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Opinion

A very happy Nigel Farage (front), the leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) celebrates with supporters after the Brexit victory being the result of the EU referendum, outside the Houses of Parliament in London, Britain June 24, 2016. (Photo: REUTERS/Toby Melville)

A very happy Nigel Farage (front), the leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) celebrates with supporters after the Brexit victory being the result of the EU referendum, outside the Houses of Parliament in London, Britain June 24, 2016. (Photo: REUTERS/Toby Melville)

Britain’s vote to leave the European Union sparks speculation on where the United Kingdom might turn for new trading partners. How about NAFTA? Britain could become the fourth amigo, joining the United States, Canada and Mexico in the North American Free Trade Agreement.

It is not the purpose here to argue the merits of NAFTA, although political hollering to the contrary, most economists see NAFTA as having modestly helped the U.S. economy while turning a previously poor neighbor into a growing market for the U.S. and Canada.

Before making a case for Britain’s joining NAFTA, let’s consider what’s wrong with it. Mark Blyth, a political economist at Brown University and Scotsman by birth, lists some reasons Britain might not find NAFTA a good fit.

The Brits, Blyth told me, “do services exports — not things you can buy and sell and drop on your foot — so NAFTA is less relevant.”

But Mexico is rapidly modernizing, so couldn’t it become a market for U.K. financial services? “Possibly,” Blyth says, “but with a per capita GDP of $10,000 and a large inequality skew, it’s about as big a market in real terms as Belgium plus Sweden.”

No, Blyth and others say, Britain is geographically in Europe, and there is where it must trade. The big task at hand is to work out a post-divorce trading arrangement with its soon-to-be former EU mates.

However, Britain could still join the three amigos in a new trade agreement, former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick has argued. Zoellick urges the United States to offer Britain “a modern trade and investment accord” in concert with Canada and Mexico that — unlike the EU’s “shared sovereignty” — would let the U.K. retain more of its national independence.

Even as part of the European Union, the United Kingdom kept its own currency, the pound, rather than join the euro. This enabled it to maintain greater control over its own monetary policy. If it were to join the amigos, it would, of course, still keep the pound, just as the U.S. sticks with the dollar, Canadians have their dollar and Mexico uses the peso.

Meanwhile, talks are bumping along for the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which would promote trade between the European Union and the United States. Virtually ignored on these shores, the TTIP has ignited protests in the streets of Berlin and elsewhere in Europe alongside charges the accord would force unnatural American foods onto Europeans’ grocery shelves.

There’s also talk of secret agreements and loss of sovereignty, which is kind of funny coming from leading proponents of the EU. Observers also report seeing not a little anti-Americanism. Mexico and Canada already have free trade agreements with the EU.

There are calls for Mexico to join the TTIP, despite its existing EU trade accord. Why? Why not, says the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. TTIP would put Mexico in the “big leagues,” where it belongs thanks to increasing competitiveness and economic liberalization.

Mexico has a way to go in catching up to rich economies, but it is now a bigger market for the United States than Brazil, Russia, India and China combined, according to CSIS. You wouldn’t know these things amid the hollering about NAFTA. (Nor are many Americans aware that the number of undocumented immigrants from Mexico in the U.S. is actually falling because of a stronger Mexican economy.)

But we digress. One reason Britain might want to join the amigos in a trade deal is Mexico’s great need for foreign direct investment. Brexit throws at least a small wrench in London’s status as Europe’s premier financial center. Anyhow, think about adding a fourth amigo.

Great Britain's vote to leave the European

Opinion

US-Supreme-Court-Getty-Images

An American flag flies at half staff outside the U.S. Supreme Court after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. (Photo: Brenda Smialowski/AFP/Getty)

No person shall … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…” — Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

The clash in American history between liberty and safety is as old as the republic itself. As far back as 1798, notwithstanding the lofty goals and individualistic values of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the same generation — in some cases the same human beings — that wrote in the First Amendment that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech” enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts, which punished speech critical of the government.

