>>>>>>> Trump - The Socialist <<<<<<<

[Ludwig Von Mises]

Trump, the Anti-Business President


Donald Trump is a perpetual danger to every company in America.
Steve Chapman | April 5, 2018



White House economist Peter Navarro, whose boss claimed credit
when the stock market was rising, now thinks it should be ignored.
After Monday's plunge, he said, "The market is reacting in a way
which does not comport with the ... unbelievable strength in
President Trump's economy." Rest easy, Navarro advised. "The
economy is as strong as an ox."

He should hope so, because its burdens are growing. Donald Trump's
trade salvos against China moved Beijing to slap new tariffs on
U.S. products. He has threatened to end NAFTA, which would wreck
the supply chains of U.S. manufacturers and deprive farmers of
vital markets. He's itching for a full-scale trade war, and he's
likely to get it.

The tycoon who raised high hopes in the corporate sector has
revealed a powerful anti-business streak. Get on his bad side and
you may kiss your profits goodbye. He's a perpetual danger to
every company in America.

Trump's Justice Department filed an antitrust suit to stop a
merger of AT&T and Time Warner—owner of CNN, a Trump punching
bag—surprising experts, most of whom see no threat to competition
in the deal. He urges higher postal rates for Amazon because it
has the same owner as The Washington Post, whose coverage often
infuriates him.

The administration's effort to block travel from several
predominantly Muslim countries brought a lawsuit from some 160
tech firms warning it would impose "substantial harm on U.S.
companies, their employees, and the entire economy." His crackdown
on undocumented immigrants disrupts agriculture because, as the
American Farm Bureau Federation notes, "50-70 percent of farm
laborers in the country today are unauthorized."

Trump threatened retribution against Ford and General Motors to
discourage production in Mexico. When Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier
resigned from Trump's manufacturing council to protest his
comments on Charlottesville, the president took to Twitter to
demand that he "LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!"

Republicans regularly depicted Barack Obama as a socialist. In
2010, the head of the Business Roundtable, an organization of
corporate CEOs, accused him of "doing long-term damage to growth"
by creating "an increasingly hostile environment for investment
and job creation."

Hostile? Obama never denounced an American company with anything
close to the menace Trump routinely exhibits. Business somehow
prospered during his presidency. Corporate profits grew by 57
percent, and the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index rose by 166
percent.

Obama drew criticism for imposing more regulations on business,
boosting the top income tax rate, overhauling health insurance,
and running big budget deficits. These changes raised doubts about
the future that weighed on the economy.

Economists Steven Davis (University of Chicago), Scott Baker
(Northwestern), and Nicholas Bloom (Stanford) attributed weak
growth and job creation to "extreme uncertainty" that Obama helped
to create through "harmful rhetorical attacks on business and
'millionaires,' failure to tackle entitlement reforms and fiscal
imbalances, and political brinkmanship."

Hmm. Does that sound like anyone else? Trump has also attacked
businesses, failed to curb entitlements, and, through tax cuts and
spending bills, created ever-growing fiscal imbalances.

According to the index these economists devised, economic policy
uncertainty was greater in Trump's first 13 months than in the
same period under Obama—and bigger than the average for all of
Obama's tenure. And things are only getting worse.

Obama took the view that the private economy needed extensive
regulation to avert assorted perceived harms, which didn't make
him popular among capitalists. But he didn't make a habit of
bullying corporations to make particular business decisions or
demonizing executives who disagreed with him. Trump's idea of a
good economy is one in which every company does his
bidding—because they are all afraid not to.

His unpredictability breeds anxiety, not confidence. He often sows
confusion that makes bad policies even worse.

Davis cites the steel and aluminum tariffs, which Trump first said
would apply to all countries, then revised to exempt Canada and
Mexico, and then modified to spare several other countries—but
only till May 1, when all bets are off. The haphazard approach
"causes businesses to step back and wait," says Davis, "and
creates a free-for-all among lobbyists, which creates its own
uncertainty."

Trump was supposed to understand the needs of American businesses.
But he thinks their main function is to serve his needs. Navarro
has a point in comparing the economy to an ox, because the
president is treating it like a beast of burden.

Steve Chapman is a columnist and editorial writer for the Chicago
Tribune.


http://reason.com/archives/2018/04/05/trump-the-anti-business-
president