Trump SBA Director Lies About Impact of Steel Tariffs and Automation
By Cory Allen Heidelberger on 2018-12-02
Fake-wrestling promoter and Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon came to South Dakota this week to tell some Trumpy lies:
SBA chief Linda McMahon faces facts… not!
Her visit to DeGeest Steel Works comes as nationwide tariff concerns and trade tensions weigh on small businesses. She says that President Trump is aware of these concerns, but she believes the tit-for-tat tariffs will pay off for Americans in the long run.
“While they’ve experienced some issues, you know, a little bit of increase in price, margins are tough a little bit, but they’re kind of willing to be in it for the long haul because they know the end of the negotiations is going to be so beneficial,” said McMahon [Allison Royal, “U.S. Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon Makes Inaugural Visit to South Dakota,” KDLT TV, 2018.11.29].
Evidently Linda McMahon has had trouble transitioning from the fact-free world of professional wrestling to the practical world of small business. But a willingness to lie to our faces makes her perfect for the Trump Administration.
Losing jobs and not losing jobs seems to be a matter of perspective — where one sits on the economic food chain. Where McMahon and President Trump sit, no jobs (at their level) have been lost. CEO’s and upper management survive if not thrive at the top of the food chain because they get the most macro-look at an economy; they also make the decisions that protect themselves at the expense of workers. However, for the actual men and women doing the jobs that make the products that put that money in upper management’s pockets, those jobs do go away with automation (or tariffs, or economic slowdowns or any other condition that affects production but can be worked out by the sales step in the process). From the top, it looks like these displaced workers can scurry to fill other job openings, so observers tend to take a no-net-loss view.
This was my criticism of President Clinton’s workforce modernization initiatives: the training, relocation, and other life changes required for re-placing a job don’t seem to be a consideration for those at the top.
The demise of this nation is the devaluation of its workforce.
Loren
2018-12-02 10:47
If you have soy beans for sale or need to purchase some steel for your production, remember what your leader has told you.
“Just remember, what you are seeing and what you are reading is NOT what is happening.”
DJT 24 Jul 2018
Enjoy
happy camper
2018-12-02 10:59
Important to remember why we have Trump: Progressive ideologues would not get behind Hillary till it was too late. Your uncompromising fault!!!
jerry
2018-12-02 11:38
Apparently you do not follow the Mueller news there camper. Your boy got into the high chair with the great assistance of Russian interference. Hillary actually won by 3,000,000 votes. Now that IS something important to remember.
o
2018-12-02 11:41
happy camper: agreed. Progressives were not able to force the Democrat party to the fringe left the way the Tea Party and nationalists were able to hold the Republican party hostage to push to the fringe right.
mike from iowa
2018-12-02 14:46
Wonder how much a steel cage for a cage match has increased for fake pro rasslin?
O makes a good point about the blind spot the privileged have for the challenges displaced workers face in winning back a place in the modern workforce. Workers living paycheck to paycheck can’t afford to take a year off for a new training program.
I work in printing, 50% of our business is in cold-set web printing (groundwood and newsprint paper, most comes from Canada) before the tariff resolution with Canada we were looking at a 40-60% increase in paper prices. We dodged a bullet. If a resolution would not have occurred we would have easily lost 40-50% of our business.
I can tell you from experiencing that, that the farmers need to pressure Washington hard on a trade resolution with China. If not, the economy will drop out in South Dakota and it will affect us all, and it will be very, very, very bad.
Rorschach
2018-12-02 17:37
Well said in your first post, O. Those who are removed from the struggle of living from paycheck to paycheck don’t understand the struggle.
Some – like President Trump – have never known anyone in their own family or circle of friends who has ever had to worry about the landslide of problems that would be triggered if even just one paycheck failed to arrive. The rent, mortgage or car payment would fall behind. There might not be money for groceries. The utilities might be shut off. Might have to put off a visit to the doctor or dentist, etc.
This is what made President Clinton and President Obama better than Presidents Bush, Bush and Trump. They know the struggle because they lived it.
Debbo
2018-12-02 23:29
Wikipedia says McMahon was an only child, military brat, athletic. Family was conservative Baptist. After she married Vince McMahon–
“Financially, the couple fared poorly for several years, and in 1976, while pregnant with Stephanie, McMahon and her husband filed for bankruptcy. They briefly received food stamps, until her husband took on a 90-hour-a-week job at a quarry.”
So she didn’t grow up with money and had some hardships early in her married life. She knows what it’s like on the worker end. That’s leaves at least a couple options for her comments:
1. She’s got hers so she doesn’t care about the labor force any more.
2. She’s been very adept at learning to emulate Lying Lunatic.
For far too long, America’s wealthy has been hoarding the country’s wealth. They have grown complacent, in life and business, letting their money work for them, and have lost sight of what ‘work’ actually even is.
