Monday, October 10, 2016

Things we should be thanking Donald Trump for....



....besides some of the best Saturday Night Live skits ever!

Yes, The Donald has had much ridicule heaped on him this election season for his....umm....unusual ideas.  But he has also brought into the light some issues that had been largely underground for years.  You might have to look deep, but he's done us all a service and maybe secured for himself a worthwhile legacy in the process.  To wit:

TRADE AGREEMENTS  Most Americans don't understand trade deals.  We give a little, they give a little, we both get what we want....win/win, right?  Hardly!

Trade deals are driven by what's in the best interest of business, and not necessarily (rarely, actually) in the best interest of the American workers.  Why do you think millions of well-paying American jobs have have moved beyond our borders, and too much of what we've gotten in return are much-lower-paying warehousing and delivery jobs?  Because businesses can make more $$$$ doing business that way.  Screw US!

American businesses used to have America's interests at heart, but for decades now all they've cared about is making money for themselves, however/wherever they can.  If Carrier Corp hands out 1,000 pink slips in Indiana and hires a like number in Mexico, or Indonesia, etc, they don't care There's rarely even a passing thought of good 'ol America's best interest.  Their quarterly profits are up, their executive bonuses are up, their shareholders (many of them foreign investors) are happy, the job-gaining country is happy....the big losers are the 1,000 laid-off American workers.  

We need trade.  We can produce much more than we can consume ourselves.  I'm all for trade, if done fairly, but what we've negotiated recently are simply BAD DEALS!

OUR F___KED UP TAX CODE  Most of us only know "we" pay too much, and "the rich" pay too little.  That's all we ever hear.  It's hard to wrap our arms around that opaque concept.  Donald Trump put a real-world number on it.  How many of us had ever heard of a "loss carry forward" before Donald Trump's $936,000,000 business boo-boo?  That sweetheart tax deal has helped him (and many other of his uber-rich buddies) to avoid paying hundreds of millions (billions?) of dollars in taxes.  

That has led us to take a deeper look at our ridiculously complex 75,000 page +/- tax code, a code that got that way due to special favors granted by lawmakers to wealthy special interests in exchange for.....?
  
The rich usually deserve to be rich....they work hard, they work smart, they take risks....more power to them.  But when they can take their hard-earned gains and, with the signing of a piece of tax legislation, see their wealth explode with little additional effort on their part, that's just WRONG!  That's what "income inequality" is all about.  That, more than anything else, is what is killing our middle class! 

You're likely to ride off into the sunset next month, Donald, to take up company with Michael Dukakis, Walter Mondale, John Kerry, and all those other historical footnotes, but if your spotlight can somehow enable us to fix our tax code and trade policies, you'll at least have that as a legacy you can be proud of.

S


8 comments:

  1. Your looking for trouble saying anything positive about this election.

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  2. Sure, Donald Trump's issues will get picked up by a more presentable messenger somewhere down the line. Bernie Sanders' will, too.

    It's the old Barry Goldwater thing: Goldwater wasn't the right messenger, but he started something that Reagan brought in full tilt, right?

    I think both Sanders and Trump are more than just failed candidates. They're both going to leave an aftertaste for a while.

    Hopefully.

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    1. Excellent point! It's the message, not the messenger.

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  3. I guess Trump's message resonates with some, if: you lust after your daughter, or you see women as 'pieces of ass' as he's refereed to his oldest daughter as, one has racist view, as he does, lies constantly, denies it with a smirk. Sure, it's a guy we can all get behind.....sure....
    Just not me.
    Glad you've found your candidate. I'm still looking.

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    1. Mike....I've said time and time and time again, I'M NOT VOTING FOR DONALD TRUMP!!!! Why can't you get that? Hell, even Mussolini got the trains running on time. You really are a black/white kind of guy aren't you?

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  4. You can't put the genie back in the bottle with trade. A trade war with China would likely be catastrophic for both sides.

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  5. This might be giving Trump more credit than he is due. He is essentially throwing everything he can - mostly contradictions - to see what will stick and what is contentious to appease his crowd. A better example of bringing issues to the front would be Bernie Sanders, who used facts to highlight trade agreements and the inequity in the tax code. Trump is blowing smoke about the tax code. His only concern is what benefits him (and his fat cat friends) in paying the least amount of taxes - or none. And, no doubt, an inspection of his tax returns would show his offshore business investments and trade.

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    1. You're right, Bernie made strong, coherent, articulate presentations regarding the bad trade deals and inequitable tax laws we currently have, but he is now off the stage. Trump is right here, right now. Regardless of what his motives are, what most of us hear is how screwed up things are. Frankly, I don't care who gets credit, let's just fix 'em.

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