Monday, December 03, 2018

How to make America great again

I like to give best wishes to America. They were once a great country and have done a lot of good for the world.

Sadly, America has deteriorated over the past three decades - in terms of their economy, infrastructure and social fabric.

President Trump will not make America great again with his divisive policies.

America needs to return back to the economic policies in the past, i.e. which occurred for four decades after the second world war.

There were two important components of their economic policies during this period:

a) social programs to reduce inequality
b) protectionism - which allow the country to provide good paying jobs to its citizens.

The removal of protectionism was a great time for the multi national corporations. They became big and powerful. They made huge profits but moved them to tax havens and paid little tax.

However, it was a bad period for the working people who suffered through depressed wages and poor working conditions.

I am not advocating trade wars of the type practised by President Trump. I believe in tariffs that make it possible for manufacturing to survive and serve the domestic market. And it is a large market. This will allow well paying jobs to be protected in America.

I believe that this is the economic approach adopted by China. They imposed certain tariffs on foreign products to allow their domestic industry to survive and grow.

America is angry at these tariffs imposed by China and want them removed. That is a wrong strategy. Instead, America should get the Chinese economic planners to advise them on how to introduce similar tariffs in America.

When countries introduce more protectionism, global trade will still continue, but on a lesser scale. There are quality products manufactured in some countries that will still be demanded by consumers in other countries, in spite of the tariffs.

America can start to develop its infrastructure and create well paying jobs for its people. It does not need to depend on its defense industry to the same extent that exists now.

What an irony. America helped to rebuild China after the opening up of China's economy. It is now time for China to help to rebuild America by introducing the correct economic policies.

Tan Kin Lian

PS - I know that my views are controversial. You may disagree, but be polite and give your reasons. Rude comments (from idiots) will be deleted and the idiots will be banned.

1 comment:

  1. It's pay back time for China, as she has it going so good far too long.
    Try selling IT services to China, you would meet with a huge bureaucratic wall, cheating your time, you may as well try more friendly markets elsewhere.
    Kudos to Trump to disrupt the status quo for a better America, Trump is lucky this time he has an ally in the Democrats in dealing with China, Democrats are protectionist in nature, they could ride on Trump's coattail to further roll the ball, and have Trump take the blame at the front while hiding behind.
    Americans are smart people, they want a strong President but not too strong, and at mid term they vote in the Democrats in the House to balance up the power, it's a brilliant move, at the same time giving Trump a better chance at winning another term in the next Election.
    IT's good for America to have the Democrats "tame" him a few levels down, to curtail his unpredictable character.
    This shows a two Party political system works better, with each Party balance checking on each other.
    But fixing the National aging infrastructure is a gigantic task, not easy.

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