Topic: International Economics and Development

A New Solution to the Trade Deficit ‘Problem’

By
Sallie James

I’ll be honest with you folks — in Australia we have an expression, “Only in America!” It is used whenever outlandish, seemingly crazy, or especially unusual ideas or events occur over here. It is frequently used by news-readers. Please don’t be offended.

Anyway, I am proposing a new expression, “Only from Congress.” It could be used to describe, well, whenever an outlandish, seemingly crazy, or especially unusual idea is announced by members of Congress. And to kick things off, I would like to introduce the first item for your consideration.

Two Democratic senators, Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, have proposed that any company wishing to import goods into America would need a government-issued certificate. The senators, according to this New York Times article (link requires subscription), view this as a “market-based system to cut the trade deficit to zero within 10 years.”

It would work thus: Any company that exports goods would be issued an import certificate that would allow it to import goods. The “exchange rate” would fall from $1.40 in the first year (i.e., $1 worth of exports would earn $1.40 worth of imports), to $1.30 in the second year, and so on until we achieve “balance.” If a company does not wish to import anything, it can sell the import certificate to someone who does. I guess that’s the “market-based” part.

Sherman Katz of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace was quoted in the article as saying that “’it looks on the face of it to represent an enormous intrusion of government activity into business totaling trillions of dollars each year.”

“Enormous” doesn’t seem to quite capture it though, does it? How about “insane”?

Can you imagine the type of federal oversight this would require? And how would our trade partners react to the U.S. market being restricted in this way?

And what about oil? Ah, the wise senators have already thought of that. Oil would be given a 10-year phase-in, to allow the economy “time to find and develop alternative energy supplies.”

Imports of goods keep inflation in check and imports of capital keep interest rates down and help finance economic growth. Restricting imports would necessarily restrict capital flows into the economy because of the necessary balance between the current and capital accounts. To bring investment in line with savings, domestic interest rates would need to rise, reducing investment and economic growth. (More here.)

Question for the senators: What sort of certificate would you issue to cope with those sorts of macroeconomic effects?

I’m guessing we can expect lots of “Only from Congress” ideas in the coming campaign season. I’m excited.

Topics: 
Government and Politics, International Economics and Development, Trade and Immigration

Don’t Count on China

By
Sallie James

Following on from the visit last month of United States Trade Representative Susan Schwab, the Director-General of the World Trade Organization, Pascal Lamy, is visiting China this week to drum up Chinese support for reviving the Doha round of multilateral trade negotiations. He appears to have been given the same non-response as the USTR.

The Chinese have put the ball squarely back in the court of the EU and the United States, saying it was up to the major developed countries to take the lead in reviving the talks. (full story here).

China has so far kept very quiet in the trade talks, limiting their participation to argue for a ‘time out’ from trade liberalization for newly-acceded members. Having given major “concessions” to join the club, they figure they’ve paid their dues and should be given time to soak up the atmosphere. And given the often poisonous rhetoric surrounding China’s role in the world economy (not least from certain U.S. Congressmen), one can hardly blame them from keeping their heads below the parapet in the negotiations proper.

It is true, as Ambassador Schwab and DG Lamy have argued, that China has gained a lot from joining the WTO (although many of those gains would have been realized anyway as a result of unilaterally liberalizing their economy) and would stand to lose from a failed WTO. Similarly, China should be held to account for the commitments it made upon joining the WTO. But expecting China to take a more active role in the negotiations, and reverse their stance of the past five or so years, is a bit much. And, as they have proved on the currency issue, the Chinese won’t be bullied.

The “quiet diplomacy” to revive the round will likely continue, including at the IMF and World Bank shindigs later this month. But if a miracle occurs and the Doha round is concluded, it won’t be because of China’s efforts.

Topics: 
International Economics and Development, Trade and Immigration

Rural Newspaper Calls for the President and the Senate to “Mind Their Business”

By
Sallie James

The Enid News and Eagle posted an opinion article last week on the new farm bill. Admittedly, it is a rural paper (based in Enid, Oklahoma) catering to a rural readership. Most of you will probably not have seen it. But I was struck by a number of passages.

Take this one, for starters:

“It seems the 2002 farm bill was one of the more popular farm bills to come out in the history of farm bills, according to Frank Lucas. The Third District representative has been traveling the state getting input from agricultural officials and farmers on what should be included in the 2007 version of the farm bill.”

Of course the 2002 Farm Bill was popular, Congressman, at least with the “agricultural officials and farmers” you are talking to. A significant backtrack from previous farm bills, payments to farmers under the 2002 Farm Bill are projected to average over US$20 billion per year from 2005 to 2007. Agriculture officials are hardly going to support huge cuts to the agriculture budget, either.

