Posted on 04/08/2025 2:02:24 AM PDT by Libloather
As President Trump rolls out his economic program, there’s one question I haven’t seen asked much: What if it works?
Trump’s supporters are rooting for its success. His opponents, out of a mixture of envy and self-interest, hope it craters.
But what would actually happen if Trump achieves his aims?
The White House hasn’t released a single integrated document spelling out its economic plan. But based on the moves made so far, and comments from Trump’s top economic aides, the outlines of his goals are coming clear.
First, he’s looking to increase wages for working-class Americans, the core basis — though not, as we’ll see, the only one — for his tariff package.
Trump wants to encourage businesses to move manufacturing to the United States, and we have in fact seen quite a few announcements of major new investments since his tariff plans were unveiled.
More than 70 countries have already approached the White House to talk about mutual tariff-reduction deals, and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu zipped to Washington Monday to negotiate one in person.
Rolling back illegal immigration will also help boost working-class wages. People claim illegal aliens “do the jobs Americans won’t do,” but it’s more accurate to say they “do the jobs Americans won’t do at absurdly low wages.”
Progressives once appreciated this basic fact.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Tough love is love too...
This is going to sting a little but it will heal faster.
That's what the stock market is telling us. Good change is coming but the markets can't visualize what the financial and business world will look like after the dust settles.
Bandaid needed to ripped off.
Something I have claimed for decades now is that the whole problem is a credit based economy. It is all an illusion and not real. And the only way to fix this is to crash it and start over with real bricks and mortar. The best thing that could happen in the long term is to have a serious depression and crash it. The credit based economy and banking needs to end or it will never get fixed. I’m all in for a total crash, it will make money REAL again.
The issue with eliminating credit is that you remove the mechanism for economic progress—in other words, no growth.
Without lending, there’s no multiplier effect—just a fixed supply of money slowly changing hands. Credit allows capital to flow to its most productive use, driving growth, innovation, and rising living standards.
As a retired investment banker, I’ve seen firsthand how well the credit system works when it’s operating properly. Yes, there are occasional blowups—like the subprime mortgage crisis—but those are the exceptions, not the rule.
Credit isn’t the problem; the misuse of it is. The goal shouldn’t be to burn the system down, but to manage it responsibly.
Without a functioning credit system, we’d be stuck in a stagnant, low-opportunity economy.
Think of lending as renting capital. Imagine a farmer with expensive equipment that sits idle for most of the year. Instead of letting it rust, he rents it out to another farmer who puts it to good use and pays for the privilege.
That’s what credit markets do. When people or institutions have excess capital—savings they don’t need right now—they don’t just let it sit idle. They “rent” it out through loans or bonds. The borrower uses it to build, expand, or invest, and pays interest—just like rent.
This system keeps money productive rather than stagnant. It connects savers with builders, and both sides benefit. That’s the real engine of economic growth—not just consumption, but smart allocation of resources through credit.
Plus Banks exist to turn small short term money into big long term money.
is the assumption that updating in new factories including more automation etc will offset the greater expense of American labor? i’d like an interview with Tim Cook to know how he intends to balance costs to keep Apple products competitive. somehow the return of jobs and supply chain sources and manufacturing has to be engineered without price increases to the consumer.
“Credit isn’t the problem; the misuse of it is.”
Exactly right. But it is rampant and an addiction. And the only way to fix this is with an intervention. It needs to hurt. It needs to become rough, it needs to bring culture and society back into reality. It needs to wake folks up to the fact money does not just grow on trees, it has to be earned as a Meritocracy.
“Without lending, there’s no multiplier effect—just a fixed supply of money slowly changing hands.”
Which is good. It forces practicality and priorities. If you can’t afford it then you really do not need it. Earn and save up the money for purchases. Will it hit living standards? You bet... But these “living standards” on credit are just an illusion anyhow, you don’t really own it until it is paid off, and you paid three times more than what it was worth. It is false wealth and lifestyle. Being forced to live within means would make folks actually appreciate the dollar and respect the value of the dollar. And it will force the credit/banking industry to rethink their policies or go under.
Yep.
People don’t realize that banking (i.e., lending) has been around since the invention of fire (and probably even before that). 😉
As boring as it sounds, cuneiform—the oldest writing system ever discovered—wasn’t used for poetry. It was used to record IOUs.
As a teenager, I was taught to never borrow money unless you absolutely have to. I only borrowed to buy a couple of houses and even then paid off the mortgages ASAP. I've never borrowed to buy a car.
“Plus Banks exist to turn small short term money into big long term money.”
Banks exist to make 20k on top of that 10k they loaned you. The only winner there is the bank...
No, in a perfect world I’d get 3% real interest from parking my idle ca$h at the Bank.
I have had to take predisone before. I did not like it. It caused me to have cramps, I didnt sleep well, but it got me over bronchitis.
Seems to me that tariffs could be about the same for our trade deficit.
Banking is a highly competitive industry.
If a bank tries to charge too much, customers will go elsewhere. Other banks will undercut them to win the business. Interest rates aren’t arbitrary—they’re shaped by competition, risk, and market forces. If banks were truly gouging people, new lenders would step in to offer better deals.
That is how I have lived too. The only credit I have ever taken was for land. And all my businesses I built from scratch one dollar at a time invested back into it to build it. Never took credit the whole time I was in business. So it CAN be done without credit. But... The interest is fair and productive on land and makes sense. It is not compounded daily giving a bank a 20k profit over the 10k they loaned you. You are paying interest on interest.
So more wealth is actually acquired if one saves and then buys because you do not pay three times what it is worth. And it is paid off sooner. That extra 20k you did not pay can be put to work as personal capital and cash flow. And cash flow is the name of the game...
“Interest rates aren’t arbitrary—they’re shaped by competition, risk, and market forces. If banks were truly gouging people, new lenders would step in to offer better deals.”
Thing is the whole industry needs an interest policy reset. And that is not going to happen until they are ALL at risk of crashing as a whole industry.
What needs to change?
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