(What’s Left of) Our Economy: The (Dangerously) False Choice Between the Virus and a Restart

Tags

Angus Deaton, Ann Case, Big Business, CCP Virus, coronavirus, Deaths of Despair, growth, Jobs, lockdown, public health, shutdown, small business, stress, The New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman, Trump, unemployment, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

And here I thought that Americans were starting to understand that defeating the CCP Virus and thus protecting public health on the one hand, and restarting economic activity as soon as possible on the other, are not sharply conflicting imperatives. They’re mutually reinforcing – including for public health reasons. Silly me.

One sign was this column by The New York Times‘ Thomas L. Friedman – not someone who’s career-defining predictions and analysis (like the always beneficial and inevitable expansion of economic globalization) have stood up real well. All the same, as one expert quoted by Friedman observed:

“Income is one of the stronger predictors of health outcomes — and of how long we live. Lost wages and job layoffs are leaving many workers without health insurance and forcing many families to forego health care and medications to pay for food, housing, and other basic needs. People of color and the poor, who have suffered for generations with higher death rates, will be hurt the most and probably helped the least. They are the housekeepers in the closed hotels and the families without options when public transit closes. Low-income workers who manage to save the money for groceries and reach the store may find empty shelves, left behind by panic shoppers with the resources for hoarding.’’

P.S. – This expert is a noted public health authority, not an economist callously focused on money and output.

If you still doubt how worsening economic fortunes can literally be a large-scale killer, check out the work of the husband-wife team of Angus Deaton and Ann Case. Yes, they’re economists. But since 2015, these Princeton University scholars have been documenting how deteriorating well-being has helped fuel an historic rise in mortality among middle aged, working class whites. This year, they’ve published the results of their research in a book (appropriately) titled Deaths of Despair. Serious health problems with economic roots have been identified among African Americans as well.

Nonetheless, President Trump’s statement yesterday setting a target date of Easter (April 12) for restarting economic activity was greeted by a howl of protests accusing him of ignoring public health experts’ pleas, and placing his reelection hopes (which, the argument goes, depend almost exclusively on his economic policy record) over the lives of [FILL IN YOUR FAVORITE NUMBER] of Americans. Could anything be eviller?

There’s a counter-argument of course, at least in theory: Cash payments to workers could keep their incomes up and address these economy-related health threats even as most of the economy remains closed. The problem, though, is that without support for business (especially smaller companies, which are big employers collectively but often lack big cash cushions or access to affordable credit even in the best of times), massive payments could (which would be needed as long as workers have regular bills to pay) last a lot longer than the current health emergency because many such companies are likely to close for good, and leave their workers in the lurch, if they don’t start regaining customers fast.

Moreover, these small business vulnerabilities don’t exist in isolation because so many make much of their money selling to big businesses. So when the latter run into trouble because of a weak economy, the little guys – and their workers – inevitably will suffer, too.

So unless you’re a diehard Never Trump-er, and/or know absolutely nothing about the economy or Americans’ health and are unwilling to learn, you’ll recognize that the supposed choice between reopening the economy before too long (if not necessarily by Easter) and saving American lives is a false one. American policy, in other words, will have to learn how to walk and chew gum at the same time. The good news is that, as The Times‘ Friedman and others have noted, any number of approaches are available to achieve the best of both worlds that the nation urgently needs.

Im-Politic: Another Body Blow for the Trump-as-Phony-Populist Claim

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2016 election, 2020 election, Barack Obama, battleground states, counties, growth, Im-Politic, inflation-adjusted growth, Trump

Back in September, I published a piece challenging claims that President Trump is a phony populist by analyzing government data indicating that a key portion of his 2016 supporters – Americans who had twice voted for his White House predecessor, Barack Obama, before defecting to Trump World – had overall seen highly impressive gains in their annual paychecks under his administration. The evidence came from Commerce Department figures reporting on annual salary trends in the 196 counties that have voted Obama-Obama-Trump in 2008, 2012, and 2016.

Recently, Commerce issued a new set of statistics permitting the issue to be examined according to another gauge – economic growth adjusted for inflation. These numbers reveal a decided Trump payoff for these voters as well and could signal that the President will retain the loyalty of most such flippers during this year’s election.

These new Commerce statistics would be noteworthy alone because they represent the federal government’s first survey of growth on the county level. But they also make clear that, at least through the first two years of Mr. Trump’s presidency, the economies of the “Trump flip counties” on the whole grew faster than they did during the final two years of the Obama administration.

As with my analysis of the county-level salary figures, this examination of the growth figures looks at the periods of the previous and current presidency closest to each other in the current business cycle. Just as I focused on private sector workers in my salary analysis, I focus on the private sector in this growth analysis (because the growth of government, which mainly reflects politicians’ decisions, sheds little light on the health of the economy as a whole).

One difference – whereas the salary analysis looked at figures in pre-inflation dollars (mainly because price-adjusted data weren’t available), these growth numbers all take inflation into account. That matters in part because the “real” figures are the growth numbers that are most closely followed by students of the entire national economy.

According to the Commerce results, total inflation-adjusted growth was greater in the final two Obama years than during the first two Trump years in 84 of the 196 flip counties – or 42.86 percent. The Trump years, however, were better growth wise during these periods for 57.14 percent of these counties.

