The US had to borrow massively abroad: the most recent data show foreign borrowing at nearly $500 billion a year, with an increase of more than 10% in America’s net indebtedness position in one year alone.
5. Trump’s trade wars have not reduced the US trade deficit, which was one-quarter higher in 2018 than it was in 2016.
6. Despite Trump’s promises to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US, the increase in manufacturing employment is still lower than it was under Barack Obama, once the post-2008 recovery set in.
Manufacturing employment is still markedly below its pre-crisis level.
The employment rate for working-age males and females has increased less than during the Obama recovery, and is still significantly below that of other developed countries.
The pace of job creation is also markedly slower than it was under Obama.
Many adult Americans are not counted as 'unemployed', even though they are unemployed.
7. Judging by GDP, the Trump economy falls short.
Last quarter’s growth was just 2.1%, far less than the 4%, 5%, or even 6% Trump promised to deliver, and even less than the 2.4% average of Obama’s second term.
One estimate shows that the national debt could grow to $30 trillion in a decade.
3.Spend little on infrastructure. Trump is offering no new funds for bridges, railways, roads and tunnels.
Amtrak (rail) funding is to be cut in half.
When it comes to spending on infrastructure, local governments will bear the majority of costs. This means Americans paying higher local taxes, fees and tolls.
4.Cut help for ordinary Americans. Trump will cut $1.7 trillion from Medicare and other entitlements, despite campaign promises.
Trump will cut the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) budget by about 34 percent.
"Our findings imply that as technology races ahead, low-skilled workers will move to tasks that are not susceptible to computerisation - i.e., tasks that required creative and social intelligence."
"For workers to win the race, however, they will have to acquire creative and social skills."
The US education system should turn out more entertainers, artists, news reporters, lawyers...
As the US population ages, it does not need lots of immigrants to do the jobs that robots can do.
Trump seems to have no clear answer to the problem of robots.
Both Clinton and Trump have to face the fact that one of the USA's main economic problems is the neglect of transport and other infrastructure, particularly in the poorer parts of the nation.
Six of the ten richest counties in America are in Virginia and Maryland, clustered around the Washington, D.C., metro area.
Six of the ten poorest counties in America are in Mississippi or Kentucky.
North Carolina will not prosper unless it has brilliant road and rail links to Washington and elsewhere.
Vermont lacks a major international airport.
70% of roads in some states are in poor or mediocre condition.
Poor states such Mississippi and Kentucky need big spending on roads, rail, schools and other infrastructure.
Trump's Republicans are opposed to higher taxes, so how is infrastructure to be improved?
Both Clinton and Trump have to face the fact that one of the USA's main economic problems is inequality.
Warren Buffett says: "I was born in 1930. There's now six times as much real output per capita in the United States than there was, in real terms - six times."
"If you'd told my parents that under these circumstances, there would be millions and millions of people living in poverty, they would have said it was impossible."
Military Spending.
Both Clinton and Trump have to face the fact that one of the USA's main economic problems is spending too much money on the military.
Oxford Economics has found that if fully implemented, Trump's economic, tax and immigration policies would cost 4 million U.S. jobs, weigh down global growth and U.S. consumer spending, and could spark a trade war with other nations.
David Stevenson writes that "Trump will be an utter disaster for investors...
"After talking to strategists and macro hedge fund types my guesstimate is that a 15 to 20 per cent correction for US and UK stock markets could be on the cards following a Trump victory."
"Nigel Farage was overheard telling friends at the party's conference in Bournemouth last week: 'I would say at worst Trump is a boor,' before adding with a grin, 'actually he's a boor at best too!'"
3. Donald Trump told voters in Indiana that the US could not continue "to allow China to rape our country". According to former UK cabinet minister John Redwood, Donald Trump is in favour of free trade.
4. Trump wants free trade agreements that allow US companies to take over the world.
Trump likes the fact that the United States records trade surpluses with, for example, Hong Kong, Netherlands and Australia.
Trump does not like the fact that the USA has a trade deficit with China.
5. A trade deficit can mean that a nation's wealthy citizens are so wealthy that they can afford to buy whatever good things that other nations have to offer.
Trump can buy whisky from the UK, perfumes from France, gems from India and toys from China.
The United States exports more than any country in the world, except China.
The USA's trade deficit is relatively small by world standards.
6. What about the The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement, and the Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement?
These will help certain big US businesses. But, some people will get hurt.
