All posts tagged: GDP growth

Biden Is Still the Democrats’ Best Bet for November

Published by skeptic

[ad_1] Let’s start with the obvious. The concerns about Joe Biden are valid: He’s old. He talks slowly. He occasionally bumbles the basics in public appearances. Biden’s age is so concerning that many Biden supporters now believe he should step aside and let some other candidate become the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. The New York Times journalist Ezra Klein made the best-available case for this view recently in a 4,000-word piece that garnered intense attention by arguing that Biden is no longer up to the task of campaign life. “He is not the campaigner he was, even five years ago,” Klein writes. “The way he moves, the energy in his voice. The Democrats denying decline are only fooling themselves.” In one sense Klein is correct. As the political strategist Mike Murphy said many moons ago, Biden’s age is like a gigantic pair of antlers he wears on his head, all day every day. Even when he does something exceptional—like visit a war zone in Ukraine, or whip inflation—the people applauding him are thinking, Can’t. Stop. …

No, the Economy Isn’t Tanking

Published by skeptic

[ad_1] The illusion persists, despite all evidence. Americans are pessimistic about the economic future. They feel worse off than their parents were. Poll after poll shows that at best, only 20 percent of Americans say the economy is doing better than it was a year ago. More than 20 percent of Americans are doing better than they were a year ago, by many measures: Unemployment is lower. Wages are growing. Inflation is declining. This is true for Americans across ages and classes. These are tangible improvements in household income that should be cheering people up. And still, they are not. Why? What tricks are our minds playing on us that we can’t feel hopeful? In this episode of Radio Atlantic, I interview Gilad Edelman, a senior editor at The Atlantic who covers the economy. Edelman was also stumped by the mystery. Typically as inflation improves, so does the American mood. But for the first time in decades, that didn’t happen. In a poll commissioned by The Atlantic, Edelman set out to figure out what factor …

Is Novo Nordisk’s Success Really Trouble for Denmark?

Published by skeptic

[ad_1] Over the past couple of years, no new pharmaceutical drug—perhaps no product, period—has had such widespread impact as the diabetes medication Ozempic and the weight-loss drug Wegovy, both made by Danish company Novo Nordisk. Most obviously, the drugs have changed the lives of the millions of people who now count on them to help control their appetite. These two products have taken Novo Nordisk from a successful but second-tier drugmaker to the most valuable company in Europe. The drugs are also having ripple effects across the business world. To take one example, snack and soda makers have wondered whether they need to adjust their strategies for a world where people’s cravings for their products have diminished. Some stock analysts have even suggested that the drugs’ popularity might boost airline profits—because their passengers will weigh less in the future. Ozempic and Wegovy have also exerted huge influence in Denmark, giving the GDP of Novo Nordisk’s home country a sizable boost. The billions of dollars in profits that the company is now bringing home—$5.7 billion in …