Similarly, the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process has been ignored by those in government charged with enforcing it when they deal with a criminal defendant whom they perceive the public hates or fears. So it should come as no surprise that no sooner had the suspect in the recent New Jersey and New York City bombings been arrested than public calls came to strip him of his rights, send him to Gitmo and extract information from him. This is more Vladimir Putin than James Madison.

I have often argued that it is in times of fear — whether generated by outside forces or by the government itself — when we need to be most vigilant about protecting our liberties. I make this argument because when people are afraid, it is human nature for them to accept curtailment of their liberties — whether it be speech or travel or privacy or due process — if they become convinced that the curtailment will keep them safe. But these liberties are natural rights, integral to all rational people and not subject to the government’s whim.

I can sacrifice my liberties, and you can sacrifice yours, but I cannot sacrifice yours; neither can a majority in Congress sacrifice yours or mine.

The idea that sacrificing liberty actually enhances safety enjoys widespread acceptance but is erroneous. The Fort Hood massacre, the Boston Marathon killings, the slaughters in San Bernardino and Orlando, and now the bombings in New Jersey and New York all demonstrate that the loss of liberty does not bring about more safety.

The loss of liberty gives folks the false impression that the government is doing something — anything — to keep us safe. That impression is a false one because in fact it is making us less safe, since a government intent on monitoring our every move and communication loses sight of the moves and communications of the bad guys. As well, liberty lost is rarely returned. The Patriot Act, which permits federal agents to bypass the courts and issue their own search warrants, has had three sunsets since 2001, only to be re-enacted just prior to the onset of each — and re-enacted in a more oppressive version, giving the government more power to interfere with liberty, and for a longer period of time each time.

We know from the Edward Snowden revelations and the National Security Agency’s own admissions that the NSA has the digital versions — in real time — of all telephone calls, text messages and emails made, sent or received in the U.S. So if the right person is under arrest for the bombings last weekend, why didn’t the feds catch this radicalized U.S. citizen and longtime New Jersey resident before he set off his homemade bombs? Because the government suffers from, among other ailments, information overload. It is spread too thin. It is more concerned with gathering everything it can about everyone — “collect it all,” one NSA email instructed agents — than it is with focusing on potential evildoers as the Fourth Amendment requires.

Why do we have constitutional guarantees of liberty?

The Constitution both establishes the federal government and confines it. It presents intentional obstacles in the path of the government. Without those obstacles, we might be safe from domestic harm, but who would keep us safe from the government? Who would want to live here if we had no meaningful, enforceable guarantees of personal liberties? When our liberties are subject to the needs of the police, we will end up in a police state. What does a police state look like? It looks like the Holocaust and communism.

Everyone who works in government has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution. Hence, it is distressing to hear lawmakers calling for the abolition of due process for certain hateful and hurtful defendants. Due process — fairness from the government, the right to silence, the right to counsel and the right to a jury trial with the full panoply of constitutional requirements and protections — is vital to our personal liberties and to our free society as we have known it.

If anyone who appears to have been motivated to attack Americans or American values based on some alleged or even proven foreign motivation could be denied the rights guaranteed to him under the Constitution by a government determination before trial, then no one’s rights are safe.

The whole purpose of the guarantee of due process is to insulate our liberties from subjective government interference by requiring it in all instances when the government wants life, liberty or property — hence the clear language of the Fifth Amendment. The star chamber suggested by those who misunderstand the concept of guaranteed rights is reminiscent of what King George III did to the colonists, which was expressly condemned in the Declaration of Independence and which sparked the American Revolution.

Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter once wrote that the history of American freedom is, in no small measure, following fair procedures — which means enforcing the guarantee of due process. Without due process for those we hate and fear — even those whose guilt is obvious — we will all lose our freedoms.

