I may have missed it, but the coverage of Dara Khosrowshahi’s pick to be the CEO of Uber seemed to leave out the fact that he is a board member of the New York Times. This would seem to be a point worth mentioning in his profiles. It’s also an item that we would especially expect to see in NYT pieces on Mr. Khosrowshahi.
I may have missed it, but the coverage of Dara Khosrowshahi’s pick to be the CEO of Uber seemed to leave out the fact that he is a board member of the New York Times. This would seem to be a point worth mentioning in his profiles. It’s also an item that we would especially expect to see in NYT pieces on Mr. Khosrowshahi.
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The 11 countries left in the Trans-Pacific Partnership following the withdrawal of the United States are still looking to finalize the deal. One of the changes they are considering, now that the U.S. has left, is to eliminate rules that would require countries to strengthen patent-related protections for prescription drugs. These protections could hugely raise the price of prescription drugs. Patents and related protections can often be equivalent to tariffs of several thousand percent on the protected items.
The push to remove the protectionist rules is apparently coming from Vietnam. Now that the U.S. pharmaceutical industry is no longer at the table, the remaining countries seem willing to go along. If the final deal excludes these rules, it could be a useful precedent for other trade deals.
The 11 countries left in the Trans-Pacific Partnership following the withdrawal of the United States are still looking to finalize the deal. One of the changes they are considering, now that the U.S. has left, is to eliminate rules that would require countries to strengthen patent-related protections for prescription drugs. These protections could hugely raise the price of prescription drugs. Patents and related protections can often be equivalent to tariffs of several thousand percent on the protected items.
The push to remove the protectionist rules is apparently coming from Vietnam. Now that the U.S. pharmaceutical industry is no longer at the table, the remaining countries seem willing to go along. If the final deal excludes these rules, it could be a useful precedent for other trade deals.
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Reporters in principle have the ability to get behind the assertions of politicians to tell readers whether they are true or not. Unlike most news readers, they are supposed to have the time and necessary expertise to assess claims being made.
This is why it is striking that Politico reported on the strategy of Trump and Republicans to present their tax cut plan as a populist measure for the middle class as though they were reviewing a play at the theater. While the specifics of the Trump/Republican plan are not yet known, the outline is. It will feature large tax cuts for the rich and trivial tax cuts for everyone else. If the cost of the tax cuts is offset by spending cuts, the typical middle-class family is virtually certain to end up a big loser.
In other words, presenting the tax cut as a populist measure aimed at helping the middle class at the expense of the rich is a lie. Politico’s reporters presumably know it is a lie, but decided not to share this information with readers. Apparently, they want to assist Trump and the Republicans in their efforts to deceive the public so that the rich can be made even richer with this tax cut.
Reporters in principle have the ability to get behind the assertions of politicians to tell readers whether they are true or not. Unlike most news readers, they are supposed to have the time and necessary expertise to assess claims being made.
This is why it is striking that Politico reported on the strategy of Trump and Republicans to present their tax cut plan as a populist measure for the middle class as though they were reviewing a play at the theater. While the specifics of the Trump/Republican plan are not yet known, the outline is. It will feature large tax cuts for the rich and trivial tax cuts for everyone else. If the cost of the tax cuts is offset by spending cuts, the typical middle-class family is virtually certain to end up a big loser.
In other words, presenting the tax cut as a populist measure aimed at helping the middle class at the expense of the rich is a lie. Politico’s reporters presumably know it is a lie, but decided not to share this information with readers. Apparently, they want to assist Trump and the Republicans in their efforts to deceive the public so that the rich can be made even richer with this tax cut.
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We are seeing many terrible pictures from Houston as a result of Hurricane Harvey. People with young children and pets are wading through high water in the hope of being rescued by boat or helicopter. Elderly people in nursing homes are sitting in waist high water waiting to be rescued. It’s a pretty horrible story.
One thing we can feel good about is that because the United States is a wealthy country, we do have large numbers of boats and helicopters and trained rescue workers able to assist the victims of the storm. We also have places where we can take these people where they will have shelter, as well access to food and medical care. However bad the human toll will be from Harvey, it would be hugely worse without these resources.
This might be a good time for people to take a moment to think about Bangladesh, a densely populated country on the other side of the world. More than 160 million people live in Bangladesh. Almost half of these people live in low-lying areas with an elevation of less than 10 meters (33 feet) above sea level.
Bangladesh experiences seasonal monsoon rains which invariably lead to flooding, as well as occasional cyclones. The monsoon rains and cyclones are likely to get worse in the years ahead, as one of the effects of global warming. This will mean that the flooding will be worse.
