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Economists “Savage” Trump’s Economic Agenda
Here’s the funniest thing you will read all day … economists are warning that Trump’s plan to restrict immigration and raise tariffs would be a disaster:
“Many economists say Donald Trump’s proposals — from big import tariffs to mass deportations — would hurt the very demographic that supports him in the greatest numbers: less educated voters struggling in a tepid U.S. economy.
If Trump policies actually went into effect, these economists say, prices for goods lower-income Americans depend on could soar and a depleted low-end labor force could trigger a major downturn.
Trump’s appeal rests in part on the sense that he will be a tougher negotiator with trading partners. But comparatively less attention has been given in debates and on the campaign trail to the actual substance of his economic proposals, opening a new line of attack for mainstream critics against his unconventional economic thinking.
“There is a good reason many people are upset and angry, because for many it’s been a very rough decade,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics and an adviser to John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. But if Trump’s policies were enacted it would be some form of disaster for the economy. If you force 11 million undocumented immigrants to leave in a year, you would be looking at a depression. It would not help the people he is talking to, they would be the first to go down.”
You know, Trump’s supporters would probably respond by saying that we are living through the economic disaster right now:
1.) In 1970, 61 percent of the population was middle class, but after decades of deindustrialization caused by free-trade it has shrunk to 50 percent.
2.) In 1970, 25 percent of the population was low-income and 14 percent were high-income, but now 29 percent are low-income and 21 percent are high-income. As we evolve into a Third World country like Brazil due to mass immigration, the growth is concentrated at the top and the bottom of the income scale.
3.) In 2014, the average median income for upper-income, middle-income, and lower-income households was back where it was at in 1998, 1997, and 1996 respectively. In other words, there has been no income gain over the last 20 years. Except in household debt, it is like the 21st century never happened for most Americans.
4.) The US national debt has grown from $370 million dollars in 1970 to $18.8 trillion in 2016.
5.) From 1965 to 2013, the ratio of CEO-to-worker pay grew from 20-to-1 to 296-to-1.
6.) Except in 1973 and 1975, the US has been running an annual trade deficit with foreign countries every year since 1971.
7.) After a trial of nearly 50 years since the Kennedy Round of GATT was implemented, free-trade has destroyed entire industries, offshored the production of the latest innovations like computers and smartphones, hollowed out countless cities and towns and left behind a post-apocalyptic landscape of thousands of shuttered factories.
8.) In 2016, it is amazing to think that there was once a time when a single male breadwinner could support an entire household and his wife didn’t have to work to support their families and help pay the bills.
9.) Amazingly, there was also once a time before the Civil Rights Movement when we had borders, well over 11 million illegal aliens weren’t living here, and millions more weren’t pouring in every year legally from Africa, Asia and Latin America.
10.) Believe it not, but there was once a time too when we didn’t have a refugee resettlement policy or had to put up with political correctness.
11.) In 1950, the financial sector accounted for 3 percent of US GDP and only 8 percent of overall US profits after the reforms that were passed during the Great Depression. By the 2000s, deregulation has allowed the financial sector to grow to 6.5 percent and to 30 percent of overall US profits.
12.) From 1948 to 2010, manufacturing shrunk from 30 percent of US employment to less than 10 percent.
The same economists who laughably claim that the US is approaching “full employment” while millions are on foodstamps and who were cheerleaders for NAFTA, the WTO, and the housing bubble of the 2000s and who have presided over this disaster of debt, deindustrialization, wage stagnation and decline in household income for half a century now are certain that Trump would ruin this magnificent economy they have created.
The American economy of the last 45 years has been great for Wall Street – the DJIA has more than tripled – and terrible for almost everyone else. Perhaps this is why Trump voters have quit respecting authority figures?
Source: http://www.occidentaldissent.com/2016/01/11/economists-savage-trumps-economic-agenda/
