North Korean Military Capabilities & Strategy – Nukes, Numbers & (bad) Economics

North Korea has been showing no signs of serious negotiation with the U.S. or South Korea. They are not interested and want to develop their military capabilities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoVYMBqNKa8

No Prosperity Without Economic and Political Liberty

“”Every set of extractive institutions is extractive in its own way, while all sets of inclusive institutions are inclusive in pretty much the same way. For example, ancient Rome ran on slavery; Russia on serfdom, Imperial China strictly limited domestic and foreign commerce; India depended upon hereditary castes; the Ottoman Empire relied on tax farming; Spanish colonies on indigenous labor levies; sub-Saharan Africa on slavery; the American South on slavery and later a form of racial apartheid not all that unlike South Africa’s; and the Soviet Union on collectivized labor and capital. The details of extraction differ but the institutions are organized to chiefly benefit elites.

So why don’t extractive elites encourage economic growth? After all, growth would mean more wealth for them to loot. Acemoglu and Robinson show that the institutions that produce economic growth are inevitable threats to the power of reigning elites. The “key idea” of their theory: “The fear of creative destruction is the main reason why there was no sustained increase in living standards between the Neolithic and Industrial revolutions. Technological innovation makes human societies prosperous, but also involves the replacement of the old with the new, and the destruction of the economic privileges and political power of certain people.” Thus throughout history reactionary elites naturally resisted innovation because of their accurate fear that it would produce rivals for their power.””

https://reason.com/2024/10/17/no-prosperity-without-economic-and-political-liberty/

Data shows migrants aren’t taking jobs from Black or Hispanic people, despite what Trump says

“government data show immigrant labor contributes to economic growth and provides promotional opportunities for native-born workers. And a mass deportation event would cost U.S. taxpayers up to a trillion dollars and could cause the cost of living, including food and housing, to skyrocket, economists say.”

“The latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Population Survey data shows that as of 2023, native-born Black workers are most predominantly employed in management and financial operations, sales and office support roles, while native-born Latino workers are most often employed in management, office support, sales and service occupations.
Foreign-born, noncitizen Black workers are most often represented in transportation and health care support roles, and foreign-born, noncitizen Hispanic workers are most often represented in construction, building and grounds cleaning.

How has immigration contributed to U.S. growth?

In 2023, international migrants — primarily from Latin America — accounted for more than two-thirds of the population growth in the United States, and so far this decade they have made up almost three-quarters of U.S. growth.

After hitting a record high in December 2023, the number of migrants crossing the border has plummeted.

The claim that immigrants are taking employment opportunities from native-born Americans is repeated by Trump’s advisers. They often cite a report produced by Steven Camarota, research director for the Center for Immigration Studies, a right-leaning think tank that seeks a reduced immigration flow into the U.S. The report combines job numbers for immigrants in the U.S. legally and illegally to reinforce the claim that foreigners are disproportionately driving U.S. labor growth and reaping most of the benefits.

Camarota’s report states that 971,000 more U.S.-born Americans were employed in May 2024 compared to May 2019, prior to the pandemic, while the number of employed immigrants has increased by 3.2 million.

It is true that international migrants have become a primary driver of population growth this decade, increasing their share of the overall population as fewer children are being born in the U.S. compared with years past. That’s according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey.

Are immigrants taking native-born workers’ jobs?

Economists who study immigrant labor’s impact on the economy say that people who are in the U.S. illegally are not taking native citizens’ jobs, because the roles that these immigrant workers take on are most often positions that native workers are unwilling to fill, such as agriculture and food processing jobs.

Giovanni Peri, a labor economist at the University of California, Davis, conducted research that explores the impact of the 1980 influx of Cuban immigrants in Miami (the so-called Mariel Boatlift) on Black workers’ employment. The study determined that the wages of Miami’s Black and Hispanic workers moved above those in other cities that did not have a surge of immigrant workers.

Peri told the AP that the presence of new immigrant labor often improves employment outcomes for native-born workers, who often have different language and skill sets compared to new immigrants.

