Free Republic

May 25 - When Florida can claim four of the top five, and eight of the top 10, metropolitan areas in the nation with the greatest home price appreciation in the first quarter of 2005, can talk of speculative investing be far behind? When the median sales price in April of a single-family home in Florida soared to $218,600, a breathtaking 26 percent increase in one year's time, can a real estate bubble be looming? Florida dominates nearly every list of over heated housing markets these days. That trend is stoking the debate over the size and severity of the...

"March trade deficit shrinks,” said the headlines about two weeks ago, when the Census Bureau released the government’s latest monthly report on the nation’s trade accounts. To their credit, neither the journalists who wrote up the trade figures stories nor the specialists they quoted went overboard portraying the results as good news. All economic statistics, they noted, tend to bounce around in the near term, and the deficit is still running significantly ahead of last year’s gargantuan record level. At the same time, even this sober consensus on the March trade figures represents too rosy a view of the nation’s...

"Look. No wires. What holds it up?" the magician's sideshow barkers used to say. They could have been talking about the U.S. economy. Telling ourselves that "America will always win in any free market," we let free trade flow in and out from a world where many workers – and not just assembly-line screw tighteners but computer programmers and call-center salesmen – make less in a day than even the poorest among us has gotten used to earning in an hour. Somehow we manage to keep sending all our money and factory jobs overseas, but still – so far –...

Tennessee ranks among the top 10 foreclosure rates in the nation for the first quarter of 2006, according to recent figures. Foreclosures in Tennessee were on the rise in the first quarter of 2006, with a 92 percent increase from the previous quarter and a 147 percent increase from the first quarter of 2005, according to RealyTrac's 2006 Q1 Foreclosure Market Report. The report shows a total of 11,718 properties which were in some state of foreclosure in Tennessee during the first quarter of 2006. National numbers show 323,102 properties in foreclosure for the first quarter of 2006, for increases...

Is your job safe? Not if it can be done abroad. The only safe jobs are in domestic services that require a "hands-on" presence, such as barbers, hospital orderlies, and waitresses. For a number of years the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly payroll jobs reports have been sending US policymakers dire warnings, only to be ignored. The March report repeats the message. Ninety-five percent of the new jobs created are in domestic services. The US economy no longer creates jobs in export or export-competitive sectors. Wholesale and retail trade, waitresses and bartenders account for 46% of the new jobs. Education...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. China probably will surpass the U.S. as the world's largest exporter of manufactured goods this year, propelled by its embrace of advanced technology, a study by a U.S. industry group says. "The rapid growth of Chinese manufactured exports, with an increasingly high-tech orientation, presents a major challenge to U.S. competitiveness,'' said the report by Ernest Preeg, a senior fellow at the Manufacturers Alliance in Arlington, Virginia, an association that represents companies such as Caterpillar Inc. and Motorola Inc. In 2001 China exported half the amount of factory goods the U.S. did....

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Majority surveyed believe growth will be less than economists predict (Crain's) — A National Assn. of Manufacturers survey of its members found they expect the U.S. economy to grow more slowly this year than what many economists predict. A majority of those surveyed foresee growth in the U.S. gross domestic product of less than 2.9% in 2006, the association said. The NAM's own economist predicts the economy will grow 3.3% this year, said Hank Cox, an association spokesman. Economists' consensus estimates have recently stood at 3.4%. The survey was sent last...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. I am surprised at the recent outrage regarding the sale of American port operations to a United Arab Emirates' company, President Bush's proposal allowing foreign ownership of domestic airlines, etc. After all, we have enjoyed more than 25 years of continuous and growing trade deficits. And why not, if foreigners are willing to ship us more goods than we ship them, good for us as it enables us to consume more than we as a nation produce. Unfortunately, there is just one problem, the only reason foreigners would continue shipping us...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. The issue: America's free-trade myth Our view: Middle-class America has paid a high price for these policies, but where's the payoff? When President Bush visited India last week to strike a deal expanding that country's nuclear capability, he couldn't avoid questions about the estimated 162,000 U.S. workers who lost their jobs to overseas outsourcing in 2004 alone, with the bulk of those jobs going to India and China. But you could bet your unemployment check that he wasn't backing down on his policy of allowing U.S. companies to profit off of...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Little Rock - Hundreds of people are out of work Tuesday night after a major announcement at the Levi Strauss company. The company's Little Rock distribution plant will be closing its doors as early as August. The move will put 340 people out of work. The plant is located just south of Little Rock off Interstate 530 along the Pratt Road Exit. Levi Strauss closed down the plant because company officials said it already has three major distribution plants in North America and this one was no longer necessary. Little rock...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. The January 2006 trade deficit in goods and services shot past December 2005's level, reaching a new record of $68.51 billion. The January deficit was 5.29% greater than the December total of $65.07 billion, and 1% higher than the previous monthly record of $67.84 billion set in October 2005. Reversing a recent trend, the rise in the trade deficit was led by a big jump in the non-oil deficit. This figure rose from $46.84 billion in December 2005 to $49.59 billion in January 2006, a jump of 5.86%. The increase in...

