The General Economics Thread

Trump has never competently run a business in his life. I'm not sure precisely which metaphor is best to express how this might be reflected in his Presidential tenure, but it's hard to believe that he or his cronies would manage any aspect of government competently, even if it's as theoretically simple as handing government functions off to private industry.

Honestly, one of the only things he's really good at is conning people and marketing himself. Which, sadly, is actually pretty useful in an election campaign.

edited 25th Nov '16 7:02:25 PM by M84

He's shockingly good at that, honestly. You have to be a very good conman to make the population think you're a man of the people, when you're also someone born to immense wealth who's never had to actually work for anything in their life, and when you repeatedly flaunt said wealth at almost every opportunity.

Yeah Trump is pretty likely to sell state assets of to himself, not just his buddies.

Sells the WH to himself and then charge rent to the next POTUS!!

As long as he cuts welfare and creates some jobs for poor white people, he will have done what they elected him to do.

Adam Smith was operating in the paradigm of Mercantilism, where national governments fought over exclusive trading rights and the point of having a large empire was to have a large space where only your favored merchants could do business. Likewise, things like articles of incorporation were used as ways to create legal government monopolies. Capitalism was designed to smash this old order by saying that governments were doing more harm than good by setting these barriers and that market forces would produce greater good for less effort.

It's a theme you could see in US politics for a long time too, when the protectionist tendencies were on the Wall Street side of things because the industrialists would benefit more from regulation than from deregulation.

-what Adam Smith would actually say about the modern economy is "I have no idea what's going on, talk to me in 15 years when I'm done gathering data". I've read the wealth of nations. He was very concerned with figuring out what was actually happening in the economy, not just making bullshit arguments from general principles. ... I'd very much recommend reading that book to anyone writing a plot set in a pre-modern setting.

edited 23rd Nov '16 2:10:00 AM by Izeinsummer

What economists think about Donald Trump’s 100-day plan

Basically nearly 90% of economists polled on the matter have stated Trump's First 100 Days #MAGA plan will do little if anything to help Americans' economic situation.

But facts are pointless in this day and age. What matters is #feels.

edited 23rd Nov '16 12:57:01 PM by PotatoesRock

' Page Not Found'

Got another link?

edited 23rd Nov '16 12:32:00 PM by kkhohoho

Forum parser chewed up the link. I fixed it.

Uh, no offense, but no, not really. Now we don't even have a link. Think you can try again?

Done.

This forum's parser/linking system makes me drink.

Equiblog: Trumpism on trade as a wild goose chase

The manufacturing share of U.S. non-farm labor has declined from 24% in 1971 to 8.6% today, and is projected to reach 6% by 2060. This is largely the result of automation increasing per-capita productivity. This trend will not be reversed even if we stop all foreign trade tomorrow. Thus, chasing after trade deals and offshoring of manufacturing is a chimera, and it will always be a chimera no matter how much anti-globalism lackwits harp on it.

edited 23rd Nov '16 1:51:41 PM by Fighteer

Feel your pain, potatoes.

As for Trump's economic plan, it's my opinion that his supporters voted for him because they think he will get them their jobs back, and end government support for the "undeserving poor." Based on the interview data I have seen, a significant fraction of voters believe that government mandated and funded pro-diversity programs are responsible for reducing the economic prospects of the white working class- it's a mindset that treats the economy as a zero-sum competition. As long as he is careful to present himself as fighting for their interests, I think he will keep their support, regardless of how the economy is doing. That's bad news.

edited 23rd Nov '16 1:55:08 PM by DeMarquis

There is an inverse relationship between manufacturing employment and the prosperity of manufacturing workers. This simple fact is not going away no matter how hard Trump and his fans wish.

Well, I don't think it's just manufacturing- right now it looks like they are going for construction jobs. People will take any job as long as it's full-time, provides health care and job security. The real question is what Trump can bribe his core constituency with? Much like Putin stays in power by providing a majority of voters with guaranteed employment and other bene's, what can Trump and his cronies do?

One option comes out of de-regulating the finance industry- they could make personal debt easier to acquire. Encourage consumers to borrow more and they might not notice how bad the economy is for awhile (we have pursued this strategy in the past).

That was Bush 43's policy, and it got us such swimmingly awesome results. didn't it? Moreover, Trump's approach towards infrastructure spending seems to be to pay private companies to do the work in exchange for ownership of the assets, not a thing that's going to have any net economic benefit. It's a liquidationist approach to fiscal responsibility, selling off your performing assets so you can pay the debts on the non-performing ones.

edited 23rd Nov '16 2:24:05 PM by Fighteer

Why we need to plan for a future without jobs: Andy Stern spent his career organizing workers. Here’s why he thinks work is doomed.

Basically he sees the incoming automation of things such as Uber and Truck Drivers as the incoming death of work and business as we once know it, and that failure to shift attitudes on what is 'work' and UBI is going to cause problems.

Also for a sober laugh: (Youtube) Homer Simpson: An economic analysis

edited 24th Nov '16 5:31:02 PM by PotatoesRock

At this rate, we will be very lucky if we can just get to a cyber-dystopia because outright anarchy very distinct possibility.

So we have to choose between Deus Ex and Fallout?

Not familiar with the former.

For the latter - it would be Fallout without the timeskip at the beginning of the story.

More like you'd be trapped in a vault with other increasingly desperate people.

Considering the true purpose of the Vaults in the series...

"The Vaults were never meant to save anyone."

(Vox) Treasury officials are warning hedge funds could create the next big financial blowup