(What’s Left of) Our Economy: U.S. Manufacturing’s Biggest 2020 Winners & Losers

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aerospace, automotive, Boeing, CCP Virus, computer and electronics products, consumer goods, coronavirus, COVID 19, energy, Federal Reserve, food products, fossil fuels, furniture, housing, industrial production, inflation-adjusted output, lockdowns, machinery, manufacturing, on-line shopping, stay-at-home, travel, wood products, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Thanks to last Friday’s release of the Federal Reserve’s report on December U.S. manufacturing production, it’s possible to identify the sector’s biggest winners and losers for inflation-adjusted growth. And their ranks include some notable surprises. (As with all U.S. government economic data, though, there’ll be plenty of revisions over the next few years.)

First, let’s keep in mind that the following categories are pretty broad, including a wide range of products whose performances have varied just as widely. For example, as noted previously (e.g., here), “machinery” contains everything from machine tools to heating and cooling equipment to semiconductor production gear to turbines to construction equipment to farm machinery.

Still, these groupings are specific enough to show how much care is needed when generalizing about the performance of a piece of the economy as big as manufacturing. Moreover, they’re the categories that come early on in the incredibly detailed presentation each month of manufacturing output results deep in the weeds of the Fed’s own website.

With these observations in mind, the five strongest growers (or most modest shrinkers) in manufacturing during 2020 were automotive (vehicles and parts combined) at plus-3.64 percent; food, beverage, and tobacco products (up 0.40 percent), wood products (0.38 percent), computer and electronics products (up 0.14 percent), and non-metallic mineral products (down just 0.52 percent).

The biggest losers? Petroleum and coal products (down 13.34 percent); printing and related activities (off by 10.41 percent); furniture and related products (down 9.86 percent); non-durable miscellaneous manufactures (down 8.57 percent); and aerospace and other non-automotive transportation equipment (an 8.27 percent contraction).

Some of these results were entirely predictable. For example, petroleum and coal products essentially entails the fossil fuels industries, which have been decimated by the overall U.S. and global economic slumps triggered by the CCP Virus, and by the particular hit taken by business and leisure travel. And don’t forget the lingering effects of Boeing’s safety troubles. Moreover, of course those Boeing woes in turn have taken their toll on the aerospace sector.

On the flip side, despite major concern about the strength of America’s food supply chain, it proved impressively resilient. And since Americans didn’t stop eating, real food production expanded – although as the table below shows, its this expansion was much slower than in 2019.

I’m not sure what’s been up with furniture, though, especially considering that the good performance of wood products surely reflects the strength of a domestic housing industry that should have spurred production of furniture. Moreover, so far, the 2020 trade statistics reveal no significant increase in imports.

Non-durable miscellaneous manufactures are something of a puzzle, too. This category includes items like jewelry, silverware, sporting goods, toys, and musical instruments. Since on-line shopping has propped up consumption during the pandemic period, purchases and domestic production of these goods should have remained strong, too – even though many of these sub-sectors have long dominated by imports.

And speaking of imports, a clear sign of their importance is the negligible growth of the domestic computer and electronics industries. It’s clear that the virus and related lockdowns and stay-at-home orders has greatly increased demand for information technology products. But it’s evident that the biggest winners weren’t U.S.-based suppliers. In fact, 2020 growth was way below 2019’s, as the table below shows.

Meanwhile, the solid growth of the automotive sector is pretty remarkable, since the sector literally shut down almost completely in March and April. That looks like awfully strong evidence that much of the economic damage of the pandemic period has stemmed from government restrictions, and not from any inherent weakness in the economy.

In any event, below are the results for all of manufacturing’s main big industry groups, along with the data for the durable goods and non-durable goods super-sectors, and industry overall. For comparison’s sake with the pre-CCP Virus period, I’ve also presented their after-inflation growth for 2019. And a year from now, the final Fed 2021 statistics will permit judging just how complete a retun to normalcy has been achieved.

                                                                              2018-19              2019-20

manufacturing                                                        -1.06                   -2.63

durable goods                                                         -1.70                   -2.97

wood products                                                       +3.58                  +0.38

non-metallic mineral products                               -1.17                   -0.52

primary metals                                                       -2.69                   -7.66

fabricated metals products                                     -1.72                   -5.38

machinery                                                              -2.39                   -3.80

computer & electronics products                          +6.19                  +0.14

electrical equipmt, appliances & components       -1.71                   -1.68

motor vehicles and parts                                        -9.05                  +3.64

aerospace and misc transporation equipment       +0.29                   -8.27

furniture and related product                                +0.34                   -9.86

miscellaneous manufactures                                +0.30                    -3.67

non-durable goods                                                -0.72                    -2.24

food, beverage and tobacco products                  +2.67                   +0.40

textiles and products                                            -2.24                    -5.04

apparel and leather goods                                    -7.50                    -3.64

paper                                                                    -2.37                    -1.91

printing and related activities                              -3.20                  -10.41

petroleum and coal products                               -1.32                  -13.34

chemicals                                                            -2.07                     -1.31

plastics and rubber products                               -3.24                     -0.78

other manufacturing                                           -8.59                      -8.51

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Mainstream Media Article Debunks its Own Trump-Caused Shortage Claim

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automotive, China, fake news, Mainstream Media, Reuters, sanctions, semiconductors, tech, Trump, {What's Left of) Our Economy

For all the dreadful journalism I’ve read in recent years (and it’s a lot), I never considered the possibility that a Mainstream Media article could come out in which the thrust of the story changed, and changed substantially, no less than three times between the headline and the story’s 15^th paragraph (two-thirds in). In fact, the thrust changed so substantially that it finally became clear to a reader diligent enough to stick with the article that long that the headline was genuine Fake News.

Here’s the header for the Reuters report in question: “Trump’s China tech war backfires on automakers as chips run short.” The clear implication: “That moronic President! He and his stupid China policies are ruining a major U.S. and global industry!”

Which makes the first change of thrust awfully strange – especially since it came in the very first paragraph. “Automakers around the world are shutting assembly lines because of a global shortage of semiconductors that in some cases has been exacerbated by the Trump administration’s actions against key Chinese chip factories, industry officials said.”

