Cromwell

The Flakes and Corkers of this world essentially have two problems with Trump:

1.  They concur with the description of the president’s personality that appears on a daily basis on this blog.  They find him unprincipled, thin-skinned, narcissistic, autocratic, and profoundly ignorant of policy.  They hate his tweets, and his affinity for dividing the country.  Regardless of his image, they believe he is a poor and uninformed negotiator and leader.  They think he’s likely to run their party, and the country as a whole, into the ground.
2.  They disagree with his white nationalist worldview, and all of the implications that come with it.

These sentiments are probably shared by most of the GOP members of Congress. Where the dissidents do not have a problem with Trump, however, is on most specific matters of policy, largely because Trump has been content to farm out these issues to the legislative leadership; he’ll sign anything as long as he can call it a “win.”  And so, while Trump did nothing to bring the various GOP factions together, you really can’t blame him for the delays in tax reform and the failure to repeal Obamacare;  those are on Congress, not him.

Where is this going?  So far, most of what the dissidents object to has been noise, not action.  We haven’t started a nuclear war in Iran or North Korea, or pulled out of NAFTA, or sold the country to the Russians.  Yet.  All of these things are still possible, and if calamities result, the trickle of objections will become a roar.  If, on the other hand, nothing really bad happens,  then nothing will change.

As it turns out, the supporters of the corporate tax cut aren’t really arguing that the additional cash pouring into corporate coffers will then be distributed directly to workers in the form of higher wages.  The argument is, instead, that the additional funds will be invested in new ventures, that the new ventures will need workers, and that wages will increase as a result of higher demand for labor.

This is, of course, just another way of calling on that old trickle-down magic that has served us so well over the last 40 years.  Leaving aside the lack of recent historical support for the notion that a rising tide lifts all boats, the argument has the following logical weaknesses:

1.  American corporations are already sitting on massive cash mountains, and interest rates are very low.  A lack of access to capital is not the reason they are not investing. Why would increasing the size of the cash mountains make any meaningful difference?
2.  Even if you accept the argument that we will see a massive increase in investment, why would you assume that American workers will benefit from that, given that the money could be invested in firms using large numbers of foreign workers or robots?

The bottom line is that the investment problem is driven by a lack of demand, which in turn is caused by demographic trends and the hollowing out of the middle class.  The Trump tax cut will do nothing to address either issue, and will only enrich shareholders.

Trump managed to avoid military service during the Vietnam era by a fairly spurious (pun intended) medical deferment.  He has spent his entire adult life, until now, making money by screwing people over.  He ran for president because he saw the presidency as a prize, not a sacred trust.  He uses his office to expand his ego, not to help people.  In short, he has no concept of public service whatsoever.

He has, however, surrounded himself with military men to whom service presumably means everything, and they defend him.  Hence, the paradox.

There are very real dangers here.  The military consists disproportionately of people from red states and minorities.  If the connection between Trump and the military causes people in both parties to see the armed forces as just another wing of the GOP, much like evangelical churches, the implications for a divided country will become very serious.  Blue America will become alienated from the people protecting them, the red portion of the military may consider blue people not worth defending, and the military itself may split politically between its red state and minority components.

The GOP man they call Flake

Told the world he’d had all he could take.

He called Trump unfit.

Didn’t hold back a bit.

Could his speech be the start of Trump’s wake?

 

Alas, almost certainly not.

 

After a brief break, the conversation continues.

C:  Next, I’d like to ask you some questions about racism.

B:  I’m not a racist.  I’m a patriot.

C:  What do you mean by that?

B:  I have a great emotional appreciation of America and its culture.  I recognize the intellectual roots of it–in religion, politics, and philosophy– come from Europe.  I will fight to protect it against outsiders, whether they come from the Middle East, China, or wherever.

C:  Do you view African-Americans as outsiders?

B:  Obviously, they have made some important contributions to our culture.  But basically, yes.

C:  Are you familiar with Ta-Nehisi Coates?

B:  Absolutely!  I’m his biggest fan.

C:  Why?

B:  Because every time he opens his mouth about reparations, he wins us another million votes from hard-working white people who don’t see any reason why they should feel guilty about being white.  The point of revolution is to force people who are on the fence to actively take your side.  That’s exactly what he does for us.

