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As you might expect from an organization with so many important functions, the federal government offers a variety of careers. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in May 2013, more than 2 million federal civilian workers were employed in 350 different occupations. Whatever your interests or skills, there is likely a federal job that suits you.

The three articles — a, an, the — are a kind of adjective. The is called the definite article because it usually precedes a specific or previously mentioned noun; a and an are called indefinite articles because they are used to refer to something in a less specific manner (an unspecified count noun). These words are also listed among the noun markers or determiners because they are almost invariably followed by a noun (or something else acting as a noun). caution CAUTION! Even after you learn all the principles behind the use of these articles, you will find an abundance of situations where choosing the correct article or choosing whether to use one or not will prove chancy. Icy highways are dangerous. The icy highways are dangerous. And both are correct. The is used with specific nouns. The is required when the noun it refers to represents something that is one of a kind: The moon circles the earth. The is required when the noun it refers to represents something in the abstract: The United States has encouraged the use of the private automobile as opposed to the use of public transit. The is required when the noun it refers to represents something named earlier in the text. (See below..) If you would like help with the distinction between count and non-count nouns, please refer to Count and Non-Count Nouns. We use a before singular count-nouns that begin with consonants (a cow, a barn, a sheep); we use an before singular count-nouns that begin with vowels or vowel-like sounds (an apple, an urban blight, an open door). Words that begin with an h sound often require an a (as in a horse, a history book, a hotel), but if an h-word begins with an actual vowel sound, use an an (as in an hour, an honor). We would say a useful device and a union matter because the u of those words actually sounds like yoo (as opposed, say, to the u of an ugly incident). The same is true of a European and a Euro (because of that consonantal "Yoo" sound). We would say a once-in-a-lifetime experience or a one-time hero because the words once and one begin with a w sound (as if they were spelled wuntz and won). Merriam-Webster's Dictionary says that we can use an before an h- word that begins with an unstressed syllable. Thus, we might say an hisTORical moment, but we would say a HIStory book. Many writers would call that an affectation and prefer that we say a historical, but apparently, this choice is a matter of personal taste. For help on using articles with abbreviations and acronyms (a or an FBI agent?), see the section on Abbreviations. First and subsequent reference: When we first refer to something in written text, we often use an indefinite article to modify it. A newspaper has an obligation to seek out and tell the truth. In a subsequent reference to this newspaper, however, we will use the definite article: There are situations, however, when the newspaper must determine whether the public's safety is jeopardized by knowing the truth. Another example: "I'd like a glass of orange juice, please," John said. "I put the glass of juice on the counter already," Sheila replied. Exception: When a modifier appears between the article and the noun, the subsequent article will continue to be indefinite: "I'd like a big glass of orange juice, please," John said. "I put a big glass of juice on the counter already," Sheila replied. Generic reference: We can refer to something in a generic way by using any of the three articles. We can do the same thing by omitting the article altogether. A beagle makes a great hunting dog and family companion. An airedale is sometimes a rather skittish animal. The golden retriever is a marvelous pet for children. Irish setters are not the highly intelligent animals they used to be. The difference between the generic indefinite pronoun and the normal indefinite pronoun is that the latter refers to any of that class ("I want to buy a beagle, and any old beagle will do.") whereas the former (see beagle sentence) refers to all members of that class

Against the backdrop of the current debate on the economic effects of climate mitigation policies by market participants and central banks, this paper empirically assesses the response of inflation to carbon pricing. Does putting a price on carbon in fact lead to “greenflation”?

Our findings, drawing on 18 carbon taxes from Europe and Canada, cast doubt on the view that carbon taxation leads to inflation. Controlling for country and year fixed effects, as well as economic controls, we find no robust evidence of an inflationary response, on average. This result holds both for European countries and Canadian provinces, and survives a battery of robustness checks.

