Category Archives: American Economy

Memoirs of the Addams Administration 3.

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Last week, a team of people from the Trump administration told a number of senior professionals at the State Department that their resignations had been accepted and that there would be no need for them to remain in their positions until the administration’s nominees for replacements had gotten up to speed.  (Is this the case in other Departments[1] or is it unique to the State Department?  If it is unique to the State Department, then was it the decision of President Trump or of his Secretary of State-designate Rex Tillerson or of someone else who shall remain nameless, but whose initials are Steven Bannon?  If the decision originated with Tillerson, did it reflect previous contact with the State Department while negotiating oil deals with foreign countries?)

Over the week-end, President Trump reconfigured the “principals committee” of the National Security Council.  While this has been characterized as, among other things, a diminution of the role of the professional military, both the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security are retired Marine Corps generals.  Thus, it could be construed—OK, misconstrued—as a shift from the Bureaucratasaurus to the Parrisasaurus Rex.

Currently, an estimated 90,000 people from radical-Islamist-ridden “countries” have received visas to enter the United States.[2]  On Friday, 27 January 2017 (one week after taking office) elected-President Donald Trump issued an executive order imposing a 90-day “pause” on immigrants from the seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.[3]  This disrupted the late-stage travel plans of about 700 people, who were prevented from boarding U.S.-bound planes.  An additional 300 were halted upon arrival in the United States.[4]

Critics quickly pointed out that no one from these countries had ever committed an act of terror in the United States.  Implicitly, this left liberals in the awkward position of defending Sudan, which has waged a war of aggression—that the left has been quick to denounce as “genocide–in western Sudan, and that Sudan provided a safe haven to Osama bin Laden until President Bill Clinton launched cruise missile attacks against suspected al-Qaeda terrorist sites inside Sudan.  In contrast, countries whose citizens have engaged in terrorism against the United States—Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia—escaped the ban.

Massive protests followed at airports, in the streets, in Congress, and on editorial pages.  Not to mention that Iran launched a ballistic missile in a “test” shot: Syria, Iraq, and Yemen are Iranian-dominated countries, in the Iranian view.[5]  None the less, a snap poll revealed that almost half (49 percent) of Americans approved President Trump’s order, while 41 percent disapproved the order.  Various courts were quick to block the order.  All the same, neither refugees nor those foreigners seeking visas are protected by the Bill of Rights.  Indeed, that’s why so many people want to come to the United States.

The deep polarization of American politics continues into the post-election period.  However, neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton appeared to be much of a healer.  So,,,

[1] This leaves the estimable-I’m-instructed Sally Yates out of the discussion.

[2] The seven countries are Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Sudan, and Yemen.  To be picky, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian-born “underwear bomber” who tried to bring down an airliner headed to Detroit (why?) had been recruited, trained, and armed in Yemen; al-Shabab in Somalia has recruited a number of Somali-Americans from the upper Midwest.

[3] The temporary and limited ban easily could be extended and broadened.  But why would it have to be?  President Trump has already succeeded in scaring the be-Muhammad out of Muslims and potential immigrants.

[4] “Travel ban prompts chaos, protests,” The Week, 10 February 2017, p. 4.

[5] “How they see us: Trapped by Trump’s travel ban,” The Week, 10 February 2017, p. 15.

Memoirs of the Addams Administration 2.

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During his first week in office,[1] President Donald Trump ended American participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement[2]; took the first step toward re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) by arranging to meet the leaders of Canada and Mexico[3]; instructed the Department of Homeland Security to begin completion of the border wall; ordered that federal funds not go to any “sanctuary cities”[4]; indicated that he would lift President Obama’s blockage of the Dakota Access and the Keystone XL pipelines; began the process of “repealing and replacing” the Affordable Care Act by instructing federal agencies waive regulations that [the presidentially-appointed head of the agency] regards as burdensome; ordered the Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.) to pause in issuing grants and contracts; barred foreign aid funds from going to international agencies or groups that provide information on abortions[5]; and imposed a federal hiring freeze.[6]  All these steps appear to be reasonable efforts to fulfill promises that candidate Trump made during his campaign.

Furthermore, the president told a group of businessmen that he wanted to lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to the 15-20 percent range,[7] and to cut back federal regulation of business by 75 percent.

