With Republican efforts to replace Obamacare in tatters, President Trump now says that he should have started with tax reform. The Trump administration could realistically generate 3 percent to 4 percent growth in gross domestic product if they have the right mix of policy to stimulate the economy. The biggest overhaul to the tax system was the Reagan reforms of1986. Which had lowered households’ average marginal income-tax rates by 2 percentage points each in 1987 and 1988. Now, any package that Donald Trump proposes, it would probably cut corporate tax rates, reduce individual marginal rates, and broaden the tax base. This could be the biggest overhaul since Reagan. Since 1930, these types of tax-rate cuts have stimulated economic growth. If Mr. Trump lowers average marginal individual tax rates by 2 percentage points, this could be the boost to real growth in gross domestic product would be about 0.5 percent a year for the next two years. However, this does not factor in the stimulative effects from reduced corporate rates. The U.S. stood at third overall in 2006 but slipped to eighth in 2017. Reforming energy, environmental and financial regulations could also boost growth. In doing some research for an upcoming American Enterprise Institute paper, researchers have found out that improving America’s business conditions to match those of the top performers, which are New Zealand in 2017 and Singapore in 2012, would boost annual economic growth by about 0.3 percent. Predicting the effects is difficult, but the World Bank’s rankings on the ease of doing business are a good place to start. Investing in infrastructure could help, too. The job-creating aspects of the construction phase of a building spree wouldn’t matter as much as the productivity effects. Such as more-efficient transportation due to improved highways and other things like that. All infrastructure programs should mainly focus on useful projects such as roads, bridges, airports and sometimes railroads. They should always avoid bridges to nowhere and build for its own sake. For which Japan has become famous over the past couple of decades. It is difficult to quantify the growth effects from an infrastructure program, but given the poor state of America’s transportation networks, they are likely to be substantial. Donald Trump hopes some of his infrastructure programs can be privately funded. However, the rest of the cost could put significant strain on the federal budget. A consideration heightened by the already high ratio of U.S. public debt to GDP, about 78 percent for privately held federal debt. The president’s economic package may also include restrictions on trade and immigration. These are negatives for economic growth. In this context, a border adjustment tax levied on imports and used to subsidize exports, as House Republicans have proposed, could be a good idea. But the U.S. runs a substantial trade deficit, so the border adjustment tax would raise around $100 billion a year in federal revenue. That would help restore the fiscal balance. With any luck, the coming focus on tax reform and then on regulations and infrastructure will lead the Trump administration away from the idea of adding impediments to international trade.
If you are a gamer like me, investing in Activision Blizzard would be a smart move. This company helps produce and develop some of the best-selling video games. Activision Blizzard is ranked 5th of the world's top richest video game developers in the world. It is worth about 4.85 billion dollars. Activision helps with creating the 4th best selling game ever. The Call of Duty or C.O.D series was first released on October 29, 2003. Since was released, the game has sold over 250 million copies (units) on consoles and on the PC. And they have even released mini games for phones. As it is that Activision has only helped to develop this series, it has created another game that is on the PC. To have the world’s most popular online role-playing game like World of Warcraft or W.O.W. as their own, Activision Blizzard is assuredly not losing much sleep at night with this franchise in their arsenal. Specifically, Morgan Stanley is resting its hopes for Activision Blizzard stock and Electronic Arts stock outperforming the market on the prospect of gamers spending more money on in-game purchases. Such sales of "expansions, new challenges, new characters, etc." could potentially help grow the active user base at Activision 11% a year over the next five years. And Electronic Arts, 5% a year. Revenue, too, should grow nicely with this shift in business model. Morgan Stanley predicts 16% annualized revenue growth for Activision and 15% for Electronic Arts over the next three years. In fact, the analyst says, "digital rev," or "in-game purchases + full game downloads," has the potential to drive literally "all of ATVI/EA forward.” If that sounds like a big bet to be making on the game makers, well, Morgan Stanley thinks it's a bet worth making. After all, it doesn't cost a lot to create an in-game item -- and it costs even less to reproduce it, and nothing at all to ship it. Morgan Stanley sees Activision Blizzard's and Electronic Arts' decision to focus on this market as giving a potentially huge boost to profit margins: "We see op margins heading ~650 bp higher between now and '18 for both names," says the analyst, resulting in five-year earnings growth rates of 17% for Activision, and 14% for Electronic Arts. Viewed from the perspective of free cash flow meanwhile, the conclusions are reversed, but still similar. Over the past year, S&P Global Market Intelligence data show Activision generating $1.5 billion in positive free cash flow, which was more than twice the company's reported net income, and enough cash to give the company a price-to-FCF ratio of just 22. That's still a bit expensive for 17% growth, but less expensive than the P/E ratio makes it look. Electronic Arts, on the other hand, generated just $937 million in FCF over the past 12 months, or only $0.81 in real cash profit for every $1 claimed in GAAP net earnings. Result: EA's P/FCF ratio of 27 is a bit more expensive than its P/E ratio makes it look -- and probably costs too much for 14% growth, in any case.