3.1.1. The simple case for a carbon price. Following Pigou (1920), the vast majority of economists think that one cannot do without a sizable carbon price, despite its unpopularity.17 Carbon pricing applies the polluter-pay principle.18 Pricing has been shown to substantially alter behavior for other pollutants as well as carbon emissions. For example, the United Kingdom substantially reduced its CO2 emissions from the electricity sector almost overnight following the imposition of a carbon price floor (around €21/tCO2) in 2013 on top of the EU ETS price (which remained under €10/tCO2 between 2013 and 2018). This led to the phasing out of coal electricity generation, whose contribution to the UK electricity mix fell from 40% to 5% between 2013 and 2018 (Leroutier 2022). Before the energy crisis, it was estimated that a carbon price around €35–40/tCO2 sufficed to induce a switch from coal to natural gas, which pollutes half as much. The impact of the Swedish carbon tax, introduced in 1991 and equal to €114/tCO2 in 2021, has been meaningful as well.19

It is appealing to dream that emissions reductions might take place spontaneously without need for material incentives (another illustration of motivated beliefs), but history shows otherwise: Hitting economic decision makers where it really hurts, namely in their wallets, changes their behavior and unleashes innovations that can solve challenging problems.

There are several ways that the United States could make a significant contribution to the global fight against climate change. We could take President Obama’s action on new power plants to the next level and use the Clean Air Act to reduce pollution from existing power plants and other major sources of emissions. The existing regional programs that charge a fee for pollution could be strengthened and broadened to cover more of the country, or Congress could get involved and put a nationwide price on carbon by creating a carbon tax.∂ Before diving into specifics on a national carbon tax, it’s important to recognize that there are countless ways to put a price on carbon. A cap-and-trade system is one such method, and it’s certainly possible to design a progressive cap-and-trade system. In such a system, a strict cap is set on national pollution, and polluters must have permits for all of their pollution. These permits are freely traded so that companies can reduce their pollution profit by selling permits to other companies that may need more pollution allowances. Analysis showed that the cap-and-trade bill passed in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2009 would have benefited low-income people, reduced the deficit, protected vulnerable industries, reduced pollution, and stimulated investment. That’s why CAP, along with private businesses and a bipartisan majority of the House of Representatives, supported the bill. Unfortunately, it failed to muster the necessary support in the Senate and was never enacted.∂ Three years later cap and trade is off the table largely because of a polluter-funded effort to deny climate science and delay action on pollution reductions. But Hurricane Sandy, the fiscal cliff, and the debate over clean energy incentives have together made it clear that we must put a price on carbon—and we must do it soon.∂ Given the track record of climate legislation in Congress—including the failed effort to pass the cap-and-trade bill in 2009—enacting a carbon tax poses more of a challenge than either expanding the regional carbon-pricing actions or using the Clean Air Act to regulate all power plants. While both of these alternatives are steps in the right direction, a national carbon tax would be able to address more than just our environmental concerns. In addition to mitigating the effects of climate change, a carbon tax could help solve our country’s budget crisis and provide revenue for new job-creating investments in clean energy infrastructure. By raising new funds, driving new investments, and reducing the likelihood of the most catastrophic consequences of climate change, a carbon tax is a tool that can take on our country’s three most pressing challenges: the deficit, joblessness, and the climate crisis.∂ In this issue brief we describe some of the key questions Congress needs to answer in designing a carbon tax. We lay out the principles for making sure that a carbon price puts our country on a progressive path to future prosperity and describe why a carbon tax is a desirable way to price carbon. We then turn to the issues in collecting the necessary revenue. Finally, we discuss how to use the revenue to most effectively solve the challenges facing our country.∂ Key principles for a progressive carbon tax∂ As with most energy policies, the details of a carbon tax are critical to accomplishing its goals. A well-designed pricing system can create jobs, reduce greenhouse gas pollution, and have fair impacts across all regions and income groups. To ensure this positive outcome, the United States should adopt a carbon pricing system that embodies progressive principles of fairness, environmental safety, and economic growth. The pricing system should:∂ Be sufficiently robust that it leads to meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas pollution, getting us on a path that helps us avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. In addition to being high enough to affect pollution rates, the tax should also increase over time and be applicable to non-carbon-dioxide greenhouse gases such as methane. This would both ensure a continuing reduction in the release of carbon dioxide and also encourage companies to move toward cleaner energies instead of different dirty ones.