- 04 Apr 2018 17:55
#14903154
About a year ago amidst the hysteria surrounding Trump's win I tried to predict the future of his administration. Predicting the future is pretty much an impossible job but it is somewhat easier when operating in the realm of economics. Economics (money) closely mirrors human behavior. The dynamics are relatively simple. Money is an addictive substance. The more you have, the more comfort and pleasure you get. Another consideration that facilitates the prediction of economic "history" is the truism that history repeats itself. This is not the fashionable Trump bashing. I am attempting to be empirical. An elusive target for sure but, I am trying.
Trump is not stupid and he is very successful. He became president .... something a moron cannot do. Here is the thing. He is a gut/instinct operator. Generally does not "need" advice. #one. He is adept at operating in a rather confined and small environment surrounded by family and faithful people who know not to differ from him. #two. He is now performing in a greatly different economic environment. National and, more significantly, global environment. He being rather inflexible and over confident, I surmised would do poorly in a world economic environment. He is still playing to his vaunted "base". His base hardly covers the globe. China has been screwing steel workers in Ohio. True. Solution: slap a tariff on Chinese steel which will impede the flow of steel into America. True. No way of course will China be passive to this. There is a big world out there and China is going to dominate it with their strategic economic plan that looks years ahead.
It is a real possibility as they buy more soybeans from Brazil,more planes from Europe they sell them more television sets. We lose jobs in South Carolina , Iowa and our consumer products become far more expensive. This in turn hurts the retail sector, etc, etc.
Yes we may produce more TV sets here , solar panels, shoes etc but they are going to be more expensive with no opportunity for export , we are simply not compeititive.
How can we be, our infrastructure is inadequate, our education system totally broken , our health care costs thrust a large cost on our commercial sector.
I have travelled in Asia , they are light years ahead in all these areas.
The world economic system is not perfect but ....... it is working. Trump's actions are a threat to the functioning of the world economic order. Businessmen prefer predictability which generally assures safety of their assets. Trump's methods which have produced success in his confined world involved unpredictability. These methods will, obviously, cause unpredictability in the world economic system. Businessmen will withdraw their money from the economic system and put it under their bed. Look at the current stock market and see this process starting. We are not there yet but it seems the process has begun.
This looks like Smoot-Hawley redux and, as it seems, Trump is no student of history. His knowledge base appears to be confined to Fox "news" on tv.
Stay tuned, this will be interesting.
Trump is not stupid and he is very successful. He became president .... something a moron cannot do. Here is the thing. He is a gut/instinct operator. Generally does not "need" advice. #one. He is adept at operating in a rather confined and small environment surrounded by family and faithful people who know not to differ from him. #two. He is now performing in a greatly different economic environment. National and, more significantly, global environment. He being rather inflexible and over confident, I surmised would do poorly in a world economic environment. He is still playing to his vaunted "base". His base hardly covers the globe. China has been screwing steel workers in Ohio. True. Solution: slap a tariff on Chinese steel which will impede the flow of steel into America. True. No way of course will China be passive to this. There is a big world out there and China is going to dominate it with their strategic economic plan that looks years ahead.
It is a real possibility as they buy more soybeans from Brazil,more planes from Europe they sell them more television sets. We lose jobs in South Carolina , Iowa and our consumer products become far more expensive. This in turn hurts the retail sector, etc, etc.
Yes we may produce more TV sets here , solar panels, shoes etc but they are going to be more expensive with no opportunity for export , we are simply not compeititive.
How can we be, our infrastructure is inadequate, our education system totally broken , our health care costs thrust a large cost on our commercial sector.
I have travelled in Asia , they are light years ahead in all these areas.
The world economic system is not perfect but ....... it is working. Trump's actions are a threat to the functioning of the world economic order. Businessmen prefer predictability which generally assures safety of their assets. Trump's methods which have produced success in his confined world involved unpredictability. These methods will, obviously, cause unpredictability in the world economic system. Businessmen will withdraw their money from the economic system and put it under their bed. Look at the current stock market and see this process starting. We are not there yet but it seems the process has begun.
This looks like Smoot-Hawley redux and, as it seems, Trump is no student of history. His knowledge base appears to be confined to Fox "news" on tv.
Stay tuned, this will be interesting.
Last edited by jimjam on 04 Apr 2018 20:50, edited 1 time in total.
"Society in those days was a perfectly competent, perfectly complacent, ruthless machine." Virginia Woolf 1897