More alarming—to many if not all—was President Trump’s renewed claim that millions—up to five millions–of people had voted illegally in November 2016.  He promised to launch an investigation.  In addition, he seems eager for a war against the press/media, and he swats aside predictions of conflict of interest.  In addition, the president and his spokespeople have attacked the press—America’s last large unregulated industry—while trumpeting “alternative facts.”[8]  A 500,000-strong Women’s March on Washington had a divided impact.  Supporters saw it as “resistance”; while critics saw it as resistance to a democratic election.[9]

So, a fast start to his first term as president.

[1] “President Trump makes his mark,” The Week, 3 February 2017, p. 4.

[2] The agreement already was Dead-on-Arrival, given the shift in position by both parties during the 2016 election campaign.  Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton would have done the same thing.

[3] The two men signaled a willingness to negotiate.   Then came the whole personal spat.

[4] These are cities that refuse to co-operate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in searching for illegal immigrants.  They do, however, avidly pursue federal money for other projects.

[5] This does not prevent other countries from providing those funds.

[6] This freeze ensnared my son, a seasonal wildlands firefighter for the National Forest Service.  The freeze seems unlikely to last, especially once the West catches fire in July 2017.

[7] The nominal Canadian basic tax rate is 38 percent, but a “federal tax abatement” cuts it to 28 percent, and a general tax reduction cuts the effective tax rate to 15 percent.

[8] “’Alternative facts’: Is Trump at war with reality?” The Week, 3 February 2017, p. 6.

[9] “Women’s March: The progressive backlash against Trump,” The Week, 3 February 2017, p.16.

Memoirs of the Addams Administration 1.

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From 1945 to the very recent past, the United States led the capitalist world toward negotiation of an open world economy.  In recent decades, that policy has come back to bite the United States as Asian countries became ferocious competitors.  Eighty percent of trade-related job losses can be attributed to Asian countries (China, Japan, South Korea).  However, public hostility has focused on the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the least offending agreement.

In 1992, President George H. W. Bush completed the negotiations for NAFTA.[1]  The agreement ended tariffs and non-tariff barriers between Mexico, Canada, and the United States.  This would allow the free flow of assets across national borders.  Soon afterward, President Bill Clinton got the treaty passed by Congress.

“Comparative advantage” (a term in economics) suggests that low-wage, low-skill Mexican workers will manufacture one sort of product,[2] and high-wage, high-skill Canadian workers will manufacture another sort of product.  This seems to be the case under NAFTA, as Mexicans produce dashboards and Canadians produce transmissions for final assembly by Americans.  There’s nothing innovative about this.  Asian manufacturers have been doing the same diversification of the supply-chain thing for a while.  American manufacturers had to adapt to stay competitive.

Was NAFTA good deal for Americans?  Well, the United States now exports to Mexico goods worth 3.5 times as much as in 1993, even allowing for inflation.  On the other hand, Mexico still has run a trade surplus against the United States that amounts to $60 billion a year.  How many jobs—if any—did that amount to?  In the eyes of economists, NAFTA encouraged a migration of American “jobs” from lower-skilled and lower-paid to higher-skilled and higher-paid.  The political problem is that “jobs” are not the same thing as “workers.”  The “workers” who lost “jobs” didn’t shift into the new “jobs” that needed “workers.”  Instead, it seems somebody else—within the United States—got those new jobs.  This shift is not much discussed by political figures and media analysts.

So, trade experts and displaced American workers agree that it was a flawed deal.  It could be improved.  How and at what cost?  First, as is the case with “Brexit,” any country can withdraw from NAFTA by giving notice six months in advance.  Then further negotiations would define the new relationships between Canada, the United States, and Mexico.  However, what the Trump administration may be aiming at is a simple re-negotiation of terms.  Now Canada and Mexico have begun to establish positions for such talks.

The exact issues to be dealt with in any re-negotiation are complex, even if they become household words—in a small number of households—over the next several years.  “Country of origins,” “de minimus” exports, and Value Added Tax (VAT) rebates are all issues on which the Trump administration’s trade negotiators seek accommodation.  Conversely, the Mexican negotiators are going to claim equality-of-status with Canada when it comes to things like easy access to the United States for Mexican truckers and Mexican workers.