No person shall

Polls

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to supporters at a campaign rally in Canton, Ohio, on September 14, 2016. (Photo: Reuters/Mike Segar)

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to supporters at a campaign rally in Canton, Ohio, on September 14, 2016. (Photo: Reuters/Mike Segar)

Republican Donald Trump leads Democrat Hillary Clinton in the battleground states of Ohio (18), North Carolina (15) and Nevada (6), a new [content_tooltip id=”37989″ title=”FOX Poll”] finds. The New York businessman leads the former secretary of state from margins ranging from 3 points in Nevada to 5 points in Ohio and North Carolina.

In Ohio, the new Fox News Poll finds 42% of likely voters back Mr. Trump to 37% for Mrs. Clinton 37. Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson earns just 6% and Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein polled at 2%. Mrs. Clinton trails Mr. Trump by 2 points among voters living in union households, voting bloc that supported Barack Obama over Mitt Romney by 23 points in 2012. The Buckeye State is now rated LIKELY TRUMP on the PPD 2016 Presidential Election Projection Model.

Consistent with most polls in battleground state, Mr. Trump enjoys large leads over Mrs. Clinton among independents (+20 points) and working-class whites (+26). She’s up by only 3 points among women, who went for President Obama by 11 points in the state against Gov. Romney in 2012.

Without third-party candidates in the mix, Mr. Trump still leads Mrs. Clinton by a 45% to 40% margin.

In North Carolina, the Republican leads the Democrat 45% to 40%, with the Libertarian garnering 6%. The Fox News Poll is the latest in a string of polls showing the Tar Heel State moving over to Mr. Trump and it is now also rated LIKELY TRUMP on the PPD 2016 Presidential Election Projection Model.

In line with the numbers nationally, independents back Mr. Trump (41%) over Mrs. Clinton (24%) and Gov. Johnson (14%) by a wide margin in the state.

In the head-to-head ballot, Mr. Trump still leads by 5, 47% to 42%.

In Nevada, a state most pundits initially believed would be out of the Republican’s reach with his tough on illegal immigration stance, he holds a smaller but still clear lead over his rival, 43% to 40%, with Gov. Johnson getting 8%. The Silver State has also moved markedly toward Mr. Trump and is now rated LEANS TRUMP on the PPD 2016 Presidential Election Projection Model.

As shown in the PPD Presidential Election Daily Tracking Poll nationwide, Mrs. Clinton has lost ground among women voters in Nevada. Women backed President Barack Obama over Gov. Mitt Romney by a 16-point margin in 2012, according Exit Polls. However, Mrs. Clinton’s only leads by 6 points. She is also getting clobbered among independents, who back Mr. Trump (42%) over Mrs. Clinton (23%) and Gov. Johnson (21%).

The head-to-head matchup without Gov. Johnson shows Mr. Trump leading Mrs. Clinton by a slightly larger 46% to 42% margin.

The battleground state polls move another 39 Electoral Votes in the Trump column, marking what has been a clear and consistent post Labor Day shift in the Electoral Map.

Republican Donald Trump leads Democrat Hillary Clinton

Policy

The New Zealand Dollar (CURRENCY:NZD) Graphic

The New Zealand Dollar (CURRENCY:NZD) Graphic

When writing a few days ago about the newly updated numbers from Economic Freedom of the World, I mentioned in passing that New Zealand deserves praise “for big reforms in the right direction.”

And when I say big reforms, this isn’t exaggeration or puffery.

Back in 1975, New Zealand’s score from EFW was only 5.60. To put that in perspective, Greece’s score today is 6.93 and France is at 7.30. In other words, New Zealand was a statist basket cast 40 years ago, with a degree of economic liberty akin to where Ethiopia is today and below the scores we now see in economically unfree nations such as Ukraine and Pakistan.

But then policy began to move in the right direction, especially between 1985 and 1995, the country became a Mecca for market-oriented reforms. The net result is that New Zealand’s score dramatically improved and it is now comfortably ensconced in the top-5 for economic freedom, usually trailing only Hong Kong and Singapore.

