Trump promises to increase exports, increase tariffs, reduce the trade deficit, reduce the fiscal deficit, reduce inflation, reduce taxes, and increase growth.
Tariff Increase Tendencies
- Add to inflation
- Increase interest rates
- Strengthen the dollar
- Reduce real consumer spending
- Reduce employment
- Reduce real growth
- Spur retaliation
Reduce the Fiscal Deficit Tendencies
- Strengthen the dollar
- Reduce growth
Weak Dollar Tendencies
- Increase exports
- Reduce imports
- Increase inflation
Strong Dollar Tendencies
- Reduce inflation
- Increase imports
- Reduce exports
Amusing Misfit Agenda
Trump’s promises are an amusing collection of misfit conflicting ideas.
Trump promised no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, and no tax on overtime. He wants more military spending and he does want not any reductions on Social Security.
He is now in favor of the State and Local Tax Deduction (SALT).
He never said how he would pay for any of that other than increase tariffs which is of course preposterous.
Yet, Trump promises to reduce the deficit.
Dynamic Duo
One thing Trump can do is peel back regulations. This would be an across the board win.
The idea that we can save enough money to pay for all Trump’s promises with the dynamic duo of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy is silly.
However, I wish them well and I suspect they can come up with some things. But it won’t balance the budget.
I am fine with getting rid of the Department of Education, but try getting that through Congress. Nonetheless, let’s assume success.
The 2023 Department of Education budget was $274 billion, which included funding for children with disabilities (IDEA), early childhood education, Pell Grants, Title I, work assistance, among other programs.
If you can get Congress to slash all of that, then hooray, you saved $274 billion. Over 10 years that would be $2.7 trillion.
Wharton estimates that SALT-Related Costs alone would cost billion $1.1 trillion over 10 years.
That’s just SALT. The combined impact of all of Trump’s proposals is $5.8 trillion over the next 10 years.
The 2024 Trump Campaign Policy Proposals
Please consider the Penn Wharton post The 2024 Trump Campaign Policy Proposals: Budgetary, Economic and Distributional Effects
Summary: We estimate that the Trump Campaign tax and spending proposals would increase primary deficits by $5.8 trillion over the next 10 years on a conventional basis and by $4.1 trillion on a dynamic basis that includes economic feedback effects. Households across all income groups benefit on a conventional basis.
Key Points
- We project that conventionally estimated tax revenue falls by $5.8 trillion over the next 10 years, producing an equivalent amount of primary deficits. Accounting for economic feedback effects, primary deficits increase by $4.1 trillion over the same period.
- While GDP increases during part of the first decade (2025 – 2034), GDP eventually falls relative to current law, falling by 0.4 percent in 2034 and by 2.1 percent in 30 years (year 2054). After initially increasing, capital investment and working hours eventually fall, leaving average wages unchanged in 2034 and lower by 1.7 percent in 2054.
- Low, middle, and high-income households in 2026 and 2034 all fare better under the campaign proposals on a conventional basis. These conventional gains and losses do not include the additional debt burden on future generations who must finance almost the entirety of the tax decreases.
Note that the estimate, counting positive factors is an increase in the deficit of about $410 billion per year, for 10 years, just to keep the status quo. The US fiscal deficit was $1.7 trillion in 2023.
And it does not include no tax on tips.
Import Analysis and Absurd Beliefs
In 2023, the total value of imports of goods and services to the United States was $3.8 trillion.
So, are we going to collect $3.8 trillion in tariffs on a total of $3.8 trillion in imports? $1.7 trillion? $0.7 trillion? $0.2 trillion? At what cost?
This is why it’s absurd to believe Trump can pay for his agenda with increasing tariffs.
Yet, Trump says he will simultaneously cut taxes, raise tariffs, increase jobs, and increase exports.
Impossible Conflicting Goals
Made-in-America in and of itself implies higher inflation. Trump threatened John Deere it it moved any operations to Mexico.
Lovely. This is telling farmers they have to pay more for tractors, combines, and other farm machinery.
Pro-union is pro-inflation. Building everything here to save US jobs means higher labor costs, higher prices, and reduces exports.
Related Posts
September 26: Trump Claims Tariffs Will Reduce the Trade Deficit. Let’s Fact Check.
Trump proposes 60 percent tariffs on China. Would that reduce the trade deficit? Where? How?
October 1: Trump vs Frederic Bastiat: Who Is Right About Tariffs?
Previously, I discussed tariffs and the trade deficit. This post is about Trump’s proposal to use tariffs to fund projects.
October 5: Buy American Provisions Cost $125,000 Per Job Created
“Buy America” sounds great. But it’s costly and about to rise steeply.
