(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Why Inflation Isn’t Worrisome So Far

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CCP Virus, CNBC, coronavirus, COVID 19, Federal Reserve, inflation, logistics, reopening, semiconductor shortage, shutdowns, Steve Liesman, stimulus, supply chains, transportation, West Coast ports, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

By now you’ve surely seen or heard – or should have seen or heard – that the new U.S. official figures (for April) show that inflation is back big time and could all too easily spin out of control. The emphasis should be on “could,” because, as also widely observed (including by the Federal Reserve, which is a major U.S. government line of inflation defense), the recent price rises arguably stem from developments that are temporary byproducts of America’s utterly unprecedented economic circumstances these days – reopening in fits and starts, but overall quickly, from lengthy government-mandated shutdowns aimed at fighting the CCP Virus.

I’m pretty firmly convinced that the inflation optimists are right, even though the pessimists make strong points in observing that (a) prices have been rising faster on a monthly basis with each passing month this year; and (b) inflation tends to generate its own momentum. That is, the expectation of rising prices typically encourages households and businesses alike to step up their purchases in order to avoid paying more for the same goods and services later on. Further, more expensive inputs for specific businesses can easily prompt those companies to compensate by raising the prices they charge their customers, while at the same time generating the same reactions from other businesses that are their customers, and so on.

I’ll also grant that the pessimists shouldn’t be dismissed when they contend that even temporary inflation can cause serious damage to an economy, especially when we’re talking about price increases that only come to an end after, say, a year or longer rather than after two or three months. Therefore, it’s important to note that the optimists’ case depends heavily on the relatively rapid end to the price-boosting combination of sudden increases in consumer demand resulting from the reopening, and of all the supply bottlenecks that have emerged as businesses struggle to catch up with that demand – which of course is being buoyed by the immense doses of stimulus being injected into the economy, and that may be increased in the near future.   

Indeed, the prolonged shipping backups at West Coast ports should be making clear that the more optimistic definition of “temporary” might rest on some pretty dicey assumptions. In addition, we’re unlikely to see a quick end to the global semiconductor shortage that’s shut down considerable automobile production and thinned inventories all over the world – curbing supply and of course driving up prices.

So why am I optimistic? Largely for a reason that’s been generally overlooked in the inflation uproar. (One major exception has been CNBC’s Steve Liesman, whose segment yesterday partly inspired this post.) When you look at where prices actually are now in the economy as a whole, and even in particularly hot sectors, you find that they’re not much higher than they were just before the pandemic hit (in February, 2020, which will be the baseline month I’ll use). And that’s because they had been falling or weak for so many months while much of the economy was closed.

This methodology, to start, puts an entirely different shine on the news that the overall April inflation rate of 4.2 percent year-on-year was the strongest such surge since September, 2008. But from February, 2020 to April, prices by this broadest measure increased by just 3.1 percent. That’s much higher than the 1.3 percent increase during the previous comparable period (February, 2019-April, 2020). Remember, however: April, 2020 was the depth of the virus-related lockdowns and consequent recession.

During the February-April period before that, prices rose 2.4 percent – and that’s with none of the stop-start distortions currently being experienced. The period before that it was 2.6 percent. And the period before that – also a normal stretch – it was 2.9 percent. And in comparable (also normal) 2011-2012 timespan, it was 3.3 percent. So the new 3.1 percent doesn’t seem all that exceptional when you consider all the abnormalities of this post-virus recovery.

Another widely watched inflation gauge is called “core inflation.” It strips out food and energy prices because they can be volatile over whatever timeframe examined for reasons having nothing to do with the economy’s fundamentals – and supposedly fundamental vulnerability to inflation (e.g., unusual weather that impacts agriculture, or oil price decisions by the OPEC cartel and other major foreign producers).

On a monthly basis, they advanced by 0.9 percent, and year-on-year they were up three percent in April. The former figure was the worst since 1982, and the latter is on the high side as well. But let’s look at the February-April numbers. Between 2020 and 2021, core inflation was 2.6 percent. It was just two percent during the previous comparable period, but again, those numbers are distorted by deflationary April, 2020. The period before it was 2.6 percent – the same as this year, but without the reopening issues. And as recently as 2016, it was even higher – 2.7 percent – even with no virus-related confusion.

