US February Jobs

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/09/business/economy/jobs-report.html

Strong job creation has been realized by the United States in the past month of February. While 310k jobs were added; the inherent wage increase is less than expected. 310k jobs is the most US jobs added in a  month's time since June 2016. The stock market likes how wages remain low combined with  this job increase . Also, despite these added jobs, US unemployment stays at 4.1%.  Many people are re-entering the employment market across all sectors and I feel comfortable entering the job market in the very near future, as apparently many firms are hiring. 

Ryan Criticizes Tariff Plan as Trump Issues Nafta Threat

This article talks about critiques that the new tariffs that Trump wants to impose on steel and aluminum are getting. In this case, the speaker of the Republican party Paul D. Ryan was the one that criticised these tariffs. He says that he is worried about the consequences that these tariffs are going to have because many countries that trade with the US are getting upset and could start a trade war. The expect if Trump goes through with this decision, that other countries are going to do the same in order to put tariffs on US products that are exported. He has asked the president to back down from imposing these tariffs because it will cause tensions with many countries and at the end will end up affecting products from the US that are exported and trade in general. It looks like Trump is decided to impose the tariffs and will not back down since he has even threatened other countries that he will impose more tariffs if they decide to put tariffs on US products. The effects can not really be measured now since we don't know how other countries are going to react, but all the tension between the countries will probably end up affecting everyone involved.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/05/us/politics/trump-trade-tariffs-nafta.html?&hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

U.S. Car Loan Rates Rise to Highest in Eight Years

            It is a difficult time if you are in the market for a new car in this country currently, as they are continuously getting more expensive. Not only are the cars coming with a higher initial price tag but interest rates for vehicle loans has risen as well. The average interest rate is the highest it has been in eight years and the Fed hopes to increase them again three times in 2018. The demand for new cars has already been on the decline in this country and with these new interest rates and car prices that demand looks to continue to drop. I am curious if these factors in the American car market will incentivize individuals to utilize public transportation more, which is far more environmentally efficient or if it will encourage people to hold on to older less fuel efficient models.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-02/fed-hikes-adding-to-highest-u-s-car-loan-rates-in-eight-years

Theresa May's Road to Brexit speech: Prime Minister reveals UK's demands for financial services to be in deal - and insists she's not cherry picking

The prime minister of UK Theresa May announced her list of demands that EU should include financial services trade with the UK in the future. Along with her emphasis on labor mobility which reminded me what we discussed in class about models around the countries. It can be seen from the speech that the UK tends to continue toward laissez-faire economy. The transition economy can also arise a series problems, governance failure; high inequality; regulation inefficiency. It is said in the article the prime minister will not impose tariffs or quotas on goods instead of using one set of checks to ensure regulatory compliance.
The feasibility of the transition economy doesn't solely depend on the government efficiency but also how the market will react.

http://www.cityam.com/281577/theresa-mays-road-brexit-speech-prime-minister-admits-we

Undocumented Entrepreneurs: How Deportations Could Hurt The U.S. Economy

This was a very interesting article on Israel Concha, an undocumented immigrant that had been brought to thebIS from Mexico when he was a boy. By the time Concha was 30 years old, he was running a taxi business he had started and making $300,000. But he was also employing nine American citizens with steady, well-paid jobs. Concha is an interesting story but not unique. According to a study there are over 900,000 immigrant entrepreneurs (about 10%) of undocumented citizens that hire American workers. Their businesses account for over $17 billion and counting. Unfortunately Concha was detained and eventually deported, which cost the US hundreds of dollars a day, hundreds of thousands in the US economy a year, and multiple jobs for US workers. What is the solution here? Do the US policies need to be more lenient based on the circumstances?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/fernandafabian/2018/03/04/undocumented-entrepreneurs-how-deportations-could-hurt-the-u-s-economy/amp/

Trump Threatens to Impose Tariffs on European Cars

President Trump threatened European car companies that the United States would impose tariffs on them if they did not agree to follow through with the recently laid out increased steel and aluminum duties. The problem that Trump faces is that many European car companies are rooted in the United States already and have some level of bargaining power when it comes to making sure they are given a mutually beneficial relationship for supplying jobs to U.S. communities. The article points out that some of these fore mentioned jobs are in both Kentucky and Wisconsin, states where Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan have constituents. This makes the validity of this political threat hard to follow through upon. 