None of this is going to be painless.  Anything that comes out of the negotiations will be disruptive.  NAFTA itself has been painful and disruptive.  Then come the Asian economies.

[1] Neil Irwin, “Will NAFTA Be Attacked With Tweezers or a Hammer?” NYT, 26 January 2017.

[2] To further complicate matters, the basic components of the dash might have been manufactured in really-low-wage China (outside NAFTA), then exported to Mexico (inside NAFTA) for assembly for export to the United States for final assembly.  Thus, both Mexico and Canada serve as pass-throughs for counties not party to NAFTA.

City Lights.

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The “Baby Boom” (b. 1945-1963) formed the first memorable demographic mouse to pass through the institutional-cultural snake of American society.  Then “Gen X” (b. 1977-1987) marked a low-birth saddle between the high-birth “Baby Boom” and “Millennial” generations.  .  The “Millennial” generation (b. 1980-2005) has stretched the snake even farther than their predecessors.  Neither big generation has fully run its course so far.  Yet both have had profound impacts.[1]

One feature of the “Baby Boom” appeared in the flood tide toward the suburbs.  In a sense, the children of the “Boomers” motivated this migration.  The “Boomers” wanted bigger, newer houses with yards to play in and good schools.[2]  The life-blood drained out of older American cities as a result.

The “Millennials” reversed this course to some extent by moving back to urban cores in search of a more cosmopolitan life style.  They wanted walkable neighborhoods, other young people who shared their own culture, and—for people on the far side of many rights movements–diverse communities.

Moreover, a sharp fall in the violent crime rate made cities seem much safer than when their parents fled in previous decades.  Violent crimes—and not just homicide—has been falling since 1991.[3]  Studies have begun to reveal that people with higher incomes and more education are alert to changing crime rates.  They have shown a greater willingness than other groups to “gentrify” re-claimed areas.[4]

Apartment houses, starter houses, and many services thrived as a result.  City governments that benefitted from this population movement crowed over their present revival and contemplated their future prosperity.

Now, however, there are signs that this process may be cresting.[5]  Two factors may be at work.  First the number of “Millennials” moving into cities has fallen short of rose-tinted projections.  Second, the in-flow of younger “Millennials” is being off-set by the out-flow of older “Millennials”—those who are married with children and in their Thirties.  Many “Millennials” entered the job market during the “Great Recession.”  They’ve faced slow income growth and tight competition for affordable housing.  Many of them may have delayed starting families.  As they do, however, they may well hear the siren-song of more affordable housing and better schools in the suburbs.  Piling on to these forces, at least in some cities like San Francisco, are sharp rises in rents as the very well-off crowd out the only moderately well-off and everyone lower on the income ladder.[6]

It remains to be seen whether the urban renaissance of the early 21st Century will be sustained or will begin to retreat.  Sustaining the renaissance probably will require a complicated mix of school funding coupled with school reform, effective policing that keeps crime rates down without alienating people predisposed to see the police as a problem, and a thoughtful approach to keeping housing prices within reach of ordinary people.

[1] Conor Dougherty, “Cities May Be Starting to Run Out Of Millennials,” NYT, 24 January 2017.

[2] It seems foolish, if indelicate, to ignore the reality of “white flight” as an important factor.  See: https://waroftheworldblog.com/2015/05/21/white-flight-from-baltimore/

[3] See: https://waroftheworldblog.com/2015/01/16/legacies-of-the-violent-decades/

[4] Emily Badger, “To Predict Gentrification, Look for Falling Crime,” NYT, 6 January 2017.

[5] Still, nothing’s set in cement except Bo Weinberg.  See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Weinberg

[6] See: What Government Can Accomplish 1.  https://waroftheworldblog.com/2016/12/29/what-government-can-accomplish-1/

What government can accomplish 1.

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People want to live in San Francisco.[1]  However, the price of housing is really, really high.  So, people want to live in Oakland as a fallback.  Here the price of housing is merely really high.  Even so, Oakland rents have spiked by 70 percent over the last five years.  Oakland rents for a one bedroom apartment now average $2,500 a month, or $36,000 a year.  However, many of the potential tenants are “artsy”—musicians and artists–so they don’t have any money.  (I suppose they could live in North Richmond.[2]  However, North Richmond lacks panache, in addition to other deficiencies.[3])  How to square this circle?

