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~ So Much Nonsense Out There, So Little Time….

Tag Archives: retirement

Following Up: Podcast Now On-Line of National Radio Interview on U.S.-China Decoupling

14 Thursday May 2020

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Following Up

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China, decoupling, FDI, Following Up, foreign direct investment, investment, manufacturing, pensions, public employees, retirement, tariffs, The John Batchelor Show, Trade, Trump

I’m pleased to announce that the podcast is now on-line of my interview yesterday on John Batchelor’s nationally syndicated radio show.  Click here for a timely update on dramatic new evidence that the U.S. and Chinese economies keep steadily – and in some cases quickly – disengaging.

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

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Expect Imports to Keep Preventing Lift-Off

30 Thursday Apr 2015

Posted by Alan Tonelson in (What's Left of) Our Economy

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consumer spending, consumers, demographics, Employment Cost Index, health care, imports, manufacturing, medical equipment, National Institutes of Health, personal income, pharmaceuticals, recovery, retirement, savings, subsidies, Trade, Trade Deficits, wages, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Three new government reports have put the spotlight back on American consumers, and especially on whether they can quicken a U.S. recovery that continues to disappoint the conventional wisdom (though not me!). I’m no expert on consumer trends. But I do feel confident that whatever new vigor American shoppers start showing will provide only a limited growth boost – because so much of what they buy will continue to come from abroad.  As a result, this spending will generate more production and job creation overseas than at home.

The three reports I’m talking about were:

(a) yesterday’s preliminary reading on first quarter gross domestic product, which showed the economy slogging along at a pathetic 0.25 percent real annual rate;

(b) today’s reading on first quarter employment costs, which showed a decent (at least by recent standards) gain in wages and salaries (numbers that aren’t adjusted for inflation); and

(c) today’s report on March consumer spending and incomes, which showed the former up and the latter flat month-to-month. That made for the first monthly fall in the personal savings rate since November.

These results all reinforce a picture of the economy that’s gained traction in recent months – of workers doing somewhat better after years of stagnant, at best, incomes, and in fact getting a nice filip from falling energy prices but remaining cautious shoppers nonetheless. As a result, most analysts foresee a solid increase in spending and therefore growth for the rest of the year, as Americans open their wallets wide again.

As ever, though, and especially in recent years, the fly in the lift-off ointment is imports, whose scale and robust growth has greatly weakened the longstanding relationship between what Americans consume and how fast the economy grows. For despite the endless talk of the United States being a “consumer-driven economy,” it’s production that fuels GDP growth, not shopping.

As I wrote yesterday, the trade shortfall has grown fast enough to take a big bite out of growth since the last recession ended, in the middle of 2009. But yet another news item today helps illustrate how the process works. It’s a Fiscal Times piece claiming that fully 20 percent of U.S. household spending now goes to health care services and medicines – up from six percent in 1960. According to another calculation, that works out to more than $8,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country.

Since most health care spending winds up on the services side, that’s actually good news as far as growth itself is concerned, since nearly all of these services are supplied domestically. Yet when it comes to health care products, it’s another story entirely – as can be demonstrated by looking at trade balances in these sectors.

In a phrase, they’ve worsened greatly since 2000. In fact, a $9.71 billion deficit more than quadrupled to $46.78 billion by the end of last year. Some health care-related products have excelled – e.g., surgical and medical equipment and laboratory instruments, which improved on smallish surpluses. But others, often thought to be among the nation’s technological and industrial crown jewels, have fallen flat on their faces – notably electro-medical equipment. At the beginning of the millennium, America ran a $1.21 billion trade surplus in devices like CAT-scan and MRI machines. But by 2014, this trade had turned into a $2.03 billion deficit. And the 800-pound gorilla in the health care manufacturing category is the pharmaceutical sector, which saw a $955 million trade shortfall balloon to $31.52 million during this period.

