Recent comments

  • I'm sure she is not wanting to piss off the corporate big buck donors who run politics, but the real issue is they are going to try to bring the bill back this week and pass it. I've seen this before, you think you're safe, a miracle has happened and then we get a bait and switch just a few days later.

    More later, unreal cough Progressives voted for this turkey.

    Reply to: Is TPP Dead? What does Hillary think?   9 years 5 months ago
    EPer:
  • Senator Bernie Sanders: Sunday on CBS Face the Nation...

    "Corporate America and Wall Street are going to bring that bill [TPP] back to the House next week. I would hope very much that Secretary Clinton will side with every union in this country, virtually every environmental group, many religious groups, and say that this TPP policy is a disaster, that it must be defeated, and that we need to regroup and come up with a trade policy which demands that corporate America start investing in this country rather than in countries all over the world. So I look forward to working with the secretary on this issue. There is no question in my mind, and I think the minds of most Americans, that what our trade policy has been for many years is to allow corporate America to shut down plants in this country, move abroad, hire people at pennies an hour, and then bring their products back into the United States. It is a failed trade policy, and I would hope that the secretary joins Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, and the vast majority of Democrats in the Congress in saying, 'No, we've got to defeat this piece of legislation.' "

    A CBS News poll from late March showed that just 42 percent of American adults said Hillary Clinton was honest and trustworthy, while 47 percent said she wasn't. Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said, ""No poll says that."
    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/views-on-hillary-clinton-and-the-email-contr...

    Source: CBS News:
    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bernie-sanders-i-want-to-work-with-hillary-c...

    Reply to: Is TPP Dead? What does Hillary think?   9 years 5 months ago
    EPer:
  • in the business inventories release today, overall inventories were up 0.4%, the most since last May, & retail inventories were up 0.8% in April, the most in a year and a half...

    i can't prove it, but i'll bet a lot of those new April inventories, which will boost 2nd quarter GDP,.were unloaded from the ships and counted as imports in March and were largely responsible for the negative Q1 print...

    Reply to: It's Official, We're Negative, GDP -0.7% for First Quarter   9 years 5 months ago
    EPer:
  • in April, producer prices for finished goods were down 0.4%, with prices for major non-durable inventory categories, such as food, energy, and industrial chemicals, down by 0.9%, 2.9%, and 2.8% respectively....that suggests that real April factory inventories rose by something on the order of a half percent over March, and by even more over that of the first quarter, indicating a larger than normal boost to GDP from this single month's data..

    Reply to: Factory Orders Not Off to a Good Start as April Down By -0.4%   9 years 5 months ago
    EPer:
  • to an extent, i am looking at March in isolation, like i always look at the last month of a quarter for revisions that will give me a clue as to how GDP might be revised...when the Q1 advance report was released, BEA's note was that they assumed an increase in imports and in exports, that wholesale and retail inventories had increased and that nondurable manufacturing inventories had decreased in March...so the next week, the trade data was released and exports were up but imports were a blowout...so i looked at the details of those imports and that's when i realized they couldnt have been consumed in March...many of the import items that were up 20 to 50%, such as cellphones, clothing, footware, furniture and cookware sure didnt see a jump like that in retail sales....so i waited to see if they would show up in inventories next week...but inventories were weak and revised down...so i still think a whole raft of March imports went AWOL in the other national accounts...i expect they'll show up in this quarter, the net effect of which will be a higher Q2 growth rate..

    Reply to: It's Official, We're Negative, GDP -0.7% for First Quarter   9 years 5 months ago
    EPer:
  • Perhaps you are confusing a month with a quarter. Also, very often things have been revised while going in as inputs into GDP yet those revisions are not yet published. I just pulled up the trade report and briefly scanned. While the month is wild, it looks to me the quarter itself evened out as February was unusually low. I'd have to calculate it all by hand but eyeball that's what it looks like.

    I'm not sure what you mean by inventories popping up for I could be wrong but I would imagine or hope to imagine that imports are a low percentage of U.S. inventories therefore changes to those inventories, by ratios of import changes wouldn't be very much. i.e. imports are say 10% of a business raw materials then a spike up gives a 12% but the previous month is a decline and so on. Overall inventories barely budge to the impact from just imports. Also, low imports in February could mean March imports were never inventories but just replenished. Seriously, it really looks like Q1 the wild months cancelled themselves out on imports.

