Latest news with #RossPerot
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Harvard Bought a Copy of the Magna Carta for $27 and It Could Be Real
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Harvard Law School recently discovered a treasure that had been hiding in its library for decade. Two British academics say that a copy of the Magna Carta in the Ivy League university's possession is the real deal. The school bought the copy in 1946 from a London bookseller for $27.50 (approximately $485 when adjusted for inflation). But the scholars say this is an original manuscript dated to the year 1300, which would easily make this Antiques Roadshow-like find worth millions. The last known sale of an original Magna Carta manuscript took place in December 2007, when a 1297 edition was sold at auction by Sotheby's for $21.3 million. It had previously been owned by Texas billionaire Ross Perot and was purchased by David Rubenstein, co-founder of the Carlyle Group. That particular copy was one of only four known 1297 versions in private hands and is now on display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Prior to Harvard's discovery, there were only 25 known surviving original copies of Magna Carta, with only three located outside of England. The manuscript sold in 2007 was the only one owned by a private individual and the only one located in the United States at that time. None were expected to be sold again—until now, a newly identified 1300 version has surfaced at Harvard, potentially altering that count. The Magna Carta, which means 'Great Charter' in Latin, was first signed in 1215 as was a declaration of rights forced on England's King John by his barons, establishing the principle that no one is above the law. Though many of its clauses were specific to medieval feudal disputes, it introduced ideas like due process and limited government that influenced later legal systems. Its legacy shaped the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, particularly in protections for individual liberty and the rule of law. The Magna Carta went through six iterations before the last original manuscripts were published in 1300. The manuscript in Harvard's possession was confirmed as authentic after spectral imaging revealed features matching six known 1300 originals, including identical text, dimensions, and distinctive handwriting details. 'I was trawling through all these online statute books trying to find unofficial copies of the Magna Carta…and I immediately thought, 'My God, this looks for all the world like an original of Edward I's confirmation of Magna Carta in 1300,' though, of course, appearances are deceptive,' David Carpenter, one of the two British academics behind the discovery and a professor of medieval history at King's College London, told The Guardian. While researching for a book from his home in southeast London, Professor Carpenter made the discovery when he came across a file in Harvard Law School's digital archives. Carpenter then brought in a colleague, Nicholas Vincent, a professor of medieval history at the University of East Anglia, to help authenticate the manuscript. Vincent underscored in an interview with the New York Times that the document—which established that rulers must follow the law—reemerged just as Harvard University and other institutions of higher learning face intense pressure from the Trump administration. 'In this particular instance we are dealing with an institution that is under direct attack from the state itself,' Vincent told the NYT. 'So it's almost providential it has turned up where it has at this particular time.' You Might Also Like 12 Weekend Getaway Spas For Every Type of Occasion 13 Beauty Tools to Up Your At-Home Facial Game
New York Post
26-04-2025
- Business
- New York Post
How cryptocurrencies are solving America's stocks and bonds problem
The Trump administration is pressuring trading partners to Buy American — American energy, defense and agricultural products, that is, and as The Wall Street Journal reports, many anxious global leaders, eager to placate the commander in chief and avoid a prolonged trade war, have voiced support for the idea. However, just as foreign leaders are saying they'll buy American goods and services, foreign investors, from Japanese pensioners to European mutual funds to state actors are Selling American — specifically American stocks, corporate debt and, worryingly, the treasury bonds America relies on to finance trillions in government spending. 5 Digital currencies are emerging as an unexpected savior of global economic markets in the wake of Trump's tariff chaos. Getty Images Advertisement Ross Perot gained political fame (or infamy, depending on who you ask) in the 1990s by arguing that the flow of factory jobs from the Midwest to Mexico from NAFTA would cause a 'giant sucking sound going south.' We're hearing a new sucking sound, but this time it's capital, rather than jobs, that's whooshing out of our national doors. Since the beginning of the year, the US dollar has weakened against nearly every major currency, falling more than 10% against the Euro and Japanese Yen, and more than 8% against the British pound. And while US stock markets are reeling under pressure from Trump's tariffs, European and British markets are up. 5 The US Dollar may be the globe's most important trading currency, but it has declined in value since the return of Pres. Trump. Stillfx – Some fear the damage from tariffs to American business, US financial markets and even the dollar itself could be long lasting. 