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Economy

consumer sentiment men shopping

Shoppers at Third Street Promenade outdoor shopping mall on August 17, 2012 in Santa Monica, California. (Photo: Reuters)

The Survey of Consumers, a closely watched gauge of U.S. consumer sentiment continued to decline in April, the latest indicator the U.S. economy is slowing down. The University of Michigan’s final consumer-sentiment index for April, which was released on Friday, fell to 89.0, down from March’s final reading of 91.0.

It was the fourth consecutive month that the headline sentiment index declined. Still, the Surveys of Consumers chief economist, Richard Curtin, cautioned against overreacting to the survey.

“Consumer sentiment continued its slow decline in late April due to weakening expectations for future growth, although their views of current economic conditions remained positive,” said Mr. Curtain. “The size of the decline, while troublesome, is still far short of indicating an impending recession.”

A preliminary April reading of 89.7 was announced in mid-April. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected a final April reading of 90.0.

Consumer Sentiment Final Results for April 2016

Apr Mar Apr M-M Y-Y
2016 2016 2015 Change Change
Index of Consumer Sentiment 89.0 91.0 95.9 -2.2% -7.2%
Current Economic Conditions 106.7 105.6 107.0 +1.0% -0.3%
Index of Consumer Expectations 77.6 81.5 88.8 -4.8% -12.6%
Next data release: May 13, 2016 for Preliminary May data at 10am ET

The Survey of Consumers gauge of U.S.

Economy

consumer-spending

A shopper organizes his cash before paying for merchandise at a Best Buy Co. store in Peoria, Illinois, U.S., on Friday, Nov. 23, 2012. (Photo: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg/Getty)

The Commerce Department said Friday consumer spending increased slightly by 0.1% in March, missing the median economist forecast for a gain of 0.2% last month. The result of the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index excludes the volatile food and energy components.

Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, fell in the first quarter. The Commerce Department’s first reading of first-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) showed the U.S. economy grew at an annualized pace of just 0.5%, down from the fourth-quarter’s final reading of 1.4%.

Personal income increased 0.4% in March, which beat the estimate for a rise of 0.3%.

The report, which is the latest in a string of bad economic data, all but ensures the Federal Reserve will hold off on raising interest rates.

The Commerce Department said consumer spending increased

Policy

Donald-Trump-Indianapolis-Indiana

Donald Trump speaks during his rally at the Indiana Farmers Coliseum in Indianapolis on Wednesday. His speech railed against current US trade policy. (Photo: IDS)

Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has made U.S. trade deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) a central tenet in his campaign, one which he is pounding away at in Indiana ahead of the primary on Tuesday May 3. Speaking at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, before flying back to hold a rally in Indianapolis, Mr. Trump outlined details of his “America First” platform in a major policy address.

Listening to his speech, Mr. Trump made clear he views trade and foreign policy as far more intertwined than typical candidates care to argue.

“We will no longer surrender this country, or its people, to the false song of globalism,” Mr. Trump said during the speech. “NAFTA, as an example, has been a total disaster for the U.S. and has emptied our states of our manufacturing and our jobs. Never again. Only the reverse will happen. We will keep our jobs and bring in new ones. There will be consequences for companies that leave the U.S. only to exploit it later.”

According to exit polls, Republican primary voters agree.

Larger-and-larger percentages of primary voters in the states say trade does more to harm the U.S. economy, which barely grew last quarter, than to help it.

As it turns out, Mr. Trump and his supporters — as well as those who agree with him yet back Senator Bernie Sanders — are right.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a division within the U.S. Labor Department, the state of Indiana lost at least 18% of the manufacturing industry during the period 1994 to 2015, years impacted by NAFTA and the World Trade Organization. The cutoff for the figure is the second quarter of 2015, when the latest available employment data was released by the Labor Department.

From the third quarter of 1993 to the aforementioned period, The Hoosier State lost at least 113,000 manufacturing jobs, a conservative number that factors both jobs created by exports and jobs displaced by imports. Meanwhile, the percentage of all private sector jobs that are manufacturing jobs in the state of Indiana fell from 28% to 20.2% during the NAFTA-WTO period.