Serving both God and money has long been an aim for fund companies that exclude “sin stocks”. Now the “sin stocks” are of companies that do dealing in tobacco, guns, and gambling. It is because of this that two new exchange traded funds offer a moderate evangelical tilt to that type of investing approach. This is called “biblically responsible”. These funds are saying very clearly in their regulatory filing that they will be avoiding buying shares in companies that have “any degree of participation in activities that do not align with biblical values”. And this would be including what people call the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender lifestyle. Ninety-two percent of the Fortune 500 companies include “sexual orientation” in their nondiscrimination policies and 82 percent include “gender identity”. For the first time, some of these Fortune 500 companies are starting to offer transgender-inclusive health care benefits, and they are also including surgical procedures for them. “There are millions of people, including people of faith, for whom discrimination is not a biblical value,” said Mark Snyder, who is the director of communications for the Equality Federation, a national advocacy group. “Businesses have been leading the fight for full equality over the last few years. L.G.B.T. people are part of the fabric of our nation. We have families, we go to work, we simply wish to be treated equally”. “As Christians, we love our neighbors in the L.G.B.T. community and encourage companies to provide equal employee benefits for all,” said the chief executive, Robert Netzly. Roberts is the chief executive of the company that introduced the two new funds, Inspire Investing, and he also says that he has no problem with the companies that are providing benefits to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender employees, as well as having nondiscrimination policies. Issues investing, some call it “socially responsible investing,” which includes the Environmental, Social, and Governance style of investing or E.S.G., has been a hot business in recent years. Major investors like the pension fund behemoth known as Calpers, have made it a part of their philosophy. Even though this strategy has also had some costs in lost investment opportunity. In this last year, for example, Calpers re-endorsed its ban on tobacco stocks, even though their staff had recommended the opposite. This concept has made its way to Exchange Traded Funds, which are also known as E.T.F.s, which have been popular with mom-and-pop investors because they are a low-cost, tax-efficient way to invest in a broad index. Often, the Standard & Poor’s 500. So, as a result, exchange traded funds have ballooned in recent years, amassing $2.6 trillion. And this also has created the opportunity to create niche products seems to be boundless. There are also the $790 million iShares MSCI KLD 400 Social ETF and the $500 million iShares MSCI USA ESG Select ETF, which look for stocks of companies with good labor policies or sustainable and renewable products. There are also longstanding mutual funds, such as the $927 million Domini Impact Equity fund. Companies like Amazon that have publicly supported gay marriage also would not pass muster. “Any company that takes a hard-line approach” to the issue would not pass the test, Mr. Netzly said.
All sorts of foreigners have purchased and keep purchasing U.S. stocks, bonds, and currency. One way foreigners invest in the Unites States is by purchasing commercial real estate in U.S. cities. Because the United States has a greater appetite for investment that the construction of office buildings and manufacturing plants; the purchase of new technologies and equipment; upgrading and replacing old capital foreign capital finances domestic investment. It is a vote of confidence in the United States economy and, in some sense, in our nation. You most likely haven’t heard Trump criticize international capital flowing into the United States. At least, not directly. But when the president and his administration attack the trade deficit, they are attacking foreign investment in the United States. When we import more than we export, we are consuming and investing more than we produce here at home. To pay for that consumption and investment, we need to borrow money from the rest of the world. We sell the rest of the world assets, and they give us money to pay for the consumption and investment we want and levels more than domestic production. Therefore, trade deficits require inflows of foreign capital. Today, the United States wants to invest more than it saves, so it borrows from abroad, foreign capital enters U.S. markets. For that foreign capital to exist, the rest of the world needs to be saving and not consuming and investing. So, some of their output comes to the United States. Demand for investment that outpaces the supply of savings pushes interest rates up, attracting foreign capital to the United States. But to buy U.S. assets and enjoy their higher interest rates, foreign investors need dollars. No matter what angle is most intuitive, the bottom line is the same: If the president wants to significantly reduce the trade deficit, he also wants to significantly reduce inflows of foreign capital. Waging a war on the trade deficit is waging a war on foreign investment. There are reasons to be concerned about foreign investment in specific cases and circumstances. But as a general matter, we should think of foreign investment as increasing wages and economic growth by making workers and firms more productive. Simply put, we will lose income. We will be made poorer. We will lose the ability to produce goods efficiently, as global supply chains will be disrupted. Wages will lose some of their purchasing power, as the prices of many goods and services will increase. If the president goes too far, other countries will retaliate, leading to even worse outcomes for the working-class voters who are hoping that the president will “make America great again.”
