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Trade Fact of the Week: The Port of Baltimore handles 10% of U.S. vehicle trade and 94% of Ethiopian birdseed imports.

Posted on by Max Sherrill

FACT: The Port of Baltimore handles 10% of U.S. vehicle trade and 94% of Ethiopian birdseed imports.

THE NUMBERS: Arrivals of Ethiopian “noug” imports, 2023 –
Port of Baltimore: 7,095 tons
Port of New York:    429 tons
All other:        6 tons

 

WHAT THEY MEAN:

Last week’s destruction of the Key Bridge over the Patapsco River, after the 300-meter container ship Dali lost power and collapsed the main pier, closes the Port of Baltimore except for a temporary channel allowing barges and tugboats to enter and leave. The accident’s direct impact on the city’s economy will pretty certainly be its most important economic effect, and the loss of six construction workers’ lives its central human impact. The event also, though, is a bit of a stress test for American “supply chain resilience,” given Baltimore’s place as a large and especially versatile seaport. Some data, and a small-scale illustration of the way these events can touch people close to home and very far away:

America’s annual maritime commerce flows total, per NOAA, 2.3 billion tons of cargo and a symmetrical $2.3 trillion worth of trade. These big numbers, equivalent to about 8% of GDP and 43% of all U.S. trade flows, are distributed across 208 American ports handling over 250,000 tons of cargo a year. (With some left over for another 100 or so smaller border-crossings.) Baltimore’s 308-year-old port ranks in the top 25 on three different metrics — total cargo flow, dry bulk, and container transits — and handles about 2500 ship calls a year, with 50 million tons of cargo valued at $80 billion. Its particular specialization is automotive trade, with 750,000 annual incoming and outbound vehicles, but like other big ports it manages a very wide spectrum of consumer goods, natural resources, farm products, and more.  As the wrecked Dali continues to block most ship transits, groups accordingly reworking their logistical arrangements range from manufacturers of half the 10,000 tractors Americans sell to Australian farmers and miners each year; to executives in electronics and automotive plants using the port for half of the U.S.’ 10,300 tons of matte cobalt arriving from Norway, Japan, and Madagascar annually; and on to garden-shop operators buying seed for nesting bluebirds and goldfinches this spring. A bit more on this last:

The relevant seed — known as Guizotia abyssinica to botanists, “noug” to Ethiopian farmers, and “niger seed” or the trademarked “Nyjer” for garden supply stores — is a small, thin black seed produced by a bright yellow flowering plant.  Native like coffee to upland Ethiopia, noug has been harvested on the plateau for millennia as a source of cooking oil, with “a nutty flavor and pleasant odour and outraking sesame as Ethiopia’s most widely cultivated oilseed.  About 800,000 upland farmers in Amhara and Oromia grow and harvest 300,000 tons each year.  Biologically, its small size and high oil content make it attractive to popular and brightly colored U.S. songbirds such as the goldfinches and indigo bunting (reasonably but not precisely considered a bluebird*), millions of which will fly in from their winter homes in Mexico and the Caribbean for nesting this week. Hoping to attract them to backyard feeders, American bird enthusiasts purchase about 15,000 tons of noug from garden-shop operators for the past two decades. An Addis Ababa correspondent explains:

“Ethiopia uses the Niger seed for oil extraction for human consumption/cooking oil.  A few years back some traders from Singapore, USA and Europe discovered the availability of this product and started to buy from Ethiopian exporters and ship it to the USA buyers.  These USA buyers are major traders, by number not more than eleven.  They have become the target for whomever wants to sell the Niger seed…  We hear that Niger seed goes to the USA market for bird feed, which really amazes us because we know the product as for human consumption only.”

Exporting firms in Addis Ababa buy it from farmers in the field, sterilize and bag the seeds in 50-kilo sacks, and carry the sacks by truck or (since 2018) by rail to the Djibouti port — Baltimore’s partner in noug trade and the busiest Horn of Africa port. Last year’s exports earned Ethiopia $9.4 million. About 40% of each year’s annual shipments arrive in April and May, and about 94% of it — 7,095 of 7,530 tons last year — crosses Baltimore’s dry bulk dock.  Shippers and garden shops are presumably looking hard for new paths, with their success — like that of their counterparts in autos, electronics industries, coal, metals, and more — one small test of the American economy’s flexibility and “resilience,” as well as something important in its own right for the livelihoods of East African farmers and this spring’s bluebird nesting.

* Ornithologically, the eastern U.S. is home to two bright-blue birds, the indigo bunting and the “bluebird” per se. Male buntings are blue all over and females a more modest brown; among bluebirds, both males and females are blue (though females are more grayish-blue), with a brownish breast. Current population counts estimate about 75 million buntings and 23 million bluebirds.

FURTHER READING

Ports:

The Port of Baltimore.

… Mayor Scott updates Baltimoreans.

NOAA summarizes U.S. port stats.

The Department of Transportation looks at 2024 U.S. port performance.

… focuses in on Port of Baltimore.

… and outlines what’s next in Bipartisan Infrastructure Act port investment.

Wreck:

Ship tracker “Vesselfinder” has basics – size, deadweight tonnage, previous port calls – on the Dali.

Auto industry execs predict that they can manage the port closure without too much trouble.

Noug and Buntings:

The Ethiopian Pulses, Oilseeds, and Spices Processors Exporters Association pitches Ethiopian specialty produce exports.

USDA on the Ethiopian oilseed economy.

Oregon State University explains Ethiopia’s status as one of the world’s eight “Vavilov Centers”, with especially diverse crops.

NIH evaluates noug and its nutritional benefit.

The Audubon Society explains its appeal to birds.

… and updates you on the relatively healthy indigo bunting population.

And the Port Authority of Djibouti, including a look at the 2018 opening of a rail link to Addis financed by the Djibouti and Ethiopian governments and the Chinese Ex-Im Bank.

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

Read the full email and sign up for the Trade Fact of the Week.

Lewis for The Well News: A Camel’s Nose Under the Tent for Cigarettes

Posted on by Max Sherrill

By Lindsay Mark Lewis

Bad policies rely on bad arguments. Rarely has that aphorism been put on clearer display than in Vermont, a state where advocates for banning flavored nicotine products claim their aim is to protect members of the LGBTQIA community disproportionally drawn to menthol nicotine products.

