Neoliberalism Killed 346 People Aboard the Boeing 737 MAX 8

What was left of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, a Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet, after it crashed to the ground six minutes after takeoff. All 157 people aboard were killed (source)

by Thomas Neuburger

The essence of modern neoliberalism, as encouraged and enabled by both political parties, is the Ayn Randian notion that the greatest amount of freedom in the world should be given to capital — that the giant pool of money should be allowed to flow unrestrained into any country it wishes, seek whatever profit it wishes to seek, then flow out, again unrestrained, leaving in its wake whatever wreck it wishes to walk away from.

The poster child for neoliberal profit-seeking is, of course, NAFTA and its legacy of devastated lives in every country touched by it, but there are more examples than anyone could count. This devastation has been going on for decades, starting in my own memory with Ronald Reagan's permitted transfer of the U.S. semiconductor manufacturing industry to Asia. (Reagan "earned" two million dollars in speaking fees during a fully paid eight-day grand-tour trip to that country within a year of leaving office — clearly "thank you" money for his many gifts to the suddenly swollen wealth of Japan.)

Since the age of greed was kicked off in the 1980s, and because in those years Americans were taught to love their predators (remember breathless praise of shows like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous), the pursuit of profit by the few at the expense of the lives of the many has only accelerated.

The latest instance of this destructive pursuit is the story of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet. There are many parts to the 737 MAX 8 story. This part takes us, once again, to U.S. outsourcing to Asia and $9/hour software engineers in India.

From Bloomberg:

Boeing's 737 Max Software Outsourced to $9-an-Hour Engineers

• Planemaker and suppliers used lower-paid temporary workers
• Engineers feared the practice meant code wasn’t done right

It remains the mystery at the heart of Boeing Co.’s 737 Max crisis: how a company renowned for meticulous design made seemingly basic software mistakes leading to a pair of deadly crashes. Longtime Boeing engineers say the effort was complicated by a push to outsource work to lower-paid contractors.

The Max software -- plagued by issues that could keep the planes grounded months longer after U.S. regulators this week revealed a new flaw -- was developed at a time Boeing was laying off experienced engineers and pressing suppliers to cut costs.

Increasingly, the iconic American planemaker and its subcontractors have relied on temporary workers making as little as $9 an hour to develop and test software, often from countries lacking a deep background in aerospace -- notably India.

According to Mark Rabin, a former Boeing engineer whose work supported the 737 MAX project, the decision to outsource coding to India “was controversial because it was far less efficient than Boeing engineers just writing the code. I took many rounds going back and forth because the code was not done correctly.”

But outsourced U.S. jobs and greatly reduced wage costs were not the only benefits to Boeing from this decision. The company was also rewarded handsomely for it, winning, according to Bloomberg, "several orders for Indian military and commercial aircraft, such as a $22 billion one in January 2017 to supply SpiceJet Ltd. That order included 100 737-Max 8 jets and represented Boeing’s largest order ever from an Indian airline, a coup in a country dominated by Airbus."

Needless to say, in a nation dominated by neoliberal thinking and morality, more than $22 billion in new contracts easily offsets the loss of 346 lives in the two 737 MAX crashes, each of which killed everyone on board.

In a nation that abhors neoliberal morality, on the other hand, one would see trials for manslaughter instead.
 

Señor Trumpanzee-- Working Class Hero?

Trump makes a big deal about keeping his campaign promises. And, unfortunately, the ones he wants to keep, he does try to keep. Sometimes the courts and occasionally, even Congress, keeps him from keeping the worst of them. His excuse for torpedoing the bipartisan DACA fix was that it flew in the face of one of his ugly outbursts of bigotry during the campaign. Now Ryan and McConnell are using his bizarre and incoherent approach as an excuse for not bringing popular DACA fixes to the floor of each house for a vote.

But on promise that was very specific, consistent, loud and very public during the campaign was his promise to the workers at the Carrier plant in Indianapolis. Looks like that's one he didn't really care much about-- or at least not enough about to do anything proactive once he had lost Marion County (Indianapolis) in 2016. Primary day was interesting there:

• Hillary- 59,649
• Bernie- 58,799
• Trumpanzee- 49,835
• Lyin' Ted- 39,557
• Kasich- 9,633

And, despite Mike Pence's presence on the ticket-- or maybe because of it-- Hillary kicked his ass in the county. She beat him 212,676 (58.9%) to 130,228 (36.1%). Maybe he thought he shaped have won the state's biggest county. He did do better than Romney had though. And he certainly won the state-- and the Carrier workers-- who are unionized-- helped. I bet they're sorry now.

It was raining in Indiana's capital city on the day Renee Elliott and millions of other blue collar Americans stunned the world by helping to elect a Manhattan real estate mogul the 45th president of the United States.

But all Elliott saw that day was sunshine.

As she waited patiently in line to cast her vote, Elliott said she was buoyed by the belief that Donald Trump would make good on his campaign pledge and prevent her job at the Carrier plant-- the job that she said allowed her to escape an abusive marriage and live a modest but comfortable life-- from being sent to Mexico.

Now, very soon, Elliott will be standing in another line-- the unemployment line.

Elliott, 44, was one of the 215 workers at the Indianapolis plant who were given pink slips on Thursday. And to say she is disappointed by Trump would be an understatement.

“We all voted for him,” she said of herself and her Carrier co-workers. “We just thought he was going to protect our jobs. It sounded really good. And then, boom.”

Elliott doesn't know what she is going to do next. She has only a high school diploma to go along with the hairdresser license she earned before she got the job five years ago at Carrier, when she was studying to be a nurse.

“My five-year plan was to finish out nursing school and work on the line and take classes at night,” she said.

What Elliott does know is that it will be hard to find anything that will match the $18-an-hour she made as a press operator at Carrier-- and that whatever savings she had were eaten up raising two now-grown kids. Her 73-year-old mother, who had also been living with her, has moved in with her brother, who still has a job at Carrier.

“Being a paycheck away from being homeless is terrifying,” she said.

...Elliott’s fate was sealed long before she voted for Trump. The Carrier Company announced on Feb. 10, 2016, that it was closing its plants in Indianapolis and Huntington, Indiana, and moving the operations to Monterrey, Mexico.

It was during the first presidential debate with Hillary Clinton that Trump gave Elliott and her co-workers some hope that their lives and livelihood would be spared.

“We have to stop our companies from leaving the United States and, with it, firing all of their people,” Trump declared. “All you have to do is take a look at Carrier air-conditioning in Indianapolis. They left-- fired 1,400 people. They’re going to Mexico.”

The exact details of what was happening at Carrier were somewhat different. But the gist of what Trump said on national television electrified the workers on the Carrier plant floor.

Suddenly, there was a savior on the horizon.

Until that moment, Elliott said she didn’t think much of Trump, the son of a wealthy real estate developer who was trying to cast himself as a working-class hero.



“When I first heard on the radio that he was going to run, you’re thinking, ‘He’s a billionaire and so forth,’” she said. “And I was thinking, ‘There’s no way, but he’s going to find a cause and pick it up and when he does he’ll change things. And little did I know we’ll be the cause.”

Elliott said workers began showing up for their shifts in red Make America Great Again baseball caps and she started seeing Trump bumper stickers and posters everywhere.

After the election, there seemed to be even more reason to cheer when a triumphant Trump and his running mate Mike Pence, then the governor of Indiana, announced that they had worked out a deal with Carrier's parent company, United Technologies, to save “more than a thousand jobs right here in the head of the Heartland.”

