Donald Trump’s “eighth wonder of the world” shrinks from $10 billion to $674 million

Article from Reuters, “Foxconn mostly abandons $10 billion Wisconsin project touted by Trump”:

Under a deal with the state of Wisconsin announced on Tuesday, Foxconn will reduce its planned investment to $672 million from $10 billion and cut the number of new jobs to 1,454 from 13,000.

The Foxconn-Wisconsin deal was first announced to great fanfare at the White House in July 2017, with Trump boasting of it as an example of how his “America first” agenda could revive U.S. tech manufacturing.

My discussion in 2017, citing Legislative Fiscal Bureau assessment, here. Formal modeling of possible economic impacts from CROWE in 2017, and critical assessment by Mercatus of the package here.

And, all of us are wondering – where is Scott Walker?

“The Fed and the International Financial System”

Today, students in my Master’s level Public Affairs course in macroeconomics had the good fortune to receive a guest lecture from Steven Kamin, resident scholar at AEI, formerly Director of the International Finance Division of the Federal Reserve Board (sponsored by UW’s International Division). In his lecture, he covered the centrality of the dollar in the global financial system, monetary “spillovers” of Fed policy to other economies with special reference to the pandemic response, the macro challenges posed by the most recent fiscal relief package, and implications for emerging market economies. The entire lecture is here.

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Business Cycle Indicators as of Mid-April

Industrial production figures were released today, showing a rebound in March. In the context of key macro indicators followed by the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee:

Figure 1: Nonfarm payroll employment from March release (dark blue), Bloomberg consensus as of 4/1 for March nonfarm payroll employment (light blue +), industrial production (red), personal income excluding transfers in Ch.2012$ (green), manufacturing and trade sales in Ch.2012$ (black), consumption in Ch.2012$ (light blue), and monthly GDP in Ch.2012$ (pink), all log normalized to 2020M02=0. Source: BLS, Federal Reserve, BEA, via FRED, IHS Markit (nee Macroeconomic Advisers) (4/1/2021 release), NBER, and author’s calculations.

Industrial production was whipsawed by weather in February, so it makes sense to look at manufacturing production as well. Seasonally adjusted industrial production rose 1.4% vs. 2.8% for manufacturing production (18.7% vs. 39.1% annualized). Industrial production is 3.4% below levels at NBER peak (2020M02), while manufacturing is 1.7% below. Incidentally, neither has re-attained the local maxima in January 2021.

Atlanta Fed GDPNow (4/15) is for 8.3% in Q1; IHS Markit nowcast (4/15) is 6.0% (both figures SAAR).