Free Republic

Caterpillar is one excellent company. It is building new factories now in Texas, Arkansas, and North Carolina, from which it will export products made by American workers all around the world. Its excellent worldwide parts distribution network gives its used equipment a very high resale value. But on September 29 Caterpillar announced it is building its twelfth factory in China -- this one to produce mini-excavators. Why can’t Caterpillar make a profit exporting mini-excavators to China? The answer is simple: China has a 30% tariff on all excavators. In fact it has a similar high tariff on just about every...

Politics: The Export-Import Bank wanted to stop the export of U.S. coal-mining equipment to India. But it seems coal isn't so bad, and green isn't all that special, when the re-election of a senator is affected. President Obama journeyed to Wisconsin last Wednesday ostensibly to tout the success of his failed stimulus package(s). On the same day, the Ex-Im Bank announced it was reconsidering a denied loan guarantee affecting a Milwaukee-based company that sought to export coal-mining equipment to India. A coincidence? We think not. Wisconsin is in play in November and so is the Senate seat held by incumbent...

Wisconsin Democrats are suffering a crisis of faith this summer. No, they haven’t suddenly learned how the economy works… or why criminals keep committing crimes after you’ve been nice enough to set them free again and again… or why when you over-tax and over-regulate employers out of existence, they cease to be around to employ people. No, this is something much less abstract, both more concrete and very close to home: Wisconsin Democrats are trying to figure out why the inexperienced, superficial, radical environmentalist president they worked so hard to elect is now commanding an administration whose main commitment is...