November 22, 2024: Trump’s Proposed Tariffs Are a Tax on Consumers, Primarily the Poor
Let’s discuss the impact of Trump’s tariffs on various income groups.
November 22, 2024: Should Anyone Care Whether Underwear Is Produced in the US or China?
This ridiculous-looking question gets to the heart of tariff discussions.
Weak Dollar or Strong Dollar?
Trump simultaneously needs a very weak dollar and a very strong one given his conflicting goals and promises.
He needs to explain to the US how this all works.
Since it doesn’t work, he won’t bother explaining.
I just would feel a lot more inclined to follow some talking heads that are the epitome of being nothing more than big mouthed critics. A critic being the easiest endeavor ever! These shallow individual “haters” bring NOTHING to the table. Everything these whiners offer is criticism prefaced by, “can, should, might, possibly, maybe,”. Regarding these whiners, one word can be associated with me; “unimpressed”! Many articles, such as these, remind me that I can spend my time elsewhere.
Everything about Trump was suspended reality. Ignore reality and believe the impossible.
Enjoy your Lie’n King.
Not, as they say in Boston, a wicked shockah.
Trump may just be spit balling and will work for the a doable deal at some point. Or, maybe he is just nuts.
Should Trump put high tariffs on LVMH, Hermes, Dior, Essilor-Luxottica,L’Oreal and other European luxury product manufacturers instead of talking about underwear? They sell something like $60 billion in the US. A nice tariff would produce a nice some because as all husbands and boyfriends know, luxury products are not price-sensitive.
Well, time will tell. I know I’m excited that Trump proves you wrong.
He’s definitely off to a great start with his cabinet picks.
Everyone as far as I can tell seems to be committed to the cause.
It won’t be easy. There will be many political battles to be won, but this much is sure.
Brandon & Comrade Kamala are toast. If we’re lucky enough to be here on 1/20/2025, we’ve definitely got the right guy & cabinet picks to start hammering at the deep state, pushing back against Ukraine, CCP, Russia, Iran, etc.
There are many economic, social, judicial, & foreign policy pot holes that lie ahead, but I feel way better with Trump in office than what we’ve got now.
Again, I sincerely hope he proves you wrong again on tariffs, deportations, & his careful consideration to only go after those who have truly committed crimes. My short-list would include:
Mayorkas – no brainer
Milley – no brainer
McCabe – no brainer
Acting SecDef Miller – he disobeyed a direct order like Milley
Any mayor of a sanctuary city that impedes ICE from doing its job
Be nice to understand how deficit spending are supposed to be reduced without the economy growing at a faster pace.
First priority must be to get a functioning Private economy moving again.
Desirable, an economy which provides wealth inducing incentives for middle class America to put the shoulder to the work wheel.
That is the ticket to bringing economy back in balance with Government largess.
A politician is promising things that are likely to yield mutually contradictory results, and promising things that are impossible. Why is that even worth discussing? That’s all they ever do, and the further they get, the greater the smoke they blow.
Given the other factors at play, which way is policy more likely to go?
“Martin Armstrong said that if things are pushed too far, that we could go back to the Dark Ages.”
And it turned out he was right. No age was ever as dark as the current one.
I agree 100%. Thank goodness we elected Trump. My gawd the last four years have been insane, but good for my banking account though.
…Since what ails America is only lack of a Dear Leader with an orange mop on top of an empty cranium.
Government will be bigger and more intrusive at the end of Trump’s presidency than now. Debt will be greater at all levels: Federal, state, municipal and private. Prices of most stuff will be higher.etc., etc. Meaning: America will be even worse off. Just as has been the case wrt every single administration since at least WW2. They are ALL complete waste. Complete. 100%.
Latin America used to be the basket-case-worshiping continent, where fully indoctrinated simpletons were so dumb and naive that they; comically if it wasn’t so sad a sight; kept falling for the trivially obvious nonsense that the neeeext Dear Leader… He would magically fixed everything!!Every.single.time…. We are there now. Not one lick better than Argentina at anything. And worse at soccer.
Martin Armstrong said that if things are pushed too far, that we could go back to the Dark Ages. We just hit 36 trillion on the ND. It’s like the Kobiashi Maru scenario in Star Trek 2. No way to win. It’s not just economics, it’s geopolitics.
That was the whole point and all credit to Obama “The Dark Lord”.
If Trump can successfully narrow the mandate of every government department and distill them down to their most basic form, he doesn’t need to close them. Perhaps the Department of Education will be limited to $20m for disabled children and nothing else. FBI cases may be moved back to state level and they lay people off. There are many creative ways to reduce a corporation and government departments are no different. It’s just so rarely done that most people who get immersed in government lose their ability to see the solutions. I think Elon and Ramaswamy will succeed where others have failed.