    Reply to: It's Official, We're Negative, GDP -0.7% for First Quarter   9 years 5 months ago
    EPer:
  • when i went through the itemized list of March imports i noted that imports of consumer goods rose by $9,013 million to $54,164 million with a $1,677 increase in imports of cell phones and similar household electronics, a $1,293 increase in imports of synthetic textiles, and a $981 million increase in our imports of furniture and similar household goods..in addition, our imports of cotton apparel and household goods, footwear, pharmaceutical preparations, toys, games, and sporting goods, televisions and video equipment. other consumer nondurables, non textile apparel and household goods, household appliances cookware, cutlery, tools, and camping apparel and gear all also rose by more that $250 million each…those increases almost certainly did not indicate an increase in consumption of consumer goods by that much, but rather just an offloading of ships…there were similar increases in every other catagory of imports except petroleum and similar industrial supplies…

    since those goods were not consumed, i expected they’d show up as an increase in wholesale or retail inventories…but they did not show up in March business sales, business inventories, or anywhere in investment…so while BEA applied their GDP formula to subtract imports from 1st quarter GDP as they normally would, the reason imports are subtracted is because they represent consumption, inventories, or investment that were previously added to GDP that shouldnt have been because they were not produced here…considering that those March imports don’t seem to have been added to any of the other national accounts, i contend they shouldn’t subtract from GDP (at least not in this quarter)…imports should only subtract insofar as they were counted as output of goods and services in another national account..

    exports, revised or not, are clearly an addition to our output not captured in consumption or investment so they obviously must be added...

    i wouldnt have given imports a second thought if i hadnt seen that March spike that didnt show up elsewhere...

    Reply to: It's Official, We're Negative, GDP -0.7% for First Quarter   9 years 5 months ago
    EPer:
  • I have no idea what you are saying at this point. Of course imports are subtracted because that IS U.S. consumption and/or U.S. inventories NOT made in the United States, not domestic. Perhaps you think of GNP? Also, if the strike was that influential, don't you think that exports would also be anomalies since they too go out through West coast ports? True, China comes in through long beach primarily but they also come in all through the borders. They use ports in Mexico and Canada and are then delivered by truck.

    I haven't done it but Alfred can show if the revision to imports is unusual. I don't think it is at all.

    It is a large revision to imports but it's not that unusual, case in point here, Q4 2014 and no strike involved.

    Also, the BEA did mention the West coast port labor dispute, here.

    Reply to: It's Official, We're Negative, GDP -0.7% for First Quarter   9 years 6 months ago
    EPer:
  • nope, never heard of unusual event adjustments...one would think if they made such an adjustment it would have been included in the technical notes; as it is, the 2nd estimates technical notes link still goes to the advance estimate notes...

    exports were revised, but they weren't the major revision...real exports fell at a 7.6% rate rather than the 7.2% contraction reported in the first estimate, while the real growth of our imports was revised to 5.6% from the previously reported 1.8% growth...i know the formula says to subtract imports from exports, but the formula is misleading...exports must be added to GDP because they are US goods and services not counted elsewhere...imports only subtract from GDP because they were added to consumption, investment, or inventories of another GDP component...if they werent added, they shouldnt subtract...

    Reply to: It's Official, We're Negative, GDP -0.7% for First Quarter   9 years 6 months ago
    EPer:
  • I think you are missing exports in this equation. I don't see an unusual bump in imports. This is standard fare and I warned about it with the advance. The inputs come in from the Census and are reported about this time but the adjustment up is not unusual at all, looks like your typical importa adjustment figures, happens every quarter and deflates GDP accordingly.
    don't see it being due to a strike, one time event.

    You know with seasonal adjustments they have strike and unusual event adjustments?

