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Krugman cites the near monopoly of rare earth materials by China, and the embargo on export to Japan, as an irresponsible exercize of economic power by China. These materials are used in many high-tech devices.The monopoly itself was a result of the US neglecting its production of these materials in the US. In one case, he says, the US allowed the Chinese to literally pack up all the equpment of a US factory and ship it to China. Low wages and lax environmental standards helped China to price below the U.S. industry, leading to its shutdown.

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The Raleign area in North Carolina near the location of 3 research oriented universities is rebounding quickly from the pandemic. It is now No. 3 in WSJ's annual survey of US labor markets with big gains in wags and jobs. This report in WSJ looks at how this was done with business, communities and local government working together.

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How union membership is actively taking part in shaping union contracts at Longshoreman's union for US ports, UAW for autoworkers, at Boeing Southwest and other companies for a fair wage and benefits after decades of neglect of workers. The assistance of Biden/ Harris to workers and their families for "We the People," in 2024.

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Krugman on taxes, Simpson Bowles and "low rates." He describes the U.S. under Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican president and war hero. A period which he describes in which unions had bargaining power, a third of workers were union members, and in contrast to to the 1920 business executives lived modestly and paid higher taxes. And yet the U.S. registered high rates of growth. There are several aspects to this period in contrast to the present that also need to be kept in mind. The post war booming economy after two decades of slow growth and war. Much of the present infrastructure in the U.S. was built during this period including the interstate highway system started under Eisenhower. The workers of developing countries of China, India and other parts of the world were not a part of the global labor force till the 1990's, with technology and transportation making global manufacturing a reality. The major factor in lowering wages and creating lower levels of unionized workers in the automobile as in other industries is the competition from lower wage labor in China and other Asian countries, and the presence of non unionized plants in the U.S. The choices made by economic decisionmakers of both parties in the last two decades, say experts including Fed chairman Bernanke, created a huge inflow of capital from Asia that led to housing and other bubbles, creating economic crises such as the one in 2008 and aggravating economic inequality. ...

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Comcast's bid for TV company Sky is one of many mergers planned in 2018. U.S. corporate tax cuts and incentives for investment are fueling a merger wave not seen since 2000, says this report in the WSJ. This report also points out that the amount spent on increasing wages at Walmart and AT&T is small compared to the hundreds of billions being spent on share buybacks and in pursuing growth or higher returns. Dealogic numbers show $325 billion going into bids for mergers launched so far in 2018 and much faster than the pace in the first months of 2000. About $200 billion have gone into share buybacks in 3 months to the end of Feb. 2018, according to WSJ analysis.

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Alas, economists and intellectuals such as Gita Gopinath of the IMF, just don't get it when they say the EU can increase growth by half percent meeting labor shortages using immigrants. As WSJ reports 50-60% of asylum seekers in Netherlands since 1999 are less skilled /less educated immigrants, are unemployed or on benefits.The new view across all parties is lets stop the immigration surges, its too overwhelming for the people to deal with, so that we can focus on cost of living and low wages for workers. Across Starmer's Labour in Britain, across Biden/Harris Democrats lined up with Republican Lankford in the US pledging to sign the legislation to close the southern Border, and in France Macron's premier Michel Barnier wants to do the same.   Mette Frederiksen of Denmark was a pioneer in the EU in showing that immigration acts as a distraction that hurts the working class as it distracts people from the key issues facing workers of cost of living and low wages, poor benefits. She was elected as a Socialist party leader in Denmark in 2015 and as prime minister in 2019. Sahra Wagenknecht, follows Mette Frederiksen, herself a daughter of immigrant, has formed her own party out of Socialist Die Linke in Germany which is now getting about 15% German voter support, 25% in the east, along similar lines to pause and stop immigration because it hurts the working class. In other parts of EU- France's Macron coalition has a prime minister who has called for a pause on immigration. US president Harris and Candidate Harris have pledged to sign bipartisan legislation drafted by Republican Senator Lankford to close the southern Border. The European Asylum Agency has the numbers at just over one million asylum seekers in EU in 2023 and agains in 2024 split by country- Germany 127,000 24% France 77,000 15%, and Italy and Spain 87,000 each 17% each Belgium, Netherlands and Austria 17,000 each at 3% each, Greece a bit higher. Some like the US and Germany with stronger economic base and industries can absorb the educated immigrants from middle class fleeing wars and strife, and less educated immigrants in construction and hospitality. The bigger danger is in creating support for parties that will use the issue to take whole economies and countries backwards by further depressing workers wages, benefits and rights, exacerbating social divisions around race and income that they say they will solve but have no economic policy to do this. All socialist and socialist democratic parties have grasped this in 2023-2024, some earlier by 2019. ...

