With only a week left till the most bizarre Presidential
election in the history of the United States of America, I find I have a few associates
and even friends who support Donald Trump. Considering that these people are
actually somewhat informed, and all have functioning brains if not higher than
average intelligence, I am left wondering WTF….how can these people not see
what seems so clear to me and almost every other thoughtful, informed, educated
person I know….that Donald Trump is a total whack job and would be a complete
disaster as POTUS. All of them agree that he is a rather nasty guy and is given
to erratic and often offensive behavior. All would agree that he is totally
undependable, often unstable, extremely arrogant and a loose cannon. All agree
that any of these character traits would be a liability in the White House. So,
what gives? A clear preponderance of these people say two things: one is “I don’t
like Hillary” . OK I get that. The second is that they think Trump would be
better for the economy. I thought it might be interesting if I did some
research regarding this assumption. The question being: if we ignored Donald’s peculiar,
vulgar, egotistical tendency’s. If we overlook his racism, xenophobia, Islamaphobia,
misogynistic, narcissistic, behavior. If we just pretend we could count on him
to do what he says and look at some of his proposals and take them at face
value, what would we find?
I took a look to see what some respected, conservative
publications and respected conservative economists feel about a Trump White
House based on what he has proposed or put forth so far in this campaign. I did
some google searching and looked to some conservative economists that I follow
(I am a fiscal conservative myself after all). What follows are a few of my
findings and some guys I think are pretty sharp.
The BOTTOM LINE IS THAT LITTERLY NO Nationally recognized
economist without a vested interested or any skin in the game considers Trump’s
potential economic policies as anything but disastrous. I find Brian Westbury’s
analysis very telling, basically implying that Donald Trump is far from a fascial
conservative and the GOP is not only complaisant but basically at fault and
hypocritical in their accusation that Trump is an eco-disaster in the making. I
have taken the liberty of taking some quotes out of context (I know…my bad) however
I have provided the associated links for all of you who care to read the the
pieces in their entirety. Please enjoy and happy reading.
Brian Westbury, Conservative Chief Economist,
First Trust
"Back in 2008, rather than fix mark-to-market
accounting, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Federal Reserve Board Chair Ben
Bernanke, and other members of the financial market crisis team, chose to use a
government-funded bazooka. A $700 billion bank bailout named The Troubled Asset
Relief Program, or TARP.
President Bush, who authorized this approach, later
explained it by saying he "abandoned free market principles to save the
free market." That statement makes no sense. Either you believe in free
markets, or you don't. Violating a free market means it's not free. More truthfully,
the Bush team abandoned free markets because it was the politically expedient
thing to do.
But, by doing this, Republican leadership
undermined a sacrosanct belief of conservatism – markets are self-healing
and government intervention creates unintended consequences. Abandoning this
philosophy left voters literally adrift. Politics is just politics. The GOP
ship has no anchor or rudder. Why vote for a philosophy if those who claim to
support it do so only when it is convenient? The result: Donald Trump.
So, the next time the GOP claims Donald Trump isn't
reflective of conservative values, they ought to look in the mirror. They
created him. The only way out is for Paul Ryan, George Bush, The Wall Street
Journal Editorial Page, Hank Paulson and every other GOP member that supported
TARP to admit it was a mistake.
The way to beat Donald Trump is to attack the
Establishment GOP, not cozy up to it. Even John Kasich, a moderate, seems
to understand this. Trump is the result of a vacuum in principled leadership. A
rudderless ship, or a ship with no anchor in a storm, creates fear."
John Mauldin, Conservative Economist, Financial Advisor,
Mauldin Economics
Okay, let me just say it right here (even though
this is going to anger more than a few of you): Donald Trump is the only man in
America who could get me to vote for Hillary Clinton. You have to understand
that my distaste for the policies that Mrs. Clinton would institute is
monumental. I can’t tell you how bad a continuation of the current political
climate would be for this country. But to have a loose cannon like Donald Trump
in the White House – a man who could say and do just about anything at any
time, with no control of his ego – would be too much.
Ben
Stine, conservative Writer, Economist, Republican, Speech writer for Richard
Nixon and Gerald Ford. The Guardian, Conservative Economic Press
Imagine Trump is elected
president and he starts enforcing some of the policies he has mentioned. Would
the economy improve, stay the same or get worse?
It would get much worse.
In terms, it would be a disaster. Trade is very important. The US economy is
roughly 15% trade dependent – very roughly 15%.
If the regular folks think that China came
along in the middle of the night and stole all their jobs, then nothing could
be further from the truth. It’s just nonsense. I think Trump is popular because
he says: I am going to go to China and get those jobs back. But he is not going
to be able to do that. And any attempt to try would be a disaster. I don’t
think Trump knows a goddamn thing about economics.
National Review, Conservative Press
The billionaire casino mogul claims he’ll lower tax rates and can
eliminate the nation’s $19 trillion debt over the next eight years — a claim I
am certain was pulled from the rarified air at Trump Tower for no particular
policy reason. Trump promises to never cut Social Security, Medicare, or
defense spending — because you can promise anything you like when reality is no
object.
Wall
Street Journal, I regard as pretty bipartisan but arguably having a fiscal
conservative favor.
A new analysis concludes Donald Trump’s
economic proposals, taken at face value, could produce a prolonged recession
and heavy job losses that would fall hardest on low- and middle-income workers.
Mr. Trump’s tax plan would lower tax rates across the board and
limit some deductions. The Tax Policy Center,
a project of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution,
said the plan would cut federal revenues by $9.5 trillion, while the Tax
Foundation, a think tank that favors lower taxes, said the plan
would cost $10 trillion over a decade, even after assuming higher economic
growth.
The report singles out trade
and immigration policies as the most detrimental to the economy in the short
run because they could sharply boost labor and goods prices at a time when
there’s less slack in the labor market. “It is a massive supply shock to the
economy that’s very pernicious, and the Fed doesn’t know how to respond to
that,” said Mr. Zandi.
On trade, Mr. Trump has said
he would use the threat of a 45% tariff on goods from China and 35% on non-oil
imports from Mexico as a negotiating tool in seeking better trade and currency
terms. Moody’s calculates that tariffs on imports from Mexico and China could
increase goods import prices by 15%, raising overall consumer prices by 3%—all
before factoring in the costs of retaliation against U.S. exporters.
The Moody’s economists warn
that those tariffs would raise uncertainty for businesses, reducing American
exports while corroding growth. While higher tariffs would quickly lead
importers to move production to other countries, this would take time and also
raise costs for businesses.
Separate projections made earlier this year by Peter
Petri of Brandeis
University found
that Mr. Trump’s proposed tariffs would widen the U.S. trade deficit for goods
by around $275 billion, or an 37% increase above last year’s level.
On immigration, Moody’s
estimates that a crackdown on illegal immigration through forced deportations
would reduce slack in the labor force but also leave more positions unfilled,
particularly in industries such as agriculture where native-born workers have
been reluctant to seek work even at modestly higher wages. Labor shortages in
those industries could prompt job losses in upstream and downstream industries
and also boost inflation as labor costs run higher, the report said.
