Trump's economic strategy

If by some chance you hear Trump take credit for reducing the federal deficit, it will be due to the revenue from his tariffs. Be sure to give him credit, also, for the revenue flowing out of the private sector, and for the economic slowdown that follows.

If the tariff revenue is anywhere near enough to make a dent in the deficit, the resulting slowdown will give new meaning to the word severe. 

His plan appears to be to shift the deficit burden onto the private sector. Trump seems to think that by calling for lower interest rates, he will make this affordable. 

It will not work. The private sector is already too deep in debt. That's why we had the financial crisis of 2008. It took ten years of recovery, then, before we saw even a hint of a decent economy. I predicted that improvement, but it was far weaker than I expected.

Adding to the debt of the private sector is not a viable plan. The outcome will be the Trump Depression.

The Wrongologist quotes Joseph Heller

The Wrongologist quotes Joseph Heller:

“You know, that might be the answer – to act boastfully about something we ought to be ashamed of. That’s a trick that never seems to fail.”

There's a lot of it around these days, too.

 

Two links that are definitely worth your time:

• The Wrongologist
  
  
• Wisdomly's 86 Notable Quotes By Joseph Heller
   

Is it right to call such results "scientific investigation"?

Cooley and LeRoy (1981) have argued that a close correspondence tends to exist between the advocacy of a theory and the results of scientific investigation.

From "The Monetary-Fiscal Policy Debate and the Andersen-Jordan Equation"
by Dallas S. Batten and Daniel L. Thornton (1986).

Tell it to Trump

Alan Greenspan, in a 1998 speech, said:

Certainly, the degree of confidence that future outcomes are perceivable and projectable, and hence valued, depends in large part on the underlying political stability of any country with a market-oriented economy. Unless market participants are assured that their future commitments and contracts are protected by a rule of law, such commitments will not be made; productive efforts will be focused to address only the immediate short-term imperatives of survival; and efforts to build an infrastructure to provide for future needs will be stunted.

Top Wealthholders

From "Table 13.21-- TOP WEALTHHOLDERS: 1962 TO 1989":

Top wealthholders are defined as persons with a gross estate in excess of specified amounts, rising from $60,000 in 1962 to $600,000 in 1989.

From "Top 12 States for Wealthy Taxpayers, as Defined by the IRS":

The Internal Revenue Service defines wealthy individuals using the estate tax threshold, calling this group "top wealthholders." In 2019, the most recent year for which data is available, the threshold was $11.4 million.

And then there is "The Share of Top Wealth-Holders in Personal Wealth, 1922-56":

As defined in the text, a "top wealth-holder"is a living person with more wealth than the estate tax exemption level.

They look at top wealthholders as a fraction of the total population, and their share of the total wealth, and that sort of thing. But I don't find a list of estate tax exemption levels by date.

They also say data after 1948 is not comparable with earlier data because the marital deduction was introduced that year.

I don't understand Trump's focus on cutting federal employment

This Graph at FRED: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1KqWl

How it was in 1962

"Congressional costs since 1953 have risen six times as fast as the rest of the federal budget"

Worth Bingham