Working man needs to understand that the wealthy are mostly whiny ignorant a-holes.
Interesting link, John… but worth noting that the recessions of 1991 and 2001 took place under mixed government.
I do agree that the Democratic House will save us from numerous harms. But I wonder: would we have been better off winning the Senate rather than the House so we could stop Trump’s worse nominees?
Losing jobs and not losing jobs seems to be a matter of perspective — where one sits on the economic food chain. Where McMahon and President Trump sit, no jobs (at their level) have been lost. CEO’s and upper management survive if not thrive at the top of the food chain because they get the most macro-look at an economy; they also make the decisions that protect themselves at the expense of workers. However, for the actual men and women doing the jobs that make the products that put that money in upper management’s pockets, those jobs do go away with automation (or tariffs, or economic slowdowns or any other condition that affects production but can be worked out by the sales step in the process). From the top, it looks like these displaced workers can scurry to fill other job openings, so observers tend to take a no-net-loss view.
This was my criticism of President Clinton’s workforce modernization initiatives: the training, relocation, and other life changes required for re-placing a job don’t seem to be a consideration for those at the top.
The demise of this nation is the devaluation of its workforce.
If you have soy beans for sale or need to purchase some steel for your production, remember what your leader has told you.
“Just remember, what you are seeing and what you are reading is NOT what is happening.”
DJT 24 Jul 2018
Enjoy
Important to remember why we have Trump: Progressive ideologues would not get behind Hillary till it was too late. Your uncompromising fault!!!
Apparently you do not follow the Mueller news there camper. Your boy got into the high chair with the great assistance of Russian interference. Hillary actually won by 3,000,000 votes. Now that IS something important to remember.
happy camper: agreed. Progressives were not able to force the Democrat party to the fringe left the way the Tea Party and nationalists were able to hold the Republican party hostage to push to the fringe right.
Wonder how much a steel cage for a cage match has increased for fake pro rasslin?
O makes a good point about the blind spot the privileged have for the challenges displaced workers face in winning back a place in the modern workforce. Workers living paycheck to paycheck can’t afford to take a year off for a new training program.
I work in printing, 50% of our business is in cold-set web printing (groundwood and newsprint paper, most comes from Canada) before the tariff resolution with Canada we were looking at a 40-60% increase in paper prices. We dodged a bullet. If a resolution would not have occurred we would have easily lost 40-50% of our business.
I can tell you from experiencing that, that the farmers need to pressure Washington hard on a trade resolution with China. If not, the economy will drop out in South Dakota and it will affect us all, and it will be very, very, very bad.
Well said in your first post, O. Those who are removed from the struggle of living from paycheck to paycheck don’t understand the struggle.
Some – like President Trump – have never known anyone in their own family or circle of friends who has ever had to worry about the landslide of problems that would be triggered if even just one paycheck failed to arrive. The rent, mortgage or car payment would fall behind. There might not be money for groceries. The utilities might be shut off. Might have to put off a visit to the doctor or dentist, etc.
This is what made President Clinton and President Obama better than Presidents Bush, Bush and Trump. They know the struggle because they lived it.
Wikipedia says McMahon was an only child, military brat, athletic. Family was conservative Baptist. After she married Vince McMahon–
“Financially, the couple fared poorly for several years, and in 1976, while pregnant with Stephanie, McMahon and her husband filed for bankruptcy. They briefly received food stamps, until her husband took on a 90-hour-a-week job at a quarry.”
So she didn’t grow up with money and had some hardships early in her married life. She knows what it’s like on the worker end. That’s leaves at least a couple options for her comments:
1. She’s got hers so she doesn’t care about the labor force any more.
2. She’s been very adept at learning to emulate Lying Lunatic.
Looking really bad for ole Baldy if Pootie is bailing on him. Russian media is piling on per The Daily Beast.
https://thebea.st/2U0TZEB?source=email&via=desktop
Thank goodness that the democrats took the house in the mid-terms. This likely saved the US and us from an economic catastrophe.
https://thereformedbroker.com/2016/12/13/every-unified-republican-government-ever-has-led-to-a-financial-crash/
For far too long, America’s wealthy has been hoarding the country’s wealth. They have grown complacent, in life and business, letting their money work for them, and have lost sight of what ‘work’ actually even is.
Working man needs to understand that the wealthy are mostly whiny ignorant a-holes.
Interesting link, John… but worth noting that the recessions of 1991 and 2001 took place under mixed government.
I do agree that the Democratic House will save us from numerous harms. But I wonder: would we have been better off winning the Senate rather than the House so we could stop Trump’s worse nominees?