Another important finding: During the final two Obama years, 27 of these counties saw their economies shrink in after-inflation terms in both of those years. But this plight was suffered by only 14 of the flip counties during the Trump years.

The results were much more even in terms of flip counties whose economies contracted when adjusting for prices during just one of the two final Obama years or just one of the two first Trump years. Eighty-six of the counties experienced economic contraction during one of the two final Obama years while 87 percent of the counties recorded such setbacks during one of the two first Trump years.

The Commerce growth data also suggest that some progress in reducing inequality was made in the flip counties during the first two Trump years – and possibly more than during the last two Obama years.

Specifically, in 2015, 56 of the flip counties outgrew the national private sector average of 3.3 percent in real terms, while two matched this rate.

In 2016, 82 outgrew the national private sector average and two tied it – but that national average had fallen by more than half (to 1.6 percent).

In 2017 – the first Trump year – only 49 percent of the counties grew faster than the national private sector average and two were tied. But that national average had bounced back up to 2.6 percent.

And in 2018, although the private sector’s national growth rate quickened again – to 3.2 percent adjusted for inflation – the number of Trump flip counties topping that performance jumped to 78, with six matching the national average.

The political implications of these findings become obvious – and obviously positive for the President – upon seeing how heavily the Trump flip counties are concentrated in likely 2020 battleground states and how many “winner” flip counties are found there.

Fully 47 of the 196 total flip counties are located in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Ohio – states carried by Mr. Trump in 2016 and that are considered crucial to this year’s outcome.

In Michigan, the story for the President isn’t encouraging. Only three of its flip counties have grown faster during the first two Trump years than during the last two Obama years. But in Wisconsin and Ohio, growth under the President so far has been faster in 15 of 23 and eight of nine flip counties, respectively. (Only three of Pennsylvania’s counties, interestingly, are flippers – and two of them have grown faster so far during the Trump years.)

In addition, because he only narrowly lost Minnesota in 2016, Mr. Trump’s campaign is targeting the state this time around. With eleven of its 19 flip counties having grown faster under his presidency than during the final two years of his predecessor’s, the effort looks promising.

The new Commerce figures by no means guarantee victory for the President in November. As widely noted, his popularity is relatively low despite voters rating his economic performance highly, signaling that pocketbook issues may not override concerns about his personality, character, and other non-economic matters.

Also, the 2019 numbers won’t be out until after November, and they’re likely to weigh most heavily on the minds of voters who do prioritize the economy. In fact, fully 82 of the flip economies nationally experienced inflation-adjusted economic shrinkage in 2016 – which surely didn’t help Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Nonetheless, two major national data sets now point to the conclusion that voting for Mr. Trump in 2016 has been a good bet for the lion’s share of one-time Democrats who switched presidential allegiances that year. And they strongly suggest that, if his rivals hope to use the economy against him this year, they’ll need a more convincing claim than that the President is a phony populist.

Following Up: Many (and Maybe Most) U.S. Manufacturers Aren’t Buying the Tariff Fear-Mongering

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capex, Dallas Federal Reserve, exports, Following Up, growth, Jobs, manufacturing, NAM, National Association of Manufacturers, Sikich, tariffs, Trade, trade wars

What a week for polls seeking to shed some light on whether and how much President Trump’s tariffs-heavy trade policies have affected American domestic manufacturing! Monday’s post reported on findings from the Dallas Federal Reserve bank pointing to the answer, “Not nearly as much damage as widely supposed, and some benefits.”

Since then, the results of two more surveys have been published, and they, too, indicate that the situation is much more complicated than portrayed by the gloom and doom claims and predictions from globalization cheerleaders in politics, the media, and the U.S. Offshoring Lobby. And one of them shows that more domestic American manufacturers are expecting net gains, not net losses, from the trade wars – and even that many are coping with more and higher tariffs by boosting their production at home. 

Let’s start with the poll supporting the “tariffmageddon” narrative most strongly. It’s the National Association of Manufacturers’ (NAM) Quarterly Outlook Survey for the second quarter of 2019. The headline number for trade mavens: 56 percent of the 689 respondent companies called “Trade uncertainties” their “primary current business challenge.” This concern trailed only “Attracting and retaining a quality workforce” (68.6 percent). During the first quarter, trade uncertainties were the top concern of only 52.6 percent of respondents – so that number’s up, but not dramatically.

For good measure, along these lines, the expected growth rate for exports over the next year was just 0.4 percent – the lowest such figure provided in eleven quarters (going back to the third quarter of 2016).

In addition, respondents’ expectations of major performance indicators also weakened from the first quarter’s results, including their own company’s outlook, and the growth of sales, production, hiring, and capital spending.

But again, the difference between the first and second quarter responses wasn’t game-changing. Indeed, nearly 80 percent of the companies described their outlooks as positive (down from nearly 90 percent in March, sales growth predictions declined from 4.4 percent to 3.4 percent, ditto for production growth, full-time payroll growth dropped from 2.1 percent to 1.6 percent, and capital spending from 2.8 percent to 2.2 percent. The only indicator that slipped into negative territory was inventories (from 0.4 percent growth to 0.1 percent contraction).