“Actually the number’s over 1,100 people, which is so great, which is so great,” Trump said.

Chuck Jones, the tough-talking Local 1999 steel worker president who spent decades fighting the exodus of good-paying American manufacturing jobs to countries like Mexico, said he didn’t buy what Trump was selling. Jones began working in the 1970s when 19.4 million Americans had manufacturing jobs, a number that had shrunk to fewer than 11.5 million when he recently retired.

“I didn’t vote for Trump,” he said. “And I kept on saying I think he’s full of shit.”

Privately, however, Jones hoped Trump would prove him wrong. He worked for the nearby Rexnord plant for more than 40 years before that operation was moved to Monterrey. And he knows a lot of the Carrier workers who had pinned their hopes on Trump. But as Trump spoke, Jones did the math.

“When Trump and Pence showed up here, they kept on referring to the fact they had saved over 1,100 jobs,” he said. “The people in the crowd thought that everybody was going to have a job. They misled the people.”

Jones said it was an especially cruel move because many of the Carrier workers had already made peace with the idea that layoffs were looming and were looking for other jobs.

“Then people went home that evening and told their families, ‘Everything is going to be all right. President Trump saved our jobs,’” Jones said.

The Carrier plant in Indianapolis will have a work force of 1,100 people after about 215 workers depart Thursday, “completing the final phase of the previously announced plan to relocate fan coil manufacturing production lines,” Ashley Barrie, a spokeswoman for United Technologies, said in an email to NBC News.

Also, Barrie added, the laid-off workers will “receive a one-time payment, severance pay and six months of medical insurance.”

“Since the initial announcement, approximately 60 impacted employees have chosen to take advantage of the company’s Employee Scholar Program and pursue degree programs,” Barrie said. “In addition to reimbursing four-year education costs, Carrier has also reimbursed, and will continue to reimburse, technical training costs for those who prefer to pursue a vocational technical certification program.”

Elliott said she was convinced her job was safe until some strangers from Monterrey showed up at the plant.

“Mexicans came in and some even came to me and asked questions, but I didn’t want to talk to them,” she said.

But other Carrier workers were forced to train those who would be doing their jobs for a quarter of the salary the Americans made.

“The Mexicans aren’t our enemy,” Jones said. “Pure and simple, corporate greed is driving it.”

...Come Friday, though, Elliott will be another unemployed American factory worker. “At my age, I don’t have the confidence to start all over again,” she said.

Virginia Foxx's opponent in North Carolina's 5th district, Jenny Marshall grew up in a small town in Indiana. She told us that she "saw first hand the damage NAFTA had on our town and in the communities across our country. The effects were swift and brutal. Companies packed up and left town seeking out cheap labor in foreign countries. My father was a tool and die maker in a plant that employed hundreds of people in a town of just 17,000. When they closed and shipped their jobs out of the country it caused a ripple effect of businesses closing across the town. It was devastating. We must end these disastrous free trade policies that allow companies to shutter plants just to import those products back into the United States to be sold to the people who used to make them. And we cannot expect people to pick up the pieces and find a new career time and time again. It is a simple case of companies prioritizing profits over the people who work for them. I say enough is enough. It is high time our laws actually protect the people instead of a company's bottom line."

    

Republicans Are Hostile To "Buy American" But Will Trump Stop Lockheed From Moving F-16 Jet Production From Texas To India?

Over the last week Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) was one of several Democratic senators angered by the shipping out of the Buy America provisions from the Water Infrastructure bill. Friday he and Rob Portman (R-OH) sent letters to Mitch McConnell, Harry Reid, Paul Ryan and Nancy Pelosi reminding them that Buy American provisions are broadly supported by both Democrats and Republicans.

Brown: "American tax dollars shouldn’t be spent on Chinese steel. American infrastructure should be built with American products that support American jobs. Period." Portman backed him up: "We must ensure that tax dollars will continue to be invested in America, maximizing American jobs. Provisions like this one have already increased production, jobs, and capital investment in the steel industry, and it is critical that we continue policies that simultaneously improve our infrastructure and our economy." Among the senators signing on were progressives like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Jeff Merkley, Ed Markey, Brian Schatz and Tammy Baldwin but also conservatives like Joe Donnelly, Claire McCaskill, Joe Manchin and Jon Tester. But no other Republicans besides Portman.

And the letter didn't do the trick. McConnell and Ryan were adamant-- and not a word from Trump. Shred Brown, on Monday: "By stripping meaningful Buy America rules from the water infrastructure bill, Washington leadership is choosing China and Russia over Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. This was the first major test of whether Washington establishment Republicans would live up to President-elect Trump’s promises to put American products and American workers first-- they failed, and American iron and steel workers will pay the price."

Tuesday morning Alliance for American Manufacturing President Scott Paul said that "The trade deficit is a drag on growth and jobs in the goods-producing sector. It is one signal of weakness that speaks to our challenges in global competition. It will take more than a Carrier deal to save jobs here and bring some home. For that, we need aggressive economic policies, including a rebalance on trade policy, a tax code friendly to manufacturing and patient capital, and investments in our infrastructure, research, and workers."

Last month, right after the election. there was a provocative story in an Indian newspaper, Lockheed Martin won’t heed Trump, to land F-16s in India

President-elect of the US, Donald Trump, may have claimed that Americans are living through the “greatest jobs theft” in the history of the world, but Lockheed Martin seems to have other plans. The American aircraft-maker has started the groundwork with the hope that India would accept its offer of moving its F-16 fighter aircraft production line from the US to India. Trump believes that US companies were moving out jobs to countries such as India, China, Mexico and Singapore.

The offer comes with the rider that India buys the fighter. “We want to be prepared and that is the reason we have started the groundwork,” said Abhay Paranjape, director, Business Development, India, Lockheed Martin. "We have met representatives of 40 defence and aviation firms from across the country to discuss our offer on making F-16s in India," he added.

Earlier this year, Lockheed Martin made an offer to India that it would shift its only F-16 aircraft production line to India provided the Indian Air Force (IAF) buys the aircraft. "We are offering to make F-16 Block 70, the most advanced aircraft in India. It is one of the most proven fighter aircraft in the world and is flown by air forces in 25 countries," said Randall L Howard, who looks after F-16 Business Development.

If the IAF buys 100 aircraft, it gives stability to the industry that will invest a lot of money in various manufacturing units that support the production line, Howard said. "We make it in India, for India and then we make it in India and export to the world. If the initial orders are not there, it may not work for the industry," Howard added.

Though India has not yet responded to the offer, the top executives at Lockheed Martin are hopeful that it will accept the offer. "They are looking for single-engine fighter and we are offering one of the best aircraft, so we are confident that India will accept the offer," said Paranjape. "They have sent letters to a few firms, including us," he said.

Lockheed is building a far more expensive, technologically superior plane, the F-35 and uses that as the excuse for halting F-16 production in Texas. Local Congressman Marc Veasey bought in on some level: "Hopefully we can continue to build F-16’s for other countries that will need them in the future. But the F-35 really is what’s going to keep Lockheed viable for years to come." Lockheed offered several hundred employees a retirement buyout or an opportunity to work on the F-35 production line. starting in 2017. Trump has been busy fighting with Boeing and cutting shady deals with the Indiana air-conditioning manufacturer, Carrier, but I haven't heard a peep out of him yet on Lockheed Martin. That explosion-- now that local American papers are reporting on it-- should come momentarily. Yesterday, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram came right out and asked if Trump will prevent Lockheed from moving high-paid Texas-based jobs to low-wage India.