    Reply to: It's Official, We're Negative, GDP -0.7% for First Quarter   9 years 6 months ago
    EPer:
  • i still have a problem with these revisions...recall that our imports jumped in March when the West coast dock strike ended and the ships were unloaded, and as a result the March trade deficit increased 43%...however, those imports did not show up in March business sales, business inventories, or even in investment...so while BEA applied their GDP formula to subtract imports from 1st quarter GDP, the reason imports are subtracted from GDP is because they represent consumption inventories or investment that was previously added to GDP that was not produced in the US...considering that those imports dont seem to have been added to any of the other national accounts, they shouldn't subtract from GDP...where they went is still a mystery, perhaps they'll show up in consumption or inventories in the 2nd quarter, but from here it appears that the subtraction of the March jump in imports was misallocated by the GDP model...

    Reply to: It's Official, We're Negative, GDP -0.7% for First Quarter   9 years 6 months ago
    EPer:
  • All of these GOP candidates and others coming out against these corporate written and lobbied for trade deals is a great thing. They may very well even get the labor vote since Democrats betray the unions time and time again. That certainly is what happened with Reagan, but of course Reagan did the ultimate screw job to labor with the air traffic controller's strike.

    Thanks for the conservative update on candidates.

    Reply to: Update: Rand Paul Comes Out Against Fast Track   9 years 6 months ago
    EPer:
  • If she were still the CEO of Hewlett-Packard, she would definitely support TPP (HP is currently on the list of coalition members who support all these trade agreements.)
    http://tradebenefitsamerica.org/about-coalition

    "Fiorina cites not trusting China to live up to any deal it signs as one reason for her opposition."

    Reuters -- May 21, 2015) "HP sells $2.3 billion China unit stake to forge partnership with Tsinghua Unigroup -- Western tech companies have struggled for customers in China after former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden's revelations of cyberspying program involving U.S. firms. Many of these Western companies are now seeking local partners or selling off assets altogether to Chinese buyers."
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/22/us-hp-m-a-tsinghuaunigroup-idU...

    And why are the TPP negotiators meeting face-to-face on a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean (Guam)? Can’t they have a teleconference? Or are the talks SO SECRET that they are afraid that the NSA (or someone else) will eavesdrop on them?”
    http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/05/24/business/intellectual-proper...

    Reply to: Trump, Fiorina and Huckabee Get Fast-Track Right   9 years 6 months ago
    EPer:
  • Yeah, I am having a hard time squaring this with Carly's outsourcing at HP as well.

    As far as other Republican opposition the list appears to be growing. While not presidential candidates, Alabama's Senators Sessions and Shelby have come out strongly against, as has the grand poobah of right wing radio Limbaugh. Sessions has been particularly vocal about the problems with the TPP and TPA. he also claims to have read the secret documents and didn't like what he saw.

    All appear to support free trade in theory, they express the concerns about its constitutionality and special interests. With Limbaugh its quite simply if Obama's for it, it can't be good.

    Obama and Paul Ryan are crafting a deal right now to ram this thing thru congress, by stripping out the human trafficking enforcement out of it - thus allowing flagrant human rights violator Malaysia into the deal

    If I am not mistaken, Rand Paul voted against TPA

    Reply to: Trump, Fiorina and Huckabee Get Fast-Track Right   9 years 6 months ago
    EPer:
  • On a vote of 62 to 38, the measure for fast-track authority received just enough Democratic support to keep it moving ... About 10 Democrats — who wavered over the legislation last week — issued a demand that congressional GOP leaders assure them that they would approve an extension of the federally backed Export-Import Bank that helps U.S. corporations sell their goods abroad. Many conservatives, particularly in the House, oppose renewing the charter of the bank because they consider it a form of corporate welfare that favors large, well-connected businesses, particularly Boeing [the job offshorer, the union buster and tax dodger] ... the lawmakers reached a deal on the Export-Import Bank that tipped the scales for Patty Murray (D) and Maria Cantwell (D), senators from Washington state, which relies on the thousands of jobs at Boeing plants that are tied to Export-Import Bank loans. Senior officials for Boeing — the largest recipient of Export-Import loans and a supporter of the trade deal — sat in a reception room just off the Senate floor during the cliffhanger. Also, the Washington state Democrats have a Republican ally, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), who is one of the few 2016 presidential contenders supporting the bank. All three senators represent states where Boeing is a major employer.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-votes-to-give-obama-fast-t...