The Fruitvale[4] section of Oakland provided an alternative solution.  Chor Nar Su Ng had bought an old warehouse in 1988; in 2013, she rented the building to Derick Almena.  Almena then sub-let space in the warehouse at a really low rate of $600 a head.  This became the now-gruesomely-named “Ghost Ship” warehouse/art space/residence.

On 2 December 2016, a fast-moving, smoky fire broke out during a concert and party at the “Ghost Ship.”  In the end, 36 people died.  Now, people want to know why.

The state of California requires that certain buildings be inspected on a regular basis, but most other buildings are inspected on local initiative.  Oakland’s Fire Department compiled a database of buildings to inspect in about 2000.  According to Oakland authorities, the Fire Department’s database had become outdated.  Oakland’s Fire Department had been without a Fire Marshall for three years before Teresa Deloach Reed won the position in Spring 2016.  Oakland’s Fire Department still is 62 people under complement, in spite of adequate funding.

Reed had a lot of ground to make up.  Neither the Oakland Fire Department nor the Building Department had inspected the warehouse that came to house the “Ghost Ship” in thirty years.  However, several near-by businesses said that they had been inspected on an annual basis.  The warehouse had been inhabited for several years, but the men in the firehouse 200 yards down the street had never noticed people—rather than trucks—going in and out of the “warehouse” at all hours.  From 2014 to 2016, someone filed five complaints about the “Ghost Ship” building and an adjoining lot with the Building Department.  The complainants alleged “unsafe conditions.”  So, why didn’t anyone inspect the “Ghost Ship”?  Well, building inspectors needed the approval of the owner to enter the building.  Apparently, no such approval was forthcoming, so no inspectors entered the building.   Finally, the concert, during which the fire broke out, was required to be registered with the city.  No one registered it.

It turns out that the “Ghost Ship” is but one of at least a dozen similar arrangements.  There are hints that the city gave them a conscious pass on safety regulations. According to the New York Times, “Oakland is trying to strike a difficult balance: keeping residents safe without making them homeless.”

It is worth asking if there are limits to what government regulation can achieve.   This isn’t a libertarian tirade against all regulation.  Regulations have to be enforced to be effective.  Enforcement depends on adequate human and financial resources.   Those aren’t always available.  Regulations can increase faster than do resources.  Then, social and political circumstances can change, as when Oakland became home to an arts community.

To some—uncertain—degree, personal judgment and responsibility are essential.

[1] Thomas Fuller et al, “A ‘Ghost Ship’ All but Unseen, Until 36 Died,” NYT, 23 December 2016.

[2] See: https://www.roadsnacks.net/these-are-the-10-worst-bay-area-suburbs/

[3] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Richmond,_California

[4] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruitvale,_Oakland,_California

American public opinion in 2016.

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Most Americans thought that the country is in trouble.[1]  Better than four fifths (82 percent) said that the people in Washington don’t care about ordinary people; more than three-quarters (77 percent) saw the country as deeply divided over core values; more than three-quarters (76 percent) disapproved of Congress; almost three-quarters (74 percent) believed that the country is headed in the wrong direction; better than two-thirds (70 percent) thought that the presidential election brought out the worst in people; two-thirds thought that the tax system favors the wealthy; almost two-thirds (63 percent) thought that race relations are poor and over half (55 percent) expect them to get worse; and half (50 percent) thought that America’s best days had passed.

All those are opinions.  Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but no one is entitled to his own facts.  Therefore, it has alarmed some people that many Trump voters believe things that are demonstrably not true.  Two-thirds of Trump voters believe that unemployment has increased during President Obama’s two terms; 60 percent believe that millions of illegal aliens voted I the election; and 40 percent believe that Trump won the popular vote.[2]

So, liberals are right to tout the achievement of the Obama administration in the area of employment?  Well, not exactly.  Almost all (94 percent) of the new 10 million jobs created from 2005 to 2015 are not traditional jobs.  They were either temporary jobs or contract-based jobs.[3]  In 2012, Hostess sold its snack-cake brands to a private equity firm.  Those brands then employed 8,000 people.  The investors paid $186 million for the troubled firm.  In 2016, the investors sold the revived firm for $2.3 billion.  At this point, Hostess employed only 1,200 people.[4]  Perhaps this explains some of the belief that the economic recovery is a fraud.

