(What’s Left of) Our Economy: The Big Missing Reason for the Big Jobs Miss

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Anthony S. Fauci, automation, Biden, Build Back Better, CCP Virus, CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, child care, children, coronavirus, COVID 19, FDR, Franklin D. Roosevelt, immunity, Jobs, jobs report, lockdowns, New Deal, parents, productivity, reopening, school closings, skills, skills gap, teachers, unemployment, unemployment benefits, vaccinations, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

As reported widely, the big miss marking last Friday’s official monthly U.S. jobs report (for April) ignited a heated debate among politicians, economists, and many others over why the U.S. economy created so much less new employment that month (266,000 net new positions overall) than generally estimated (in the million neighborhood). At the heart of this debate: Do the many positions employers consistently say they’re struggling to fill amid a continuingly high jobless rate mean that the enhanced unemployment benefits offered throughout the pandemic are discouraging Americans from returning to the workplace?

What I’m not seeing, however, is anyone asking whether this is the right debate. It’s increasingly obvious to me that it’s not.

It’s easy to see why those who answer yes are viewing the issue far too narrowly. Surely some unemployed workers are content to stay at home because they’re currently making more from jobless payments than they were making from their previous employer. That should be clear from the number of businesses raising wages to fill the shortages they’re experiencing. (I’m not saying that these raises are or aren’t long overdue or otherwise deserved; simply that the higher pay and other incentives employers are offering can only be interpreted as companies recognizing that the enhanced benefits have, to a degree, increased the relative attraction of remaining on the employment sidelines versus reentering the job market.)

At the same time, is it reasonable to ignore all the other major reasons for this big labor market anomaly? Like ongoing fears of catching the CCP Virus at the workplace, or the need to stay home with school-age children forced to learn remotely? And don’t forget all the uncertainties created by the sudden stop-start nature of the virus-era lockdowns on the economy.

Yes, a rapid U.S. reopening is taking place now. But all over the world, infection surges are producing new economic curbs. Can you blame workers for wondering whether shortly after they leave the unemployment and benefits rolls, their new workplace will need to close, or cut back on its operations, leaving them in the lurch while they either seek other jobs or file for new benefits?

It’s easy to see that all of these developments and circumstances and uncertainties and outright fears are keeping U.S. labor seemingly scarce. You can also add to the list the likelihood of growing skills mismatches in the American economy – that is, the numbers of jobs requiring more or different skills outgrowing the number of workers possessing these skills, and the numbers of companies replacing low-skill jobs with automation of some kind. Not that the resulting mismatches inevitably will be with the nation forever, or even long term. But they’re unmistakably present now.

So maybe the problem is simply too complicated for government to address? Or we’ll simply need to wait until a stable post-CCP Virus normality returns and labor markets start clearing as usual? It seems reasonable that the purely skills-based mismatches will defy ready solutions – unless America’s education system suddenly gets a lot better at preparing students for the economy they’ll be facing, and businesses get more serious about training and retraining workers, and turn  away from needlessly insisting on lofty credentials for jobs that don’t require anything close.

It’s also possible – though that’s the most I’m willing to say – that spreading automation will eventually help businesses become so much more productive that they’ll be able to turn out more products and services, and that this very success will generate all sorts of new jobs whose appearance can’t be predicted with any precision now. (My reservations stem from concerns that the newest forms of automation, especially artificial intelligence and super-sophisticated robotics, are qualitatively more capable of displacing many more kinds of labor than previous technological breakthroughs.)

As long as the federal government and the states remain willing to provide generous unemployment benefits (and other supports), the resulting situation would at least keep most of the jobless adequately fed, clothed, and housed. That’s a big “if,” though, for reasons economic (e.g., maybe Washington can’t keep borrowing and spending massively much longer?) and social and cultural (e.g., maybe ever longer term unemployment will start to produce more in the way of pathological behavior like drug abuse, violent crime, and worse classroom performance from students from families on the dole?).

Consequently, the more progress can be made returning the unemployed to work, the better, and however difficult the challenge of eliminating the purely or largely skills-based mismatches, Americans and their leaders shouldn’t overlook where policy can make a big difference. And the above analysis indicates that one big difference can be made by the U.S. government, and especially its public health authorities.

Specifically, they need finally to stop their CCP Virus alarmism and energetically spread the word that due to a combination of high and mounting degrees of various kinds of immunity, mass vaccinations, and the highly varying nature of the virus’ infectiousness and lethality, normality is unquestionably returning. Further, and crucially, although certain groups of Americans – like the elderly, and those with certain underlying medical conditions – are still too vulnerable and must be protected with special measures, the Biden administration and its health experts should acknowledge that nearly all others can safely return to normal activities because the already low odds of even getting the disease, much less suffering significantly from it, have now plunged to rock bottom.

