We made him president, we created a monster, we deserve him.
23
The system is rigged. Krugman explains it.
Is the American populous stupid? Yes.
29
So Mr. Krugman said our economy would collapse right after President Trump became President. It didn't in fact , it has grown.
Mr Krugman said the tax cuts wouldn't stimulate business investment and expansion. It did and still is.
Mr Krugman said that the tax cuts wouldn't cause Business and corporations to bring back overseas cash and there business to America. It did, and corporations and business that moved overseas are and have returned
Mr Krugman said would not have economic growth and job growth to help with our deficit. The economy has grown. unheard GNP of 4.7% Low unemployment for all sectors of society
Mr Krugman call business owners like me and President Trump racist, despite the fact I and the President have multiple races working for us. So who really has the dog whistle It offensive at its core for Mr Krugman.
Facts are Facts This president is a leader. and takes on issues unlike his predecessors.
If as a nation we are not willing to deal with the trade deficit now then when. Get a grip Mr. Krugman
2
alas, destruction of democracy, undermining of the rule of law, are happening in europe and elsewhere, too. before racism comes economic greed. to exploit certain people bc they have what you crave, you must make them look inferior - so as to justify why you deprive them ... then, big business distracts common people's attention away from how all those robber barons accumulate tons & tons of wealth while leaving the masses busy with racism and other divisive tricks - so they won't focus on the classes. this has been more than five centuries in the making [counting from 1418, when portuguese king henry the navigator sent his first ships out to west africa], and i do hope it won't take the same amount of time to fix things, properly. [but maybe i'm just dreaming when i think that the lawless can one day become flawless?]
9
Dr. Krugman,
Would you please do a column on the Powell Memo ? It seems it has come to pass! Giving us Heritage , Federalist , et:al. Running and financing corporate minded candidates. Isn’t this how the right got us here ?
5
I am not comfortable with Paul dividing the world into good guys like himself on the one hand, and bad guys who he thinks are racists or he thinks supports racists.
Extremely polarizing and it is not clear it is constructive.
It is probably not constructive.
At one time the south and NYC voted for the same presidents, who typically tended to be liberal.
The liberals basically divorced the south from the Democratic Party and as result lost control of government.
That divorce and polarization was a bad idea for liberals,
in practical terms of who is running the government now.
3
Corporations are structured, empowered, and in some ways legally obligated, to have narrow interests, to maximize profits for the benefit of shareholders (and serendipitously to maximize the profits of the managers and executives focused on that goal). That narrow interest has generally no relationship to any other fundamental goal of society.
So, if a corporate PAC supports a Congressman who is reprehensibly racist, anti-democratic and possibly ignorant, but is loyally in the column of, say, supporting the goals of the pharmaceutical industry, then no other consideration need apply. This is characteristically how it works. Giving corporations vast power, under Citizens United, under the chimera of personhood, and under decades of judicial deference, has jeopardized the well-being of a vital and harmonious American polity.
As this article so clearly points out, money and propagandistic messaging by these shallow interest groups has achieved the narrowing of focus of individual voters to parallel the well-being of these agendas. If racism and demonization of all opposition is the handmaiden of policies of deregulation -- so be it, just another day of smart, deceptive and lucrative marketing.
10
This is no different than the Republicans gerrymandering of congressional districts. Republicans wanted safe districts that would lean Red. Instead these districts kicked out the moderates and installed extremist politicians who have no desire to govern- but to burn the government down.
Now the corporations (SCOTUS defined people) have helped elect an arsonist who has no understanding of history and no idea of what damage he is causing. President Trump will be perfectly happy to burn this country to the ground- as long as he has gets ratings and his ultra-conservative (read racist) base is happy.
Lets not forget that the majority of corporations are run by older, white males- a population who overwhelmingly voted for Trump.
To his credit- President Trump has kept nearly every promise he made during his campaign for President. It was the rest of America that thought he was just "campaigning" and would change his mind after becoming President.
11
I would love to see a series of corporate bankruptcies thanks to Trump's idiotic trade policies-- if can dignify them by using that term-- but I'm not so naive as to believe that the laws of karma apply to corporate America. I worry far more about the vast number of workers whose jobs are now endangered for the same reasons.
Except, of course, the ones who were foolish enough to have voted for Trump. May they live to deeply regret it.
5
Regarding the hints Trump keeps throwing that he will punish the disloyal or political enemies by sikking the IRS and the Justice Dept (e.g. Hillary), Mr. Krugman asks "does anyone think [Congress] will stand up against abuses of presidential power?" Trump has already gone beyond all presidential norms in his appointments, in his suggestion of pardon power (a form of witness tampering), his alliance with house Republicans go harass Rosenstein into giving up documents associated with an ongoing investigation, his continued use of unsecured phones, and more. If this doesn't already constitute enough evidence for abuse of power, there is more every single day. The fact that Congress does nothing about it is a precedent that will encourage the next crazy president we elect. In the future, we will say "well we let Trump do all this stuff, and how can we now reign in this guy?" And that President will say the same ... well Trump could do it, and he'll try to take it a step further, and we'll be left to parse the incremental and not the totality. Trump must be reigned in, slapped back ... if Congress won't do it, they've abdicated their responsibility, and should be replaced.
21
Let me rephrase: Trump is the result of The Unholy Alliance of radical Libertarian Neofeudalists and the hate fueled so-called "christian conservatives".
The abhorrent and tautological Libertarian "philosophy" construes protecting private property (as they define it) as the only legitimate government function and the only right that matters. Of course the economic ramifications of that are that are unacceptable to the vast majority of Americans who can dig past their dissembling propaganda. Enter stage right...fox news deluded and whipped up to a frenzy of hate...evangelical so-called Christians. That's a manipulable voting block if ever there was one. So the Heritage foundation crew et al set aside their own principled abhorrence of a theological state and religious intrusion into government policy and personal privacy rights to "align" with them to get votes for their abhorrent policies. The evangelicals suppose the economic policies are either irrelevant or, being labeled 'conservative' by their cult masters, good for the economy.
So the hideous truth is Neofeudalist Libertarian Extremists rely on hate-driven religious cults whose main rallying cry is that women don't have the right to their own bodies, the antithesis of the primacy of property rights. They eat this hypocrisy for one reason...Power.
They know and will Never Say that wealth IS power. Cut through all the rhetoric and that is what it comes down to. They are an existential threat to our democracy.
8
Once again, the analysis is excellent but the delivery is non-existent - no suggestions for what can be done about Trump, even at the point of contemplating at least two more years of a Trump presidency with a GOP majority in the House and Senate. Predictions of apparently inevitable disaster.
In the months I have been tracking the NYT op-ed section, hectoring to act as is they take their own predictions of impending disaster seriously, it was only this week that a pro-active proposal to remove Trump from office - through criminal proceedings - was finally published in this newspaper.
So in the spirit of being positive, I am simply drawing the attention of readers to this article by David Cay Johnston in case they missed it and taking the opportunity to exhort readers and the op-ed writers to actively get behind this proposal and take whatever action available to encourage the relevant authorities to take action.
It simply cannot be allowed that Trump remain in office one day longer than it takes to remove him by whatever means available. It is unacceptable to just sit and watch, passive, while Trump inflicts catastrophe on the United States and the world.
What we need are ideas for other action that can be taken to ensure Trump doesn't complete his first term in office. Trump is going to aggressively resist any negative consequence of his actions - in any context - so let's get it over with:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/04/opinion/trump-tax-return-public-lawsu...
3
Big business wanted the Republicans to win big. Big business paid a lot of money to their campaigns. The big businesses won too when the Republicans pushed through the tax cuts bill. Now the Republicans are fighting almost all countries with a trade war and by sabotaging free trade deals. Now all those big businesses who moved their manufacturing out of the country will pay the tariffs and they will then pass them on to us. That means business will not suffer for electing Republicans. We pay all the costs of tariffs when we buy goods. People will now buy less goods. Now businesses will suffer when the total cost of goods made is lost. Manufacturing and parent companies will suffer. That's what they paid for.
5
Mr. Krugman is right; business, including the Chamber, has long been conservative because being conservative--being anti-environment, anti-labor, against “entitlements” like Social Security, Medicare, and public education, seemed to insure more money in the bottom line next quarter and next year. Restricting the ability of those they employ to have a secure retirement, having them sign restrictive anti-compete clauses seemed to insure the ability of corporations to keep their workforce hungry and accepting of anything they wished to give.
Unfortunately, bankrolling Republicans is about to backfire. How will corporations keep control of their labor (and I include scientists, programmers, and creators of new product) when it becomes obvious that only highly paid executives and the wealthy will have the means to enjoy the products that make life bearable in this world of the 65-70 hour week?
Revolution? Perhaps. Bloody? Perhaps in places where people fight for food, water, and clean air. It is more likely to be a revolution in the way America lives (with fewer material goods), in the things people respect (their neighbors, the elderly, and the young--and the community gardener), and in the seriousness they take to the polls (for a long time). It has been a long time coming, but unless corporate America “empowers” the Republican Congress to stand up to Trump, Pence, Ryan and McConnell et al, and quickly, it is surely on the way.
7
You said: «but sooner or later something like Trump was going to happen». And you're right pointing to the reckless behaviour of many in the industry and financial's institutions that allowed this to come real. It's incredible how the most affected people in U.S., the shrinking middle class, for decades, have been instructed to vote against their own interests. This is difficult to understand to an outside observer, from either Canada, Mexico (look at AMLO victory) or Europe where the debate of ideas is still a valuable prospect.
15
Trump has the best roulette wheel. I don't know what everyone is worried about.
3
Went bankrupt owning casinos.
5
It ain’t me Capitalism, it’s you .
9
Krugman's notion is key to understanding Republicans and their many electoral victories: galvanize racists and then switch to superficially placating them, while giving away the "bank" to big business. Nixon knew this implicitly, as a brilliantly evil politician who found a way to attract racist George Wallace supporters. No voting majority of any shape would ever care about a pro-business platform without the magnetizing effect of racist wedge issues to racist voters.
Krugman's piece also exposes the hollowness of David Brooks' claim to be a typical moderate Republican and why shouldn't the rest of the NY Times readership trust them or him. Except for a few business executives and their apologists, the party is a racist party with a racist membership. And Republicans seem to be headed unstoppably and unresistingly toward an authoritarian regime.
27
Thanks, Mr. Krugman. A line from the Odyssey kept running through my mind. Brace yourself!
Auton gar speteresin atasthaliesin olonto.
Right! And that means--WHAT?
Addressing the question--why was Odysseus the only one of his crew who made it home? The answer:
He tried to preserve their lives--oh yes! he did. .. .
"BUT THEY WERE RUINED BY THEIR OWN FOLLY?"
Enough Homer!
We see this in human life. Don't we? Think of the financial meltdowns we've seen since the BIGGY, back in 1929. It was indeed the worst. But it wasn't the last. Again and again, the dismal pattern recurs.
There was a song they used to sing on the old Lawrence Welk show--sorry, Mr. Krugman! not your kind of music, I don't think. But the words went:
"Love and marriage--love and marriage--
They both go together like horse and carriage. .. . "
So sweet! But for years now--certainly since 2008--the words have reshaped themselves in my mind:
"Greed and folly--greed and folly. .. ."
There I'm stuck! I can't find a word to rhyme with "folly."
Maybe you could help me out, Mr. Krugman.
Or maybe not. I expect you've better things to do.
Thanks for your piece. Instructive as always. May I close with those dying words of the Wicked Witch of the West?
"Oh what a world!. . . .. what a world!. . . . ."
Precisely!
7
Outstanding article!
4
Trump's thought process or lack thereof is superficial and impulsively reactive. He has more mood swings than a female feline in estrus.
1
People are skeptical of predictions about the future that are made by experts whose only credential is their own confidence in their ability to make predictions about the future. This is a good thing, and is certainly not the fault of the Chamber of Commerce, the Heritage Foundation, Fox News, loony tune TV commentators, or the Russians. Even uneducated people have a sense of when a profession is intellectually shallow, and notice that it’s self-proclaimed experts, full of grandiose titles and fancy awards, often make contradictory predictions that coincide with their own political prejudices, half of which necessarily turn out to be wrong. Predictions made by academic economists, for example.
If anything, folks are still too trusting of academic experts. People still worry about their consumption of cholesterol, for example, courtesy of the Harvard food scientists who assured us that our consumption of fat is the problem, don’t worry about sugar. Throw in a few of their economists (hi Larry!) and you have the collection of the greatest saboteurs of American economic and physical well-being in our history.
3
The American system legalizes our special corruption---big money donors dominate the financing our elections, nullifying the voice of the citizen majority. Polls show most voters disagree on major issues with the financial elites, but we have no voice.
One man's resigning won't make that go away. Let's face reality---our political norms are specially set up for private profit and public loss.
This prepared the ground for a Trump and his gang of crooks. Pruitt was just more arrogant and extreme than the rest.
Our media columnists/TV pundits actually avoid how we pay for elections as a huge factor in the equation of issues they lament. Is it because US media companies get big profits from the campaign ads that flood our voters---that need billionaire funding for the most expensive item in our elections campaigns?
Left out of our news is that EU democracies regulate or even ban campaign ads on TV paid for by private sources with special interests.
So while other democracies try to reduce the influence on politics of special interests, the US amplifies that influence. Our supremely stupid high court calls that 'free political speech'. If our highest court can say such nonsense, why shouldn't a Trump get elected?
Some US groups are trying to reverse Citizens United that legalized capture of politics by the rich. It's past time US media publicized this push back, and started tracing cause and effect. That's supposed to be the duty of a free press in a democracy.
19
Many big businesses have hermitically sealed themselves away from anything but amassing and hoarding wealth.
Uh-oh.
Didn't anyone read these people Hans Christian Anderson?
Did no teacher introduce them to the Greek Myths?
The Arabian Nights Entertainments?
Did they think those stories, about the consequences of your actions coming back to haunt you, were for children?
6
Superb analysis. Economists are trained to see the future from inside the data. Dr. Krugman couldn't have seen and said it better. Thank you.
10
Surely all those corporations with their huge tax breaks will keep hiring more and more Americans, no matter what, right?
8
Conservatives supported the Bush administration until the economy went into what became known as "The Great Recession." For eight years the Obama administration worked to drag the American economy out of that recession. The whole time the conservatives and talked about how bad the economy was doing and how slow the recovery. The economy recovered nonetheless. The American public, however, were not satisfied that Obama had saved the nation from going into a depression as great if not greater than the "Great Depression."
No, no. Recovery was not enough. What the conservatives and big business wanted was an administration that would give them the tax cuts the Obama administration did not favor. Well, we got the tax cuts and trade tariffs. The way it looks is that the trade tariffs are going to have a more devastating impact on the economy and the deficit than the tax cuts.
Well, the American public has another chance to try to reduce the impact of the devastating impact President Trump is having on the country. Vote out your Representative is he/she is not representing your interest.
20
"Similarly, organizations like Heritage have long promoted supply-side economics, a.k.a., voodoo economics — the claim that tax cuts will produce huge growth and pay for themselves"
______________________________________
Not only do tax cuts add to our nation's debt, they shift even more wealth to those at the top. In addition to this, they saddle us with a even higher debt-to-GDP ratio at a time when both Medicare and Social Security are fast approaching major funding shortfalls. If this is Trump's idea of how to make America great again, a lot of his supporters are going to be sorely disappointed.
I guess Trump 's promise to eliminate our deficits in 10 years was not a serious proposal. To the contrary, he's on track to add another $12 trillion to our current ($20 trillion) debt, which will put an even bigger drag our economy down the road than when Trump took office.
Once again, the rich will get the elevator, and the rest of us will get the shaft. His supporters need to wake up and smell the coffee before it's too late to do anything to avoid this enormous economic fiasco that is headed our way.
11
I would simply make the point that Krugman needs to expand the definition of what the GOP aligned business lobby has partnered with.
Essentially it is anything that anyone isn't getting from Democrats that is "free." Opposing access to women's health services in the name of abortion, getting tough on the war on drugs (even though it never succeeded), opposing LGBT acceptance even in the face of social change, opposing common-sense immigration reform, demonizing public assistance, demonizing the IRS, demonizing the DOJ and FBI, and extolling the virtues of hard-right court justices.
All of these things share a common thread - they don't cost money (aka conflict with tax cuts). The unholy alliance is actually a big tent where tax cuts and deregulation is simply the tent pole.
6
What better day to stick another pin in the repeated GOP lies regarding our economy than the day when the jobs reports delivers lots of jobs added, an increase in those seeking work AND flat wages.
The 'value' of an hour of labor has been consistently under attack in this country. Never before has the middle and lower-tiers had to work so hard to get so little.
7
But Trump is still drawing big crowds who are cheering him on. He will use today's job creation numbers to back up his tax cuts.
5
This is what the GOP has always wanted, they, and their corporate paymasters have worked long and hard to rape the treasury, and leave the public holding the bag. There should be a world wide corporate tax rate, say 25%, then you close loopholes, and outlaw offshoring money. Until the 1980s corporate statutory rate was somewhere around 70%. Corporations also used to fund their own RD, not anymore, tax stock buybacks take a majority of the money from the tax windfall. Historically companies set aside some of their profits to do RD.
This shift in the GOP priorities shows that they never have been really interested in their own constituency when it comes to jobs, if they did, their tax policy would incentivize moving production back to the US, but corporations would probably want a larger tax break for the higher wages that would surely follow. This will not end well for Trump supporters, of the republican party as a whole.
But the damage will be done, and the more moderate republican party will take decades to repair. But for now, they have shown themselves to be what they always have been, racists, because as Krugman aptly puts it, "that is the essence" of the modern conservative movement they've just needed to "look like moderate republicans pretending to want immigration reform, pretending to care about their constituency, they needed the votes of the moderates to make the GOP dream come true.
7
Exactly. No one has yelled louder for the need for immigration reform. But when they control Congress they never enact reform -- because their rants about the need for reform have only one purpose: stir up and use racism as a tool to divide poor against poor, while they pick the pockets of the combatants.
7
I expect when Mueller's findings are revealed we'll learn that Trump has been the beneficiary of diverse piles of illicit slush funds siphoned from public treasuries around the globe, not just Russians, and his servile bootlicking of the autocratic thieves in charge is simply his desire to get more of it. Not complicated. He's using America as a lobbying arm for Trump enterprises.
9
Krugman misrepresents what Trump stands for.
Trump is not an isolationist. He is just throwing his weight around to get better trade terms for the US. And in that the US has a long tradition.
Trump is just more extreme. He may also underestimate the risks. There is no guarantee that he will win the conflicts. And even when he might win the side effects - such as poisoned relationships - might be such that it is a Pyrrhus victory.
3
Pyrrhic victory... a 'victory' that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Winning a Pyrrhic victory takes such a heavy toll that it negates any true sense of achievement.
That pretty much sums up trump's KAKISTOCRACY.
A kleptocracy as well. Led by a morally bankrupt LIAR.
Putin's kleptocracy has made him possibly the wealthiest man on the planet (or at least in the top five). And that's something that impresses Don the Con.
Let US take back our Country. VOTE for DEMOCRATS in November. Democrats gaining control of the House AND Senate IS the ONLY viable short term solution.
6
Trump is driving the markets. His family and friends and creditors are making money going long and short on predictable swings. His actions have nothing to do with improving conditions for anyone else. It's all insider trading.
7
Trump is America's problem of choice. Behind Trump are other forces creating what he thinks he can fix, but he can't. Among these are globalization of trade brought about by cheaper transoceanic transport (i.e. container ships), foreign investment outside the US enabling more goods to be produced offshore, cheaper overseas labor, the rapid growth of China's internal economy, America's desire for cheap goods. Put this together and you end up with a global labor market where low skill/labor intensive jobs go to the low wage nations, increased corporate wealth accrues from capital investment, both of those combining to create growing wealth inequality in the US, and China's increasing independence from the US economy. Trump's simplistic mind can't handle complex systems. We're in for a boatload of bad decisions.
5
Not all economic experts agree. Those who work for labor unions don't, and neither do those who work for import-competing industries. All the economic experts who work for multinational corporations, however, do agree.
1
So who is the man behind the curtain? Who has to be hurting before most watched, most trusted Fox News pivots against Trump's destructive policies and he sees it reported first thing one morning? Rupert Murdoch? The Koch brothers? Ma and Pa Kettle? Or is all this just not rational at all?
I wonder if the people who voted for the current occupant of the Oval Office will 'wake up' one day and their marching song will be 'Just Another Nervous Wreck' by Supertramp.
They tried it once in November of '16. Maybe they now will realize what they have brought upon themselves and turn on that occupant.
It's not just the corporations and the Chamber who are complicit in this 'best mind' occupying the most powerful office on earth.
2
The scariest thought, to me, is the intersection of Trump's schoolyard bully mentality and China's (and likely others') threat of tit-for-tat war games in the trade arena. Trump's espoused "always hit them back, but much harder" idea of a "deal" promises escalation of trade wars on all fronts... not only tariffs but also through many other inhibitors of rational free trade (e.g., egregious clearance holdups, absurdly long and broad inspection regimes, and so forth). At the moment we're looking at the carpet, and it's dirty. But when we roll it back and look underneath... "Hope springs eternal," but under this administration and its Congressional cohorts, "Disgust springs eternal". The very worst kind of stupidity is *willful* ignorance.
4
Doesn't matter whether Trump is an isolationist (he certainly is -- except for multinational personal profits); the rest of the world will isolate the US for him.
Trump only cares about one business: his own. And by extension, Russia's, since they are his bank. Corporate America knew this, but got in bed with him anyway. Now they need a huge shot of penicillin, but as a taxpayer I'm not inclined to help pay for their dose. Let them ask their tweeting savior for it.
6
Ms. Clinton lost the election when someone asked her if she agreed to support Slavery Reparations...she hemmed and hawed. The Wiener 'discovery' then sealed the fact.
The Democratic party needs to support full equality under the law; this includes refusing any special PC for African Americans. Pitting Black vs. White supports Republican and segregationist power.
Whites, in race resentment, crawl to the polls. African Americans, in an often justified anger, teach the system a lesson by refusing to vote!
Trump expects to intimidate China and the EU to give in to his demands; thus, increasing his power. When people feel the approach of hunger, these rules change...better or worse.
Agreed: we white folk don't owe those we enslaved, and lynched, condemned to poverty, etc., any apology -- because that would be "PC". That would be "reparations".
Because we are against unfair treatment -- but only against ourselves.
As would establishing an actual level playing field: that would be "extra rights," "special rights" -- "reparations".
The "Weiner" issue wasn't the problem. The problem was not determining whether those emails were duplicates -- which they were -- before announcing the discovery of them.
And let's not mention the Russian act of war against the US, else we wonder why Trump is neglecting the foremost responsibility of the president: national security.
3
Trump may be an authoritarian, or want to be one, but so far he's too incompetent, and there's too much left of the rule of law and rules and regulations to allow him to do things like single out Harley Davidson for special tax attention.
National security is another matter. Cloak almost anything in that banner and the courts seem to give it a pass, just like during World War II.
4
once again, in his threats aimed at Harley, Trump takes a leaf from Nixon's playbook, politicizing the IRS against his political enemies. remember Nixon/IRS v everyone in MA, especially McGovern supporters, following the 1972 election? the pulling of federal contracts, the closing of federal operations, including military bases?
as today's column demonstrates, the GOP would be better represented by a snake than an elephant.
4
And be tread upon.
in short: "We're hosed."
2
Sit back and watch the game. The forces are at play. There's not much we can do about it other than doing our best to change the players, and that is something that individuals and local communities can do
5
Vote and encourage others to vote.
"But suppose Republicans retain control of Congress this November. If they do, does anyone think they’ll stand up against abuses of presidential power? G.O.P. victory in the midterms would put a lot of people and institutions at the mercy of Trump’s authoritarian instincts, big business very much included."
3
Businesses built the aircraft, installed Trump as the pilot and are now shocked - shocked! - that the cause of their global economic travails is controlled flight into terrain.
5
The Republican trade wars are real wars. It's a new form of political and economic warfare just as Reagan collapsed the Soviet empire by forcing the Soviets to exhaustively spend on their military when he spent on our military. Now Trump and the Republicans are targeting everyone it seems. Trump spent his formative years in a military school. He doesn't comprehend keeping the peace through economic interdependence. Between starting trade wars and destroying free trade agreements, he is endangering this nation economically and physically. Maybe now the wealthy corporations will understand this all much better.
3
As long as Trump's base believes that he is acting in THEIR interests he will continue what looks more & more like economic suicide. When big business starts being punished by Trump's myopic trade policies with resulting job losses, look out. There are other signs that the current economic expansion may have hit a top, or that there is a greater possibility of a recession. AKA; "just when it looked like nothing could go wrong......" Current interest rate difference between 10 & 30yr US bonds is .12% Tell us that's not a problem.
The W.T.O. is reminiscent of nothing so much as Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations. Maybe in its next iteration it will include working people and the environment in its mission.
3
Alliance between big business and racists is the classic definition of fascism. Oh, and then you need some demagogue to make it all happen.
9
Thornton Mellon for President!
1
Looking the other way while our southern border is breached by illegal immigrants and not enforcing the immigration laws that are on the books for decades is "racist"?
What?
2
There's plenty more than that. Look into the Charlottesville cohort.
3
Are you trying to persuade us that Trump's racist smearing of "Mexicans" as his announced candidacy wasn't racist?
And that the follow-on demand for a "wall" isn't racist?
And that his tearing of children away from their parents to punish them -- and permanently traumatizing the children -- isn't racist?
Apparently you know nothing of the actual realities and history of the border. Trump doesn't either: that's why agriculture in California is watching its crops rot in the fields because Trump has also blocked the migrants who did the harvesting.
Yes, it is racist, because there is no factual or rational basis for it -- except the Stephen Miller plan for ethnic cleansing.
5
The people of the United States are about to feel a world of hurt that will be much, much worse than the tiny minds of White-Wing American Exceptionalists are capable of imagining.
Arrogant American executives have no more control over little Donald than arrogant German industrialists had over little Adolf.
Democratic voters, children, non-citizens and others unable to vote do not deserve the pain that is coming, but the self-inflicted suffering that Republicans are about to feel is likely to be the closest thing to divine justice this world ever will witness.
7
don't kid yourself: folks like Krupp made a fortune thanks to Hitler.
2
Folks like Fred Koch also made money thanks to Hitler. That was who he built an oil refinery for after he finished working for Stalin. Then he came back to this country and was a founding member of the John Birch Society. Nice guys, the Kochs.
1
Trump, big business, the rich, the House Republicans and the Trump cult have become one big hot treasonous mess. For decades big business has had an agreement with the Republican party. Republicans would campaign as, among other things, white supremacy lite, but govern for big business and the rich who would return the favor by donating hundreds of millions to the party and to white supremacy lite causes like the NRA. Big business and the rich could live with campaigns or governments that were anti-working class, racist, anti-science, anti-abortion, anti-government and anti-expert. Though they would never have run their own companies that way. Now of course they have given us Mr. Trump who is a real racist, a real wannabe autocrat, a real nationalist, a real kleptocrat, and generally a real moron in all things not relating to his own self aggrandizement and self enrichment. This servile immoral Republican Congress, has abandoned its Constitutional oversight duties, which has permitted him to become more confident and more powerful. Trump, big business, the rich, the House Republicans and the Trump cult are selling out the nation and its citizens.
7
As a person with supporters of trumpty in both mine and my spouse's families I am curious to how they think trumpty is making America great. Soon we will be traveling to Arizona for part business and pleasure though were it not for the business part we would certainly avoid AZ even though my wife's elderly parents live there. This past weekend one of the nephews posted a video of the violent clash in Portland and another nephew posted a comment saying how he enjoyed seeing the anti-fa getting their butt kicked. I called them both out and in particular the nephew who posted the comment as he is a police officer. His initial response was he thought it was like a movie and while he doesn't agree with violence he did think that if someone were to step in the ring they should expect to get hit. I replied that violence doesn't solve anything and it further divides us and there are those who are profiting off this division. He replied that he couldn't disagree with me more (re the profiteers) and that trumpty was close to making America great despite the efforts of the treasonous media and deep state. We had another exchange in which I asked him what the truth actually was to which he didn't reply and I suggested we meet during our visit to discuss the state of our nation as gentlemen. He agreed. So this is the current state of our country thanks to those referenced here along with trumpty, fox, mercer, and putin. It's all about gay marriage and abortion for both our families.
5
Free trade is a noble goal to have and Trump would be wrong to do what he is doing if his goal was to end free trade.
There already is a trade war.
Your country is losing it.
People like Krugman know it but won't admit it.
I believe Trump's goal is to have free trade that is fair as well.
By subsidizing the industries in China that export items to the United States the government there is creating a situation where trading with them is not fair.
When the government in China not only looks the other way when industry secrets are stolen from American corporations but are part of that process there is no fair trade.
This is why your country is losing this war.
Obama did very little to correct this situation.
This is why I believe Trump is on the right side.
I believe the barriers he has put in place will be removed if China and many other countries traded fairly with the USA .
China and India are not doing this only to the USA.
If they can be made to trade fairly other counties will benefit as well.
Trump may or may not be doing a good job.
I don't know.
What I do know is that he is not always wrong.
1
Agreed: Trump is going to bring all those jobs in China back to the US.
Except for the sweat-shop jobs which produce his ties, and Ivanka's clothing line.
What Trump doesn't understand about NATO -- which is not a business -- is that it is the US's first line of defense against Russia. Having them fighting "over there" instead of "over here" is a worthwhile investment.
1
Agreement qualified, if at all, by my astonishment that it took Krugman so long to see these obvious truths.
What interests me is that Republicans, at least since the emergence of the Tea Party a decade ago, have failed to see that their weapons of choice, especially attacks on experts, are two-edged and cut both ways. But the idea is certainly an old one, much older even than Macbeth's famous speech about "even-handed justice."
3
What king of principles do big business have?: Cheap wages? Jumping of the environmental bandwagon because now they can charge more for healthy food or process? Dismissing pensions and attacking health care for all? Making sure that everyone is an At-Will employee? Charging outrageous prices for basic pharmaceuticals? Taking down small business? Ensuring that there are no qualified minorities or women who reach the top? Supporting a president who from the start proclaimed: "Dark people are scary and criminal?
As usual their whining has more to do with their wallets than any "principle" they may have. At the end of the day, they only care about themselves.
3
Trump has more or less withdrawn the USA from the international community and declared war on the rest of the world. Abandoning the Paris climate agreement and then the Iran deal was bad enough, but now he has launched a global commercial war. Only a nation that is frighteningly anti-intellectual could elect as president a man who is proud that he never reads anything. This is not the country my ancestors wanted to create when they came to Massachusetts in the seventeenth century.
12
I suggest you read up on what the Massachusetts-Bay colony was really like on the ground.
But let's back up a tad:
The several British colonies settled on the North American continent were established on lands given them by the king of England.
The problem is that the king was giving away lands that he didn't own.
In both English and US law that is defined as the crime of STEALING.
Who ISN'T an illegal immigrant?
So the corporate tax cut served multiple reasons to get Trump over the 2020 hump and now all were obvious. Not only was the cut done to raise corporations ability to buy their own stock to inflate the market, to spread crumbs to the most uncritical of citizens and pass it off a gold dust, to allow one-time bonuses to hide the long term depth of wages, but actually to provide a cushion of the damage to corporations and prevent them from revenge against Trump for as long as the "winning" of this trade war takes, if ever
1
At this time, can't help but wonder who will have had the most prescient vision of the apparently not-too-distant dystopian United States of America: George Miller or George Romero?
1
The US Chamber of Commerce forgot (or never read) the wise words of Maya Angelou: "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."
4
I don't see how any one can get to be an adult without having an experience that underscores the wisdom of those words.
2
When I read columns like this one and the comments on it I feel sadness that all these words make not one bit of difference to what is happening to our country."But suppose Republicans retain control of Congress this November..."?
Then sadness will truly become great despair.
4
Shortly after he was elected, Stephen King, the author, sent the following tweet:
"Conservatives who for 8 years sowed the dragon's teeth of partisan politics are horrified to discover they have grown an actual dragon."
It had been going on for far longer than eight years, but the teeth were certainly sown, watered with the blood of slaughtered unions (starting with PATCO), and nurtured to germination with the warm hatred of a Fox.
Now, that dragon threatens to consume everything, beginning with those who created and raised it up- but it won't stop for anything of its own accord; it will have to be stopped- hopefully by a popular uprising, of civilized people who want to live free, in a democratic republic, as its Founders intended.
8
I'm not so sure big business is upset - they really look like it on TV, though! The Republican Party is the party of crony capitalists, and everything Trump has done so far has helped them. But big business has been souring on China recently because China truly does not play fair. Many firms have seen their intellectual property stolen by China, or shut out of their market. Companies like Uber gets "delayed" entry to China, only for a domestic rival to corner the market. Now China is using all the stolen technology in win market share in other countries - and that becomes a threat to big business. They need Trump to deal a blow to China, while at the same time pretend shock and dismay so the Chinese government doesn't doesn't confiscate more of their investments in China.
3
I see many fellow readers musing about Fascism in their comments. I'm finally getting some confirmation of what I've been preaching from my soapbox for over 20 years (although I don't take anything away from it, frankly). The signs of this have been numerous for a long time, and it involved govt. officials and people in power from both political parties. From trickle-down Economics, to the appointment of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court (the ultimate cynical act in the last 30 years in my book) to the disinformation campaign about second-hand smoke (which continues to this day) to the scrapping of the Glass-Stagall protections under Clinton to the phony need for a war in Iraq (the NY Times got co-opted on that one) to the Citizens United decision (I left out quite a few), the signs were there, folks just chose to either ignore them, tolerate them, or celebrate them. Fascism starts out first as a bunch of little lies and corruption, moves on to the demeaning of the existing state, and culminates in the assumption of power by charlatans. Republicans were chiefly responsible, but Dems aided the process by always moving a step to the right. We are in the beginning of the final stage. Robert Mueller may help (may) by driving Trump from office, but this may not be enough. For the corrupt have spent decades re-educating the most uneducated Americans, and now they are well-learned in the false narrative they were taught, yet still deprived and hungry. Heaven help us.
5
The fellow was correct who wrote that protecting our southern borders and enforcing immigration laws is not racist. But you have to wonder how Republicans (even those who were put in partly by the racist Southern strategy, such as Reagan and Bushes) still were not inhumane in the enforcement of immigration infractions as Trump has been. Trump seems both authoritarian, and inhumane. His separation and incarceration of families of immigrants is just inhumane. Many of the weak just seem to be of a different color but I don t think it is his racism which motivates him in the immigration injustices as much as his simply being inhumane. Poor and lower middle and middle class whites will soon find out that they are low down on the list of his concerns too. The little people, except when in his circus spotlight at his rallies, count for little to him.
10
Don't kid yourself. Before Republicans were against illegal immigration they were for it. And their support had nothing to do with being "humane".
