President Trump, do yourself a favor. Stop attacking the Federal Reserve and its chairman, Jerome H. Powell (yes, the same Powell you nominated). The result would be better for you, better for Powell and — most important — better for the country.
Unfortunately, Trump can’t seem to restrain himself.
“I will tell you, at this moment in time I am not at all happy with the Fed. . . . They’re making a mistake because . . . my gut tells me more sometimes than anyone else’s brain can ever tell me. . . . I’m not even a little bit happy with my selection of Jay. Not even a little bit.”
.. Until recently, there seemed to be a crude consensus among economists that the Fed should continue its gradual increases in interest rates to preempt higher inflation. The economy seems strong enough to tolerate tighter credit.
The unemployment rate of 3.7 percent is the lowest since the 1960s; inflation is around 2 percent; consumer confidence is high.
But the consensus may be fraying. There are signs of weakness.
- The stock market has fallen;
- housing sales and prices have softened;
- the trade war between the United States and China remains unresolved
.. On Nov. 26, the paper ran an op-ed by
- Harvard economist Martin Feldstein, a chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Ronald Reagan, urging the Fed to raise rates. The next day, the Journal ran an op-ed by
- Harvard economist Jason Furman, chairman of the CEA under President Barack Obama, counseling delay.
.. One danger for Trump is that the Fed, seeking to prove its “independence,” will deliberately oppose what the president prefers.
.. One danger for Trump is that the Fed, seeking to prove its “independence,” will deliberately oppose what the president prefers.
.. “President Trump has gone completely off the rails with his criticism of Fed Chair Powell,” says economist Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics. He “is using the Fed as a scapegoat for anything that goes wrong in the stock market and the economy.”
In Trump’s defense, he is not the first president to try to control the Fed and corrupt its independence.
- Lyndon B. Johnson lambasted then-Fed Chairman William McChesney Martin in the mid-1960s for raising interest rates against his wishes.
- Richard M. Nixon pressured Arthur F. Burns, Martin’s successor, to keep rates low. Likewise, President
- Harry S. Truman pushed the Fed to maintain easy money and credit.
.. But these and other cases occurred mainly behind closed doors. Trump’s brash innovation has been to take his complaints public; the apparent aim is to intimidate the Fed into doing his bidding. If the Fed resists, Trump might propose legislation curbing its powers. That would signal a real state of war between Trump and the Fed, with what consequences for financial markets and the economy, it’s hard to know.
.. It’s also true that attacking the Fed has long been standard operating procedure for members of Congress of both parties.
“Congress depends on the Fed both to steer the economy and absorb public blame when the economy falters,” write Binder and Spindel. A lot of this criticism is political theater, designed to impress voters but not to do much else. What’s not familiar is for the president to be leading the charge.
The Real Reason for Trump’s Steel and Aluminum Tariffs
The Trump administration’s proposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports will target China, but not the way most observers believe. For the US, the most important bilateral trade issue has nothing to do with the Chinese authorities’ failure to reduce excess steel capacity, as promised, and stop subsidizing exports. .. Trump no doubt sees potential political gains in steel- and aluminum-producing districts and in increasing the pressure on Canada and Mexico as his administration renegotiates the North American Free Trade Agreement. The European Union has announced plans to retaliate against US exports, but in the end the EU may negotiate – and agree to reduce current tariffs on US products that exceed US tariffs on European products.
.. But the real target of the steel and aluminum tariffs is China. The Chinese government has promised for years to reduce excess steel capacity, thereby cutting the surplus output that is sold to the United States at subsidized prices. Chinese policymakers have postponed doing so as a result of domestic pressure to protect China’s own steel and aluminum jobs.
.. Because the tariffs are being levied under a provision of US trade law that applies to national security, rather than dumping or import surges, it will be possible to exempt imports from military allies in NATO, as well as Japan and South Korea, focusing the tariffs on China and avoiding the risk of a broader trade war.
.. For the US, the most important trade issue with China concerns technology transfers, not Chinese exports of subsidized steel and aluminum.