But just ask yourself: Does that make sense? How often in history have those claiming to care for a community frequently subject to discrimination and prejudice demonstrated that concern by banning products that community is more inclined to purchase?

Perhaps there’s something else going on.

Here’s the real story. Today, many flavored nicotine products — including pouches and vapes — have shown to be significantly healthier alternatives to smoking. And so their introduction to a market of consumers is meant primarily to be a less carcinogenic alternative to cigarettes.

And that’s the key: Nicotine, while addictive, is not responsible for lung cancer, emphysema and other diseases brought on by smoking. It’s the inhalation of toxic smoke and its byproducts — namely tar and other chemicals — that pose the most serious dangers to human health.

Keep reading in The Well News.

Pankovits for Community Conversations with NACSA: A Story of Innovation & Partnership

Posted on by Max Sherrill

Tressa Pankovits, Co-Director of Reinventing America’s Schools Project at the Progressive Policy Institute, Priscila Dilley, Senior Officer at the Leadership Academy Network, and Dr. David Saenz, Chief of Strategic Initiatives and Partnerships at Fort Worth ISD come  together to tell a unique and powerful story.  The partnership between Leadership Academy Network, Fort Worth Independent School District, and Texas Wesleyan University epitomizes using the principles and practices of charter school authorizing to rethink improving public education more broadly.

Trade Fact of the Week: Trump campaign proposes the highest U.S. tariff since 1937.

Posted on by Max Sherrill

FACT: Trump campaign proposes the highest U.S. tariff since 1937.

THE NUMBERS: U.S.’ “trade-weighted average tariff”* –
2022 2.8%
2016 1.5%
1990 3.3%
1960 7.2%
1937 15.6%
WHAT THEY MEAN:

The 2024 election’s core questions are more basic than policy choices. Such as: Can a person who has attempted to overthrow a settled election and called for “termination” of unspecified parts of the Constitution live up to an oath to “faithfully execute the office of President of the United States” and “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution”? Or: Does the American public endorse a campaign based, as PPI’s President Will Marshall memorably put it last week, on “slandering America as a chaotic hellscape only he can rule”? But this point made, policy choices still have consequences. So here’s one:

The Trump campaign proposes to create a 10% worldwide tariff and a 60% tariff on Chinese goods, probably through a sort of decree. What should we expect from this? A bit of a historic perspective, then a pretty definite result, a very unlikely rationale, and a worst-case scenario:

Context: Highest Tariff Rate Since the Depression: The U.S. International Trade Commission records U.S. trade-weighted tariff averages — that is, “revenue from tariffs divided by goods import value” — going back 134 years, to 1890 and the administration of Pres. Benjamin Harrison. Their most recent figure, for 2022, has $91 billion in tariff revenue and $3.23 trillion in imports for a 2.8% average. This is about twice the 1.2% to 1.5% range before the Trump administration’s “301” and “232” tariffs, imposed in 2018 and 2019. Earlier rates rise steadily as time flows backward, from 3.3% in 1990 to 7.2% in 1960 and higher further back, to a peak of 19.8% in 1933 as Herbert Hoover left office.  Rates began to decline as the Roosevelt administration cut tariffs through its Reciprocal Trade Agreements program, to averages of 16.8% in 1936 and 15.6% in 1937. Assuming the campaign’s 10% is (a) added on top of the existing tariff system rather than replacing it, and (b) that its 60% China tariff wouldn’t entirely wipe out U.S.-China trade but leave some continuing under very high taxation, the resulting rate would likely be somewhere around 15%. This would be the highest rate since sometime in the late 1930s.

1. Will Happen: Shift of Taxation Toward Goods-Buyers: One result is very clear. Tariffs are taxes on physical goods brought in from overseas and collected at the border. Tariff-payers are American companies and individuals who buy them. This means a U.S. tax system that relies more heavily on tariffs — in particular if, as campaign literature has suggested, they are used to “offset” revenue losses from lower taxes on corporate and individual incomes — would shift some of the tax burdens. Industries that earn money through financial transactions (e.g. real estate, law firms, financial services) would pay less, while families shopping for goods and businesses that buy and sell goods or use them to make things (e.g. retailers, manufacturers, restaurants, building contractors, repair shops, and farmers) would pay more. This latter effect is magnified, since tariffs generally enable competing local producers to raise their own prices as well.

2. Not Likely to Happen: Policy Rationale Unsupported by Experience: What is the purpose?  Essays by former Trump trade officials Peter Navarro in the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” policy book in 2023 and Robert Lighthizer in the Economist this past February, assert that higher tariffs would do two things: first, raise manufacturing output and employment, and second, reduce U.S. trade deficits. Both individuals argued for Trump’s 2018 tariffs on the same grounds.  Their hopes did not materialize. To the contrary, with these policies in place manufacturing shrank as a share of GDP, factory employment growth slowed, and trade deficits grew sharply. Here are some data:

a. U.S. manufacturing sector share of GDP: Manufacturing, having been 10.9% of U.S. GDP in 2018, was down to 10.3% in 2021 and likely 10.2% in 2023 pending a final determination by the Bureau of Economic Analysis later this year.

b. U.S. manufacturing employment:  Manufacturing job growth averaged 103,000 net new jobs per year in the last five years of the Obama administration, and about half that — 54,000 per year — in the five years since 2018.  Note of course a large upheaval in 2020-21 during the Covid pandemic and recovery — a big employment drop in 2020, a big jump in 2021 — so the post-2018 average has some question marks around it.

c. Trade balance: The overall U.S. goods/services trade balance was $479 billion in deficit in 2016.  This deficit rose steadily throughout the Trump administration (again with a temporary downturn during the COVID pandemic) to $842 billion in 2021 and $951 billion in 2022 before dropping last year to $773 billion. The manufacturing deficit specifically rose from $0.65 trillion in 2016 to $1.1 trillion in 2022, then $1.05 trillion last year.