Fort Worth is the 5th biggest city in Texas with nearly a million people in 4 counties, Tarrant, Denton, Parker and Wise. Lockheed Martin is headquartered there. Trump struggled in the suburbs of the other big Texas cities, losing in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, and El Paso, but winning in Ft. Worth.

• Tarrant- 52.2%
• Denton- 57.7%
• Parker- 82.3%
• Wise- 83.8%

Although much of Ft. Worth itself is represented by Democrat Marc Veasey (TX-33), the other 3 congressmen who represent the Ft. Worth area are powerful and senior Republicans: Joe Barton (TX-06), Kay Granger (TX-12) and Kenny Marchant (TX-24). I suspect none of them are going to allow F-16 fighter jet manufacture to move out of Texas without a huge commotion-- not to mention Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz. It's worth mentioning that Lockheed Martin's PAC spent $4,243,986 on congressional candidates this cycle and that among the biggest recipients were Barton ($16,000), Marchant ($14,000), Veasey ($12,000), Granger ($10,000) and Cruz ($10,000).

The Star Telegram article yesterday emphasized that no one knows what Trump's posture on this will be. He certainly has a lot more clout with Lockheed Martin than he does with Carrier. The Washington Post's Annie Gowen that if this goes through, Lockheed will build new production facilities in India and that India will be the only manufacturer of the F-16 in the world. Bad news for Democrats:

The proposals have the strong backing of the Obama administration, which has sought a closer connection with the Indian military in recent years. Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said she was “optimistic” about the prospect of a deal after a visit to New Delhi in August, and Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter is set to return to India this week, with procurement high atop the list of discussion topics.

But the election of a billionaire businessman focused on keeping jobs at home, rather than creating them overseas, has brought a measure of uncertainty to the talks.

“What will be the U.S. policy posture now that the new president-elect is in the mix?” said one high-level official at an American defense firm in India, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal negotiations. “Is he going to continue the policy of engaging in India on co-production and co-development? All of those are unknown at this point.”

...On the campaign trail he railed against job losses to Asia and Mexico.

“We are living through the greatest jobs theft in the world,” Trump said last month, citing American companies that have laid off workers and moved jobs to India, Singapore and Mexico. “It’s getting worse and worse and worse.”

Officials at Lockheed Martin and Boeing said that any partnership to manufacture jets in India would not result in a net loss of American jobs but would create Indian employment-- about 1,000 positions in the case of Lockheed Martin.

About 300 mechanics on the Fort Worth assembly line would be moved to the F-35 assembly line at the same plant. Others would be given an opportunity to apply for other jobs on the newer F-35, Lockheed officials said, although they concede that some positions would be lost in the move because of attrition or retirements.

“I see this as a great opportunity for all parties involved,” said Randy Howard, director of business development for Lockheed’s integrated fighter group. “It doesn’t take jobs away from the U.S., it extends existing jobs, and not just for Fort Worth but for many other companies around the U.S. that build parts for the F-16.”

Nevertheless, workers in Fort Worth say they are worried about the future.

“Wouldn’t you be?” said Earnest Boone, president of the District Lodge 776, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which represents Lockheed employees.

In October, the Indian government sent a letter to foreign missions and aerospace manufacturers inquiring about single-engine fighter aircraft that could be manufactured locally.

India wants to co-produce the fighter jets as part of its Make in India program, which has the lofty goal of expanding the manufacturing base to 25 percent of the gross domestic product in the next six years.

...The F-16 airplane remains one of the most widely used aircraft in the world, and Lockheed is continuing to negotiate deals to sell the fighter to other countries. Those F-16s would be made in India under the deal once the new assembly line was up and running, Howard said. The aircraft has been made in joint ventures with other nations before, but “we’ve never offered our only production line to another country,” Howard said. “It’s unprecedented.”

Lockheed has promised that India would not only manufacture and export its jets, but it also would play a “critical role” in supporting a fleet of about 3,200 F-16s in operation around the world, said Jon Grevatt, an Asia Pacific defense industry analyst with IHS Jane’s, a defense analysis firm. “That’s a big carrot,” he noted.

A potential stumbling block to the deal is the willingness of the U.S. government to part with enough of its mission system technology to make the package palatable to the Indians. The aircraft is viewed negatively by some in the defense establishment here as a dated platform that first rolled off the assembly line in 1978-- despite its current state-of-the-art avionics. Another strike against it, for some, is that it is the fighter aircraft used by archrival Pakistan.

Trump's bogus deal with Carrier is polling extremely well. Democrats had better remember whose side they're on or continue to suffer the consequences at the polls. Trump isn't really interested in helping American workers per se and that isn't what he means by making America great again. If workers were part of that, he'd be pushing a new industrial policy and he'd be forcing his party to support retraining proposals. Retired Marine Colonel Doug Applegate, who came within a fraction of a percent of beating Darrell Issa in a San Diego-Orange County district told us this morning that "The GOP's crony capitalism meets Trump’s  snake-oil-false-populism. Only the wealthy 1% will benefit while the rest of America lives with fake news. The GOP and Trump have shown themselves to be willing to ship overseas the economic strength of the United States bit by bit." Doug is running again and he is Blue America's first endorsed candidate for 2018. If you'd like to help replace Issa with Doug, you can do that here

How Much Of A Scam Was Trump's Carrier Announcement Yesterday?

"Trump, who lost the popular vote, has now sent the message it is open season for massive corporations to seek specialized tax breaks from the incoming Administration. This is crony capitalism at its worst. Trump is not only failing to drain the swamp, he is fertilizing the swamp."
-Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA)

In reference to what Gaius was talking about this morning, let's look at some of the fallout from Trump's Carrier announcement. The first time I ever heard about Carrier announcing they would move their plant from Indiana to Mexico was when Bernie started campaigning on it-- loudly. Trump saw that too and quickly started parroting Bernie's complaints on the the campaign trail. Yesterday Bernie penned an OpEd for the Washington Post, Carrier just showed corporations how to beat Donald Trump, warning that American workers have a lot to be worried about because of the nature of the deal Trump cut with United Technologies, Carrier's parent company (in which Trump holds an immense financial stake personally). The deal, he writes, "keeps less than 1,000 of the 2100 jobs in America that were previously scheduled to be transferred to Mexico. Let’s be clear: It is not good enough to save some of these jobs. Trump made a promise that he would save all of these jobs, and we cannot rest until an ironclad contract is signed to ensure that all of these workers are able to continue working in Indiana without having their pay or benefits slashed."

In exchange for allowing United Technologies to continue to offshore more than 1,000 jobs, Trump will reportedly give the company tax and regulatory favors that the corporation has sought. Just a short few months ago, Trump was pledging to force United Technologies to “pay a damn tax.” He was insisting on very steep tariffs for companies like Carrier that left the United States and wanted to sell their foreign-made products back in the United States. Instead of a damn tax, the company will be rewarded with a damn tax cut. Wow! How’s that for standing up to corporate greed? How’s that for punishing corporations that shut down in the United States and move abroad?

In essence, United Technologies took Trump hostage and won. And that should send a shock wave of fear through all workers across the country.

