What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[garbon]

The Pakistani government released a readout of its call with Trump. It's magical.

http://www.vox.com/world/2016/11/30/13797178/donald-trump-call-nawaz-sharif

Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif called President-elect USA Donald Trump and felicitated him on his victory. President Trump said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif you have a very good reputation. You are a terrific guy. You are doing amazing work which is visible in every way. I am looking forward to see you soon. As I am talking to you Prime Minister, I feel I am talking to a person I have known for long. Your country is amazing with tremendous opportunities. Pakistanis are one of the most intelligent people. I am ready and willing to play any role that you want me to play to address and find solutions to the outstanding problems. It will be an honor and I will personally do it. Feel free to call me any time even before 20th January that is before I assume my office.

On being invited to visit Pakistan by the Prime Minister, Mr. Trump said that he would love to come to a fantastic country, fantastic place of fantastic people. Please convey to the Pakistani people that they are amazing and all Pakistanis I have known are exceptional people, said Mr. Donald Trump.

Yeah.

At the same time, given he just says whatever, no real reason to believe he actually believed those words as he said them.

[Valmy]

This is a weird article:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-rally-vs-bannonomics-1480464660

Trump Rally vs. Bannonomics
President Trump won't get the mileage out of protectionism that Reagan did.

A surprise win, with House and Senate in tow, by any Republican presidential candidate would probably have been greeted with the upward repricing of stocks we've seen since Donald Trump's election.

A Republican named Donald Duck, under the circumstances, would have heralded a pleasantly unexpected end to the Obama regulatory war on business, a fresh start on tax reform, a chance for a rational overhaul of ObamaCare.

Recall, the big questions had been how much would Hillary Clinton win by, and would Republicans lose the Senate. These expectations had to be quickly revised.

Then again, any other Republican might have been seen as a shoo-in, so the good news on taxes and regulation would already have been priced in.

Even more bracing to consider, any other Republican besides Mr. Trump (truly a Republican in name only) would have arrived without the uncertainties, unpredictability and baggages of Mr. Trump: His business conflicts. His trade-war threats.

Bob Doll, the equity strategist for Nuveen, says the market will be up only as long as "growth Donald Trump" is seen triumphing over "protectionist Donald Trump."

Which brings us to Steve Bannon.
In my one encounter with the then-Breitbart propaganda chief, he informed me that I was a global elitist so-and-so. The occasion was a private dinner. I had suggested that tax and regulatory reform would be a better way to re-energize the U.S. economy rather than engaging in Trumpian trade fights. (Admittedly, I may also have mentioned that blaming foreigners has been a favorite tactic of demagogues from time immemorial.)

Now Mr. Bannon is a senior adviser to the Trump administration, and the markets are hoping my advice will prevail.

In lore, Ronald Reagan was anti-union. In fact, he was the best friend auto and steelworkers ever had, imposing "voluntary" import restraints that delayed a brutal industrial downsizing.

Some jobs were preserved for a while. What was mostly preserved was an opportunity for shareholders to extract profits under government protection. And this is the best you can expect from trade policy. It won't restore small- town America to a landscape of thriving factories and mines. It won't provide high-paying, reliable employment to high-school graduates.

Mr. Trump may succeed in jawboning Carrier Corp. not to move several hundred jobs to Mexico, but he lacks the opportunity that even Reagan had, with the connivance of a couple of major allies, to put a safety net under two giant, centralized, union-dominated industries and keep a million jobs going awhile longer.


Expansionist autarky, the Bannon world view, is even less plausible now than it was in the 1930s. The U.S. can cut Apple off from its million-man army in China. Those jobs won't be coming here because nobody would do them at a price Apple would be willing to pay.

Trade by now is crucial even to sustaining our precious follies. Why does Ford build small cars in Mexico? Partly to offset the cost of Congress's belovedly zany fuel-mileage rules, partly to offset the oddest dispensation in Christendom: the fact that foreign auto makers in the U.S. enjoy a free labor market while the Big Three are politically obliged to patronize a UAW labor monopoly left over from the Roosevelt era.

We'd have to cut back our prodigal consumption of health care—$3 trillion worth last year, virtually all of it domestically produced—if we also had to produce the $500 billion in net imports we consume each year.

Mr. Bannon is right about one thing, though: A country is more than just an economy.