That would require understanding what those departments do, and you can’t figure that out from the golf course.
In my experience downsizing in government, if someone can’t explain clearly what they do in their position, they’ve basically provided cause for dismissal and will be out of a job quickly.
… or you may just be too dumb to understand the explanation.
And you’re a dumb cunt apparently
….And you certainly can’t figure that out, when you are clinically incapable of figuring anything out.
Do you think President-Elect Trump really cares? Is this what we voted for?
Mish, are you now CENSORING READERS? If so, the word will get out, Pal.
What is this ‘word’?
Clearly, @Mish, you are not loyal enough to Trump to receive a nomination – that plus the lack of “baseless” claims of sexual misconduct and neo-nazism leave you totally unqualified.
This is all too bad as you would make a great Secretary of economic development. My advice is to become totally loyal to Trump, join the KKK and go sodomize a young girl – all in the interest of patriotism. #Satire
Agreed. It’s all a ruse. Nothing changes.
2008 was our last chance to right the ship.
The globalist won out.
Trump should have run in 2000 for president, if his economic policies were to have a chance.
Sadly, the middle class will be no more.
The end of our story. You know, the American Dream.
Now get them illegals to work at the lowest possible cost! The rich need some servicing!
All of you are saying “Trump wants this” or “Trump wants that”, but do you think that he really understands the relationship between his objectives? He’s an elderly businessman who could probably handle the math on all sorts of leveraged real estate transactions, but in the field we are discussing, he’s simply parroting the stuff his donors and advisors have most recently pitched and figures he’ll sort it out later. I think that, at this stage of the game, he is going to act on intuition, rather than be bothered to think things through (even if he would have been able to when he had his full mental capabilities).
Many of the cabinet picks are based on how they look on TV or what they have done to help him get elected, and, in the past, it’s been the government career bureaucrats which have run the business of government – but he has now declared war on them. I fear that those who feel we have four years of smooth sailing ahead are mistaken and we should be careful not to allow a system which, while not perfect, has functioned for decades to be irreparably broken.
Think for a moment. when evaluating “Make America Great Again”, which “Again” is being referred to? Other than the decade following the second world war (where all our economic competitors were bombed to rubble), which post-Civil War decade would you like to live in (leaving the romanticism of the movies aside)?
As Mish has pointed out, Trump is promising everyone everything that they desire and will likely end up disappointing many of them. Let’s hope we’re left at the end of his term with an economy as good as the one he is starting with. Personally, I’m not optimistic and am shifting my investments accordingly.
Jeff
I’m not optimistic either. Gold? Bitcoin? Yes both.
Retired a few years ago and moved all my investments into short term CDs. I was considering gold at $1880 but never acted, hindsight is usually right.
“..a system which, while not perfect, has functioned for decades..”
Well, it hasn’t. Ever. Nor will it. Ever.
Problem is: The veritable army of absolute nothings Trump has appointed so far, can’t even begin to comprehend something that obvious. Instead, to a person, being “in favor” of doubling, then tripling, then….., down on exactly the very worst of the idiocies making up the current “system.” It’s literally Milei levels of “I’m the self professed ‘Libertarian’ who robbed productive people of half of what they owned in order to cozy up to purely negative value add deadweight totalitarian trash at the IMF; and the self-described ‘anarcho’-‘capitalist’ who then wants help from the IMF to expand the ‘security’-state…” levels of complete, clinical, full stop idiocy on display here. Garbage. Pure, simple and literally. All of them. Putrid garbage.
Guaranteed: The debt; federal as well as state and muni AND nominally “private”; WILL be plenty higher when Trump leaves office, than when he takes office. Just as has been the case for every incompetent idiot show of an administration for more than 50 years, probably more than 150. China will be even further ahead, in EVERY SINGLE area (demographics possibly excepted…). And not by some trivial degree, either. They’re 100-1 against idiot “us” now. And Trumpo and his childbrains aren’t even in the runnings to make a single improvement in any area to begin “correcting” that. Heck, the idiots most likely aren’t even aware of it. And never will be(idiots will idiot and all….) And ditto further ahead will be every country with the wherewithal to align with China, vs the dumpsterfire that is Trumpo’s (And Biden’s.And Harris’….) illiterate “vision” for America.
It truly takes a level of outright, straight up utter lack of even the most fundamental traces of basic intelligence, to be so dumb that one genuinely believes making things MORE expensive for Americans trying to compete, is some sort of; of all possible idiocies; “good thing.” As well as the even bigger idiocy, that mindlessly enriching complete deadweights with ever more massive Fed wealth transfers; taken FROM exactly the productives trying to compete; can somehow be done without increasing those productives’ costs. It’s truly mind boggling how far down the drain “we” have now sank.