3. And a worst-case scenario: In sum, the proposal is to restore late Depression-era trade policy, and shift some taxation away from financialized sectors and upper-income services industries to households and goods-producing or goods-using sectors, in the probably unrealistic hope this would push investment and hiring into manufacturing. To speculate about likely economy-wide results:

Depression-like trade policies need not bring Depression-type outcomes. Modern economic historians tend to view 1930s tariffs as making the Depression somewhat deeper and longer, but root its main causes in other ill-starred ideas: central bank passivity in crisis, refusal to rescue failing banks and lack of deposit insurance, unambitious fiscal policy in the early years, international currency conflicts amplified by the gold standard. With this as a guide, a UK-post-Brexit-like result, with somewhat slower growth and somewhat higher inflation, may be the most likely “macro” outcome of a big tariff increase.  Those interested in really dire forecasts, though, can turn to a very well-placed observer on the spot in 1936. Here’s then-President Roosevelt at the “Inter-American Conference on the Maintenance of Peace” in Buenos Aires, reminding us that even if policy choices are not this November’s core questions, they can still matter a lot:

“[T]he welfare and prosperity of each of our Nations depend in large part on the benefits derived from commerce among ourselves and with other Nations, for our present civilization rests on the basis of an international exchange of commodities. Every Nation of the world has felt the evil effects of recent efforts to erect trade barriers of every known kind. Every individual citizen has suffered from them. It is no accident that the Nations which have carried this process farthest are those which proclaim most loudly that they require war as an instrument of their policy. It is no accident that attempts to be self-sufficient have led to failing standards for their people and to ever-increasing loss of the democratic ideals in a mad race to pile armament on armament. It is no accident that, because of these suicidal policies and the suffering attending them, many of their people have come to believe with despair that the price of war seems less than the price of peace.

“This state of affairs we must refuse to accept with every instinct of defense, with every exhortation of enthusiastic hope, with every use of mind and skill.  I cannot refrain here from reiterating my gratification that in this, as in so many other achievements, the American Republics have given a salutary example to the world. The resolution adopted at the Inter-American Conference at Montevideo endorsing the principles of liberal trade policies has shone forth like a beacon in the storm of economic madness which has been sweeping over the entire world during these later years. Truly, if the principles there embodied find still wider application in your deliberations, it will be a notable contribution to the cause of peace.”

FURTHER READING

The U.S. International Trade Commission’s record of U.S. imports, revenue, tariff rates (more precisely, “ad valorem equivalent” rates), etc. from 1890-2022.

Trump campaign tariff primary sources:

Navarro in Heritage’s “Project 2025” (Chapter 26).

Lighthizer in the Economist (subs. req.).

Tariffs and the Depression:

FDR in Buenos Aires.

Contemporary Dartmouth economic historian Douglas Irwin looks back at President Hoover, Sen. Smoot & Rep. Hawley, and the Tariff Act of 1930.

And Charles Kindleberger’s classic on the worldwide Depression economy.

And some statistics:

Trade balance: Both Amb. Lighthizer and Dr. Navarro emphasize trade balance, especially in manufacturing, as a rationale for higher tariffs.  Here are the relevant export/import/balance figures for 2016, 2021, and 2023, in total and for manufacturing (NAICS basis) specifically:

All Goods and Services Trade Exports Imports Balance
2023 $3.054 trillion – $3.827 trillion = -$773 billion
2021 $3.409 trillion – $2.567 trillion = -$842 billion
2016 $2.241 trillion – $2.720 trillion = -$480 billion
Manufacturing Only
2023 $1.600 trillion – $2.674 trillion = -$1.074 trillion
2021 $1.403 trillion – $2.459 trillion = -$1.056 trillion
2016 $1.264 trillion – $1.911 trillion = -$647 billion

U.S. monthly trade data from the Census.

…  and for the big picture, the Census has U.S. exports, imports, and balances from 1960 to 2023 on one convenient page.

Manufacturing and GDP: BEA’s ‘GDP by Industry’ data series (to be updated a week from Thursday with an initial estimate for full-year 2023), has U.S. output and GDP shares for manufacturing, information, real estate and finance, mining and forestry, agriculture, etc. Try the second table in the Interactive Data Tables for GDP shares.

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

Read the full email and sign up for the Trade Fact of the Week.

Jacoby for The Bulwark: MAGA Isolationists, in Their Own Words

Posted on by Max Sherrill

By Tamar Jacoby

I’D BEEN TRYING TO UNDERSTAND the rationale for months: Why is MAGA America so opposed to U.S. support for the war in Ukraine?

At first, I thought I’d find the answer in foreign policy magazines and journals. I started reading about the history of American isolationism and parsing the speeches of politicians like Senators J.D. Vance and Lindsey Graham. I even thought I might write a journal article myself, analyzing and refuting these wrongheaded but reasonable-sounding arguments.

But all along something told me that I was barking up the wrong tree. The GOP base voters I encountered seemed so bitterly angry and so dug in—there had to be something beyond rational arguments about fiscal conservatism and comparative assessments of Chinese and Russian threats.

Then, a few weeks ago, I stumbled on a video that took my breath away. A reporter had gone to a Trump rally and wandered among the crowd asking people how they’d feel if Russia won the war, destroying Kyiv and wiping Ukraine off the map. One woman made clear she had no objection to the invasion or the killing of Ukrainians: “That’s fine,” she asserted truculently. “That’s fine with me.” An older man whose hat read “Vietnam Veteran” agreed: “I don’t think Putin’s the problem. I think Zelensky’s the problem. . . . Putin is trying to save his country from the likes of idiots like Zelensky and the elitists.” Another man in line outside the rally drove the point home: “This [Biden] administration’s trying to start a war with Russia. Russia’s not our enemy.”

What else was hiding under the rock, I wondered, and at first I was afraid to look. But then I spent a few days on Truth Social and other far-right sites. I did no systematic research—just an informal canvas of the MAGA mind. But I’ve come away far more scared than I was before about what might lie ahead for U.S. foreign policy.

Keep reading in The Bulwark.

The FTC’s Odd View of Online Inflation

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

During the inflationary surge of 2021-2022, PPI demonstrated that the inflation rate for digital goods and services was lower than the inflation rate for “physical-economy” goods and services such as food, energy, and housing. In the digital sector, price increases were moderated by faster productivity growth and higher investment rates. In particular, key digital sectors such as broadband and ecommerce did not experience the sort of capacity squeeze which drove up prices in other parts of the economy.

The Federal Trade Commission, however, takes the direct opposite position. In its antitrust complaint against Amazon, the FTC argues that Amazon is behaving in a way that drives up online prices — not just for Amazon, but for other online sellers. The FTC writes:

Amazon’s conduct causes online shoppers to face artificially higher prices even when shopping somewhere other than Amazon.

