XPost: alt.politics, us.politics, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   From: vonmisesr@trumpite.ru   
      
   Trump, the Anti-Business President   
      
      
   Donald Trump is a perpetual danger to every company in America.   
   Steve Chapman | April 5, 2018   
      
      
      
   White House economist Peter Navarro, whose boss claimed credit   
   when the stock market was rising, now thinks it should be ignored.   
   After Monday's plunge, he said, "The market is reacting in a way   
   which does not comport with the ... unbelievable strength in   
   President Trump's economy." Rest easy, Navarro advised. "The   
   economy is as strong as an ox."   
      
   He should hope so, because its burdens are growing. Donald Trump's   
   trade salvos against China moved Beijing to slap new tariffs on   
   U.S. products. He has threatened to end NAFTA, which would wreck   
   the supply chains of U.S. manufacturers and deprive farmers of   
   vital markets. He's itching for a full-scale trade war, and he's   
   likely to get it.   
      
   The tycoon who raised high hopes in the corporate sector has   
   revealed a powerful anti-business streak. Get on his bad side and   
   you may kiss your profits goodbye. He's a perpetual danger to   
   every company in America.   
      
   Trump's Justice Department filed an antitrust suit to stop a   
   merger of AT&T and Time Warner—owner of CNN, a Trump punching   
   bag—surprising experts, most of whom see no threat to competition   
   in the deal. He urges higher postal rates for Amazon because it   
   has the same owner as The Washington Post, whose coverage often   
   infuriates him.   
      
   The administration's effort to block travel from several   
   predominantly Muslim countries brought a lawsuit from some 160   
   tech firms warning it would impose "substantial harm on U.S.   
   companies, their employees, and the entire economy." His crackdown   
   on undocumented immigrants disrupts agriculture because, as the   
   American Farm Bureau Federation notes, "50-70 percent of farm   
   laborers in the country today are unauthorized."   
      
   Trump threatened retribution against Ford and General Motors to   
   discourage production in Mexico. When Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier   
   resigned from Trump's manufacturing council to protest his   
   comments on Charlottesville, the president took to Twitter to   
   demand that he "LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!"   
      
   Republicans regularly depicted Barack Obama as a socialist. In   
   2010, the head of the Business Roundtable, an organization of   
   corporate CEOs, accused him of "doing long-term damage to growth"   
   by creating "an increasingly hostile environment for investment   
   and job creation."   
      
   Hostile? Obama never denounced an American company with anything   
   close to the menace Trump routinely exhibits. Business somehow   
   prospered during his presidency. Corporate profits grew by 57   
   percent, and the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index rose by 166   
   percent.   
      
   Obama drew criticism for imposing more regulations on business,   
   boosting the top income tax rate, overhauling health insurance,   
   and running big budget deficits. These changes raised doubts about   
   the future that weighed on the economy.   
      
   Economists Steven Davis (University of Chicago), Scott Baker   
   (Northwestern), and Nicholas Bloom (Stanford) attributed weak   
   growth and job creation to "extreme uncertainty" that Obama helped   
   to create through "harmful rhetorical attacks on business and   
   'millionaires,' failure to tackle entitlement reforms and fiscal   
   imbalances, and political brinkmanship."   
      
   Hmm. Does that sound like anyone else? Trump has also attacked   
   businesses, failed to curb entitlements, and, through tax cuts and   
   spending bills, created ever-growing fiscal imbalances.   
      
   According to the index these economists devised, economic policy   
   uncertainty was greater in Trump's first 13 months than in the   
   same period under Obama—and bigger than the average for all of   
   Obama's tenure. And things are only getting worse.   
      
   Obama took the view that the private economy needed extensive   
   regulation to avert assorted perceived harms, which didn't make   
   him popular among capitalists. But he didn't make a habit of   
   bullying corporations to make particular business decisions or   
   demonizing executives who disagreed with him. Trump's idea of a   
   good economy is one in which every company does his   
   bidding—because they are all afraid not to.   
      
   His unpredictability breeds anxiety, not confidence. He often sows   
   confusion that makes bad policies even worse.   
      
   Davis cites the steel and aluminum tariffs, which Trump first said   
   would apply to all countries, then revised to exempt Canada and   
   Mexico, and then modified to spare several other countries—but   
   only till May 1, when all bets are off. The haphazard approach   
   "causes businesses to step back and wait," says Davis, "and   
   creates a free-for-all among lobbyists, which creates its own   
   uncertainty."   
      
   Trump was supposed to understand the needs of American businesses.   
   But he thinks their main function is to serve his needs. Navarro   
   has a point in comparing the economy to an ox, because the   
   president is treating it like a beast of burden.   
      
   Steve Chapman is a columnist and editorial writer for the Chicago   
   Tribune.   
      
      
   http://reason.com/archives/2018/04/05/trump-the-anti-business-   
   president   
      
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