Smithfield Foods, producer of the iconic holiday ham, was one of America’s flagship food companies, steeped in centuries of U.S. tradition. [Reposted from Reveal | Nathan Halverson | January 24, 2015] The Virginia-based pork company derived its ham from a curing process Native Americans taught settlers five centuries ago. It owned part of Main Street…
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The bottom line is still the same until we return our nation’s economic focus from “a something for nothing approach” back to the “Real Wealth Creation Engine of Creating/Innovating. Making, and Building Things” again we are doomed to lethargic and anemic growth! Wake Up America! [Reposted from the blog of Dan DiMicco | Dan DiMicco | February 4, 2015] Some…
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President Barack Obama is finishing 6 years of negotiations on a broad economic agreement with 11 other nations on the Pacific Rim. Enacting this pact — The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) — is the president’s top legislative priority in these last two years of his presidency. [Reposted from the Huffington Post | Pat Choate | …
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TOKYO — Buoyed by a growing American car market and the most favorable exchange rates in decades, Toyota Motor is closing in on its most profitable year ever, the automaker’s latest earnings report suggested on Wednesday. [Reposted from The New York Times | Jonathan Soble | February 4, 2015] The Japanese company, which is the…
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Sometimes it seems we have to play “Whack-a-mole” against well-meaning legislation that would have harmful, unintended consequences. Last year, the Innovation Act, H.R. 3309 passed the House of Representatives by a 325 – 91 vote on December 5, 2013. It seemed like a comparable bill would easily pass the Senate until a concerted effort to…
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Here’s something that many Americans — including some of the smartest and most educated among us — don’t know: The official unemployment rate, as reported by the U.S. Department of Labor, is extremely misleading. [Reposted from Gallup | Jim Clifton | February 3, 2015] Right now, we’re hearing much celebrating from the media, the White…
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From Rep. Mark Pocan: Welcome to Magic Mondays, a weekly video series where I try to explain the crazy world of Washington and give you an insiders look at our nation’s Capitol using magic. What’s said “inside the beltway” and what happens in the real world are sometimes as different as can be. For this…
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“Estimates are that the TPP [Trans-Pacific Partnership] could provide $77 billion a year in real income and support 650,000 new jobs in the U.S. alone.” –Secretary of State John F. Kerry, in an opinion article titled “Alliances for Peace,” Jan. 14, 2015 “Completing the Trans-Pacific Partnership provides the opportunity to open up markets, lower tariffs…
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Better late than never, I guess. Larry Summers wrote a recent policy recommendation report, in collaboration with the Center for American Progress, which said (see page numbered 123 at this link): The World Trade Organization, or WTO, rules pertaining to exchange rates are inadequate to address the challenge of unfair advantage from skewed exchange…
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As discussions surrounding the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) heat up, there has been a new push to include provisions within the agreement to keep countries from managing the value of their currency for competitive gain vis-à-vis their trading partners. This push got an unexpected (by me, anyhow) boost recently when former U.S. Treasury Secretary and former…
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