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The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade pact led by Japan and the U.S. moves to the next stage with legislation introduced by Orrin Hatch and Ron Wyden in the U.S. Congress for granting trade promotion authority to the U.S. president. This would facilitate the negotiation of an agreement leading to concessions by different countries. Talks between Japan and the U.S. intensified with the U.S. president Obama saying in his 2015 State of the Union message that China wanted to write the rules for trade in Asia, and asking why the U.S. should not work to write its own rules. Defense Secretary, Aston Carter, called it more important than another aircraft carrier. Support from Europe, India and other countries for the China sponsored Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, as a rival to the U.S. dominated World Bank and IMF, also give urgency to the TPP. The TPP countries, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Peru and Chile, make up over $400 billion of about $4 trillion in U.S. trade, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The TPP is now seen not just a free trade pact, but also as away to counter China's influence in Asia. Experts see the Obama administration as having bungled its handling of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank which the U.S. did not join, and its allies in Europe, other Asian countries including India, decided to join as founding members. Democrats in Congress led by Senator Schumer, Warren, oppose the legislation granting fast track for free trade pacts citing the loss of jobs and lowering of wages for workers in manufacturing in the U.S., with only about a dozen Democrats favoring the legislation, leading to a split in the party. Projections by Peter Petri, Michael Plummer, Fan Zhai, of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, show a net negative impact on depressed wage sectors such as U.S. manufacturing with additional $45 billion in U.S. imports and $35 billion in exports for heavy manufacturing from the TPP free trade pact, and additional $33 billion of U.S. imports and $10 billion exports in light manufacturing by 2025. Higher wage sectors such as U.S. Services including IT get a boost with additional $42 billion in exports and $ 8 billion imports. Agriculture shows insignificant gains with additional exports of $2 billion and imports of 0.5 billion. The auto and transport sector disproportionately favors Japan with $33 billion in additional U.S. imports and $8 billion in exports. ...

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Global supply chains in industries such as clothing and other consumer items, in autos, and in tech products are changing as the shift away from China continues with the Trump administration's tariffs war. The clothing and other consumer products manufacturing is shifting away from China. Auto production is centred on regional hubs for manufacturing under renegotiated trade agreements such as the one that replaced NAFTA in North America, correcting imbalances in wages and U.S. content. Mexico gets to stay as a auto hub with exports of $50 billion in 2018 but under new rules that the Trump administration sees as fair. India is being considered as an auto production hub in Asia. In tech products China continues to have an edge but this is changing gradually. Samsung has built a huge smartphone manufacturing complex in Vietnam. South east Asia is a beneficiary, so is Mexico. In the future India stands to gain as its manufacturing base expands and infrastructure develops. In this changed scenario China will be moving to produce more advanced technological products, as it shifts away from lower end products. This will also correct some of the grossly unfavorable trade imbalances that have developed with the U.S. ...

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British MP and former minister in the Tory government resigns in a lobbying scandal for violating British parliamentary standards on lobbying. This report in The Guardian says he was found to have lobbied the government on behalf of two companies that were paying him over 100,000 pounds a year. Boris Johnson, Britain's prime minister initially supported Patterson but lacking support in parliament and with a backlash from his party's MP's decided to let parliamentary standards authority decide on Mr. Patterson's future. Lobbying in the US and Britain has resulted in a distortion of the national priorities. This is particularly true of the US where priorities in health care and providing access to reasonably priced pharmaceuticals, climate change shift away from fossil fuels, regulation of the internet companies, worker wages, and other issues critical to building a healthy nation are neglected with lobbying for support of members of Congress. ...

