We know that Republicans have trouble with arithmetic so I thought I would take a few minutes to help Mitch McConnell with some of the numbers in a column he wrote for The Washington Post complaining about a bill to protect voters’ rights and limit the influence of money in elections.
The column complains
“…the legislation dedicates hundreds of pages to federalizing the electoral process. It would make states mimic the practices that recently caused California to incorrectly register 23,000 ineligible voters.”
While 23,000 people would be a lot of people to have to a dinner party (or a Donald Trump inauguration), California has over 19 million registered voters. This means that the 23,000 ineligible voters who were wrongly registered constitute 0.12 percent of all registered voters.
The goal, of course, is to have as few improperly registered voters as possible, but also to have as many eligible voters registered as possible. California has more than 25 million eligible voters, which means that 24 percent of eligible voters are not registered. For some reason, Mitch McConnell is more concerned that 0.12 percent of registered voters were ineligible than almost one-quarter of eligible voters are not registered.
Then McConnell decides to strike out for the average taxpayer against the campaign finance legislation in the law.
“They’re also taking aim at your wallet. Pelosi and company are pitching new taxpayer subsidies, including a 600 percent government match for certain political donations and a new voucher program that would funnel even more public dollars to campaigns. Maybe that’s why every Democrat opposed our tax cuts for middle-class families and small businesses. They’d rather use your money to enrich campaign consultants.”
Roughly 30 million people contributed to political campaigns in 2016. Let’s say the average matchable contribution is $50. (Only contributions of less than $200 are eligible for the match.) This implies $1.5 billion in matchable contributions or a total tab of $9 billion.
Is this $9 billion a big deal? Well, it’s roughly 0.2 percent of the annual federal budget. It would be enough to give 100 million middle-class taxpayers $90 each or $45 annually since this is an every-other-year expenditure. It is equal to less than 3.0 percent of what the federal government gives each year to the pharmaceutical industry through patent monopolies and related protections. And it is less than 1.4 percent of the annual military budget.
I’m sure Senator McConnell appreciates my effort to clarify the points in his op-ed.
Correction:
As Curt Adams points out in his comment, the linked article in the McConnell column did not say that any ineligible voters were registered. It referred to errors in the registration process, such as wrong party identification or preferred language for ballots. McConnell seriously misrepresented this part of the story. Apparently, the Post’s fact checkers either didn’t look at the linked article or chose to ignore the misrepresentation.
We know that Republicans have trouble with arithmetic so I thought I would take a few minutes to help Mitch McConnell with some of the numbers in a column he wrote for The Washington Post complaining about a bill to protect voters’ rights and limit the influence of money in elections.
The column complains
“…the legislation dedicates hundreds of pages to federalizing the electoral process. It would make states mimic the practices that recently caused California to incorrectly register 23,000 ineligible voters.”
While 23,000 people would be a lot of people to have to a dinner party (or a Donald Trump inauguration), California has over 19 million registered voters. This means that the 23,000 ineligible voters who were wrongly registered constitute 0.12 percent of all registered voters.
The goal, of course, is to have as few improperly registered voters as possible, but also to have as many eligible voters registered as possible. California has more than 25 million eligible voters, which means that 24 percent of eligible voters are not registered. For some reason, Mitch McConnell is more concerned that 0.12 percent of registered voters were ineligible than almost one-quarter of eligible voters are not registered.
Then McConnell decides to strike out for the average taxpayer against the campaign finance legislation in the law.
“They’re also taking aim at your wallet. Pelosi and company are pitching new taxpayer subsidies, including a 600 percent government match for certain political donations and a new voucher program that would funnel even more public dollars to campaigns. Maybe that’s why every Democrat opposed our tax cuts for middle-class families and small businesses. They’d rather use your money to enrich campaign consultants.”
Roughly 30 million people contributed to political campaigns in 2016. Let’s say the average matchable contribution is $50. (Only contributions of less than $200 are eligible for the match.) This implies $1.5 billion in matchable contributions or a total tab of $9 billion.
Is this $9 billion a big deal? Well, it’s roughly 0.2 percent of the annual federal budget. It would be enough to give 100 million middle-class taxpayers $90 each or $45 annually since this is an every-other-year expenditure. It is equal to less than 3.0 percent of what the federal government gives each year to the pharmaceutical industry through patent monopolies and related protections. And it is less than 1.4 percent of the annual military budget.