Trump scores publicity win after Carrier keeps jobs in Indiana. Now will other companies take advantage?

...Trump has endangered the jobs of workers who were previously safe in the United States. Why? Because he has signaled to every corporation in America that they can threaten to offshore jobs in exchange for business-friendly tax benefits and incentives. Even corporations that weren’t thinking of offshoring jobs will most probably be re-evaluating their stance this morning. And who would pay for the high cost for tax cuts that go to the richest businessmen in America? The working class of America.

Let’s be clear. United Technologies is not going broke. Last year, it made a profit of $7.6 billion and received more than $6 billion in defense contracts. It has also received more than $50 million from the Export-Import Bank and very generous tax breaks. In 2014, United Technologies gave its former chief executive Louis Chenevert a golden parachute worth more than $172 million. Last year, the company’s five highest-paid executives made more than $50 million. The firm also spent $12 billion to inflate its stock price instead of using that money to invest in new plants and workers.

Does that sound like a company that deserves more corporate welfare from our government? Trump’s Band-Aid solution is only making the problem of wealth inequality in America even worse.

I said I would work with Trump if he was serious about the promises he made to members of the working class. But after running a campaign pledging to be tough on corporate America, Trump has hypocritically decided to do the exact opposite. He wants to treat corporate irresponsibility with kid gloves. The problem with our rigged economy is not that our policies have been too tough on corporations; it’s that we haven’t been tough enough.

We need to re-instill an ethic of corporate patriotism. We need to send a very loud and clear message to corporate America: The era of outsourcing is over. Instead of offshoring jobs, the time has come for you to start bringing good-paying jobs back to America.

If United Technologies or any other company wants to keep outsourcing decent-paying American jobs, those companies must pay an outsourcing tax equal to the amount of money it expects to save by moving factories to Mexico or other low-wage countries.  They should not receive federal contracts or other forms of corporate welfare. They must pay back all of the tax breaks and other corporate welfare they have received from the federal government. And they must not be allowed to reward their executives with stock options, bonuses or golden parachutes for outsourcing jobs to low-wage countries. I will soon be introducing the Outsourcing Prevention Act, which will address exactly that.

If Donald Trump won’t stand up for America’s working class, we must.

As Joshua Holland pointed out at The Nation this week, whenTrump promised to get tough with companies that offshore jobs, he never said anything about buying them off with our tax dollars. And this isn't just about Carrier air conditioners, which Trump sued in 2007 because of air-conditioner malfunctions in one of his hotels. The single biggest customer for United Technology's $56 billion business is the U.S. government. Trump may have saved a few hundred jobs-- it won't even be a thousand-- but at what cost? Yesterday's Indie Star's headline told the whole story: Federal access likely biggest factor in Carrier deal.

State Rep. Kaniela Saito Ing (D-Maui) is certainly the most progressive political leader in Hawaii-- and the only progressive elected official in the whole state to back Bernie's hugely successful primary campaign-- and he saw right through the little ploy. "Trump," he told us after the announcement in Indiana yesterday, "is setting a dangerously low standard for corporate handouts. Threaten your workers with offshoring, exploit them as pawns, then watch the business-friendly corporate tax breaks roll in. The Carrier charade is an anti-worker moral hazard, that voids corporate bosses of all accountability. A true pro-worker agenda starts from the ground up through living and prevailing wage laws, collective bargaining, paid leave, and putting an end to Trump's union-busting agenda."

Retired Marine Colonel Doug Applegate, who nearly toppled predatory multimillionaire Darrell Issa this month in the suburbs north of San Diego-- and who is Blue America's first endorsed candidate for 2018-- took one look at Trump's "deal" and mentioned that "the annual tax rebates to Carrier from the State of Indiana in the amount of $700,000... Sounds like Republican corporate welfare checks to me!"

Even today's Wall Street Journal, a bastion of neo-liberalism with a screwed up but internally consistent way of analyzing this whole thing, looked askance at the clumsy, ineffective way Trump went about this.

[R]eal job security depends on the profitability of the business. Carrier wanted to move the production line to Mexico to stay competitive in the market for gas furnaces. If the extra costs of staying in Indianapolis erode that business, those workers will lose their jobs eventually in any case.

This isn’t to fault Mr. Hayes’s decision, since Mr. Trump made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. The state of Indiana threw in $7 million in tax incentives, but those weren’t decisive. Mr. Trump’s real hammer is his threat to impose a tariff on Carrier imports to the U.S. Carrier has a 30% share of the U.S. gas-furnace market, and a 35% tariff could kill the business. That’s the same sword Mr. Trump previously held over Ford Motor Co.

United Technologies also gets about 10% of its revenue from sales to the Pentagon, another source of government leverage. Then there’s the potential damage to the Carrier brand, especially its consumer air conditioner sales, if Mr. Trump decided to blast it from the bully-- and we mean bully-- pulpit. So United Technologies decided to take the small cost against earnings and invest to make the Indiana plant more competitive.

...A mercantilist Trump trade policy that jeopardized those exports would throw far more Americans out of work than the relatively low-paying jobs he’s preserved for now in Indianapolis. Mr. Trump’s Carrier squeeze might even cost more U.S. jobs if it makes CEOs more reluctant to build plants in the U.S. because it would be politically difficult to close them.

Mr. Trump has now muscled his way into at least two corporate decisions about where and how to do business. But who would you rather have making a decision about where to make furnaces or cars? A company whose profitability depends on making good decisions, or a branding executive turned politician who wants to claim political credit?

The larger point is that America won’t become more prosperous by forcing companies to make noneconomic investments. A nation gets rich when individuals and business are allowed to take risks as they see fit in a competitive economy. Politicians are rotten investors. Mr. Trump would help the economy, and his Presidency, far more if he focuses on getting the pro-growth parts of his agenda through Congress.

Like the Nixon Administration, Donald Trump’s unpredictable, non-ideological policy-making will sometimes be disorienting for those who claim to believe in free markets. Some conservatives will be tempted to tolerate bad policies that appear to be popular that they’d never accept from President Obama. Many Republicans stayed silent or supported Nixon as he imposed wage-and-price controls and created the EPA, only to regret it later. They shouldn’t make the same mistake with Mr. Trump.

The better strategy is to support him when his policies promote growth and try to block him when he veers into big-government cul-de-sacs. In that spirit, his Carrier shakedown is a short-term political victory that will hurt workers and the economy if it becomes the norm for the next four years.

Even Palin-- currently sucking around for a Cabinet appointment-- slapped Trump around today over the Carrier nonsense, calling it crony capitalism. "When government steps in arbitrarily with individual subsidies," she wrote, "favoring one business over others, it sets inconsistent, unfair, illogical precedent. Meanwhile, the invisible hand that best orchestrates a free people’s free enterprise system gets amputated. Then, special interests creep in and manipulate markets. Republicans oppose this, remember? Instead, we support competition on a level playing field, remember? Because we know special interest crony capitalism is one big fail... [F]undamentally, political intrusion using a stick or carrot to bribe or force one individual business to do what politicians insist, versus establishing policy incentivizing our ENTIRE ethical economic engine to roar back to life, isn’t the answer. Cajole only chosen ones on Main St or Wall St and watch lines stretch from Washington to Alaska full of businesses threatening to bail unless taxpayers pony up. The lines strangle competition and really, really, dispiritingly screw with workers’ lives. It’s beyond unacceptable, so let’s anticipate equal incentivizes and positive reform all across the field-- to make the economy great again."

Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, is happy for the workers who will get to keep their jobs-- fewer than half-- but pointed out that "the Carrier deal is only a bandage on the economic wounds in our industrial heartland. Over the past 16 years, America has lost more than 60,000 manufacturing facilities, and 5.5 million manufacturing jobs since 2000. Not all of those jobs can be reclaimed, but smarter policies will give factory workers a brighter future. A tougher trade policy, a tax code that incentivizes reshoring jobs and production, investments in infrastructure, research, and training are all urgently needed. America has manufacturing know-how, abundant energy resources, a culture of entrepreneurship, a strong homegrown consumer market, and access to amazing innovation. Smarter policies will help us compete. We know these issues enjoy bipartisan support among voters, and they should be the focus of Congress and the Trump administration in 2017."

Sanders: "United Technologies Took Trump Hostage and Won"

"You think you're so clever and classless and free..."
(so many versions, so little time)

by Gaius Publius

This matters, both the Carrier settlement itself (how it was achieved) and the Sanders pushback against it. Let's start with Sanders, then go to the settlement. Sanders writes (my bolded emphasis):

Bernie Sanders: Carrier just showed corporations how to beat Donald Trump

We need a president who can stand up to big corporations, not fold to their demands.

Today, about 1,000 Carrier workers and their families should be rejoicing. But the rest of our nation’s workers should be very nervous.

President-elect Donald Trump will reportedly announce a deal with United Technologies, the corporation that owns Carrier, that keeps less than 1,000 of the 2100 jobs in America that were previously scheduled to be transferred to Mexico. Let’s be clear: It is not good enough to save some of these jobs. Trump made a promise that he would save all of these jobs, and we cannot rest until an ironclad contract is signed to ensure that all of these workers are able to continue working in Indiana without having their pay or benefits slashed.

In exchange for allowing United Technologies to continue to offshore more than 1,000 jobs, Trump will reportedly give the company tax and regulatory favors that the corporation has sought. Just a short few months ago, Trump was pledging to force United Technologies to “pay a damn tax.” He was insisting on very steep tariffs for companies like Carrier that left the United States and wanted to sell their foreign-made products back in the United States. Instead of a damn tax, the company will be rewarded with a damn tax cut. Wow! How’s that for standing up to corporate greed? How’s that for punishing corporations that shut down in the United States and move abroad?

In essence, United Technologies took Trump hostage and won. And that should send a shock wave of fear through all workers across the country.

Or, as Politico succinctly put it, "Carrier tariff now Carrier tax cut?" Trump went toe-to-toe with United Technology, and lost.

Trump As Enabler of Offshoring

This is a 180 degree reversal and he's not even in office yet. But Sanders is exactly right:

Trump has endangered the jobs of workers who were previously safe in the United States. Why? Because he has signaled to every corporation in America that they can threaten to offshore jobs in exchange for business-friendly tax benefits and incentives. Even corporations that weren’t thinking of offshoring jobs will most probably be re-evaluating their stance this morning. And who would pay for the high cost for tax cuts that go to the richest businessmen in America? The working class of America.

Sanders closes: "I will soon be introducing the Outsourcing Prevention Ac [details here]t, which will address exactly that. If Donald Trump won’t stand up for America’s working class, we must."

Some working class hero Trump turned out to be. I guess we're still peasants after all.

The "Deal"

A little more detail on the so-called "deal." They say "1000 jobs" were saved, but of those only 800 were originally at risk. Plus, 1300 jobs will still move to Mexico.

From The Hill:

The company that owns Carrier will receive $7 million worth of tax breaks over 10 years from Indiana to keep 1,000 jobs in the state, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

Carrier confirmed the news Thursday in a statement, writing that the deal is contingent upon factors including employment, job retention and capital investment.

The company this week reached a deal with President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence to keep the jobs in the state, after announcing earlier this year it would shut down a plant in Indianapolis and move manufacturing to Mexico. ...

The deal would cover 800 workers from the Indianapolis furnace plant and an additional 300 research and headquarters positions that weren't planned to go to Mexico, according to the Journal.

But 600 jobs will still move from Indianapolis to Mexico.

Carrier also still plans to close a second plant in Huntington, Ind., shifting another 700 jobs to Mexico.

More detail via the WSJ (subscripton required): 

Carrier has previously said it expected to save about $65 million a year by shutting the plant and shifting its operations to Monterrey, in the state of Nuevo León, where wages average about $11 a day, plus benefits. The average wage of the Indiana jobs that will be retained is $30 an hour, according to a document reviewed by the Journal.

In case that didn't sink in, Indian-to-Mexico wages shift $30 per hour to $11 per day. That's why we can't have nice jobs, or at least decent paying ones. How much of that savings, do you think, would have ended up in the executive suite, via stock buybacks, sweetened salaries and bonuses, and "golden parachutes"? Answer, as much as possible.

Plus $7 million in tax breaks. Unless some of it is federal, all will come out of the pockets of cash-strapped Indiana and its (largely Trump-voting) tax-payers.

Why This Is Important

First, Bernie Sanders is right — Trump sold out his voters in Indiana. Second, Sanders is saying this out loud and getting lots of attention for it, which means the sound of Sanders analysis is likely playing in Trump's ears right now, and hopefully in the ears of his Sanders-tempted supporters as well.

Which ought to put Trump on the defensive and keep real systemic solutions to corporate America's outsourcing addiction alive. Remember, the problem that got Trump elected isn't going away until cash-strapped citizens — not corporations — get relief they can see, feel and spend. Under Trump, that's not going to happen.

Which means, there's hope after all.

"Working Class Hero"

Trump may not be a working class hero, but Sanders is, and so was John Lennon. Here's the original version. Enjoy:

Fun with music theory: One of the things that makes this song so interesting, so not a "four-square" song, is its phrase length. Each phrase — each line in the verse or chorus — occupies seven measures of music, not eight. It's why you feel off-balance as you listen, like the lines end too soon or restart too quickly. Count if you like; each measure is three beats long, so they're easy to identify. Be sure to stop at seven and restart at one. Very good song-writing from a master at it.

GP
 

Sanders to Trump: Force Rehiring ALL Carrier Employees. Commit to Passing Outsourcing Prevention Act of 2017

This clip contains the viral Carrier Indianapolis plant video (also available here), then includes a discussion of why this is so bad, and why this was entirely discretionary by United Technologies (UTC), the company's owner. (Uygur fails to mention the $172 million "golden parachute" given to the UTC CEO in 2014.)

by Gaius Publius

"They don't know what to do with all the money they have, and they're still firing American workers."
     –Cenk Uygur in the clip above.

I think by now most people know the story of the Carrier plant layoffs that sparked such anger (discussed in the video above; to view the Carrier clip only, click here). A group of workers at a Carrier plant in Indianapolis were being told by management that their jobs were being eliminated and the plant moved to Mexico. The clip, shot by one of the workers at the meeting, shows their reaction. There's no doubt that the clip going viral had an influence on both the primary and the general election. It perfectly captures the state of working in American, and workers' reaction to it.

During the campaign, Trump said he'd fight, as president, to restore all of the Carrier jobs lost in Indianapolis. From the New York Times (my emphasis):

Carrier’s decision to move the factory to Monterrey, Mexico, will eliminate 1,400 jobs by 2019. Mr. Trump quickly made the factory Exhibit A in his argument against the trade policies of Republicans and Democrats alike.

