So this speech by Bannon has made me realize that the guy really is nuts. He really believes that he's been anointed by God. He also has this strange theory of history that's fundamentally Hegelian. He says that we're in the "fourth epoch," where the first three, in order, were defined by: American revolution, civil war and WWII.
But worst of all, he's wrong. He's wrong about almost everything...
A few claims made that are empirically untrue:
- Immigration increases unemployment and reduces GDP (absolutely no observable relationship whatsoever)
- No nation has ever been built on free trade (uh.. all major industrial powers today benefited from free trade. The first movers became economic super powers. More recent examples include Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc.)
- China is our biggest national threat (China is teetering on collapse and to claim that it's a larger threat than Iran or North Korea is a joke).
He's simply not a conservative. He's neither conservative nor liberal. He has effectively introduced a legitimate third wheel in US politics. The republican party has two diametrically opposed factions: conservative/libertarian (free market types) and the Bannonites (anti-trade/anti-capitalism). The social conservatives are scattered among these two groups.
I hate to say it because it's so cliché, but this really is approaching the rise of fascism. In Germany prior to WWI, you had the socialists and the liberals (classical). The liberals were wiped out after WWI and the socialist faction was split into two: fascists and communists. The remaining liberals sided with the fascists because they considered them to be less of a threat than the communists. That's sort of what's going on here.
The Democrats have moved full socialist. The Republican's now are unified only in their opposition to Democrats (socialism). I prefer Bannonites to Democrats but still, he makes me uncomfortable.
Thoughts?
Sounds like you just finished watching PBS Frontline's -- Bannon's War, which for anyone not familiar, it is a fantastic introduction to Steve Bannon's rise to power in the USA.
I agreed with a lot you had to say on the NFL's issues thread, but I don't see a lot of common ground in our opinions here (e.g. your subjective factions of America, Democrats have moved full socialism and preferring Bannonites over Democrats).
Breitbart is an alt-right news outlet that I picture sitting between InfoWars and Zerohedge. I'm a dedicated hedgie but if you don't know how to read the content, you're going to come away with a pretty fucked view of the world we live in. Without delving into the policy of Steve Bannon / Breitbart, I'll just say I don't subscribe and I think it's dangerous.
What I do admire about Steve Bannon is that I think he truly is a master strategist. His path was VT UnderGrad -> VT Masters -> Navy -> HBS MBA -> Goldman -> M&E Mogul. He's always had very austere, fringe political views and partnered with the late Andrew Breitbart to create the platform we know today as Breitbart. What I admire, strictly from a business / strategy perspective, is how many people he's been able to capture and cultivate this community of fringe ideals (Trump being one of them since 2011). The guy buddied up with The Donald to run for the 2016 election, beat out every single traditional Republican in the primaries and beat the heavy favourite, Hillary Clinton, all with his playbook of themes that he's been running with since the start of Breitbart. That was fucking insanity and a massive upset from an odds PoV.
The only reason he got canned (in my opinion), is because he stepped on the toes of The Donald's ego. But if you look closely, if Trump is ever in a tough spot, he falls back on the headlines of Breitbart.
Want to get a look at what "his base" looks like on the internet? Go take a read at the comments in the community. I don't agree with much anything the guy does, but I think his rise in the American political system by using the internet is fascinating and absolutely astonishing.
I haven't watched it but I'll look into it.
I'm a conservative Republican who adamantly opposed Trump during the GOP primary and reluctantly voted for him in the general. 2016 was the only election in which I did not volunteer for or donate money to the presidential nominee of my party.
I don't like Bannon. He's a shrewd ruthless political operator, and his decision to invite Bill Clinton's victims to the presidential debate, post-Access Hollywood tape, was brilliant. But he's not a conservative, nor was he effective in implementing Trump's policies.
I disagree with some of your points though.
Immigration does increase GDP since GDP is simply a measure of raw aggregate demand, but mass lower skilled immigration does reduce GDP PER CAPITA. The strongest arguments against open borders and mass immigration is both economic and cultural. They tend to depress wages amongst working class Americans, and due to the difficulty of assimilation, it results in an erosion of American culture and our basic social fabric. Societies that are too racially diverse eventually fall apart due to rampant identity politics and the lack of a core value system that binds the people together.
I support free trade 100%, but there's no doubt that we've been stuck in a lot of one-sided deals where the other party is held to a lower standard than we are. I'm not opposed to re-visiting some of these deals and making specific bi-lateral agreements on a case-by-case basis.
China is the world's largest country and an economic and military superpower. Not quite sure what you mean when you say they are on the verge of collapse. They have structural issues that will make it very hard to surpass the U.S., but look at the moves they are making. China has been aggressively expanding its military, creating bases in the Pacific much to the consternation of South Korea and Japan, and establishing relationships with resource rich African nations. We are slowly entering a bi-polar world with China and the U.S. competing for power and influence. Iran and North Korea are threats in the sense that they are explicitly hostile enemies. But they are not rivals in any meaningful sense; they are rogue nations that we can destroy easily if we wanted to.