The Labor Department tracks specific data resulting from instances of workers at specific workplaces who have applied for special benefits available for trade-displaced workers. In the state of Indiana, there are 93,386 such workers certified as having lost their job specifically due to imports or offshoring under the Trade Adjustment Assistance program. Worth noting, this program is notoriously very difficult to qualify and this figure only includes those workers who were certified to be eligible.

How many others are there? It’s impossible to know, particularly since the Labor Department doesn’t track those indirectly impacted by the loss of employment directly associated with NAFTA.

Mr. Trump has also promised to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border by leveraging the U.S. trade deficit and punish countries currently devaluing their currencies or those not living up to WTO guidelines. When we look at the data, there’s little wonder why this message has resonated, particularly in the Midwest, or Rust Belt states.

“Many Americans must wonder why our politicians seem more interested in defending the borders of foreign countries than their own,” Mr. Trump said in his speech. “Americans must know that we are putting the American people first again. On trade, on immigration, on foreign policy – the jobs, incomes and security of the American worker will always be my first priority.”

From the time NAFTA was enacted in 1994 to 2010, the Economic Policy Institute found that 24,400 jobs had been lost or displaced in Indiana–not to mention about 700,000 in the U.S.–due only to the rise in the U.S.-Mexican trade deficit alone.

Carrier, an Indianapolis-based manufacturing plant, announced in February that they will ship more than a thousand jobs to Mexico. Speaking Wednesday at a campaign event, Mr. Trump’s last-standing rival Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, blamed President Barack Obama for the move, but the data doesn’t support that claim. Indeed, on May 22, Trade Promotion Authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership passed the U.S. Senate 62-37 with bipartisan support.

Sen. Cruz, who previously worked in the Bush administration developing U.S. trade policy, was among the 48 Republicans and 14 Democrats who voted “yes,” but he later backtracked when the base went sour on the issue.

“You taking away from this community by taking this job, this plant away,” Dominique Anthony, a Carrier employee who says he’s worked at the west side facility for 13 years told reporters. “I have almost 16 family members that work there are Carrier. They have to go and tell our family that we have lost our jobs to feed our family.”

From the time China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001 to 2013, the Economic Policy Institute found that 67,800 jobs had been lost or displaced in Indiana–or, more than 3.2 million in the U.S.–as a result of the U.S. trade deficit with Beijing.

Donald Trump vows to overhaul the North

Opinion

Ted-Cruz-Campaign-Event-Indiana

Ted Cruz, R-Texas meets with supporters during a campaign stop at Shapiro’s Delicatessen, Thursday, April 21, 2016, in Indianapolis. (Photo: Associated Press/AP)

Though I won’t go so far as to say the Indiana primary is do-or-die for the Ted Cruz campaign, it couldn’t be much more important. As events have unfolded, Indiana has a critical choice to make next Tuesday.

It shouldn’t surprise political observers that Donald Trump won decisively in New York and the other Northeastern states. I don’t mean to disparage Republicans in that region, but they are more liberal than Republicans elsewhere in the United States, and Trump is far more acceptable to liberal Republicans than Cruz is, especially on social issues.

But the race isn’t over. Trump will still have great difficulty acquiring 1,237 delegates before the Republican National Convention. No, Cruz can’t reach 1,237 before the convention, but he very well could reach that number if Trump doesn’t, either, and the race goes to a second ballot.

This is not to say that Trump doesn’t have a strong advantage now or that the candidates’ respective delegate counts are irrelevant going in to the Cleveland convention. The more Cruz can narrow the gap between now and Cleveland the greater his case for succeeding on subsequent ballots.

In that sense, all the remaining states are pivotal, but Indiana perhaps more so because it is in the Midwest and is considered more conservative — and right now is up for grabs, according to polls. Though all primary and caucus voters have a grave responsibility, scorching heat is on Indiana Republicans.

We mustn’t forget that the Trump phenomenon was born from the gross excesses of the leftist Obama administration and the ineffectiveness of the GOP establishment to stop them. Regardless of the latter’s insistence that it did everything it could to resist President Obama, the majority of Republicans, at least, don’t buy it.