He cited Carrier again and again on the campaign trail, threatening to phone executives at the company and its parent, United Technologies, and to hit them with 35 percent tariffs on any furnaces and air-conditioners they imported from Mexico. To the cheers of his supporters, he predicted at rallies that Carrier would call him up as president and say, “Sir, we’ve decided to stay in the United States.”

Here's video:

The writer added:

Now his supporters expect action. “If he doesn’t pass that tariff, I will vote the other way next time,” warned Nicole Hargrove, who has worked at Carrier for a decade and a half and is not certain what she will do if and when her job goes to Mexico.

"I will vote the other way next time." This is exactly the leverage the Sanders wing of the Democratic Party needs to bring non-racist Trump voters back to the Sanders camp. (Do the Democrats want to be part of that camp? We'll find out soon.)

As it turns out, Trump may be backing down. First, there's this:

In order for Trump to place a tariff on heating and cooling products made in Mexico coming to the US, first, he’d have to withdraw from NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement between the US, Canada and Mexico. The treaty was formally signed into agreement by President Bill Clinton in 1994, but it was negotiated by Republican President George H.W. Bush.

He could do that — and in fact, he promised to renegotiate NAFTA in the first 100 days of his presidency. But will he do either — save all Carrier jobs in Indianapolis, plus renegotiate NAFTA? Many are doubtful, including the president of the union representing Carrier's workers (notice, Carrier's Indianapolis workers were unionized; their Mexican workers won't be).

The Indianapolis Star:

Union president would be 'shocked' if Donald Trump convinces Carrier to stay in Indianapolis

The president of the union that represents 1,400 Carrier Corp. workers in Indianapolis is not optimistic that a last-ditch effort by President-elect Donald Trump can save their jobs.

Chuck Jones, president of United Steelworkers Local 1999, said Friday he has not been briefed on talks between the incoming Trump administration and Carrier. But he doesn't see any chance for Trump or Vice President-elect Mike Pence to reverse Carrier's plan to move its west-side furnace operations to Monterrey, Mexico.

"If in fact (discussions) do materialize into something, I would think they'd have to include us at some point in time," Jones said.

Trump announced his administration's talks with Carrier on Twitter, writing that he was "working hard, even on Thanksgiving, trying to get Carrier A.C. Company to stay in the U.S." Trump said he was "making progress" in keeping the heating and air conditioning giant in Indianapolis.

CNBC on Friday reported Pence is leading those talks, citing unnamed sources. Marc Lotter, a spokesman for Pence's vice presidential campaign, said in an email he had no comment beyond what Trump said. Spokespersons for Pence's office did not respond to requests for comment.

Carrier issued a statement via Twitter that confirmed it has been in touch with the Trump administration, but did not describe the nature of those communications. ...

Jones worries that campaign promise might be driving Trump to offer false hope.

"I think it's all a PR move," Jones said. "Trump said what he said when he was campaigning. We've been calling him out, that he made promises Carrier wouldn't move. In order to do something, I think he came up with this."

I hope you can see what's brewing — a classic bait-and-switch by Trump. After all, as Uyger points out above, all the government needs to do is threaten to cancel the lucrative United Technology (UTC) defense contracts — $6 billion worth of them — or refuse to grant new ones, until the plant, with its full complement of union workers, is restored.

Even I could make that deal. The government has all the aces. It just has to play them. Will Donald Trump play his aces and keep his very high profile promise to Carrier workers and American workers through the nation?

Bernie Sanders on Trump and Carrier Outsourcing

Will Trump keep his promise to Carrier workers? Perhaps he needs a nudge. Enter Bernie Sanders. Via his press office we find this (my emphasis):

Sanders Statement on Carrier and Outsourcing

BURLINGTON, Vt., Nov. 26 – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) issued the following statement Saturday:

“During the campaign, Donald Trump made a 100 percent commitment to prevent United Technologies from shipping 2,100 jobs from Indiana to Mexico. All of us need to hold Mr. Trump accountable to make sure that he keeps this promise.

“Let’s be clear: it is not good enough to save some of these jobs. We cannot rest until United Technologies signs a firm contract to keep all of these good-paying jobs in Indiana without slashing the salaries or benefits workers have earned.

“United Technologies is not going broke. Last year, it made a profit of $7.6 billion and received over $6 billion in defense contracts. It has also received more than $50 million in corporate welfare from the Export-Import Bank and very generous tax breaks.

“In 2014, United Technologies gave its former CEO Louis Chenevert a golden parachute worth over $172 million. Last year, the company’s five highest paid executives made over $50 million. The firm also spent $12 billion to inflate its stock price instead of using that money to invest in new plants and workers.

“I call on Mr. Trump to make it clear to the CEO of United Technologies that if his firm wants to receive another defense contract from the taxpayers of this country, it must not move these plants to Mexico.

“We need to send a very loud and very clear message to corporate America: the era of outsourcing is over. Instead of offshoring jobs, the time has come for you to start bringing good-paying jobs back to the United States of America.

“If United Technologies or any other company wants to keep outsourcing decent-paying American jobs, those companies must pay an outsourcing tax equal to the amount of money it expects to save by moving factories to Mexico or other low-wage countries. They must pay back all of the tax breaks and other corporate welfare they have received from the federal government. And they must not be allowed to reward their executives with stock options, bonuses or golden parachutes for outsourcing jobs to low wage countries.

“I will soon be introducing legislation to make sure that Donald Trump keeps his promise to prevent the outsourcing of American jobs. For the sake of American workers, this is a promise that cannot and must not be broken.”

That's just the first half of the Sander challenge to Donald Trump — restore all Indianapolis Carrier jobs. The second half of his challenge is even stronger, both politically and in terms of policy. Look at the last paragraph in the press release again, the part that mentions the legislation.

The Outsourcing Prevention Act of 2017: "We need to send a very loud message to corporate America: the era of outsourcing is over."

Legislation like this is exactly what the Sanders and the Sanders wing needs to be doing — it's what Sanders would have done as president — and it's excellent to see them doing it. The "Outsourcing Prevention Act" that Sanders will introduce is described below. Read it for the pleasure it gives you.

Note that just introducing it will do three things at once:

1. Put Trump on a very public and long-drawn-out hook to prove he actually stands for workers
2. Put the corporate wing of the Democratic Party on the same hook, to prove they actually stand for workers
3. Begin (perhaps) to redefine the Democratic Party as the true party of workers, not the corporate elite

Introducing the bill challenges both Trump and the Democratic Party to show where it stands — out loud and in public. Points 2 and 3 interlock. If the corporate wing of the Party publicly blocks this bill, point 3 will be made in reverse — the Democratic Party will be outed as being no better than Trump when it comes to jobs and the economy.

Challenging the Carrier promise is a great first move, but if Trump does successfully negotiate to get those jobs back, the critical (to the nation) issue of job loss via outsourcing disappears for a while. Having a bill that works its way through Congress (a) keeps the conversation going for quite a while longer, and (b) represents a systemic fix to a systemic problem. Again, kudos to Sanders and his team for this strong move.