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This WSJ editorial shows a 3.1% decline in purchasing power lost to inflation since president Biden took office, average hourly earnings declining from $11.39 to $11.03. Yet it is also true that inflation has been cut in half in May 2023 to 4% compared to a high of 9% in 2022. Inflation is much higher in the UK and Europe. President Biden also passed the Inflation Reduction Act, intervened in energy markets to lower oil prices with policies to reduce prices for Russian oil. Jerome Powell at the Federal Reserve is aggressively tackling inflation. Investments in manufacturing in the US and in infrastructure will increase jobs and strengthen the US economy in 2023-2025. This was given the name Bidenomics yet it is about president Biden and policymakers looking carefully at what works to increase jobs, increase wages, and support workers and families, and build American manufacturing and infrastructure for a strong economy.

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The Congressional Budget Office report in 2011 shows after tax resource flow that a family has to pay for consumption, a better approach to measuring the growth in incomes since 1970 including government help to lower income people and gains in the stock market for upper class Americans. This report shows after tax resource flow for the top 1% in the U.S. tripled from 1970 to 2011. For the middle fifth of the distribution families experienced real net income gains of 36 percent, and the bottom fifth of the distribution real net income gain of 50 percent.This suggests gains of about 10 percent a year if averaged over 30 years for the top 1 percent compared to 1% a year for the middle fifth and 1.5% for the bottom fifth. The report was done in 2011 and this could skew the results. Between 2011 and 2015 the stock market recovered and this would suggest a much higher gain for the top 1% of incomes and the top 10%, while also providing improvement in incomes for the middle fifth and the bottom fifth as unemployment decreased. Working class and minimum wage slowly recovered, and interest income on savings extremely low, with large student and other household debt, so that even at 10-12% gains per year for the top 1%, and 1-2% for the middle fifth of the distribution and 1.5-2% for the bottom fifth the last three decades have not been good for working class and middle income Americans compared to the the period 1950-1970 early postwar period recovery....

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After a long year of frustration with a small faction of 20 Congressmen in the Republican party led by Mr Gaetz Mr. McCarthy is taking on this group as it seeks to oust him from the Speaker's position. He will need Democratic support. This report looks at the changing situation in the US Congress. America needs a bipartisan approach to tackle major problems of infrastructure, climate change, wages and the cost of living, and education. It does not make sense to allow a few members of Congress to thwart the nation's plans to tackle its problems and challenges.

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Shipping and freight statistics show an increase of shipments from Mexico. Trains and truck shipments from Mexico to the U.S. increased by 8.7% by weight in the first 11 months of 2011 compared to the prior year. By comparison shipping containers entering the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach went down by 0.2% in 2011. Mexico stands to benefit from the shift in dynamics as manufacturing costs in China increase with labor constraints, higher wages, higher commercial land prices and recent Asian supply chain issues making firms wary of unanticipated problems. This is expected to benefit the U.S. with the return of some manufacturig jobs and a serious rethink of outsourcing. Because of highly automated factories and advanced technologies the manufacturing process requires fewer and more skilled operators, reducing the labor component of costs. Carlisle Companies CEO, David Roberts says he is expanding tire manufacturing plants in Tennessee. He says he can make tires as cheaply or cheaper in the U.S than in China. This has serious implications as the U.S. gets down to rebuilding and renewal of its manufacturing industry....

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There is a two week period before the 25% tariff on steel coming into the U.S. goes into effect. This gives time for Canada, Mexico, the EU, Japan and other countries to come up with offers to negotiate or as with the EU come up with its own plan to put tariffs on some American goods. An exemption for Canada is supported by the United Steel Workers Union, as many American companies make steel across the borders. Canada sends the most steel and aluminium to the U.S. With the departure of Gary Cohn as economic advisor, Mr. Lighthizer, the U.S. Trade Representative who pushed for the tariff plan becomes a trusted advisor to the President. Lighthizer is to be seen in Lyrarc pages as having consistently supported fair trade and protecting U.S. workers in these situations since his work in the Reagan administration. The other advisors who are ascendent are Peter Navarro, a trade expert, and Wilbur Ross, the Commerce Secretary. Ross is an experienced business veteran in consolidation of steel and auto parts companies, who pushed for a moderate position to renegotiate NAFTA and convinced president Trump to pursue renegotiation instead of rejecting NAFTA following calls from president Nieto of Mexico and Trudeau of Canada. ...

