NOT BEING EVIL IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH

[Skye’s comments on the Forum re the HFR last week (07/01) are so insightful many TTPers requested they be a full article.  We are happy to comply]

A TTPer asks, “Skye, your doubts on Trump (e.g. on tariffs and trade) are justified but a little more substance would help for an observer who retains an open mind on the subject.   What is evil?   This visceral distrust (of Trump) may be justified but what is the alternative Biden, Clinton and 2 to 3 Supreme Court justices?”

First, my own views on trade:

Of course, the Chamber of Commerce is a part of the establishment that gave us Squish Mc Cain, McConnell, Boehner and Obama.  Add to that, Bush I, Bob Dole, Clinton I, Bush II, Romney, and Clinton II.  I am well aware that the Bank Of Boeing (EXIM Bank) crowd is not on our side.

What would be the effects of much higher tariffs on manufactured goods?  The most certain effect will be a more than dollar per dollar increase in the prices of imported manufactured goods at retail.

This will have no effect on the top few percent; they will not care if the price of blue jeans is $9.96 or $49.95.  Since most consumer goods are sold to the lower and middle classes, the lower and middle classes are the people who will pay those tariffs, with very little paid by the elite.  High tariffs will not make the elite pay more for their coastal mansions and their Gulfstreams.

Could much higher tariffs cause a return of manufacturing jobs to the US?

Yes, but…  The first “but” is the timing; there will be at least a few years delay to build new factories, and the increased manufacturing jobs will necessarily follow, not precede their construction.  Yes, a new factory requires construction labor, but these are not the people who would hope to become manufacturing employees.

How long will this delay be?  Thanks to increased regulations, it may be several years longer than it would have been in the 1960s or 1970s.  Yes, one could build a clothing factory next to my home in rural Nevada without any regulatory delays – but there would be no workers available to staff it.

I’d love to see a reversion of land use planning, zoning, building, environmental, and staffing regulations back to what America had half a century ago, but tariffs won’t make that happen.  That doesn’t mean that a return of manufacturing is impossible, but it sure would delay it and would make it more expensive.

Note that while some of these onerous regulations are Federalie (such as the definition of “waters of the US” which requires a US Army Corps Of Engineers permit,  and the “disparate impact” of tests on prospective employees), but many are state, county, and local in nature, and none of the politicians who created them and the bureaucrats who enforce them will ever admit that they are interfering with middle class employment.

The second “Yes, but…” is a product of US tax law.  If you build a clothing factory in Mexico or China or Indonesia or almost anywhere else other than the US, you can deduct the cost of the factory and all the machinery in the year that you pay for it.

Not in the good old USA.  You can deduct the cost of your factory building over a 39 year period, and the machinery over a period of several years, depending on the type.  This means that you have to make a substantial decades long interest free loan to the IRS, and also that, due to inflation, you will never get your full investment back from the tax man.

These problems mean that using tariffs to drive manufacturing back to the US will NOT result in workers’ pay rising to the full extent of the increased cost to them of those USA manufactured goods. Between the increased costs of domestic regulations and domestic tax policy, the costs of those newly US manufactured goods will necessarily exceed the increased wages of the US workers.  US consumers will suffer a net loss.

One of the effects of low tariff international trade is that US consumers can benefit by effectively importing less bad tax laws.

This is really a big deal; US worker productivity has been dropping for several years.  This is not due to US workers becoming more stupid or lazy – it is a consequence of the progressive decay of their equipment and lack of even commensurate replacements, let alone replacement with more modern more productive equipment.

Trump’s mercantilist policies will hurt lower and middle class Americans more than they will help them, but few of those who will be adversely effected know enough economics to understand what has happened to them.  Lower and middle class Americans will become more and more squeezed and desperate.

You ask: “What is evil?   This visceral distrust may be justified but what is the alternative Biden, Clinton and 2 to 3 Supreme Court justices.”

I don’t think that Trump is evil (unlike Hillary).  I do believe that he is mistaken about many things, and most importantly about what it would take to get him elected.  He is a prisoner of his own egotism.  His belief that his name can replace campaign funding with a billion dollars is what will give us those ‘Crats and their Supreme Court nominees.  I am obviously very unhappy with that prospect.

4 to 8 years of Clinton II are likely to create a lot more desperation, especially as more and more jobs are replaced by robots.  The most common job in the US, and the number one job in over a score of states, is truck driver.  The coming conflict may turn ugly, especially as the socialists run out of other people’s money to pay for their social safety net.

I do not want to see voting from the rooftops with .338 Lapua ballots.  That almost always ends very badly.  Our best hope after a Trump loss may be a Constitutional Convention called by State Legislatures full of politicians who suddenly discover a way of reclaiming huge amounts of power and money from the Federalie level for their own benefit. But a good outcome from this is far from certain.

I would love to read of as many other possibilities as smart TTPers can imagine.  We need to consider as many alternatives as possible from as many minds as possible.  A productive first step would be to stop wasting effort arguing about the relative qualities of Trump and Hillary.  Of course, the latter is truly horrific, but unless the former undergoes an unexpected sea change with respect to campaign funding actions, we will be stuck with the latter.

We appear doomed to live in interesting times.

