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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
@edg — “I’m trying to understand why ‘we’ wouldn’t want iphones to be produced here.”
Basically because it would make us poorer to do so. Producing iPhones here means other, more valuable things are displaced.
It’s like the (fictitious) Finland Orange Growers Cooperative. Finland could grow its own oranges, in greenhouses and at vast expense, instead of importing Spanish oranges; but that would be dumb.
I’ve got no problem with iphones being produced in the U.S. If I’ve heard right, the parts are all manufactured here and elsewhere, and then sent to China to be assembled. It’s kind of a multi-country operation.
I don’t understand how the conversation around cost of labor in the US is going round and round as if repatriating industry is a policy isolated from other policy goals.
Isn’t a major conservative goal entitlement reform? If people won’t work because welfare, than lower welfare. Not all at once, but in stages.
If wages are too low for cost of living, limit immigration and/or cut regulations that affect cost of living.
Keep doing those two things until you’ve found equilibrium and welfare is barely existent, wages meet cost of living, and jobs are still going unfilled – then let more immigrants in.
Tie these policy goals together. Entitlement reform is an absolute loser, yet people want jobs. Tie the two together instead of pushing them alone.
Immigration makes people happy, but low wages make them sad.
Cost of living is too high, but I really want every house in my neighborhood to have an expensive white picket fence.
Push the trade offs.
Last I heard, Spain doesn’t use prison/slave/child labor.
Having this large of government requires inflation. You cannot tax “better living through purchasing power”. The financial system requires inflation. Militarism i.e. the United States protecting trade routes etc., requires an inflationary disposition.
I don’t think it’s accurate to say that we have had enough comprehensive wage inflation for the past three decades to make it fair.
Watch the long Steve Bannon interview on Frontline.
Libertarianism and conservatism can’t work or sell under a discretionary central bank regime.
Except that I dont believe adding another manufacturing operation of something like iPhones would displace anything. It wouldn’t cause anesthesiologists or architects to take jobs on the line making phones. There are people and communities for whom this would be a welcome addition of sustainability and and improvement.
Also, economic analysis isn’t finite. It would cost Spaniards 10x the cost of importing oranges if they grew them themselves? Ok. Accepting the differential for the sake of argument, that’s the differential now, not forever. Also that’s not what I’m asking. Conceptually, wouldn’t Spaniards benefit from having local orange orchards selling to other places?
There are at least three perspectives involved: the individual producers, consumers, and the actual communities where production occurs (or doesn’t) occur. I’ve been talking about the last one.
I understand why Apple or Nike is happy paying relatively nothing for essentially slave labor. I also understand why consumers would want to pay $20 less (or whatever) for their iPhone. Communities need economic engines in order to be healthy or even a going concern. They pay to attract such engines if they have to, and it appears that they have to. Some places don’t understand what they have until it’s gone. A Walmart is better than nothing, but ultimately it’s empty calories and the host will die without real food.
Certes. Real life example: British mills substituted Egyptian cotton for Confederate cotton, rather than try to grow it themselves.
Capital, raw materials, and labor dedicated to making iPhones would thereby be unavailable for other things. And when people have to pay more to buy them, that means they have less money left to buy other things.
Not that we shouldn’t try to disentangle ourselves from an enemy country. The new watchword is: A. B. C. — Anywhere But China.
I haven’t seen this yet, but this is basically what I’m talking about. I’ve seen other long interviews with him. The other ones don’t even mention trade.
The different perspectives still apply. Whose capital? Which other things? All labor? You’re presenting this in terms of either or. While that could be true from time to time in different places, it’s not always true. There’s plenty of empty factories in the near suburb just south of me along with people willing to work. Why would I object to an iphone factory there as opposed to Foxconn? Having that factory in my backyard is a net benefit to me and everyone around there, compared to an empty building. True or not true?
If the system is set up right–which it clearly is not–you always want lower prices, more trade, and more automation. Better living through deflation, which this country hasn’t done since 1914.
So now things are insanely complicated and we have crazy social problems. Populism and Socialism stem from this.
***Edit***
We shouldn’t be trading with China at all, obviously.
Probably true as an immediate and direct effect, but not forever and there may be very good reasons to accept that condition.
I’ve not been talking about the consumer perspective, though. The proposition was that we don’t even want iphones to be made here. We meaning the US and its inhabitants. I’ve heard similar things over the years about textiles and such. The argument being that we can repurpose our labor and capital to higher things. I think that reasoning is flawed. First it’s not true in all circumstances or places although it could be true in some. Second, I think Learn To Code or Become An Engineer (i.e. the glib distillation of repurposing to higher ends) are misguided because there are natural limits to some people’s abilities and to the number of openings for such occupations anyway. Third, if others can provide their own services (and I think they can) then there is nothing left holding up the house if that’s all we have to offer. Fourth, it’s true that individuals engage in business not communities, but it’s also true that individuals are part of a community and it’s a two way street. Fifth, I think production is objectively better for a community than consumption, and to the extent that bringing iphone production to most places in the US would cause displacement it would displace employment from Walmart, government, and the “no longer looking”. The idea that we’re anywhere near full load at the highest use for either domestic labor or domestic capital strikes me as incorrect – so incorrect that people living in flyover would look at you like you were dumb or evil for making the claim.