In other words, Washington should announce that work places are safe to return to, bricks and mortars businesses are now safe to patronize, in-person schooling is just fine for both students and teachers and administrative staff alike, (thus solving the childcare dilemma), and that lockdowns have become a thing of the past.

Instead, of course, you’ve got a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that seems stuck in hyper- (and increasingly unscientific) caution territory, not to mention decimating its own message about vaccines’ effectivness by admitting almost no behavior payoff whatever; and a President and leading figures of his own party continuing to wear facemasks even in settings that “the science” had made crystal clear are as safe as they can be for the fully vaccinated.

To top if off, the President’s chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, has just taken pains to speculate that Americans may start wearing facemasks to guard against all sorts of respiratory diseases on a seasonal basis. Given this administration’s record so far, it doesn’t seem all that far-fetched to worry that new CDC guidelines along these lines, plus recommendations to resume some forms of social distancing, and even new business curbs, could quickly follow if this kind of Chicken Little-ism isn’t stopped. For now, though, no wonder so many Americans are still scared stiff of the virus.

It’s becoming more and more common to compare President Biden and his ambitious plans for “Building the U.S. Economy Back Better” with Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal programs.  (See, e.g., here and here.) But it’s hard to imagine Mr. Biden succeeding to any lasting degree if his CCP Virus policy doesn’t start reflecting one of FDR’s most and most deservedly famous insights: “[T]he only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Strong Crosswinds Roil the New U.S. Manufacturing Jobs Figures

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aerospace, air travel, automotive, CCP Virus, chemicals, coronavirus, COVID 19, Employment, fabricated metals products, infrastructure, Jobs, machinery, manufacturing, miscellaneous durable goods, miscellaneous non-durable goods, non-farm jobs, pharmaceuticals, PPE, private sector, regulation, semiconductor shortage, semiconductors, stimulus package, taxes, vaccines, wood products, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

It’s tough to imagine a U.S. official monthly jobs report giving off so many conflicting signals about the health of domestic manufacturing and its outlook than the one that came out this morning (for April).

On the one hand, the sector’s 18,000 jobs loss was its worst monthly performance since the identical January setback. On the other hand, the problem was heavily concentrated in the automotive sector, which has been forced to cut back production due to the ongoing global semiconductor shortage. On the other, other hand (!), this shortage is unlikely to ease for many months. On still another hand, the revisions were strong. And some key manufacturing industries continued a recent pattern of solid results. At the same time, even removing the automotive results would still leave the rest of domestic manufacturing’s April employment performance decidedly weak.

I could go on in this vein – and will below.

The decisive automotive/semiconductor effect on the April manufacturing figures becomes clear enough upon realizing that this sector’s 27,000 sequential employment loss was considerably greater than manufacturing’s total on-month job decline. Nonetheless, even had automotive held its employment line, the consequent 9,000 manufacturing job increase would have been unimpressive at very best.

And yet there are those revisions. March’s initially reported 53,000 monthly manufacturing payroll increases – the best such figure since last September’s 55,000 – are now pegged at 54,000. Even better, February’s initially downgraded (from 21,000 to 18,000) monthly employment increase has now been revised all the way up to 35,000.

As a result, domestic industry has now regained 63.83 percent (or 870,000) of the 1.363 million jobs it shed during the height of the CCP Virus pandemic in spring, 2020. It’s still behind the private sector overall (which has recovered 66.88 percent of its pandemic peak employment loss), but still ahead of the overall economy’s (called the non-farm sector by the Labor Department, which issues the monthly jobs reports) 63.26 percent.

The only major April manufacturing jobs loser other than automotive was the small wood products sector (7,200). The big fabricated metals products industry saw employment fall by 2,900 on month in April, but the drop followed a large March gain that’s been downwardly revised but still stands at a strong 10,400.

The machinery numbers were downright encouraging, and that matters because as I keep reminding, this subsector’s products are used not only throughout the rest of domestic manufacturing, but in other important parts of the economy like construction and agriculture. Its April employment boost of 3,700 followed March job creation that was upgraded strongly to 5,400.

In the big miscellaneous durable goods sector, a catchall category that includes everything from surgical equipment and supplies (like personal healthcare protection equipment – PPE – more on which later) to jewelry to gaskets and fasteners to musical instruments, payrolls jumped by 12,600 – their best monthly performance since its 15,300 advance last July.

And two other significant manufacturing employers –miscellaneous non-durable goods and the big chemicals sectors (whose output is also used all over the economy) – each generated enjoyed healthy payrolls increases of 4,300 in April.

