Donald Trump on the Economy (Not Impressive); WaPo Questions to Trump (Less Impressive)

Monday's probing Washington Post interview with Donald Trump covered the gamut from the size of Trump's hands to his providing a list of some of the members of his national security advisory team (Which, btw, include a recent college grad, George Papadopoulos, a 2009 grad of  DePaul University). The back and forth even occasionally wandered into the area of economics.

He told WaPo:

We’re sitting probably on a bubble and, you know, it’s a bubble that if it breaks is going to be very nasty.

He may then have suggested he has a somewhat Keynesian  government spending view of how to fix the economy, becasue he immediately continued with this comment:

 And I just think we have to rebuild our country. If you look at the infrastructure — I just landed at an airport where, not in good shape, not in good shape. If you go to Qatar and if you go to (inaudible) you see airports the likes of which you have never seen before. Dubai, different places in China. You see infrastructure, you see airports, other things, the likes of which you have never seen here.

WaPo failed to draw out from Trump his detailed view on the bubble and how he sees and the role of government spending when such a bubble pops. There were no follow up questions by WaPo on that point.

Trump also seemed to think that Mexico's growth is a negative thing. WaPo did not probe this remark either.

He stated, specifically, that Mexico was becoming the next China, and  put on display his ignorance of the law of comparative advantage:

Mexico is really becoming the new China. And I have great issue with that. Because you know I use in speeches sometimes Ford or sometimes I use Carrier – it’s all the same: Ford, Carrier, Nabisco, so many of the companies — they’re moving to Mexico now. And you know we shouldn’t be allowing that to happen.

His ignorance on comparative advantage was not hard to spot, Before he started attacking Mexico, he showed his trade ignorance when discussing China:

Because frankly, what I’m saying is you know we have to create incentives for people to go back and to reinvigorate the areas and to put people to work.  And you know we have lost million and millions of jobs to China and other countries. And they’ve been taken out of this country, and when I say millions, you know it’s, it’s tremendous. I’ve seen 5 million jobs, I’ve seen numbers that range from 6 million to, to smaller numbers. But it’s many millions of jobs, and it’s to countries all over.

None of the board members of the editorial board that met with Trump questioned him on his failure to comprehend comparative advantage, just as they did not attempt to draw out how Trump would deal with the bubble he thinks exists. Nor did they question Trump's seeming negative view toward Mexican growth.

But they did find time to discuss in an extended manner his debate comments on the size of his hands. and probe him extensively on it.

I am glad WaPo is showing Donald Trump and the country how to dig down deep on the serious issues.

 -RW