'Global trust and reliance on the dollar was built up over a half century or more,' says Barry Eichengreen, an economist and professor at the University of Berkeley, adding 'But it can be lost in the blink of an eye.' Advertisement Predictions that current policy will lead America down the road to ruin are probably overblown. But this dollar angst raises a pressing and real concern that the US could run out of buyers for its government debt as traditional investors shun treasuries along with other US assets. In a worst case scenario, China may even dump US debt intentionally to retaliate for tariffs, sending rates higher, impacting everything from car loans to mortgage payments. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tried to calm markets of these worries, saying, 'If a foreign rival were weaponizing the US government bond market or attempting to destabilize it for political gain, I am sure that we would do something.' 5 As foreign investors retreat from the US, digital currencies such as stablecoins are snapping up US-based stocks and bonds. AP So, the US needs to fund key government spending at reasonable rates of interest, but legacy buyers may not line up as eagerly in the future to buy the debt. Now what? Advertisement The good news is that a new buyer of US treasuries is emerging, made possible by the technology behind cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Blockchain-based stablecoins are now the seventh largest buyer of US government debt, exceeding Germany, Australia and other big countries. And they're growing quickly — surpassing $200 billion in size this year and nearly $250 billion today. 5 Economists fear that China may dump US debt intentionally to retaliate for tariffs, under the watch of President Xi Jinping. POOL/AFP via Getty Images Because stablecoins are fully backed 1:1 by dollar reserves, typically US government debt, they are a persistent and growing buyer of new treasury issuances. Increasingly, government leaders see their potential. In a June 2024 opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said, 'Dollar-backed stablecoins are becoming an important net purchaser of US government debt.' Advertisement To be sure, stablecoins are still a small piece of the enormous treasury market. But the trend suggests that stablecoins will continue to grow, perhaps capturing as much as 5%-10% share of the global money supply, or $5-$10 trillion, over the next decade. Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle, the largest American stablecoin issuer, said that the stablecoin market could reach $3 trillion by 2030. For context, a $3 trillion stablecoin market would soak up more US debt than China, Japan or the UK, the three largest current owners of US government debt, combined. 5 Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle, the largest American stablecoin issuer, said that the stablecoin market could reach $3 trillion by 2030 Bloomberg via Getty Images The US has benefited enormously from the US dollar being the global reserve currency. Despite accounting for about 25% of the world's GDP, the greenback is involved in most of global trade. At White House Crypto Summit in February, Scott Bessent said, 'We are going to keep the US [dollar] the dominant reserve currency in the world, and we will use stablecoins to do that.' China and the rest of the world may be closing a door on America's dollar and on an old regime where the US relied on foreign governments to buy its debt. Stablecoins could be opening a window to its future. Alex Tapscott is the author of 'Web3: Charting the Internet's Next Economic and Cultural Frontier' and managing director of the Digital Asset Group, a division of Ninepoint Partners LP.
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Are Trump's tariffs as bad as the Smoot-Hawley Act, which is blamed for deepening the Great Depression? They're actually worse
It's Smoot-Hawley all over again! At least by this reporter's calculations, the sweeping tariff regime that President Trump unveiled following the market close on April 2 literally lifts America's duties on imports to roughly the same level that the much-reviled legislation took them to at the start of the Great Depression. The ultraprotectionist Smoot-Hawley Act is widely blamed for deepening and prolonging the worst chapter in U.S. economic history. In a 1993 debate with independent presidential candidate Ross Perot on Larry King Live, then VP and free-trade advocate Al Gore brought an antique picture of the two senators, mocking them for a disastrous policy prescription that "sounded reasonable at the time." Indeed, for the general public and a wide swath of trade experts, going the Smoot-Hawley route is the economic equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot. The Trump announcement contained two big surprises. The first: The tariffs are much higher and more extensive than investors and businesses had expected, based on the President's ever-changing, and at times relatively dovish, musings in the previous days and weeks. Second, the "retaliatory" tariffs were generally gigantic and bore no relation to the posted numerical duties the targeted nations impose on the U.S. For example, the EU slaps an average rate of 2.7% on our goods, according to the World Trade Organization. Yet Trump is piling across-the-board tariffs of 20% on the 27-nation bloc. What explains the gap? The President reckons that the Community is really charging our exporters 39% via indirect trade barriers that encompass such roadblocks as quotas, technical standards, government procurement policies, and currency