Here are the details of the bill, from the Sanders press release quoted above:

Summary of the Outsourcing Prevention Act

In February, Carrier and UTEC [sic] announced that it would be closing two plants in Indianapolis and Huntington, Indiana shipping 2,100 jobs to Monterrey, Mexico, where workers are paid just $3 an hour. Both of these plants are owned by United Technologies. This legislation will provide a comprehensive solution to address this problem. United Technologies is not an outlier; it is representative of how so many multi-national corporations are taking advantage of our rigged economic system to pad their profits while hurting American workers. President-elect Trump made a promise during the campaign that he would prevent all of these jobs from being shipped overseas. The Outsourcing Prevention Act would make sure that Donald Trump keeps this promise by:

1. Preventing companies that outsource jobs from receiving federal contracts, tax breaks, grants or loans.

Last year, United Technologies received over $6 billion in federal contracts, making it the seventh largest recipient of federal contract funds. Over the past 15 years, this Fortune 500 company has used loopholes in the tax code to shelter more than two-thirds of its $38 billion in profits from federal taxation. It has also received over $50 million in corporate welfare from the Export-Import Bank. Under this legislation, companies would be barred from receiving future contracts, tax breaks, grants or loans from the federal government if they have announced plans to outsource more than 50 jobs overseas.

2. Clawing back federal benefits from companies that outsource jobs have received over the last decade.

This legislation would require all companies that outsource more than 50 jobs in a given year to pay back all federal tax breaks, grants and loans they have received from the federal government over the last decade.

3. Establishing an outsourcing tax on companies that move U.S. jobs offshore.

This legislation would impose a tax on all companies that outsource jobs. The tax would be equal to the amount of savings achieved by outsourcing jobs or 35 percent of its profits, whichever is higher. United Technologies estimated that it would save $65 million a year by moving its jobs in Indiana to Mexico. Under this legislation, the company would be required to pay a tax of no less than $65 million a year.

4. Prohibiting executives from profiting off of the outsourcing of U.S. jobs.

This legislation would prohibit companies that offshore jobs from enriching executives through golden parachutes, stock options, bonuses, or other forms of compensation by imposing stiff tax penalties on this compensation. In addition, companies that outsource jobs overseas would be prevented from buying back its own stock. In 2014, United Technologies gave its former CEO a golden parachute worth over $172 million. Last year, the company’s five highest paid executives made over $50 million. The firm also spent $12 billion to inflate its stock price instead of using that money to invest in new plants and workers.

If you don't want to read the whole piece above, read just the four major points. Very nicely done. Again, exactly what Sanders would have done as president, and exactly why all those thousands showed up in all those stadiums to see and hear him.

The only difference now is, he has to do it all from his Senate seat instead of the Oval Office. Pity that. Still, he's doing it, and we should be continuously grateful.

Yes.

Just thought I 'd throw that in. Remember, it didn't have to be this way.

GP
 

People Learned The Hard Way That If Anything Has The Word Trump Attached To It, Run Away As Fast As You Can

New polling from PPP shows Clinton running ahead of Trump in every battle-ground state (unless you count Arizona as a battle-ground state, where he is leading her narrowly. Here are their latest results:

• Wisconsin: Clinton 47%, Trump 39%
• New Hampshire: Clinton 43%, Trump, 39%
• Iowa: Clinton 41%, Trump 39%
• Ohio: Clinton 44%, Trump 40%
• Pennsylvania: Clinton 46%, Trump 42%
• Arizona: Trump 44%, Clinton 40%

The voters in these states-- including Arizona-- do not trust Trump to nominate a Supreme Court justice; every one of them has majorities that say they would prefer Obama to replace Scalia than Trump.

As voters have gotten to know who Trump is-- for real (not as part of a scripted TV sit-com) they have realized how untrustworthy he is. Mark Leibovich, chief political correspondent for the NY Times Magazine, explored, in some depth, the identity crisis roiling the GOP. First a video of him pimping the story on Morning Joe just before it was published:



He spent a lot of time this spring interviewing Reince Preibus for the essay; most other GOP officials passed on doing interviews, hoping to not tar themselves with any kind of Trump association.

[T]he degree to which he seems unconcerned with his pariah status among name Republicans remains a key feature of his pursuit. To a comical extent, top Republicans willed themselves invisible when I reached out to them for this article, fearing, not incorrectly, that the conversation would turn to Trump. This included some of the most typically quotable Republicans, including former Trump challengers like Graham (“He’s sorta had his fill talking about Trump,” a spokesman emailed), Perry (“Thanks for thinking of him”) and Ted Cruz (“Not great timing on our end”); the previous nominee Mitt Romney (“You are kind to think of me,” he wrote); Trump stalwarts like Chris Christie (“We are going to take a pass this time”); Trump-averse Republican governors like Charlie Baker of Massachusetts (“The governor won’t be available”); and senators like Mike Lee, of Utah (“Senator Lee would love to talk to you about the state of the G.O.P. and conservatism in general. We are free anytime after Nov 8.”).

I tried Rubio, who has undergone more public agony than perhaps anyone about Trump. Rubio looks nauseated whenever someone asks him about the man he called “the most vulgar person to ever aspire to the presidency” but who later said he would be “honored” to speak for at the Republican convention before clarifying that if he did speak, he would only “speak about things I believe in, not somebody else’s platform.” Rubio also holds the astonishing position of saying he’ll vote for someone he has previously declared unfit to hold the American nuclear codes. You envision him under a mushroom cloud, assuring his kids that it could be even worse-- at least he didn’t vote for Clinton.

There’s a palpable weariness among Republicans, and it’s still only June. Every day, it’s something else. “What it does is suck all the oxygen out of the chamber,” Senator Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, told me. “I’m trying to do my job as a senator, which does not end because we have a contentious and bizarre presidential candidate.”

...There is a distinct sense among leading Republicans that if you take proper precautions-- Trump-proofing-- it’s possible to avoid contagion. Ryan agreed to be interviewed for a Father’s Day feature in People Magazine but only on the condition that no Trump questions be asked.

Trump seems to fundamentally welcome the party’s revulsion. As Ryan wavered over supporting him, Trump was privately saying that Ryan’s rejection might actually help him, that he was just the kind of political lifer whom Trump positioned his campaign against. His social-media director (and a former caddie), Dan Scavino Jr., actually went public with this, tweeting out a link to a column in Breitbart headlined, “Paul Ryan Is the Reason the G.O.P. Is Losing America.”

While Ryan is trying to refashion and sell the G.O.P. as a party of innovation and heart, Trump is a creature of mouth and gut and other lower-body drivers. They can try to operate in parallel G.O.P. universes, but the two styles are often in obvious conflict.

...Ryan views himself as a guardian of conservative “ideas.” “Ideas” is one of those fetish words, popular among ambitious young pols (conservative ideas-mongers are constantly dropping Kemp’s name). As the speaker of the Florida House, Rubio published a book in 2006 of “100 innovative ideas” and spoke about his love of ideas during his presidential campaign, before he started making pee-pee jokes about Trump. Bobby Jindal, the Louisiana governor who was then considered one of the rising-star innovators of the party, warned after Romney’s defeat in 2012 that the G.O.P. must stop being “the stupid party” and urged fellow Republicans to talk “like adults” and swear off “offensive and bizarre” rhetoric. He then embarked on a presidential campaign in which his most memorable “idea” was suggesting that Trump “looks like he’s got a squirrel sitting on his head.” (Jindal dropped out in November; Trump barely bothered to insult him.)