I’m sure Senator McConnell appreciates my effort to clarify the points in his op-ed.
Correction:
As Curt Adams points out in his comment, the linked article in the McConnell column did not say that any ineligible voters were registered. It referred to errors in the registration process, such as wrong party identification or preferred language for ballots. McConnell seriously misrepresented this part of the story. Apparently, the Post’s fact checkers either didn’t look at the linked article or chose to ignore the misrepresentation.
Read More Leer más Join the discussion Participa en la discusión
I generally don’t get teary-eyed over the passing of a finance guy (or woman), but I make an exception in the case of John Bogle. Bogle was the founder of Vanguard funds, which now has over $5.1 trillion in assets. That would be roughly $16,000 for every person in the country.
Bogle’s great innovation was to minimize the cost of managing individual accounts. The key Vanguard asset is an index fund. It does minimal trading, it just tracks the market. Bogle argued, supported by much evidence, that the vast majority of investors are not going to beat the market. This means trading costs are simply a transfer to the folks running the account. Since most of us have people we would rather give money to than our stockbroker, we are better off just having an index fund.
And it does make a huge difference. Many of Vanguard’s index funds have costs of less than 0.1 percent annually. By contrast, many actively traded accounts will have fees and service charges in the range of 1–2 percent annually. This adds up over time. If you invested $1,000 that got a 6 percent nominal return, it would grow to $5,580 at Vanguard after 30 years. At a brokerage charging 1.0 percent in annual fees, it would grow to $4,320. At a brokerage charging 2.0 percent annual fees, it would only grow to $3,240. And the gap is all money in the pockets of the financial industry.
While his low-cost index fund was a great innovation in finance, he did not personally get rich from it. He organized Vanguard as a cooperative. The people who invest with the company effectively own it.
I once met John Bogel. We were having lunch before testifying on some financial issue. He was very soft-spoken and I originally didn’t catch his full name. After our testimony, when I realized who he was, I told him that I tell everyone I know to give him all their money. That was true.
I generally don’t get teary-eyed over the passing of a finance guy (or woman), but I make an exception in the case of John Bogle. Bogle was the founder of Vanguard funds, which now has over $5.1 trillion in assets. That would be roughly $16,000 for every person in the country.
Bogle’s great innovation was to minimize the cost of managing individual accounts. The key Vanguard asset is an index fund. It does minimal trading, it just tracks the market. Bogle argued, supported by much evidence, that the vast majority of investors are not going to beat the market. This means trading costs are simply a transfer to the folks running the account. Since most of us have people we would rather give money to than our stockbroker, we are better off just having an index fund.
And it does make a huge difference. Many of Vanguard’s index funds have costs of less than 0.1 percent annually. By contrast, many actively traded accounts will have fees and service charges in the range of 1–2 percent annually. This adds up over time. If you invested $1,000 that got a 6 percent nominal return, it would grow to $5,580 at Vanguard after 30 years. At a brokerage charging 1.0 percent in annual fees, it would grow to $4,320. At a brokerage charging 2.0 percent annual fees, it would only grow to $3,240. And the gap is all money in the pockets of the financial industry.
While his low-cost index fund was a great innovation in finance, he did not personally get rich from it. He organized Vanguard as a cooperative. The people who invest with the company effectively own it.
I once met John Bogel. We were having lunch before testifying on some financial issue. He was very soft-spoken and I originally didn’t catch his full name. After our testimony, when I realized who he was, I told him that I tell everyone I know to give him all their money. That was true.
Read More Leer más Join the discussion Participa en la discusión
By Eileen Appelbaum
In today’s column, Robert Samuelson attributes Sears bankruptcy and possible liquidation — the final chapter in a saga that has already cost 200,000 workers their jobs — to the department store chain’s inability to adapt to competition with big box stores and the Internet. Apparently, he has never heard of Eddie Lampert and his ESL hedge fund, which took over Sears and Kmart in 2006 and ran the company, now known as Sears Holdings as an ATM for himself and his investors. Lampert may not have known anything about retailing, but as Sears’ CEO he had no qualms about monetizing its assets for his own and his wealthy investors’ benefit — including Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin who was an investor in his hedge fund and served on the Sears board for 12 years as the retailer spiraled downward.
