Promises, Promises – Kept.
By Mitch Berg
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Now a replacement NAFTA on more favorable terms to us.
What a nightmare Trump has turned out to be. No wonder Liberals have their hopes pinned on Mueller.
A Republican who actually does what he says when he gets elected?
December 4th, 2018 at 7:25 am
After Beto O’rourke is inaugurated in January of 2021, he will call upon Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to rewrite NAFTA in Canada’s favor.
When the two finally meet, won’t Hollywood swoon and the young girls squeal?
December 4th, 2018 at 7:38 am
Hes not a Republican, hes a businessman who decided to run as a Republican. If I had to call Trump anything itd be a populist.
December 4th, 2018 at 8:57 am
Yes, Trump is a populist, but he’s putting conservative justices on the bench. Sad to say, better than the previous two GOP Presidents. Now if only he can persuade the FBI and DOJ to investigate and prosecute obvious cases involving swamp rats.
December 4th, 2018 at 9:47 am
Fair point BB, but hes doing that because he believes in the originalist judiciary out. Not the “living breathing constitution” leftist judges do.
December 4th, 2018 at 9:49 am
and I think hes setting up to do that next (I watch YouTube videos about QAnon and the regular updates, something big is coming late this week or early next week)
December 4th, 2018 at 10:02 am
The lede should read: “Arsonist puts out fire he started”.
Tump agreed on basically an updated version of NAFTA that includes IT products, not foreseen 24 years ago, but keeping the most important parts:
1. The super-national and binding dispute resolution mechanism, a favorite target for Trump, is still there. So much for bringing back “sovereignty”.
2. Canada opened only 3.5% of its dairy market to the US, nothing to be proud of here especially that they were already going to get it if the Trans-Pacific deal was finalized.
3. Canada’s auto sector is still safe and will actually thrive thanks to some of the provisions including the $16/hour requirement.
Again Trump lights the dumpster fire and then is a partner in putting it out. These antics from any great power in the long run never end well.
December 4th, 2018 at 10:44 am
I wish they would stop calling it a “free trade agreement.” It is not a free trade agreement, it is a trade agreement that hurts some people & helps other people, as all trade agreements do.
The first lie is to preach that free trade is good for everyone. It isn’t.
The second lie is to call a trade agreement that has rules which favor or disfavor certain industries and political causes a “free trade agreement.”
December 4th, 2018 at 10:47 am
“In the long run we are all dead.” -J. M. Keynes.
December 4th, 2018 at 10:48 am
Trump’s trade policies may be justified from certain perspectives, but pro-growth they are not.
December 4th, 2018 at 11:10 am
Woolly: Keynes’s ideas were very much about trying to keep the system running over the long term without using debt to paper over the cracks.
You don’t maintain consumption with debt, you use some redistribution instead.
You don’t maintain trade with debt, you try and run a balanced system, where you apply external pressure on nations that run consistent deficits or surpluses.
The capitalist system needs to be made to work over the longer term.
Papering over the cracks with debt ensures that the forces that might bring the system into equilibrium don’t, and you get sudden breaks instead when the credit flow stops.
December 4th, 2018 at 11:23 am
I’m not sure what you mean by “The capitalist system needs to be made to work over the longer term,” Emery. The free market, by its nature, is disruptive to the status quo. Current neo-liberal belief seems to be that capitalism can be fine-tuned to weaken and eventually destroy social institutions that the neo-liberals do not like, while preferred social institutions can be protected from capitalism’s corrosive power.
The system can’t be called free market capitalism, because political actors control the market.
December 4th, 2018 at 11:37 am
Keynes’ goal was to develop a modern economic system to replace the Victorian system. The Victorian system depended on a small political state and high rates of personal saving. Keynes was great believer in the power of the Victorian system, but he thought that the social changes that resulted from the disruption of the First World War made it no longer workable.
Keynes did not challenge classical economic models, he felt that they needed to be modified to describe the economy of a modern, industrial nation.
