Discussion > Donald Trump thread
Interesting foresight from michael hart, from this thread ...... Look at the date!
"Population growth in California. Blaming global warming or Donald Trump for lack of planning and investment in water management doesn't wash. When Californians are ready to fix their problems, they'll vote for someone to find the money and do it. Maybe a Trump-reformed EPA might make that easier. The wealthy Hollywood eco-zealots will probably be quite happy for the poor to see their water rates skyrocket, whether they are immigrants or not.
May 29, 2016 at 5:46 PM | michael hart"
golf charlie
Donald Trump can now expose and destroy the World's most disastrous and expensive Dodgy Dossier ever - Climate Science.
With winter blasting the USA, Canada, UK and Europe, the timing could not have been worse for Faked Up News floggers, and the IPCC.
Is Climate Science more or less reliable than BuzzFeed?
golf charlie
Martin A
Donald Trump made it clear that bringing back industrial jobs to the rust belt and the abandoned mid-west would be a priority.
Those industries are uncompetitive and/or obsolete. How is Trump going to fulfil this fantasy promise?
Jan 12, 2017 at 1:47 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man
EM - What is the reason that "those industries are uncompetitive and/or obsolete"?
Some industries are genuinely obsolete. The manufacture of steam locomotives and of radio tubes, for example. But most are only obsolete in the sense that manufacture in the USA has been replaced by manufacture in other countries. Why has that happened?
It's partly that American salaries far exceed those of Chinese or Mexican workers (for example).
It's partly that providing health cover for workers in the USA costs vastly more than in other countries.
It's partly that EPA regulations have forced some USA industries to close and be replaced by the same industries elsewhere.
it's partly that US cars were outmatched in style and quality decades ago by some European makes.
I'm not in favour of trade barriers and tariffs. However, those industries could be brought back to the USA very simply by:
- Abolishing the EPA regulations that preclude their operation in the USA.
- Imposing sufficiently great import tariffs on imported products.
Martin A
Martin A,
There is good demand for "radio tubes" or "valves" for high-end audio equipment. Steam locos are not dead. Once heard a demo of audio note "ongaku" Japanese amplification. Superb, but baulked at the €85,000 price tag.
jollyfarmer
Martin A.
"those industries could be brought back to the USA very simply by:...
- Imposing sufficiently great import tariffs on imported products."
Nothing in this life is simple. Imposing import tariffs would be immediately met by tariffs against American products with consequent losses of American jobs. Airbus would be overjoyed if Europe imposed tariffs on Boeing. But I suppose losses in Democratic states like Oregon might count less.
Supertroll
Jan 12, 2017 at 7:14 PM | Supertroll
Carbon Taxes etc are a tax on production, jobs, profit etc. The same production has been transferred to the far east, where it continues without carbon taxes, employment protection etc with far greater profits shared by fewer people, and more damage to the environment.
Imposing import tariffs may not be necessary, if production does not need to be exported.
The UK has the same problem, as does the rest of the EU. The USA is unshackling itself, and hopefully the UK will do the same.
golf charlie
.... Imposing import tariffs would be immediately met by tariffs against American products ...
Jan 12, 2017 at 7:14 PM | Unregistered CommenterSupertroll
Well done for stating the obvious. And for depriving EM of the chance of taking my bait.
Martin A
Martin A.
I don't have ESP, and you don't give EM enough credit,
but is this too argumentative?
Supertroll
Supertroll & Martin A
Green Blob Energy Taxation is Price Fixing in favour of Countries that don't impose it. According to Green Blob Logic, products imported into the EU and USA should be subjected to a punitive Green Blob Energy Tax to reflect what those countries are NOT doing, inorder to undercut home supply.
They are not. This proves there is no justification for Green Blob Taxation at all. It is a scam, intended to penalise developed countries.
golf charlie
Martin A
Protectionism is generally regarded as a negative sum game.
It may improve the domestic position of the protected industry, but at the cost of greater damage to a country's economy overall.
Entropic man
Entropic Man, so you can quote the Economics of Protectionism, but not understand how Green Blob Taxation has been designed to boost CO2 production in the Far East, at the expense of the developed World?
golf charlie
The Washington Post picked up on a part of Trump's press conference that many missed.Twice the PEOTUS said that states which voted for him would be rewarded and states which did not, would not.
Is this how a president should behave?
Jan 12, 2017 at 12:22 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man
I think I said something similar on this, or another, thread. Pork-barrel politics often works that way in the USA. Many of the coal-mining-and-burning rust belt states might have voted differently if their needs had not been so disregarded by the Democrats/Obama/EPA clean power plan.
