Tag Archives: political economy

The PRC and Northern Korea

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The People’s Republic of China trade relations with northern Korea appear to be robust and growing, despite efforts by President Donald Trump to get PRC President Xi Jinping to do more to curb his dog.  Imports from northern Korea have actually fallen 13.2% in the first six months of this year compared to the first six months of last year, but exports have risen 29.1%, for a net increase in trade over 10%.

Huang Songping, representing the PRC’s customs agency, said

As neighbors, China and North Korea maintain normal business and trade exchanges[.]

That’s a pretty clear statement of how interested the PRC is in helping put an end to northern Korea’s nuclear weapons program, contra PRC chit chat and Trump’s efforts to use diplomatic measures involving the PRC to end to it.

Now it’s time to move on without the PRC’s involvement—other than expanded sanctions on PRC companies and persons who do business with the gangland.  Other measures, both diplomatic and military, do not need to include the PRC.

There’s a Hint

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This is the subhead on a Wall Street Journal article over the weekend:

New registrations of company’s vehicles dropped to zero from 2,939

This happened to Tesla’s electric car sales in Hong Kong, but it’s a lesson that’s universal.

Not a single newly purchased Tesla model was registered in Hong Kong in April, according to official data from the city’s Transportation Department analyzed by The Wall Street Journal.

The March sales figure was that 2,939, albeit the number is artificially high: it occurred after the subsidy’s end had been announced, but before the end was to take effect.  The drop to zero, though, is not at all artificial.

The reason for the collapse?  Hong Kong taxing authorities ended the tax break folks got for buying a “green” car.  It’s not just that side of the world:

Last year in Denmark, an incentive program expired and was replaced with a less generous one. New car-registrations for all-electric vehicles of all brands fell 70% in 2016 in the country to 1,373 vehicles, while across the European Union the number grew by 7% to 63,278 vehicles. In the first quarter of this year, only 48 all-electric vehicles were registered in Denmark.

In the rest of Europe, existing “incentive programs” were unchanged in the period.

Here’s the hint: if a technology can’t sell in a free market without government subsidy, it’s not ready for sale; it’s not economically viable.  Full stop.

In the US, the tax subsidy remains in place in the form of a $7,500 tax credit for each Tesla or other electric car bought.  Who do you suppose is actually paying those $7,500?  Anyone? Bueller?  Bueller?

They’ve Been Called Out

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The Left is always on about the need to raise taxes, the need for folks (especially the rich, but in general, too) to pay more to government in order to get all the services government is supposed to provide.

Now they’ve been called out and their hypocrisy exposed empirically, at least in one nation that our own Left wants us to emulate.

Hammered by the opposition for slashing taxes and going on a spending spree with the country’s oil money, the center-right government [of Norway] has hit back with a bold proposal: voluntary contributions.

Launched in June, the initiative has received a lukewarm reception, with the equivalent of just $1,325 in extra revenue being collected so far, according to the Finance Ministry.

Finance Minister Siv Jensen:

The tax scheme was set up to allow those who want to pay more taxes to do so in a simple and straightforward way.  If anyone thinks the tax level is too low, they now have the chance to pay more.

Jonas Gahr Store, with a net worth of $8 million (and a leading Labour Party politician), is one of those refusing to pay more than tax law requires, even though the rate, he insists, is too low.  Now it’s personal, though; he’s not dealing with anonymous OPM.

“Pay up, Sucka–”

“No.”

Misguided Reporting

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A Dodd-Frank requirement to report the pay ratio between a company’s leadership and its rank and file—specifically, the total earnings of the chief executive compared with those of the median employee—is on the chopping block.

Supporters of the rule, part of the post-financial crisis Dodd-Frank Act, hope disclosure at an individual-company level might focus more attention on inequality and sky-high CEO pay.

This sort of pay ratio metric may well have value to a company’s investors, but it has no value at all to the Federal government beyond a cynical social-justice virtue signal kind of mandate from the Progressive-Democrats.  The requirement needs to be chopped (along with the whole of Dodd-Frank, but that’s a different story).

If investors find value in this, they can push the company of interest to publish the ratio on their own; government should not be involved.

Food Stamps and Work

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Now that the Obama administration’s waiver of work requirements for families without dependent children in order to be eligible to obtain food stamps has been rescinded, the vast numbers of recipients are being greatly reduced.  Alabama, for instance, this year resumed the work or work training requirement in a pilot program involving 13 of its counties and has seen its food stamp enrollment fall by 85%.  Georgia is running a similar program, and it’s seen a 58% drop.

It’s all well and good that the work/work training requirement has moved people off the food stamp rolls, but the flip side of that is what happens to those that are: are they actually working or training, or are they just shoved off the rolls, still unemployed, now deeper in poverty?  The Maine results give an indication.

An analysis of a group of 7,000 Mainers who left SNAP in 2014 found their total earnings increased from $3.85 million in the third quarter 2014 to $8.24 million in the last quarter of 2015.

That’s more than a doubling in earnings in just over a year.  These folks, clearly, are getting work; they haven’t just been shoved over a cliff.

Kansas is getting similar results.

…60% of former beneficiaries found employment within 12 months and their incomes rose by an average of 127% per year….

Hmm….