Category: Economics

Next up: Tax Reform

Hopefully the tax reform law to be adopted by Congress in the coming months will closely resemble The Better Way Tax proposed outline by Congressmen Paul Ryan and Kevin Brady on June 24, 2016. Their plan would be revenue neutral (i.e., would raise the same revenue as existing income tax laws by a combination of a broadened tax base and lower marginal tax rates), and would dramatically simplify returns for both individuals and companies. It would remove many distortions in investment and resource allocation decisions and thus promote growth and fairness. It would include an incentive to repatriate the U.S. corporate profits held abroad, estimated in 2015 to be $2.6 trillion, and by basing taxes on income earned in the U.S., it would eliminate the tax minimization strategy of shifting production abroad.

Unlike tax systems in most other countries, both U.S. individual and corporate income taxes are currently source based, meaning broadly speaking that an American’s income is taxed on his or her income wherever it is earned. Even Americans living and earning income abroad pay U.S. income taxes on it. Similarly companies operating in the U.S. pay U.S. taxes on their income no matter where it is earned. However, it is not taxed until they bring it home. This unusual approach to taxation for companies operating globally has given rise to all kinds of strategies for reducing U.S. taxes by earning income in (or attributing it to) low tax jurisdictions.

Under the Better Way proposals business income will be taxed on a territorial or destination rather than source bases. In addition to removing a tax bias for debt financing (by eliminating the deduction of interest costs) and expensing capital investments rather than amortizing them over their estimated life, businesses will be taxed on the basis of their income from domestic sales only. Their so-called Destination Based Cash Flow Tax comes close to being a consumption tax (the gold standard tax bases among economists). https://works.bepress.com/warren_coats/47/  Cayman Financial Review, July 2013. A key feature of their proposal is that the tax would be levied on business revenue from domestic sales of goods and services and not on goods and services sold abroad. For domestic sales the tax would be the same whether they are imports or were produced domestically.

This would remove the existing tax subsidy for imports. As congressman Brady put it in a June 24, 2016 WSJ article: “And because ’Made in America’ products and services currently face a price disadvantage both at home and abroad, American exports will no longer be taxed, and imports will not be subsidized. Competition will occur on price, quality and service—rather than tax regimes.” “The GOP plan for tax sanity.” It would also remove the existing double taxation of exports, the income from which is now taxable as part of American business income and is taxed again at whatever rates apply in the country receiving them.

This is all very sensible and in fact the practice of most other countries that rely heavily on VATs (Value Added Taxes). Regrettably for public understanding, this proposed treatment has been dubbed a “Border Adjustment Tax” by which imports are taxed and exports are exempted from U.S. taxation. This sounds rather different, but it isn’t. It suggests punitive (protectionist) treatment of imports when in fact, as explained above, it gives imports the same tax treatment as received by domestically produced goods.

Some have argued that by removing the import subsidy (i.e. by taxing them at the same rate as domestically produced goods), American consumers of “cheap” imports will have to pay more. It is certainly true that subsidies encourage consumption in excess of a competitive market rate just as subsidizing debt (by deducting interest costs from taxable income) encourages excessive borrowing. So if people import less because they must pay more for such imports without their subsidy, resource allocation and economic efficiency will be improved. However, the reduced demand for foreign currency needed to pay for imports and the increased supply of those currencies to buy larger amounts of American exports are expected to appreciate the exchange rate of the dollar for these currencies. An appreciated exchange value of the dollar will reduce the cost of imports and increase the cost to foreigners of American exports. The impact on import and export prices of the “Border Adjustment Tax” and the resulting exchange rate adjustment are expected to approximately off set each other.

It is tempting for each affected group to evaluate the fairness of proposed tax reforms on the basis of whether it increases their taxes or lowers them (and thus increases someone else’s taxes). On that basis any tax change will always have proponents and opponents. The proper basis for judging a reform’s fairness is in relation to a broadly agreed concept of fairness. This calls for a John Rawlsian veil of ignorance, i.e., judging the fairness of a tax system without knowing in whose shoes you will stand.

There is much more to the prospective tax reform proposals, including unfortunately changes that might be made to buy off special interests affected one way or another, and it promises to be an interesting debate. I hope that it is more open and considered by all (Republicans and Democrats) than was the case for the now (temporarily) abandoned effort to reform Obamacare. And in the end I hope that something very close to the Better Way proposals of last year is adopted. The reality of a bipartisan approach to Tax reform is unfortunately unlikely under the current climate, but we can always hope and dream.

Looking Back on Occupy Wall Street

The evening of September 16, 2008, I met Randy Kroszner for dinner at Et Voila in the Palisades just outside of Georgetown. He arrived late explaining that the Fed’s monthly monetary policy meeting had lasted longer than expected. Randy is a Governor on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. The attempt to rescue Lehman Brothers over the weekend had failed and it had declared bankruptcy the day before, so we had a lot of interesting things to talk about. Randy didn’t mention that the Fed had just agreed to lend up to $85 billion to AIG to cover its expected loses on its mortgage related Credit Default Swaps, thus giving the U.S. government a 79.9% equity stake in the insurer in the form of warrants called equity participation notes. When news of the AIG bailout was posted on my phone around 9:00pm during our meal, I asked Randy what in the world was going on. He was reluctant to discuss the topic uncertain whether the source of my news was a leak or an official Fed press release.

The housing bubble had started to deflate in 2007 and homeowners and their mortgage financiers were coming to grips with the reality of significant financial losses. “The DEFs of the Financial Markets Crisis” and “The Big Bailout–What Next?” While the Federal Reserve quickly reacted to inject liquidity into the banking system to compensate for the freezing up of the interbank credit market that followed the Lehman Brothers-AIG shockwaves, the key questions were who would bear these losses and how should they be contained to avoid spilling over to the financial system more broadly.

The Fed, with the help of $700 billion authorized by Congress in the Troubled Asset Relieve Program (TARP), bailed out Wall Street and contained the spread of potential bank failures. It was a scary time for all involved. Looking back from the relative calm of today with criticism of policy actions taken then is a bit unfair but how else are we to learn from experience?

The government actions in 2008 can be broadly stated as: a) providing all of the liquidity the financial sector needed following the Lehman Brothers collapse and financial panic; b) bailing out large banks and other financial institutions that might have been insolvent whether they were or not; and c) leaving underwater homeowners to drown. The first of these—providing liquidity—is universally accepted as a proper function of a central bank and one that the Fed executed well. The other two—bailing out banks but not homeowners—are the subjects of this note. I will review them from both an economic and a political perspective.

