“Years of dysfunction, debt ceiling debacles and fiscal imprudence have brought us to this outcome,” said Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at the accounting firm RSM. He warned that “anything financed in both the public and private sector will now be more expensive.”
As has been discussed here often, the deficit balloons far more under the party which screeches loudest about “deficit control” when the other party is in control. “Tax and spend” may be unpleasant, but IMHO “spend and shove the debt off onto the next generation(s)” is abhorrent.
Actually there’s a fair amount of hostility towards capitalists and corporations as actual people & organizations, rather than as an ideal. Mainly, because they simply aren’t hateful and tyrannical enough. They have too great a tendency to value making a profit over hurting and oppressing people.
An amoral drive for greater profit regardless of the cost is exactly that; amoral. But the Right is about evil, not amorality, and capitalism just isn’t sadistic and bigoted enough to please them. Capitalism doesn’t care if it makes people happy but that’s just it; as long as the profits keep rolling in a good capitalist is perfectly willing to tolerate people being happy as a result, and that is anathema to the Right.
The cruelty is the point; and that includes hating a lack of cruelty. Society is supposed to be nothing but an instrument of malice.
I think the message is, find ways to stop buying so much Chinese, Vietnamese, etc. stuff. Wal-Mart obviously can’t just change their supply chains overnight, but they can’t ignore the threat of a populist president publicly attacking them (see Harley Davidson).
Can’t be done. There’s simply too many basic things that not only aren’t made in the US, but we don’t even have the existing resources, facilities or expertise to do so. Trump will be dead or out of office before such a shift could be made, to the extent it can.
Reducing our trade deficits can totally be done. It certainly can’t be done overnight, which is why Trump’s approach of front-loading the tariff shock isn’t the way to go about changing the modern free trade regime.
Moreover, reducing trade imbalances is not simply a matter of pressuring overseas buyers to buy more American-made goods and bringing back industrial plants stateside. We need policies here that encourage less consumption and more saving. I don’t see where that’s been addressed yet.
Qatar’s Gift to Trump Is Unsold Plane It’s Been Trying to Dump for Years. Giving the 747-8 to the U.S. would allow the Qataris to avoid maintenance costs that were only getting higher.
