Happy for Americans

As I said earlier this evening, as a naval and intelligence officer living in Virginia and having a chance to impact the outcome and hence the SCOTUS, I couldn't let a dead to rights felon who thought herself above national security laws win. So I reluctantly voted for Trump. I will say that while his persona and temperament for the job are nowhere near what I consider presidential, it also became apparent to me that a Clinton directed media campaign was not only unfairly, but incorrectly attempting to influence this outcome by maligning him. That's a corrupt system that would rot away our democracy.

I am above exuberant for a group of Americans (mainly white, but also blacks and women) who have been marginalized and demonized ever since this era of globalization. That is hard working, old-fashioned valued, church going, Purple Heart decorated, high-character Middle-Americans. The disrespect, mockery, distaste, and hate thrown their way by people living on the coasts and in urban areas who self-proclaim themselves the "Future," outweigh anything these Middle-Americans have ever done to these out of touch intolerant unacomplished spoiled brats.

Maybe Middle-Americans aren't the future, but they, their families, and their ancestors are what built this country into the economic superpower that the Statue of Liberty stands for and lights the way for New Americans - both born here and immigrants. They and their voice, which has all but been ignored by the Obama Administration, deserve to be respected.

This one's for you America

 

Excellent post.

 

Never, never been so astonished. I thought beating the machine was impossible, I really did. Cannot honestly say if I am more pleased that she lost or impressed that so many pissed off Americans feel exactly as I do.
Great post Tex2.

 

What a fitting pic for that excellent post,texas_ex2000...a tribute to Clint Eastwood.

I was just watching "Any Which Way You Can" two night ago and thinking America will never see those proud, traditional days of light-hearted fun again. At least now there is hope.

 

I have a relative who is a young pediatric doc in Boston
Yesterday she wrote on her FB she was heartbroken
Today she wrote that she mourning but decided to move forward. She calendar on all her friends to talk to any Republic they knew to educate them. She has two children with Hispanic names and wondered if she should change their names
She talked of Republicans as if they are some ignorant sub species
All her friends replied I'm the same vein
TRUMP NEVER SAID ANYTHING AGAINST LEGAL HISPANICS
The Media and these NE snowflakes miss the point

 

I've talked to a handful of my distraught liberal friends (a black banker/woman lawyer/woman doctor/gay financial manager). One thing I've told them is the people of this country are what makes this country great, not Bush, not Clinton, not Obama, not Trump. And frankly, you (young women in this case) are the future of this country. Don't let whoever lives in a white house get you down. So...take some time to lick your wounds, but come out again as a fighting American fighting for what your believe for and be neighborly and empathetic to your neighbors and more importantly people not in your social circles. My friends loved that. It was subversive conservative advice (hehe).

I also did (gently) point out their hypocricacy. These Hillary supporters and people like Van Jones, bemoan that Trump and his supporters are xenophobic, uneducated rednecks, old angry white men, does not represent America - especially the marginalized and disenfranchised. Well I told them, you are the Future. You (a young women in this case), immigrants, minorities, millennials are the Future of this country. It's inevitable. It's crucial to the well being of America to cultivate, support, and invest in You and the rest of these other groups. We need educated, creative, energetic, hard-working, patriotic young diverse citizens to keep this country moving.

But here's their hypocricacy I pointed out. What if you are not part of that Future? How would that person feel? How would you feel if you lived in a region you love but other people call "Flyover Country." How disenfranchised are they? As you have said yourself, You are the Future - "They" are not. If you are not part of the Future....you're screwed. Those folks are truly marginalized. The reality of the World is passing them by. How do you think they feel when they see Obama on the cover of Wired as a "Special Guest Editor."

Our society and our leader, the President, are supposed to look after the marginalized. Hillary ignored these people and took them for granted. She enriched herself by selling influence to both Wall Street, the Saudi Royal Family, and her friends. She operates above the Law. You have a degree from Yale and you're crying in your red-soled Louboutin pumps that the next President is hostile to the marginalized?

Hillary and Obama themselves constantly said America is already great. The country isn't racist. We need to stop demonizing people who have different views and experiences and start listening to and empathizing with each other. That's what's great about the military...everyone of every race, region of the country, and economic background are forced to work together in small teams. They have to communicate with eachother whether they are a republican or a democrat. Friendship and loyalty are more important than politics in the military. We need to learn from that.

Too many of my friends who spend too much time on facebook are unfriending Trump supporters...people they have known for years. It's ridiculous. Instead of gulping down whatever drivel the media feeds you, turn it off. Do not listen to the media. It it wasn't obvious back in the democrat primaries, then it's obvious now - THEY LIED TO YOU. Instead, find a Trump supporter - a silent majority voter, and talk to them, become their friend...listen to them and at the same time influence them. That is what makes us great.