Under these circumstances, it should surprise no one that one-sixth (so, 16+ percent) of Americans are taking medication for depression, anxiety, or some other psychiatric ill.[5]  It would probably be higher if doctors weren’t so starchy.  Not everyone can get or thinks to ask for a script.  Two-thirds (67 percent) of Americans deal with stress by self-medicating with comfort foods.  Astonishingly for me, a mere 15 percent name pizza as their drug of choice.  In any event, two-thirds (66 percent) claim that they feel no guilt about bellying-up to the pasta bar.  As a result, in part, of consuming more in dark times, better than a third (36 percent) of Americans are merely overweight, while better than an additional quarter (28 percent) are actually obese.[6]  Must have been a lot of stress over the years.

Perhaps the solution to these problems would be to ignore the news.  In spite of their gloom over the state of the union, most Americans take a sunnier view of their own circumstances.  Over half (51 percent) think that the economy is improving; almost two-thirds (64 percent) are happy with their financial situation; better than three-quarters (77 percent) are happy with their jobs (or perhaps just happy to have one); and the vast majority (84 percent) are happy with their family and friends.  (Christmas should take care of that.)  So, apparently, it is awareness of the difficulties and deficiencies of others that inspires the pessimism about larger matters.  Empathy kills.

[1] “Poll Watch: The way we were in 2016,” The Week, 23 December/30 December 2016, p. 24.

[2] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 23 December/30 December 2016, p. 17.

[3] “The bottom line,” The Week, 23 December/30 December 2016, p. 46.

[4] “The bottom line,” The Week, 23 December/30 December 2016, p. 46.

[5] “Noted,” The Week, 23 December/30 December 2016, p. 16.

[6] “Poll Watch: The way we were in 2016,” The Week, 23 December/30 December 2016, p. 24.

Semi Automated Weapons.

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Machines want your job!  Well, they would if they could feel desire.[1]  I guess I really mean that your employer wants your job.  Not for him/her self, or even for some idiot nephew/niece.  S/he wants it for a machine.  Liable to get it too.  Only about 13 percent (1/8-1/7) of job losses are the result of foreign competition.  The rest are the result of automation cutting the need for workers.[2]

Thus, in 1962, about 530,000 people worked in the American steel industry.  In 2005, about 130,000 people worked in the American steel industry.  That’s a 75 percent drop in employment.  However, steel production did not fall.  New technology of steel production just cut the need for workers.  More recently, computer and electronics manufacturing shed jobs thanks to automation.

However, in spite of the headlines in the New York Times, foreign competition really has taken away a lot of jobs from Americans.  China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) led to the loss of 2-2.4 million American jobs since 2000.  Apparel and textiles—the most basic products of any early-industrializing country—have suffered heavy inroads from foreign competition.

It isn’t likely to stop with manufacturing jobs, nor is it isolated to the United States.  In January 2016, one of those “we’re here to help” groups, the World Economic Forum, predicted that 5 million jobs in the top 15 economies world-wide will be lost to computer systems and robots by the end of 2020.  Two-thirds of the lost jobs will be in “office and administrative jobs.”  Already existing technologies could allow machines to do 45 percent of current work activities.  [NB: I don’t think that means 45 percent of jobs, just 45 percent of the work that many people do.  It wouldn’t be difficult to sell this as an improvement for anyone whose work includes a lot of drudgery that prevents them from doing higher-order work.]  “Work that requires creativity, management of people, and caregiving is least at risk.”

What are some of the implications of these changes?  They are both social and political.

Workers cast aside as a result of Chinese competition have had a difficult time adjusting.  As a group, they have a higher unemployment rate and reduced real income for the rest of their lives.  Also, apparently, they feel an impulse to vote for Donald Trump so as to send a wake-up call to the two mainstream political parties.  Trump and others have pandered to this by blaming immigration, and out-sourcing, and foreign competition for huge job losses.

