economy – Beesquared

The chief executive of the nation’s biggest bank is sounding off about what he says is holding back the U.S. economy, but he may want to redirect his fire.

Political gridlock, a tax code that sends investment overseas, a lack of investment in infrastructure and stupidity are all to blame, says Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase.

“The United States of America has to start to focus on policy which is good for all Americans, and that is infrastructure, regulation, taxation, education,” Dimon told reporters on a conference call Friday to discuss the bank’s earnings. “Why you guys don’t write about it every day is completely beyond me. And, like, who cares about fixed-income trading in the last two weeks of June? I mean, seriously.”

Putting aside Dimon’s pique – he seems to have become irritated by the temerity of a reporter who asked about revenue from bond trading, which fell 19 percent from a year earlier despite the bank’s record profitability in the quarter – the problem seems to lie less with the press (which writes all the time about policy) than it does with politicians.

President Donald Trump campaigned on a pledge to rebuild the nation’s crumbling highways and bridges and change the tax code, among other things. He and his party control all three branches of government.

Which is why it’s strange that Trump began his punch list on infrastructure improvements with a push to privatize the nation’s system of directing air traffic.

Speaker Paul Ryan is scrambling to find the votes, which, not surprisingly, fall a few dozen short of a majority, Politico reported on Saturday. Even GOP lawmakers say privatizing the air system gets them nothing in their districts.

Lawmakers from rural states fear that privatization would lead to cutbacks in service to smaller airports. They thought that when the president said rebuilding infrastructure, he meant fixing crumbling roads, decaying bridges and other public works that create jobs.

There may be a need to update air traffic control as well, but it mostly involves installing a system that guides planes via satellite.

“I think fighting over this part of the infrastructure program [air traffic control] slows down progress we can make in getting a larger infrastructure plan in place,” Sen. Jerry Moran, a Republican from Kansas who serves on the committee that oversees the Federal Aviation Administration, told the Washington Examiner.

Meanwhile, a rewrite of the tax code appears to be going nowhere.

Dimon also cited education. The administration is discouraging states from including student performance in science as a priority, despite such coursework counting toward federal standards for student achievement, science teachers say.

To be fair, that comes from science teachers. And Trump is continuing a stance adopted by the Obama administration. But the Obama administration didn’t also abandon a global agreement on climate.

Dimon said it’s “an embarrassment being an American traveling around the world” and listening to the “stupid s*&t” Americans have to deal in connection with the country’s struggle to pass anything in Washington that might expand the economy greater than the one to two percent the US economy is growing at currently.

Dimon may not be alone in his frustration. Two-thirds of Americans disapprove of Trump’s performance, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll.

But compared with most Americans, Dimon’s job makes him uniquely able to do something about it. JPMorgan Chase spent nearly $3 million on lobbying last year. (Financial firms overall contributed more than $1.2 billion to congressional campaigns in the most recent elections, more than twice the amount given by any other sector.)

He also serves on the White House Strategic and Policy Forum, a group of 17 top executives who advise the president on business.

Sounding off to reporters generates headlines. But rallying business leaders to back an economic policy that benefits all Americans might be a better place to begin.

Focusing solely on the sum of goods and services produced within their borders cannot alone reduce the inequality that plagues the economies of countries throughout southern Africa, a report published by Oxfam International concludes.

Despite periods of economic growth during the past two decades, the benefits have yet to reach the poorest in countries such as Swaziland, Nigeria, Namibia and South Africa, notes Oxfam, which adds that the inequality falls most heavily on women and young people.

“The shape of many of the continent’s economies – characterized by an overreliance on the extractive sector, inadequate investment in agriculture and large informal sectors – has meant that the consequences of inequality have mostly been felt by the young and by women,” concludes Katy Wright, author of the report, which was released in the run-up to the recent World Economic Forum on Africa. “Instead of focusing solely on GDP and hoping to tweak it to make it more inclusive, leaders should focus directly on reducing inequality and eliminating poverty, in ways that lead to economic prosperity for all.”

“These aims should be placed above GDP growth – not because growth is unimportant, but because poverty and inequality represent the most significant barriers in Africa to achieving sustainable and inclusive growth,” she adds.

Swaziland has the greatest inequality in the world, followed by Nigeria, Namibia and South Africa, notes Wright (below chart). Oxfam found recently that three billionaires in South Africa have the same wealth as the bottom 50 percent of the population.

The 20 most unequal countries in the world, using raw and adjusted Gini measurements

Across Africa, up to three-quarters of women work in the agricultural, low-paid and informal sectors, notes Wright, who adds that women who work in manufacturing, services and trade earn about 70 percent of that of their male counterparts.

The continent also has yet to deliver jobs to a majority people under the age of 24, who, she notes, have the potential to drive economic prosperity with the right investments and policies. In South Africa alone, more than half of all young people are likely to be unemployed.

The report recommends that countries boost their tax-to-GDP ratios to at least one-quarter, including reducing tax avoidance and “enhancing capacity to collect taxes from highly paid individuals and large firms.”

According to Oxfam, governments also must meet commitments to spend a fifth of their national budget on education and 15% of their budgets on health, and “make explicit plans to reduce poverty and eliminate inequality” in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, a series of 17 goals that aim to end poverty, protect the planet, and promote peace and prosperity.