Even worse, demand for all these health care products is heavily subsidized by government. And the nation wouldn’t even boast a world-class pharmaceutical industry without the research and development performed by the federal government’s National Institutes of Health. So increasingly, Americans’ tax dollars are being used to create and expand markets for products supplied by foreign factories and workers, and in many cases to create products themselves whose manufacture is offshored by U.S.-owned firms.

To add insult to this injury, thanks to a combination of those government subsidies and an aging population (in many foreign countries, too), health care is among the most promising future manufacturing growth markets. If the vast majority of these products were made in America, the employment, wages, and output would stay in the United States, and fuel more growth that’s healthy. On top of a recovery that’s faster and more sustainable, the resulting health care manufacturing boom could take some of the expected economic and financial sting out of the nation’s looming demographic crisis.

But because of Washington’s indifference to where goods are produced, and widespread ignorance over what really fuels prosperity, much of this golden opportunity will be squandered, and health care will be yet another sector where America’s spending bucks keep generating less and less vital growth bang.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Gallup Shows Americans’ Views are (All of the Above)

21 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by Alan Tonelson in (What's Left of) Our Economy

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college costs, confidence, debt, Gallup, healthcare, household finances, inflation, Jobs, living costs, polls, retirement, savings, wages, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Although I post a lot on public opinion polls, that doesn’t mean I take them as gospel, even when they don’t deal with trade policy (where, as I’ve shown, they tend to be incompetently constructed). These new sets of survey results from Gallup – a pioneer in the business – show us why.

Gallup consistently has been reporting that Americans’ views of the nation’s economy and of their own economic circumstances have improved significantly in recent months. Notably, since these questions started being asked in 2008, record high shares of Americans now consider themselves to be “thriving” and record low shares believe that they’re “struggling.” Not surprisingly, as a result, the greatest percentage of respondents since the recession began told Gallup that their own financial situations have strengthened in the last year, and the share stating that they’re worse off financially over the last 12 months is approaching pre-recession lows.

The public is more optimistic about the future, too – at least according to Gallup. After languishing in negative territory throughout the recession (often deeply so), the company’s economic confidence reading has turned slightly positive over the last month, and has stayed above zero (neutral) since. Pretty encouraging, right?

But then how can we explain Gallup’s new results on how Americans perceive their greatest financial problems?

Actually, the first problem with this poll is that it’s not clear whether respondents are being asked about their own family’s biggest financial problems or the nation’s as a whole. Even so, however, the answers are still pretty weird given those results above.

In particular, every single one of the top ten problems listed makes clear that Americans don’t have the money they need. They are (in descending order): health-care costs, inadequate wages and “money”, too much debt, college expenses, retirement costs, housing costs, overall living costs, job loss, taxes, and inadequate savings. In fact, if you add up all the percentages of respondents identifying these problems – which all look pretty serious to me – as their biggest, you get 75 percent. That strikes me as an awfully high level of financial distress.

Over the last year, the results in four of the ten possibilities worsened, they remained the same in one (retirement savings), and improved significantly only on the inflation, jobs, and college costs fronts. At the same time, the share of respondents who specified no top financial problems (the answer possibilities were open-ended) rose from 12 to 17 percent, and made up the largest single answer.

If you can make head or tail of this crazy quilt of responses, let me know. Till then, I’ll be taking the expression “United States of Confusion” a lot more seriously.

Blogs I Follow

  • Current Thoughts on Trade
  • Protecting U.S. Workers
  • Marc to Market
  • Alastair Winter
  • Smaulgld
  • Reclaim the American Dream
  • Mickey Kaus
  • David Stockman's Contra Corner
  • Washington Decoded
  • Upon Closer inspection
  • Keep America At Work
  • Sober Look
  • Credit Writedowns
  • GubbmintCheese
  • VoxEU.org: Recent Articles
  • Michael Pettis' CHINA FINANCIAL MARKETS
  • New Economic Populist
  • George Magnus

(What’s Left Of) Our Economy

  • (What's Left of) Our Economy
  • Following Up
  • Glad I Didn't Say That!
  • Golden Oldies
  • Guest Posts
  • Housekeeping
  • Housekeeping
  • Im-Politic
  • In the News
  • Making News
  • Our So-Called Foreign Policy
  • The Snide World of Sports
  • Those Stubborn Facts
  • Uncategorized

