Free Republic

In case you've been worrying about how the war in Iraq will end, or the coming of avian flu, or the extinction of the universe as we drift into the cosmic void, well, relax. Here's something you should really fret about: the future of the U.S. economy in the age of globalization. For a discussion of same, let me call your attention to an article in the March-April issue of Foreign Affairs by Princeton University economist Alan Blinder. The vice chairman of the Federal Reserve's board of governors from 1994 to 1996, Blinder is the most mainstream of economists, which...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Finding a domestic tagline on merchandise is almost as hard to find as a diamond in the rough. With more and more textile and apparel industries racing overseas, the gem may soon even be extinct, possibly leaving some middle-class families to vie for lower-class jobs. Officials say that while WestPoint Home in Abbeville and Second Chance Body Armor in Geneva still survive, the plants could face the same hardships forcing Phillips Van Heusen, a 60-year-old textile plant operation in Ozark, to shut its doors permanently by May 15. Jodie Ayres, interim...

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...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Today, the Commerce Department announced the January trade deficit was $68.5 billion, up from $65.1 billion in December. The consensus forecast for January was $66.6 billion. My forecast, published by Reuters, was $68 billion. The trade deficit exceeds 6 percent of GDP and is weighing down economic growth. Although petroleum plays a key role, it is certainly not the whole story. Since December 2001, the monthly trade deficit has increased by $42 billion. Petroleum accounts for less than half of that change. The Wal-Mart effect is broadly apparent. The January trade...

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. Aside from delightfully or maddeningly Delphic public statements (depending on the state of your investments that day), one thing you could depend on from former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan was fervent support for current trade and globalization policies – along with unbending confidence that they could produce no wrong. His successor, Ben Bernanke, calls himself a free trader, too, and surely is. But in a recent appearance before the House Financial Services Committee, Bernanke made some comments about globalization's emerging fall-out that would have been surprising coming from most...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.Senate Democratic Policy Committee Hearing "An Oversight Hearing on Trade Policy and the U.S. Automobile Industry" John R. Walker CEO, Walker Die Casting, Inc. and Chairman, U.S. Business and Industry Council February 17, 2006 Good morning. My name is John Walker. I am the CEO of Walker Die Casting of Lewisburg, Tenn., and Chairman of the U.S. Business and Industry Council. I am grateful for the opportunity to testify before the Senate Democratic Policy Committee on trade policy and the crisis afflicting the U.S.-owned automotive industry. My company makes castings for a...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. There was bad news for the White House and the Republican Party in the Associated Press-Ipsos poll on public attitudes conducted Feb. 6-8. By a 61-35 percent margin, respondents said that the country was on the "wrong track," and by 57-40 percent disapproved of the way President George W. Bush is running the country. Those surveyed also disapproved by a margin of 61-35 of how the Republican-controlled Congress was handling its duties, with a plurality of 47 percent saying things would be better if the Democrats were in charge. With Congressional...

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. It is almost impossible to imagine a figure like $10 billion (£5.6 billion). In fact, it is almost impossible to write it down because it has so many noughts on the end. But the accountants at Exxon Mobil must be pretty used to dealing with the number, because that is the amount of profit they have just made. If that seems like a huge amount of money then please note that this was not Exxon's 12-month profit, but its quarterly profit for the last three months of 2005. If you take...

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. In his State of the Union address, President Bush unveiled his "American Competitiveness Initiative" (ACI) that is meant to encourage innovation and strengthen the nation's ability to compete against foreign rivals. The strategy calls for an increase in Federal research programs and a push for students to do better in math and science. The commitment of only $136 billion to this effort over 10 years, most of it beyond his term in office, raises questions about his sincerity, especially measured against his past record of indifference to the challenges posed by...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. There's a new glut on world markets. No, I'm not talking about the gluts of Chinese apparel or shares of Google stock bought at $475 each or of sub-prime U.S. lenders. I'm talking about the new glut of studies claiming that what really ails the U.S. economy is a shortage of skilled workers. In fact, all these studies really show is that there's still another glut that's engulfed the economic policymaking world – of raw, unadulterated chutzpah. What else could explain the contention that, as American multinational companies continue offshoring even...

HURRICANE KATRINA: THE STORM AND THE METAPHOR We're not prepared for an economic hurricane either AS ITS BROKEN LEVEES AND drowned pumping systems made so painfully clear, if the Big One was widely predicted in New Orleans, it was never genuinely feared. After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, disaster preparedness and prevention are no longer completely academic subjects. If only such realism could be injected into U.S. policymaking before a widely predicted economic disaster finally strikes. Hurricane-force winds of overspending are building storm surges of debt that tower over the levees and pumps available to American leaders. These mounting imbalances...

Imbalances Make Federal Reserve Chairman's Legacy Unclear Beverly Wilmore is bracing for the tuition bills about to start rolling in after her 19-year-old daughter starts at Towson University this week. But she's not too worried -- she figures she and her husband can borrow against their four-bedroom Gaithersburg home, which has appreciated from $250,000 when they bought it in 2000 to about $400,000 now. And as the home's value rose, two years ago the Wilmores refinanced their mortgage, cutting their monthly home-loan payments by hundreds of dollars, she recalled. Like many families who caught the housing boom, the Wilmores now...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. "I'm just back from China recently and pressed them on [the currency] issue. And found that they are putting in place mechanisms to allow the currency to have greater flexibility....So I think we're on the right course." ~ Treasury Secretary John Snow, January 5, 2006 "...Zhu Baoliang, chief economist at the State Information Center, a think tank within the state planning agency, said Beijing could not afford to let the yuan's value rise by much because it needs to keep exports strong both to absorb excess factory output and to contain...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Concern over Communist China as a threat to American security is rising. The looming crisis over Iran's nuclear weapons program highlights Beijing's role as the protector of the remaining "axis of evil" regimes. On January 9, the day before Iran removed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) seals at its uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, its Deputy Foreign Minister Mehdi Safari met with Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing and Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui in Beijing. The official Chinese statement was that "Zhang reiterated the principled position of the Chinese side...

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 Commerce Department reported the November trade deficit was $64.2 billion. This is a bit lower than the $68.1 billion October deficit; however, the trade deficit will exceed 6 percent of GDP for the fourth quarter of 2005. The November deficit was lowered by falling oil prices and an easing with of the trade deficit with China. Conservative expectations for holiday retail sales caused the trade deficit with China to ease too. Since December 2001, the monthly trade deficit has increased $37.6 billion, and petroleum products account for 47 percent of...

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...