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As they should. Legolas Send a noteboard - 15/06/2018 12:02:40 AM

View original postThing is, I can think he acts like an idiot but still appreciate the facts that my net earnings are up, my 401k has gained 40%, my house has regained at least some of the value it lost. Unemployment is down across multiple demographics.

Uh, yes, he inherited a booming market, such an impressive achievement. The tax cuts of course are nice for take-home pay, but a) the Republicans in Congress passed them with, shall we say, varying levels of cooperation from Trump and b) there was a time that the Republicans had this thing called fiscal responsibility, which wasn't simply 'cut taxes at all costs' but rather 'make the budget balance'. As I understand it, kinda before my time, Bush senior even pretty much lost his re-election over his political courage in pushing a tax increase when the budget required it, even at the cost of breaking his earlier promise.
View original postAs to his policies, I'm sick of the USA trying to be the world's policeman. I agree that it makes little sense to not at least look at why we spend so much money to help other countries defend themselves and then let them turn around and export far more to us than we import to them. And if Washington hates Trump's immigration policies so much, why does Congress treat immigration reform like a toxic radioactive dump? Pass new legislation. That's how it's supposed to work. It would also be nice if they acknowledged that separating children from parents at the border started under Obama. Not Trump.

The point on defending other countries and the failure of most NATO members to meet their defense spending commitments is one of the rare cases in which a) Trump has a point I can agree with and b) he's actually sticking to it.

However, the second part of that sentence doesn't make any sense to me. Nobody is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to buy iPhones from China, televisions from Mexico, fancy machinery from Germany, whatever. American consumers and companies buy those things because they are cheaper, or offer a better price/quality ratio, than the ones made in the US (assuming any are made in the US at all). There's no loss to the US in that.

If you start raising tariffs, then sure, that's helpful to the American producers of the goods in question - but it will mean higher prices for the American consumers of those products, and then secondly American producers of different goods risk losing out when the other countries retaliate with tariff increases of their own. The benefits are very unlikely to outweigh the costs. And let's face it, if it's about bringing back lost jobs, the overwhelming majority of those isn't going to come back once they've gone. Not to mention that automatization is a bigger risk to manufacturing employment than factories moving abroad, at this point.

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I agree with this. - 14/06/2018 10:08:27 PM 519 Views
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Well - 15/06/2018 12:03:41 AM 503 Views
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