Marshall Auerback — There are better ways than simply slapping tariffs on imported goods.

MMT without specifically mentioning MMT. Seems to be the new tactic?

Why Trump Is So Clumsy About Fighting 'Free Trade'
There are better ways than simply slapping tariffs on imported goods.
Marshall Auerback / AlterNet

See also at AlterNet

Blowing Up Some of the Biggest Myths About the Economy and the Deficit
Paul Sliker, Michael Palmieri and Dante Dallavalle / Democracy at Work

also

Beat the Press
Washington Post Says Stronger Patent and Copyright Protections Are "Free-Trade"
Dean Baker | Co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C

Also

Counterpunch
Trump’s Travesty of Protectionism

Michael Hudson | President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and Guest Professor at Peking University

Nick Johnson — Trumponomics Part 3: Alternatives

Here is Part 3 of my series on the book Trumponomics – Causes and Consequences. As it is an early assessment of the economics of the Trump presidency, concrete left policy alternatives do not take up much of the content, but there are some ideas to draw on.

Central to the aim of making the left ‘great again’, to quote one of the authors, is a political programme which pivots away from the dominant liberal, politically correct agenda, and which serves the interests of the masses.

This would be a social democratic platform, offering a radical alternative to the neoliberal ideology which has captured both major parties in the US....

The Political Economy of Development
Trumponomics Part 3: Alternatives
Nick Johnson Post K

Nick Johnson — Trumponomics Part 2: Consequences

Since taking office Trump has proved unpredictable, but what are the likely outcomes of his policies? His executive orders aside, he has not had it all his own way, despite Republican majorities in both houses of Congress.

Yesterday I outlined the economic causes of the rise to power of this ostensibly populist president. This post reviews some of the potential consequences of Trump’s economic policies, as discussed in the book Trumponomics.

The Political Economy of Development
Trumponomics Part 2: Consequences
Nick Johnson

Nick Johnson — Trumponomics Part 1: Causes of the phenomenon

As promised, here is a review of some of the ideas covered in the fairly weighty tome Trumponomics – Causes and Consequences, recently published by the World Economics Association.

The book consists of 30 chapters, each one written by a different author. They are wide-ranging, but all come from a left perspective on economics and politics.

I am not going to review it chapter by chapter, but thought I would discuss some of the main ideas. As there is plenty to get through, I have divided it into three posts to be published this week: part 1 – causes, part 2 – consequences, and part 3 – alternatives.

The Political Economy of Development
Trumponomics Part 1: Causes of the phenomenon
Nick Johnson

Jared Bernstein — One more point about the KS legislature’s KO (Kansas Override) of supply-side tax cut

Not to be a downer, but I’ve have been pessimistic that DC R’s will learn from KS R’s. That’s partly because facts clearly can’t kill trickle-down mythology. The party’s donors want their tax cuts, and they’ll continue to sell snake oil to get them, facts and KS be damned.

But there’s another dynamic in play here which I haven’t seen mentioned: states have to balance their budgets while the federal government does not. So, if they’re willing to accept larger budget deficits, DC R’s can pass tax cuts and not worry about the consequences.

But R’s wouldn’t go that route because they disdain deficits and debt, right?

On the Economy
One more point about the KS legislature’s KO (Kansas Override) of supply-side tax cuts
Jared Bernstein | Senior Fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and former Chief Economist and Economic Adviser to Vice President Joe Biden in the Obama Administration

Chye-Ching Huang — Trump Plan: $2.5 Trillion in Program Cuts for Low- and Moderate-Income People; $2.5 Trillion on Two Tax Cuts for Corporations and Wealthy Heirs

President Trump said he was not elected to serve special interests, but instead, “the forgotten men and women of our country, and that’s what I’m doing.” His budget paints a starkly different picture, however, because it would shift trillions of dollars from struggling families to the wealthy.