Since he hasn’t taken office yet it we don’t know what he will do or will be able to do once in office so I reserve my judgement until I have Trump’s measures to judge. For now we have only his promises.
How many of his prior promises were made good on? That’ll make a good estimate.
Much more than your favorite Biden-Harris.
Please list them.
He has already appointed what adds up to more full throttle imbeciles to “significant positions” in our little Idiotopia, than has ever been amassed in any other country in all of history.
The Stupocalypse is upon us!
I suppose in practice, he may hold down taxes but put the price of things up – but that is not inflation, because inflation requires the increase/expansion of money supply)credit
In this scenario, it looks like the price of money rises, because it’s in short supply, and that prompts a rise in unemployment, because trade is constrained and business costs rise. He rhen will have to make huge funding cuts to government. I think that means rolling back all money spent abroad, including on wars as well as aid. This then has a compounding effect on contracting global trade. It looks very deflationary.
The Euro is collapsing after President Trump was elected for a third term. The financial world believes in President Trump. Americans believe in President Trump. Place your bets.
That’s more to do with lack of confidence in the EU and it’s institutions, regardless of America.
Trump policy for USA is
BASF is moving all chemical manufactures to Louisiana.
VW, Mercedes, BMW must manufacture automobiles in USA.
Europe cannot manufacture ammonia, aluminum, steel, cement, glass because of green energy prices. The European education industry is stifled by censorship. The EU is trying to make farming for profit illegal. UK is confiscating farms.
Trump is just a loud mouth attention seeking narcissus. He does not care what happens to the free world or America for that matter. All he wants is to see himself in every news cycle and talk show. Ideally if he is channel surfing he is on every channel. The worst it gets the more he is on center state. Hopefully the Republicans can control the MAGA nation they allowed to happen.
It was the American people which made MAGA happen. In 2016, Goldman Sachs approved JEB. Party members were sick of the Bush Dynasty status quo. They voted for Trump in the primaries. Americans voted for a majority of Trump electors in 2016.
Trump doesn’t need his base anymore. He just needed their votes.
Now he can concentrate on himself and his rich friends.
Corporate taxes do not increase after the foolish CEO’s reshore manufacturing jobs to USA.
Yeah, it will have a downward pressure effect on federal spending. It has to. There’s not enough money to keep doing what they’re doing.
Money is a flow, not a stock. Spending flows from one person to the next to the next as each sells what they have and buys from others. A million dollar GDP is the same whether one person spends a million on a new yacht or a million people spend $1 at the Dollar Store. Federal deficits take money stored for investment, trade it for treasuries, then put it in the economy where it can circulate, create demand, production and finally end back up where it started: in the hands of investors. This means there is essentially an infinite amount of money. Understanding this is hard, but it is the key to understanding economies.
Nah, eventually debt service requires that money be removed from the economy via taxes. Maybe, sometimes, eventually, principal needs to be reduced, or at least limited in amount by debt service requirements. It’s not infinite. How could it be as easy as you depict? There would never be a recession or a debt crisis, ever. That’s gum-drops and rainbow land.
Recessions and Depressions are created by banks lending against inflated values of assets. Once people stop believing that asset values will go up, they stop paying back their loans, credit drys up, and commerce grinds to a halt. The limit to government debt is inflation. Spending beyond the carrying capacity of the economy. The goal shouldn’t be about debt. It should be about inflation, which the dems just discovered to their dismay. And the reps are getting ready to discover.
Trump wants the US Dollar to remain the world’s reserve currency but also reduce/reverse the US trade deficit.
Triffin’s Dilemma says this is impossible as the trade deficit is the major engine for supplying Dollars to foreign users. No Dollars, no dominance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triffin_dilemma
American presidents don’t control the euroDollars that form the bulk of global trade transactions. These are dollar-denominated, but created outside America, not controlled by America and not always influenced by American politics either.
“Reduce” and “Remain” are compatible. The $USD was world reserve currency for decades – without such massive trade deficits.
You are making an assumption that the dollar would have remained the reserve currency had Nixon not floated the dollar and tied it to oil (when massive trade deficits started). But, honestly, we’ll never know.
Quite frankly, the economy needs some real pain. Everything is out of whack, and a crisis is the only thing that will result in real change, in the form of deregulation and phasing out wasteful spending. My only hope is that the pain gets spread out across all income classes.
Losing 90% of your wealth is never going to be as painful for the top 10% as for the remaining 90%.