Our So-Called Foreign Policy

  • (What's Left of) Our Economy
  • Following Up
  • Glad I Didn't Say That!
  • Golden Oldies
  • Guest Posts
  • Housekeeping
  • Housekeeping
  • Im-Politic
  • In the News
  • Making News
  • Our So-Called Foreign Policy
  • The Snide World of Sports
  • Those Stubborn Facts
  • Uncategorized

Im-Politic

  • (What's Left of) Our Economy
  • Following Up
  • Glad I Didn't Say That!
  • Golden Oldies
  • Guest Posts
  • Housekeeping
  • Housekeeping
  • Im-Politic
  • In the News
  • Making News
  • Our So-Called Foreign Policy
  • The Snide World of Sports
  • Those Stubborn Facts
  • Uncategorized

Signs of the Apocalypse

  • (What's Left of) Our Economy
  • Following Up
  • Glad I Didn't Say That!
  • Golden Oldies
  • Guest Posts
  • Housekeeping
  • Housekeeping
  • Im-Politic
  • In the News
  • Making News
  • Our So-Called Foreign Policy
  • The Snide World of Sports
  • Those Stubborn Facts
  • Uncategorized

The Brighter Side

  • (What's Left of) Our Economy
  • Following Up
  • Glad I Didn't Say That!
  • Golden Oldies
  • Guest Posts
  • Housekeeping
  • Housekeeping
  • Im-Politic
  • In the News
  • Making News
  • Our So-Called Foreign Policy
  • The Snide World of Sports
  • Those Stubborn Facts
  • Uncategorized

Those Stubborn Facts

  • (What's Left of) Our Economy
  • Following Up
  • Glad I Didn't Say That!
  • Golden Oldies
  • Guest Posts
  • Housekeeping
  • Housekeeping
  • Im-Politic
  • In the News
  • Making News
  • Our So-Called Foreign Policy
  • The Snide World of Sports
  • Those Stubborn Facts
  • Uncategorized

The Snide World of Sports

  • (What's Left of) Our Economy
  • Following Up
  • Glad I Didn't Say That!
  • Golden Oldies
  • Guest Posts
  • Housekeeping
  • Housekeeping
  • Im-Politic
  • In the News
  • Making News
  • Our So-Called Foreign Policy
  • The Snide World of Sports
  • Those Stubborn Facts
  • Uncategorized

Guest Posts

  • (What's Left of) Our Economy
  • Following Up
  • Glad I Didn't Say That!
  • Golden Oldies
  • Guest Posts
  • Housekeeping
  • Housekeeping
  • Im-Politic
  • In the News
  • Making News
  • Our So-Called Foreign Policy
  • The Snide World of Sports
  • Those Stubborn Facts
  • Uncategorized

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Current Thoughts on Trade

Terence P. Stewart

Protecting U.S. Workers

Marc to Market

So Much Nonsense Out There, So Little Time....

Alastair Winter

Chief Economist at Daniel Stewart & Co - Trying to make sense of Global Markets, Macroeconomics & Politics

Smaulgld

Real Estate + Economics + Gold + Silver

Reclaim the American Dream

So Much Nonsense Out There, So Little Time....

Mickey Kaus

Kausfiles

David Stockman's Contra Corner

Washington Decoded

So Much Nonsense Out There, So Little Time....

Upon Closer inspection

Keep America At Work

Sober Look

So Much Nonsense Out There, So Little Time....

Credit Writedowns

Finance, Economics and Markets

GubbmintCheese

So Much Nonsense Out There, So Little Time....

VoxEU.org: Recent Articles

So Much Nonsense Out There, So Little Time....

Michael Pettis' CHINA FINANCIAL MARKETS

New Economic Populist

So Much Nonsense Out There, So Little Time....

George Magnus

So Much Nonsense Out There, So Little Time....

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