The anti-Trump states rolled the dice, and lost. Bad consequences may follow. Alternatively, Trump, who was long a Democrat, might actually enact policies with aim of bringing California closer to voting Republican again.
Who knows? But they don't appear to be making it easier for him to do so. Any, rather belated, appeals to decency and clemency from such bad losers may fall on deaf ears.
michael hart
I also note that, per my comment on June 20th, the anti-Trump camp never did seem to pick up on what I considered to be his worst statements: That he seemed OK with water boarding, which is straightforward torture in my book. That is about as low as a human can go, but the MSM seemed more concerned with how he privately described groupies who follow billionaires around.
michael hart
Golf Charlie
Do you have proper evidence for that last post or is it just more of your denialist bullshit?
Entropic man
Watching Channel 4 News. They just reported that some Chrysler models have similar software to that described in the VW scandal.
Perhaps the US car industry needs to be protected from itself. 😕
Entropic man
EM - I'm not sure if you noticed that I said: I'm not in favour of trade barriers and tariffs. ??
I know you don't seem to read stuff before commenting. Will you do me a favour and actually read what I have put below..?
Protectionism is generally regarded as a negative sum game.
It may improve the domestic position of the protected industry, but at the cost of greater damage to a country's economy overall.
That is probably true when countries at similar economic levels (in terms of industrial development and capability, salary levels, health insurance costs, and so on) trade with each other. But it becomes much more complicated when a country with high wage levels trades with a country having much lower wage levels.
It may well be that the total benefit to the two countries is positive in the absence of trade barriers. However the total benefit is unlikely to be equally shared between trading countries if their economic levels are very different. In any case, Mr Trump has made it clear that he is concerned with the benefit to US workers, rather than with the total benefit.
In the past, high salaries in the USA relative to the rest of the world did not put it at a disadvantage. Its efficiency of production more than cancelled that difference.
But the USA is now trading with countries that are catching up or have surpassed it in industrial capability, yet where salaries and health care costs are a small fraction of the USA's. That's without even mentioning environmental regulations and their effect on US industry.
The USA's trade deficit is now ... dunno .... $½ trillion maybe ? If that's right, it amounts to a jobs deficit of...
let's say $½ trillion / $30,000 = twenty million jobs?
If I were Mr Trump, I would certainly not rule out using tariff barriers to bring jobs back. And you can be sure that it's the interests of the blue-collar, redneck, disenfranchised classes who voted him in that he'll be giving priority to. That's one of the reasons he is detested by the traditional Republican grandees almost as much as by the Dems.
Martin A
.
Martin A
Martin A
" I'm not in favour of this, but it is what he could do" is not the clearest of signals.
Any other ideas?
Entropic man
EM - we'll have to wait and see. I take it you did not actually read what I wrote?
Martin A
I also note that, per my comment on June 20th, the anti-Trump camp never did seem to pick up on what I considered to be his worst statements: That he seemed OK with water boarding, which is straightforward torture in my book. That is about as low as a human can go,...
Jan 13, 2017 at 7:07 PM | Unregistered Commentermichael hart
michael hart - That is what I thought at the time.
On reflection, it fits in with what Scott Adams said about Trump being a master persuader. Adams pointed out that nobody changes what they are emotionally committed to because of a rational argument or because of factual information.
But if you say what they identify with emotionally, they identify with you. Once they identify with you, you can change what you say on a subject without losing them. Particularly if you announce that you have changed your mind because of what General 'Mad Dog' Mattis advised you.
Martin A
That argument is similar to the one about how Dramagreens claim to be all about reducing CO2 and then not bothering with maths at all and just opposing fracking/nuclear and push solar/wind/wave subsidy hunters all in a dogmatic way.
As if all about emotional narrative rather than improving the world.
stewgreen
BBC/MSM yellow water-boring its audiences by obsessing about weird unsubstantiated accusations is mass torture.
stewgreen
@Golf I agree
Green subsidies and special favourable regulations is INVERSE PROTECTIONISM that protects the business interests of foreign manufacturers.
stewgreen
Martin A
I'm tired. I read it, but would seem to have missed the nuances. Maybe tomorrow.
Entropic man
Those industries are uncompetitive and/or obsolete. How is Trump going to fulfil this fantasy promise?
Jan 12, 2017 at 1:47 PM | Entropic man
By reversing or cancelling the Policies that made them uncompetitive. Exactly the same as the UK needs to do. The Green Blob fantasy is over, destroyed by the greed and arrogance of the Green Blob.