The economic rational for bailing out Wall Street was that there was a risk, with very uncertain probability, of the failure of large Wall Street institutions spilling over to and bankrupting other financial institutions holding assets in the failed Wall Street firms. Many of them were foreign (especially German Landesbanks) and no one knew for sure where the contagion might end. By saving Wall Street, the argument went, the government was saving Main Street as well (trickle down). Sheila Bair, then the Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, among others urged the government to bail out homeowners who were defaulting on their mortgages as well. While different policies of homeowner relief were considered the one finally adopted, Home Affordable Refinance Program—HARP, was modest and left Ms. Bair quite unhappy: “Shortly after Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced their new plan, Ms. Bair declared that it was inadequate and pointedly said that the government had spent hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out financial institutions like American International Group, the giant insurer.” “White House scales back a Mortgage relief plan”

From economists’ perspective, bailing out anyone creates a moral hazard. If market players profit from risky bets when successful but expect that the government will pick up the tab when they are unsuccessful, they will take greater (excessive) risks. No one was eager to bail out property flippers (those who bought property with the intention of reselling it at a higher price rather than move in) from their failed gamble. But the same logic applies to those financial firms that lent the mortgage money in the first place or that kept the financing cheap by providing it from the derivatives market of Mortgage Backed Securities, etc. Government policy makers attempted to design their bailouts to minimize the moral hazard they were creating, especially after the foolish and panic driven bailout of Bear Stearns in March 2008. But policy was driven by government’s fear of financial contagion.

The political optics of bailing out mortgage lenders but not homeowners is not good. Why did politicians choose to support one but not the other? Moral hazard is a problem with both. The reality is that Washington politicians were (are) much closer to Wall Street than to Main Street and are thus more sensitive to Wall Street’s concerns. Growing recognition of this fact adds some understanding to the hostile attitudes toward Washington expressed by Trump supporters.

By far the better policy would have been, and in the future is, to stick by the existing rules for bearing losses (our bankruptcy and default laws), i.e. no government bailouts. Our bankruptcy laws and procedures are actually quite good. “Resolving Failed Banks” For starters Bear Stearns shareholders should have lost everything. On the underwater homeowner side, mortgage lenders have always sought to minimize their losses when borrowers are unable to repay according to the original terms of a loan. Often the least cost resolution is for the lender to agree to easier terms and to restructure the loan. Evicting the “owner” and selling the property, especially when it is under water (i.e. valued at less than the mortgage amount), is a costly undertaking and writing down and restructuring the loan is often the least cost approach. However, government driven programs can rarely match the lenders’ ability to restructure loans one by one that can be honored by the homeowner while minimizing the loss to the lender. “Changing direction on bank regulation”

Our government has increasingly attempted to micromanage the private sector, especially the financial sector. This is a mistake. It should establish clear and pragmatic rules for conducting business and for resolving failures (workable bankruptcy laws). “Institutional and Legal Impediments to Efficient Insolvent Bank Resolution and Ways to Overcome Them” Within this broad legal framework, which to a large extent already exists, individual firms would be held accountable for the conduct of their business by their customers and their owners. If they fail, the first losses must fall on the owners (shareholders), who have a greater incentive to do well and have better market information on which to act than do government regulators. This requires a change in attitude and direction of government’s role in our lives.

Trump’s Foreign Policy and Mexico

“From this day forward, it’s going to be only America First. America first!” Video of Trump’s inaugural address. Or was it “Trump First?”

If President Trump’s plea for others, such as Mexico, to treat the U.S. fairly were merely an embarrassing gesture, we might overlook it having grown used to Trump’s need for approval. But this is the status and fate of my country at stake. In a hysterical satire made by Dutch television, they ask whether if America is First, they might be second: Dutch youtube satire

There is little disagreement that American foreign policy should serve America’s interests. Even the neocons see the promotion of democracy as ultimately good for America, if we can survive the wars they want us to fight to impose it on the rest of the world. We have and should continue to see our interests in long-run terms—enlightened self interest. As he has shortsightedly done with trade, “Trump outlined a world in which foreign relations are collapsed into a zero-sum game. They gain, we lose.” Charles Krauthammer on Trump’s foreign policy revolution /2017/01/26/.

The real issue is which policies actually serve our interests. These policies should keep us safe and prosperous.

Military: Obviously we need a military capability sufficient to protect our shores from attack, but we need to avoid devoting more of our resources to our military than necessary for that purpose (with a reasonable margin for error) because every dollar spent on the military is a dollar taken away from building our economic strength, which is equally important for our defense and well being.

Diplomacy: We also need to invest in building good relations with other countries, especially our immediate neighbors, in part to minimize the prospect of ever needing to use our military. Thus we must devote the resources, including training, needed by our State Department to build our effective soft power. In an article in Time magazine January 26, 2017, Mikhail Gorbachev, the last president of the Soviet Union said:   “No problem is more urgent today than the militarization of politics and the new arms race. Stopping and reversing this ruinous race must be our top priority.” Gorbachev on Putin – Trump

Treaties: But here is the part least appreciated by the American public and least understood by Trump (I don’t know about the rest of his team yet and eagerly await his appointment to the Undersecretary of State position). Just as the rule of law has been critical to development and vitality of our economy and the protection of our liberties at home, it remains as important when we cross the border. This extends far beyond the critically important agreements on trade, the international monetary system, and the rules of war, to the more mundane aspects of every day life as well.

According to The Washington Post: “Trump proposes internal high-level committees to examine multilateral treaties, with a view toward leaving them….

“John B. Bellinger III, who served as legal counsel to both the National Security Council and the State Department in the George W. Bush administration, said the treaty examination was based on a ‘false premise . . . that the United States has become party to numerous multi­lateral treaties that are not in the United States’ interest.’

“’There are “many hundreds of multi­lateral treaties that help Americans every day in concrete ways,’ he said. Without them, ‘Americans could not have our letters delivered in foreign countries; could not fly over foreign countries or drive on foreign roads using our state driver’s licenses; could not have access to a foreign consular official if we are arrested abroad; could not have our children returned if abducted by a parent; and could not prevent foreign ships from polluting our waters.’” Trump-lays-groundwork-to-change-US-role-in-the-world/2017/01/26/

The Bretton Woods institutions created after World War II (the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and World Trade Organization) established the institutional arrangements for cooperation in developing the rules of international trade and finance. American leadership in creating the international institutions through which we interact with others abroad, i.e., through which the rule of law is established and enforced internationally, has ensured that the international order has remained true to the liberal values on which America was founded. We would be wise to keep China as strong and active a member of these institutions and the rules they oversee as possible. US global leadership and the AIIB. It would be tragically misguided to undermine these institutions and our leadership of them. But this is the direction President Trump seems to be headed.