Incorrect. The 90% have their wealth in the real value of their labor hours. That does not go away, at least not for the genuinely productive. The paper wealth will crash, but the residue will also yield more, so even the 10% won’t be so badly off as long as they avoid leverage and choose wisely.
It does when you get old.
Just happened. Colrado loses to Kansas.
You’re just realizing this now???
Trump’s economic policy agenda is a typical example of Latin American populism. The key planks of Latin American populism have always been a massively loose fiscal policy to keep the population happy and import substitution to appeal to jingoism. Obviously an independent central bank never fit with these two planks. This type of agenda has invariably screwed up countries all over Latin America, and now the U.S. wants to be a screwed up country as well.
The damage was already done a while ago.
The global economy has been anaemic since the GFC in 2007-2008.
That’s not a good reason for turning the US into a LATAM Banana republic.
Tariffs suck the air of gov printed money. Tariffs reduce inflation and protect highly skilled workers jobs. Trump will close redundant wasteful bases and keep the ones that keep stability. The US will produce Mach10 small ballistic missiles, carried by existing fighter planes, which can reach far away targets. Our enemies will never know what hit them. If the Fed will cut rates it will ease gov debt payments. Demand for highly skilled workers is high. Silicon valley wages will shift to the flyover areas. We will produce more in the US. We will cut import and the the trade deficit. Higher tax collection and income from tariffs will enable the gov to cut debt. Trust in the US dollar will grow. The globalists will park their money in US treasuries and the Dow, buying dollars. In a dynamic successful economy, that lift all wages, nobody will complain about Trump’s tariffs. The dems will complain about Ilan who enriched himself, but the more people like Ilan make ==> the more they will invest in innovative companies that increase productivity
It’s a new Golden Age. I really like your prediction of tariffs lowering our national debt. How are you positioning your investments to capitalize on it? Care to share some investment advice?
I am still heavily invested in both oil and natural gas stocks, though I have been moving more towards NatGas stocks in the last few months. How about you?
A Trump correction to reduce the sleazebags, after an exhausted SPX reaching 6,200/6,300. So, it’s not so rosy. Option #1 : next : another rolling hill to 6,200/6,300, before a major correction. Option #2 : a minor dent first, before a tired SPX reaching 6,200/6,300. Option #3 : breaching 6,200/6,300 during a breakout in 2026, after a year/year and a half in accumulation. Take your bets.
SPX : A-B-C up since Mar 2020 is either completed, or almost completed. 2,200 in Mar 2020+2,600=4,800 in Jan 2022. 3,500 in Oct 2022+2,600=6,100.
May I borrow your rose-colored glasses? 🙂
3rd Quarter 2025 Dow is sinking, by the 3rd Quarter 2026 Dow is less than 20000.
Thank you Republicans for taking away internet poker, now I have to travel to make a living.
Daniel Negreanu?
Trump, as former Secretary Tillerson is said to say, is a moron……….
Subsidies by far are the better means to achieve his goal of picking winners in the manufacturing sector……
If he wants tariffs, wouldn’t a VAT produce the same effects without alienating China and further causing reciprocity tariffs on American goods at the same time improving our exports since the VAT tax is reimbursed to exporters
The US taxpayer is still paying subsidies to American farmers from Trump’s tariff wars when he was president #45, and in the meantime Brazil and Argentina are shipping corn, soybeans, etc.., food commodities to the PRC in lieu of US farmer commodities…..
Tariffs are about geopolitics not economics.
I wouldn’t disagree with you but it is not the best tool in the toolkit. It can become retaliative, escalate, devolve into trading blocks, regionalism, economic boycotts, military skirmishes, then war.
Again, a VAT and subsidies are more trade friendly and acceptable in world trade as well as being less heavy-handed.
It is not surprising that the Donald would resort to tariffs. He prefers a butcher knife to a scalpel. It is also 18th and 19th Century tactics in a strategy that excelled for the US then as a developing nation amongst other deftly applied measures. But today, as the world reserve currency, a developed nation, the world hegemon it is better tactically to defuse tensions particularly since the US is a debtor nation. In other words, till the US can get its act together on trade and budget deficits, quit interceding where we have no strategic interests or coming to the realization that we should form partnerships that are in our best interests and not entangling alliances, it will be much better to appear less hostile and more accommodative geopolitically.
The US is perceived as a bully and rightfully so. We prefer to project power and act unilaterally or in concert with our allies militarily instead of talking to our trade and military competitors till negotiations are exhausted. We start the fight on the playground. As the world hegemon we have forgotten that we don’t need to intimidate. The world knows what we are capable of. We don’t need to be the aggressor to resolve trade and geopolitical issues before they might devolve into conflict and potentially wars.
