Category Archives: Free Market

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Friday, December 27, 2019: 

All the numbers aren’t in yet, but it’s clear that the American consumer is happy. He is taking advantage of the opportunities afforded him by the most marvelous engine of economic improvement the world has ever seen: the private capitalist (non) system called the Free Market.

It isn’t really a system, but a highly complex network of individuals each seeking to improve their own economic welfare the best way they know how. It’s Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand “at work:

As every individual, therefore, endeavors as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value, every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can.

 

He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it … he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention….

 

By pursuing his own interest, he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.

Forecasters shouldn’t have been surprised. The numbers from November – a record number of new jobs, consumer spending up 0.4 percent from October – should have given them a clue.

Consumers launched themselves into the holiday shopping season with a vengeance – some say abandon – setting records along the way. When President Trump learned from MasterCard that the American shopper set records over the holidays, he tweeted in capital letters:

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, December 27, 2019:

According to the U.S. Department of Commerce American companies have repatriated more than a trillion dollars of their overseas profits since Trump’s “tax holiday” was announced in 2017. As part of his Tax Cuts and Jobs Act corporate profits held overseas would enjoy a one-time levy of just 15.5 percent tax on profits held overseas instead of the punishing 35 percent rate that existed prior.

As Walter Wriston, former chairman and CEO of Citicorp, famously said, “Capital will always go where it’s welcome and stay where it’s well treated.”

But forecasters at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania weren’t impressed. They predicted

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, December 26, 2019: 

When President Trump learned from MasterCard that the American shopper set records over the holidays, he tweeted in capital letters: “2019 HOLIDAY RETAIL SALES WERE UP 3.4% FROM LAST YEAR, THE BIGGEST NUMBER IN U.S. HISTORY. CONGRATULATIONS AMERICA!”

That wasn’t the half of it.

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, December 20, 2019: 

While Washington is focused on the impeachment proceedings, consumers are either online or at the mall doing their Christmas shopping. That’s almost all one needs to know about Donald Trump’s reelection chances next November. As the anti-Trump Washington Post painfully admitted, “Voters tend to base their vote on how the economy performed in the year leading up to the election.”

For the Post in particular, and for anti-Trump Democrats in general, it gets worse. The Post reluctantly admitted that “Since World War II, no U.S. president has lost reelection when the unemployment rate was below 7.4 percent.”

Under Trump, the unemployment rate is less than half that, at 3.5 percent.

When the president looked at reelection forecasting models in late October, he was pleased that three of the most reliable models showed him winning easily next November.

The numbers on the economy have done nothing but get better since then.

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, November 20, 2019: 

Target, the eighth-largest retailer in the United States, reported blowout sales and profits in the third quarter, a week after Walmart, the country’s largest retailer, reported similar results. Not only is the U.S. consumer alive and well, he is enjoying the benefits of a robust and growing economy.

Target boasts nearly 1,900 stores nationwide, employing more than 360,000 people, and Wall Street has rewarded investors in the company’s stock with gains of nearly 100 percent since just before last Christmas. And 2018 was, according to Target’s CEO Brian Cornell, the “most successful holiday in more than a decade.”

The retailer is expecting this year’s holiday shopping season to exceed last year’s, with gains of between three and four percent over last year’s results.

Specifically,

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, September 17, 2019: 

Staffers from NPR (National Public Radio) went shopping at Walmart to confirm that Trump’s tariffs are already costing American consumers a lot of money. They couldn’t hide the results: The impact is hardly noticeable.

In announcing the results of a year-long study of prices at a local Walmart, NPR boldly announced: “Shoppers beware: the tariffs will bite.” The bite turned out to be a nibble.

In August 2018, NPR staffers began tracking the prices on some 70 items at a Walmart store in Liberty County, Georgia, ranging from toilet paper and black beans to lightbulbs and TVs. They learned that of those 70 common everyday items, only 24 of them saw increased prices, while 12 of them saw decreased prices, and the remaining 34 had no price changes.

The staffers had to backtrack on their preconceived notions:

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, September 6, 2019: 

The two latest jobs reports confirm that the U.S. economy remains on solid footing, growing across every sector (including manufacturing) and putting additional pressure on China to come to terms in the tariff war with President Trump.

Wednesday’s jobs report from ADP, one of the country’s largest payroll processors, showed that the U.S. economy added 195,000 jobs in August, with gains across every sector and every company size. And that didn’t include the 17,200 jobs that were added in the franchise sector in August.

Friday’s jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) showed that