5
Big Businesses aren’t the only ones that will suffer from trump’s machinations. Both his compliant congressional toadies and his persistent rally-goers will begin paying a heavy price for their blatant look-the-other-way-ism.
While there’s poetic justice in this, it may not matter. Research shows that people are more tolerant of misery as long as someone else is suffering more.
Continuing at-the-border immigrant torture will do the trick to shore up his base’s support.
Things are bad, but the sources of the present political situation are many and varied and not all acknowledged by Mr. Krugman. One of the most important sources is attributable to the last 40 years of Democratic Party economic policy, and it's commitment to neoliberal austerity for working class people continues even in the face of the political disaster that the Republican version of that project of rolling back the 20th century is now creating. The only way to break the connection between "big business" and populist white racism is to return to class politics by offering workers of all colors as a class a program of structural reforms that addresses their stagnant wages, lack of universal health care, high rents and homelessness, lack of child care, etc. But that's precisely what Democrats have refused to do for decades because of their commitment to deregulation and privatization in an effort to court the financial backing of the same "big business" Mr. Krugman accurately criticizes for a cynicism that is fully shared by the Democratic leadership. Trump and the racism and xenophobia he has unleashed is monstrous, but he was nurtured by a two-parent family, and neither parent - Republican nor Democrat - can now pretend they have no responsibility for their monstrous offspring.
1
Here's my suggestion for a unifying theme for the Democrats: Willing to bailout the Republicans yet again.
2
Mr. Krugman, you hit the nail right square on the head. The GOP has been trying to have it both ways for far too long, now their beast is out of the cage and they can't control it. Yet they STILL refuse to admit that they backed, and continue to back, GOP thieves, looters, grifters, and con artists instead of pulling up their big boy pants and admitting they made a mistake. Nope, for them, it's just another day, let's keep moving, nothing to see here folks...until the next crash will be another Great Depression, not recession, and they'll still somehow find a way to blame the Dems.
2
They demanded relief from their oh so burdensome corporate tax rate. They got it and it was easily digested. When you are a big business, there is nothing like that oh so full feeling. The next course may not go down so easily. Trade wars have a nasty habit of getting stuck in your throat or other unmentionable places.
Time to move those repatriated funds back to safer havens. There's a storm brewing. RAW
6
Americans - particularly the Greed is Good Gang - are mistaken if they think trump is just a temporary phenom they can correct with the next election cycle.
Putin's agenda is being executed and he is not going anywhere.
The American public is no match for Russian Intelligence.
Excellent article.
15
As I have written before, the Republicans have built their Frankenstein monster from the disparate corpses of Dixiecrats, gun nuts, religious zealots, "libertarians", and their corps of apparatchiks who worship greed. Now the monster is pillaging the village and threatens profits. Boo Hoo.
Thanks, Mr. Krugman.
I've been repeating this a lot lately: "If you nurture the monstrous capacities of human nature, don't be surprised when you end up with monsters."
Many Americans know that the decades-long GOP strategy was to divide the people in order to win elections. I think it would be a great service to the public if the NYT would prepare in-depth articles on each tactic of that strategy and put them all into a special edition.
Cover the history and consequences of tactics, such as the Southern Strategy, the Lewis Powell Memo, Law and Order policies, the scapegoating of "Welfare Queens", the wedding of the GOP with the Religious Right, the Laffer Curve and trickle down economics, Welfare Reform, Financial "Modernization" Acts and other deregulation, the stoking of anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiments, etc.
Don't just write about the pols, but include the right-wing bastion of think tanks, 501(c)4 and other tax-exempt organizations, and hate radio and other media programs and outlets.
Spell it all out. Be the publication of record that, in one fell swoop, educated America about how the GOP has inflamed angst, hatred, and discord to become a monopoly of power and authoritarian rule... a threat to our democratic republic.
4
Well off course, the GOP is really the Crony Capitalist party masquerading as conservative. There is nothing conservative about trillion dollar deficits - where is the Tea Party anyway? They are enabled by fake conservative voters. I say fake because they cry about moral values (Bill Clinton), but do not hesitate to vote for a child molester (Roy Moore), or back Trump who sleeps with porn stars. Fake conservatives foam at the mouth about Benghazi, but shrug their shoulders about the Iraq war. These fake conservatives are nurtured by the likes of Fox news, which only empowers the Crony Capitalists. Now the whole system is being rigged to create a deep state that protects Crony Capitalists while fake conservatives are cheering that immigrant children are being caged. If these voters were not blinded by stupidity, and easily distracted by bread and circus issues, they'll realize that all of our livelihoods and future are at stake.
4
Why is it no one ever tells the truth about how we got here? It was American companies who raced to abandon the country seeking cheap production in China. It is we who fueled the Chinese economic engine and to a large extent it still is. Will Trump put tariffs on his and Ivanka's Made in China merch? And why can't the NYTs lay out the simple math of the tariff world? Give us the numbers! Give us the for example cases. We have been reading the same old story for weeks. Am I missing something or is Trump talking through his hat again? What result does Trump think will occur from his seemingly incredibly short sighted aggression? I've sought hard information here for weeks and all i find is a low info merry go round.
10
who originally let the Chinese genie out of the bottle? who alone could open that door? whose clammy hand is even now reaching out from the grave to grab America by the throat?
NIXON!
I am very appreciative of your increase in daily wisdom Prof.It is easy to draw broad analogies between this administration and the 1930's take over of Germany by Hitler and the Nazi party. Our only hope is that there are enough true patriots still in the Republican Party to call a halt to this despotic assault. If not this experiment called Democracy will fade into history.
5
I know Trump is bad, but, but, but...those emails!
And don't forget (gasp,shame,) not only was she Untrustworthy, but (all together now!) She Didn't Campaign in Wisconsin!
5
Not so very long ago industrialists in another country made a deal with racists to break the power of political parties allied with labor. Two hundred million people died sorting that one out. Oddly, the family of current rogue authoritarian hails from that self-same country...
5
here is the actual tragedy expressed in this article: he cannot write an article on anything, and I mean anything, without mentioning climate change. It is depressing. I personally have no interest in trading right wing lunacy for left wing lunacy, even if left wing lunacy is marginally less dangerous, as lunacy tends to self-reinforce throughout.
Mr Krugman, it is the economy, stupid. Etch it in your brain. There is no scientific consensus about global warming. The consensus is among direct beneficiaries of the global warming bandwagon. Wake up for heavens sake and stop abusing science for political purposes.
Focus, like a laser beam, on what you know about at least some: economics.
The same goes for the left in general.
What a mess we are in.
So far this Summer season, there have been record-breaking heat waves around the world.
But it's all about the money, isn't it -- that's your projection. So climate change isn't real because scientists are only in it for the money.
Yes, there is consensus that climate change is the fact. And that consensus is based upon the expertise and work of scientists who aren't on a non-existent payroll.
2
This column is a perfect example of why Paul Krugman's voice is one of the most important in American discourse, pulling no punches and landing solid points with every blow.
Absolutely, you can't game a democratic political system with institutionalized disdain for expertise and then abruptly pivot to citing the opinions of experts once you realize that expertise has left the building and the idiots are running things into the ground to your peril.
The big business right has invested dirty, manipulative decades lying down with dogs, and some among them are now shocked, shocked, to be waking up with fleas.
Bravo, PK!
7
I believe even Trump's people know the trade war is bad, but they're not really trying to "fix" our economy. What they're really about is destroying the global economy, along with everything else "global".
3
I ran my small California "C" Corporation for over three decades and, early on, paid my dues to the business lobby. It didn't take very long to realize that the US Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business were not really representive of the needs and values of most small business owners, particularly ones who also care about their local communities, education and, of course, the environment. Nope -the policies that these lobbying groups promote are most beneficial to the mega-coporations, big polluters and monopolistic conglomerates that have diminished the role of independent businesses in the US economy and that continues to foster obscene income inequality and a declining standard of living for our workers.
4
I don't think we need to worry about the top management and boards of large corporations. Maybe their little shareholders building a nest egg for retirement or retirees depending on dividends, but not the Wall Street players. The 1% will do just fine. Since when did any of them care about workers losing jobs or "job creation" anyway? They view their workers and their families as an expense, not an asset, so the fewer the better for their bottom lines. Besides, the higher the unemployment rate, the better positioned they are to lower wages and benefits they offer to desperate job applicants. So, now, I don't have any sympathy for the big corps. The small and medium-size, privately owned companies, maybe. But many of them are in the local chambers of commerce who always support Republicans, no matter what, to get tax cuts and deregulation with one hand, and federal grants for big public works projects with the other. So, if any of these businesses protest the Trump trade policies, they get no sympathy from me. They haven't earned it.
4
Paul, I agree with you that we're in a mess...and it will be interesting to see how it pans out. But I disagree with you on your point about big business "abandoning all principle in the pursuit of tax cuts".
American-based international businesses want US tax policy to be consistent with the rest of the industrialized world. In other words, tax profits where they are earned - not where the company HQ is located - and bring our tax rates more in line with other industrial countries. A "level playing field", in other words. Those two issues are what caused multinationals to keep trillions of USD in profits overseas prior to the recent tax changes. Both Democrats and Republicans should have been able to see the importance of these issues and to address the problem. Democrats saw the importance, but were unwilling to do anything about it because it wouldn't "play well with the Democratic base".
Unless government is going to employ most Americans, we need businesses to generate jobs. And large businesses need to have competitive tax and investment policies in this country if they are going to be competitive with other multinationals. Small businesses that don't compete overseas have different issues - but the multinationals aren't going to pay high US taxes on profits earned in Europe, Asia and the rest of the world if they can avoid it. And they clearly can avoid it!
3
The real message here is how dishonesty poisons the entire political system—whether the dishonesty is by politicians themselves or those that advise and bribe them. This is not differences of opinion but rather about dustirting facts.
The biggest result is that we solve the wrong problems, and ignore the real problems, especially long term problems.
Social Security and Medicare have been unsustainable for decades. Nothing done
Our infrastructure has been seriously neglected for decades. Nothing done
Climate change is so obvious to anyone watching the weather yet has been neglected for decades. Nothing done
The debt has been in an unsustainable path for decades. Made it worse
Health care costs have been escalating beyond affordability for most for decades, and costs Americans twice what other countries. Nothing done.
College costs have escalated with the result that starting college is a huge financial risk. Nothing done
On and on.
But the worst is that it is current congressman and highly funded think tanks/lobbyist that have created the problem. And no one therefore trusts them to fix it. So people look for a hero
And they get a Trump. But sadly they do not see a better alternative. You can see it in the voting numbers, or the military recruiting problems. We no longer believe
5
Get white folks angry about the loss of control and look who wins? The richest of the rich. The American Dream in danger, make the rich richer. Opioid crisis with white life expectancy down, give power to Trump. But Trump has grand notions of himself beyond being a dilettante celebrity hate monger but a world shaking great man.
2
I have to wonder if Trump is starting tariffs in order to foster a black market. Black markets can provide opportunities for huge profits in selective breaking of the rules. Trump, his family or his friends might benefit greatly from tariffs in this way.
8
What needs to be explored is how the tariffs benefit Putin. that is the only truth at stake here.
It’s tough when the chickens come home to roost ... and it’s no consolation being right about contemporary conservatism, business, especially the Chamber of Commerce’s short sighted, self serving advocacy, not to mention the fallacies that underlie their premises. There’s no solid ground anywhere.
7
A person who allows the taking of children from their families and then puts them in conditions unfit for children is not suited to be President of the U.S. He should be impeached for simply being unfit for this job.
14
All of his actions make lots of sense if his sole "mission" is to carry out Putin's orders: Make America Gone, Absolutely! is the true MAGA
7
The point s that Mr Trump doesn't care. He only cares about his base, who provide him the one thing he desires: adulation. He can tell his base big business loves it, and they'll believe him. It's a mismarriage made in heaven.
6
Word!
2
Tom Donohue and the Chamber and the Heritage Foundation now find that the bull in the china shop does not have magical powers to limit his instinct to smash things to liberals, immigrants, California and whoever else they were cool with hurting. And Trump voters actually expect our sympathy because their things are going to get broken too.
3
"As ye sow, so shall ye reap". Ya think?
2
In the beginning, German businessmen loved Hitler. Certainly they thought he was crass, but he was good for business. But in the end their factories were being bombed and their sons killed and wounded at the Russian front. And long before that, they were too big, too visible and too important to the goverment to have the option of not participating; it was no longer a choice. By then it was too late. How certain are the heads of big companies *now* that Trump can't make their lives miserable using official methods? Not certain at all. He just threatened Harley-Davidson for example. Can he actually abuse them using the IRS, despite the law? We don't know. Maybe not - yet. But they know for certain that he can troll them, hurt their business, that their families will be threatened by his mob, etc. Now even withholding the campaign contributions, which would have been easy before, will require some guts. What was formerly a purchase of desired policy has become protection money.
7
This morning I sat on my eyeglasses and they broke. I'm of social security age, not generally imbecilic, and my dear wife constantly reminds me not to leave my glasses where I can sit. Yet I did it again. So with big business, to vastly more serious effect. Big business supported or ignored Hitler, and they supported or ignored the Tea Party Republicans who gave us the creep and his bully boys in the cabinet.
7
This crisis could be reversed but normal, progressive people never vote in sufficient numbers to elect their candidates. The only voters who reliably show up are Republicans, the ones who are destroying our country. All these years of Republican control have allowed rampant gerrymandering and voter suppression so to elect any candidate, non-Republicans have to almost do the impossible. The regular, non-right-wing Americans could vote but they just will not do it.
6
Better that than the Dems' socialism!
If you think that the Democratic Party is socialist, then you literally have no idea what socialism actually is. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
That being said, why, exactly, is a trade war better?
1
Spot on.
Voting against your own interests will catch up with even the rich and powerful in the long term. Vote the fascist out before it's too late.
4
The argument that big corporations won't be able to find a way to be intellectually inconsistent - experts bad; experts good - has clearly been dis-proven over the last few decades.
And- sorry - here's my Hitler comparison. Krupp thought they would run Hitler, but it turned out that Hitler ran them. Still, they did just fine (until 1944 when the bombs started dropping on their plants). I would suspect the same would be true here.
3
Surely trade is just a tool on your POTUS' agenda ? The overarching deal is the Putin ambition of dismantling the Western Alliance, severing the internal bonds of the American continent and keeping Uncle Sam well away from the Pacific. Anything that weakens the USA is grist to the mill of organ grinder Putin with his monkey in the MAGA hat. Putin needs neither military might nor a devious master plan, just a fool with a Napoleon Delusion. And he's found one.
12
Trump kicking Harley reveals how little Trump knows. Sure, I see an occasional MicroSoft employee riding home after work on a hog, but usually it's Joe Twelve Pack, and he's smoking cigarettes wearing a faux motorcycle helmet in the Nazi style. Traffic's terrible here in the Seattle area and most techies like a cafe racer-style bike for the little holes that open up between the Rovers and Audis. Or a vintage Italian scooter.
It must confuse the base but hey, they're already confused so light up another cigarette and open a couple more cold ones. Carbon monoxide has a way of soothing those overtaxed brain cells.
So puff yourselves up and get ready for a tightening belt. There's no springs on the back wheels so every pothole feels bigger than it really is. And we don't need no electric start, either (prevents riding while too blind when you can't get that hog started).
3
Republicans and their sugar daddies in big business have not only played fast and loose with economic truths over the past 40 years, they have also held in contempt the rule of law, democracy, and a shared sense of human decency. And if they think they can somehow stuff all their evil genies back into the stinking bottles from which they were coaxed, they are both stupid and delusional.
If only this fetid whirlwind would smother those who brought it about... But it won't. I suspect we're all in for a nasty season of despair.
7
The metaphor of inviting a vampire over the threshold comes readily to mind. Reliably racist and anti-tax--yes. But a moronic xenophobia that leads to world economic meltdown? Oops. Surprise!!
5
The foolish people don't all live in trailers, there are plenty in penthouses and gated communities.
10
What would Vladimir do? PROSECUTE RUSSIAGATE!
1
So here we are. The country that has been touted the greatest nation in the world is now being ruled by a functionally illiterate thug elected by people so delusional that they think Trump was sent by their god to save the country. Now all we have to do is figure out what to do about it.
9
C‘mon! Big business will always, and very obviously fight for its own political interest. Shareholders demand it. It’s called capitalism. And yes, a lot of executives have weak moral compasses. That’s why politicians must regulate and the judiciary enforce. The problem here is politicians — take the arrogant Clinton campaign, how can you be so dumb to even get close to losing to a guy like Trump? Of course McConnell, Ryan and their ilk aren’t helping, but no one expects them to. The second problem is the naive American voter. Trump — like Hitler — said very clearly what he was going to do. We ain’t seen nothing yet! Let’s see what happens in November. If there’s no electoral pivot we’ll get ever deeper into this morass. Big business, while having way too much control in this society is not the main culprit here. Weak politicians and complacent voters are! Any shifting of blame is a distraction we entertain at our own peril.
1
I'm sick of people blaming Hillary Clinton. She won by 3 million votes. Yeah, in hindsight, it is easy to see how she could have had an Electoral College victory, but by any normal democratic standard she won the election handily.
1
The question isn't about Clinton, enough of that distraction. What I wonder is how Trump won the Republican primary--what happened there? Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, John Kasich. How did all these Republicans lose to Trump? That's what I find very curious. Pay attention to that a bit.
1
Donald Trump will trample civil rights.
So what? How does that affect the bottom line?
Daimler-Benz, Bayer (now owner of Monsanto), BASF (once the manufacturer of Zyklon B)... and all the other big German corporations, did just fine during the Nazi regime.
Big Business will find an accommodation with Trump.....
Dude, the “Chamber”, Heritage and the unmentioned Incel Federalists are not just along for the ride. They are racist, xenophobic and misogynist — a republican trifecta. White supremacy is a full time gig. Sad.
3
When I was old enough to watch the films of Hitler rallies, I never understood how the German people cheered his lies and vile rhetoric. Here we are in the good old USA watching the same thing and big business is doing nothing. This is an evil cult, folks, and it is highly possible Trump is a Russian agent!
15
This is spot on except for limiting the base that Republicans have cultivated to racists. Racism is probably their biggie. I watched Republicans flip the South beginning in 1960 with blatant racism, but lots of other fears and bigotries have been used as well. Remember, they started with anti Communism is the '50s. Don't forget gay bashing in various form sliding into trans bashing, guns, abortion (a big winner), immigrants (new to the list) and on. Real Republicans did not believe or care about any of the nonsense, but used the votes of the worst people in America to represent big business and the rich, as this piece correctly points out. It worked well for Republicans until Trump screwed up the game by being as crazy and bigoted as the Party's base. Where the Republican Party or the country goes from here is not clear, but it appears that the Party has decided to stick with Trump and the bigots.
4
I guess we could say that there is a “special place in hell” (to borrow a phrase) for the promoters of delusion. But in the end, it is really self- delusion, our unwillingness to take stock, especially when we are the “winners” that leads to our collective and individual downfall. Mr. Donohue’s lament that this is “not who we are” is a case in point. I don’t doubt that he believes he’s doing “God’s work”. In fact, his squirming on Trump immigration and trade policy is evidence of how delusional he really is. Let’s hope it will lead to a reassessment for him and his followers but in the meantime let’s remember what we are seeing here is self-delusion bumping up against its limits.
3
This is a reality show president. We should be careful about taking his drama seriously.
He is probably building up to "ending" the trade war before the elections, since only he can do it?????
He has already chosen the Supreme Court Judge. This wait is reality show nonsense.
Maybe Kim Kardashian will announce his pick.
I hope the democrats are consulting with masterful reality show producers. The midterms with already existing Russian interference will go to hell in a handbasket, if they do not create a strategy for dealing with our anti-intellectual reality show autocrat.
We are caught in the web of a terrifying reality show. Folks in the media ESPECIALLY, need to learn how to reduce his ratings!!
4
Even a Trump voter with little or no formal education should be able to understand what is happening to the economy and more importantly to the morality of America. Yet they don't.
The corporations and big money interests who supported Trump deserve a slap in the face and a kick in the butt. Our children and grandchildren who will pay for this don't.
4
The Democrats and their loyal pundits like to emphasize the racist component in Trump's success - and ignore the role of economic malaise - with good reason: the Democrats played a big role in the creation of economic misery among the working class.
It wasn't out meanness - it was brought about by the Democratic party's pandering to corporate America, the same thing that Krugman rightfully accuses the Republicans of.
To be sure, the Republicans' advocacy for the wealthy and their corporations is far more robust. Those old enough to remember how the pre-1990s Democratic party used to advocate for the working class of the Democratic Party may recall how the Democratic efforts used to balance out the class warfare of the Republicans.
Now both parties are teaming up against the working class: the "New" Democrats have engineered cuts to Medicare, proposed cuts to Social Security, froze public employee pay during the worst of the recession, bailed out the banks but screwed the underwater homeowners with the failed HAMP, and let's not forget the cuts to the food stamp program that Obama signed.
And both parties and the corporate-media continue to claim that the economy is recovering - but failing to admit that 80% of the population is not enjoying a recovery, but living a more or less precarious existence.
Partisan analyses of the economic situation are not only useless, they are deceptive, bordering on propaganda.
2
Wait until the market finally realizes that the “rules” that have sustained the United States for over 200 years are dependent on a gang like Trump and his droogies.
The Dow will drop so fast and so far, it’ll suck a couple of blocks around Wall Street down with it.
However, it may get the attention of some of these CEO & MBA geniuses who’ve had their head in the sand until now.
Let’s hope.
3
If big business was stupid and bet the farm on Chinese slave laborers being able to supply America with cheap stuff forever, then they deserve to get burned.
1
Thank you, professor.
The Republican Party, abetted by the Chambers of Commerce, Heritage Foundation, et al, have engendered a large bloc of voters that are now immune to facts, enamored of a mythical history that never was, and believing in a mythical unreality. For decades this bloc was easily manipulated at election time with non-issues such as school prayer, flag burning, abortion, and always guns, guns, guns. After the election, all was forgotten and it was business as usual of screwing the people who elected you.
Not any more. These people were at last tired of the bait and switch, Trump tapped into that fatigue, turned it into anger, and now has a base that will believe no one but Trump.
Reap the whirlwind indeed!
4
Soon Trump will break something that can't be fixed, and the slide to Hell will steepen rapidly.
5
Hi Steve. I'm afraid we are past that point. The thing we have lost is the trust of our friends, associates, allies, etc. We are no longer the same nation. The thing they see is that not only is Trump a mental case, but that we cannot be trusted to elect good people in the future; our values have changed. Actually, it was the 2008 debacle that set the whole thing off. People went bankrupt, lost confidence in government and "freaked out" for DJT. Populist uprising. Not unlike Germany post WWI. The trigger there was the "unfair" war reparations . . . but, as my Dad use to say, it's the same difference! People freak out; down the slippery slope.
1
Deregulation is a suckers' game: it simply exposes decent businesses -- the people who don't pour their battery acid down the public drains, e.g. -- to competition from the scum in their respective industries.
America has the conservative party it needs. That is the New Democrats of President Obama and the Clintons. Only the conviction that dog-whistling along with the Ayn Randers, Turtles and racists is cheaper and easier than actually thinking about policy has kept business from seeing this.
If they can get that under control, Question Two will be where does America get the middle and left parties it also needs?
1
At the core of market-driven capitalism there is a hole, a void, an absence. It is the lack of a moral dimension, a sense that sales, profits, influence, investment and price per share must have a corresponding accountability beyond the markets themselves and shareholders and investors. Corporations exist to make money — and damn the consequences — to employees, communities and taxpayers.
It is remarkable that our economic well-being rests in the hands of soulless capitalists so focused on quarterly earnings that the impacts of their strategies are irrelevant to them, until something comes along, like the Great Depression or the 2008 market collapse, that causes companies to line up on Capitol Hill for surcease from the very catastrophes they brought about.
If corporations are people under Citizens United, then we have given unbridled economic power to narrow-minded, irresponsible, venal empty suits. No wonder things these days are so askew.
4
Yes, Big Business is reaping what it sowed. The shift to pure "shareholder capitalism" in the 1980's led to massively inflated pay for CEOs and others in the C-suite while incomes for everyone else stagnated. Downsizings, off-shoring, and other actions that benefitted shareholders and executives at the expense of employees plowed the field for a demagogue like Trump to tell people they were getting screwed.
Big Business thought Trump was in their camp because he promised them tax cuts. Guess what? The thin-skinned Trump expects gratitude from them and when he doesn't get it, his authoritarian behaviors come out. A very weak GOP in Congress will never stand up to Trump because they fear him and the base that he has so ruthlessly cultivated.
To all the leaders in Big Business, I suggest you read "The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben." It will give you a good idea of how badly wrong things can go.
2
Sorry, Mr. Krugman, but since when has "big business" cared about the rule of law? As far as I can see, American corporations, like Trump himself, have long sought to evade laws whenever possible, especially those concerning tax obligations or pesky environmental regulations. Why on Earth would you hope or expect them now to have any respect for "the rule of law?"
3
there are so many happy stories coming out about people who voted for trump being punished for doing so, harley workers, agribusiness and now corporate america at large, isn't democracy great.
1
This absolutely needed to be said. Corporate America talks a good game - diversity is good! gender equality is good! - but then sneaks out the backdoor with piles of cash for the now openly anti-diversity, anti-women's rights GOP. They won their obscene tax cuts off the backs of ordinary working Americans. Trump's ego-driven war through tariffs on the world will cause them some heartburn but we all know they will just pass the cost along to ordinary working Americans. It's yet another lousy deal for American workers wrought by Mr. Art of the Deal.
1
I am sad that so many people lost their jobs at Harley Davidson and all of those other taxable wealth creating industries because the US government created all of those Free Trade Agreements that is causing the USA to become deindustrialized.
US citizens will never accept the working wage scales of third world nations until they are all unemployed and starving.
Global trade could have been postponed and that might have allowed the US more time to get ready for it.
The USA should have re-tooled the educational system to produce 75% STEM graduates to emulate the Asian nations (that got our STEM manufacturing and product design jobs) so that we could have retained the creative high tech design capabilities and leadership position that the USA had until the 1970s.
1
OK, and I get it, global warming is an existential threat to the survival of humanity as we know it.
You probably would have better illustrated your point by expanding on the Chambers role in crushing wage earners and the quality of life of the working American middle class using race and the politics of division between the old confederacy and the rest of our country post Powell memorandum in 1971. The critical role that Milton Friedman played parlaying his economist bonafides to influence generations of fascist beliefs in the primacy of share holders over customers, employees and other communities holding the check for externalized costs and risks while the .01% maximized profits might have made it better.
1
Trump does not seem ever to have worked with anyone he did not snooker, stiff or sue. Now the Republican elite who have supported him through it all in exchange for tax-cuts-for-the-rich will begin to learn that ya gotta dance with him what brung ya.
“Protectionism" for the wages and benefits for US workers has been almost entirely eliminated with NAFTA and all of the other recent Free Trade Agreements plus the MFN and the PNTR trade statuses that were granted by the last three presidents.
Without High "Protectionism" import tariffs, US workers must compete with the pay rates and costs of third world workers it the US worker wants a job.
Thank you Democrats. Thank you Republicans.
Where is Ross Perot who predicted all of this in 1992?
2
Taking the long-perspective: What does it profit [people] to gain the world but lose [their souls]?
Taking the short-perspective: VOTE!
I think we have to ask ourselves, and take the risk, if something more than hypocrisy has been at play for decades now. It is a conspiracy, a word to be used with great caution, but nonetheless founded on facts now being unearthed, of purposeful undermining of the power of the majority by a oligarchical cadre that has systematically set out to neuter government and roll back taxes to the advantage of the enormously wealthy. I do not say this is a vast conspiracy nor one in which many business leaders have directly participated but they have allowed themselves through unprecedented lobbying and large contributions to political campaigns to be foot soldiers for the conspirators. We are talking about the Koch brothers and their ilk who financed this conspiracy as documented by a number of fine investigative reporters and authors. There are now enough books to fill a shelf devoted to Dark Money and political economic theories that have supported a vast network of right wing academic institutions, think tanks, news organizations and public relations campaigns. With King Clown their hand has been forced.
Excellent article. Big business has forever been in the business of distributing wealth amongst the selected few (unbalanced power relationship), managing the middle class (shameless manipulation) and ignoring the poor to harsh effect). Mr. Trump has simply made it easier to continue in that vein. What may cool their current collective government/corporate shindig is that with his obvious hostility towards the Rest of World and with US isolationism now in full play, the ROW is, not surprisingly, reacting negatively and it will certainly be escalated. The looming
US-instigated trade war will likely have the effect of slowly putting America into a full blown recession. So corporate support of Mr. Trump and his sycophants, the GOP, once an actual American political party, is kind of a short-term fix, like I suppose heroin must be. Intoxicating in the early going, but devastating over the long haul. Lots of US companies have a major presence in many, many non-US environs. What is going to happen there? Keep an eye on the Dow.
2
The US government has destroyed the economic wealth creating capacity of the USA!
The USA no longer has the human STEM database to create any new products, processes or systems that the USA could sell to other nations and thus create new taxable wealth in the USA.
The USA is headed for economic collapse!
1
Both big business and Trump are about power, but as seen through different lenses. Big business sees power as the collection of money and resources, but for money and resources to have value you need at least a semblance of order.
Trump is a different kettle of fish. He sees power only in terms of his own power and will destroy anything on his path to obtaining it including the very structure of society. In this he is in the tradition of Mao in the seventies and Hitler in the thirties. Trump and these dictators made pacts with businesses and groups, but would destroy them if they did not suit his purposes.
So it is not only a trade war with other countries, but a war between these two visions of power and the rest of us are left in survival mode and fear.
Attacking the person and antics of Trump isn't helping. Let's look at the overall theme.
This is disruption. Whether it is trade, racism, tax cuts, attacks on health care, attacks on education, attacks on the environment--the result is anger, tension, confusion and disbelief.
The modern western civilization is under attack. Trump is the wrecking ball. There is only one place to look to see who is controlling that ball--it is Putin. China and India will not be unhappy. Nor will the many countries that have been bullied and shaken down by the American Empire and her allies.
Kind of puts the Fourth of July in perspective.
1
capitalism at its finest
2
Businesses know more anyone else,”there is ALWAYS a price to pay”. When you sell your soul to the devil, he comes looking for his reward. Depending on the Republican Congress to not let trump get out of hand, was like betting on the wrong horse. To make this mistake means they have not been paying attention to the Republicans for the last 8 years and they OVERESTIMATED trump.
Ok, that is the problem, businesses are good at solving problems, what are you going to DO to solve the trump problem?The clock is ticking, we are all running out of time. We need businesses’ leadership to step forward and lead this nation to regain decency, truth, trust and love of country before it is too late.
“The point is that it’s not just world trade that’s at risk, but the rule of law. And it’s at risk in part because big businesses abandoned all principle in the pursuit of tax cuts.”
1
When the cc and heritage talk free trade, they mean a world run by corporation with no government regulations or laws. They care nothing for people, just corps and executives. They are truly rotten.
2
I hear your lamentations and agree with most them Mr. Krugman. Now how about you actually DO something about this abomination called Trump? I recommend partnering with David K. Johnston who wrote a veritable flow chart for the NYT of how make Trump's tax returns public:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/04/opinion/trump-tax-return-public-lawsu...
1
I agree with Krugman’s analysis; however it seems implicitly based on the idea that countries like China are normal and can be treated as trading partners, and that the huge shift of investment and employment toward China is just normal old capitalism at work. This seems to me a delusion. China is a vicious totalitarian country whose goal is not to become a normal capitalist country but to destroy western dominance at all costs. We need some Cato the Elder out there reminding us that Carthage must be destroyed.
The Trump administration has announced that all other countries must stop buying Iranian oil by November 4, 2018. This has already increased oil prices and could further significantly increase oil prices and thus stoke inflation fears. There are various repercussions of that policy decision that could occur.
A possible example of destructive tit-for-tat sanctions could be the European Union imposing sanctions against American firms .The European Union and others who retaliate against secondary Iran sanctions might select firms for such sanctions by various methods. They could choose those American firms for sanctions that would pose the largest political danger to the Republicans, as when tariffs against American motorcycles, i.e. Harley-Davidson were specified as retaliation for steel and aluminum tariffs. They could also choose those American firms for sanctions that would provide the greatest economic benefit to firms in their countries that face competition from specific American firms. Another method for selecting which American firms to retaliate against would be to choose them at random. Possibly, putting the names of all of the firms in the S&P 500 into a drum, and then drawing some names out at random, whenever the need to pick an American firm for retaliation arose. This could cast a pall over the American financial markets as investors would now have to consider the risk that they might be impacted by a random drawing.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4184866
1
The Chamber of Horrors (Commerce). Donahue has always appeared as if horns would sprout atop his devilish face. It's all about the benjamins. Yes, unions bad, only little people pay taxes. Let the vast quantities of Winning continue.
1
"What do I mean by cynical politics? Partly I mean the tacit alliance between businesses and the wealthy, on one side, and racists on the other, that is the essence of the modern conservative movement".
I am currently reading Democracy in Chains. There are no sides. The GOP businesses & the wealthy ARE all racist.
In the dog eat dog world of capitalist corporate America, it is everyone for themselves, except when together they can exploit more out of the mass of naive, docile and ignornant people, people who are equally self-serving and willing to ignore the serious imbalances in society and the exploitation of Nature. So is it any wonder that corporate America turned away from the obvious destruction of the planet in order to strengthen their bottom line and make their investors wealthy and happy. What pathetic short sighted and greedy minds.
The difference between Big Business and Trump is that they think in short term gains and advantages while the Chinese think in centuries, and the Chinese government knows that Trump will be gone in the blink of an eye.
No one in the government - meaning Congress - cared a good tinkers damn when a tax code that hurts middle and lower class people passed so long as corporations and the plutocrats reaped the benefits. Now, all of a sudden, those who profited are getting hurt (whomp whomp) and congress takes notice.
A pox on all their houses.
4
Oh, that those trillions invested in free trade had been invested in the United States of America instead of communist China. One of China's economic strategies is to loan to poor African countries, and then when they default on those loans, to seize that nation's natural resources.
1
Sources or it doesn't count.
But on the off chance that your claim about China seizing the natural resources of countries that default on their loans *is* true, then the USA is in for a world of hurt ....
Because your country is, what, over a TRILLION dollars in debt to China ....
And you have a serial bankrupt, who never saw a contract he didn't want to default on, in (apparently) total control of your government.
This article is fine as far as it goes, but the love of business and conservatism is not just a Republican or Trumpian issue. Democrats has shared equally in it. It started with President Carter and his deregulation, accelerated with President Reagan and his tax cuts, and taken to a new level with President Clinton and his embrace of Wall Street, welfare reform, and 3 strikes, which President's GW Bush and Obama continued. If there is any segment to blame, it is the Democrats who have bought into this "centrist" philosophy and forgot about their working class roots. The Democrats need to change before any real systemic change can happen. It is hard to see that happening with its current leadership.
