Today in Trump

[TIC]

another reason for titofan to hate on king ry

[Kirkland Laing]

What emerged in two interviews with Trump, and conversations with more than a dozen of his closest advisers and confidants, were the outlines of an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world. To carry out a deportation operation designed to remove more than 11 million people from the country, Trump told me, he would be willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military, both at the border and inland.

He would let red states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans. He would, at his personal discretion, withhold funds appropriated by Congress, according to top advisers. He would be willing to fire a U.S. Attorney who doesn’t carry out his order to prosecute someone, breaking with a tradition of independent law enforcement that dates from America’s founding.

He is weighing pardons for every one of his supporters accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, more than 800 of whom have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury. He might not come to the aid of an attacked ally in Europe or Asia if he felt that country wasn’t paying enough for its own defense. He would gut the U.S. civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic-preparedness office, and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen.



https://time.com/6972021/donald-trum...ion-interview/



This seems bad.

Just to look at the economic policies here such as they are. The reason there has been this big burst of inflation in the last few years is not down to government spending --Mexico, the economy most closely tied to America, biggest trading partner etc spent not a single peso on covid payouts, no cheques no aid to businesses or any other payouts, actually cut government spending and has had higher inflation than America who have had the lowest inflation of any global economy -- it's down to the dislocation of the supply and goods and services that happened around the world. Think hundreds of container ships waiting months to discharge, shuttered factories and so on. The technical term is a supply shock. Despite things getting back to normal quite quickly after demand picked up again after the vaccines became available there was a surge of inflation. But it was temporary as the problems with the supply chain went away and now core inflation is two percent again like in 2019.

Trump wants to deport eleven million people. This would be a supply shock to the labour market. There's only 160 million people currently employed in America. Take even a few million out of the workforce and you have a permanent ongoing snowballing supply shock. If he does try this he'll have to reverse it within months as the consequences of what he's doing become apparent. If he doesn't an ongoing permanent increasing supply shock to the labour market of even a few million labour inputs will create inflation that makes the last few years look like nothing. That's just maths and supply and demand. It can't not happen.

Add on a minimum ten percent tariff to all imported goods:

Trump is planning to intensify his protectionist agenda, telling me he’s considering a tariff of more than 10% on all imports, and perhaps even a 100% tariff on some Chinese goods. Trump says the tariffs will liberate the U.S. economy from being at the mercy of foreign manufacturing and spur an industrial renaissance in the U.S. When I point out that independent analysts estimate Trump’s first term tariffs on thousands of products, including steel and aluminum, solar panels, and washing machines, may have cost the U.S. $316 billion and more than 300,000 jobs, by one account, he dismisses these experts out of hand.

You don't need to be an expert to work this stuff out. Any brightish sixteen year old economics 101 student can tell you what will happen. Over three quarters of everything on sale in Walmartsis imported and about two thirds comes from China. About a trillion and a half dollars of imported goods are parts that go into products manufactured in America. That might just cause prices to rise.


He's also going to devalue the dollar, run bigger budget deficits, cut taxes and so on which are all massively inflationary. Not inflationary in the economic conditions we've had from the mid nineties to 2021 but in the current hot full employment elevated interest rate two trillion government deficit economy? You just watch. And the chef's kiss is he's probably going to get elected in November and the main reason he'll get elected is that people think he'll be much better at dealing with inflation than Biden.

[Kirkland Laing]

Will come back to this tomorrow. Will make a prediction too.