But that’s all moot now. The Trump movement is here; it’s real; and it wants to reach the finish line. Cruz is also an anti-establishment candidate. His success has been partly based on that, but it’s been based more so on his unique qualifications and his reliable conservatism.

There has been unmitigated rancor between Trump supporters and Cruz supporters in recent months as the race has narrowed to these two. Granted, I’m a Cruz supporter, but from my perspective, many Trump supporters feel that they alone own the title deed to “we the people” and that all Republicans opposing them are “cuckservatives,” on the wrong side of history and, in some cases, traitors to the people — if my Twitter feed is any indication.

Some anti-Trump people have been harsh, as well, so I’m not suggesting it all goes one way, but instead of focusing on the nastiness from both sides, let’s look briefly at their respective claims to legitimacy and the realism of their positions.

It goes without saying that in a free country, we have a right to support whomever we want. No voter is more legitimate than another. But what rankles me is the argument from many Trump supporters that Trump is the only outsider.

Truth be told, Cruz has been fighting the insiders — from within — much longer than Trump, who actually has never fought them in reality. Trump has only done so rhetorically, and then only recently, during this campaign. Most of his adult life, Trump has supported liberal causes and liberal politicians. Cruz never has, and that should make a major difference to voters in terms of which of the two they can trust.

My calculus is rather simple. The problems we face are overwhelmingly the result of liberal policies of the past 50-plus years. The federal government has expanded to an unconscionable level, wholly against the constitutional order and at the expense of our liberties and prosperity. Onerous taxing and spending, a metastatic regulatory state, a liberally activist Supreme Court, and sustained, relentless assaults on the Second Amendment, our health care, our fiscal viability, our military, our national security and our very culture have radically transformed America.

These problems stem from abandoning our Constitution and founding principles, so the solution is to restore those principles and roll back the federal leviathan. Many believed 2016 presented a perfect opportunity for the election of a true constitutional conservative who intimately understands this. Cruz couldn’t fit that bill more perfectly.

Though Trump supporters believe that Trump alone is qualified to undo the damage to this country, Cruz supporters rightly believe that Trump, with his emotionally driven, nationalistic populism, has hijacked the conservative movement just at a time when it is poised to save this nation from the ravages of liberalism.

Trump sings the right notes when he talks about making America great again. But Cruz is the one who has the right answers to actually restoring America’s greatness. On issue after issue, he is consistent and his solutions are tried and tested. Trump is all over the board — right on some issues, very wrong on others — and no one knows whether he’ll change his mind from one day to the next.

My humble appeal to Indiana voters is that you thoroughly consider the nature of America’s ailments and which of the two political doctors has the best cure — not the best ability to stir up a crowd and get attention but the best bona fides to actually do what needs to be done to restore America and preserve its uniqueness for generations to come.

Please don’t surrender to your emotions and fall for the seductive claim that we must burn this house down in order to rebuild it. We conservatives have always said we could fix things if finally given the chance. We must not blow this.

[mybooktable book=”the-emmaus-code-finding-jesus-in-the-old-testament” display=”summary” buybutton_shadowbox=”true”]

David Limbaugh: Though I won't go so

Policy

Hillary Clinton economic speech

US Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton speaks outlining economic vision at the New School in New York on July 13, 2015. (Photo: JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images)

We can learn a lot of economic lessons from Europe.

Today, we’re going to focus on another lesson, which is that higher taxes lead to more red ink. And let’s hope Hillary Clinton is paying attention.

I’ve already made the argument, using European fiscal data to show that big increases in the tax burden over the past several decades have resulted in much higher levels of government debt.

higher taxes more government spendingBut let’s now augment that argument by considering what’s happened in recent years. There’s been a big fiscal crisis in Europe, which has forced governments to engage in austerity. But the type of austerity matters. A lot.

Here’s some of what I wrote back in 2014.

…austerity is a catch-all phrase that includes bad policy (higher taxes) and good policy (spending restraint). But with a few notable exceptions, European nations have been choosing the wrong kind of austerity (even though Paul Krugman doesn’t seem to know the difference).