Mexico: Close to home, Mexico provides a tragic example of Trump’s failing approach to foreign policy. Our relationship with Mexico is one of our most important in the world. We share a 2,000 mile border with Mexico and it is our second largest export market earning $235 billion in 2016 while importing $296 billion worth of goods and services. The difference of $61 billion, the so-called trade deficit, reflects net Mexican investments in the U.S. Though Mexicans have been leaving the U.S. on net for the last few years, illegal immigration across our shared border has been a big campaign issue for Trump, and the Mexican border is the gateway for many non-Mexican Central American illegal immigrants. The flow of drugs across that border is also an issue.

Close cooperation with Mexico in dealing with these issues has been a critical aspect of managing them. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has been an enormous benefit. Former Mexican President Carlos Salinas told G.H.W. Bush that “goods bought by American consumers will be produced by Mexican workers, it is only a question of where those Mexican workers live!” He also indicated that in addition to jobs that keep Mexicans in Mexico, NAFTA also helped bring the rule of law to Mexico. Jerry Jordon

Illegal immigration reflects and responds to the incentives faced by potential immigrants. These include the quality of life, including jobs, in their home country, the demand for workers in the U.S., and the option of legal immigration. The problem of illegal immigration to the U.S. would be helped by a better legal immigration law, such as proposed by George W Bush in 2007 or later as contained in the Senate law drafted by the Gang of Eight in 2013. Better enforcement of work permit requirements with American employers could help a great deal.

President Trump’s approach has been grossly adversarial rather than cooperative. He has threatened to tear up (or at least renegotiate) NAFTA and build a wall on the U.S. –Mexican border that he would force Mexico to pay for. His approach is disastrously wrong. “President Trump’s Homeland Security secretary, John F. Kelly, has been clear about his views on a border wall with Mexico: It won’t work.” Homeland Security John Kelly on border wall – NYT. Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim stated that: “The best wall is investment, which generates employment in Mexico…. Mexico is the best partner the U.S. has.” Mexico digs in and Trump lashes back as border wall standoff deepens /2017/01/27/

The Mayor of Berlin Michael Mueller urged US President Donald Trump “not to go down the road of isolation.” He warned that such division causes “slavery and pain” and would “destroy the lives of millions.” BBC 1/27/2017. This doesn’t seem fully applicable to the Mexican wall, but still the Berliners know a lot about walls. John Oliver provides a hilarious but informative commentary on The Wall on Last Week Tonight. John Oliver video on The Wall

President Trump’s continued insistence on building the wall and his insulting claim that Mexico will pay for it has damaged the cooperative relationship that we badly need to maintain with Mexico. Trump’s tweet that Mexico should pay for the wall or Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto should cancel his planned visit to Washington and stay home is an insult beneath the dignity of an American President as well as stupid. That President Trump is surely ignorant of these and other seriously damaging knock on effects of his mishandling of our relations with Mexico is no excuse for his insane behavior. Trump’s ruinous stance on Mexico-deportation-border-wall-tariff-trade.

“For 70 years, we sustained an international system of open commerce and democratic alliances that has enabled America and the West to grow and thrive. Global leadership is what made America great. We abandon it at our peril.” [Krauthammer]

Trust and False News

January 26, 2017

The quality and extent of interactions among people (neighbors, companies, governments) profoundly affect our quality of life. Trust is a critically important element of such interactions and of “The Wealth of Nations,” to quote Adam Smith. No society, beyond (perhaps) the family and relatives, enjoys total trust. The willingness to and low cost of dealing with others in such a society would surely make it the richest one on earth. The more distant our relationship with someone, however, e.g., hiring a contractor to add a room to the house, the more formal our understandings need to be. But the deeper and more reliable is trust within a society, the simpler such contracts and their enforcement can be. This goes well beyond the obvious costs (effectively taxes) of doing business of security guards and surveillance cameras at department stores. More Trust frees up resources to produce the goods and services that we really want.

As part of its attack on Europe and the United States, Russia for some time has systematically worked to undermine trust in the West. For example, it generates and distributes “false news” in a variety of ways. It has become more difficult to judge when news is true or deliberately made up. As a result, the public’s trust in public institutions and performance is eroded to some, hopefully still limited, extent. As I argued above, a decline in the level of trust in Western societies reduces their economic efficiency and output.

False news must be distinguished from biased reporting and from disputed facts, unfortunately labeled “alternative facts”, by Trump senior advisor Kelly Anne Conway. Bias, or priors as we economists put it, reflects our inner beliefs and tentative understandings about what is true and can influence what a reporter chooses to report or emphasize. It does not reflect a willingness to report or repeat knowingly false information. The strange case of the size of the viewing audience for Trump’s inauguration ceremony illustrates bias and a few other things on all sides.

Trump was angry that the press reported mediocre attendance to his inauguration. The highly respected conservative economist Tyler Cowen provided an interesting analysis of why he thinks Trump forced his poor press secretary Sean Spicer to launch an attack on the Press for its “misreporting” of this matter: Why trump’s staff is lying. During his first official press conference on January 23, Spicer stated very clearly several times that his assessment that Donald Trump had the largest audience for his inauguration in history referred to total viewers “both in person and around the globe”. After apologizing for having reported the previous Saturday incorrect numbers for subway ridership he proceeded to present his estimate of TV and Internet viewers along with mall attendants and asked the press to correct them if wrong. USA Today reported that “On that point, Spicer may be correct…. But there is no comprehensive measurement available that would prove or disprove this claim.” The attending press persisted in referring to the size of the crowd on the mall. That reflects bias by the Press to the point of blindness. That Trump felt compelled to speak out about the size of his audience is sad evidence that he has not yet properly transitioned from candidate to President (that the thin skinned, megalomaniac we watched during the campaign has not yet grown up).

Alternative facts abound and refer to a lack of consensus on what the facts are. These are the bread and butter of scientific investigation and debate. Whether global temperatures last year were higher or lower than the year before depends on the measurement instruments used (surface instruments of one type or another, satellite systems, etc.), their location (country side, urban areas, ocean, etc.), frequency of measurements (daily, hourly, etc.), etc. Meteorologists debate this “fact”.

