tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post156204767026279..comments2024-03-28T21:56:51.675-04:00Comments on Face to Face: Trump calls for massive cheap-labor immigration; How Bernie can steal issue without making it about ethnicityagnostichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-90978162365864990942018-03-01T13:46:53.181-05:002018-03-01T13:46:53.181-05:00Tariffs finally -- nice. This is when the GOP coal...Tariffs finally -- nice. This is when the GOP coalition begins to break down for good. Everyone in the party, and in the cabinet, are bitterly opposed.<br /><br />Assuming this thing goes into effect, it'll be Trump's Jimmy Carter moment of deregulating the transportation sector. It'll cripple the GOP, and lead a Bernie style Dem to pick up the baton from Trump, just as Reagan picked up the deregulation baton from Carter, who killed off his own party's coalition.<br /><br />Side note: I keep pointing out that tariffs do not affect consumer prices much because of competition -- if you jack up your prices to consumers, in order to maintain your old profit margins in the face of higher costs, you get out-competed by rivals who don't jack them up as much. At equilibrium, consumer prices remain roughly where they were.<br /><br />Now it's reflected in the plunging stock market. If tariffs were simply a tax on consumers (of products made with now-more-expensive steel), due to manufacturers raising prices in response to higher costs of raw materials -- then their profits would stay the same, and their stock values would not change much. All of the change in costs would be off-loaded onto the consumers.<br /><br />The fact that stock prices are plunging shows that they will be borne more by the manufacturers listed in the Dow than by the end-consumers. Higher costs = lower profits, the inverse of the prevailing trend of the past 40 years, where lower costs = higher profits.<br /><br />Consumer prices don't get screwed so much by changing costs of production, assuming there's decent competition among producers. If not, then break them up into smaller and more numerous firms.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-49487383902463616702018-03-01T13:09:59.044-05:002018-03-01T13:09:59.044-05:00So Bernie wins with your ideas and then runs into ...So Bernie wins with your ideas and then runs into Stonewall Matthis<br />What then?Breckmachttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00478287107490343215noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-56205030577760027462018-02-28T18:59:14.124-05:002018-02-28T18:59:14.124-05:00Vox bloggers notice the cheerleading for cheap lab...Vox bloggers notice the cheerleading for cheap labor immigration in the CPAC speech (at the end):<br /><br />https://www.vox.com/2018/2/23/17044770/trump-cpac-2018-speech<br /><br />That leaves only those who are fixated on Trump's persona as out of the loop -- whether they're fanboys or hysterics.<br /><br />Anyone focusing on what's actually going on, whether they're Left Right or Center, is noticing how much the former hardliner has cucked on immigration and working-class populism.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-73505495313035355052018-02-27T17:00:36.951-05:002018-02-27T17:00:36.951-05:00With trade deficits continuing to get much worse, ...With trade deficits continuing to get much worse, they could rig the numbers simply by re-shoring the off-shored plants -- while still employing cheap foreigners, who will now be immigrants here.<br /><br />That way the corporations get to keep their low labor costs, and the GOP gets to brag about narrowing the trade deficit somewhat, since that stuff is being produced here and exported from here, or at least no longer being imported from the off-shore country.<br /><br />None of that benefits the American people or nation, and is just a statistical trick, but it is the kind of thing that the globalists would try in order to keep the Trump voters from getting angry about record widening trade deficits.<br /><br />They'll get away with it, too, if no one bothers looking at the data or reporting on it.<br /><br />https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-02-27/advance-data-signals-biggest-us-trade-deficit-10-yearsagnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-54254741522771558312018-02-26T22:26:49.708-05:002018-02-26T22:26:49.708-05:00The Bernie people's class analysis would also ...The Bernie people's class analysis would also help to focus on what the real enemy is -- the elites who are bringing in the immigrants to exploit for profit, not the mostly powerless immigrants themselves.<br /><br />If you don't want demographic replacement, focus on who is the cause -- as Trump used to hint on the campaign trail, it's not the foreigners but our own sell-out elites.<br /><br />"I don't blame China for taking advantage of us -- I blame our leaders for allowing this country to get raped by China."<br /><br />We didn't used to have mass immigration, so something changed, and it was the elites deciding to no longer protect the commoners, but to pit them against hordes of cheap immigrants to lower wages and boost profits.<br /><br />It was not the immigrants themselves who overwhelmed our borders -- they've always wanted to come in by the boatload. They needed our sell-out elites to unlock the gates and throw them wide open.<br /><br />And since our elites are white, focusing on them as the source of the problem also prevents the discussion from touching on ethnicity in the list of problems.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.com