So that’s the glass-half-empty evidence. And now for something if not completely different, pretty substantially so. It’s a survey of manufacturers from Sikich, a Chicago-based accounting and consulting firm, and its headline finding: More executives reported feeling optimistic about the impact of recent and ongoing trade developments (38 percent) than expected a negative impact (35 percent). And the most optimistic respondents came from larger companies (45 percent) and “companies with operations outside the U.S.” (51 percent).

Even better for the Trump administration and its trade policy supporters – Sikich’s findings about how companies are responding to these trade developments: “The action cited most often was manufacturing more products, or components, in the United States (45%).” At the same time, “a substantial portion of companies are looking to diversify procurement by sourcing purchased materials from new countries (36%) and sourcing raw materials from new countries (33%).” (Note: These answers aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.)

In terms of their overall assessment of the economy, only 27 percent of the Sikich respondents believe that a U.S. recession over the next year is “extremely or very likely.” Interestingly, in light of their above trade-related responses, 49 percent of executives from larger companies – nearly twice as great a percentage – were expecting such a downturn.

And especially encouraging for all Americans: Not only were 63 percent of respondents nonetheless preparing for the possibility of a recession. But 53 percent of the total said they were “increasing the efficiency of production/business processes to reduce costs.” Such productivity-boosting measures are much more constructive – and economically beneficial – actions than whining about an imminent end to access to government-subsidized, artificially cheap inputs from places like China.

Nor do the Dallas Fed and Sikich results look like outliers. Their results are very much in line with those of polls I reported on last September – from the big Swiss-owned investment bank UBS, and Yahoo Finance.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: New Fed Manufacturing Figures Show Industry is Still Nicely Withstanding the Metals Tariffs

Tags

aluminum, China, durable goods, Federal Reserve, growth, industrial production, inflation-adjusted growth, manufacturing, metals tariffs, metals-using industries, real growth, steel, tariffs, {What's Left of) Our Economy

This morning brought another poor result for U.S. domestic manufacturing – specifically, a 0.52 percent decrease in inflation-adjusted output that was its worst such performance since January’s 0.66 percent sequential decline. As a result, the temptation is to blame the Trump tariffs that have so dominated economic and business news headlines, but as usual, the data simply don’t support this claim.

Unquestionably, these new figures from the Federal Reserve point to a problem with American industry. Tariffs, however, look beside the point. Instead, the numbers reveal what looks like an April problem and an automotive problem, and especially where tariffs on metals are concerned – the major Trump-era levies that have been longest lasting, and where the affected manufacturing sectors are easiest to identify.

Here are the numbers for the economy’s chief metals-using industries. They start in April, 2018 (the first full months when the steel and aluminum levies went into effect). They show the growth rates between then and the last three data months. They include the statistics for overall manufacturing as a control group. And I’ve added two new pieces of information: the year-on-year real production changes for these sectors, and the data for durable goods manufacturing stripped of the automotive industry’s performance.

                                           Apr thru Feb   Apr thru March    Apr y/y prev  Apr y/y

overall manufacturing:          +0.48%             +0.52%              0.00%         +2.33%

durables manufacturing:       +1.31%            +1.35%             +0.40%         +2.49%

fabricated metals prods:       +2.87%            +2.72%             +2.14%         +4.44%

machinery:                           +1.49%            +1.92%              -0.69%         +4.05%

automotive:                          -1.71%             -1.93%              -4.43%          +3.07%

major appliances:                 -1.43%            -6.77%            -10.44%          +0.03%

aircraft & parts:                   +4.89%           +6.08%             +4.82%           -1.30%

durable mfg ex-automotive:  +1.82%        +1.91%              +1.21%          +2.41%

Comparing the automotive and the durables ex-automotive lines clearly shows both the automotive and April effects – with the latter suggesting the possibility of a production hiccup. Strengthening that interpretation: except for the major appliance category, nearly all the April, 2018-March, 2019 growth rates exceeded the April, 2018-February, 2019 growth rates. Moreover, the April automotive nosedive (which has taken place both on a month-on-month and year-on-year basis), is especially important because vehicle and parts production use so much in the way of machinery and fabricated metals products.

In addition, the safety issues encountered by Boeing may be responsible for the April aviation growth slowdown that may also have contributed to manufacturing’s broader woes that month.

The major appliances figures above continue to stick out like a sore thumb.  But of course, this sector has faced not only metals tariffs, but separate product-specific levies that went into effect in February, 2018.  In addition, America’s slumping housing sector has surely depressed sales and therefore production for reasons having nothing to do with tariffs.

As known by RealityChek regulars, gauging the impact of the tariffs on products from China is much more difficult for numerous reasons. Their role as inputs for manufacturing industries varies. The manufacturing classification system used by Washington for designating the tariff-ed products differs from that used for the Fed production statistics. The levies have been in place for a shorter period of time. And their scope has changed since the first batch went into effect in August.

Further, let’s not forget that the China tariff regime is due for some big changes starting in June, when President Trump has just decided that levies will rise on $200 billion worth of products from the People’s Republic. So the data below may tell us little about what to expect going forward. Here they are nevertheless for the handful of industries for which I’m sure the numbers create a reasonably accurate picture.