4
Let me understand...with the implementation of tariffs prices of some imported goods will go up. Since the import prices go up, American companies will also raise the prices of the same goods made in the US. After all, higher prices are now competitive in our market, although the rest of the world will be able to buy their similar goods for less. And there will likely be laws forbidding Americans to buy goods on the foreign markets - see the current situation with pharmaceuticals. As to the foreign markets for American goods, big business has and will continue to move its manufacturing to overseas locations. So companies raise prices here, manufacture goods overseas for populations that pay lower prices, and they make good profits both places. Who pays? Just some small businesses which get priced out of a market completely, the farmers, when foreign customers just stop buying their crops altogether, and most of all the consumers who need or want products which now cost more. It will take a massive cut in consumer spending before big business cares, if then, since it will still have overseas markets. Trump was not popularly elected, he is used to squeezing and using the little guys and he undeniably thinks tariffs are a good thing. I fear it will take a very long time for the consumers who voted for him to really understand what is happening to them and a lot of very bad things before corporate America gives a whit.
3
Big business and the military thought it could control a certain paperhanger in central Europe about 80 or so years ago. How'd that work out?
3
Its not just the disbelief of experts. Big business, and the Chamber of Commerce, has spent years demeaning science and expertise if it interferes with profits, to the degree that the final call is 'Who will you believe - the evidence and observed history of reality, or what we tell you?' Sadly, for far too many deluded Trumpistas, it is what the ads and conservative echo-sphere tell them, and not what evidence and observation show actually happening. "Tax cuts pay for themselves." Except that they have not the last four times they've happened... but ignore that history, believe what we tell you. And they do. "Climate change is a hoax." Except that seas are rising, ice is melting, land is turning to deserts, global temperature averages are setting new records year after year... but ignore all that, believe what we tell you. And they do. These big businesses and Chamber are now 'the boy who cried "wolf"' - the Trumpian wolf is rampaging, and nobody will listen to them.
3
PK is right. We know it's silly season when we're being told to worry about Harley Davidson, Canadians, San Franciscans making only $115,000, and poor multinationals and their investments in Mexican factories 20 years ago. Probably better to put some thought into support for those workers displaced by the next trade deal (a good bet UK, Canada, Mexico or Japan will flinch), so we don't get ourselves into this situation twice
1
Mr. Krugman, you are an award-winning economist. I've been waiting for you to write an entry or two explaining the balance of trade, the actual components of a trade deficit, and how tariffs may or may not help. Based on my very basic understanding of macroeconomics, trade imbalances can reflect a lack of domestic saving, deficit-fueled government borrowing -- factors other than a simple excess of imports over exports. Why not use your column to explain and educate rather than excoriate? If it is true as you say (and as I believe) that organizations have advanced their agendas by acting as "merchants of doubt" to undermine the role of experts, why not push back by using your expertise to promote fact and reason? Explaining a trade war by linking big business with racism may feel good, but it doesn't promote informed discussion about the balance of trade.
3
Big business hasn’t only reaped the destructive whirlwind of Trump’s trade war ... a storm generated by this little man’s discovery that gusts of belligerent, macho, nativist, simplistic hot air excite his base.
These corporations are also, at the same time, surfing GOP policies that have benefited them. They’re profiting.
The most obvious GOP policy welcomed by corporations? The Republicans’ decision to cut taxes on businesses. A number of companies have used their new savings to buy back their own stocks, thus increasing the value of stocks held by shareholders. See (from June):
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/what-did-corporate-america-do-t...
Trump promised that the Republican tax plan would ultimately increase workers’ wages because grateful businessmen would channel their new riches to their employees. (Voodoo economics.) This ain’t happening.
Of course Paul Krugman knows all this ... and more. That helps explain his rage against GOP financial nonsense.
Thank you, Mr. Krugman, for this column.
2
A central question is this: where is the breaking point of corporate America and business at any cost organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce? When the head of a group like the Chamber feels forced to write about Trump's policies "this is not us", one could speculate that a breaking point is near, ready and waiting for the moment, the final insult.
Will big business try to reel Trump in? Will they get together in private and read him the riot act on tariffs and trade wars? How far will they let him go?
It is possible that a major segment of American business and the mega-rich view Trump as a useful fool. Problem is, he appears to be a fool who can't be controlled, not just fully controlled but at all.
No American president operates in a vacuum. The power of the presidency rides not only on moral leadership, (from this presidency there is none) but also on the power of persuading others to go along. All leaders and pretenders to power face the potential when those whom they would lead reply, "No, you won't."
An overarching problem is the dearth of true patriotism and the unspoken conclusion of many business executives that their corporations, and their profits, are more important than the nation itself. Still, bit by bit, Trump is ripping away at his own thin armor. The moment might yet come when big business is ready to say,"You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
https://tinyurl.com/yawe3v5o
3
Chamber of Commerce and Heritage will have no problem pivoting from nonsense to sense and back again. You have to understand that their effectiveness isn't in the consistency of substance, but in the consistency of language and framing.
They frame their statements as follows: we are the guardians of just desserts for hard work and economic growth. Ignore others, as they are the allies of the lazy and shiftless who want to tax you into penury. We can be trusted to tell you what to do with a clear instruction; don't waste your time being misinformed by pointy-headed nerds who can't won't give you a straight answer.
It's really that simple; a substantial percentage of Americans just want to be given a simple answer by someone their perceive as virtuous. Conservative messaging meets that desire, whatever the substance of the message.
IF our democracy survives the Trump administration, and I am beginning to think that could be a BIG IF, then Trump will go down in history as our worst president yet.
When you consider what GWB did to our economy (and deficit) by creating a near-depression, and by putting his reckless Iraq war on our kid's credit card, Trump really had to go some to top that.
5
Argue on Russia's behalf against U.S. intelligence regarding U.S. election intrusion while offering no leadership on preventing further intrusion.
Advocate for Russia to be allowed back into G7.
Soften U.S. position on Russian annexation of Crimea.
Unilaterally give up joint military exercises with South Korea (at Vladimir Putin's suggestion) for nothing in exchange.
Try to lure France out of the European Union.
Criticize NATO members and implicitly threaten that U.S. may quit NATO.
Anything else Donald Trump can get for you Mr. Putin, sir?
How about a reversal of U.S. Syria policy?
1
"..it is becoming clear that Trump's assertions that "trade wars are easy to win" were fallacious. No one ever wins a trade war, just some lose more than others. The retaliating nations have a tremendous advantage of those instigating protectionism. This can be seen with tariffs on steel and aluminum that increases the costs of every product made in the USA that uses those metals. Thus, American consumers and producers are already net losers from these ill-advised protectionist tariffs, even before any retaliation. These tariffs increase consumer prices and make products produced in the USA less competitive relative to those made outside the USA using steel and aluminum priced at the world market rather than the artificially propped-up, protected US steel market.
As Trump discovered when a retaliatory tariff was put on US motorcycles (Harley-Davidson(HOG)) that will not raise any costs on any EU producers or raise prices for anyone in the EU, except for buyers of motorcycles, the cost to the retaliating nations is miniscule. HOG has announced it will have to shift production outside of the USA as a result of the tariffs. Thus, on top of the costs to American consumers, producers and exporters of the steel and aluminum tariffs, before any retaliation, American workers at HOG lose jobs and shareholders of HOG suffer as well..."
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4184866
1
Only way to address the crooks behind the drive to destroy the basic foundation of our great nation is to take steps to hurt their wallets. Identify sponsors of Heritage Foundation, Federalist Society and their business ventures (or major share holder). Public shaming and boycott of those businesses will make a huge difference. Remember, emperor has no clothes. These narcissist individuals are morally bankrupt, they only care to fatten their wallets at any cost. Many of them are behind the corrupt divisive political maneuvers by the US Chamber of Commerce.
Basically, the tariffs are an act of ill will. What it says, is that we don't care what we inflict on anyone, we are strong, and we will win every battle, every point, and leave no crumbs for anyone else. The way Trump has always operated. It never works unless you have unethical lawyers working for you to threaten people with financial ruin if they cross you. Everyone else has learned you have to give as well as take.
The chickens have come home to roost. This is what happens when self-interest is not tempered with enlightenment. U. S. businesses stopped treating workers fairly and now they are going to pay a huge price for their short sightedness
Unfortunately so are our labor forces
4
Dr. K, your article brings up so many good points and things I've been thinking about. It's difficult to stay on 1 outrage of this administration and it's political puppy, the GOP. Economics has a lot of information about trade wars and tariffs. The economic fallout is not good when politicians are pulling the levers. It's much worse when the person pulling the lever barely understands that actions cause reactions. The thing that sticks the most from your article is the "War on Expertise." The GOP has been at this for decades now. Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich have been doing this for years. I never thought anyone would put up with them. I was wrong. A whole subsection of our nation accept their pablum and don't blink, in fact they ask for it. The "genius" was binding this anti-reality message with the hatred and resentment people had for "losing" at the hands of others. Rove and G and the GOP have made America a Zero Sum game. If someone is doing well, they must be taking something from me. What a horrible result of over 200 years of struggling to become a great nation. I've never been more disgusted in my life with the leaders of our country. Now trump wants to destroy the world and make a comic book evil empire with his "peeps." Like trade, for every action there is a reaction. I hope it's not as ugly as it looks like it will be.
In 2000, the Republicans took an election they lost by vote count via a Republican Court, utterly crashed the economy with 0 regs, ignored clear signs of an impending terror attack and then started two wars they couldn't win to show how tough they were on terror. Bush was recognized as a pure failure. They doubled down on his policies in 2016 and won. I believe the American people deserve Donald Trump, and all he brings given what they knew of Republican policies. 50% of us are simply fools and will bring us all down. America: The Lightweight.
1
If Trump imposes punitive taxes on Harley Davidson for making him look bad, it won't require an act of Congress because no Republican in Congress would contest his right to attack individual corporations. If Harley challenged the taxes in court, Trump would be upheld by the corrupt judges he has and will appoint. Harley must apologize and proffer a bribe if it wants to survive!
This trade war is what Putin wants. It will weaken his opponents and allow Russian expansion in Africa and South America. Putin cultivated and elevated Trump and his cronies. Leveraging the darkest impulses of capitalism, careerism and racism has been the Russian playbook since they sent over Ayn Rand. We are fighting a hundred-year war with our eyes fixed on the 24-hr news cycle.
1
I'm not a conservative, but to dismiss the movement adhered to by close to half of American as being based on nothing but racism accomplishes nothing but feeding progressives' moral arrogance.
Further, with the Democrats increasingly dominated by outright unabashed socialists like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, I can hardly blame the business community for being wary of them.
Back in 2014 Paul Krugman talked about the fact that we were in our second Gilded Age. Donald Trump - backed the Republican "elite" - will make sure that we stay there - despite the fact that they know what a despicable character he is. As far as many in his base are concerned - they either don't get it - or they don't care. Shocking!
1
I know many millionaires and even a few billionaires. I count two in the latter group among my long time best friends. Self made wealth from smart people from humble beginnings who worked hard and created things as well as inherited wealth. My one friend's husband always said he votes his pocketbook above all else. Trump was the hated anti-Semite until the tax cut. Now he can walk on water in their minds, because it made them a lot of extra money. Gosh, now what to buy with all those extra millions? Another mansion?
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Best. Column. Ever. The GOP since Reagan has tried to convince gullible working Americans to believe in the tooth fairy, and now they can't stop them from thinking the Easter bunny is real, too. This is the country we get when fabulists, religious true believers, science deniers, fake news purveyors and outright liars are in charge.
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Big Business is getting what they paid for; they just didn't know what. There is an old saying in some rural areas of this country that sure rings true; "Buying a Pig in a Poke".
I love dogs. Dog Whistles need to be renamed if their only popular use these days is to continuously send out subliminal racist misogynist messages to the Base. No dog, if given the vote, would go running to Trump. Base Whistling
describes the hit Trump gets off on at his rallies in Baseville. Trump didn’t invent that form of satisfaction either, obviously part of his DNA.
Dr. Frankenstein confronts his monster.
It never ends well, for anyone.
3
Americans have to subject themselves to physical abuse before their collective brains start to kick in. We are not yet there, but I am thinking the time is getting closer. Be careful what you wish for and especially who you vote for. Trump had trouble written all over him years before he ran for office. Paying attention and gut feelings should not be ignored.
A friend sent me Chris Hayes's book on the decline of the elites. 2010. I hope I have not missed your treatment of it. It hit me like an oops moment. He gives a "forest rather than trees" argument that is prescient in many ways: corruption, trashing of authority of various kinds: academic, media, science generally, and all the non male non white 'others.' You must be a favorite target! But Hayes's argument is that elitism - competing for kindergarden slots, bottom line ism, ethics shmethics - got us where we are. The old white shoe, paternalistic, patriotic guys had their faults, like racism, homophobia, and unwitting sexism, but look less bad by comparison with these crooks. The casualties as you know, are the rule of law, one person one vote, and truth, which has never seemed so fragile.
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"...cynical politics? ... alliance between businesses and the wealthy, on one side, and racists on the other...the essence of the modern conservative movement."
This gives cynics a bad press. We merely doubt people are as virtuous as they seem or say and are pretty certain about politicians. We are fallibilists, require fact (double) checking, transparency, systems of review, appeal, separation of powers and diffused authority.
The US Constitution is a quintessentially cynical document--"contemptuously distrustful of human nature and motives" (MW). So are science and all academia. All rational adults are cynics.
You mean 'hypocritical'--not practicing what is preached because it is not believed'; thus frauds. Original hypocrites were actors. Politicians collude with big business--are their white knights jousting for tips. Yes--they cloak this--campaigning instead on "dog whistle racism."
But also god story realism. They "authorize"--lend credence to--the pro-life anti-abortion scam--obviously anti-quality of life of girls, woman and unwanted children as though some god commanded misogyny and misery.
Anti LGBT is another dog whistle.
Cynics are distrustful of "the people"--see Thoreau--"majorities don't make right, just or even reasonable".
But charitable cynics would help them--by education, therapy and public service.
Trump, Trumpies and the GOP bilk them--preying on their vices--logical and emotional, prejudices and phobias--to get even richer, slimier.
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I doubt that any business owner is happy with Trump's psychotic behavior within and without the U.S. He's toxic and needs to be removed from office immediately.
We have arrived at the juncture where hypocrisy meets self preservation. No fork, just a dead end. Honestly, if this were allowed to play out the end might justify the means. By that I mean a bunch of rich cretins suffering big losses because they backed the wrong nag, believing the touts who said he was a stud. Next time, check the equipment.
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'Letters? We don't need no stinking letters. Just a buncha words I ain't got the time or the patience to read; and besides, everybody knows I've got the best words anyways.
American carnage. I alone can fix it. Believe me. It will be so terrific. You will be so happy.'
My message to big business: "Lie down with the dogs, wake up with fleas".
Trump's not a business man, he's got a mental illness with a total lack of empathy, which turns out to be a big positive in the business world. Our president has shown us how much people are willing to pay to make a sociopathic and litiginous bully to go away.
There is no method.
There is just madness.
What's to blame? The Cold War phase of the American Civil War continues and even flourishes. The confederacy still hates our guts. How can we end this insanity?
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Trump loves to play the victim card. He howls that America is being ripped off by foreign powers, taken advantage of by China, blah, blah, blah. It is all a smokescreen to hide what is really going on. That tax cuts for Wealthiest Americans are the root cause of America's problems not cheap Chinese products! The Super Rich, like the Koch Brothers are the real National Security Threat. They want to cut funding to Programs millions of us desperately need to survive.
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"…businesses and the wealthy, on one side, and racists on the other…" That's half of it. The balance is a mix of pols more concerned with winning for its own sake and those who demand governmental imposition of their "religious" beliefs on everyone.
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Although corporations used to control Congress and enforce their devil-take-the-hindmost me-me-only-me legislation, today their influence is eclipsed by a Bible-thumping few bonkers billionaires. They run the huge right-wing disinformation machine the GOP now depends upon and slavishly obeys. These wealthy wackos aim to institute a narrow-minded “Christian” Theocracy. Although loaded and still not averse to adding to their off-shore accounts, making a few more bucks is second to their aspiration for total control and subversion of democracy.
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This is Krugman at his best, explaining an issue with logic and fair criticism of his political opponents that defines and exposes them.
This is a Pulitzer worthy opinion piece.
So. Now comes Mueller, on his white horse ( Or is he grey?), attacking one flank of the dragon Trump. On the other flank comes a posse of COC guys in dark suits following the banner of Free Trade. The orchestra bellows. The Fat Lady reaches for the high ones. But nowhere to be seen are the establishment leaders of the Democratic Party.
"...the tacit alliance between businesses and the wealthy, on one side, and racists on the other..." I guess it could get worse than this, but I'm having trouble coming up with something worse. Just wait, I suppose.
The Chamber of Commerce got in bed with this lying racist, and now they're choking on him. Frankly, I couldn't be happier. In fact, I hope Trump continues to do to his various supporters what he's been doing to this country from day one.
If Dems want - need - to win the midterms, how about we stop short handing people as racists and try to think why some Obama voters went for Trump. How about we stop supporting illegal immigration and start getting people to think about how to handle the paradigm shift to automation?
I hope Corporate America, soybean farmers, and all Trump supporters who are vested in Trump's bizarre world view choke, and I mean choke hard ,on the reality of his policies(?). I am deaf to their protestations and whining regarding tariffs. Go gag on your tax breaks and farm subsidies. If their willingness to undermine American democracy for the sake of greed, I hope they suffer mightily at the hands of the very man they have been touting, even though, they must know by now, just how incompetent he is......they deserve whatever harsh consequences they sustain.
To the soybean farmer who justifies tariffs that undermine his well being, Bankruptcy is too good. The blinding pride of having supported the Russian usurper, Trump, and the conceit that prevents them from admitting their miscalculation justifies any and all agony as well as economic ruin.
And the Republican Brown Shirts who currently occupy Congress, may your moral spinelessness and crude opportunism crush you in the interim election and all of the Koch Brothers money cannot save you. You dishonor the American system and forfeit the right to participate. An extra special helping of misery for Mitch Mc Connell.
I am furious when I think of how the Trump Party and all of the arrogant selfishness and pathetic ignorance of his miserable minions have sabotaged my children's future, I, regrettably, wish them a foul and destructive future. It is impossible to maintain equanimity in the face of such evil.
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Rock on Mr. Krugman!
Probably the greatest tragedy of all the tragedies and constitutional crises that have haunted this nation since the current resident of the White House has taken office is the fact that here we have an article, which of all things, seriously contemplates that, after all that has happened, the reactionary and fascist Right, masquerading as they do, as Conservatives, might actually retain control of Congress, come November.
what a world. what a world.
Oh, I’m sure this will end well...
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The worst case scenario is a worsening of the slow evonomic collapse going on for a few years. Decimation of the middle and prosperous elements of the working class increases. Social structures are collapsing...your food stamps and health care for the low income now including loss of medical care for the middle and working class. Lastly the GOP will deprive the 90% of their social security prepaid through your taxes. The usa will end up like India with a desperate underclass...just like India the disposessed are suiciding literally and figuratively through drug overdoses and addiction and more and more people are ending up on the street...happening in Vancouver also.
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Sure, blame "big business." Ignore "big government." Write a new script, one that shows the connection between business pimps and government prostitutes. It will includes Democrats as well as Republicans.
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Dr Krugman is studiously avoiding the use of the label 'Fascism', it seems to me. I will therefore use it, and suggest that those interested in what is happening go look up the actual definition, and what the person who coined the name said it was perhaps more correctly called. I will not simply put that definition of Fascism here, because it's not my definition that matters.
In the USA we have RECENTLY ELECTED and appointed the very best “Established Mainstream Republican” and “Established Mainstream Democratic” congressmen, congresswomen, senators, governors, presidents and other government positions THAT MONEY from that the various” Foundation” donors, the elite “DONOR CLASS” campaign contributors, and the PAC (foreign and domestic) campaign contributors and cash in paper bags CAN BUY.
We need a congressional investigation of all of our “Established Mainstream Republican” and “Established Mainstream Democratic” elected and appointed officials that directly or indirectly accept money, perks, campaign contributions, and other personal benefits from lobbyists, PACs, foreign governments, and/or others in return for their votes to create new tax loopholes, bankruptcy laws, offshore tax havens, Free Trade Agreements, MFN trade statuses, PNTR trade statuses, shares in strategic US defense Nuclear Uranium sources, F-15 fighter jets to Islamic Nations, Alaskan drilling permits, no-bid PAY TO PLAY government contracts funded from the public treasuries such as the CGI Federal type NO-BID contracts; Solyndra type loan guarantees; MILITARY SECRET weapon system software; H.1.b. visa increases; U.S. taxpayer foreign aid to Israel; presidential pardons for convicted felons; and other new laws to benefit their campaign contributor's business, foreign governments, and/or to anybody else offering money, AT VERY REASONABLE PRICES.
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A trade war involving automobiles and Harley Davidson motorcycles we can live with, but when they start taxing Kentucky bourbon, it's gone too far.
See: RevolutionOfReason.com
donnie demolition`s whirlwind is Vlad`s whirlwind. Their goal is to break as much as possible then take control before the dust settles. After the last go down, financially, a lot of Oligarchs and their holdings got bailed out. The next time it will look a lot more like how things are done in Vlad`s world, some will go to jail, not because they`re guilty but because they haven`t shown enough fealty, others will get rewarded and warned that gulags can be built anywhere. I wonder if some are very aware of whats going to go down, why else are all the Russpublicans in Vlad`s court begging for an audience. Do they think he can control donnie? Probably not. Vlad knows he has let a boar loose and is willing to wait it out.
“In a country, democracy is what? Order, and liberty. Order without freedom is dictatorship. Freedom without order is anarchy."
-Mahamadou Issoufou President of Niger
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American Big Business reminds me of the alcoholics who say that they have no problem, surround themselves with enablers, hide the bottles, use eye drops, breath spray, and ever expanding excuses.
Then they hit the wall.
If you build a world on lies, the wall will be waiting.
Right now, I see America's internal organs failing.........as they reach for another beer. Cheers!
1
Trump Supporters,
How do you like him now??
When there's no one to pick your produce? No one to process the crab from your boat?
Do you like him when the tariffs he imposed causes you your job at Harley? The automotive plant? When your union has been eviscerated?
When Trumpsters are led to bankruptcy and the unemployment line because of their brainless leader who is in bed with big business, maybe they'll lose faith.
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Vote in November...
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It's the race to destroy the United States economy stupid! As fast as possible. And who might this benefit ? Follow the money.
Hey, Evangelicals, never read Numbers 32:23. "...be sure your sin will find you out." But, of course, that didn't mean you.
It's like the Island of Dr. Moreau. Republicans created bigoted, mouth-frothing monsters whom they could whip into a frenzy during elections and mobilize against legislative agendas like health care reform, then beat them back into their cages when they were no longer needed. Now the monsters have broken free of the cages! Now what do you do? https://madsociologistblog.com/2016/03/03/the-dr-moreau-theory-of-republ...
do I detect some schadenfreude in this article - much ... ?
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Trump is the second and last president of the
Confederacy. Big Business bought his con.
boo hoo
my God, what a pointless rant Mr.Krugman! Looks like Trump has converted you and those of your bent into now believing free trade is good. Trump is of course a first rate bumbler without any self control but he has unwittingly exposed the shallowness of people like you, that you guys are no different.
Let's talk economic policy shall we: what part of the American objection to China stealing our intellectual property, bullying our companies that operate their and the blatantly open and uneven application of tariffs and subsidies do you disagree with? Assuming you can read and digest real data, what alternate remedies do you profess?
Or is your self-realization limited to the weekly quota of anti-Trump rant?
Like a drunken fool rationalizing that another drink won't be any harm, GOP members are still betting their lives on Trump's experimental economic philosophy.
This history is one more twist (pun intended) on the justly famous dictum that Lenin may or may not have actually said, that the capitalists will sell you the rope with which you will hang them. This is one way to characterize business's support for the far right: they sold the far right the rope, and now they are about to be hanged. In the language of 2018 America, rather than ca. 1917 Russia, one might characterize this support of the Republicans as just one more example of short-term thinking, like running the company for the sake of the next quarterly report, and never mind about where that takes you. Of course, if you personally have plenty of money, you can blow off a lot of the social chaos, as the rich do in, say, Brazil or Nigeria - but will your descendants be able to? But who cares, right?
Brilliant!
Finally, Paul, your opinion has changed to closely align what I've been trying (in my inarticulate way) to say for months.
The evil clown, performance actor in the oval office cares about nothing but money, adulation and raw, brutal power to rule this country.
If he were to start jailing newspaper reporters and opinion writers next month and firing the remaining liberal justices on the SCOTUS, his loyal followers will cheer like wrestling match fans.
Think Turkey. That's the model he's following.
Seems to me, it was only a few short months ago that it was not acceptable to compare him to Adolf. Is it okay yet?
My biggest concern is that he is focused on suspending the constitution. Not much is standing in his way. Certainly not Mc Connell, Ryan or their Republican Congress.
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Trump is "The Southern Strategy's" glistening offspring. Not that complicated.
You forgot to add religious zealots to the list.
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Drain the swamp?!?!? Heck, no it's drain the national coffers!
I agree that a trade war is dangerous but the Democrats have lost all credibility after decades of idiotic accusations of Republicans racism, Nazism, etc.
Yes, the GOP and its folks are Trump's base as both take rides on the ferris wheel, not checked recently for safety purposes as those sorts of regulations were deemed unecessry expenses by various deregulators/deregulations. The economy is doing well as we know from Trump's trumpeting this, but other things are not going as well. The border has proved to be an ugly lesson in how not to handle immigration and the images of children in cages on concrete floors covered w/foil "blankets" adds to a bad sci-fi scenario. Jails are big business that seem to be profiting, along w/hedge fund executives and others in the financial market. Regular worker bees, not so much like the teachers in certain states - OK,KY, TX--who finally had it and have taken to the streets to try to be heard. It just seems wrong. One can read Piketty and other intellectuals who write about the real sepearation from the uber-wealthy from 0..1-1 percent who were beneficiaries of the wealth, read how we are sinking into a real division of economic class with gates, schools, marital partners, and all else separating wheat from chaff. Gleanings left for the rest of us. Add to this the absolutel despair over driverless cars, buses, and other vehicles to what end? We are so removed from the real social costs and consequences to our human/citizens in increasing ways. The soldier has replaced the citizen as a heroic icon.
All this we can survive.
What I am really worried about is that Trump might move to suspend the Constitution and free elections.
That we cannot survive.
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Voodoo economics - its all to easy to see why this cannot work if you just play a little thought experiment.
Assume the goverment has more or less fixed expenditure and that tax cuts will generate enough growth to make up the cuts.
Now cut the taxes by 50% and you have to double the growth to make up the loss.
Do it again, and again, ... As you keep cutting taxes you will eventually need more or less infinite growth to make up for the cuts.
It clearly cannot be done.
When Trump ran for office, he said that if the average US citizen trusted the US Chamber of Commerce to look out for their interests, that they would be totally wrong. Remember, in the early 1970s, the US Chamber of Commerce and the Big Business Round Table and wealthiest Republicans all engaged a Richmond lawyer, Lewis Powell, to compose a memorandum laying out a plan for corporate America to dominate the business world. Corporate America has followed this plan to the point where it is now accepted that "corporations are People" and "money is considered free speech." Unfortunately, that dark money has infiltrated our election system to the point where Republicans are guaranteed access to public office by virtue of the huge donations from big donors.
Trump embraced the principles of big business: big tax cuts for wealthy donors and corporations, deregulation of laws that protected citizenry from corporate greed, bashing of the unions to eliminate fairness in negotiations between workers and corporations, and finally, laws allowing corporations to fire workers without cause with impunity.
In older times, kings were considered to do no wrong. Now corporations are the new kings that can do no wrong. Unfortunately, Trump promised the workers that he would correct the corporate wrong of outsourcing jobs by bringing them back to America. The tariffs were supposed to correct this wrong and big business strongly opposed.
A conundrum exists. Who will win?
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"The thing is, big business is reaping what it sowed. No single cause brought us to this terrible moment in American history, but decades of cynical politics on the part of corporate America certainly played an important role." Yes, the GOP played them as much as it ever played with the American public. They've been caught up by the rhetoric that they wanted to hear. I know plenty of business people who supported Trump, have supported the GOP and its policies for decades and never once thought that they could lose.
As long as Congress, whether it was in Democratic hands or the hands of the GOP, passed tax breaks for businesses and the rich, kept socialized medicine at bay, worked against collective bargaining, let monopolies function, and didn't hurt their collective pocketbooks, it was acceptable to hurt working Americans. Environmental pollution was okay as long as they didn't live near it. Tainted food was fine because they didn't have to eat it.
Now things are interfering with their profits, their abilities to fulfill orders, and who knows what else. Now it's not okay. Where were they when we, their employees and customers were suffering? Buying and selling politicians. Lying and cheating. They've been Trumped. I hope they understand that this is the payback for supporting racists, bigots, and greedy power hungry people like McConnell, Trump, Cruz, etc. If not, they are about to.
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Big business lies at Trump's coattails due to the billions in less taxes they pay. CEOs never had it so good. But it is short lived because the trade wars are going to wake up businesses faster than roadrunner flashing across a Texas road. Product sales are going to slow down, meaning less profits, and consumers will eventually be hit with the bill. Remember, the American working class doesn't enjoy those wonderful margins businesses have. When you take away at the end of the month the remaining pennies from a working man's wages he will be calling you soon, and it will not to tell Trump how well his trade wars is effecting the working class. And that applies to those who didn't lose their job. How do you thing one feels that lost his job because business let him go due to the trade war, which Trump maintains is easy to win.
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Prof. Krugman: I have an idea and would appreciate your comments: How about (1) reducing corporate profits tax to zero, while at the same time (2) taxing all capital gains as ordinary income, while at the same time (3) returning to Eisenhower era tax rates for the wealthy. Think about the complex implications of all three. Thanks.
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Won't happen as long as Citizens United stands.
Money speaks and is protected by the First Amendment, have you forgotten?
You're probably right. But you gotta try.
Trump has decided to go to war, not with bombs but with trade, the very activity that has helped to prevent the wars where bombs are used. Big business once said that was good for General Motors was good for the country, But when General Motors faltered external causes had to be found, first it was overregulation , then it was Japan and now it is China.
It is unfortunately true that americans have been fed a steady diet of Japan and China bashing and in that environment tariffs to save jobs can be avery potent vote getters. It is also true that offshoring jobs has been a way that corporate america has strengthened its balance sheets, this however has not been exploited as a vote getting issue as corporate america wants to continue offshoring jobs when it is in their interest.
Low taxes are also in their interest even if it is at the expense of entitlements and given these realities maybe it was just a matter of time before someone like Trump would come along, and now it may well be just a matter of time before the illusions sold to the american people by big business are shattered by the realities of the modern world.
3
One thing that isn't mentioned in the article is the way big business has used its political influence to erode workers' rights so people can be exploited.
Business takes lawlessness as a business model when it suits them: for example Uber and Airbnb will deliberately flout local laws until pushed back. The "sharing" economy is just another way to get around employment laws. Walmart exploits its workers with low pay and Amazon with low pay and a grueling work environment.
Why on earth should people listen to big business now? Trump was seen as someone who would shake things up. And that is what he is doing.
3
Many thoughtful scholars and journalists—here in The Times, and elsewhere— have repeatedly pointed out that racism is important, but that it doesn’t fully explain the support for Trump.
That support draws much from a sense of alienation from the mainstream of society, a sense that those with power care little for the working class, just looking on as their fortunes slip.
Yet Krugman repeatedly falls back on the canard of racism. That is dangerous because it not only provokes more of the authoritarian response that he decries, but it complicates Democrats’ efforts to win the swing districts they need to take the House.
It is also an abdication of intellectual responsibility, an abdication that Krugman so often and forcefully condemns in journalists. It arises, I suspect, from an uneasy guilt about working-class plight.
Where were the Democrats when the labor unions needed them, for example? The Democratic Party of my youth long ago turned its back on working-class whites, painting them instead as racist pariahs. It’s a good try, but it won’t wash.
3
The irony is, winning the Cold War left soulless capitalism completely unfettered. Our communist foes simply became our economic rivals. Social justice has been replaced by "I'm gonna get mine." Social engineering is the new playground of the oligarchs. I know RLS keeps telling us the election system is rigged, but I don't think the "handful of private rightwing companies that count our votes" is completely running the table. For the moment, they are only able to affect the margins--with devastating impact, to be sure, but only where the differences in the count are relatively close. This isn't Russia...yet. We have clear evidence that seats can be flipped in even the most ossified districts when we work hard and swarm the polls. So, folks, vote like your civic life depends on it. Widen those margins into irrefutable canyons. The stakes have never been higher nor the consequences more dire.
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Clinton spent a billion dollars twice as much as Trump.
No bankers were prosecuted under Obama. Bankers donated more to him than any other candidate.
Your “outrage” needs calibration.
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Take a look at Lloyd Blankfein's comments at his recent Economic Club of New York appearance. He said he couldn't condemn Trump's approach to trade because sometimes you have to make a strong statement to be heard. And Lloyd is hardly a right-wing firebrand. The global trading system failed decades ago with the arrival of persistent large current account imbalances. Yeah, Trump's approach is a disaster, but had liberals (in the old-fashioned sense) not buried their heads in the sand on this issue, while muttering endlessly about irrelevant Ricardian principles, we wouldn't be in this mess. Take some responsibility, man.
And yet, corporations have gained so much, how far will they go to right the ship. It's still all about their greed, so not so far. Collectively we have lost a lot - unions are gone, shared realities are gone, representation in government is saved for the rich, gerrymandering and restrictive voting laws are further eroding our representation, and taxes and corporations have dictated our share of the economic pie.
While we can, we must use our economic and voting powers. Its all we have....
3
Germany's equivalent of the Chamber of Commerce backed that Austrian corporeal in the 1930s. I heard it didn't work out too well.
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I agree with most of this article and have long thought the same. But one statement stands out. "All economists agree" that tariffs are bad. Not all economists agree. There have long been some economists who thought globalization was a bad idea. It is basically Big Business looking for cheaper labor. It has decimated the middle class. There may be no easy solution bur i think most economists would agree that letting China steal our intellectual secrets and dump their subsidized products in our country was a bad idea.
2
Sorry, I hit "send" before finishing...here's the entire comment...
And, comme d'habitude, the middle class and the poor will bear the brunt of big businesses' mistakes.
While sympathy is due for those who will lose their jobs, more for the upcoming victims of healthcare and social security cuts -- none is due our greedy Congress who voted themselves and all others in their class a 21-23% tax reduction.
For Congress to pass a law that benefits only one class, particularly the one they occupy, is unconstitutional. If the bill had benefited all classes proportionally, Congress would have been legally free to vote.
