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AmericanEconomicAlert.org Opinion
Editorial updates from the research staff at USBIC:
1/10/2012
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President Obama is staging another of his "I'm listening to business" events at the White House. This time the topic is insourcing, the transfer of jobs back to the United States from overseas. This process generally involves larger manufacturers selecting American companies as subcontractors, thus displacing their foreign subcontractors. The term insourcing can also be used to refer to bringing back to the United States a plant previously moved overseas. Insourcing is fine as far as it goes, but that is not far enough. Lowering the corporate tax rate, rolling back health care and other mandates, a border tax to offset VAT export rebates used by 150 plus of our trading partners, reasonable regulations, and penalties for foreign currency manipulation are all better means to achieve the growth of industry domestically. These steps require major effort on multiple policy fronts. A cleaner simpler way to stimulate the growth of domestic manufacturing would be to declare a balance of payments emergency under the WTO's Article XII and institute a tariff sufficient to bring industry to the United States. Once our trade deficit came into balance, because we made the goods we consume -- and put Americans to work in the process, the tariff could be lifted.
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More Opinion
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Kevin L. Kearns and Alan Tonelson, 12/21/2011
The domestic manufacturers of USBIC urge Republican House Members to push for a vote on the China currency manipulation bill and praise Rep. Mo Brooks's efforts to break the House logjam. They also condemn the specious arguments used by the Club for Growth against the bill, and in particular its attempted character assassination of Mr. Brooks. USBIC's president, Kevin L. Kearns, said that the currency manipulation bill is “the struggling U.S. economy’s best short-term hope for boosting employment and economic growth without worsening the federal deficit or fueling the national debt.”
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Alan Tonelson, 12/9/2011
The narrowing of the U.S. trade deficit in October resulted from a statistical quirk and still-feeble American growth, and concealed worsening performances in the economy's industrial core.
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12/2/2011
The figures behind the latest unemployment headlines indicate that the U.S. labor market still has a long way to go before regaining health. A declining unemployment rate in November is largely the result of temporary hiring, an increase in home businesses, adults leaving the work force in droves, and hiring in heavily subsidized industries. There trends do not bode well for long-term economic growth.
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12/1/2011
The coordinated action by world central banks to prop up the European banking system and avoid a liquidity crisis treats a symptom, not the root cause. As such, it will prove a failure. The German and the other strong European economies are wasting the precious time that remains to arrange orderly defaults for the southern European economies and to get them out of the Euro and back on their own currencies.
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11/30/2011
There are ways out of America's current climate of low growth and high unemployment. But to apply the necessary solutions requires a new mindset on the part of political leaders, who would have to herd ideological, corporate, and entitlement scared cows into line, something they are willing to do.
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Alan Tonelson, 11/30/2011
Boffo results from one of the year's biggest shopping days aren't exactly what a debt-strapped U.S. economy needs right now -- especially when most of the borrowed money is spent on imported gifts.
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11/28/2011
The Euro Zone is about to collapse due to its inherent flaws. Germany is not going to re-make the Mediterranean countries in its image and likeness. Due to an undervaled Euro for Germany vis-a-vis that country's investment and productivity, Germany is an export powerhouse. It would like to retain this very lucrative role. But alas, that means years of recession for Italy et al. The only sensible policy at this point is to rework the European system to a series of national currencies for the weaker countries with a smaller band of countries still on the Euro. If the politicians don't face reality and make the change, it will be forced on them by markets -- with much more drastic cnsequences, including for the United States.
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11/18/2011
The Congressional Super Committee has three choices: deadlock, implementing the $1.2 trillion in cuts that is its mandate, or 'going big' and implementing $4-5 trillion in cuts that were part of the elusive 'grand bargain' between Obama and Boehner last summer. Less than a week away from its November 23 deadline, Super Committee failure seems the most likely option. But the only course of action that makes sense is option 3: a daring compromise that restores faith in Congress, reassures the markets, and sets the nation on the road to true economic recovery. Unfortunately, a betting man would do best to put his money on failure.
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Alan Tonelson, 11/16/2011
Is Mitt Romney backtracking on his tough China trade stance? Viewers could learn a surprising amount about this and the general GOP state of play on the nation's greatest economic challenges during the last two Republican presidential candidates' fora.
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11/14/2011
President Obama seems content to do nothing serious on the economy while continuing his reelection campaign under the guise of 'taking to the people' his ineffective Simimulus II program. Sure, let's borrow from future generations so he can help state and local governments hire workers now in order to create the illusion of economic growth -- and get himself reelected in the process. The Republican presidential candidates can't get their individual or collective acts together to challenge Obama squarely. Meanwhile real un-and underemployment remains at Depression era levels and the country continues to drift aimlessly.
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