                                                      Aug thru Feb    Aug thu March    Aug thru April

overall manufacturing:                     -0.33%                -0.38%                -0.90%

ball bearings:                                  +0.32%                +0.25%               +0.14%

industrial heating equip:                 -2.60%                 -1.85%                -5.69%

farm machinery & equip:             -16.86%               -11.65%              -10.40%

oil/gas drilling platform pts:         +4.59%                +4.35%                +2.68%

Something of an April slump can be seen here, too (which in theory is hard to connect to the China tariffs), except for the farm machinery sector. 

The classic Wall Street sales pitch warns (eventually) that “Past performance is no guarantee of future results.” So especially considering the higher China tariffs on the way in two weeks, and the possibility that all goods imports from China will be hit by levies at some future date, predicting manufacturing’s growth performance for the rest of this year seems unusually chancy.

Yet the April figures unmistakably show (yet again) that domestic U.S. manufacturing continues to withstand the metals tariffs with ease.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: New Reminders of Why Growth’s Quality Mustn’t be Ignored

Tags

an economy built to last, business investment, capex, CBO, Congressional Budget Office, debt, Financial Crisis, GDP, growth, manufacturing, NABE, National Association of Business Economics, tariffs, Tax Cuts and Job Act, Trade, {What's Left of) Our Economy

For years I’ve been beating the drum about the need for American to pay as much attention to the quality of growth generated by the economy as they pay to the rate of growth itself. And in just the last 24 hours, two great examples have emerged of how ignoring the former can produce worrisomely off-base policy conclusions.

To repeat, the quality of growth matters because even growth that seems satisfactory, or even better, on a quantitative basis can be downright dangerous if its composition is wrong. Go back no further into the nation’s economic history than the last financial crisis to see why. Excessive reliance on intertwined housing, personal consumption, and credit booms nearly led to national and global meltdowns because, in former President Obama’s apt words, America became a “house of cards” overly dependent for growth on borrowing and spending. And he rightly emphasized the need to recreate an economy “built to last” – i.e., one based more on investing and producing.

In numerous posts, I’ve documented how little progress the nation has made in achieving this vital goal. And new reports by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the National Association for Business Economics (NABE) valuably remind of one big reason why: This crucial challenge remains largely off the screen in government, business, and economics circles.

The new CBO study is its annual projection of U.S. federal budget deficits and federal debts, and the agency helpfully describes in detail the economic assumptions behind these forecasts. One key finding concerned the impact on American growth of the Trump administration’s various tariffs on certain products and U.S. trade partners.

Largely echoing the conventional wisdom, CBO predicted that if the levies remained unchanged, the tariffs would “reduce U.S. economic activity primarily by reducing the purchasing power of U.S. consumers’ income as a result of higher prices and by making capital goods more expensive. In the meantime, retaliatory tariffs by U.S. trading partners reduce U.S. exports.”

Specifically, according to CBO, “new trade barriers will reduce the level of U.S. real GDP by roughly 0.1 percent, on average, through 2029” – although its economists acknowledged that the estimate “is subject to considerable uncertainty.”

So that sounds pretty like a pretty counter-productive outcome for the President’s trade policies. But check out what else CBO said about the short-term impact of new U.S. tariffs. “Partly offsetting” the negative effects of those rising prices, along with the damage done by retaliatory foreign tariffs, the levies will also

“encourage businesses to relocate some of their production activities from foreign countries to the United States….In response to those tariffs, U.S. production rises as some businesses choose to relocate their production to the United States. In the meantime, tariffs on intermediate goods encourage some domestic companies to relocate their production abroad where those intermediate goods are less expensive. On net, CBO estimates that U.S. output will rise slightly as a result of relocation.”

In other words, the Trump tariffs will lower overall growth a bit, but more of that growth will be generated by domestic production, rather than by consumers and businesses purchasing more imports – primarily financed of course with more borrowing, and boosting debts. For anyone even slightly concerned with the quality of growth, that could be an acceptable price to pay for a healthier American economy over the long run.

Over the longer run, CBO speculates that the tariffs will reduce private domestic investment and productivity (and in turn overall growth), though it admits that this outlook is even more uncertain than that for the short run. Moreover, it’s easy to imagine public policies that could negate considerable tariff-related damage. For example, if the trade curbs do indeed undermine productivity in part by reducing the competition faced by domestic businesses – and therefore reducing their incentives to continue to improve – more overall competition could be restored through more vigorous anti-trust policies. So the tariffs could still result in growth that’s somewhat slower, but more durable.

The NABE’s January survey of members’ companies painted a pretty dreary picture of another Trump initiative – the latest round of tax cuts. As reported by the organization’s president, “A large majority of respondents—84%—indicate that one year after its passage, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has not caused their firms to change hiring or investment plans.”

As a result, even though the sample size was pretty small (only 106 companies responded to the organization’s questions), these answers significantly undercut tax cut supporters’ claims that the business-heavy reductions would lead to a capital spending boom.

Yet a closer look at the results offers greater reasons for (quality-of-growth-related) optimism. And they represent some evidence that the tariffs are achieving intended benefits as well. In the words of NABE’s president, “The goods-producing sector…has borne the greatest impact, with most respondents in that sector noting accelerated investments at their firms, and some reporting redirected hiring and investments to the U.S.”