The Trump budget would cut $2.5 trillion over the next decade from programs that help struggling low-and moderate-income families afford the basics and improve their upward mobility. These are the largest cuts in a President’s budget in the modern era, even when adjusted for inflation or measured as a percent of the economy.…

At the same time, the President proposes roughly $6 trillion in tax cuts (from his tax plan and from the House-passed bill, which he has endorsed, to repeal the Affordable Care Act) over the next decade.

They’re so skewed to the top that the tiny fraction of households with annual incomes above $1 million would get more than $2 trillion in tax cuts. In other words, millionaires would gain trillions from the Trump plan….

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Trump Plan: $2.5 Trillion in Program Cuts for Low- and Moderate-Income People; $2.5 Trillion on Two Tax Cuts for Corporations and Wealthy Heirs
Chye-Ching Huang | Deputy Director, Federal Tax Policy

Thomas Palley — Trumponomics:NeoconNeoliberalism Camouflaged with Anti-Globalization Circus

A Post Keynesian's view of Trumponomics.

A key element of Trump’s political success has been his masquerade of being pro-worker, which includes posturing as anti-globalization. However, his true economic interest is the exact opposite. That creates conflict between Trump’s political and economic interests. Understanding the calculus of that conflict is critical for understanding and predicting Trump’s economic policy, especially his international economic policy.

As part of maintaining his pro-worker masquerade, Trump will engage in an anti-globalization circus, but the bark will be worse than the bite because neoliberal globalization has increased corporate profits, in line with his economic interests. He will also feed his political base’s racist immigration policy as long as that does not adversely impact corporate profitability.

Lastly, Trump expresses neocon unilateralist tendencies that play well with much of the US electorate. His neocon unilateralism is not a one-off temporary political aberration. Instead, it reflects intrinsic and enduring features of the current US polity. That has profound implications for the international relations order, and is something many Western European governments may not yet have digested.

Social Europe
Trumponomics:NeoconNeoliberalism Camouflaged with Anti-Globalization Circus

Thomas Palley | Schwartz Economic Growth Fellow at the New America Foundation

Warren Mosler — Border tax comments, Redbook retail sales, International trade, Consumer confidence

Warren presents a simple model of international trade and taxation to illustrate Trumponomics.

The Center of the Universe
Border tax comments, Redbook retail sales, International trade, Consumer confidence
Warren Mosler

John Ross — The economic logic behind Trump's foreign policy - why the key countries are Germany and China

This article was published in Chinese before the recent summit between Chancellor Merkel and President Trump - which strongly confirmed its analysis.

The first steps by Trump as US President confirmed that he will pursue an anti-China policy but also that he will use different tactics to Obama and Clinton. Simultaneously Trump has launched a serious conflict with Germany, supporting countries leaving the EU and demanding European states rapidly increase their military spending – policies rejected by Merkel at the recent Munich Security Conference. What, therefore, is the internal logic uniting such apparently different actions as:

Maybe Trump is playing 4-D chess? Is Trump just taking a different approach to US dominance rather than flailing about wildly as it appears to many?

Socialist Economic Bulletin

The economic logic behind Trump's foreign policy - why the key countries are Germany and China

John Ross

Brian Romanchuk — Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?

 

Is this cycle topping out?

Bond Economics

Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?

Brian Romanchuk

Michael J. Sainato — Bernie Sanders’ Economic Advisor [Stephanie Kelton] Shreds Trumponomics

Stephanie Kelton.

Counterpunch
Bernie Sanders’ Economic Advisor Shreds Trumponomics

Michael J. Sainato

Michael Hudson — Wall Street First

Trump is Obama’s Legacy. Will this Break up the Democratic Party?

Michael Hudson
Wall Street First
Michael Hudson | President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and Guest Professor at Peking University

Trumponomics: causes and consequences – Part I – RWER issue no. 78

Auerback, Galbraith, Hudson, Kelton, Wray, Tcherneva provide an MMT-based critique of Trumponomics. 