That is, it hasn’t been just the Trump policies. They’ve been a problem in only “some cases.”

Even that development would be newsworthy – although not terribly so. Except just five paragraphs later, readers learn that “In at least one case, the shortage ties back to President Donald Trump’s policies aimed at curtailing technology transfers to China.”

One case! And the company concerned isn’t even named, which is fishier still. In addition, keep in mind that when reporters or anyone else use phrases like “in at least one case,” that means they looked for other cases and couldn’t find any. According to this reputable source, the number of vehicle (including heavy duty truck) manufacturers in the world as of 2018 was 56 – making me wonder how with how many such companies the two reporters who wrote the story checked – before arbitrarily giving up and concluding that what they found couldn’t possibly the only such instance of this Trump policy effect.

And finally, nine paragraphs later, comes the third change – a context-setting observation that further demolishes the storyline: “The chipmaking industry has always strained to keep up with sudden demand spikes. The factories that produce wafers cost tens of billions of dollars to build, and expanding their capacity can take up to a year for testing and qualifying complex tools.”

In other words, buyers of semiconductors have been dealing with sudden shortages literally since chips first starting being used in significant volumes in other goods and services industries.

So the only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from this article is that, although there’s no meaningful shortage of automotive semiconductors that can be attributed to President Trump’s policies, there’s a major shortage of either journalistic integrity or maybe plain old competence at Reuters.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Why Today’s Fed U.S. Manufacturing Report is So Bullish

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737 Max, aircraft, aluminum, automotive, Boeing, China, Federal Reserve, inflation-adjusted growth, Joe Biden, machinery, manufacturing, medical supplies, metals, pharmaceuticals, PPE, real output, steel, tariffs, Trade, vaccines, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Think for a moment about this morning’s very good manufacturing production figures from the Federal Reserve (for December) and a case for major optimism about U.S. industry’s foreseeable future is easy to make. Not only has the advent of highly effective vaccines greatly boosted hopes for a return to normality sooner rather than later. But much of the underlying data was collected before the vaccine production surge began.

Moreover, although Boeing aircraft is still dealing with manufacturing problems, its popular 737 Max model is being recertified or nearly recertified for flight by numerous countries (including the United States) and any continued significant rebound in air travel levels is sure to help the company’s order book for all of its jets.

And again, the data themselves were strong. According to this first Fed read for the month, American inflation-adjusted manufacturing output rose by 0.95 percent sequentially. Moreover, November’s initially reported 0.79 percent improvement was upgraded to 0.83 percent, and October’s results were revised upward for a second time – to 1.34 percent.

These noteworthy advances – which add up to eight straight months of increases – brought price-adjusted U.S. manufacturing production to 22.05 percent above the levels it hit during its CCP Virus-induced nadir in April, and to within 2.40 percent of its last monthly pre-pandemic numbers (for February).

Especially interesting, and another cause for optimism: The December manufacturing growth was so broad-based that it was achieved despite a 1.60 percent monthly drop in constant dollar automotive production. Combined vehicle and parts output has rebounded so vigorously since its near-evaporation last spring (by just under six-fold) that on a year-on-year basis, it’s actually grown by 3.64 percent. But today’s Fed report represents evidence that many other sectors are now catching up.

The crucial (because its products are used so widely throughout the entire economy) machinery sector enjoyed a good December, too, with after-inflation production increasing by 2.07 percent sequentially. That welcome news more than offset a downward revision in the November results, from a 0.51 percent to 0.99 percent shrinkage. Due to this growth, this real domestic machinery output is now just 1.53 percent off its pre-pandemic level.

As for the pharmaceutical industry, its price-adjusted output expanded by a solid 2.12 percent sequentially in December, but November’s disappointing initially reported 0.76 percent fall-off was downgraded to a 0.84 percent decrease, and October’s results stayed at minus 1.01 percent.

Moreover, year-on-year constant dollar pharmaceutical production is up only 0.18 percent – anything but what you’d expect for a country suffering through an historic pandemic.

But the first batch of Pfizer anti-CCP Virus vaccines didn’t leave the factory until December 13, and key data behind this first read on the month’s performance were gathered beforehand. So it’s likely that the huge ramp in vaccine out could start showing up in the revised December results in next month’s Fed manufacturing report (for January), which will reflect more relevant statistics.

Similar optimism seems warranted for the U.S. civilian aerospace industry and especially its beleaguered collosus, Boeing. Despite the safety woes of the popular 737 Max model and its consequent production suspension, the domestic aircraft and parts sectors have actually staged a powerful real output recovery since a 32.85 percent nosedive in February and March. Since then, inflation-adjusted production has boomed by 52.30 percent, fueled in part by December’s 2.78 percent sequential jump and November’s upwardly revised 2.39 percent growth.

In fact, constant dollar output in civilian aerospace is now actually 2.27 percent higher than its last pre-CCP Virus level. The 737 effect isn’t over yet, as made clear by the 11.49 percent real production decline since last December. But it seems evident that the industry is and will remain on the upswing barring any new seriously bad news.

Unfortunately, little such optimism appears justified in the case of medical equipment and supplies – including face masks, protective gowns, ventilators, and the like. Inflation-adjusted production in their larger subsector sank in December by 0.36 percent on month, and although the November increase has been revised up from 1.56 percent to 1.60 percent, October’s growth has been downgraded again – from an initially judged 3.54 percent all the way down to a decidedly non-pandemic-y 1.75 percent.

And since April, the after-inflation production recovery has been only 21.02 percent – still less than that for all of manufacturing. The year-on-year December result is no better, as it’s down 5.44 percent. And of course, those 2019 levels were revealed by the pandemic to have been dangerously inadequate.

But before ending, I couldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t say something about tariffs, and as with last month’s Fed manufacturing figures, the performance of the primary metals sectors for December is sending this loud and clear message to President-Elect Joe Biden: Keep them on.

For in constant dollar terms, these protected industries have recorded strong monthly growth since June, and November’s upwardly revised sequential 3.98 percent pop has now been followed by a 2.51 percent increase in December.