Amazon deploys a series of anticompetitive practices that suppress price competition and push prices higher across much of the internet by creating an artificial price floor and penalizing sellers that offer lower prices off Amazon.

In order to justify its claim of Amazon monopoly power, the FTC paints an odd picture of high and rising online prices relative to brick-and-mortar prices. In particular, the FTC’s complaint would imply that online inflation is higher than brick-and-mortar inflation.

What does the data show? To answer this question, we analyze private sector and government data from Adobe, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and from the Census Bureau. Each of these have shortcomings, but together they tell a consistent story of online prices rising slower than offline prices.

We start with the Adobe Digital Price Index (ADPI), which tracks online prices for 18 different categories of goods, including books, groceries, electronics, pet products, and apparel. This index goes back to 2014, but we focused on the period since 2019, when the FTC’s argument would suggest that any potential Amazon effect on prices would be larger.

We matched inflation in 16 of the 18 ADPI categories with comparable categories in the BLS Consumer Price Index, which is mostly weighted towards brick-and-mortar sales. We found that the median online price increase was 3.1% for the four years ending December 2023. Over the same period, the median price increase across the comparable 16 BLS categories, including mainly brick-and-mortar sales, was 10.4%.

For example, in the category of appliances, the ADPI showed a price increase of 1.6% from December 2019 to December 2023, while the CPI showed a price increase of 9.3%. In the category of personal care products, the ADPI showed a price increase of 7.2%, compared to a 10.8% price increase for the CPI. And in the category of sporting goods, the ADPI showed a price increase of 4.4%, compared to a 9.9% increase for the CPI.

True, there are some categories where online prices have risen faster than the comparable BLS CPI index. For example, online apparel prices rose by 8.7% according to the ADPI, compared to 5.6% in the CPI. But overall, online prices rose slower in 10 of the 16 categories.

We now look at a different data set from the BLS, the producer price indexes for retail trade. These price indexes measure trade margins—that is, the difference between the acquisition price of a good and the sale price to consumers. If margins are expanding faster in a particular  retail industry, that is a sign that prices to consumers are increasing faster than the acquisition price of good.

Through December 2022, the BLS published a margin price index for “electronic and mail order shopping.” That margin only rose by 3.2% from December 2019 to December 2022. Over the same period, the margin price index for general merchandise stories — including department stores and big box retailers such as Walmart and Target — rose by 24.2%. This sort of disparity is not consistent with the FTC’s story of online prices increasing faster.

Finally, we look at the Census Bureau’s data on e-commerce spending as a share of total retail sales. Before the pandemic, the ecommerce share was rising at just under 1% per year. It obviously jumped during the pandemic, but then levelled off to 15.4% in 2023 (figure).

Based on pre-pandemic trends, we would have projected the ecommerce share to be 14.2% in 2023 and 15.0% in 2024 (the dashed line in the figure). To put it a slightly different way, the Census Bureau data suggests that the pandemic ended up moving the shift to ecommerce by only 1 year, or 1 percentage point.

This behavior is inconsistent with the FTC’s argument that online price inflation is higher than offline inflation. Higher online inflation, as the FTC claims, would have driven up the ecommerce share higher rather than lower, because consumers would have been spending more for the benefits of buying online. (To be a bit technical here, this conclusion also requires a low cross-price elasticity of demand between online and offline markets, which the FTC has already implicitly assumed in its complaint).

Indeed, the stagnation of the ecommerce share since the pandemic is more consistent with online inflation being slower than brick-and-mortar inflation, thus holding down ecommerce spending.

Let’s be clear: The data analyzed here are not perfect. Our analysis does not rule out the possibility that online prices basically track offline prices. Consumers are not dumb, and there’s nothing holding them back from buying at their local Target or Walmart rather than Amazon if particular online prices veer higher, or shift back to online purchases if offline prices go up. But the weight of the evidence suggests that online inflation has been lower than offline inflation across this period.

What the DMA Experiment Means for Japan

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Japan should keep a close eye on the European Union’s recent rollout of the Digital Markets Act (DMA). As the results of the EU regulatory experiment unfold over the next year, taking account of the lessons — and downsides — of the DMA could greatly improve Japan’s digital regulatory efforts.

First, the economic backdrop: The latest report from the Tokyo-based Japan Productivity Center, released March 4, confirms that Japan remains mired in a deep productivity slump. The country’s productivity woes extend even to the highly digitized information sector, where productivity since 2019 has fallen at a 1.7% annual rate. By contrast, productivity in the U.S. information sector has risen at an annual rate of 5.2% since 2019, while productivity in the German and French information sectors have risen at an annual rate of only 0.8% and 0.6%, respectively, since 2019.

For Japan and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, one key policy question is how to get the country’s information sector growing again. The information sector includes telecom companies, software companies, and internet companies, as well as artificial intelligence efforts.

Japan is currently considering enacting a “Digital Antitrust Law,” inspired by the EU DMA. Like the DMA, the proposed Japanese law would create a new set of regulatory obligations for the largest tech companies, addressing potential competitive issues.

But will the proposed digital antitrust law enable faster tech growth in Japan? The first thing to note is that the United States has maintained extremely strong gains in the information sector without passing a DMA-like law. Instead, competition issues are being handled within the framework of existing antitrust law.

By contrast, the EU’s push to impose a new regulatory framework on the information sector, starting with the 2016 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and continuing through to the DMA, seems to have done little to accelerate European tech growth the largest EU economies, like Germany and France, continue to show sub-1% productivity growth in the information sector. Ironically, one bright spot is the EU App Economy, supported by Google’s and Apple’s investments, which showed 53% growth in App Economy jobs since 2019.

Indeed, the DMA’s initial implementation seems to have a bevy of unpleasant side effects. For one, consumers can no longer get to Google Maps directly from Google Search, adding extra clicks and more typing, as European journalists have reported. This is extra problematic for less experienced users, who have lost their “easy-to-use” connection between searching for a store, say, and getting directions to the store.

For another, the DMA mandated changes in search that appear to favor large intermediaries who fall just below the size that would make them “gatekeepers.” A Reuters article observed that:

Lobbying groups representing airlines, hotels, and restaurants on Wednesday warned that changes proposed by Alphabet’s Google to comply with EU landmark rules may drive users to large online search services at their expense.