In its most egregious act of financial engineering, Lampert’s hedge fund set up a real estate company, Seritage Growth Properties, with Lampert as Chairman of Seritage’s board. In 2015, Lampert as CEO of Sears sold 266 Sears and Kmart stores located on prime real estate to Seritage, where he was Chairman of the Board. Seritage shuttered stores and developed the real estate into high-priced new developments — offices for the burgeoning high tech sector in Santa Monica, a luxury shopping center in Aventura, Florida. Sears creditors are in court over this self-dealing by Lampert, claiming he cheated them out of $2.6 billion.
If Samuelson took the time to read his own newspaper, he could have learned about the business model of investment funds — private equity and hedge funds — that take over Main Street companies from Peter Whoriskey’s investigative reporting on the bankruptcy of Marsh, a major mid-West grocery chain. Amazon, Walmart and the Internet certainly pose a challenge, but the inability of companies to respond can be laid squarely at the feet of investment funds that load the companies they own with unsustainable levels of debt and that take resources out of the company by selling off its real estate.
As I show in a comparison of the largest supermarket chain in America, the very successful publicly traded Kroger’s, and the second largest, floundering private equity-owned Albertsons, large, iconic retail companies can respond to competitive challenges when they control their own resources, own their own real estate, and keep their debt levels manageable.
Samuelson attributes the demise of Sears to changes in capitalism and competition without, apparently, having ever heard of hedge funds and private equity funds that take over the management of companies and run them in the interests of investors in their funds, with little regard for the companies’ ability to compete or its workers.
Perhaps The Washington Post should set as a minimum requirement for its columnists that they actually read the newspaper.
By Eileen Appelbaum
In today’s column, Robert Samuelson attributes Sears bankruptcy and possible liquidation — the final chapter in a saga that has already cost 200,000 workers their jobs — to the department store chain’s inability to adapt to competition with big box stores and the Internet. Apparently, he has never heard of Eddie Lampert and his ESL hedge fund, which took over Sears and Kmart in 2006 and ran the company, now known as Sears Holdings as an ATM for himself and his investors. Lampert may not have known anything about retailing, but as Sears’ CEO he had no qualms about monetizing its assets for his own and his wealthy investors’ benefit — including Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin who was an investor in his hedge fund and served on the Sears board for 12 years as the retailer spiraled downward.
In its most egregious act of financial engineering, Lampert’s hedge fund set up a real estate company, Seritage Growth Properties, with Lampert as Chairman of Seritage’s board. In 2015, Lampert as CEO of Sears sold 266 Sears and Kmart stores located on prime real estate to Seritage, where he was Chairman of the Board. Seritage shuttered stores and developed the real estate into high-priced new developments — offices for the burgeoning high tech sector in Santa Monica, a luxury shopping center in Aventura, Florida. Sears creditors are in court over this self-dealing by Lampert, claiming he cheated them out of $2.6 billion.
If Samuelson took the time to read his own newspaper, he could have learned about the business model of investment funds — private equity and hedge funds — that take over Main Street companies from Peter Whoriskey’s investigative reporting on the bankruptcy of Marsh, a major mid-West grocery chain. Amazon, Walmart and the Internet certainly pose a challenge, but the inability of companies to respond can be laid squarely at the feet of investment funds that load the companies they own with unsustainable levels of debt and that take resources out of the company by selling off its real estate.
As I show in a comparison of the largest supermarket chain in America, the very successful publicly traded Kroger’s, and the second largest, floundering private equity-owned Albertsons, large, iconic retail companies can respond to competitive challenges when they control their own resources, own their own real estate, and keep their debt levels manageable.
Samuelson attributes the demise of Sears to changes in capitalism and competition without, apparently, having ever heard of hedge funds and private equity funds that take over the management of companies and run them in the interests of investors in their funds, with little regard for the companies’ ability to compete or its workers.
Perhaps The Washington Post should set as a minimum requirement for its columnists that they actually read the newspaper.
Read More Leer más Join the discussion Participa en la discusión
In a Washington Post column, Megan McArdle suggests that we pay people to donate their kidneys as a way on increasing the number of donors and reducing the number of people who must rely on dialysis. Needless to say, to many folks, it is attractive to get market relationships into ever more aspects of our lives. However, if we are interested in getting more kidneys, rather than just getting more money for the health care industry, this is likely a bad way to go.
There was a great study done a few years back with child care centers in Israel. As it was, the vast majority of parents picked up their children on time because they knew that being late meant a teacher had to stay late. The study examined what happened if centers charged a small fee to parents for being late to pick up their kids. It turned out that the fee significantly increased the frequency with which parents picked up their kids late.
