fronts, with Beijing quietly trimming the edges. And finally, Jyoti Mukul brings us to a repair shop in Gurugram where old gadgets are being brought back to life. Sunil Kumar's soldering iron is perhaps the truest metaphor, a reminder that good fixes aren't about replacing parts, but respecting the integrity of what's already there. With India's new Repairability Index and global moves toward circular economies, we're slowly learning to value mends over disposals. Stay tuned, and remember, true mastery lies in seeing how the cloth looks when worn in the real world!
