Trumponomics

From a fatal highway bridge collapse in Minneapolis to LaGuardia Airport's "third-world" experience, America's failing infrastructure is no secret. To bring the country up to date, advisers to President-elect Donald Trump have floated the idea of a federal infrastructure bank, allowing cities and states to borrow at exceptionally low interest rates and encouraging private investment. Will it work?...

President-elect Donald Trump is on the verge of igniting a trade war with China. He might want to first listen to Jon Huntsman's thoughts on why that's a bad idea. The former ambassador to China, Utah governor and onetime GOP presidential candidate shares his insights into the Middle Kingdom at a time when the nation is undergoing its own economic transformation and faces a political crossroads. Y...

First came Brexit. Then Trump. Now the world's attention turns once again across the Atlantic to France, where a presidential election is coming up and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen could be the next politician to upend the establishment. The nation is reeling from terror attacks, the economy is in lousy shape, and President Francois Hollande's popularity is dismal. Nicolas Veron, a scholar at...

Millions of Americans could help solve a looming labor shortage for certain U.S. industries. Problem is, they're felons. Are ex-cons who can't get jobs holding back economic growth? Join us on Benchmark this week to hear from Keri Blakinger, who served time in state prison for heroin possession before getting out, finishing college (at Cornell) and managing to get a job in, of all things, journali...

In the wake of Donald Trump's surprise presidential victory, the Benchmark team has a few questions: Is trade with Mexico destined to end? Is our relationship with China about to drastically shift? Is the U.S. about to experience a Reagan-esque stimulus? Take a trip around the world as Kate, Dan and Scott discuss what the president-elect means for the global economy as we know it. See omnystudio.c...

Falling food prices may be good for your Thanksgiving tab this year, but they're doing a number on the U.S. economy. Food commodity prices have fallen over 20 percent from early 2015, helping to keep inflation at bay and wages stagnant, according to a research note from Goldman Sachs. As prices have fallen, the cost of eating out has stayed the same - what gives? This week, co-hosts Kate Smith and...

How tight is the U.S. labor market? So much that one trucking company is offering $5,000 signing bonuses to lure new drivers. Yet millions of Americans remain out of the workforce -- people who might be candidates for a job that, while tough, takes relatively little training and can't be shipped overseas. What's going on here? Two guests share their theories with co-hosts Scott Lanman and Kate Smi...

If U.S. childcare costs are so expensive, why do people who walk your dog make more money than the workers who take care of your kids? Is there any way it could become cheaper to send your kid to day care than to attend a public university? Our co-hosts are interested: Scott because he has two young daughters in preschool, and Kate because she pays a sizable sum to have her dog walked. Joining the...

How did a diminishing slice of Western economies come to so dominate the political narrative? The roar of the white working class, mainly in onetime industrial powerhouses, put Donald Trump within shouting distance of the White House, ejected Britain from the EU and fueled the surge of far-right parties in France and Germany. J.D. Vance, bestselling author of "Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family...

And you might want to cross San Francisco off the list, too. In the past 30 years, the most expensive metro areas in the U.S. have seen their housing prices grow at a much faster pace than the least expensive markets, according to a new report out from Trulia. That rapid increase has caused certain areas - especially New York's long-envied Manhattan borough - to be closed off to not only the succe...

The world's most powerful central bank kept interest rates unchanged today, but the Federal Reserve also suggested an increase is imminent -- perhaps as soon as December. Join Dan, Scott and Fed reporter Matt Boesler on a special Benchmark podcast to figure out what's new and what's not. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Can a nation's entire economy fit on one smartphone app? In China, that day is almost here. More than 700 million Chinese -- more than double the entire U.S. population -- use WeChat. It's an all-purpose super-app that does the job of Facebook, Uber, Paypal, Tinder and many other apps, making it an invaluable tool for the Asian nation's rising middle class. That's helped give WeChat's parent Tence...

More than a decade after the first Internet boom, U.S. productivity growth has stagnated and the economy has been unable to break out of 2 percent expansion. This situation is testing even the most optimistic of forecasters, but in contrast to our recent guest Robert Gordon, MIT professor Erik Brynjolfsson is unbowed. Brynjolfsson -- who's also director of MIT's Initiative on the Digital Economy,...

