Donald Trump is a 'sometimes socialist'

[PirateLT]

Reacting last month to a new round of tariffs imposed by China on U.S. goods, President Trump tweeted, “Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME…”  As trade experts debated whether the president has the authority to compel businesses to cease doing work with their employees and contract partners, Oliver Hart, a Nobel Laureate in economics, told Fox Business News that the order was “more like something, you know, made by President Xi,” to which companies in a socialist country would have to comply.

According to Andrew Napolitano, a Fox News commentator, Trump’s unilateral imposition of tariffs also impedes “the free choices of American investors and consumers.” President Trump should learn the lessons from Eastern European governments that central economic planning “only benefits the planners,” Napolitano concluded, and restore a free enterprise system “guaranteed by the Constitution.”

Trump’s preference for a command economy over the invisible hand of the free market was on display as well when he appropriated $28 billion of taxpayers’ money to offset losses to farmers from his trade wars. And when he allegedly told members of his staff to “finish the wall” on the southern border with Mexico before the presidential election by, among other actions, using “eminent domain” to expropriate thousands of acres of private property.

uring his campaign rallies, President Trump identifies Medicare for All, free college tuition, and the Green New Deal as prime examples of the Democrats’ socialist agenda. He does not indicate whether he believes Social Security, Medicare, and K-12 public education are also socialistic. Indeed, his views on America’s social welfare programs are contradictory.

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/460421-donald-trump-is-a-sometimes-socialist

[ROOS55]

Trump won't back down from this trade war.

I hope he has had his ties and other clothing brought back to the US if they were ever made in America

[PirateLT]

Socialist never back down.

[Lobo]

Donald Trump is a self-obsessed ignoramus. He doesn't have an ideology, or a clue what terms like socialism, capitalism, fascism, oligarchism, or other "isms" mean. He only knows that he's for anything that personally and immediately benefits Donald J Trump -- financially, politically, or egotistically -- and opposed to anything that doesn't. His imposition of tariffs are done very selectively to benefit himself politically, by temporarily increasing jobs or profits in certain sectors in particular states chosen for their electoral benefit, and fuck what it does in states that aren't going to vote for him, or to the economy as a whole. He's simply gambling that the effect in those places will last until the election, after which it doesn't matter.

Of course, as one who has never had to face any real consequences for his bad personal and business decisions -- he has always either been bailed out by his daddy, Saudi oil princes, Putin and his Russian oligarch boyars, or whoever, or simply lied his way out of trouble -- he was also suffering under the delusion that the US has a free hand to do what it wants in the world, without fear of consequences. He seemed genuinely surprised that China has been able to retaliate as effectively as it has.

[Lobo]

<<According to Andrew Napolitano, a Fox News commentator, Trump’s unilateral imposition of tariffs also impedes “the free choices of American investors and consumers.” President Trump should learn the lessons from Eastern European governments that central economic planning “only benefits the planners,” Napolitano concluded, and restore a free enterprise system “guaranteed by the Constitution.”>>

I'm not sure exactly where Napolitano thinks the "free enterprise system (is) guaranteed by the Constitution.” Free enterprise, capitalism and socialism alike are all products of the Industrial Revolution, which had been underway for some decades in Europe (especially in Britain), but which barely existed in America at the time of its writing. The founding fathers were still living in a largely mercantilist world, in which the 13 colonies-cum-states (and colonies in other parts of the world) were the suppliers of raw materials for Crown monopolies. That was still the case several decades into the 19th century.

<<Trump’s preference for a command economy over the invisible hand of the free market was on display as well when he appropriated $28 billion of taxpayers’ money to offset losses to farmers from his trade wars. And when he allegedly told members of his staff to “finish the wall” on the southern border with Mexico before the presidential election by, among other actions, using “eminent domain” to expropriate thousands of acres of private property.

uring his campaign rallies, President Trump identifies Medicare for All, free college tuition, and the Green New Deal as prime examples of the Democrats’ socialist agenda. He does not indicate whether he believes Social Security, Medicare, and K-12 public education are also socialistic. Indeed, his views on America’s social welfare programs are contradictory.>>

Democratic Socialism, which includes all of the things in the second paragraph, and as practiced by most of the Western world, is a very limited form of "socialism". "Command economy" socialism, on the other hand -- would include the things in the first paragraph, as well as Trump's "ordering" US companies to stop doing business with China. That sort of socialism has more in common with China or North Korea than with Denmark, the rest of Europe or Japan.

Of course, Trump's China "order" really has more to do with straight-out autocracy than with any economic theory. And his "re-appropriation" of Congressionally-appropriated funds is just a blatant violation of the US Constitution, and of the legislative body's power of the purse inherent in any kind of constitutional republic.

BTW: Socialism is not the only type of a "command economy". Oligarchism, monopolism (nation-states that allow privately-owned corporations to form trusts and monopolies), and fascism would also apply. And then there's Adam Smith -- the so-called "Father of Capitalism" -- who thought that all forms of economic privilege (especially ownership of large amounts of land), large inheritances, monopolies and artificial scarcities, not just government interference, were all the opposite of and worked against his concept of a "free market", which he saw as pure competition.

