judd's blog

Tonight, during his fifth State of the Union address, President Barack Obama is expected to mention free trade and economic inequality in the same speech, which makes absolutely no sense at all. Freer trade is just a recipe for more off-shoring creating greater inequity. It seems the American worker's last line of defense is the nation's millionaire Congress. Scary, huh?

Overseas-produced shoes are the worst. You never know whose kid is breaking their back or risking their life to produce a cheap sneaker or sandal that ends up falling apart soon than later. Major footwear manufacturers have contended that it’s the only way to stay in business. Some less conventional entrepreneurs would beg to differ. Take Annie Mohaupt, an architect turned made shoe scientist from Chicago.

Think Congress does nothing? Think again. The bipartisan $1.1-trillion spending bill that President Barack Obama signed into law Friday contains a provision that limits and requires a cyber-espionage review of tech purchases from China. Perhaps, our congressional lawmakers rethink the White House's take on TPP. You can make it happen.

With all the pro-free-trade hype over how the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact will transform our economy for the good, we wanted to take a look back at how once-vaunted NAFTA changed the trade landscape in North America. As twice-presidential candidate H. Ross Perot once predicted, the first free-trade pact created a huge sucking sound -- that of the U.S. trade balance going south.

With all the pro-free-trade hype about how the Trans-Pacific Partnership will transform our economy for the good, we wanted to take a look back at how once-vaunted NAFTA changed the trade landscape in North America. As twice-presidential candidate H. Ross Perot once said, the first free-trade pact created a huge sucking sound -- that of the U.S. trade balance going south.

Ever wondered why there's a disconnect on free trade between Washington and Main Street? Perhaps, it has something to do with all the millionaires populating Capitol Hill. A new analysis reveals that more than half of congressional lawmakers exceed $1 million in net worth. Time to show our leaders who's boss.

Everyone appears to be aflutter about recent U.S. trade deficit statistics. The media seems to have declared victory in terms of our nation's exports with China last year. But not so fast. We still have at least a month to go before we really know whether 2013 was a banner year for U.S. trade with the communist nation at least. It'll probably be less a banner and more a rebound year? Out of the woods, finally? Let us hope.

It was a November miracle, sort of. The gap between the nation’s imports and exports narrowed to $34.3 billion, the smallest in four years, thanks to increased overseas sales of U.S.-made motor vehicles, aircraft and machinery and greater domestic energy production, the Commerce Department reports.  

U.S. manufacturing appears to be headed for a good year in 2014 with equipment spending likely to increase 7 percent, compared to 3.5 percent in 2013, according to a recent analysis by HIS Global Insight. Employment, however, still lags behind pre-recession levels. 

Here's a fascinating little site that tracks the U.S. trade deficit in real time. The so-called Trade Ticker sponsored by the American Economic Alert showed it at $4.946 billion as of 4:55 p.m. EST.  So much for all the hoopla that the trade gap shrunk in October. We're in for a surprise by the time all 2013's data comes in.