Candidate Trump lied so frequently and so freely during his campaign that I can only assume that he did so deliberately as a part of a general disinformation campaign. His claim, for example, that President Obama was not native born was so irrefutably disproved that Trump eventually (but very late in the game) withdrew it. President Trump sadly continues the practice by following up his ludicrous claim that he won by a landslide, with the claim for which there is no factual support at all of wide spread voter fraud. Trumps-disregard-for-the-truth-threatens-his-ability-to-govern.

Poor Sean Spicer was forced to announce Trump’s voter fraud lie to the press. When asked for evidence he cited “A 2012 Pew study [that] found that about 1.8 million deceased people were still on the rolls and that 2.75 million people were registered in two states. The study called for states to clean up their voter rolls but did not draw conclusions about voter fraud.” Trumps-voter-fraud-claims-undermine-the-voting-system-and-his-presidency/2017/01/24/. In fact, Trump’s Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon is registered in both New York and Florida, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is registered in New York and California, and Trump’s daughter Tiffany is registered in both Philadelphia and New York though neither voted twice. Bannon-was-registered-to-vote-in-two-states. Recidivism-watch-Spicer-uses-repeatedly-debunked-citations-for-trumps-voter-fraud-claims.

Trump’s lies, whether he believes them himself or not, along with false news perpetrated by Russia and others, are increasingly undermining public trust in the information so freely available on the Internet and elsewhere. This is bad for our democracy. It is not obvious what motivates him.

“Is Trumpism a scam? And if so, whom is Donald Trump scamming?

“Or is the country confronting something even more troubling: a president unhinged from any realities that get in the way of his impulses, unmoored from any driving philosophy and willing to make everything up as he goes along, including “alternative facts”?

“Of course, there’s another possibility: that there’s a method in all of this.” E. J. Dionne, Jr. What’s-the-method-in-trumps-madness/2017/01/25/

It is one thing to disagree with the President’s policy proposals—we can discuss and debate the reasons for our differences—and quite another when we cannot trust the integrity of the President or his administration. When the President proclaims over and over that he will insure that we “Buy American and hire American” (so much for shifting power from Washington to the people), rather than explaining why this is such a bad policy—save-trade—we turn immediately to the President’s hypocrisy rather than the substance of his policy. In Trump’s own business dealings he buys his materials where they are cheapest—steel and aluminum from China (Newsweek), furnishings for his new Hotel in Washington DC from China (The-new-Trump-hotel-in-D-C-hotel-is-filled-top-to-bottom-with-goods-made-in-China), the clothing for his signature Donald J. Trump Collection from Mexico (Trumps-hypocrisy-on-trade-he-outsources-and-invests-globally-but-doesnt-want-Ford-to-do-the-same/), and the long list goes on (Trump products).

Trump’s business career is full of shady dealings (The-myth-and-the-reality-of-Donald Trumps-business-empire). Why would we have expected him to be different as POTUS? Trump the terrible. Lying has worked for Donald Trump—so why should he stop now? Why Trump lies.

Trump is very quickly running out of time to save his administration. His tweet this morning stated: “The U.S. has a 60 billion dollar trade deficit with Mexico. It has been a one-sided deal from the beginning of NAFTA with massive numbers… of jobs and companies lost. If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting.” As a result, the Mexican President cancelled his planned visit. Our current account deficit with Germany in 2015, by the way, was $285.2 billion, about the same as with China. Putting his economic ignorance (or blatant lying) aside, his conduct of foreign policy, trade or otherwise, is simply dangerous. We must stand up and yell STOP. STOP!!!

A glimmer of hope is offered by the fact (a real one) that orders for George Orwell’s classic novel of tyranny “1984” have soared in recent weeks.

Keystone Pipeline, Jobs, and Confusion

Perhaps “haste makes waste” explains the jumble of contradictory statements coming from President Trump with regard to the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipeline projects. Or maybe not?? Trump gives green light to Dakota Access Keystone XL oil pipelines. Trump’s trade and jobs rhetoric continues to alarm free market conservatives as well as our trading partners abroad (see the comments coming from a bewildered Germany wondering how to best protect their interests as Trump pursues what he—mistakenly—considered America’s interests).

The pipelines will save jobs (yes save jobs), improve safety, and reduce environmental risks compared with the existing alternatives of rail and trucking. Obama’s State Department reviews, which cleared the Keystone XL project multiple times, concluded in its final review that the Canadian oil in question was coming out of the ground with or without the Keystone XL pipeline and thus there would be no significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions from the pipeline. https://keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov/documents/organization/221135.pdf

The same is true for the Dakota Access pipeline, the final 1,100 feet of which (of the 1,171 mile project) have been stopped because of objections by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe that it would “disturb sacred burial and archaeological sites.” WaPo.

On Tuesday, Trump said: “From now on, we’re going to be making pipeline in the United States. We build the pipelines, we want to build the pipe. We’re going to put a lot of workers, a lot of skilled workers, back to work. We will build our own pipeline, we will build our own pipes, like we used to in the old days.” WaPo

I am increasingly inclined to think that Trump’s blatant misrepresentations of the impact of his “Buy American, hire American” mantra is sinister demagoguery. TransCanada, the Canadian project owner had already planned to buy 65% of the steel pipe from U.S. manufacturers as a purely business decision. Replacing the remaining 35% with American made pipes would increase the cost of the project. It would also redeploy American workers from their current, presumable more productive, employment to make these pipes. It is hard to see what Trump doesn’t get about efficiency and productivity as a source of our wealth. If he insists on doing it “like we used to in the old days,” he will make us poorer as “in the old days.”

“Opponents of the pipeline dismissed the job numbers and economic impacts, arguing that pipelines will create only “a handful” of permanent jobs.

“But the fact that pipelines only have a handful of permanent workers simply conveys how remarkably efficient pipelines are. The high output of labor generates value and wealth and frees up Americans to be more productive elsewhere in the economy.” http://dailysignal.com/2017/01/24/trumps-pipeline-approvals-are-a-win-for-the-economy-and-environment/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBell&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiT0RJeFlqaGpNamt3TkdOayIsInQiOiJTSnpZZExnVUdLOThQdW5ESnNPNDlIUHByWXFXNSs3bEFDa0VFOHVCbnhTOUtnbTBMWnd6MEkxTkdhRHpCVjU5a0JhQ2EraVZWTVVOcXlJVzVpMkVQVm9OWkJcL29VOEpkdG93RllJeldNNVBpem9KbHlPTWlOOFRJSkVEM3FyR1QifQ%3D%3D

 

 

President Trump and manufacturing jobs

President Trump intends to bring back manufacturing jobs. How might he do that and what would it mean for our economy and our workers?