Or consider this gem:

“…the House committee knows the most about agriculture and has the most contact with the people it will affect…”

The Enid News and Eagle is suggesting that the “people it will affect” are farmers and ranchers. This is undeniably true. But this farm bill, like all the others before it, will also affect every taxpayer and consumer of food in the country, not to mention commodity producers abroad. (more here)

On the one hand, it seems fairly reasonable that as part of the 2007 Farm Bill preparations, the administration and House and Senate Committee Members are holding a series of hearings all over the country. But on the other, who shows up to those hearings? Is it the consumers and taxpayers who, while collectively shelling out billions of dollars every year to agricultural subsidies and paying over-market prices, shoulder relatively little burden as individuals? No. Most of them have jobs to go to and little incentive to harangue Congressmen and officials. Farmers, on the other hand, are relatively well organized and have large incentive to ask for more money (or, in their more modest moments, ‘just’ the status quo).

Finally, for good measure, the Enid News and Eagle proposes letting the House agriculture committee and the farmers have full and exclusive rights over the farm bill:

“While we encourage input from farmers and ranchers, we discourage a lot of input in the bill from the president and the Senate.”

I’m new to this country, but isn’t there supposed to be a system of checks and balances here? Why do these opinion writers assert that there is no role for the administration or the Senate in crafting a new farm bill? While I, too, think there should be “little input” from government in farm policy, I don’t restrict my skepticism to only one chamber and the president.

If you missed our forum today on the farm bill, you can watch it here within the next 24 to 48 hours.

Hat-tip to Keith Good for the tip on the Enid News and Eagle.

Topics: 
General, International Economics and Development, Trade and Immigration

Middle Class Squeeze?

By
Daniel Griswold

New Census Bureau numbers released today on income, poverty and health coverage in 2005 are bound to fuel charges that the poor are getting poorer while the middle class continues to be squeezed. See what 25 years of tax cuts for the rich, globalization, and declining union membership have caused? But a look at the numbers inside the report tells a different story.

If we define the middle class as households earning between $35,000 and $75,000 a year, the middle class in America remains a huge demographic group. According to the Census report, Table A-1, the middle class made up 33.3 percent of U.S. households in 2005. That share is indeed somewhat smaller than in 1980, when 38.2 percent of households earned between $35,000 and $75,000 a year in real (inflation-adjusted) 2005 dollars.

Aha, so the middle class really is shrinking if not exactly disappearing, the alarmists might respond. But the Census numbers also show that over the past 25 years, the share of U.S. households earning less than $35,000 a year has also shrunk, from 44.5 percent in 1980 to 38.4 percent in 2005. Meanwhile, the share of households earning more than $75,000 a year has jumped from 17.4 percent to 28.3 percent.

In other words, if the middle class in America has shrunk, it is only because so many formerly middle-class households have moved to the upper-income brackets, while a significant number of households previously in the lower brackets have moved up to the middle class and beyond.

The solid economic growth of the past two decades has indeed lifted all kinds of household boats. By the most basic measure of real household income, a broad swathe of Americans are better off than they were 25 years ago—thanks to growth fueled in good measure by lower marginal tax rates, expanding trade, and a more flexible domestic economy.

Topics: 
General, International Economics and Development, Trade and Immigration

Cato Unbound - Migrating Toward National ID?

By
Jim Harper

The current Cato Unbound, Mexicans in America, is the usual provocative and wide-ranging fare.  There’s no lack of issues - or passion - in the debate about immigration.

One item in the current discussion that piques my interest - indeed, concerns me - is the formative consensus that “internal enforcement” of the immigration laws is a good idea. 

University of Texas at Austin economics professor Stephen Trejo writes:

Given that most illegal immigrants come to the United States to work, why don’t we get serious about workplace enforcement? Retail stores are able to verify in a matter of seconds consumer credit cards used to make purchases. Why couldn’t a similar system be put in place to verify the Social Security numbers of employees before they are hired? …  I suspect that we could do much more to control illegal immigration by directing technology and other enforcement resources toward the workplace rather than toward our porous southern border.

Doug Massey, co-director of the Mexican Migration Project at the Office of Population Research, Princeton University, has interesting information and ideas for reform to which he would adjoin ”a simple employment verification program required of all employers to confirm the right to work.”

It does sound simple - until you step back and realize that the simple idea they’re talking about is giving the federal government the power to approve or reject every Americans’ job application.  Does anyone think that this power, once adopted - and the technology put in place to administer it - will be limited to immigration law enforcement?

To do this, all people - not just immigrants, all people - would have to be able to prove their identity to federal standards, likely using some kind of bullet-proof identity document (even more secure than current law requires).  That will soon be in place thanks to the REAL ID Act.  Once we’re all carrying a bullet-proof identity document, do you think that its use will be limited to proof of identity for new employees?

It’s easy to see how facile acceptance of internal immigration law enforcement adds weight to arguments for expanded government control and tracking of all citizens.  There are plenty of reasons to be concerned with internal enforcement, and the national ID almost certainly required to make that possible.  Many of them are discussed in my book, Identity Crisis: How Identification is Overused and Misunderstood.