In addition, there are not a fixed number of jobs in the U.S., immigrants tend to contribute to the survival of existing firms (opening up new opportunities for native workers) and there are currently more jobs available than there are workers available to take them. U.S. natives have low interest in working in labor-intensive agriculture and food production roles.

“We have many more vacancies than workers in this type of manual labor, in fact we need many more of them to fill these roles,” Peri said.

Stan Marek, who employs roughly 1,000 workers at his Houston construction firm, Marek Brothers Holdings LLC, said he has seen this firsthand.

Asked if immigrants in the U.S. illegally are taking jobs from native-born workers, he said, “Absolutely not, unequivocally.”

“Many of my workers are retiring, and their kids are not going to come into construction and the trades,” Marek said. He added that the U.S. needs an identification system that addresses national security concerns so those who are in the country illegally can work.

“There’s not enough blue-collar labor here,” he said.

Data also shows when there are not enough workers to fill these roles, firms will automate their jobs with machines and technology investments, rather than turn to native workers.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/data-shows-migrants-arent-taking-040445122.html

Can China Innovate in Advanced Industries?

China is innovative and excellent at diffusing new technology throughout its economy.

The U.S. innovates to make money. China innovates to enhance China’s global power. The U.S. must adapt to this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlM0hfBs9_E

No, Trump-Style Tariffs Do Not Grow the Economy

“Also overlooked by those claiming that 19th-century tariffs made America great is that the country’s biggest import at the time was immigrants, who incurred no tariffs. As economists Cecil Bohanon and T. Norman Van Cott argue in “Tariffs, Immigration, and Economic Insulation,” weighing the impact of tariffs on economic growth without accounting for massive immigration—which increased from about 200,000 individuals a year in 1865 to more than 1,000,000 in 1910—can only lead to questionable conclusions. They explain that “the impact of high tariffs, clearly an insulating policy, was swamped by free immigration, a quintessential policy of economic openness.”
Trump is an avowed restrictionist on both immigration and trade. And so, if a second Trump presidency brings higher tariffs and further immigration restrictions, we won’t be as fortunate as were our 19th century forebears.

Making matters worse is that today’s economy is vastly different from that of a century ago. Globalization has interconnected markets and supply chains in unprecedented ways. Half of what Americans import are inputs they use to produce goods domestically. Tariffs on these imports increase production costs, making American products less competitive both at home and abroad.

Furthermore, the service sector—comprising industries like technology, finance, and health care—now represents nearly four-fifths of the U.S. economy. These sectors thrive on innovation, skilled labor, and access to global markets, rather than on protectionist policies.”

https://reason.com/2024/09/19/no-trump-style-tariffs-do-not-grow-the-economy/

Mark Cuban & Reid Hoffman Explain Why Kamala Harris is the Key to Economic Growth | BLFH Podcast

Mark Cuban & Reid Hoffman Explain Why Kamala Harris is the Key to Economic Growth | BLFH Podcast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECmEdk8-iYU

The origins of Biden’s most important policy, explained

“At its heart, industrial policy strives to solve a “classic Keynesian political problem,” says economic historian Yakov Feygin, director of the Berggruen Institute’s Future of Capitalism program: The only way to grow the economy is ultimately through productivity-enhancing investment — but there are enormous upfront costs to building new plants or buying new equipment, especially at the technological bleeding edge, while returns are years in the future if they ever come at all.
If only capitalists get to decide when to invest, they may — rightfully — decide that the unpredictability of future demand and credit conditions make it difficult to justify expanding capacity in crucial sectors even in the face of soaring prices. They fear the “bullwhip effect,” where investors may put up cash for new plants or equipment to respond to higher prices, only for those prices to fall before new production can actually come online.”

“The government, for better or worse, has the unique ability to stabilize the investment cycle and goad risk-averse private capital into making desperately needed, but enormously costly, long-term investments.”

“Biden’s economic team is betting on something Hamilton knew: Long-term investment in the real economy is essential, but private investors might not provide it. That’s where government can — and should — step in.”