All told, since the April bottom, price-adjusted production has risen by 29.01 percent – expansion that looks inconceivable without the trade curbs preventing the U.S. market from being flooded with Chinese steel and aluminum along with product transshipped through the ports of those U.S. allies with whom Biden is so keen on repairing tattered Trump era ties, and greater metals shipments they often send America’s way to offset their own China-related losses.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Biden Trade Policy’s Off to a Flying Stop

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China, inflation, Joe Biden, Katherine Tai, National Foreign Trade Council, offshoring lobby, tariffs, Trade, trade policy, trade war, Trump, U.S. Trade Representative, USTR, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Any minimally intelligent discussion of the incoming Biden administration’s trade policy and the role of his pick for U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) needs to recognize at the start that Katherine Tai will make exactly none of the big calls on trade.

That’s not a knock on her specifically. But as nearly always the case (and the Trump administration was a major exception, as its trade envoy, Robert Lighthizer, was a prime author of specific, central initiatives), these decisions will be made way above her pay grade – almost certainly by the President himself or Treasury Secretary-designate Janet Yellen, or a combination of those two, along with the various special interests they need to please.

Even so, Tai will play an important message-bearing and policy defense role, especially in testimony before Congress, and in this vein, her first effort following her brief remarks following her nomination announcement got the Biden team’s record off to a start just ever so slightly above “same-old-stuff” level.

Most noteworthy, puzzling, and perhaps revealing was the choice of audience: the National Foreign Trade Council. For with its membership consisting of U.S. multinationals and big firms from highly protectionist economies like Germany and Japan, it’s long been a pillar of the corporate Offshoring Lobby.

Sure, many of these members have started to voice complaints about their China-related troubles in particular. But they’ve made equally clear that they have no clue as to realistic ways of solving them. In fact, their dogged opposition to unilateral, Trump-like U.S. tariffs as remedies (which have sharply curbed the access to the American market of their overseas production, and the availability of massively subsidized Chinese inputs for their domestic operations) has rendered them big obstacles to the remaining overhaul national trade policy needs.

It’s also true that everything known about Biden’s own long record on the matter, and his own statements during the campaign, makes clear the incoherence – and just as likely cynicism – of his own current stated approach (notably, stressing the imperative of working with – deeply conflicted and chronically fence-sitting — American allies to counter China’s trade and broader economic abuses).

Even so, given the pains Biden took to portray himself as “Middle Class Joe” whose trade initiatives and related decisions would prioritize American worker interests above all else, it needs to be asked why, from a purely political standpoint, his choice for trade negotiator chose an audience whose members have long pushed for exactly the opposite. Why not appear before a union audience?

Just as bizarre, Tai emphasized to these died-in-the-wool offshorers that “The President-Elect’s vision is to implement a worker-centered trade policy. What this means in practice is that U.S. trade policy must benefit regular Americans, communities, and workers.”

What did she and her superiors (who of course cleared her remarks) hope to accomplish with this declaration? Agreement? Or even the beginnings of theological conversion?

Weirder still: Her observation that “people are not just consumers — they are also workers, and wage earners” and, more pointedly, that when thinking about trade, it’s crucial to emphasize that “Americans don’t just benefit from lower prices and greater selection in shops and markets.” After all, her boss emphasized throughout the campaign that “President Trump may think he’s being tough on China. All that he’s delivered as a consequence of that is American farmers, manufacturers and consumers losing and paying more.”

It’s of course possible that Biden and his team could figure out a way to shield the entire U.S. domestic economy, from Chinese – and other countries’ – predatory practices without reducing the price competitiveness of these imports in the U.S. market. But it’s suggestive at the very least that after months on the campaign trail – and many decades in public life – the President-Elect has offered no specifics. And Tai’s speech did nothing to clear up this mystery.

(Not that there’s been any sign of noteworthy trade-related inflation during the “trade war” period – as shown, e.g., here – but one way greatly to boost the odds that tariffs don’t send prices upward would be to accompany trade restrictions with greater anti-trust enforcement that increases domestic competition, as I’ve argued here.)      

Tai advertised her and the broader Biden trade policy points as part of the former Vice President’s promise to “Build Back Better.” So far, though, the most charitable description of these is actually more like “Pretend More Assertively.”

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: More Manufacturing Jobs Strength – & Vindication of Trump Tariffs

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737 Max, aerospace, automotive, Boeing, CCP Virus, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, Employment, Jobs, machinery, manufacturing, manufacturing jobs, non-farm payrolls, pharmaceuticals, PPE, private sector, tariffs, Trade, trade war, Trump, vaccines, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

This morning’s official U.S. jobs report, for December, shows that, to paraphrase that unforgettable battery ad slogan, domestic manufacturing just keeps hiring and hiring and….

As a result, the December data also add to the already compelling case that domestic industry’s continued resilience – including an ongoing hiring out-performance – owes significantly to the Trump tariffs that have prevented imports from China from flooding U.S. markets and massively depriving Made in America products of customers as they had before his presidency.

The nation’s manufacturers boosted their payrolls by 38,000 on month in December, even as the private sector shed 95,000 jobs and government at all levels lost 45,000.

Moreover, in line with the strong overall employment revisions for October and November, industry’s previously reported 33,000 hiring improvement for the former (which had already been downgraded from 38,000) is now judged to be 43,000. And November’s figure has been upgraded from 27,000 to 35,000.

Although this performance pales compared with the 333,000 jobs added in manufacturing in June, the sector continues to punch above its employment weight, and in fact has now won back a status it apparently had lost in the fall.

As of December, U.S.-based industry had regained 60.16 percent (820,000) of the 1.363 million jobs it had lost during the worst (so far) of the pandemic-induced downturn in March and April.

That’s slightly ahead of the total private sector, which has recovered 59.91 percent (12.696 million) of its 21.191 million drop last spring.

And its considerably ahead of the overall economy’s record. Non-farm payrolls (the definition of the American employment universe used by the Labor Department, which issues these jobs reports) have risen by 12.321 million since April, a bounceback reprsenting only 55.60 percent of their 22.160 million plunge that month and in March.