"President Trump said his administration would enact in coming days a law to impose 25% tariffs on imported steel, with 10% targeting imported aluminum, on national-security grounds." The danger of an action of this nature, as cited by many economists, is that if these tariffs are created unilaterally (instead of through a world trade organization) the resulting effect would be a global trade war. With that said, this action of "national security" could backfire hard on the American economy if accomplished as President Trump suggests.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-threatens-to-tax-european-car-imports-1520110549

Japan Is Growing But Wages Have Barely Budged. Why?

A relevant article about the Japanese economic system that we are currently discussing.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-04/japan-is-growing-but-wages-have-barely-budged-why-quicktake

China says it does not want a trade war with US

This article states how China does not want a trade war with the US but will defend its interests in spite of Trump’s claim of import duties on steel and aluminum. Trump emphasized that trade wars were good and easy to win, a day after he mentioned to put duties of 25 percent on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminum products. The trade between the two largest economies were hazy once Trump took office in 2017, and although China only accounts for a fraction of U.S. steel imports, the lower steel prices account for its massive industry expansion.

As stated in the article, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Yesui mentioned that negotiations and mutual openings were the best ways to resolve trade frictions. If trade policies are made on the basis of mistaken judgements or assumptions, it would damage trade relations between these two countries and affect long term economic growth.

According to Trump, restricting trade will save American jobs, but in reality, because of widespread tariffs on aluminum and steel, prices would increase and this would affect users like the auto and oil industries and affect employees.

In the article, it is stated that Trump believes in a balanced trade relationship with China, along with potential trade sanctions into China's intellectual property practices and pressure on foreign companies for technology transfers.

In the long run, it will be interesting to notice the trading relationship between United States and China, and whether the occurrence of a trade war could affect both economies in the long run. If both countries would want to benefit economically, they need to reach a mutual agreement.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/04/china-says-it-does-not-want-a-trade-war-with-us.html

Trumps Trade policies

The recent changes to trade policies has put the economy in some trouble. the stock market has taken a hit and its put both businesses and their consumers in a difficult position due to the rising prices. "If the NYSE or the NASDAQ or the S&P 500 tank, the pain will be far more palpable than a lot of people realize." not just because average, working people's 401ks will be wiped out, with the new tariffs in place prices all across the board will rise due to the increase in price to producers. It will be interesting to see what happens as time passes. The economy may not be able to handle the amount of stress that is being forced on it. 


https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2018-02-23/trumps-dangerous-free-trade-policies

CEO's picking sides over gun debate.

CEO’s are picking sides on the gun debate as corporate leaders have had increased pressure to speak out due to the uproar from angry customers and idealistic young employees. Dick’s Sporting Goods CEO took a stand stating “we don’t want to be a part of this story anymore,” and decided to raise the age requirement from buying guns in their stores from 18 to 21. Walmart, Kroger, and L.L. Bean have followed suit and also raised their requirement age after Dick’s made the move.

http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/04/news/companies/companies-nra-guns/index.html

China Sets 2018 GDP Target at about 6.5%

If there is any economy that has potential to match the power of America's economy then it has to be China. A country that within the last decade has posted GDP growth rates as high as 10 percent is now lowering its expectations for growth to 6.5 percent. This is still a massive gain compared to the 2-3% growth we see in America, but China has been turning its attention to other factors in the economy besides growth. For instance, China wants to cut its budget deficit percentage of GDP to 2.6 percent which would be down from its previous 3 percent. In addition, China is also focusing on creating economic stability by creating more urban jobs to replace its huge agricultural workforce along with attempting to decrease the income gap. In the end, China has implemented an economic system that allows them to focus on the very long run rather than the shorter run that those of us in America focus on. 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-05/china-keeps-economic-growth-target-steady-at-around-6-5

Trump's Tariffs

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/02/trumps-protectionist-steel-tariffs-criticized-by-economist-adam-posen.html

This is a very interesting article talking about the outcomes of Trump's proposed tariffs. Economist Adam Posen said that tariffs would hurt a lot of US companies, mostly automobile and airplane manufacturers, who will find their costs rise significantly.

Another big fear of the proposed tariffs, is the potentially trade war that could start as foreign countries retaliate against the tariffs. Countries who export steel, mainly Canada, Brazil, and South Korea, could threaten trade with the US, which would further hurt global growth.

