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In recent months, President Trump has
imposed much-needed tariffs to address China’s 24-year trade war and commercial
espionage campaign targeting America. Instead of changing course, China has
imposed tariffs on fairly-traded goods from the United States. While President
Trump’s moves are aimed at helping U.S. manufacturers, we need additional
strategies to help farmers and ranchers. America’s manufacturers and farmers
happen to share a major export problem - an overvalued U.S. dollar that makes
their goods more expensive overseas. If Congress and the administration can
buckle down to pass legislation addressing this “strong dollar,” we could see
corn, soybean and beef prices increase by 25 percent or more. [more...]
Earlier this week, the Coalition for a Prosperous America
(CPA) published details
of its new ‘Tariff Job Creation Tracker’ that tallied U.S. manufacturing jobs
gained in the wake of recent tariff actions. We keep hearing stories about the
sky falling because of President Trump’s strong hand in enforcing existing U.S.
trade laws. But the past six months have shown impressive job creation in
skilled, high-wage sectors against only very negligible, accompanying job
losses. The early returns show strong positive job creation. And there will
undoubtedly be greater job growth as more sectors receive attention from the
administration. [more...]
During
the Great Depression, farm subsidies were created to keep the family farm
afloat and ensure a stable national food supply. Today, these subsidies have
grown so lucrative that wealthy investors, large corporations, and farm-estate
heirs use taxpayer money to maximize their personal return on investment. Since
2008, however, the top 10 farm subsidy recipients each received an average of
$18.2 million – that’s $1.8 million annually, $150,000 per month, or $35,000 a
week. With the median household income of $60,000 a year, these farmers
received more than 30 times the average yearly income of U.S. families. It was
never the intent of Congress to create a new class of millionaires through
federal farm subsidies. Yet, the subsidies continue to flow. [more...]
As of today, job gains
exceed job losses by a 20:1 ratio. This week we’re showing gains of 11,100 jobs
in four major sectors affected by tariffs. Tariffs are creating far more jobs
than they are sacrificing. The tariffs are working. So far, we have
identified 514 job losses specifically due to tariffs. All job gains and job
losses refer to job changes that have either happened or have been publicly
announced as planned to happen by the companies involved, with specific numbers
included. We have not estimated any of these numbers; they all come from the
companies concerned. We do not include threats of potential job losses, such as
the threat of sacrificing an alleged 4,000 future jobs recently made by the CEO
of Chinese-owned Volvo Cars. Many corporate leaders are making vague threats or
forecasts with clear political motivations. We are going deeper and looking at
facts and facts only. [more...]
2018
has been a great year thus far for M&A. The number of deals is down, but
the deal sizes are increasing. Record-breaking deals are being proposed and
executed both in the United States and globally. Just in the last week, Sprint
and T-Mobile announced a $26 billion merger, and Marathon Petroleum announced a
$36 billion acquisition. Other potential deals include Walmart and J Sainsbury,
Walmart (or Amazon) and Flipkart, and Bayer and Monsanto. To provide a better
idea, as of mid-last week, there have been 11,828 deals valued at $1.71
trillion globally. Deals are valued to be 63% larger on average than last year.
[more...]
The
two American giants’ fight for Indian territory has started to intensify.
Amazon and Walmart have been competing to acquire majority stake in India’s
largest e-commerce company, Flipkart. Recent developments suggest Walmart has
proposed a $10-12 billion offer for a 51% stake; the deal could close by the
end of June. On the other hand, Amazon has marked its presence by attaching a
breakup fee of up to $2 billion. A breakup fee is a penalty established in the
deal process that requires payment if the purchaser or seller backs out. In
this case, Amazon will pay a hefty fee if the deal is incomplete for whatever
reason. Nonetheless, the deal structures emphasize the seriousness of both
parties. [more...]
In the Great Class War between the “rich” and the
government, whose side are you on? This week MarketWatch reported that
by 2030, “the richest 1%” are on track to “control nearly 66% of the world’s
money.” This is approximately $305 trillion, it reported, based on data from
the hard-left British newspaper The Guardian, best-selling French
Marxist economist Thomas Piketty, and other sources with comradely views. The
activist group Oxfam warns that “just eight billionaires have as much wealth as
3.6 billion people – the poorest half of the world.” [more...]
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