They're coming daily. Yesterday after the Chicago Tribune had a piece critical of Trump's trade overtures that quoted Boeing's CEO: "I'm not a political pundit or prognosticator — we have too many of those — but anyone who paid attention to the recent campaigns and the election results realizes that one of the overarching themes was apprehension about free and fair trade," he said. Muilenburg argues that international trade is essential to the U.S. economy and its importance is reflected in the "large and growing percentage of our business" coming from international sales, including commercial jet orders from China. Trump tweeted the same day: “Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!” — Donald Trump, in a tweet, Dec. 6, 2016 He's wrong about the order; currently congress has authorized $170 million to design a new pair of planes. And he's wrong about them being built. $4 Billion may be about right for a flying, radiation-hardened military command center but the design details have to be worked out and the budget approved by congress. No comment yet about the $125billion potential savings at the pentagon making the news. The Boeing tweet is probably coincidence.
I'm no fan of Donald (to put it mildly) and seriously wonder whether he has any serious beliefs at all, apart of course from basking in the warm glow of his own magnificence. So if he takes on free trade, I assume it's purely for vote-getting purposes, especially as he himself became a billionaire within the globalist system. At the same time, I'm opposed to Market-Fundamentalist Free Trade, of the sort hornily embraced by the Republican party (Donald notwithstanding), by the Clintonites and by just about everybody who's anybody in recent decades. If Donald actually won the election (will we ever know?), he did so in the rustbucket states where people have been left high and dry by Lean'n'Mean Capitalism. Trying to turn the whole world into a single marketplace is not only a race to the bottom -- "the race to Bangladesh", as Stephanie Kelton (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephanie_Kelton) calls it -- it's simply unsustainable to endlessly ship widgets around the planet. Our containership-filled oceans are dying and filling up with plastic gyres. This can't go on for long. So maybe we in the Western world should learn to make shoes and suchlike again ---- real jobs that put money in people's pockets, money that will largely be spent in the local economy. Of course Boeing's CEO is going to heap praise on free trade --- even though Boeing has benefited from pork-barrel orders like everyone else. (Can you imagine Air Force One being an Airbus product? Me neither.) Boeing is a major US exporter. It's too bad that homo sapiens is so prone to extremist positions like market-fundamentalism. It's too bad we can't engage in Equitable Trade, rather than Free Trade.
I followed the wiki link, went to the page on MMT followed with chartalism and am left scratching my head. Not an economic major so most of it passed me in both lanes. The key insight of MMT is that "monetarily sovereign government is the monopoly supplier of its currency and can issue currency of any denomination in physical or non-physical forms. As such the government has an unlimited capacity to pay for the things it wishes to purchase and to fulfill promised future payments, and has an unlimited ability to provide funds to the other sectors. Thus, insolvency and bankruptcy of this government is not possible. It can always pay".[1] Wasn't this Argentina's and Venezuela's path to hyperinflation? Currency reflects GDP or it's not worth the paper it's printed on (with some huge fudge factors, mainly interest rates). Eliminating trade barriers is a good thing, just not for historically rich countries whose populations relied on manufacturing jobs. It's good for all the other countries that lacked jobs. The standard of living in China, India, and Mexico to name a few is increasing by leaps and bounds. GDP has increased in the US year after year. Trade moves manufacturing to where it costs the least (i.e. most efficient) not counting those pesky externalities. Overall I think it's a good thing, but in the short run a lot of people will be out of jobs. I think some form of guaranteed minimum income is the solution. As automation becomes the norm (today: factories; tomorrow: drivers, pilots, coders, medical technicians) it won't be just the rust belt complaining. Trump is clueless; he's reacting to having his ego threatened. Big business should be worried.
Will the butthurt ever end? He won the election. He won the electoral college votes, nothing else matters.
True. He played his base and the electoral college like a stradivarius. The popular vote is a little less clear.