We don’t really have the kind of economy that Keynes modeled anymore (trade unionism is not much of an economic factor these days). “Keynesianism” has become a catch-all phrase meaning centralized control of markets and money supply. I don’t think that Keynes himself would approve of that usage.
December 4th, 2018 at 12:05 pm
Woolly: The problem is not trade per se but the way the benefits of trade are distributed within individual nations.
POD: Populists tout simplistic solutions to problems that don’t exist while completely ignoring the very real problems that do exist for real people in the real world.
December 4th, 2018 at 12:12 pm
Woolly: The problem is not trade per se but the way the benefits of trade are distributed within individual nations.
This has been known for some time; free trade tends to benefit those with mobile capital.
What is the opposite of a populist system? A non-democratic system? There was a time when the socialist left claimed to be populist. This was certainly true in Europe, where the Left said that it represented the masses, and the right represented only dead tradition. When redistribution of wealth and political power is popular, the Left is proud to call itself “populist.”
December 4th, 2018 at 12:55 pm
Were all focusing on Trumps now but did this overall movement not start with James “its the economy stupid” Carville, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot in the 1992 election cycle?
December 4th, 2018 at 1:06 pm
Populist movements by definition express the popular will. That will may be good or bad, it depends on your point of view. The belief that the popular will should reflect some higher idea of the “Truth,” scientific or otherwise, is a pre-modern hold over. There is no truth that is not the result of human conflict, human consensus, and human compromise.
December 4th, 2018 at 1:17 pm
“The first lie is to preach that free trade is good for everyone. It isn’t.”
I am curious what you mean by this statement MP. Are you simply referring to the externalities problem (e.g. environmental impact or deceptive trade practices in an unregulated marketplace)? Or are you referring to the market participants themselves?
December 4th, 2018 at 1:20 pm
MP just turned into a philosiphy professor apparently 😉
December 4th, 2018 at 2:16 pm
If we can’t have perfectly free trade because one side always wants to protect their own industries from foreign competition;
if we can’t have perfectly balanced trade because one side always wants to buy more stuff from the other;
then I’d rather live in the country that protects my industry and sells more of my stuff to foreigners than I buy from them.
And I’d rather have a President that helps me live in that country, rather than a President trying to drag my country down to the level of a third-world shithole in pursuit of some dubious notion of ‘fairness.’
And I’d especially prefer a President who does it without selling access and assets to foreigners.
December 4th, 2018 at 2:20 pm
The market participants themselves. People tend to understand their own economic interests very well (certainly better than other people). If I am an a union autoworker, I may make an accurate judgment that importing more foreign-made automobiles will harm my bottom line rather than improve it.
December 4th, 2018 at 2:44 pm
If we had perfect free trade China’s communist government would collapse in 24 months at the most. Possibly as quick as 6. Why does no one see that regime for the House of Cards it really is? Anyone? Bulller?
December 4th, 2018 at 2:55 pm
Early 19th century ideas about free trade allowed the Brits to bring opium into China on an industrial scale. How did this help the Chinese?
December 4th, 2018 at 3:00 pm
It won’t take much of a sell off in stocks to make Trump and the Fed change their tune. Higher consumer prices and lower growth are the ultimate consequences of pursuing an aggressive trade “war”. Not exactly a vote winning combination once people eventually figure out — and the election is now only two years away.
I’ll bet Navarro didn’t know that when he was titling his book he was actually penning the epitaph to the Trump presidency — “Death by China”. Navarro will be one of the causes of the failed one-term president.
December 4th, 2018 at 3:08 pm
“Higher consumer prices and lower growth are the ultimate consequences of pursuing an aggressive trade ‘war’.”
But what if the payoff is less income inequality & an increase in social capital? Increased social capital pushes growth higher.
One of my beefs with the free-trade, open-borders people is that free-trade and open-borders works to decrease social capital, which increases costs — but not across the board. There is little social capital on the high end of the income scale. You may do business with your neighbor on a handshake, millionaires don’t.
December 4th, 2018 at 3:12 pm
When you have the other side debating if the Sanders economic message is perfect, or too moderate, for the current DSA Im sorry I mean Democrat party EI there isnt as much to worry about as you might think EI. If Obama can win re-election despite the economy, Trump can win because of it and other things hes done like destroying ISIS.
