Two Big Lies

“We’ll build a Big Beautiful Concrete Wall and Mexico is going to pay for it.”  

“Billions of Dollars are pouring into the coffers of the U.S.A. because of the Tariffs being charged to China.”

We have all heard these statements at campaign speeches, in tweets, and shouted at his “please-pat-me-on-the back-and applaud” rallies.  Well, Trump lies to his base, they applaud and cheer, and they still trust him.  How long will it take for the Republican base to realize they have been sold a bill of goods?  This “bill of goods” is not the good kind where there is actual delivery of goods or services, but the kind of “sale” where you pay for something you don’t get and where that was the plan all along.  You’ve been hoodwinked, conned, flimflammed, hoaxed, double-crossed, rooked, ripped off, mislead, defrauded, hornswoggled, bamboozled, duped, swindled, and deceived.  I use these fourteen terms that describe the end result of having been played by a master con man.  You can choose your favorite but just know you’ve been _________.

"...hoodwinked, conned, flimflammed, hoaxed, double-crossed, rooked, ripped off, mislead, defrauded, hornswoggled, bamboozled, duped, swindled, and deceived."

Deep down I have to believe that, even his base is starting to realize that Mexico is never going to pay for the wall.  In addition to the lie about Mexico paying for the wall, is the actual cost of such a wall if it were to be built.  Trump’s own Office of Management and Budget estimates the wall would cost $36.6 million per mile or around $60 billion, excluding maintenance costs of an estimated $1 million per mile per year.  Land acquisition costs and legal fees with eminent domain court cases, can’t be reliably estimated, but they will add significantly to the overall cost.  The $60 billion cost also does not include cost over-runs that, on average, increase most government projects by 3.3 fold.  Since Mexico is NOT going to pay for the wall, how will Trump pay for any construction?  Well, he now plans to take over $6 billion from our Defense budget ($3.6 billion from military construction and $2.5 billion from the DOD drug interdiction program).  He is also taking $1.4 billion from Homeland Security.

Trade Wars Hurt Everybody
Especially if they are using a flintlock

To summarize, the concrete wall that was to have been paid for by Mexico will now be a cheaper steel wall paid for by American taxpayers.  His base also needs to know the wall can’t be completed during a Trump presidency, even if he were to be re-elected.  The wall is now and forever will be a simplistic symbol that reinforces a racist ideology that an inferior group of people is the nexus of all their problems.  It will be beyond the scope of this writing to debate the merits of such a wall and its effectiveness in solving our complex immigration problem.  Suffice it to say, even a completed wall will do little to solve the problem.

The tariffs on Chinese goods are another of the Trump proclamations that further make one question his business credentials.  He plans to build a Tariff Wall to protect American business from China.  Tariffs are simply taxes on goods coming into the US from China that are paid for by American importers who may absorb those costs but are more likely to pass on to American consumers and manufacturers.  This has the following effects:

•         China will look elsewhere for trade partners.
•         China will tax (through counter tariffs) American goods (aircraft, machinery, medical instruments, soybeans, cotton, corn)
•         Chinese imports will cost more to the American consumer.
•         Chinese imports will cost more for American manufacturers, raising the cost of their products making them less competitive.
•         US-China established trade partnerships may suffer long-lasting or permanent damage, hurting both American and Chinese businesses.

·        In the US there would be an estimated gain of 126,900 jobs in protected industries (like steel) but that would be offset by a loss of 1,061,400 jobs in manufacturing and other non-protected industries (like auto and aircraft manufacturing).  That’s an 8 to 1 job loss ratio.

Facts are Confusin'

While there are positive effects of tariffs for certain protected industries, according to a comprehensive study completed in February of 2019 by TradePartnership Worldwide, LLC, “the negative impacts outweigh the positive impacts.”

To be clear, tariffs hurt both sides.  While there is a serious trade imbalance with China and China need to reform their policies regarding intellectual property, tariffs are, by most estimates, not the way to go about affecting that change.  Economists rarely agree on much and trade imbalances are one of those things that find arguments with merit on both sides.  The United States is the world's largest deficit nation and has consistently proven these theories wrong.  This is probably due to the special status of the United States as the world's largest economy and the dollar as the world reserve currency.

Hopefully between now and the 2020 elections the Republican base will develop 20-20 vision and see the presidential huckster for what he is, a poor businessman and a poor excuse for a world leader.

Poor Excuse

Note:  The question of Trump’s business skills have been called into question.  Forbes estimates his current wealth at $3.1 billion.  If we take his original inheritance estimated at $413 million, he could have placed that money in a DOW index fund in 2000 and it should be worth over $100 billion and if it were invested in the S&P 500 it would be worth over $60 billion.  That assumes he doesn’t touch the principal and reinvests the dividends.  It also does not consider inheritance and income taxes, which should have been sizeable, nor does it include his lavish lifestyle and the cost of two divorces.  It also doesn’t account for the fact that the $413 million is a low ball estimate that he inherited over many years going back to the ’70s and ’80s.  None of these figures can be wholly accurate because so much of the Trump empire, going back to his father’s dubious career fleecing the government with his housing contracts for the military in WWII and subsequent tax dodges and schemes that were kept from the records.  Also for the record, Trump would be a billionaire if he invested his $431 million for 30 years at a modest 5% interest rate ($431 million x 30 yrs x 5% compounded = $1,925,597,799).