So are you proposing VAT to pay for subsidies by the government if I understand you correctly?
No.They are two separate tactics superior to tariffs.
Subsidies if properly administered by the host government will increase domestic savings, improve worker productivity, increase wages, lower foreign exports, reduce budget deficits and debt.
See below another alternative from Michael Pettis that will never occur in any US kleptocratic government particularly one that a former real estate “mogul” is head of the government and a nation and western world have been captured by central banks and the financial, insurance, real estate sectors.
Be advised it is a long article but chock full how accounting and trade flows work.
https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/10/trade-intervention-for-freer-trade?lang=en
The subsidies that I argue for are direct to the battery, electricity, nuclear fusion, pharmaceuticals, the grid, critical defense industries, transport, robotics, energy transmission, sectors and any other that will facilitate the US economy into a manufacturing center that will improve the national security and welfare by expanding the middle class.
Subsidies would in part be funded the by the top 10% and the FIRE sectors that have been unduly enriched by some of the worst policies starting with Vietnam, dismantling of bank regulations starting with Carter and going on steroids with Reagan, Clinton, Bush II, then feckless or captured bank regulatory policy by Obama, Trump and Biden.
Increase exports? Enacting tariffs, especially blanket ones, will surely cause other countries to enact tariffs on U.S. products in response… And this is one sure-fire way to damage US exports.
I can’t think of examples where tariffs were a net positive for a country in the long term. We should concentrate on making those things in America that we are good and efficient at and buy from other countries those products they are efficient at producing. That’s how you raise the standard of living. Tariffs should be minimal and high ones should be restricted to situations where dumping or unfair foreign government subsidies are involved. Anything else is economic malpractice.
Wait so you have…
Strengthen the dollar adding to inflation and
Weakening the dollar adding to inflation.
You seem to be no better than Trump.
And given that inflation is only created when credit expands in a growing economy, how do you even get inflation when credit is contracting and the economy is in recession,and global trade is on a decline and debt on an incline, it doesn’t make any sense. Where’s the money supply coming from?! There is no inflation, only synthetically induced price rises masking deflation and demographic slowdown.
With your understanding of inflation, money supply and global trade, I wish you could be Trump’s nominee for Treasury Secretary
You’re right, I know nothing, keep doing what you’re doing, it obviously works.
So, What’s your plan?
He doesn’t have one.
This has never stopped King Donald before?
Trump 2.0 appointed a lot of good people to his administration, unlike Trump 1.0 who appointed swamp creatures. Tulsi is my candidate for first female president. Bring the troops home. Monroe doctrine at least, keep the army in the Western Hemisphere. Woodrow Wilson, Princeton President, elitest sent millions of american boys to their death. Trump hasn’t, and won’t.
Matt Gaetz is the stinkiest of swamp creatures.
Uh the banksters sent American boys to their death in WW I and Woodrow Wilson sided with them… Allies owed beaucoup bucks to the American banksters and it appeared to be a stalemate on the Western Front after the Bolshevik Revolution……….
Which brings up the point that the US forgave the Brits and French war debt but not the debt prior to WW I…. This in turn forced them to charge war reparations onto Germany…..which further exacerbated the German economy in the 20s and caused Germany to also suffer more from the US the effects of the Great Depression from ’29 to ’32 which led to Hitler….
Your point is, I assume, that reparations caused WW II? My point is that Wilson was an IYI, Interlectual Yet Idiot.
Wilson in US History books is considered an intellectual but in fact never wrote a PHD dissertation and never graduated from law school so his intellectual bonafides are suspect. He did write three or more books but that hardly qualifies him as an intellectual.
Many argue him as a progressive but those on the Left in the teens and 20s were antiwar. He also jailed through his AG Palmer many citizens that protested WW I. I would argue that he was not a progressive. Censorship is not the mark of a progressive.
He was a racist, against women suffrage and signed into law the Federal Reserve Act, possibly the worst monetary legislation in the 20th Century.
It is further argued that Wilson regretted signing it but there is no direct attribution to him saying this.
Banksters have been the ruination of this country in the 20th and 21st Centuries due to the free lunch, subsidies, bailouts, engineered recessions or incompetencies augured by the FED…. War supporting measures by the bankster sector to float debt to whomever and the monetarist FED supporting the whores on Wall Street are the cherry on top….The banksters will always try to get their pound of flesh no matter the consequences to the republic, monarchy, autocracy, etc. In this regard, they are an equal opportunity shylock.
You win, but the trophy goes to the one who proves the cause of WW I.
