Robert J. Samuelson
Santa Cruz Sentinel
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Past articles by Robert:
Robert J. Samuelson | Will Trump win the battle for public opinion?
WASHINGTON — It increasingly seems that the fate of Donald Trump’s presidency will be settled by that old political standby: public opinion. By all reports, Democrats have more than enough vo… → Read More
Robert J. Samuelson | Why we should impeach and remove
WASHINGTON — No one has worked more aggressively to trigger impeachment than the president. You may remember that, during the campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump suggested that, should he w… → Read More
The globalization backlash
The verdict of history is that the trade war that’s now raging between the United States and China will lead to no good — with consequences that could go well beyond trade and threaten … → Read More
Should the Fed fight back?
“To the barricades.” That’s one way of characterizing Bill Dudley’s recent proposal that the Federal Reserve fight back against President Trump’s unrelenting attacks. … → Read More
Have we lost our economic dynamism?
On this Labor Day, the American economy — the source of jobs for almost all of us — is full of promise and peril. It is hard not to be impressed with its job-creation capacity. Since th… → Read More
The elderly aren’t so poor after all
It was probably inevitable that we would have a “retirement crisis” as hordes of baby boomers (people born between 1946 and 1964) sprint and stumble into their “golden years.̶… → Read More
The great deficit gamble
It’s getting harder and harder to write these budget columns, because it must be obvious to almost everyone by now that hardly anyone in Washington (or perhaps any place) cares about the budg… → Read More
Learning from the Great Depression
What is striking about the latest bouts of financial turmoil — the recent wild swings in global stock and bond markets — is that they provide a sobering reminder of the potential hazard… → Read More
Is the economy turning against Trump?
To have a recession or not — that is the question. It also encompassed last week’s most important political news, notwithstanding all the public attention understandably focused on the … → Read More
Robert J. Samuelson
WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has not been shy about saying what he’s trying to do: prolong the economy’s expansion so that it creates more jobs for those who, in the pa… → Read More
Are we shortchanging the military?
The military-industrial complex isn’t bankrupting us — though some on the left still cling nostalgically to the belief that it is. It’s fiction. We need to be clear about this. As… → Read More
Here’s how the internet attacked me
I got hacked. It was scary. In this age of cybereverything, we all live in dread that we’re going to be somehow attacked by the internet. Nearly everyone seems vulnerable. The internet is cha… → Read More
Will the global debt bomb explode again?
Debt is the crux of the matter. If you want to understand what makes the world vulnerable to a global recession or, possibly, something much worse, you’ve got to come to grips with the worldw… → Read More
America's cycle of disappointment
The late Alice Rivlin, a longtime scholar at the Brookings Institution think tank, enjoyed an unusually constructive career. Over more than four decades, Rivlin — who died recently at 88 R… → Read More
Trump's endless war on regulation
The most obscure part of President Trump’s economic agenda is deregulation. This is not because anyone is deliberately hiding it. The real reason is more mundane: Deregulation is obscure, bec… → Read More
Ambition on display
What struck me about the first debates among 20 candidates for the Democratic nomination for president was how much they resembled a gaggle of graduate students. All seemed articulate and intellige… → Read More
Robert Samuelson | Tear-up the (economic) textbooks and start over!
WASHINGTON — Harvard professor N. Gregory Mankiw is one of the most influential economists in the United States. But the 61-year-old’s authority does not stem from advancing an arcane scholar… → Read More
Robert J. Samuelson
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for president, is a man from the 1930s. If you didn’t believe that before, you certainly should believe it now. … → Read More
The fate of Japan
If you want a peek at the future, try looking at Japan. It’s a sobering exercise. Here’s how economist Timothy Taylor, managing editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, describes… → Read More
The Democrats’ fairy-tale campaigns
“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” John F. Kennedy’s inaugural speech, Jan. 20, 1961 Watching th… → Read More