Shave off

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, says globalization shaved off 0.1% yearly inflation in the 20 years before the Trump administration’s 2018 tariffs, as manufacturers took advantage of lower costs in China and elsewhere. As production moves to higher-cost areas such as the U.S., he says annual inflation could be boosted by 0.1% to 0.3%.

Goldman Sachs has put a $1.2 trillion price tag on the climate legislation alone. Still, economists in a paper from the Brookings Institution this past spring stressed that the cost depends on factors including how the private sector responds to tax credits for clean-electricity generation and storage, the price of solar panels and wind turbines, and even whether companies can get factories permitted and connected to the electricity grid.
–Barron’s