Tag Archives: political economy

A Terrific Opening

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Congressman Kevin Brady (R, TX), Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee, wants the Biden administration to (re)open international trade.

I continue to urge Ambassador Tai…and President Biden, to pursue new agreements, opening markets in the UK and Europe, an expanded comprehensive agreement with Japan.

Then-President Donald Trump (R) offered the European Union and the G-7 a completely no-tariff trade regime. There would be no greater opening of trade than for the EU and the other members of the G-7, which includes Japan in particular, along with USMCA member Canada (whose agreement would either necessitate modifications to the USMCA or terms outside that treaty); EU constituents France, Germany, and Italy; and the UK, to agree such a tariff-free regime.

If there’s to be a serious opening, that’s as much on those nations as it is on President Joe Biden (D). Both sides need to stop dragging their feet.

The Wealth Gap Is…

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…narrowing? How can that be? All those tax cuts and all those economic moves of the prior administration—which ended just 6 months ago—were playing to the favored rich. Weren’t they?

No.

A fading pandemic and heating US economy appear to be paying off for lower-wage workers.
New jobs at restaurants, hotels, stores, salons, and similar in-person roles accounted for about half of all payroll gains in June, according to the Labor Department. And workers in those industries are seeing larger raises than other employees.

They’re also seeing actual jobs, with those raises being from zero to paychecks.

Most of that, too, is in those roughly half the States who’ve lifted most or all Wuhan Virus-related restrictions and mostly or fully reopened their economies.

Go figure.

One Price of Central Control

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The People’s Republic of China’s Cyberspace Administration of China is investigating the alleged wrong-doing of Didi Global’s ride-hailing arm, Didi Chuxing Technology Co; both entities are domiciled in the PRC.

By itself, that’s no big deal; governments are allowed to investigate businesses that regulators suspect of wrong-doing.

Here’s the problem:

No new user registration is allowed during the review….

That’s ostensibly to keep risks from any alleged misbehaviors from growing further.

However. Never mind that Didi Chuxing hasn’t been shown to have misbehaved in any way; it must be restricted.

Suppose that in the end, the regulator indeed finds no actual wrongs done. How would a Didi Chuxing be made whole after the investigation’s closure? How would such a company (re)gain all those missed new customers (for instance)?

Worse,

[t]he regulator didn’t say how long the review would last….

That damage is made worse the longer the investigation is allowed to go on.

Now, there’s this: how many governments would consider using a regulatory agency or a regulator’s enduring investigation to punish a disfavored business or person solely on political grounds?

I can think of at least three….

And now, just two days after that move, the PRC has ordered app-store operators to remove the app altogether–even though the “investigation” is only just begun.

Hmm….

Another Progressive-Democrat Gives Another Part of the Game Away

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Laura Saunders, in her Friday Wall Street Journal column concerning the Roth IRAs, the rich and deplorable, and us average Americans, has a striking quote from Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D, OR).

Saunders was writing about how efforts to lay punitive limits and punitive taxes on the Roth IRAs of the super wealthy can only have deleterious effects on the rest of us.

Here’s Wyden’s statement on the matter:

IRAs were designed to provide retirement security to middle-class families, not allow mega-millionaires and billionaires to avoid paying taxes[.]

Wyden has two beefs here. One is his progressive view that the wealthy don’t deserve to be under the same law as the rest of us Americans; the success of the wealthy must be called out and that success denied them—because the rich are the piñata of government disfavored groups of Americans.

The other is that business about avoiding paying taxes. Never mind that the rich and deplorable—and the merely rich—already pay the vast bulk of the taxes the Federal government collects, while the bottom half of income earners pay close to nothing in taxes, and the very bottom—including those who don’t have any job-related income—get tax payments from the rest of us. The amount the rich pay isn’t enough for Progressive-Democrats. More is better.

All of it is better, yet.

Compelling Interest and Racism

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The Wall Street Journal‘s editors correctly decry President Joe Biden’s (D) race-based “equity” programs and diktats as taking our nation back to an ugly past.

By equity, Mr Biden means preferences for some racial groups over others to achieve equal outcomes.

And

Mr Biden sells his agenda as taking America into the future. But allocating government funds or privileges by race is a step back to an uglier past. … If applied on the scale Mr Biden hopes, America would become a nation of groups competing for racial spoils and defined outcomes rather than seeking equal opportunity for everyone.

The editors added this near the end of their piece, and here I demur from them.

Strict scrutiny requires that the government have a compelling interest for discriminating by race, and that it must use the least restrictive means to achieve that interest. If less restrictive ways can achieve the same purpose, the policy fails.

There shouldn’t be any strict scrutiny on such matters; the policies should fail on their face. There’s nothing in the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protections clause that permits Government-determined “compelling interest” to override our Constitution [emphasis added].

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

All of that plainly applies to our Federal government every bit as much as it does to each of the governments of the several States.

The Strict Scrutiny standard, as applied here, has been unconstitutional from the start and was an earlier Supreme Court attempt to duck its responsibility in applying our Constitution rather than seeking out excuses and methodologies for getting outside of it.

Government’s compelling interest is to defend and uphold our Constitution.

Full stop.