To appreciate what’s happened in New Zealand, let’s look at excerpts from a 2004 speech by Maurice McTigue, who served in the New Zealand parliament and held several ministerial positions.

He starts with a description of the dire situation that existed prior to the big wave of reform.

New Zealand’s per capita income in the period prior to the late 1950s was right around number three in the world, behind the United States and Canada. But by 1984, its per capita income had sunk to 27th in the world, alongside Portugal and Turkey. Not only that, but our unemployment rate was 11.6 percent, we’d had 23 successive years of deficits (sometimes ranging as high as 40 percent of GDP), our debt had grown to 65 percent of GDP, and our credit ratings were continually being downgraded. Government spending was a full 44 percent of GDP, investment capital was exiting in huge quantities, and government controls and micromanagement were pervasive at every level of the economy. We had foreign exchange controls that meant I couldn’t buy a subscription to The Economist magazine without the permission of the Minister of Finance. I couldn’t buy shares in a foreign company without surrendering my citizenship. There were price controls on all goods and services, on all shops and on all service industries. There were wage controls and wage freezes. I couldn’t pay my employees more—or pay them bonuses—if I wanted to. There were import controls on the goods that I could bring into the country. There were massive levels of subsidies on industries in order to keep them viable. Young people were leaving in droves.

Maurice then discusses the various market-oriented reforms that took place, including spending restraint.

What’s especially impressive is that New Zealand dramatically shrank government bureaucracies.

When we started this process with the Department of Transportation, it had 5,600 employees. When we finished, it had 53. When we started with the Forest Service, it had 17,000 employees. When we finished, it had 17. When we applied it to the Ministry of Works, it had 28,000 employees. I used to be Minister of Works, and ended up being the only employee. …if you say to me, “But you killed all those jobs!”—well, that’s just not true. The government stopped employing people in those jobs, but the need for the jobs didn’t disappear. I visited some of the forestry workers some months after they’d lost their government jobs, and they were quite happy. They told me that they were now earning about three times what they used to earn—on top of which, they were surprised to learn that they could do about 60 percent more than they used to!

And there was lots of privatization.

…we sold off telecommunications, airlines, irrigation schemes, computing services, government printing offices, insurance companies, banks, securities, mortgages, railways, bus services, hotels, shipping lines, agricultural advisory services, etc. In the main, when we sold those things off, their productivity went up and the cost of their services went down, translating into major gains for the economy. Furthermore, we decided that other agencies should be run as profit-making and tax-paying enterprises by government. For instance, the air traffic control system was made into a stand-alone company, given instructions that it had to make an acceptable rate of return and pay taxes, and told that it couldn’t get any investment capital from its owner (the government). We did that with about 35 agencies. Together, these used to cost us about one billion dollars per year; now they produced about one billion dollars per year in revenues and taxes.

Equally impressive, New Zealand got rid of all farm subsidies…and got excellent results.

…as we took government support away from industry, it was widely predicted that there would be a massive exodus of people. But that didn’t happen. To give you one example, we lost only about three-quarters of one percent of the farming enterprises—and these were people who shouldn’t have been farming in the first place. In addition, some predicted a major move towards corporate as opposed to family farming. But we’ve seen exactly the reverse. Corporate farming moved out and family farming expanded.

Maurice also has a great segment on education reform, which included school choice.

But since I’m a fiscal policy wonk, I want to highlight this excerpt on the tax reforms.

We lowered the high income tax rate from 66 to 33 percent, and set that flat rate for high-income earners. In addition, we brought the low end down from 38 to 19 percent, which became the flat rate for low-income earners. We then set a consumption tax rate of 10 percent and eliminated all other taxes—capital gains taxes, property taxes, etc. We carefully designed this system to produce exactly the same revenue as we were getting before and presented it to the public as a zero sum game. But what actually happened was that we received 20 percent more revenue than before. Why? We hadn’t allowed for the increase in voluntary compliance.

