In the Wall Street Journal Paul Kiernan and Anthony DeBarros report something that may surprise some of you:
WASHINGTON—Most economists think inflation, interest rates and deficits would be higher under the policies former President Donald Trump would pursue in a second administration than under those proposed by Vice President Kamala Harris, according to a quarterly survey by The Wall Street Journal.
The results of the Oct. 4-8 survey echoed those of the Journal’s survey in July, when Trump was facing President Biden. Biden dropped out of the race on July 21, and Harris became the nominee shortly afterward.
Since then, both Harris and Trump have released significant new policy proposals. Harris, for example, has called for new credits for newborn children and home buying, while Trump has proposed tax cuts on overtime pay and Social Security benefits, and breaks for auto-loan interest and state and local taxes.
The upshot: Economists still say Trump’s policies are more likely to add to inflation, deficits and interest rates. If anything, the margin has grown since July.
No word on how many of those economists failed to predict the inflation produced by Trump’s tax cut, Trump’s COVID lockdown spending spree, followed by Joe Biden’s spending spree in quick succession.
I think both Trump and Harris have awful economic policies with only a few glimmers of hope. One of those is that neither one of them is likely to follow through on their campaign promises. Another is that we may have no choice.
They forgot Trump’s not taxing tips but I think the large increases in tariffs he wants is what tips the scales. Neither one is discussing our debt which I find disappointing but not surprising. You dont win elections by talking about financial responsibility.
Steve
With a few exceptions, Trump is an old school liberal Democrat, but he has fused the Republican taxation policy with Democrat spending policy. Philosophically, he is probably closer to an actual socialist, but consistency is not his forte.
Unless there are policies to attract the re-shoring of tariffed products, they are just taxes. The off-shore manufactures may be hurt by lower sales, but Americans will be hurt by fewer products.
Nothing is free, even “low cost” has unseen costs somewhere, and scientifically, this is apparent. For the “believe in science” crowd, technology is magic, and “financially feasible” is fairy dust.
A bit OT but it might be interesting as it is an economic issue. Article looks at the economics of illegal immigration and how Texas is so dependent on it while also engaging in theater to stop it. Having lived in Texas that didnt surprise me but it also has some nice stats about how Americans are now so unwilling to go into jobs that require manual labor, even knowing the jobs would pay better.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/border-crisis-texas-solutions/
Steve
As it works out I had already read that.
IMO the big issue is not that unskilled or semi-skilled workers are needed but that an ongoing dependable stream of unskilled or semi-skill workers is needed. I see no just, merciful, and liberal way that can work.
Well, if Americans wont do the work and it needs to be done, even with higher wages, then immigrants are the answer but we would be better off if we had a much larger number of legal immigrants. The number of illegal immigrants largely tracks job openings in the US anyway. At least in the short run. In the longer run would be nice if we could figure out to get people more interested in those kinds of jobs.
Steve
I think we’re in the process of doing that we’ve been claiming that the key to a prosperous future is a college education (and jobs that can only by done by people with college educations) for more than 30 years. We won’t turn that oceanliner around immediately.
There’s another issue. I think it’s more complicated than “only unskilled immigrants will do those jobs”. Why not automation? And should we be doing those things in the U. S. at all? Investors are delighted to avoid making capital investments in favor of using cheap manual labor as long as they can get it. If they needed to pay the actual costs of these low skill workers including housing, healthcare, and education, I believe that enthusiasm would vanish. Said another way we’re subsidizing low skilled work. Those who want low skilled workers need to be paying the full freight.
Questions for those who know where to find these numbers:
How does reported economic growth per year stack up against reported growth in national debt per year?
If we add the two numbers together, how many of the recent several years are net negative?
I wonder why Texas shipped so many valuable economic assets to Chicago and New York?
Piercello:
Your best resource for that would probably be FRED at the St. Louis Federal Reserve.
There you can get GDP growth, debt growth, and make new graphs that combine them.
A return to the old company town? Described as a safe place for immigrants, dispossessed might work.
Campaign spending wonder how much winds up in oceanside cottages, etc, we will never know.
Deliberate obstruction may repeat may rein in some of the spending however a slim reed.
Dave- That’s not really that much different than having WalMart workers on food stamps. It’s also not clear how many of those jobs are easily automated. The construction physics guy had a nice series on building homes and automating those jobs just isn’t that easy.
PD- They pay to ship out a few thousand while keeping hundreds of thousands. So I think there are 2 reasons. The first and less important is that while they keep over a million of those illegal immigrants they have more than they really need. However, those people were going to leave anyway to find jobs elsewhere. The real reason is that it’s theater to help keep Abbott and co in office. Note that they carefully avoid prosecuting the people that hire all of the illegals. That they know 50%, at least, of the construction workers are illegal but they let the industry use brokers to provide illegals for the contractors. So Abbott et al act like they are trying to get rid of illegals while not stopping people from employing them.
It keeps the jobs running in Texas and it keeps costs down. Cost of living is lower in Texas? Yup. Take away those illegals? Maybe not so much.
Steve
I’m currently hiring myself out as labor for an American farmer for harvest.
Lasts about four weeks, if I do well I’ll make about $4,000.
The men who are working the grain elevator where I unload are South African here on work visas. I can’t complain about their work, but I do have to wonder how their airfare and lodging costs plus reimbursement stack up against my wages. AND who pays the costs.
https://www.farmers.gov/working-with-us/h2a-visa-program
The company pays the airfare and lodging for the duration of the visa in a house.
Add that to the standard wages paid, what
could be the motivation to pay more than twice labor costs to hire foreign workers?
I’ll guess the government reimbursement makes it make sense.
What’s the governments motivation?
Simple anti-American bias would be my guess.
That’s been the standard since President Obama was elected by proclaiming America and Americans need to atone for their past actions and he would lead the way.