I'm not familiar with Venezuela's, but I thought Argentina's path involved tying the peso to the US dollar, with the result that ever more money had to be printed to meeting extra-national targets (i.e. importing items priced in dollars). If the government requires that particular paper to pay taxes (and refuses all other means of payment), I think that is what gives it its value. Here we meet our friend GDP again. As measured in GDP, yes. I'm not sure being worked to death in a factory making shoes for people on the other side of the world constitues a better Standard of Living. Of course there's an elite in each of these countries that has benefited hugely. If the government allows it to, yes. But at a time when ever-larger numbers of people are able to see climate change and other radical changes in their environment* for themselves, perhaps keeping things local is not such a bad idea. * For me, "environment" includes things like distribution of wealth, in addition to nature biologically speaking. Agreed. Agreed there too. But Big Business is reaping the whirlwind created by sowing Radical Market-Fundamentalist Ideology. Something like Trump was sort of on the cards, seems to me. In fact, Richard Rorty very definitely predicted it almost two decades ago. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/19/donald-trump-us-election-prediction-richard-rorty
He may well have. Seems there's a recount or two going on though. (How you can "recount" a computer-cast vote beats me.) Yes, trump holds the absolute record for gargantuan gap between Electoral College and popular vote. The margin by which he lost the latter is about 2.5 freaking million votes, ain't it? That oughta be a butt-hurt and a half in a country that can call itself a "democracy" without blushing. Let alone a country that never tires of reminding the rest of us poor dweebs that This Grate Cuntry of Rs is the Finest Democracy in the World. LOL.
Rorty seems depressingly prescient. I'll read some more and try to respond a little more intelligently.
Automation does not result in a net loss of jobs. Ever heard the "Spoon Tale". IIRC Milton Friedman used to tell it. He was traveling and came upon a large number of men working with shovels on a road project. He asked the foreman why they weren't doing a lot of this work with heavy equipment. The foreman said "because this is a jobs project. heavy equipment would put a lot of men out of work". To which Friedman is said to have replied "Why don't you take away the shovels and give them all spoons then?"
Tell that to the thousands of people replaced by robots on assembly lines in Mexico. Yes, other jobs were created (overall a net job loss, but higher skilled and paid jobs so an increase in GDP), but not where they lived, and not for their skills. What do you suggest they do?
An amusing reductio ad absurdum. (Hell, for that matter why didn't he say "thimbles"?) I defintely do not believe that Efficiency is necessarily a sacred goal. People like to work -- not least because it's a social activity. I learned that as a 19-year-old on an assembly line. At first I thought: Christ --- what stultifying work! But I gradually came to see that most of the guys liked it as well as any other job. It gave them something to get out of bed for and a place to josh with the fellas. And that's one of the really shitty things about unemployment --- the destruction of part of one's social life. I'm not saying that automation is a Bad Thing per se. If it works as intended (big debate about this in aviation circles by the way), great. As long as it doesn't deprive people of work. Of course there are a million and one things that need doing. If resources are made available, there's no need for unemployment. But the Rich like unemployment because it helps keep wages down.
You seriously think the main goal of wealthy people is to keep wages down? And isn't the point of automation of make things more efficient to deprive people of work.........so they can move on to OTHER work!!! And I find it interesting that you seem to find the point of work to be maintenance of ones social life....
Did I SAY that? Or did the dominoes start to tumble (beyond anything to do with me) in your mind and you shoved the result back in my face? That would be the point if I were King. But in a for-profit-only society, I'm afraid that uhh... "share-holder value maximization" reigns supreme. Pardon --- did I just write that? I meant reigns exclusively. Again you're twisting my words, Dayton. Can you quote me saying that??? I find it interesting that you seem unable to respond to the point made, but seem to feel the need to change that point to suit some point you wish to make. I suggest that you go back and read what I Actually Said. I would have thought it was clear enough.
Well, as Volpone claimed in a thread Anc bumped today, cheaper employees are more easily hired. Or so is his claim. In practice, wages get depressed and the company still lays people off. So what "other work" will be left once everything is automated? Nono is unaware of your long, checkered history with employment and your yet-to-be-officially diagnosed Aspergers syndrome, but we are. Work is good for people. Working with friends is even better.
I'm wondering where the promise of a job outside of a 50 mile radius comes from. These are people that have spent the majority of their working lives in one industry. Moving and retraining isn't an option when you're 50+. At any age it may not be practical. People end up taking minimum wage service industry jobs to get by.
Trump nominates Scott Pruitt head of EPA. Representing his state as attorney general since 2011, Pruitt has repeatedly sued the EPA to roll back environmental regulations and other health protections. He joined with other Republican attorneys general in opposing the Clean Power Plan, which seeks to limit planet-warming carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants. Pruitt has argued that curbing carbon emissions would trample the sovereignty of state governments, drive up electricity rates, threaten the reliability of the nation's power grid and "create economic havoc." His installment, if confirmed, would mark a significant break with the current EPA approach toward global warming. In an opinion article published earlier this year by National Review, Pruitt suggested the debate over global warming "is far from settled" and claimed "scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind." yikes.
Yes, Pruitt is diametrically opposed to anything regarding protecting the environment. Can you frame your support for his nomination in a paragraph?