December 4th, 2018 at 3:43 pm
One outcome of the recent election was the GOP’s loss of the suburban voter. Clearly Trump’s economic message didn’t resonate as you would imply. We had a pretty good nine and a half year run. The Obama boom has ended prematurely as a result of Trump’s trade policies.
December 4th, 2018 at 3:45 pm
“Early 19th century ideas about free trade allowed the Brits to bring opium into China on an industrial scale. How did this help the Chinese?”
Cheaper and higher quality opium, I assume. So the actual market participants -Chinese buyers and British sellers of opium – both benefit. (Societal cost of drug addiction is another externality.)
But I understand what you meant by your original comment now. Certain market participants (Chinese opium producers) may not benefit from free trade, but that doesn’t mean society doesn’t generally benefit from free trade.
December 4th, 2018 at 4:09 pm
“that doesn’t mean society doesn’t generally benefit from free trade.”
But determing whether or not society generally benefits from free trade is a value call. There is no clear way to judge the cumulative costs of free trade born by individuals. man is not solely an economic creature, the way that people relate to one another is not entirely economic.
December 4th, 2018 at 7:43 pm
“MP just turned into a philosiphy professor apparently”
POD, MP sits on top of a volcano and stares out at celestial objects hundreds of light years distant.
If he didn’t turn into a philosopher, there’d be something wrong with him.
December 4th, 2018 at 7:50 pm
“Populists tout simplistic solutions to problems that don’t exist while completely ignoring the very real problems that do exist for real people in the real world.”
That deserves a place on my wall of pelts that I’ve pulled from leftists over the year. First one that pulled itself off.
But hey, Emery! I got you a leftist Christmas present. You won’t like it, but it’s what I’ve decided is best for you.
What’s your address, so I can deliver it?
December 4th, 2018 at 8:58 pm
MP sits on top of a volcano and stares out at celestial objects hundreds of light years distant.
Billions of light years! Like Z=7+! WITH MY OWN EYES I HAVE SEEN THE BEGINNING OF THE UNIVERSE! It looks like snow on an old TV screen BUT IT IS NOT RANDOM!
This AM on a podcast I heard a wonderful interspersing of uber-elite BBC presenter Richard Attenborough telling the gathered reps of heads of state at the Poland climate conference that the people of the world were on their side, with live reports from the Paris anti-green riots. Priceless!
December 5th, 2018 at 9:41 am
Shiftee: What a lot of hubris you must have to be afflicted by multiple nemeses. If self-trolling isn’t yet a recognized literary genre, it needs to be.
December 5th, 2018 at 12:13 pm
But hey, Emery! I got you a leftist Christmas present. You won’t like it, but it’s what I’ve decided is best for you.
What’s your address, so I can deliver it?
This sounds like the beginning of a bad movie…
December 5th, 2018 at 12:25 pm
This AM on a podcast I heard a wonderful interspersing of uber-elite BBC presenter Richard Attenborough telling the gathered reps of heads of state at the Poland climate conference that the people of the world were on their side, with live reports from the Paris anti-green riots. Priceless!
Again if it wasnt real it sounds like a Onion article. the world elite will be metaphorically (and possibly literally) dead once Trump wins re-election with 45-47 states in 2020. At this point beyond CA, NY, DC and Hawaii I think Trump could win every other state in the union. Maybe OR and WA are safe blue too.
December 5th, 2018 at 7:59 pm
It’s not paranoia if people really are after you, and it’s not hubris if you’re really that damn good.
When it comes to dragging reprobate leftists, I’m just that damn good. However, I aver that leftists with no shred of self respect, through witlessness or self-loathing, are a tough target.
December 5th, 2018 at 8:02 pm
WITH MY OWN EYES I HAVE SEEN THE BEGINNING OF THE UNIVERSE! It looks like snow on an old TV screen BUT IT IS NOT RANDOM!
So, are you saying Ozzie Nelson is God? Is Ricky Jesus?