Peter Morici

How Trump is the statesman on immigration reform

America needs skilled immigrants but competes badly with other industrialized nations facing similar challenges. President Trump is championing reforms to help fix that.

June 10, 2019

Globalizing the Federal Reserve and monetary policy

The Federal Reserve's principal tools — adjusting short term interest rates and quantitative easing for accomplishing 2 percent inflation and low unemployment — are radically out of sync with a global economy that relies on the dollar. It's high time U.S. monetary policy be realigned to reflect the reality of managing the global currency.

June 4, 2019

Trump must run against ‘Bernie Care’ and the GOP in 2020

President Trump is the victim of his own success. Voters now rank health care above the economy as the top issue for Washington to address, and the president must run against his own party to win in 2020.

May 28, 2019

China, the renegade state, won’t play by the trade rules

President Trump enjoys bipartisan support for his tough stand on China, but Democrats and farm state Republicans indicate they could desert him if he fails to bring home an agreement that ends China's piracy of American technology and finally opens its markets to U.S. products.

May 19, 2019

What Trump naysayers miss is that the economy is growing in different ways than in the past

Welcome to the Trump prosperity — the 3 percent GDP growth accomplished since the recent tax cuts and assault on abusive government regulation took hold are just a prelude of what could be accomplished if the endless Democratic attacks don't bring down the administration and the organized left — the mainstream media, radical feminists and socialists — don't highjack our personal liberties and destroy American capitalism.

May 14, 2019

Policy rooted in flawed economic theories

After years of frustration, the Federal Reserve believes it has accomplished its goal of 2 percent inflation. In reality, international oil markets did much more than its interest rate policies to raise prices and the Fed should abandon that target altogether.

May 7, 2019

Toward a more democratic Federal Reserve

The Federal Reserve — frustrated by its inability to consistently accomplish strong growth and 2 percent inflation — is reviewing strategies. Maybe it should simply hand out money to ordinary folks, helicopter money, instead of just to banks.

April 30, 2019

Bernie Sanders’ Medicare numbers don’t work

Democratic presidential hopefuls are at it again — promising free college tuition, forgiveness of student debt and to dramatically lower what individuals pay for health care. Like President Obama, if any lands in the Oval Office, the country could be saddled with another albatross — the Affordable Care Act has not tamed health care costs but it has so radically altered the marketplace that voters are afraid to dismember it.

April 23, 2019

Stress testing your retirement plans

If you are planning to retire sometime in the next several years, then you should stress test your plans — living arrangements, retirement portfolio and income and anticipated leisure pursuits — because retirement is like your first days in kindergarten, full of surprises.

April 16, 2019

China’s ascent to global dominance is predicated on its authoritarian government, socialist economy

President Xi Jinping believes China's ascent to global dominance is inevitable, because its authoritarian government and socialist-market economy can better deliver technological progress and prosperity than decadent Western democracies. Established elites in the West may be proving him correct.

April 11, 2019

Building taller cities to cope with climate change is less costly than the Green New Deal

Humans are unique in our ability to change the environment and unlock the secrets of nature. Erecting shelters, building aqueducts and mining the Earth, we moved from the temperate plains of Africa and caves of Chauvet-Pont d'Arc to harness agriculture, establish great cities and create technological wonders. Fossil fuels accelerated the ascent of man but according to the architects of the 2016 Paris Agreement, we must curb our appetite or global warming will make uninhabitable vast settlements.

April 2, 2019

Global appetite for dollars permits the U.S. to run the printing presses, but it’s not unlimited

The bounty of oil has made many developing countries initially rich but undemocratic and corrupt, and now the growing global reliance on the dollar threatens the same for America.

March 26, 2019

Beyond the admissions scandal: $1.6 trillion in student debt slows the economy

The college admissions scandal lays bare the true weaknesses in American higher education — its obsession with athletics and liberal prejudices that subvert academic standards.

March 19, 2019

Why America should go cashless

Most folks purchasing a Curry Chickpea Bowl at Sweetgreen or a Nora Roberts novel at an Amazon brick-and-mortar store reflexively pay with a credit or debit card or an app -- they might be surprised if they try a 20-dollar bill.

March 14, 2019

Trump should call out Congress to boost the economy

President Trump's economy has been good so far, but to sustain the momentum and raise his re-election prospects he should champion policies that many Republican or Democratic members of Congress don't like, are inclined to obstruct but could be persuaded to accept.

March 11, 2019