As they say in the investment advice world, past performance is no guarantee of future results. Nor should it be forgotten that many economists still find inflation frustratingly difficult to measure, and criticisms of the U.S. government’s methodology abound as well. (See, e.g., here.) But the official American figures are still widely followed, and certainly lie at the heart of the latest bout of inflation angst. And until these data start showing outsized price gains compared with pre-CCP Virus levels that haven’t been affected by virus-era abnormalities, I’m going to stay pretty relaxed about the U.S. inflation picture.*

Please note: This inflation analysis should not be used as investment advice, because I’m not in that business and don’t feel qualified to be in that business. Also, what I do know of that business teaches that asset prices are much more profoundly influenced by what investors as a whole think about the economy than by what I think about it.

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Following Up: Video of CNBC Interview on TikTok Ban and China Tech Wars Now On-Line!

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China, CNBC, Following Up, social media, tech, TikTok, Trump

Sorry for the delay here!  The streaming video of my appearance last Friday on CNBC is now on-line.  In fact, it’s been on-line since Friday afternoon.  The good news:  It’s still timely!

So click here to see the segment, which focuses on the broad implications of President Trump’s recent decision last week to ban popular Chinese social media app TikTok from U.S. markets unless a U.S.-owned buyer comes through toute de suite.  Also:  Be sure to watch till the very end!

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

 

 

 

 

Making News: On CNBC Today on the U.S.-China Tech War

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China, CNBC, Making News, national security, privacy, social media, technology, TikTok, Trump, WeChat

I’m pleased to announce that I’m scheduled to appear on CNBC this afternoon EST to talk about the intensifying technology conflict between the United States and China.  The segment, slated to start at 2 PM EST, will key off President Trump’s announcement last night that the Chinese social media apps TikTok and WeChat will be banned from the American market.

You can watch the segment live on the network, and if you can’t catch it, I’ll post a link to the video recording as soon as it’s available.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Im-Politic: An Immigration and Racism Link Deserving Much More Attention

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African Americans, Chicago, CNBC, H-1B visa, Hispanics, Im-Politic, Immigration, inequality, Jim Reynolds, minorities, Norman Matloff, race relations, racism, STEM workers, tech jobs, unemployment

“H-1B” and “racial injustice” probably aren’t terms most people would believe have much to do with each other. That’s why a recent CNBC interview with a leading African American financier deserves your attention even if it is two weeks old. Because he shows not only that they’re intimately connected, but that even someone who is focusing on the link needs to think much more about how exactly it works, and what needs to be done about it.

For those who don’t follow immigration issues closely, “H-1B” is the name of the category of visa that the federal government allots business for foreigners they supposedly need to employ because their “specialty” skills can’t be found in the domestic workforce. The skills cover a wide range, but according to this organization (which loves the program) most of the visas requested by U.S. companies are for science and technology occupations, and indeed their prevalence in these fields is responsible for most of the controversy they’ve generated.

For evidence abounds that, contrary to their claims, the tech companies that seek these foreign workers so ardently aren’t using them because they’re geniuses, but because they’re cheap – and because they need to remain tied to the company that sponsored them if they have any hope of getting permanent legal residence in the United States. (My go-to source on this issue is University of California-Davis computer scientist and immigration authority Norman Matloff, whose work can be found at this terrific blog.)

As a result, H-1B opponents argue that their use undercuts American pay levels in science and technology fields, and severely undercuts the argument that gaining these skills is one of the best guarantees available to young Americans of prospering in the turbulent economy of recent decades. But the program damages the economy in a way less often noted by opponents: It guts the incentives American business might develop to invest in American workers’ skills generally, or to press government to get the country’s education act together so as to make sure that the skills they need are available domestically.

And this is where the racial injustice and related economic inequality issues come into play – along with that CNBC interview. The subject, Jim Reynolds, is an inspiring African American success story who’s long been active in civic affairs in a city with one of the nation’s biggest African American populations – his native Chicago. (See this profile.) CNBC brought him on the air on July 2 to talk about racial diversity on Wall Street.

The conversation proceeded along these lines till it was about two thirds of the way through, when Reynolds made this totally unprompted and stunning pivot. Its worth quoting in full, and came in response to a question on whether he thinks Wall Street is genuinely committed to hiring more minorities in the wake of the George Floyd killing and ensuing tsunami of nationwide calls to end racism and related economic injustices.  (I also need to present it because this point didn’t make it into the CNBC news story accompanying the interview video that’s linked above.)   