But, Constitutional or not, hey, the wealthy and corporations got their tax breaks, emphasing they would keep the money...no trickle down.
But what is at the root of this? Voters, non-voters and an Electoral College far different than the one envisaged.
Voters don't know how the government is supposed to work, their rights and that participation in campaigns is a good learning experience -- they can make a difference.
They believe television commentators and candidates for office, without fact checking.
Our administrations are voted in, and it's at the feet of un-thinking, lie-believing voters' that I lay this debacle, including Trump. This time, the rich and the racist won out.
2
The good news is that Trump's ultranationalism has resulted in a trade war, but not a shooting war -- yet. Lives will be affected by the economic dislocations, but at least no one is getting killed. This is a modest improvement on the previous century's crazy people running governments.
It remains unclear how far the lies can take him and how many people will stick with him if, as seems almost certain, the plan unravels and we don't actually "win" the trade war. Trump seems to be forever living in a delusional world. How do you win against a delusion?
2
Trump is encouraged to plunge ahead with his tariff wars because Congress is still afraid to meaningfully challenge him. The Chamber could tell Republicans to stop him or else, but all we’ll get on the way down are whimpers of protest. Everyone is afraid of alienating any of the base prior to November.
4
So, here I am at the tender — and battered — age of 73. When I began my career in marketing communications in 1970, a recession in the northeast corridor quickly infected the west coast. Republicans were in charge (Nixon) and the economy was tanking with a combination of a real estate bubble and an oil embargo. The launch of my career stumbled in the chaos.
The Republicans were not about to cooperate with Jimmy Carter anymore than they were with Obama or Clinton. Reagan adopted "trickle-down" economics despite warnings from his budget director, David Stockman, that it would cause a recession at the end of that decade. Stockman was right. And my career took another hit as the predicted recession arrived.
Then, under the direction of the Rebpublicans and Team Bush43, my career took another hit as I felt the Great Recession coming by 2005.
So here's the thing: Conservatives' embrace of the thrice-failed trickle-down theory continues to haunt the country. Former Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan, an avowed libertarian economist, deregulated the financial industry as well as the rules on mergers and acquisitions resulting in more mergers, less competition, higher consumer costs, lost jobs, and the movement of America's manufacturing jobs offshore.
PK spent years warning of these disasters to come. But corporate America spent billions of dollars over the past 30 years convincing Congress and the American People that it would float all boats — as least all yachts.
7
Does The Bible say, "The rich shall inherit the Earth"?
1
Ms Warner - Perfect analysis.
2
The United States Chamber of Commerce(USCC), is a business-oriented "American Lobbying" group with no interest whatsoever in representing the American consumer, or any consumer of the products its members produce, anywhere, and everywhere on the planet.
It is "not" an agency of the United States government, was created in 1912, and exists to "Lobby", meaning "legally bribe", all individuals in government, in all government agencies, to create policies, and get this, legislation, that results in corporate rule of the marketplace, and diminishes, with the goal of ending, all consumer protection measures.
Congress is the 24/7/365, open door to corporate America, its representatives, and especially open to the Chamber of Commerce lobbyists, in fact every USCC lobbyist has the private cell numbers of their particular "go to" Congressional aide(s), and in certain instances the Congressperson is on speed-dial in the lobbyists' phone.
Lobbyists forming the USCC, are beholden to Trump, and his corporate handlers, and that aside for the moment, the USCC has had the same relationship with all American administrations since its current iteration in 1912.
American consumers are the lifeblood of corporate America.
It must be kept flowing, bereft of any kind of impediment which might diminish the power of the USCC, and to that end, the over-arching goal of the USCC has been to be invisible to the consumer; when such is unavoidable, managing the perception of the consumer is step 2.
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This is always how it ends, isn't it?
The powerful start to think they're invincible.
Until, suddenly, they are convinced -- usually fatally -- otherwise.
That time has come.
2
We have been waiting for a long time to see an article on this topic. But big business and the wealthy did not only use racism to create and consolidate a base of voters. We refer to it as a triumvirate of “God, Guns, and Gays.” God reflects the evangelical and anti-abortion approach. Guns is obvious. And Gays reflects all types of “-isms,” which came particularly to the forefront as the advances of the LGBTQ movement brought forth the haters of all types. We may not say this as well as you, Mr. Krugman, but thank you for bringing it to light.
3
Mr. Krugman, I don't understand what the "right" is up to. I don't even know who the "right" is. I agree that Republicans want to tilt the field for business at the expense of protections for citizens, by exploiting natural fears and beliefs. They have won most of the political power, but what do they want to do with it. Just power? More money? Subjugation of the citizens? What is the pattern here? Remove consumer safeguards, reduce taxes on wealth, promote consumption for profit, make businesses equivalent to citizens, make women more subject to constraints of motherhood, make healthcare more expensive and a ball and chain for employment (preexisting conditions reduce mobility), keep wages low. All this seems to take power from ordinary people and give it to wealthy people and their businesses. Ordinary people become cows that consume goods produced for the profit of an over-class. (see Leona Helmsley, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan et al) Trump gets better business prospects from the Russians, but what does Paul Ryan get out of this? I don't like being paranoid, but there is a pattern I can't figure out.
The "right" calls itself conservative but it is using the brand name "conservative" as a tool to hate "liberal". Conservative may mean honorable, frugal, serious and respectful, as opposed to racist, xenophobic and liberal hating, so good people may mistake the brand name for actual understanding.
When the wealthy start thinking it's time to get rid of Trump, we need to watch out for what they want to replace him with. It isn't going to be a Democrat. I hear a lot of people saying we should just give the job to Putin, but then again, Roy Moore is looking for a job... and he has a better understanding of our shopping mall culture. If you really want to scare yourself though, look at the official line of succession to the presidency - Betsy DeVos name is on it!
2
The article attacks Trump because big business will lose its advantages if it cannot invest outside the US and produce in low wage countries for export to the US. We have Dr. K using business sources - and not indicating how they arrived at their conclusions - to argue that jobs will be lost in the US if trade is restricted. When labor unions in the US argued against offshoring production, they were dismissed as ignorant and out of touch. How interesting.
One need not be a Trump supporter to accept that the globalization fostered by the neoliberal establishment in the US and Europe has not benefited workers in high wage countries. Dr. K has nothing to say about the unconscionable increase in income and wealth disparities that arose with the acceleration and intensification of capital and trade flows in the past quarter century, a phenomenon enhanced by Clinton, Bush and Obama.
The attacks on Trump, deserved or not, are veils that hide the reality of the neoliberal position, namely to divert attention to vertical identity issues, e.g., race and gender, and ignore the fact that the middle class (horizontal identity) that had incorporated a plurality of American workers has been decimated . Well-paid jobs for high school graduates have been lost, small entrepreneurs are devoured by giant corporations, and "free" markets are increasingly oligopolistic.
No, Dr. K, Trump isn't the problem, although he offers problematic solutions. The neoliberal establishment is the problem.
1
You forgot Reagan, Bush, and Bush in your list of globalist bad guys. Of course, they were pro-business conservative Republicans who started the whole ball rolling, while the Democrats needed to ride the tiger to survive. But keep on believing voting Republican will change things. It's what conservatives, like scorpions in the parable, do; to all our detriment.
2
I usually agree with Krugman but think he's mistaken with this excerpt: "the tacit alliance between businesses and the wealthy, on one side, and racists on the other, that is the essence of the modern conservative movement."
The conservative movement might tolerate racists but the bigger elephant in the room is a combination of the insecure and the religious. These are great forces and allow for magical thinking that experts are wrong about global warming, or concluding that it's an American god given right to buy an AR-15 at a gun show without ID.
This same type of thinking allows these people to hold their noses at Trump in order to get their Supreme Court judge and stop abortion, but they never consider the number of lives that will be lost when the Republican Party goes after medicaid for children. It seems protecting the unborn fetus, even at the cost of lives of poor children, makes supporting Trump worthwhile.
Accusing Republicans of allowing racism might be correct, but stating it is one of two parts of "the essence of the modern conservative movement" is wrong. Insecurity combined with religious beliefs, honed by Fox News and the like, is a bigger component of modern conservatism than racism.
Big business, along with the conservative "think" tanks, must have been thrilled at the masses of Trump supporters wearing MAGA hats, chanting "lock her up!" then voting against their own interests.
Now, the Trumpian Frankenstein is on the rampage and they are concerned. Really, now?
4
Trumps core strategy of creating chaos and manipulating the media are being applied to business now.
Look out for what you wish for.
Those global supply chains you thought were sacrosanct are up against a repugnant yet irresistible force now.
Best of luck business.
Try and pull the rug out from Trump now.
Sad that it’s all of us that will suffer.
3
The 2018 midterms represent the game changer, I agree. Unchecked by Congress Trump will punish us all.
1
Globalization was shaped by wealthy capitalists, flush with profits for them from exploited labor and environment. This predatory binge left in its wake a bitterly disappointed working class who thought they were going to taste the American dream. Instead, they now hate capitalism and the "satans" the brought it to their shores. You may thank these architects of misery for the rise of terrorism - all because our Democratic society failed to write/oversee the rule book for capitalism.
Now we see the job that must be done.
I sure hope all those Republican One Percenters are building the walls of their bunkers extra thick, because the winds of change are blowing. Soon they will have to answer to the forgotten bottom 90%.
4
What should be added to this commentary is the role professional investors, specifically institutional investors, played - and continue to play. The link between C suite executive compensation and stock prices is direct and strong. The major drive is to get stock prices up so that stocks owned - via the common shares and options - produce large personal wealth is a powerful one. Institutional investors benefit as rates of return on stock exceed the cost of capital as this is necessary condition for investing in common stock. C suite executives benefit as personal compensation is amped up well above whatever compensation is received via salary. In sum, whatever means can be taken should. Or, to paraphrase Upton Sinclair said so well, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his compensation depends upon his not understanding it!".
Mr. Krugman, I love your well researched columns. You’re an amazing reader of the present. But I find you as a weak reader of the past and an even weaker reader of the future. Time will soon tell.
Paul Krugman's disparaging of anyone who made a serious attempt at breaking the grip of the two corporate-aligned parties played a role as well.
1
The German industrialists in 1932 believed that all would turn out well for them.
Fast forward to 1945.
2
Mr. Krugman writes: "[I]t’s O.K. to talk economic nonsense if it’s politically convenient."
What a perfect summation of the Trump era! Preach nonsense if it helps you win!
1
I'm reminded of the quote from The Great Gatsby when Tom and Daisy are referred to as careless people who like to smash things up and then retreat back to their money. Who is going to clean up all the messes made by Trump and his ilk when they finally clear out and retreat back to their money?
8
Thank you. The ultra rich who financed this catastrophe deserve to be called out.
2
Instead of a block of government cheese we'll soon be receiving a pocket full of soybeans. God help us.
2
You say the rule of law is "at risk". That's not true, it has already broken down. This Administration has already violated or reneged on its most important international commitments, in the name of the state it has committed international atrocities of kidnapping and child abuse, it willfully fails to implement the provisions of judicial decisions and remaining to be seen - the extent of its obstruction of justice and conspiracy with a foreign power in the matter of Russian interference with the 2016 election. In fact, one could easily argue that the risk to world trade is a subset of the abandonment of the rule of law, because until now rules and agreements governed international trade. No longer. It's all "at risk" to the myopic prejudices of imbeciles.
4
Sure, these are all awful positions, but I think the Professor has missed another rather large catastrophe birthed by the US Chamber of Commerce and vilified by racists on one end of the Republican Party and fomented by the Chamber on the other.
Illegal Immigration.
The GOP is simultaneously building a very expensive wall, locking up refugees,and, at the same time, refusing to implement eVerify universally, the latter because the Chamber knows that development would end the use of cheap, foreign, undocumented labor.
Their mascot shouldn't be an elephant, it should be a pretzel.
5
."After Harley-Davidson announced that it was shifting some production overseas because of trade conflicts, he warned that the company would be “taxed like never before” — which certainly sounds as if he wants to politicize the I.R.S. and use it to punish individual businesses."
Anyone remember the uproar when the IRS was supposedly just taking "too long" to approve TEA party groups for tax exempt status? Those jack-booted thugs at the IRS? Now, apparently, they can punish, with extra taxes, enemies of the president with not a whimper from the rest of us??
3
Well stated Paul!
With regards to your statement "The most obvious case is climate change, where conservative organizations, very much including the chamber, have long acted as “merchants of doubt,” manufacturing skepticism and blocking action in the face of overwhelming scientific consensus".
Unfortunately, this also includes your NYTimes colleague Bret Stephens. His opening opinion column in the Times as his past writing were " manufacturing skepticism and blocking action in the face of overwhelming scientific consensus" - quite shameful.
4
"Partly I mean the tacit alliance between businesses and the wealthy, on one side, and racists on the other"
I find it curious that you limit your discussion of discrimination to "racism." There has been a great deal of discrimination, especially since 9/11 based on national origin and religion. Did those two concepts just escape your mind or were they deliberately omitted from your unholy "tacit alliance?"
As long as The Base will blame Hillary, or Obama, or brown people, or Libruls, where is Trump’s problem when his people lose their livelihoods?
3
We are also here because people like Paul Krugman abandoned all political sense in support if Hillary.
"the tacit alliance between businesses and the wealthy, on one side, and racists on the other, that is the essence of the modern conservative movement."
Omitted is the tacit alliance with the "Christianists"," plan to impose the Christian religion as the established law.
1
It's a privilege to see Tom Donohue's Chamber get exactly where it deserves exactly where it deserves it. That rats' nest needs to be cleaned out.
4
You reap what you sow. Forecast for this crop : SWAMPY.
Enjoy. Seriously.
1
"Wealthy, on one side, and racists on the other". I wouldn't be so quick to make that distinction, Mr. Krugman, considering the racist in the Oval Office who sickeningly brags about his wealth. It's about time to tag these oligarchs with the multitude of labels that their reprehensible conduct deserves. The venal rentier class has had it coming since way before FDR welcomed their hate.
1
Once again, Dr. Frankenstein loses control of his monster.
5
Who knows how bad it will get, when Putin gives trump is orders, later this month.
2
Conservatism has always been a fools errand.
Name ONE Republican policy that has helped this country in the last 35 years. Stop the insanity.
Vote Democratic in November.
Vote Democratic in 2020.
3
"What do I mean by cynical politics? Partly I mean the tacit alliance between businesses and the wealthy, on one side, and racists on the other, that is the essence of the modern conservative movement."
You forgot the third leg of the stool, evangelicals. They have been held in the alliance by promise to Reverse Roe v Wade.
They're shocked, shocked to find malfeasance, grift, greed and bigotry going on in the casino they paid for.
2
Ahhh...here he comes again: Krugman the faux economist, bending the truth to suit his progressive readership.
In fairness, Trump warned we might need to endure some short-term pain, in order to wrangle better terms from our trading partners. The question is; can we tolerate it for a bit?
Trump understands U.S. is the largest market for goods in the world--and all of our trading partners value access to our markets. He knows we have leverage--and is using it in a giant game of chicken. He's waiting for our trading partners to blink. We should be cheering him on--he's putting America first--as he promised to do.
But here's the problem: his greatest enemies--"The Resistance", (which includes Krugman) reside in his own country. They criticize his moves on trade--because they don't want him to succeed--AT ANYTHING! We have celebrities calling for a recession--to chop the legs out from under the Trump Economy.
Bill Maher, June 8:
"I think one way you get rid of Trump is a crashing economy. So, please, bring on the recession. Sorry if that hurts people..."
And now...as Trump is renegotiating for fairer trade policies--extracting concessions from our partners--we have the the Left--not the least of which, the NY Times-- calling out his every move, and giving aid comfort to his opponents
Everyone has the right--perhaps even the obligation to oppose the policies of the opposition--but this borders on economic treason, and it should give our citizens great pause.
Business’s don’t care about “America”,corporations aren’t people.
Amen, Bull's eye, and Right On!
2
It is time to revisit Adam Smith. Not the much circulated and meaningless, nebulous "invisible hand" which Smith dropped a couple of times in a minor work but his magnum opus The Theory of Moral Sentiments. In it, Smith advocates a society that must invest in its human resource; educate it, train it, care for it and it will turn a society into a prosperous, happy one.
Big Business is the antithesis of what Smith has advocated! Big Business will do everything in its power to starve the human resource in order to accumulate capital.
Thomas Piketty in his Capital of the 21st Century demonstrates how the rich get richer by amassing capital through all means, through lobbying and political corruption it engenders; this being the preferred way to increase capital. Capital begets more capital at the expense of entrepreneurial talents and skills, inventivity, hard work...
The rich vs the human resources has been war, in America! This is not capitalism as advocated by Adam Smith. It is human exploitation. Big Business is The New Monied Aristocracy that Jefferson cautioned us about, the destroyer of democracy.
America ought to heed the timeless advice: Study!, must find its humanity, but most saliently, stick to the not so nebulous Pursuit of Happiness!
PS. Check Scandinavian Capitalism, aka Socialism!!
yes indeed its definitely the chickens.
This is exactly how Fascism was born in Italy and Germany in the 20th century. The owner class wanted a strong man, disguised asa a populist, to control the masses. Soon they weren't able to control their man, and Disaster followed.
8
Did you actually use the words "Cynical" and "Politics" in the same sentence?
Good Lord, professor, where have you been?
1
It's paradoxical how big corporations plan years and decades into the future for how their companies will grow and prosper, but are totally short-sighted and can't see much more than the next quarter to 4 quarters when it comes to government actions, be it tax increases or reductions, environmental requirements, labor relations or who's going to win the next election.
But the individual billionaires who invest in politics may run some of these corporations but their donation strategy has been totally different. Sure, they want tax cuts and as little government intervention as possible. But they have another agenda, which is engendered in the Koch Bros long relationship with the late Nobel Laureate, James Buchanan.
Buchanan in dull, boring academic terms, advocated a radical return to what is, essentially feudalism. Re-write the Constitution so only the very, very super-rich have a voice in the Government, do away with all controls and taxes on them, and SOMEHOW everything will all be straightened out. For the Kochs, it means far more power and wealth with no accountability.
For over a millennium, we have the evidence of how "well" the Kochs' and Buchanan's plan worked. It goes by two descriptions: Feudalism, and "the Dark Ages". A friend used to insist that without the whole mentality of that millennium+, we would have landed on the moon 500 years earlier! It was the end of feudalism that led to the explosion of learning, technology and people's liberty.
1
The cynical politics include the idea that globalization is good for everyone and that it is or has been a major boost to overall US production. Actually this is one idea that is shared with big business by many (definitely not all*) economists and most politicians of both parties. There is evidence that globalization has boosted corporate profits, but not GDP - economists would not have been talking about "secular stagnation" if it had. American workers can see for themselves the growing inequality, lack of wage growth and movement of jobs to other countries, and they are not going to believe those experts who tell them that "free trade" is really benefiting them. Trump is not competent to change what is a very complex situation, but people may hope he is making some effort that might improve matters, whereas the usual establishment media commentators and politicians are grimly resisting any change in the status quo in international trade.
*Joseph Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents Revisited, p 18: "With perfectly free trade and well-functioning markets, unskilled workers everywhere in the world would get the same wages - and moving toward free trade results in unskilled wages in advanced countries going down...These insights were never highlighted - indeed never mentioned - by the advocates of globalization. Was it a matter of willful deception, ignorance, or because somehow many politicians, even Democrats, continued to believe in trickle-down economics?"
More from Stiglitz on the cynicism of globalization (Globalization and Its Discontents Revisited, p 95): "But as I have repeatedly explained, the rules weren't written on behalf of the ordinary citizens in the United States or other advanced countries, but on behalf of large corporate and financial interests. The adverse effects on workers may not even have been just collateral damage - weakening workers' bargaining power, and thus their wages, was an anticipated part of what would happen, and from the perspective of the 1 percent, it was one of the benefits of globalization."
1
On the bright side, think of all those cheap goods the lower 90%ers will be able to buy as they race to the global bottom.
What those corporations are really afraid of is that they're going to have to hire Americans at a minimum of $25/hour all in to replace their off shore employees that only cost them 1/10th as much.
2
Same thing in the UK, where a leading Brexiter said, “We’ve had enough of experts” and now British business organizations and large corporations are pleading with the PM to stick as close to the status quo as possible. But they can no longer control the forces they have helped unleash.
They didn't like all those pesky EU regulations in areas like workers' rights and environmental protection. But now they are realizing with horror that they are facing a "cliff edge" -- the cutting of all the regulatory links that made trade with Europe, (and even much of UK business), profitable.
No coincidence that the US and UK seem to be marching to destruction in tandem: on both sides of the Puddle, Bannon's and Putin's fingerprints are turning up all over.
Editor’s note: This comment has been anonymized in accordance with applicable law(s).
4
In theory global free trade seems like a good thing, but in the hands of a ruthless plutocracy that is rapidy moving beyond the laws of any single nation it’s hard to be hopeful for the ideals of a global economy that promised the elimination of war and higher universal living standards. I’m more driven to think of Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine and Joel Baken’s documentary The Corporation. Sometimes it seems like the one thing that will save humanity is that they need consumers, but every week advancing AI eliminates another segment of jobs. Baken had it right - the corporate psychology is pathological.
". . . suppose Republicans retain control of Congress this November."
No supposition necessary - the GOP is a lock to keep both the Senate and the House.
On the Senate side, the GOP will benefit from the SCOTUS nomination process and will unseat one or more off the Democrat Red state senators. Really the only question here is by how much the GOP Senate majority will increase.
On the House side, it's likely that the GOP will loose a few seats, but not enough to make a difference. The Republican win will be due in no small measure to what will surely be among the largest political advertising blitzes touting the economy, lower taxes, and jobs, jobs, jobs. Democratic candidates will melt like ice cream at noon in August under this disinformation onslaught.
There is no chance of a Blue wave this year and Americans should expect the Crimson Tide to roll on through 2020, when Trump ekes out a victory for term number two. At that point, the US economy will almost certainly collapse due to the unimpeded greed of GOP deregulation and Democrats will be installed in both the WH and Congress to fix the mess.
Sound familiar?
5
Take back the election booth!
Former living presidents, write a joint letter demanding verifiable validated elections.
Add a codicil about gerrymandering if you would while your at it.
4
When it comes to climate change, big business--the business of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce--isn't paying much of the bill. Climate change is here already, and it is the little people who are paying the price: the people of New Orleans and Houston whose homes were ruined by gigantic storms; the people in the West losing their homes to wildfires; the people in the East who are facing millennial floods every few years; the people of Puerto Rico. The U.S. C. of C. doesn't care about the little people.
But now there is the prospect of a trade war. The sugar high of the tax cuts is maintaining the charade of a booming economy. Giant corporations are flush with cash and they are plowing it into the stock market, buying back their own stock. That cannot go on forever--a crash is inevitable. Here's hoping it happens before November. If the Democrats do not take control of at least one chamber of Congress, it will be 2.5 more years of unfettered rule by trump and his cronies.
6
I find the point of "abandoning all principles" most interesting, especially after Mr. Brooks' last column discussing the Adam Smith idea of the essential morality of capitalism resulting from business's need for the rule of law. Trump, our law and order man, like most businessmen actually has no respect for the principle if it gets in the way of making a profit. Capitalists may have to resolve this conflict if they intend to prosper.
1
Capital ALWAYS profits, no matter what. It is labor that always suffers. Labor voters outnumber capital voters, so capital lies to them to secure power for capita! and continue the exploitation of labor. It's all here in Krugman' s cogent analysis and biting commentary.
1
Since Reagan and Poppy Bush deregulated capital, big business hasn't had any morality, or use for a conscience. Their only goal was to consolidate as much money and power for themselves as possible, regardless of what harm it brought to our country. Now they're going to have to pay a price for their actions and are unhappy?? Too bad. But truthfully, they won't pay much of a price, consumers will. We'll pay through more rapid climate change, higher prices, more civil unrest, and an advancing authoritarian. CEOs and big shareholders will continue to live in their gated community bubbles until the revolution advances to their gates.
10
Business produces a service or product. Consumers must be able to afford the service or product or the business is in trouble. When income is tight, only essential products and services will be consumed. Companies that don't produce essentials go out of business and there is even less money available to purchase essentials. And the spiral goes on. You would think that CEOs who get paid millions a year could understand something that simple.
14
Of course they understand. But since they get paid millions a year those CEO's won't be the least bit perturbed. They'll just "let them eat cake".
There is a reason US banks would no longer do business with Trump.
There is a reason that the "elites" in NY shunned him.
There is a reason he has no real friends and surrounds himself with "users" like himself.
If the GOP had done their homework they would have known that Trump would not be a tool for every GOP wish---only the ones that benefit him, or don't cost him anything.
Further proof that the GOP is blind to reality.
24
With all due respect to Prof. Krugman, I think that it is time to lessen the ever growing trade deficit of around $350 billion with China. Diversification is a good thing. There is plenty of cheap labor in India, Indonesia, Bangledesh, and even in South America. Why concentrate our buying power on a country that steals intellectual property, manipulates currency, and builds military installations on man made islands against international law. All these tariffs will do is nudge corporate America in a more sane direction. Not to borrow anything from FOX News, but "fair and balanced" seems a lot more sane than "free". And that framework needs to be put in place when mercantilist states like China try to take advantage of the entire world. I generally agree with Prof. Krugman on most things, but not this one. There will, no doubt, be short term disruption if Trump holds steady to his course. It's all part of the risk you take when you don't diversify.
4
Bullone, did you miss the memo? Punitive tariffs are also to be applied to goods from Canada, the EU, South Korea... get out your world globe and take a look, just in case you haven't yet noticed those nations are not part of China.
1
Do you want to know where your tax cut went? More than $2.5 trillion in corporate mergers were announced during the first half of this year, a 61% increase over the same period last year, and will probably top $5 trillion by the end of 2018. Maybe companies will rethink those mergers when Trump's trade wars tank the economy, or maybe they'll simply move more of their operations abroad, leading to more job losses at home. Welcome to "trade wars are good and easy to win."
11
And, comme d'habitude, the middle class and the poor will bear the brunt of big businesses' mistakes.
I do have some sympathy for those who will lose their jobs, more for the upcoming victims of healthcare and social security cuts -- and almost none for our greedy Congress who voted themselves and all others in their class a 21-23% tax reduction.
For Congress to pass a law that affects only one class, particularly the one they occupy, is unconstitutional. If the bill had benefited all classes proportionally, Congress would have been free to vote. But in this case, they should have all recused themselves, and created a more egalitarian wealth distribution plan, As they and their class were the sole benefactors.
2
Last line fully stated, "big businesses abandoned all principle in the pursuit of tax AND REGULATION cuts". Business, being business - nothing wrong here - looked to both increase revenue kept (lower taxes) and reduce costs (less regulation). The former is merely political give and take, a natural tension between stakeholders - society, owners, and labor that (with a balanced playing field) is on balance a good thing. Deliberate environmental degradation is, however, an unmitigated moral outrage.
3
Everyone is forgetting how we got to where we are. Yesterday evening I asked a Trump voter what he thought about Scott Pruitt's resignation. He didn't know who Scott Pruitt was. I'm not kidding. He then mumbled something about the "shadow" government trying to stop Trump from making the country great again. If these Trump voters remain as ignorant of the issues as they were in 2016, we'll have no change in this November's election. They believe Trump saved us from North Korea and don't know that Trump was played like a piano at that summit. He gave away the store and received a vague promise that North Korea would work toward abandoning his nuclear program. The Trump supporter I spoke to thinks Trump kept us safe and the entire event was a success. He also told me he see's nothing wrong with this country being friendly with Russia. The same nation that disrupted our election, invaded the Ukraine and Georgia before that and bombs hospitals in Syria with double taps to ensure the medical personnel are killed so no medial services can be provided to the maimed children injured in the first strikes. The guy supports a trade war but has no idea of the ramifications to global stability. I didn't ask him where he gets his news from as my patience were wearing too thin by that time. I'm pretty sure Trump supporters will vote the same way in November so I wouldn't expect much of a change in the political landscape. They just cast their ballot and forget about it.
15
Confirmation bias looms large. Too bad their bias wasn't towards clean air and water or universal health care. Even though things look grim it has been pointed out they didn't get more votes so let's make sure they get even less and finally throw the bums out!
Remember when Trump celebrated "Infrastructure Week" at least once a month? Haven't heard much about infrastructure upgrades since passage of that $1.5 trillion tax cut. Politico's Michael Grunwald reports in frightening detail on the partisan bickering and the battle of titanic egos that has derailed the $30 billion "Gateway" tunnel project that would carry 200,000 train passengers daily between New Jersey and Manhattan. How badly is it needed? The Portal Bridge in NJ, which carries 100,000 passengers each day, swings open periodically to accommodate shipping traffic. Sometimes it won't close all the way, so workers have to bang it back in place with a sledgehammer.
The sociopathic Trump has scuttled the project. He's no doubt thinking: "By the time that tunnel opens, I won't be there for the ribbon cutting because I'll be dead. So what do I care if it gets done or not?" Scary times...
8
As usual, Krugman's criticisms have a basis in fact. Too bad the GOP and Trump do not believe in facts. The only solution is to vote out the GOP on Nov 6.
14
Nobody talks about the elephant in the room.
Who pays the high tariffs in this looming trade war? - US residents. Who keeps the money collected on trade tariffs? - The US government.
That flow of money paid and money collected is the very definition of TAXES.
Has anyone noticed the hypocrisy of Trump and the GOP levying these high TAXES on the US consumers? Oh, but they have to devise a gimmick to pay for the exorbitant tax cuts for billionaires passed months ago. Why isn't the NYTimes calling them out on this? Wonky arguments about the trade war won't move voters, but making voters aware of the huge TAXES they're about to pay, just might.
7
Propaganda works. Tell people something often enough and they will believe it, especially if it plays to their bigotries. Find a Trump supporter and talk to them. You will be shocked at what you hear. They repeat the made up stories and add to them as they speak. They casually lie as they talk to defend their position, just as they have learned from Conservative media. The rich and powerful have lost control of this wretched man. Didn't this happen before? Today we talk of trade war and maybe tomorrow a real war. This creature may not be stoppable.
14
If Fox "news" were off the air for a week the fever might begin to break and some common sense return to the heartland. It is not by accident that the conservative machine is so coordinated in big lies, constantly repeated.
1
The real shock for me, Theodore, was in discovering that I had such a deluded fix on sentiment in the United States of America.
The abject ignorance, the unwillingness to listen to facts, and the loss of empathy and near total disregard for the welfare and wellbeing of our fellow Americans, is beyond shocking.
1
Trums politics is based on a political germaphopia, which is a sickness itself. On immigration it's clear. But what about 'they send their cars (Mercedesses) over here'? (And we stupid Americans even buy them).
On the other hand he allows the US to be polluted ever more by dismantling the E.P.A. and the protecton of het US citizens from domestic pollution and global warming. If you are a germaphobe, than be consequent please.
Krugman is right: you reap what you sow. The swamp consists of the muddy relations between money and power. What grows in a swamp? Tax cuts, arbitrariness, favoritism, decomposing of checks and balances. And Trump is downthere to the tip of his tie, allowing the germs up to there, but keaping a clean appearance.
4
Yes, don't let the Republicans run away from Trump's racist policies. I have observed many Republicans in NJ blaming
Trump for Republican racism, and I have observed Republicans in Arizona cheering Trump on for keeping racism at the front and center of the Republican party. At least, the Arizonan Republicans are not so hypocritical, as if that's a virtue when it comes to racism.
7
The theory was always that the social conservatives/culture warriors/racists were being strung along so that the fiscal conservatives could tax and entitlement cuts. The tables have clearly turned. The fiscal conservatives got a tax cut, but they aren't going to get unpopular cuts to entitlement programs (they weren't even able to overturn the ACA), and not they have to decide whether or not to publicly support open racism and misogyny.
2
Trump following the Bush play book. Unpaid tax cut for the rich, huge deficits in good economy, fool hearty war, Iraq/trade war, and coming soon recession. My only question is why people who vote republican don't see this pattern and like it. Is the alternative so bad?
11
Is the Trump experiment about to un-ravel us as a people and a nation? Krugman's column describes a very plausible case for that scenario.
Normally I am heartened by Krugman's thinking.
Not today. What he describes today is frightening. What if we are truly flowing headlong through a series of unintended events and consequences of the Trump cabal and his cynical business supporters s.k.a.. the Koch brothers? Do we come out the other side whole or broken? Are we in charge of our destiny or is chance?
4
Columnists have a daunting task trying to convince skeptical readers to see things their way. While I do not count myself qualified to critique economic policies, most of the readers Mr. Krugman needs to convince generally are not either, so the challenge becomes convincing them whose "experts" are right. Unfortunately, exaggerations and over-simplifications, such as inaccurately dismissing conservative economists as non-experts without explanation, is a losing strategy. Presumably, Nobel laureate Mr. Krugman has nobody to look to as an expert, but who should conservative non-laureates, non-experts look to? Is there a bona fide conservative economist Mr. Krugman can recommend as an alternative? If not, he should understand that his sweeping dismissals fall largely on deaf ears.
Let us not forget that the Chamber, the NFIB, and other such similar groups continue to use the Republican Party when and where it suits their interests. For example, if the Chamber wants to end overtime pay for hourly workers by removing the primary enforcement mechanism for overtime pay (the attorneys fees portion of the federal overtime pay statute), then they write a bill, stick a cute name on it (Workers Families Flexibility Act) and have the Republicans pass it, as they did last May when that very bill passed the House of Representatives.
Or, at the state level, if they want yet another roadblock established to getting into a court, or if they want more private prisons, or if they want government financing for their private businesses, or if they want to force injured workers into arbitration (where the Emoloyer gets to choose the arbitrator), or any of a number of other such “pro-business” nonsensical policies, the same people rush to the Republican Party to enact their agenda.
So these groups have been, and continue to support the Republican Party because the Democratic Party simply won’t do their bidding, and the Republican Party will.
Now they are suffering from the same party they rely on for their agenda. Perhaps they will learn a lesson, but if history is our guide, they will just get in line behind Trump when threatened and do as their told.
15
The Chamber of Commerce, NFIB, Republican party and ALEC are a closed system. Pretty much any passing whim can be written up as a "law" by lobbyists, handed to ALEC members at a conference and become law in GOP controlled states within months.
This is the actual deep state "shadow government".
6
To point out the obvious, Trump is not a smart person. He seems to think that tariffs are a one-way street. Actually, the street goes both ways. The end result will be an increase in prices and a decrease in demand. If Trump set out to destroy the economy, tariffs would be a good place to start.
10
Politics dropped barrels of confetti last week, a harbinger of the noise and silence of a bigger storm. With few exceptions, Paul for one, the media is writing about confetti bits, with no eye on the storm, its Republican season. In this world of Republican Big Brother, Kraft Heinz will give away $60K this summer to pay fines for unlicensed family lemonade stands. In this world of Republican Big Government, Republicans and Trump will cut 21 million citizens from their healthcare plans, put government and the courts in charge of women's bodies, separate mothers and children, weaken labor rights and wages, slow innovation, shed alliances, boost arms sales to new records, put restrictions on voting, direct taxes to wreck the global supply chain.
