“Expanding road, rail and river links between the EU and Ukraine won’t be enough to stave off an economic and humanitarian crisis, Ukraine’s Deputy Economy Minister Taras Kachka told POLITICO.
“We cannot ensure the same volume of exports as via seaports by other means of transportation in forthcoming weeks or even months,” Kachka said. “The only way to ensure proper reinstallment of export is to unblock sea ports. This is the only solution.”
The comments were in part a response to European Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski, who said last week that he was “ready” to establish fast-track trade routes to and from Ukraine to bring fuel to the country’s desperate farmers, and help take their produce out while maritime trade is frozen due to its ports being under Russian fire.”
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“Some of Ukraine’s cargo has shifted to Izmail, Reni or Kiliya — smaller ports on the bank of the Danube, in the southwest of the country. But those have limited capacity.”
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“The logistical challenge is immense. Before the war, Ukraine shipped over 70 percent of its exports. In 2021, 99 percent of Ukraine’s 24.6 million tons of corn exports were shipped out.”
“Buy American provisions ensure we won’t get nearly as much infrastructure for the money as we otherwise could.
That’s because domestically manufactured materials and products often cost more than foreign alternatives. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have to require that project sponsors use them.
Buying American steel for infrastructure projects costs around twice as much as importing it from China, according to a 2019 Congressional Research Report. That requirement cost American roadbuilders an additional $2 billion from 2009 to 2011, back when then-Vice President Biden was overseeing the spending of stimulus dollars on infrastructure projects.
Procuring American-made buses means that we pay twice as much as Japan and Korea do for their rolling stock. Our train cars cost as much 34 percent more because we insist on buying domestically.
Because these requirements can be so onerous, federal departments often grant exemptions to Buy American rules when they make projects economically infeasible. Biden is making sure fewer projects get those cost-saving exemptions.”
“If concentration in the marketplace was somehow to blame for rising prices, then it would make sense to attack that problem by expanding competition. Give consumers more choices and they will naturally flock to lower-priced alternatives, putting pressure on other sellers to keep prices down.
The problem, for Biden, is that so much of his economic agenda is pointed in exactly the opposite direction. In one breath, he complains about the lack of consumer choice driving up prices. With the next, he proposes to further restrict consumer choice.
“We will buy American to make sure everything from the deck of an aircraft carrier to the steel on highway guardrails are made in America,” Biden said, before promising that his administration would make some of the “biggest investments in manufacturing in American history” to bring about “the revitalization of American manufacturing.””
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“”Shifting demand to American producers with ‘Buy America’ polices [sic] that stop firms and consumers from buying at the lowest cost, no matter how politically attractive, are inflationary. This is something all economists should agree on,” Summers tweeted. “Blaming inflation on corporate greed or holding out the prospect that capacity can be expanded rapidly is at best diversionary.””
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“Tariffs are also contributing to inflation by artificially raising the prices of imported goods, including products like raw steel, aluminum, and lumber that are necessary inputs for American manufacturers and home builders.”
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“The two researchers found that costs imposed by trade barriers were passing along nearly in full to consumers. For every 1 percentage point increase in the cost of imported construction materials caused by tariffs, for example, they found domestic price increases of 0.9 percent after six months.”
“Adaptation and the development of low-carbon energy generation technologies will both be required to address and mitigate the challenges of man-made climate change. And yes, the world is slated to get warmer, but humanity is not running out of time to avert a harrowing climate future.
Again, when bad weather meets poverty, people die. The recipe for successfully adapting to climate change is continued economic growth and technological progress.”
“As the greatest inflation spike of the last 50 years occurs, the utter failure of economists, their models, and many pundits to foresee what was coming is worth highlighting. Of course, the biggest malfunction in the story was that of the Federal Reserve itself, which had a clear mandate to keep prices stable and seems surprised by their lack of stability.
It’s no understatement to say that the Fed failed to properly anticipate the inflation surge. On Feb. 8, 2021, Raphael Bostic, the president of the Atlanta branch of the Fed, said, “I’m really not expecting us to see a spike in inflation that is very robust in the next 12 months or so.” A few days later, Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren echoed this sentiment, noting that he would be “surprised” to see broad-based inflation sustained at a level of two percent before the end of 2022.
As the saying goes, problems often start at the top. When testifying before the House Financial Services Committee in February 2021, Fed Chair Jerome Powell predicted that it might take more than three years to hit the two percent inflation goal.
Around the summer of 2021, inflation became hard to ignore. Yet Fed officials insisted that it wasn’t yet time to roll back their temporary policies because they weren’t responsible for the rise in prices. The main villain was identified as supply-chain restraints. Once resolved, we were told, inflation would prove to be transitory. Testifying in June of last year before a House subcommittee, Powell said:
“If you look…at the categories where these prices are really going up, you’ll see that it tends to be areas that are directly affected by the reopening. That’s something that we’ll go through over a period…then be over. And it should not leave much of a mark on the ongoing inflation process.”
During a speech in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, last August, Powell again echoed this sentiment. He also noted that “longer-term inflation expectations have moved much less than actual inflation or near-term expectations, suggesting that households, businesses, and market participants also believe that current high inflation readings are likely to prove transitory.”
But as Hoover Institution economist John Cochrane has been reminding us all along, long-term inflation expectations are notoriously poor predictors of inflation. Sadly, few listened, and team “transitory” was born.”
“Tymon said there’s no guarantee that savings from cutting gas taxes would be passed on to consumers, whereas other relief mechanisms would have more control.
“If you do suspend the gas tax, you’re stopping a critical source of revenue that’s used to invest in transportation infrastructure,” he said. “It doesn’t seem like it’s a good precedent to set.”
Environmentalists are worried that a tax rebate could be a perverse incentive for gasoline-guzzling cars to hit the road more in an age of worsening climate change.”
“Guess from where the U.N. World Food Programme sourced more than half of its supplies for the hungry across the globe in 2021? Yes, Ukraine.
When this “breadbasket of Europe” is knocked out of supply chains and aid networks, the world is going to feel it.
The war between Russia and Ukraine, both food-producing powerhouses, has already sent prices for cereals like wheat soaring and European governments scrambling to stabilize markets.”
“China promised to keep its stock markets stable and implement measures to boost its economy, according to a state-run media report of a meeting of the country’s financial stability and development committee. The committee also stressed that regulators should “actively introduce market-friendly policies.
Significantly for U.S. investors, the committee said China continues to support companies’ listing of shares overseas and has maintained “good communications” with U.S. regulators, with a cooperation plan in the works. That’s quite the development – just last week the Securities and Exchange Commission named five Chinese companies that could face delisting.
So what’s changed? The pressure on Chinese stocks had ramped up in the past week as regulatory concerns returned and surging Covid cases led Beijing to lock down millions of people. The country’s links to Russia also spooked investors as U.S. officials said the Russian government has asked China for military aid. If it did help Russia, sanctions would surely follow.”