Friday, March 4, 2016

Trump can win as long as Americans don’t do math

While every latest insult and tidbit of a slogan that Donald Trump says gets tons of publicity, while immigration policies get nitpicked and either attacked or endorsed, and while the cheers of the pro-Trump crowd attempt to drown out the calls for unity by the anti-Trump crowd, one thing is getting very lost in the details. Trump’s economic plan isn’t just bad. It’s mathematically impossible to accomplish anything other than the next great financial collapse.

That’s not hyperbole. It’s not even an opinion. It is a factual statement that Donald Trump’s proposals are indefensible whether it’s to raise expenses while cutting taxes, to charge tariffs and rip apart free trade agreements, or to balance the budget while missing a few zeroes at the end of his figures. The sad part is that in public polls, Trump is often credited as being the best to solve our financial woes. This is ludicrous. It simply doesn’t add up.

His supporters will point to his riches as examples of being a great business person. Let’s put aside that the economics behind managing corporations are not related to national and world economics. IF you believe that Donald Trump is such as amazing business mind, then thinking that this will translate into being a great President is like saying that Bill Belichek would be a great head coach in the NFL. Again, that’s IF you believe he’s some sort of business genius.

He’s rich. People look up to rich people. What’s somehow missed is that he was born into an empire worth more than the vast majority of Americans will make in their entire lives. His isn’t the tale of someone who worked hard and played it smart to become a billionaire. It’s the story of a many who took over his father’s real estate empire and managed to make a handful of really good moves that overcame the horrendous choices he made in other industries. If he were a CEO, he wouldn’t be able to get a job with any major company based upon his track record. It’s his personality and the perception that he’s a winner that have driven his alleged success.

Now, let’s look at the math of his “brilliant” economic plans. Fox News finally called him out on things that have been known for a while but that have never made the light of day in mainstream media. His economic plans are so clearly bad that one might believe the mainstream media is waiting until he becomes the nominee before letting people know during the general election that his numbers simply don’t add up.

Let’s look at how Fox News handled it during the debate.

As you can see, his math is off by a zero. He plans on saving hundreds of billions by cutting tens of billions. That won’t work. If this were translated to the scale of an average family, it’s like he’s saying that he’ll be able to pay a $5,000/month mortgage with a $50,000/year job by turning off the lights and rarely eating out. No matter how you slice it, you can’t spending over 83% of your pre-tax income on a mortgage and expect to be able to stay financially stable.

There are some good ideas in his economic plan when seen individually, but when multiple components are brought together the math becomes untenable. His big government proposals will increase the budget but he plans on cutting taxes. To make up for it, he says he’s going to cut frivolous expenditures. If he were to cut 32 such programs every day, seven days a week for the length of his first term, you’d be able to get to a balanced budget. Of course, it’s nearly impossible for him to cut 32 programs in his first year, let alone every day for four years, but again the math gets hazy when you’re dealing with millions, billions, and trillions. Americans are not programmed to do those types of calculations or to explore those issues. We rely on the media to do that for us. They’ve done the math. They’re ready to expose the ludicrous nature of Trump’s financial proposals. They’re going to wait (with the exception, apparently, of Fox News) until after he’s secured the nomination. They’ll use this to help Hillary Clinton win the election.

One does not have to be an economist to see how impossible Trump’s economic proposals are. Unfortunately, he was born rich and has been very good at real estate so obviously he can solve the country’s financial woes… at least that’s the argument by his supporters.

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