That is, the new regulations means that Google can’t stop large intermediaries from outbidding direct suppliers for prime online slots. So if a DMA-like law was enacted in Japan, that could hurt small and medium businesses.

Another issue is safety and security, which is a big concern in Japan. The new DMA regulations may require Google and Apple to share consumer information with other companies. While this may “level the playing field,” it may also undermine security for consumers.

The DMA’s impact on app stores also has important implications for Japan if it follows the EU’s regulatory lead. Our recent blog “Europe’s App Store Regulation Experiment” suggests that:

…..alternative app stores pose the danger of a race to the bottom, both for app stores and developers. Security is expensive. Each update or version has to be extensively tested, and the data protections maintained in operation. Developers have an incentive to spend less on security and more on flashy new features. Alternative app stores may have an incentive to be more hospitable to developers who invest less in security.

Japanese regulators have the opportunity to observe the EU’s giant experiment with the DMA. That gives Japanese regulators a chance to see what works and what doesn’t in tech regulation.

Ainsley for The New Statesman: The Tories don’t understand the new working class

Posted on by Max Sherrill

By Claire Ainsley

Lee Anderson’s recent defection to Reform UK was perceived by many Conservatives as symbolic of the fracture between their party and the voters it won for the first time in 2019. For some, the views represented by Anderson have become synonymous with working-class voters. But this mistaken characterisation of today’s working class is one of the many reasons that Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives look like they will lose the next general election.

Writing in the Telegraph, Tory MPs Miriam Cates and Danny Kruger argued that Anderson’s defection is “a sad indictment of the failure of our party to listen to the voters who propelled us to victory four years ago”. This analysis promises to lock in the Tories’ strategy of pushing further and further to the right on social and cultural issues, particularly on immigration, in the mistaken belief that this will mobilise Red Wall voters who they suppose are animated by cultural conservatism.

But the Tories have misunderstood and mischaracterised today’s working class and their 2019 vote. The vast majority of those who supported the Conservatives in more working-class areas were primarily motivated by economic concerns, and they have been failed by the Tories’ economic record and serial incompetence. Today’s working-class voters are much more diverse than outdated stereotypes suggest: people living on low to middle incomes, multi-ethnic, in towns and suburbs across the UK. Those who have borne the brunt of stagnant wages and rising prices.

Keep reading in The New Statesman.

Ainsley for The Liberal Patriot: Britain Faces Fallout from War in the Holy Land

Posted on by Max Sherrill

By Claire Ainsley

The conflict in Gaza is still making daily news headlines in the UK, five months on from the Hamas atrocities of October 7. Widespread condemnation of Hamas’ horrific actions and initial political backing for Israel’s right to defend itself has been followed by political and public unease at the extent of civilian casualties in Gaza.

Public concern about the conflict is growing rather than abating, fueled by the death toll of an estimated 29,000 Palestinians, harrowing personal stories brought to our screens by international reporters, and the continuing failure by Hamas to release Israeli hostages. Journalists from a wide spectrum of news outlets, including some of the UK’s most respected correspondents, are pressing Israel for access to report freely from Gaza beyond the controlled media trips authorized by the Israel government. The denial of free press access does not ease these concerns.

As in the U.S. and around the world, in the UK there was sincere revulsion at the crimes of Hamas against the Israelis on the October 7. The brutal nature of the attacks shocked Brits, and the plight of hostages and their families continues to be covered by the news media. Condemnation of Hamas’ actions echoed right across the political spectrum, and messages of “I stand with Israel” poured out from the public. Despite near-unity amongst the political parties that Israel has the right to defend itself, however, this sympathy hasn’t translated into clear public support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

Keep reading in The Liberal Patriot.

 

Marshall for The Hill: Will Progressives confront left-wing antisemitism?

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

By Will Marshall

The torrent of antisemitism let loose by student protests against the war in Gaza is a national embarrassment, but it reflects especially badly on leaders of America’s elite colleges and the intersectional left.

Two Ivy League presidents, University of Pennsylvania’s Liz Magill and Harvard’s Claudine Gay, resigned from their jobs after a December congressional hearing during which they couldn’t give a straight answer when asked whether advocating genocide of Jews violates their university’s code of conduct.

Alas, this salutary rebuke to moral cowardice looks more like the exception than the rule. The Anti-Defamation League reports an upsurge in campus assaults and harassment targeting Jews. A plurality of Jewish college students say they don’t feel physically safe on campus.

Students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard have filed legal complaints alleging that school leaders have failed to protect Jewish students, professors and centers from hostile anti-Israel protesters.

Keep reading in The Hill.

Biden’s Budget Tax on Executive Compensation is an Imperfect Solution

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

Skyrocketing executive pay has become an increasingly important indicator of income inequality and has prompted questions as to what policy tools can rein it in. The Biden administration recently proposed to tackle the problem by prohibiting corporations from deducting salaries over $1 million for all their employees. Although this approach may be an improvement to the status quo, it has some drawbacks compared to the more straightforward option of just creating a new top income tax rate for very high-earners.

In 1989, the ratio of CEO compensation to median worker pay was 59:1. By 2021 this had risen to 399:1. Much of this has been driven by the growth in stock-based compensation for executives, which now makes up the vast majority of executive pay. Yet despite the “performance-based” incentive of stock-based compensation, these higher paid executives have not necessarily brought higher value to companies they lead. One study found that the rate of return on $100 put into companies with lower-paid CEOs surpassed those with higher paid ones, $367 to $265.

As this issue garners more attention, many proposals have popped up to address it through the tax code. In last week’s FY25 budget, the Biden administration offered their own solution, proposing to expand section 162(m), a 1993 provision that reduced corporations’ ability to deduct certain high salaries from their corporate taxes. This provision currently prevents companies from deducting compensation over $1 million dollars for their five highest-paid executives. The administration’s proposal would extend this to all employees making over $1 million, and extend the eligibility to all corporations, not merely publicly traded ones.

Since its passage, the provision has in practice done little to address the growing pay of corporate executives. However, it has succeeded in subtly increasing the effective tax rates of those executives by imposing what is essentially an employer-side payroll tax on covered employee salaries. Because this tax is passed on to the employee in the form of lower earnings, covered workers face an effective top marginal tax rate of over 50% under current law (the 21% corporate income tax plus a 37% tax rate on the remaining 79% of their compensation in excess of $1 million). In conjunction with the budget’s other proposals to raise the corporate income tax rate to 28% and the top individual income tax rate to 39.6%, Biden’s approach would raise the effective top marginal tax rate on compensation over $1 million dollars to 56.5% — a massive increase over the status quo and close to the revenue-maximizing level.

