January 9, 2017

A $1 Billion Foreign Investment in the US Happens About Once Per Day

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We’re going to be seeing a lot of this over the next four years:

How do I know? Because Trump sounds like Dr. Evil here. ONE! BILLION! DOLLARS! For comparison, here is total foreign direct investment since the start of the century:

Every year, there are hundreds of investments of a billion dollars by foreign companies in the US. The Fiat Chrysler announcement is entirely routine.

Still, that’s hundreds of opportunities every year for Trump to blather about how he’s making America great again. Just keep in mind that it’s all nonsense. I figure trend FDI should reach about $3.9 trillion in 2017. Wake me up if Trump manages to get it significantly higher than that, but please don’t insult me by trumpeting every piddling contribution along the way as if he were raining pixie dust over the entire economy.

UPDATE: The original headline and text way overstated the flow of new FDI each year. Sorry. It’s fixed now.

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PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

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