Free Republic

In response to recent volatility in the stock market, rising prices (and declining yields) for U.S. Treasury bonds, and difficulties in the trade relationship between the United States and China, some pundits and politicians are forecasting a recession in the U.S., timed to coincide with the 2020 presidential election. The increasing volume of these forecasts is driven partly by partisan hopes that an economic slowdown gives Democrats the best opportunity to defeat President Trump next year. But hopes of this kind do not make for sound economic forecasts. None of the major institutional forecasters is looking ahead to a recession...

The popular narrative goes that because President Trump launched a trade war against China, China has retaliated by tariffing agriculture products from red states that voted for Trump. False. You’ve all seen the headlines: “China is hitting the U.S. where it hurts: Soybeans,” and “China takes aim at America’s soybean farmers,” and “Soybean farmers are still paying for Trump’s trade war” (all from CNN).The popular narrative goes that because President Trump launched a trade war against China, China has retaliated by tariffing America’s chief export to China—agricultural products—which happen to mostly come from red states that voted for Trump. China...

Fake Science: Where did it come from? Well as they say, follow the money:Also contributing to the emergence of Fake Science is the use of science as a cudgel in policy wars, a primary tactic of what is known as Post-Normal Science. Think of it as sociology on steroids, identifying as science.And there will be no more questions because the science is settled.Ooh ooh ooh! Do Fake News next MOTUS!Posted from: MOTUS A.D.

On Tuesday, the markets bid higher following a statement from the U.S. Trade Representative’s office that tariffs will commence on September 1st, but that some products will be delayed until December 15th. To wit: “…some tariffs will take effect on Sept. 1 as planned, ‘certain products are being removed from the tariff list based on health, safety, national security and other factors and will not face additional tariffs of 10 percent. Further, as part of USTR’s public comment and hearing process, it was determined that the tariff should be delayed to December 15 for certain articles.” The only part the...

CNN reports that President Trump’s aides persuaded him to delay the imposition of the latest round of protective tariffs, previously scheduled for September, until December 15, 2019. How? They claimed new tariffs would “ruin Christmas.” Peter Navarro, Trump’s director of trade and manufacturing policy, defended the move saying that this was Trump’s, “Christmas present to the nation.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only would tariffs not perceptibly increase the price of toys, this schizophrenic shift in policy empowers the president’s political adversaries and enriches greedy multinational corporations and China. It is fairly obvious to anyone who has...

Listen up, Trumpophobes. It’s not so hard to understand the president’s appeal. Try going to one of his rallies and, instead of turning up your nose at the Walmart people, listen and learn. The abuse of President Trump and his supporters that passes for analysis from his opponents is a strategic error. The more abuse, the more Trump’s base is energized to turn out on Election Day. At his Thursday-night rally to launch his 2020 New Hampshire campaign, he broke Elton John’s all-time attendance record with a crowd of 11,500 inside the Southern New Hampshire University Arena. It wasn’t just...

Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" that "both sides will lose" President Trump's trade war with China and that it is "a fool’s errand to think you’re going to be able to get China to change the fundamentals of their economic model by poking them in the eye with some tariffs."

A rumor spread when legendary football coach Lou Holtz announced that he was leaving the University of Minnesota to accept the head coaching job at Notre Dame. The rumor? That he had been offered a lifetime contract. When he was asked about it by the press, his response was classic Lou Holtz. He said yes, he had been offered a lifetime contract. But, he added that we needed to understand what a lifetime contract means in big time college football. He said, “It means that I cannot be fired, during the third quarter, of a game in which we are...

My late father was a lifelong steelworker at J&L Steel’s famed Aliquippa works. Growing up in Western Pennsylvania, I was witness to politicians of every stripe too easily accepting the death of the American steel industry, and manufacturing in general. We were told that it was simply the way of the world in the 21st century for American industry to ship jobs off to China and other countries with fewer labor rights, weaker environmental regulations and practically no concept of “human rights.” The most enthusiastic supporters of this “new normal” told us not to worry, assuring us that we wouldn’t...

The U.S. Treasury Department has incorrectly labeled China a manipulator of its currency. An important distinction exists between devaluing a currency and currency depreciation. Devaluing implies the People’s Bank of China actively manipulated the value of the Chinese renminbi to gain unfair advantage for its exports. Depreciation simply means the renminbi has lost purchasing power relative to the U.S. dollar, based on market forces. There’s no indication that China is actively devaluing its currency. However, according to the Treasury Department, China met a broad definition of manipulation laid out in the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988, which says...