Real-World Economics Review Blog
Trumponomics: causes and consequences – Part I – RWER issue no. 78

download whole issue

Preface          download pdf

Trumponomics: everything to fear including fear itself?          3
Jamie Morgan          download pdf                                                                           

Can Trump overcome secular stagnation?          20
James K. Galbraith            download pdf                              

Trump through a Polanyi lens: considering community well-being          28
Anne Mayhew            download pdf                                                                                    

Trump is Obama’s legacy. Will this break up the Democratic Party?          36
Michael Hudson          download pdf

Causes and consequences of President Donald Trump          44
Ann Pettifor               download pdf                                 

Explaining the rise of Donald Trump          54
Marshall Auerback          download pdf 

Class and Trumponomics          62
David F. Ruccio          download pdf 

Trump’s Growthism: its roots in neoclassical economic theory          86
Herman Daly          download pdf 

Trumponomics: causes and prospects          98
L. Randall Wray          download pdf 

The fall of the US middle class and the hair-raising ascent of Donald Trump
Steven Pressman          download pdf          112

Mourning in America: the corporate/government/media complex          125
Neva Goodwin          download pdf 

How the Donald can save America from capital despotism          132
Stephen T. Ziliak          download pdf 

Prolegomenon to a defense of the City of Gold          141
David A. Westbrook          download pdf 

Trump’s bait and switch: job creation in the midst of welfare state sabotage
Pavlina R. Tcherneva           download pdf          148

Can ‘Trumponomics’ extend the recovery?          159
Stephanie Kelton           download pdf 

Board of Editors, past contributors, submissions and etc.          173

David F. Ruccio — Trumponomist

Like [Kevin] Hassett’s claim (which I discuss here) that “lowering corporate taxes is the only real cure for wage stagnation among American workers.”

Or his other major claim (which I discuss here), that poverty and inequality in the United States are merely figments of our imagination.

Let’s focus on that last claim. As regular readers of this blog know, income inequality—whether measured in terms of fractiles (e.g., the 1 percent versus everyone else) or classes (e.g., profits and wages)—has been increasing for decades now. But for conservative economists like Hassett (who was an economic adviser to Mitt Romney before being a candidate to join the Trump team), inequality has not been growing and poor people are actually much better off than they and the rest of us normally think. What they do then is substitute consumption for income and argue that consumption inequality has actually not been growing.

So, what’s the big problem?

But even in terms of consumption they’re wrong. As Orazio Attanasio, Erik Hurst, Luigi Pistaferri have shown, once you correct for the measurement errors in the Consumer Expenditure Survey (which Hassett and his coauthor, Aparna Mathur, don’t do), and bring in other sources of consumption information (including the well-regarded Panel Study of Income Dynamics), consumption inequality has increased substantially in recent decades—more or less at the same rate as inequality in the distribution of income....

Hassett's name is being floated for Chair of Economic Advisers in the Trump Administration.

Occasional Links & Commentary
Trumponomist
David F. Ruccio | Professor of Economics, University of Notre Dame

See also

Capitalocene

Zero Hedge — "It's Absolutely Out Of Control": Did Trump Just Spoil The Deficit-Spending Party?

Taking away the punchbowl? Sounds like signing on to the Ryan budget?

Zero Hedge
"It's Absolutely Out Of Control": Did Trump Just Spoil The Deficit-Spending Party?

Tyler Durden

Gerald Epstein — Trumponomics: Should We Just Say "No"?

Abstract

Trumponomics, argues this economist, may look like Reaganomics, but it is more about political power than optimal economics strategies. Economists should be aware of this, but many, even progressives, are not. The author provides a way of looking at and criticizing Trumponomics for the popular, power-aggrandizing strategy and ultimately deeply dangerous set of policies he thinks it is.

Download PDF at link.

PERI
Trumponomics: Should We Just Say "No"?
February 12, 2017 | Journal Article
Gerald Epstein | professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI)

Bill McBride — Goldman on the Trump Agenda

Following through on campaign promises on trade and immigration before addressing tax cuts and infrastructure could be contractive.

