We see a lot of outrage over the recent announcement by GM that it was closing a number of auto plants in the US and laying off a significant number of employees.
This was of course an economic decision in line with decisions made by many other plants and factories in recent years.
It is designed to increase profitability and shareholder value.
Our favorite dontard is outraged and it clearly demonstrates that his promises to reverse this trend and keep and increase jobs in these industries is simply meaningless.
Its a promise he had no way of keeping and the economy is way too complex for him to understand.
Now, there may even be a face saving press release that will act like the plans were revised, but whatever it says it will not interrupt the economic forces that led to the decision.
During the campaign we saw photo ops at a number of plants the dontard claimed to have saved, but most of them went ahead with their plans anyway.
They were based on economics, not rhetoric.
In fact the uncertainty of the tariffs from the dontard will almost definitely encourage more off-shore production.
The US market is a very profitable one, but it is also a mature one. Population and wage growth are low and that limits growth for most existing products. Yes, if someone develops something new, like say the I-Phone, you might see explosive growth, but we already have plenty of cars.
You need to compete in emerging markets and you need to incorporate low cost imported parts.
Our trade policy becomes a problem.
Our future prosperity needs to be tied to future products, renewable energy, solar panels, technology, services, etc. A policy that tries to bring back the past is simply short sighted and doomed.
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