∂ Encourage businesses to make new investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This will stimulate the economy and put people back to work in the burgeoning clean-tech and green-jobs sectors.∂ Reduce—not increase—economic vulnerability of low-income households by ensuring that they are fairly compensated for any increase in energy prices.∂ Have appropriate mechanisms to protect existing American businesses and prevent so-called pollution leakage to countries without similar systems in place. Leakage occurs if highly polluting industries simply move to other countries that don’t have a comparable limit on pollution; in this way, they can continue business as usual without stricter environmental regulations. Leakage can also happen if domestic industries shut down, causing us to import goods from other countries.∂ Reduce the budget deficit to prevent draconian cuts in vital domestic programs by raising revenue from the tax.∂ The remainder of this issue brief explains how to design a carbon tax that meets these criteria.∂ Why a carbon tax is the best solution∂ Although it is unlikely that Congress will attempt to pass federal cap-and-trade legislation again in the near future, there are alternatives to putting a price on carbon—including the carbon tax, which is getting significant attention today from lawmakers and thought leaders across the political spectrum. The basic mechanics of a carbon tax are very simple: A tax is assessed on each ton of greenhouse gas pollution, the tax is paid to the government, and the government uses the money for either targeted spending or general usage. The tax will discourage pollution, therefore discouraging the use of fossil fuels while promoting cleaner energies. It can be increased over time to continue incentivizing polluters to lower their emission rates.∂ A carbon tax does have a critical distinction from cap-and-trade. With the carbon tax, the price is fixed, and the market responds by reducing carbon pollution to a point where it is cheaper to pay the tax than reduce the pollution. With cap-and-trade, though, the amount of pollution reduction is set by law, while the market responds by setting a price for pollution at the point that reflects the amount of pollution that must be reduced. The difference is cost certainty versus emissions-reduction certainty. For some pollutants such as sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxides, the emissions certainty is very important. With greenhouse gas pollutants such as carbon dioxide, on the other hand, atmospheric concentration will determine the impacts of climate change. This means that the reductions in greenhouse gas pollution need not be as precise as those for conventional pollutants, as long as we meet longer-term goals such as reducing pollution 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050. A carbon tax of $15 to $25 will achieve these levels of reductions by incentivizing companies to lower their pollution rates to the desired levels, making it an effective solution to curbing greenhouse gas pollution.∂ The cost certainty implicit in a carbon tax could also be very useful in driving investments in efficiency and new clean technologies. For long-lived assets such as power plants and factories, knowing what the cost of carbon will be in the future makes planning those investments much easier. A carbon tax will also incentivize the use of non-fossil-fuel-based energy, causing an economic boost in the green-jobs and clean-tech markets.∂ There are two important sides to a carbon tax: how the revenue is collected and where the revenue goes. Getting the right mix of policies on both sides of the equation will ultimately determine whether or not a carbon tax achieves the aforementioned goals.

Humans have fought over food and the means of producing it for 20,000 years, as rock art in Australia shows. Food, water and land scarcity are primary drivers in two thirds of modern conflicts today. Indeed, many people seem to have forgotten that the primary German war aim in World War II was to take farmland from the Soviets and put German farmers on it. It is very likely that controlling the Ukraine’s bountiful and reliable food bowl is among Putin’s main aims also. In the short run this is imposing hunger and even starvation on hundreds of millions of people far beyond Europe. Spreading hunger in turn snowballs into government failures, civil wars and refugee tsunamis around the world – as it did in 2008 when a shortfall in Ukrainian grain exports led to revolutions in three Arab countries. Already, a third of a billion people – equal to the entire population of Europe – leave their homes each year, either as refugees or economic migrants, to seek better lives in countries which seem more stable and food secure. War will add to the flood. Thus, in developing a new food system for the world of the 21st Century, we also have to find a way to curb the human appetite for war. In , I trace the links between food and conflict through human history, explore the role of food in recent conflicts and examine nine regions of the world which are at high risk of food failure and conflict in the foreseeable future – conflicts ranging from riots and government failure to nuclear war. My aim is to show that the link between food and war is inexorable – but that it can be broken. And that having enough good food is the most under-rated, under-recognised and precious ‘weapon of peace’ in the world today.