Calculated Risk
Goldman on the Trump Agenda
Bill McBride

Tyler Cowen — The Left Underestimates Trump's Economic Plan

While the first weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency have brought plenty of chaos, some underlying themes are emerging. I think of the economic policy so far -- call it Trumponomics -- as a new approach to the redistribution of wealth, working through jobs and regions rather than income transfers. To be sure, I don’t see any single architect of Trumponomics, not even Trump himself, but even without a master plan, there are some common threads.

It’s easy to underrate Trumponomics, because so often it sounds, frankly, stupid or misinformed. In a wide variety of areas, including health-care reform and the border tax adjustment, experts struggle to describe the plans, much less evaluate them. Still, Trumponomics, though highly flawed, will probably not crash the economy, and might steal a lot of the left’s thunder....

Bloomberg View
The Left Underestimates Trump's Economic Plan

Tyler Cowen | Holbert C. Harris Chair of Economics at George Mason University and serves as chairman and general director of the Mercatus Center

James Kwak — Kudlow and Economics in the Trump Administration

Title should be Larry Kudow and economism.

I prefer G. W. H. Bush's "voodoo economics."

It seems some people never learn.

Baseline Scenario
Kudlow and Economics in the Trump Administration

James Kwak | Associate Professor of Law at the University of Connecticut School of Law

ht Mark Thoma at Economist's View

See also

New Yorker
Ayn Rand And Corporate Tax Cuts Won’t Mend The Economy

John Cassidy

Noahpinion
The Fundamental Fallacy of Pop Economics

Noah Smith

Zero Hedge — The Narrative Changes: Republicans "Pour Cold Water" On Trump's Massive Stimulus, Will Block Tax Cuts

Republican lawmakers warned "that there could be a major obstacle to enacting President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda: the national debt."

“I was disappointed that it wasn’t brought up in the campaign — anybody’s campaign really — it really wasn’t mentioned,” Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said of deficits and debt. “So I’m very concerned about it. It’s going to be tough to address if there’s no push from outside of the Congress,” he added. “I’m very concerned about it. It’s the biggest problem we face, by far.”

“We did not hear anything about entitlement reform from either of the candidates, and that’s a serious issue,” said Michael Sargent, a research associate at The Heritage Foundation. “You cannot address the growth in spending without addressing entitlement issues.”...

As Bloomberg explains, Trump’s race to enact the biggest tax cuts since the 1980s went under a caution flag Monday when during a news conference, "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell warned he considers current levels of U.S. debt “dangerous” and said he wants any tax overhaul to avoid adding to the deficit."…

“What I hope we will clearly avoid, and I’m confident we will, is a trillion-dollar stimulus,” he said. “Take you back to 2009. We borrowed $1 trillion and nobody could find that it did much of anything. So we need to do this carefully and correctly and the issue of how to pay for it needs to be dealt with responsibly.”

Then there is the debt limit, which will need to rise next year to avoid defaulting on government obligations; McConnell said he wasn’t sure if that would be paired with any deficit-reduction measures next year as it was in 2011, when Republicans held the debt limit hostage and extracted more than $2 trillion in deficit cuts over a decade from President Barack Obama.

House Speaker Paul Ryan has also said he wants tax changes to be deficit-neutral, indicating that Republicans will assume positive macroeconomic benefits from tax cuts to ease the projected budgetary hit - a process known as dynamic scoring that is popular on the right.…

Finally, even if all the changes are implemented immediately, and the GOP rolls over, virtually none of Trump's stimulus package will generate any impact on the economy until some time in 2018 as Goldman calculated last week.…

Trumponimics DOA?

Zero Hedge
The Narrative Changes: Republicans "Pour Cold Water" On Trump's Massive Stimulus, Will Block Tax Cuts
Tyler Durden