Trump-Vance non-Republican Economic Agenda

[MrMan]

Trump and Vance's economic policies are very different from typical Republican policies.

Typically Republicans seem to favor free trade. Back in 1776 Adam Smith the British father of economics wrote rather likely the treated which introduced the concepts of specialization and also nations specializing. individuals who specialize in their work tend to be more productive than those who do not. then if they trade everyone is richer and better off. he applied the same principle to Nations using a simple model of two Nations and two products but the logic is pretty sound.

a few decades ago Milton Friedman was a prominent proponent of free trade and open markets. Republicans tended to accept ideas from classical Indian classical economics like this. but over time Democrats seem to come on board too even though you would hear Democrats talk more about protecting American jobs and trying to keep them from going overseas.

in the long run economic forces theoretically take capital and factories and jobs to the most optimal location through market forces, and this drives down prices for consumers. of course certain groups like high wage earning Union Factory workers in the US whose factories shut down and are moved to Mexico or China lose out but the overall economy is supposed to be richer and consumers get cheaper prices.

Trump was talking about putting tariffs on other nations and keeping the jobs in the United States.

he already put tariffs on steel and aluminum which makes products made with steel and aluminum more efficient and gives this buffer zone where local producers can be less efficient than foreign competitors because the foreign competitors products get marked up. this is bad for consumers.

Trump complained about NAFTA and argued that his renegotiation of NAFTA the USMCA is actually better than NAFTA was. I understand is that the new agreement was more protectionist requiring about 10% more car parts be manufactured in North America than the previous agreement. this drives up the prices of cars to the benefit of automobile companies workers in the United States like the UAW. They were actually able to get a Teamsters official to speak at the RNC.

I realize economics does not exist independent of other factors and is also politics and Global Security and National Security. Warren Buffett's number two guy said that he didn't know if it was really a good thing if there's absolutely no steel production in the United States. I can understand from a national security perspective at the United States did have to go to war and suddenly start producing its own steel because supplies got cut off that it might be important to have steel factories in the United States. if Trump had power to protect the existing steel factories using tariffs but he didn't have power to do so using subsidies I understand the reasoning possibly behind the tariffs although I think it is pandering to certain workers in Pennsylvania swing state possibly.

I also understand that the reasons it is possible for there to be Supply chains to stretch throughout countries and so much free trade going on in the world is currently because the United States is defending the Seas from piracy with its huge navy the only Navy that can truly police the world to the extent that it does. we pay for that but the system does benefit our nation's business interests and our nation's economy has a huge segment of the global GDP.

maybe Trump wants our country to be more isolationist and therefore wants to cut off some of our supply chains with other nations. while I like the fact that Trump is on the right side of some of the social issues even if in his personal life he may not have embraced them very much personally, I have some concerns about Trump's economic policies.

It may be that the Great Depression was as severe as it was because countries raised tariffs on foreign Goods in order to protect domestic Industries during the Great Depression but this caused input products into production processes to become very expensive and created an efficiencies that may have made the Great Depression worse. if Trump starts trade Wars I wonder if that will unravel some of the supply chains making it difficult for us to get some of the products that we have become dependent on other nations to provide in the current economic climate. could this hurt our economy?

I also wonder if the changes in the Republican party will continue on after Trump?

will the Republican Party morph into a party of anti-free trade isolationists and waitresses who do not want to pay taxes on tips and union workers while the Democrat Party is a party of ladyboys, weirdos and environmentalists?

[Winston]

Not exactly. America was isolationist all throughout the 19th Century. Its economy boomed with no inflation for a hundred years. It was Teddy Roosevelt that opened up free trade and caused problems in the American economy. He did this after President William McKinley was assassinated. McKinley was an isolationist and went against what the elite wanted, which was free trade and more globalism. It's not a Republican thing, it's a globalist thing. The Republican party before Teddy Roosevelt was probably isolationist too.

[MrMan]

Not exactly. America was isolationist all throughout the 19th Century. Its economy boomed with no inflation for a hundred years. It was Teddy Roosevelt that opened up free trade and caused problems in the American economy. He did this after President William McKinley was assassinated. McKinley was an isolationist and went against what the elite wanted, which was free trade and more globalism. It's not a Republican thing, it's a globalist thing. The Republican party before Teddy Roosevelt was probably isolationist too.

This is a summary of Adam's Smith's theory as it pertains to why free trade is supposed to enrich nations that participate in it, with a bit of socialist propaganda at the end of it.



Our economy and that of the world has grown quite a bit since the 1800s. We had a lot of subsistence farmers back then.

[Winston]

Why did Trump pick Vance? He looks like a Christian pastor, not like a VP. He belongs in church as a pastor. I wouldn't want a pastor for a VP.