Bangladesh does not have large amounts of resources to assist the people whose homes are flooded. It does not have the same number of boats and helicopters and trained rescue workers to save people trapped by rising water. Nor can it guarantee that people who do escape will have access to adequate shelter, medical care, or even clean drinking water. This means many more people are likely to be dying from floods in Bangladesh in part as a result of the impact of global warming.
Emissions of the greenhouse gases responsible for global warming are often treated as a natural market outcome, whereas efforts to restrict emissions are viewed as government intervention. This is nonsense.
Allowing people to emit greenhouse gases without paying for the damage done is like allowing them to dump their sewage on their neighbor’s lawn. Everyone understands that we are responsible for dealing with our own sewage and not imposing a cost on our neighbor. It’s the same story with greenhouse gases.
It is understandable that a rich jerk like Donald Trump might not want to pay for the damage he does to the world, especially when the people most affected are dark-skinned, but it is not a serious position. The emissions from the United States and other wealthy countries will result in a lot of Harvey-like disasters in Bangladesh and elsewhere in the developing world. We have to take responsibility for this human catastrophe.
We are seeing many terrible pictures from Houston as a result of Hurricane Harvey. People with young children and pets are wading through high water in the hope of being rescued by boat or helicopter. Elderly people in nursing homes are sitting in waist high water waiting to be rescued. It’s a pretty horrible story.
One thing we can feel good about is that because the United States is a wealthy country, we do have large numbers of boats and helicopters and trained rescue workers able to assist the victims of the storm. We also have places where we can take these people where they will have shelter, as well access to food and medical care. However bad the human toll will be from Harvey, it would be hugely worse without these resources.
This might be a good time for people to take a moment to think about Bangladesh, a densely populated country on the other side of the world. More than 160 million people live in Bangladesh. Almost half of these people live in low-lying areas with an elevation of less than 10 meters (33 feet) above sea level.
Bangladesh experiences seasonal monsoon rains which invariably lead to flooding, as well as occasional cyclones. The monsoon rains and cyclones are likely to get worse in the years ahead, as one of the effects of global warming. This will mean that the flooding will be worse.
Bangladesh does not have large amounts of resources to assist the people whose homes are flooded. It does not have the same number of boats and helicopters and trained rescue workers to save people trapped by rising water. Nor can it guarantee that people who do escape will have access to adequate shelter, medical care, or even clean drinking water. This means many more people are likely to be dying from floods in Bangladesh in part as a result of the impact of global warming.
Emissions of the greenhouse gases responsible for global warming are often treated as a natural market outcome, whereas efforts to restrict emissions are viewed as government intervention. This is nonsense.
Allowing people to emit greenhouse gases without paying for the damage done is like allowing them to dump their sewage on their neighbor’s lawn. Everyone understands that we are responsible for dealing with our own sewage and not imposing a cost on our neighbor. It’s the same story with greenhouse gases.
It is understandable that a rich jerk like Donald Trump might not want to pay for the damage he does to the world, especially when the people most affected are dark-skinned, but it is not a serious position. The emissions from the United States and other wealthy countries will result in a lot of Harvey-like disasters in Bangladesh and elsewhere in the developing world. We have to take responsibility for this human catastrophe.
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Someone who had no knowledge of trade deals like NAFTA and the TPP would be justified in thinking they must be really bad news since their supporters have to make up obviously absurd claims to push their position. George Will is on the job this morning in his Washington Post column.
“Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute says that in the past 20 years the inflation-adjusted value of U.S. manufacturing output has increased 40 percent even though — actually, partly because — U.S. factory employment decreased 5.1 million jobs (29 percent). Manufacturing’s share of gross domestic product is almost unchanged since 1960. ‘US manufacturing output was near a record high last year at $1.91 trillion, just slightly below the 2007 level of $1.92 trillion, and will likely reach a new record high later this year,’ Perry writes. That record will be reached with about the same level of factory workers (fewer than 12.5 million) as in the early 1940s, when the U.S. population was about 135 million. Increased productivity is the reason there can be quadrupled output from the same number of workers. According to one study, 88 percent of manufacturing job losses are the result of improved productivity, not ‘rapacious’ Chinese.”
Okay, this one is in “how stupid do you think we are?” department. Guess what, the tree in my backyard is taller than ever before. Imagine that?
Yes, economies grow through time and so does productivity. That means that, in general, we expect output in most areas, like cell phones, haircuts, and manufactured goods to increase through time. So telling us we are near record levels of manufacturing output is basically telling us absolutely nothing. It is the sort of thing that only a cheap demagogue or someone totally ignorant of economics would do.