As a general proposition, I would counter that this regime of engine removal and cheap imported goods for the masses hasn’t caused worse problems (yet) because we haven’t (yet) reached the bottom of debt load or sold off whatever capital reserve we had built up. Also, the US remains free and stable (for now) and so we’re still the world’s reserve currency (for now).
One of my good friends is a free-trade absolutist and a Trump hater extraordinaire. To him, any tariffs are to be fought tooth and nail and while he despised Trump prior to his tariff policies, they just gave him more to hate him for. I am quite free-trade as well, but, and this is one area that I grudgingly came to agree with Trump’s policies, we don’t have free trade with any other country, and frankly we don’t even have it between states (think tax abatements, right to work policies, etc.).
When any tariffs are called protectionism, then we aren’t having a real conversation anymore and I tune out because the person saying that isn’t being honest with people.
Yes, but there are natural limits. We can’t get to a place where we import literally everything. Why would people send us things? What would people do to earn money or goods? What are we sending in exchange? It’s at this point where I think people get unrealistic in thinking that the producing countries can’t also produce the intellectual or service things that we produce. How has this net imbalance (people sending us more than we send them) gone on for so long? The answer is that we’re selling domestic capital, going into debt, and relying on being the least bad option (security). Maybe if we hadn’t already been enabling this process for decades we could float for a few years here and there, but aren’t we’re nearing the end of the road as far as debt?
Also, we tend to talk about the economy from the perspective of the US as the entity, and we can, but more and more I look at the economy as really a hierarchy of component economies. The US is doing ok? Yes but some places are doing great and some are doing terrible. Within those places, some parts are doing great and some are doing terrible. And so on almost infinitely. Sometimes the pie is expanding, but sometimes the pie is fixed or even contracting. Some pies are growing while others are simultaneously disappearing.
Agreed. The payroll tax regime is a much bigger problem than tarriffs. Why doesn’t anyone fight tooth and nail for removal of that? Even if we replace that tax revenue with some other tax I think “we” are still better off as we are not taxing employment and would be taxing consumption (probably) instead.
Unintentionally I think that Free Trade has become a cult of consumption. Focus on consumption is just as unhealthy for a political entity just as much as it is for an individual. Consumption isn’t bad, but it isn’t the highest good let alone the only one.
For one thing in the system on talking about you don’t replace labor with capital as fast. If prices drop enough it doesn’t matter if wages go up or even go down. The only downside to it is credit doesn’t get thrown around as much as it does in an inflationist system. Buying homes and starting businesses. People hate their banker even more.
If you want to hear a pro inflationist argument, this is very good. https://investresolve.com/podcasts/mike-green-the-fourth-turning-and-reimagining-the-american-dream/
If it’s a legitimate goal to be more self sufficient as a nation, especially if our chief economic rival is a large totalitarian state then how do we move in that direction? What policies can we enact to get us closer?
Most national and local policies are set up to favor the consumer. There’s nothing wrong with policies favoring the consumer unless it’s at the expense of the producer or employment. I think so many policies are inherently either or. For instance, tax policy. Why tax income and employment? Why not tax sales or consumption? Regulations: we’re all familiar with overregulation and generally favor deregulation at least to the point where unreasonable/counterproductive obstacles or costs are eliminated.Reduce government share of GDP: the more people have of their own to spend the more we can offset any increases to cost of consumption. Trade agreements: yes it’s nice to reduce red tape to make trade easier, but we really shouldn’t tolerate one-sided restrictions as that itself is a major economic distortion toward favoring consumption of foreign production; we also shouldn’t tolerate treatment of foreign workers that we wouldn’t allow with our own – that too is an economic distortion as we are one of the free-est places in the world, contributing to loss of national self sufficiency. There are others I’m sure.
EDIT: user error – don’t mind me
Being self-sufficient is not a good objective. It’s obviously stupid to trade with China. The issue is, how does a country create more value added without trading with a mafia with an army.
The objective is for everybody to be able to buy as much as they can with the output they create. Illegal immigrants move here because they get more for their output and their money goes further. I think that’s even setting aside all of the welfare stuff.
Tax consumption instead of income. Be libertarian on regulations. Have a deflationary monetary standard.
Since we can’t do that…lol
Not sure if I’ll have time to listen, but I can’t imagine more inflationism being a good thing for us right now.
I should say everybody should try to understand what these guys are talking about. This guy has statist solutions, and if we weren’t ruled by such stupid corrupt people it would work. He lays out everything really well even if you don’t want to go in that direction.
He probably wouldn’t like my choice of words.
I’ve listened to about a dozen of his interviews. His main thing is how to keep Geo political power and solve social problems. This comes from fractional reserve banking and intelligent central bank action basically. He’s also more comprehensively into the social side effects of those two things. I just worry everybody is too corrupt and stupid to do it.
That’s the fatal flaw isn’t it? Corruption and stupidity is not in question.
I’ve only done it once, but I think it’s really important to listen to the long interviews of Steve Bannon on front line.
Just always remember, our system has not been set up for fair creative destruction since 1991 at least. Republicans that don’t recognize that are idiots.
https://mises.org/wire/were-living-age-capital-consumption
I disagree. Being self sufficient, from a national perspective, is the ideal. That’s not strictly possible, probably, at least not without a strong imperialist desire and capability. Even then, I don’t know. So what’s next best? Being as close to self sufficient as we can and not relying on foreign commitment to liberty, morality, and fairness to the greatest extent possible. How do we get there? Produce more and consume less. Save more and spend less. Invest more and borrow less.