“You ask if I think this is real…. I was at an Economics Club dinner a couple of years ago…and one of the top CEOs in the city [Chicago], actually, one of the top CEOS in the country – a Fortune 100 company – spoke to the group, and what he said to the group that one of his most frustrating experiences is working with H-1B programs, and why they won’t let his company recruit more of the talent that they need in the tech space….[H]e said that in the middle of downtown Chicago, where we have African American and Hispanic youth in the city, ten minutes from where he was standing, that have…let’s call it 40, 50, 60 percent unemployment, that go to schools that don’t really…teach them this sort of thing, and I wondered why he didn’t even think about this. Sure, you can go to China, and you can go to India, and recruit that talent. And that talent – and I’ve spent a lot of time in China – that talent started getting developed in middle school When they come here, and they go to the quants on Wall Street and the quants in Silicon Valley – and they do dominate that space – they started studying this stuff like when they were eight years old, nine years old. And I’ve started thinking about and talking about and I’m working with our wonderful Mayor Lori Lightfoot about, let’s get these corporations thinking about – and this time is great – investing in these black and Hispanic schools. Now. Let’s grab our young black and Hispanic kids in middle school. Let’s have a Facebook program in the school, Microsoft program, Alphabet program, Apple program in these schools. I think that’s an opportunity.”

I couldn’t have done a better job of making the H-1B-racial injustice connection. But as I suggested above, Reynold is still missing a piece of the puzzle: The CEO he mentions, and others like him, simply aren’t going to make those investments because they don’t have to. And they don’t have to precisely because they have a cheaper alternative – and one that doesn’t require them to deal with the kinds of workforce training challenges they’ve never faced: the H-1B program.

So if Reynolds really wants to expand opportunity for disadvantaged minority youth (and other young Americans) all over the country, he’ll start pressing for the elimination of the H-1B program, and for broader immigration policies that deny businesses in all sectors the easy option of hiring low-cost foreigners – and in the process, creating even more power over workers and thereby intensifying the downward pressure they can keep exerting on their wages and benefits.

Reynolds, moreover, is in a particularly good position to lobby for these changes effectively because, as made clear in the profile linked above, his close friends include a fellow named Barack Obama – who has more than a little influence on the liberals and progressives who have emerged (along with Corporate America) as among the stubbornest opponents of immigration policies that put American workers – including of course minority workers – first.

What’s Left of) Our Economy: Not All CCP Virus Lessons are Created Equal

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CCP Virus, CNBC, Congress, coronavirus, COVID 19, Federal Reserve, Joseph Stiglitz, lockdown, Patricia Cohen, Paul M. Krugman, safety net, shutdown, social insurance, The New York Times, Trump, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Thanks to a late start, just a quickie, today – but still important because it demonstrates the dodgy nature of two increasingly widespread claims during this CCP Virus emergency: first, that the suffering of so many Americans due to the health and economic damage done by the virus demonstrates how lousy the country’s social safety net is; and second, that its impact on employment in particular and the resulting damage to the finances of so many individuals and families shows how fragile – and even phony – much pre-virus national well-being actually was.

The first claim was made notably by Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul M. Krugman. Now I know that I’ve labeled him a reflexive Never Trumper, I know I’ve taken him to task for many major blunders (at least as I see them), and I know we’ve crossed swords – angrily – in print. But I really do believe this contention about a major lesson being taught by the pandemic, made in a CNBC interview on Friday, was way off-base:

“…what we’re seeing is that our safety net has big, big holes in it.”

No one can reasonably believe that all the actual virus damage done will be healed or the potential damage done prevented even by the historically unprecedented (by a mile) sums of various kinds of virus relief approved by Congress and President Trump. Ditto for the comparably huge, unprecedented economy backstops provided by the Federal Reserve.

But think of it this way: If, after he asteroid strike that wiped out the dinosaurs, would it have been reasonable for someone or something to observe, “What we’re seeing is that those species really had some major defects”? Of course not. Especially since the dinosaurs had been the planet’s dominant life form for literally hundreds of millions of years.

So they couldn’t survive a literal out-of-the-blue (though over incredibly long time-frames precedented and predictable) natural disaster. Does this mean – and I realize this is a weird concept outside an “argument’s sake” framework – that evolution did a lousy job? Of course not.

