Can Trump succeed?

America is heading off a cliff. As in 2008 it is not being discussed or talked about but insiders know it will happen. There isn't enough demand anymore to keep people employed. The problem is low wages and unemployment. There just aren't enough people earning enough money to keep workers on the job making things for people to buy. Trade is the culprit. You can't have trillion dollar trade deficits for decades and not experience an outflow of most of your wealth and the jobs that went with it. And it doesn't help that billions more each year flee from remittances from foreign serf workers and drug sales repatriated to the seller countries.

To keep people employed the Federal government has cut back on the amount of taxes it collects, and makes up the difference by "borrowing," which is really just creating money out of thin air and then "loaning" it to foreign countries or to the Federal Reserve. Since the 2008 crisis this debt has grown so massive that the interest alone will break the Federal budget if it continues, or if interest rates ever increase to normal levels. The principle is so large it can never be repaid. At some juncture a tipping point will be reached and this "borrowing" will become unworkable. Massive deficit spending is the band aid permitting enough demand to exist to keep the economy chugging along at a one percent growth in real terms, but with median family income still down from 58,000 in 2007 to just 53,000 today.

Trump must reduce corporate taxes to levels more in line with all other countries. But that will reduce taxes even more. He wants to spend a trillion dollars on infrastructure but those jobs will be temporary and involve jobs few people want anyway. That will also increase debt. He also wants yet more stimulative tax cuts to grow the economy a la 1961, but that won't work anymore. We are doing that already. We've been doing that for not only the last eight years, but the eight years before that since the Bush Tax cuts which created this debt situation. Adding even more debt and stimulus won't get us anywhere at this point.

The only answer is the balance the trade deficit. This means stop buying more from overseas than we purchase. This means re-regulating trade. Trade must be regulated. The utilities must be regulated. The banks must be regulated. The Savings and Loans must be regulated. The taxi cabs must be regulated. We must re-institute all the basic regulations which all countries have always used to govern our basic industries and ELIMINATE the vast array of useless and damaging regulations which have been enacted on trivial things at the same time that our basic regulations have been gutted.

Reforming trade terms alone will increase employment and wages and allow a sufficient amount of tax to be collected.

And it wouldn't hurt to reverse the elimination of the capital gains tax enacted by Clinton. Capital gains taxes and marginal tax rates all need to go up to the levels under Reagan.

If Trump doesn't do these things he's toast and so are we all.

Put in your stocks of storable food.

I honestly don't believe Trump will be able to do any of those things. We've seen nothing but a continuance of the big mouthed narcissist we saw throughout his campaign.

He has yet to show a shred of leadership, even in his transition to, gulp, power.

Sad.

I find it ironic that you are pushing regulation so hard. The Republicans have been the party of NO regulations, less government involvement.

You do realize that manufacturing products in the U.S. as opposed to other countries will raise the cost of those products in the U.S.? Labor costs here are MUCH higher than those in other countries where manufacturing has been moved to.

And who's the elephant in the room now?

Goldman Sachs?

Say it ain't so!

Yes but it's better to have full employment and pay slightly more for manufactured products than pay just a little less and have tens of millions of people unemployed and not paying taxes and using services like Food Stamps and Medicaid, etc. You may pay less for your sheets and jeans and televisions but your government has to borrow tremendous amounts to pay for the taxes the newly unemployed are not paying and to pay for their food and housing and medical care. THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH AT WALMART.

The idea of Free Trade is good in theory. If countries have different comparative advantages than it's more efficient to eliminate trade barriers.

But that's not what this "Free Trade" is about.

Mexican companies are supposed to send to us things they can make better than we do and our companies are supposed to send to them things we can make better than they can.

But what happened instead is that our companies go down there and take advantage of 30 dollar a day slave labor and then ship the products back to us. That's not Mexican companies and American companies trading based on comparative advantage. That's just American companies taking advantage of the fact that their workers will work for nothing, they have no environmental or safety laws, their worker's union dues are all stolen, and on and on.

It's not Free Trade but merely circumvention of our national standards which people fought hard for generations ago and upon which our middle class is based.

Yes he has a big mouth but so did Jefferson and Adams and Lincoln and Jackson. When you have an ordinary man like what we used to have involved in politics they are going to insult their rivals and even their rival's family members. That used to be common in American politics until recently and now Trump has gone back to those kinds of behaviors, and for the same reasons.

By the way let's look at Abraham Lincoln's platform in 1860,

1.Bar all Roman Catholics from immigrating to the U.S. (sound familiar?)
2.Limit all other immigrants to keep wages from falling
3.Raise tariffs on all imported goods to keep wages from falling
4.Embark on a massive Federal infrastructure effort
5.Limit the spread of slavery to keep wages of white workers from falling in the new territories and states (and it had nothing to do with the immorality of slavery)

SOUND FAMILIAR?????