One positive, in my opinion, of the tariffs, is the benefit to US steel producing companies. Although, I am fearful this a short-term benefit, as eventually price will rise to high and steel producing companies will have to cut back on employees. It'll be interesting to see the full outcome of these tariffs, as there are many parties who are affected by this. Consumers, I'm afraid, may be hurt the most as traditional service prices may start to rise.

The Genocide the US Didn't See Coming

This Politico article discusses the ways that the US's involvement in Myanmar may or may not have led to the current Rohingya genocide, especially under the Obama administration. The lifting of economic sanctions by the Obama administration was seen as a way to publicly show that countries that changed their ways and showed movement towards democracy could be forgiven. However, many people think that the sanctions were too much, too soon, and may actually have enriched Myanmar's generals, who hold large stakes in the economy (much like Russian oligarchs).

This is relevant to Economic Systems because it shows the ways in which different types of systems interact with each other, and how smaller countries are rewarded for conforming to the dominant system (capitalist democracy). It also shows the ways in which economic sanctions can be effective tools for moral or religious judgements of other countries.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/04/obama-rohingya-genocide-myanmar-burma-muslim-syu-kii-217214

Crisis

In this article, Desmond Lachman raises his concern about the US economy and financial market crisis. He predicts that next year we will have a crisis like the one we had in 2008-2009. The main causes of the crisis would be price bubbles and credit risk mispricing. Another cause would be high debt level. The US is at its expansionary level with low-interest rates, inflated equity prices, and a weak dollar. Federal Reserve has a difficult choice as raising interest would risk the price bubble burst. The fiscal and monetary stimulus would be the main reasons behind the overheating of the economy.

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/economic-intelligence/articles/2018-02-14/us-economy-is-in-danger-of-overheating-and-exploding-into-financial-crisis

Food Stall Price Discrimination

In this article a food stall owner in New Orleans decided to take a public stance and decided to charge white people two and a half times the amount he charged to minorities. He ultimately did this as an experiment to see what would happen and he explained that the price difference reflected the income disparity between African-Americans and whites in New Orleans. He explained that about 80 percent of the white customers decided to pay the inflated rates.  In addition the majority of minorities declined the redistributed money that was given to them. The owner suspected that the majority paid the inflated rates because they were from higher income brackets. While the price changes were done as an experiment I am shocked people still paid the inflated prices along with the knowledge of what the owner was doing.

https://www.inc.com/chris-matyszczyk/this-business-charged-white-people-more-than-twice-as-much-as-minorities-heres-how-customers-reacted.html https://www.inc.com/chris-matyszczyk/this-business-charged-white-people-more-than-twice-as-much-as-minorities-heres-how-customers-reacted.html

Economic Cost from Gun Violence

Gun violence is taking its toll on the economy and it will be interesting to see what will happen in the future.  After the recent shooting in Florida it is interesting to see what different big department stores are doing to their gun selling.  For example look at Dicksportinggoods who made it so you have to be 21 to buy a guns from their stores.  I wonder if these rule will have any impacts on their profit for the gun department.  Many agreed with this idea of Dicksportinggoods because  of it being able to stop the illegal purchase of guns.  I don't really have any stance on this topic but I do agree with the Dicksportinggoods because hopefully this choice will decrease gun violence in some sense.   But for the economics of it, who knows how well this idea will do but I guess we will have to wait and see.

Electronic Money Leads to Problems with Tipping

https://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2018/03/paying-service

This short article from The Economist sheds light on a problem that most of us probably haven't recently considered. With the rise of electronic payment systems tipping has gone to the wayside for many people. The article mentions that the Uber app now has a function for tipping. Prior to this update, many divers explained that they were not receiving tips because customers couldn't provide a tip through the app. People either didn't have cash on them or thought it wasn't necessary because the app didn't offer the opportunity to tip. The problem with these kinds of interactions is that many people rely on tips as a fundamental part of their income and the rise of electronic payment has begun to hurt those individuals.

Is Bitcoin a Waste of Electricity, or Something Worse?

The news mentions that in order to mine bitcoin, we have to consume huge resources and energies. Nowadays, America is facing the productivity problem, if industries focus on mining bitcoin, the problem would be more serious. 

Tyler Cowen, an economist at George Mason University, suggested that mining gold is a better way to use resources because even if it lost value, it could be used to fill teeth. If bitcoin lost its value, it would become nothing and those resources consumed would never be back.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/business/economy/bitcoin-electricity-productivity.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fbusiness-economy