2/19/2016
By Charles Payne, CEO & Principal Analyst

Americans should be upset about jobs leaving the nation, but how do we remedy this in a way that doesn’t backfire on trade or consumers?

Well, for one thing, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) wasn’t a good deal; more recently, allowing Mexican drivers to pull long hauls in America is only going to make the deal even worse.

Then, there are regulations.

In a piece from Indiana government,  it points out that economists John Dawson and John Seater estimate that accumulated federal regulations have stunted the Gross National Product (GNP) by nearly $40 trillion in 2011 alone.

The national GDP for 2011 was just shy of $15 trillion.  This means the national GNP would have been closer to $55 trillion.

The math is shocking.  These regulations divide into an annual loss of about $277,100 per household and $129,300 per person.  In the meantime, there’s been an intriguing phenomenon of Mexican immigrants leaving the United States (see chart), which underscores just how weak our recovery has been.  I know these are big political issues and I worry about the remedy for them.  There are smart tariffs, but not individual wars on individual companies.  However, before we begin to blame Mexico, we need to make American more hospitable to businesses, although I do not think unions are going to make sacrifices commensurate with economic conditions.  Let’s at least roll back the taxes, fees, and regulations.

Charles Payne
Wall Street Strategies

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