This goods-producing sector includes manufacturing, and its outsized reaction to the tax cuts makes sense upon considering how capital-intensive industry has always been. In addition, manufacturing dominates U.S. trade flows, so it makes perfect sense that the tariffs’ jobs and production reshoring impact has been concentrated in this segment of the economy.

And once again, the bottom line seems to be more growth spurred by more domestic production – which can only improve the quality of the nation’s growth, and the sustainability of its prosperity.

Of course, the best results of new American economic policies would be the promotion of more and sounder growth. But as widely noted, big debt hangovers resulting from financial crises make even pre-crisis growth rates difficult to achieve even when quality is ignored – as the specialists quoted in this recent New York Times article appear to admit. So in order to achieve the best long run results, Americans may need to lower their short-term goals and expectations somewhat. That greater realism – and sharper focus – will surely come a great deal faster if important institutions like the CBO and the NABE start paying them at least some attention.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Don’t Forget About the Quality of U.S. Growth

Tags

business spending, Financial Crisis, GDP, Great Recession, gross domestic product, growth, housing, inflation-adjusted growth, Obama, personal consumption, real GDP, recovery, Trump, {What's Left of) Our Economy

One of the biggest economic questions facing Americans this holiday season – whether they’re heavily into the roller-coaster stock market or not – is whether the nation will slide into recession. I’m skeptical on that score, but I’m still wondering more about what I’ve long regarded as an even more important question: Will the quality of America’s growth start improving meaningfully?

As I’ve often explained, I prioritize this issue because, as significant as maintaining economic growth is, not all growth is created equal. In particular, unhealthy growth eventually tends to produce terrible results – the prime lesson Americans should have learned since the bubble-ized expansion of the previous decade collapsed into a terrifying financial crisis and the worst recession since the Great Depression.

So this looks like a good time once again to check into whether the U.S. growth recipe has changed since then, and if so, how much. As known by RealityChek regulars, the main indicator is how heavily increases in the inflation-adjusted gross domestic product (the growth measure most widely followed by knowledgeable students of the economy) depend on personal consumption and housing. For these are the parts of the economy whose bubble-decade bloat directly sparked the crisis. And the big takeaway as of last week’s release of the final (for now) figures on third quarter GDP? The situation is turning around, but at supertanker-like (i.e., painfully slow) speed.

Specifically, what I’ve called the toxic combination of personal consumption and housing (parts of the economy dominated by spending and borrowing, rather than saving and investing) came in at 72.66 percent of real GDP in the third quarter. This means that it’s decreased consistently since the first quarter of 2017 – the first quarter of the Trump administration’s stewardship of the economy – when it stood at 73.01 percent. For the record, as of the last quarter of the Obama economy (the fourth quarter of 2016), this figure stood at 72.93 percent

So that’s cause for encouragement. It’s also crucial, however, to recall that at the start of the last recession – at the end of 2007 – personal consumption plus housing as a share of real GDP was 71.49 percent. As a result, over that key time-span, the economy has evolved exactly the way we shouldn’t want. But at least by this measure the economy isn’t nearly as bubbly as at its peak during that bubble decade – when the toxic combination reached 73.74 percent of after-inflation GDP.

Another measure of America’s progress toward recreating an “economy built to last” (a wonderfully on-target phrase used by former President Obama) is the share of real GDP devoted business spending. Here, however, the trends show some troubling recent signs of backsliding.

At the start of the current economic recovery, in the middle of 2009, such spending represented 11.19 percent of price-adjusted GDP. The annual numbers since then, through 2017, are presented below:

2010: 11.42 percent

2011: 12.22 percent

2012: 13.08 percent

2013: 13.37 percent

2014: 13.95 percent

2015: 13.80 percent

2016: 13.65 percent

2017: 14.06 percent

Through 2014, in other words, business spending (or investment, if you prefer) as a share of the economy rose healthily. But this growth shifted into reverse in 2015 and 2016, before rebounding in 2017.

For the third quarter of 2018, business investment as a share of real GDP reached 14.61 percent – which represents further improvement. But the quarterly story isn’t as positive:

1Q 18 14.48 percent

2Q 18 14.64 percent

3Q 18 14.61 percent

That is, business investment as a share of inflation-adjusted GDP dipped between the second and third quarters. Is this dip a blip? Or the start of a longer-term decline? I’m not in the crystal ball business; that’s why I’ll be watching these numbers closely going forward – and why I believe you should, too.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Tariff-Spurred Front-Running Still Clear from New U.S. GDP Figures

Tags

exports, GDP, gross domestic product, growth, imports, inflation-adjusted growth, Made in Washington trade deficit, real exports, real GDP, real imports, real trade deficit, recovery, Trade, trade deficit, {What's Left of) Our Economy

This morning came the government’s second read on U.S. economic growth in the third quarter of this year, and the trade results were virtually identical with those of the first report – including on the short-term noise created by President Trump’s tariff-centric policies and foreign retaliation. (The final set of three – for now – third quarter figures will come out toward the end of next month.)

In other words, the new statistics confirmed that, earlier this year, both American exporters and importers had been rushing shipments of goods to each other’s markets in order to beat the tariffs at home and abroad that have been actually imposed or threatened. The biggest new wrinkle is that the resulting boost to the inflation-adjusted U.S. trade deficit, and the resulting trade bite from real growth taken by the trade shortfall’s quarterly increase, was a bit larger than previously estimated.

