Recession Already Grips Corners of U.S., Menacing Trump's 2020 Bid

[riversedge]

When farmers can not sell their products--local equipment sales shops go in the red. The whole community is affected.




Recession Already Grips Corners of U.S., Menacing Trump's 2020 Bid
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-09-09/a-manufacturing-recession-could-cost-trump-a-second-term

The president's trade wars are creating a scenario similar to 2016.



September 9, 2019, 3:00 AM CDT

The moment usually comes during Greg Petras's commute through the rolling hills and cornfields of southern Wisconsin. Somewhere between his home near Madison and the factory he runs on the edge of the small town of Brodhead, the news will turn to the trade wars and Donald Trump will again claim that China is bearing the cost of his tariffs. That's when Petras loses it.

"It's just an outright lie, and he knows it," says Petras, president of Kuhn North America, which employs some 600 people at its farm-equipment factory in Wisconsin. For Kuhn, Trump's trade war has produced a toxic mix of rising costs and falling revenues. "You're slamming your fist on the steering wheel and saying 'Why would you tell people this?'"
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The shop floor at Kuhn North America in Brodhead, Wis.
Photographer: Lyndon French for Bloomberg Businessweek

[SWBTATTReg]

1. And one caused by rump himself, no one else to blame, other than the repugs that are allowing...

him to continue down this destructive path (by saying or doing basically nothing).

This is happening all across the country in rural communities that rely substantially on farming in the local economic mix. Farmers' income has been slashed, and despite the socialist support payments that are being provided by the rump admin. for the mess that they alone created, they are still under water. Something has to give and lots of small businesses in these communities are finding out.

What's is this obsession about free trade and what not, eh? Repugs will never have a leg to stand on any longer in preaching about the economy, being that they put in a leader (so called) that has vastly increased the fed. deficit, f**ked our trade relations, messed up our manufacturing base here in the states,

[ck4829]

2. K&R

[Hermit-The-Prog]

3. "Democrats are not vulnerable" ...

Nationally, the U.S. has not yet seen a collapse in factory jobs. But in politics, timing and geography matter. Almost all of the gains in manufacturing employment came in the first two years of Trump’s presidency, and things have gone into reverse in swing states like Pennsylvania, which lost more than 8,000 manufacturing jobs in the first seven months of this year.

Trump is also more exposed politically to a manufacturing downturn than any Democratic rival. Nationally, manufacturing accounted for almost 12% of the jobs in counties that voted for Trump in 2016 vs. less than 7% in those that supported Hillary Clinton, says Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. In battleground states the divergence is starker, with factory jobs accounting for more than 21% of employment in Trump counties. “This is the one thing he was going to deliver. And Democrats are not vulnerable at all because if things go south they are not responsible at all,” Muro says.