Hiding such a large tax increase on high-earners in the corporate tax code may be more politically advantageous than doing so outright through a change in the ordinary income tax code, but it comes with some drawbacks. The proposal would expand the provision for only employees at C corporations like Amazon or Walmart, leaving out many high earners working at pass-through businesses like law firms or hedge funds. These types of businesses make up 95% of all businesses in the United States, yet would not be subject to the provision since they pay no corporate income tax. This would give a tax advantage to many high-earning professionals in consulting, finance, or law, where firms are less likely to be structured as C corporations.

In addition, it is also not apparent from their details whether the proposal would expand an existing provision for highly paid nonprofit executives that requires tax-exempt organizations to pay an excise tax equal to the corporate rate for their five highest paid employees. This risks creating a situation where an employee of a nonprofit or pass-through making $2 million a year is taxed at a 39.6% top rate, while a corporate employee making the same salary will be taxed at a top rate of 56.5%.

Creating a 56.5% bracket for incomes over $1 million would do a better job of taxing highly compensated corporate executives without section 162(m)’s uneven impacts. This option could raise substantially more revenue for progressive policies and avoid imposing an uneven system that only targets certain businesses or sectors.

If the politics are such that expanding section 162(m) is possible while significantly raising ordinary income tax rates is not, doing so would be an improvement over a status quo that chronically under-taxes the rich. However, the administration must take additional steps to address the distortions it would create and recognize that there are only so many ways to tax the rich before having to turn to other sources of revenue for a progressive agenda.

The Cautionary Tale of ESG Oversight: Arkansas Should Heed Texas’ $886 Million Cost for Prioritizing Politics

Posted on by Max Sherrill

With the creation of a new ESG Oversight Committee, Arkansas has made a substantial shift in the state’s changing investment and sustainability landscape. The committee was fully formed last month when Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders appointed Tom Lundstrom as the committee’s fifth and final member. This committee is charged with identifying financial service providers who are thought to discriminate against certain traditional value industries (fossil fuels, ammunition, etc.) based on ESG-related considerations under last year’s House Bill 1307, which is now Act 411.

The committee’s judgments will have a significant impact on Arkansas’s investment climate and economy as it advances, with noteworthy deadlines for delivering its preliminary and final lists of these financial providers. The recently released report, “The Potential Economic and Tax Revenue Impact of Texas’ Fair Access Laws”, conducted by the Texas Association of Business Chambers of Commerce Fund (TABCCF), is an important source the Arkansas committee should review in order to understand the possible harm that comparable anti-ESG legislation has caused states who have chosen to inject politics into their decision making.

According to the TABCCF study, during 2022-2023, the Texas anti-ESG legislation resulted in an estimated:

 

  • $668.7 million lost in economic activity.
  • $180.7 million in decreased annual earnings.
  • 3,034 fewer full-time, permanent jobs.
  • $37.1  million in losses to State and local tax revenue.

 

The study asserts: “These findings illustrate that when government attempts to mandate values, no matter what kind to businesses, the market loses.”

The report is built on earlier work included in a 2023 study titled “Gas, Guns, and Governments: Financial Costs of Anti-ESG Policies,” by Drs. Ivan Ivanov of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and Dan Garrett of the University of Pennsylvania. The study looked at certain organizations that were thought to be boycotting due to their affiliations or fiduciary decisions that have been expelled or removed from the municipal bond market.

Their resulting analysis: this legislation did, in fact, limit competition in the public finance sector, raising interest rates by 0.144 percent.

Thanks to its pro-business environment, Texas now has the eighth-largest economy in the world. Less competition in the municipal bond market, however, is driving up interest rates, which puts more strain on local governments’ finances and adds to the costs borne by Texas taxpayers.

If that wasn’t enough, the underlying political effects of these politically driven policies continue to rear their head. Just this week, Aaron Kinsey, the Chair of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) announced the Texas Permanent School Fund Corporation divest approximately $8.5 billion of assets BlackRock currently manages for them – a move that will undoubtedly further increase costs while reducing returns for Texas schools.

This action, which allegedly came without a formal board vote, quickly upset Kinsey’s fellow SBOE board members. “We just can’t divest from them overnight. They’re very good moneymakers for us,” Republican SBOE board member Pat Hardy said of BlackRock, concluding, “They’ve been really good. They’ve been one of our main investment people for, gosh, 15 years.”

Given this context, Arkansas is presented with a cautionary tale that highlights the necessity for thoughtful assessment to prevent deterring business investments in the state and jeopardizing fund performance for political theater.

The position taken on this matter by the Arkansas Teachers Retirement System (ATRS) highlights the financial implications and practical difficulties associated with enacting a narrow boycott list. ATRS has emphasized that three BlackRock-managed funds, which have over $1.2 billion invested in them, do not exhibit bias against the energy, fossil fuel, weapons, or ammunition businesses. This disclosure is crucial because it demonstrates the system’s all-encompassing approach to guarantee that its investment managers respect Arkansas’s ESG standards while also being in line with the members’ financial interests.

Given the possibility of major financial ramifications, the Arkansas ESG Oversight Committee’s next judgments should be approached with prudence. The ATRS warning highlights the conflict between political goals and practical economic considerations on the potential costs of divesting from financial services companies—should they end up on the boycott list. Divestment of this kind might cost retired teachers in Arkansas alone at least $6 million.

The larger lesson is evident as Arkansas proceeds: establishing an ESG-related boycott list in a transition economy has complicated ramifications for retirees and private investors alike, in addition to the state’s budget and broader economy. The combination of ATRS’s proactive actions and Texas’ experience serves as a crucial reminder of the necessity for a nuanced, balanced approach that protects the interests of all parties involved. It will take careful thought and, most importantly, a clear understanding of the lessons gained from other jurisdictions to ensure that Arkansas maintains its inviting status for businesses.

How Postsecondary Online Education is Empowering Today’s Students

Posted on by Max Sherrill

Today’s postsecondary students look different than they did 20 years ago. Their paths today are not as linear, with many students opting out of going to college right after high school. As a result, today’s students are more diverse than ever before: 34% are adults, over half are first-generation students, 22% are parents, and the majority of students are working while learning.