7. Trump says he wants more jobs for Americans.
Many jobs that have been lost "because of decreasing consumer demand in the U.S. and elsewhere, largely as a result of economic downturns like the 2008 crisis.
(The right wing elite have grabbed most of the money)
"That demand loss particularly impacted areas like cars, white goods, machine tools, and lots of other things that U.S. businesses and consumers alike tend to buy at home.
"Americans make 73% of what they buy here at home."
9. Donald Trump promises to force Apple Inc. to manufacture in the United States.
If Apple makes its stuff in the USA, then either it pays wages as low as those in China, or it finds it cannot compete with Samsung and other rivals.
If US firms are going to pay lower wages, that does not help the retail industry.
An Apple video iPod assembled in China sells for roughly $300 in the United States.
Very little of that $300 goes to the Chinese firms. "The Chinese get only about six bucksworth of value from the item’s assembly and shipment. Meanwhile, the U.S.-based Apple and its affiliates get hundreds of dollars from an iPhone’s final U.S. sale (for things like design, marketing, and even some manufacturing)."
10. Modern manufactured goods, such as Boeing 787s, are usually made from components from different parts of the world.
Boeing's 787, has a fuselage made in Italy, engines made in the United Kingdom, passenger doors made in France, cargo doors made in Sweden, landing gear doors made in Canada and wing tips made in South Korea.
Trump could force Boeing to have all the parts made in the USA.
11. But such a policy of 'Protectionism' has its risks.
In 1930, the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act raised U.S. tariffs on imported goods to record levels.[2]
Most economists see the Act, and the retaliatory tariffs by America's trading partners, as responsible for reducing American exports and imports by more than half.[4]
So, Trump has to be careful that he does not bring about a Great Depression.
12. Yes, too many jobs have been offshored, but Trump may not realise how complicated matters are.
There are good reasons why Coca Cola has bottling plants all around the world.
170 top economists have endorsed Bernie Sanders' platform regarding Wall Street, signing a letter stating:
"The Senator is correct that the biggest banks must be broken up and that a new 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act, separating investment from commercial banking, must be enacted."
16. "Thomas Piketty, perhaps the most influential economic thinker of the left in the Western world, is impressed by the rise of Sen. Bernie Sanders...
"Piketty ... sees Sanders ....leading the United States toward a possible return to the nation's pioneering 20th century experiments with extremely progressive taxation and social spending...
"Piketty points to the fact that, prior to Reagan, 20th century fiscal policy in the U.S. was aggressive in taxing the wealthy - much more so than the European counterparts...
"From 1930 to 1980 ... the rate for the highest U.S. income (over $1 million per year) was on average 82%...
"Those rates ... played a tremendous role in creating social equality and helped provide crucial government revenue for robust social programs..."
"Reagan ... lowered the rate for the highest incomes to 28%...
"'Sanders' success today shows that much of America is tired of rising inequality and these so-called political changes, and intends to revive both a progressive agenda and the American tradition of egalitarianism,' Piketty wrote.
"In the USA, the majority of those who receive some form of public assistance (medicaid or foodstamps) have jobs ... but they earn so little that they cannot make ends meet."
Donald Trump wants to keep wages down, while reducing taxes on the rich, and spending more on the military.
Trump has a home in in Manhattan "designed to evoke the Palace of Versailles ...
"It boasts a cavernous hall of mirrors, acres of marble set off by ‘24-carat gold and diamond accents’, and ceilings hand-painted with cherubs and scenes from Greek myths."
Jesus loves rich guys?
"Trump also owns Seven Springs, a huge mansion outside New York in the upmarket hamlet of Bedford, which boasts 60 rooms, two servants’ wings, 15 bedrooms, three swimming pools and 230 acres of land.
"There’s another mansion in rural Virginia, a huge house on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and a vast waterside pile at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida."
"Numerous reports released during the first two months of 2016 document the staggering dimensions of the social crisis facing working people in the United States.
"A majority of Americans have too little savings to pay for an emergency expense of $1,000. One in four US adults is burdened by debts caused by medical expenses.
Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are wealthy members of The Establishment.
Donald trump is "like every other corporate tyrant in that his solution to most things follows the logic of Stalin: no person, no problem. You're fired!
"Except as president he'd have other people-removing options, all of which he likes: torture, mass deportations, the banning of 23 percent of the Earth's population from entering the United States, etc.
"Donald Trump is no ordinary con man. He's way above average."
