Nov. 13, 2019
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
Brazil sugar cane controversy opens door to trade deal
Brazil is the
leading producer of sugar cane in the world and environmentalists in the South
American country worry that a recent decision by President Jair Bolsonaro’s government
to end a ten-year moratorium on new cane production in the Amazon rainforest
will spark new development. Why should you care about Brazilian sugar? Because
if you want to create a pathway to end U.S. sugar subsidies, the road runs
through Brazil and the capitals of other major sugar producing countries, and
the opportunity lies in the probability of a second term trade deal between the
Trump and Bolsonaro administrations. Brazil
is the ninth largest economy in the world, and second largest in North and
South America, just ahead of Canada, and the United States ran an $8 billion
trade surplus with the one-time Portuguese colony. With an already robust trade
relationship, alongside the friendly relationship between Presidents Trump and
Bolsonaro, a bi-lateral trade deal makes a great deal of sense.
Video: Did Yovanovitch lie about Congress contacts after whistleblower and Ukraine 'do not prosecute' list?
U.S. Rep. Lee
Zeldin says former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch did not fully
disclose the extent of her contacts with Congressional staffers two days after the
anonymous CIA so-called whistleblower filed his complaint on Aug. 12. Her
testimony about a “do-not-prosecute” list in Ukraine doesn’t add up, either.
Schiff’s impeachment rules are through the looking glass
Americans for
Limited Government President Rick Manning: “House Intelligence Committee
Chairman Adam ‘Torquemada’ Schiff laid down the rules for his impeachment witch
hunt with a demand which Lewis Carroll may have delighted in writing. For those
with the capacity to read critically, what Schiff is saying is that any attempt
to actually examine what President Trump was actually talking about to Ukraine
President Zelensky in July will not be allowed.
What’s more, any attempt to get to the bottom of the very Russiagate
fraud, falsely accusing the President and his campaign of being Russian agents,
which was perpetrated on the American public by Schiff and various intelligence
agencies will not be allowed. In short, no defense will be allowed. It is
impossible to believe that any effort to contextualize the President’s comments
would be dismissed or deemed out of order.”
Justin Fox: How Trump’s stock market record stacks up
“It’s been three
years now since Donald Trump was elected president, which means it’s been three
years of listening to Donald Trump bragging about how great the stock market is
doing. Contrary to one now-infamous pre-election prediction, it has done quite
well. Any comparison that ignores inflation, meanwhile, understates the
awfulness of the 1970s stock market and overstates the goodness of the 1980s
market. Stock market performance in first three years since Trump’s election,
then, ranks fourth among the 14 elected presidents since Herbert Hoover. That’s
pretty good! It’s worth noting, though, that there’s not a whole lot separating
him from John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush.”
Brazil sugar cane controversy opens door to trade deal
By Rick Manning
Brazil is the leading producer of sugar cane in the world and environmentalists in the South American country worry that a recent decision by President Jair Bolsonaro’s government to end a ten-year moratorium on new cane production in the Amazon rainforest will spark new development.
While Brazilian sugar production has declined over the past five years, at least partially due to low international sugar prices, what most Americans don’t realize is that a significant amount of sugarcane is used to create ethanol in Brazil, much like corn is used for that purpose in the United States.
Why should you care about Brazilian sugar?
Because if you want to create a pathway to end U.S. sugar subsidies, the road runs through Brazil and the capitals of other major sugar producing countries, and the opportunity lies in the probability of a second term trade deal between the Trump and Bolsonaro administrations.
Brazil is the ninth largest economy in the world, and second largest in North and South America, just ahead of Canada, and the United States ran an $8 billion trade surplus with the one-time Portuguese colony. With an already robust trade relationship, alongside the friendly relationship between Presidents Trump and Bolsonaro, a bi-lateral trade deal makes a great deal of sense.
Sugar subsidization may fit into this scenario if Congress chooses to move ahead with Florida Congressman Ted Yoho’s forward-thinking proposal known as zero for zero. Zero for zero cuts U.S. sugar subsidies to zero upon a certification that other major sugar producers, including Brazil, end their subsidies as well.
The U.S. working with Brazil to end their subsidies would lay the ground=work for talks with other major sugar producers like India, Thailand, Pakistan and Mexico creating a consensus which once confirmed would end U.S. domestic sugar subsidies.
While some might believe that it is naïve to expect a massive end to individual country sugar subsides, the simple fact is that there is somewhat of an international consensus on the need to preserve the Amazon rainforest and this may open the door to talks about ending subsidies while protecting the rainforest.
But for any effort to have legs, Congress needs to act on the Yoho legislation which merely agrees to drop U.S. subsidies once other major sugar producing nations drop theirs. Passage of Yoho would give the Trump trade negotiators a huge chip to play because their legislative work would have been done in advance, providing negotiating certainty that otherwise would not exist.
When environmentalists hear about potential additional agricultural development in the Amazon, they immediately think of climate change and other horror story narratives that they tell themselves. However, these very concerns may open the door to a realistic discussion of cutting the agricultural subsidies that so often spur production in undesirable or lower yield areas.
A little creative thinking on the international trade front may just provide the impetus for problem solving which can be applauded by those who seek an end to sugar subsidies and those who wish to protect one of the worlds’ great river systems and the eco-system which grows around it. Zero for zero on sugar may just provide the exact kind of win-win that is necessary to fix seemingly intractable problems.