The rest of Krugman’s statement is much less absurd:

“[N]ormally we think of this as being a problem of protecting people or redistributing to people who are persistently disadvantaged, which is very important. But right now what we’re seeing is something that is more sort of, even within classes, is very uneven. If you happen to be working in the restaurant industry, if you happen to be working in the travel industry, your entire basis of sustenance is gone, whereas if you happen to be employed in a sector which is not affected by this, this is annoying but not really all the bad. So what we need is basically – social insurance is what we talk about, and we’re seeing a real demonstration how important it is that we have a system for dealing with really disaster relief where the disaster is on a scale that we’ve never seen before.”rk 

Specifically, it makes perfect sense to want to insure against a wider range of potential calamities than currently planned for by America’s current system. It makes just as much sense to support more insurance for the economic and natural disasters already planned for. But creating enough insurance to shield the entire economy against what Krugman himself has likened to an “induced coma”? Because “We’ve deliberately shut down a large part of the economy”? And which Krugman calls “like nothing we’ve seen before”? That’s a qualitatively different challenge, and the case for the kinds of spending that would be required – and the kind of combination of taxes and debt creation needed to pay for it – is anything but obvious.

The argument about the virus showing the economy to have been surprisingly, and unacceptably, weak before this biological invasion suffers the same kinds of problems. Its best example has been this New York Times article, whose theme is described by the subhead: “The coronavirus pandemic has shown how close to the edge many Americans were living, with pay and benefits eroding even as corporate profits surged.”

For good measure, reporter Patricia Cohen (who’s a distant personal acquaintance) threw in a Krugman-like safety net observation from another Nobel Prize-winning liberal economist, Joseph Stiglitz: “We built an economy with no shock absorbers. We made a system that looked like it was maximizing profits but had higher risks and lower resiliency.”     

But Cohen’s main point was the (related) contention that the crisis “has revealed  [a series of additional] profound, longstanding vulnerabilities in the economic system

The same “asteroid” question, however, needs to be asked? Close to the edge of something legitimately qualifying as an Act of God? Or maybe more prosaically, the kind of “force majeure” event that can lead to the cancellation of legal contracts because circumstances beyond anyone’s control render the deal unenforceable in any real-world sense?

Sure, too many Americans spend too much and save too little – sometimes because they need to to get by, and sometimes because they’re irresponsible. (And as with much of life, often it’s a little of both. Moreover, let’s not let off the hook an easy money-addicted political and economic policy system, which has so powerfully encouraged over-spending at least since the dangerously bubbly economic expansion that preceded the 2007-08 financial crisis.)

But the virus damage so far has been so severe and widespread that it’s clearly – as Krugman noted above – caught short many Americans who had been handling their finances with admirable prudence

As for Cohen’s finding that the crisis has thrown into sharp relief the vulnerabilities of “even middle-class Americans, once snugly secure, [who] have become increasingly anxious in recent decades about their own fragile finances and their children’s prospects,” that sounds like a line from a Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren campaign ad.  The problem, of course, is that poll after poll has told us that before the virus struck, large majorities of Americans were feeling just fine about their personal finances and prospects.  

I have no doubt that the virus is going to wind up teaching Americans and their leaders many valuable lessons. But as the two above examples should make clear, not all supposed lessons are created equal. And be doubly wary of supposed lessons that, at least in the case of Krugman and Stiglitz, ostensibly validate ideas the teachers have held since long before anyone ever heard of a coronavirus.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Trade War(s) Update

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Argentina, Bloomberg.com, Brazil, business investment, China, CNBC, consumption, currency manipulation, debt, Democrats, digital services tax, election 2020, EU, European Union, export controls, Financial Crisis, France, Huawei, internet, investors, manufacturing, production, steel, steel tariffs, tariffs, Trade, Trade Deficits, trade enforcement, trade war, Trump, Wall Street, Wilbur Ross, Xi JInPing, {What's Left of) Our Economy

The most important takeaway from this post about the current status of U.S. trade policy, especially toward China, is that it may have already been overtaken by events since I began putting these thoughts together yesterday.

What follows is a lightly edited version of talking points I put together for staffers at CNBC in preparation for their interview with me yesterday. I thought this exercise would be useful because these appearances are always so brief (even though this one, unusually, featured me solo), and because sometimes they take unexpected detours from the main subject. .

Before presenting them, however, let’s keep in mind this new Bloomberg piece, which came on the heels of remarks yesterday by President Trump signaling that a trade deal with China may need to await next year’s U.S. Presidential election, and plunged the world’s investors into deep gloom. This morning, however, the news agency reported that considerable progress has been made despite “harsh” rhetoric lately from both countries. It seems pretty thinly sourced to me, and the supposed course of the trade talks seems to change almost daily, but stock indices are up considerably all the same.