In the past, workers flowed from declining sectors to growing sectors.  This didn’t go seamlessly: new workers who saw their parents displaced chose other lines of work, but the displaced parents had a hard time getting jobs in the “new” economy of that era.  In the past, economic change created new forms of manual labor for those without a lot of education.  This time, however, new jobs for men without college degrees have not arrived to help those displaced by change.

Perhaps more importantly, it isn’t clear that displaced workers want to adapt to new conditions and there is a policy interest in some quarters that wants to facilitate not adapting.  Thus, a story in the NYT says of one displaced worker that      “Many of the new jobs at factories require technical skills, but he doesn’t own a computer and doesn’t want to.”  [NB: That is, he doesn’t want to adapt.]  The policy proposals of many labor economists would accommodate this resistance to adaptation: strengthen unions (so that they can obstruct employer efforts to modernize production until foreign competition does what automation was not allowed to do); create more public-sector jobs (regardless of need); raise the minimum-wage (although this seems to contribute to the search for more automation); and increase the earned-income tax credit (essentially a form of welfare for the unadaptive).  Basically pay people to be unadaptive.  That is, create a market for people who resist change.  “If you build it, they will come.”

[1] “The bottom line,” The Week, 29 January 2016, p. 32.

[2] Claire Cain Miller, “What’s Really Killing Jobs?  It’s Automation, Not China,” NYT, 22 December 2016.

Internal Migration.

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If you go, well, Donald Trump scored big in the areas hollowed out by Chinese competition against “old industry,” Hillary Clinton did OKish in the areas marked by “new industry,” then the problem facing Democrats is how to expand the ranks of those employed in those new industries.

In theory, the internet and high-tech industry should allow people to work from anywhere in the country.  Omaha, Nebraska should be as good—if not a better— place to live as Seattle, Washington.  This should reduce the need to migrate.  In fact, it hasn’t worked out that way.

In zee old days, earlier old industries got replaced by new industries.  Moreover, American workers moved in pursuit of job opportunities.  Before the Second World War, about 15 percent of Americans lived outside the census division in which they were born.  By 1970, 25 percent of Americans lived outside the census division in which they were born.  Thus, under-paid Southern farmworkers could get better-paying assembly-line jobs.  All you had to do was move from Fordyce, Arkansas to River Rouge, Michigan.  So, lots of geographic displacement.[1]  Then this trend began to slow down during the 1980s.

Instead, for decades now, workers with more education have been streaming toward the great cities on the coasts, while less educated workers have been left behind.  During the first decade of the 21st century (2001-2010), the migration rates for the college-educated were about 2 percent per year; the migration rates for those with only a high-school education were 1.2 percent per year; and the migration rates for those with less than a high-school diploma were 1 percent per year.

Regionally, the “Rust Belt” states (Iowa, Michigan, Ohio) and the Plains States have shown the greatest out-migration of college-educated people.  In contrast, California, Maryland, Texas, South Carolina, New York, and Massachusetts have witnessed the greatest in-migration.  So, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Baltimore, Washington, New York City, and Boston offer a certain cachet.  One puzzle here is that Michigan and Michigan State, Ohio State, and Iowa are all major research universities surrounded by “blue townships.”  The same goes for Stanford and Washington, but less so for Oregon. Brigham Young, .

Why do younger, better-educated people move?  One Michigan State economist suggested that “lots of talented young people all over the country are eager to see new sights…”  So, give them interesting cities, with lots of youth culture.  Whatever “youth culture” means.  It appears to mean talking to non-company people over coffee; lots of chances to co=operate.

[1] See: “The Grapes of Wrath” (dir. John Ford, 1940).  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M9fJMqhlZY

The illegals.

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Much in life and government is refined guess-work[1].  Thus, huge numbers of illegals entered the United States in the years before the financial crisis and “Great Recession” slammed the brakes on the economy.  Thus, in 2000, Border Patrol agents arrested 1.6 million people trying to cross the Mexican-American border.  An estimated 12 million entered in 2007.  Then the economic slow-down greatly reduced job opportunities in the United States, so illegal immigration slowed precipitously.  Only an estimated 188,000 entered in 2015.