To create a new means of economic mobility for the diversifying student body, California established its first statewide online community college, Calbright College, in July 2018. Calbright was the first of its kind, an exclusively online community college, free of charge to Californians, and focused on helping students rapidly earn credentials for in-demand jobs. Enrollment numbers have skyrocketed in the last two years, going up 574% since July 2021, with 3,240 students currently enrolled at Calbright.

And these trends are not unique to this California community college. Interest and participation in online learning continues to grow, with 2020 seeing record enrollment. Between 2012 and 2019, the number of hybrid and distance-only students at traditional universities increased by 36%, while the pandemic rapidly accelerated that growth by an additional 92%. Today over half of postsecondary students are enrolled in at least one online course.

What’s more, research from Western Governor’s University (WGU), one of the largest online universities in the country, surveyed more than 3,000 students across nine diverse institutions including community colleges, private and public four-year institutions, and primarily online, not-for-profit colleges. First-generation learners surveyed were especially positive about online education, with more than three-quarters of these students, indicating they would be interested in taking online courses in the future. This response was nearly ten percentage points higher than their peers with college-educated parents.

The ability to learn anytime, anywhere — and often for a fraction of the cost — is clearly attractive for today’s students. Online learning offers them the flexibility to balance their academic pursuits with other responsibilities and commitments, allowing them to study at their own pace and on their own schedule. Online education has also eliminated many of the barriers associated with traditional campus-based programs — supporting students, who may be unable to relocate or commute to a physical campus. This factor is especially helpful in rural communities that are more remote allowing individuals to enroll in programs across the country without ever leaving their homes.

Online education has also evolved to meet the diverse needs of today’s students through innovative program structures and support services. Institutions now offer a wide range of online degrees and certificates while also providing comprehensive academic advising, tutoring, and career counseling services. For example, at Calbright, students can access academic and career counseling to help them make informed choices about their academic and job pursuits, and it is all covered by the state.

While online education was once considered an alternative or supplementary option, it has rapidly expanded and emerged as a cornerstone of higher education. But to ensure opportunities continue to open doors that were previously inaccessible, America’s higher education system must evolve, and these programs must continue to evolve to ensure quality and alignment with student and employer needs.

To do this, the U.S. must modernize the way it invests in postsecondary education. Policy must enable individuals to pursue more flexible and affordable ways to acquire higher skills and higher-wage jobs, including online educational opportunities. Passing the bipartisan Workforce Pell Act in Congress would be a good start. This bill would allow students to use the Pell Grant for shorter-term postsecondary programs, including fully online programs that meet certain quality metrics.

Additionally, federal policymakers should refrain from over-regulation that would discourage online education. Last year, the American Council on Education, the major coordinating body for the nation’s colleges and universities warned that a U.S. Department of Education proposed rule would cause “significant disruption and termination of critical education services to students,” including many online programs.

But quality is important. For students to derive real value, online learning experiences must ultimately lead to economic mobility, ensuring students complete the program and leave with the necessary skills and credentials for success. In addition to teaching academic and technical skill sets, online programs must ensure students learn the critical employability skills that remain a high priority for employers through peer-to-peer experiences and other hands-on learning opportunities. This will ensure students know how to work with others, can problem-solve, and ultimately succeed in the workforce.

As we look to the future of postsecondary education, online learning will play a pivotal role in expanding access and opportunities for non-traditional students. Colleges like Calbright will continue to grow and be attractive for many students, including those that are older, first generation, and juggling work and familial responsibilities. However, more must be done to ensure these opportunities are truly engrained in America’s postsecondary education system. By embracing digital innovation and leveraging the flexibility and convenience of online platforms, our nation can ensure that all individuals, regardless of their background or circumstances, have the chance to pursue their educational aspirations and build a brighter future for themselves and their communities.

Trade Fact of the Week: U.S. carbon emissions fell by 190 million tons in 2023.

Posted on by Max Sherrill

FACT: U.S. carbon emissions fell by 190 million tons in 2023.

THE NUMBERS: Energy-related carbon emissions, 2023* –
World total: 37.8 billion tons
Change by country
China: +565 million tons
India: +190 million tons
World: +410 million tons
Japan: -100 million tons
United States: -190 million tons
European Union: -220 million tons

*International Energy Agency, 2024

WHAT THEY MEAN:

As the Biden administration’s energy and climate officials think through January’s “pause” on capacity expansion for the U.S.’ $34 billion in liquefied natural gas exports, some data on emissions trends and their causes:

Statisticians at the International Energy Agency calculate carbon emissions each year. This month they came in with a figure of 37.8 billion tons from energy production in 2023, up 410 million tons from their 37.4 billion ton estimate for 2022.  In a longer-term perspective, these figures compare to 0.2 billion tons in 1850 as Victorian steam, gears, and airships took off; to 6 billion tons in 1950 as the world recovered from the Second World War, and to 25 billion tons in 2000 at the millennium.  So, quite a lot of carbon, and a world a bit further away from “net zero” than it was in 2022. But beneath this overall rise, IEA’s experts reveal intriguing shifts, especially in wealthy countries, and perhaps a sense that change is coming:

“Advanced economy GDP grew 1.7% but emissions fell 4.5%, a record decline outside of a recessionary period. Having fallen by 520 Mt in 2023, emissions [in these ‘advanced’ economies] are now back to their level of fifty years ago. Advanced economy coal demand, driven by evolutions in the G7, is back to the level of around 1900. The 2023 decline in advanced economy emissions was caused by a combination of structural and cyclical factors, including strong renewables deployment, coal-to-gas switching in the US, but also weaker industrial production in some countries, and milder weather.”

The 41 “advanced economies” in IEA’s report are the U.S., Canada, the 27 EU members, the U.K., Switzerland, Norway, Israel, Japan, Korea, Australia, Taiwan, and Hong Kong and Macau, plus a few micro-states like the Vatican and Andorra. Together, the International Monetary Fund says they produce about 60% of world GDP ($60.9 trillion of 2023’s $104.5 trillion). Their 11.0 billion tons of carbon emissions, however, made up less than a third of the world total, and according to the IEA as a group they are back down to the emissions levels of 1973. Moreover, their 550-million-ton aggregate drop in emissions in 2023 came not during a recession or pandemic, but in a year of reasonably strong growth, which suggests a systemic reduction of emissions across the wealthy world rather than a cyclical blip.