 

The dems have been in there for 8 years and was time for a change so it shouldn't be too much of a shock.

 

When Obama won in 2008, the media told them that the GOP was dead and gone and the Dems would run the show for the forseeable future. In the interim, the Dems lost both the House and the Senate, but now that they have lost POTUS, the reality of what a complete disaster Obama has been for the Dem party is sinking in. That kind of wake-up call is tough to take for lefties.

 

Biden would have beat Trump handily.

 

As with Trump and all his predecessors, America gets the President it deserves.

 

You thinks Dems will touch government healthcare again? In both cases, Dems lost the House swiftly and then the WH later. And all for naught. Rinse and repeat?

 

Of course the young people of middle America are part of the future, yes even white people who live in flyover country are part of the future.

 

Fabulous post.

 

I'm not sure the analogy holds up, but to me it seems like the Democrats outkicked their coverage.

 

Yeah, I don't quite grasp the point you are trying to make. Can you expand on the analogy a bit please?

Do you mean the Obama admin overreached in many of its policy initiatives? And did so to the extent that the Dems couldn't hold onto their offices because those policies pissed off so many previously silent voters?

 

Excellent post. In only 1 situation did I feel the need to "unfriend" a Trump supporter during this cycle and that was only after trying to find common ground. Admittedly, the conspiracy theories and tone of this former fraternity brother were just too much to bear with someone that literally posted several items per day.

The only hope we have to begin to bridge the chasm of political ideology is to listen to each other.

On that note, can someone help me understand what the Rust Belt (and rural America) is expecting around the loss of manufacturing jobs?

 

They did the same thing the GOP has done in the past with Dole, McCain, Romney. They put up a bad candidate just b/c it "was her turn".

 

They're voting for policies they believe will help transform and transition their local economy and policies that protect what can be protected. The most obvious is that they're voting against policies that are killing their economy, e.g. NAFTA, coal taxes, TPP, not challenging China's currency devaluation, Obamacare, high corporate taxes, etc.

 

Both Trudeau of Canada and the President of Mexico have said they are open to change with NAFTA,not doing away with it but in the words of the Mexican pres "modernizing it"
That did not take long.

 

Thanks. Are high corporate taxes killing the local economies? I get NAFTA/TPP. While overall these have proven to be a net benefit for the US, it's been a big loser for the rural economies. We all get cheaper sh!t and it's our corporations that increase their profits due to lower costs of goods but that job that leaves a local manufacturing plant is the loser. Is that horse already out of the barn though? The economy has been fundamentally transforming to a knowledge worker economy. Automation was the primary culprit for the disappearance of manufacturing thus blaming other countries is a bit of a boogeyman as the trade deals were merely a small part of the departure of our manufacturing base.

I get the votes from regions that are energy industry dependent. That's an attempt to hold on while you can as long as you can.

 

Of course. You can't rewind the world to the 60s. Ford/GM/Chrysler are international corporations and sell cars all over the world. They will and often have to make cars in overseas markets to sell overseas. We live in a globalized world - that's reality.

But there are a lot of Ford/GM/Chrysler cars manufactured overseas that they could have made here. There are a lot of auto component manufacturers that have left the US or were outcompeted by international component manufacturers. A high-corporate tax rate is a huge competitive disadvantage to keep/bring/promote those manufacturing jobs here. We're talking roughly (10%) to (30%) difference in ROIC to shareholders.

*edit: I should have made it clear that the US corporate tax rate has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world.
http://taxfoundation.org/article/corporate-income-tax-rates-around-world-2015

 

If you were to apportion accountability to why the manufacturing jobs moved, corporate income tax rates would be pretty low compared to cheaper labor, automation and others. A lower tax corporate tax rate for Apple is not suddenly going to entice them to bring back iPhone production into the US, for example. In most cases, these companies are already getting huge local tax breaks to entice them to setup operations in localities.

 

Why not? You point out other components of free-cash flow, e.g. labor costs, FX gains/losses, cost of debt financing, etc. But taxes are a HUGE part of the equation and a major determinant of where to operate. For products where the comparative marginal cost of labor is minimal, it might be the most important factor in that decision.

When you're talking about (10%) - (20%) difference between the US and other countries on net income...that's huge. For many companies that alone might make the comparative NPV positive. For companies like Apple, it might make it close enough that they would move manufacturing to the US where they would prefer to be.

