I am paraphrasing our President in the title obviously. At the point of making too much of a political observation, the President’s comments about insurance could be expanded into many other areas so I cut to the chase and suggest the larger lesson learned should be economic policy in general is not easy.
Housing Policy Rethink
Another comment I had at the roundtable had to do with the concerns about housing and housing policy. Sometimes it is the case that simple solutions exist to economic problems. However I do not think it is the case with housing.
Economic growth as silver bullet
Recently, the Economist had a special feature on economic growth. One of the consequences they pointed out related to growth was improved survival of endangered species. I do not think we need to verify that work at this time, though it got me thinking about the consequences of economic growth for economic policy.
Shutdown and Equity Values
Reminder: I am not giving trading advice, just my interpretation.
Some of my students wondered why equity markets are not down more and at times look to potentially increase. Equity markets are an imperfect reflection of future economic prospects because there are company specific issues that could dominate national negatives.