C:  All of the statistics back up his claim that African-Americans get a raw deal in this country.  Don’t you think he has a point?

B:  Look, I admit that black people have been treated unfairly at times in the past. The bottom line is that the statute of limitations has to run on claims like that at some point in time.  Otherwise, we would have to give our country back to the Indians.  Slavery and Jim Crow are over.  It’s time to move on.

C:  You will admit that some of your supporters are outright racist?

B:  Sure.  There are extremists in every group.  I have no sympathy for Nazis.  I do have sympathy for struggling white people who think that the government is determined to punish them for being white, and who have good reason to believe that minorities get cuts in line.

C:  Let’s talk about protectionism for a minute.  What do you hope to accomplish with that?

B:  We’ll make America great again, of course!

C:  By reducing GDP growth both here and abroad?

B:  Ultimately, it would increase growth here.

C:  Let’s use an example.  You presumably view hard-working white Christian farmers as the kind of people that you want to protect.  The bottom line is that retaliation for American protectionist actions will prevent them from exporting to places like Mexico and Japan and will cost them lots of money.  It’s already happening.  Is, say, protecting steelworkers worth hurting those farmers, to say nothing of driving up prices for everyone else?

B:  You can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs.  Anyway, in the long run, the foreigners need our markets more than we need theirs, so they’ll cave. You just have to be firm with them.

C:  There is a famous photo of your whiteboard with “taxes” in the middle.  Why was that?

B:  Tax cuts are a means by which we can actually give some clear and immediate relief to Americans who really need it.

C:  Does the current GOP tax plan do that?

B:  No.  It’s a disaster.  It’s the same old crap that the business elite have been forcing on us in exchange for illusory promises on social issues.  We need tax relief for working people, not Wall Street plutocrats.

C:  Sometimes you sound more like a Democrat than a Republican.

B:  There is some convergence of our views on this issue.

C:  Time is running short, so I have one last question.  You obviously have a vision of international relations that puts more emphasis on independent sovereign nations and less on international institutions.  On the other hand, you want the sovereign nations to be united in the battles against Islam and the Chinese.  How do you reconcile the two?  If everyone is a nationalist, how can you get them to cooperate instead of doing battle with each other?

B:  It’s tricky, admittedly, but if you work hard to keep everyone’s eye on the ball, it can be done.

C:  Thanks for your time.

The interview concludes.

 

House Republicans are reportedly considering severe limitations on the use of the 401(k) in order to provide more funds for their big regressive tax cut.  This would, of course, make retirement saving more difficult at the worst possible time for masses of baby boomers, and raise taxes on people like me.

Trump tweeted this morning that there will be no change to the 401(k).  I would be comforted by this if I didn’t know that he will sign anything that reaches his desk as long as he can claim it’s a tax cut and call it a “win.”

 

I’ve never interviewed Steve Bannon, and probably never will.  But if I did, it would look something like this:

I enter the offices of Breitbart, where Bannon is waiting for me.

C:  Thanks for taking the time to meet with me.

B:  No problem.  Do you know why I agreed to the interview?

C:  I have no idea.  It certainly isn’t because we agree on very much.

B:  It’s the name of your blog!  I have an affinity for Cromwell, you know.

C:  Did you read my analysis of that issue?

B:  No.

C:  It’s just as well.  You probably wouldn’t like it, although I thought there was some merit to the Trump/Henry VIII analogy.

B:  Oh, well.  What do you want to talk about?

C:  A variety of things, starting with your relationship with the Republican Party.

B:  A lot of people want to talk about that.

C:  My theory is that there are four separate, and often conflicting, ideological threads running through the party.  I’d like to get your reaction to that.

B:  Sounds interesting.  Shoot.

C:  The first faction is the Christian Democrats.  They’re a one-world, moralistic faction that supports traditional values and authority, but supports expansions of the welfare state for the benefit of all Americans.  They used to be one of the larger party factions, but Bush discredited them, and now they’re Democrats in all but name.

B:  That makes sense.  Most of the so-called conservative commentators in the MSM meet that standard.  Susan Collins comes to mind, too.

C:  The second is the Conservative Libertarians, who want to shrink the state to enhance personal freedom, regardless of the circumstances.  They’re also a pretty small faction.

