$119,050,900,000: Merchandise Trade Deficit With China Hit Record Through April


President Xi is sitting pretty

These figures are not as alarming as they seem. They are part of a triangular trade flow that includes Australia. To make all the gadgets they sell to Americans China needs a lot of raw materials, particularly iron ore, aluminium oxide and metallurgical coal. And Australia has heaps of them all -- sometimes just sitting on the ground just waiting to be scooped up

So China buys heaps of those things using the surplus dollars that they get from trading with America. And Australia in turn buys heaps from America using the greenbacks they got from China. Australia doesn't make much. It is overflowing with natural resources that other countries buy. So it makes sense to buy in manufactured goods with the easy dollars Australia gets from exporting commodities. And Australia buys in lots of stuff from America. So Australia has a big trade deficit with America. In other words, some of those greenbacks that flow to China come back to America via Australia. It doesn't all balance out exactly but the balance is not as bad as it looks at first.

So what does China do with its great hoard (trillions) of greenbacks? It sends a lot of them straight back to America as investments. It uses them to buy American companies and American real estate. That sounds bad to a lot of people but again it is not as bad as you think. China is in fact very trusting in doing so.

Say they buy an American farm. Does that deprive America of anything? Hardly. They cannot pick the farm up and take it back to China can they? They just take it on faith that America will let them keep and use it. They make themselves hostage to America. And whether they buy farms or companies it will usually be something that they already know about -- something in which they have expertise. So they will combine their expertise with American expertise to create a better business

Let me give a theoretical example: Say they buy up a soy bean farm. Chinese eat a lot of soy beans. The American farmer will probably be left in charge of the farm because he knows best how to farm in America. What the Chinese know about in great detail will be what cultivar of the beans is most popular in China and how best to market the beans. So the new Chinese owner will guide the American farmer on what beans to plant, when to plant them and how to prepare them for export. Result: more exports of beans from America to China -- thus helping to reduce that trade imbalance.

It's not always as simple and as balanced as that but something like that does often happen. So again, the imbalances are not as bad as they look at first. There is still a lot of work for Mr Trump to do, however. There is a real imbalance in America's trade with China and one part of the reason for that is that China put up barriers to imports from America. Mr Trump has already got some of those barriers pulled down but there is still more to be done

And as every economist will tell you, there are "invisible" exports -- for instance the financial services of Wall St and patent rights. China buys a lot of them. Americans hold a lot of patents and charge people to use them.  China is often slack in buying patents it uses but when they want to export something they have to have the patent rights that thing uses.  So America has a big surplus with China on "invisibles". There is still not an overall balance but Mr Trump has less work to do to get fair trade than it at first appears


The U.S. merchandise trade deficit with China set a record through April, hitting $119,050,900,000 for the first four months of 2018, according to data released today by the Census Bureau.

From January through April, the Census Bureau reports, the United States exported $42,291,500,000 in goods to China while importing $161,342,400,000.

In other words, when measured by dollar value, the United States bought about 3.8 times as much in goods from China as China bought from the United States.

Prior to this year, the record for the highest trade deficit with China in the first four months of the year came in 2015, when it hit $115,320,000,000 in constant April 2018 dollars (adjusted using the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator).

The last time the U.S. ran a merchandise trade surplus with China in any given month, according to the Census Bureau data, was in April 1986, when the U.S. ran a $54,000,000 trade surplus with China. In every month since then, the U.S. has run a merchandise trade deficit with China.

In 2017, according to the Census Bureau, the top products the U.S. imported from China (by dollar value) were cell phones and other household goods ($70,359,818,000); computers ($45,515,206,000); telecommunications equipment ($33,490,521,000); computer accessories ($31,648,577,000); toys, games and sporting goods ($26,751,412,000); apparel, textiles, nonwool or cotton ($24,137,388,000); furniture, household goods ($20,669,126,000); other parts and accessories of vehicles ($14,406,417,000); household appliances ($14,138,581,000); and electric apparatus ($14,080,858,000).

The top products the U.S. exported to China in 2017, according to the Census Bureau, were civilian aircraft, engines, equipment and parts ($16,264,533,000); soybeans ($12,258,835,000); passenger cars, new and used ($10,211,268,000); semiconductors ($6,076,509,000); industrial machines, other ($5,447,303,000); crude oil ($4,400,921,000); plastic materials ($4,002,797,000); medicinal equipment ($3,453,343,000); pulpwood and woodpulp ($3,359,165,000); and logs and lumber ($3,177,402,000).

