Donald Trump’s presidential bid has gone from hilarious, to slightly amusing to downright scary. It appears that every day this bombastic political amateur gets one step closer to sealing up the Republican Party Presidential nomination.
For this juggernaut candidate, the saying really is true: “there is no such thing as bad press.” Even a tiff with the pontiff himself wasn’t enough to shake voter’s confidence as he swept through South Carolina. Now according to political pundits, Trump even has history on his side as no candidate who has won in New Hampshire and South Caroline has failed to win the presidential nomination.
With so much momentum, I doubt that my little rant will do anything to sidetrack his momentum but I need to get this off my chest; at the very least I will at least sleep a little better having said my piece.
The bottom line is: Trumps plan to “Make America Great” will utterly fail and it’s not just me saying this but decades of economic history. His ideas on trade are at best naive and at worst economic suicide.
Trump talks a big game in his platform but there is no real substance in his proposed initiatives. For the most part all his is doing is focusing on China, saying that through strong negotiating he will hold China responsible. Okay that is interesting but who is he going to negotiate with.
His first step if elected will be to “Bring China to the bargaining table by immediately declaring it a currency manipulator.
Who is he going to complain to and how exactly will that bring China to the table they will just deny the whole thing?
He said that he will also put an end to sweatshops and bring jobs back to the U.S. But he doesn’t say how he is going to do that. This sounds great to the masses but he has nothing to back up this stance. Instead of questioning him on this people will just let him talk for hours at a time.
For someone who has put his name on a bunch of crappy ties and shirts, Trump doesn’t know first thing about the U.S. garment industry. The sector is completely reliant on cheap overseas labor. Nike is not going to move its shoes and clothing factories back to the U.S. and pay someone minimum wage to make their sneakers because Trump tell them to. That $100 shoe would end up costing the consumer probably around $1,000 because Nike has to make a profit too.
The same goes for Calvin Klein, Marc Jacobs, Ralph Lauren, Michael Kors and every other major fashion label.
But making of the garment is just one part of the industry; even with all the major overseas production, according to the New York City Economic Development Corporation, the fashion industry generates $9 billion in total wages. How many of those wages and jobs would be lost if the average consumer was priced out of the market, no longer afford to buy their threads?
U.S. made clothing would put the crappy minimum wage jobs at Target and Walmart in jeopardy across the country.
I’m not saying this is right and that we should exploit overseas labor but this is the way the global marketplace has been established and Trump is not going to change that.
While Trump’s America first policies sound great on the campaign trail, in reality the numbers just don’t add up.
While the garment industry is an easy one to look at let’s take another example: the Information Technology sector. Since the late 1990 there has been a mass exodus of IT jobs from the U.S. but studies show that this hasn’t been as horrible as it sounds.
According to a 2003 study by the McKinsey Global Institute, every dollar spend on foreign outsourcing create $1.12 to $1.14 in U.S. domestic economic activity.
So Trump, in his wisdom, wants to sacrifice 12 to 14 cents in profits for saving a dollar. No wonder he filed for corporate bankruptcy four times. He is terrible at math.
And the jobs that do stay in America, they are the best. According to the Cato Institute, in 2002 U.S. companies exported $14.8 billion and imported $3.9 billion in IT services.
But like I said at the beginning nobody is going to care about what one wiseguy has to say about Trump’s economic plan.
I just hope that the voters wake up out of their celebrity stupor and realize that Trump actually has no plan on how to “Make America Great.”
However, we could probably solve the world’s energy crisis by capturing all the hot air he is blowing.
Read more by Just_another_wiseguy
