So far, Trump has demonstrated an ability to influence large companies. While I think this forum has gone overboard in praising Trump for every positive development since November 8, I don't have any doubt that he deserves much of the credit for at least some of the job additions / cancellation of job eliminations. The short term payoff on Trump's back-room dealings has been yuge. I still have a number of lingering concerns on the job-creation front. These aren't things I know will go bad, or even predict will go bad. They are, however, things that make me hesitant to proclaim the Trump jobs policies a success. In no particular order: Great workers do great things to help their organization. Great leaders set up systems and processes that enable other workers in the organization to do great things. So far, Trump has done great things himself, but they are small when measured against the economy as a whole. We need to be adding hundreds of thousands of jobs per quarter, so a few thousand jobs here and there isn't going to get the job done. It remains to be seen whether Trump will be able to put others in position to replicate what he has been able to do himself to date. To the extent that Ford, etc. made their decisions based on optimism for the future of the American economy, great. But I don't think that's the only thing at play. I also think these companies are scared about how Trump will retaliate if they move jobs overseas, or do anything else to tick him off for that matter. To the extent that they were bullied to stay as opposed to inspired to stay, the companies' long-term strategies will be adjusted in ways that could be undesirable. Bullies may win in the short run, but they tend to lose in the long run. Job-creation inducements often have strings attached that don't become known until much later. Not knowing what the strings are, I can't say whether they are worth it. Foreign governments will have to figure out how to respond, but you can rest assured they won't take it lying down. Getting US jobs to stay in the US is good, but not if it comes at the expense of getting overseas jobs to come here, and/or stimulating foreign markets for our goods and services. You can only threaten to impose huge border taxes so many times before it comes back to bite you. Creating jobs is great, but can sometimes have costs in other sectors of the economy. For example, reducing taxes and government spending may stimulate job creation in certain portions of the private sector, but that could be offset at least in part by job losses in other markets and/or the public sector. Non-economic consequences, such as impacts on the environment, will have to be assessed.
1. Lowering taxes is the easiest way to create hundreds of thousands of jobs 2. I doubt Ford management gives a damn about retaliation from Trump. They are concerned with taxes, and they like what they are hearing. 3. Inducements don't usually have unknown "strings attached". Quality, well run companies don't make decisions unless they know the facts. The deals are usually simple: "we will lower your taxes for x number of years if you build in, or move to our wonderful burgh". 4. Actually, on the whole, taxing imports will encourage foreign companies to add U.S. employees and production facilities. Why? Because we are the nation that consumes, which is why we have a trade deficit with everyone. Our trade deficit is substantial, and no country wants to eliminate their customers regardless of what their respective governments proclaim. 5. Job losses in the public sector sounds like a wonderful idea. 6. Blah, blah, blah.... Trump, despite his many flaws, makes Obama look like the liberal fool he is when it comes to business. Watching states like New York hand out tax incentives to companies is hard to understand. Based on their liberal voting record, liberal Senators and Representatives, and ideas regarding "tax and spend", shouldn't they just tax the existing companies in the State more, and then hand out the taxes to undeserving individuals that work for a public entity or union, or based on race, sexual preference, or gender? That is the essence of their ideology. Why are they even trying to deal with the devil known as "corporations".
Unfortunately our standards of success as a President are very low right now because of Obama. It won't take much for Trump to be considered successful. But what I'm seeing right now it looks like he will blow Obama away when it comes to creating jobs. We have a current President that was a community organizer. The new Elected President has a ton of experience in producing jobs. I'm guessing he'll do aright.
NJ, you must be a smug, liberal elitist to bring all this fancy, smarty talk to the discussion. Did you sleep through the election? This sort of talk is supposed to be over. The new mentality is that if Trump does it, it's a good thing. He could replace Obamacare with a Cuban-style socialized medicine, and you're supposed to hail it as an example of great conservative policy. Besides, Obama sucks, and you can't prove that Hillary didn't murder Eric Braverman.
The key is to hire 100,000 workers to build a wall, compensate them at $50/hour, and have Mexico or Carlos Slim pay for it. Accomplish that and you score A+.
$50? I know at least a couple of lawyers who would quit their jobs to go work on the wall at that wage.
Hey, we want to make America great don't we? We're going to be rich. Really rich. You're going to love what we're doing.