SOURCE

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Fish oil won't help your heart

That's what the study below tells you.  I give the full abstract for those who might want to evaluate the study for themselves but it a pretty good demolition of the fish oil religion.  There were a couple of published replies trying to save the religion but the authors below gave them a pretty good rejoinder here

Associations of Omega-3 Fatty Acid Supplement Use With Cardiovascular Disease Risks; Meta-analysis of 10 Trials Involving 77 917 Individuals

Theingi Aung ET AL.

Abstract

Importance:  Current guidelines advocate the use of marine-derived omega-3 fatty acids supplements for the prevention of coronary heart disease and major vascular events in people with prior coronary heart disease, but large trials of omega-3 fatty acids have produced conflicting results.

Objective:  To conduct a meta-analysis of all large trials assessing the associations of omega-3 fatty acid supplements with the risk of fatal and nonfatal coronary heart disease and major vascular events in the full study population and prespecified subgroups.

Data Sources and Study Selection:  This meta-analysis included randomized trials that involved at least 500 participants and a treatment duration of at least 1 year and that assessed associations of omega-3 fatty acids with the risk of vascular events.

Data Extraction and Synthesis:  Aggregated study-level data were obtained from 10 large randomized clinical trials. Rate ratios for each trial were synthesized using observed minus expected statistics and variances. Summary rate ratios were estimated by a fixed-effects meta-analysis using 95% confidence intervals for major diseases and 99% confidence intervals for all subgroups.

Main Outcomes and Measures:  The main outcomes included fatal coronary heart disease, nonfatal myocardial infarction, stroke, major vascular events, and all-cause mortality, as well as major vascular events in study population subgroups.

Results:  Of the 77 917 high-risk individuals participating in the 10 trials, 47 803 (61.4%) were men, and the mean age at entry was 64.0 years; the trials lasted a mean of 4.4 years. The associations of treatment with outcomes were assessed on 6273 coronary heart disease events (2695 coronary heart disease deaths and 2276 nonfatal myocardial infarctions) and 12 001 major vascular events. Randomization to omega-3 fatty acid supplementation (eicosapentaenoic acid dose range, 226-1800 mg/d) had no significant associations with coronary heart disease death (rate ratio [RR], 0.93; 99% CI, 0.83-1.03; P = .05), nonfatal myocardial infarction (RR, 0.97; 99% CI, 0.87-1.08; P = .43) or any coronary heart disease events (RR, 0.96; 95% CI, 0.90-1.01; P = .12). Neither did randomization to omega-3 fatty acid supplementation have any significant associations with major vascular events (RR, 0.97; 95% CI, 0.93-1.01; P = .10), overall or in any subgroups, including subgroups composed of persons with prior coronary heart disease, diabetes, lipid levels greater than a given cutoff level, or statin use.

Conclusions and Relevance:  This meta-analysis demonstrated that omega-3 fatty acids had no significant association with fatal or nonfatal coronary heart disease or any major vascular events. It provides no support for current recommendations for the use of such supplements in people with a history of coronary heart disease.

SOURCE

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Food for thought

Dr Madsen Pirie explains



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An elegant proof of why planned economies don't work: the efficient markets hypothesis

The efficient markets hypothesis tells us that it's not possible to regularly beat the market. For information about what prices should be is already incorporated into those prices. Sure, some beat it for some period of time because that's just the way statistical variability works. Some, like Warren Buffett, beat it for a long time but then his cost of funds is lower than the market's.

We also have all sorts of people out there who insist that the use or markets to allocate economic resources is the wrong way to be doing it. That the wise people in government should be doing this for us instead perhaps.

At which point, an interesting comparison:

"The message is clear: the beat-the-market efforts of professionals are impressively and overwhelmingly negative. In any asset class, the only consistently superior performer is the market itself. It is well to consider, briefly, the connection between the socialists and the active managers. I believe they are cut from the same cloth. What links them is a disbelief or skepticism about the efficacy of market prices in gathering and conveying information."

Odd to equate socialists and money managers, true. But the underlying point does stand. If we had evidence from our unfettered (no, don't titter at the back there) financial markets that they could consistently be beaten by good planners, then it's possible that good planners with adequate powers could improve upon a market economy.

We don't see that market outperformance - thus the planning part isn't going to work either, is it? For all the evidence we have is insisting that we cannot beat the market.

SOURCE

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The balance of old and young

There is much current comment about an alleged imbalance between addressing the problems faced by young people today and attending to those bearing more upon older people. Some analysts claim that too much emphasis has been placed on meeting the problems of the elderly, and not enough on those of the young.

Older people [in Britain] have a triple-lock pension, rising with inflation or wages, or at 2.5%, whichever is the largest. They have free travel passes, a Christmas bonus, and a winter fuel allowance. Those over 75 have free TV licences, plus free or reduced admission to many attractions and services. Many are home-owners, free of mortgages, with private pensions to supplement the state’s provision.