Even the industries closely related to the fight against the CCP Virus, whose employment performance since the pandemic’s arrival generally have disappointed, showed some signs of job-creation life in April.

The overall pharmaceutical industry added 1,500 jobs on month in March (the latest available figures) and Februay’s improvement remains a strong 1,700. Since the last pre-pandemic month (February, 2020), this sector’s payrolls have grown by 3.11 percent.

Hiring slowed in the pharmaceuticals subsector containing vaccines – from 1,300 sequentially in February (unchanged from the first estimate) to 500 in March (also the latest available figures). But these companies’ employment is still 6.77 percent higher than in that last pre-pandemic month of February, 2020.

The employment signals were mixed in the manufacturing category containing PPE goods like facemasks, gloves, and medical gowns. Monthly job creation in February was downgraded from zero to a loss of 100, but March’s results (also the most recent) came in at 900, and this sector now employs 8.75 percent more workers than in February, 2020.

In an aerospace industry troubled for years by Boeing’s safety woes, the recent jobs figures are literally all over the place. The latest (March) results show that payrolls for aircraft fell month-to-month in March by 1,800 – surely reflecting the continuing virus-generated slump in air travel. But February’s upward revisions were nothing less than stunning – skyrocketing from a jump of 1,000 to one of 11,700. Fluctuations – though more modest – were also evident in aircraft engines and parts, and non-engine aircraft parts.

Yet as confusing as the new manufacturing jobs figures have been, the future seems just as cloudy. Optimism remains justified by developments like the enormous amounts of stimulus still pouring into the U.S. economy, by the apparent certainty that a major injection of infratructure spending is (finally) on the way, and by the continuing reopening of the economy spurred by vaccinations and less consumer caution.

Even so, the semiconductor shortage is not only here to stay for some time, but has affected many other industries other than automotive. The rate of U.S. vaccinations is slowing and the virus – including the new variants – appears likely to stage something of a comeback when the weather cools again in the fall. Air travel may never recover to pre-virus levels, which will harm not only the aerospace industry per se, but its vast domestic supply chain. And higher taxes and many more regulations could well hit U.S.-based manufacturers – at least until the Congressional elections of 2022.

On balance, I’d still bet on a bright future for domestic industry – mainly because all the sentiment surveys show that manufacturers themselves are full of confidence, and because President Biden has kept in place all the Trump China and metals tariffs that have priced much foreign competition out of the U.S. market. But I’m far from willing to bet the ranch.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: The Virus Keeps Trade Figures, Like the Whole U.S. Economy, on a Roller Coaster

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Advanced Technology Products, CCP Virus, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, goods imports, imports, lockdowns, manufacturing, reopening, shipping, Trade, trade deficit, West Coast ports, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Since I keep writing that U.S. trade figures – as well as other economic data – have been and continue to be thoroughly distorted by the sudden stop-start nature of the CCP Virus-era economy, it seems time to replace my usual monthly format with one that shows just how out-of-the-ordinary trade flows have become.

The best evidence? The latest (March) monthly changes in imports reported today by the Census Bureau. Although the understandable headlines for the press coverage of this release focused on the record shortfalls in the overall trade gap ($74.45 billion) and in the goods shortfall ($91.56 billion), to me, the real story for March concerns the big, practically across-the-board jumps in American purchases from abroad – which of course also owe in part to the long-awaited easing of big (virus-related) backups in the West Coast ports through which so many goods enter the nation from Asia. (This congestion has also hampered American exports.)

So on to the March import figures. For combined goods and services, these purchases rose by 6.34 percent sequentially, to $274.45 billion. The absolute total is an all-time record, and the monthly increase the biggest since July’s 10.88 percent, when the economy was starting its first reopening phase.

Goods imports alone grew by 6.98 percent on-month in March, to $234.44 billion. That advance was also the biggest since July, when they surged by 12.31 percent. And the actual March level was the highest on record, too.

Interestingly, the import flows affected most by tariffs and other U.S. trade policy decisions – in goods other than oil – climbed a bit more slowly in March than overall goods imports: by 6.48 percent, to an all-time best (worst?) $217.69 billion. As with that non-oil goods category, the sequential rise was the fastest since July (12.18 percent), but these inflows rose only half as much.

The CCP Virus effect seems to have been especially pronounced in manufacturing. March imports of industrial goods hit a record $207.59 billion, and soared by 22.98 percent sequentially. That increase was the biggest since March, 2015 – when a 23.44 percent rise largely represented a February slump caused by harsh winter weather. By contrast, manufactures imports grew strongly last July, too – during the first economy-wide virus rebound – but by just 12.08 percent.