Keeping in mind that our manufacturing output has steadily increased over the years and is now at an all time high, though the number of manufacturing jobs has steadily declined. Bringing back manufacturing jobs means rolling back and undoing the technical advances that made manufacturing workings more productive. But if we increase the number of workers in manufacturing by making each worker less productive (shelving some of the productivity enhancing technical advances), where will these workers come from? Presumably not from Mexico. They will have to give up what they were producing before in order to take the new manufacturing jobs.

Looking more carefully at such a policy reveals that it would make us poorer. Without Trump’s arm twisting (carrots and sticks—tax breaks, i.e., bribes, and/or tax or other penalties), the workers in question would be employed doing things that were more profitable (i.e. more productive and contributed more to our income) than in manufacturing. Trump would have those workers move from where they are more productive to where they would be less productive. I assume that such a policy reflects ignorance rather than malice, but what ever his motivation, the result of Trump’s protectionist threats would be to lower our standard of living.

If President Trump intends to return power from the government to the people, as he claimed in his inauguration speech, he will have to stop threatening companies to produce things in the U.S. when they would otherwise find it more profitable (cheaper) to produce them abroad and import them. Anything and everything that adds to our economy’s productivity (specializing in what we are best at and exporting it to pay for imports that other countries are better at making) increases our incomes. Trump should stop interfering with our private economic decisions and get on with the other aspects of his promises (tax and regulatory reform) that will increase our well-being.

Econ 101 – Jobs and Income Growth

At long last the economy has more or less reached full employment. The December 2016 unemployment rate was 4.7 percent while the Federal Reserve’s assessment of normal full employment (NAIRU—non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment) is 4.8 percent. More over, wage growth has picked up, increasing 2.9 percent over a year earlier. The producer price index increased 0.3 percent in December (4.3% annualized). The economy is heating up. The Federal Reserve raised its overnight interbank interest rate target (Fed Funds rate) from 0.5 to 0.75 percent in December.

What does this mean for PEOTUS Trump’s goal to create jobs and increase the economy’s growth rate? At his press conference January 11, 2017 he claimed to be: “The greatest jobs producer God ever created.”

A new job is created when a company demands an additional worker for some reason or other and the desired worker is supplied. More jobs (by which I mean more new ones than the loss of old ones, i.e., a net increase in jobs) can come from any of three sources: a) an increase in the labor participation rate (more people looking for work from those of working age who are physically able to work); b) more young people entering the labor force than retiring old people leaving it; and c) a net immigration of working age foreigners. An increase in the demand for workers that cannot be filled will put upward pressure on wages and ultimately on prices.

In December the labor participation rate rose to 62.7 percent from its low in November of 62.6. It had been around 66 percent in the years just before the great recession of 2008. While we don’t really understand why so many people have dropped out of the labor force, there is scope to increase employment if some of them return. Some of the new jobs are filled by immigrants, especially those jobs requiring information technology skills, which creates additional jobs to feed, cloth, and entertain the new residents. http://wapo.st/2irYDYW. While 7.4 million people were looking for work in November 2016 (latest available), there were 5.5 million unfilled vacancies. If you like data: 5.1 million were hired in October while 4.9 million left their jobs for a net increase in employment of 0.225 million. Of those leaving their jobs 0.372 retired or died.

In short, the economy does not lack jobs and the number of jobs is growing at about the rate of growth of the working age population. If the government increases employment for infrastructure projects, those workers must be attracted away from their existing jobs, which will require higher wages. Increasing employment at much faster rates would be inflationary. Higher inflation would undermine the real value of excessive nominal wage increases.

The problem—issue or challenge—is that the new jobs offered often require skills that do not match those of the workers looking for work. Most layoffs and discharges result from automation and other productivity improvements (not from trade), which increases the wages offered for the new jobs needed as a result. This process—increased worker productivity—is the source of per capita income growth, i.e. of our increasing standard of living. However, the benefits of increased productivity will only be broadly shared if workers are trained (or retrained) in the new jobs needed. In addition, the increased income inequality in the U.S. since the 1970s is largely the result of increased rent seeking from government as government regulations have expanded to protect the established companies from outside competition.

Faster income growth, therefore, will depend on improving productivity and its rate of growth over time (not creating more jobs). Improved and simplified regulations will free up some of the large armies of compliance officers to work in jobs that actually produce things we want. It will also increase market competition by reducing regulatory capture and related rent seeking. The same is true for any reforms in the provision of medical services that lower their cost (e.g. from greater transparency of costs of treatment options and patient responsibility for and interest in those costs). This is a different issue than who pays for medical care (insurance) but the nature and structure of medical insurance profoundly influences the incentives patients and doctors have to choose cost effective medical services. Tax reforms that lower the cost of investing in the U.S. will also increase productivity and income growth.

Investments in plant and equipment and new technology increase labor productivity and income in the future but require workers and materials to build them in the present. In an already more or less fully employed economy the resources used for investments must come from giving up other uses, primarily from producing consumption goods and services. To finance investment people will need to consume less and save more.

If none of the resources and their financing come from the government (and Trump plans the opposite), interest rates will need to rise in order to encourage more savings and to moderate the increase in investment. The Federal Reserve will have to raise its interest rate targets just to stay neutral (i.e. to keep inflation rates near their 2% per year target) as the tightening labor market puts upward pressure on wages and equilibrium interest rates. Thus interest rates will need to increase even more to encourage the additional savings needed to finance additional investment.

The new government has yet to propose its budget for the coming year, but Trump cannot simultaneously increase military spending and infrastructure spending and leave entitlement commitments unchanged (which imply significant increases in actual social security and medical outlays because of an ageing population and increased retirements relative to new entrants into the labor force) even if his tax reforms are revenue neutral (which current proposals are not). We don’t know yet which of his plans will have to give and to what extent. None of this takes into account the large impact not so far down the road of unfunded fiscal liabilities (unfunded social security, Medicare, and Medicaid obligations). https://wcoats.wordpress.com/2013/03/16/the-sequester/ https://wcoats.wordpress.com/2011/04/23/thinking-about-the-public-debt/ http://tinyurl.com/yjos2ed. Thus it is difficult to forecast how much interest rates will need to rise in order to keep inflation in check while crowding out private investment to finance the growing public debt.