The war raging in Ukraine has exacerbated food insecurity across the world — and food aid experts are looking to the 2023 farm bill for solutions. Ukraine’s massive grain supplies typically feed 400 million people per year, but the war has “drastically cut supplies” and driven up food costs for consumers in rich and poor countries alike, according to the World Food Program (WFP). U.S. legislators are currently drafting the farm bill, an omnibus agriculture act passed every five years, which includes provisions for international food assistance. The farm bill authorizes a number of domestic and international food aid programs. The legislation doesn’t fully authorize funding for this aid, which must be decided in separate appropriations, but it outlines how each program runs and how it can use future funds. Lawmakers can use the must-pass farm bill draft to amend these programs as needed. Experts like Rebecca Middleton, chief advocacy and engagement officer for World Food Program USA, are hoping to see “robust authorization” for food aid support in the 2023 farm bill — especially the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust, Middleton said. The Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust builds up over time and then can be cashed out at the authorization of the secretary of Agriculture. In April 2022, $282 million was withdrawn from the Emerson Trust to support countries in need after the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict threatened food supplies in six major countries facing food insecurity: Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Yemen. The withdrawn money was used to obtain U.S. commodities and bolster existing aid in those countries, according to a U.S. Agency for International Development spokesperson. The Emerson Trust was renamed to honor former Mississippi Rep. Bill Emerson in 1998 but was originally established in 1980 as a wheat reserve. Because of rising food prices, in 2008, the Department of Agriculture converted the trust into a cash reserve that can be used to purchase U.S. commodities in times of need. The trust was most recently reauthorized in the 2018 farm bill, and Congress must reauthorize the Emerson Trust in the 2023 legislation. Congress also has the authority to replenish funds after they are withdrawn. “For all of those accounts [in the farm bill], the one that we’re really interested in is the Emerson Trust because it’s an account that’s not very well known, but is absolutely vital in situations like the one that we found ourselves in in 2022,” Middleton said. “It’s really absolutely vital assistance that the U.S. was able to provide because of that emergency account in this time of historic need.” The 2018 farm bill did not account for such crises like the COVID-19 pandemic or the Russia-Ukraine conflict, both which have had severe effects on supply and triggered more aid from the federal government, so the Emerson Trust was an essential resource in recent years. “I mean, the need was extraordinary and then just compounded with the shock to the global food supply chain with the Ukrainian crisis,” Middleton said. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), the former ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee’s subcommittee on nutrition, said in a statement that he supports keeping international food aid well-funded in the new legislation. “The FY 2023 farm bill reauthorization needs to continue to build on the trajectory of the past two decades and ensure that the U.S., in partnership with American farmers and non-profits, can respond swiftly and comprehensively to global humanitarian emergencies and invest in longer-term resilience and sustainability, especially for small farmers, so that they may more successfully withstand future economic and climate shocks,” McGovern said in a statement to The Hill. In addition to the Emerson Trust withdrawal, the Biden administration committed $2.76 billion toward global food security last summer, on top of Biden and other G7 leaders’ contributing $4.5 billion to the issue in 2022. High prices for fuel and fertilizer, theft of farm equipment, destruction of agricultural facilities, and the blockade of Black Sea ports all threatened to push millions of people internationally into poverty, hunger and malnutrition starting in 2022, according to the White House. The Horn of Africa faced a particularly acute crisis due to prolonged drought and famine. Dalton Henry, vice president of policy for U.S. Wheat Associates, is hoping to see solutions in the 2023 farm bill that prioritize using U.S. commodities as a “cornerstone” of donations to regions in need. “We have a tremendous priority placed on making sure that hungry people around the world get fed and the farm bill programs do such a good job at doing that with commodities,” Henry said. He added that it’s “hard to say” how much farm bill policies will change from past years, but that the Russia-Ukraine war has inflamed existing hunger and food insecurity due to global conflicts like those in Ethiopia and Yemen. Henry said the war in Ukraine has made the need for international food aid more prominent. “I think that, if anything, one of the big impacts is that the war has put global food security much more front of mind for a lot of folks,” Henry said, “and probably shone a little bit more of a light on some of these programs that normally kind of fly under the radar.”