manipulation. That the President is imposing a penalty that's 19 points lower than what the EU's supposedly charging the U.S. may explain Trump's claim that he's being unnecessarily "kind" to our trading partners. The just-released 2025 Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers compiled by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative details these alleged restrictions for numerous countries. The administration, however, hasn't disclosed how it arrived at the precise weight of all indirect barriers, which reach 52% for India and 67% for China, many multiples of the actual rupee or yuan tariffs they collect. It's the administration's partner by partner estimate of towering non-tariff walls that mostly explain why the announced rates are so shockingly high. Think tanks and Wall Street analysts are rushing to determine the average overall rate, and hence the total dollar charge, that the plan will slap on our imports. That's also the number American consumers will pay in what amounts to higher taxes if indeed importers pass all the charges along in higher prices, precisely what happened when Trump heaped big duties on the likes of steel and aluminum in his first term. So, this writer calculated those numbers based on the percentage tariff for each nation and the EU, and the dollars in exports they sent Stateside in 2025. It proved perhaps my most head-spinning numerical exercise in several decades as a business reporter. Trump hit all of the 12 largest exporters to the US with tariffs of at least 20%. China took the hardest punch at 54%, followed by Vietnam (46%), Thailand (36%), Taiwan (32%), Switzerland (31%), India (26%), Japan (24%), Mexico and Canada (25% each), South Korea (25%), Malaysia (24%), and the EU (20%). Fourteenth-ranked Indonesia got dinged 32%. Most of the other 150-plus nations on the list fall under the 10% "universal" tariff regime, including Singapore and Brazil, which sit in 13th and 14th place respectively in export volumes to the U.S. The 13 heavily penalized supposed bad actors among the 15 largest exporters accounted for $2.92 trillion of foreign goods sold in the America last year. That's over 70% of $4.11 trillion total. By my calculations, that group alone, based on last year's numbers, would now be facing around $814 billion in annual duties, or an average rate of 28%. The remaining nations are generally subject to 10% duties on the $1.2 billion remainder, or $120 million. So, all in all, the new tariff bill would mushroom to around $932 billion (the $814 billion for the biggest exporters plus $120 billion for the generally smaller nations at 10%). That's an average import duty of 22.7%. In June of 1930, just eight months after the historic stock market crash that marked the start of the Great Depression, Congress enacted the Smoot-Hawley tariff law, championed by Senator Reed Smoot (R-Utah) and Representative Willis Hawley (R-Ore.). The nation had already turned toward protectionism, chiefly to protect farmers and industrial workers, eight years earlier when the Fordney-McCumber bill raised tariffs substantially, from the single digits to an average of 13.5%, where they stayed pre-Smoot-Hawley. The new law, designed to double down on shielding agricultural workers and folks toiling in the likes of steel and auto plants, raised imposed duties to over 50% on many products. Still, around two-thirds of U.S. imports remained tariff-free, so the average rate rose much less, by 6.3 points to just under 20%. That's slightly below the 22% or 23% I get for the Trump plan. And that's stunning in itself. But the most astounding takeaway is that the Trump blueprint would raise today's tariffs from the current 3% by nearly 20 points, or sevenfold! That's three times the jump under Smoot-Hawley. In the three years following the enactment of Smoot-Hawley, U.S. imports dropped by two-thirds, and, pounded by stiff retaliation from nations such as Germany, the U.K., and Canada, our sales abroad fell by a like percentage. According to most economists, the Trump tariffs are likely to unleash a sharp decline in both what we buy from foreigners and what our producers sell abroad in the years to come, and if the shrinkage in our global trading activity proves even a fraction of the disastrous collapse post-Smoot-Hawley, it's bad news. The nonpartisan Tax Foundation, in estimates posted before the Trump announcement on April 2, reckoned that the new duties would curb GDP growth by 0.4% a year in the long term. That shaves around a quarter from the 2% or less expansion the CBO projects in the years ahead. And that forecast was based on the new tariffs hitting around half of the $4 trillion Trump targeted. Put simply, Trump rocked America by targeting everything big, meaning at least 10%, and most exports super-big. Not all distinguished experts believe that Smoot-Hawley triggered the Great Depression. Nobel laureate Milton Friedman ascribed the collapse in the 1930s to overrestrictive monetary policy, and viewed Smoot-Hawley as only a minor factor. But a tariff increase that's multiple of the one that almost a century ago, was advertised as a path to prosperity, and that at the very least proved a negative, isn't encouraging. The Smoot-Hawley saga has an interesting coda involving the bill's cosponsors: In the 1932 election, Hawley lost his primary; Smoot got waxed in the general election; and the Republicans shed 11 seats in one of the worst routs in the annals of senatorial elections. So far, the markets hate the Trump plan. We'll soon see if the voters follow suit. This story was originally featured on