On Monday, September 9, 2019 at 11:16:39 AM UTC-4, PirateLT wrote:

[PirateLT]

Still doesn't change Trump is a big government socialist that he has the GOP licking his balls over.

[Lobo]

He's been gutting all of the functions of government that help the middle class and the poor -- including SS, Medicare and Medicaid -- increasing the power of big corporations and banks over working people, consumers and the environment, and moving all of the nation's income and wealth to the top.

You can call that oligarchism, Putinism, or plain old fascism. But whatever label you prefer, it ain't "socialism".

[PirateLT]

Medicare and SS are still alive and well and taking up more than half our budget.

[plainolamerican]

Medicare and SS are still alive and well and taking up more than half our budget.

---

increasing the age limit for benefits by a couple of years would do wonders for both programs.

[PirateLT]

Not for Medicare. That cost center is out of control.

[Pittalum]

Just to be clear - it is the industry that is out of control...

[PirateLT]

We have an ever increasing aging and overweight unehalthy population, so not this does not ALL lay at the feed of the industry.  People are responsible as well.

[Lobo]

<<Medicare and SS are still alive and well and taking up more than half our budget.>>

SS and Medicare are funded separately from the rest of the budget, by middle to lower-income working people, with the very regressive FICA tax. Because of the big 1983 Reagan tax hike, SS not only operates in the black, but loans money out to other parts of government, hiding the size of the deficit there.

[Lobo]

<<increasing the age limit for benefits by a couple of years would do wonders for both programs.>>

As would increasing the amount of income subject to the FICA tax.

The trouble with your solution is that while average lifespan has been increasing for those with higher, salaried incomes (who, in contrast to a progressive income tax, pay progressively smaller percentages of their income to FICA the higher it goes up), who can afford better health care, better diets, join health spas, etc, the average lifespan of hourly wage employees -- those who count on SS the most, and tend to have the physically hardest jobs, has actually been going down.

[Lobo]

Medicare could save $16 billion just by negotiating drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, the way other agencies, hospitals, and private insurance companies do. Medicare Part D has to pay 80% more for drugs than the VA or Medicaid.

http://www.valuewalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/283117277-Medicare-Part-D.pdf

Big Pharma lobbyists got it made illegal for Medicare to bargain for prices when Medicare Part D was created under GW Bush, and have made sure it stays that way ever since,

[Pittalum]

Yes, and the industry has organized itself to extract the maximum (also known as every last dollar) it can from that, and every other, condition...

On Monday, September 9, 2019 at 4:50:51 PM UTC-4, PirateLT wrote:

[PirateLT]

They are mandatory spending but it is part of our commitment and part of the debt. 

[PirateLT]

You know Pitt, why can't you admit that PEOPLE are responsible for their health and are as much the issue as the insurance companies.

[Pittalum]

What you are saying, well, goes without saying. To it, I can only say - no kidding.

[plainolamerican]

why can't you admit that PEOPLE are responsible for their health and are as much the issue as the insurance companies

---

does that also go for those who served in the military?

[PirateLT]

So question, how do you make people who live unhealthy lifestyles accountable? 

[PirateLT]

I believe we have a VA for them.

[plainolamerican]

so, no responsibility consideration, eh?

[PirateLT]

Did I say that?  Really depends on what the health issue is.

I get it you hate the military.  Not my problem.

On Monday, September 9, 2019 at 4:13:14 PM UTC-6, plainolamerican wrote:

so, no responsibility consideration, eh?

[Pittalum]

I don't know - you shorten their lifespan? Make them fat and unattractive?

Bankrupting them, and taking who-knows-how-much money out of you and me to pay for it all seems a bit of overkill to me...

[PirateLT]

Not a serious answer I presume.   This is an issue that must be addressed in conjunction to health care reform.  We seem to ignore wellness.

[Pittalum]

Yes, wellness should be emphasized, and it is (unless you are Michelle Obama, in which case you should be criticized mercilessly) - but it is a parallel issue, and has little directly to do with how the medical industrial complex has organized itself to leverage every last dollar it can out of us.

[PirateLT]

Sure they tell everyone to not exercise and eat shitty.

[ImStillMags Mags]

increasing the ceiling on income deductions to 2 million would solve the problem.

[Lobo]

<<They are mandatory spending but it is part of our commitment and part of the debt.>>

SS isn't part of the debt. In fact, it has a $44 billion surplus, and nearly $3 trillion in reserves in its two trust funds. Outlays are expected to exceed income and reserves in 2035, when it will only be able to pay out 77% of benefits if nothing is done, but until then...

A SUMMARY OF THE 2019 ANNUAL REPORTS

Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/TRSUM/

[PirateLT]

Bullshit.  

• Social Security, Unemployment and Labor—33.24 cents
• Medicare and Health—24.54 cents
• Military—17.1 cents
• Interest on Debt—6 cents
• Transportation—4.1 cents
• Veterans Benefits—3.7 cents
• Food and Agriculture—3.5 cents
• Education—1.8 cents
• Government—1.8 cents
• Housing and Community—1.5 cents
• International Affairs—.9 cents
• Energy and Environment—.9 cents
• Science—.9 cents