Five Senate Republicans want Congress to denounce modern monetary theory, a doctrine gaining fans among progressive Democrats, as a menace to the U.S. economy.¶ The progressive theory, invoked by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. — and the subject of fierce debate among thinkers on Wall Street and beyond — would result in bigger budget deficits and higher inflation, according to a non-binding resolution. It was backed by five Republican senators led by Georgia's David Perdue, a former Dollar General Corp. CEO.¶ MMT says countries that print and borrow in their own currency, like the U.S., can't go broke and don't need to worry too much about budget gaps when inflation is subdued, as it is now.¶ The idea has been cited by progressives as a way to pay for programs like the Green New Deal. It's been attacked as a recipe for hyperinflation by a series of financial heavyweights. And some investors and economists, from Olivier Blanchard to Bill Gross and Ray Dalio, have taken more nuanced views and sided with some elements of the theory.¶ Nobel laureate Paul Krugman has been among the critics. But he pushed back Friday against the Republican move on Twitter.¶ Since the recession a decade ago, the U.S. budget deficit has expanded under both Democratic and Republican leadership. It was shrinking when President Donald Trump came to power, but he's presided over tax cuts and spending increases that reversed the trend, taking the shortfall to about 3.9% of gross domestic product last year.¶ The looser fiscal policy has helped accelerate the U.S. economy under Trump. His economic team says faster growth will eventually enable the government to recoup revenue lost to the tax cuts.¶ Democrats say that's an old supply-side argument that's been empirically disproved, though they're split over whether the U.S. should try to reduce the deficits or just spend them differently.

Enter a new far-flung theory, this time from the far left. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) promises that we should stop obsessing over how to pay for policies such as Medicare for All, a federal jobs guarantee, a universal basic income, free college—anything really. Imagining a world without federal budget constraints is politically attractive to some progressives because they’ve rightfully felt short-changed by blatant Republican hypocrisy. Republicans screamed about the national debt when Obama was in office trying to save the economy from the great recession, and then passed a huge tax cut for high-income and wealthy individuals and corporations in the midst of an economic expansion.

The Senate failed to move forward with Democrats' "Green New Deal," but the partisan clash over the controversial environmental plan is likely to be a continuing theme ahead of the 2020 election. The measure needed 60 votes to advance but was blocked when all Senate Republicans and four Senate Democrats opposed it. The rest of the chamber's Democrats voted "present." Senate Republicans forced a vote on the proposal Tuesday as part of an ongoing effort to turn the provocative climate change resolution into a wedge issue in the 2020 elections. Democrats say the GOP gambit carried its own political risk of mocking an issue that is a priority for ag number of Americans.

President Biden invited a bipartisan group of lawmakers to the White House this afternoon to discuss the upcoming farm bill reauthorization. Invitees include Rep. G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.), Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.), and USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack. Stabenow labeled the session as a chance to “have a broader discussion about the farm bill and all the implications for it,” and that it will show “we are working together in a bipartisan way.” She also noted it was a chance for both sides to share their priorities for the bill. Thompson signaled he wants to hear a “commitment from everyone including the president that we will get this done and done in the manner I've been speaking about. Bipartisan, bicameral, on time and highly effective." Boozman said the session is a “step in the right direction” and he wants to see the discussion focus on “the fastest path forward” for the omnibus legislation. Farm Bill Meeting Perspective It’s always good to have a president’s attention on a big topic like the farm bill. It will be interesting to see if Biden/Vilsack detail any must-haves in a new farm bill. Food stamp funding and implementation flexibility, conservation and climate-smart programs are key possible administration topics. History has a lot of examples of how some White House officials wanted to take a more active role in a farm bill only to find that lawmakers write it, not the executive branch. However, a president must sign the omnibus bill and if it is vetoed, override votes are needed--a situation that has occurred before.