The explanation offered is that when there was no fee, parents felt an obligation not to make teachers stay late. When they paid a fee, they felt that they were compensating with the fee, therefore they didn’t feel guilty about being late.
Would it be the same story with kidneys? It’s hard to say, but people donate now with the idea of providing help to someone in need, often a family member or friend. These donations may well fall off if they know kidneys are readily available for the right price.
For my part, I no longer check off the spot on my drivers’ license to be an organ donor. While I would be very happy if one of my organs could extend the life of a person in need, I remember how Mickey Mantle was pushed to the front of the line to get a liver transplant. The great baseball player had destroyed his liver with a life of hard drinking. Nonetheless, he was pushed to the front of the line to get a transplant at the age of 64. He died shortly after the transplant.
I have spent my life trying to combat this sort of sleaze. If some doctors want to get rich providing transplants for the rich and famous, I don’t intend to help them with my death.
Addendum
Robert Salzberg assures me that rules on organ transplants have gotten stricter since the Mickey Mantle days and are carefully regulated by the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. If anyone wants to weigh in on the status of the process today, I would be interested in hearing their assessment.
As far as my point on Mickey Mantle, my concern was not so much this specific case, as what it showed about the process. We heard about Mickey Mantle’s transplant because he was a famous baseball player, but the odds are that he was not the only one to jump to the front of the line based on his fame and wealth.
Robert also suggested as an alternative to cash payments to kidney donors that we might offer free medical care for life. This seems like a reasonable benefit that does not pose the same risk of having a market for kidneys where payments could soar into the stratosphere. It also preserves an idea of it being a gift of sorts, reciprocated with another gift.
Here’s another piece on the organ donor system.
In a Washington Post column, Megan McArdle suggests that we pay people to donate their kidneys as a way on increasing the number of donors and reducing the number of people who must rely on dialysis. Needless to say, to many folks, it is attractive to get market relationships into ever more aspects of our lives. However, if we are interested in getting more kidneys, rather than just getting more money for the health care industry, this is likely a bad way to go.
There was a great study done a few years back with child care centers in Israel. As it was, the vast majority of parents picked up their children on time because they knew that being late meant a teacher had to stay late. The study examined what happened if centers charged a small fee to parents for being late to pick up their kids. It turned out that the fee significantly increased the frequency with which parents picked up their kids late.
The explanation offered is that when there was no fee, parents felt an obligation not to make teachers stay late. When they paid a fee, they felt that they were compensating with the fee, therefore they didn’t feel guilty about being late.
Would it be the same story with kidneys? It’s hard to say, but people donate now with the idea of providing help to someone in need, often a family member or friend. These donations may well fall off if they know kidneys are readily available for the right price.
For my part, I no longer check off the spot on my drivers’ license to be an organ donor. While I would be very happy if one of my organs could extend the life of a person in need, I remember how Mickey Mantle was pushed to the front of the line to get a liver transplant. The great baseball player had destroyed his liver with a life of hard drinking. Nonetheless, he was pushed to the front of the line to get a transplant at the age of 64. He died shortly after the transplant.
I have spent my life trying to combat this sort of sleaze. If some doctors want to get rich providing transplants for the rich and famous, I don’t intend to help them with my death.
Addendum
Robert Salzberg assures me that rules on organ transplants have gotten stricter since the Mickey Mantle days and are carefully regulated by the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. If anyone wants to weigh in on the status of the process today, I would be interested in hearing their assessment.
As far as my point on Mickey Mantle, my concern was not so much this specific case, as what it showed about the process. We heard about Mickey Mantle’s transplant because he was a famous baseball player, but the odds are that he was not the only one to jump to the front of the line based on his fame and wealth.
Robert also suggested as an alternative to cash payments to kidney donors that we might offer free medical care for life. This seems like a reasonable benefit that does not pose the same risk of having a market for kidneys where payments could soar into the stratosphere. It also preserves an idea of it being a gift of sorts, reciprocated with another gift.
Here’s another piece on the organ donor system.
Read More Leer más Join the discussion Participa en la discusión
The Washington Post had an article about plans by Louisiana to stop paying for Hepatitis C drugs for its Medicaid and prison populations by the dose. Instead, it will take bids from drug companies on how much they would charge for a year of unlimited use of their drugs.