Since the economic slow-down, illegal immigration has slowed.  Generally, estimates on the number of illegal immigrants currently in the United States converge around the figure of 11 million.  Of these, an estimated 8.1 million are working or looking for work.  Another estimate holds that two-thirds have been in the United States for at least 10 years.  Yet another estimate holds that 60 percent of the illegals are to be found in California, Texas, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York.  Basically, where there is work for lots of industrious, low-skill people.[2]  Farms, construction sites, and the hospitality-industrial complex provided a lot of work.

About 5.5 million are Mexicans; about 40 percent over-stayed a legally-obtained visa.

In 1992 the US had about 4,000 Border Patrol agents along the frontier with Mexico.  The rest made the dangerous crossing of the border.  A fence now blocks about one-third of the 1.954 miles-long border.  In 2010 the US had about 21,000 Border Patrol agents along the frontier with Mexico.

Proof of citizenship is required for Medicaid, food stamps, and welfare, so the illegals don’t qualify for these taxpayer-funded benefits.  On the other hand, the children of illegals do attend the public schools, and—if they themselves were born in the United States—as American citizens, they qualify for some medical care and welfare benefits.   The Heritage Foundation calculates that the illegals cost American taxpayers almost $15,000 a year.

The illegals have become a political football.  Democrats want them to be granted a “path to citizenship” without any further hindrance.  Oh, sure, there are the “criminal immigrants” who should not be granted citizenship.  About 7.5 (NOT 75 percent) percent of the illegals are criminals.  Virtually all of these—91 percent—were deported.  However, under the Obama administration, “your chances of getting deported are close to zero” if you have not committed a serious crime.  In contrast, Republicans demand a “securing of the border: before any legalization occurs.

[1] “The illegal immigrant population,” The Week, 30 September 2016, p.11.

[2] Personally, I think that trying to run this broke-ass country without illegals is just like trying to run it without fat black ladies.  It can’t be done.  As the witchy thug girl says to Marcus in “About a Boy,”  “Are you taking a piss?  ‘Cause if you are, your gunna get a slap.”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lssgt-nJ2sY

I wish I had posted this.

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Back in summer and early Fall 2016, I began assembling reading notes for a piece on the election.  Then work-blind-sided me.  See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpNzlh5ALRA  So, here’s what the evidence showed then.  Could have made me look like a prophet.

 

“Well behaved women seldom make history.”—Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.  Does the same thing go for men?  Perhaps this is one way on understanding Donald Trump’s candidacy.

While fellow Republican primary candidates and Democrats are gleefully beating the stuffing out of “the Donald” for his comments on the “Department of Environmental,” it’s worth reflecting on a comment by Albert Einstein: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

 

While, in the 2008 Democratic primary, the white working class generally supported Hillary Clinton, in late July 2016, this group overwhelmingly favored Donald Trump.[1]  Six different public opinion polls in July 2016 showed Trump holding a 58 to 30 percent lead over Clinton among whites without a BA.  This average is on the low end of some polls.  It’s difficult to tell which polls are the most accurate.

For at least the last decade, the general line among Democratic strategists has been that the country is changing in ways that mean the white working class can be disregarded.  It should be possible to build a majority coalition from highly-educated whites, African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and Hispanic-Mexicans.[2]  However, whatever America may be in the future, the American future doesn’t get to vote in November 2016.  Today gets to vote and today, almost half of voters are whites without a college BA.

President Obama and Democratic leaders opted not to seek an adequate stimulus bill in the first two years of his administration.  Those were years when the Democrats controlled the House and Senate as well as the White House.  They pushed through Congress both the Affordable Care Act and a modest stimulus bill.  They could have fought for more stimulus than they did.  All of the president’s subsequent “job-creation” proposals were “revenue neutral.”  That is, he rejected Keynesian deficit spending in favor of trying to favor Democratic constituencies.  Democratic indifference to the interests of the white working class isn’t new.  Democrats lost both the South and the working class to Republicans over cultural issues (rather than race).  Gun control, government administrative regulation of the economy, secular sharia’s opposition to public religion, and—most recently—gay rights have all estranged many traditionally Democratic voters from the Democratic Party.

