Media Ignores Good News on Economy

Conspicuously missing from the headlines throughout most of the media is the growing strength of the American economy, due to the change in the White House following the 2016 elections. That reality simply fails to meet the dire, and totally incorrect, predictions of a biased media that the return to traditional American economics following the failed, leftward path of the Obama Administration would produce salutary effects.

Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 304,000 jobs in January, far surpassing market expectations (165,000) January 2019 marked 16^th consecutive month of employment growth of at least 100,000 new jobs. Numerous sectors experienced job growth in January, including mining and logging (7,000), transportation and warehousing (27,000), construction (52,000), education and health services (55,000), and leisure and hospitality (74,000). The economy has added 4.9 million jobs since January 2017 and 5.3 million jobs since President Trump was elected.

The Wall Street Journal reports that “U.S. stocks post their best January in 30 Years…Gains by banks and small caps helped lift the Dow and S&P 500 to their best starts since the 1980s….”

The 163,229,000 who participated in the labor force equaled 63.2 percent of the 258,239,000 civilian noninstitutionalized population, an increase from the 62.9% when the Obama Administration left office.

Market Watch reports that Manufacturing jobs have grown at fastest rate in 23 years.

This is a vital statistic. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, President Obama’s tenure in office presided over the loss of over 300,000 manufacturing jobs. The former president was rather nonchalant about that reality, stating, as his administration was winding down to its final months, that “some manufacturing jobs ‘are just not going to come back.’”

Obama’s legion of admirers in the media wholeheartedly agreed with the former president’s gloomy and incorrect analysis.

Forbes noted that “…as the shock of a President-elect Donald Trump was still being absorbed, New York Times columnist and economist Paul Krugman tweeted on November 25, 2016, ‘Nothing policy can do will bring back those lost jobs. The service sector is the future of work; but nobody wants to hear it.”

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Well, a funny thing happened—Trump’s policies, and just as importantly, the expectation of Trump’s policies, ignited a manufacturing resurgence…In the first 21 months of the Trump presidency… manufacturing employment grew by 3.1%, reversing the trend under Obama … Comparing the last 21 months of the Obama administration with the first 21 months of Trump’s, shows that under Trump’s watch, more than 10 times the number of manufacturing jobs were added.”

The Obama Administration, with its extreme regulatory policies and leftist economics, hindered manufacturing growth. An analysis by Bloomberg outlines the dilemma: the minimal amount of jobs that are were created were in traditionally lower-paying fields, furthering a transfer of employment from middle income to lower income. Payrolls at middle-class paying factories fell, while jobs in low-paying fields such as retail, leisure, and hospitality fields rose.

In addition to the Trump Administration’s push to lower taxes and ease the regulatory burden, its tough stance on China’s unfair trade policies have had an impact. China has not abided by reasonable trade practices following normalization of commercial relations. Its resulting domination of several industries resulted in decimating American industrial production and the loss of vast numbers of manufacturing jobs. U.S. News reports that within the first 13 years since normalization, 3.2 million American factory jobs were lost.

A specific example of how President Trump’s tough stance on China has produced results can be seen in a study of the U.S. aluminum manufacturing sector. The Economic Policy Institute found in December that “One and a half years ago, the U.S. primary aluminum industry was hanging on by a thread. Between 2010 and 2017, 18 of 23 domestic aluminum smelters shut down, eliminating roughly 13,000 good domestic jobs. In 2016, there were three alumina refineries supplying U.S. smelters; by 2017, only one remained in operation… after the Section 232 tariffs were imposed on aluminum (and steel) on March 8, 2018, the domestic producers of both primary aluminum and downstream aluminum products have made commitments to create thousands of jobs, invest billions of dollars in aluminum production, and substantially increase domestic production.”

Illustration: Pixabay

Quick Analysis

China’s Tech Targets

Chinese technology is changing and its leadership is using it, along with espionage, to challenge the West in a number of critical areas. The United States is only one of its targets. Previously, Beijing’s spies primarily sought Western technologies as a way to skip generations of develop cost and time to modernize its economy. Today, its acquisition of advanced technologies, and now also its indigenous development, makes the communist giant a threat to freedom-loving people everywhere. This week Nan Mulchandani, the CIA’s chief technology officer, said Director William Burns is preparing for an “infinite race” with Beijing for artificial intelligence and advanced technologies. He argues the US must pivot toward providing American spies with the latest transformative technologies to outcompete China. Mulchandani says this means updating everything the agency does “from operations to the analytic function, support functions and other piece there.” America, he suggests, needs to alter its thinking toward viewing this not as a race with a finite end point, but as an ongoing competition. Mr. Mulchandani predicted that the next area of competition would “be primarily a software war that is powered by something like AI” rather than hardware fueled by software. That competition, however, is not confined to simply acquiring critical technologies for use in the future. China is also challenging the US in space. China announced today it launched a groundbreaking mission to retrieve samples from the far side of the moon. The space capsule will arrive in four days and collect 4.4 pounds of moon rocks and regolith, or moon dirt. Beijing’s desire to one day become a space power and scientific force is for pragmatic purposes in 2024 a fait accompli. Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, said during a NASA budget hearing this week, that “while the US remains the global leader in space exploration, we face increasing challenges internationally.” Referring to China’s space station, Lucas said: “We cannot allow China to become the front-runner in space exploration… There are too many consequences for our competitiveness, our national security, and our continued ability to explore space.” A new report released this week by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) says that the United States, to further its geopolitical interests and maintain a strong domestic economy, must approach every aspect of economic and trade policy through the lens of global technology competition. The Biden Administration’s approach, it says, discounts the landscape of competition between China and the US and may “jeopardize US advancements in emerging technologies… which could cede the advantage to China….” In particular, the report recommends that the US take action now because quantum and artificial intelligence (AI) need a federal policy to ensure the country can spur the entrepreneurship and R&D efforts foundational to the strength of the technology sector. As China’s Communist Party (CCP) becomes more hostile to the United States and other Western nations, its aggressive activities abroad expand and intensify. Chinese spy cases far outnumber those of Russia and every other nation. CSIS reports that since President Xi took over in 2012 there have been 224 incidents of spying. Estimates of the long -term economic, scientific, and national security cost to the US run into the billions and have “created immeasurable damage to national security with the theft of weapons technology, including nuclear weapons test data… China has added the theft of massive quantities of personal information, political coercion, and influence operations, to its espionage activities.” The CSIS reports says that 49% of incidents of spying in the US directly involved Chinese military or government employees, with private Chinese citizens accounted for 41%. In 29% of the espionage cases the person involved was attempting to acquire military technology, while in 54% of the incidents it was related to commercial technologies. Almost half of the cases involved cyber espionage, usually by state—affiliated actors. No matter where one turns today China is challenging the West, from the depths of our oceans to outer space. The United States cannot count on China to be a good global citizen and refrain from attempting to enforce its vision of world order with Beijing at the apex. The time is growing short for the West to take action. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.