.. Until a few years ago, the Chinese government was using the Peoples Liberation Army’s (PLA) sophisticated cyber skills to infiltrate American companies and steal technology.
.. Xi then agreed that the Chinese government would no longer use the PLA or other government agencies to steal US technology.
.. The current technology theft takes a different form. American firms that want to do business in China are often required to transfer their technology to Chinese firms as a condition of market entry.
These firms “voluntarily” transfer production knowhow because they want access to a market of 1.3 billion people and an economy as large as that of the US.
These firms complain that the requirement of technology transfer is a form of extortion. Moreover, they worry that the Chinese government often delays their market access long enough for domestic firms to use their newly acquired technology to gain market share.
.. The US cannot use traditional remedies for trade disputes or World Trade Organization procedures to stop China’s behavior. Nor can the US threaten to take Chinese technology or require Chinese firms to transfer it to American firms, because the Chinese do not have the kind of leading-edge technology that US firms have.
.. US negotiators will use the threat of imposing the tariffs on Chinese producers as a way to persuade China’s government to abandon the policy of “voluntary” technology transfers.
Corporate Tax Reform Is the Key to Growth
It could increase the U.S. capital stock by $5 trillion and cause a $500 billion rise in annual income.
The debate over tax reform is focusing on all the wrong things: the personal rates and the deduction for state and local taxes. What will truly matter for the economy is corporate tax reform, which will lead to a major increase in capital spending by companies. That in turn will raise productivity and real wages.
These gains start small but will grow year after year as capital flows to corporate investment in the U.S. from the rest of the world and from other parts of the U.S. economy... Since GDP is projected to be $30 trillion in 2027, a $500 billion increase represents a gain of 1.7%, or just 0.17% per year over the decade... Cutting the corporate rate to 20% would raise retained earnings by about $2 trillion over 10 years... The lower tax rate will also induce foreign companies to shift some of their production to America. And capital within the U.S. will move from low-productivity uses in agriculture and housing to corporate investments.. It is troubling that America’s ratio of debt to GDP has more than doubled in the past 10 years and is projected to increase from 77% today to 91% in a decade.. An extra $1.5 trillion of debt will raise that ratio to 96%. But I believe the advantages of the corporate tax reform outweigh the adverse effects of the relatively small debt increase... The debt-to-GDP ratio, which was 35% as recently as 2007
The Shocking Math of the Republican Tax Plan
The report shows that this bill is much like a teaser rate on a new credit card: there are some goodies in the first couple of years, but those disappear fairly quickly, at least for those below the median income.
In 2019, the first full year that this bill would be law, the benefits are concentrated on the bottom of the income stream, with middle-class people, on average, paying just under ten per cent less in taxes than they would if the law weren’t passed. With each passing year the benefits shift upward, toward the rich.
By 2021, those making between twenty thousand and thirty thousand dollars a year are paying considerably more in taxes, those between thirty thousand and two hundred thousand see their benefit shrinking, and those making more start to see their taxes falling.
By 2027, every income level below seventy-five thousand dollars a year sees a tax increase, while everybody above that level sees a continued decrease, with the greatest cut in taxes accruing to those making more than a million dollars a year.
.. the effective tax rate—meaning the percentage that people, on average, actually pay after they take all deductions—changes in a precisely regressive form. The poorer you are, the higher your effective rate will rise. By 2027, only those making a hundred thousand a year or more will see an actual cut in their effective tax rate.
.. Feldstein is, arguably, the single most widely respected Republican-leaning scholar of tax policy, and one of the few academics who came out in favor of the bill
.. He argues that cutting individual tax rates won’t increase economic growth and will add to the deficit—which, he acknowledges, is a bad thing. But he’s so excited about the corporate tax-rate cut that he thinks the bill should pass nonetheless.
.. Its most respected defender acknowledges that three-quarters of the benefit are a wasted, harmful gift for the rich, but a quarter of the benefit goes to corporations, and we must assume they will spend it wisely.