 

Of people who are known to have committed journalism and who also have donated to presidential campaigns this year, 96 percent donated to the campaign of Hillary Clinton.[3]  As a result, the sustained and bitter campaign by mainstream newspapers like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal (my chief sources of information in addition to the British Broadcasting Corporation) against Trump can heat up hostility to him among people who already have decided to vote against him.  However, the people most inclined to vote for Trump probably don’t read either the NYT or the WSJ.  Editorial lightning bolts launched against the Orange-American candidate aren’t likely to make much of a dent.  Similarly, between June and late October 2016, about 80 percent of the television ads in support of a presidential candidate supported Hilary Clinton.  A mere 18 percent supported Trump.[4]

 

The American middle class is much reduced in recent years.[5]  Today (2016) the middle class accounts for almost a third (32 percent) of the population and just over a quarter (25.8 percent) of the national income.  Why is that?  Partly because a lot of Americans climbed out of the “middle” middle class into the “upper middle class.”  What is “upper middle class”?  Today, the middle class accounts for almost one-third (32 percent) of the population and 25.8 percent of the nation’s income.  Well, part of it got richer over the last 40 years.  In 1979, 13 percent of the population earned between $100K and $350K; in 2014, 30 percent of the population earned between $100K and $350K.[6]

What about those who did not climb?  According to a now-popular narrative, the white elite—Republican and Democrat alike–have abandoned the white working class.[7]  They have done so by embracing free trade abroad and tariffs (affirmative action) at home.  Five million American manufacturing jobs have gone down the drain in the last fifteen years, and the growth of GDP has averaged 3 percent for the last ten years.[8]  Republican leaders, says NobelPrize-winning economist Krugman, just don’t want to admit that their simplified view of free-market capitalism doesn’t match with reality.  So, the white working class isn’t the only one engaged in self-destructive behavior.  The resentment of the white working class is what is driving the rise of Donald Trump.  (One might almost see “Trumpism” as AA barging into politics.)  This is an interpretation that is widely accepted.

However, commentators weren’t willing to leave well enough alone.  Substance abuse (what used to be called boozing and baking your head) and suicide have contributed to a falling life expectancy for the white working class.  What has happened to black Americans for decades is now happening to the white working class, according to Paul Krugman in the New York Times.  Moreover, these voters have provided much of the electoral support for the Republican Party in recent decades.  Kevin Williamson wrote a scalding “pull up your socks” piece in The National Review.  Economic change is normal; you need to adapt to it; when the white working class got tossed on the scrap heap of the “Rust Belt,” they should have both moved and re-tooled; but they settled for self-destruction through drugs and self-pity.  There’s something to be said for this view.  It’s not like we’ve been watching scenes from “The Grapes of Wrath” (dir. John Ford, 1939) on the devil-box for the last few decades.

 

Then there’s immigration.  Better than one in eight (13 percent) of the people living in the United States is an immigrant.  Almost one in six (16 percent) of the people in the work force is an immigrant.  That should be good for the /democrats, right?  However, more than one in four (28 percent) of the small business owners are immigrants.[9]  Immigrants started over half of the U.S. “start-ups” that are now valued at a billion dollars or more.  The top 44 immigrant “start-ups” created more than 750 jobs per company.[10]  Lots of those immigrants are not Hispanic-Mexicans.  That’s probably bad news for the Democratic Party, with its anti-business, pro-regulation stance.  Back in 2013, almost two-thirds (63 percent) of Americans favored giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.  Only 15 percent favored deporting all illegal immigrants.[11]  Something changed.

[1] So, does that mean that HRC was the Donald Trump of 2008?

[2] If only the approximately 12 million of the latter can be provided with a way to vote.  Aye, there’s the rub.

[3] “Noted,” The Week, 28 October 2016, p. 18.

[4] “Noted,” The Week, 4 November 2016, p. 16.

[5] “The bottom line,” The Week, 1-8 July 2016, p.36.

[6] “The bottom line,” The Week, 1-8 July 2016, p. 36.

[7] “The white working class: who’s to blame for its misery?” The Week, 1 April 2016, p. 16.

[8] One definition for a recession is growth of 3 percent.

[9] “The bottom line,” The Week, 30 January 2015, p. 34.

[10] “Noted,” The Week, 1 April 2016, p. 16.

[11] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 6 December 2013, 17.