Within manufacturing, advanced technology imports in March, at $44.54 billion, fell short of their all-time high ($47.25 billion in October, 2018). But the sequential increase of 24.06 percent was the greatest since that weather afffected March, 2015 (24.87 percent).

March goods imports from China expanded a healthy 18.23 percent sequentially in March. But the $40.23 billion monthly total was well below record levels, too. This increase was also way less than the 59.02 percent rocket ride these purchases took in April, 2020, but that occurred when China’s economy was rebounding from its own CCP Virus lockdown. So the March figure could indicate that the Trump tariffs have started to fail.

At the same time, March goods imports from Asia-Pacific countries as a whole (a U.S. government grouping that includes China) ballooned by 25.11 percent on month – considerably faster than China’s increase, and their biggest monthly rise since that weather-affected March, 2015 (32.43 percent). That’s evidence that the Trump tariffs have indeed kept disadvantaging China.

As a result, even if the March trade figures simply extend an already lengthy string of CCP Virus-era official U.S. economic data, and say little about the economy’s fundamentals or even the effectiveness of U.S. tariffs, it still seems valuable to me to be reminded every now and then just how out-there these statistics remain.

Glad I Didn’t Say That! Another CCP Virus Chicken Little

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CCP Virus, CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, coronavirus, COVID 19, Glad I Didn't Say That!, Rochelle Walensky, Wuhan virus

“I’m going to lose the script and I’m going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom” about trends in CCP Virus cases, deaths, and hospitalizations.

–Rochelle Walensky, Director, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, March 29, 2021

 

Change in U.S. CCP Virus cases, March 29-April 28, 2021: -16.01 percent*

Change in U.S. CCP Virus deaths, March 29-April 28, 2021:-25.86 percent

Change in U.S. CCP Virus hospitalizations, March 29-April 27, 2021: +2.08 percent

*All figures are seven-day moving averages

 

(Sources: “Walensky Fears ‘Impending Doom’ as COVID Cases, Deaths Tick Up Again,” by Shannon Firth, MedPageToday.com, March 29, 2021, https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/91853 and “COVID Data Tracker,” U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#datatracker-home)

Im-Politic: Why Herd Immunity Could be Really Close

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Anthony S. Fauci, Biden, CCP Virus, CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, coronavirus, COVID 19, herd immunity, Im-Politic, reopening, Wuhan virus

How great to report potentially great news about the CCP Virus pandemic! According to numbers recently put out by seemingly serious people who study diseases and their spread, herd immunity – AKA, The Promised Land or The Other Side – may be tantalizingly close. Like five weeks away close.

Just to remind, here’s how the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) define herd immunity:

“A situation in which a sufficient proportion of a population is immune to an infectious disease (through vaccination and/or prior illness) to make its spread from person to person unlikely. Even individuals not vaccinated (such as newborns and those with chronic illnesses) are offered some protection because the disease has little opportunity to spread within the community. Also known as herd immunity.”

And herd immunity is important for more than pure public health reasons. Although the professionals still disagree on many of the specifics (including on exact herd immunity threshholds for a novel virus), they do agree that the greater to percentage of those immune, the closer society and the economy can move to their pre-virus normals.

Even so, the recent data support considerable optimism. For example, let’s say that if 70 percent of Americans become immune, the normality return can greatly accelerate. That 70 percent figure matters because it’s been used by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime head of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and President Biden’s chief medical adviser. And let’s bear in mind that the total U.S. population now is estimated by the Census Bureau at 330.23 million.

We start with a solid figure – the number of Americans who have been fully vaccinated. As of today, the CDC says it was 94.77 million as of yesterday. (Here’s the home page for the agency’s “Data Tracker.”)  As for reported virus cases, the same agency says they total 31.85 million as of yesterday. Take away the nearly 569,000 fatalities (a slightly less solid number because of differences across the nation in defining virus-caused deaths, among other problems), that makes 31.08 million Americans who have been reported infected and have survived. 

Now we get more speculative. Because so many of those infected have displayed no symptoms, it’s clear that the number of Americans who have actually been infected and survived is much higher. How much higher? One recent study pegged the figure at 71 million – but that was in February, when reported infections stood at 26.7 million. Let’s assume that the 71 million figure is reasonable, and also that the number of total infections as of yesterday remains 2.66 times higher than the number of reported infections – just as in February. If true, 82.67 million Americans have caught the virus and survived.

Add this number to the total of fully vaccinated Americans, and you get 177.44 million who are genuinely immune. That number in turn represents 53.73 percent of the country’s population. And it’s not all that far from the 70 percent herd immunity figure.