Big Business could reveal the stupidity of tariffs. Their danger and pain, in 30 sec. commercials. Their support of candidates but denial of business education in the form of messaging--their willingness to dump millions to Cohen, who lacked acumen or expertise--their "good-side" strategy with Trump and cultural protests have been bad for America.
Tweaked, Obamacare could be exported to Asian-African-Pacific markets as the middle class doubles in the next decade (my favorite trend!).
India, China, Costa Rica, Ghana, other nation need healthcare systems! Citizens want it! Obamacare, a regulated private system, could become a global leader in services. Why do no companies have plans to provide its template globally?
4
Many women in local politics understand tariffs and their harm to jobs, wages, and prices, and should help explain what business avoids.
Pramila Jayapal, Kamala Harris, Stacey Abrams, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez; London Breed, Keisha Lance Buttoms, Lovely Warren, Annise Parker are not extreme but mainstream--with 1000s at the 800 rallies. They are the middle! What others ridicule as “free,” they see as shared. They want public money used for public services.
Every American can find pain in Trump's stupidity.
Trump is practicing a selective justice. Due Process is an American hallmark. Of social/economic/racial justice. As patriotic as the flag and fighter jets, and central to the fight to preserve democracy and protect freedom. Trump denies due process to groups he trashes. Looking at what he is doing to Latin American families. To legal asylum requests.
Praise for the KKK no longer automatically disqualifies you from government service, a KKK supporter now works for DOJ.
ICE has become Trump's Praetorian Guard, the spear carriers of non-lethal force; using raids, detention, separation, and deportation without due process.
There is no MS-13 border threat. MS-13 is here! What's Trump doing about MS-13 in the cities?
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex's first question to national Democrats was a list of Midwestern states Bernie won but Hillary lost, asking what's the plan to prevent a repeat of the primary flip? No answer, so far, from Tom Perez or the leadership.
3
Name one thing Trump has done that comes close to matching Obama's achievements of no limit healthcare and previous conditions waived. Name one department that matches the diversity of Obama's administration. Name your favorite Obama lie. Mine? "Obama left us weak in space."
The Trump government is directly intervening in global markets with arbitrary tariffs; have we been told why tariffs were set at their levels for goods? Do we have any specific numbers?
Trump's tariffs have no end goal! Has he announced any deal that would end tariffs? What is his end game?
Close the holes and demand the details! As compared to tariffs, our best national policy is becoming a global hub for food harvesting, processing, storage, shipping using visas to supply willing immigrant labor.
Another is mentioned above: a global, turn-key operation of insurance/tech/ kiosk and drone care, with rural nursing districts, and business clusters with scale economies, a template model to be adapted for global healthcare.
Other successful, current models: West Virginia's 5 county Chemical Alliance Zone (over a billion dollars in chemical polymer exports, 400 ancillary businesses); Research Triangle, NC, the new master plan calls for 100K new jobs; South Carolina, a transportation manufacturing technology state, with BMW's largest plant, Boeing's 787 assembly, Volvo and Benz manufacturing and the largest German investment outside of Germany.
Trump has not praised or duplicated any of these models.
1
This began with trickle-down Reagan adopting the pseudo-economics of the Chicago School and the carefully planned, long-term scheme of the American Legislative Exchange Council (Koch supported) to capture state legislatures in order to gerrymander legislative districts. We are nearing the point of no return from the path taken by Turkey and, yes, pre-war Germany. The few remaining Republicans with any concern for our country need to revolt against Trump and do it now.
11
Trump will do whatever it takes "to make America great" even if it means doing that one thing that finally craters the world's economy.
That's where this is headed.
4
Mr. Krugman brings to light a very important issue for business owners. You simply can't cherry-pick Trump!
Who will be harmed by the tariffs that take effect today, EVERYONE!
Sure I get Trump as he is easy to read. His "art of the deal" is all about taking off the table everything you can so that when you negotiate, you can give back something. And in Trump's world, if you take everything off the table as a starter, then you can give back stuff that you consider small and inconsequential simply because no one else ever thought to use them as leverage.
But there are long term affects by issuing a trade war. First, you have no guarantee that the other side will cave into trade negotiations in the manner you want to them to. Second, the mere threat of a trade war has lasting impact that simply can't be rolled back with the flip of a switch. To Trump, a trade negotiation is like any negotiation he as a real-estate mogul might make. BUT IT'S NOT!
The question is will those that will be most immediately negatively impacted by Trump's ignorance come to their senses and pull the lever the other way. Trump is betting that it won't happen this fall and perhaps even in 2020.
I hope that the voters, particularly those affected by a trade war, wake up before it is too late. But they will have to learn quickly that cherry-picking Trump policies is not going to change their future and prosperity.
4
The tax cuts have had the expected results, a bonus for corporate heads , wasted capital on stock buy backs, rising interest rates, increased national debt and no trickledown benefit for workers.
The next affect will be the coming recession. The yield curve being inverted because of Fed policy to fight inflation will announce its coming. It will result in a higher debt that will again raise interest rates which will again raise the debt. So the greed of the wealthy will result in more pain for us.
5
It's a common error in politics, to think you can change one thing and everything else will stay the same. So you think you can get tax cuts, but the business climate will not alter otherwise. Who wouldn't want that deal?
But that deal was never really on the table.
1
Bravo on all that. But from the ashes comes rebirth. There’s a serious trend in Silicon Valley of companies building more humane and sane policies into their DNA. More than 3000 of them (not just in the Valley) have instilled a principle called 1,1,1 that donates one percent each of employee time, profits and equity to good causes. It’s led by Salesforce, one of the best companies to work for according to annual polling by Fortune. The situation is looking bleak but always be aware that somewhere the status quo is being overturned.
4
I've been saying for years that we are no longer the U.S.A.. We have become the United Chamber of Commerce of States of America (UCCSA). The country is controlled by a business lobby.
Recently, I was asked by my boss to look over the local Chamber's membership propaganda. Here were their important "goals":
1) Maintain a pro-business legislature.
2) Maintain a rule-of-law Supreme Court
3) Protect employer rights in the workplace
4) Block efforts to increase business taxes
5) Stop proposals to increase unemployment benefits
6) Block efforts to mandate paid sick leave
7) Block $12-$15 per hour minimum wage
The list speaks for itself. And, you know, I'm not anti-business, but this sort of agenda clearly demonstrates that the C of C has declared war on the working class.
In the end, know that the "government" (the C of C) does not have your best interests in mind.
30
Yes, the war is and has always been against the working class. And in a very Reagan-esque way, the current President says one thing and does something completely different. Take the MAGA message to help workers. The current policies have nothing to do with returning middle class manufacturing jobs to the US (if this is even possible) and everything to do with which sycophant multi-national corporations will control commodities (coal, oil, crops, metals …) and markets therefore. Ok, maybe a few workers in the commodity-related fields will benefit; however, the disruption created will hurt many more in manufacturing.
4
Bingo. And anyone who talks publicly about workers' rights or wealth inequality is engaged in "class warfare," unlike the Chamber.
6
It seems that the ongoing crises have sharpened your mind as well Dr Krugman. This is another very good summation of where we are, why we got here, and where we could be going. Thank you!
14
There was a time when capitalism and democracy had a symbiotic relationship. That time has long passed with both parties catering to big business and it's excessive greed at the cost of the citizenry. We need to get back to democracy and separation of church and state. But so-called strict constitutional constructionist now rule SCOTUS, a complicit Congress allows an authoritarian to destroy everything that was ever valued and good about America. Now we no longer stand for equality for all, opportunity for all, or separation of church and state. The empire is burning and not enough people are standing up to prevent it.
17
'The decadent international but individualistic capitalism, in the hands of which we found ourselves after the war, is not a success. It is not intelligent, it is not beautiful, it is not just, it is not virtuous--and it doesn't deliver the goods. In short, we dislike it, and we are beginning to despise it. But when we wonder what to put in its place, we are extremely perplexed.'
JM Keynes "National Self Sufficiency' June 1933.
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/interwar/keynes.htm
4
As Dr. K. points out, big business leaders have played a politcal game for decades. They thought they were harnessing racism and prejudice to their economic advantage, and in doing so they set in motion the forces that created the tea party. The Republican party gleefully invited it on board, only to be consumed by it and pave the way for trump.
History may not necessarily repeat itself exactly, but it does provide lessons, and big business leaders have not been very good students. Not too many generations ago, their German predecessors thought they could use and control the Nazis...... How did that work out?
182
Bigotry and racism are ugly beasts that can turn peaceful communities into raging mobs. Like Frankenstein's monster, they can turn on their masters and rip and tear any sense of empathy, decency, or justice into shreds.
I'm not sure that we can handle the four horsemen of the looming apocalypse any better that the Germans could.
But for the sake of our children and grandchildren, we had damn sure better try.
2
The Tea Party is an AstroTurf creation of the Koch machine. The Kochs and allies have funded it to put their creatures in Congress where their handpicked politicians continually throw a monkey wrench in to the works to prevent any bipartisanship from taking root. They are the primary reason that nothing gets done other than tax cuts and libertarian judges getting seated on the federal bench. It is their government. They took over the former Republican party the old fashion way: they bought it. It is theirs, and they are proud of the fact. As long as gas and oil are protected, the rest can go to pieces and they won't raise a finger to stop it.
I continue to believe that the failure of the automobile manufacturers in the financial meltdown began with their war against CAFE standards starting in the 1980s. The birth of the SUV was based on avoiding the higher mileage standards for standard cars which were most popular back then. As if higher mileage was a bad thing, consumers eventually came to love SUVs, particularly when the higher mileage models emerged. Hundreds of billions of dollars later the B-school geniuses in Detroit were proven to be mistakenly correct.
We all have been preaching to the choir since the election of trump in hopes that it would stem the tide. Now the inevitable ha arrived. Its either stop the Republican tide or go down with the ship. GET OUT THE VOTE! Before more is done that cannot be undone.
Or it’s just the beginning.
27
Yes, exactly. I found this article lacking anything new, useful. Should have been obvious long ago. So, here we is! Actually, the whole thing started after WWII and gradually morphed into what we see today. History. Good post; in a nutshell.
Absolutely. Not just vote. This is a critical moment for our country. Donate your time and money to elect decent, progressive candidates. Progressives are the majority, and we must all commit to ending this dangerous, disgusting nightmare.
1
It is long past time for even the wealthy to recognize that Trump's playing to his base will break the national bank, and may well get us all killed. The nation is dying, entirely from within. Stop this madness. Vote in record numbers, while we still have a chance.
24
This is an excellent point in my opinion. The conservatives like Heritage remind me of thrill seekers in a train constantly telling the conductor not to worry about speed limits because they are just liberal propaganda, the train can just keep going faster because the thrill of coming close to derailment is intoxicating. And then they realize that while they have been playing fast and loose with everything because they liked the thrill, the person in charge is a true sociopath and possibly even a psychopath who will have no problem crashing the train. And thus the saying - hoisted by your own petard! I wouldn't care so much except for the fact that I too am on the train.
2
Trump's white working class supporters will suffer from his policies. Trump's corporate supporters will suffer from his policies. The rest of us will suffer from his policies. But Trump cares not one whit. Personal enrichment, power and vainglory are Trump's only objectives.
2
Paul, it's time for you and all of the acolytes of absolute free trade to disappear. The central premise of free trade with China, that economic liberalization would lead to political liberalization, was completely wrong. The Chinese don't want a happy, free world. They want dominance by destroying U.S. industrial capacity and the American industrial worker. Stop being for China and be for America for once. Or better yet, just admit you were wrong and retire.
Strikes me as absurd that Trump is being blamed for everything when the spineless and shortsighted members of Congress are the ones who should have the fire held to their feet.
Our kids and theirs will be the ones who pay so I guess it is just fine with the jellyfish who swim through the halls of Congress
I can only hope enough people turn out to vote this November because there may be nothing left but a stack of bills to pay if the Republican toadies retain control.
14
As I plan next years retirement I fear the bill is going to come much sooner than for our children. every time I see the 18 cent interest deposit into my large savings account I am pretty sure I am paying the bill now
2
To reinforce the points that Dr Krugman drives home would require more economic intelligence then I will ever enjoy. The misjudgements, prejudices and hypocracies that corporate America has used to rationalize the contradictions that they substitute for reasonable economic policy are enough to give any thinking person a case of tinnitus, headaches and unexplained symptoms of mild to moderate traumatic brain injury.
Based on that risk assessment, very few Trump supporters have anything to worry about.
Disturbingly, there is still more to be concerned with, while Trump and his close associates are within arms lengthy of the levers of power. Or that button he's always talking about!
The most dangerous threat that Trump brings to the Oval Office is not his protectionism or his racism. It's not his populism or his tendency to act impulsively.
All of those are dangerous to our economy and democracy. But Trump's threat to the United States is truly existential.
Donald Trump is profoundly incompetent!
Even with all the damage he could inflict if he were able to achieve his intentions, including his commitment to Vladimir Putin, to allow Russia to play its geopolitical hand without any interference from the US.
Putin made a mistake. Trump will attempt to follow Putin's instructions, but somewhere over the course of events, Trump will let the wrong opinion prevail. He will set in motion a chain reaction beyond his understanding and the conflagration will consume us all.
11
Trump is a Fascist with autocratic desires of absolute power. Can he achieve this goal? Certainly he can, over time, with the continued acquiescence of our “do nothings in Congress” and the weakening of our Courts. The continued pummeling of reason and thought by Trump’s chaotic governing method of the ‘huge lie’ day in, day out will have historic effect on the nation. The will and ability to resist will erode. Stand up now and change the direction we are headed in. It is about time.
13
It gives sadistic pleasure to watch these organizations back peddle on their traditional stances on all things business. It's interesting to see the reaction of the Chamber of Commerce and see what they do, once they get it through their dense heads that these actions will cost them money. It will be interesting to see if they hold course in their endorsements for the mid terms, or continue to bear the pain. I'm guessing they will ride out their traditional views in hopes they can turn Trump around. Unlikely to happen as Trump only cares about himself and his dwindling flock of unwavering voters.
10
It is not Trump who should heap the blame, but rather those of us, with some semblance of sensibility, dumb enough to vote for him. While the Media remains competitive, it might help if for once, it united on the same page, and clarified the pitfalls and impact of a Trade War for Americans.
5
More to the point, the Republican Party, the wealthy and "big businesses abandoned all principle in the pursuit of" greed.
America is a nation of conned fools, by the con men, for the con men. Remarkably, the conned fools are loving it.
Of course those of us who still have principles, values, commonsense, and who also are capable of exercising a little critical thinking, understand that the Republican Party, the wealthy and big businesses are not fully responsible for Trump and the demise of America.
The large population of non-voters, those who sit out elections for whatever their reasons, bear great responsibility for the Republican Party malfeasance and Trump's orchestrated harm and impending disaster.
Non-voters are not patriots. They are the underbelly of America that makes our nation vulnerable to domestic terrorism: the Republican Party. Non-voters are not fools like Republican voters, but they are guilty of taking what America offers without offering back what America needs: responsible citizens.
There will always be the greedy, the con men, big businesses looking to take advantage of others. We cannot rid mankind, civilization of such parasites, but we can limit their harm when good people vote their principles, values and collective interests. Sadly, it seems there are not enough good people to come to the aid of their country.
17
Best if the Democrats DO NOT win a chamber of Congress in November.
Trump is already blaming them for not fixing everything even though the voters in 3 federal elections over 6 years gave all levers of power to Republicans. Imagine if the Democrats were in charge? Trump would use it as an excuse to get off the hook for every dumb thing he's done to date.
Besides, the GOP caucus is so split between the hard liners, the extremists and Trump that their incompetence will serve as a check on Trump's power.
What about subpoena power to investigate Russian meddling? The Senate Intel Committee issued a report that says there was Russian meddling AND it favored Trump and hurt Hillary.
No, let them have it all for 2 more years. Little would change with a Democratic controlled House or Senate for the better and letting the GOP continue to tank the country will make 2020 opportunities even better for Dems.
Besides, except for the tax cuts everything Trump has done can be undone by the pen of a Democratic president.
That's one of the down sides of "I, and I alone."
1
Great and terrifying piece, Dr. Krugman.
It all comes down to greed is good, or money is the root of all evil.
2
I was fine until krugman said the modern conservative movement is based upon racists, and then I lost interest in the piece.
The liberals' juvenile labeling/name-calling needs to stop and they will need to significantly mature if there is going to be a rational conversation in this country.
Both sides need to stop with the labelling - it destroys the message! But you should know that. Are you as indignant when you throw out the term liberals and juveniles in the same sentence? The pot calling the kettle black! We independents want to stick to the issues!
Nobody said the modern conservative movement is based on racism. In fact principled conservatives may be less racist than some since they advocate the use of reason rather than invective. (This is why conservatism is mostly a small upper-class debating club and not a real political movement) The Republican Party, however, and its business leaders, have shown great willingness since Nixon’s Southern Strategy to use racist “dog-whistle” tactics to enlarge the Republican vote. These leaders probably know that racism is vicious and irrational; this is why their tactics are so cynical and contemptible.
You cannot deny that racism has been leveraged by many on the right to build support for the Republican party. There is a reason why the "nationalists" neo-Nazis and white supremacy groups vote Republican versus Democratic. Not every Republican is a racist but every racist is a Republican.
The Republican Party handed over the reigns of power to the ultra-right wing billionaire far-right wing donors like the Kochs, Mercers, Adelsons and Wynns. The Roberts Supreme Court's Citizens United decision allowed vast amounts of corporate money to be used in a carefully executed buy-out of local and state political offices. This led to right wing state legislatures and governors that have corrupted the electoral process through computerized gerrymandering and wide-spread voter suppression.
Greed is certainly the primary driving force, but we should keep in mind that the Kochs, for example, come from a right wing extremist family background. The ultra-right that owns the GOP is indeed focused on massive tax cuts, but also the undoing of social progress as represented by Medicare and Social Security, and the abandonment of government regulation of corporations and banks.
The far-right corporatists have been aided and abetted by the Big Lie Fox/Breitbart/hate radio propaganda machines. These forces paved the way to the Oval Office for the ignorant and vulgar Trump (with or without Russian hackers). Trump is a blundering cover act for the ultra-right wing.
The fact is that the United States underwent a right wing coup in 2016 and our current government meets every definition of corporate fascism. Alarm bells must be rung to awaken an otherwise apathetic US electorate. Massive voter rejection of the Trump/GOP nightmare is our only hope for the salvation of democracy.
6
Trump is an economic dunce. He thnks he can browbeat the world into any arrangement that he would like, even if it makes no sense.
What he fails to understnad is that what happens in his addled brain is not reality, and normal people are not going to accept his preferences just becase he says so. In addition, because he was never a person who makes plans (or as he expresses it, he preferes to be "unpredictable"), he has no idea at the beginning of any negotiation how the negotiation is going to actually work out.
He is also quite pigheaded. Conceding that he may have made a mistake is a nonstarter, because his ego cannot handle any suggestion that he is less than perfect.
What could possibly go wrong when a "very stable genius" starts applying random tariffs to the imports we buy from all of our best and largest trading partners, to "teach them a lesson"?
5
We, the choir, have been waiting for this message, or rather the truth(s) about big business and conservativism since the Powell memorandum of 1973. I urge everyone to look this up as soon as. A few years after that came this brash, totally tacky braggart,donald j. trump crowing about his wealth. Those early days are his Achilles Heel.
Well, good luck in reigning in the guy big corporate america has been foisting on us all for years. What's in a name anyway?
1
why misquote the man? trump and his administration seek free and fair trade. trump has called for the elimination of all subsidies and tariffs. he asks China and the WTO to reset the table to his position. in order to get there, he is using blunt force trauma. please stick to disagreeing with his strategy and please cease misrepresenting his goal.
The crash is coming and you all know it . The Republicans have no way to shift the blame this time.
They hold all the power they will take the blow to the gut.
We didn't learn anything the last time we let Republicans and Large Corporations run our government .
This depression will take tens of millions of middle class retirements away and put them on the streets.
6
Trump has no accountability for his actions. He was not a businessman in the usual sense. His company is basically a Mom & Pop real estate company which then turned into a brand licensing company. The main point is that he smashes and yells, but ultimately he is not the one paying the price for his actions. "Trade wars are easy to win." WTH, I'll start one. It reminds me of Bill O'Reily's comment after one of our weekly mass shootings, (I don't remember which one). He said, "It is the price of freedom," when referring to the innocent lives lost. The price of freedom. But you're not the one paying that price are you Bill? Brave words from cowards.
4
The US Chamber of Commerce has been a sham for decades and journalists should debunk it at every turn. Ditto local chambers. Journalists should look at membership and ideological standing before giving them the benefit of a public forum.
2
As long as there were government experts, expertise in general could be attacked to undermine government. Trouble is, it led to uninformed voters upping the ante. Rejecting all expertise for belief instead, they went from scepticism of experts to celebrating idiocy in the form of Trump. Why stop halfway on this anti-intellectual campaign?
They bought the arguments that the Democrats were corrupt and cost them good paying jobs. So somehow if elites were registered Republicans, they would be unlike other elites since the beginning of time and give up lopsided income inequality to raise workers' pay and increase their benefits because these were special elites who loved struggling blue collar workers. How did that Kool Aid taste going down? But Trump mirrored their complaints and now he is on the cusp of destroying the economy with trade wars. Wait until the layoffs start. Trump will bite the corporate hand that fed him. Harley Davidson found that out. There will always be a scapegoat with Trump.
So like teens breaking into their parents' liquor cabinet, Trump voters are drunk on childish abandon and the elites who promoted ignorance of facts and disparaged experience are paying the price. Now the Frankenstein monster they created runs the castle. Except this time the superstitious peasants are carrying their torches in support of the out-of-control monster. After all, science and expertise of its creators are the real enemies, right?
Puttin' on the Ritz.
4
The US Chamber of Commerce works tirelessly to reduce the standard of living for average Americans. Every one of their desired policies is designed to enrich the already rich.They despise working Americans so much that the Southern Poverty Law Center should classify them as a hate group.
If the USCoC is for a policy, you can bet your next paltry paycheck that it will hurt the majority of Americans. And conversely, if they're against it, you can be sure that it would probably benefit YOU (assuming you're not a millionaire).
So they make a perfect partner for Trump, tariffs or no tariffs. Maybe "no single cause brought us to this terrible moment in American history" but the USCoC, in collusion with Trump and other Republicans over the last four decades, definitely played a starring role. Perhaps if they hadn't been so dead-set against helping workers who were hurt by their desired trade policies we wouldn't now be ruled by an ignorant buffoon.
6
Bigotry is a powerful political card that is always used by tyrants. Jews, Islamists, Tusis, Hutus, Shiites, Sunnis, Blacks, Whites etc. When President Johnson signed the Civil Rights legislation of the 60s he predicted the loss of the Democratic South to the Republican party. No one doubts that he was correct. We like to think that evil dosn't work, but we know from experience that it does. Almost all of us in America are the children of immigrants. America should remain the most welcoming country on earth. The one country that should leave no room for bigotry and hatred is the United States. The irony for "so called" conservatives, is that this has also been the secret of our economic growth and prosperity.
13
"The point is that it’s not just world trade that’s at risk, but the rule of law."
Krugman tends to bury the lead, and this time's no different. Trump was channeling Hugo Chavez when he began threatening Harley-Davidson, down to his accusation that they owed him. And what's so scary about the President of the United States mimicking Hugo Chavez is how easily he gets away with it - how casually everyone seems to react, as though our presidents have always been corrupt psychopaths.
11
It's time that the use of "womp, womp," mimicking the sound of a trumpet and mute, which Krugman has made reference to when describing certain dismissive attacks that Republicans aim at Democrats, should be replaced with "swamp, swamp," pronounced "swomp, swomp."
You’ve hit the proverbial nail on the head Mr. Krugman. Although it’s never been chanted at any rally, “Greed is Good” has long triumphed over any other patriotic slogan in the US.
2
Mesmerized by greater and greater wealth some corporate leaders and the chamber have allowed the GOP to attract their voters anyway possible … racists views, guns, abortion, and attacking as elitist those well educated. All for the purpose of increasing wealth. Greed goes before a great fall.
2
All the world is just a great big piggy bank for Trump and his authoritarian buddies. And they mean it. And they will use anything to keep it that way.
2
Truer words were never written than those in Paul Krugman's column. "Big Business", meaning the insatiable plutocracy in charge of the Republican Party, is learning what economic horrors can unexpectedly occur when it makes a "grand bargain", political support for enhanced riches via tax cuts, with an amoral, ignorant, deviant narcissist enamored with a worshiping "base". Couldn't befall a more worthy group of faux Americans.
1
Yep. For half a century, the GOP has been playing with fire by pandering to the lowest common denominators of ignorance, bigotry and fear of "diversity" and of change itself - all to gain the votes of "Real Americans" while eviscerating the local economies and pocketbooks of these same voters through massive upwards wealth transfers from the middle class to the corporate plutocracy.
But in pandering to this American Id, they've been building a retrograde base of "Real Americans" who have been propagandized by 30 years of hate radio and Faux News that they are the victims of "The Other" (blacks, Hispanics, immigrants, gays, liberals, Muslims, uppity women, intellectuals, "elites", et al.). The GOP and their enablers plowed the ground and seeded it with fear, hate and resentment.
And Trump just descended his escalator and found this plowed and seeded ground ripe for his demagogic, bloviating, "Big Con". The GOP laughed at him first, then sounded the alarms when he got a billion dollars of free press coverage from a media which knew a great, real-life reality TV extravaganza when they saw one.
But by then it was too late. Trump is the GOP's Frankenstein Monster unbound - and the Monster now controls the GOP - lock, stock and barrel.
And now even the corporate plutocracy - the People Who Really Run America (or thought they did) can't control Trumpenstein.
Tune in next week to see who or what Trumpenstein destroys next. It's "must see" TV.
37
You said it so perfectly. Lowest common denominator.
1
If the Republicans in Congress weren't beholden to Big Money, they could certainly crimp Trump's style and stay his hand. Blame the majority in Congress, and Mitch McConnell in particular, for the dismantling of democracy.
1
". . . GOP's Frankenstein Monster unbound - and the Monster now controls the GOP - lock, stock and barrel." Perfect, on the money. Some things cannot be repaired.
Big business is not colour blind. It has no qualms in embracing the racist lot's agenda as incarnated by 'Trump's people'. The masses of American people have acclimatized themselves to decades of borderline human rights abuses in the workaday world after trade unions were eviscerated leaving most US employees prey to the amoral managers.
Mr Krugman, we are witnessing the beginning of the end of decent society as only mature adults such as you and I have known in days of past. Big business will end up sawing off the branch upon which it is sitting in the name of hateful ideologies of nationalism and xenophobia.
1
Question : seems like big business could turn off donations to Republicans and end this silliness quickly. Why aren’t they?
12
An excellent article. Don’t apologize for putting “too fine a point on it.” I know plenty of people who coud be clubbed over the head with it, and they’d still vote Republican.
4
Thanks for a great column, Professor K!
1
Trump Trump Trump. Until we see our own complicity in this every inch of the way, years and years of outsourcing our responsibilities as citizens, indulging our greed and laziness, as the US raped and plundered the globe, including its own most vulnerable citizens. Trump isn't the cause; he's the effect; he isn't the disease; he's just one of the symptoms.
Stop with the finger pointing. Look at who you are, how you have benefitted from all the corruption over the years. Look at who you backed for office: a person who called the white working class "the deplorables," a person with an appalling history of racism and classism, a person with serious ethical problems and boundless energy for terrorizing and exploiting vulnerable nations. We can pretend you voted for her because you thought she was qualified; but you're fooling nobody. You voted for her because you believed she'd keep the trains running, keep your investments intact, keep you affluent.
Those who believe that all we need to do is exorcise Trump are doing what they've always done--scapegoating, but meanwhile doing nothing to change. Real change would require sacrifice and we're still too greedy and stupid for that.
1
Stealing our intellectual property.
China does not have to play the game by our rules as much as we would like it to.
But rest assured there is no free lunch for them - for everything they gain on the swings they will lose on the roundabout.
Fear not USA - a free country can be the only winner in the long run.
We are, it seems, witnesses to the embryonic recrudescence of absolute power in the hands of the few... and unfortunately in the decline of our heretofore wonderful American democracy.
Out path toward saving our American soul is clearly voting. But how can we encourage the "silent apathetic majority" to get out and cast their ballots?
3
Business, Congress, powerful donors thought they could contain Trump. But the right wing agenda marches forward, as does the agenda of disconnecting globally, with the odd exception of being cozy with dictators.
And now, even though Bannon and Miller have made the Trump agenda clear, people seem surprised that the WH is not working out all that well for them. Who knew? Well, they could have just asked all of us who needed a robust ACA; or immigrants; or students carrying debt; or women who needed birth control or .... or.... or......
The Chamber of Commerce made a Faustian bargain in exchange for a tax bill and regulatory reversals. They got their deregulation and lower tax rate. But they forgot that the devil always has his own agenda, and he always collects on his debts.
40
To suggest that they sold their soul to the devil, you would have to assume that they had one in the first place.
The rich thought it was a good idea to bring a wild animal into the house as a pet, It wasn't housebroken, didn't care about its owners and is now tearing the house apart, Shoulda' thought about that when you brought it in, friends,
But you can either release it back or pack it off to a zoo.
Choose, and choose now. Pull your support from the weak GOP congress in November.
The chaos is just beginning. Paul is right, you have created this mess and the world is not going to sit quietly as Donald slings attacks on it.
38
Reminds me of that snake story Trump likes to tell. Of course he’s the real snake.
It is astounding that it takes tariffs and a trade war to wake up corporate America to a big piece of economic dissonance: About two-thirds of the U.S. economy is based on consumption but 90% of the nation's population controls only 10% of its wealth. Just how long did big corporations staffed with MBA wielding geniuses think this could be sustained?
There is even more confirmation in today's NYT concerning declining birth rates. People who must hold down multiple jobs to make ends meet, can't afford to have as many children and still feel they can fulfill their parental responsibilities. So, they have fewer children who would become immediate new consumers.
Corporate America has known for decades that trickle down economics is essentially a hoax. But they still back conservatives that support policies that increase income disparity and reduce the propensity of consumers to spend. MBAs are smart enough to figure out this math but keeping company stockholders happy is always the immediate goal - not building and sticking with a strategy for the long haul.
I am reminded that the definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We can only hope it is not too late to break this dangerous cycle given the ideologues that support Trump and impotent Republicans in Congress who refuse to stand up.
56
Exactly right. When Walmart employees have to get a Thanksgiving turkey from charity because they don't make enough money to buy one, we see the problem in relying on consumption to keep the economy going. But the titans of industry will eat like kings. Their biggest problem is figuring out which of their many homes to dine in.
8
Those Republicans in Congress are not impotent, they're in collusion with Trump. The impotent ones have already left because they know they can't do what's right for the country and still be reelected by their base.
Racism and capital accumulation have always been intertwined. This is not a new phenomenon, and “racists” and “wealthy capitalists” are not two sides to an alliance. Capital transforms human beings into chattel slaves and exploitable labor through racist ideology. It legitimises its uneven distribution of resources through racist ideology. It forges weak and contradictory political alliances to overcome its contradictions through racist ideology. It obscures the ways in which a history of racism produced profits to invest. Wealthy capitalists may not be skinheads, but profits (and wages) are always already racist. And we as White people invest in Whiteness and capitalism because they work in tandem to give us an unfair share of its rewards. And as long as we think about racism as an individual shortcoming, an act of ignorance, and not a structural pattern that is key to capital’s project, then racism will live on.
21
They were warned repeatedly but they still let this thing out of the bottle and it granted them tax cuts. They poured millions into its inauguration, wore their bespoke $20,000 dark suits to pay it homage at the White House. They openly gushed that one of their own now occupied the Oval Office, traded stories of Carl Icahn and other Trump friends who got their special favors and made millions, and began naming their grand children after it. They shared their giddiness over Greg "The Shark" Norman, who schmoozed a tariff exemption for Aussie steel because it idolizes him as a golf demi-god.
Oops.
No one told them that part of the deal would be the kind of chaos you hire strategic planners to avoid at all costs because it can cost a corporation all and more.
Now that tax cut is undercut by a roiled marketplace, disrupted supply lines decades in the making, friendly foreign markets turned hostile, and the terrifying sound of profits hissing out of all-but-certain sales projections and flying into the bank accounts of foreign competitors.
Captains of industry wanted full speed ahead to win a race. But Captain Ahab was distracted tweeting insults at Moby Dick and working on his short game on the upper deck putting green.
Icebergs?
But Ahab knew icebergs weren't real. That's why he tore up the Paris Accords on Climate Change.
Never has caveat emptor been so unheeded and the consequences so richly deserved.
Got your life jacket yet?
42
Not to mention the corruption all this has unleashed-
The modern GOP, summed up well in one sentence — “...the tacit alliance between businesses and the wealthy, on one side, and racists on the other, that is the essence of the modern conservative movement.”
Unless and until masses of poor and working class Americans come to realize they’re voting against their own economic interests because of the appeal to unfortunately more manifest racism, we are doomed.
37
Decrying expertise. Threatening corporations. Sound familiar? This is right out of Putin's playbook. Any American corporation who thinks that Trump is not a danger to both them and the country ought to take a look at Russia and China.
Do you see any technology companies in Russia? Yeah, they have some defense assets, but Russia is essentially a gas station; low tech, or no tech. And that is precisely the point: your future with Trump will degrade the rule of law to the extent that your intellectual property will be at risk.
Take a look at the large energy companies in Russia, along with the state owned enterprises in China. That is the future of Apple, IBM, and others; a red phone on your desk connected to Trump who will tell you what to think.
Trump is taking dead aim at the rule of law by making facts irrelevant to opinions. Everything is an opinion, so facts do not matter. What matters is what Trump wants.
That is exactly the point when your intellectual property begins to go away, and your IP becomes "an opinion". And, like China and Russia, you will be captive to the State who will shake you down like other Mafia states.
So you want free markets? Well, nothing is free. Somebody always pays those negative externalities. Your turn in the barrel is next.
Time to defend the rule of law by putting Trump on notice. That is, unless you want to be a Russian oligarch where, like Hotel California, "you can check out, but you can never leave."
33
I will start feeling better when an admitted Trump voter comments that he or she was completely wrong and has seen the light.
But that is the comment I never see
36
That's so true! They admit their business may go down the drain because of Trump's policies and then point out places where they 'agree' with him. (Never mind that agreeing with him about any policy is nonsense because policies are just so much fluff to him.)
1
From a purely domestic economic point of view, trade deficits are neither good nor bad except as how they impact the domestic standard of living. Creating low-paying jobs to compete on price does not raise the standard of living.