The big reason is the slump in government jobs at all levels, and especially in states and localities. Public sector employment sank by 45,000 sequentially in December and by 81,000 the month before. And the outlook for public sector employment remains clouded by the brightening (due to the nearly final 2020 election results) but still uncertain prospects for a federal bailout of state and local governments, whose December monthly job losses totaled 49,000. (The federal government actually added positions.)

Manufacturing’s biggest monthly employment winners in December were plastics and rubber products (up 6,900), the automotive sector (6,700), non-metallic mineral products (6,100), food manufacturing (5,500), and apparel (4,000).

Especially encouraging were the 2,800 jobs created by domestic machinery makers, since the equipment they make is so widely used throughout the rest of manufacturing and elsewhere in the economy. November’s on-month machinery jobs gains were revised up from 1,900 to 2,500, but October’s totals were revised down for a second time, from 3,000 to 2,700.

December’s biggest manufacturing job losers were miscellaneous non-durable goods (down 11,200 sequentially) and primary metals (down 2,100).

Also on the encouraging side: Better progress has been made in job-creation for the CCP Virus-related medical manufacturing categories. These only go through November, but they show that the the broad pharmaceuticals and medicines sector added 1,000 new jobs that month, and its October figure was upgraded all the way from 100 to 1,100.

In addition, the sub-sector containing vaccines increased payrolls in December by 1,100, and its October performance was revised up from 600 to 1,100.

But in the manufacturing category containing PPE goods like face masks, gloves, and medical gowns, along with cotton swabs, the previously reported October employment increase stayed unreivsed at 400, and the November growth was only 500.

These results, however, still mean that the PPE category’s job gains since February have been much stronger (7.85 percent) than those of the vaccines category (a disappointing 2.82 percent) and of the broader pharmaceuticals industry (an even weaker 1.40 percent).

Finally, other than the prospect of a vaccine-related return to normal in the U.S. and global economies (for domestic manufacturing is a big exporters), the biggest reason for further manufacturing employment optimism concerns the aerospace sector. It’s been pummeled by both the pandemic-induced nosedive in air travel around the world, and by Boeing’s safety woes.

The U.S. aerospace giant isn’t out of the woods yet. Its troubled 737 Max model has now been recertified by the federal government as safe to return to flight, but new production-related problems have cropped up, too. Moreover, who can say with any confidence when “normal,” or enough of it to help, Boeing, returns?

Yet assuming some substantial Boeing recovery in the foreseeable future, a major restart of its own manufacturing could give a big boost to domestic industry as a whole, given its many and long domestic supply chains.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: A Strange U.S. Monthly Trade Report Even by 2020 Standards

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Agence France-Presse, Boeing, China, goods trade, goods trade deficit, manufacturing, manufacturing trade deficit, merchandise trade, services trade, Trade, trade deficit, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Because the economy, its strengths and weaknesses, and the policy issues they raise haven’t disappeared despite, yesterday’s outrageous attack on the U.S. Capitol Building, I’m reporting as usual in detail on this morning’s monthly international trade figures (for November).

But a first read of the data, anyway, reveals something pretty unusual (aside from the now-standard CCP Virus- and lockdowns-related distortions) – the 7.97 sequential increase in the combined goods and services deficit, to the second biggest monthly level ever, came from a very large number of sources. And some of the biggest standard culprits (including recent problem sectors like services) played a very minor role.  

At the same time, it’s important to remember that the makeup of that all-time worst overall monthly trade gap ($68.28 billion, in August, 2006), was completely different from the latest $68.14 billion total in that 38.31 percent consisted of oil. The latest trade data show a small oil surplus. That change has major policy implications, since (as known by RealityChek regulars), it means that now the entire trade shortfall in goods (the bulk of the overall deficit) comes in those flows heavily influenced by trade policy. And we’ll get back to that “Made in Washington” portion of the trade gap below.

The November figure brought the year-to-date total trade deficit figure to $604.82 billion – 4.85 percent bigger than last year’s counterpart of $576.85 billion. As a result, the December results are certain to produce a new annual record (currently held by 2018’s $579.94 billion).

Nevertheless, this projected figure as a share of the total U.S. economy (measured as pre-inflation gross domestic product or GDP) would be well below 2006’s record of 5.58 percent, and could trail some levels hit in the 2010s.

Meanwhile, the goods, or merchandise, trade deficit hit its own all-time high in absolute terms (not the relative terms described immediately above), with the $86.36 billion level topping August’s $83.90 billion. And the November surplus of $18.21 billion represented the worst monthly services trade performance since August, 2012’s $17.08 billion.

The rise in the November overall trade deficit stemmed entirely – and then some – from the 2.94 percent increase in total imports from $245.11 billion to $252.32 billion. And worsening goods imports were just about the whole story, growing 3.04 percent sequentially from $207.76 billion to $214.08 billion. Total exports improved by 1.19 percent, from $182.00 billion to $184.17 billion.

As suggested above, the “Made in Washington” trade deficit (which strips out not only oil, but services, since the former is almost never the focus of trade policy, and liberalization in the latter remains embryonic globally) hit a new monthly record, too. The $85.70 billion November figure was 5.54 percent higher than October’s $81.20 billion total, and slightly exceeded August’s previous $84.65 billion all-time high.

Standing at $830.21 billion to date this year, this trade gap, too, will certainly top the annual record of $840 billion set in 2019.

Strangely, though, two of the biggest historical pieces of the trade deficit – the China goods and manufacturing gaps – were little changed on-month in November.

The former increased by 1.90 percent month-to-month, to $30.68 billion, as U.S. exports fell slightly and the much greater amount of imports increased fractionally. Moreover, year-to-date, this deficit is down 11.51 percent year-to-date, making clear that the Trump tariffs have diverted trade to countries that much friendlier politically, and much less predatory economically.

More evidence for this proposition – and for the overall economic success of the Trump levies: As recent news accounts of China’s official trade figures continually emphasize, the People’s Republic’s global goods exports have been booming lately. This Agence France-Presse article reported that China’s November goods exports represented a 21.1 percent jump on a year-to-date basis, and its merchandise trade surplus surged 29.06 percent on-month.