And I assume revenue also climbed because of Laffer Curve-type economic feedback. When more people hold jobs and earn higher incomes, the government gets a slice of that additional income.

Let’s wrap this up with a look at what New Zealand has done to constrain the burden of government spending. If you review my table of Golden Rule success stories (below), you’ll see that the nation got great results with a five-year spending freeze in the early 1990s. Government shrank substantially as a share of GDP.

golden-rule-examples

Source: IMF World Economic Outlook database.

Then, for many years, the spending burden was relatively stable as a share of economic output, before then climbing when the recession hit at the end of last decade.

But look at what’s happened since then. The New Zealand government has imposed genuine spending restraint, with outlays climbing by an average of 1.88 percent annually according to IMF data. And because that complies with my Golden Rule (meaning that government spending is growing slower than the private sector), the net result according to OECD data is that the burden of government spending is shrinking relative to the size of the economy’s productive sector.

P.S. For what it’s worth, the OECD and IMF use different methodologies when calculating the size of government in New Zealand (the IMF says the overall burden of spending is much smaller, closer to 30 percent of GDP). But regardless of which set of numbers is used, the trend line is still positive.

P.P.S. Speaking of statistical quirks, some readers have noticed that there are two sets of data in Economic Freedom of the World, so there are slightly different country scores when looking at chain-weighted data. There’s a boring methodological reason for this, but it doesn’t have any measurable impact when looking at trends for individual nations such as New Zealand.

P.P.P.S. Since the Kiwis in New Zealand are big rugby rivals with their cousins in Australia, one hopes New Zealand’s high score for economic freedom (3rd place) will motivate the Aussies (10th place) to engage in another wave of reform. Australia has some good polices, such as a private Social Security system, but it would become much more competitive if it lowered its punitive top income tax rate (nearly 50 percent!).

[mybooktable book=”global-tax-revolution-the-rise-of-tax-competition-and-the-battle-to-defend-it” display=”summary” buybutton_shadowbox=”true”]

In 1975, the Economic Freedom of the

News, US

Ahmad Khan Rahami, left, was captured, right, after a shootout with police in Linden, New Jersey. He was wanted in connection with the bombings in New York and New Jersey.

Ahmad Khan Rahami, left, was captured, right, after a shootout with police in Linden, New Jersey. He was wanted in connection with the bombings in New York and New Jersey.

Ahmad Khan Rahami, the 28-year old Afghan born suspect in the New York and New Jersey bombings, was charged with using “weapons of mass destruction.” Rahami was arrested for the Saturday night bombing in Chelsea, New York, as well as an explosion in Seaside Park, New Jersey, on Saturday morning and a foiled bomb attack Sunday night near a train station in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) revealed in the complaint that the naturalized U.S. citizen had also written that God willing, “the sounds of the bombs will be heard in the streets.”

“On or about September 17, 2016, in the Southern District of New York and elsewhere, AHMAD KHAN RAHAMI, a/k/a “Ahmad Rahimi,” the defendant, acting without lawful authority, did use and attempt to use weapons of mass destruction – namely,destructive devices as defined by 18 U.S.C. § 921 – against persons and property within the United States,” the federal complaint reads.

The other charges include Bombing a Place of Public Use, Destruction of Property by Means of Fire or Explosive and Use of a Destructive Device During and in Furtherance of a Crime of Violence. The complaint lays out the evidence that Rahami was motivated by Islamism, which he documented in a notebook he had with him when he was shot and wounded by officers in the Linden Township Police Department in New Jersey.

Mohammed Rahami, the father of bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami, was walking to his car and spoke to the media in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on Sept. 20, 2016. Mohammed says his son is not a terrorist and points the finger at the FBI, saying the Feds know Ahmad's not a terrorist. (Credit: Newsday / Vic Barone)

Mohammed Rahami, the father of bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami, was walking to his car and spoke to the media in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on Sept. 20, 2016. Mohammed says his son is not a terrorist and points the finger at the FBI, saying the Feds know Ahmad’s not a terrorist. (Credit: Newsday / Vic Barone)

Meanwhile, Mohammad Rahami, the suspect’s father, said Tuesday that he told the FBI twice that his son was a terrorist.

