Saturday, August 15, 2015

Steven Rattner Slams Trumponomics

This is sad.

An apologist lefty Democratic politicians gets more right about economics than Donald Trump.

Steven Rattner, a crony Wall Strret banker (with stints at Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, and Lazard Freres & Co.) and who served as lead adviser to the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry in 2009 for the Obama administration, writes at NYT:
DONALD TRUMP’S economic views may not have garnered as much attention as his misogynistic statements, but they are equally unpalatable, evincing a lack of understanding of basic economics that is startling for a billionaire businessman.

While Mr. Trump has not provided specifics much beyond the “Make America Great Again” slogan featured on his often-present baseball cap, strands of Trumponomics have trickled out amid the stream of braggadocio and ad hominem attacks on his critics.

And what bizarre views they are — a curious mélange of populism and hard-right conservatism, inherently contradictory perspectives that often lie far outside the boundaries of accepted economic thought.

Take, for example, what seems to be his “No. 1” issue: trade. Mr. Trump believes the Chinese (and others) have been playing us for fools; using cheap labor, currency manipulation and trade barriers to favor their exports and limit our imports.

In Mr. Trump’s mind (although not in the minds of serious economists), that’s why we’ve lost five million manufacturing jobs since 2000.

The Chinese are certainly protectionists, but a shift in manufacturing jobs was inevitable. For centuries, as countries have developed, the locus of jobs has shifted based on comparative advantage.

Moreover, many of those manufacturing jobs weren’t lost to other countries but to growing efficiency, just as employment in agriculture in the United States has fallen even as output has risen.

No policies could reverse tectonic forces of this magnitude, and in suggesting that there are remedies, Mr. Trump is cynically misleading the American public.

Still worse are his notions for how to bring jobs home, particularly his call for huge tariffs. At various times, he has proposed levies of 25 percent on imports from China and 35 percent on Ford vehicles assembled in Mexico. That would significantly raise prices for Americans and unleash retaliatory moves.
 -RW 

10 comments:

  1. "may not have garnered as much attention as his misogynistic statements"

    Sigh. Another idiot who thinks any criticism of women is "misogyny". What are women? Untouchable goddesses that should never, ever receive criticism of any kind at all? I don't get this bizarre worship of women by these SJW and PC idiot types. It's sick and bizarre.

    Meh, at least he got the economics right on this one.

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  2. I'd love to find a good, succinct article on tariffs and why they are bad. suggestions? mises.org wasn't much help

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    1. Rothbard has a succinct section on it in "Power and Market". You can find it at the mises.org website for free. It's part of "Man, Economy, and State". Pages 1101-1107.

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  3. He says "many" manufacturing jobs have been lost to growing efficiency but no numbers to define many. If I understand Trump, he's saying that businesses have no choice but to relocate outside of the country to make a profit and he's trying to encourage businesses to stay here thru various means (corporate tax cuts, protectionist policies, etc.). I may not agree generally with Trump but I know that "many" jobs lost overseas is hollowing out the middle class in this country and I don't see that as a good thing either.

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  4. To be honest we took a crap shoot on Obama: a man with no qualifications, no experience outside the political bubble, and no integrity. Here is Donald Trump: he has created successful businesses, given jobs to tens of thousands of people - including immigrants and women - managed huge construction projects, brought prosperity to other businesses, negotiated huge deals, created a hugely successful television series. He has also proven himself to be a realist. Sorry to disappoint, but I'd be willing to take a gamble on him just fine. Who are they gonna give us instead? Another Bush? No thanks ... I'll take my chances on the carnival barker.

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    1. We don't exactly have much to pick from do we? I personally won't be voting. I refuse to vote for Tweedledee or Tweedledum.

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    2. I don't think you understand Barry; He was perfectly qualified.....he had the right shaded face, had no connections to the usual run of black democrats, wasn't going upset the party bosses and spoke nicely

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  5. How does one explain, "Comparitive Advantage" to 93+ million people who have no job, or a job to be ashamed of?

    It's a neat concept embraced by advocates for greedy crony capitalist multinationals and Austrian economists.

    Maybe when our nation/economy is fully destroyed by the influx of cheap undocumented alien labor and outflow of skilled jobs to far away places, both parties will be jumping for joy.

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    1. Your statement is mystifying. 93 million people not in the labor force h a ving thier jobs taken away by cheap immigrants? Perhaps those 93 million should not be so picky and take a job an imigrant would do? Or maybe they just like to get paid not to work.

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    2. not really.
      http://www.cato.org/blog/immigrations-real-impact-wages-employment

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