But if the U.S. November data are to be believed, almost none of this Chinese growth – and, most significant, its trade-fueled economic growth – has been achieved at America’s expense.

The even more chronic and much bigger manufacturing trade deficit actually declined slightly on month in November – by 1.74 percent from October’s record $110.20 billion. But at $108.28 billion, this monthly trade shortfall was still the second biggest of all time.

Year-to-date, the manufacturing trade gap stood at $1.00626 trillion – 5.83 percent bigger than last year’s $950.86 billion. As a result, the 2020 annual figure will certainly break last year’s record $1.03314 billion. But it will be important is by how much, since this trade deficit’s annual growth has slowed markedly since 2013 – from 11.78 percent in 2014 to 1.31 percent in 2019. In fact, as previously reported here, if not for Boeing’s safety woes crippling the trade performance of the big surplus-generating aerospace sector, the 2019 manufacturing trade deficit would have barely worsened at all.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: U.S. Manufacturing Revival Plans Still Need Trump-like Tariffs

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Buy American, carbon tariff, carbon tax, Dan Breznitz, David Adler, health security, infrastructure, Joe Biden, manufacturing, manufacturing trade deficit, research and development, supply chains, tariffs, taxes, technology, The New York Times, Trade, {What's Left of) Our Economy

I was thrilled to see today’s op-ed piece on U.S. manufacturing in The New York Times, and not just because co-author David Adler is a good friend. I was also thrilled to see it because a careful reading reenforces the essential notion that all the worthy proposals made by policy analysts and politicians lately (including apparent President-elect Joe Biden) on reviving industry will either come to naught or greatly underperform without steep, and indeed Trump-like, tariffs to shut a critical mass of imports out of the economy.

Those domestically-focused manufacturing revival measures have included more federal funding for research and developments, greater federal efforts to help smaller manufacturers in particular learn about and access research breakthroughs in academia and existing government labs, measures to help these smaller industrial firms access capital more easily, tax breaks to foster production and innovation in the United States, and more ambitious and better enforced Buy American requirement for federal purchases of manufactured products. In general, I’m strongly supportive, and have even criticized the Trump administration for giving them short shrift (even on the tax front, where the big 2017 cuts should have come with more investing and hiring strings).

From knowing David, I feel sure that he backs these intiatives, too; indeed, the article concentrates tightly on the Buy American slice of this agenda. And the piece gratifingly (but probably unknowingly) endorses an idea that I’ve made for many years, but that has gotten zero traction: requiring “all manufacturing industries to disclose how much of their sourcing and critical production takes place in the United States.” After all, how can Washington make the right manufacturing policy decisions when it relies so heavily for such crucial information from crumbs self-servingly cherry-picked by offshoring-happy companies themselves?

Yet as also suggested by David and co-author Dan Breznitz – who studies innovation policies at the University of Toronto – except for the Buy American proposals, the standard raft of manufacturing revival plans could work to  stimulate more production and supply, but pays inadequate attention to ensuring that all that supply is actually bought – which would eventually make companies think twice about producing more.

The authors place much stock in government’s ability to soak up this output, and so does Biden – who on top of making sure that more of what government currently purchases is American-made, has pledged to spend “$400 billion in his first term in additional federal purchases of products made by American workers, with transparent, targeted investments that unleash new demand for domestic goods and services and create American jobs.”

The former Vice President correctly contends that these measures will “provide a strong, stable source of demand for products made by American workers and supply chains composed of American small businesses.” The history of U.S. industrial policy also shows that early guaranteed government purchases helped new industries demonstrate the usefulness of innovative products that eventually interested the private sector and produced enormous new markets for their products on top of federal contracts. (Think “computers” and all the hardware and software used pervasively now not only in technology sectors but in virtually the entire economy.)

But U.S.-based manufacturers turned out just over $2.35 trillion worth of goods in 2019 (the last full pre-CCP Virus year). And the manufacturing trade deficit that year was $1.03 trillion. So unless it’s supposed that that 2019 level of domestic manufacturing production is remotely adequate (and clearly, the manufacturing policy reform supporters don’t), or unless they believe that government should buy much more of the output than the $400 billion Biden proposes over not one but four years (to sit in warehouses?), generating more private demand for industry’s output will be essential as well.

As indicated above, David and Dan Breznitz argue that more detailed, accurate labeling will help by enabling more consumers and private businesses to act effectively on their naturally strong preferences for Made in the USA goods – not only out of patriotism, but because of reasonable convictions that their quality and safety are superior. I remain all in favor, but the immense popularity of imports among both classes of customers (made clear by the huge and chronic manufacturing trade deficits) despite numerous news accounts over the years of shoddy, outright dangerous foreign-made products (especially from China), demonstrates that much more will need to be done to spur demand for U.S.-produced manufactures.

RealityChek regulars will not be the slightest bit surprised that I’m ruling out overseas demand as a promising net new source of customers for American domestic manufacturers. Unfortunately, the persistence of the huge manufacturing trade deficits is also evidence that most of America’s international trade partners are far too devoted to the health of their own industrial bases to permit major U.S. inroads. In fact, if anything, they’re likely to step up their own efforts to strengthen their own domestic industries by further curbing U.S. and other foreign competition. And that’s where the tariffs come in.

Not that David and Dan Bernitz, or Biden, overlook the need for U.S. market protection entirely. The former, for example, call for “Stopping predatory pricing by foreign manufacturers” – which entails slapping tariffs on these usually government-subsidized artificially cheap goods. The latter makes similar points, and has also mentioned a carbon tariff on products from countries that base their competitiveness on ignoring “their climate and environmental obligations.” (At the same time, Biden could use a similar levy to punish domestic companies that don’t measure up in his administration’s eyes climate-wise, leaving the net benefit to U.S.-based manufacturing minimal.)