Stakeholders continue to provide testimony on the $1.2 trillion Farm Bill being considered by the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture on a daily basis. The ultimate goal is releasing the bill to the full House for a vote in mid-September, said Committee Chair Glenn Thompson, R-15, Bellefonte. Thompson is the first chairman of the Agriculture Committee from Pennsylvania in nearly 170 years. He said he wants the Farm Bill to be bipartisan, bicameral and highly effective. The Farm Bill touches the lives of every American family, multiple times a day, and provides resources and safety-net programs for farm families “that are in Congressional District 15, which has 18 counties, including Union and Snyder. And throughout Pennsylvania,” Thompson said. “The programs we have are not handouts. The modern Farm Bill is based on public-private partnerships,” he said. The bill is important for farmers because it includes things like crop insurance and conservation programs. But overall it addresses issues common in rural America. The bill has 12 Titles, some miscellaneous, or categories, that include everything from rural broadband and rural utilities to helping municipalities with water and sewage projects. Other Titles address workforce development, and access to food through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, as well as funding food banks and food pantries. Title four of the Farm Bill is nutrition. Forty-two million people in America are eligible for SNAP, Thompson said. The Central Pennsylvania Food Bank CEO and Executive Director Joe Arthur said he has been “keeping close watch on this year’s funding of title four.” “Where we are now is that we are having hearings and roundtables every day in Washington,” Thompson said. “And we will continue to do that right up until we pass this bill out of committee. I am shooting for having this done by mid-September, before the deadline, and having it on the House floor. That’s my goal and I am sticking to it.” Thompson is now meeting with the freshmen members of Congress and has formed groups with expertise in different areas such as content, and Farm Bill processes.

The GND would also be astronomically expensive. In a study reported by Bloomberg News, the proposal could cost up to $93 trillion over the span of 10 years, or $65,000 per family, per year. That’s more than three times the national debt. Between paying for my tuition and student loans, I can’t afford to take on more financial burden and neither can the majority of other college students. ¶ In addition, the Heritage Foundation reports that the GND would cause the average household’s electricity cost to increase by about 12-14%. Economic recession or not, this is an additional hardship that struggling Americans cannot afford.¶

In early 2016, Obama Treasury Secretary Jack Lew cautioned that the dollar’s dominance as a global currency rested, in part, on the U.S. government’s reluctance to fully weaponize it. If foreign markets and governments “feel that we will deploy sanctions without sufficient justification or for inappropriate reasons,” he warned, “we should not be surprised if they look for ways to avoid doing business in the United States or in U.S. dollars.” Lew’s case stemmed from the more fundamental view that the dollar’s international role is “a source of tremendous strength for our economy, a benefit for U.S. companies and a driver of U.S. global leadership”—in other words, a role worth keeping. This view is emblematic of American financial governance since the Second World War. U.S. economic analysts, especially at the Treasury, have jealously guarded the dollar’s role and the many benefits it offers: the ability to run large deficits at low cost and disproportionate influence over the structure of the global economy, among others.

Yet in their recent article in The New Republic, David Adler and Daniel Bessner argue the U.S. should abandon these advantages. In their view, the dollar’s role has encouraged American militarism and should be relinquished to curb such behavior. Dollar hegemony is not without cost, but to renounce it would be a profound mistake. Adler and Bessner’s view neglects the sizable economic benefits the dollar’s role confers on the U.S., as well as its possible use as an antidote to military adventurism. It ignores the enormous good that can be done with deficit spending, much of which has gone to the American military but could instead fund progressive programs. And it elides the inability of the U.S. and its global trading partners to shift away from dollar dominance without creating worldwide financial distress. Adler and Bessner are right that the U.S. has misused its privilege, but Washington should not abandon it; rather, American leaders should seek to transform it.