And when I claim politicians in Europe have chosen the wrong kind of austerity, that’s not hyperbole.

As of 2012, there were €9 of tax hikes for every €1 of supposed spending cuts according to one estimate. That’s even worse than some of the terrible budget deals we’ve seen in Washington.

european government tax and spend policy

At this point, a clever statist will accuse me of sour grapes and state that I’m simply unhappy that politicians opted for policies I don’t like.

I’ll admit to being unhappy, but my real complaint is that higher tax burdens don’t work.

And you don’t have to believe me. We have some new evidence from an international bureaucracy based in Europe.

In a working paper for the European Central Bank, Maria Grazia Attinasi and Luca Metelli crunch the numbers to determine if and when “austerity” works in Europe.

…many Euro area countries have adopted fiscal consolidation measures in an attempt to reduce fiscal imbalances…in most cases, fiscal consolidation did not result, at least in the short run, in a reduction in the debt-to-GDP ratio…calls for a more temperate approach to fiscal consolidation have increased on the ground that the drag of fiscal restraint on economic growth could lead to an increase rather than a decrease in the debt-to-GDP ratio, as such fiscal consolidation may turn out to be self-defeating. …The aim of this paper is to investigate the effects of fiscal consolidation on the general government debt-to-GDP ratio in order to assess whether and under which conditions self defeating effects are likely to materialise and whether they tend to be short-lived or more persistent over time.

Now let’s look at the results of their research.

It turns out that austerity does work, but only if it’s the right kind. The authors find that spending cuts are successful and higher tax burdens backfire.

The main finding of our analysis is that…In the case of revenue-based consolidations the increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio tends to be larger and to last longer than in the case of spending-based consolidations. The composition also matters for the long term effects of fiscal consolidations. Spending-based consolidations tend to generate a durable reduction of the debt-to-GDP ratio compared to the pre-shock level, whereas revenue-based consolidations do not produce any lasting improvement in the sustainability prospects as the debt-to-GDP ratio tends to revert to the pre-shock level. …strategy is more likely to succeed when the consolidation strategy relies on a durable reduction of spending, whereas revenue-based consolidations do not appear to bring about a durable improvement in debt sustainability.

Unfortunately, European politicians generally have chosen the wrong approach.

This is an important policy lesson also in view of the fact that revenue-based consolidations tend to be the preferred form of austerity, at least in the short run, given also the political costs that a durable reduction in government spending entail.

Here are a few important observations from the study’s conclusion.

…the findings of our analysis are in line with those of the literature on successful consolidation, namely that the composition of fiscal consolidation matters and that a durable reduction in the debt-to-GDP ratio is more likely to be achieved if consolidation is implemented on the expenditure side, rather than on the revenue side. In particular, when fiscal consolidation is implemented via an increase in taxation, the debt-to-GDP ratio reverts back to its pre-shock level only in the long run, thus failing to generate an improvement in the debt ratio, and producing what we call a self-defeating fiscal consolidation. …fiscally stressed countries benefit from an immediate reduction in the level of debt when reducing spending.

In other words, restraining the growth of spending is the best way to reduce red ink. Heck, it’s the only way.

When debating my leftists friends, I frequently share this table showing nations that have obtained very good results with multi-year periods of spending restraint.

golden-rule-examples

Source: IMF World Economic Outlook database.

My examples are from all over the world and cover all sorts of economic conditions. And the results repetitively show that when you deal with the underlying problem of too much government, you automatically improve the symptom of red ink.

I then ask my statist pals to show me a similar table of data for countries that have achieved good results with higher taxes.

I’m still waiting for an answer.

Which is why the only good austerity is spending restraint.

P.S. Paul Krugman is remarkably sloppy and inaccurate when writing about austerity. Check out his errors when commenting on the United Kingdom, Germany, and Estonia.

We in the U.S., particularly big government

Polls

ObamaCare, Barack Obama's signature healthcare law overhaul, reflected in graphic image.

ObamaCare, Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law overhaul, represented in graphic image.