“Two years ago I called the FBI. My son, he’s doing very bad, okay? But they check it almost two months,” he said. “They say he’s not terrorist. I said okay. Now they have he’s terrorist. I say okay.”

The comments come as fears grow that Rahami did not pull off the attack by himself. Jaime Reyes, owner of “Sonia’s Beauty Color Express” in Elizabeth, just doors away from the Rahami family-owned chicken restaurant, told Fox News “he was not alone.”

“I have known him for such a long time, he was not alone,” Reyes insisted. “There is no way that Ahmad was alone in this. He made bad connections.”

Following the explosion in Chelsea, a New York neighborhood known for its gay residents–which injured 29 people on West 23rd Street at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday–police found a second, unexploded pressure cooker device four blocks away with wires and a phone attached. The device was placed in a plastic bag and is undergoing forensic reviews.

Sources told PPD the evidence indicates the devices were made by the same individual. Al Qaeda and Islamic State (ISIS) recruitment-propaganda magazines have instructed followers on how to build and detonate press cooker explosives such as those used in the Boston Marathon bombings. Law enforcement authorities said the explosives relied on flip phones as their detonators and contained shrapnel via ball bearings and BBs.

READ FULL RAHAMI COMPLAINT

Ahmad Khan Rahami, the 28-year old Afghan

Opinion

Supreme Court Building (SCOTUS)

The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) building as viewed from across NE 1st Street.

Hillary Clinton and her fellow progressives shout things like “Health care is a right!” They’ve also said that education, decent housing and child care are “rights.”

The U.N. goes further. Its bureaucrats declared that every person has a “right” to rest and leisure, food, clothing, housing, “necessary” social services, free education, periodic holidays with pay and protection from unemployment.

Wow. I guess Abe Lincoln, Thomas Edison and Mark Zuckerberg were denied basic human rights.

Clinton and the U.N. busybodies are wrong. Health care, housing and food are not “rights.” They are “gifts” bestowed by politicians. These “gifts” violate other people’s rights because politicians take from people to give to favored groups.

When America’s founders talked about rights, they had something else in mind.

In the Bill of Rights, each right is a right to not be meddled with, a right to be free from government — the right not to have your speech abridged, your religion banned, your guns taken or your property searched without a warrant.

The founders were tired of kings and dictators bossing them around. In their new country, they wanted to vote for presidents and other officials. But they also knew that over time even elected officials lust for more power. So they wanted clear limits on what those officials could do.

They created three branches of government — to check each other.

“Gridlock is a feature, not a bug,” says Ilya Shapiro, editor-in-chief of the Cato Institute’s Supreme Court Review journal. “The founding system was not to make government more efficient. It was meant to pass policies that have large agreement that’s sustained across time.”

Because presidents think Congress is failing when it doesn’t pass legislation they like, they nominate Supreme Court justices who may give them leeway. Franklin Roosevelt tried to increase the size of the Court to squeeze in more justices who supported his programs. George W. Bush nominated his own White House Counsel.

The media call President Obama’s current nominee, Merrick Garland, “a centrist.” But he is “centrist” only in that he sides with Democrats who want to ban guns and Republicans who want government left free to do most anything in Guantanamo Bay. Garland repeatedly supports increased government power — and fewer checks.

Shapiro went to Chicago Law School when Obama was a professor there. He says Obama understands the limits the Constitution places on presidents but ignores them. He ignores them so often that the Supreme Court has overruled Obama unanimously more often than any modern president.

When Congress rejected Obama’s immigration plan, he just imposed it via executive order. The Supreme Court overturned that, but the final vote blocking it was close, 4-4. But what will the next court do?