Economic renewal and fiscal reform have become the preeminent issues, not only for domestic and economic policy but for foreign policy as well. As the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael G. Mullen, was fond of saying, national debt has become perhaps our top national security threat. And neither major presidential candidate is doing enough about it. This issue needs to be framed as crucial not just for our future prosperity but for international stability as well.

The United States has been running trillion-dollar deficits, resulting in a huge explosion in the country’s indebtedness. Publicly held debt now equals 70% of gross domestic product, a threshold many economists consider significant and highly worrisome. Making matters worse, half of our current deficit financing is being provided by foreigners. We are getting by with low interest rates and tolerable levels of domestic investment only because they find U.S. debt attractive, which may not last.

After World War II, the United States emerged as the largest economy and the most powerful military and political force in the world. In 1944, at the Bretton Woods Conference in New Hampshire, the US and other major countries agreed to establish a new international monetary system based on fixed exchange rates, with the US dollar as the anchor currency. Under this system, other countries could peg their currencies to the US dollar, and the US would guarantee to exchange dollars for gold at a fixed rate of $35 per ounce.

This system worked well for several decades, as the US economy grew and the dollar became the primary currency for international trade and finance. However, in the 1960s, the US began to run large trade deficits and spend more on the Vietnam War, which led to a loss of confidence in the dollar and a rise in inflation. In 1971, President Nixon announced that the US would no longer redeem dollars for gold, effectively ending the Bretton Woods system and leading to a period of floating exchange rates and greater volatility in currency markets.

Stephen Miran, "Filling the Punch Bowl," City Journal, 5-8-2023, https://www.city-journal.org/article/high-government-spending-undermines-feds-inflation-measures-- 嘉玮

In response to persistently high inflation, the Fed’s hiking cycle, bringing rates to roughly 5 percent, is the fastest and most aggressive in 40 years. Yet we’ve seen very limited evidence of a slowdown in economic growth sufficient to bring inflation back down to the 2 percent target.

The economy is doing what it needs to do to achieve probably its best possible near-term outcome: inflation falling while keeping unemployment low, all the while staying out of a recession through the rest of this year. Recent data shows the labor market has performed well, inflation continues to cool after being at such a high rate, and the housing market is showing some signs of resilience. This may be music to the Federal Reserve's ears, as the central bank considers whether to slow the economy even further. The Fed's ideal "soft landing" is a balancing act between slowing the economy to bring inflation down while ensuring growth stays strong and unemployment doesn't get too high. That's exactly what's happening in the economy right now. The job market is cooling down but still strong Hiring slowed dramatically in June, while still remaining high compared to before the pandemic, adding 209,000 nonfarm payroll jobs, nearly 100,000 less than the revised growth in May. Job creation on the whole has slowed from the year's highs in January, with some industries such as retail losing jobs from May to June. The latest jobs report is "mostly what the Fed wants to see, which is the labor market sort of coming back into balance, no longer overheating and being sort of sustainable, steady, robust, those kinds of words, rather than sort of exceptionally hot and supply constrained," Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, told Insider on Friday. Additionally, the most recent Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for May reveals job openings are still high, while continuing their overall downward trend, echoing the job growth figures in showing a cooling but still-strong labor market. And despite a year of the Fed raising interest rates to fight inflation, unemployment is still remarkably low. The unemployment rate fell in June to 3.6% after rising by 0.3 percentage points in May. Other measures also show that the job market is still very healthy. The prime-age employment-population ratio, the share of people in the 25 to 54 age range with a job, surged from 80.7% to 80.9%, the highest since April 2001. Nick Bunker, economic research director for North America at the Indeed Hiring Lab, told Insider that the slowing but still good employment data suggests the US is heading toward stronger and more sustainable growth. "It's just a matter of, is this pace of moderation quick enough for the Federal Reserve?" Bunker said. "Is this a trend that'll have more time to play out, or will tighter monetary policy or some other stumbling block get in the way of seeing how painless this recalibration can be?" Inflation is coming down as fast as it went up Inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index rose by just 3.0% in June from a year prior, a great sign for Americans' wallets and the lowest rate since March 2021. Inflation had been dramatically cooling before the latest report out Wednesday. The year-over-year change in this index has slowed ever since peaking back in June 2022 at 9.1%. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, has been extremely high, but it also cooled in June. After a year-over-year increase of 5.3% in May, the index rose by a smaller 4.8% year over year in June. Wage growth as seen by year-over-year changes in average hourly earnings has also plateaued. Despite that plateau, the fall in inflation means that real wages are up on average. Data from the National Federation of Independent Business released Tuesday revealed the number of small businesses that raised their prices fell in June to the lowest level since March 2021, dropping to just 29%. This suggests small businesses have adjusted to still-rising prices, despite about 90% of owners reporting they had few or no qualified applicants for job openings.