Higher interest rates will also tend to strengthen (appreciate) the dollars’ exchange rate, which will increase our trade deficit unless Trump totally destroys our trade flows in a misguided effort to balance our trade account (balance imports and exports). A larger trade deficit would result in some of the increased investment being financed by foreign saving (capital inflow) and to that extent would reduce the upward pressure on interest rates. So far I have not taken account of possible changes in the economic conditions of the rest of the world. However, an appreciated dollar would improve the exports and thus economic activity of other trading partners but would increase their local currency cost of any borrowing their firms and citizens have done in dollars.

The bottom line is that any increase in economic growth in our fully employed economy will come from increases in productivity not increases in employment. Tax and regulatory reform should improve the allocation of our labor and capital resources to more productive uses. They should also lead to increased investment, which will enhance future productivity. Jawboning or pressuring the allocation of these resources into less productive uses (e.g. domestic production of goods that could be more cheaply imported) will reduce economic growth. Increased investment will require higher interest rates in order to generate the savings needed (reduction in consumption) to finance the additional investment. However, continued fiscal deficits will divert that amount of savings away from investment. Without significant cuts in future entitlement commitments (and/or defense spending) these deficits will grow larger at the expense of economic growth. New trade tariffs threatened by Trump or other new impediments to trade will also reduce our productivity and growth. While the Trump administration could increase our economic growth rate in the coming years, this outcome depends on it resolving existing internal contradictions in its proposed policies.

The Liberal International Order

A monopolist enjoys a bigger profit than would a competitive supplier of the same items by restricting the supply in order to charge a higher price. This assumes that he can increase the price by more than the reduction in his sales, but I will skip these economic details in order to get to my point.

Monopoly is good for the producer and bad for the consumer. Monopoly is generally impossible without help from government to restrict competition. The United States has flourished economically, in part, because we have chosen the competitive model—the level playing field of commerce—as the social and economic model we aim for domestically and promote internationally. Many other nations have also embraced this model and our leadership in promoting it. We extend and promote the rule of law on which a level playing field is built through the Bretton Woods Institutions created after World War II (the IMF, World Bank and World Trade Organization) and other international bodies and agreements. Our leadership in promoting these values is now in jeopardy for a variety of reasons that include our aggressive use (and misuse) of our military power and our unilateralism.

Chas Freedman is the most articulate champion I know of, of the wise use of American diplomacy to promote the above and other values that have characterized our country’s governance. Chas was Nixon’s interpreter during the President’s first trip to China in 1972. His three decades as a U.S. diplomat included Ambassadorship to Saudi Arabia during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm and a term as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. The following challenge to the United States is taken from his latest book American’s Continuing Misadventures in the Middle East and was contained in his August 29, 2012 address to the American Foreign Service Association’s Adair Memorial Lecture at the American University School of International Service, Washington D. C. He enumerates the conditions for our continued (or restored) leadership of the liberal international order that has served us and the world so well. Chas concentrates more wisdom into fewer words than anyone I know:

“Americans believe that societies that respect the rule of law and rely upon democratic debate to make decisions are more prosperous, successful, and stable than those that do not. Recent efforts to impose our freedoms on others by force have reminded us that they can be spread only by our setting an example that others see as worthy of emulation. Freedom cannot be sustained if we ourselves violate its principles. This means that we must respect the right of others to make their own choices as long as these do not harm us. It also presupposes a contest of ideas. Our ideas will not prosper unless we maintain solidarity with others who value and also practice them.

“That is why a first priority of American diplomacy must now be to re-forge the unity of the Atlantic community behind the concept of the rule of law. This cannot be done unless we confront and correct our own lapses from the great traditions of our republic. To re-empower our diplomacy by inspiring others to look to our leadership, we much restore our respect for our Bill of Rights as well as our deference to the dignity of the individual both at home and abroad. Let me be specific.

“We must revive the Fourth Amendment’s ban of search and seizures of persons, houses, papers, and other personal effects without probable cause. No more ‘extraordinary rendition.’ No more universal electronic eavesdropping, warrantless seizure of paper and electronic records at the border, and intrusive inspection of anything and everything in the possession of passengers using public transportation.

“We must reinstate the Fifth Amendment’s protections against deprivation ‘of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.’ No more suspension of habeas corpus or executive branch assertions of a right to detain or even kill people, including American citizens, without charge or trail.

“We must return to respect for the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of the right of anyone accused of a crime to be informed of the charges and confronted with the witnesses against him and to be represented by a lawyer. No more ‘secret evidence.’

“We must reinstate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of ‘cruel and unusual punishments,’ including torture, and we must reaffirm our adherence to the several Geneva Conventions. We Americans can have no credibility as advocates for human rights if we do not practice what we preach.

“In short, the path to renewed effectiveness in American diplomacy lies not just in wise and dexterous statecraft and the professionalization of those who implement it abroad. It rests on the rebuilding of credibility through the rediscovery of the values that made our country great.”

My Political Platform for the Nation – 2017

For me, the ideal American government would deliver its important but limited functions efficiently and effectively and would raise the money to pay for these activities with efficient, minimally distorting (neutral), and fair taxes following a principle of maximum subsidiarity (decisions made and services performed at the most local levels possible). The government should do fewer things than it does now but should do them better and should fully pay for them with taxes and fees (cyclically balanced budgets).

My unrestrained, radical platform will be presented here at a high level of general principles. Details need to be refined by a political process involving public discussion and are likely to evolve somewhat over time. Links to earlier articles provide additional details. In the very broadest terms Americans should be self reliant and free to work and play as hard as they choose with the government supporting their choices by providing security, the legal foundation and framework of private property and contracts, and an efficient safety net when individual undertakings are not feasible or fail.

The limited functions of the Federal government are enumerated in Article 1 section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. Broadly these are to:

  1. Develop and maintain our relations with other countries and international bodies and to maintain an Army, Navy and Air Force for the purposes of defending and promoting the security of the United States;
  2. Establish and enforce the rights to property and contracts and to adjudicate related disputes;
  3. Provide for public safety;
  4. Provide an efficient and effective social safety net (welfare);
  5. “Regulate commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States;”
  6. “Coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;”
  7. Arrange for the provision of roads and essential infrastructure; and
  8. Tax, borrow, and levy fees and tariffs to pay for these activities.

Our Social Contract

Sovereignty resides with each individual, who have collectively ceded limited powers to government for the general welfare. Each of us is free, within legal limits on doing harm to others, to lead our own lives and build or work at whatever we choose. Thus the government’s laws apply equally to each of us without regard to our race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation. From this environment of freedom and innovation, America has built the most successful economy in the world.