How soon can it be expected? According to the CDC, the number of fully vaccinated Americans is increasing daily by a seven-day average of 1.38 million as of April 20 (the latest figured). So if that rate holds, even if 82.67 million figure for Americans who have become naturally immune stays exactly the same, getting from the 177.44 million total number of immune Americans to the roughly 231 million needed to reach the 70 percent herd immunity figure would take just under 39 days. That is, herd immunity would arrive in very early June.

But because the number of naturally immune Americans will surely increase, rather than staying the same, herd immunity would surely come even sooner.

The 70 percent herd immunity figure, however, isn’t the only one suggested by Fauci and other specialists. As per the above linked CNN post, he’s also used 85 percent. That target would require a total immune population of 280.70 million, meaning that the United States currently has 103.26 million to go. If the numbers of those fully vaccinated keep growing at 1.38 million per day, and the number of those naturally immune or recovered stays at 82.67 million (which, again, it won’t), then 85 percent herd immunity is about 75 days away – meaning that it would arrive around mid-July.

It’s entirely possible that vaccine resistance could slow the above rate of vaccinations (it’s been falling since early April, the CDC data show), and therefore herd immunity’s attainment. But ironically, one of the biggest wild cards may be Fauci himself. As reported here, he admits that since the pandemic’s early days, he “had slowly but deliberately been moving the [herd immunity] goal posts [higher]. He is doing so, he said, partly based on new science, and partly on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks.”

Indeed, during that interview, which took place in late December, Fauci said that the real herd immunity goal may be close to 90 percent. That would mean that just under 120 million more Americans would need to become immune somehow. Using the above (again, very conservative) methodology would push back herd immunity arrival to just under three months from now, or late July.

Of course, the bad news is that Fauci could persuade President Biden and the rest of America’s political leaders that the herd immunity number should be raised still higher. The good news is that even he can’t move it past 100 percent – can he?

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: A Spring-y New U.S. Manufacturing Production Report

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aerospace, automotive, Biden, Boeing, CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, Donald Trump, Federal Reserve, health security, imports, industrial production, inflation-adjusted output, infrastructure, machinery, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, PPE, real growth, semiconductor shortage, stimulus, supply chain, tariffs, Trade, trade war, vaccines, ventilators, West Coast ports, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

You might call today’s March U.S. manufacturing production figures from the Federal Reserve a good news/bad news/good news story. Moreover, the new data on inflation-adjusted factory output contained a surprise worth noting.

First the good news/bad news/good news. The Fed report showed that real domestic manufacturing output rose by 2.79 percent on month in March. That was the best such result since July’s 4.25 percent – much earlier during the recovery from the deep CCP Virus- and lockdowns-induced recession. Rebounds from major downturns tend to be strongest earliest, especially for highly cyclical sectors of the economy like manufacturing, and that surely went double for a slump largely caused by an outside shock like a pandemic and dramatic government responses, rather than one caused by a market-based economy’s ordinary fluctuations.

The bad news was that this robust growth followed a February sequential drop of 3.72 percent that was the worst monthly performance since pandemicky April’s 15.83 percent plunge. Moreover, this revised February figure was a significant downgrade from the initially reported 3.12 percent decline. The other revisions, going back to October, were too small to affect the picture over the last few months.

But then there’s that second piece of good news: As the Fed’s release explained this morning, the lousy February numbers “largely resulted from widespread outages related to severe winter weather in the south central region of the country.” So they stemmed from a (temporary) outside shock, too.

The surprise? Although the U.S. automotive industry continues reducing production due to a global shortage of semiconductors, output in price-adjusted terms grew by 2.79 percent sequentially in March. At the same time, the February fall-off was revised down from 8.26 percent to ten percent even. And the shortage is expected to undercut vehicle production until the fall, so that’s a drag likely to weigh on the overall manufacturing figures for months.

The total March manufacturing figure means that domestic industry’s after-inflation production has grown by 22.88 percent since its recent low-point last April, and has climbed back to within 1.73 percent of its last pre-pandemic reading in February, 2020.

Manufacturing’s monthly current dollar output gains were broadbased in March, including in the crucial machinery sector. In this industry, whose products are widely used not only throughout manufacturing, but in many other important segments of the economy like construction and agriculture, price-adjusted production improved by 2.87 percent. And now it actually stands 2.16 percent higher than during that last pre-CCP Virus month of February, 2020.

Although the semiconductor shortage is bound to crimp production in many industries on top of automotive, domestic manufacturing still seems to be benefiting from two headwinds other than the economy’s generally improving strength that seem to have some staying power, too. The first is aerospace giant Boeing’s continuing, but sometimes uneven, progress exiting its protracted recent safety and manufacturing problems. The pandemic’s blow to air travel worldwide clearly didn’t help, either.

