The Carrier deal shows a big problem with Trump's approach to the presidency

[TomCADem]

Trump's Presidency is going to be all about kickbacks and crony capitalism. Simply engage in small ball, highly publicized "deals" where Trump swoops in to offer a company millions in kicksbacks to keep a particular plant open, but ignore structural problems affecting the U.S. economy. President Obama saved an entire auto industry. Trump will simply push expensive propaganda and kicks backs one plant at a time.

http://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/12/1/13810480/carrier-deal-donald-trump

Over and over again on the campaign trail, Trump vowed to take office as the dealmaking president. “This country is being drained of its jobs and its money because we have stupid people making bad deals,” Trump said at a campaign rally in June.

Trump has vowed to be smart and make good deals. The Carrier announcement — along with Trump’s similar announcement about a Ford plant a couple of weeks ago — are presumably the first of many deals our dealmaker in chief expects to make on behalf of the American people.

But a series of Carrier-like deals doesn’t add up to a viable economic agenda. For one thing, these deals are way too small. There are 150 million workers in the United States, and the US economy needs to create about 200,000 jobs a month just to keep up with population growth. Trump would have to negotiate dozens of Carrier-sized deals every week to have a serious impact on job growth — and so far he’s announced only two deals in three weeks.

The larger issue, though, is that governing through a series of deals creates serious perverse incentives. If Trump starts giving corporate welfare to companies that promise not to move jobs to Mexico, we’ll see a flood of companies threatening to move to Mexico in hopes of getting a handout. Taxpayers would wind up paying to save a lot of jobs that weren’t actually in danger in the first place.

[Thinkingabout]

1. How long can we afford Trump's deal makings?

[HAB911]

2. about as long as any of his casinos lasted.......n/t

[cbdo2007]

3. It all starts with the $1,000 he's promising people by lowering their taxes....

which we can't afford.

Which is the exact same way George W. Bush won in 2000 (well, that and the whole vote fiasco, but the main reason he was even competitive) is because we had a surplus so he told all the voters if they voted him and he won he would send everyone $800 as economic stimulus....which of course put us right back into a massive deficit.

[spanone]

4. trump big problems

[TreasonousBastard]

5. And the Ford deal was bullshit-- Ford's CEO called him on it.