Saturday, April 27, 2019

MacIver vs. Tonelson. Choose Tonelson!

As we rode into the sunrise on Friday morn, Jay Weber eulogized Trump's tax cuts and regulatory reforms as the Engines of the New Prosperity.

No mention of trade policies, meaning that Jay is a believer in the "free trade" of MacIver--the very same "free trade" that emptied America's factories and sent millions of manufacturing jobs to Red China (smart, eh??), Viet Nam, Thailand, and Mexico.

It wasn't just Obozo the Communist who kept the US in recession for 8 years.  It was the disappearance of high-paid/high-benefits jobs in manufacturing.

Read MacIver's home page and you'll learn that you are probably going broke buying a washer or dryer because of Trump's horrible, awful, kill-the-American-citizen trade policies.  Yup.  Order your coffin early (because it will be made in Viet Nam, of course.)  You're pretty close to dead!!

Fortunately, there is an individual who keeps track of the actualities in the economy named Alan Tonelson.

...I reported on how the overall U.S. trade data have resumed showing that the nation’s economy is closing the gap between its growth and that of its trade deficit – a feat accomplished way too seldom in recent decades, and that indicates that domestic production is beginning to replace imports. That development in turn mean that such output is starting to replace spending as the main engine of expansion. If the trend continues, American prosperity will gain a much stronger foundation.
The same week that those encouraging combined goods and services trade numbers came out, the federal government also released data confirming that manufacturing is making similar progress. That’s important because industry still dominates U.S. trade flows, because its historic (though not recent) productivity growth has been so strong, because it’s so crucial to the nation’s high tech future. Manufacturing also boasts a healthy jobs multiplier – that is, the creation of each new manufacturing position adds many more jobs throughout the rest of the economy. And it’s long displayed the potential to enable working class Americans to live middle class lives (even though its recent wage performance has been relatively weak.)...
Yah, you paid an extra $25.00 for that washing machine.  Fortunately, your next-door neighbor got a job at the newly-opened factory, so he and his family can continue to live there and he can quit driving school bus, being an Uber guy, and cutting lawns (all at the same time) to keep the lights on.

This is simple:  we are part of a community, not a bunch of independent economic "units".  We can make plenty 'nuff money to buy wash machines when we are employed, but not when the good jobs are in China, Mexico, or Thailand.

Of course, MacIver's 'economic' writers could move to any of those places if they want to compare.  

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