Sunday, November 4, 2018
Oba-Nomics...
Economic growth under Trump has averaged 2.9 percent, and will likely top 3 percent this year. That’s considerably more than the 1.5-1.75 percent growth rate predicted by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco when Trump took office.
The economy has also added 3.6 million jobs since the start of Trump’s presidency, and unemployment has declined from 4.8 percent to 3.9 percent. Unemployment rates for women, African-Americans and Latinos are all at multi-decade lows. Real disposable income which barely rose during Obama’s tenure is now growing about 0.3 %. And small-business optimism has reached its highest level ever recorded.
On the other hand, it is far too soon for many of the president’s initiatives, such as tax and regulatory cuts, to have fundamentally altered business incentives. Besides, those cuts have been much smaller than the president likes to trumpet. For instance, according to the American Action Forum, net deregulation this year under Trump will save businesses roughly $1.6 billion. This is a step in the right direction but a drop in the bucket of an $18.6 trillion economy.
Rather than a fundamental shift in the economy, we may simply be seeing a "sugar high," the stimulative effect of tax cuts combined with massive increases in deficit spending. Government spending is up 7 percent since last year, and that is reflected in gross domestic product numbers. There is good reason, therefore, to question whether the growth we are seeing is sustainable.
Friday, November 2, 2018
Intellectual...
Beijing has been dogged by accusations that it forces U.S. firms to transfer technology to their Chinese business partners.
The Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property estimates the annual costs from the loss of intellectual property ranges from $225 billion to $600 billion.
Leakage of intellectual property was a larger concern when doing business in China than elsewhere. A paper by the St. Louis Federal Reserve in 2015 estimated that half of the technology possessed by Chinese companies came from foreign firms.
National security experts say Chinese hackers have also long tried to steal trade secrets from U.S. defense contractors. This is the greatest transfer of wealth in history.
Then there’s the sale of counterfeit goods in China. Third-party vendors on internet retail platforms owned by the likes of Alibaba have often sold counterfeit goods, according to the U.S. Trade Representative.
Sisters...
Two Saudi Arabian sisters who had been living in Virginia and were discovered dead and bound together near the edge of New York’s Hudson River were likely alive when they entered the water, investigators said.
The bodies were bound in duct tape together at their waists and feet, facing one another, and both fully clothed.
Relax...
President Trump is confronting China about its unfair trade practices and theft of American intellectual property when others shy away from the truth for fear of Chinese reprisal.
It bears remembering that the Chinese trade practices that irk Trump truly do bedevil Americans and others doing business with China, and they go back decades, at least to the mid-1980s, when China under Deng Xiaoping was opening to the world.
While the Dems focusing on Russia, the real threat is China. Trade and Intellectual property theft, in addition to building their military with speed.
Secrets...
The Justice Department has charged companies in China and Taiwan with stealing trade secrets from a U.S. semi-conductor company.
The prosecution comes as American officials raise alarms about the threat of Chinese economic espionage.
The Justice Department says the company targeted Idaho-based Micron over a technology that it produces that stores memory in electronics.
The Trump administration on imposed restrictions on technology exports to one of the indicted companies, Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit.
The administration has characterized China, , as a strategic competitor of the U.S and no president before done anything about this for years. Just a thought.
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