The basic story is that we have seen productivity growth in manufacturing as in all areas. Since growth has been somewhat faster in manufacturing, it has meant that manufacturing jobs have declined as a share of total employment, but generally, the increase in demand has been enough to keep employment in the sector roughly constant. The big exception was the period when our trade deficit exploded at the start of the last decade, eventually reaching almost 6.0 percent of GDP.
Here’s the picture.
Manufacturing Jobs
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics.
As can be seen, there is relatively little change, apart from cyclical ups or downs, in manufacturing jobs from 1970 until the late 1990s. Employment then plunges in the first half of the 2000s (before the Great Recession) due to the explosion of the trade deficit. This job loss was due to trade, but George Will and other supporters of U.S. trade policy think they have to lie to people and deny this fact.
While the trade deficit has declined somewhat in more recent years due to the drop in the value of the dollar, it is still near 3 percent of GDP (around $540 billion a year). The idea that it would not create more manufacturing jobs if we had more nearly balanced trade is absurd on its face (i.e. we could produce another $500 billion in manufactured goods every year without employing more workers), but apparently folks like George Will and the Washington Post editors want us to believe it.
Since we’re on the topic of lying to promote trade deals designed to redistribute upward let’s again note the famous 2007 Washington Post editorial touting NAFTA that told readers:
“Mexico’s gross domestic product, now more than $875 billion, has more than quadrupled since 1987.”
According to the IMF, Mexico’s GDP grew by 83 percent over this period, which is pretty far from quadrupling. Honest newspapers correct their mistakes, but as the slogan at the Washington Post says, “lies in the service of giving more money to rich people are no vice.”
Someone who had no knowledge of trade deals like NAFTA and the TPP would be justified in thinking they must be really bad news since their supporters have to make up obviously absurd claims to push their position. George Will is on the job this morning in his Washington Post column.
“Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute says that in the past 20 years the inflation-adjusted value of U.S. manufacturing output has increased 40 percent even though — actually, partly because — U.S. factory employment decreased 5.1 million jobs (29 percent). Manufacturing’s share of gross domestic product is almost unchanged since 1960. ‘US manufacturing output was near a record high last year at $1.91 trillion, just slightly below the 2007 level of $1.92 trillion, and will likely reach a new record high later this year,’ Perry writes. That record will be reached with about the same level of factory workers (fewer than 12.5 million) as in the early 1940s, when the U.S. population was about 135 million. Increased productivity is the reason there can be quadrupled output from the same number of workers. According to one study, 88 percent of manufacturing job losses are the result of improved productivity, not ‘rapacious’ Chinese.”
Okay, this one is in “how stupid do you think we are?” department. Guess what, the tree in my backyard is taller than ever before. Imagine that?
Yes, economies grow through time and so does productivity. That means that, in general, we expect output in most areas, like cell phones, haircuts, and manufactured goods to increase through time. So telling us we are near record levels of manufacturing output is basically telling us absolutely nothing. It is the sort of thing that only a cheap demagogue or someone totally ignorant of economics would do.
The basic story is that we have seen productivity growth in manufacturing as in all areas. Since growth has been somewhat faster in manufacturing, it has meant that manufacturing jobs have declined as a share of total employment, but generally, the increase in demand has been enough to keep employment in the sector roughly constant. The big exception was the period when our trade deficit exploded at the start of the last decade, eventually reaching almost 6.0 percent of GDP.
Here’s the picture.
Manufacturing Jobs
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics.
As can be seen, there is relatively little change, apart from cyclical ups or downs, in manufacturing jobs from 1970 until the late 1990s. Employment then plunges in the first half of the 2000s (before the Great Recession) due to the explosion of the trade deficit. This job loss was due to trade, but George Will and other supporters of U.S. trade policy think they have to lie to people and deny this fact.
While the trade deficit has declined somewhat in more recent years due to the drop in the value of the dollar, it is still near 3 percent of GDP (around $540 billion a year). The idea that it would not create more manufacturing jobs if we had more nearly balanced trade is absurd on its face (i.e. we could produce another $500 billion in manufactured goods every year without employing more workers), but apparently folks like George Will and the Washington Post editors want us to believe it.
Since we’re on the topic of lying to promote trade deals designed to redistribute upward let’s again note the famous 2007 Washington Post editorial touting NAFTA that told readers:
“Mexico’s gross domestic product, now more than $875 billion, has more than quadrupled since 1987.”