There's no evidence for this either. If you have empirical support, then please go ahead and share it. I would be interested to see it. That said, immigration, even cheap immigration, increases the return on capital. Higher marginal return on capital yields increased investment, which drives economic growth. There's no reason to believe that this economic growth is outpaced by population growth. So again, if you have data, please share it.
Yeah no doubt that there have been some shit trade deals. Free trade isn't about trade deals. Trade deals = managed trade, not free trade. My point is that Bannon doesn't believe in free trade either in principle. Listen to his speech. He doesn't believe that voluntary free trade yields economic efficiency. He has an anti-capitalist mentality and actually criticizes the Austrian school of economics. He's an economic nativist.
China's economy is a debt fueled bubble, driven primarily by unsustainable growth in the real-estate sector. This is no secret. It has over 25% unemployment, high rates of inflation and decaying GDP growth (even with its bullshit estimates). The Chinese economy has no check on malinvestments. It simply conceals economic losses. As far as China's military is concerned, it's incredibly primitive. They just now built their first naval carrier. The Chinese hype today is just an extension of the Japanese hype in the 80s, but only exacerbated.
George Borjas of the Harvard Kennedy School has studied the economic impact of immigration for 30 years. I linked to an article he wrote for Politico. Google him, and you can find bunch of his papers. The key callouts are as follows:
Although immigration affects both low and high skilled Americans, since a disproportionate amount of immigrants are low skilled workers, it hits the low skilled harder.
According to census data, immigrants in the past 2 decades without a high school diploma has increased the size of the low-skilled workforce by nearly 25%. As a result, the wages of working class Americans without high school diplomas had dropped by $800-$1500/year.
Immigrants receive government assistance at a higher rate than natives.
Immigration is a wealth redistribution of the low-skilled Americans to their employers, as the latter are saving money by employing cheap labor. This is also why Congress (regardless of the party) is so reluctant to pass mandatory e-verify.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/trump-clinton-immigratio…
@Rufus1234" Where are you getting these statistics for 25% unemployment in China from? Yes, it's fueled in part by unsustainable debt, and growth will continue to slow down. However, it's not like the US isn't 20 trillion dollars in debt either. Trivializing the world's 2nd largest economy (which is almost the size of the US) and it's unprecedented growth by using the bullshit argument that it's just like Japan in the 80s is dangerously simplistic and just plain incorrect.
Yep. I'm still depressed about the 2016 GOP primary.
I will never forgive my fellow Republicans for nominating Trump in the most impressive primary field since 1980. If Cruz, Rubio, Walker, were POTUS, they would have transformed this country in a way not seen since Reagan. Cruz in particular would have bee an AMAZING President: brilliant, principled, courageous, shrewd.
A quick point of contention - by definition trade deals are the opposite of free trade. Free trade is just that - free flow of goods & services between two parties. When national governments are creating centralized, all-powerful backroom trade deals, that's not free trade. You're not saying this, but it does get tiring to hear these imbeciles on the alt-right (as well as many on the left, this was a Bernie talking point as well) describe anything we currently have as "free trade"
In fact, I'd be hard pressed to call what we have here in the US capitalism at all at this point. Every facet of the economy is highly, highly regulated and highly planned by the gov't....and many of our economic problems stem from this issue. Blaming capitalism, free markets, freedom, liberty etc for the problems we currently have is laughable. I might as well take my BMW to a Ferrari dealership and yell at them because it does't work properly.
The problem with free trade is that, you’re effectively creating a one world economy but with lots of complexities from independent currencies and political/cultural conditions. Changes in domestic economic policy (fiscal or monetary) results in a change in the world trade balance. So, you might say that one country loses while the other wins, and others might say that international diplomacy can result in a rebalancing, evening the nature of trade, which will benefit the homefront and the international front at the same time. It’s naturally the pessimists versus the optimists in terms of where we see the world heading.
Agree with everything you're saying except that we are headed toward fascism. Headline from Drudgereport: "Judge blocks latest Trump travel restriction." If we were anywhere near fascism, you wouldn't see headlines like that.
That Hawaii judge is an Obama hack who clearly does not understand the authority granted to POTUS on restricting entry of foreign nationals. The Supreme Court's decision to vacate the lower court rulings and dismiss oral arguments was an affirmation that the Trump travel ban is constitutionally sound, but this judge just can't help himself.
Judge Watson is definitely not a "hack". The guy went to Harvard and HLS and the Hawaii federal district judges are all a sharp bunch. If you mean to say he is letting his personal beliefs color his ruling in this case then I think you are likely correct. A lot of civil servants have been willing to lay down their reputations or careers opposing Trump and I applaud them for that. Trump is governing and speaking at every turn like a wannabe tyrant and whether you are liberal, conservative or moderate if you are intellectually honest you can't argue that his foreign policy is making America any safer or stronger in the long-run. We are stuck in a twisted performance of orange-hued kabuki theater and I can only hope that whoever takes the helm in 2020 is an upgrade with a real strategy and vision to get us back on track.