New railroad hires, after two years on the job, are entitled to job security, plus a six-figure salary, plus attractive benefits. And yet half the room empties out, a top executive tells me, when potential recruits hear they would have to submit to regular drug tests and might have to relocate to Bismarck, N.D. Rail companies have been reduced to trying to hire military vets off the plane before they can return to their hometowns and bad habits.

Nearly one-fifth of males between the ages of 21 and 30 who haven't completed college aren't working today and aren't in school—an increase of 125% since 2000. Yet many of these young men are satisfied with their situation because it frees up time to play videogames, according to research by the University of Chicago's Erik Hurst and colleagues.

There is a problem in post-manufacturing, small-town America, all right, but winding back the clock is not an option. We need other options.

An outbreak of Trumpian optimism might at least boost the morale of this struggling America. Tax and regulatory reform might at least get businesses investing again, giving these workers the tools to raise their productivity and potential wages.

Let's hope so, because this is the best and only help these Americans are likely to get from their government. And some who are whispering in Mr. Trump's ear would screw even this up.

So bizarre. It sounds like he basically opposes everything Donald Trump has said but at the same time seems to believe that it is the evil advisers around the Tsar that will lead to bad economic polices. I mean who is this pro-growth Donald Trump?

[Valmy]

It sure seems like Bernie is working overtime to win over anti-establishment Trump supporters to his revolution:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/01/bernie-sanders-carrier-just-showed-corporations-how-to-beat-donald-trump/?tid=sm_fb&utm_term=.f2a25f1a920f

Bernie Sanders: Carrier just showed corporations how to beat Donald Trump

We need a president who can stand up to big corporations, not fold to their demands.

Today, about 1,000 Carrier workers and their families should be rejoicing. But the rest of our nation's workers should be very nervous.

President-elect Donald Trump will reportedly announce a deal with United Technologies, the corporation that owns Carrier, that keeps less than 1,000 of the 2100 jobs in America that were previously scheduled to be transferred to Mexico. Let's be clear: It is not good enough to save some of these jobs. Trump made a promise that he would save all of these jobs, and we cannot rest until an ironclad contract is signed to ensure that all of these workers are able to continue working in Indiana without having their pay or benefits slashed.

In exchange for allowing United Technologies to continue to offshore more than 1,000 jobs, Trump will reportedly give the company tax and regulatory favors that the corporation has sought. Just a short few months ago, Trump was pledging to force United Technologies to "pay a damn tax." He was insisting on very steep tariffs for companies like Carrier that left the United States and wanted to sell their foreign-made products back in the United States. Instead of a damn tax, the company will be rewarded with a damn tax cut. Wow! How's that for standing up to corporate greed? How's that for punishing corporations that shut down in the United States and move abroad?

In essence, United Technologies took Trump hostage and won. And that should send a shock wave of fear through all workers across the country.

Trump has endangered the jobs of workers who were previously safe in the United States. Why? Because he has signaled to every corporation in America that they can threaten to offshore jobs in exchange for business-friendly tax benefits and incentives. Even corporations that weren't thinking of offshoring jobs will most probably be re-evaluating their stance this morning. And who would pay for the high cost for tax cuts that go to the richest businessmen in America? The working class of America. 

Let's be clear. United Technologies is not going broke. Last year, it made a profit of $7.6 billion and received more than $6 billion in defense contracts. It has also received more than $50 million from the Export-Import Bank and very generous tax breaks. In 2014, United Technologies gave its former chief executive Louis Chenevert a golden parachute worth more than $172 million. Last year, the company's five highest-paid executives made more than $50 million. The firm also spent $12 billion to inflate its stock price instead of using that money to invest in new plants and workers.

Does that sound like a company that deserves more corporate welfare from our government? Trump's Band-Aid solution is only making the problem of wealth inequality in America even worse.

I said I would work with Trump if he was serious about the promises he made to members of the working class. But after running a campaign pledging to be tough on corporate America, Trump has hypocritically decided to do the exact opposite. He wants to treat corporate irresponsibility with kid gloves. The problem with our rigged economy is not that our policies have been too tough on corporations; it's that we haven't been tough enough.

We need to re-instill an ethic of corporate patriotism. We need to send a very loud and clear message to corporate America: The era of outsourcing is over. Instead of offshoring jobs, the time has come for you to start bringing good-paying jobs back to America.