Young people, by contrast, find it difficult to become home-owners with an inadequate housing stock, rising prices, fairly static incomes, and difficulty in saving enough for a deposit. Many graduates face tuition fee debts of nearly fifty thousand pounds. They face increased taxes and National Insurance, and many lack the comfort of an adequate private pension to support them in retirement.

This has created a political tension between young and old, a tension that comes out at the ballot box. Some of this showed in the 2017 UK general election, when the Labour Party offered to cancel tuition debt and help young people with social housing and a minimum wage increase. The Conservatives, by contrast, offered little to young people, and threatened the elderly with the confiscation of their homes to defray social care costs.  In that election Labour did better than expected or predicted.

The elderly are more numerous than the young, and historically more likely to vote, although this may have been less true than usual in the 2017 election. Some political observers see the prospect of a bidding war at general elections, with parties bidding for the votes of these two divergent constituencies. Should the young be taxed to fund benefits for the elderly, or should cuts in benefits for the old finance tax cuts for the young? Someone has to pay for the benefits.

There is a way to avoid having today’s young funding today’s old. It can be done by having yesterday’s young funding today’s old. This involves young people building up savings funds while they are earning, and using those funds to support themselves when old. It still involves the young funding the old, but removes the bidding war by having the elderly pay for their own benefits from savings when younger, accumulated over their working lives.

This personal fund, dubbed a “Fortune Account” by the ASI, would be the property of the individual, with any money remaining at death forming part of a person’s estate, to be inherited by heirs.

The Treasury fears that some people would not save enough, but dump themselves onto a state unable to let them starve, people the Treasury calls “freeloaders.” This is a valid concern, and one reason why people would be required to pay into such funds. There would be no net gain in compulsion, since National Insurance is not voluntary either.

The transition itself presents a major problem. One generation has to save for their own retirement, while simultaneously funding the commitments made to today's elderly. It might involve some one-off source of finance to fund the changeover, perhaps by a sale of remaining state assets such as land and buildings.

People would choose between competing providers to handle their Fortune Accounts, as happened when Sweden privatized its state pension scheme. The state would provide funds on behalf of those unable to earn enough to finance their own savings.

The change would be disruptive, without doubt, but it would prove a massive source of future investment as the providers put the funds to good use, investment that would augment economic growth.

Above all, it would end the divisiveness caused by the political struggle between young and old as each group sought to benefit itself at the other’s expense. And it would end the imbalance between them.

SOURCE

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Kathy Griffin Launches Vile Attack on Ivanka over Kate Spade’s Suicide

I thought Ivanka's comment was very well judged but I think what we see below is Leftist envy.  Ivanka has got it all and Griffin is just an unfunny comedian

Washed-up “entertainer” Kathy Griffin is best known to the American public for the incredibly distasteful picture she posted of herself last year holding a mock severed head representing President Donald Trump

She has also insinuated the president’s sons are rapists, and supported Canadian comedian Samantha Bee’s vile insult of Ivanka Trump while chatting with the harpies on ABC’s “The View.”

But Griffin’s own attack on Ivanka this week – in response to the first daughter’s thoughtful Twitter post on the suicide of fashion designer Kate Spade — was beyond the bounds of rational behavior. Even for a nut job like Griffin, it was way too far.

As word of the death spread, Ivanka Trump – who has built her own brand of success in the fashion world — took to Twitter to express her sadness, and urge any readers who might be in danger of harming themselves to seek help.

“Kate Spade’s tragic passing is a painful reminder that we never truly know another’s pain or the burden they carry,” she wrote. “If you are struggling with depression and contemplating suicide, please, please seek help.”

That’s about as unobjectionable a tweet as has even been posted. But for a borderline-lunatic like Griffin, it was a red flag to charge.

"You're all talk feckless, you're all talk."

Using the word “feckless” no doubt to bring to mind Bee’s vicious words last week

In another tweet she expanded on that: “If someone is feckless does that mean they have no feck? So when it comes to Ivanka can I say she’s all talk and no feck?”

But other than using a tragic death as an opportunity to exercise some mean-girl bullying muscles, and opportunistically try to boost her own sagging career, it was difficult to understand what Griffin might have been talking about.

Griffin is clearly not someone playing with a full deck, so it’s understandable that she would be sensitive to mental health issues. But even with that, the idea of attacking Ivanka doesn’t make sense.

In any case, lashing out at Ivanka Trump for apparently heartfelt advice to those suffering from depression is simply unhinged. Maybe Griffin’s the one who should be seeking help. Before it’s too late.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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