According to the IMF, Mexico’s GDP grew by 83 percent over this period, which is pretty far from quadrupling. Honest newspapers correct their mistakes, but as the slogan at the Washington Post says, “lies in the service of giving more money to rich people are no vice.”
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This point is worth mentioning in the context of a comment by Esther L. George, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, to CNBC yesterday. Ms. George said:
“While we haven’t hit 2 percent, I’m reminded that 2 percent is a target over the long term, and in the context of a growing economy, of jobs being added, I don’t think it’s an issue that we should be particularly concerned about unless we see something change.”
Actually, the Fed’s stated policy is that 2 percent is a target as a long-term average. This means that the periods of below 2 percent inflation should be roughly offset by periods of above 2 percent inflation.
Most forecasts show the inflation rate remaining under 2 percent for at least the near term future. At some point, the economy will have another recession, during which the inflation rate is almost certain to fall. This means that if the inflation rate is just reaching 2.0 percent at the point the economy enters a recession, the Fed will have seriously undershot its stated target.
This point is worth mentioning in the context of a comment by Esther L. George, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, to CNBC yesterday. Ms. George said:
“While we haven’t hit 2 percent, I’m reminded that 2 percent is a target over the long term, and in the context of a growing economy, of jobs being added, I don’t think it’s an issue that we should be particularly concerned about unless we see something change.”
Actually, the Fed’s stated policy is that 2 percent is a target as a long-term average. This means that the periods of below 2 percent inflation should be roughly offset by periods of above 2 percent inflation.
Most forecasts show the inflation rate remaining under 2 percent for at least the near term future. At some point, the economy will have another recession, during which the inflation rate is almost certain to fall. This means that if the inflation rate is just reaching 2.0 percent at the point the economy enters a recession, the Fed will have seriously undershot its stated target.
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As history fans everywhere know, the owners of coal mines have not always been the best friends of the miners who work for them. This is why so many miners ended up dead when they tried to do things like form unions.
For this reason it was somewhat jarring to read in a Washington Post article reporting on the Trump administration’s decision to end funding for a study on the health effects of mountaintop mining:
“But Trump has declared himself a friend of coal miners and coal mining companies. In March, he issued an executive order that lifted a ban on leases for coal excavation on federal land, making good on a vow to revive the struggling industry and create thousands of jobs.”
Canceling the study is clearly a friendly gesture towards the coal mining companies. They do mountaintop mining, in which they blow the top off a mountain and throw the debris in the streams below, because it is cheaper than underground mining. The study may have been used in court cases by people who suffered from cancer or other diseases in part due to the effects of this dumping. It may also have led to fewer permits being issued in the future.
By contrast, coal miners are likely to be hurt by this outcome. This is in part due to the fact that many miners and their families face greater health risks from living in the vicinity of mountaintop mines.
However, it is also likely the case that more mountaintop mining will mean fewer jobs for miners. While lower cost production can have some impact on the demand for coal, the bigger impact in terms of employment for miners is likely to be the replacement of underground mining jobs with mountaintop mining. Since it takes many fewer workers to blow the top off a mountain than to dig the coal out by hand in an underground mine, actions to promote mountaintop mining are likely to destroy jobs in the coal industry, even if they increase the profits of the coal companies.
As history fans everywhere know, the owners of coal mines have not always been the best friends of the miners who work for them. This is why so many miners ended up dead when they tried to do things like form unions.
For this reason it was somewhat jarring to read in a Washington Post article reporting on the Trump administration’s decision to end funding for a study on the health effects of mountaintop mining:
“But Trump has declared himself a friend of coal miners and coal mining companies. In March, he issued an executive order that lifted a ban on leases for coal excavation on federal land, making good on a vow to revive the struggling industry and create thousands of jobs.”
Canceling the study is clearly a friendly gesture towards the coal mining companies. They do mountaintop mining, in which they blow the top off a mountain and throw the debris in the streams below, because it is cheaper than underground mining. The study may have been used in court cases by people who suffered from cancer or other diseases in part due to the effects of this dumping. It may also have led to fewer permits being issued in the future.
By contrast, coal miners are likely to be hurt by this outcome. This is in part due to the fact that many miners and their families face greater health risks from living in the vicinity of mountaintop mines.
However, it is also likely the case that more mountaintop mining will mean fewer jobs for miners. While lower cost production can have some impact on the demand for coal, the bigger impact in terms of employment for miners is likely to be the replacement of underground mining jobs with mountaintop mining. Since it takes many fewer workers to blow the top off a mountain than to dig the coal out by hand in an underground mine, actions to promote mountaintop mining are likely to destroy jobs in the coal industry, even if they increase the profits of the coal companies.
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