Placing higher tariffs on imported goods without wage increases to offset the higher costs of goods does not raise the standard of living. For those of you who hate sales taxes, Trump's tariffs on consumer goods exported to and sold in the U.S. will, in effect, act as a nationwide "sales tax" on the many imported goods you buy online and at your local "brick and mortar" stores.
Tariffs also spark retaliatory tariffs. As the cost of U.S. goods to foreign consumers goes up, U.S. overseas sales will go down, hurting manufacturing and agribusiness and employment at home. Domestic companies will set up shop across the borders or overseas in order to hold onto their sales revenue, like Harley-Davidson has announced.
If instead we create the right income and capital gains tax incentives/disincentives to encourage domestic companies that produce goods overseas to bring manufacturing back to America, the trade deficit will be reduced. Likewise, If we create the right non-tariff tax incentives to encourage foreign companies to manufacture goods in America, the trade deficit will be reduced. If we compete on quality and innovation, not just price, there would be more incentive to Buy American at home and abroad.
5
More simply, a tariff is a tax.
3
I’d rather have fair trade than the farce of free trade, thank you.
Greed (or avarice), not liberty, has become the main value in the US, at least de facto.
It used to be that very serious business people were advocating that the most important thing was passion for your product, your services or your work and that profit was a by-product of this.
Not anymore. Greed is now valued above everything and an end onto itself. I you have 50 billions, its ok to further impoverish poor people to get 10 billions more.
There are thousands and thousands of years of experience behind the notion, which you also see reflected in many religions, that greed is a "sin". The reason is that it is inherently destructive, like all other sins.
The preamble of your constitution reads "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Go back to this and your problems will be solved. You are now doing the exact opposite. "General Welfare" does not mean greed pushed to such an extreme that the richest nation on earth is denying medical services and food stamps to the poorest and separating young kids from their parents.
There are also thousand of years of experience behind good old fashioned values. Like telling the truth. Honour. Compassion. Justice.
I am old and irrelevant, I know.
37
Leave off the last sentence. Honest and decent people need to stop putting themselves down in any way. Speak the truth and leave it there.
I am a bit surprised by the tone of most of the letters which blame corporations for being greedy. Citizens of other western industrial nations (like me in Canada) know full what your much hallowed myth of the American Dream is about and has always been about - success measured by how much money you make. As to your deified Constitution I think I need to remind you that the genesis of the American Revolution was not about ideals, God, or equality - it was taxation without representation - in other words - money.
18
Actually, it was about power - who had the power to levy the tax. the "Presbyterian Rebellion" went against monarchical, authoritarian rule in favor of branches of government balanced by appointment and election, that was supposed to check any individual's reach on power. If Trump attended a Presbyterian church, he totally missed the point of what made it Presbyterian. Checks and balances on power, with "the people" making decisions about the money.
1
Corporate greed has no bounds.Corporations and ultrawealthy individuals donate to the GOP and exploit racism and xenophobia to their own ends-getting themselves ever bigger tax cuts each time, and offshoring their wealth to avoid taxes. The US economy was booming in the 60s. China and Europe-recovering from world war 2- were not serious competitors. After Nixon opened the US to trade with China in 1971, greedy US companies offshored tens of millions of US jobs. Reagan and the republicans cheered 'free trade', which was just rapacious tycoons multiplying their wealth while average americans got poorer. The GOP created the predatory and massive Chinese economy. They destroyed the trade unions that tried to protect the jobs and workers. Big business imported cheap parts from china, driving US companies out of business. Whole technologies and knowledge bases vanished from these shores. Interest in science and engineering declined. Now the US is dependant on china and europe for much of the manufacturing that was once done here. Millions of US workers with just a high school education were impoverished through all this. Most have no retirement savings and their salaries have declined in real terms.. The republicans slashed spending on education, and college education got expensive. They allowed pharmas and hospitals, through political donations and lobbying, to raise prices. Big businesses and mostly white and uneducated voters are paying the price for all of it now.
8
Paying the price and voting Republican.
My fear is that we are talking to ourselves, that it makes no difference that Krugman and commenters here see what is going on, that we are mere observers of the destruction of the republic.
26
The fundamental issue here is while this forum - Paul K included - talks reason, GOP plays on emotion. And with emotion other primal instincts kick in: fear, uncertainty, doubt.
A person in fear will seek safety: in a group, in religion, avoid risk, hide in the shade. Talk as much reason as you want, they are afraid.
And in times of fear, dangerous leaders stand up. Especially when such conditions are deliberately created. "We need common enemy to unite", to quote Condoleezza Rice.
Trump is busy creating enemies everywhere, and seeing from every corner: EU, China, Mexico, Canada, intellectuals, press... the list goes on.
You want to fight Trump? Address the emotion.
12
That's fine and correct, Lex, but how do we do that? Reason doesn't always rhyme with emotions. Plus, us on the progressive side have tried -- but it appears to be easier to trump up support for racists exclusionary politics than to appeal to emotions based on humanist values. I'm not sure how we can change that simple 'fact'.
1
Please do not lump religion in as an antidote to "fear." The crux of the matter is always, will you be driven by fear, or will you have faith - faith that stays the emotional chaos and creates a peaceful center out of which the mind and heart can discern the better course. You cannot generalize that "emotions" are driving Trump voters unless you have objective data supporting the generalization. What about anger? That is what I hear when I talk to Trump voters. They want their day in court. They're having it. It's how we do government in the USA, elections that change policies/parties without killing each other or having military coups to do it. At least so far.
@ Ulf
You are right, talking at emotion is a new skill. Movie actors are excellent at this, and on your side. Find those who can amongst your ranks, and bite your tongue when you feel the message is too simple, too emotional, to general. Let them do the work.
And back them up no matter what: line up as 1. It's easier to break 1 stick than a bundle of 100 sticks (Tun Tzu).
Too hard, too simple? your GOP does that. And they do it well. so it works.
@ Marguerite
Anger is a response to fear; fear of losing your job, fear of how to make it to end of the month with no money, fear to, fear of "others" who are not like you. More enemies everywhere and you have nowhere to hide - China, 'raping' Mexicans, Liberals, the list goes on.
Haven't we been told by big business for years that their ONLY obligation is to maximize profits for the 1%? Now we see the results of that immoral position.
14
If corporate interests were keeping the racists in line, who was keeping the oligarchy in line? It sure wasn't the racists. It didn't appear to be the democrats either.
It is very interesting that the interests of the very wealthy were never considered a problem as a controlling interest of one, if not both, political parties.
I am not so sure how far a class based society for the rich on one side, and a return to slavery on the other side of the Republican Party are really that different.
7
Trump has stated on numerous occasions that a trade war would be ". . . easy to win." Now that it has officially begun, I suggest that Trump supporters celebrate and chant a phrase one normally hear in Cajun country, but certainly one that is appropriate now, "Laissez le bon temps rouler" [Let the good times roll] for the good times for which they have longed, are finally here.
10
Sad to say, living in Canada, the US is the country I fear the most for so many reasons. Trust is lost.
28
The incoherence and crass opportunism of the right are finally coming into full focus. You can't run a modern society with minimal government. You can't return to the "golden years" of growth simply by deregulation and tax cuts. You can't stoke racism and expect the base to forget about it. You can't blame others (viz. China) for our problems and then come up with realistic policy solutions.
What scares me is what is coming next. Sure, the GOP could collapse of its own weight and usher in an era of Democratic dominance, but who believes they will do so by the traditional rules? No, the more likely path is that the GOP will imitate Putin's tactics, sowing fear and hate against an imagined boogeyman and offering outrage and paranoia rather than concrete policy solutions. Oh, gee, that is what Trump is already doing...
25
There was a group of Republican politicians in Moscow just this week. Likely working on the propaganda campaign for the 2018 and 2020 elections.
For 70 years the GOP told us Russia was our enemy and we needed to spend trillions of dollars and thousands of lives fighting them, now these surrender monkey's are in Moscow? Their constituents should demand their resignations.
8
Overarching the discussion is the fact that the Chamber and everyone else with money can get their message out with as much money as they care since our Supreme Court equates money with (free) speech and has since taking up the cause of Mr. James Buckley in his senatorial candidacy in New York. Compounding its error in Citizens United, we are left with the ability of those with money to spend as much as they wish. Further compounding the inequity is the Internal Revenue Code which allows basically unlimited "charitable" contributions to Sec 501(c)(4) organizations, as long as not more than 50% of the organizations' funds are not spent on "political" matters. Plus other dark money opportunities are available to all with money. What a great country, as soon as we totally eliminate all labor unions. Because they use their members' dues in politics, unlike Chambers of Commerce, the Kochs, and the other greedy billionaires who brought you the current unholy hot mess. MAGA!
15
Sooner or later the unholy alliance between business and the racist Republican base was bound to be broken. Few would have thought that Trump, the "business man", would be the one to break it. But the thing is that Trump is not so much a business man as a show man and a con artist. Fundamentally, he measures his success by attention and brand awareness, not by the metrics used by most businesses.
He really doesn't care about global supply chains, and probably doesn't understand them. What he cares about his building brand with the people who will him keep in office so that he can stay in office. It's no different than maintaining ratings so that the show stays on the air.
Sure he has to monetize this attention, but his efforts to profit from the presidency are perfectly transparent, and having nothing to do with tariffs and trade. He will profit, as he always has, in the shadows and outside of the channels of mainstream commerce. His business partners are assorted princes, oligarchs, autocrats, and mobsters who are not subject to financial reporting, regulation or other public scrutiny, in many cases because they run their governments, just like him.
This presidency is only about personal profit. Trump's customers are his supporters and he has no stockholder other than himself. As long as the racist base holds firm, the business model won't change.
12
Glad someone is finally taking a serious look at voting machines. Not that it will do any good. Do not look for a paper backup ballot any time soon, I have to de-bug my PC several times a day because of cookies that change the settings on my PC. I have it set so that if I walk away the screens (8) and video cards shut down automatically to save energy and lower my electric cooling bill. There aught to be a law. I will not hold my breath. So yea, voting machines which in saner countries have been done away with, act like robots to steal your vote. No joke!
2
Trump does not understand that countries with significant flows of goods and services in both directions are much less likely to go to actual war with each other because of the bilateral economic costs involved.
For decades conservatives have been building the Frankenstein monster that has culminated in Trump. Now many of them cry crocodile tears because they cannot control their creation. Unfortunately, those of us who understand the need for a federal government run by people suitable to the task of properly guiding a country of 327 million people in very complex times, will suffer along with the creature's creators.
17
re businesses asking for exemptions from tariffs, you ask: "Who in the Trump administration is going to pay attention to those letters? "
You miss the point. Trump likes to feel powerful. Having others whether businesses or allies coming to him on bended knee asking him to 'please, please' whatever gives him a rush. It's one of his opioids (those ridiculous 'campaign' rallies are another). That is the way he ran his business - he as the king pin, everyone else from customers to employees as the supplicants. He's playing a game with our national well-being in order to feed his insatiable ego.
29
Business leaders like Mr. Donohue, quoted by Dr. Krugman, have sold their ethics and morals cheaply, for the bargain price of some tax cuts and roll back of consumer protection and environmental rules. So their one-off media releases about immigrant children ring pretty hollow in the context of the rest of their anti-family agenda.
One wonders whether Mr. Donohue and countless other business leaders like him fully understand what they have wrought. Do they understand when they greedily take their huge tax cuts the result is that the social safety net that protects children and families will be slashed?
Their ability to compartmentalize is impressive. Their capacity for compassion and true understanding of how all of us are connected is not.
25
I think Dr. Krugman is quite right. Trump is only the symptom of much deeper problems. I read accounts of what he just said to cheers at a rally in Montana and it is deeply discouraging. There are such powerful forces at work seeking to misinform people foir the sake of mere personal advantage. The Koch Brothers have a well financed campaign to discredit any proposed major public investment in transit. Rupert Murdoch has for years sponsored scandalously unbalanced broadcasting which seems to achieved a sort of zenith with Sean Hannity. Individual human beings are by their very nature quite limited and utterly reliant on assumptions they make based on the information of their life experience. And in the US for many years their has been a discounting of the value of being honest and the elevation of the notion of merely "winning" individually. The result is a very unwell society that throws up the likes of Trump as a mere symptom of its unwellness. And in Canada there is a similar phenomenon where the second most important elected official in the country has just changed to become Mr. Doug Ford, the new Premier of Ontario, whose style is about as toxic and divisive as Mr. Trump. His opponents supposedly have no merit, no honesty and nothing but self interest. He has declared his government to be the first government Ontario has ever had that was "for the people". And we have enough poorly schooled people in civics to create crowds of individuals who actually believe such bunk.
55
I whole heartily agree that a denigration of honesty and fairness is the root of this madness! So many of our economic exchanges are now corrupted by a forced agreement to be scammed. Student loans, cable and cell phone contracts, health insurance, etc... we have to agree to be fee-ed and service agreemented with corporations that do Not have the customer best interest but rather the agreement to be scammed. No wonder we ended up with the Uber grifter as the President. When will it end?
Finally, someone above the line - and many below - who are beginning to see Trump as a symptom rather than the cause of a deeper dysfunction.
Trump makes a mockery of the American ideal of free agency at the heart of the American Dream (he can do, and is best at, everything).
But to buy into such a fantasy of free agency, and make Trump the agent or chief cause of the current American Malaise is to compound the problem rather than directly address it.
22
I find it difficult to understand what it is you are saying. I call it double talk. I hear it all the time. Start here, go there, come back, make sense, make no sense, declare obvious truths that are anything but and the beat goes on. When truth is a casualty in a democracy we all lose including those who were trying to rig the system. Few, if any, people can understand the world economic system. Why you ask? Because even a computer cannot keep up with all the moving parts scattered around the globe.
3
So on point. These companies cant get enough money. They fail to care about people. No health care, no quality education, no services for seniors the list goes on. We are a racist, greedy society and most people are just tired of the double talk. A new day and ore white noise signifying nothing. We live in selfish times and yes the past has been littered with the same type of behavior and we never learn anything.
1
If a computer can’t understand it ... circular logic
I usually agree with you Dr. Krugman and have nothing to say. But if you are going to talk about trade wars and I mean real not phony trade wars, you need to throw some numbers into your argument. What proportion of the global economy to date is actually affected by this phony trade war. You are giving Trump too much credit. It's all a show, a bluff, call it what you want.
3
It’s easy to assume things won’t fall apart and we’ll have the relative stability we’ve had, but you’re about to see how dangerous this assumption is.
26
When the Chamber of Congress endorses, and donates to, Democrats, I'll know that the corporate interests have heeded Mr. Krugman's advice. Until then, I'll know they are in denial.
43
Mr. Krugman nails it with this one. Big money, a very small group, has allied with anti-tax, anti-government types in election after election. Big oil is the power behind climate denialism. Big banks put the system rigging up. Power corrupts, and big money has it. They despise the ordinary person, but know how to manipulate them.
In 1980, as Reagan's campaign sputtered, he was revived with a standing ovation on the New York Stock Exchange trading floor. They knew how their bread was buttered, and saw that a B-movie star, promoted by the era's right-wing corporation, GE, joined George Wallace's faithful with the upper-middle crust. Republican strategists never looked back.
Republicans made a critical error when they lined up behind Trump in 2016. Business leaders weren't terrified of Clinton, just didn't like her policies. They should have split the party, putting their money behind a third candidate. It's what happened in 1912, when many Republicans couldn't stomach more Taft, and supported Roosevelt. In 2016 Big Money could have done something similar. But Big Money is actually as tribal as anyone.
Behind well-bred and educated facades, business leaders will stick with Trump till the end.
39
Trump must believe that tariffs pay for tax cuts. Wrong again.
26
Yah. It IS such a shame that “big business”, that employs most Americans not employed directly by governments, is getting a leg-up for the first time since 11:59 AM, 20 Jan. 2009. Some might recall that the ORIGINAL Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, ALSO was rather big on promoting business interests as the best way to promote general AMERICAN interests. Of course, it’s true that Lincoln had other things on his plate that sometime obscures that fact.
Whether it’s trade or anything else, there’s not a lot of utility in the pronouncements of ANY president if they DON’T constitute “tough talk”. We saw that with Obama, who was excellent at preachiness but significantly less effective at following it up with action or with making it stick. For example, he made it clear that European allies should pull more of their weight in defense expenditures, then did absolutely nothing to compel or even to facilitate such action – leaving it to Trump to actually get that action (and, no, he hasn’t gotten it yet; but, then he’s only started this focused effort while Obama had eight years to prove useful on this issue … and failed abysmally largely for want of trying).
But Dr. Krugman flogs one of the left’s favorite MSNBC talking-points; and if Trump has allowed him to do such a heart-healthy thing, then at least it’s right that …
5
… big business should get the credit. This “tacit alliance between businesses and the wealthy, on one side, and racists on the other, that is the essence of the modern conservative movement”. Every time he drops this bomb, Krugman adds another year to his life by the sheer bile he ejects from his body. Mazel Tov!
But BOTH sides deserve equal time. What has liberals so up in arms is that they keep making the arguments that maximum collectivism is good, we shouldn’t allow the Administrative State to be attacked much less destroyed by Trump and Republicans, and that what we give up to embrace them – including a free, independent and self-reliant people -- by tolerating such anathemas in America are valueless abstractions when the TRUE purpose of organized governance is to make trivial the conditions for a people’s survival … even if those people are enslaved as the price. And they keep getting voted out of office for it because Americans aren’t buying the arguments!
Ahhhh, that felt good. Mazel Tov to me, too!
Now that we’ve BOTH stolen an extra year of living-large, consider that Trump is after many things, trade isn’t the most important by a ton even if trade was the only real leverage available to him to jump-start a conversation; but that we’re not going to have a global trade war.
Dr. Krugman will need to tolerate Republicans for a LONG time, so by all means keep venting intense frustration that your arguments keep LOSING so badly. It’s good for the heart and spleen.
2
Richard, you are able to engage in this kind of fallacious argument because the fallout from Trump’s policy is not felt immediately: i.e. this is a larger debate between bile of the left and right- giving an equivalency to the editorial and your response. But make no mistake: these actions that Trump is taking will result in disaster for most. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but it is coming and really the MOST you can hope for, the BEST outcome for you is that we will have either forgotten what you have written or we will be so distracted by what ever form this future disaster will take that we will be unable to remind you of the incoherence of the positions you are taking today.
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" ... not effective at following up with action." ? When Obama took office, we were LOSING 800,000 jobs a month. His actions saved us from Republican induced ruin and set us on path of steady growth that continues today. Meanwhile, we are facing more Republican-induced ruin, only this time it's not just the economy in danger but truth, justice, the American way and the planet itself.
28
For nearly 40 years, we have watched government slowly abandon its responsibility to manage capitalism for the good of society to the point where the capitalists now control government, if not society -- and the hoodwinking of voters who have rebelled to give us the tyrant now in the Whitehouse.
This is 'politics of the wealthy" in full bloom, Robber Baron economics all over again, and a re-segregation of the classes/masses. It is the rationale behind the theft of American wealth and civic power, the GOP's obsequiousness in facilitating this modern day plantation-style plutocracy, and the subverting of any and all popular influence on our government. It is no accident that the radical lurch to the right has in large measure been led, if not orchestrated, by Republicans from old-Dixie.
Now, on top of all the other horrors we have been witnessing, the approaching census puts within reach that final layer of cement on a system that will finally destroy the economic, social and civic advances this country made in last century.
We've been down this road before. We are heading there again. And all that needs to be done with Trump is to feign re-admittance into the club of respectability, from which he was long ago banned, and he will roll over quicker than he did for Kim.
By 2020, it will have been over 150 years since the Civil War when we finally took back the nation. What will it take this time?
58
I wonder what Big Business will say and do, after the Dow drops five or six thousand points, perhaps in a single session--say tomorrow or the next day? Then what?
55
They will explain that such a catastrophe of their own making is why secret offshore bank accounts in dirty little tax havens exist.
After you went to press, the NYTimes issued a breaking news alert article by Ana Swanson, that effective at midnight the US would impose tariffs on $34 Billion of China's exports to the US. China has promised to respond with a similar restriction on soybeans, pork, and autos. So the experiment has begun.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/business/china-us-trade-war-trump-tar...?
I am not saying that trade with China was fair but it seems to me that there are procedures for dealing with unfair trade, including currency manipulation.
It seems to me that it is to our benefit for the Chinese people to grow more prosperous. They are a huge market that was and could continue to be available to our producers. In my encounters with the Chinese policymakers, they seem to be good global neighbors.
Final point, their economy is critical to solving the global climate change problem. It will be impossible to solve the problem without China, India, and Russia, so let's promote solidarity and cool this talk that they are a threat to our national security.
36
Wrong!!! Yes, we would like the Chinese to be prosperous, we would like everyone to be prosperous. But there’s a factor that even the most liberal of us, including the NYT, absolutely refuses to discuss, but which precludes our solving the climate change problem: human over-population. First, remember (or stipulate, as the lawyers would say), that in thirty years of talking about reducing global CO2 emissions, it hasn’t happened. They were six billion metric tons a year in 1950, and are now 36 billion, and continued to rise this past year. During that time, human population tripled, from 2.5 billion people to 7.6. So even if average world per capita emissions had stayed the same, total would have tripled. That would have been bad enough! (How much should they be? Look it up! Pick your own number. Your own expert authority. But it’s probably 12-13 billion tons a year, if there’s to be any hope of reversing global warming.). But the reality is that they sextupled, to the 36 we noted above. And one reason is that a huge cohort of people, 1.3 billion Chinese, burst into the industrialized way of life almost over-night, their average per capita emissions going from 1.8 tons to 7.6 in just fourteen years. And why shouldn’t they? They deserve it as much as we do! But the planet can’t support it. We must begin thinking about reducing world population.
I think the best summary I've read of our current situation is the deed was done when we allowed Donald Trump to sit behind the desk at the Oval Office. Think about it. The fate of our country in is the hands of the voters. Or more specifically the finger that pushes a certain button in the voting booth. It doesn't matter why they pushed it. It doesn't matter if they intended to push something else just before the final choice or that they changed their mind when they left the booth. All the Republicans care about is which button they pushed.
With today's technology and consumer profiles available the goal is not to create a more informed decision. It is not to help the voter understand themselves better. It is to influence that one brief second when the voter pushes the button.
Donald Trump understood this better than anyone. So we have the survival of the fittest sitting in the Oval Office.
When I was an economics major back in 1981 at UGA I thought the most revealing example was the government paying farmers not to plant the marginal land. If they did the soil would erode after only a few years and would then be useless for decades. Of course if you are a corporation concerned only for short term profits you will farm the good land and the marginal.
Donald Trump's long term vision ends in at the most six and half years. By the end of his term he may prove Marx correct. He will farm the marginal land and leave a depleted wasteland- expect much worse than 2008.
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Dr. K,
Your work continues to underscore the importance of the Mid-Term Elections. It is extremely important that American's of all political persuasions realize that we must check the overwrought misuse of power evidenced by the initiatives of this Administration. The separation of powers is important to our form of government.
You are correct that the approach of the Administration to trade policy can do long-term economic harm and to the quality of life that most Americans enjoy. We also have problems like wealth and income distribution, the Angus Deaton and Ann Case findings, education costs & loans that should be fixed, & healthcare.
Long term, I worry about the approach we have taken on global warming. There is no good news on climate and there is a possibility that the physics of climate change could trigger runaway global warming that we don't know how to recover from.
We do know that there are NO technical barriers to stopping the greenhouse gas emissions but there are Luddite like fears that must be overcome by the investment community. No one in their right mind wants to rapidly disrupt the fundamental fossil fuel engine that has powered the World economy but we must get started at evolving to new energy sources and new technology. The Chamber, Congress and the Administration are missing a great opportunity to evolve the global economy and direct the Bretton Woods institutions to take on this epic challenge.
Lies won't work. Nature tells the truth.
45
The Bretton Woods institutions ARE taking this on, just with us as a dead weight that restricts their momentum and thereby reduces their chances for success, and ours to be at the forefront of future opportunities. We will instead play catch up.
10
Pleasant Plainer,
Come see me or get in touch.
www.magneticglide.com
and also see "Spaceship Earth", and "Silent Earth" on Amazon, I will send you emailed ebooks for your use.
Earlier this year, President Trump told the World Economic Forum, “We support free trade, but it needs to be fair.”
This is a contradiction of sorts because by definition, nothing in life that’s free, when it is actually worth something, can then deemed to be fair. Thomas Piketty’s 2014 magnum opus, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” made a big hue and cry about income equality because all things being equal, global wealth, which is lopsidedly concentrated in the hands of a few, continues to grow faster than global economic output. If Trump believed in fairness, he would tax the wealthy more, not less as he did with his massive tax cuts that largely benefited the richest 1% of Americans.
So, if Trump knew anything about free trade and the Ricardian Law of Comparative Advantage, the free market adapts to benefit different countries accordingly at various steps in the global supply chain, fairness is inherent in the entire transaction. A nation can’t reduce its trade deficits by imposing tariffs, which are tantamount to taxing its own citizens in the long run. Trump needs to get smart quickly about trade because his tariffs will hurt more than it will help most of the people who elected him to office. And to Piketty’s point, most of the people he gave those massive tax cuts to, did not really need them and, more pointedly, probably did not vote for him either.
39
Big business has rarely acted in the national interest. They have the consciousness of piranhas, and will devour not just competitors, but their own children. That's why most of them- and not just the oil companies- resisted action to slow climate change.
Businessmen are not just slow to react. They are stubborn and stupid. The smart ones are either people like Gandhi or the occasional Kennedy or King, who die young. Meanwhile, the overweight and hideous among us, like Roger Ailes, live on for many decades, flaunting their power, bullying employees, and lying so often they can't even tell when they are doing it any more. As with President Trump.
The good news is that businesses like Arch, Peabody, Exxon, and Koch are hanging on with their fingernails, desperate to squeeze a few more million into their already bloated fortunes. Let's arrest them, and their Boards, for their clear criminality, in savaging our future so they can have another castle, and a few more girlfriends.
We need a human to defeat the Republicans next time. Maybe Inslee, Whitehouse, or Brown. They are actual humans, hard to recognize these days, for that reason. Maybe they will grow on us, though, and lead us out of the horror show of the last two years.
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@Mike
Great comment friend, although I would only quibble that (big) businesses are hanging on by their fingernails.
They have reaped the reward of the 1.5 TRILLION tax theft while now being able to pollute or bend/break the rules at will. There is the repeal of Dodd/Frank to gamble with the people's money again, and there are still Trillions more being inverted overseas. There are the select and behind the scenes ''trade'' deals with Russia and China,and who knows what else.
Aye, we need a new sheriff in town, but that is going to to take at least 180 days or 730 after that, to put into place someone that might fit the profile. Even then, it will take more than just one Presidential term to follow all of the strings. It all seems daunting which it really is.
In the meantime the ones that voted against themselves for this administration are enjoying their meager tax cut of a few hundred dollars (which will sunset) as they believe America is somehow great again.
It is all an illusion. (rant off)
3
I'd like to see Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) run for president. He's someone I don't think Trump could either bully or diminish.
1
Good thoughts, Funky Irishman (I'm 1/4). I don't think Trump will last too much longer, due to all of the laws he's broken, but Pence isn't much better.
Your point that the big money is running things is correct. How we stop them is another matter. Today's Democrats won't even hurt their feelings, much less call them to account for criminality.
My experience of conservatives, including CEOs, is that the stick with whatever plan they created or chose to follow when they were 27 years old, and they work that plan for the rest of their careers, perhaps the rest of their lives.
Mr. Krugman argues with logic. I sincerely doubt there is any logic at all in today's board rooms.
Think I'm wrong? Let's count the CEOs whose PACs change position. I'll bet they can be counted on on one hand.
Almost none of them know what they have done and they will all be totally surprised when the ink starts turning red.
54
This probably true of those who majored in business, but some of the more successful were liberal arts majors, who should know better.
3
Perhaps it's time to start talking about nationalizing some parts of the economy. Energy, Defense Industry, Health Care. It would take a lot of the twisted evil out of these industries.
50
Medicare for all is not like the national health service in most other countries as medical providers remain in place. Private health insurance is displaced.
As for energy, it turns out that wind and solar are cheaper if not as efficient as fossil fuels and as a security measure should be extended, especially because our national electrical grid is vulnerable to the Russians and Chinese.
2
Don't forget the prison industrial complex. Too many perverse incentives at work there.
3
Before we do that we need to ensure that our government is really "of the people, by the people and for the people" or we'll just end up with the likes of Scott Pruitt running the shows.
I referred in another post to the lessons of history, and it put me in mind of another one.
Americans were conditioned during the Cold War to think of Communism rather than Russia as the adversary. It turns out that the transition from the Communist to the Putin era was almost seamless, the few chaotic years in between being a minor blip. The personnel haven't changed much. A bunch of Communist Party bigwigs bought state assets at fire sale prices and are now a bunch of wealthy capitalist oligarchs. A former KGB officer is now Head of State.
What has this to do with Dr. K's column? Everything. The end of the Soviet Union and Communism as a competitor emboldened the American capitalist class into open hostility against its workers, even as its politcal servants embraced Russia as a geopolitical ally. But neither the KGB alum nor the Russian leopard has changed his spots.
And now, a bunch of (only) Republican Senators who would not have been seen dead embracing Communist Russia flock to Moscow, ingratiating themselves with a regime that, despite its cardboard democracy, closely resembles its Communist progenitor in its hostility to western values.
American capital needs to decide: will it still support, for 30 pieces of silver, a party that betrays America's friends and embrace a nation that is as much an adversary as ever. Or will it reconnect with its own nation's people, that it abandoned to its selfish advantage?
186
I'm afraid we know the answer to that question already. We will have to save ourselves, for these men will not change their ways.
2
I think they'll go for the 30 pieces of silver. Looks better on the annual shareholders' report.
The mention of 30 pieces of silver just brought back a memory of Jesuits, in my high school and college days, when they felt the need to curse, used 'Judas Priest'. Today we can use 'Judas trump' as our own.
1
Tax cuts are what the GOP is all about. They have nothing else to offer. Yet they keep winning elections. Greed has triumphed over everything else in America.
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@Concernicus
I've tried to find hopeless on the map, but can't seem to do so. (I refer to the metaphor and realize the literal)
Aye, greed did permeate the last election (and tribe), but I think America is at the bottom. What I mean by that is that taxes cannot go any lower, otherwise literally the infrastructure all around that is crumbling, will collapse.
So, what is left ? ( the culture wars, which the President and republicans are trying to ignite once more) People across all lines and groups are not going to put up with their human rights being taken away, after having fought so hard to achieve them. The push back is going to be enormous. (the midterms and beyond)
The bottom line is that I am hopeful. You should move here - lots of room.
2
Accurate points, but Mr. Krugman should limit himself in commentary to his unique expertise: commentary on political economy.
3
It's ALL political economy.
2
I find it refreshing that Krugman is less intellectually narrow and socially and politically ignorant than the vast majority of economists.
Lots of old guys (it's such a dude thing) love to talk about economic "laws" and think of economics as a branch of physics, "money physics." And pretend that social life, culture, and politics are somehow separate. A lot of those guys probably topped out in Econ 101 in college, or were trained by narrow economists. As much as they claim to love Adam Smith, they probably never got more than five pages into the Wealth of Nations, much less The Theory of the Moral Sentiments. Because if they did they would realize that economists only became narrow and socially and politically ignorant after the rise of the neoliberals.
Why?
When Trump finally tanks the market, all that phantom wealth he transferred to the top 1% via his tax cut will evaporate into the nothingness from whence it came. They will all be left wondering "Was it all a dream?".
26
I guess all of this helps prove those adages such as 'be careful what you wish for', 'curses coming home to roost', 'you reap what you sow' and 'what goes around comes around'. There could be a temptation to say that those who helped bring us Trump created a monster, but the monster was there all along. Now he and his racism, hate and myopic, insular and self-centered world view has been unleashed. The sad thing is that the forces that will cause his undoing will bring about just about as much pain as what will happen if he continues unabated. At least with the former things probably can be fixed; the latter may be irreparable.
17
Mr Krugman says there is a tacit alliance between business and racists. Having been in business since graduating from a SUNY college in 1982, I don't recognize the world that Mr Krugman describes. Contemporary businesspeople know that being open to hiring and promoting anyone based on capability and merit is a competitive advantage - if I were to exclude, say, Pacific Islanders from my hiring and promoting pool, the most talented people that identify as P.I. would go elsewhere to work. And before Mr. Krugman responds claiming a cabal of business all scheming to equally exclude qualified people of some racial category -- that sounds like a Twitter fever-dream conspiracy theory.
Are there racists in some businesses? Statistically the answer must be yes, since we can't compel them to self-identify as racists and can only judge them by their words and actions - unlike Woody Allen we can't look into the soul of the boy sitting next to us. Does that mean business is racist? As my most talented analyst explained, anybody can connect two points to make a line...but drawing a line through one point takes true mastery.
Finally, though, Mr. Krugman shows his true colors - tax cuts are bad, so business that advocate for them are bad, and what is more bad than a racist. Q.E.D. business is racist.
2
I think you've missed Krugman's point entirely. He isn't alleging that those who run businesses engage in racism themselves in the conduct of their businesses. He is saying that business has accepted the racism of the GOP--become complicit, you might say--because the GOP offers pro-business policies, and the trade-off is worth it to them.
You completely misunderstand the article and are taking its argument personally. It's not that businesspeople themselves are racist; it's that by supporting the electoral strategy of the GOP, which has depended on racial dogwhistling for victory for decades, they brought about the current situation.
3
It’s not that businessmen are racists, but they formed a coalition with racists to get tax cuts and to eliminate regulations that protect workers and the environment.
Krugman's conclusions are spot-on accurate, but he is essentially echoing the arguments made way back in 2004 by Thomas Frank in his book, "What's the Matter With Kansas?"
For decades now, the Republican party has run on divisive social issues but has delivered policies that benefit big business. This was Frank's main thesis: Kansas voters kept voting against their economic self-interests because of a political bait-and-switch -- promise to overturn Roe v. Wade, but instead deliver tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans.
Today we see better why this succeeded so wildly: Republican efforts have been reinforced by years of a sophisticated multi-pronged propaganda machine composed of talk radio (Rush et. al.), cable news (Fox), and the internet (Breitbart and others). These media outlets have kept their listeners in a state of perpetual outrage about the deprivations of the left, all while furiously blowing the dog whistle of race. And with the demise of the hated "political correctness" that kept racist rhetoric sotto voce, that dog whistle is now quite audible and is perpetually ringing in the nation's ears.
The Republican party over promised and under delivered to a large segment of its constituency. The people who form Trump's base are now demanding the Republicans deliver on their part of the deal.
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It's not a dog whistle anymore. It's a police whistle.
“But suppose Republicans retain control of Congress this November. If they do, does anyone think they’ll stand up against abuses of presidential power?”