When building companies or developing products, many will fail and try again. The government provides the legal framework (bankruptcy) for resolving such failures. The implicit agreement between citizens and their government is that government will provide a floor—a safety net—whenever a person’s efforts fail or when, e.g., for health reasons, a person is unable to provide for him or herself. The level of the safety net should reflect the level of the country’s income and social consensus and should be designed to achieve its objective as efficiently as possible with careful consideration of the incentives it creates.

Income redistribution: taxation and a guaranteed minimum income

All income (personal and corporate) taxes should be replaced with a comprehensive, flat, consumption tax (Value Added Tax—VAT) and limited progressivity introduced by paying every legal man, woman and child resident a guaranteed minimum income. US federal tax policy, Cayman Financial Review July 2009 Each recipient of these monthly guaranteed income payments would be required to set aside a minimum amount for health insurance (chosen by each person or family in the competitive market place) and a minimum amount for retirement (invested in qualifying retirement funds in the competitive market place). Saving social security

As the guaranteed minimum income should be at a level sufficient to minimally support life’s basic needs, supplements such as unemployment or disability insurance would not be needed or provided. However, disabilities acquired from military or public safety service should receive additional income support.

Health care

Each person will be responsible for paying for at least part of routine medical care (the copay required by the insurance they have chosen) and will thus care about its cost. The cheapest insurance policies will be limited to major medical expenses (catastrophic health insurance). As everyone will be required to contribute monthly to a health savings account from their guaranteed minimum income, most people will chose to use such funds to buy health insurance, which would not be tied to employment or an employer.

Doctors and hospitals will be required to make medical service costs transparent. On that basis, patients, in consultation with their doctors, will decide the level of care and treatments to receive. These measures will introduce normal market competition into the provision of medical care that is currently absent, which will improve its quality and lower its cost.

Education

Equal access to quality education is a critical element in maximizing opportunity for all and the wealth of our society and each person in it. The public school system has often failed in this objective. While the wealthy can afford to put their children in private schools when the neighborhood school is of poor quality, lower income families generally cannot. Every K-12 aged child will receive a tuition voucher that covers the cost of state provided education. The amount will generally vary from state to state (or school district to school district). The voucher can be used to attend the local neighborhood public school with no additional cost, or any private school the family chooses, which might incur additional costs. Schools eligible to receive such vouchers must meet minimum education standards set by the state and must disclose the performance of their students on state administered achievement tests. This information must be available to the public. The learning progress of each child is more important than the average level of achievement of each school’s students as some schools might well specialize in slow or problem learners and performance data should reflect this distinction. The neighborhood school has the advantage of being easier to get to every day and will normally be chosen by families if it provides a good education. The argument for universal tuition vouchers goes beyond providing a level playing field to all. It also introduces the competition for students that is the basis for good quality, low cost goods and services in every other area of our economy.

Access to higher education raises different issues. Those with the aptitude and desire for a college or postgraduate degree can significantly increase their lifetime incomes as a result. It would hardly be fair to tax the general public to subsidize the higher education of those who will become wealthier as a result. However, the tuition loans that may be needed by those from lower income families to make this investment would be hard to get without insurance against default. Many states also provide community (or Jr.) colleges at public expense that provide training in various trade skills as well as four year college preparatory courses. These seem to have often been successful in leveling the playing field. The optimal structuring of higher education subsidies (e.g. between insurance guarantees and tuition subsidies) needs further examination.

Monetary and Financial Policies

Government policies that affect business should be as rule based and transparent as possible. Monetary policy stands out as a particularly important area in which clearer rules are needed. A currency with stable real value (purchasing power) is an important part of the foundation of efficient free markets. At the very minimum the Federal Reserve’s mandate should be tightened as provided in the very pragmatic Federal Reserve Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014. This act would require the Fed to chose an operational rule, from which it could depart only with an explanation to Congress of its reasons. A deeper review of options is proposed by the Centennial Monetary Commission Act of 2015. I have proposed a more radical reform in the spirit of the gold standard but with tighter rules and an anchor of a large number of goods rather than just gold. The supply of this currency, which ideally would become the global currency, would be regulated by the market using currency board rules and “indirect redeemability.” A hard anchor for the dollar.

The banking and financial sector are currently smothered with detailed regulations the compliance cost of which are driving smaller banks out of business. Under the Dodd Frank law adopted after the financial crisis of 2008, the largest five American banks have grown even larger (in absolute terms and as a share of the banking sector) than they were in 2008. Regulators, despite (or because of) their detailed banking regulations have failed to make banks safer and have slowed the competitive process of producing better and cheaper services. Bank owners and market preferences should regulate risk taking by banks.

Bank regulation by the government should focus on broad principles with strong owner accountability. Bank capital requirements should be raised and the no bail out rules strengthened. Bank owners and investors should absorb any bank losses. The payment services of banks should be isolated from the rest of its lending and investing business by adopting the Chicago Plan of one hundred percent reserve requirements against current account deposits, and virtually all other regulations (other than accounting and reporting standards) should be dropped. Larger banks will develop their own risk weighted capital requirements for their internal use, but the government’s capital requirements should state the minimum required leverage ratio (ratio of core capital to total assets) and set it at a high level. Changing direction on bank regulation, Cayman Financial Review April 2015. A bill now in congress moves in this direction: The Financial Choice Act

Business activities and regulation

The government should only provide services that that private sector can’t. It should provide the legal and regulatory framework for the private economy rather than compete with it. Though the approaches to providing “public goods” such as police, courts, prisons, firemen, parks, highways, airports, etc. have varied over time, they are almost always paid for by the government (i.e. collectively by tax payers) and should be provided efficiently at the level expected by the public. Publicly funded and privately produced goods and services are often sources of hard or soft corruption. Rather than over charging for services or paying bribes to win contracts (hard corruption), soft corruption exploits influence on government to obtain contract terms or regulations favorable to particular firms (“rent seeking”). The government’s purchases of goods and services from the private sector should be governed by transparent rules that promote competition among suppliers. This is easier said than done. Open the Books

While the government is involved in and trying to do far too many things, it doesn’t do many of them very well. Of those services the government needs to provide, states generally perform better than the federal government though performance varies across states. In Maryland, where I live, I was able to register my Limited Liability Company on line in about 30 minutes start to finish. Registering my car and updating my driver’s license is quick and easy. However, it took me months to obtain a statement of my residency from the U.S. Treasury and a personal trip to the State Department to have it certified to provide to the National Bank of Kazakhstan before they could pay me for my services. Getting a passport or green card is more complicated and takes longer than they should. The government should do much less and do it much better.