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Cost of living action on oil and food prices, and wage gains by workers, the overall economic expansion and jobs, will play a role in Northampton County, Saginaw County and Hillsborough County, in the states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and New Hampshire. Other counties in Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin affected by the same issues and hurt by the demanufacturing in the US from the Reagan era, the sense of falling behind in places like Bethlehem, Pennsylvania will determine the direction of the US in 2024.

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U.S. job growth slowed in February to just 20,000 jobs in nonfarm sector following strong gains in December and January. The 3 month average is 186,000 jobs created. Unemployment rate dropped to 3.8%. The figures are watched closely as Europe and China are showing slow growth. The European Central Bank said it will not increase interest rates till 2020 and announced fresh stimulus loans. The U.S. Federal Reserve is not expected to raise rates in the next few months. Economic output growth was 0.5% in the first quarter after 3% growth in 2018. Other reports show labor scarcity with wage growth outpacing inflation. 

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Higher inflation and interest rates at 2.2% are having a profound effect on the Japanese economy. Japan is starting a new era of positive interest rates with the first interest rate increase in 17 years this week. Pay raises reached an average of 5.28% in 2023, according to the Japan Trade Union Confederation where the highest for the previous decade was 2.4%. PM Kishida has pursued a course that encourages workers to get needed pay raises. It will affect everything from US mortgages to how much money stays at home and is invested in Japan. Japan holds $4.2 trillion in foreign investment holdings of which $1.1 trillion is in US Treasury bonds. As the differential with US interest rates decreases - varying from 1.5% to 3%- it will increase investment in the Japanese economy and in manufacturing at home. Japan has seen low wages and a hollowing out of its manufacturing sector similar to the US creating a sense of less hope for the future. This shift to investing in Japan is a change for reasons of supply chain reliability and increasing confidence of workers and worker's families in Japan. ...

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Marking the sixth straight month of declines the US consumer price index rose by 6.5% over a year earlier in Dec. 2023. This is down from 7.1% in November and 9.1% in June. The US central bank chairman Jay Powell is resolutely pursuing anti inflation policy. Retail sales, manufacturing output and home sales declined in November. Exports and imports also declined. Prices fell for products such as autos and computers. Job and wage growth slowed. Tackling service inflation is the next challenge for the US Fed and Jay Powell says the WSJ.

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Consumer spending in the US is up for Christmas 2021 with 5.8 million more US jobs in October than a year earlier, with higher wage checks and stimulus checks, child tax credit payments, all boosting spending power. With 231 million Americans vaccinated with at least one shot compared to none Christmas last year more Americans are in stores. Shopping online is up only 7%, in store retail sales up 14%, according to Commerce Department. Passenger traffic on interstate highways is back up to where it was before the pandemic.

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The ECB stands ready to act with the unanimous support of its 25 member governing policy, says Mario Draghi, president of the ECB. Draghi said that "if oil feeds into other prices, that could generate exactly what we want to avoid, namely a spiralling downward phenomenon" for wages and prices. Mark Carney of the Bank of England, says he will see "how things evolve." The U.S. Federal Reserve might slow planned rate increases in 2016, if inflation remains well below the target of 2%, and conditions indicate adverse effect on the economy.

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The effects of climate change that are the biggest issue facing both America and China and the need for cooperation on this vital issue is underscored by the floods in China and the fires in the US and Canada, the heat waves affecting both regions and the rest of the world. Even during the war in Eastern Europe one should never lose sight of the major issues that bind the major population regions of Asia in India and China with Europe and the US, and Africa, Latin America- climate change and food security, development finance and cost of living, helping workers and families in these regions.