But in March, real output in aircraft and parts jumped by 4.09 percent sequentially, and is now fully 5.07 percent above its February, 2020 pre-CCP Virus level.

The picture was more mixed in the pharmaceutical and medicines category – which includes vaccines. Inflation-adjusted output advanced by 2.90 percent on month in March, but the previously reported January and February numbers were both downgraded dramatically – from an upwardly revised 2.57 percent to 0.85 percent, and from a 1.29 percent rise to a 0.05 percent dip. These moves left the sector’s output 5.83 percent higher than in pre-pandemic February, 2020 with the prospect of more impovement to come as vaccine production continues to boom.

Growth is still lagging, however, in the vital medical equipment and supplies sector – which includes virus-fighting items like face masks, face masks, protective gowns, and ventilators. February’s constant-dollar production was revised up from a 0.56 percent monthly decline to a 0.44 percent drop – but it was still a drop. Growth returned in March – but only by 0.61 percent in real terms. So price-adjusted output in this category – which includes many other products – is still slightly (0.39 percent) below pre-pandemic February, 2020’s levels, despite all the national talk of the need to improve America’s health security.

I’m still bullish on manufacturing’s outlook, though. No one should forget headwinds facing industry aside from the semiconductor shortage – chiefly, the fading of vaccine production at some point, the distinct possibility of many more regulations and higher taxes from a Democratic-conrolled federal government, and the supply chain disruptions resulting largely from clogged West Coast ports (which on top of the Trump tariffs are slowing the import of many foreign inputs still needed by Made in the USA companies).

But arguably more than offsetting these dangers is the so far better-than-expected resumption of total U.S. growth, the virtual certainty of even yet another gigantic dose of stimulus an infrastructure spending, along with President Biden’s decision to retain every dollar’s worth of those sweeping, often towering Trump trade curbs.

Yet much more important than my views is the continuing optimism registered by domestic manufacturers in all of the soft data surveys that come out each month from the private sector and from various branches of the Federal Reserve system. If they’re full of confidence, who am I to rain on their parade?

Glad I Didn’t Say That! A Weird NY Times Definition of “Polarizing”

Tags

CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, experts, Florida, lockdowns, Mainstream Media, MSM, politics, polls, public health, reopening, Ron DeSantis, The New York Times, Wuhan virus

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis “has become a

polarizing leader in the resistance to lengthy pandemic lockdowns,

ignoring the advice of some public health experts in ways that have

left his state’s residents bitterly divided over the costs and benefits of

his actions.”

– The New York Times, April 10, 2021

Latest two DeSantis Florida approval ratings: 53 % & 60 %

– Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune, March 2, 2021 and The Florida Times-Union, March 4, 2021

 

(Sources: “Could Ron DeSantis Be Trump’s G.O.P. Heir?  He’s Certainly Trying,” by Patricia Mazzei, The New York Times, April 10, 2021, Could Ron DeSantis Be Trump’s G.O.P. Heir? He’s Certainly Trying. – The New York Times (nytimes.com); “New poll shows 53% of Florida voters approve of DeSantis, a big increase from July,” by Zac Anderson, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, March 2, 2021, https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/politics/state/2021/03/02/florida-governor-ron-desantis-approval-rating-sees-big-increase-covid-pandemic-anniversary/6877677002/; and “UNF poll: Gov. DeSantis approval at 60 percent,” The Florida Times-Union, March 4, 2021, UNF poll: Gov. DeSantis approval at 60 percent – News – The Florida Times-Union – Jacksonville, FL )

Making News: Podcast On-Line on Biden’s Infrastructure Plan and China…& More!

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American Jobs Plan, Biden, CCP Virus, China, competitiveness, coronavirus, corporate taxes, COVID 19, Donald Trump, Gatestone Institute, Gordon G. Chang, green energy, green manufacturing, IndustryToday.com, infrastructure, Making News, manufacturing, recession, tariffs, tax policy, tax reform, taxes, The John Batchelor Show, Wuhan virus

I’m pleased to announce that the podcast is now on-line of my latest interview on John Batchelor’s nationally syndicated radio show. Click here for a timely discussion among John, co-host Gordon G. Chang, and me on whether President Biden’s infrastructure and competitiveness package really will strengthen America’s position relative to China. Oh yes – we also speculated about the fate of former President Trump’s China tariffs in the Biden era.  

In addition, yesterday, Gordon quoted my views on the matter in a post for the Gatestone Institute. Here‘s the link.