According to the new release, the price-adjusted U.S. trade deficit hit $945.8 billion on an annual basis the third quarter – 0.72 percent greater than the $939.0 billion reported in the first read on the quarter’s real gross domestic product (GDP). That means that record level reached by the deficit in the third quarter has climbed higher. The previous all-time annualized high for a quarterly constant dollar trade deficit was $932.5 billion, attained in the third quarter of 2006 – shortly before the financial crisis broke out.

Consequently, a conspicuous sign of trade-related front-running – the increase in the real trade deficit between the second and third quarters – grew as well. Pegged last month at 11.65 percent, this sequential rise now stands at 12.46 percent. Nonetheless, it remains only the second biggest such increase on record (behind the 13.18 percent trade deficit widening during the second quarter of 2010, during the current economic recovery’s early stages).

Another sign of front-running (re)appeared in the goods exports numbers. During the second quarter, these exports jumped sequentially by 3.21 percent sequentially on an annual basis – the biggest such increase since the fourth quarter of 2013’s 3.93 percent annualized surge.

In the initial read on third quarter GDP, after-inflation goods exports were judged to have dropped by 1.79 percent – the worst such performance since the 2.44 percent decrease in the first quarter of 2015. Largely as a result, the real third quarter trade deficit ballooned. This morning, this decrease was upgraded – to 2.09 percent. Hence the even larger constant dollar trade deficit number.

The pattern for merchandise imports was similar, though not identical. During the second quarter, they were essentially unchanged sequentially, but as of the third quarter’s initial read, they increased by 2.48 percent – the biggest such increase since the 3.37 percent of the fourth quarter, 2017.

This morning, that increase was revised up slightly, to 2.49 percent.

Because the third quarter price-adjusted trade deficit was revised slightly higher in this latest third quarter GDP report while the growth rate remained at 3.46 percent annualized, the trade bite from growth was revised higher, too. Estimated last month as a 1.78 percentage point subtraction from the overall real economic growth rate, it’s now judged to be 1.91 percentage points. The last time the trade bite was that size in absolute terms was the third quarter of 1985.

In relative terms, the trade bite from growth increased as well – from 51.44 percent of such growth to 55.20 percent. But that remained only its highest level since the fourth quarter of 2016. Then, a growing real trade deficit subtracted 1.32 percentage points from that period’s much slower 1.75 percent annualized inflation-adjusted growth rate (or 75.43 percent of such growth).

With a higher third quarter constant dollar trade deficit came a bigger trade drag on America’s real growth during the current, still far-from-robust economic recovery. As of the initial third quarter GDP report, the real trade deficit’s increase since the recovery began in mid-2009 subtracted $461.7 billion from cumulative economic growth. That was a 13.05 percent hit. This morning’s results, however, pushed up those figures to $468.5 billion – translating into a 13.24 percent hit. As of the final second quarter data, trade had sliced $363.7 billion from cumulative recovery growth, 10.77 percent of the total at that time.

Importantly, though, the growth lost due to the expansion of the price-adjusted Made in Washington trade deficit continues to be much greater. That’s the trade gap calculable from trade flows minus sectors not greatly affected by American trade policy or related decisions – that is, energy and services – and adjusted for inflation.

As of the second quarter, the widening of the Made in Washington deficit resulted in cumulative recovery-era growth being $502.92 percent less than it otherwise would have been had it not grown at all. That’s 14.89 percent less growth.

The latest third quarter figures? Foregone after-inflation growth worth $587.2 billion, or 16.60 percent less growth. Sobering numbers for an economy that’s pulled out most of the available conventional growth-promoting stops (years of super-easy monetary policy being followed by super-easy fiscal policy) with so-far mediocre and likely bubbly results

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Record U.S. Exports and Imports Mark New U.S. Growth Report – Mainly as the Latter Stagnate

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exports, GDP, Great Recession, gross domestic product, growth, imports, inflation-adjusted growth, Made in Washington trade deficit, real GDP, real trade deficit, recovery, Trade, trade deficit, {What's Left of) Our Economy

According to the advance gross domestic product figures for the first quarter of 2018, all categories of U.S. exports and imports hit new all-time quarterly highs in inflation-adjusted terms and the real quarterly trade shortfall declined sequentially.

The real trade gap, though, was still the second highest annualized quarterly total ($645.9 billion) since the third quarter of 2007 ($703.2 billion) – just before the Great Recession began. Moreover, the constant dollar trade deficit’s 1.22 percent sequential drop-off resulted almost entirely from the greatest sequential slowdowns in the growth of total imports (80.95 percent) and goods imports (87.19 percent) since the fourth quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of 2009, respectively.

Trade continued in the first quarter of 2018 to subtract from cumulative real growth during the current economic recovery, the the drag diminished from the 9.82 percent figure for the fourth quarter of 2017 to 9.23 percent.

Here are the trade highlights from the Commerce Department’s report today on first quarter GDP growth:

>All categories of America’s exports and imports hit all-time highs in the first quarter of 2018 after inflation, according to the Commerce Department’s initial report on the new gross domestic product’s (GDP) growth for that period.

