Tag Archives: economics

The South China Sea and Chinas

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Taiwan’s president, defying a rare criticism from key ally the United States, visited an island in the disputed South China Sea on Thursday to emphasize Taiwan’s sovereignty claims in the increasingly tense region.

A small correction: that’s the Republic of China, which sits on the island of Taiwan.

And good for President Ma Ying-jeou, who along with 30 staffers visited the island of Taiping in the Spratly Islands, a collection variously claimed by the RoC, Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, and which lie within Brunei’s EEZ, but which has been seized and occupied by the People’s Republic of China.

Each of these nations and the United States should make more of this sort of visit, independently and together, to emphasize both their competing claims (which they’re willing and capable of settling among themselves, amicably) and the illegitimacy of the PRC occupation.

Economic Progress

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Gross domestic product, a broad measure of economic output, expanded at a 0.7% seasonally adjusted annualized rate in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department said Friday. The economy had advanced 2% in the third quarter and 3.9% in the second quarter.

That good growth in the two quarters after Christmas holidays followed by slowing growth as those holidays recede into the past—and even as the next such season approaches—is all too typical of the Obama recovery. And a result of President Barack Obama’s (D) economic policies and his explosion in regulations all across the board.

November is approaching, too.

PRC Markets

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The PRC stock market tanked again earlier in the week. It’s a broader drop than just a fall in the PRC’s benchmark Shanghai Composite Index, though.

China’s outstanding margin loans—money investors borrow to buy stocks—declined for 16 consecutive sessions to Jan 22, the longest losing streak on record, with 209 billion yuan ($32 billion) worth of leveraged bets unwound during the period.

“Volume is getting very thin, as there are hardly any fresh inflows, and the process of deleveraging is continuing,” said Chang Chengwei, analyst at brokerage Hengtai Futures [a PRC-based financial investments player].

Fox Business lays much of this drop off to continued low (and perhaps lowering) oil prices. It’s not just oil, though. All those erstwhile investors have had their faces rubbed in the fact that it’s not (if it ever was) a price-sensitive market; it’s a government-sensitive market. And that it never had any contact with the underlying economy; it is a purely speculation play.

Empirical Socialism

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Bernie Sanders style. You remember him: the Independent Senator from Vermont, Democratic Party Presidential candidate, avowed Socialist, and as of Monday night’s Democratic Party Town Hall “debate” an avowed Democratic Socialist. In that “debate” (because it really wasn’t a debate; the three candidates appeared sequentially and answered carefully selected questions—and not even the same ones), Sanders assured us, one and all, that he really will raise taxes on us if he’s elected President.

From The Washington Examiner we get a list of just how bad his tax increase will be.SandersTaxes

To put that in perspective, the Congressional Budget Office projects that federal revenues over the next 10 years will be a total of $41.6 trillion, meaning that Sanders would raise taxes by 47% over current levels.

Guess what happens when Government takes that much money away from working Americans, removes that much money from the economy?

Yup.

It Must Be Dissolved

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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, that is. Consider this example of its egregious behavior. When one of CFPB’s internal judges decided that

a New Jersey lender [PHH Corp] took illegal “kickbacks” from mortgage insurers, boosting costs for borrowers[,]

he fined the company $6 million. PHH appealed.

Richard Cordray, Director of the CFPB, took personal charge of the case and raised the penalty to $109 million. How dare a private company dispute with the CFPB!?

This abuse of power, even a power that the Democratic Party-controlled House and Senate conferred on the CFPB, together with a budget consisting of a blank check drawn on the Federal Reserve Bank System, when they created this thing six years ago, is a clear demonstration of the need to get rid of the CFPB and everything and everyone associated with it.

PHH’s case has been appealed to the DC Circuit, but there’s no need to wait. Get rid of this abusive, unaccountable board. Put this abusive, unaccountable Boyar out of a job.