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A professor of sociology at the University of Basel describes the growing inequality in Germany, in graphic terms. For the lower middle class the efforts to gain upward mobility are like trying to move up on a downward escalator. About one third of jobs are temp jobs which lack the protections of permanent jobs which were at one time 90% of all jobs. Her book is titled- "The Hidden Crisis; German Social Decline at the Heart of Europe." Nachtwey says on the surface Germany has become competitive and has maintained its growth rate, benefiting from the strong manufacturing sector with trade surpluses, low unemployment. Yet this conceals the underlying crisis of the cost which this has come at- a persistent erosion of the social compact of one elevator where everybody moved up together that was the norm in the early postwar period, fulltime employment, a strong welfare state. Job protections weakened, and while manufacturing sector pay remained stable or rose, less skilled and low wage workers suffered. This has also led to the fracturing in the vote with the fragmentation of political parties following the refugee crisis and the weakening of centrist parties. Voters are now open to different messages after the increase in inequality and uncertain economic future for the lower middle class. ...

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US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer says this is not chaos in tariff policy because you don't change 70 years of policy overnight. He says China's is highest because it has the highest trade deficit, then EU, Japan, South Korea at 15% because of the smaller deficits with these nations, Vietnam because it is used  by China to send products to the US, India because of geopolitical reasons buying Russian oil. See Dasha Burns, Politico White House Bureau Chief's  interview with USTR Jamieson Greer.  He says about India- Jamieson USTR calls India "an outlier" and says "I'm confident we will get a deal with India in the near future." India he says has largely corrected its imports of Russian oil and negotiations are underway for a deal.  ON USMCA Greer says of the $31 trillion in trade with Canada and Mexico $29 trillion is us right. trade between Canda and Mexico is small. So he says it makes sense to negotiate separately with Canada and separately with Mexico. This suggests that there doesnt need to be a USMCA- separate deals are just fine says Greer. Mexico has gained much in automobiles under USMCA- US wants to make more in the US including auto parts which it can do by negotiating this with Mexico. It does not make a ton of economic sense to marry the three economies together, says Greer, as the import export profiles, lab,or situations are all different. Are Tariffs good for the economy and do they lead to higher prices? Greer says inflation was down in the first DJT term in trade with China and tariffs. Greer says there is never a 1 to 1 with tariffs. It tariffs become a kind of leveage in getting agreements. That is the style of these tariffs. You tell Ecuador or Brazil we don't make these here so there will be no tariffs on bananas and on coffee. Says Greer- we have seen inflation in check, imported goods relatively low priced. We have seen that we can have growth and higher wages with tariffs at the same time. The growth in 2025 third quarter at 3.8% annual growth, and Atlanta Fed predicting 4.2% growth in 2026. And tariff money can be used for paying down the debt and financing America's reindustrialization, Greer says members of Congress are asking about this.When a new administration comes tariffs will still be part of the playbook. ...

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Japan is still very cautious about nuclear power after the meltdowns at Japanese nuclear reactors in Fukushima. A decade after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami hit the nuclear reactors only 9 reactors are operating compared to 54  earlier. In Germany the final reactor is set to be retired in 2022. From Wales to South Korea and the US planning has stopped after Fukushima.

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A Tax Policy Center study (joint project of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Insitute) shows $157 billion would be generated in the first year from an increase in taxes on the top 1% of income earners in the U.S., about 1.13 million households earning average $2.1 million, by increasing the federal tax rate from current 33.4% for this group to 40%. This could pay for a program to provide tution free education in America's colleges and universities. Even increasing the federal tax to 40% on the 115,000 households earning over $9.4 million on average, the top 0.1% of American households, would generate $55 billion in the first year, enough to pay for the $47 billion cost of tution free education at all of America's public colleges and universities, according to the Tax Policy Center. Economists including Stiglitz and others, point to significant impact of revenue generated from such a tax when applied to improving educational opportunity for the middle class and lower income groups. Education is a great leveler of income disparities as seen in the U.S. after World War II. During recent decades the highest income groups weren major beneficiaries of tax and economic policy, at the very time the middle class and factory workers were hit hard by global competition which lowered wages and exported jobs. The interest rate policies of the Fed after boom bust cycles also favored large investors in equity markets over smaller income earners with savings account deposits, whose savings experienced little growth under interest rates close to zero. ...