Summary: I had the chance to talk with of CNBC’s Closing Bell anchor Dominic Chu today about whether announcing the Phase One trade deal is going to make the stock market grow to reach the sky. You can see a brief video clip of the interview by clicking here. Also, read below to learn about my idea for a new trade school.
With apologies to subscribers, I am posting my 6 most recent CNBC hits all today. As you will see, the topic of the US/China trade war comes up in all 6 of them.
In the 12/5 Squawk Box clip, Joe and I talked about the fact that the 3-5 minute format of most segments never allows enough time to dig beneath the surface on issues as complicated as the trade war. After two years of covering the trade war,I’m not sure that our viewers know much more about trade than they did when it started because we only have time to talk about whether our guy or their guy landed a punch and whether someone will announce a deal before we all die of old age.
After the show, I spoke with my very smart boss at CNBC who had a great idea. We are discussing creating a series of short written pieces for the website/blog. Each will be a short, op-ed style written piece on a specific sub-topic of glob al trade and finance. For example, one will explain the difference between gross and net (value-added) measures of trade and why they matter. Another will explain the difference between the merchandise trade deficit–the one everyone talks about–and the current account deficit that they should be talking about. Another will ask whether the Law of Comparative Advantage–the bedrock of the free trade argument–still holds today. (No, it doesn’t. For the reasons why see here and here.) Another on whether the People’s Bank of China is guilty of currency manipulation. You get the idea.
Each topic will have a short video insert on the same topic. Add them all together and you have the contents of the two hour briefing on US/China trade and finance issues that I gave to the trade team in the White House some months ago. Kind of an everyman’s man’s textbook on the trade war. We can call the whole thing Trade School.
In organizing the topics, I would love to get your suggestions of which issues to include. You can make them by leaving comments in the box below, or by sending me an email at drjohnrutledge@mac.com.
JR
