I don't know what Americans are so terrified of. It's not a dictatorship, presidents can't simply pass anything they want into legislation. However, if you look at Trump's policies that are actually reasonable, they're not that bad:
-anti-TPP
-reducing trade deficits
-bringing back overseas money on a single-time tax
-health care reform
-improved relations with Russia
he doesn't frighten me because i think he's going to be a despot. he frightens me because he represents the abandonment of substance for form. rushy's post basically spells out what i think all trump supporters share in common: the belief that it doesn't matter how dogshit trump's policies are so long as he says all the right ultranationalist keywords in all his speeches. i am frightened by the belief that it doesn't matter what trump says so long as he is angry, hateful, and insulting. those are poor qualities in anyone, let alone in the president.
and for some reason none of these supporters have managed to yet figure out that
psst hey you know that he could just be saying whatever he thinks you want to hear, right? it's mind-boggling. like maybe when he says "we're going to slash taxes and slash the budget and also keep social security spending and medicare/medicaid spending and increase military spending," we should all take a moment to reflect on how dumb that is and tell him to get lost. it frightens me to think that maybe he could walk out on stage and declare that he's going to cut taxes to zero and increase military spending to infinity, and maybe he wouldn't lose any supporters in the process.
his trade deficit talk is just as outrageous, but again his supporters just lap it up because "yeah fuck china go america we rule they drool hahahaha!" he displays either an ignorance of economics so profound that it should be immediately disqualifying, or a willingness to lie that should be equally discrediting. trade deficits are
not indicators of poor economic output. if anything, the opposite is true. this is because
current account deficits are balanced by capital account surpluses. by definition. basically everything that trump says about trade deficits is breathtakingly, unforgivably wrong. he appears to
fundamentally misunderstand how our economy works.
http://usa.usembassy.de/etexts/econ/eop/2006/2006-6.pdfA country’s capital account balance reflects its net sales or purchases of assets with other countries. Its current account balance reflects its net sales or purchases of goods and services with other countries along with net flows of income and transfer payments. The current account and capital account must exactly offset one another. This means the value of a current account surplus will be mirrored by the value of a capital account deficit, and a current account deficit will be mirrored by a capital account surplus of equal value.
[...]
In 2004 (the most recent calendar year for which data exist), the United States ran a current account deficit of $668 billion. This deficit meant the United States imported more goods and services than it exported. The counterpart to the U.S. current account deficit was a U.S. capital account surplus. This surplus meant that foreign investors purchased more U.S. assets than U.S. investors purchased in foreign assets, investing more in the United States than the United States invested abroad. By economic definition, a country’s current and capital account balances must offset one another. Therefore, the U.S. current account deficit was matched by a capital account surplus of $668 billion.
[...]
Because foreigners invested more in the United States than the United States invested abroad, the United States received net foreign capital and financial inflows (hereafter called net capital inflows). Countries like the United States that run capital account surpluses and current account deficits receive net foreign capital inflows.
[...]
What factors encourage large and persistent U.S. foreign capital inflows? Several factors, which reflect U.S. economic strengths, encourage these
inflows. In particular, a high rate of U.S. growth encourages foreign capital to be “pushed” toward the United States.
[...]
In principle, the United States can continue to receive net capital inflows (and run current account deficits) indefinitely provided it uses these inflows
in ways that promote its future growth and help the United States to remain an attractive destination for foreign investment. The key issue concerning U.S. foreign capital inflows is not their absolute level but the efficiency with which they are used. Provided capital inflows promote strong U.S. investment, productivity, and growth, they provide important benefits to the United States as well as to countries that are investing in the United States.
http://www.cato.org/publications/trade-policy-analysis/tradebalance-creed-debunking-belief-imports-trade-deficits-are-drag-growthThe consensus creed is based on a misunderstanding of how U.S. gross domestic product is calculated. Imports are not a “subtraction” from GDP. They are merely removed from the final calculation of GDP because they are not a part of domestic production.
Contrary to the prevailing view, imports are not a “leakage” of demand abroad. In the annual U.S. balance of payments, all transactions balance. The net outflow of dollars to purchase imports over exports are offset each year by a net inflow of foreign capital to purchase U.S. assets. This capital surplus stimulates the U.S. economy while boosting our productive capacity.
An examination of the past 30 years of U.S. economic performance offers no evidence that a rising level of imports or growing trade deficits have negatively affected the U.S. economy. In fact, since 1980, the U.S. economy has grown more than three times faster during periods when the trade deficit was expanding as a share of GDP compared to periods when it was contracting. Stock market appreciation, manufacturing output, and job growth were all significantly more robust during periods of expanding imports and trade deficits.
https://www.aei.org/publication/another-name-for-trade-deficit-is-capital-account-surplus-balance-of-payments-always-0/As a direct consequence of our current account deficits, the U.S. economy has been the beneficiary of more than $8 trillion worth of capital inflows from foreigners since 1980. Because the Balance of Payment accounts are based on double-entry bookkeeping, the annual current account and capital account have to net to zero, so that any current account (trade) deficit (surplus) is offset one-to-one by a capital account surplus (deficit) and the balance of payments therefore always nets out to (equals) zero. And that’s why it’s called the “balance” of payments, because once we account for trade flows and capital flows, everything balances, and there are no deficits or surpluses on a net basis.
if you want to decry the lack of manufacturing jobs available in the us, then blame robots, not china. china has very little to do with it. manufacturing output continues to increase in the us. that jobs don't keep up with the increase is a function of the increased output of workers, not trade policy:
http://conexus.cberdata.org/files/MfgReality.pdf
what ultimately disappoints me is not that trump couldn't pass a macro final or whatever. i couldn't, and i can't pretend to understand how our economy works. but it really didn't take me that long to find a slew of experts in economics all saying "uh, you know current account deficits are actually fine, and if anything they only happen because our economy is so fucking rad to maxxxxxxxx." if there are economic experts out there who agree with trump's characterization of our economic relationship with china, i'm struggling to find them.
oh look another obnoxiously long gg post. neat.