Global capital flows are the driving force behind the rise of the dollar, which rose 3.9% in 2021. In the last ten years, the dollar is up 25.5%[1]. The US attracts capital for many reasons, including tax avoidance, speculative trading, and a relatively small amount of genuine investment. The deregulation of financial markets in the…
Background When inflation threatens America’s stability and economic growth, the Fed raises the Federal Funds Rate (FFR). This reduces domestic demand for borrowed funds, and that reduces the growth of domestic money in circulation and thus the rate of inflation. This approach worked reasonably well from the 1930s when the FFR became an official policy…
Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen has provided an early signal of the Biden administration’s approach on currencies and currency manipulation. The US apparently has little intention of using currencies to address US economic problems, including slow growth, huge trade deficits, pervasive inequality, and a lack of good jobs. The economic analysis in the new…
https://youtu.be/rFmXoxQTO18
We all remember the famous line by Bill Clinton’s campaign advisor James Carville: “It’s the economy, stupid,” he said about what mattered most to voters. The economy still matters, of course, but one of the major fundamentals of the economy is the dollar and it’s non-competitive with the rest of the world. It’s too strong.…
This Working Paper examines the impact of the proposed Market Access Charge (MAC) on international capital inflows into the US economy and the domestic US economy. We build a model including the relationships between US capital flows, the dollar exchange rate, US trade, and the US domestic economy. Our conclusion is that a 5% MAC…
By John R. Hansen, CPA Advisory Board Would the MAC discourage foreign direct investment in the United States? Some readers have suggested that capital being brought into the United States to finance greenfield foreign direct investment should be exempted from the MAC. We should not, they argue, do anything to discourage productivity enhancing investment in America’s manufacturing…