While this will still allow the companies to make large profits on their sales to the state, it has the great benefit that eliminates the enormous gap between the price of the drug and the marginal cost of producing an additional dosage. In the case of Hepatitis C drugs, this gap was enormous. The list price for the drug Solvaldi was $84,000. The cost of producing a high-quality generic version is a few hundred dollars.
For $84,000 it is necessary to think carefully about whether a Hepatitis C patient should get the drug, given the enormous expense involved. At a few hundred dollars, cost really is not an issue. This change in payment structure will allow Louisiana to provide much better care to people in the state suffering from Hepatitis C.
Hopefully this model, which is similar to the prize system that many have advocated, will be adopted for other drugs and in other states. I have argued that paying for the research upfront is a better route since it will allow full openness in research and test results, but the Louisiana system is undoubtedly an enormous step forward from the current system. (This paper discusses the merits of different routes.)
The Washington Post had an article about plans by Louisiana to stop paying for Hepatitis C drugs for its Medicaid and prison populations by the dose. Instead, it will take bids from drug companies on how much they would charge for a year of unlimited use of their drugs.
While this will still allow the companies to make large profits on their sales to the state, it has the great benefit that eliminates the enormous gap between the price of the drug and the marginal cost of producing an additional dosage. In the case of Hepatitis C drugs, this gap was enormous. The list price for the drug Solvaldi was $84,000. The cost of producing a high-quality generic version is a few hundred dollars.
For $84,000 it is necessary to think carefully about whether a Hepatitis C patient should get the drug, given the enormous expense involved. At a few hundred dollars, cost really is not an issue. This change in payment structure will allow Louisiana to provide much better care to people in the state suffering from Hepatitis C.
Hopefully this model, which is similar to the prize system that many have advocated, will be adopted for other drugs and in other states. I have argued that paying for the research upfront is a better route since it will allow full openness in research and test results, but the Louisiana system is undoubtedly an enormous step forward from the current system. (This paper discusses the merits of different routes.)
Read More Leer más Join the discussion Participa en la discusión
Read More Leer más Join the discussion Participa en la discusión
In an article on Democratic presidential candidates pursuing a populist agenda in their 2020 campaigns, the NYT contrasted this approach with “the pragmatic politics and big-donor appeal of Hillary Clinton, the 2016 nominee.” It’s interesting that the NYT has decided that efforts to extend health care coverage, access to college, and stop global warming are not pragmatic. Maybe the paper could at some point publish its criteria for grading a policy proposal as pragmatic.
In an article on Democratic presidential candidates pursuing a populist agenda in their 2020 campaigns, the NYT contrasted this approach with “the pragmatic politics and big-donor appeal of Hillary Clinton, the 2016 nominee.” It’s interesting that the NYT has decided that efforts to extend health care coverage, access to college, and stop global warming are not pragmatic. Maybe the paper could at some point publish its criteria for grading a policy proposal as pragmatic.
Read More Leer más Join the discussion Participa en la discusión
Read More Leer más Join the discussion Participa en la discusión
It is common to see stories that have China’s economy reeling as a result of the Trump tariffs. While it does seem that China’s economy is experiencing difficulties, it is hard to tell a story where Trump’s tariffs are a major factor.
First, as I pointed out in the past, China’s trade surplus has actually risen in 2018 compared to 2017. In the first 10 months of 2018, (Census is not releasing new data because of the shutdown), China’s surplus on goods trade was up 11.5 percent from 2017. Perhaps the surplus would have risen even more without the tariffs, but it is a bit hard to believe that China’s economy is suffering too much because its surplus with the US only increased by 11.5 percent.
But the other point is that China’s exports to the US are just not that large a share of its economy. If we assume that exports for November and December would be roughly comparable to the prior two months, then the total for 2018 would be $550 billion, which comes to 4.2 percent of its $13 trillion economy.
However, as we are endlessly reminded by supporters of recent trade deals, much of the value in these exports is generated elsewhere. For example, we count the full value of an iPhone manufactured in China as an export to the US even though the vast majority of the value-added comes from other countries. (This is offset by the fact that much of the value-added of goods imported from Japan, Germany, and elsewhere is produced in China. If anyone in this dispute actually cared about reducing the trade deficit, getting China to raise the value of its currency would help to reduce both the direct and indirect trade deficit with China. But in any case, this issue is irrelevant in this context.)
Let’s assume that 30 percent of the value-added in China’s exports comes from other countries. This means that exports to the US are equal to 3.0 percent of its GDP.