Sometimes the monthly U.S. jobs report delivers a clear signal on the labor market and the economy. This is not one of those times. Fortunately, the Bloomberg Benchmark crew is here to talk about the burning questions raised by the latest report, including the implications for the Federal Reserve and what the wage numbers mean. In this special bonus episode of the Benchmark podcast, reporter Jeann...

Happily ever after doesn't come cheap in the U.S. Couples looking to tie the knot pay an average of about $30,000 between things like caterers, flowers and photographers to capture the day. But why is it that weddings cost more than other large-scale parties? In this week's Benchmark, former White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee explains how the concepts that we learned in freshman year eco...

When phone companies implored U.S. customers in 2003 to text more because they were lagging behind the rest of the world, it was all over. Almost. While we're used to a dizzying array of new apps each month and new "sharing economy" companies such as Uber and AirBnB transform the way we do business, one of the greatest periods of U.S. productivity was already behind us by 2005. The little gadgets...

This week the Benchmark team takes a look at one of South Korea's most promising new exports: beauty products. Seoul is pivoting away from the country's reliance on government-sponsored companies like Samsung and LG and instead attempting to capitalize on its multi-generation tradition of expensive, multi-step skincare regimens. Women - and men - around the world are buying into the trend, helping...

As much as economics permeates our lives, the concepts behind the subject can often be rather dry. Fortunately, the smash Broadway musical "Hamilton" takes some of those concepts and sets them to catchy hip-hop tunes. Matt Rousu, an economics professor at Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania, is already creating lessons for his students based on some of the musical's songs as well as numbers in...

Now that slavery, of all things, has popped up as one of the weirder talking points in the bizarre U.S. presidential campaign, we figured it might be time to examine just how much of a link slavery -- and everything it connotes -- has to do with international economics. And yes, we did get into Brazil just last week, but with the Olympics starting this month, what better region to focus on than La...

Police strikes, threats of Zika and a $20 billion tab: Welcome to the 2016 Summer Olympics games in Brazil. But Rio's position isn't just matter of bad luck. It was actually self-imposed. Every four years countries vie to be the next host of the summer Olympics, despite cautionary tales of unnecessary stadium spending from places like Montreal and Athens. What is it about sports that make otherwis...

No one thinks the Fed is going to raise interest rates at its next meeting. Chair Janet Yellen isn't scheduled to hold a press conference, and there won't be any new rate projections from Fed officials. So what should you look for when the central bank issues its statement on Wednesday? In this special bonus episode, reporters Chris Condon and Jeanna Smialek join host Scott Lanman to tell you the...

How would the U.S. economy fare under President Donald J. Trump? Hosts Scott Lanman and Kate Smith journey one year into the future to track the Benchmark podcast from July 21, 2017. Joning them is Neil Dutta from Renaissance Macro Partners, who helps explain just what's happened during Trump's first six months -- and we also learn just how crazy this Pokemon Go thing has gotten. See omnystudio.co...

China wasn't on the ballot when U.K. citizens made the surprise decision to leave the European Union. But it has played a major role in the forces of globalization that Britons rebelled against with their vote in June. How does one connect the dots from Deng Xiaoping's opening up of the Chinese economy in 1978 to Brexit in 2016? Marc Champion, a reporter for Bloomberg News in London, joins Dan and...

From the U.S. to the U.K., immigration and its consequences are flaring up as never before. But how exactly do they shape the economy, and how are native workers affected when immigrants enter the labor force? For answers to these questions as well as a frank discussion on where policy should go from here, Tori and Aki talk to Giovanni Peri, a professor at the University of California at Davis and...

Drug companies and researchers have made huge advances in recent years to treat cancer, possibly the world's leading cause of death. And more breakthroughs are likely. But it will come with a big price tag, and getting all the way to a cure will be tricky. What does it all have to do with the global economy? And what's a moonshot, anyway? Dr. Louis Weiner, director of the Georgetown Lombardi Compr...