Putin and Xi have to be so stoked at what is going on in our country. It makes me wonder how long subversive actors have been playing puppetmasters in our domestic politics using social media and the internet. My guess is it started right after the GFC or even before and is part of a brilliant long game to divide the US electorate and neuter us diplomatically.
Great post from one of the best economic minds on WSO.
How is he nuts for understanding that in reality most Republican voters don't give a flying fuck about the free market? That sounds like the opposite of crazy to me.
Nuts for his belief that he's been anointed by God and for his theory of history. But yeah, Republicans really don't give a shit about free markets. I alluded to this in my initial post: once classical liberals (now called libertarians) die out, you're left with big government, social architect types. This is what Bannon is. He's not fundamentally different from liberal interventionists - he just supports a different set of interventions.
Libertarians are freakin' joke. Libertarians live in a world where national borders are non-existent while the welfare state remains libertine. They live in a world where the Ayatollah and the Kim regime like America because we're nice. They live in a world where enforcing terms of trade agreements is equivalent to opposing free trade.
Libertarians cannot die out quickly enough.
The GOP made a Faustian bargain in order to win the 2016 election and they have yet to truly reckon with the consequences. Trump, with Bannon's handling, stoked the populist fire throughout his campaign. Ultimately, this proved to be a successful election tactic but it has introduced an element of schizophrenia to the republican party.
Unlike before, the GOP tight rope now winds through America's rust belt. These political converts did not vote for Trump in order to get Paul Ryan's agenda and they will certainly not be placated by it. These are protectionists and nativists who care more about jingoism than the free-market or traditional conservative values. At some point the irreconcilability of these beliefs will puncture the tightly-stretched party tent.
The right has a serious media problem. It's media apparatus is dominated by far-right demagogues (Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, Steve Bannon, ect.). Even it's mainstream sources, like Fox, are hyper-partisan. In my opinion, this pushes the political discourse during primary season further to the right, at the expense of more appeal during the general election. It could be simple correlation, but since Fox news inception the GOP has lost 5 out of 6 popular votes.
For the sake of fairness, the same phenomenon is manifesting itself on the left right now. The energy on the left is in progressive politics. Therefore, candidates are careful not to let anyone get to the left of them on certain issues, (think healthcare).
This is my biggest takeaway.
On a side note, I have to say this is a pretty good WSO political thread, as those things go.
Schizophrenia in the Republican party...? Fox news is hyper partisan but lefitsts outlets that want "post-term abortion" are not?
California just legalized giving someone HIV without telling them...
Also this right here. Apparently this is normal now and sitting Senators tacitly endorse this. I can't imagine why people would side with the Republicans over "Satanic Drag Queens".
What is your point here?
Do you disagree with the premise that Trump’s induction into the GOP, despite running a predominantly populist campaign, has introduced new values and priorities into the fold that are fundamentally opposed to traditional conservative values?
Do you disagree with the idea that protectionism and anti-globalism are incompatible with free-market capitalism?
Do you disagree with the concept that the far right media apparatus shifts the overton window on republican discourse to the right?
Or, did you just dump a bunch of non-sequiturs into a comment because you lack a basic understanding of how to operate within the confines of reason, logic, and constructive debate?
Or, maybe it was another ignorant attempt to equate and adjudicate an entire ideology based on its most aberrant and extreme fringe elements?
Lastly, there is a difference between changing the classification of a crime and legalizing it. I’m not saying I support the change, but at least I understand what exactly it means.
Your premise is flawed because you cite GDP as if it matters.
The biggest joke is that we measure our economies by GDP.
Government can borrow out the ass and build lots of cool rockets and bombs, voila, GDP went up!!
Is our society better off?
I agree. Using aggregate GDP data to argue for open borders and mass immigration makes no sense.
What's a better metric? Your own personal feels?
I believe what they are trying to say is that increasing GDP at the expense of potentially higher crime or some other adverse factor, like large groups of people entering a society that want to impose a different set of laws or don’t want to assimilate to the country
Obviously a situation like that could fundamentally change the country and it’s ability to keep its citizens safe, that is what they mean when they say GDP is not the end all be all.
At least that is what I am interpreting they are saying but I could be wrong.
Median household wealth, which has gone nowhere in the United States post crisis.
GDP tells us how much economic activity is occurring, and one of the ways we look at it is on a relative basis. I don't know if anyone measures the economy by aggregate GDP. When we look at GDP, we tend to view it as YoY change or QoQ change, etc. But, it's a conversation starter. The meat of it is obviously in understanding the drivers of GDP, and then the effects of said drivers. So, this absolute against GDP makes no sense, and it is relevant to understand immigration or borders, albeit maybe not hugely important in isolation.
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