TRUMP, JOHNSON, TRADE DEALS

Trump says that China is going to buy more goods from the USA.

Skepticism is growing over China's capacity to buy U.S. products, reported the South China Morning Post

"Much of the skepticism of trade purchases by China is from their repeated statements on how import purchases from the deal will be based on market conditions.

zerohedge@zerohedge

China to Expand Imports From U.S. Based on Market Demand

So the entire trade deal is meaningless

Market conditions?
In China, growth slumped to three-decade lows in 2019.

Andrei Agapi, of S&P, says that if "China says it's down to market conditions, then the U.S. will have to be competitive. 

"And the reality is that the U.S. is not competitive by a long shot already, and it hasn't been before either."

Brazilian soya beans are cheaper than US soya beans.

China has been diversifying farm purchases away from the U.S. towards Brazil and Argentina.

Agapi said China has already purchased 50% of its soybean demand for the year from Latin America.

"Demand this year will be lower because the African swine fever wiped out at least half of the country's pig herd."

 Nissan, in the UK.

"Nissan, which employs almost 8,000 people directly in Sunderland, in the UK, has said that a no-deal Brexit will make its UK operation unviable."

Many in the north backed Brexit. They will soon begin to feel ...

In the North and Midlands, of the UK, the mines, shipbuilding and other heavy industries were dismantled under the Thatcher Conservative government in the 1980s.

Recent Conservative governments have applied severe spending cuts in the North and Midlands, and, have abolished regional development agencies.

Hundreds of jobs in the North East could be affected by the decision of automotive giant Honda to close its plant in Swindon, with the loss of more than 3,000 jobs. A number of North East firms are suppliers to Honda, and the news of the plant’s closure is another blow to the region’s automotive sector, coming just two weeks after Nissan cancelled production of its X-Trail model at its Sunderland plant.

EU structural funds have invested billions in Britain's regions to encourage economic revival.

So, "the most severe economic threat to the north is Brexit itself."

Many in the north backed Brexit. They will soon begin to feel ...

In the north-east, the region's CBI, Chamber of Commerce, Federation of Small Businesses, Entrepreneurs' Forum, Northern TUC, local authorities and its four universities signed up to a call for continued access to the single market.

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TRUMP'S DISASTROUS ECONOMY

Stiglitz

Trump's economy is an absolute disaster according to Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz  of Columbia University.

According to Stiglitz -

1. US life expectancy, already relatively low, fell in each of the first two years of Trump’s presidency.

In 2017, midlife mortality reached its highest rate since World War II.

Millions have lost their health insurance coverage, and the uninsured rate has risen, in just two years, from 10.9% to 13.7%.

Deaths from alcohol and drug overdoses, and suicide have fast increased.

Trump gutting of regulations means that the air will be less breathable and the water less drinkable.

2. Trump's 2017 tax changes will result in tax increases for most households.



3. There was no significant change in US household’s disposable income between 2017 and 2018 (The most recent year with good data). 

The median wage of a full-time male worker (and those with full-time jobs are the lucky ones) is still more than 3% below what it was 40 years ago. 

4. There are record peacetime deficits (almost $1 trillion in 2019). 

The US had to borrow massively abroad: the most recent data show foreign borrowing at nearly $500 billion a year, with an increase of more than 10% in America’s net indebtedness position in one year alone.



5. Trump’s trade wars have not reduced the US trade deficit, which was one-quarter higher in 2018 than it was in 2016. 

The 2018 goods deficit was the largest on record. 

Even the deficit in trade with China was up almost a quarter from 2016.



6. Despite Trump’s promises to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US, the increase in manufacturing employment is still lower than it was under Barack Obama, once the post-2008 recovery set in.

Manufacturing employment is still markedly below its pre-crisis level. 

The employment rate for working-age males and females has increased less than during the Obama recovery, and is still significantly below that of other developed countries. 

The pace of job creation is also markedly slower than it was under Obama.

Many adult Americans are not counted as 'unemployed', even though they are unemployed.

7. Judging by GDP, the Trump economy falls short.

Last quarter’s growth was just 2.1%, far less than the 4%, 5%, or even 6% Trump promised to deliver, and even less than the 2.4% average of Obama’s second term. 

RISING INEQUALITY REDUCES GROWTH - THINKTANK

It's time to increase taxes on the rich

"The west's leading economic thinktank", the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has produced a report on inequality.

The report says that rising inequality causes lower growth in an economy.

Rising inequality is estimated to have reduced growth by:

More than 10% in Mexico and New Zealand.

Nearly 9% in the UK, Finland and Norway.

Between 6% and 7% in the United States, Italy and Sweden.

It has been revealed that the wealth gap holds back economic growth.

OECD secretary-general Angel Gurría

The report shows that the UK economy would have been more than 20% bigger had the gap between rich and poor not widened since the 1980s.

The OECD proposes higher taxes on the rich and policies aimed at increasing the wealth of the bottom 40% of the population.

Reagan and Thatcher supported 'trickle-down economics', the crazy idea that ordinary people would benefit from weakening trade unions and making bankers richer.

The OECD report shows that:

1. "Income inequality has a sizeable and ... negative impact on growth."

2. "Inequality ... hampers growth."

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THE ECONOMY IS NOT IMPROVING

Total world debt, excluding the financial sector, rose from 180% of global output in 2008 to 212% in 2013.

Currently there is low economic growth.

"Contrary to widely held beliefs, the world has not yet begun to deliver."

"There is a high likelihood of either a prolonged period of very low growth or even another global crisis."

This is according to the sixteenth annual Geneva report, published by the Centre for Economic Policy Research, a United Kingdom-based think tank. 

The report is written by a group of senior economists including three former senior central bankers.

www.demos.org

There is $158.8 trillion in global debt.

In 2013 global GDP was $74.909 trillion.

"Output growth in advanced economies has been declining for decades."

~~~

The problem in the USA is that:

1. The government spends too much on wars and the military. 

2. The rich do not pay enough in taxes to cover the cost of the wars and guns.

3. The 'poor' do not have the money to buy lots of goods in the shops.

The problem outside the USA is that whenever a country starts to make good economic progress it is undermined by the CIA and its friends.

The CIA's Arab Spring has wrecked the economies of countries such as Tunisia.

The CIA's coup in Ukraine has damaged the economies of Russia and Europe.

The CIA's stirring up of trouble in such places as Xinjiang has damaged China.

The CIA's attack on Mumbai damaged India.