Why Trump Is So Clumsy About Fighting ‘Free Trade’

[tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” google_fonts=”font_family:Poppins%3A300%2Cregular%2C500%2C600%2C700″ font_weight=”600″ text=”President Trump announced last week that he plans to impose 25 percent tariffs on imported steel and 10 percent on imported aluminum.” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:25″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”It’s important to note that any policy pronouncement from this president is done within the paradigm of a real estate wheeler-dealer who sees deals of any kind as a zero-sum game. I win, and you lose; there is no such thing as a good trade deal that works as a win-win for both sides.”][tm_spacer size=”lg:63″]
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[tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Use psychological pricing methods.” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”Expressing the opposite view is Paul Krugman, who writes, “Trade isn’t a zero-sum game: it raises the productivity and wealth of the world economy.” And the corollary also applies as well: any action taken to disrupt the free flow of goods between countries is likely to provoke a counter-reaction, the result being a trade war in which every country loses out”][tm_spacer size=”xs:30;lg:35″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”The two “sacred tenets,” free trade and comparative advantage, are inextricably linked. After all, a “comparative advantage” begets the question, compared to what? We export goods to other nations when we can do that relatively better than they can and likewise import goods or services that we have a comparative disadvantage in producing.”]
[tm_spacer size=”xs:30;lg:52″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”So tropical fruit is exported from, say, Mexico or Chile, rather than from Canada. And Australia’s abundance of natural resources explains why it has become a mining superpower. Of course, this classical model of trade and comparative advantage breaks down somewhat in an ultra-globalized world in which capital accounts have been largely liberalized “][tm_spacer size=”xs:30;lg:68”]
[tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Demonstrate the differences” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”Technology and labor skills can also be altered by national development strategies of the kind exemplified by the countries of Asia (South Korea being a prime example), as Robert Wade illustrated in his seminal work。”][tm_spacer size=”sm:30;lg:68″][tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Offer a money-back guarantee” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”The bottom line is that it is a mistake for a country simply to follow an idealized playbook from an economics textbook on free trade/comparative advantage, and allow itself to be out-gamed via strategic trade policy/national development decisions taken elsewhere—particularly when the economy is not operating at full employment, which is key to optimizing the benefits of free trade.”][tm_spacer size=”sm:30;lg:68″][tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Test your offer and price, and be creative.” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”It’s all very well to argue that cheaper imported goods are benefits, but it is hard to consume those benefits when one is unemployed against a backdrop of rusting unused factories that have been shuttered, and where the jobs have been sent to Mexico.”]
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Mutual Funds Cut Uber Valuation by as Much as 15%

[tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”The Wall Street Journal reported that Vanguard, Principal, and Hartford Funds cut the value of their shares by 15% as of June 30. T. Rowe Price lowered its Uber share price by 12%. Fidelity maintained its price and peculiarly, Blackrock increased its price to $53.88.” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:25″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”Some major investors are finally feeling compelled to apply the scratch and dent markdown to Uber shares. Seven mutual funds own Uber shares, and more than half cut their price from the $48.77 per share price at which they’d held them since the fourth quarter of 2015, the last time Uber raised money.”][tm_spacer size=”lg:63″]
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[tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Use psychological pricing methods.” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”Having high profile investors repudiate the valuations that venture capitalists are touting is proof that the myth of Uber’s inevitable dominance of the ride sharing business, and that that would someone lead to ginormous profits is finally getting long-overdue scrutiny. Mind you, these investors can afford to cut their valuations because they got at lower prices, some at $15.51 a share.”][tm_spacer size=”xs:30;lg:35″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”Needless to say, the fact that sophisticated investors are already haircutting Uber’s shares is going to put a dent in its fundraising efforts. The Journal repeated the Uber party line about its fundraising effort with SoftBank.
A negotiation of what is a simple sale of existing shares (as in the terms are already set) does not take months to negotiate. The longer talks like this go on, the less likely anything is to get done in the absence of a big development.”]
[tm_spacer size=”xs:30;lg:52″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”Yet other outlets that picked up on the story that Bloomberg broke on July 25 took up Uber’s spin, with no evidence of any input from SoftBank to justify the pro-Uber hype. The Journal’s account, following close on the heels of the Bloomberg story, and based on only US sources, was headlined SoftBank Seeks Multibillion-Dollar Stake in Uber.”][tm_spacer size=”xs:30;lg:68″]
[tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Demonstrate the differences” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”On August 7, the Journal headline was, “SoftBank Chief Says He Wants Stake in Uber or Lyft.” And what did CEO Masayoshi Son say at a press conference? ““We are interested in discussing with Uber. We are also interested in discussing with Lyft.” That is not the normal Japanese locution for negotiations that are underway. That is basically saying SoftBank was prepared to receive an approach.”][tm_spacer size=”sm:30;lg:68″][tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Offer a money-back guarantee” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”Moreover, Son said his interest is self-driving car technology. If he or his due-diligence team were to take a hard look, they would presumably figure out that Google is suing Uber for stealing its key self-driving car technology, and without that, Uber doesn’t have much of value here.”][tm_spacer size=”sm:30;lg:68″][tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Test your offer and price, and be creative.” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”Since then, the reports from the Uber side as to where SoftBank stands have kept shifting, to the degree that it looks like Benchmark and its allies can’t keep their story straight. On August 14, the New York Times reported that Uber was taking the “next step” to “move forward” with a supposed proposal from SoftBank to invest in Uber. “]
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The Retirement Wealth Inequality Machine

[tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”One of the big activity and I hate to use the word, talent drains is the amount of time and energy devoted to the secondary trading of securities, which does absolutely nothing to support growth.” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:25″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”It’s asset-shuffling which does not send terribly good signals as to the pricing of capital assets (and in any event, research has repeatedly found that business managers generally assign overly high return targets for projects, leading to chronic underinvestment, particularly in projects with back-ended payoffs).”][tm_spacer size=”lg:63″]
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[tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Use psychological pricing methods.” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”To put this another way, one person’s financial asset is another person’s financial liability. And as Micheal Hudson has repeatedly pointed out, expecting debt, and by extension, other financial assets to earn above inflation returns simply leads to period busts.”][tm_spacer size=”xs:30;lg:35″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”The best way to provide for retirement is to look to MMT-based solutions. The currency issuer can create new spending with the constraint being generating too much inflation. Having the national government play a bigger role in retirement funding also aligns incentives better, since the powers that be would have incentives to find ways to make sure that employers didn’t discriminate against older workers”]
[tm_spacer size=”xs:30;lg:52″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”Most older workers have increasingly fewer retirement options, forcing the elderly to continue to work under arduous conditions to earn income. At the same time, employers are less likely to hire elderly workers. The retirement wealth inequality machine has churned out the specter of isolation, malnutrition, and poverty for retirement age workers.”][tm_spacer size=”xs:30;lg:68″]
[tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Demonstrate the differences” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”More asset-shuffling through public-private partnerships will not solve the moral catastrophe of short-termerism and greed that prevents enterprises from investing in the human timeframe of a lifespan, that might support a proper social safety net.”][tm_spacer size=”sm:30;lg:68″][tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Offer a money-back guarantee” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”A sane government which had the interests of all citizens at heart would impose a confiscatory tax system on asset shufflers and short term greed. This is the opposite of the policies of our political class, who prefer voter suppression to the sort of democracy that would find the impoverishment of our elders intolerable.”][tm_spacer size=”sm:30;lg:68″][tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Test your offer and price, and be creative.” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”Thus, how such programs are set up and administered is likely to merely expand financial asset management fees while collecting taxes and penalties to boost the treasury – with little improvement in retirement outcomes.”]
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