Once Lincoln got in he did practically nothing to put forward these promises but he made them to get elected. He was actually a corporate lawyer, a railroad company lawyer specifically, and when President he paid them well by giving them huge amounts of Federal land for free.

Maybe Trump will be another phony like Lincoln but we will see...

Trump isn't even in office yet and he's achieving goals. He's keeping those jobs in Indiana. Job one - well done.
Damn, he is good!

Just watch and see. He's already started and not even officially in office. When has that happened?

Just remember, you don't become a billionaire being an idiot. If you did, we would all be billionaire's

Trump isn't even in office yet and he's achieving goals. He's keeping those jobs in Indiana. Job one - well done.
Damn, he is good! Originally Posted by Austin Ellen

Let's review some of his other "accomplishments":

1. His promise to "lock her up" seems to have disappeared.

2. His wonderful tax plan, which was going to bring tax relief primarily to low and middle income earners has been "revised"and the largest tax breaks will go to those at the top of the income scale:

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/.../#20ee752cdc98

However, TPC estimated that while middle-income households–those making between $48,000 and $83,000—would get a tax cut under Trump’s last campaign plan, it would be relatively modest. It would average about $1,000 in 2017, or about 1.8 percent of their after-tax income.


It seems pretty clear who would get the “lion’s share” of the Trump tax cut, at least the one he campaigned on. Middle-income households would get about 6.7 percent of the total tax cut. By contrast the top 1 percent would get nearly half, and the top 0.1 percent would get nearly one-quarter of the total benefit, and their share would grow over time.


Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016...-increase.html

President-elect Donald Trump's proposals would modestly cut income taxes for most middle-class Americans. But for nearly 8 million families -- including a majority of single-parent households -- the opposite would occur: They'd pay more.

Most married couples with three or more children would also pay higher taxes, an analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found. And while middle-class families as a whole would receive tax cuts of about 2 percent, they'd be dwarfed by the windfalls averaging 13.5 percent for America's richest 1 percent.


3. His promise to "drain the swamp"? Well if that means "assembling one of the wealthiest administrative teams in recent history" then he is succeeding.



http://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-wealthy-appointments-contrast-with-populist-campaign-tone-1480626264


4. His saving 1,000 Carrier jobs?? At a cost of $7 million. Instead of punishing companies planning to move manufacturing jobs to other countries, he is rewarding them.



Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...201-story.html


But Trump's move was already coming under fire from both conservatives concerned about government distortion of free markets and liberals who considered the move another corporate subsidy. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who ran for the Democratic nomination, accused Trump of reversing course on a pledge to punish companies that outsource manufacturing jobs. Instead, Sanders said, Trump is rewarding them.


"In essence, United Technologies took Trump hostage and won," he said in a statement.


Look, I think it's ridiculous at this point in time to either praise Trump or discredit him. Give him time in office and then we can properly evaluate his successes and failures.

Speedy,

Sanders also said Hillary wasn't fit to be president during the primaries against her and what did he end up doing? Reversing course and backing her. Com- on man. Politics as usual there.

I do like your last statement of giving him a chance before we praise or ridicule him

Speedy,

Sanders also said Hillary wasn't fit to be president during the primaries against her and what did he end up doing? Reversing course and backing her. Com- on man. Politics as usual there.

I do like your last statement of giving him a chance before we praise or ridicule him Originally Posted by Passion2015

I certainly do not disagree with you. But I do expect people who run for office to at least TRY to keep their campaign promises once in office. How else are you going to honestly rate their success?

Trump won mainly, in my opinion, because of his promise to provide jobs to those in the rust belt (Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio) who have suffered in recent years/decades. If in 4 years no progress has been made in that area, I would expect people to bring that up when it is re-election time. Same if promised tax benefits FOR ALL are not put into law. And if no inroads are made against ISIS. etc.

Good point speedy however, how many individuals that have run for office and won, kept 100% of their campaign promises? You don't have to answer, we all know. ZERO

Politician's aren't stupid, we are for believing every damn thing they say when they run for office and we vote for them. C-mon man.

I think most of them, at least in my memory, have tried to do what they said they'd do. Drumpf needs to be "presidential." That is, of course, when he isn't tweeting in the middle of the night.

I believe Trump won because the dems are out of touch with the common American - the guy or girl that needs to put food on the table for his or her family and is barely making it.I mean way,way,I mean really way out of touch with mainstream America. But Trump has the office now and I'm already praising him because - to my knowledge - no one who was president before has done a thank you tour or saved 1000 jobs for hard working American prior to being even sworn in! And he is just getting started so buckle up!

I believe Trump won because the dems are out of touch with the common American - the guy or girl that needs to put food on the table for his or her family and is barely making it.I mean way,way,I mean really way out of touch with mainstream America. But Trump has the office now and I'm already praising him because - to my knowledge - no one who was president before has done a thank you tour or saved 1000 jobs for hard working American prior to being even sworn in! And he is just getting started so buckle up! Originally Posted by Austin Ellen

A most excellent post - good job.