Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Policies Shifted Trade from China?

Has trade for materials, components, and product shifted away from China to be used in the U.S.? Maybe, maybe not, and maybe later. If you are going to manufacture in the US, you have to have the capability. It make take a bit to get up and ready. If we are buying product, etc. from […]

Trade Incentives and Whoppers: A Finger Exercise

Nick Rowe was looking for the role of money in the Heuristic Macro Model, which is often used to introduce students to Trade economics. The problem he discovered is that there is only a role for money if there is friction in the model, and therefore a two-household (or household-firm or firm-firm) model makes money […]

Trans Pacific Partnership Bad for the Middle Class, but How Bad? UPDATED

What you don’t know can hurt you. I think that’s a clear lesson of some so-called trade agreements the United States has signed over the last 20 years, and illustrated further by the few that have been defeated, most notably the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, negotiated by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development from1995 […]

China’s Industrial Policy vs. US Random Behavior…Firedoglake

Rdan Firedoglake presents a well written piece on US and Chinese trade policy: China’s Industrial Policy vs. US Random Behavior The U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission has issued its annual report {giant .pdf}. Robert Borosage of the Campaign for America’s Future hosted a conference call for the Co-Chair of the Commission, Carolyn Bartholomew, […]

Free, freer, and trade…what flavor cool aid?

rdan Trade policy and actual trade are related but different matters. This post from last year caught my eye, partly due to the discussion on tires from China. While any blog post has to be simplified due to the nature of a short post and comment format, such discussion at times seems amazingly simplified beyond […]

Silliness from Time Magazine

Via Brad DeLong, I see Time magazine has identified the “25 people to ‘blame’ for the financial crisis.” [my sarcastic quotes on blame; Time appears to be serious] Amazingly, none of TWX’s (mostly former) top management—who pushed LBOs in the 1980s and Internet bubbles in the 1990s—makes on the list. More amazingly, Lew Ranieri is […]

You, Me and China make Three, part II

Back on April 20th I presented my introduction to a book by Will Hutton: The Writing on the Wall. First, the book is 334 pages. The list of references 39 pages. There is a lot I could cover. But this is the Angry Bear which I view as being about US(of A). It is this […]

Free trade, Republican’s no like (along with others)

From a poll by the WSJ/NBC reported in October, 2007 comes: While 60% of respondents said they want the next president and Congress to continue cutting taxes, 32% said it’s time for some tax increases on the wealthiest Americans to reduce the budget deficit and pay for health care.Can you imagine? They have started to […]

Trade and Growth

Warning: This post is probably more for my own benefit than for anyone else’s edification. If you’re tired of arguing about trade, then skip this post. And if you’re not interested in reading about some rather technical economic research, then skip this post. On the other hand, if you’ve always wanted to see examples of […]