Germany inflated then deflated in ’29. Once the Great Depression occurred caused mostly by the US for multiple reasons but one was the surplus balance of trade, the effects were disastrous in the US but a conflagration in Germany…
US bankster loans were recalled in ’29 from German banks causing a loss of confidence in the latter’s banks. By approximately ’31 the German economy had contracted by approximately 30% from ’29.
This contraction in the US was the same but due to the inflationary cycle, war reparations, etc. the effects on the Germans was worst.
It’s amazing how few people seem to have realized this before the election. I agree with everything Mish has written here, but saddly, it was as obvious before the election as it is now.
While it is easy to promise “a chicken in every pot”, we live in a country where we seem to take it for granted that we have the best government that money can buy (regardless of political party), without conciously thinking thinking about the competing aims of those who are supplying the money (you didn’t think that our assorted elected officials could live the “lifestyles they have grown accoustomed to” on the salaries our taxes pay, do you?).
One side effect of a rising US dollarr that Mish neglected to mention is that it frequently correlates with a falling US stock market. Not the least reason is that foreign sales/profits, when translated into USD tend to be bucking a headwind.
We are starting with an economy with moderate inflation, high employment and record stock prices and it will be interesting to see what can improve on the current numbers over the next four years considering the conflicting goals of the upcoming administaration.
Personally, I’ve recently put my money where my mouth is by divesting a sizable portion of my equity portfolio (including a load of international shipping firms which have perrformed admirably for the past few years). I feel stocks are currently priced for perfection and the probability of future “confusion” causing a less-than-perfect experience over the next few years backing off to a wait-and-see bunker.
Jeff
Several of those ideas are neo-Keynesian and mercantilist. Prominent is the idea that obstructing imports and producing those products domestically (import substitution) is good for the economy. The economy of the Great Depression was like that. Which leads me to the question ?What was good about that economy? (Economist Thomas Piketty says that inequality was smaller during that period.)
Then in the background there are Greens who advocate degrowth and a smaller economy. So, what can be made good, better, out of such an economy? (Aside from supposed “better for the planet”.)
Sounds like “inequality” means “equally poor” in that regard.
Used car salesman.
Sure, but obviously a damn good one.
Trump has so much on his platter thats why most people are circling their wagons in anticipation of hard times ahead
Emerging Details of Chinese Hack Leave U.S. Officials Increasingly Concernedhttps://archive.ph/X1fcp#selection-4549.0-4549.76
DOGE is targeting all waste, not just internal employees.
Whether it is possible or not to fix is a separate question, but it is easy to imagine that there are trillions of waste in Medicare, Medicaid, and defense spending.
As for the other goals, I think it is easy to underestimate the impact of regulations. Nuclear plants in the US cost about 10x more here compared to China. Most of that difference is regulations.
Chinese automakers aren’t magicians. They’re a little better at software than US companies, but mostly they produce cars at half of the US cost because of regulations.
Similar story for housing. Housing costs are primarily payments for regulations.
The potential for growth is immense by just rolling back the red tape.
Payment for regulations sounds like an example of synthetically-induced price rises that is not actually really inflation at all.
Its a protection racket.
No talk of any military cuts, and military is the absolute king of government waste.
DOGE can target what it wants, but any change in regulations must still be able to meet the goals of the legislation created by Congress. You can’t just get rid of the Department of Education. It was created by Congress, so Congress must pass legislation that gets rid of it. Which also means convincing 7 Democrats in the Senate that its a good idea. The best the DOGE can do is tell Trump that either a particular regulation can be replaced with a less expensive regulation, or tell Congress that a law has especially egregious financial consequences. In either situation, you are very unlikely to get a lot of savings because you are either cutting at the margins or running into a wall of 7 Democratic Senators.
Just fyi Mish. Did you vote for Biden and Kamala? Are you a democrat? You are busy finding fault with everything that Trump is doing from day one. Just like the Wall Street Journal. I don’t remember you doing that so frequently with the Biden
(Mish had said a few weeks ago that he wrote in his own name for President.)
Maybe. But he behaves like a democrat who reads WSJ and believes what they write.
… and you behave like a butthurt chucklehead. Stop it.
So it’s gonna be 4 years of “buh but Biden”, after he’s long gone isn’t it? Over and over as you guys try and rationalize being lied to, and having it pointed out again and again you were being lied to, as the billionaires take power permanently and reduce the serfdom to rags in their quest for more billions.
Bring on the promised Golden Age!
thats the thing. I think Mish is a very bright guy.
But I look at it this way.
You want to criticize Trumps policies, fine
But what the hell was the alternative?
Alot worse in my eyes.