 

I bought a Ford last year. It was built in Köln, not in the US. Why build in Germany where pretty much everything (labor, materials, etc.) is significantly more expensive than in the US, where regulations are more onerous, and where unions are dramatically more powerful?

I don't know the answer. However, it does seem strange that a company that wants to sell to Germans is willing to manufacture its products in Germany, but that same company will leave the US to sell to Americans. I'm not sure what in the laws makes that worthwhile, but we need to figure out what it is.

 

Great question. There are only a handful of inputs in the marginal costs = marginal revenue profit maximization equation. And in Germany, many of those cost inputs are similar. Labor cost are roughly similar, maybe even higher. Taxes are roughly equal. *Cost of inputs for a German made Ford may be cheaper if it uses more components from Europe (which is probably the case and mandated from the EU). ROIC can be marginally higher in Europe if the cost of capital is lower, and you would have to build your factory there. In the aggregate these kind of tangible costs are probably ballpark to building that same car in the US. On the revenue side, there may be some protectionist EU policies that affect dealers and the types of cars they can sell. Given the importance of financing in the auto-industry, there might be some kind of benefit to Ford Credit to finance a european made car vs a US made car to a European customer, etc.

And huge corporations selling in a globalized world will naturally have international operations simply to diversify out operating and financing risk. E.g. BMW and Mercedes manufacturer cars in the US. But here's the thing...BMW and Mercedes build cars in the great states of South Carolina and Alabama. The more important question might not be what is Europe doing to make moving overseas worthwhile, but what are these Sun Belt states doing that these Rust Belt states are missing?

*My guess to the biggest factor.

 

Not just Obama, but yes. A few examples, The trans-bathroom thing is a real issue but the "solution" went too far and too quickly. Gay marriage is awesome IMHO, but forcing businesses to accept it went too far. BLM is right that police occasionally use excessive force but takes it too far by assuming cops are always wrong. Safe spaces really? I could go on and on.

 

Apparently this also applies to several players on UT mens basketball team as well. Based on what I read, it seems they thought the election was about them. Shaka Smart's remarks I saw were none too helpful either. I only saw the quotes the reporters chose to pull, so hopefully his full response was more measured that way they grabbed.

My own niece is now the same way as our BBall kids. She needed consoling after this election. As a kid, she was fairly standard traditional Texas kid. But post-college/pre-grad school, she took a long trip (1 year in Europe + 1/2 year in SE Asia) and came back a different person.

It's odd for me because I took the same kind of trips she did (I surfed so have spent chunks of my life in MX and Central America (I'll take the warm water every time, thank you very much)) but I was always happy to be home. My trips made me appreciate what we had in the US even more. But my niece came back with the opposite attitude. It can be difficult to reconcile since we tend to think alike (and have the same sense of humor). But her view of the world now has hardened into one of how she thinks the world should be. Whereas I came back from foreign travel with a hardened view of the way the world actually is. I sometimes wonder where she will be 20 years forward on this stiff.

 

Kids nowadays. It's very likely your niece was a victim of selection bias when traveling...hanging out and meeting with other millennial affluent kids who haven't really started life yet.

I kind of had a different experience. When I was traveling all over the world in college and in the Navy, everyone loved the US (although in Italy, I felt like people were trying to scam me all the time out of my money). Today, I see tourists from Europe, Asia, Middle East, South America as a volunteer at the National Gallery and they love the US. Props to Hollywood on this one...they have a lot to do with it from all the movies run out there haha. But it's even more tangible for them when they get to meet Americans. Texans especially! Whatever your politics are, Texans are charming and friendly, big-hearted, and curious about other people places - adventurous, romantics, etc. Conservative Texans, the majority, do care about following the law and being a leader (e.g. strength) - yes, but fundamentally we're friendly romantic and high-character people.

I also enjoyed how awesome and beautiful everyone else in the world is. To me the people and cultures of France is amazing (I would totally live there), Russia is amazing, Morocco is amazing, Greece is amazing, Mexico is amazing, China is amazing, etc. It saddens me to think people want to dilute the uniqueness of people and these countries through these faux ideas of multiculturalism, one market, etc. I think nationalism and patriotism from wherever you are is great. Why isn't that a virtue worth pursuing for these identity politics folks? The key is to promote respect for each other and a curiosity of other places/ideas/cultures - something these tantrum throwing, whining, crying, liberal, SJWs need to learn.

But the big takeaway from me was how much people loved America, how badly people wanted to come here, how much they struggled with their governments and economies that served corrupt elitists or stifled freedom and opportunity.

It made me proud to be an American.