Moreover, to ensure adequate domestic supplies of the healthcare goods needed to fight the next pandemic, simple stockpiling of products by government will be necessary. And since practically everything wears out over time, or becomes outmoded, lots of re-stockpiling will be necessary. Meanwhile, it should go without saying that many of the government purchases of manufactures will be used for critical national purposes – like repairing and building all kinds of traditional and technology infrastructure systems, and producing whatever new military equipment or refurbishing of old equipment the new Congress and the likely new administration wind up supporting.

But these are of course public purposes, and since the United States is still a strongly private sector-driven economy, that’s what’s inevitably going to determine the success of most manufacturing revival efforts. So unless manufacturing revivalists want government to play a veritably dominant role in production and consumption decisions, their strategy will employ tariffs – but not in a targeted, sector-specific, and reactive way, much less as an afterthought to domestic initiatives. Instead, they’ll be proactive, come in a flat-rate form, and stand high enough to encourage plenty of new market entrants that it makes sense to join established enterprises in vigorous, overwhelmingly domestic competition for America’s immense pool of customers.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Blaming the Restaurant Crisis on…Trump’s Tariffs

Tags

Europe, food, imports, productivity, restaurants, spirits, tariffs, The Washington Post, Trade, Trump, wine, {What's Left of) Our Economy

It’s like the Washington Post, and especially the folks who run its op-ed page, will do anything to slam President Trump’s tariff-centric trade policies. Example number 4,369,589? A piece not from an Offshoring Lobby mainstay, or one of this pressure group’s hired gun think tank hacks, or an academic economist with his or her head stuck in the clouds – but from two of America’s leading chefs and restaurateurs.

I’ll give Post editors and the authors – Kwame Onwuachi and Alice Waters – style points for creativity at least. The article contends that a great way for apparent President-elect Joe Biden to provide some desperately needed help for a national restaurant sector decimated by the CCP Virus would be to lift a set of tariffs imposed by Mr. Trump on European food products. The tariffs, they contend, are adding 25 percent to the costs of restaurants that use these products exactly at a time when few establishments in this usually low-margin sector can afford such burdens.

Unfortunately, all the piece makes clear is that chefs and restaurateurs should stick to cooking and serving and running their own businesses rather than advising the nation on trade, and that the folks at the Post should try requiring their authors to meet some minimal standards of credible argumentation.

After all, as Onwuachi and Waters themselves point out, these Trump tariffs were imposed last October 19. And the nation’s restaurants seemed to be doing just fine until…the pandemic and the lockdowns came along. So blaming the trade curbs for any significant contribution to the restaurant crisis seems a major stretch.

No doubt dining establishments that rely heavily on sales of products stressed by the authors like “wine from France, Spain and Germany, whiskey from Ireland and Scotland, and Spanish olives and olive oil, along with cheeses from all over the continent, pork, and much more” are now seeing their remaining (post-lockdowns) earnings suffering.

But nowhere in the piece are readers given the bigger picture. For example, what share of the nation’s restaurants even serve any of these foods or beverages? And what share of their total costs do such imports from Europe represent? Further, what percentage of these restaurants have closed for good, meaning that tariff elimination won’t provide them with a speck of relief at all? As RealityChek regulars know, presenting economic data in isolation is the first refuge of an intellectual scoundrel.

The authors – and their editors – also seem unaware that lots of domestic substitutes are available for these European products. For instance, on the eve of the pandemic, U.S.-produced wine accounted for about two-thirds of all the wine sold in the country both by value and by volume. I’m no oenophile, but I keep hearing that many measure up quite well against their foreign counterparts – and often better. In addition, not all the imports, or even the choice imports, come from Europe, as connoisseurs of Australian, South American, and South African wines can attest.

It’s a shame that the Trump tariffs won’t enable the restaurants that do maintain an extensive European wine menu to offer their customers exactly what they want, at exactly the prices to which they’re accustomed. But I strongly suspect that diners today are in a pretty supportive, accomodating mood. And if restaurateurs are indeed desperate – which so many clearly are – they won’t gripe excessively about switching to non-tariffed wines.

Moreover, any restaurateur worth his or her salt should have the marketing chops to encourage customers to expand their palates. Heaven knows they’ve succeeded extraordinarily in persuading Americans to sample all sorts of new, exotic, and often downright weird dishes and drinks containing equally new, exotic, and often downright weird ingredients and combinations thereof.

Since wine and other spirits play an outsized role in restaurant sales and profits, it’s that alcohol trade picture that counts most, and it’s enough to refute in large measure the case for saving or even meaningfully boosting the dining industry by rescinding the tariffs. But as opposed to my indifference to wine, I am a cheese lover, and can personally attest that many outstanding domestic varieties are available, too, for gourmet chefs to place on appetizer or dessert plates.

Finally, both the authors and the Post editors ignore the economics maxim holding that businesses facing cost increases can absorb them without raising prices by boosting their productivity. And although cooking, serving, and dining probably don’t strike many as an activities where efficiency can be greatly raised, the industry itself admits that its productivity growth is unacceptably low and needs to get on the stick.

Just as important, unless Unwuachi, Waters, any other spokes folks for their sector, or Post editors can come up with more convincing evidence that U.S. trade policy has decisively impacted their fortunes, focusing on improving productivity would sure be a better use of their time than whining about Mr. Trump’s tariffs.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: The CCP Virus Lockdowns’ State-Level US Effects II

Tags

CCP Virus, Commerce Department, coronavirus, COVID 19, lockdowns, shutdowns, states, stay-at-home, Wallethub.com, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Yesterday’s RealityChek post presented some facts about the economic performance of America’s states during the CCP Virus era that struck me, anyway, as surprising and important. And it ended with the observation that two big states that have imposed relatively sweeping anti-virus curbs on business and consumer activity – New York and California – accounted for a considerably outsized share of the national economy’s shrinkage during the pandemic through the third quarter of this year (the latest economic statistics available).

Today’s post will use the same data – from a recent Commerce Department report – to show that overall, the states with the most restrictive lockdown etc regimes have generally experienced the biggest economic contractions. That conclusion may sound too obvious to bother thinking about, but it matters because economic distress, as I’ve written repeatedly, produces its own serious public health (both mental and physical costs). Moreover, at least according to most of the public health establishment, even if mass vaccination goes as quickly and smoothly as realistically possible, normality could still be nearly a year off.