If United Technologies or any other company wants to keep outsourcing decent-paying American jobs, those companies must pay an outsourcing tax equal to the amount of money it expects to save by moving factories to Mexico or other low-wage countries.  They should not receive federal contracts or other forms of corporate welfare.  They must pay back all of the tax breaks and other corporate welfare they have received from the federal government. And they must not be allowed to reward their executives with stock options, bonuses or golden parachutes for outsourcing jobs to low-wage countries. I will soon be introducing the Outsourcing Prevention Act, which will address exactly that.

If Donald Trump won't stand up for America's working class, we must.

Bernie 2020?

Anyway this is what I was worried about. We will see if the Leftist revolution gains the steam I fear it will.

Sorry for going Tim for the last two posts. At least neither of them are from Slate.

[Berkut]

Bernie's ideas are just as stupid as Trump's.

Sure, let's just legislate how we imagine the job market ought to work into reality. What could go wrong with that?

[Eddie Teach]

Bernie 2020?

[jimmy olsen]

It sure seems like Bernie is working overtime to win over anti-establishment Trump supporters to his revolution:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/01/bernie-sanders-carrier-just-showed-corporations-how-to-beat-donald-trump/?tid=sm_fb&utm_term=.f2a25f1a920f


Bernie 2020?

Anyway this is what I was worried about. We will see if the Leftist revolution gains the steam I fear it will.

Sorry for going Tim for the last two posts. At least neither of them are from Slate.

Your not going Tim since I approve of much of his economic policy. Restoring the New Deal is not a radical leftist revolution. It was national policy for 40 years and most of the world's first world states run their economic policy even more leftist than that.

[Eddie Teach]

Your not going Tim

Yeah, you used proper spelling and punctuation. 

[Valmy]

By the way Seedy, did you notice this from the first article?

New railroad hires, after two years on the job, are entitled to job security, plus a six-figure salary, plus attractive benefits. And yet half the room empties out, a top executive tells me, when potential recruits hear they would have to submit to regular drug tests and might have to relocate to Bismarck, N.D. Rail companies have been reduced to trying to hire military vets off the plane before they can return to their hometowns and bad habits.

Twice in my life I have altered my career trajectory and training to take advantage of this kind of supposed severe labor shortage for top paying jobs and both times found it to be so much bullshit. Nobody was scrambling to hand me a six figure salary in North Dakota or anywhere else. I mean seriously they should be required to at least link the job postings of all these high paying jobs nobody wants.

[grumbler]

Battleships?
Like these?

https://s.pacn.ws/gallery/large/GA.04489.0001.jpg maybe NSFW for North American prudes.

Yet more evidence that two nukes was simply not enough.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Bernie 2020 makes even less sense than 2/3rds of House Democrats choosing to keep Pelosi in the top job.

The way forward for Democrats isn't that complex:

1. Use the simplistic economic rhetoric of Bernie/Trump, but ideally not as far left as the stuff Bernie spews out.
2. The national party should step back a little bit on the most divisive cultural/social issues, anything that polls less than say 45-50% in important swing states.
3. Do more to help conservative Democrats run in red/purple states.

[CountDeMoney]

By the way Seedy, did you notice this from the first article?

New railroad hires, after two years on the job, are entitled to job security, plus a six-figure salary, plus attractive benefits. And yet half the room empties out, a top executive tells me, when potential recruits hear they would have to submit to regular drug tests and might have to relocate to Bismarck, N.D. Rail companies have been reduced to trying to hire military vets off the plane before they can return to their hometowns and bad habits.

Twice in my life I have altered my career trajectory and training to take advantage of this kind of supposed severe labor shortage for top paying jobs and both times found it to be so much bullshit. Nobody was scrambling to hand me a six figure salary in North Dakota or anywhere else. I mean seriously they should be required to at least link the job postings of all these high paying jobs nobody wants.

Heh, I applied with two railroads as an Apprentice Conductor/Engineer :LOL: spoke at length with a former coworker whose father did that in the Midwest....thing is about the RRs, those 6-figure gigs are the payoff for being ready to rock anytime/anywhere for two years, a la the old union style longshoremen...that means you go when the phone rings, drop everything, work ungodly hours in ungodly weather.  If they need you at a rail head 4 hours away to work a 180-car run, you go--and you might not come home for 3 days.   But if you're not around when your name is called, it stops getting called.  Those people weed themselves out.  That's why it's a low-pay "apprenticeship" for two years, and then you can test into full-blown Conductor, where the real money is. But you have to be willing to live in a gym bag for 2 years.