I hope Hillary Clinton doesn’t get to replace Justice Scalia because she sounds a lot like President Obama. On her website, she says things like, “If Congress won’t act, I will ask the Treasury Department … to use its regulatory authority!”

Donald Trump is no better. He says he’ll impose the death penalty on anyone who kills a cop.

“But the executive has no say over that,” points out Shapiro.

Presidents cannot pass laws. They execute laws passed by Congress. Congress is supposed to reject legislation it doesn’t like. That’s its job. Most legislation is bad.

Former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson understands that. The Libertarian presidential candidate promises to only appoint judges who will ask whether any power or program proposed by the government can be found in the Constitution.

One judge he mentions as a possible Supreme Court pick is Fox commentator, Judge Andrew Napolitano.

“I’m flattered by that,” says Napolitano. “Johnson would clearly choose a small government, maximum individual-freedom court.”

Gary Johnson understands that the Constitution keeps us free by restraining government.

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, like many politicians, treat the Constitution as an annoying obstacle.

It is an obstacle to their plans. Good.

But I worry. The current court is not young. Our next president may get to choose five new justices.

John Stossel makes the case that both

Economy

housing-starts-new-home-construction

New home construction workers. (Photo: Reuters)

The Commerce Department said on Tuesday housing starts in the U.S. came in at an annual rate of 1.142 million in August, missing the estimate for 1.190 million. Groundbreaking decreased across the board by 5.8% after two consecutive months of increases, and July’s starts were unrevised at a 1.21 million-unit pace.

Housing starts on single-family homes fell sharply by 6.0% to a 722,000-unit pace, the lowest level measured since last October. Worth noting, as permits for the construction of single-family homes rise, single-family home building could rebounds in the future.

Single-family home construction plummeted 13.8% in the Northeast and fell 13.1 percent in the South, while starts rose in the West and Midwest. Housing starts for the volatile multi-family segment fell 5.4% to a 420,000-unit pace.

Meanwhile, building permits, which are a sign of future activity, fell 0.4% to an annual rate of 1.139 million, missing the estimate for 1.170 million. The volatile multi-family homes segment tanked by 7.2% to an annual rate of 402,000 units. However, permits for single-family homes, which represents the largest segment of the market, increased 3.7% to a 737,000-unit pace.

The Commerce Department said on Tuesday housing

World

A truck plowed through a large crowd of people in Nice during celebrations on Bastille Day in what is a suspected terrorist attack which reportedly claimed the lives of at least 73 people (Photo: AFP)

A truck plowed through a large crowd of people in Nice during celebrations on Bastille Day in what is a suspected terrorist attack which reportedly claimed the lives of at least 73 people (Photo: AFP)

DEVELOPING: French officials say authorities arrested eight men of Tunisian and French descent in connection with the terror attack in Nice on Bastille Day in July. Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian delivery man, killed 86 people when he plowed into a crowd of people gathering for fireworks.

Officials offered little detail relating to their connection to the attacker, but Lahouaiej-Bouhlel was allegedly not known for running around with jihadis. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the killer had apparently been radicalized very quickly but did have a history of violence and mental instability.

In the 8 days leading up to the attack, Lahouaiej-Bouhlel grew a beard and told friends it was for “religious reasons.” They said he showed them a video of a Islamic State (ISIS) militant beheading a hostage on his mobile phone, yet no one mentioned anything to authorities.

Lahouaiej-Bouhlel was from the north Tunisian town of Msaken, about 10km (6 miles) outside the coastal city of Sousse.

In France, July 14 is a national holiday that celebrates the storming of the Bastille prison in Paris, which sparked the beginning of the French Revolution. The method of the terrorist attack in played out like an instructional straight out of an al-Qaeda magazine for jihadis, specifically a scene outlined on page 54 in a 2010 issue of “Inspire” magazine.

French officials say authorities arrested eight men

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