As with the previous post, however, some qualifications need to be discussed, and in addition to yesterday’s, two more should be kept in mind. First, despite the connection between CCP Virus-related economic and business curbs on the one hand and slumping economies on the other, there’s a non-trivial number of exceptions, as will be shown below. So it’s distinctly possible that some states have found the kind of balance between still-sometimes (but not always) conflicting economic and public health imperatives that’s worth emulating.

Second, not only have the lockdowns etc been very on-and-off in nature since the pandemic became a pandemic in late winter, but measurements of these lockdowns’ scale unavoidably entail a pretty fair amount of subjectivity.

The source I’m using for this (at this link) looks on-target in general to me. But I have to admit puzzlement at some of the rankings. For example, the source organization, Wallethub.com, places Michigan right in the middle of these rankings – even though Michiganders have been among the most vehement opponents of virus curbs. Have many of the folks directly experiencing this state’s restrictions just been throwing unwarranted tantrums?

Moreover, Maryland, where I live now, has imposed pretty tight restrictions, too, although at least Republican Larry Hogan has been one of those governors who’s given different counties a fair amount of regulatory autonomy since the state (like even many smaller ones) is fairly diverse. But I’m not convinced that overall its curbs have been patchy enough to place it in the lockdowns-light half of states.

Meanwhile, New Mexico is ranked just a little more restrictive than Michigan, though my own look at this state’s policies concluded they’ve been quite lockdown-y.

But nobody’s perfect, so I’m going with Wallethub.com as my lockdown guide, and here’s what I did. First, I looked at the ten states whose economies grew the most (or contracted the least) between the firt and third quarters of this year, and identified where they stand in the Wallethub rankings, and then performed the same exercise with the ten states that suffered the worst contractions. The growth (and contraction) figures represented percentage changes in real gross domestic product, and the Wallethub scale assigns the least restrictive states the lowest numbers. Here are the results:

Top 10 1Q-3Q GDP                                               rank on lockdown scale

Utah: +1.07                                                                            3

Washington: +-0.44                                                             36

Delaware: -0.08                                                                   31

Arizona: -0.52                                                                     45

Iowa: -0.54                                                                            5

Idaho: -0.81                                                                           2

Indiana: -1.01                                                                      15

Georgia: -1.03                                                                     13

Arkansas: -1.27                                                                   10

Alabama: -1.34                                                                   14

The big takeaway? Of these ten states, seven imposed relatively light anti-CCP Virus restrictions

(earning rankings in the lowest half of the fifty states plus the District of Columbia). And four of these states were among the ten least restrictive states. So that looks like solid evidence that the relatively open states were rewarded with the best economic performances, and that this openness as such deserves significant credit. But three states on this list put into effect lockdowns on the tight side and fared relatively well economically, too – Washington, Delaware, and Arizona.

Have they found the policy sweet spot? Or is there something about their economies’ structures that have produced economic resilience? One observation pointing to the importance of structure: both Washington and Arizona boast highly developed tech sectors – Amazon and Microsoft, e.g., headquartering the former, and the latter containing much semiconductor production.

Here are the states with the worst growth performances during the pandemic:

Bottom 10 1Q-3Q GDP                                               rank on lockdown scale

Hawaii: -6.67                                                                              51

Wyoming: -5.24                                                                           7

New York: -4.56                                                                        38

Oklahoma: -3.84                                                                         4

Tenn: -3.33                                                                                18

Alaska: -3.28                                                                             12

Nevada: -3.14                                                                            20

New Jersey: -3.08                                                                     47

Vermont: -3.06                                                                          41

North Dakota: -2.98                                                                   9

And these results seem to cut against those of the previous list – because of these low growers, only four had imposed very restrictive lockdowns (Hawaii, New York, New Jersey, and Vermont). Further, three were among the very least restrictive states (Wyoming, Oklahoma, and North Dakota). And the other three were well in the half of states that have been least restrictive (Tennessee, Alaska, and Nevada).

Nonetheless, economic structure considerations as well as policy measures seem to be influencing these results. Principally, Wyoming, Oklahoma, and North Dakota all depend very heavily on a fossil fuels sector that has been plunged into a deep slump due to the virus’ overall economic effects. And lockdown-light-ish Nevada has suffered from the tourism depression.

Now let’s view the situation from the opposite perspective. Let’s take the states with the ten tightest and ten loosest lockdown regimes, and examine their respective economic performance. First, the ten tightest lockdowners, with the most resrictive at the top:

Most restrictive on lockdowns                                1Q-3Q GDP growth rank

Hawaii                                                                                    50

California                                                                               36

Mass.                                                                                      32

Maine                                                                                     34

New Jersey                                                                             47

Colorado                                                                                 33

Arizona                                                                                    4

Oregon                                                                                   20

Pennsylvania                                                                          37

Vermont                                                                                  41

Here the correlation between policy and performance looks awfully strong. Fully eight of the ten biggest economic loser states are among the states with the tightest lockdowns, and three of these are among the ten most restrictive. Interestingly, Arizona comes across as a standout according to this measure, too.

Economic structure is playing a role here, too – as seen by the presence of tourism-reliant Hawaii and Vermont. In addition, Pennsylvania’s become a big energy state thanks to the Marcellus shale formation, and Colorado has long depended heavily on both energy and tourism.

At the same time, Pennsylvania’s got lots of office workers who’ve been able to do their jobs from home – as does New Jersey (which along with New York was hit early and hard by the virus). And what gives with California – of course tourism-heavy, but in many ways the center of both high tech manufacturing and high tech service provision in the nation, not to mention research and development?

So lockdown decisions seem to have made major contributions to these states’ relatively deep downturns.

