multinationals

Trump's Third Day

On Trump’s third day Trump is one up on the Establishment.  Can this last?  I am not a Trump booster.  I am a scorekeeper.

On the third day of his presidency Donald Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the United States from the Trans-Pacificic Partnership (TPP).  Based on this we must assume he will also deep-six the Trans-Atlantic Partnership.

Trump and his advisors regard the Pacific and Atlantic partnerships as trade deals like NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement that sent American jobs to Mexico at the expense of Americans.

The Trade Deficit is a Political Deficit

shipping containersPeople talk a great deal about free trade. But for better or for worse the real world that we live in is more a mercantilist world than it is a free markets and free trade world. And in this mercantilist world there is a fundamental divergence between the goal of our corporations, which is to maximize profit, and the goal of rebuilding manufacturing here in the United States.

Why the Rich Love High Unemployment

Originally published in Truth Out


The headquarters of JPMorgan Chase in New York. A JPMorgan research report concludes that the current corporate profit recovery is more dependent on falling unit-labor costs than during any previous expansion.  (Photo: Jessica Ebelhar / The New York Times)

Christina Romer, former member of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisors, accuses the administration of "shamefully ignoring" the unemployed. Paul Krugman echoes her concerns, observing that Washington has lost interest in "the forgotten millions." America's unemployed have been ignored and forgotten, but they are far from superfluous. Over the last two years, out-of-work Americans have played a critical role in helping the richest one percent recover trillions in financial wealth.

Obama's advisers often congratulate themselves for avoiding another Great Depression - an assertion not amenable to serious analysis or debate. A better way to evaluate their claims is to compare the US economy to other rich countries over the last few years. 

On the basis of sustaining economic growth, the United States is doing better than nearly all advanced economies. From the first quarter of 2008 to the end of 2010, US gross domestic product (GDP) growth outperformed every G-7 country except Canada.

But when it comes to jobs, US policymakers fall short of their rosy self-evaluations. Despite the second-highest economic growth, Paul Wiseman of the Associated Press (AP) reports:

The U.S. job market remains the group's weakest. U.S. employment bottomed and started growing again a year ago, but there are still 5.4 percent fewer American jobs than in December 2007. That's a much sharper drop than in any other G-7 country.

$2.5 Trillion in Sales, Uncle Sam Gets Zero

Corporations. $2.5 trillion in sales. Tax liability, zero

brought to you by your tax code at work

Sounds like a slogan to do business in the US doesn't it? Yet assuredly that is not what is happening when corporations line up like the Oklahoma land rush to move to China and India.

Oklahoma Land Rush 1889

Yet, maybe that multinational corporate land rush has something to do with these results?

The Government General Accountability Office just released a report on how many large corporations do not pay taxes yet have strong sales. AP sums it up: