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Commerce Department Targets China With Proposed Tariffs On ‘Currency Manipulators’

May 25, 2019

Commerce Department Targets China With Proposed Tariffs On ‘Currency Manipulators’ 

A lot has happened since then-candidate Trump said he would label China a currency manipulator on ‘day one’ should he make it to the Oval Office. So far, at least, the pledge to hold Beijing accountable for manipulating its currency wouldn’t fall into the ‘promises kept’ column. But that could soon change.

Shortly after the Treasury Department delayed its biannual report on suspected currency manipulators – an ominous indication that the issue might resurface in trade talks after Beijing reportedly balked at a pledge to keep its currency stable – the Commerce Department on Thursday revealed that it’s planning to propose a new rule that would allow it to impose anti-subsidy tariffs on imports from countries suspected of undervaluing their currency.

Ross

The change would allow the Commerce Department to impose anti-dumping and countervailing duties on products believed to benefit from manipulated currencies. In effect, an artificially depressed currency would be treated as a government subsidy.

Though China wasn’t specifically named in the Department’s announcement, it presence on the Treasury Department’s manipulation ‘watch list’ – which also includes Japan, South Korea, India, Germany and Switzerland – means Chinese companies would be obvious targets.

And just like that, Wilbur Ross has opened up another front in the US-China trade war – albeit one that could ensnare some of Washington’s closest allies, Reuters reports.

“This change puts foreign exporters on notice that the Department of Commerce can countervail currency subsidies that harm U.S. industries,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement.

“Foreign nations would no longer be able to use currency policies to the disadvantage of American workers and businesses,” he said.

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

This is What’s Cannibalizing the US Economy

July 17, 2016

This is What’s Cannibalizing the US Economy

The sector is booming, but it’s a costly boom.

In the sluggish US economy, the goods-producing sector has been in decline since late 2014, but sales in its biggest sub-sector are booming: medicines.

Drugs are a physically small part of the goods-producing economy. But in terms of dollars, they’re the elephant in the room: According to the wholesales report by the Commerce Department, total drug sales by manufacturers to pharmacies, hospitals, and others in the distribution chain jumped 11.3% from a year ago (not seasonally adjusted) to $54.3 billion.

That was the largest of the wholesale categories in the report: larger than “Groceries” ($51.5 billion), “Electrical” ($45.0 billion),”Petroleum” ($43.4 billion), and Automotive ($36 billion). Drug sales accounted for 12.2% of total wholesales. For the last 12 months, it was 12.0%.

In May a year ago, manufacturers sold $48.8 billion in drugs, or 11.3% of total wholesales. In May 2014, drugs accounted for 9.4% of total wholesales. In May 2013, it was 9.1%. In May 2012, it was 8.8%.

You get the idea. Drug sales at the wholesale level account for an ever larger portion of total wholesales.

Total wholesales rose 0.3% in May year over year. Without the $5.5 billion increase in sales of drugs, total wholesales would have fallen 0.9% year-over-year.

Are Americans really consuming that much more in pharmaceutical products? Hardly: According to the Producer Price Index, prices charged by manufacturers of pharmaceutical products jumped 9.8% in May from a year ago.

So the Wall Street Journal reviewed corporate filings and conference-call transcripts of the 20 largest members of Big Pharma in the US and found that over two-thirds had attributed their sales increases in the first quarter at least in part to jacking up prices. Among them:

Pfizer disclosed that price increases (and in some cases, higher volume of prescriptions) pushed up revenues for nine drugs that together reached $2 billion in the US.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Guided By Nonsense

June 4, 2016

Guided By Nonsense

“Read the directions and directly you will be directed in the right direction.” — Lewis Carroll

U.S. consumers are at it again.  After a seven year hiatus they’re once again doing what they do best.  They’re buying stuff.

According to the Commerce Department, personal consumption expenditures (PCE), which is the primary measure of consumer spending on goods and services in the U.S. economy, increased $119.2 billion in April.  That marks an increase of 1 percent, and is the biggest one month increase since August 2009…nearly seven years ago.  Indeed, this is quite an achievement.

The consumer, you know, is the primary engine of U.S. economic growth.  Without consumption GDP doesn’t go up; rather, it goes down.  Moreover, in a debt based money system, when GDP goes down the whole financial debt structure breaks down.

We don’t condone it.  Certainly we’d prefer an honest hard money system where savings and investment drives growth as opposed to borrowing and spending.  But our preference has no bearing on reality in this matter.

Still, given the vast array of pretense inherent to a debt based money system, when we hear that PCEs increased by the largest margin in nearly seven years, we take a keen interest.  Naturally, we want to know what’s going on.  Namely, we ask, where’s the money coming from?

Where’s the Money Coming From?

Middle class incomes, the last we recall, scored a big fat rotten goose egg over the last decade.  By this we mean incomes haven’t gone up.  To the contrary, they’ve going down.

Our understanding of this unfortunate situation isn’t based on anecdotes we overheard at the corner donut shop.  Nor is it based on experiences shared by the crusty fellows casting their lines off Belmont Veterans Memorial Pier.  Instead, we have hard evidence and solid proof.  Specifically, we point to the distilled findings of Pew Research released earlier this month.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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