Finally, on March 31, IndustryToday.com re-published my RealityChek post on recent U.S. manufacturing data strongly indicating that those Trump tariffs have greatly helped domestic industry weather the CCP Virus pandemic and subsequent recession in impressive shape. Click here to read (or re-read!).

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

Im-Politic: Texas-Sized Goofs from the Experts on the Lockdowns

Tags

Anthony S. Fauci, Biden, CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, facemasks, Im-Politic, lockdowns, mask mandate, masks, Mississippi, reopening, social distancing, Texas, Washington Post, Wuhan virus

This is getting embarrassingly easy. The so-called experts along with control freak politicians keep making apocalyptic predictions about decisions at any level of government in the United States to relax CCP Virus-related curbs on personal behavior and business activity. And they keep getting it laughably wrong. The latest example: Texas’ decisions last month to reopen its economy fully and lift its state-wide mask mandate, both effective March 10, and similar announcements by Mississippi effective March 3.

The blowback was swift and harsh. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, longtime director of the federal government’s National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases and President Biden’s chief medical adviser, on March 3 attacked the moves as “quite risky.” And citing a recent plateauing of new infections in both states, added “That’s a dangerous sign because when that has happened in the past, when you pull back on measures of public health, invariably you’ve seen a surge back up.”

Mr. Biden was much blunter, contending on the same day that both states were making “a big mistake” that stemmed from “Neanderthal thinking.”

Well now it’s a little more than a month later and it sure looks like the know-nothings are in Washington, D.C. As of yesterday, according to the Washington Post‘s virus tracker, the seven-day average of daily new reported cases in Texas is down by 40.60 percent since March 10, and in Mississippi it’s plunged by 61.37 percent since March 3.

Even more revealing, while reported infections in these troglodyte states were sinking, guess what happened to reported cases nationally? Between March 3 and yesterday, the seven-day new infections average rose by two percent. And needless to say, this nation-wide figure includes many states that have retained mask mandates and other extensive behavior and economic curbs.

By the way, I’m fully aware that case numbers are a deeply flawed measure of pandemic spread and progress against it, due to flaws in states’ reporting systems, varying definitions of “case,” the undoubtedly large numbers of asymptomatic infections throughout the country, and now, surging numbers of vaccinations. I’m also aware that we’re now dealing with different strains of the virus with differing degrees of virulence.

But reported new infections are one of measures emphasized by Fauci in particular. And it seems safe to assume that he and the President know about the different strains. So live analytically by the chosen statistic, and die by it.

I’m also aware that neither Texas nor Mississippi was turning its back totally on the mitigation measures stressed by the Feds. For example, the former exempted areas “with high hospitalizations,” and those counties are entirely free to retain or impose significant restrictions. And businesses all over the state can still require mask-wearing and other hygiene measures.

Mississippi also still mandates mask-wearing where its not possible to follow its remaining social distancing rules (which are still noteworthy, especially in schools and for their extracurricular activities – including sporting events – at all levels, from kindergarten through university). Further, counties and municipalities are fully free to adopt stricter rules if they wish except for businesses providing essential services.

But Fauci and the President surely read the actual Texas and Mississippi executive orders – didn’t they?

It’s entirely possible that in the coming days and weeks, states that start or keep easing anti-virus mandates of all kinds will see rising case numbers. In fact, that appears to be the situation in Michigan now – even though its rules are still pretty restrictive. But actually, that’s the point. If comparable masks and lockdowns etc policies and comparable policy changes are producing dramatically different results, then clearly something, or some things, other than these restrictions and their status are mainly responsible. And recognizing this logic is crucial given that the economic curbs haven’t exactly been cost-free either in terms of the economy or public health.

For the time being, though, there’s one dimension of the CCP Virus story that seems firmly established. For the experts and the political leaders who profess to be simply “following the science” on pandemic forecasts, being whoppingly off-base means never having to say you’re sorry.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: A Record U.S. Trade Gap – & Cause for Trade Optimism??

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American Jobs Plan, Biden, Buy American, CCP Virus, Census Bureau, China, coronavirus, corporate taxes, COVID 19, Donald Trump, exports, goods trade deficit, green energy, imports, lockdowns, Made in Washington trade flows, Pacific Rim, reopening, semiconductor shortage, services trade, subsidies, supply chains, tariffs, tax policy, taxes, Trade, trade deficit, vaccines, West Coast ports, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Despite the overall U.S. trade deficit hitting an all-time monthly high in February, the new trade figures released by the Census Bureau this morning contained lots of encouraging news – including for fans of the Trump tariffs on China and on aluminum and steel (like me). I’m wary of running or continuing a victory lap, because there’s still too much short- and perhaps longer term economic noise surely masking the underlying trends. But the case for trade optimism and its possible policy causes deserves attention.