> Real exports totaled $2.2563 trillion on an annualized basis – 1.19 percent higher than the final (for now) level for the fourth quarter of last year, and American overseas sales’ fifth straight quarterly record.

>Real goods exports of $1.5722 trillion annualized topped the fourth quarter total by 1.49 percent – their fifth straight quarterly record as well.

>The first quarter constant dollar services export total of $688.3 billion was a 0.60 percent sequential improvement and a new record itself, but represented a rebound from the fourth quarter’s 0.35 percent sequential dip.

>On the import side, the United States’ total purchases from abroad came to $2.9022 trillion on an annualized basis – up 0.64 percent sequentially and their second straight quarterly record.

>But that growth rate contrasted dramatically with the 3.36 percent sequential increase in last year’s fourth quarter, and indeed was 80.95 percent slower.

>The goods imports total of $2.3985 trillion annualized represented this category’s second straight all-time quarterly high. Yet the 0.52 percent quarterly increase was 87.19 percent slower than the 4.06 percent quarterly rise in last year’s fourth quarter.

>In fact, both these slowdowns were the greatest since the fourth quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of 2009 – the latter a time when the Great Recession was bottoming. In the fourth quarter of 2010, the growth rate of total imports sank by 81.87 percent; in the first quarter of 2009, goods imports plunged sequentially at nearly double (87.63 percent) the rate that they fell in the third quarter.

>Real services imports reached $688.3 billion annualized in real terms in the first quarter, a 0.60 percent advance from the fourth quarter amount and a new record as well.

>The new GDP report revealed that trade remained a considerable drag on the U.S. economy’s after inflation expansion since the current recovery began. But the drag fell from the 9.82 percent of real growth cut by the trade deficit’s increase since the recovery began (in mid-2009), to 9.23 percent.

>In real absolute terms, this means that the trade deficit’s rise sliced cumulative recovery-era inflation-adjusted growth by $287.6 billion as of the fourth quarter of 2017, and by $279.6 billion as of the first quarter of 2018.

>The growth drag of the increase in the Made in Washington trade deficit – which focuses on the non-oil goods trade flows most heavily influenced by trade agreements and other trade policies – has been much greater during the recovery. But the exact numbers for the first quarter won’t be known until the March monthly trade data come out early next month.

>As of the fourth quarter of 2017, though, the increase in this trade deficit in real terms had reduced recovery growth by a 18.38 percent, or $538.81 billion

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: So the Economy Can’t Grow When the Trade Balance Improves?

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Associated Press, growth, inflation-adjusted growth, Paul Wiseman, real trade deficit, Trade, Trade Deficits, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Yesterday’s release of the December and full-year 2017 U.S. trade figures means that there will be lots of detailed data to mine for the next week or two. But the new numbers, and the press coverage, also create a great opportunity to dispel one of the leading myths surrounding the impact of trade – and especially trade deficits – on the U.S. economy.

The myth was nicely stated in the Associated Press coverage of the new trade report – which matters a lot because the AP is one of the leading sources of news for both the nation and the world. According to reporter Paul Wiseman,

“[W]hen it comes to trade, there’s a flip-side to good times [touted by President Trump and others]: ‘A stronger economy will draw in more imports’ as confident consumers seek out foreign products, says Bernard Baumohl, chief economist at the Economic Outlook Group.

“Recent history shows that the trade deficit tends to grow when times are good and shrink when they turn bad. The trade gap hit a record $762 billion in 2006 toward the end of a six-year economic expansion. It dropped to $384 billion in 2009, in the depths of the Great Recession as American consumers hunkered down and bought fewer imports.

“‘If the goal is to reduce the trade deficit, we know how to do that — just send our economy crashing and we won’t be able to afford to import as much’ says Bryan Riley, director of the conservative National Taxpayers Union’s Free Trade Initiative.”

This relationship holds more often than not. But the notion unmistakably conveyed by Wiseman and especially by the supposed authorities he cites – that it always holds – just doesn’t bear scrutiny.

The U.S. Census Bureau, which tracks the trade deficit, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis (like Census, another division of the Commerce Department), which tracks economic growth, both conveniently provide the historical statistics anyone needs should he or she show some actual curiosity about such claims. And what these figures show is that, for two and half decades – from 1961 till the early 1990s – the U.S. economy regularly managed to grow (and often quite nicely) in years when the trade balance improved. This includes years when a surplus increased, a deficit shrunk, or when a deficit turned into a surplus.

All told, such trade balance improvement took place thirteen times during this period: 1961, 1963, 1964, 1970, 1973, 1975, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1988, 1989, 1990, and 1991

And of these 13 years, the economy grew in nine on an inflation-adjusted basis (the most widely looked at measure): 1961, 1963, 1964, 1970, 1973, 1979, 1981, 1988, and 1990.

Moreover, even though improving trade balances (specifically, falling deficits) have been rarer since, they haven’t been unknown. This development took place in 1995, 2007, 2009, and 2012. And of these years, the economy grew in real terms in all except 2009.

What’s been seen more seldom – though not “never” – is a year-to-year speed-up in growth while the trade balance improves. But this combination has been seen five times since 1960: in 1964, 1973, 1981, 1988, and 2012. For good measure, the trade surplus expanded in 1961, and after-inflation growth remained at its previous-year level of 2.6 percent.

