September 3 2024

1 Deindustrialization Erodes American Working-Class Prosperity and Health
2 Cleantech Companies Go Bankrupt at Increasing Rate
3 Union Strike Looms Over Mobile Port’s Automated Gate
4 Election Roundup: Team Harris Courts Labor, Dems Uphill Senate Battle
5 Brazil Bans X
5.5 Venezuela’s Maduro Orders Arrest of Political Rival
9/3/1783 Treaty of Paris signed, ending American Revolution

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1 Deindustrialization Erodes American Working-Class Prosperity and Health

Deindustrialization has diminished the wealth, power and health of working-class Americans arguably more than any other single culprit. While deindustrialization has many causes — in a recessionary four-year period that ended in the early 1980s, a quarter of Milwaukee’s manufacturing jobs were wiped out — a central driver has been free-trade agreements with developing countries, of which NAFTA was the first. According to a study by the Economic Policy Institute, Americans without college degrees have lost nearly $2,000 a year in wages owing to trade with low-wage countries, even after accounting for cheaper consumer goods. The economists Angus Deaton and Anne Case have documented how the loss of jobs has led to falling life expectancy for working-class people: College-educated Americans can now expect to live eight years longer than those without a college degree. “I would put that down to deindustrialization combined with the lack of any political voice,” Deaton told me. The passage of NAFTA remains one of the most consequential events in recent American political and economic history. Between 1997 and 2020, more than 90,000 factories closed, partly as a result of NAFTA and similar agreements. The coming presidential election, like the previous two, is likely to be determined by three of the “blue wall” states — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — which have all been ravaged by deindustrialization. In 2016, Donald Trump won those states, and the presidency, in part by railing against NAFTA (“the worst trade deal ever,” he called it). Exit polls showed that Trump won nearly two-thirds of voters who believe that free trade takes away American jobs. Ohio, meanwhile, which twice voted for Barack Obama, has increasingly become a Republican stronghold.

Article Source: NYT

2 Cleantech Companies go Bankrupt at Increasing Rate

Cleantech businesses that raised hundreds of millions of dollars from SoftBank, Amazon and other big investors are closing, while other green companies — including some touted by the Biden administration — are struggling to survive. Start-up cleantech businesses that easily raised money from venture firms just two or three years ago are now finding it harder to get hold of fresh cash. Stung by high interest rates and some delays from federal tax credit support, cleantech businesses have found that winning investments from private equity and infrastructure funds has become more difficult. These challenges could dent the Biden administration’s goals for renewable energy growth and reducing carbon emissions. In August, Moxion Power, a battery start-up that raised funds from Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, filed for bankruptcy. So too did SunPower, a publicly traded US solar company controlled by oil major Total of France.  Moxion and SunPower are among four big renewable energy companies that have filed for bankruptcy so far this year — the most since 2014 — according to Bloomberg data that includes companies with more than $50mn in liabilities. Ambri, a battery company that raised funds from a Bill Gates venture fund, also filed for bankruptcy, as did Enviva, a wood pellets provider.

Article Source: FT

3 Union Strike Looms Over Mobile Port’s Automated Gate

When a dockworkers’ union broke off contract talks with management in June, raising the likelihood of a strike at more than a dozen ports on the East and Gulf Coasts that could severely disrupt the supply chain this fall, it was not over wages, pensions or working conditions. It was about a gate through which trucks enter a small port in Mobile, Ala. The International Longshoremen’s Association, which has more than 47,000 members, said it had discovered that the gate was using technology to check and let in trucks without union workers, which it said violated its labor contract.

Article Source: NYT

4 Election Roundup: Team Harris Courts Labor, Dems Uphill Senate Battle

Vice President Kamala Harris held Labor Day campaign events with union chiefs in two critical swing states, including a joint appearance with President Joe Biden in Pennsylvania, as she seeks to strengthen her standing with blue-collar workers. Speaking at a union local in Pittsburgh, Harris came out against the planned sale of United States Steel Corp. to a Japanese buyer, an issue that’s aroused opposition among labor groups. She said the company should remain domestically owned, echoing Biden’s view. At an earlier rally in Detroit, in the battleground state of Michigan, the vice president appeared onstage with several union leaders and vowed to “fight for a future where every worker has the freedom to organize.” Michigan and Pennsylvania, along with Wisconsin, comprise the so-called Blue Wall of northern industrial states that Republican Donald Trump carried in 2016 and Biden flipped in 2020 — and which are again poised to play a key role in determining the winner of November’s general election. 

Bloomberg  

Mr Tester has won his past three Senate races in a very Republican state [Montana] by an average of just 2.7 points. And this year Democrats’ hopes of keeping the Senate hinge on Mr Tester eking out another victory. In addition to the race in Montana, Democrats are defending Senate seats in six other states: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. To retain control of the Senate, Democrats will need to win all six of those races plus Montana and the presidency, or flip seats in other Republican states like Florida and Texas. If Democrats are to end up with 50 seats this year, they will have to win at least one state where in 2020 Republicans led by at least ten points more than the national average. That would go against a pattern that has held since at least 1978. 

Economist

Article Source: Bloomberg, Economist

5 Brazil Bans X

A panel of Brazilian Supreme Court justices voted on Monday to uphold a decision by one justice last week to block the social network X across the country because its owner, Elon Musk, refused to comply with court orders to suspend certain accounts. The five-justice panel voted unanimously to back the order, issuing strongly worded opinions saying that the blackout of X complied with Brazilian law and that it was necessary to enforce the nation’s rules against a foreign company that was flouting them.

Article Source: NYT

5.5 Venezuela’s Maduro Orders Arrest of Political Rival

Venezuela ordered the arrest of presidential candidate Edmundo González, an escalation of the government’s crackdown on dissent in the wake of a disputed election. The move is likely to draw further outcry from the US and other countries that have concluded González was the winner of the July 28 vote. Venezuelan authorities have declared instead, without evidence, that President Nicolás Maduro was reelected to a third term. Prosecutors are accusing González of breaking the law because the opposition uploaded voting records to show he won in a landslide.

Article Source: Bloomberg

9/3/1783 Treaty of Paris signed, ending American Revolution

Sources

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/03/magazine/nafta-tarriffs-economy-trump-kamala-harris.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

2. https://on.ft.com/47fMakf

3. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/02/business/economy/port-workers-robots-automation-strike.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

4. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-02/harris-biden-teaming-up-to-court-union-vote-in-labor-day-blitz; https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/08/28/to-hold-the-senate-democrats-have-to-do-something-extraordinary

5. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/02/world/americas/brazil-elon-musk-supreme-court.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

6. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-02/maduro-orders-arrest-of-rival-to-quell-venezuela-dissent