charles hugh smith

In American public life, it's hard to escape popular appeals about the virtues of the middle class. Yet a growing cadre of analysts are concerned about the steady erosion of the middle class and the industrial base that created it.

In an interesting demonstration of the extreme specificity of international trade, China's Ministry of Commerce recently levied a 30 percent tariff on imports of a specific artificial fiber -- nylon 6 -- from the United States, Russia, the European Union and Taiwan. Monday's announcement was...