Business Economics on Ballot The American economy largely relies on large corporations for generating growth and wealth. That engine is under attack on numerous counts by politicians looking to stoke voter support by creating a scapegoat. Democrats have pledged to raise the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent. Both political parties’ presidential candidates want to deny the takeover of U.S. Steel by Japan’s Nippon Steel. The only rationale is that the United Steelworkers Union opposes the business transaction despite Nippin’s vow to not cut jobs. The union and politicians have concocted national security as the concern, but Japan is a close ally, and the U.S. government can dictate on security concerns regard...
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.
There was heavy volume exiting soybeans, which dragged down the broader market today. The lack of a specific Chinese buying commitment for soybeans undermined speculators who had placed bets on state-directed trade. But even the Chinese do not totally ignore market fundamentals. They may still...
On Tuesday, 12 May, WPI reported on an Executive Order being prepared by the Trump Administration to suspend tariff rate quotas (TRQs) on beef from all exporters for 200 days as a means of addressing high beef prices in the United States. After considerable pushback from cattle producer groups,...
WPI has officially launched Transportation Perspectives as a standalone weekly report separate from our Ag Perspectives articles and analysis. Current Ag Perspectives subscribers will have gratis access to the report through 16 April 2026. Please email us or subscribe online after this date to...