With his trade wars, the president is sacrificing his mid-America base, not to get better deals for them but to show world leaders how tough he can be. His summit with Mr. Kim was a half hearted attempt at diplomacy. The point was to get unending coverage for himself.
His racist rhetoric played better across America than his party ever thought it would. Cringing at first at his raw and unadulterated racial animus and religious intolerance, Republicans warmed to him as he swept through the primaries. He has betrayed America’s time-honored values with their silent but tacit approval. Now their Frankenstein has turned on disloyal Republicans as well as American businesses and industries he swore he’d go to bat for.
This is the president Republicans and their base asked for. Even they have sense enough to know that America is going down the tubes and it's too late to stop this train wreck.
26
Dems aren't a "big tent" compared to GOP: neo-con vs isolationist, multinationals vs main street, rural white poor vs billionaire, libertarian vs religious right bully, senior Fox viewer vs CNBC Wall Street! Yet GOP unity for litmus tests, but Pelosi refuses to allow a single meaningful identifying commonality for Dems. Wonder why Progressive Dems are rebelling and winning?
3
We have way worse things to worry about than whether the Dems all agree with each other. We have to get rid of the evil Republicans in Congress and that is an imperative. Whatever Democrat is running needs our votes.
If we had all come together in the last election instead of worrying about whether our candidate was pure enough and met all our selfish little requirements, we wouldn’t be in this giant evil mess.
2
Absolutely true. We all knew, or should have known, on the eve of the presidential election, that there was one absolute truth: the next morning, either Trump or Hillary Clinton would be president. It should have been the task of every voter to choose who would best lead us. To the Jill Stein voters of PA, MI and WI, you failed your citizenship test.
was there really a cogent point in there somewhere?
The Republican Party was founded in 1854 as an alternative progressive party to the Whigs, the elite liberals of their day.
After Lincoln's assassination, they became the party of big business and conservative middle class. Teddy Roosevelt and Eisenhower were more of liberal Republicans., but Ayn Rand's selfish individualism has dominated since Saint Reagan.
The Declaration of Independence is all about liberalism- for equality, rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It complains against despotism including ignoring wholesome laws, legislatures, and governors, obstructing naturalizing of foreigners, obstruction of justice, cutting off trade, and abolishing our most valuable laws.
Jefferson's original draft had a section against the cruel transport of slaves.
12
To the GOP donor class and the C of C, may I share a phrase my father used often when educating me about the world:
"Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it."
27
Mild for the occasion which prompted it this is another spot-on piece, even if it was written by an economist.
Right up to bitter end. Somehow Mr. Krugman found reason for this: "The point is that it’s not just world trade that’s at risk, but the rule of law".
Too late. "Rule of law" outside the halls of government is a dead issue. SCOTUS is partisan; more than that it has codified a myopic belief in the superiority of wealthy Americans and their corporate shields.
Further down the legal ladder, the Feds and states give massive benefits (read: my money) to religious charlatans to influence government to make life worse.
On the bottom rung, rampaging police wreck communities, killing people without consequence.
My environment is wrecked for profit by corporations that never met an externality they didn't buy politicians to avoid.
"Business" in America is a criminal enterprise, often literally. Take Wells Fargo. There isn't a clearer example of executives, trustees, an entire enterprise that exists to inflict harm on their own customers.
The consequence? A multi-million dollar PR show proclaiming "re-establishment". Nothing is re-established until executives give up their ill-gotten fortunes and face prison time.
"Rule of law" is a rhetorical fancy. People in the street realize courts exist to punish and humiliate them while real big-time offenders go free, probably to run for office.
This is going to change quickly, or its going to play out in the streets.
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Bless you. Whether one wants to subscribe to a pre-defined scheme to describe capital and human enterprise, the fact remains that there is not a single thing on this planet actually owned by a single person (except of course their own bodies). You do not have to be a communist to respect this.
What is produced, and why, and what is the impact are the important questions, at least this destructive behavior may lead to more people asking them.
Thank you Professor Krugman. I only hope people are listening.
14
We are on our way to a "smash and grab" society and economic system. Its limits will be only the limits of sick imagination. It will be the abyss and not be pretty. William F. Buckley referred to libertarianism as "anarcho-totalitarianism." It is coming soon, sooner than thought possible.
13
Don't forget to include America's not very secular heritage. I just read a thumbnail sketch of Japan's notorious Aum doomsday cult. The folowers of Aum 'rationalized' the massacre of random innocents as a sort of 'favour' rendered unto the 'sinful' in order to catapault their souls towards paradise. America is rife with such pathological religious groups who could easily gain influence in our topsy-turvy times when fruits of the intellect are distrusted and turned into derision.
As the Heritage Foundation and the Chamber of Congress are just now learning, no one is listening to you anymore. No legitimate newspaper or periodical endorsed Trump. No serious Conservative or Conservative organ backed him. The Republican establishment has been turned on it's head.
Every aspect of politics I"d come to respect was found to be wanting, contradictory or irrelevant. The same is happening in foreign affairs, international alliances and, now, trade wars. You only get a whirlwind when you can't tell which way the wind is blowing. Chaos is not the best business model.
38
I suspect that big business and Trump will come up with some story of “success” to sell the American people, and allow them to end the tariffs.
There is no such thing as reality for these clowns. They will come up with some “ victory,” and continue with the mass deception.
24
Corporate America's cynical politics indeed - 5 Decades Worth!
12
Mr Krugman - please write about the odd fact that companies that are supposed to be protected by a 25% tariff are RAISING their prices by up to 25%. Seems like they don't need a tariff if they can RAISE prices to be "competitive". Can you spell r i p o f f ? thanks - I love your column
9
If Republican wealth insists on tax cuts and spends money to support Republicans that give them to them, why do the rich say they believe in "Trickle Down Economics" if they always horde their wealth and don't allow it to trickle down?
Because the propaganda earns them even more wealth and they pay the Republicans to say they believe in Trickle Down too. Then the Republicans institute tax cuts mostly for the wealthy claiming the money will trickle down.
So why pass tax cuts if it doesn't?
5
Another reason "Trump Voters" have poor and insecure economic prospects is the big business anti-labor agenda. They enthusiastically accepted the "independence" and freedom memes.
They (Trump Voters) should have signed union cards when they were in their twenties, as the second half of the baby boom approaches retirement, it is too late.
20
Thanks for your column. i was just talking to my financial adviser the other day, and told him it is time to go to my usual survival strategy, although my feeble efforts to survive may not be enough this time. I remember the mess Obama was handed, and I'm afraid that if the Democrats win the Congress, they will have to deal with it this time since they will be the only adults in the room (and the scapegoats). I am amazed that this happens over and over again, but maybe the big guys have a "survival strategy" too. Years ago just after a huge market setback, a foreign friend of mine (in the arts, not Wall Street) was talking to an investor-fan of hers in a box at Carnegie Hall, and she said how terrible that he must have lost so much money. He laughed and said -- "No, I made money." I have never forgotten that chilling exchange.
23
I happened to have an existing appointment with a financial advisor which turned out to be a couple of days after the 911 World Trade Centre destruction.
I was still stunned - but was already booked to ask him about investments
I was mortified when he said anyone who didn't invest big time in the stock market the day after 911 was a fool. I think many prices had bottomed and since doubled in a couple of days.
Like Rothschild who made riches on the news of Waterloo - 'buy when there is blood in the streets' - as a cold-blooded mantra of financial investment - made perfect rational sense - but I wasn't that cold-blooded - and walked away shaking my head - I still had feelings for those 3000 people who had died.
Supply-side economics was a scam from the beginning. The point of Reaganomics was to reduce government income, not increase it. Does no one else remember Grover Norquist telling everyone that the GOP's aim was to "starve the beast," i.e., the government? Ballooning the federal debt eightfold during the terms of Reagan, Bush 41, and Bush 43, was a means to further reduce federal revenue by increasing interest payments. "Deficits don't matter," said Cheney. Not as long as they keep reducing government income, no. Whether the transfer of literally trillions of dollars to the absurdly wealthy was part of the plan, it was only a part. Starving the beast was aimed at shrinking and eventually ending welfare. It still is, and it's going to work.
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I agree with your history, but I don't believe they will be able to shrink welfare. I know they have tried before but they have been unsuccessful. I believe most Americans want to strengthen the safety net. I do, but I want to make the payroll tax fairer than it is now by eliminating the cap on social security/payroll taxes.
16
This comment is exactly right, in my opinion. Norquist, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolf' and the rest acted like the Great Society was coming out of their back pocket. I don't believe they gave much thought to the smooth running expansion of public aid which immediately returned wealth into the aggregate consumer economy. They had that I-me-mine ownership of their role in conservative individualism. The aggregate economy became their evil nemesis. Starting with planned inflation, they bled it with a thousand cuts.
13
All great Western European dictators of the last century came to power with the aid of the rich and business interests. They made the Faustian bargain, and in most cases they made out okay while their nation’s, not so much. Americans feel no matter what our democracy is safe from such a fate
27
Recently, the republicans went to Russia to meet(beg?) a meeting with Putin. What gives? They went with no agreed agenda or meeting pre-planned? The republicans are willingly to let Trump destroy the economy to get what they want. On the way he'll take NATO with him.
Yippee, tax cuts, deregulation and war.
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Zero coverage of the GOP Treason Tour in the Times. Zero. Nothing. Imagine if six Democratic senators had spent the 4th of July in Moscow? And for that matter where are the Democrats on this? Doing the usual hand wringing and deliberation while missing another golden opportunity?
1
I am not sure what the agenda was, so I give them the benefit of the doubt, but why did they go with no set opportunity to meet with Putin if that is what they wanted? Did they want to discuss election meddling or was it poisonings that happened in GB? Was it nuclear non-proliferation or was it the killing of journalists? Did they have to put the prestige of the US Senate and their own prestige on the line to come away with such a big nothing burger?
No--- not just decades of cynical politics by corporate America. It’s the privilege the US gives it to keep our politicians captive to big money. Our media must stop avoiding this.
It’s our turning our election campaigns over to corporations for funding---blessed by the S. court with the Trump-type lie that big money is 1st Amendment ‘free speech’. This gives them the scope to dominate.
Limits on private donations are portrayed as contradicting the basis of American ‘freedom’, get it?
Yes, blame the corporations that run policy now, but also blame both parties and our Court that promoted this legalized corruption.
Racism of course exists, but wouldn’t have flared up so much if millions weren’t forced to compete for the economic crumbs left over after the corporations/politicians have grabbed the lion’s share of national productivity.
As long as the US can legally hand over its elections to the rich, and make all candidates kow tow for corporate funding---what use is it to try to make reforms for a modern democracy?
And if we can’t make these reforms, watch for future Trump types out there waiting to use the media to manipulate voters and take power.
Instead, shine a light on how other capitalist democracies regulate election money to better balance public/private interests. Universal health care is a norm, for example. Profit isn't the highest priority.
A liberal might write about the underlying cause/effect of election money, not just Trump and Friends.
96
A liberal would of course be against dark money in politics, but would never imply, even subtly, that any equivalence exists between the corruption of the GOP and Democrats today.
14
I so appreciate the eloquence of this comment that I want to draw attention to it by replying, though I honestly have little to add to its brilliant, balanced and appropriately alarming message. Media: stop calling 3% GDP growth (95% of which accrues to only the very wealthy) and 3.8% unemployment (meaning anyone who wants 2 low paying jobs to barely make ends meet can have them) "a strong, robust economy!!!" Our press must learn enough about economics to destroy the lie that this dystopian administration has made any positive contribution to the economy. Trump has achieved absolutely nothing of value for the US economy, 99% of its population and the long term strength of US business. By the end of 4 years of this we will be a weak #2 to an ascendant China. If we are made to endure 8 years, we will resemble Great Britain after World War II and it's doubtful we will have the relationships, credibility or trust of the rest of the free world to help us restore our economic, military and moral leadership role. The world will be a poorer place for it, the "American Experiment" will make a slow descent towards historical footnote and our children and grandchildren will be robbed of any possibility of a happy life.
30
Because none does.
Bill Maher recently took nine kinds of hell from everyone from Alex Jones and Fox to CNN and The Daily Beast for suggesting that a recession would be a good thing if it helped end Trump's presidency. Despite the flack, Maher was right all along: Recessions are survivable events that regularly occur under all Republican presidents like clockwork, but this nightmare and national disgrace of Trump leading the country is not something any democracy can long withstand. https://www.facebook.com/Maher/videos/10155777741752297/?hc_ref=ARQPZQmT...
Trump's approval ratings are extremely low, but unless business leaders are convinced along with the masses that he's a disaster for everyone, themselves included, Republicans could still manage to distract and confuse enough voters to retain power. Any country foolish enough to elect such a lowlife to the presidency is in serious trouble, so Americans and the world had better brace themselves – the world is probably headed down a very “rocky road” once again, and this time we've got mainly ourselves to blame for it.
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I think most true business people understand this. The issue is that we're talking about oligarchs in the Putin tradition (didn't we used to call them tycoons?) not real business owners like Bruce Rosenblit in Kansas City and frequent commenter in these pages, or my sister and her husband's audio business. The CEO salary explosion, stacked corporate boards, and golden parachutes means there's no accountability at all. Folks, we're in a full fledged national crisis.
4
Trump was not "elected" in any real sense of the term. He lost by 2,860,000 votes. That's not exactly "democracy."
1
Yes, and since no oligarch worth his salt has any morals or national allegiance, there may be a lot more collusion between top executives globally than any of us will ever know. Everyone knows that the super-wealthy never really feel the pain of recessions, so I agree that hopes of them suddenly awakening to any higher calling of duty, such as paying fairer wages, let alone of serving anyone but themselves and other major shareholders are slim, at best.
As for the other comment about the US not being a true democracy, when a decent person like President Carter says the US is now an oligarchy, we may have truly passed a point of no return. Then again, corporate masters ruled the nation a century ago, and they were eventually brought somewhat under control, so hope lives, however dull the pulse, that more great leaders such as Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt will one day appear and set the nation back on course.
Great leaders are among us, so step one of righting the system will be dealing with the corruption in our voting system that RLS has been writing about for at least the past year or two.
Dr. Krugman’s analysis is spot-on. Big business now faced with the fact that it cannot sow confusion, skepticism, and anger about responsible government among the public to further its own short-sighted ends without this inevitably redounding to its great detriment. The fact that they are now trying to reason with the beast they have created while continuing to feed it shows that they will not learn their lesson until they experience disaster. Unfortunately, the whole country will suffer for their stupidity.
47
Readers: take note!!! This comment is nothing but the unvarnished truth leading to a terrible, scary conclusion! I just wish there was a way to show the vast majority of the country how certain is our descent into greater poverty and moral decay and isolation from the rest of the world until we vote this nightmare government out of existence. Re-read Krugman's article and re-read this perfect summary of what it means for our future! Bless you for your simple eloquence, Andy P!
10
If congress is held in 2018 and not weakened by Democrats, then nothing is going to change and Trump will continue what he is doing --- wreaking balling the country's rule of law , trade and culture.
If he wins again in 2020, I am willing to bet that if congress is also held by GOP, that we will, once again, have a president for a third term or even for life.
FDR was needed that 3rd term as we were in the middle of a horrible world war. But there will be only the greed and corruption and cowardice of the GOP congress that will allow another 3rd term for a president.
5
@ Sajwert: You are lucky, a GOP Congress will need to adopt a constitutional amendment, which means adoption by the House of Representative, the Senate and 38 States, to nullify the Amendment XXII, Two-Term Limit on the President, ratified on February 27, 1951. Donald Rump, like it or not, is limited to two mandates. It was the Republican who proposed and pushed for his adoption. They did not wanted another FDR.
4
The 22nd Amendment only limits the President to being *elected* twice. It places no limit on how often someone can *ascend* to the Presidency.
In 2024, Herr Trump is the Vice Presidential candidate with some lackey at the top of the ticket, with it being made public that the lackey will resign immediately.
And any challenges arguing that this violates the *spirit* of the 22nd Amendment would be heard by his hand-picked Supreme Court!
Big business profited from outsourcing, importing cheap labor, and moving production to China or Mexico. Small business couldn't do that.
Of course it's ticked off.
20
And that may be how Trump markets the tariffs: some sacrifices now, to force big business to bring back American jobs. It may work, too - Main Street is still angry at Wall Street.
Pity that President Obama listened to Timothy Geithner and didn't punish the banking folks for their misdeeds leading to the Great Recession. Had the Democrats been seen as protecting the average Joe and Jane against the rapacious bankers, we wouldn't have seen a President Trump.
58
Yeah, this.
For all that I liked about President Obama, which was a lot, he lacked street smarts and a knowledge of when America's enemies (foreign and domestic) needed to be brought to heel, however messy it might have been.
For only one example: imagine if Merrick Garland were on the Court because Obama cut every penny of Federal spending in Kentucky until McConnell caved. President Obama would have had to be as mean as a junkyard dog to do that.
Two or three generations of Americans would have thanked him for it.
Exactly.
And, again, Lord Acton haunts us from 131 years ago:
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.
And, foresightfully referring to Trump, he added:
There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.
And Krugman, here, ended with:
The point is that it’s not just world trade that’s at risk, but the rule of law. And it’s at risk in part because big businesses abandoned all principle in the pursuit of tax cuts.
THINK! and VOTE!
36
Most pathetic is the betrayal of so many powerful Americans, both elected officials and rich political donors, for their own short-term gain disguised as conservative ideological dogma. In partnership with a president who proudly represents only a small segment of the country, these people show absolutely no concern for the long-term damage they are doing.
35
"In partnership with a president who proudly represents only a small segment of the country, these people show absolutely no concern for the long-term damage they are doing."
If I can't improve upon this wisdom, I will simply draw your attention to it and force you to read it again, reconsider.
VOTE!!!
5
Faust or Frankenstein the end result is the same. America is on the way down and out shepherded by Trump and his dear Republicans.
Goodbye and good luck.
46
Reading some of the early posters with Dismay. Blaming Krugman and like-minded economists for not serving labor well. Reagan and Republicans cut the power of unions. The Supreme Court decision this week is another nail in the coffin.
Unions have protected workers in every way. The decay of unions is partially responsible for static wages and benefits.
I cannot understand workers who buy Trump snake-oil and continue to support his agenda. I am also furious at establishment Democrats who do not see the problem. Hillary Clinton was so out of touch, unresponsive, tone-deaf, and was typical of many. Democrats need to go back to the people and communities. Krugman is right that this debacle is just the outgrowth of Republican policy over the years
51
Hillary Clinton made many speeches about our economy and met people of all economic classes every day during her campaign. NONE of those speeches and interactions with non wealthy people were covered by the NYT or most any media. You could see the speeches on C-SPAN 2 and 3 in the middle of the week between 1 AM and 6 AM in July, August, and September 2016.
Between April and October 2016, Hillary gave at least 40 speeches and held nearly 100 meetings with small groups of people in Church basements and VFW halls. Since those speeches and those meetings didn't fit in with the NYT theme of Hillary being "out of touch", they were not reported in the Times. If and when she did not look perfect at those events or if she ever seemed tired, that did make the paper, but NOTHING about what she said was reported, except for when she said something unscripted that would make her look bad. NOTHING where she inadvertently came across extremely well was ever reported.
The NYT decided well before Hillary began her campaign that she was out of touch and dishonest. All the news, news analysis, editorials, and op eds in the Times were slanted to confirm to the bias of the Times.
Keep in mind how much the media copied Fox News in deciding who won the debates. The criteria for Trump to be declared the winner were just two:
1 He had to stand for the entire debate,
2 He had to avoid using the "N" word.
By those two criteria, Fox declared Trump the winner every time.
2
When corporations are allowed to bypass U.S. laws by producing products for world markets in poorly regulated nations, unions lose the leverage they need to negotiate higher standards of living for their members. The tragedy is that it was "liberals" in the Democratic party who fostered this travesty.
Thanks for telling me this. I voted for Hillary, and I was disappointed by her not getting out to the huskings and putting herself in front of the cameras and the press. I think she should have been like Truman. You might be correct about how her plan did not generate news. Could it have been the fault of Robby Mook and other campaign leaders?. Hillary was not the same as 20 years ago. She did not challenge the spin. Knowing we have to live under Trump and what might have been, makes it the winter of my discontent.
Here, the 1930s, actually, offer an appropriate analogy. Germany's aircraft industry was naturally very excited about German rearmament and the creation of the Luftwaffe. But before the war was over, Willy Messerschmitt and Ernst Heinkel had been forced out of the companies they had founded. Hugo Junkers had already been arrested in 1933.
Russia's oligarchs had to learn the same lesson when Putin established his kleptocracy. And who knows? Maybe America's billionaire class will be next, if the US succumbs to the whims of an authoritarian president who as already suggested to suspend due process for migrants.
14
How I would love to see the Koch brothers living in a cold water 5th floor walkup with a shared bathroom down the hall, watching through tattered curtains as their grandchildren walk to a second-rate public school.
1
Corporate CEOs and senior leadership teams are paid outrageously, presumably in return for some expertise.
If they couldn't see the myriad dangers to business of a Trump presidency, their shareholders deserve a refund.
If they saw it and didn't care because they thought they'd still come out ahead with a large personal tax cut, their shareholders deserve a new CEO.
Either way, any multi-million dollar per year CEO that doesn't have a full set of Trump induced disaster contingency plans ready to execute should be sent packing.
The C in CEO stands for Chief not Credulous or Corrupt. Or at least it should for the money they are paid and the power they are given.
49
In Canada for the last week and I’ve seen many signs in shops promoting Canadian products and urging shoppers to “buy Canadian”. Have also seen several signs with the American flag or USA x’ed out. Letters to the editor in The Globe and Mail or The National Post also compliment Justin Trudeau for standing up to Trump on tariffs and other matters. Sadly, the most common question I’ve heard this week has been, “How could so many Americans vote for such a dishonest (or other negative adjective) person as Donald a Trump? We fear for your country.”
228
We actually didn't vote for him. Hillary Clinton was "elected" by close to 300,000 votes. The GOP, in collusion with Russia, rigged the election and "won". What we are left with is tatters of what was once a good country.
Every once in a while, someone writes something that crystalizes the zeitgeist and this is it. And like all truths, it's terrible to behold: men and women, driven by the lust for money casually sell out their fellow man for gold. An age-old tale. It almost makes me want to wish that the entire economy burns down to teach them a lesson. But then I think back to the Great Recession and I realize we've been there and done that already, only to have conservatives rinse and repeat their ancient sins. Humans are such terrible creatures.
59
Paraphrased from above:
"[some] Humans are [can be] such terrible creatures."
I beg you, fellow Americans, don't be terrible to each other. Be kind, be generous, be smart, read, listen, VOTE!
2
Some are and some aren't. Unfortunately, the predators have cunning and violence going for them, and things go their way until the good and decent pay a terrible price to make them stop. Can we do it now?
3
Thanks for calling it like it is. Corporate American has enabled right-wing crazy for decades, because it paid off handsomely for them.
And they're unwilling to admit it, or change course. Trying to build support for GOP tax scam in swing districts?!
19
Trump’s ill thought out tariffs will have a very negative effect on business confidence. If a US corporation was contemplating new investment in the US, the uncertainty from Trump’s poor economic policies such as his tariffs, would weigh heavily on their decision making.
Republicans promoted the view that they could moderate Trump’s impetuous behaviour and instincts. Now we know Trump does not read, let alone listen to advice.
It would take Fox and Friends a few days to possibly persuade Trump to reverse his tariff policies, yet once business and consumer confidence start to fall, it may be difficult to turn it around.
We know tariffs will be bad for US businesses, workers and consumers, yet Trump’s own ignorance is propelling the US into a Trump inspired economic slowdown, with little sign of any common sense or sound economic policy appearing, to save the US.
19
Country continues to crumble, except for hardware at military bases and at our southern border while large conglomerates take their marginal revenue stashes and lowered tax liabilities elsewhere. I guess it's the American or capitalist way where any action to save a tax $ is seen as righteous and even godly.
They did this to themselves and the rest of us with their greed and desire to kill government at all costs. If only we could tax greed to an acceptable level.
22
Oh the irony of it all. Someone didn't get the memo!
Since Powell's 1971 capitalistic manifesto, the Chamber and its "Free Enterprise" brethren have conspired to vanquish trade unions, pit rich against poor (and poor against poor), and enact favorable legislation via ALEC, the Heritage Foundation, etc.
It was working like a charm. Just look at all of the right to work states, the wealth gap, stagnant incomes during times of record profits. They had it all in the palms of their dirty little hands.
Now it's scramble time again. Let's see how well they do vs one of their own. Maybe they'll just write him a big fat check to get him to stand down. Trump understands that better than he does international trade.
51
It has become more and more evident that Trump is just a symptom of a deeper problem afflicting America. He merely stands atop a segment of America that favors nativism, misogyny, and racism. To that this column adds the institutions that have been tacitly supporting the same attitudes. Unlike people, these institutions could not support these attitudes openly. hence they resort to dog whistles. They speak of history in the name of having statues of civil war generals without heed to the abuse they heaped on their slaves. They speak of mistreatment of children and families at the border, as Mr. Donohue did, only because they need immigrants to work on jobs that most Americans are loathe to do even as they cry about immigrants taking away their jobs.
Bottom line - it is amply evident that a large segment of Americans hold regressive and outdated values, but it is scary that they have institutional support.
28
As one who served in international trade policy posts in government, I take some solace from the fact that we should soon see clearly the economic damage that Trump and his minions are inflicting. Many in his "base" will pay for his stupidity. But will that base see his folly for what it is, or will he be able to "spin" his way out of this also?
23
Great essay. Trump's base understands little of this and cares even less.
17
A certain portion of America's businessmen will gladly give up the challenges of competing in a free market to reap the benefits of being among the favoured oligarchs in Trump's version of Putinism. That, I'm afraid, is where we are headed.
40
Putinism is nothing if not the GOP Platform from 1964. Putin's admonition to not engage with those of inferior races before the World Cup is GOP playbook.
From packing the courts, to hollowing out the middle class to not taxing the super rich , degrading the environment to corruption and buying influence, Putin has nothing to teach us.
I am Canadian and am getting tired of hearing Putin blamed for everything when everything Putin knows he learned from the USA. Russia is the most conservative society in Europe and for the people that brought us Citizens United and Neil Gorsuch Putin is their philosophical, political, sociological and theological super-star.
14
@617to416
Bingo. So long as they are the in the inner circle reaping the advantages (and kicking back in flagrant disregard of the Emoluments clause of the Constitution) then it is ''business as usual''.
However, I am hopeful that the political pendulum will swing back further than it has gone extreme right, and safeguards will be put into place that cannot be reversed. We shall see.
Until then it is graft and a free for all.
4
Funky,
It is not left or right it is neoliberalism gone amok.
It is as Chrystia Freeland then economic journalist wrote in her book Plutocrats: The Rise of the Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else.
Today Chrystia Freeland is our Minister of Foreign Affairs and our chief Nafta negotiator.
We are going to take a big hit when Nafta collapses but I think the Western Democracies will benefit in the long run when the USA and Russia embark on their mutual path to Russia American style Neoliberalism.
There is hope as there are economists who understand it is the middle-class that will find solutions to the dead end where the USA and Russia are taking us.
Frelands 2013 speech to the ideas conference at Aspen tells us it is not Trump that brought us here. It is the neoliberalism of Russia and the USA that set the stage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9LIVa3WVPo
Trump and most protectionists believe that trade is a zero sum game: one side wins, and the other side loses. In a small family business like the Trump Corporation, you can play this game by stiffing your contractors and investors, although eventually you'll lose the investors. Many who support Trump's tariffs believe that the U.S. will simply wait out other countries and force its terms on them since we import more than we export.
But supply and production are too interconnected for that kind of thinking to work. BMW's biggest assembly plant is in South Carolina. GM's biggest assembly plant is in China. Iowa's soybean farmers depend on the Chinese market to survive. When a company like Harley Davidson moves hundreds of jobs to Thailand in anticipation of a tariff war with Europe, they don't move those jobs back when a tariff war ends or is averted. They've invested millions of dollars, and the jobs are gone forever.
We can't win by bluster and bullying. We can win by strategic trade alliances and the enforcement of rules. However, Trump feels that he doesn't need the rules or rule-makers; he wants to pull out of the WTO. His experience is that the bully wins, and he's convinced his supporters that the same rules apply to global commerce as to the playground.
37
Business used to be about making stuff and doing things that people want. Now, it's a never ending demand for ever increasing profits. That's how Wall Street works and Wall Street runs everything. It's grow or die.
Big business has already tapped out worker productivity for profits. How many people work 50 to 60 hours a week and get paid for 40? How many have so much work, they never use up their vacation time? How many get paid miserable wages on top of the long hours? Most people.
So how do they keep the profit machine growing? Consolidate, merge, automate, offshore. Then what?
Stop paying taxes. Tax reduction is a huge driver of profits. I just saw a report (CNN?) that stated only 7% of the Trump tax cut ended up in workers pockets. Most went to shareholders in buybacks and dividends.
Now, the grow of die profit machine has done their best to bankrupt the Treasury in the quest for profits. They hired the most corrupt and incompetent man to do it, Donald J. Trump.
No matter they said. Profits will save the day. Now their hired gun has trained the pistol on them and they have nothing to fight back with. They have destroyed academia, destroyed respect for the truth, destroyed discourse, destroyed the political process. So what do we have left? Donald J. Trump.
Enjoy your trade war. Enjoy your alternative facts. You guys financed the entire debacle.
398
Try over the road trucking. 24/7 live in the truck only paid for driving miles ,usually rated less than odometer.
4
Bruce, thanks for your wonderful replies. I have a partial solution for the beleaguered workers, unions .... Oops, sorry, I forgot.
3
Thank you, Bruce, for your many comments. As a small businessman myself I know that what you are saying is true.
You are a rare voice of reason and make a lot of sense.
1
Trump's tariffs will lead to retaliatory tariffs which will undermine American business, result in lost jobs, increase prices to consumers and for what reason is this being done? Only because our undedicated president wants to show he is tough. But his tariffs are already backfiring and that will only accelerate as he imposes more tariffs.
As business and jobs are lost and prices increase, the only good that may come from Trump tariffs is the potential decimation of the Republican Party which has allowed Trump's tariff war to proceed unchecked.
15
Ah, to dream again. What bliss.
It really is true................
If you want to live like a Republican, you have to vote for Democrats.
2
It's not just "Big Business" that will "reap Trump's whirlwind," but all of us. We all saw what happened in 2008 when the economy crashed into The Great Recession. It was a combination of huge tax cuts for the wealthy, financial deregulation and the economic shock from the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage markets. Now all those same elements are in play with the incipient international trade war between the U.S. and the rest of the world replacing the economic shock of the mortgage market meltdown. As trade collapses, we will face another Great Recession, but with no Barack Obama and Ben Bernanke to bail out the banks and other financial institutions. This depression will have only one positive outcome. It will demonstrate convincingly to all the fraud and failure that is Donald Trump and his destructive economic policies. Whether or not it will usher in a long era of New Deal progressive economics remains to be seen, but the progressive elements are in place to emerge. It's sad that it takes epic failure to change people's behavior, but that may be the only way for our democracy to survive the impending autocracy of Donald Trump.
64
Economic hardship in times of political turmoil creates dictatorships, not democracy.
2
@Dan Lutz I didn't realize that FDR was a dictator.
We need to stop China's trade practices, and getting rid of provisions in "free trade" agreements that override consumer, environmental, and labor protections (see country of origin labels) would be a good idea, but TRump is going to make such a mess of it that opposition to free trade agreements will be set back for decades. The neo-liberals will be happy, but I won't.
5
Businesses that do not act ethically for the benefit of the public can be financially successful in the short run, but it usually catches up to them over the long run to their own detriment and the detriment of their stockholders. Enron may be the best example but it is not the only one. Talk to Martin Shkreli on visiting day. See how Elizabeth Holmes is doing. Unfortunately, too many business leaders remain focused only on the next quarter just as too many politicians focus only on the next election.
15
Ask Standard Oil, still the world's largest family of oil companies.
4
But they *are* getting sweeping deregulation and tax relief where it counts - in the boards of directors' stock portfolios. Maybe they have to take the bad with the good.
The trade war (it's not imminent, it's here, isn't it?) is for the other part of his base - the angry white male working class who, by the by, have legitimate grievances, unlike businesses. But that base was snookered into believing that protectionism was the solution to all their problems. New coal mines and blast furnaces and all that. It was never going to happen and isn't going to happen but they won't stop believing. It's just the latest lie from politicians that they have fallen for. (In fairness, the crop of lies in the 80s came from local and state democratic politicians promising jobsjobsjobs and highways, more highways. Then ...nothing.)
So for trump this is a political win. The (partly) justifiably angry part of the base will live off their dreams of the chlorine and sulphur-filled skies of yore, and the corporate base will have their regulation- and tax-free haven. But, as usual, the corporations will get what they want and the workers keep on dreaming. Only this time, the workers are happy about it.
7
As Dr Krugman notes, the Republican Party is now split between a pro-trade, pro-immigrant, global partnering wing and an anti-trade, anti-immigrant, anti-globalist wing.
The problem is that the pro-trade wing is looking at the whole world as a market opportunity while the anti-trade wing is pulling up the drawbridges and isolating the US.
For a Fortune 500 company, the choice has become clear, as illustrated by Harley. With US trade policy no longer predictable, it is in shareholder interests to build factories and supply chains outside the US. That is exactly what is under discussion in S&P 500 boardrooms today.
For S&P 500 companies, the US is generally seen as a mature, aging market where sales are defended but not easily grown, while the rest of the world outside of Europe, Japan and few other places, is where the future is.
The new uncertainty around trade will be a lasting legacy of Trump, even if he were to leave office tomorrow. But we are stuck with Trump and his ignorant ideas for a while. He will look for window dressing agreements, like his proposal for zero auto tariffs with Europe. Every $1 of US auto exports to Germany (mostly from US German brand plants) is matched by $3 in German exports to the US. So Europe has much more to gain from zero tariffs than the US, especially if the US 25% tariff on pickups is eliminated.
Bloomberg has an $80 million bet on swinging part of the pro-trade GOP wing Democratic.
25
Fantastic Op-Ed. I really enjoy the IGM panel, which shows how expert consensus is nearly unanimous on trade and tax cuts, with Trump wrong on both. How he retains 90% Republican support is a testament to how badly these folks want to Make America White Again.
CBO said something truly amazing about the tax cuts, which one would think in a rational world would have eliminated the tax cuts from consideration: "Overall, the combined effect of the change in net federal revenue and spending is to decrease deficits (primarily stemming from reductions in spending) allocated to lower-income tax filing units and to increase deficits (primarily stemming from reductions in taxes) allocated to higher-income tax filing units."
In other words, the tax cuts for the rich are so big that even hurting the poor it still adds about $2 trillion to the debt over a decade. And it passed. And Trump's popularity is going up. What am I missing?
47
Now, follow me on this abstract............
