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Omnibus Foreign Trade And Competitiveness Act
The Omnibus Foreign Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 is an act passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. History During the 1970s, the U.S. trade surplus slowly diminished and turned into an increasing deficit. As the deficit increased through the 1980s, some of the blame fell on the tariffs placed on US products by foreign countries, and the lack of similar tariffs on imports into the United States. Workers, unions and industry management all called for government action against countries with an unfair advantage. The Omnibus Foreign Trade and Competitiveness Act started as an amendment proposed by Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-MO) to order the Executive branch to thoroughly examine trade with countries that have large trade surpluses with the United States. If the trade surpluses continued, the offending country would be faced with a bilateral surplus-reduction requirement of 10%. Because of its style of zero-sum game thought, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Customs Duties
Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out of a country. Traditionally, customs has been considered as the fiscal subject that charges customs duties (i.e. tariffs) and other taxes on import and export. In recent decades, the views on the functions of customs have considerably expanded and now covers three basic issues: taxation, security, and trade facilitation. Each country has its own laws and regulations for the import and export of goods into and out of a country, enforced by their respective customs authorities; the import/export of some goods may be restricted or forbidden entirely. A wide range of penalties are faced by those who break these laws. Overview Taxation The traditional function of customs has been the assessment and collection of customs duties, which is a tariff or tax on the importatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States House Committee On Ways And Means
The Committee on Ways and Means is the chief tax-writing committee of the United States House of Representatives. The committee has jurisdiction over all taxation, tariffs, and other revenue-raising measures, as well as a number of other programs including Social Security, unemployment benefits, Medicare, the enforcement of child support laws, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, foster care, and adoption programs. Members of the Ways and Means Committee are not allowed to serve on any other House Committee unless they are granted a waiver from their party's congressional leadership. It has long been regarded as the most prestigious committee of the House of Representatives. The United States Constitution requires that all bills regarding taxation must originate in the U.S. House of Representatives, and House rules dictate that all bills regarding taxation must pass through Ways and Means. This system imparts upon the committee and its members a significant degree of inf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mercantilism
Mercantilism is an economic policy that is designed to maximize the exports and minimize the imports for an economy. It promotes imperialism, colonialism, tariffs and subsidies on traded goods to achieve that goal. The policy aims to reduce a possible current account deficit or reach a current account surplus, and it includes measures aimed at accumulating monetary reserves by a positive balance of trade, especially of finished goods. Historically, such policies frequently led to war and motivated colonial expansion. Mercantilist theory varies in sophistication from one writer to another and has evolved over time. It promotes government regulation of a nation's economy for the purpose of augmenting state power at the expense of rival national powers. High tariffs, especially on manufactured goods, were almost universally a feature of mercantilist policy.John J. McCusker, ''Mercantilism and the Economic History of the Early Modern Atlantic World'' (Cambridge UP, 2001) Bef ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zero-sum Game
Zero-sum game is a mathematical representation in game theory and economic theory of a situation which involves two sides, where the result is an advantage for one side and an equivalent loss for the other. In other words, player one's gain is equivalent to player two's loss, therefore the net improvement in benefit of the game is zero. If the total gains of the participants are added up, and the total losses are subtracted, they will sum to zero. Thus, cutting a cake, where taking a more significant piece reduces the amount of cake available for others as much as it increases the amount available for that taker, is a zero-sum game if all participants value each unit of cake equally. Other examples of zero-sum games in daily life include games like poker, chess, and bridge where one person gains and another person loses, which results in a zero-net benefit for every player. In the markets and financial instruments, futures contracts and options are zero-sum games as well. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Balance Of Trade
The balance of trade, commercial balance, or net exports (sometimes symbolized as NX), is the difference between the monetary value of a nation's exports and imports over a certain time period. Sometimes a distinction is made between a balance of trade for goods versus one for services. The balance of trade measures a flow of exports and imports over a given period of time. The notion of the balance of trade does not mean that exports and imports are "in balance" with each other. If a country exports a greater value than it imports, it has a trade surplus or positive trade balance, and conversely, if a country imports a greater value than it exports, it has a trade deficit or negative trade balance. As of 2016, about 60 out of 200 countries have a trade surplus. The notion that bilateral trade deficits are bad in and of themselves is overwhelmingly rejected by trade experts and economists. Explanation The balance of trade forms part of the current account, which include ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Executive (government)