Our hollow prosperity-------------------------------------------------------- Posted: February 15, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern PATRICK BUCHANAN © 2006 Creators Syndicate Inc. Now that the U.S. trade deficit for 2005 has come in at $726 billion, the fourth straight all-time record, a question arises. What constitutes failure for a free-trade policy? Or is there no such thing? Is free trade simply right no matter the results? Last year, the United States ran a $202 billion trade deficit with China, the largest ever between two nations. We ran all-time record trade deficits with OPEC, the European Union, Japan, Canada and Latin America. The $50 billion deficit...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. The accelerating woes of Ford and GM and the ongoing crisis in auto parts have produced vows from Detroit that business-as-usual won't continue. Yet unless business-as-usual in U.S. trade policy ends, too, and Washington imposes sweeping emergency tariffs on manufactured goods imports, the American-owned automotive industry will soon disappear, and along with it much of the rest of America's core manufacturing. The problem for Detroit is that today's job cuts and plant closings are simply band-aids on hemorrhaging wounds. As financing dries up, development of new products and technologies will become...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Downward trends in U.S. manufacturing are threatening the nation's long-term economic growth and living standards, according to a new report from two industrial trade groups. Leadership and innovation also are at risk as fewer young people choose manufacturing for a career, says the report from the National Association of Manufacturers and the Council of Manufacturing Associations, based in Washington, D.C. "Our nation cannot afford to lose its manufacturing innovation edge and the wealth it generates," said Jerry Jasinowski, president of the Manufacturing Institute, the research arm of the NAM. Industrial output...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Inspired by a reader who sent a list of once American corporations who's profits are no longer funneled to the hard-working American employee, I investigated the subject. The clip that landed on my desk was from "America is Selling Out," published in The American Conservative, December, 2005. As I digested, emotionally charged from the publication's Web site at www.economyincrisis.org, I agreed with some of the information, discarded the sensational propaganda and extrapolated my take on the issues' raw facts. From what I've experienced and witnessed first-hand, I consider the current state...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. The Labor Department reported the economy added 108,000 payroll jobs in December. The consensus forecast was 207,000, and my forecast, published by Reuters was 180,000. Unemployment fell to 4.9 percent, mainly because fewer adults chose to participate in the labor force. In the fourth quarter, 438,000 jobs were added, and this is consistent with GDP growth in the range of 3.0 to 3.5 percent Economic growth appears to be moderating from the red hot numbers posted in the third quarter, and if the Fed does not push interest rates too much...

Forced outsourcing of design and manufacturing because of so-called free trade, foreign insourcing with US subsidies, and imported foreign labor is crippling US high tech economy. Paul Craig Roberts wrote about this in March 2005. A country cannot be a superpower without a high tech economy, and America's high tech economy is eroding as I write. The erosion began when US corporations outsourced manufacturing. Today many US companies are little more than a brand name selling goods made in Asia. Corporate outsourcers and their apologists presented the loss of manufacturing capability as a positive development. Manufacturing, they said, was the...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.MILWAUKEE - Snap-on Inc. will eliminate 560 jobs by early next year when it closes tool factories in Kenosha and Mount Carmel, Ill., the company said. The Kenosha-based company will close two of its four plants that make hand tools and power tools, and work done at those plants will shift to remaining plants in Milwaukee and Johnson City, Tenn., spokesman Richard Secor said. "This was a very difficult decision, given that these facilities have served Snap-on well for many years," said Jeff Eggert, vice president of Snap-on Tools Operations. In Kenosha,...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. What if a terrorist bomb had caused the levee breaks that flooded New Orleans rather than hurricane Katrina? Would such an act of war, as opposed to nature, have brought America to its knees? Or are there other, more dangerous threats pending? Improving port security has been a high priority since September 11, 2001, with nightmare scenarios of a weapon of mass destruction being slipped into a crowded harbor. According to calculations from GlobalSecurity.org, an attack using toxic industrial chemicals or a radiological weapons could cause 350 deaths, contaminate the affected...