You know, for some people, the most concerning thing about Donald Trump's whole speech today regarding his economic plan, about which more details will be forthcoming, because that is what you get when policy is actually an afterthought, is that he said "titties". Which is great, by the way. I can imagine his campaign team worked with him to stay on Teleprompter and advised him "Don't say anything off script, you know. Be cool." "Cool like how?" "I dunno, don't say something like 'titties'" Then, you know. Boom went the dynamite.
People think that Donald Trump is a really knowledgeable guy about business, because who isn't when one inherits oodles of cash and a real estate empire and kind of gets an Ivy League business education (although I want to see his transcripts--amirite?) and then has the benefit of favorable credit/bankruptcy laws to tide you over when you've fucked it up? He's written great books that involve business and economic things, like The Art of the Deal which was kind of written by Tony Schwartz who thinks Trump's a psychopath, and others that were partly written by Meredith McIver who is so a real person and I am not giving up on you, Meredith! You are real--it's social media that's fake. And this campaign. (But you are real!)
But there's just something about his economics speech today, demonstrations by mostly female protesters aside, that just itches to be all kinds of fact-checked. He repeated his bullshit claim that Hillary Clinton wants to raise taxes on the middle class. He tried to front that the coal industry is dying out because of regulations, when fracking is really doing it in. (Yep, just linked to the Washington Examiner. Feeling reckless today.) He tried to claim that NAFTA nearly killed Detroit, but Detroit was losing jobs throughout the 70's and 80's already and that might not even be true. He also tried to say Detroit was always controlled by Democratic politicians, but you know the Governor there is a Republican, Rick Snyder, right now, and the state legislature of Michigan is majority Republican? You know that--good for you--he didn't. (This lie-filled trash was vetted by his campaign, people. And it is absurdly sloppy.)
He claimed that the US taxes on business is absurdly high--nope, never was true. It's amazing something debunked so many times still squeezes out of his lie-hole. He inflates the jobless numbers based on some crazy metric that implies kids in school and retirees should still be considered in the workforce. Small businesses are picking up--he isn't acknowledging that trend.
If this is his argument for how his economic acumen means he is exactly the guy we need right now--then I really understand why Hillary Clinton just accepted the three debate schedule as is. If that ain't some "Come at me, bro" shit, I don't know what is. And she means it.
UPDATE: Shit, did I weirdly not omit stating that his plan is a GOP establishment wet dream of 1%-er tax cuts, ending the death tax (ahem--inheritance tax, and what's the saying? That's right, "you can't take it with you.") Also he has exactly zero job creation plans--although he said some rubbish once about doing stuff with the US infrastructure by raising bonds. Wow. As if there was no fund that had something to do with people voluntarily complying with legislation involving them contributing money to the civil welfare. Hmph. A scholar regarding the government, he is not.
2 comments:
Hi Vixen, you know, most people assume that if someone is in business they automatically have a good knowledge of how the economy works and how they can depend on their knowledge for the purpose of investing.
Many years ago I was surprised to discover that that is not the case. Often people in business understand how the economy works relative to their own trade, but not to anything broader. As a consequence I have helped a number of people set up investment portfolios despite the fact that some have been pretty successful in their field.
I have looked at Trump's economic proposals from the point of view of one who to this day is professionally involved in the investment field. My scrutiny reveals to me that Trump's proposals are sound. My view is that his economic policies in the main would result in more prosperity, more entrance level possibilities, and more upward mobility for a lot more Americans. It is a pro-American growth policy, and I think with others that if Trump could get a third of his proposals passed, a lot of people recently pushed into poverty would be in mid-level management in 5 years.
Naturally this can all be argued against. Anything can be argued. I once watched a friend argue against a scientist that at any moment the moon might fall out of the sky and crush the earth. It was funny to watch, and actually the pro-moon guy amusingly frustrated the scientist. So anything can be argued, but the question is what will really help the prosperity and economic strength of our country. I imagine that Hillary Clinton has some ideas that might be workable.
I am not trying to contend that Mrs. Clinton is completely devoid of arguments that could be possible. However, having looked at Trump's economic plan my view is that it would be a tremendous shot in the arm for all levels of our society.
I really cannot comment on how good a businessman Trump is except to say he is obviously a very good one. Perhaps he is only the 10,000th most successful businessman in the history of the world and not one of the top 5000. To evaluate Trump's business acumen one would necessarily have to be the kind of person who religiously reads Forbes and Fortune magazines. So maybe you're right – maybe he only has $8 billion instead of $10 billion. You know, a couple of days ago the third richest man in Britain (a duke) died and left his entire fortune to his son, and it would something like 6 or 8 billion pounds. It strikes me that Trump is in pretty good company. I doubt seriously if his daughter Ivanka has to count her pennies to buy a new pair of shoes.
The election politics are starting to be so crazy that you get the idea that if anyone was pro-either side they automatically are too deranged to be allowed to vote. And it's not even Labor Day yet.
I would recommend Googling "trump economic disaster" for an idea of why Trump is not remotely going to be fine for the economy--long story short, adding another ten trillion to the debt and then threatening to default on it is not generally considered a smart idea by a lot of economists.
I don't know if six bankruptcies, owning fractional shares of properties he once owned outright, and utterly killing his brand-name's lease potential are great business practices, but maybe he'll turn it around, like the airli...no. The vodk...no. The mail-order stea... Oh well, he could always start up the University thing again if the lawsuit goes well, so there's that. You know, if he can explain why the famous celebrity real estate magnate has to hump get-rich quick nonsense to the desperate.
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