The U.S. is a case in point. IEA estimates American emissions at 4.6 billion tons, a decline of 25% from the 6.1 billion-ton peak twenty years ago, and of 190 million tons from 2022’s 4.8 billion.  Per IEA, the largest part of the U.S.’ 2023 decline — 80 million tons, or about 40% of the total reduction — came not from falling output or changeable weather and hydro issues, but from switching from coal-powered electricity to natural gas.

What does this imply elsewhere? Worldwide, by source IEA believes that (on net) 270 million of last year’s 410 million tons of emissions growth, about two-thirds of the total, came from additional burning of coal for power.  Looked at by place, ‘developing Asia’ now produces half of all world carbon emissions, topped by China at 12.6 billion and then India at 3.5 billion; Chinese emissions grew by 565 million tons and India’s by 190 million tons last year.  Here too, at least in China, data suggest ways to reduce emissions.  China’s “emissions intensity” — the amount of carbon released per dollar of economic output — is down from 0.8 kilos of CO2 in 2013 to 0.5 kilos as of 2020 (the date of the last available estimate), which across China’s $18 trillion economy represents a savings of about five billion tons of carbon a year. Both these countries, and “developing Asia” generally, continue to rely heavily on coal-burning, making Asian coal power the largest “driver” of worldwide emissions growth.  IEA’s report therefore underlines the very large Asian opportunity (noted by PPI’s Paul Bledsoe in an August 2022 report) to cut world emissions by substituting gas, nuclear power, and renewables for Asian coal burning.

In sum, reducing emissions is a big task but not a hopeless one. The advanced economies that make up most of the world economy are now visibly succeeding, having (a) cut emissions substantially over the past five years, (b) done so last year during a period of economic growth, and (c) not by impoverishing themselves but through efficiency, switches from dirtier to cleaner fuels, and technological innovation. The large middle-income countries that are now the largest emissions sources can very much do the same. Where infrastructure allows, low-methane natural gas has a significant and useful part in this.

FURTHER READING

The International Energy Agency reports on carbon emissions in 2023 (executive summary with a link to full text).

Policy:

The White House’s “pause.”

PPI analysis & commentary:

Former Congressman Tim Ryan doesn’t mince words on this.

PPI energy and climate expert Elan Sykes outlines a path forward.

… and comments on Department of Energy policy developments.

Background and data:

NOAA summarizes worldwide surface temperature change since 1880.

Our World in Data tracks emissions by country, industry sector, etc.

And the Energy Information Administration’s International Energy Outlook 2023 looks ahead with projections by region and major country through 2050.

And some trade statistics:

Apart from the energy and climate side of gas debates, how large is LNG trade?  Having overtaken Russia and Saudi Arabia in 2021, the U.S. is the world’s largest energy exporter.  Depending on how you split things up, energy has a case for “top U.S. export” at $323 billion last year, which is about 15% of the U.S.’ $3.05 trillion in total goods and services exports. LNG makes up $34 billion of it. A table putting all this in context with some comparisons:

Total U.S. goods and services exports $3.053 trillion
All goods put together $2.051 trillion
All manufacturing $1.600 trillion
Automotive (vehicles & parts) $137 billion
Aircraft & parts $113 billion
Pharmaceuticals & medicines $108 billion
Integrated circuits  $44 billion
Medical devices  $36 billion
All services $1.003 trillion
Intellectual property revenue  $126 billion
Student tuition $40 billion
All energy $323 billion
Liquefied natural gas  $34 billion
All agriculture  $175 billion
Soybeans $28 billion

 

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

Read the full email and sign up for the Trade Fact of the Week.

Johnson for American Purpose: Ugh, Capitalism

Posted on by Max Sherrill

By Jeremiah Johnson

Complaints about “The Man” were a common theme in film and television through the 70s, 80s, and 90s. As with so many parts of pop culture, the phrase had roots in Black film and television before migrating to the mainstream—what used to be a mainstay of blaxploitation films parroted by white teenage stoners. Anybody who grew up in the 90s can perfectly recollect “It’s just like, Society, mannnnn. It’s like, The Man, screwing us over,” as spoken by an angsty teen.

This was seen as ridiculous. Not all complaints about society are ridiculous, of course. But this particular one always was. The person spouting it was always a disaffected loser. They were rarely making any sort of coherent point. Sometimes they were just listing random things they disliked about the world. And at the end of the complaint was the all-blame-taking Man, the omnipresent Society who was responsible for it all in some sinister way.

Jack Black’s speech here in School of Rock provides a trope-defining example. At this point in the film, Black is a deadbeat who’s failed at most everything in his life. He has vague complaints ranging from the ozone layer to Shamu the whale, and believes that one used to fight The Man with ‘Rock n Roll’ until The Man ruined that as well with MTV. Black takes himself seriously, but to the audience he’s inherently comedic, an object of derision.

Fortunately, this trope became so well-worn that today we’re largely spared rants about The Man. Social commentators are too savvy to appear that childish. Unfortunately, the exact same vague complaint has resurfaced in a more respectable form.

Keep reading in American Purpose.

Weinstein Jr. for Forbes: End “Junk Fees” At Colleges And Universities

Posted on by Max Sherrill

By Paul Weinstein Jr.

Despite a strong economy and higher wages, many Americans continue to feel worse off than before the COVID-19 pandemic. One reason is that though the consumer price index has dropped from 9.1% in June 2022 to 3.1% in February 2024, consumer purchasing power has declined by one-fifth over that same period.

To help Americans make ends meet, the Biden administration has launched a Junk Fee Initiative, designed in large part to illustrate that government is working on the citizenry’s behalf to combat hidden charges — all the little line items that aren’t mentioned when a company tries to hook a consumer — but that consumers are compelled to cover when the final bill comes due.

Broadly overlooked in the initiative, however, is the reality that private businesses aren’t exclusively responsible for these annoying fees Americans pay — nonprofits, in particular colleges and universities, are often just as guilty. And if the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, charged by the White House with running the initiative, wants to burnish the government’s reputation with its Junk Fee Initiative, it should take a hard look at what America’s institutions of higher learning charge students and families beyond the rising cost of tuition.

Keep reading in Forbes.