B:  The Koch brothers, and Rand Paul.  Ted Cruz on a bad day.

C:  The third is the Pro-Business Pragmatists, consisting of business people who want power, deregulation, and tax cuts, and who will make deals with virtually anyone to get them.  They don’t have strong opinions on social issues.

B:  Sounds like most of the leadership of the GOP.  They’re the ones I’m doing battle with.

C:  Finally, we have the Reactionaries, who have no inherent objection to a strong government, but believe the government has been run to damage the interests of real Americans with traditional values.  Reactionaries want to bring back the world of the 1950’s to the maximum extent possible.

B:  That’s me!  And Donald Trump, to some extent.

C:  I agree.  Some people call your faction “conservative,” but I don’t think they’re anything of the sort.  Do you agree?

B:  I’ve called myself a Leninist, and I mean it.  I’m trying to bring the revolution to the GOP.  Kind of like Sanders within the Democratic Party.

C:  Is Trump a perfect Reactionary?

B:  Far from it, but he’s what we’ve got.

C:  What are his strengths, in your view?

B:  He has an unmatched ability to communicate simple, but profound, ideas to his base, and his heart is in the right place.

C:  What are his weaknesses?

B:  He gets distracted.  He makes deals with so-called pragmatists when he shouldn’t.  He likes big businessmen and generals too much.

C:  Obviously, you have a big problem with Mitch McConnell.

B:  Obviously.

C:  What are you trying to accomplish by taking him on?

B:  For years, the GOP has been screwing over its most loyal voters by offering them meaningless promises on social issues in exchange for real tax cuts for businessmen.  I’m trying to change that.

C:  But how can you do that?  Your faction isn’t a majority of the GOP.  Even Trump’s victory in the primaries was a plurality, not a majority.

B:  Trump’s victory is just one example of how it can happen, if we’re clear-eyed and ruthless.

C:  Don’t you worry about handing victories to the Democrats?

B:  Of course, but, from my perspective, there isn’t that much difference between the GOP establishment and the Democrats.  At least the Democrats don’t try to pretend they’re not screwing us over.

C:  How can you win elections without the support of the people you say you’re at war with?

B:  We can’t, but the establishment will fall into line.  In the final analysis, we can always persuade them that the Democrats are worse, no matter how extreme our candidates sound.

C:  What if you’re wrong?

B:  I’m not. I know what I’m doing.

End of Part One.

 

I’ve got those dirty, lowdown interest rate hike blues.

The consequence of what we’ve done is all over the news.

The right says we debase the dollar, but it isn’t true.

I’m just doing the best I can to protect me and you.

 

One side backs the unemployed; the other sees inflation.

A far, far less than holy war tears apart our nation.

Economy is doing well; so is job creation.

If I could satisfy them all I’d be a big sensation.

 

I’ve got the blues.

The low dollar blues.

You think this job is lots of fun, but I’ve paid my dues.

The GOP thinks it’s OK

To criticize the Fed.

They’ll realize how hard it is.

Most likely when I’m dead.

Red and Blue

America’s red

And America’s blue.

If you don’t know the difference

I’ll give it to you.

 

NASCAR’s a red sport.

Pro football is blue.

The SEC’s different

But that’s nothing new.

 

If you drive a big truck,

Here’s a word to the wise.

You’re either bright red

Or you’re blue in disguise.

 

Red people love country.

Blue people like rap.

If you put them together

They merge into crap.

 

Believers in God

Tend to be rather red.

Except for black people

They’re bright blue, instead.

 

Red people own guns.

They’re a kind of a cross.

Those people are happy

That Trump is the boss.

 

Can we bring them together?

Obama just tried.

He failed, and I’d say

That his dream has just died.

 

 

Some commentators describe Piketty as a sort of neo-Marxist.  Are they right?

No.  The central thesis of Piketty’s book is that, under normal conditions, the rate of return enjoyed by the wealthy on their investments exceeds growth in GDP, which means the rich, relative to the rest of society, get richer.   The thesis is supported by substantial historical data.  He makes it clear that extraordinary conditions, such as war and large policy shifts, can override the general rule.  In other words, the rich getting richer is not the result of some sort of natural law.

