Dean Baker: Trump and Pence put on a show

[portlander23]

Trump and Pence put on a show
Dean Baker
CNN

But while Trump and Pence may have saved the jobs of 1,000 workers (apparently 400 jobs are still going to Mexico), it is not clear what the price to the state of Indiana or the US government is. It appears that vice president-elect and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence may have made some concessions, and perhaps Trump made promises as well.

A major goal of NAFTA was to make it as easy as possible for companies to take advantage of lower-cost labor in Mexico. It prohibits the Mexican government from nationalizing factories, restricting the ability of companies to send profits home, or other measures that would make investing in Mexico unattractive.

This also gets to one of the major confusions that Trump perpetuated in his campaign. China and other countries didn't "win" in their trade deals with the United States. We have major corporations like GE that love taking advantage of low-cost labor in China. The same is true of Walmart, with its low-cost supply chains that allow it to undersell competitors. These and other companies are big winners in the current pattern of trade with China and other developing countries.

Our trade negotiators weren't suckers, as Trump seems to believe. They just weren't working for the country's blue-collar workers. We will have to see who they work for in a Trump administration.

The Carrier episode can be seen as the opening round in the Trump administration's efforts to bring back millions of manufacturing jobs. Trump and Pence deserve credit for putting on a good show; we will need more information before we can assess the substance.

[Eyeball_Kid]

1. Short term gain for Trumpy; long-term failure.

Trumpy's efforts will be to bribe corporations to re-route their cash flows through the US, which would result in a temporary increase in jobs, if at all. In effect, Trumpy will reward corporations without any formal policy regarding international trade. The result will be that corporations will continue to search for the cheapest labor in the world market and use that labor to maximize profits. Corporations have their own agendas, and unless the US establishes REGULATIONS on corporate behavior, they will continue to do what they are chartered to do: maximize profits for shareholders.

Trump's Administration should be re-named the Potemkin Presidency. It's all facade, all lies to prop up the facade. There's nothing behind it but naked profiteering. And there's not more than a handful of Republicans who are willing to even peak behind the curtain.

[Wellstone ruled]

2. Noticed Bloomberg did a segment on

trending and pending job Cuts coming in 2017. Automation is the Workers true enemy,only 15% of the so called Blue Collar Jobs went offshore. With 85% of the jobs remaining,of those a large portion was replaced by Automation. Technology is the main cause of Jobs displacement and elimination. Another segment talked about the major job loss to hit Wall Street early in 2017 which is dubbed the year of the Algorithm,replacing Traders and Brokers as well as back room personnel with Computers and Servers.

The numbers mentioned were in the thousands,and again,Con Job will look Stupid as usual.