Economy in better shape, Daily Beast editor says

By Alexis Schulz

America’s economy might not be as bad as some people think, according to the global business editor and columnist at The Daily Beast who spoke to Rider students on March ll.

Daniel Gross, hosted by the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics, said that America is developing ways to meet its economic needs.
“What we did as a nation, as companies and as consumers, is we found new internal resources to tap into,” Gross said.
According to Gross, America is trying to create new technology that will help growth and expansion. Energy is an essential part of America’s economic health.

“The new energy equation: resources meeting technology to make a big difference,” Gross said.

He said that the U.S. is using its internal resources, such as oil, to support its economy, as well as new technology.

Gross said that employment has made a comeback in the past few years as well, and more people are obtaining jobs.

“If you factor out some important factors, it doesn’t look quite as bad,” Gross said. “The private sector has recovered every single job lost since the Great Recession.”

People are now getting out of debt and improving their credit, Gross said.

“If you look at every metric except for student loans, people are doing a much better job staying current on their debt than they have in the past,” he said.

Gross made it easy for students to understand this sometimes tedious subject by adding humor.

“It was entertaining, which usually doesn’t happen when you go to a talk about the economy and politics,” said Nicholas McManus, a freshman computer information systems major.

D’Jalma Lopez, a freshman political science major, agreed.

“Apart from him being funny, his perspective of politics was intriguing,” she said.
Gross was a reporter at The New Republic and Bloomberg News, served as a columnist for The New York Times, Newsweek, and Slate, was a contributing writer to magazines such as New York, Fortune and Wired, and was the economics editor at Yahoo! Finance.
He made it clear that America is doing better than many believe and that the future is bright.

“From one perspective you can come back from the economic future and conclude that the world is sort of leaving us behind,” Gross said. “I prefer to think of it as the world is taking us along for the ride.”