Rick Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government.
Video: Did Yovanovitch lie about Congress contacts after whistleblower and Ukraine 'do not prosecute' list?
To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkgF5xtZASM
Schiff’s impeachment rules are through the looking glass
Nov. 12, 2019, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement in response to the new rules for the impeachment inquiry released by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) including “As explained in my November 9, 2019, response to the Ranking Member, it is important to underscore that the House’s impeachment inquiry, and the Committee, will not serve as venues for any Member to further the same sham investigations into the Bidens or into debunked conspiracies about 2016 U.S. election interference that President Trump pressed Ukraine to undertake for his personal political benefit. Nor will the Committee facilitate any efforts by President Trump or his allies to threaten, intimidate, or retaliate against the whistleblower who courageously and lawfully raised concerns about the President’s conduct…”:
“House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam ‘Torquemada’ Schiff laid down the rules for his impeachment witch hunt with a demand which Lewis Carroll may have delighted in writing.
“For those with the capacity to read critically, what Schiff is saying is that any attempt to actually examine what President Trump was actually talking about to Ukraine President Zelensky in July will not be allowed. What’s more, any attempt to get to the bottom of the very Russiagate fraud, falsely accusing the President and his campaign of being Russian agents, which was perpetrated on the American public by Schiff and various intelligence agencies will not be allowed. In short, no defense will be allowed.
“One simple question for Schiff and Speaker Pelosi, if you aren’t going to actually allow an examination of what the President actually said to Zelensky, are you instead going to use Schiff’s fantasy conversation as the basis of your inquiry? It is impossible to believe that any effort to contextualize the President’s comments would be dismissed or deemed out of order.
“However, we might have a better understanding of how former Special Counsel Robert Mueller could run a two year investigation based upon a ‘salacious and unverified’ dossier which everyone knew was false from even before Mueller was appointed. It is outrageous that anyone would consider the Schiff hearings as having a shred of legitimacy given the strictures he has created in the Committee.”
To view online: https://getliberty.org/2019/11/schiffs-impeachment-rules-are-through-the-looking-glass/
ALG Editor’s Note: In the following featured column from Bloomberg Opinion, Justin Fox notes that President Donald Trump has one of the more successful stock markets since he won the election in 2016 compared to other presidents:
How Trump’s stock market record stacks up
By Justin Fox
It’s been three years now since Donald Trump was elected president, which means it’s been three years of listening to Donald Trump bragging about how great the stock market is doing. Contrary to one now-infamous pre-election prediction, it has done quite well.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and other market indices are of course imperfect economic indicators. They reflect investors’ beliefs about how well publicly traded corporations are doing and will do in the future, not necessarily the reality of how publicly traded corporations are doing — or of how well the rest of us are doing. The indices most cited in the media also mainly reflect the fortunes of the largest corporations; even as the Dow and S&P 500 have been setting new records lately, the small-cap Russell 2000 is down 9% from its peak in August 2018.
Still, the advantage of the S&P 500 as a performance indicator is that it is (1) frequently updated, (2) available back to 1926(1) and (3) not subject to measurement error in the way that, say, the unemployment rate or GDP are. Investors might turn out be wrong, but the index itself simply is what it is.
So here’s the total return on the S&P 500, adjusted for inflation, for the first three years after the initial election of every president since Herbert Hoover:
Some prefer to track stock market performance from Inauguration Day, and CNN has a handy online tracker that already does this for Trump and the last few presidents. Trump argues that one should measure from Election Day, and while he surely does so mainly because it makes him look better, he also happens to be right. Market indices are forward-looking metrics, and were already reflecting investors’ opinions on a Trump presidency on Nov. 9, 2016.
Using this approach left the question of how to measure performance under Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson, who took office after the deaths of their predecessors and were subsequently elected. I decided to go with performance from Election Day, but I think the other approach would be equally valid. As for Gerald Ford, he was neither elected nor served for three years, so there was no place for him in this ranking.
Total return measures how much an investment in the companies in the S&P 500 Index would grow if dividends were reinvested in those companies as they were paid out. Dividends were a much bigger part of investor returns before World War II, and even before the 1990s, so any comparison that excludes them overstates market performance under recent presidents. Any comparison that ignores inflation, meanwhile, understates the awfulness of the 1970s stock market and overstates the goodness of the 1980s market.
Stock market performance in first three years since Trump’s election, then, ranks fourth among the 14 elected presidents since Herbert Hoover. That’s pretty good! It’s worth noting, though, that there’s not a whole lot separating him from John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush. A bad week or two, and he could easily fall to eighth place. On the other hand, falling to ninth would take some work, as would catching up to Dwight Eisenhower for third. Put into letter grades, I’d give the market’s performance since Trump’s election a solid B.
What really stands out from this list is how great the 1950s were for stock market investors. The three-year return was higher for Franklin Roosevelt than for Eisenhower and Harry Truman, but prices had just fallen 80% in the four years before he was elected, and they began falling again in 1937. The 1950s bull market, the great market chronicler John Brooks wrote in 1958, “was by practically any statistical standard the greatest boom on record.” If you go by total return and adjust for inflation, perhaps it still is.