Even if we assume a very large impact from Trump tariffs, perhaps he can reduce US imports from China by a third. This would be 1.0 percentage point of GDP. That is hardly trivial, but not the sort of thing that would push China into a recession.
The long and short is that Trump’s trade measures can be a nuisance to China and can undoubtedly cause serious problems for the most affected industries, but anyone thinking that they can sink China’s economy is seriously deluded.
It is common to see stories that have China’s economy reeling as a result of the Trump tariffs. While it does seem that China’s economy is experiencing difficulties, it is hard to tell a story where Trump’s tariffs are a major factor.
First, as I pointed out in the past, China’s trade surplus has actually risen in 2018 compared to 2017. In the first 10 months of 2018, (Census is not releasing new data because of the shutdown), China’s surplus on goods trade was up 11.5 percent from 2017. Perhaps the surplus would have risen even more without the tariffs, but it is a bit hard to believe that China’s economy is suffering too much because its surplus with the US only increased by 11.5 percent.
But the other point is that China’s exports to the US are just not that large a share of its economy. If we assume that exports for November and December would be roughly comparable to the prior two months, then the total for 2018 would be $550 billion, which comes to 4.2 percent of its $13 trillion economy.
However, as we are endlessly reminded by supporters of recent trade deals, much of the value in these exports is generated elsewhere. For example, we count the full value of an iPhone manufactured in China as an export to the US even though the vast majority of the value-added comes from other countries. (This is offset by the fact that much of the value-added of goods imported from Japan, Germany, and elsewhere is produced in China. If anyone in this dispute actually cared about reducing the trade deficit, getting China to raise the value of its currency would help to reduce both the direct and indirect trade deficit with China. But in any case, this issue is irrelevant in this context.)
Let’s assume that 30 percent of the value-added in China’s exports comes from other countries. This means that exports to the US are equal to 3.0 percent of its GDP.
Even if we assume a very large impact from Trump tariffs, perhaps he can reduce US imports from China by a third. This would be 1.0 percentage point of GDP. That is hardly trivial, but not the sort of thing that would push China into a recession.
The long and short is that Trump’s trade measures can be a nuisance to China and can undoubtedly cause serious problems for the most affected industries, but anyone thinking that they can sink China’s economy is seriously deluded.
Read More Leer más Join the discussion Participa en la discusión
Donald Trump has made his tariffs against China and other countries a big part of his agenda as president. He even went so far as to dub himself “Tariff Man” on Twitter.
The media have been quick to assume that Tariff Man is accomplishing his goals, especially with regard to China. It is standard for news articles, like this one, to assert that China’s economy is suffering in large part because of Trump’s tariffs.
In fact, through the first ten months of 2018 China’s trade surplus with the United States on trade in goods has been $344.5 billion. This is up 11.5 percent from its surplus in the same months last year.
The tariffs surely are having some effect, and China’s surplus would almost certainly be larger if they were not in place. But it is difficult to believe that China’s $13.5 trillion dollar economy (measured at exchange rate values) could be hurt all that all that much by somewhat slower growth in its trade surplus with the United States. (For arithmetic fans, the surplus is equal to 2.5 percent of China’s GDP. We are talking about slower growth in this surplus.)
It is worth noting that we will not be getting new trade data until the government shutdown is over since the Census Bureau is one of the government agencies without funding for fiscal year 2019.
Donald Trump has made his tariffs against China and other countries a big part of his agenda as president. He even went so far as to dub himself “Tariff Man” on Twitter.
The media have been quick to assume that Tariff Man is accomplishing his goals, especially with regard to China. It is standard for news articles, like this one, to assert that China’s economy is suffering in large part because of Trump’s tariffs.
In fact, through the first ten months of 2018 China’s trade surplus with the United States on trade in goods has been $344.5 billion. This is up 11.5 percent from its surplus in the same months last year.
The tariffs surely are having some effect, and China’s surplus would almost certainly be larger if they were not in place. But it is difficult to believe that China’s $13.5 trillion dollar economy (measured at exchange rate values) could be hurt all that all that much by somewhat slower growth in its trade surplus with the United States. (For arithmetic fans, the surplus is equal to 2.5 percent of China’s GDP. We are talking about slower growth in this surplus.)
It is worth noting that we will not be getting new trade data until the government shutdown is over since the Census Bureau is one of the government agencies without funding for fiscal year 2019.
Read More Leer más Join the discussion Participa en la discusión
