Saturday, January 21, 2017

Trump Pledges to Restore American Wealth. I Know Where He Can Find It.


El Presidente Trump has made a vow to restore America's wealth. Of course that's not what he intends to do at all. It's the Big Lie, Day One.

What he actually intends to do is to take a page out of the playbook of Roman emperors and extract "tribute" from other nations. Think of it as a global shakedown. It's the sort of thing that history shows doesn't work out that well for long.

The fact is that he doesn't have to restore America's wealth. It's still right there under his nose. He just has to look for it and, once he finds it, decide what should be done with it.

America's wealth has shifted. It's gone from the Rust Belt. It's been lost by the nation's blue and white collar working classes. It has been moved, quietly shifted. It's a few blocks away from Trump Tower. It has "trickled up" to Wall Street and the 1%.

Big Lie 2, Day One. He says he wants to restore American manufacturing, its former industrial powerhouse. You can't do that where the money sits at the moment.

Manufacturing, even in good times, produces stable but modest returns in the range of a respectable 3 to 4% per annum. Manufacturing revenue is dispersed into many places - wages and salaries, communities, suppliers, all levels of government.

Manufacturing grade revenue is of no interest to Wall Street. There they focus on far greater returns not for making things but for moving paper. And it works in places where the government embraces Taliban-grade laissez faire capitalism which rules out any notion of direct or indirect wealth redistribution. It's the sort of dog eat dog world only in which the really big dogs eat all the little dogs. Lovely.

Trump promises to restore America's manufacturing sector. Can't do that without capital. America has lots of capital but it wants nothing to do with manufacturing. Gotta change that. It's easy enough to do. Tax the rich. Impose punitive taxes on "dead" money that sits idle. Use taxation to redirect that money into investment in preferred targets - employment-intensive industries such as, why of course, manufacturing.

Only that's not going to happen. It's a low-wage world now and Trump is not going to mess with that. He can't risk it. And so he'll continue what he knows his gullibilly base already believes. He'll stay with the xenophobic notion that others, foreigners have stolen American wealth. Trump's addled base love that idea.

We know those outsourced, offshored jobs aren't coming back. It's cheaper to build robotic factories that don't need those redundant American workers and their First World wage scales.

Trump isn't out for restoration. Kim Jong Don's game is extortion and a great many, grievance-fueled Americans are all for that.

7 comments:

the salamander said...

.. I was working yesterday.. all day.. hard..
I too missed the Inauguration.. as if it really intereted me..
The 'speech' the Donald was photographed writing
at what seems to be a receptionist desk in a store
now appears to include plagiarized segments
from Hollywood (Avatar) among others..
and White House says Bannon & another creep
actually 'wrote' it..
much like Melania 'wrote'
the speech Michelle Obama delivered priot..

Today Trump appeared for a one way press conference
at the CIA to laud that beloved agency
which he now claims the media falsely say..
he maligned & described as incompetants..

Itz dizzying to watch..
the fluency with which he functions in fiction
Its just going to crazier and more insane every day..
Stat tuned world.. Good Luck & Good Night
America has a lunatic on the loose

Anonymous said...

Roger and me, Michael Moore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX_HvciWq0M

How come the American right are not endorsing this old movie?
The cliches in it just had me rolling with laughter.

Had the USA and by extension Canada taken heed of the situation at that time we would not be facing the world we now see.
As it is, like NAFTA, we cannot roll time back we can at best fine tune our modern situation.

TB

The Mound of Sound said...

Trail Blazer, this whole thing is a diversion as absurd as it is grotesque. The Americans have installed the first, self-confessed, serial sexual deviant as their president. A sexual deviant, a pervert, who should be on a sex offender list.

Trump may be the catalyst of America's decline. The world economy has reached a point where it, not Trump, can recalibrate the relationship with the United States. I'm not happy with that potential outcome but the Americans are truly the author of their own misfortune.

They have allowed their manufacturing economy to be swapped for a financial economy. The old economy created broad-based prosperity. The new, financial sector dominated economy has also produced prosperity but of an extremely narrow focus. Most of the setbacks of the 2007-08 meltdown were recovered but that restored wealth went to the 1%. That's not even in question. Wage stagnation and world beating levels of inequality are the result. Trump has the moronic segment of America believing it wasn't his class who pocketed that money, it was China. All he's missing so far is the Reichstag fire.

Oh well, he seems determined to accelerate the onset of climate change despite all the science showing how it will hammer the United States. Makes me recall a Credence song, Bad Moon Rising.

John B. said...

So when do I get back my $30 an hour job at the Etch Test?

If I sign on for right-to-work-for-less, can I get 20 or 25? Please check it out for me with Andy Puzder.

Anonymous said...

Anyong ....I think you mean "Kim Jong Un.....Pronunciation ...as in the German un. Good Blog. Maybe Trump will be the first to purchase a female sex robot.

The Mound of Sound said...

No, Anyong, I meant Kim Jong Don, the Great Orange Bloat.

Anonymous said...

Anyong....4:21....Hah, hah! Don't insult Kim Jong Un. Smile!