A new poll conducted by Kaiser Health finds Democratic support for the repeal of ObamaCare, otherwise known as the Affordable Care Act, increased in April. While the public remains split on what they want to see done with the president’s signature health care law, the percentage of Democrats who have an unfavorable opinion of the law increased to 25%, up 6 points from 19% the prior month.

Now, as a result, 32% of Americans overall support a full repeal of the law and slightly less (30%) support expanding the law. However, 14% would like to see it implemented as is and 11% support scaling back the law’s role. In total, slightly more than not want to get rid of it to some degree than not.

ObamaCare Approval Rating Favorable Unfavorable Democrats

Of the Democrats who do not have favorable opinion of ObamaCare, 40% still want to expand what the law does. Yet, a sizable 19% said they want to repeal the entire law and another 9% want to scale it back further.

The survey continued to lean negative this month, with 38% saying they have a favorable view and 49% saying they have an unfavorable view. This month, UnitedHealth, the nation’s largest insurer, announced they would pull out of all but a “handful” of the ObamaCare state exchanges. While some economists, mainly those favorable to the law, argue the decision will have a minimal impact on cost, the truth is uncertain.

Overall, the 49% unfavorable rating expressed this month is the highest measured by Kaiser Health since July 2014. That month the gauge clocked in at 53% unfavorable, which is the highest level of dissatisfaction with the law to date. As a caveat, since PPD first began tracking approval ratings and Americans views’ on ObamaCare, the Kaiser Health Tracking Poll has been among the most liberal-leaning, favorable surveys for the president and his healthcare overhaul.

Kaiser is one of only a handful of firms to release a few surveys showing positive views toward the law during some period.

The president’s signature health care law, which was supported by members of his party, remains deeply unpopular since its forced inception. It was passed when the party had a supermajority in both Houses of Congress, but they have since lost both to the Republican Party.

Worth noting, and likely related, a recent Gallup Poll found the largest percentage of Americans cited healthcare cost as the most important financial problem facing their family. The cost of healthcare post-ObamaCare was followed by low wages, debt, college expenses and housing costs.

A new poll conducted by Kaiser Health

US

San-Bernardino-shooters

Syed Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, the suspects responsible for the San Bernardino Islamic terror attack. (Photos: AP/EPA)

DEVELOPING: The FBI has arrested three relatives of Syed Farook, the Islamic terrorist who killed 14 people with his wife in the San Bernardino attack in December. The charges are numerous and include conspiracy and marriage fraud.

While multiple questions were raised about several family members following the horrific attack, the arrests don’t appear to be related to them. The FBI sources involved say one charge was related to a marriage-for-citizenship scam allegedly enacted between Enrique Marquez, Jr. and Mariya Chernykh.

Marquez, who was previously arrested and currently in jail awaiting trial for conspiring with one of the San Bernardino terrorists, Syed Rizwan Farook, is also accused of supplying weapons to Farook and his wife.

Those separate terror plots related to Marquez never materialized. However, Marquez’s wife, Mariya Chernykh, 26, is charged with fraud and misuse of visa, permits and other documents. She’s also accused of perjury and two counts of making false statements to federal agents, stemming from previous interviews with the FBI.

Tatiana Farook, 31, Chernykh’s sister, as well as her husband Syed Raheel Farook, 31, who is also Syed Rizwan Farook’s brother, were also arrested. Chernykh and Tatiana Farook are Russian, not Middle Eastern immigrants.

The FBI said in a statement that Tatiana and Syed Raheel Farook “participated in the [marriage] conspiracy by, among other things, witnessing Marquez ad Chernykh’s wedding, taking staged family pictures of Maruqez and Chernykh” and other actions.

The FBI has arrested three relatives of

Economy

Weekly-Jobless-Claims-Graphic

Weekly Jobless Claims Graphic. Number of Americans applying for first-time jobless benefits.

Weekly jobless claims, or the number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits rose by 9,000 to 257,000 last week, lower than the median forecast. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the weekly jobless claims number to come in at 260,000.

The prior week was revised higher by 1,000 to 248,000.

