If so, it means that we are holding our own with the rest of the world as a desirable place to invest and only losing that nation's investment which is itself of potentially dangerous character.
Posted on 07/25/2019 3:56:31 AM PDT by reaganaut1
The costs of America’s trade disputes with the world continue to mount. Academic studies document clearly, for example, that new U.S. tariffs on washing machines and other products have raised U.S. consumer prices of those goods, thereby cutting into Americans’ real incomes.
New government data suggest that another cost is building. Foreign direct investment into America by multinational companies headquartered abroad is falling.
In 2015 and 2016, America’s FDI inflows totaled $482 billion and $486 billion, respectively. Soon after taking office in January 2017, President Trump launched several new trade disputes; that year FDI into the U.S. tumbled nearly 40% to $292 billion. As many of these trade disputes persisted and deepened throughout 2018, FDI inflows slumped further, down 8.2% to $268 billion. Earlier this month, the Commerce Department reported that first-quarter FDI inflows for 2019 were down another 5% from the previous quarter. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, in 2018 America’s share of global FDI flows fell for the first time since 2008, from 25% to 23%.
Not surprisingly, FDI into the U.S. from China—the country with which America is on the verge of full-blown trade war—plummeted 87.9% from 2016 to 2018, to $5.4 billion.
Why does declining FDI matter? Because multinational companies headquartered outside America create high-quality jobs inside America.
According to the Commerce Department’s most recent data, in 2016 more than 7.1 million Americans—5.6% of all private-sector workers—were employed at the U.S. affiliates of global multinationals. That year those affiliates spent $258.9 billion on property, plant and equipment, 16.4% of total U.S. private-business capital expenditures. They conducted $60.1 billion in research and development, 16% of total U.S. business R&D. Much of this activity is in manufacturing. Thirty-five percent of Americans working for foreign multinationals, nearly 2.5 million people, are in manufacturing
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Sad the WSJ has sunk this low.
Raise minimum wage to $15 and hour and watch foreign investment by multinationals drop.
Another rag that makes the enquirer and the UFO aliens look sane
The WSJ propagandizing for ending the tariffs on Chinese imports in this “oh, woe is us” article. Sorry, I’m not buying it.
We need to start confiscating all the wealth of the oligarchs — with Trump’s executive order on human trafficking, we could do that in many cases. :-P
Free traitor articles are a hoot.
Anti-American international trade deals, cobbled together by Pubbie Republicans, are sending jobs everywhere, and thank goodness Donald Trump is changing that!
"Two for the price of one!"
China has large stakes in Hollywood and the media. Makes one wonder how many so called news stories are actually Chinese propaganda served up by MSM puppets of the ChiComs?
My response is twofold.
First the huge bulk of the reduction in FDI is Chinese. This is a consequence of needed changes and even this president said there would be some pain along the path to having free and fair trade.
Second, reading this piece and knowing its source is decidedly anti Trump brings to mind a phrase, “Figures lie and liars figure”.
If you were to ask Japanese, S. Korean, Chinese, EU or a Taiwanese economists if high restrictive import tariffs on durable goods and protective tariffs are beneficial to their economy all of them would give you a resounding YES! Only in America are our economist bound ( paid off) to some stupid theory on free trade when the rest of the world is practicing mercantilism.
The myopic pin heads at the WSJ are Krotch Bros. operatives doing the bidding of the globalist corporate handlers who continue strip mining the USA under the direction of the WTO.
If so, it means that we are holding our own with the rest of the world as a desirable place to invest and only losing that nation's investment which is itself of potentially dangerous character.
Let’s suppose the date is March 1942. Japan and Germany have had an uninterrupted series of victories. The Wall Street Journal editors of today, back then, would have predicted gloom and doom. That’s because the war was a long, hard slog and it was not defined by any one battle. You could not look at Pearl Harbor or Dunkirk and predict what was going to happen.
That is the situation with the trade war. There are so many pieces in play and so many “battles” that you can’t look at a select few and determine the outcome five or ten years hence.
The United States...let’s face it...Trump...have a hand full of winning cards. China has so over leveraged their economy they have no firm base from which to build anything different than what they have now. The US is in a much better position. I am betting on the US and our president, who has demonstrated time and time again that he knows what he is doing.
Nominally the U.S. minimum wage was $1.60 in 1969. So $15 is a little high but not to bad.
A lack of skilled employees is sending jobs elsewhere, but the elsewhere is the future. In Aerospace (where, exactly would Aerospace jobs go, WSJ?) We have huge backlogs and our turn around times have quadrupled.
The Trump economy won’t go bad in the next year for us, because we have a 2 year backlog of work. In a year, we might have a 3 year backlog, If we can’t find employees to help clear the existing backlogs.
We are a nation of workers and not consumers. We have to produce before we can “consume” anything. Calling us a nation of "consumers" is reducing human kind to the level of insects, which I find offensive.
This is how they view you:
Even worse if the WSJ had its way and if this were the 1930’s all of our factories would have been off shored to Japan and Germany and all we would have to throw at them would be spit wads.
If this was solely a trade issue (in reality the economy is far more complicated), there would be room to complain. However, we haven’t been a true free market for a long time, and I’m convinced that is the problem. We’ve begun travelling down the road of central planning, and that never ends well. Government interference in anything automatically causes bloat and undue suffering.
In any case, I’m fine with paying more now for American-made products if, in the future, trade resolves with China and becomes more even-handed.
In the long run American produced goods will cost about the same as coolie made goods. Mass production makes things cheap in price no matter where it is done. In the USA energy is cheap, regulations are going down, new factories here are automated, Americans go back to work and shipping goes from 11,000 miles to a few hundred of miles in most cases. win - win - win.
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