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Remember the Trade War during the Trump administration.
Remember how we kept reporting what bullshit it was when the business media Presstitutes kept peddling the crap that nearly every time the markets fell or rose it was related to the “trade war” between the U.S. and China.
And, remember how we said that there was more talk than action and the sanctions etc., being imposed on China added up to next to nothing?
Well, in August, a new trade gap record was set, with the U.S. importing $73.3 billion more in goods and services than it exported, passing June’s trade gap of $73.2 billion. The U.S. trade chasm with China widened in August to $31.7 billion, the deepest since July 2019 .
Imports rose 1.4 percent for the month, totaling $287 billion, also a new record, while exports rose a measly 0.5 percent from July to $213.7 billion.
U.S. consumers’ demand for imports remained strong, pushing prices higher amid shortages of a range of basic and luxury items and unrelenting tangles in global supply chains.
Demand was especially high for items that, once-upon-a-time were made in the U.S.A.: clothing, pharmaceuticals, and toys according to the U.S. Commerce Department.
TREND FORECAST: Reflecting the strong demand for imports, consumer spending edged up 0.8 percent in August from July, while personal income rose only 0.2 percent, the Commerce Department noted. Thus, as we keep forecasting, middle class America and its standard of living will keep shrinking and inflation will keep rising for months to come… as citizens pay more and earn less.
TREND FORECAST: Manufacturing is the foundation of a country’s GDP and factory output for the U.S. accounts for only 10.8 percent of America’s economy, as we noted in “U.S. Trade Deficit Widens Again in May” (13 Jul 2021). As a result, our trade deficit will remain wide; the U.S. is a nation of consumers, attesting to the growing number of self-storage cubicles for rent where we can store the junk that overflows our houses.
Again, the only way to reverse this trend is to create a self-sustaining economy that the United States, which is rich in human and natural resources, can create. However, under the decades of crime syndicates running and ruining the nation (that morons and imbeciles call Republicans and Democrats), this will not occur until there is a strong “America First” Declaration of Independence movement.
TREND FORECAST: There is a continuing shortage of skilled workers for manufacturing jobs, which we reported in “Half of COVID’s Jobless Gone for Good?” (28 Sep 2021) and elsewhere.
Factories are beginning to respond to the shortage by offering not only higher wages but also training at basic and advanced levels as well as other benefits.
The shortage is giving new energy to the old idea of apprenticeships. Many high schools now offer career-oriented curricula, in which students study technical subjects in classes and spend part of their school time in high-tech factories, learning hands-on skills under the eyes of master technicians.
However, unless the current trends are dramatically reversed, at best, it will take at least a decade for U.S. factories to fill their shortage of skilled workers, leaving the country in thrall to China for its endless supply of merchandise.