It's a well-paying gig when you get established, and like those kinds of jobs it's what you put into it that you get out of it- but it's also physically demanding and incredibly dangerous.  All it takes is slipping in gravel with a 70lb coupler, and it's buh bye Mr. Hand.  Not only are they big on drug testing, but they are even more militant when it comes to eyesight requirements than law enforcement.

And they need people that can handle that sort of thing.  Hilarious part?  The GOP has tried for years to limit the number of conductor/engineers per train to 1.  The Obama Administration has been fighting for two.  That's right; as in the number of people.

[Valmy]

2. The national party should step back a little bit on the most divisive cultural/social issues, anything that polls less than say 45-50% in important swing states.

I think they have pretty much always done this. They did not come out in favor of stuff like gay marriage until it safely had overwhelming support outside of the Republican base. The Democrats, as a group, are about as radical as vanilla ice cream.

[Valmy]

By the way Seedy, did you notice this from the first article?

New railroad hires, after two years on the job, are entitled to job security, plus a six-figure salary, plus attractive benefits. And yet half the room empties out, a top executive tells me, when potential recruits hear they would have to submit to regular drug tests and might have to relocate to Bismarck, N.D. Rail companies have been reduced to trying to hire military vets off the plane before they can return to their hometowns and bad habits.

Twice in my life I have altered my career trajectory and training to take advantage of this kind of supposed severe labor shortage for top paying jobs and both times found it to be so much bullshit. Nobody was scrambling to hand me a six figure salary in North Dakota or anywhere else. I mean seriously they should be required to at least link the job postings of all these high paying jobs nobody wants.

Heh, I applied with two railroads as an Apprentice Conductor/Engineer :LOL: spoke at length with a former coworker whose father did that in the Midwest....thing is about the RRs, those 6-figure gigs are the payoff for being ready to rock anytime/anywhere for two years, a la the old union style longshoremen...that means you go when the phone rings, drop everything, work ungodly hours in ungodly weather.  If they need you at a rail head 4 hours away to work a 180-car run, you go--and you might not come home for 3 days.   But if you're not around when your name is called, it stops getting called.  Those people weed themselves out.  That's why it's a low-pay "apprenticeship" for two years, and then you can test into full-blown Conductor, where the real money is. But you have to be willing to live in a gym bag for 2 years.

It's a well-paying gig when you get established, and like those kinds of jobs it's what you put into it that you get out of it- but it's also physically demanding and incredibly dangerous.  All it takes is slipping in gravel with a 70lb coupler, and it's buh bye Mr. Hand.  Not only are they big on drug testing, but they are even more militant when it comes to eyesight requirements than law enforcement.

And they need people that can handle that sort of thing.  Hilarious part?  The GOP has tried for years to limit the number of conductor/engineers per train to 1.  The Obama Administration has been fighting for two.  That's right; as in the number of people.

Yeah that is what I thought. They are just SO DESPERATE for good workers they can pay at a ridiculous rate but we are so damn lazy and terrible.

Wait you can "test" for full conductorship? The article said you are "entitled" to it

[derspiess]

3. Do more to help conservative Democrats run in red/purple states.

I think this is sort of a catch-22 for the Dems.  It worked in 2008 and certainly helped increased their majorities in congress.  But then a lot of these blue dog types got booted out in the next election cycle when they became tainted (in their constituency's view) by the Democrat agenda.  If they combine it with your second point, I guess it could work.

[Valmy]

I think this is sort of a catch-22 for the Dems.  It worked in 2008 and certainly helped increased their majorities in congress.  But then a lot of these blue dog types got booted out in the next election cycle when they became tainted (in their constituency's view) by the Democrat agenda.  If they combine it with your second point, I guess it could work.

Well that and Democrats don't show up in mid-term elections so you will be flushed whether the agenda is cool or not

I don't think this will ever really work for the Dems on a national level. It is the same problem the leftwing republicans faced. I mean sure you can be the religious conservative Democrat or the socialist Republican but...but not just go whole hog and just elect the other party if that is what you are looking for?

Especially in these more internet populist times. Not to mention the polarization.

And, as I said, they already do the second thing, not that anybody really notices since people mostly assume they are lying (or hope they are lying if they are leftists). Two decades of "agenda by poll" Clinton strategy will do that.