A Labor Department analyst said there were no special factors impacting this week’s initial claims and no state was triggered “on” the Extended Benefits program during the week ending April 9. The report marks 60 consecutive weeks of initial claims below 300,000, the longest streak since 1973.

However, long-term unemployment has become chronic and that reduces the pool of eligible applicants.

The four-week moving average–widely considered a better gauge as it irons out volatility–came in at 256,000, a decline of 4,750 from the previous week’s upwardly revised average. This is also the lowest level for the four-week average since December 8, 1973 when it was 252,250.

The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending April 9 were in Alaska (4.0), Wyoming (3.0), New Jersey (2.7), West Virginia (2.7), Connecticut (2.5), Pennsylvania (2.5), Puerto Rico (2.5), California (2.4), Illinois (2.3), and Massachusetts (2.3).

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending April 16 were in Massachusetts (+1,653), Connecticut (+1,105), California (+1,089), Puerto Rico (+476), and Utah (+25), while the largest decreases were in Pennsylvania (- 4,270), Texas (-2,539), New York (-2,519), Illinois (-1,631), and Michigan (-1,577).

Weekly jobless claims, or the number of

Economy

Gross-Domestic-Product-GDP-Reuters

File photo: Shipping cranes and containers at a U.S. port representing exports and imports factored in overall gross domestic product, or GDP. (Photo: REUTERS)

The Commerce Department said the first reading of first-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) showed the U.S. economy grew at an annualized pace of just 0.5%, down from the fourth-quarter’s final reading of 1.4% , according to the Commerce Department.

The report released by the Commerce Department on Wednesday missed the median forecast. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the economy to expand at a larger but still abysmal 0.7% rate in the first quarter.

The economy grew at a 1.4 percent pace in the fourth quarter.

Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, increased at a 1.9% rate. That was the slowest since the first quarter of 2015 and was a deceleration from the fourth quarter’s 2.4% rate. Disposable household income after accounting for taxes and inflation increased 2.9% in the first quarter, which followed a 2.3% gain in the prior period.

Yet, Americans are holding back on spending, including on big-ticket items such automobiles. Savings rose to a whopping $712.3 billion from $678.3 billion in the fourth quarter. As a result of less spending, businesses placed fewer orders for goods and reduced inventory. In the first quarter, businesses accumulated $60.9 billion worth of inventory, down from $78.3 billion in the fourth quarter.

The inventory cut sliced off 0.33 percentage point from first-quarter GDP growth, an increase from the 0.22 percentage point it took from GDP in the fourth quarter.

The Commerce Department said the first reading

Video

[brid video=”35516″ player=”2077″ title=”Donald Trump Ted Cruz “Wasting His Time” Picking Carly Fiorina”]

Donald Trump reacted to Ted Cruz naming Carly Fiorina as his running mate, saying the Texas senator was “wasting his time” because he “has zero chance.”

“I just think it’s so early in the process. You have to first get the nomination. Here’s a guy picking a vice presidential candidate — he has zero chance. He has no path. It’s sort of crazy,” Mr. Trump said during “On The Record With Greta van Susteren” Wednesday. “It gets him in the news cycle because he’s been totally taken out. He had a horrible day yesterday, and he came in third — meaning third out of three most of the time.”

In a desperate attempt to stop the Trump Train from rolling over him in Indiana, where he has promised to repeat his victory in Wisconsin, Sen. Cruz became the first candidate mathematically eliminated from outright winning the nomination to ever name a running mate.

“If Indiana treats us right,” Mr. Trump said, sitting next to popular former Hoosier State head coach Bobby Knight. “We’re going to make America great again. We’re going to get rid of these politicians.”

Knight, nicknamed “The General,” endorsed the New York businessman and hit the stump with him in Indiana following a five-state sweep in the Northeast on Tuesday. Polls, including Cruz’s internal data, show Mr. Trump leading by a comfortable margin.

“Two days ago it was Cruz and Kasich, they were going to form an alliance and collude and go together, and Kasich didn’t live up to his side of the deal, they’re fighting with each other, and now he’s doing the Carly thing… I don’t see it. Number one it is very early.”

Donald Trump reacted to Ted Cruz naming

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