Moreover, even leaving that proviso aside, what I wrote to the CNBC folks yesterday seems likely to hold up pretty well. And here it is:

1. The President’s latest comments on the China trade deal – which he says might take till after the presidential election to complete – seriously undermines the claim that he considers a deal crucial to his reelection chances because it’s likely to appease Wall Street and thereby prop up the economy. Of course, given Mr. Trump’s mercurial nature, and negotiating style, this latest statement could also simply amount to him playing “bad cop” for the moment.

2. His relative pessimism about a quick “Phase One” deal also seems to reinforce a suggestion implicitly made yesterday by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross when he listed verification and enforcement concerns as among the obstacles to signing the so-called Phase One deal. I have always argued that such concerns are likely to prevent the conclusion of any kind of trade deal acceptable to US interests. That’s both because of China’s poor record of keeping its commitments, and because the Chinese government is too secretive and too big to monitor effectively even the most promising Chinese pledges to change policies on intellectual property theft, illegal subsidies, discriminatory government procurement, and other so-called structural issues.

3. Recent reports of the United States considering tightening (or expanding) restrictions on tech exports to Chinese entities like Huawei also support my longstanding point that the US and Chinese economies will continue to decouple whatever the fate of the current or other trade talks.

4. In my opinion, the President is absolutely right to play hard-to-get on China trade, because Chinese dictator Xi Jinping is under so much pressure due to his own weakening economy, and because of the still-explosive Hong Kong situation.

5. I’ll be especially interested to learn of the Democratic presidential candidates’ reactions to Mr. Trump’s latest China statement, as well as the announcement of the reimposed steel tariffs on Argentina and Brazil, and the threatened tariffs on French “digital services” [internet] taxes. With the exception of Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the candidates’ China policies seem to boil down to “Yes, we need to get tough with China, but tariffs are the worst possible response.” None of them has adequately described an alternative approach. The reactions of Democratic Congress leaders Nancy Pelosi in the House and Charles Schumer will be worth noting, too. The latter has been strongly supportive of the Trump approach in general.

6. The new steel tariffs, as widely noted, are especially interesting because they were justified for currency devaluation reasons, with no mention made of the alleged national security threats originally cited as the rationale. Nonetheless, I don’t believe that they represent a significant change in the Trump approach to metals trade, because the administration has always emphasized the need for the duties to be global in scope – to prevent China from transshipping its overcapacity to the US through third countries, and to prevent third countries to relieve the pressures felt by their steel sectors from Chinese product by ramping up their own exports to the US. Obviously, all else equal, countries with weakening currencies (for whatever reason) will realize big advantages in steel trade, as the prices of their output will fall way below those of competitors’ steel industries.

7. Regarding the tariffs threatened in retaliation for France’s digital services tax, they’re consistent with Trump’s longstanding contention that the US-European Union (EU) trade relationship has been lopsidedly in favor of the Europeans for too long, and that tariff pressure is needed to restore some sustainable balance. In this vein, I don’t take seriously the French claim that the tax isn’t targeting U.S. companies specifically. After all, those firms are the dominant players in the field. Second, senior EU officials have started talking openly about strengthening Europe’s “technological sovereignty” – making sure that the continent eliminates its dependence on non-European entities in the sector (including China’s as well as America’s). The digital tax would certainly further the aim of building up European champions – and if need be, at the expense of US-owned companies.

By the way, this position of mine in no way reflects a view that more taxation and more regulation of these companies isn’t warranted. But it’s my belief that these issues should be handled by the American political system.

Also of note: Trump’s suggestion this morning that the French tax isn’t a big deal, and that negotiations look like a promising way to resolve the disagreement.

Finally, here are two more points I wound up making. First, I expressed agreement that the President’s tariff-centric trade policies have created significant uncertainties in the economy’s trade-heavy manufacturing sector in particular – stalling some of the planned business investment that’s essential for healthy growth. But I also noted that much of this uncertainty surely stems from the on-again-off-again nature of the tariffs’ actual and threatened imposition.

As a result, I argued, uncertainty could be significantly reduced if Mr. Trump made much clearer that, whatever the trade talks’ fate, the days of Washington trying to maximize unfettered bilateral trade and investment are over, and a new era marked by much more caution and many more restrictions (including tighter export controls and investment restrictions, as well as tariffs), is at hand.

Second, at the very end, I contended that President Trump deserves great credit for focusing public attention on the country’s massive trade deficits in general. For notwithstanding the standard economists’ view that they don’t matter, reducing them is essential if Americans want their economy’s growth to become healthy, and more sustainable. For as the last financial crisis should have taught the nation, when consumption exceeds production by too great a margin, debts and consequent economic bubbles get inflated – and tend to burst disastrously.