President Trump’s delay on implementing announced tariff increases on Chinese goods that would be on many Christmas shopping lists sparked a stock market bump yesterday. But, while domestic considerations (i.e., his re-election) are important, the move must be seen in the broader context of a staredown with President Xi.  Even though China is a dictatorship, XI’s hold on his job is not something he can take for granted. Xi has grabbed power, purging some of his enemies and ending limits on his tenure, which makes him personally responsible for the serious ill-effects of his tariff war with Trump and...

President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he is delaying some tariffs on Chinese imports ahead of the Christmas season to stem their potential impact on holiday shopping. The Trump administration announced hours earlier that it would delay until Dec. 15 some of the tariffs that were originally scheduled to come into effect Sept. 1. “We’re doing this for the Christmas season,” Trump told reporters on an airport tarmac around noon Tuesday. “Just in case some of the tariffs would have an impact on U.S. customers.” “But so far they’ve had virtually none,” the president added. “But just in case they...

These are prosperous times in America. The country is plump with jobs. Out of every 100 people who want to work, more than 96 of them have jobs. This is what economists consider full employment. The economy has grown for almost 10 years, making it one of the longest economic expansions in U.S. history. And over that time, the job market has come back. It grew slowly at first, then steadily, finally reaching a point at which there are many more openings than job seekers. Unemployment has reached . The jobless rate for Hispanics has never been lower; the past...

Leland Vittert interview with Peter Navarro goes off the rails A Saturday afternoon interview between Fox News weekend anchor Leland Vittert and White House National Trade Council Director Peter Navarro ended on a contentious note as Navarro accused Vittert of being “very overbearing” and consistently “interrupting” his attempts to answer questions. The “America’s News Headquarters” conversation on U.S. trade policy toward China began with Vittert pressing Navarro on the “serious consequences” that will occur should China manipulate their currency. “There’s no threat, Leland,” said Navarro. “What are the consequences?” asked the Fox News host. “For China,” Navarro responded. “What’s happening...

Show me where Bread Line Bernard Sanders has voluntarily implemented "democratic socialism" into his own life. You can't, because he hasn't. Ever. Politics is sales. Why should any of us buy what Sanders is selling if he himself won't buy what he's selling? Sanders wants businesses to pay $15.00 per hour to their employees, but some of his own campaign staff earn less than that due to the number of weekly hours they work. Now some of those employees are demanding they be paid what Sanders wants to force upon all business-owners. Sanders has responded by limiting the number of...

The United States is not doing enough to promote free trade and the elimination of trade barriers around the world. In fact, it’s doing just the opposite and imposing barriers on billions of dollars’ worth of imports. As a result, new trade restrictions implemented by World Trade Organization member countries have reached historic highs. Over the last two review periods, new trade restrictions totaled $588.3 billion and $339.5 billion, respectively. For the previous two periods, new trade restrictions totaled roughly $100 billion or less. The latest figures present a worrisome and unpredictable climate that is harming the overall health of...

Shortly after the Chinese New Year holiday in February, the People's Daily, the Communist Party's flagship newspaper, reported with a celebratory tone that domestic retail and restaurant spending during the festival had topped 1 trillion yuan ($145 billion) for the first time. Against the backdrop of the trade war with the U.S., this result "defied doomsayers," the paper said, and continued a string of annual gains in consumer prowess that showed China's sustained economic strength. Foreign media reports this year, however, have been portraying a starkly contrasting picture of Chinese economic slowdown as seen in declining gross domestic product growth...

Bernie Sanders says the industry is a criminal enterprise. Joe Biden is vowing to take action against it. Other candidates are competing to say who will wean America from its products the soonest. The fossil fuel industry is squarely in the cross hairs of Democrats running for the White House as they move sharply to the left on climate change, evoking growing alarm from a sector that’s found a cheerleader in the Trump administration. It has moved to rescind regulations on oil drilling and proposed extraordinary measures to aid coal mining. “We are made to be just some kind of...

Back in the summer of 1982, about 18 months into the Reagan presidency, the Washington Post wrote an editorial that sneered, “Reaganomics is now a failure for all to see.” Two months later began one of the strongest and longest economic revivals in American history, with growth rates that surged above 7 percent. Whoops! The timing of the Washington Post editorial could hardly have been worse. I framed that old editorial and kept in my office for many years. Reagan used to say joyfully, “I knew our economic plan was working when they stopped calling it Reaganomics.” I was thinking...

President Trump’s strategic counter-tariffs on China have been deliberate, predictable and business-like – contrary to Beijing’s series of broken promises and the self-serving misinformation that China’s state-run media are peddling. The president recently announced that the U.S. will follow through to implement a 10 percent tariff on $300 billion worth of Chinese imports Sept. 1. The10 percent tariff had been put on hold earlier this year after a personal meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The Chinese government is now attempting to portray President Trump’s action as erratic and capricious, but nothing could be further from the truth....