Free Republic

Nobel-prize winning economist Robert Shiller believes a recession may be years away due to a bullish Trump effect in the market. According to the Yale University professor, President Donald Trump is creating an environment that’s conducive to strong consumer spending, and it’s a major force that should hold off a recession. Before the markets can take-off, Shiller stresses President Trump needs to get past the impeachment inquiry. He sees this as the biggest threat to his optimistic forecast. Yet, he’s sticking with the idea that the economy and markets should have a lot of runway left for gains if President...

Key Takeaways 1. Middle-class incomes, after adjusting for inflation, have surged by $5,003 since Donald Trump became president in January 2017. 2. These surges in income, have occurred at exactly the time when many liberal economists and media talking heads were shouting “recession.” 3. These latest income numbers also squarely contradict the claims by Democratic presidential candidates.

This is the first segment of AFGE’s 5-part series: The Secret Memo : Inside Trump’s Plan to Destroy Unions.A leaked White House memo, as first reported by the New York Times and then obtained by POLITICO, outlines President Trump’s plans to destroy public and private-sector unions, get rid of worker protections, cripple workers’ ability to organize, and increase profits for corporate special interests.This explosive 19-page document was prepared in 2017 by Special Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy James Sherk, who was previously a research fellow at the regressive, anti-worker Heritage Foundation.The memo, laced with familiar half-truths and outright...

President Trump lauded the partial trade agreement he struck with China this week, calling it the “greatest and best” deal in a tweet Saturday morning. As part of the deal -- which Trump and President Xi Jinping could sign as soon as next month -- China agreed to raise its agricultural purchases to between $40 billion and $50 billion from $8 billion to $16 billion and to make certain reforms on intellectual property and financial services. The U.S. will not raise tariffs on Oct. 15 from 25 percent to 30 percent. It’s still unclear whether Trump plans to halt another...

Economist Paul Krugman, the longtime defender of global free trade and a member of the failed “Never Trump” movement, now admits that globalization has failed American workers. In a column for Bloomberg titled “What Economists (Including Me) Got Wrong About Globalization,” Krugman admits that the economic consensus for free trade that has prevailed for decades has failed to recognize how globalization has skyrocketed inequality for America’s working and middle class workers. Krugman, though, writes that he and his fellow free trade economists “had no way to know” that globalization of the American economy or a surge in trade deficits “were...

On Cavuto show that the tariffs scheduled to go into effect cancelled.

The greatest share of the tariff burden falls not on American consumers or firms, but on Chinese exporters... a 25 percentage point increase in tariffs raises US consumer prices on all affected Chinese products by only 4.5% on average, while the producer price of Chinese firms declines by 20.5%. The US government has strategically levied import duties on goods with high import elasticities, which transfers a great share of the tariff burden on to Chinese exporters.

TWEET SHARE MORE 10/1/2019 Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) defended President Trump’s ongoing trade war with China, arguing that such a hardline approach is the only way to fundamentally change diplomatic relations with Beijing. “The president is correct — it’s the only way,” Burchett, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Hill.TV during an interview that aired on Tuesday, referring to Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods. “This diplomacy they’ve been doing in the past is basically us giving them our checkbook and Congress is basically gutless when it comes to China,” he added. “We need to stand up them...

This cohort leans Republican now more than ever; a Gallup poll this year shows they favor the GOP by a whopping 25 percentage points. It was as if the Democratic Party didn’t understand how much they needed labor. Oddly, it appears they still don’t. “The working-class voters in my county tend to wonder if the party still wants them,” says Mark Hackel, the Democratic chief executive of Macomb County, Mich., where voters favored Trump over Clinton by 11 percentage points. “They’re not really sure where they fit in.” Mike Mikus, a Democratic strategist who helped guide Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s...

Black, Hispanic Unemployment Rates at All-Time Lows The U.S. unemployment rate in September fell to 3.5%, the lowest level since May 1948, and total nonfarm payrolls increased by 136,000. The unemployment rate for black (5.5%) and Hispanic (3.9%) workers are at record lows. Forecasters were expecting a low of 120,000 to a high of 179,000. The consensus forecast was 145,000. However, the U.S. economy added more than 40,000 jobs than the last two jobs reports indicated. The labor force participation rate held steady at a very positive 63.2%, beating the consensus forecast expecting a 0.1% decline. The employment-population ratio, though...