And some of this tariff talk is bluffing
He wants to stop the Ukraine war.
Is it to much to ask to have a functioning border?
I’m sorry he has not convinced me the alternative was going to be better.
The only thing he wants is to tell you what you want to hear so you’ll give him and his billionaire buddies carte blanche to loot the country.
Congratulations. You sold out your descendants for a feeling of righteous indignation. Hope it was worth it.
MAGAs simply can’t handle the truth, regardless the reasons.
Those who can only regurgitate puerile forms of ad hominem generally have difficulty with any truth.
You’re wrong Maya. I used to thin the same thing when Trum was the 45th. ut Mish gave it to 46th just as hard. He lays it down the middle. I just haen to disagree with him on a lot o things
Again, one had to be really naive to believe in his agenda to begin with (or any president before him).
He will have to decide whether to please the (smart, ruthless) billionaires who made him elected, or the regular people (naive, gullible) who got totally fooled because of their own inability to process messages longer than a couple of memes.
The billionaires want a feudal America with no public education, no public health, only a strong public military with tons of cannon fodder. They have no intention of making normal people wealthier by increasing their wages and benefits, because that would put a dent in their wealth.
The regular people believe that illegal immigrants, not the billionaires, are taking all their money, and they think their problems will be solved once all the illegals are deported. They hardly elected the people who are going to loot their wealth to the bone. They cheer Musk firing all the government employees not understanding that they will be next, or be forced to work 80 hrs per week with no extra pay.
So yes, Trump has an impossible agenda to please to completely opposing constituents. My money is on the billionaires.
His official economic program is only window dressing. I doubt he will get any of that done in full.
18 months give or take a few and if Trump and his minions dont deliver on most of his pie in the sky promises than the mid-terms will be= how shall I say- interesting. And if the regular people even get a hint that Trump is enriching himself and his billionaire cronies than the mid terms could be a rout of the republicans
The first failure will be the continued presence of illegals, who will be blamed for all the other failures, as well as making Baby Jesus cry.
It don’t have to make sense if you’re stupid.
On January 20, 2025 the threat of WW III will be over. In the meantime those billionaires are hunkering down in their bunkers, as you should be.
I’ve always been curious as to who Putin thinks that he’s scaring; now I know.
You lost me there. Explanation please??? I see Putin as an x-KGB agent who gained power because Yeltsin melted down right in front of him.
He’s pointing out your cowardice. Shouldn’t you be in your spider hole awaiting the apocalypse?
American Empire and America have become incompatible, if they ever were in the first place. Pick one.
Excellent article in pointing out exactly where Trump come’s up short! Trump is good at talking and BSing, but rarely come’s through! He really just says “things” to say things! He is a financial illiterate for sure!
Mike, you have a lot of valid considerations but no counter proposals. This is his opening gambit. We need to restore our labor based competitiveness. What do you recommend?
I would cut defense spending by $250 billion
I agree with getting rid of department of Education
I would like to see a balanced budget amendment
Medicaid is rife with fraud, especially disability fraud
In 2024, Medicaid outlays are projected to be $607 billion, which is $68 billion higher than projected in May 2023. This increase is due to higher-than-anticipated spending in nearly every category
Chop Medicaid by $200 billion.
Scrap all of Trump’s promises: no tax on tips, SALT, No tax on SS, let the tax cuts expire
Replace the income tax with a national sales tax or VAT
End all itemized deductions across the board – make the tax code simple and fair allowing huge cuts in IRS budget
For growth, slash the corporate income tax to zero for production and services in the US, 15% outside the US
Heavy tax on executive stock options
I have written most of this up before.
I Wrote In “Mish” for President of the United States
https://mishtalk.com/economics/i-wrote-in-mish-for-president-of-the-united-states/
Most of this makes sense, but scrapping tax cuts on tips and overtime doesn’t align with motivating a work force or keeping consumer spending healthy.
Tax on sales suppresses sales too. There needs to be some sunshine amidst the dark clouds.
You truly don’t get it with Trump. He’s negotiating, fer chrissakes. I laugh hard at the idea that his stupid, uneducated supporters get it, but the highly educated ubermenschen don’t begin to see the obvious.
Negotiating with who? Mush is pointing out that a lot of these policy goals are mutually incompatible/contradictory. I’m not clear how incoherence is a negotiation strategy.
Four years ago no one talked about WWIII, and now, world war is all over the Sunday news shows.
Jolly, ain’t it. Brought to you by the Dems.
It’s cute that you think that threat ever went away.
Spaghetti on a wall.
You and your imaginary trump…
He has to be shown where the bathroom is. He’s just spewing angry old man nonsense, and the fools gobble it up.