YAP KWONG WENG AND SUN XI

Last month, American President Barack Obama pledged to lift all sanctions against Myanmar during its leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s visit to the United States. Such an apparent thawing of ties between the two nations must be of some concern for Myanmar’s long-time ally, China.

This week we bring you some of the best discussions of the evolution of macroeconomic theories post-2008. What seemed so certain before is now being questioned at a fundamental level by leading economists. Negative interest rates, which alter rational expectations of inflation, have also provoked some of this soul searching. But will new models and new theories be any better at predicting the next crisis?

STORIES IN OUR SPOTLIGHT

Foreign Affairs just published a piece by me regarding TPP in its online edition at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/americas/2016-09-21/trading-down.

It is entitled: Trading Down: Is the TPP Making the United States a Less Benign Hegemon?

Here is the excerpts:

Donald Trump’s charge that Hillary Clinton used her office as Secretary of State to service donors of the Clinton Foundation exemplifies a regular Trump tactic: Preemptively charge your opponent with what you know you’ve done.

So, fully aware that his own family foundation is a shoe-string operation that breached IRS regulations, or worse; Trump and his surrogates charged for months that the Clinton Foundation’s funding and works are proof of corruption. No disinterested party found any such proof.

With nine weeks to go, the economic conditions for the election are set — modest growth, low inflation, and continuing job gains. A few Wall Street forecasters rate the odds of a 2016 recession at one-in-three; but unless a major shock wrenches the economy off its present course, bet with Janet Yellen and Ben Bernanke on the economic expansion continuing into next year.

Donald Trump says that Democrats have failed American minorities, so let’s test his claim by the most basic economic criteria: What happened to the incomes of African Americans and Hispanics under Democratic and Republican administrations over the last 35 years? The data do not lie. The incomes of minority households — and in most cases the incomes of white households, too — grow faster under Democratic administrations than under GOP ones.

We’ll be resuming with our September issue after Labor Day. Hope you’ve been having a good summer.

This is an advanced copy of  an interview with Michael Green that will be in the issue. Michael Green, a former member of the George W. Bush National Security Council, explains why he is opposing Donald Trump and endorsing Hillary Clinton.

Review and commentary on Putin's (and Russia's) dilemma:

Earlier this month, President Obama took the unprecedented step of authoring an academic research article in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) to document the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) accomplishments and suggest improvements.