A similar conclusion seems justified from this list of the ten states that have permitted their economies to remain most open and imposed the fewest cubrs on behavior – with the least restrictive closest to the top:

Least restrictive on lockdowns                                1Q-3Q GDP rank

South Dakota                                                                     14

Idaho                                                                                   6

Utah                                                                                     1

Oklahoma                                                                         47

Iowa                                                                                    5

Wisconsin                                                                         11

Wyoming                                                                         49

Missouri                                                                           21

North Dakota                                                                   41

Arkansas                                                                            9

Seven of these ten lockdown-lightest states are in the top half of U.S. economic performers, four are in the top ten and one (Wisconsin) is Number 11. Moreover, the three conspicuous exceptions to this pattern – economically woeful Oklahoma, Wyoming, and North Dakota – are all, as previously pointed out, states that have suffered because they’re energy-heavy.

As a result, the way I see it, this table and at least two of the others of the four total presented here, along with yesterday’s state-level data, further strengthen the case that lockdowns per se have exacted major – though far from  catastrophic –  economic prices. But by the same token, these esults confront the nation with the question of far away the economic tipping point might be. 

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: The CCP Virus Lockdowns’ State-Level US Effects I

Tags

California, CCP Virus, Commerce Department, coronavirus, COVID 19, GDP, gross domestic product, inflation-adjusted growth, lockdowns, New York, real GDP, shutdows, states, stay-at-home, Utah, Washington, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

One of my coolest holiday gifts came courtesy of Uncle Sam. Not a tax refund or stimulus check, but the Commerce Department’s release last week on “Gross Domestic Product by State, 3^rd Quarter, 2020.”

Seriously.

I always look forward to these data because they enable gauging how developments in the national economy are affecting individual states as well as regions, and vice versa, and this latest report is especially interesting because of all that it says about the economic impact of the highly diverse set of lockdowns and shutdowns and stay-at-home orders and the like that the states have imposed during the CCP Virus era.

This will be the first of two posts on the subject, and I’ll focus on some simple descriptive findings – many of which came as surprises to me. Beforehand, though, it’s important to lay out some warnings against drawing overly tight conclusions between a state’s economic performance and the virus curbs it’s put I effect.

Among the most important:

>The pandemic hit different states at different times, so differences in their growth rates (what these gross domestic product, or GDP, figures are particularly valuable for), in many instances have relatively little to do with their lockdown etc regimes.

>The states have highly diverse demographic profiles (e.g., average age of the population, population density) that can also produce highly diverse economic performances for reasons largely unrelated to economic curbs.

>Different state economies are also dominated by different industries, and as has become obvious, some industries’ health has been decimated by the virus (especially in-person services of all kinds like dining and travel and hospitality, but also energy) while some have held up fairly well (like manufacturing). It’s become just as obvious that many jobs that can be performed at home, and therefore the income and spending they generate have been much less affected by the pandemic than jobs requiring a worker’s presence (e.g., in those in-person service sectors).

>Finally (for now), state economies don’t exist in isolation from each other. Commuters and shoppers often cross state lines when traveling to work or stores, and their businesses often sell their products and offer their services to customers nation-wide – inevitably weakening or strengthening the impact of state-specific curbs.

Still, the new GDP-by-state numbers (which include the District of Columbia) reveal any number of important results since they take the story past the deep second quarter virus- and shutdown-induced downturn suffered by the entire national economy, as well as the strong third quarter rebound.

One big surprise: The entire U.S. economy saw output drop by 2.17 percent in inflation-adjusted terms (the gauge most closely watched) between the first quarter of the year (the last mainly pre-pandemic quarter) and the third. But two states actually managed to grow in inflation-adjusted terms (the gauge most closely watched by students of the economy): Utah (whose economy expanded by 1.04 percent in real terms) and Washington (0.44 percent).

The Washington result was unexpected, at least for me, because its West Coast location placed it closer to the CCP Virus’ origins in China, because the first virus case was recorded there in January (at least as far as is known to date), and because one of its economic crown jewels is aerospace giant Boeing, which has been hit so hard both by recent travel restriction and the safety woes troubling its jetliners.

The worst performing states, in relative (percentage terms) were less surprising. The leader here far and away was Hawaii, whose constant dollar GDP shrank by 6.67 percent) followed by Wyoming (down 5.24 percent by the same measure) and New York (4.56 percent). The Aloha State has of course been victimized by the depression in the travel and tourism industries, Wyoming is energy dependent, and New York collectively caught the CCP Virus early, when so little was known about its virulence and deadliness, and about which Americans were least and most vulnerable.

Oddly, however, the number of states that appear to have been especially hard hit economically between the first and third quarters was pretty limited. Only nine overall experienced price-adjusted contractions of more than three percent. In addition to the three biggest losers above, they were Oklahoma, Tennessee, Alaska, Nevada, New Jersey, and Vermont. And bonus points for you if you see major energy (Oklahoma, Alaska) and tourism (Nevada and Vermont) effects at work here.

Other than that, the economies of eighteen states shrank between two and three percent in constant dollar terms between the first and the third quarters – meaning that, generally, they weren’t far from the national total of 2.17 percent. The rest contracted by less than two percent or (as with Utah and Washington) eaked out some growth.

But this isn’t to say that the economic impact of the virus and related economic curbs haven’t been highly concentrated in at least one respect: A way outsized share of this production destruction has taken place as of the third quarter in just two states: New York and California.  

New York’s the champ here. During the first quarter, its economy represented 7.74 percent of the U.S. total in inflation-adjusted terms. By the third quarter, though, its $67.80 billion contraction represented 16.36 percent of the entire country’s $414.33 billion. In other words, measured by lost output, it punched more than twice above its economic weight.

During this period, California’s real GDP fell by more than New York’s in absolute terms ($74.30 billion). But its economy has long been bigger than New York’s – accounting for 14.81 percent of constant dollar US GDP during the first quarter, or nearly twice New York’s share. So its 17.93 percent shrinkage was smaller relative to the size of its economy than New York’s.

Their combined impact, however, is genuinely astonishing. Accounting for a combined 22.55 percent of the U.S. economy adjusted for inflation in the first quarter, they generated 34.29 percent of the nation’s economic shrinkage – more than a third.

And this is where the lockdown angle comes in: By one gauge of virus-era state economic regimes, (which themselves have almost all been on and off at least to some extent, thereby creating yet another complication) New York’s and California’s were among the strictest. And the next RealityChek post will examine in more detail the relationship these curbs and state economic growth.