Talk Back

By Eduardo Kaplan
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–Jim Murphy, a Dow Jones Newswires columnist whose powerful and often irreverent voice made him a favorite among readers and newsroom colleagues, died Monday at his home in Jersey City, N.J. He was 66.

Jim Murphy

Jim died in his sleep, said a family member. No official cause for the death has been determined.

Jim joined Newswires in 1995. During his stint as an editor, and especially as a columnist, Jim was often described as an iconoclast, a term often reserved in newsrooms for the type of strongly opinionated personalities who speak their minds regardless of the consequences.

His column resonated with readers and quickly became one of the more popular features on the wire. Jim received a National Headliners Award for his column in 1999, and in 2003 he was recognized with Newswires’ Clabby Award.

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These are the personal views of Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission:

Stocks are tumbling, as investors realize President Obama is simply not offering policies that will fix the U.S. and global economies.

Each week more than 450,000 Americans apply for new unemployment benefits, and 17% of adults can’t find a full time job or have quit looking for work altogether.

Since Massachusetts voters sent Democrats a vote of no confidence, President Obama has been doubling down on bigger government and class warfare as the road to prosperity.

Meanwhile, the two biggest problems that block economic recovery go unaddressed-most businesses lack enough customers and access to bank credit to create jobs. Continue reading…

These are the personal views of Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission:

President Barack Obama is seeking to double U.S. exports and create 2 million jobs over the next five years. The new Commerce Department program to accomplish this goal is simply inadequate.

The Commerce Department initiative merely consists of redoubling existing efforts and not addressing the fundamental issues–the undervalued Chinese yuan and high tariffs, and other regulatory barriers that block U.S. exports in much of Asia.

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke is launching a program by increasing Export-Import Bank funding for small businesses from $4 billion to $6 billion; boosting Commerce Department personnel that assist exporters at U.S. embassies and consulates in China and India; and strengthening enforcement of trade laws and agreements. Continue reading…

These are the personal views of Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission:

Friday, the Labor Department will release January employment figures. Since December 2007, the economy has been shedding jobs and a sharp uptick in employment would indicate the recession is ending.

In December, the economy lost 85,000 jobs after gaining 4,000 in November and losing 127,000 in October. The unemployment rate stood steady at 10%, largely because 843,000 unemployed adults became discouraged and left the labor force–quit looking for work.

For January, analysts are ambivalent, forecasting no change in the jobs count and a slight uptick in unemployment to 10.1%. My forecast is for loss in the range of 25,000 jobs and for unemployment to rise to 10.1%.

Although some indicators of economic activity, such as gross domestic product, industrial production and consumer confidence, have shown gains, others such as retail sales and durable goods orders have been soft. Continue reading…

By Christine Buurma
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–A surge in domestic U.S. natural-gas supplies is stalling ambitious plans for a raft of liquefied natural-gas import terminals along the country’s coastlines.

Declining U.S. gas production in the early 2000s prompted energy companies such as Occidental Petroleum Corp. (OXY), Sempra Energy (SRE) and Cheniere Energy (LNG) to propose building dozens of import terminals. The U.S. has nine such facilities, including one in Puerto Rico, that can accept shipments from Qatar, Trinidad, Russia and other nations of gas that’s been supercooled and concentrated for transport in ships.

In recent years, however, an influx of U.S. gas supplies from vast, deeply buried onshore shale-rock has sharply reduced the demand for imports of foreign gas. U.S. gas prices have tumbled more than 60% from highs near $14 a million British thermal units seen in the summer of 2008, making the prospect of exporting LNG to the U.S. less compelling for overseas companies that can fetch higher prices for their shipments elsewhere. Continue reading…

These are the personal views of Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission:

Since the Democrats’ debacle in Massachusetts, President Barack Obama has been campaigning.

In the State of the Union address, his new budget and other staged events for the faithful gather for hope, the president has the audacity to double down on class warfare and crowd-frenzying envy, and tout as success an economic recovery about as thin as the Chicago Cubs’ World Series record book.

The economy is growing again but the president instead of divining new tax-the-rich and spend policies should recognize the economic recovery simply won’t create enough jobs to drive down unemployment, because his administration has not addressed the trade deficit. Continue reading…

These are the personal views of Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission:

President Obama’s budget and deficit projections don’t reveal the sick state of U.S. finances, casting serious doubt on the safety of U.S. bonds.

Obama plans significant initiatives in health care, the environment, education, and jobs creation. Yet, the private sector, which must be taxed to finance government, is likely to grow slowly, resulting in too much federal borrowing.

To create jobs, businesses need customers and capital; without those they can’t sell what new employees make or buy equipment workers need.

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These are the personal views of Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission:

In politics, whatever the president can get voters to believe becomes the truth, but in economics the numbers establish the facts.

Unfortunately for President Barack Obama, Americans can add, and their sums are destroying fantasies the president would hoist upon a more gullible public.

Despite claims that the $787 billion stimulus package and bank bailout averted calamity, the U.S. economy is in shambles.

The Commerce Department reported gross domestic product grew 5.7% in the fourth quarter, but 60% of that was an accounting adjustment. Businesses ran down inventories at a slower pace, but in the arcane world of GDP accounting, that scores an increase in investment and growth.

Domestic consumption and real investment, which define the sustainable pace of economic expansion, contributed a paltry 1.8% to growth. That’s less than half of productivity growth, indicating more pink slips are coming.

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These are the personal views of Axel Merk, president and chief investment officer of Merk Investments, a currency-focused firm based in Palo Alto, Calif.:

Forget about the flight to the dollar at the peak of the financial crisis: the yen was the ultimate beneficiary. The endlessly quoted unwinding of the carry trade was a factor, but there may have been a more important force at play. As that force may now be under increased pressure, the yen may be in trouble. The force we are talking about is the free market.

How can market forces drive up the yen when Japan has been a leader in quantitative easing, the “art” of printing money? Japan epitomizes the battle between market and government forces. Left to its own powers, Japan’s economy would have imploded after its asset bubble burst in 1990. While painful, the good news about a deflationary collapse is that you can rebuild; a collapse is also a brutal way of weeding out those with too much debt. Instead, the government has, to varying degrees, been fighting market forces ever since. However, as of late, the Japanese have relaxed their attack on free market dynamics, in large part as a result of weak leadership.

Fighting market forces can be extremely expensive. If market forces ultimately win–i.e. the collapse ultimately happens–it’s possible for a country to destroy its currency along the way. Left to market forces, those with debt likely go broke. Left to policy makers, everyone may eventually go broke.

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These are the personal views of Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission:

Since Jan. 1, signs that the economic recovery may be faltering have emerged–job losses and new unemployment claims are up again and remain at recession levels; retail sales appear to be flailing; housing prices show signs of falling again; demand for new homes is declining (fewer visits to new-home showrooms and disappointing sales data); and non-residential construction and jobs in that sector continue to fall.

China’s fixed-exchange-rate policy has destabilized the U.S. and Chinese economies, sending tremors around the globe.

In the United States, China’s policy floods markets with products priced at less than their cost of production and throws Americans out of work without creating new jobs in export industries. Falling employment results in poor retail sales and more job losses–what economists call the multiplier effect.

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