[MLT: It’s good to see this thoughtful article from you.  Simply laying blame at Trump or his supporters does nothing to advance the principles of the liberty-loving, civil society we all hope to live under.  I still believe the hand of providence guides the American experiment so I’m not that depressed with whatever the results of the election may be but I have to say Trump is a more interesting and qualified candidate.  I think the fears about Trump’s trade policies are overblown.    He’s the only candidate that actually has successful international business experience.  Why would you not want that skill set in a POTUS at this juncture?  He says he can do better, he has a proven track record, why not give him a shot?  The assholes in charge now are forcing American workers to train foreign replacements, the sight of which makes me want to hurt something…  heartbreaking and disgusting at the same time.

Trump set voting records around the country and has given a voice to millions of people who are being betrayed and screwed over by the government/business cabal.  Trump and those supporters are NOT the problem but rather the solution.  This movement is bigger than Trump and he knows it because he’s said so.  I don’t think it prudent to let perfect be the enemy of the good…  “Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.” — Confucius.

In the end Trump needs votes to win and the jihadist bastards are giving him those votes.   Every terror attack around the world is garnishing a few thousand more votes for him as more and more people begin to realize we are at fucking war with a determined and stealthy/sneaky god_d__m enemy that needs to be crushed and crushed hard.  That means pincer attacks against the enemy with never-dreamed-of-before coalitions.. i.e deals need to be made that are effective and work to secure long term peace and security with no bullshit tolerated.   It will become clear very soon that a pig-in-a-pant-suit isn’t going to cut it.

 Thank you.

***

In response to another TTPer, I’d like to enlarge on your “It will become clear very soon that a pig-in-a-pant-suit isn’t going to cut it.”

The Clinton (Crime) Family Foundation has received a little more than $150 million from Saudi Arabia.  That is a huge payoff!

The Saudis heavily support Wahhabi fundamentalist Sunni Islam all over the world.  While they will encourage us to fight Shia Iran, they are not going to help us contain – let alone defeat – a Sunni version of fundamentalist Islam.  Osama Bin Laden and most of his 9/11 hijackers were Saudis.

I suspect a connection to what happened at Bengazi, which murdered the guy who knew too much about shipments of weapons captured from Ghadafi’s army.  Expect more planned defeats from a President Clinton II.

I am also quite confident that Hillary is being paid to stop fracking in the US.  She has promised to do so.  The oil resources producible by fracking are at least 10 times (and quite possibly 100 times) larger than conventional oil resources. Think of all the oil produced in the US since Colonel Drake drilled the first well as a 10% (or 1%) down payment on the oil to come.

The Saudis (and Putin) have to stop that, and Clinton II is the hireling to do it.  That $150 million is a public donation.  How much more was passed under the table?

Some bottom lines:

Whether or not one believes in God, I think that G. .K Chesterton got it right when he said “When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.”  This includes government as Santa Claus, Clinton II, and Bernie Sanders.

Chesterton also said, “Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.”

Nowadays, thanks primarily to the Democrats’ teachers’ unions, most people are among the badly educated.

A TTPer says, “For Democrats, EVIL is defined as REPUBLICANS.”

Unfortunately, that is literally true.  According to Rasmussen surveys, most Democrats fear Republicans more than they fear terrorists.

Indeed, I fear Democrats far more than I fear terrorists; where I live, the risk that I will be injured by terrorists is astronomically small, whereas the certainty that I will be significantly harmed by Democrats every day of my life is currently 100%.

No, Trump is not evil.  Like all humans, he is imperfect.  In his real estate and some (not all) of his other businesses, he found creative ways to profit from his narcissism while having a lot of fun.

Then I believe that a truly evil character, Bill Clinton (an exceptionally good liar), played him like a saxophone and manipulated him into embarking on a classical Greek tragedy, a course of actions where his personal flaw, narcissism, would lead to ruin for him and those who trusted him.

I believe that Bill Clinton persuaded Trump that he could win with the campaign investment of his multibillion dollar name and a few scores of millions of cash dollars rather than the normally required billion plus cash dollars.  All Hail Her Majesty Empress Clinton II…

A TTPer Trump supporter says: “You dudes can smother the reason for voting and even for not voting for your Republican standard bearer, but the alternative is so fraught with danger, Mickey Mouse on our ticket would be better than HRC. Wake up fools!!”

My response: You still don’t get it: Who you vote for in a national election is irrelevant.  Who I vote for is irrelevant.  Who any TTPer votes for is irrelevant.

The odds of one’s vote making a difference in a national election varies a bit from state to state but is typically in the rough neighborhood of 60,000,000 to one. How anyone you know votes won’t make a difference.  Please quit hectoring TTPers over it.  That is irrelevant.

What could make a difference is adequate funding (about a $billion plus) for an election campaign that might be able to shift millions of votes of the currently undecided.  That money isn’t currently there, and it currently doesn’t look like it will ever be there.  That is the problem and the issue, not how your blog acquaintances vote.

JW comments:  Skye has nailed the crux practical issue – Trump does not have the money to win.  That is the reason – plus Dem vote rigging – he will lose.  His alleged billions don’t exist as spendable cash, only in illiquid real estate and the future claimed value of his name on someone else’s products.

The big money Pub donors are not and will not give him the billion he needs.  The Pub Party has to spend what they have to protect the Senate and the House.  (Remember, only Pub Senate control can block Hillary’s Supreme nominees.)  Of course Mickey Mouse would be preferable to The PIAPS.  But if he were the Pub candidate he would most certainly lose.  So will Donald Trump.