Piketty doesn’t embrace dialectical materialism, the labor theory of value, or the other critical Marxist concepts that I addressed earlier in the week.  And so, while his thesis does sound vaguely Marxist, it is inappropriate to associate his views with orthodox Marxism.

Sarah Kliff, the best writer on American health care policy, has started a new series on health care unit prices on Vox this week.  To no one’s surprise, she has concluded to date that the cause of soaring American health care costs is our unit prices, not overuse of the system by consumers, and that neither political party has much of a plan to deal with them.

Given their ideological perspectives, how should the two parties address costs?

The Democrats view the health care market as being inherently flawed, and believe that more government intervention is necessary.  That can be accomplished through the direct regulation of prices and by the creation of a consumer cartel with overwhelming market power (i.e., a single-payer system). Single-payer would only reduce prices, however, if the government is willing to stick it to an enormously wide range of health care providers, not just the drug and insurance industries.  Thus far, there is no evidence of that; I’ve never heard Bernie Sanders complain about grossly overpaid doctors and nurses, because to do so would be politically unpopular.

Republicans purportedly believe the solutions to the problem lie in the proper use of market forces.  If that is truly your position, you should be breaking up producer cartels, limiting the value of patents, encouraging more providers to enter the system (largely through increased immigration), and doing everything possible to make pricing transparent.  None of this figures in any of the GOP plans to date. The GOP actually believes the problem is overuse arising from third-party payments, in spite of all of the evidence to the contrary, and its only “solution” to high prices is to suppress legitimate demands for service, which is no solution at all.

According to Marx, once the last vestiges of the bourgeois regime have been destroyed by the dictatorship of the proletariat, the state will serve no purpose, and will simply wither away.

Right.  For some reason, I didn’t see much evidence of a withering state in Beijing during the Party conference yesterday.  Raul and Kim don’t seem too keen on it, either.

Ross Douthat had a column in yesterday’s NYT in which he essentially argued that the GOP should return to the Christian Democrat program of George W. Bush.  Douthat concedes Bush’s many failings, but contends that most of his agenda was designed to help working and middle-class people, and notes that the Trump agenda consists of noise directed at Reactionaries and actual measures designed for plutocrats.

As usual, Douthat is partly right and partly wrong.  His description of Trump is perfectly accurate.  I don’t buy his argument that the Bush economic agenda of tax cuts for the rich and deregulation was part of a CD program;  it was pure PBP. I do agree, however, that the rest of his domestic program was primarily CD, and that the Republican Party would be a lot more sane if it returned to it.

Unfortunately, for some reason, the failure of the Bush Administration resulted in a repudiation by the GOP of, not nation-building, reckless deregulation, and constitutional violations, but programs like No Child Left Behind.  There is no reason to believe this will change in the foreseeable future.

According to Marx, the bourgeois capitalist state would fall as a result of its contradictions, and power would pass to the proletariat, which would use it to create a classless society.  There would be an interim phase in which the proletariat used the power of the state to eliminate the vestiges of what Marx considered a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.  The transitional phase was dubbed “the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

Of course, in the real world, nothing like this happened.  The revolution came in agrarian countries, not the advanced capitalist western European nations.  The proletariat was not up to the job of revolution.  The task of representing the presumed interests of workers fell to a self-appointed group of middle class intellectual conspirators who called themselves the Communist Party.  The dictatorship has lasted 68 years in China, and there is no end in sight. . .

Marx famously “turned Hegel on his head” when he came up with the concept of dialectical materialism.  Both believed in what is frequently called “the arc of history,” but while Hegel saw that in terms of ideas, Marx saw it as a product of changing means of production.  In the penultimate stage, that of bourgeois capitalism, the means of production would be owned by a small and shrinking group of capitalists who would be overwhelmed by the instability of their own system and the numerical predominance of the working class.  Revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat, and a peaceful, classless society would be the happy result.

Marx claimed to be a “scientific” socialist, but dialectical materialism isn’t science, and it isn’t based on history;  it is more accurately described as philosophy, and maybe even religion.  The theory can’t be tested in the real world, and the events of the last 150 years don’t support it.  What has happened, in reality, is that the capitalist system has been buttressed by the welfare state, and that advanced economies are primarily based on services, not manufacturing.   Marx did not foresee those developments.  The classless society is nowhere in sight.