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Republican Self-Sabotage
The latest CBS poll suggests that the Trump juggernaut continues to roll, with 35 percent of Republicans supporting him. Ted Cruz, his nearest rival, garners 18 percent. Jeb Bush, the candidate who should have been the obvious choice if conventional wisdom about money and politics were even remotely true, is dead last with 4 percent. In vain does Ted Cruz protest that Donald Trump is not a conservative. Among those who describe themselves as “very conservative,” 35 percent favor Trump versus 30 percent for Cruz, and 12 percent for Rubio.
In South Carolina, Trump is ahead among the evangelical voters Ted Cruz targeted as his savior army that would rise up to carry a true conservative to victory. According to a Fox News poll (2/18), Trump leads Cruz 31 percent to 23 percent among evangelical Christians. And while Cruz leads among those who identify as “very conservative” it’s a razor-thin edge (well within the margin of error).
As in New Hampshire, Trump leads nationally among a broad swath of voters. Not only those with just a high school diploma (47 percent), but also those with some college (33 percent), and college graduates (25 percent). He is the preference of men and women, and among all income groups including those earning more than $100,000.
Any number of theories have been advanced about the Trump voters – that they represent the downscale whites who have been abandoned by the Republican Party, or that they are enraged by Republican failure to secure the border.
But as noted, Trump does well among upscale voters too. As for the great immigration rage, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Immigration was listed last among matters that were on voters’ minds in Iowa and New Hampshire. Besides, Trump did well even among voters who said they favored a path to citizenship for illegals living here.
No, there’s a better theory for why 35 percent of Republican primary voters are ready to hand the nomination to a bullying, loutish con man who accuses George W. Bush of war crimes while promising to commit some of his own (killing the wives and children of suspected terrorists, stealing the oil of Middle Eastern nations).
For the past several years, leading voices of what Matt Lewis has called “con$ervative” media, along with groups like Heritage Action, and politicians like Sen. Ted Cruz, have ceaselessly flogged the false narrative that the Republican “grassroots” have been betrayed by the Republican leadership in Washington.
Rather than aim their anger at President Obama and the Democrats, right wing websites, commentators like Ann Coulter and Mark Levin, and many others have instead repeated the libel that “Republicans gave Obama everything he wanted.” There has been a flavor of the “stab in the back” to these accusations. But for the treachery of the Republican Party, they claim, a party too timorous or too corrupt to stand up to Obama, we could have defunded Obamacare, balanced the budget, halted the Iran deal, you name it.
Aiming fire at your own side can be very satisfying for radio wranglers, et al. They have zero influence on Obama, but they can take down Eric Cantor. They can’t do much about Eric Holder, but they can dethrone John Boehner.
This is not to say that Republican leaders were perfect or that they couldn’t have done more in some instances to put bills on Obama’s desk – even if only to force vetoes and lay down markers for the next election. But the list of Obama initiatives Republicans thwarted is very long (universal pre-K, gun control, “paycheck fairness,” higher taxes). Moreover, the bloc of conservatives in the House that refused to vote for any budget made it that much more difficult for leadership to exert pressure on Democrats. Lastly, who believes it makes no difference that Republicans control the Senate in the wake of Justice Scalia’s death?
So congratulations to those conservatives who’ve been preaching the “betrayal” of the base by the establishment. You’ve won. You’ve convinced 70 percent of the Republican primary electorate (per the CBS poll) that the most important quality in a candidate is that he will “shake up the political system.”
With all its faults, the Republican Party is the only vehicle for conservative ideas in this country. Conservatives themselves, or at least those who styled themselves conservatives, may have sabotaged it, handing the reins not to a moderate, nor even to a liberal Republican, but to a lifelong Democrat.
Published in General
When I have a bad day at work I try not to come home and kick my dog. He didn’t do it.
It’s not ‘trashing’ at all, it is disagreeing! No one likes it when someone smart disagrees with them and presents a coherent argument against something they support.
I guess I will hold my breath waiting for the smart coherent argument. The idea of this piece is that Trump is bad (a fine position by itself) and that he exists because 70% of Republican voters were taken in by the lies (flogged false narrative) of Ted Cruz and some conservative media.
Ted Cruz and Mark Levin could only wish that they could dupe 70% of the Primary voters into believing something. It is just as likely that 70% of the voters( or at least some significant portion of this group) felt betrayed and Ted Cruz and Mark Levin were giving voice to this pre-existing concern.
It was not enough to say Trump is bad, the opportunity to call Ted Cruz and Mark Levin liars could not be missed.
70% of voters did not think for themselves and were easily led by charlatans, does not seem like simple disagreement.
Thanks. The business analogy confused me because it didn’t quite make sense.
This is not necessarily a good thing because it means that we prefer Chinese goods when we otherwise might want domestically produced goods. They produce a competitive edge that will not necessarily correct itself. Also, the Chinese create a demand for US dollars where there otherwise may not be and a high dollar hurts US exports.
Lowering the cost of loans might be a good thing but it also can drive bubbles and speculative investment as well. Not saying there’s anything necessarily wrong with that but I think there are tradeoffs that we can debate.
We’d lose a lot of cheap goods, and they’d lose a lot of money. They have a different means of dealing with angry citizens than we do. However both of us would lose, big time.
Should a war start, the Chinese would be expected to use allies to broaden that war to different fronts. They could also be expected to start the media wars questioning the US resolve with its allies.
Having a foothold in the northern Philippine Islands now, would they also attack South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan? Would the current administration defend South Korea, Japan, and/or Taiwan?
We shouldn’t care where the goods come from, we should care about getting the best value. By getting the best value for our money, we free up money to be used for more productive purposes. You need to understand the concept of opportunity cost. If you use money to get a 3% return when a different opportunity would have yielded a 5% return, you have just lost 2% of growth. Buying cheaper goods and respecting the economic principle of comparative advantage ultimately produces greater growth for the US economy. That is as long as investment and innovation isn’t hindered by other policies. Free trade, comparative advantage, and getting the most value for our money is the best thing for the US in the long run.
Having less exports doesn’t necessarily harm the US economy. If there is more money to be made at home than by selling abroad, then domestically focused businesses should be what gets the most investment.
I happen to think we could beat China both militarily and economically and that most of the world would side with the US in any conflict that broke out. It would be costly for both sides, but China would be foolish to try and challenge the US directly, either militarily or economically, right now. This fear of China is really irrational. Does no one see how corrupt and unstable their government and economic system is? Does no one see what a house of cards China is?
But no one buys nearly as much from us as we buy from them, and those dollars aren’t coming home. So why would they stuff the currency into their mattress our buy our debt? What’s in it for them?
Also, you’re saying here (or at least it’s a consequence) that the US consumer is hurt by us selling to foreign countries. As a general rule, I don’t see how that can possibly be true.
How do you figure? Not saying it’s implausible, but it’s definitely not intuitive – especially considering that a shooting war with a nation the size and significance of China will also involve trade disruption.
I don’t think bread lines are obviously worse than body count. Quite the opposite. Especially since war of that magnitude will include bread lines too.
They gain the stability of having a rock solid currency propping up their economy.
How am I saying that it hurts US consumers to sell to foreign countries, I’m saying the exact opposite.
The dollars come home in other ways besides buying goods from us. Foreigners invest in US companies, buy debt from US companies, buy US government debt (often as a hedge because their own country has an unstable currency or economy), and buy US assets like real estate as investments. The dollars, by definition, have to come home, they don’t just disappear, and no person (really no bank because that is where all the currency exchange happens) just holds dollars and let’s them sit idle. That’s like going to work and then getting paid but not buying food or clothes or shelter. You can’t give away your goods for dollars and then do nothing with the dollars, that is like giving it away for free. Since US dollars ultimately only have value in the US, all dollars that leave the country end up, by necessity, back in the country either through buying US goods or by investing in the US economy. That investment can be in the form of buying debt in the US economy, buying equity in the US economy, or buying assets used in the US economy. The dollars cannot escape into the ether, it is not possible.
To be fair they can sit on them, there are after all a large number of dollars floating around foreign economies, but inflation just makes that an even better deal for the U.S. and in the end you are correct – all the money has to return here eventually.
Except that India (China) is not going to go out of business.
Perhaps I’m not confident in the assertion that US currency can only be used in the US.
Also, assuming this is how it works, why wouldn’t we have a policy of discouraging exports (or let’s say a stronger one)? Let’s impose an export tax and subsidize imports; that way we get the goods and eventually our money back too. Why would we ever want to ship our goods somewhere else if we’re not getting anything in return?
If the US is buying it back with interest, what are we buying it back with? We’re just shifting currency around at that point and we keep losing ever more currency in the deal (i.e. the interest).
Also, I don’t think growth as a natural state of affairs is a natural state of affairs. The pie can grow, but sometimes it stays the same and sometimes it shrinks and sometimes all the pie crows over to one small sector of the pie plate.
Ultimately I think it’s a matter of the most direct means to achieve a goal. A trade war could persuade China to stop a military build up in the China Sea and the Pacific, but it would be a very indirect way of trying to stop that and China may be willing to incur all sorts of economic damage and suffering to hold onto new strategic assets it thinks are more valuable in the long run than the short term economic gains it would be sacrificing.
Forcing a direct choice between military conflict and holding onto the the strategic asset makes the choice more stark and forces China’s hand more surely.
We’re paying it back with US economic growth which ultimately puts more money into the government coffers. This is just how debt works. If the US stops growing, it will ultimately default on the treasury obligations or monetize our debt. But in no situation do we lose currency. US currency is worthless if it doesn’t come back to the US because it only works in the US.
Current interest on 30 yr US Treasuries is below the rate of inflation, so we are paying back that money after 30 years with money worth far less than we loaned them. Its like buying a $1,000,000 house with $750,000 in debt and paying the bank $1,000,000 over 30 years and then selling your house for $2,000,000. You came out ahead in the end.
I understand both comparative advantage and opportunity cost. China’s largest advantage is its currency which is being artificially devalued. If you’ve just lost your manufacturing job then getting cheaper goods at Wal-Mart isn’t necessarily that great of a deal.
The long-run is the “long-run” which could be tomorrow or years from now and there are always adjustment pains and dead weight losses in the short. I don’t really have a particular point about the economics of US-China trade. I’m pretty agnostic about it to be honest.
I just think it’s useful to consider those adjustment pains than be agnostic about them, especially when we’re talking politics. We both used necessarily a lot but fact is: some people are doing great and others are doing not so great. Trump may not bring any jobs back to America but he’s speaking to the people who lost out and so do the Democrats and all those people have a vote. Thems the breaks.
Wrong. China’s largest advantage is its massive population and relaxed human rights regulations.
Chinese currency manipulation to distort the export/import market can result in transition pains and displacement for the industries that compete with the Chinese exports, yes. But erecting trade barriers will result in more lost jobs and economic hardship across the board for US workers all for the sake of deciding that manufacturing jobs are more important than the other types of jobs that are lost or never created by slower US economic growth. Hopefully displaced workers can be helped by training and other plans that can get them to work in new types of jobs, rather than limiting economic growth to keep uncompetitive industries afloat.
In the long run China cannot sustain economic growth that is based entirely on exports and currency manipulation, so I don’t think that we need worry about the long run harm to specific sectors of the US economy. We just need to worry about making sure we continue to innovate and diversify our economy. That is a better solution than erecting trade barriers.
But that’s the point: if they’re not buying our goods and if they can’t use the currency elsewhere then the fact that US dollar is a rock solid currency does them zero practical good. Worthless paper or worthless zeros and ones.
When you say that the Chinese using our currency “to buy goods from us eventually which would ease the trade deficit but lower the value of the dollar hurting the American consumer” you are saying that those dollars coming home would hurt. That’s assuming a trade deficit; a trade surplus would be worse. That would mean us shipping goods in exchange for Yuan which we have to ship back to China (in exchange for owning their stuff or us owning their debt – not sure that’s worth it).
We don’t pay debt payments in Growth. We pay in currency, right? So if the Chinese buy $100 of US debt, at maturity we’ll pay them $110 in US currency?
So they end up being creditors – creditors we can never get out from under apparently. Or they own our productive assets – I’m not sure that helps us either.
The amount of currency grows as the economy grows, Ed.
Also, if our GDP grows faster than our debt grows, even if we never become debt free, that’s not really a problem. As long as our debt as a percentage of our productive capacity shrinks that is perfectly sustainable and fine.
But Growth makes that $110 worth less to us overall because it generated $250 in additional GDP. And even better that $110 is worth less than the initial $100 we sent them because inflation over 30 years has lowered the value of the US dollar.
According to the arithmetic that’s correct. But real value is independent of inflation. Real gains in value are, well, valuable. Inflationary gains in value are neutral at best. Bubbles don’t necessarily reflect actual value. Truth is, if my $1 million dollar 1980 home is worth $2 million in 2010 then I suspect either that’s inflation or significant additional investment because homes don’t improve themselves and newer homes with the latest and greatest tend to lessen the value of older homes.
Ok, so again why are they doing it? What do they get out of it?
The supply or demand curve could have shifted for housing in your area.
OK, but I don’t think that proposition is a given.