A list of all of Doc Werlin’s writings pertaining to economics.
After Winston Churchill lost the 1945 general election, his wife Clementine tried to comfort him. According to several accounts, she told him defeat might be a “a blessing in disguise.” Churchill reportedly replied, “At [...]
Citadel founder and CEO Ken Griffin criticized the Trump administration’s interference into the day-to-day business of American companies and raised concerns about self-serving decisions made by government officials. Griffin, a Republican megadonor, emerged last year as President Trump’s most [...]
Executive Power, Institutional Independence, and the Boundaries of Lawful Authority Introduction To be transparent, I’ll share my bias. Historically, I have voted Republican on most occasions because of my strong belief in the traditional [...]
The Wall Street Journal recently observed that the United States is drifting toward a new economic model—what it describes as state capitalism. This system is neither socialism, in which the government owns the means of [...]
Personal Background: I majored in Economics at the University of Texas earning a BA and then master’s degrees in Economics and an MBA from the University of Michigan. My career on Wall Street spanned [...]
“Anything Goes America,” an abstract from The Economist, had a sad commentary on the decline of America. The first paragraph detailed Harry Truman, who after his presidency, lived on an income from his memoirs and [...]
Today’s Wall Street Journal highlighted that after nearly five years, middle-class earners now find that living is becoming increasingly unaffordable. Pew Research Center defines the middle-class broadly as having a household income between about [...]
Click on the image below to see Doc's presentation: "2025 Economic Overview and the Looming Debt Crisis" Lecture: 2025 Economic Overview and the Looming Debt Crisis
In today’s Wall Street Journal, “Cutting the Deficit is Easy-Just Unpopular,” the author, Grep Ip pointed out that cutting the deficit will be very difficult. Certainly, not politically easy. In 2024, the deficit was [...]
The Peter Peterson Foundation reported the following based on the June 18, 2024 CBO report.Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) warned that the United States is on an unsustainable fiscal course marked by rising deficits. [...]
Today’s Wall Street Journal reported that Donald Trump’s allies are quietly drafting proposals that would attempt to erode the Federal Reserve’s independence if he wins a second term. That said, his advisors are divided [...]
The Wall Street Journal provided an overview of the income tax paid by Americans, broken down by income. Our nation is on an unsustainable fiscal path, driven by the mismatch between the government’s commitments [...]
Despite China’s boast that its economy grew at 5.2% in 2023, Greg Ip of the WSJ discounts that figure. Ip wrote, “Western analysts and even some Chinese officials have long taken Chinese gross domestic product with [...]
Treasury yields have increased to multiyear highs, forcing the U.S. government to pay significantly more in interest. This in turn is putting significant pressure on the budget. America is expected to spend $870 billion, or [...]
As I sit down to write my final column for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune after 15 years as a guest columnist, I find myself filled with a mix of emotions. First and foremost, I want [...]
As I sit down to write my final article for the Sarasota Herald Tribune after 15 years as a guest columnist, I find myself filled with a mix of emotions. First and foremost, I want [...]
The U.S. economy is entering the second half of 2023 much stronger than anticipated. The American economy is benefitting from broad-based momentum despite rising interest rates. For more than a year, there have been [...]
On June 22, 2023, President Biden showered Indian Prime Minister Narendi Modi with expansive flattery during a lavish state dinner. He sought to draw India closer at a time when the United States is in [...]
The Federal Reserve currently has two major challenges — fighting inflation and averting a credit crunch. Raghuram Rajan, the former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, summarized the problem: “They (the Federal Reserve) are between a [...]
The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly impacted our lives. The entire ecosystem collapsed during the early months of the pandemic as office workers shifted to working from home. The office market has been slow to [...]
Shoplifting is an alarmingly common crime. The National Retail Federation estimates that retail shrink, which includes theft but also problems leading to inventory being lost or recorded inaccurately, was roughly $95 billion in 2021. Dean Rosenblum, [...]
On May 1, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned in a letter to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy that the U.S. may run out of measures to pay its debt obligations by June 1. A potential [...]
On April 19, the United Nations projected that India’s population growth will surpass that of China by the middle of 2023. India’s population, driven by a combination of high fertility rates and improved health care and [...]
On April 11, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that its economic outlook for 2023 has been lowered. IMF Managing Director Kristina Georgieva cautioned that global growth is set for the weakest near-term expansion since 1990. The [...]
On March 4, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) reported that there were nearly 9.9 million job openings in February. This is a reduction from January’s downwardly revised 10.6 [...]
The role of the Federal Reserve is to create a safer and more stable monetary and financial system. Unfortunately, our central bank faces enormous challenges. We have not broken the back of inflation and the [...]
The sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) — the nation’s 16th largest bank — and Signature Bank have changed the financial landscape. Stephen Solaka, managing partner at Belmont Capital Group, wrote, “Sentiment went very quickly [...]
On Jan. 19, the United States hit its “debt ceiling,” which is currently capped at $31.4 trillion. The “debt ceiling” refers to a statutory limit on how much the U.S. can borrow. To prevent a default, [...]
On Feb. 14, the Labor Department reported that the Consumer Price Index increased by 6.4% over the past year. This represents the seventh straight month of declines. CPI measures a broad basket of goods and [...]
On Feb. 3, the Labor Department reported surprisingly strong employment numbers. The economy added a robust 517,000 nonfarm jobs, and the unemployment rate fell to 3.4%, a 53-year low. Analysts were surprised. They had expected job [...]
Last week the U.S. reached its borrowing limit of $31.4 trillion. The debt limit is the maximum amount of debt that the Treasury Department can issue. Given that the federal government runs large budget [...]
The National Bureau of Statistics recently reported that China’s population declined in 2022 by approximately one million people to 1.412 billion. This represents the first decline since 1961, the last year of China’s Great Famine. United Nation experts estimate [...]
The Wall Street Journal in an article “Negative-Yield Bonds Approach Final Days” highlighted that the outstanding amount of negative-yielding debt has almost declined toward zero. According to the Bloomberg index, it now stands at $254 billion, [...]
On Dec. 4, The New York Times in an article “Worsening Debt in Poor Nations Threatens Crisis” highlighted the catastrophic debt crisis of developing nations. The Times pointed out that “rapid inflation, slowing growth, rising interest [...]