Nor does the picture change much when you look at the annual changes in the inflation-adjusted trade balance. From 1961 through the early 1990s, this trade balance improved in 13 years – the same number as that for the current-dollar trade balances, though the specific list is slightly different. These years were: 1963, 1964, 1970, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1979, 1980, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, and 1991

In ten of those years, the economy grew: 1961, 1963, 1964, 1970, 1973, 1979, 1987, 1988, 1989, and 1990

Since the early 1990s, the real trade balance has improved six times: 1995, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2013. And it remained roughly the same in 2011. In all of those years – except for 2008 and 2009 – the real economy expanded.

Re the accelerating growth criterion, through the early 1990s, it was met in three of the ten years during which the economy expanded and the trade balance improved. In two other years, the trade balance improved and economic growth held steady (1962 and 1987).

More recently, since the early 1990s, the economic grew in price-adjusted terms in four years when the trade balance improved. In addition, the trade balance barely budged (for the worse) in another growth year: 2011.

A bigger difference comes in terms of accelerating growth – an improving real trade balance has coincided with a growth speed-up only once during this period: 2012.

Now a skeptic could (correctly) observe that during the 1960s and 1970s, trade was considerably less important to the economy. At the same time, this observation also means that American economic policymakers have failed to meet the crucial challenge of helping the economy sustain healthy growth as it’s steadily – and sometimes rapidly – internationalized.

But the paramount point is that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, there’s no inherent reason why the economy’s trade position should worsen when it grows. And you can indeed look it up.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Trade Returns as a (Big) Drag on U.S. Growth

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exports, GDP, Great Recession, gross domestic product, growth, imports, inflation-adjusted growth, Made in Washington trade deficit, real GDP, real trade deficit, recovery, trade deficit, {What's Left of) Our Economy

The first estimate of fourth quarter and full-year 2017 U.S. real growth came out Friday, and it completely overwhelmed me for two reasons. The first, and least important, was that I was traveling, so completing my analysis the same day wasn’t possible. The second, and most important, was that it was shot through with trade-related records and multi-year highs – mostly of the kind that hold back the American economy. So today I’ll be presenting an abbreviated version of my usual report, focusing almost entirely on those milestones.

>The new gross domestic product (GDP) figures showed that a sequential surge in the inflation-adjusted annualized trade deficit during the year’s last three months prevented the U.S. economy from achieving a current recovery first: three straight quarters or more of three percent or more annualized growth. In fact, the economy hasn’t seen such a period since late 2004-early 2005.

> That jump in the trade deficit jump cut 1.13 percentage points from the fourth quarter’s disappointing 2.53 percent annualized growth – the biggest such absolute and relative subtraction since the fourth quarter of 2016 (1.61 percentage points from 1.75 percent annualized growth). In fact, trade undermined after-inflation growth in the fourth quarter of 2017 for the first time since that end-of-2016 quarter.

>At the same time, on an annual basis, the trade drag on real GDP fell in 2017 to 0.18 percentage points of 2.25 percent inflation-adjusted growth from 2016’s 0.23 percentage points of 1.49 percent growth. In addition, the 2017 figure was the smallest annual growth drag since the 0.16 percentage point and 2.57 percent numbers of 2014.

>The fourth quarter real annualized trade deficit of $652.5 billion was the highest since the $703.2 billion reached during the third quarter of 2007 – just before the Great Recession’s onset. As a share of real GDP, it hit is highest level (3.78 percent) since the first quarter of 2008 (4.19 percent) – in the recession’s first months.

>For the full year, the trade shortfall’s share of real GDP reached its highest level in 2017 (3.64 percent) since 2008 (3.76 percent).

>New records were set for real total exports and goods exports on a quarterly basis ($2.2295 trillion and $1.5527 trillion on an annual basis, respectively) and for all major import categories ($2.8128 trillion for total imports, $2.3144 trillion for goods imports, and $496.3 billion for services imports – all at annual rates).

>Some rates of change for exports and imports were noteworthy as well. On a quarterly basis, the total imports increase of 13.2 percent annualized was the biggest since the 14.10 percent in the third quarter of 2010. The goods import rise of 15.84 percent annualized was the biggest since the 22.05 percent of the second quarter of 2010.

>For the full year, 2017’s real total exports improvement of 3.36 percent was the best such performance since 2014’s 4.28 percent rise, while the after-inflation goods export increase of 4.54 percent was the biggest advance since 2011’s 6.85 percent.

>On the import side, the 3.94 percent annual constant dollar rise in 2017 was the biggest for goods and services combined since 2014’s 4.96 percent. For goods, 2017’s 4.25 percent import increase in price-adjusted terms was the biggest since 2015’s 5.16 percent.

>The real trade deficit’s sequential fourth quarter jump boosted the trade drag on the current economic recovery from 8.23 percent to 9.82 percent – translating into $286.3 billion in lost constant dollar growth since the expansion began in the middle of 2009.

>The far greater growth drag of the increase in the Made in Washington trade deficit – which focuses on the non-oil goods trade flows most heavily influenced by trade agreements and other trade policies – won’t be known until the December monthly trade data come out early next month. But as of the third quarter, it had reduced cumulative recovery growth by 16.36 percent, or just under $460 billion in price-adjusted terms.