Washington, D.C. – The United States has won the largest arbitration award in World Trade Organization (WTO) history in its dispute with the European Union over illegal subsidies to Airbus. This follows four previous panel and appellate reports from 2011-2018 finding that EU subsidies to Airbus break WTO rules. Today’s decision demonstrates that massive EU corporate welfare has cost American aerospace companies hundreds of billions of dollars in lost revenue over the nearly 15 years of litigation. (please see link, for full article)

The World Trade Organization ruled in favor of the United States Wednesday in a long-running dispute with the European Union over subsidies to Airbus, paving the way for the U.S. to hit the EU with $7.5 billion in retaliatory tariffs........ The U.S. and EU have been fighting since 2004 over whether their respective aerospace industry policies toward Airbus and Boeing amount to unfair practices. The WTO's ruling said the EU subsidized Airbus by giving it preferential treatment on interest rates. "The Appellate Body upheld the Panel’s findings that Airbus paid a lower interest rate ... than would have been available...

The World Trade Organization handed down a ruling yesterday that because the European Union subsidized Airbus in its competition with Boeing, the United States could impose retaliatory tariffs on $7.5 billion in EU exports to the United States. The Wall Street Journal reports on the retaliatory tariffs being planned: The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said it would impose the tariffs starting Oct. 18, with 10% levies on jetliners and 25% duties on other products including Irish and Scotch whiskies, cheeses and hand tools. As a Scotch drinker, I am not happy about this, and wonder how many...

Jumpin’ ju-ju bones – The Trump administration via U.S. Trade Rep Robert Lighthizer and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross won a massive $7.5 billion award as an outcome of the World Trade Organization agreeing with the U.S. against the EU and Airbus subsidies. The WTO arbitrators decision is final and cannot be appealed. This win sets the stage for President Trump to deploy $7.5 billion in countervailing duties against products from the EU. Keep in mind, a final WTO ruling means the EU cannot retaliate against any WTO-authorized countermeasures. The downstream ramifications are very significant. Think about it: at 25% the...

The United States will impose tariffs on $7.5 billion (€6.8 billion) worth of European imports in retaliation for illegal EU subsidies to airplane maker Airbus. The announcement came hours after the World Trade Organization (WTO) on Wednesday ruled on a 15-year-old case that the US could impose $7.5 billion in retaliatory tariffs in response to illegal EU subsidies to Airbus that hurt its American rival Boeing. Washington plans to impose a 10% tariff on aircraft imported from Europe and apply a 25% import tax on other agricultural and industrial items on October 18, the Office of the US Trade Representative...

President Sauli Niinistö of Finland played a passive-aggressive game with Donald Trump on Wednesday at the White House, peppering a joint press conference with jabs subtle enough to fly under his radar. Trump, preoccupied with spitting nails over House Democrats' latest impeachment development, hardly seemed to notice. Niinistö described his time browsing Washington's sprawling museums, noting the Smithsonian Institution's traditionalist American history collection and a ceremony he witnessed at Arlington National Cemetary. He also heaped praise on the National Museum of the American Indian and the still new-ish National Museum of African American History and Culture, spotlighting racial diversity and...

Stocks got slammed for the second day in a row on Wednesday after weak payroll numbers stoked fears that President Trump’s trade wars were slowing down the US economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by nearly 600 points, to a low of 25,974.12, after data from ADP showed that private US employers had hired fewer workers than expected. The Dow ended the day down 494.42 points, or 1.9 percent, to 26,078.62. The report, a precursor to the Labor Department’s more comprehensive jobs report due Friday, followed dismal numbers on US manufacturing Tuesday that showed activity was at its lowest...

Congress asked the IRS to report on why it audits the poor more than the affluent. Its response is that it doesn’t have enough money and people to audit the wealthy properly. So it’s not going to. ================================================================ he IRS audits the working poor at about the same rate as the wealthiest 1%. Now, in response to questions from a U.S. senator, the IRS has acknowledged that’s true but professes it can’t change anything unless it is given more money. ProPublica reported the disproportionate audit focus on lower-income families in April. Lawmakers confronted IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig about the emphasis,...

Will people have to postpone - or cancel - retirement? Why is Pelosi not being asked this question?

Three years ago today, the IMF added China’s yuan to the basket of currencies underpinning its Special Drawing Rights (SDR)—its proprietary reserve accounting unit and means of extending credit to countries in need. At the time, the IMF touted it as “an important milestone in the integration of the Chinese economy into the global financial system.” Many investors took a less benign view, seeing the IMF’s move as threatening to end the dollar’s status as the world’s leading reserve currency—sending interest rates spiking and rendering US debt unaffordable. That was always a false fear, in our view, as the...