Making News: A New China (and Basketball!) Op-Ed, and Back on CNBC Today!

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China, CNBC, European Union, Hong Kong, human rights, Making News, National Basketball Association, NBA, The American Conservative, Trade, Trump

I’m pleased to announce that a new op-ed article of mine was posted last night.  Appearing on the website of The American Conservative, it explains why the National Basketball Association and its often politically outspoken players and coaches can easily afford to lead a global campaign to press China to clean up at least some of its human right act in Hong Kong and elsewhere.  Click here to read.

Also, I’m scheduled to return to CNBC this afternoon to discuss all the fast-breaking developments in U.S. trade policy across the board – including with China and the European Union.  The segment is slated to begin at 2 PM EST and, as usual, if you can’t tune in (or if you’re dying to see it again), I’ll be posting a link to the streaming video as soon as one’s available.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

 

 

Making News: Back on CNBC this Afternoon, Piscopo & Breitbart Podcasts…& More!

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AM 970 The Answer, Breitbart News Tonight, Breitbart.com, China, CNBC, Making News, Paul M. Krugman, Phase One, tariffs, The Joe Piscopo Show, Trade, trade war

I’m pleased to announce that I’m scheduled to return to CNBC this afternoon to comment on latest, fast-moving developments surrounding the U.S.-China trade talks and the “Phase One” deal announced last Friday.  The segment is slated to begin at 2 PM EST and, as usual, if you can’t tune in, I’ll post a link to the streaming video as soon as one become available.

In addition, the podcasts of my two Friday radio interviews on the trade talks and “mini-deal” are now on-line.  For my appearance Friday morning on “The Joe Piscopo Show” on New York City’s AM 970 The Answer, click here and scroll down till you see my name.  My segment comes on at about the 22:30 mark.

And here’s the link for my interview on “Breitbart News Tonight.”  Again, scroll down till you see my name.

Moreover, Breitbart.com yesterday posted a piece featuring my comments on a jaw-dropping confession from Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul M. Krugman.  He’s now saying that he and his free-trading colleagues have been totally wrong for decades on the question of how globalization has impacted the U.S. economy and its manufacturing sector.  Since Krugman and I have crossed swords in print before, you can count on hearing more from me on this subject before too long.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Making News: CNBC China Trade Talks Video Now On-Line; Piscopo Show Appearance Tomorrow Morning

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AM 970 The Answer, China, CNBC, Making News, Power Lunch, The Joe Piscopo Show, Trade, trade talks, trade war

I’m pleased to report that the video is now on-line of my interview today on CNBC’s “Power Lunch” program on the fast-moving U.S.-China trade talks currently taking place in Washington, D.C.  Click on this link to see a great discussion of the state of the negotiations – along with an examination of the key question of whether the two national economies are compatible to begin with.

In addition, tomorrow morning at 7:25 AM EST I’ll be appearing on The Joe Piscopo Show on New York City’s AM 970 The Answer radio station to update the state of the trade talks.  Listen live on-line here, and if you can’t tune in, I’ll post a link to the podcast as soon as one’s available.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Making News: CNBC Interview on China Trade Talks Set for this Afternoon, New Podcasts…& More!

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aerospace, Boeing, China, CNBC, IndustryToday.com, Making News, manufacturing, manufacturing recession, Market Wrap with Moe Ansari, recession, The John Batchelor Show, Trade, trade talks, trade war

I’m pleased to announce that I’m scheduled to appear this afternoon on CNBC’s “Power Lunch” program in a segment focusing on the latest U.S.-China trade talks underway in Washington, D.C.  The interview is slated for 2 PM EST and, as usual, I’ll post a link to the video as soon as one’s available.

Speaking of podcast-like items, here’s a link to the one featuring my China trade policy interview on Moe Ansari’s nationally syndicated “Market Wrap with Moe” radio program.  Our discussion begins at about the 27:30 mark.

And this link will take you to my segment on the same subject last night on John Batchelor’s nationally syndicated radio show.

Finally, on Tuesday, IndustryToday.com re-posted (with permission, of course!) my RealityChek piece from earlier this week on how Boeing’s safety-related woes have helped drag U.S. domestic manufacturing into (a very shallow) recession for reasons having nothing to do with President Trump’s trade policies.  Click here to read.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.