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In Blue Cities, Abundance Will Require Fighting Labor Unions

1 day ago | joshbarro.com | Josh Barro

Dear readers,Yesterday, I interviewed Rep. Ritchie Torres at WelcomeFest, an annual conference for centrist Democrats in Washington, D.C.Midway through our conversation, we were interrupted by protesters from Climate Defiance, who have apparently moved on to Gaza as their cause of the day. One of the protesters kept screaming that Rep. Torres should be sent to The Hague for his pro-Israel politics. But I wasn’t there to talk with Torres about Israel.
Trump Is About to Learn You Can't Spin The Bond Market

2 weeks ago | joshbarro.com | Josh Barro

Dear readers,Donald Trump’s approval ratings deteriorated steadily during his first three months in office, with their decline accelerating after April 2 — so-called “Liberation Day” — when the president announced shockingly large global tariffs and financial markets puked in response.
If Your Agenda Prioritizes Carbon Reduction, It's Inherently Anti-Populist

3 weeks ago | joshbarro.com | Josh Barro

Dear readers,It’s been fun watching Ezra Klein patiently ask leftists how, if they hate his ideas so much, they would instead propose to make housing production cheaper. This exchange with Sam Seder is instructive — Seder is all argle-bargle about housing being expensive because it is excessively “commodified,” and yet he has no answer for why Texas builds homes more cheaply than California. Is it because Texas has smashed capitalism and turned housing into a non-market good?
Kamala Harris Didn't Lose Because of Sexism, And Democrats Hurt Themselves When They Say She Did

4 weeks ago | joshbarro.com | Josh Barro

Dear readers,Joe Biden, for some reason, is back on television. This morning, he told the hosts of The View he still thinks he would have beaten Donald Trump if he’d stayed on the ballot last year. He also says he “wasn’t surprised” Kamala Harris lost to Trump — Harris was well-qualified to be president, he says, but she was no match for the powerful weapon of sexism that Trump levied against her.
The Tariffs Are Starting to Hit the Real Economy

1 month ago | joshbarro.com | Josh Barro

Dear readers,Today’s GDP report showed the economy shrinking slightly in the first quarter, at an annualized pace of 0.3%. Not great news. But for reasons economist Jason Furman notes, this figure somewhat overstates how weak the economy was in the first quarter. There was a tremendous surge in imports in the first quarter, which signals that firms were acting to get ahead of expected tariffs, which in turn led to a large buildup of inventories.
Business Leaders Are Afraid to Tell Trump He's Wrong, But Won't Be Afraid to Cut Jobs and Raise Prices

2 months ago | joshbarro.com | Josh Barro

Dear readers,Last week, Donald Trump achieved something no president has before: He singlehandedly caused the S&P 500 to fall 10 percent in two days. The declines have continued today, and the signal from the ticker is unmistakable: His harebrained tariff plan is an economic disaster. A recession is now likely, with all the concrete human harms that entails: job losses, business closures, bankruptcies.
'Liberation' Through Massive Tariffs is Not Going to End Well for Republicans

2 months ago | joshbarro.com | Josh Barro

Dear readers,While the idea that the imposition of huge tariffs constitutes “liberation” is ridiculous, some of the other descriptors the White House is using for President Trump’s big tariff announcements are accurate enough. His sweeping global tariffs will be “transformative,” “historic,” and “bold,” they say.
'Abundance' Liberals Have a Carbon Problem

2 months ago | joshbarro.com | Josh Barro

Dear readers,There’s a conversation — occurring, as these conversations do, mostly among coastal elites — about how Democrats can better promote abundance. But for that conversation to end up being useful, it needs to be connected to what the average American thinks abundance even is. To that end, it’s worth thinking about Sen.
It Is Not Chuck Schumer's Job to Satisfy Your Emotional Needs

2 months ago | joshbarro.com | Josh Barro

Dear readers,Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has done something that has made a lot of Democratic partisans very angry: He has said that he will join a fraction of his Democratic colleagues in voting to allow the Republican-drafted, House-passed continuing resolution to come to the Senate floor, so Republicans can pass it with a simple majority vote. Democrats could, if they wished, block the CR from coming to a vote and force a government shutdown.
Uncertainty Is What Trump Loves About His Tariff Powers

2 months ago | joshbarro.com | Josh Barro

Dear readers,Business executives and investors don’t know how to respond to President Trump’s ever-changing tariff policies. If they were confident that tariffs would remain fairly modest, they could proceed with their investment plans undisturbed. And if they knew that a particular immodest tariff policy was on its way in, they could at least adjust their plans to account for the coming policy environment.