Several recent works on China and Sino–US relations have made substantial contributions to the current understanding of how and under what circumstances a combination of nuclear deterrence and economic interdependence may reduce the risk of war between major powers. At least four conclusions can be drawn from the review above: first, those who say that interdependence may both inhibit and drive conflict are right. Interdependence raises the cost of conflict for all sides but asymmetrical or unbalanced dependencies and negative trade expectations may generate tensions leading to trade wars among inter-dependent states that in turn increase the risk of military conflict (Copeland, 2015: 1, 14, 437; Roach, 2014). The risk may increase if one of the interdependent countries is governed by an inward-looking socio-economic coalition (Solingen, 2015); second, the risk of war between China and the US should not just be analysed bilaterally but include their allies and partners. Third party countries could drag China or the US into confrontation; third, in this context it is of some comfort that the three main economic powers in Northeast Asia (China, Japan and South Korea) are all deeply integrated economically through production networks within a global system of trade and finance (Ravenhill, 2014; Yoshimatsu, 2014: 576); and fourth, decisions for war and peace are taken by very few people, who act on the basis of their future expectations. International relations theory must be supplemented by foreign policy analysis in order to assess the value attributed by national decision-makers to economic development and their assessments of risks and opportunities. If leaders on either side of the Atlantic begin to seriously fear or anticipate their own nation’s decline then they may blame this on external dependence, appeal to anti-foreign sentiments, contemplate the use of force to gain respect or credibility, adopt protectionist policies, and ultimately refuse to be deterred by either nuclear arms or prospects of socioeconomic calamities. Such a dangerous shift could happen abruptly, i.e. under the instigation of actions by a third party – or against a third party. Yet as long as there is both nuclear deterrence and interdependence, the tensions in East Asia are unlikely to escalate to war. As Chan (2013) says, all states in the region are aware that they cannot count on support from either China or the US if they make provocative moves. The greatest risk is not that a territorial dispute leads to war under present circumstances but that changes in the world economy alter those circumstances in ways that render inter-state peace more precarious. If China and the US fail to rebalance their financial and trading relations (Roach, 2014) then a trade war could result, interrupting transnational production networks, provoking social distress, and exacerbating nationalist emotions. This could have unforeseen consequences in the field of security, with nuclear deterrence remaining the only factor to protect the world from Armageddon, and unreliably so. Deterrence could lose its credibility: one of the two great powers might gamble that the other yield in a cyber-war or conventional limited war, or third party countries might engage in conflict with each other, with a view to obliging Washington or Beijing to intervene.

Economic renewal and fiscal reform have become the preeminent issues, not only for domestic and economic policy but for foreign policy as well. As the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael G. Mullen, was fond of saying, national debt has become perhaps our top national security threat. And neither major presidential candidate is doing enough about it. This issue needs to be framed as crucial not just for our future prosperity but for international stability as well.

The United States has been running trillion-dollar deficits, resulting in a huge explosion in the country’s indebtedness. Publicly held debt now equals 70% of gross domestic product, a threshold many economists consider significant and highly worrisome. Making matters worse, half of our current deficit financing is being provided by foreigners. We are getting by with low interest rates and tolerable levels of domestic investment only because they find U.S. debt attractive, which may not last.