Topics: 
Cato Publications, General, International Economics and Development, Law and Civil Liberties, Telecom, Internet & Information Policy, Trade and Immigration

How Well Does the Swedish Welfare State Serve Its Poor?

By
Andrew J. Coulson

The American Left romanticizes the benefits of Scandinavian welfare states – to the point that one is sometimes reminded of Minnie the Moocher’s dream about the King of Sweden (“he gave her things that she was needin’…”).

Tim Worstall dispels that dream in today’s TCS Daily, pointing out that:

In the USA the poor get 39% of the US median income and in Finland (and Sweden) the poor get 38% of the US median income…. Which is really a rather revealing number don’t you think? All those punitive tax rates, all that redistribution, that blessed egalitarianism, the flatter distribution of income, leads to a change in the living standards of the poor of precisely … nothing.

Topics: 
General, International Economics and Development, Trade and Immigration

Not Your Father’s Auto Industry

By
Daniel J. Ikenson

If you’re tempted to believe the proliferating rhetoric about America’s withering automobile industry, please listen to Dan Griswold’s Cato podcast today or read the paper he and I wrote on the subject before deciding to drink the Kool-Aid.

The declining fortunes of American icons Ford and GM have inspired numerous commentaries about the demise of the U.S. automobile industry. But the top 10 selling cars and top 10 selling light trucks in the United States are all made in America. U.S. output of motor vehicles and parts was also 68 percent higher in 2005 than in 1993, which compares favorably with overall manufacturing output growth of 56 percent over the same period.

How can that be, you might ask, when Ford and GM lost a combined $16.7 billion in 2005 and together plan to eliminate more than 60,000 jobs in the next few years?

Well, this isn’t your father’s automobile industry.

The days when the “Big Three” and the U.S. auto industry were synonymous, and when seeing a foreign car on the street prompted rubbernecking are long gone. Today Honda, Toyota, and Nissan (and other Japanese, German, and Korean companies) are all important and growing players in the U.S. auto industry.

Since the early 1980s, Japanese—followed by German and Korean—automakers have been building production facilities in America. These companies, which employ American workers, pay local and federal taxes, and buy most of their parts and materials from other U.S. suppliers, are every bit as much a part of the domestic auto industry as the Big Three (or “Big Two and a Half,” now that Chrysler is just a division of Daimler-Chrysler). While the Big 2.5 still dominate U.S. production, the foreign-owned share continues to rise, approaching one-third of total domestic production today.

That’s great news for U.S. consumers, whose choices are no longer constrained by the high-priced, low-quality offerings of what was once a domestic oligopoly. Since 1993, the general price level in the United States has risen 38.2 percent, but the price level of a new vehicle has increased by only 4.1 percent.

Certainly, the shifting industry landscape has produced winners and losers within the United States. Most of the foreign nameplate plants have been built in the American South, or otherwise outside of the rust belt states (with a few notable exceptions). But none of these plants, save one (a joint venture involving GM), employ unionized workers, and their market shares have been increasing. Of course, there’s much more to this changing picture than the fact that one group is unionized and the other isn’t, but it is an interesting fact, no?

The state of Michigan has by far been the biggest loser in this transformation. The state has seen a large decline in jobs (and tax revenues), and the auto industry promises to be the marquis issue in this fall’s governor’s race. The Republican nominee, Dick DeVos, recently lambasted the Bush administration for not doing more to arrest the decline of Michigan’s auto producers. Unfortunately, that’s par for the course for Republicans of late, who increasingly seem to have never met a bailout they didn’t like.

The government has no business interfering in the marketplace—particularly one that is working so well for the vast majority of Americans. But if there is any action the Bush administration can and should take—which would incidentally help U.S. auto producers—it would be to revoke some or all of the 160 antidumping measures in place against 21 different types of steel products from 32 different countries. U.S. government intervention on behalf of the domestic steel industry has created a dangerously concentrated market, and without adequate steel imports, steel producers can and have run roughshod over their customers, including the auto producers.

Ultimately, the decisions that brought successful foreign nameplate auto producers to invest in U.S. facilities, as opposed to exporting from production platforms abroad, are based on a variety of factors that are subject to change. Market considerations like transportation costs, labor and materials costs, access to transportation, and access to materials all ultimately contribute to such investment decisions. When access to raw materials is hampered, and thus more costly (as it is with steel in the United States), the benefits of the other considerations are mitigated.

Today, U.S. prices for corrosion-resistant steel (the primary component used in auto bodies) are $100 per ton higher in the United States than in Europe, and $200 per ton higher than in China. At some point, the price differentials will render production of autos abroad for export to the United States more cost-efficient than investment in the United States. If Honda, Toyota, Nissan (and for that matter, Ford and GM) reach that conclusion, then we’ll be witnessing a genuine crisis in the U.S. automobile industry.

Topics: 
General, International Economics and Development, Trade and Immigration

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