Progressive Globalism : Boarding the Trump Train

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One of the hallmarks of progressivism is that it asks more from the rich to help out the poor. On a local level I have no problem with that. I have written about a trickle up economy here https://tsukesthoughts.wordpress.com/2016/03/30/trickle-up-the-new-economy/ and believe that the best way to stimulate an economy is to give the tax cuts and benefits to the people most likely to spend the money inside the economy creating velocity of money and providing more jobs and employment.

On a local level that is good. It is a disaster on a global level. This is my main problem with Bernie Sanders as a candidate. He wants a lot of good things but they can only be achieved by a nationalist like Trump. You are probably thinking that Sanders is a nationalist too right? Whatever label he gives himself his ideas are that of a globalist populist. Basically you try to do what is best for everyone on the globe instead of everyone in the nation. This is why his stances to the refugees, illegal immigration, and his lack of understanding on the issue of healthcare.

OVERVIEW

In its simplest form progressive policies takes money from the rich and gives it to the poor. Who is the rich though? Is it China? Britain? The EU? If you haven’t figured out yet it is America. Progressive Globalism is at its heart a transfer of wealth from the US to every other country in the globe. The country is already poor and struggling but we are about to make everyone poorer.

HEALTHCARE

One of Sanders main arguments is that other modern countries provide healthcare for all their citizens yet the US cannot. Why is this? Well the other countries have a limit on how much companies can charge for drugs and the US does not. The answer seems to be simple right? Place a limit on the drugs prices of the US. Well the companies recover their research costs in the American market. Without the American market then there would be no new drugs available. In effect the European countries can have good healthcare because the American healthcare system is bad. Once you fix the drug prices and crack down on illegal immigration, thereby lowering the total number of people who need healthcare and most likely cannot pay healthcare cost will be lowered.

Would a progressive globalist change this once he sees the impact of his policies on the rest of the world? I have my doubts. I have no doubt that a person who puts America First would have no trouble doing it.

MINIMUM WAGE : SANDERS

People will be surprised to see this on the list. Isn’t Sanders the champion of 15$ minimum wage and Trump say we may have to lower it? It should be a no brainer right? My own personal view of minimum wage is that 15$ may work for California and New York who have economies so different from Iowa, Michigan, or Alabama that they may as well be from another country but it will not work for the poorer states who will not be able to afford it.

On to Sanders, you can legislate whatever minimum wage you want. You can say it will be 100$ it does not mean that it is good for the country nor does it mean that businesses will necessarily follow it. I would like to remind everyone that illegals exist and Sanders is the one most in favour of them. They can be hired like they are now to bypass the minimum wage.

Lets look at it without the promises. What keeps wages down? Well the scarcity of jobs and the excess of workers. More workers mean that they lose the ability to negotiate a good wage because they are easily replaceable. Given this data the only way to increase wages then is to increase the frequency of jobs and remove the excess of workers.

Let us take a look at what Sanders offers. He has offered citizenship to illegal aliens and has said he would not deport any. The gist is more incentives for illegal immigrants. The pope one of the biggest proponents of this has effectively endorsed him. What does illegal immigration do? Well it increases the available pool of workers. What about companies then? Currently after all the loopholes we have a 15% interest rate. Sanders would close the loopholes so we are back at 35% and then increase the tax so we are we effectively triple their rate. I am all for taxing corporations but at some point it is better to stop doing business in the country. You also don’t hear about tariffs from Sanders because that would hurt other economies who depend on selling to the US.

Wages are low because of scarcity of jobs and too many workers. Sanders adds to both fronts.

MINIMUM WAGE: TRUMP

Well what about Trump? The person who says the national minimum wage will be lowered or left alone. Lets take a look using the same standards as Sanders. Trump has made it a central piece of his platform to aggressively go after illegals. Removing benefits, installing e verify, and then deporting them faster. This of course reduces the pool of available workers.

Trump has also made the wall a central piece of his campaign.  A lot of people see the wall as an anti – immigration program. Which it is, but it also doubles as a jobs program. After all does anybody think the wall will build itself? That adds to the frequency of jobs by itself. Trump also proposes to lower the corporate tax to 25% and close all loopholes. Corporations who can afford armies of lawyers will see their tax rate rise but small business who can’t will see it drop. The tax rate increase though is more modest than Bernie’s proposed one and combined with the Tariff Trump is threatening increases likelihood of companies remaining in the US.

Trumps policies increase the frequency of jobs and reduces the available workforce giving more opportunities for workers to negotiate a better wage for themselves.

THE MILITARY

Here both sides agree. We have to get our partners in alliances to foot the bill for more of their own defense spending. Right now because of globalization the US is paying for everyone spending facilitating the transfer of wealth from the country to outside.

The difficult thing then with Sanders position is he wants to cut the military whereas Trump wants to rebuild or spend money on it. On its face cutting the military may make sense. After all we are strong enough and we spend more money on the military than a lot of our competitors combined. If you live in a big city you most likely do not see the downside to this but there are so many small towns and cities across America that need their local base or manufacturing plant to survive. If you remove them then all of a sudden you get more Flint’s and Detroit’s. Of course the displaced citizens need jobs as well. What do you think a huge influx of unemployed workers will do to the negotiating power of labor? What do you think it will do to the demand for labor in the service industries in the affected areas.

I wrote earlier about the need for a trickle up economy but the military industrial complex is a roller coaster that we are on that we cannot get off until we have employment for the people displaced. The military is also unique in that due to security reasons they spend their money onshore. I would rather they spend all of it onshore but they spend such a high percentage that im convinced that it’s not totally wasted. If we want any hope of raising the wages we have to keep military spending as is at least for the meantime.

BOARD THE TRAIN

I feel that this article has gone on too long already so I am cutting it here. Trump does not set a high minimum wage instead he creates a condition wherein wages can be raised. As opposed to setting a wage which businesses will not be able to meet without hiring illegals. If you want quality healthcare and a higher wage I urge you to support Trump it is really the only way. Supporting someone with globalist principles, even progressive ones, just brings the standard of living of the US to the level of other countries.

If you have any other points that you would like me to address as to why only someone with the philosophy of Trump can achieve the goals of Sanders put it in the comment section below and ill make an article for it in the future.

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