Richmans' Ideal Taxes Association Blog

GreenJobsGate

11 Mar 2010 00:37:10 EST

Howard Richman, 3/11/2010

The Obama administration has rejected the ideas we favor which would promote all American products indiscriminately. They prefer an industrial policy in which they get to choose the winners and losers. They have chosen the wind industry to be their winners and the industries that use energy to be their losers.

Christopher Horner had a commentary at Pajama's Media on March 9 on some shady practices within the relationship between the Obama administration and the American Wind Energy Association, a lobbying group. Here is how he begins:...

The Obama Administration's Agenda to Balance Trade

10 Mar 2010 15:50:25 EST

Raymond Richman, 3/9/2010

On March 1, 2010, Ambassador Ron Kirk, United States Trade Representative, disclosed “The President's 2010 Trade Policy Agenda”, a suicide pill for the U.S. economy. For three decades, every administration had more or less the same agenda and ideology: Ignore the trade deficits and just accept them as the inevitable result of competitive forces, which they are not. It follows that if China, Japan, Germany, and others want to exchange their valuable goods for mere greenbacks, why should we complain? We can print more.

It is hard to believe that that was and continues to be the attitude of the vast majority of economists. They’ve been brain-washed into believing that market forces must inevitably restore a balance of trade. Economic theory does not support that view. It applies only under certain conditions as we pointed out in our book, Trading Away Our Future (Ideal Taxes Assn, Jan., 2008). China, like Japan before it, was and continues to deliberately pursue the mercantilist policy of promoting a surplus of exports over imports by erecting all sorts of barriers to imports while subsidizing exports, keeping its currency artificially undervalued to make its imports expensive and its exports cheap, by buying U.S. financial assets to keep U.S.interest rates low to American consumers, to discourage savings and encourage consumption. Not until recently did an eminent economist like Prof. Paul Krugman condemn China’s mercantilist practices and suggest U.S. counteraction.

The slow-acting suicide pill suddenly accelerated in the mid-1990s. The result was the loss of millions of U.S. industrial jobs. How many? To balance trade at the level of imports in 2008, we would have to create eight million industrial jobs. The defenders of U.S. trade policy point to our achievement of full employment in 2007, neglecting to mention that the competition of factory workers who lost their well-paying jobs lowered the earnings of all workers. As a result, wages have stagnated over the past three decades, fewer workers enjoy middle class incomes, income distribution has worsened, and the U.S. is on the verge of becoming a second-rate industrial power if it has not already achieved that distinction. ...

British exports see biggest fall in three years

09 Mar 2010 08:26:57 EST

Howard Richman, 3/9/2010

If wishful thinking were enough, then Britain's exports would be increasing right now, in time to get Gordon Brown reelected. However, in January they were falling not rising. Here's a selection from the story (Blow for Gordon Brown as exports see biggest fall in three years) from the London Evening Standard:

Gordon Brown's hopes of an export-led recovery before the general election were dealt a hefty blow today.

Official figures showed that UK exports suffered their biggest fall for more than three years in January....