As for that economic noise, it comes of course not only from the ongoing stop/start CCP Virus- and lockdowns-/reopenings/vaccinations-related distortions of all economic data, but from the harsh winter weather that depressed February economic activity in key areas of the country like Texas; the global shortage of semiconductors that’s impacting output throughout the manufacturing sector (and that’s due in part to the pandemic); and the big backups at the West Coast ports that are greatly slowing the unloading of container ships containing lots of imports from China and the rest of Asia.

As for the data, the combined goods and services trade shortfall of $71.08 billion in February surpassed the previous record, November’s $69.04 billion, by 2.95 percent, and represented a 4.80 percent increase over January’s downwardly revised level of $67.82 billion.

The increase resulted both from a rise in the goods trade gap (of 3.27 percent, to its own record of $88.01 billion) and a shrinkage of the services surplus (of 2.93 percent, to $16.93 billion – the smallest since August, 2012’s $17.08 billion).

Trade flows not setting records, though, notably included any of the imports categories – despite numerous reports of the rapidly rebounding U.S. economy sucking in massive amounts of products (though not services, which have suffered an outsized CCP Virus blow) from abroad.

For example, total merchandise imports actually fell on month in February – by 0.89 percent, to $221.14 billion, from January’s record total of $221.12 billion. Still, the February figure remains in second place historically speaking.

Non-oil goods imports inched up by 0.38 percent sequentially in February – from $85.36 billion to $85.68 billion. But they still fell short of the November record of $86.40 billion. As known by RealityChek regulars, this trade category sheds the most light on the impact on trade flows of trade policy decisions, like tariff changes and trade agreements. (Hence I call the resulting shortfall the Made in Washington trade deficit.) But despite the lofty level, they’re actually down on net since November. Could it be those West Coast ports snags or the harsh winter storms of February or semiconductor-specific problems? Maybe.

The evidence for those propositions? U.S. goods imports from Pacific Rim countries – which are serviced by the West Coast ports – did sink by 11.81 percent on month in February. That’s a much faster rate than the 1.54 percent decrease in overall non-oil goods imports (a close proxy).

But goods imports from China dropped by a greater 13 percent even, which points to some Trump tariff effect as well. In fact, the $34.03 billion worth of February goods imports from China was the lowest monthly number since pandemicky last April. And February’s $24.62 billion bilateral merchandise trade deficit with China was 6.22 percent narrower than the January figure, and the smallest such total since April, too.

America’s goods deficit from Pacific Rim countries in total fell slightly faster than the gap with China (6.84 percent). China’s economy and its exports, however, are supposed to be recovering at world-and region-beating rates, so if that’s the case, it appears that the Trump trade curbs are preventing that rebound from taking place at America’s expense.

U.S. manufacturing trade numbers were encouraging, too, though again, the impact of tariffs as opposed to that of the virus distortions or the February weather or the ports issues or the semiconductor shortage or some combination thereof  is difficult to determine. But industry’s trade shortfall did tumble by 10.53 percent in February, from January’s $99.79 billion to $89.29 billion. That figure also was manufacturing’s lowest since June, 2020’s $89.16 billion and the 10.52 percent decrease was the by far the biggest in percentage terms since November, 2019’s 12.70 percent.

February manufacturing exports declined by 2.64 percent sequentially, from $81.66 billion to $79.51 billion. But the much greater volume of manufacturing imports sank by 6.98 percent, from $182.46 billion to $168.79 billion.

The China and manufacturing numbers could certainly change – and boost these U.S. trade gaps and the overall trade deficit – as Americans begin to spend their latest round of stimulus checks, as the U.S. recovery continues, and as the West Coast ports and semiconductor issues clear up. 

But especially due to those Chinese exports, this worsening of the U.S. trade picture was reported late last year. And the official U.S. trade figures show that such a surge simply never took place. Moreover, if executed properly, President Biden’s Buy American plans for federal government procurement and support for strengthening critical domestic supply chains could boost American manufacturing and other goods output without increasing imports. His budget requests for major subsidies for key U.S.-based manufacturing operations could help brighten the trade picture, too. Mr. Biden has also decided for now to retain the Trump trade curbs. And P.S. – those clogged West Coast ports hamper American exports as well.    

In addition, trade problems could reappear at some point due to the President’s proposed green energy mandates and corporate tax increases that would inevitably hike the relative cost of producing in the United States. But right now, it looks like due to ongoing and possibly upcoming economic nationalist American policies, the burden of proof is on the U.S. trade pessimists. And that’s quite a switch.