    Reply to: Warnings on Trade Deals Ignored by Congress in 1999   9 years 6 months ago
    EPer:
  • "Broken Promises: Decades of Failure to Enforce Labor Standards in Free Trade Agreements"
    (13 page report prepared by the Staff of Sen. Elizabeth Warren)
    http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/WarrenReport.pdf

    The Hill: "The Left presses Clinton to choose sides on Obama's trade pact"
    http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/242206-left-presses-clinton-to-choo...

    (* We've already known for years how Senator Bernie Sanders feels.)

    Reply to: Warnings on Trade Deals Ignored by Congress in 1999   9 years 6 months ago
    EPer:
  • I wouldn't be that shocked by just March, the real story is the entire 2014 being revised downward, plus this year so far is much worse.

    Reply to: No Q2 Hope From Retail Sales   9 years 6 months ago
    EPer:
  •  i seem to be the only one covering the revisions to last month...here they are:

    sales at car dealers, which were originally reported as up 2.8%, have been revised to show March growth of 3.1%...as expected, sales at gas stations were revised from a decrease of 0.6% to an increase of 0.4%, although with a 3.9% increase in gas prices. we frankly expected a greater revision...other large upward revisions included sales at department stores, which were originally reported 1.4% higher, are now seen to have been 2.7% higher, and sales at specialty stores, such as sporting goods, book and music stores, which were originally reported as up 0.2%, are now seen to have increased 1.4%...other upwards revisions of less than 0.5% were seen by furniture stores, building material and garden supply stores, groceries, non-store retailers, and bars and restaurants....meanwhile, sales at miscellaneous stores, first reported up 1.7%, have been revised to barely growing in March at 0.1%, while sales at electronics and appliance stores were revised 0.4% lower, sales at clothing stores were revised 0.3% lower, and drug store sales were unrevised...

    Reply to: No Q2 Hope From Retail Sales   9 years 6 months ago
    EPer:
  • Here are the 13 Democrats who voted to advance fast track for Obama and the GOP:

    1) Ron Wyden (D-OR) Also voted for the NAFTA and CAFTA.
    2) Bill Nelson (D-FL) Also voted for the CAFTA .
    3) Maria Cantwell (D-WA) Also voted for CAFTA.
    4) Patty Murray (D-WA) Voted to double the number of H-1B visas.
    5) Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
    6) Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
    7) Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND)
    8) Michael Bennet (D-CO)
    9) Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)
    10) Tom Carper (D-DE)
    11) Chris Coons (D-DE)
    12) Tim Kaine (D-VA)
    13) Mark Warner (D-VA)

    Reply to: Warnings on Trade Deals Ignored by Congress in 1999   9 years 6 months ago
    EPer:
  • @ Bloomberg (by Noah Smith) — Those who said we were wrong in 1999, are now admitting that they wrong then — but yet, are again saying we are wrong now. Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!

    "Warren and the anti-TPP movement are doing more harm than good ... The TPP is different. It’s mostly about trade with Japan and South Korea ... rich countries, with tons of capital and very high labor costs. The second reason TPP isn't like past trade deals is the intellectual property protection ... There is one type of activity that is very hard for U.S. companies to send offshore: innovation. Stronger international IP protection will help U.S. companies export more, which makes them hire more American workers, which increases the amount that those workers spend on the local economy. Yes, there are many problems with the U.S.’s intellectual property laws. But international harmonization of IP wouldn't exacerbate these problems ... So Elizabeth Warren and the populist Democrats have good intentions, but they’re attacking the wrong enemy. Globalization was a Pandora’s Box in 2000, when it was all about China. But we already opened Pandora’s Box. The monsters have already escaped, and the Democratic populists are 15 years too late. Now all they're doing is increasing the odds of scuttling a useful deal."

    http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-05-14/elizabeth-warren-s-trad...

    Reply to: Warnings on Trade Deals Ignored by Congress in 1999   9 years 6 months ago
    EPer:

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