Sunday, March 06, 2016

Stockman Hates Trump But Cheers Him On

David Stockman, one of the Directors of the Office of Management and Budget under Reagan, is one of those economists who can get me to change my mind by the force of his argument. Earlier this week Maggie's linked to Stockman's essay that Romney was a job-destroyer, not job-creator.  I recommend starting with his The Donald, The Good And Bad Of It, because Trump is on everyone's mind at the moment.
America will need the Almighty’s unstinting favor if Donald Trump becomes our 45th President. Still, blessed be The Donald for running a demolition derby in the Republican primaries.
There is no hope for the future of capitalist prosperity and a free society at home and world peace abroad unless the Republican Party is destroyed. And, by golly, Trump may well accomplish the deed.
If you are not familiar with Stockman, he is from the let's-try-the-free-market-just-once school of thought that believes Bush 43 was a crony capitalist, which is long-term just as destructive to an economy as socialism. He is withering, and persuasive, in how much damage the Democrats are doing to the economy as well.  He is strongly isolationist, free-trade, and consumption tax driven. (The latter because with only half of adults working, it makes more sense to tax consumption than production.)

He believes a correction, perhaps even a recession is coming as the phony accounting of both government agencies and large corporations gets exposed - by reality, not honesty.  However, he does not believe in a collapse or imminent depression.

2 comments:

  1. I notice he refers to a 10% consumption tax. If the budget is 3.8 and the GDP is 17.9T$, that's 21% of consumption. I gather he proposes to slash the budget in half.

    BTW, I hope he doesn't mean a VAT--that's a recipe for cronyism and surreptitiously cranking taxes higher and higher each year with "Who, me?" adjustments.

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  2. "from the let's-try-the-free-market-just-once school of thought that believes Bush 43 was a crony capitalist"--me, too, and I can easily get behind a consumption tax.

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