A great comment left in an article on 538.com the other day. I copy it here so it won’t get lost, as I can’t locate it 48 hours later:
Chris Raimondi
Calling anything Trump puts out as a plan and then attempting to analyze it is doing a disservice to numbers without pointing out virtually nothing he has proposed passes the laugh test.I think people are also mistaken when they think that his ideas about taking Iraq’s oil and using nuclear weapons are some sort of gaffe.
It falls right in line with what he has done in the past, but on a scale that the virtual unlimited power of being commander in chief gives him.
He absolutely DOES understand that to be successful in business he needs to be able to add value in the economic sense, and in the past – the way he has done so is by lowering costs (suing for lower property taxes, not paying people, overhyping his properties and loading them with debt and using his majority position in a public company to force those losses onto his shareholders, as well as buying politicians). This in addition to intimidating people with his lawyers is standard MO.
I thing he is brainstorming with what he can do with intimidation, theft, threats, and anything else, but with the full force of the federal government at his disposal.
His plans are an attempt to put what he thinks based on his own personal business problems – and apply them on a global scale. He never thinks he makes a mistake and probably really believes some of this stuff.
Unfortunately – the media tends to go along with the idea that the President has a great amount of control over the economy – and as 538 pointed out in their excellent p-hacking demo – this can be made to seem to favor one party or another – by adjusting what you count.
Of course, it isn’t only the republicans or Trump that have mislead Americans about the economy, but people don’t want to hear “well there isn’t much proof I’ll be able to do much.” Or anything along those lines.
Paul Krugman has pointed out that the Euro has provided the perfect natural experiment for things like the effect of fiscal (tax cuts or spending projects) vs economic stimulus (what the fed does with things like interest rates). Since there everyone on the euro has basically one “fed” – you can separate put the effect of (with the standard disclaimers of make sure you measure what you think you are) and those countries that have embraced austerity have done poorer – as virtually every sane economist predicted.
Tax cuts – if done from the bottom up – can work, but the standard usually republican proposed tax cuts have never been shown to work under any vigorous analysts.
I absolutely believe in the theory and idea of the Laffer Curve (and would support the cuts if we were on the right side of the curve), but what amazes me is that the right generally assumes the left just doesn’t get it. I’d be all for tax cuts for increasing growth and revenue – if it actually worked. Who wouldn’t? The standard response is usually we want to spend/waste more money on social programs – and if their ideas worked – we could do both.
I know this isn’t exactly what was being talked about, but felt in a soapbox mood.
Too much worry has been placed on inflation – we were told it was gonna happen and be at awful levels, but this didn’t come to pass.
The economy is totally different than running a business.
Sep 19, 2016 3:26am Chris Raimondi
(Update – it wasn’t difficult to locate the 538.com article, it is here:Don’t Believe Trump’s Tax Math — Or Anyone Else’s )