Wednesday, March 02, 2016

Labeling Trump as WHATEVER - TRADE FALLACIES

Trump is outside label definition because each issue has it’s own solution

So on trade he is absolutely NOT C
On the border he is HARD C
On the Military he is C
On China he is diamond hard C
On Israel he is in Disneyland
etc.
And this is driving the Jesuit Society of Conservatism into scrotum tightening fits.
And has the Rove’s and Thiessen’s and Hayes’s and Krauthammers thinking Mussolini has to be stopped.
Worse still, they are sincere. Every last fucker BELIEVES.
This is why Trump can NEVER ‘take over’ the GOP although it can be destroyed if they are all stupid, venal and arrogant enough.
The ideological conservatives in the GOP MUST take this 'Trump interregnum’ to make certain they have a clue about the REAL WORLD of REAL PEOPLE who are not going to jump in, learn C#, use the Android SDK, invent financial service products for China Merchants Bank, and need a job they don’t hate which will last past the next financial cycle screwed up by the the Columbia School of Economics, or Cato or Brookings advised banks.

THIS IS LONG but this is SOME of the hard detail of Free Trade vs Fair Trade, and THIS is going to be  a big fat center of attack

TRADE:
For instance, if the Conservatives cannot let go of free trade then they have to have a path for high school graduates to have challenging, meaningful middle>upper middle class careers, NOT JUST JOBS in an growing economy.
An economy which then can support SOCIAL PROGRAMS.
Military expansion.
Govt grants for R&D, for instance to make renewable energy cheaper than fossil.
Sound interesting?
THEY DO NOT have any path. PERIOD. The free market, free trade experts have no vision of how this happens.
I believed in free markets.
I was a schmuck. I accepted this idea ideologically. It was something PURE.
These folks have 2 arguments for what has happened, automation is more responsible for job loss than any globalization, and globalization cannot be resisted (and is MORAL..Bernie, are you listening, because they are at Goldman and Morgan Stanley?).
This is one of Cato’s ACTUAL responses to my query about solutions which I posed as some critical thinking when I pointed out all they were doing was spouting criticisms of Trump’s ideas on this and were they recommending nothing:
“Certainly not nothing. Just not immoral, counterproductive protectionism. See, eg, http://thefederalist.com/2015/08/18/why-donald-trumps-immigration-plan-empowers-political-elites/ …”
So I did and here is the recommended read:
Michigan voters finally booted Gov. Granholm. According to Weigel’s piece, Michigan’s current governor, Rick Snyder, seems to understand that the way to real economic salvation comes not from a bitter, ignorant and immoral combination of statism and nativism, but from an optimistic embrace of free markets and the **** inevitability of globalization ****, similar to what Texas and other states implemented long ago. By contrast, Trump stands in the middle of the ocean and, instead of building a boat, promises to make the waves stop. Sadly, there are many Americans gasping for air, so desperate for hope and failed by their leaders that they’re willing give Trump a try. They’ll inevitably discover, however, that his xenophobic, anti-market policies will not only cause them to sink even further, but let their leaders get away with tethering them to the ocean floor.
Solution? Okay so what’s this Wiegel ref?
READ IT, if you want to understand.
I found NOTHING.
Again, my hypothesis is that jobs went overseas to the lowest cost, for MODEST price gains (perhaps really - lower price INCREASES) in exchange for the hollowing out of the American manufacturing, engineering, and now R&D infrastructure.
The gains realized went to the corporate coffers, perhaps to benefit certain funds, retirement among them, but for many workers they lost these benefits because their jobs disappeared. It made for great balance sheets.
When I asked if  one free trade supporter was ready to have their children selling insurance to each part time while studying to be social service counselors I was snarkliy reminded by them that their kids were into STEM(science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) - when I asked if their advanced degree would be taken in Shenzen, they responded the kids were taking MANDARIN, since they were planners.
OKAY?
Do we get it?
Everyone enjoying their RCA, Zenith, and Westinghouse TV’s?

image
We can’t tell a former Pontiac assembly technician, ‘here is 12 months of extended unemployment and a 6 week school in entering medical data’ (that’s the TAA, btw) and then see this person working at McD’s and Dunkin’ part time with no end in sight.
Now that’s a stereotype, but we have NO DATA RELEASED which makes that untrue. I wish I could find data either proving this wrong or right, but in its absence….
Cato and others quote THEIR data that automation is responsible for the vast majority of all this job loss, and Trump’s solution will hurt the low income voter:
After spouting the usual, already-debunked nonsense about China, U.S. trade deals, currency manipulation, and the trade deficit, Collins (Trump person) responds to an excellent Chuck Todd follow-up about what, as basic economics teaches us, would happen to U.S. consumers if President Trump were to impose prohibitive tariffs on imports:
Todd: And what happens when everybody’s cost of living goes up? I mean, that’s been the threat of this, that if this happens, then there’s trade wars, there’s tariff wars, and then suddenly a pair of shoes costs, you know, three times what it costs today, clothes cost three times what it costs today, somebody walking into a Walmart is gonna find out that their bill is three times what it was. What do you say to that person if that’s what ends up happening in a trade war with China?
Collins: Well, there’s exaggeration there. Here’s what I will tell you. It is my belief from experience that China has been stealing our jobs at a 15 to 30 percent price differential by manipulating their currency, so there’s no question, we want those jobs back. And for every manufacturing job that comes back to the United States, there are six other jobs created. That’s the magic of manufacturing, it’s why China stole those jobs, it’s why every governor in the United States is fighting for manufacturing jobs.
And you are correct there could be a, a very small 10 or 15 percent inflationary impact over a period of time. But I’ll also tell you this, the United States needs some level of inflation. Just speak to the Federal Reserve. You can’t withstand where we’ve been at 0 percent inflation. A 2 and 3 and 4 percent inflation rate is healthy for the economy, and frankly the twenty trillion dollars that we’re saddled with in debt, with a 3 or 4 percent inflation, would be paid back with cheaper dollars, and that’s a benefit for our children and grandchildren.
BTW the reference to ‘already debunked‘ in that is the author referring to his own opinion earlier published. Not that he is wrong, just pointing it out as NOT SETTLED SCIENCE.
So Cato is saying Trump is an asshole and he knows his plan to get jobs back here is a tariff which will make everything more expensive especially for poor Americans. And their counter plan?
Learn Mandarin?
Brookings TOTALLY disagrees on causes of job loss:
Despite the installation of far more robots between 1993 and 2007, Germany lost just 19 percent of its manufacturing jobs between 1996 and 2012 compared to a 33 percent drop in the United States. Korea, France, and Italy also lost fewer manufacturing jobs than the United States even as they introduced more industrial robots
Let’s be clear, there can be no doubt that automation by increasing productivity alone will take jobs away and reduce costs.
But then why is all that automation in Shenzen?
And why are their workers incomes so rapidly rising and not ours?
Free traders maybe able to point to their own reasons why, but offer no solutions.
This is analogous to listening to all the politicians telling us why a wall, or real border security is impossible but offer no solutions.
We keep hearing reasons to do nothing.
We MADE this situation. Our tax laws allow this situation.
We have to TRY things.
Much lower corporate tax rates. Tax exemptions for startups. Insisting on FAIR TRADE. Support for the growth of unions in Vietnam, or China.
Conservatives who cling to Free Trade must have a realistic, BELIEVABLE solution set all can understand, not a series of what amounts to excuses as to why we are screwed, while all can see huge corporations reaping the benefits via the reasons we are screwed.

No comments: