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Free-Market Donald
Donald Trump was the most free-market-oriented president we’ve had since Ronald Reagan, and the economy showed it. Probably because of his rhetoric, many people don’t know about the Donald’s free-market proclivities. The people that don’t know about it seem to fall into two major categories:
- Ardent Trump supporters.
- Ardent Trump haters.
Protectionism prevents President Trump from being a free-market purist, but he was more marketed oriented than his four predecessors. Some, though not all, of that protectionism was justified for strategic and moral reasons.
It was the free-market side of his policies that made the economy roar. Rich, poor, corporations, workers, and people of all races benefitted. Not to mention all 37 genders. Of course, the Left will reverse it all in the name of Compassion.
It is heart-breaking to see Trump’s strongest supporters reject the free market.
Exhibit A is Tucker Carlson. Tucker has many virtues, particularly his Limbaugh-esque ability to highlight the Left’s absurdities. Tucker is an asset to conservatism, but he’s out to lunch on economics. I’m grateful it was Trump, and not Tucker, managing economic policy during the Trump years. Another example is Pedro Gonzales, who writes for American Greatness. Mr. Gonzales likes to blame all kinds of things on the free market, including the Texas power outages.
Many Republican Trump-haters see themselves as free-market supporters. Some are, but many supported Bush’s re-regulation of the economy and the bailouts he did at the end. They couldn’t distinguish between capitalism and crony capitalism.
And then there’s the oleaginous Mr. Romney … Where do I begin?
There will be many debates about what aspects of Trumpism we should keep. Willingness to fight back should be at the top of the list, and support for free markets should near the top.
Free market concepts might not get us elected, but their abandonment will get us un-elected. People respond to results, and screwing up the economy is always bad politics, especially for conservatives.
Published in General
I’m not advocating for child labor in sweat shops or coal mines. Why would making iphones be any more grueling than any of the other manufacturing we already do here?
As for what people enjoy vs alternatives, I can only counter your speculation with my own speculation so I won’t continue down that path. Before I pick some other path, though, I do want to say that a gig economy lifestyle is only possible feeding off of something else. It’s easier to live free for more people to be able to engage in gig work where there is an existing sustaining engine. Otherwise an economy based on trading lawnmowing for bass playing for cooking tacos or whatever isn’t sustainable. We can entertain a hole range of additional options – IF there is at least one underlying economic engine present. Making iphones would certainly count.
I’m not sure where this is coming from. Who said anything about not allowing foreign cars? Although, same question applies to the rubber: why wouldn’t we want to make our own if we could? And aside from growing rubber trees or whatever, we most certainly can make our own. So too with rare earth metals that aren’t available here: I’m not arguing against purchasing such things. I’m not arguing for banning anything or forcing others. I’m questioning your proposition that it doesn’t make sense to produce iphones here. Doesn’t make sense for who? Over what time frame? As opposed to what alternatives?
I’m not arguing against trade as if I think we have literally everything we can ever need right here in our own back yard. I don’t know who you’re discussing this with but it doesn’t seem to be me.
Not useful to who? That is not the primary proposition I’m trying to discuss. I’d bet that there are thousands if not hundreds of thousands on the south side of Chicago who would like to work at an Iphone factory. I know that the existing and future supporting business would like it too. I guess that innovation might emerge too. The effect radiates and is often transmitted to other locations too.
Baker is the one claiming that iPhone assembly is somehow “beneath” US workers. Perhaps in part because of an assumption that the same number of people doing so in China, would be doing that job here. Which I think is wrong for at least two reasons: we might very easily get more automation because we don’t have child/slave labor, and we might only be making enough iPhones for the domestic market, not the whole world.
I think it’s also a mistake, in discussions like this, to rely on an “official” unemployment rate that doesn’t count people who no longer look for work, either because they’ve lost hope or they get enough from other programs.
The trouble is that companies cannot find workers in the United States who are willing to do menial or low-skilled jobs unless they are paid a lot of money. An astounding 30% of all Americans are receiving some form of means-tested welfare payments from the government. It doesn’t benefit many of these people to give up their welfare checks in favor of working for a living. That is just about the only reason we have illegal aliens from South of the border, and why companies go overseas to find workers willing to do jobs.
A little known statistic is that for more than ten years there has been around 5 million unfilled jobs in the United states. Those are jobs where employers cannot find suitable candidates or even any candidates at all. If the government were to cut off all welfare payments tomorrow, I guarantee that companies would find Americans to fill all those outsourced and unfilled jobs.
This brings up interesting point. Global governance, as opposed to national sovereignty, took on a whole new aspect when G. H.W. Bush invaded Somalia with a coalition of other countries, none of whom were threatened by a belligerent Somalia, to ostensibly bring peace to another country that was ruled by (as it was said) violent war lords threatening its own population. This was displayed as benign do-gooderism, because Somalia was not a belligerent with any other country, and so invading Somalia was not justified in the traditional sense.
I thought that this was new, and a violation of the Somalia’s sovereignty, no matter who ran it internally, or how badly. But my concerns were justified when Bush said that this was the inauguration of a “New World Order”. Of course, since then we have seen Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria fall largely to the same thinking — that is, protecting the civilian population from internal threats — leaving chaos in place of malignant but functioning governments. There is obviously more to this, such as Iran’s interference, and the rise of Isis amidst on-going geo-political strategizing, but the US has been disrupting Middle Eastern countries apparently as a matter of some self-interest for two decades now.
It seems to me that it’s hard to be a service economy at home, when the manufacturers are elsewhere. They make the washing machines and sell them to us, and we internationally service — what? What are the services that the US actually produces, either domestically or internationally?
That may work in theory, but per my last comment, companies can’t find many American workers willing to do these kinds of jobs, especially for low pay. It makes perfect sense to hire the people that are willing. Poor countries may not have a lot of intellectual capital, but they’ve got tons of human capital willing to go to work. Their governments are not giving them free stuff like people get over here.
It’s difficult to think of any since Red Adair. Maybe we need to start exporting experts in woke-ism around the world, whether they want them or not?
I respectfully don’t think so.
Go figure. People unwilling to do menial labor for low pay if they can help it. Aside from my skepticism of that unfilled job number (the devil is in the details – why are those jobs unfilled? What kinds of jobs are they? What are the criteria for inclusion?), it sounds like you’re arguing a slightly different point than mine. Of course employers want the best people for the least amount of money if they absolutely have to have people in the first place. On the flip side, of course employees want the most money for less work if they absolutely have to work in the first place. Eventually they’ll reach some equilibrium where they can agree. Unless government distorts with things like welfare, immigration policy, tax policy, foreign policy. Sometimes that distortion is simply a byproduct of some larger policy like foreign relations and other times that distortion is quite intentional. There will always be some tension. Why should we make it easier for companies like Nike to make their profits on the backs of human slaves (essentially)? Or Apple, etc.
My point is more about perspective. I understand why Apple would want to make it’s phones using virtual slave labor in some hell hole. I don’t understand the assertion that we wouldn’t want that production to occur here anyway because we can use all of that US labor more productively. As if we have some excess of sustainable employment. As if we don’t want to interrupt this positive feedback loop of self improvement as all US workers evolve into rocket surgeon makers that other places where things are actually produce things can’t do just as well. I disagree with those assertions.
Quantity is not the only thing that matters. Quality does too. Total output is not the only thing that matters. Sustainable employment does too. To who do these matter in with what priority?
Don’t we need economic engines onsite for the service economy to work long term?
But how do you make it so that Nike/Apple/etc will hire local people if they’re allowed to pay “slave labor” wages in some other country?
They worked in the stockyards, foundaries, and steel mills until those went away. Why would iphones be different?
The jobs for which employers cannot find enough workers seem to be all over the place, from Application Software Designers to Construction Workers, from Financial Advisors to Truck Drivers.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/14/10-in-demand-jobs-that-dont-draw-enough-applicants.html
This article says that retail and restaurant workers are in even more demand than tech workers, and that nearly every industry has a labor shortage.
https://www.vox.com/2019/3/18/18270916/labor-shortage-workers-us
Here is a copyrighted graph from Fred Economic Data showing the trend in unfilled jobs over the last 20 years.
I don’t have an answer except to say 1) that maybe we should sanction companies who employ slave labor., and 2) set the dials, levers, and switches of government policy (which we set one way or another anyway) to attract domestic production instead of domestic consumption, 3) play the long game to build an physical environment that makes the economics make sense for the producers.
Yes, the devil lives in my details just as much as she lives in the other guy’s details. I claim no airtight case free of perfect benefits without tough tradeoffs. All I know – know – is that when the economic engine(s) disappears then communities fall apart. When engines are present then opportunity and prosperity abounds. My home Chicago is a great example. I’ve seen both conditions. I’ve seen engines evaporate and neighborhoods destroyed as a result; it generally doesn’t swing the other way which is why I say Chicago is a shrinking puddle. Oh, there was a period where the suburbs experienced great abundance when national/international companies located there. Oakbrook, IL is a ritzy suburb; home to many offices and used to host McDonald’s HQ. Now that McDonald’s is gone – well I can’t imagine that helping Oak Brook and the surrounding area. All those mid level mangers in overpriced homes and nothing but disposable income – they’ll leave if they haven’t already. Oak Book has some fallback engines, but the principle is clear.
Even if that is true, what are the options for the company? Pay more. Automate. Operating in some foreign place where they can pay less for labor.
Pay more? Harrumph harrumph that’s out of the question! Why, a candy bar would cost a billion dollars! Do you want that? Do ya?
Automate. Yes, well, they would if they could, and they do when they can. I still want that automated factory here rather than in Singapore.
Operate in a foreign land. Now we’re talking. How do we convince American companies to leave their homes and liberty here to wrangle the indigenous workers of these foreign factories/farms/mines? Easy – these companies often aren’t American in some substantial sense and the execs aren’t either. Those that are can afford to either be citizens of the world or to commute back home often enough to satisfy themselves. How is it that they can get away with paying these foreign workers so little? 1) government distortions (ours and theirs), 2) dollars go further in the foreign place – for now, 3) the relative scales never seem to equilibrate (our standard goes down while theirs goes up until we meet somewhere in the middle). In many ways our standard has gone down (although it’s gone up ins some ways too), the foreign workers seem to be kept down. Is it moral for us to enable keeping them there in order to support our consumption? Is it moral to see our own communities destroyed as our own engines disappear?
I might be one of the few people on Ricochet who lives in what might be called the “inner city” of a major metropolitan city, Cleveland. 13 year-old Tamir Rice was shot and killed just a mile and a half down the street from me.
I see these inner city people all the time, and the last thing a lot of them are interested in is getting a job. At the local grocery store on my block, fully half of the customers pay for their groceries with Food Stamps.
An anecdote – A few years ago my wife hired a local business to do some gardening and weeding for us. They sent over two Mexican Nationals who were on a legal work program in the U.S. The guys worked diligently all day long and the results were excellent. We asked the business next year to send out another crew for us as we were happy with last year’s work. They told us that unfortunately the alien work program was ended and they couldn’t find anybody in the broader neighborhood to do landscaping work for them, at least anybody that was competent. They said a few applicants came but they all tuned out to be bums who either wouldn’t show up for work or do the jobs properly. So they simply closed that part of their business in frustration.
We turned to another local business for our landscaping. They sent over two teenagers in the morning. One of the teens went missing at lunchtime and never returned. I asked the other one what happened to his buddy and he had no idea. The one who remained, worked as slow as Christmas and also left early, leaving the job only half-way done, after which the business tried to charge us full price for their services.
Perhaps these people’s fathers or grandfathers worked in stockyards foundries, and steel mills, but their offspring are just “chillin” on the street corners, gettin’ high, and gettin’ down.
Ha! Learn To Code!
Otherwise the more detail you give on these numbers the more I simply don’t believe them, or the more they illustrate my point about sustainability and community rot. I’m from the working class and I’ve done work with trucking companies – there’s plenty of out of work truckers (electricians, laborers, etc too). Just ask a random sample of truck drivers and my bet is that 25% will be desiring employment at any given time while the other 75% think they’re working in unsafe conditions for too little pay. There are very few reasonably satisfied truck drivers.
Also, I’m sure The Gap has a terrible time filling the afternoon/evening shift on Sundays. However, there is high turnover in both food and retail – very often because the employers suck and so do the jobs. If they paid more my guess is that their pool of good candidates would expand. However, I suspect that places like Walmart or Montgomery Ward have calculated that sales don’t improve with a better class of employee.
Having also worked in a manufacturing environment for ten years I do know that a better class of employee there has measurable effect on bottom line, and people are interested.
I may sound simplistic, but how about just getting rid of welfare for young healthy people? They would all have to go find jobs.
Or the guys make babies with girls who are getting welfare for their children, and then live off the girls…
That’s too glib even for cold-blooded me. There are major problems in ghettos for sure, but ghetto isn’t the only option other than hipster/yuppy. It’s primarily those intermediate neighborhoods I care about considering that’s where I come from and where I mostly still am (thankfully on the other end).
I’m on board with eliminating most welfare. However, I also know that, in a place like Chicago, that ethic was more possible as recently as the 80s/90s than it is now. Plenty of large and small companies in most neighborhoods that simply don’t exist anymore. Replaced with , at best, chain fast food, chain retail, or nothing.
Steven Seward (View Comment):
That may work in theory, but per my last comment, companies can’t find many American workers willing to do these kinds of jobs, especially for low pay. It makes perfect sense to hire the people that are willing. Poor countries may not have a lot of intellectual capital, but they’ve got tons of human capital willing to go to work. Their governments are not giving them free stuff like people get over here.
That sounds good. Pay adjusts itself according to how much the employer needs the worker and how much the worker needs the job.
Sure, technical tools are meant to make work easier and more productive.
Why not? If it is cheaper to do so there better be a pretty good reason to stay at home.
I think you answered all of your own questions. The actions and motives of companies are not much different than the actions and motives of ordinary American consumers. They try to pay the least they can while still getting a quality plumber, baby-sitter, housekeeper. And those professionals are trying to get you to pay them as much as they can get for their services. Consumers try to use modern machines to complete more work than they can with their bare hands. And consumers travel to other places, even out of their neighborhood or State, to get better deals on goods and services.
Except I keep saying that I’m not trying to figure out the motives of companies. I already know what those are. I’m trying to understand why “we” wouldn’t want iphones to be produced here. I very much disagree with that, and I think it’s a big reason that conservatives haven’t been able to solidify increased support as people run from the insanity of the left. We have our own insanities apparently.
Tech and software and such falls into this category, I’d say that’s pretty big.
As for the gutted engine of Chicago, I’d say a lot of these companies are pretty good.
And even if I go with you that Chicago is a dying husk (I disagree but lets take the premise), other parts of the country are booming like Atlanta, Houston, Denver, Phoenix, Charlotte.
Chicago is dying. It is a shrinking puddle. Other puddles are smaller and have shrunk faster. Ok. That doesn’t counter anything I’ve said. Chicago is still a big place, there’s plenty of space between the Downtown area and select suburbs.
Other places are booming? Aside from quibbling over what it means to boom, why are these other places booming? They’ve added economic engines. probably took some away from places like Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh.
Places give tax incentives to companies to locate in their physical community because it has value to the community on top of the value of the goods consumed and the income tax paid.
This would require overhauling welfare and minimum wage before doing this.
To repatriate jobs it would have to be done in stages.
And there are several other policies that would need to be pursued in tandem or in between stages.
The primary drivers of labor cost in the US is cost of living (therefore minimum wage) and education. Cost of living is driven by what industry exists being clustered in a handful of cities (drives up cost of housing), regulations, and city ordinances. Education is currently in the toilet. The MA is the new High School Diploma. Talk about inflation…