The Executive, also referred as the Executive branch or Executive power, is the term commonly used to describe that part of government which enforces the law, and has overall responsibility for the governance of a state. In political systems based on the separation of powers, such as the USA, government authority is distributed between several branches in order to prevent power being concentrated in the hands of a single person or group. To achieve this, each branch is subject to checks by the other two; in general, the role of the Legislature is to pass laws, which are then enforced by the Executive, and interpreted by the Judiciary. The Executive can be also be the source of certain types of law, such as a decree or executive order. In those that use fusion of powers, typically Parliamentary systems, the Executive forms the government and its members generally belong to the political party that controls the legislature or "Parliament". Since the Executive requires the su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dick Gephardt
Richard Andrew Gephardt (; born January 31, 1941) is an American attorney, lobbyist, and politician who served as a United States Representative from Missouri from 1977 to 2005. A member of the Democratic Party, he was House Majority Leader from 1989 to 1995 and Minority Leader from 1995 to 2003. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in 1988 and 2004. Gephardt was mentioned as a possible vice presidential nominee in 1988, 1992, 2000, 2004, and 2008. Since his retirement from politics, Gephardt has become a significant lobbyist. He founded a Washington-based public affairs firm, Gephardt Government Affairs, an Atlanta-based labor consultancy, the Gephardt Group, as well as a direct primary care group, SolidaritUS Health. He also consults for DLA Piper, FTI Consulting and Goldman Sachs and is a member of the ReFormers Caucus of Issue One and co-chair of Issue One's Council for Responsible Social Media with former Massachuset ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States House Of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they comprise the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The House's composition was established by Article One of the United States Constitution. The House is composed of representatives who, pursuant to the Uniform Congressional District Act, sit in single member congressional districts allocated to each state on a basis of population as measured by the United States Census, with each district having one representative, provided that each state is entitled to at least one. Since its inception in 1789, all representatives have been directly elected, although universal suffrage did not come to effect until after the passage of the 19th Amendment and the Civil Rights Movement. Since 1913, the number of voting representative ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comparative Advantage
In an economic model, agents have a comparative advantage over others in producing a particular good if they can produce that good at a lower relative opportunity cost or autarky price, i.e. at a lower relative marginal cost prior to trade. Comparative advantage describes the economic reality of the work gains from trade for individuals, firms, or nations, which arise from differences in their factor endowments or technological progress. (The absolute advantage, comparing output per time (labor efficiency) or per quantity of input material (monetary efficiency), is generally considered more intuitive, but less accurate — as long as the opportunity costs of producing goods across countries vary, productive trade is possible.) David Ricardo developed the classical theory of comparative advantage in 1817 to explain why countries engage in international trade even when one country's workers are more efficient at producing ''every'' single good than workers in other countries. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reaganomics
Reaganomics (; a portmanteau of ''Reagan'' and ''economics'' attributed to Paul Harvey), or Reaganism, refers to the neoliberal economic policies promoted by U.S. President Ronald Reagan during the 1980s. These policies are commonly associated with and characterized as supply-side economics, trickle-down economics, or "voodoo economics" by opponents, while Reagan and his advocates preferred to call it free-market economics. The pillars of Reagan's economic policy included increasing defense spending, balancing the federal budget and slowing the growth of government spending, reducing the federal income tax and capital gains tax, reducing government regulation, and tightening the money supply in order to reduce inflation. The results of Reaganomics are still debated. Supporters point to the end of stagflation, stronger GDP growth, and an entrepreneurial revolution in the decades that followed. Critics point to the widening income gap, what they described as an atmosphere of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Balance Of Trade
The balance of trade, commercial balance, or net exports (sometimes symbolized as NX), is the difference between the monetary value of a nation's exports and imports over a certain time period. Sometimes a distinction is made between a balance of trade for goods versus one for services. The balance of trade measures a flow of exports and imports over a given period of time. The notion of the balance of trade does not mean that exports and imports are "in balance" with each other. If a country exports a greater value than it imports, it has a trade surplus or positive trade balance, and conversely, if a country imports a greater value than it exports, it has a trade deficit or negative trade balance. As of 2016, about 60 out of 200 countries have a trade surplus. The notion that bilateral trade deficits are bad in and of themselves is overwhelmingly rejected by trade experts and economists. Explanation The balance of trade forms part of the current account, which include ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
President Of The United States
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. The power of the presidency has grown substantially since the first president, George Washington, took office in 1789. While presidential power has ebbed and flowed over time, the presidency has played an increasingly strong role in American political life since the beginning of the 20th century, with a notable expansion during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. In contemporary times, the president is also looked upon as one of the world's most powerful political figures as the leader of the only remaining global superpower. As the leader of the nation with the largest economy by nominal GDP, the president possesses significant domestic and international hard and soft power. Article II of the Constitution establis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