The wealthy individuals and corporations have always favored Republicans disproportionately. A corporation won the right to throw campaign money at their favored leaders. It was the "Citizen's United" Supreme Court decision. The wealthy flooded the Republican campaign coffers.
The Republicans won what is now a monopoly government. The Republican Congress passed a Trillion dollar tax cut act and disguised it as a "Christmas Present" that went largely to the wealthy individuals and corporations. Trump lobbied for and signed the tax cut bill.
Now the Republicans are trying to offset the 1.27 Trillion dollar deficit increase over the next ten years by instituting Tariffs on foreign goods. Those tariffs will tax the entire supply chain and consumers of our economy. All that tariff money will go to the treasury to make up for the tax cuts to the wealthy. In effect, the middle class, which received a meager tax cut, will now be taxed every day in every way to offset the fountain of wealth now going to the Wealthy because of the tax cuts.
Summarizing; the burden of government finance has been thrust upon the shoulders of the middle class so the rich can get wealthier and the middle class gets poorer and assumes more debt, that the wealthy will make more money from.
Since the 27 dollar oil barrel at the onset of the Trump campaign, Oil has risen to around 75 dollars per barrel.
All things in consideration indicates recession soon.
249
This is very predictable. If you wish, overlay several graphs of decades of history of Oil prices, Political party in power, policy, Economic condition of progress or recession, and you will note a glaring fact that Republicans bring with them, high oil prices, recessions, and Democrats better economic progress, stimulus spending, lower oil prices, and the cycle keeps going depending on which party holds power.
With the tariffs burdening consumers, consumer confidence will plummet leading to recession, additionally, because the price of oil has almost tripled since Trump started and oil is the foundation of our economy.
Recently, Clinton's tenure saw oil prices as low as 10 dollars per barrel and an economic boom. Then Bush came in along with his oil industry administration and oil escalated to 147 dollars per barrel in July 2008 which crippled everyone in the economy. Then the loss of demand with millions out of work led to Obama and his stimulus and a recovering economy of average reasonable oil prices up until Trump, under whose watch, the price of oil is again threatening the economy, and the tariffs, or what I call, the Taxiffs, will burden consumers inhibiting consumer spending which drives the economy.
We are headed for another Republican recession if the taxiffs happen and oil prices continue to climb.
7
Third grade math simply indicates that the horded wealth with the wealthy has to be redistributed to the hundreds of millions of working consumers in order to keep the cycle of prosperity going. The wealthy horde wealth, as always. This is all elementary and not indicative of any political leaning. The papa bear has to feed his many cubs.
Yes, it would be interesting to read an analysis of the tax burden of the new tariffs and how much revenue they would actually generate.
3
Trump wouldn’t put all those investments at risk, would he? - Aye he would if his administration got to pick the ''winners and losers''
We do not know (because tax returns have not been released to follow the money) what backroom deals there are for the President, his family and backers.
Every other week we get a little tidbit that a trademark is granted here and a new personal trade agreement is done there. We also can devise what deals are being done by where they are occurring and how that reflects to local politics (districts that may be safe or in play with certain manufacturing)
The bottom line is it is all a big game/jigsaw puzzle where we do not get to see all the pieces, and it is being played with the livelihood of 100's of millions of people,
There is no rhyme or reason and just chaos. (which might be the plan all along to buy things for pennies on the dollar, when everything collapses again )
36
Some of this editorial has been obvious, at least for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. Unfortunately there are tens of millions of Americans for whom "None is so blind as he who will not see" is a cherished way of life.
However, there is one point here that I had not realized, and that I expect to be increasingly important over the next years. It is that Republicans have been investing in falsehoods for so long that even when some of them start to tell the truth about one subject they will not be believed. Mary of Northeast, who recently commented, seems to exemplify this sort of skepticism.
Sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind.
53
Big Business, 2 case studies
1. GM
GM , in 2017, sold more vehicles in China than in the US.
GM produces cars for the US market in China, at Chinese wages
These includes its flagship sedan, the Cadillac CT 6 Hybrid.
GM's most advanced research (on urban transport, of which self driving vehicles are a subset) is carried out in Shanghai. It has tested self driving cars in Shanghai since 2017 (One benefit, if you run over a pedestrian, there are no consequences as in the US)
GM's China operation is growing much faster than it's US operation (18.4% in January)
By every economic measure , GM is predominantly a Chinese, not US company
To save guards its interest in China, where you can only profit by going along with the government (ask google, facebook, amazon)
GM has NO choice but to side with China in a US-China dispute
2. Harley
Harley has long manufactured motorcycles for the Southern EU market in Thailand, at Thai wages. It is in Harley's economic interest to expand the Thai production to include the Northern EU market. But with its image of "All American" it faced difficulties to do more of such.
As The Economist dryly noted "Some think it may have been considering the shift anyway, and wanted to pin blame on the dastardly Europeans"
I shed no tears for Big Business.
The people that shed tears are those who saw their jobs moved to low wage countries. Like Shannon Mulcahy .
"Becoming a Steelworker Liberated Her. Then Her Job Moved to Mexico."
87
Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution says "All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives." So I don't think Trump will succeed in a specific tax on Harley-Davidson. I think outsiders can and will put enough pressure on GOP legislators to stop that from happening. Also, Trump should, but apparently doesn't, know such things.
15
It is not a ‘bill for raising revenue’ it is a dictate for National Security. Take it to the SCOTUS, he will win 5-4.
4
Big Business and the C of C should have realized how serious things were when it became impossible to get GOP'ers to go along with Obama's Infrastructure program, even though the C of C and Big Labor both backed the plan:
http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/08/news/economy/obama_stimulus_plan/index.htm
to no avail against the Radical Rightists in Congress.
But lawlessness really raised its head with the assertion by GOP'ers in Feb. 2016 that a 2-term Dem POTUS had no SCOTUS appointment power past the 85th month of his 96 months in office. And for good measure, they made it plain that if a Dem won the White House in Nov. 2016, they would continue to refuse to fill the vacant Scalia SCOTUS seat:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/clinton-wins-gop-say-no-9-supreme-...
Topping everything off, following the 2016 election the GOP'er Senate blew up the 60-vote requirement for a SCOTUS Justice, and has trashed the Senate's blue slip rule regarding other judicial appointments.
But Big Business and the C of C have been fine with all of it, as long as they got tax cuts.
Suddenly, they've noticed something is rotten in Denmark - Quelle Surprise !
"The state of our union is lawless." - Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Ca)
"If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy." - David Frum, former Dubya speechwriter
633
I don't know who to believe. Krugman supports an establishment economy that hasn't served labor very well. Other countries have tariffs. Our economy or the structure of our economy does need to change because the only people it serves are the corporate rich, the bankers, and wall street. I don't trust anybody these days. Not Krugman. Not Trump. In the long term, Trump(Navarro) might be right about this.
5
Mary, you miss the point. We already have tariffs also. But since WWII there has been a system that all countries abide by so that world trade would not be impacted by tariffs.
Trump is wrecking that system.
PS The main reason labor has not been served well is the successful war on unions waged by corporations and Republicans on unions.
155
(First response faded into ether)
I remember Reagan well and was fully aware of his destructive practices and agree he started our decline unless you really think Truman did when he failed to make Henry Wallace his VP.
Bannon is convinced we must limit immigration in order to give black, brown, poor white kids opportunities even if it means flipping a hamburger costs $20 instead of $15. (Zakaria interview) Navarro is convinced it is in the long-term interests of Americans to raise tariffs. I'm not a globalist. I believe intrinsically that local is better except when it's not. (I remember our penchant for foreign cars started when American cars were crummy and fuel-gulping.)
Our decline precedes Trump. My point remains that I still don't know who to trust. And I'm as informed as I can possibly be given time, resources and expertise which isn't much economically. :)
Krugman has a better track record for honesty-truthfulness than Trump(Navarro) summed and squared. Trust Krugman, then decide on your own.
20
From today’s news it seems that Trump may postpone tariffs on european cars to allow for more negotiations. The goal may be no triffs at all for cars, SUVs and light trucks.
If that is true it will be the big win for european luxury car makers who now pay 25% tariffs. Expect Porsche Cayenne prices to drop significantly.
I don’t know how it would benefit American automakers who do not make cars suitable for europen markets.
9
I read Krugman (even the wonkish) every chance I get.
DOW up 200 today?! Not sure what this means. Is it belief by investors that the global companies will adapt?
I sure hope they do as my retirement depends on it but does that help "We the people..." who are dependent on wages and ultimately social security. And what of social security with the current congress that seems to think its an entitlement?
Can we the people not do better for we the people?
85
The president's attacks against those corporations who are planning on cutting jobs or moving jobs overseas due to his own rash and dangerous tariffs is the federal government reaching into the private, free-market capitalism.
Funny, the last 60, if not 100 years, we've heard the Republican Party use the fear of government intervention in the free-markets as a way to turn big business against the Democratic Party and yet here's one of their own, Donald J. Trump, doing just that, threatening a private corporation with retaliation.
Surely the editorial board of the WSJ and the entirety of the Republican Party and the Chamber of Commerce must be up in arms over this!
294
Wall Street is making lots of money.
Most large corporations are set up to do business from overseas.
Small farmers can eat dirt.
The 90% can content themselves with what crumbs are left.
Oligarchies consistent of groups of allied rich families and concerns. Those who aren't yet aligned with Trump will learn the hard way to submit to his clique.
---
https://www.rimaregas.com/reference/oligarchy/
54
Anyone who believes big business is opposed to government interference in the free market has not been paying attention. That was NEVER the opinion of big business.
They are opposed only to government interference with their methods of generating profit, such as honest labelling, enforcement against monopoly and oligopoly, safety regulations, environmental protection, and you can probably name more.
They love cost-plus, no-bid contracts, special inserts into laws and lobbyist-written laws, government subsidies like far-below-market leases of government land for grazing and mining, and much more.
33
No. They still find a way to twist things around and blame it on Obama or the Democrats in Congress. If that doesn't work, blame California!
5
Sixty-nine percent of GDP (typical) is personal consumption expenditures. For the first two months of Q2 2018, the monthly change after inflation was 0.0%, and 0.3%.
How will Trump get his 5% GDP when consumption is this terribly weak?
I'll give you a hint Donnie, if you want GDP growth, consumers need to have brass in pocket, and not just the top 1%, you need to give it to people who will buy homes, cars, appliances, vacations, food... A lovely tax cut to corporations who only used it to buy back their stocks isn't going to stimulate growth, why invest CAPEX when Mr and Mrs America are broke?
547
Yeah, people do not have enough money to buy stuff. We have just have 2 studies that showed if the typical American family had a real emergency & had to come up with some money, they couldn't do it. One said about half the people couldn't come up with $400 & the other that 2/3rds couldn't find $1,000.
Now businesses are not going to produce stuff people can't buy. So they have to keep prices low, & they can't pay workers well & still keep the big profits they have become used to. If wages were higher, people would have the money to buy stuff, but that's a chicken & egg problem.
BUT we have a way to break out of this circle. Its called the federal government. It can create as much money as it needs out of thin air. It can then get the money to the people who need it & will spend it (not to the people who do not need it and will use it to speculate) by simply doing stuff that needs to be done, e.g. fixing roads and bridges, helping with education, research of all kinds, a new power grid, efficient transportation, etc., etc., etc. Thus we can break the circle & improve our lives at the same time.
What about inflation? Prices are proportional to the amount of money in the economy (times its velocity), but INVERSELY proportional to the dollar value of the stuff we can produce. So if the money is spent doing good things, it will produce enough stuff to soak up the money. Excessive inflation is caused by something that prevents us from producing stuff, like shortages.
10
The absolute number of negative net worth households just keeps rising, as the wealth extraction mechanics are reinforced. Add in the universal "affordable" housing crisis, they seem to have decided they don't need some unknowable but significant portion of the working class.
Branson MO could not get enough H1B visas to "Operate" fully this summer. Paying American (students?) real money just is not an option.
6
Agreed Sal. Business spends to meet demand - essentially, when they have to, not to create jobs.
8
Schadenfreude is in order
Except we'll all suffer, too,
Midterm voting is so crucial
Or disaster we will rue.
Big Business gets its comeuppance
Those tax cuts had high regard
Tariff wars are like loose cannons
Now hoist by their own petard.
296
@Larry
You are pleasure and a treasure. Just wanted to swing by and say that friend. Carry on.
15
To FunkyIrishman:
Thank you, friend.
Wonderful. One of your best ones. You've outdone yourself, Larry!
5
“But suppose Republicans retain control of Congress this November.”
We have a democracy problem. The process of counting votes has been outsourced to a handful of private rightwing companies that count our votes in secret. The public has lost its ability to know that election results are honest and accurate.
Harper’s Magazine: How to Rig an Election https://tinyurl.com/y9xx63f6
“HAVA's [Help America Vote Act, a truly Orwellian name] impact has been huge, accelerating a deterioration of our electoral system that most Americans have yet to recognize, let alone understand. We are literally losing our ballot — the key physical proof of our power as citizens.”
Stephen Spoonamore, Computer Security Guru, Election Theft with Voter Machines https://tinyurl.com/y7855vmp
"I’m a Republican. This is not a partisan issue. This is a democracy issue. If you actually care about a constitutional democracy where every person actually votes, that the vote is validated, and the people who end up in office are reflected on the basis of the way people voted you care about this issue. If you don't want people to vote, and if you don't want people's vote to count, you want to rule without owning it by a mandate then you are very supportive of Diebold."
German Court Rules E-Voting Unconstitutional https://tinyurl.com/za778ju
Europe Rejects Digital Voting
https://tinyurl.com/yczjwo64
"The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."—Joseph Stalin
919
Why would computerized election fraud be out of the realm of possibility when we have overt manipulation: voter suppression, gerrymandering, big money, and a stolen Supreme Court seat?
Jonathan Simon: “The chickens are coming home to roost because we're seeing the breakdown of our political system. We maintain, those of us that have been looking at election integrity and taking this problem seriously, that a big part of that breakdown is the distortion of the public will that takes place when you don't count votes honestly and accurately, when it's not observable, when it's been outsourced.”
Follow Simon's interviews at http://codered2014.com/. He is the author of "Code Red: Computerized Elections and the War on American Democracy” (2018 edition).
Computer experts from top universities have proven over and over that electronic voting machines can be easily hacked without leaving a trace.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: Was the 2004 Election Stolen? https://tinyurl.com/yc7oa9do
Did an Election Day Lawsuit Stop Karl Rove’s Vote-Rigging Scheme in Ohio? https://tinyurl.com/ycm8hs75
Hacking Democracy - The Hack https://tinyurl.com/y7c9oopu
The full-length Emmy nominated HBO documentary https://tinyurl.com/y7mydv7z
Bev Harris, founder of Black Box Voting: “When people see what’s really going on there is no way we will allow this to continue.”
#SayNoToFaithBasedVoting
193
And who will correct this serious problem? I doubt that those in power will. Diebold may be what got them there.
10
nfahr wrote “And who will correct this serious problem? I doubt that those in power will. Diebold may be what got them there.”
The current system has worked well for those in power. They're not willing to rock the boat. It will come from the 99% as Bev Harris said in Hacking Democracy:
“When people see what’s really going on there is no way we will allow this to continue.”
6
First, we need to realize big business and the wealthy are the same people. Those very rich people sit on the boards of directors of those companies, they award themselves a few million a year in stocks, that they get dividends from. They also are the big contributors to senators and congress critters.
Now they have a loose cannon in their midst. But they are cowardly, even with all their money, they cower when Donald the Mad insults them on Twitter. They do like that tax cut, and the deregulation of environmental controls, it is their ideology, they have gotten their people elected, now they can not just tell them what we said we wanted, is not what we wanted.
The question is, will the electorate make them pay for this? Will we get stronger environmental and financial controls. Will there be hearings if their people are voted out, will we who are being robbed of our country by them, get our revenge?
These conspirators thought his low tax would bring jobs back to DJTs supporters, and would keep them in the chips, and their politicians in power. They and he have their propaganda network Fox to assure the dups all is well. Those dups have been running up personal debt equal to that of 2007-8. It will only take one large failure to start the panic. They should be getting antsy, they will have to pay in more than just money. Some may inherit a room at they Greybar hotel. I hope to see that day.
211
@David
We can only hope that the political pendulum will swing back so forcefully that we will get a true Progressive government of the people and for the people on par with FDR or LBJ.
I am hopeful, but we have to get busy now and sustain it for almost 3 years. Keep the faith.
24
David, I doubt that "These conspirators thought his low tax would bring jobs back to DJTs supporters". They cared not a whit for the jobs of anyone but their own billionaire class.
19
We would be fools to think that a massive blue wave would mean reduction in the power of the wealthy.
3
"The most obvious case is climate change, where conservative organizations, very much including the chamber, have long acted as “merchants of doubt,”"
Paul, it's OK to name names. Climate change denial can clearly be linked to the Koch brothers who have financed almost every scientist willing to fake skepticism of the science that clearly shows that Koch products are heating up the planet.
They and others in their right wing cabal also contribute to anti-abortion groups, even though some, including the Kochs are on record as being pro-choice. When they give money to the NRA, you can be sure it isn't because they want more Americans to be heavily armed.
If Roger Ailes was still alive he'd happily tell you that the American people can't be trusted to run this country- left to their un-manipulated free will they would tax all incentive out of running business.
These people have convinced themselves that they are saving capitalism and have no self-awareness of how they are merely engaging in a rationalization that justifies keeping as much of their money as they can- no matter the cost to the environment, society or our government.
The sponsors need to be called out so the public can understand who the puppet masters really are.
740
@Alan
It is simple greed to get as much as you can, while you can. It was glaring when people voted for a meager tax cut, but were voting against themselves in the long run. They just don't care.
No one is going to care until they lose their homes due to climate change (floor or hurricanes), or until their actual job is lost. Their neighbors can lose jobs all around them, so long as it is not them.
This is radical and extreme ideology of the right.
19
alan, if you're going to name names, please don't just repeat the one everyone knows. There are thousands to add to the list, and I remember only a handful: Mercer, Scaife, Mellon, Adelson -- that is hardly even a beginning.
Add the Heritage Foundation and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce: the Heartland Institute (bred on defending tobacco then converted to opposing acknowledgement of climate change), the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) -- I'm only scratching the surface.
38
The disease infecting American democracy cannot be cured by clearing our sinuses of the politicians that are the symptoms of that disease. Political power and control should not be in ratio to how much money your can spend to influence politicians and media, much of this in the dark.
We have to actually change the structure of the election process with serious campaign finance reform. The Democratic party should run on forwarding an actual constitutional amendment to do that as a long term commitment.
In the meantime, if Democrats win back the congress and the presidency, they should pursue this through normal legislative process.
I see hope in grass roots Democrat candidates seriously running on this issue winning recent primaries.
1
Even this column is too generous.
The Kochs were always after the complete dismantlement of modern government and their fellow oligarchs' we're in lockstep with them. That's what ALEC was all about. We're it not for ALEC, we wouldn't be here today, right in the middle of an all out war between the haves for whom enough has neither ceiling nor floor, and the have nots whose ranks swelled right out of an already shrinking middle class.
Trump got elected by using the time-proven tactic of racial divide and conquer politics, using it as bluntly as this nation has seen it used since the Jim Crow era. He did as MLK described, using that psychological bird to entice millions. Had the Kochs had their way, it would have been Scott Walker.
But make no mistake, the level of putrfaction we see today has tainted more than just the right flank of our politics. Just take a look at the Blue Dogs who've been voting for Trump reforms!
Scott Pruitt may have just left, but his work was already mostly done. When Trump is finally gone, we will have a whole new country to build from scratch.
Meanwhile, we need more news outlets to keep tabs on the Great Undoing. Americans need to know how corrupt all of Trump's cabinet is.
---
https://www.rimaregas.com/2018/01/07/politicos-running-list-of-what-trum...
406
For as long as we refuse to look in the national mirror, we are doomed to go through cycles of limited progress, followed by cycles of repression and failure. For as long as we refuse to provide our own with an education that is truthful and complete, we are doomed to have enough voters who can be duped by a white supremacist like Trump, doomed to have the rest of the populace vulnerable to propaganda of all flavors of the rainbow,
For as long as we are unwilling to force our eyes open to the circumstances of our birth as a nation and continue to lie to ourselves about an exalted state of freedom and enlightenment that we've never achieved, we are doomed to these ever worsening cycles we are living. We doom our children, too.
For as long as we don't call things by their rightful names, we play pretend and fool ourselves into believing we are better than we are and thus ensure we never improve.
For as long as we allow leaders and the media to call this Trump Administration anything but the white supremacist infiltrators they are, we give cover to party leaders to tone down a fury that should be front and center. We also allow them to try and their own to heel, as Pelosi and Schumer have done.
For as long as we don't call ICE, those who run it, and Trump, Jim Crow white supremacists and we insist on pointing to a Nazi Germany that was inspired by Jim Crow himself, we cannot face the truth: This Is America.
https://www.rimaregas.com/?s=white+liberals+Germany+Jim+Crow+
94
"Trump got elected by using the time-proven tactic of racial divide and conquer politics..."
And because some "purist progressives" kept denigrating Clinton during the election, dontcha think?? They forgot to listen to Bernie even though they were strongly in his camp, but they just couldn't bring themselves to vote for Clinton. And we now have this mess. BTW, I could have told you how corrupt Trump's cabinet would be.
14
No, Sam.
American politicians don't know how to campaign without using the race card. Trump did it the white supremacists way, blunt and ugly.
Hillary dabbled in the pactice too.
https://www.rimaregas.com/2018/06/18/white-liberals-selfsoothing-sprinkl...
3
I don’t know when it will occur to the Chamber of Commerce and their friends that it’s not sufficient to attack Trump’s tariffs and a few other policies; they have to attack Trump himself. Because, broadly speaking, Trump doesn’t have policies; he has whims, which he indulges whenever he feels like it. Anyone who runs a business this way, probably goes bankrupt; oh, wait, that’s what he did. He’s not a strategist; in the international game of three-dimensional chess, he’s not even playing checkers; he’s playing tic-tac-toe. He’s not out to help business in this country; the only thing that ever crosses Trump’s mind is Trump.
Have you seen enough already, Chamber of Commerce? Well, brace yourself, because it’s only going to get worse. Because Trump doesn’t even have policies in the strictest sense: he just likes to break things.
1131
I won't stop replying to draw attention to these excellent, truthful and important warnings until I read one that isn't spot on! This one has nailed it as well. Nation: read, learn, vote!
5
I agree "Have you seen enough already, Chamber of Commerce? Well, brace yourself, because it’s only going to get worse."
I would hide the porcelain, your piggy bank, anything valuable, the nuclear button for God's sakes. There is toddler on the loose. It really does seem that undoing anything good done by Obama (Paris climate accord, Iran nuclear deal, The Affordable Care Act) or others, such as the long progress towards environmental protection, Social Security and Medicare is a priority. We are being dragged back into a brutal nasty uncivilized world by Trump and his supporters.
2
Bingo, though I would rephrase it just slightly: He just likes to grab things, and doesn't care if that breaks them: what he cares is that NOW IT'S MINE NOT YOURS AND YOU CAN'T HAVE IT.
"I'm the President and they're not."
1
The business of America is business."
Calvin Coolidge.
The business of Donald Trump is bankrupting businesses and now other peoples businesses.
This man should have been removed from office long ago for extreme incompetence, but now the republicans can't remove him, because of their base. The Democrats are facing long odds getting any control of congress, because of the gerrymandering and voter suppression the republicans have built into the system.
Well there you go. The republicans were paid by the wealthy and corporations to build a mouse trap that they are now trapped in, while Trump is busy tearing down the world economy and playing footsie with the Russians.
919
Trump is tearing down our democracy, the world economy and the important long term international agreements with EU nations. He admires Putin. His UK trip will be 'interesting'. Did you see the cartoonish balloon of Trump that Brits will float when he arrives?
Here's an idea---maybe it's the advanced EU democracies who should try to influence our politics---don't just let Russia do it. Plant the idea in the US that we should stop letting wealthy corporations pay for our politics, set norms and call the shots.
Then we could actually try to restore US democracy, and give back political influence to we the people, and then elect more rational, humane, competent US leaders and congress. What a concept!
Maybe Germany, France, UK, etc are the countries that SHOULD be 'interfering' in our elections! For our own good.
1
Don't forget corporate republican control of voting machines.
The business of America is war, actually. Real military type war. But *every* trump policy plays out like an analog of war. He wishes to subdue and destroy. That also happens to be capitalism’s MO only they are more circumspect about it.
Those who run Big Business are financially insulated from their, and from Trump's, mistakes.
Under no circumstances will they ever face uncertainty about paying their electrical bills, putting food on the table, etc.
There's no reason for them to share our concerns. They don't really inhabit our world.
771
True. It is a lot like slash and burn agriculture. They can extract what they can from out country, then more on to newer, more fertile land. The typical American does not have the flexibility to follow the wave.
11
While that may be the short-term view, looking back into history a bit provides a more guarded record. Pushing the balance between haves and have-nots too far sometimes leads to a less optimistic outcome for the haves. Just ask Louis XVI and the last Czar.
And sadly, they don't really care. :(
It took the western world nearly 200 years to gradually abandon mercantilism and adopt free trade. As a result, most of the world has prospered. An unintended consequence of free trade (noted by David Hume in the 18th century ) is that, along with goods, the trade in intellectual production, culture, and understanding between nations increased. Now, it has taken one uninformed president to interrupt the free trade of commerce, broadly construed, and to reintroduce suspicion, envy, spite, and doubt into business practices that were, at long last settled. And, as Dr. Krugman points out, to no one's advantage!
553
We really don't have "free trade" though, as trade has always been heavily regulated through agreements like NAFTA and treaties with individual countries.
China's approach to trade is precisely mercantilism. I don't think we want to wait 200 years as they "gradually abandon it".
1
You obviously studied economics at a different school than the one Trump attended. At Wharton, they teach that trade wars "are fun, and easy to win!"
Trump does not have the ability to deal with the complex. He is a bully who sees and understands only the simple, instead of appreciating the interrelationships of trade and diplomacy, Since the simplicity of trade wars reflect how he has always done business, why would anybody think the zebra is changing its stripes? We give you more, then you are going to give us more. Simple, understandable and destructive. He is the tornado in the Wizard of Oz, leaving a path of destruction where ever he goes, whatever he does. The way he functions in this office is like he functioned as head of his business only not in public and not impacting the world. If we continue to be surprised we are as simplistic as he is.
310
The problem for Trump is that he is behaving exactly as he did as the head of his business -- but can't get the public to sign one of his Non-Disclosure Agreements.
Exactly. He offered simple solutions for simple minds to complex problems.
Protecting our southern border and enforcing our immigration laws isn't racist Paul.
21
Protecting the southern border from what, exactly? All data suggest that immigration at the border is the lowest it has been in decades, a trend that started before Trump assumed office. Go ask people in Brownsville, TX about a border "problem."
Trump has created a bogeyman called immigration, which is racially based.
Sadly, the GOP has long been a party that eschewed facts in its creation of policy, thereby skewing where resources would be best directed in advancing American communities, workers, and interests. One can only hope that the party's damaging policies and positions will be wholly rejected.
7
As if that's what these policies and actions are about. Obfuscation doesn't work with some of us.
4
Not much. Trump wants to ban Mexicans and Muslims, but not Norwegians.
2
Big business will be chortling and patting themselves on their collective backs until a new Love Canal resurfaces, the Cuyahoga bursts into flames, and Yellowstone is subdivided. At that point Americans will wake up and the new revolution will begin. It will happen. DDT was banned. The E.P.A. was created by Richard Nixon. We learned before that business was not our friend. We will have to relearn it the hard way, but we will. I hope the price we pay in lives and damage to the environment is not too high.
490
I don't think Americans are asleep. I think they're dead. We're a ghost country now.
Seems to me, we've passed the "too high" mark over a year or so ago. Those who own the wealth have bought us.
Over and over again, corporations resist doing the right thing for health, safety and the environment and then, after having their hand forced by government regulation, creating PR that makes it sound like it was all their own idea in the first place. Government regulation is the only reason you can drink clean water, breathe clean air and be a little safer in your car.
Big business fears Trump. Big business did not cause his election. His racist, sexist, homophobic and disregard of the environmental crisis (which has become a religion to many) enabled him to be our President. Big business fears Trump because he is utterly whimsical, unpredictable and insane. China is good-China is very, very bad. North Korea is horrible run by little rocket man- North Korea is great and governed by a great leader. The same is true with respect to Russia, Europe, Canada and Mexico. Trump could survive his complete rejection by the business community. Members of that community are not in the masses of chanting, actually ranting, crowds at Trump's rallies. America has to recognize that our President is a tyrant, supported by a xenophobic and very dangerous populace. Big business has always been big business. In the past, it never produced a Trump.
260
Mr. Krugman’s point is not that Big Business caused Trump’s election; rather, he is saying that the groundwork they have carefully laid through dog whistles to racism within the Republican Party for the past 50 years enabled the election of a horror like Trump. And he is correct.
1
But Krugman's argument has a time component. Over time the racist appeals created a base that business can no longer control.
2
You fail to grasp one essential point of the article -- that "big business" cynically capitalized on the ignorance, racism, xenophobia (and also bruised masculinity and outright misogyny, which Krugman failed to mention) of the Republican voters, mostly via Fox News (which Krugman also failed to mention) in order to get what they wanted, which was, and is, tax cuts and deregulation.
Here's the essential paragraph: "For a long time business seemed to have this game under control: win elections with racial dog whistles, then turn to an agenda of tax cuts and deregulation. But sooner or later something like Trump was going to happen: a candidate who meant the racism seriously, with the enthusiastic support of the Republican base, and couldn’t be controlled."
1
History is replete with people helping to put a politician in power under the false belief that they can control him. The most tragic example was German Industrialists and British Conservatives believing that they could control Adolf Hitler.
280
When are the political pundits going to speak openly about what we are witnessing? This is the face of Fascism. This is what my uncle and father, and hundreds of thousands of others around the world fought against during World War Two.
"What do I mean by cynical politics? Partly I mean the tacit alliance between businesses and the wealthy, on one side, and racists on the other, that is the essence of the modern conservative movement."
This is the very definition of Fascism, a word Mussolini coined before WWII when he formed an alliance with Hitler and Franco.
I now can understand how the German public went along with Hitler. Between corruption, thuggery, propaganda, they had no choice but to submit to the power of the State.
We are in serious trouble. One man's resigning will not make it go away.
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They had a choice until they elected Hitler (or 40% of them did). After that, they had no choice.
You say they had no choice. They did, but they too were interested in self before others. History is there to learn from. Middle class America can change the trajectory in November but not if they think there are goodies to be had with Trump and the Republicans. Ignornance and apathetic attitudes abound.
Didn't anybody thought,during the Trump campaign,that he sounded very much like Hitler did in his heyday.Hitler accused the German politicians of having surrendered in 1918 while,according to him,Germany was able to continue fighting.
Trump had a similar story,accusing the politicians of having abandoned the working class and appealing to the racism of a good part of the population when he accused the Mexicans inmigrants to be rapists.
It was bound to happen,Trump,like Hitler pressed the right buttons,and a 1787 elections rule gave him the Presidency ,
despite having almost 3 million votes less than Hillary.
Lets not talk again of Democracy in a country where there are things as Gerrymandering and McConnelll can obstruct the consideration by the Senate of an Obama candidate to the Supreme Court.
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One of the bigger mistakes made by the God-Almighty US Chamber of Commerce and their political party: they never let one little bit of those massive profits of global trade trickle down, even just a little, to working people, or to places like the Great Lakes Region, which paid mightily for those profits of globalism with loss of jobs, loss of income, falling standards of living for the working person.
And by the way, labeling an area the "rust belt" and leaving it to rust for fifty years might just be one of the reasons the 'Great Blue Wall' fell, and Trump (Putin's puppet) was elected-- the name itself is an insult and should be retired after a rough forty years. The people on either coast do not begin to understand the population, the problems, or the history of the fly-over states (another pejorative name). This is clear from reading comments in the NYT. No one is more provincial than coastal types who have never been to the interior of the country but rant about the ignorant savages who live in flyover country-- and this includes the other major political party. This bodes ill for coming elections...
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Very well stated. I see the current condition of the United States as an unmitigated failure of the Power Elite of this country. That Power Elite has been horns on the same goat and though there are certain emotive differences the major similarity rested with: 1) Financilizing the US economy; and 2) not investing in the long-term future of the US. A pox on both their houses.
'Build the Wall'! Lock Her Up'! 'Muslim Ban'! 'America First'! 'Good People on Both Sides'! 'My Second Amendment People'! 'Climate Change is a Chinese Hoax'! 'Everybody is Taking Advantage of Us'! 'That Was Just Locker Room Talk'! 'Trade Wars Are Easy to Win'! 'I Like Heroes Who Weren't Captured, OK'? 'Where is His Birth Certificate'?
That's the President you folks want? That's 'flyover country's' answer to its problems? That's your Great White Hope?
From the looks of things, perhaps many of the denizens of the vast, underpopulated interior indeed are just a bunch of ignorant savages.
And perhaps many of us who live and work out here on the left and right coasts, who are the majority of the American population, who produce the overwhelming majority of GDP and who pay the overwhelming majority of the federal tax burden, have grown tired of carrying those savages on our backs while they attempt to drag us all back to the 19th century. Or to the Third Reich.
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Do we really need another set of tribes - the coasts and the midwest? Why this incessant need to find some other to demonize? And why does the NYT think this tribalism is civil?
This is a functional explanation, not a causal one. I doubt many business owners are thinking, "I'll conspire with racists to get pro-business candidates." They just, neither irrationally nor surprisingly, support candidates who they think will be pro-business.
The problem is that there's too much wealth inequality, and it's too easy to convert wealth into political power.
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This column is a great example of the bankruptcy of capitalist liberal thinking.
Mr. Krugman assumes the function of good government is to efficiently carry out the bidding of big business. And takes it for granted that the voters can be manipulated by a racism that overrules elections.
Here is the reality:
When you eliminate Socialism as an alternative to neo liberal austerity, the workers have no place else to turn but Trumpian fascism.
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When GM filed a written protest last week against Trump's tariffs I fully expected him to tell people to stop buying Buicks, Chevrolets and Cadillacs. I think even Trump realized that would be a bridge too far. Bullies like him typically only pick fights they can win.
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BINGO!
Except for the trade lunacies he is pursuing, which he can't win.
The retaliations are smart: they are deliberately targeting his "base".
Make America Grieve Again.
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Yes, "bullies only pick fights that they can win" with one implicit addition: bullies are frequently cowards with often sadistic inclinations that lead them to gain pleasure from picking on weaker people. The Trump joy at separating parents and children of asylum seekers with Sessions delighted to pile on is a current example.
Of course, his running away from military service is a long known exhibition of his cowardice. It's currently made obvious by his hiding behind the typical autocrat's last refuge patriotism.
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