Those in the government who believe they can judge better than competitive private markets how best to allocate resources (what to invest in and produce) are generally wrong. Moreover, they establish an opportunity and thus incentive for corruption.

The government’s regulation of private businesses in the interest of public safety, environmental protection, and market competition should be limited and subject to very serious cost/benefit tests. Cost/benefit analysis unavoidably reflects subjective judgments but their role should be limited to the extent possible by full transparency of the basis of any assessment. Competitive capitalism vs. the other kinds.

Foreign policy and national security

The purpose of our foreign policy is to serve American security interests and the international rule of law under which American’s can explore the world and American businesses can compete globally on a level playing field. Our security requires a strong military, but it also requires the skillful use of diplomacy. Our military must be structured for defense, not offensive wars of our choosing. Our 2003 war in Iraq and subsequent developments in the Middle East have cost many lives (some American) and treasure, undermined our moral authority, and seriously damaged our security. Our foreign policy should be one of “restraint.”

Our relations with other countries should be based on shared interests consistent with our respect for individual dignity and the rule of law. We should support and, where appropriate, lead international bodies dedicated to developing, promoting, and overseeing compliance with the rule of law internationally. Our international leadership should rest, in addition to our economic and military strength, on our commitment to broadly shared values and standards of behavior. Just as we give up limited amounts of our individual sovereignty to our own government when it serves our individual and collective interests, so should we give up limited amounts of our national sovereignty to international bodies when it serves our national and international interests.

Our economic strength depends in part on providing for a sufficiently strong military in the most economical way possible. Money spent on tanks can be spent on building other businesses and producing goods that we enjoy. The very nature of the relationship between our military and the industries that supply it, what President Eisenhower called “the military industrial complex,” makes achieving this objective very difficult. As argued above, clear rules and transparency are important tools. Our unsupportable empire

Trade

Next to the right to personal property, nothing is as central to our liberty and well being as the right to trade. It is the basis of virtually all of our enormous increase in productivity and thus our standard of living. The government impedes our right to trade with a wide range of often unnecessary or excessive regulations. Restricting our freedom to trade across national borders is also a mistake that reduces our standard of living from its potential.

Trade has destroyed some jobs while creating others. “Since 1900, the portion of the U.S. workforce in agriculture has declined from 41 percent to less than 2 percent. Output per remaining farmer and per acre has soared since millions of agricultural workers made the modernization trek from farms to more productive employment in city factories…. Manufacturing’s postwar share of the labor force peaked at about 30 percent” in 1953 and has since declined to less than 9 percent while manufacturing output continued to climb. “Of the 5.6 million manufacturing jobs lost between 2000 and 2010, trade accounted for 13 percent of job losses and productivity improvements accounted for more than 85 percent.” George Will, Washington Post.

As with domestic, competitive trade, those out-performed in competitive markets suffer, at least temporarily. The safety net for “losers” in the competitive process discussed above is an important feature in our willingness to unleash the benefits of free trade. We must insure that they are adequate. We should support the World Trade Organization (WTO) as well as regional and bilateral agreements that reduce the barriers to trade and promote freer trade. Save trade. Globalization and nationalism-good and/or bad?. Trade and globalization

Conclusion

Our government should assume that each of us is capable of and has the right to make our own decisions and lead our own lives as we see fit. Its role is to protect those rights, in part by protecting us from others, foreign and domestic, who would violate them. We are, however, part of and best flourish within broader communities. Our government should develop legal frameworks to facilitate our interactions and relationships within and across societies both business and personal. Our successful flourishing will also depend greatly on a shared culture of mutual respect and comity.

Save Trade

I have written about the importance of trade to our standard of living many times because it seems to be under attack. The graph below, which reflects Angus Maddison’s data showing a massive increase in income throughout the world over the last two centuries and which is reproduced, courtesy of Human Progress, provides a dramatic visual depiction of the impact of Trade.

Once households were able to trade what they produced for what they needed, the increase in their output as they specialized in what they were best at was truly staggering. But it is not surprising when you reflect on how limiting it would be if you had to be self sufficient in everything.

Following the disastrous imposition of high tariffs by the U.S. in 1930 (Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act) to save American jobs and the great depression and world war that followed, representatives of all 44 Allied nations came together under U.S. leadership at Bretton Woods in 1944 anticipating the end of World War II. They established the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and what is now the World Trade Organization (WTO) in order to establish, protect, and further a liberal international economic order (i.e., to protect and promote free markets globally).  Trade again flourished, as it had previously at the end of the nineteenth century, leading a resumption of dramatic growth in wealth and income across the globe.

The United States was the natural (indispensable) leader in promoting this liberal order for several reasons. By the end of WWII the U.S. was the largest economy in the world. And while the size of the United States and the guarantee of free trade within its boarders provided in the U.S. Constitution assured substantial trade within the U.S., opening the rest of the world to trade was very beneficial to all countries (win-win). The Boeing Company, for example, sells more of its planes abroad than domestically because the world market is larger than the U.S. market. So the U.S. is the natural leader because it is the largest trader. But more than that, most other countries respect the commitment of the U.S. to the rule of law and a level playing field for commerce. Thus they gladly accept our leadership.

The world is far from the ideal level playing field for trade but is much closer to that model than it was at the end of WWII. The WTO (the successor of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs – GATT) and regional and bilateral trade agreements keep moving us closer and closer to such a world. It is a very desirable goal for the United States and for the rest of the world (look at the above graph again). As with technical progress and the increasing productivity it brings, some capital and labor (workers) will need to move to new activities and we need to insure that displaced workers do not suffer in the process (we seem to care less about the displaced capitalists assuming, I guess, that they can take care of themselves).

While it is still early, President-elect Trump seems uncommitted to the U.S. leadership of our increasingly liberal (freer) international economic order. In fact, he is threatening to throw it away by unilaterally imposing tariffs on imports and behaving like a bully internationally. We need to recall the terrible consequences of the Smoot-Hawley tariffs and resist any moves in that direction.

It is true that following WWII the U.S. often gave favorable terms to Europe (the Marshall Plan) and less developed countries in order to promote their reconstruction and development (“Trade not Aid” we used to say). The world’s economies are now growing into better balance and the U.S. is no longer as dominant as it once was. The international rules of the game (trade agreements) can and should seek a better balance of mutual benefits. But we would be making a very serious mistake to give up our leadership of the world order and abandon our commitment to free and fair global commerce.