Jindal’s “stupid party” remark reflected a concern among idea conservatives that was marinating well before Trump came along: that the Republican Party has taken on an increasingly anti-intellectual bent. There has been a strong populist allergy to elitism within the G.O.P. coalition for a long time. But Sarah Palin’s emergence as the vice-presidential nominee in 2008 and subsequent tenure as a party celebrity was a benchmark. Lesser imitators like Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain took turns as Republican front-runners in 2012. Trump made his name as a national political figure in 2011 and 2012 with his flamboyant campaign to prove that Obama was not born in the United States, an oft-discredited notion that was especially offensive to African-Americans. Four years later, the leader of what many Republicans had hoped was a nativist fringe movement is the party’s presumed nominee.



Ryan believed that he and fellow idea-mavens in Congress could preserve the party’s substantive core. This would be the laboratory from which he could remake the party’s conservative identity while attracting new Republicans, including young and minority voters. “I have to protect conservatism from being disfigured,” Ryan told me. His focus, he said, is on “ideas, temperament and the future of conservatism.”

Ryan has little confidence that Trump cares at all about his ideas, possessed that temperament or had thought at all about the future of conservatism. Trump almost never talks about “ideas,” unless you count blustery promises to “build a wall and make Mexico pay for it,” end lousy trade deals and “win” again.

...If grass-roots Republicans rebelled against the “establishment” in the primaries, Trump has provided the establishment with mounting ammunition to fight back in the 11th hour. The first half of June has been a running train wreck for Trump, beginning with his crusade against Judge Curiel. Trump has been provoking increasing alarm among Republicans at the moment he should be proving himself nominally “presidential.” The Republican senator Mark Kirk of Illinois announced that he could no longer support Trump in the aftermath of Curiel (“I think he’s too bigoted and racist for the Land of Lincoln”); Lindsey Graham did the same and urged other Republicans backing Trump to rescind their endorsements. Top Republicans voiced widespread opposition post-Orlando to Trump’s reiterated calls for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country.

Trump in turn called party leaders “weak” and pounded them for not falling in line behind him. “Just please be quiet, don’t talk,” he railed at them at a June 15 rally in Atlanta. “We have to have our Republicans either stick together or let me do it by myself,” Trump said. “I’ll do very well.” He would be banking on the two-party system being sufficiently hobbled that allegiance to him would prevail over partisan loyalty. Republicans wouldn’t hold it against Trump that he’s anathema to their establishment while Democrats would feel no loyalty to their traditional home team, let alone to Hillary Clinton. Trump appeared at this moment prepared to begin an independent general-election campaign under the nominal banner of the Republican Party, while using their abundant resources. This looked more like a jail break than a pivot.

Nor is it just Trump; the whole Trump family is, quite literally, as disgusting as he is-- and as predatory, dishonest and narcissistic. The first time I noticed the little shit most like his father, Eric Trump (age 32) he was on TV last December yammering about how his "picks incredible people. I think he'd have the greatest cabinet in the history of cabinets." His exact words; he's exactly like his father, who is notorious for picking really reprehensible people to go into business with, from Roy Cohn to one of the leading mafia kleptocratic families of Azerbaijan.

Saturday, Mike McIntire, also writing for the NY Times took Donald Jr. to task for emulating his father's con-man, rip-off artist style, specializing in ripping off widows of veterans. He's on the board of and a paid pitchman for a shady organization called Cambridge Who’s Who, a vanity publisher promising "branding services" of which he is the "executive director of global branding." Cambridge Who’s Who generated hundreds of complaints to the Better Business Bureau and to state consumer protection agencies "that it deceptively peddled the promise of recognition in a registry, as well as branding and networking services of questionable value. Dozens of people who paid Trump-endorsed businesses were also sold products by Cambridge, which benefited from its partnership with Donald Trump Jr. through 'leveraging relationships built by the Trump empire,' according to Cambridge." The owner-- another very typical Trump-type associate-- is "Randy Narod, a Long Island, N.Y., nightclub and bagel store owner barred from the securities industry for having had an impostor take his licensing exam."

Cambridge gained the Trump imprimatur when the younger Mr. Trump came on board in 2010 and began promoting its services as a way for people to distinguish themselves in a tough economic climate.

He worked in plugs for Cambridge during interviews on the Fox Business Network and TheStreet.com, did a promotional video and appeared in photos with Mr. Narod. Among them was one with another Trump executive at Trump Tower in New York, where, according to a news release, the three men discussed “strategies to expand the personal branding and professional networking services offered by Cambridge Who’s Who.” Mr. Narod’s company said on its website that it had embarked on a “global expansion with the Trump Organization.”

“Branding is the best way to gain recognition and exposure, and nobody knows this more than the Trump Organization,” the younger Mr. Trump said in a promotion for Cambridge.

Cambridge employees played up the Trump association when pursuing customers.

“We had scripts to read when we made our calls to people, and when Donald Trump Jr. came along, our scripts were changed to include him in it,” said Joy Debono, a former Cambridge telemarketer. “We would basically say that Cambridge was a good company because Trump was involved in it.”

The “who’s who” industry has a long and dubious history.

There are some well-established companies that publish directories of professionals in various fields, such as lawyers and top corporate executives. But there are many others that target people of little distinction, shower them with accolades and then try to sell them costly “honors” such as placement in a directory or wall plaques.

Cambridge and its subsidiary, Worldwide Branding, took the model a step further, adding the promise of branding-- news releases, video biographies and a personalized web page-- and networking with other Cambridge customers who paid a membership fee to join.

When Donald Trump Jr. joined Cambridge, the company had already had about 400 complaints filed against it with the Better Business Bureau since 2006. Scores more appeared in online consumer forums like Ripoff Report, where customers vented about misleading sales calls, worthless products and difficulties getting refunds. Many of the complaints describe a similar pattern of aggressively steering people into ever more expensive products.

Monday, Wonkette took on the crooked daughter and prime Trump henchman, Ivanka. Based on an L.A. Times investigation of another Trump scam, it "details how she works alongside her father to fleece anybody who’s not named 'Trump.' After Trump 'licensed his name' to some crap developers for a resort in Baja, those partners took $32 million from nice people who wanted to buy stupid gold-crusted condos and then accidentally did not build a resort in Baja. Donald Trump (and his children) denied any responsibility for giving people their dumb condo money back, or anything at all. They had just licensed their names! They never said they were the developers! Except for like 50 times they said they were the developers. On video, in newsletters, at fancy cocktail receptions, in skywriting maybe." Ivanka and her pa were leveraging the Trump brand the same way they do everywhere, to make a few bucks while Trump associates rip off and fleece everyone they can with it. Wonkette wanted to know what was Ivanka doing to convince nice people to lose all their money and never get it back and then settle for "an undisclosed sum" that, if they followed Trump’s hundreds of other settlements, would be for pennies on the dollar?

As the Trumps and their partners promoted the condos with sleek brochures and what they called “VIP” cocktail receptions in San Diego County, they often left the impression-- or said outright-- that Trump was one of the developers. Their marketing team determined that the Trump name was the No. 1 draw for buyers, according to documents that surfaced in the lawsuit.

“We are developing a world-class resort befitting of the Trump brand,” Ivanka Trump said in a video on the Trump Baja website. “I’m very excited about it. I actually chose to buy a unit in the first tower.”

Her father appeared in the same video saying he was proud “that when I build, I have investors that follow me all over.”

“They invest in what I build, and that’s why I’m so excited about Trump Ocean resort,” he said.

...Garten, the Trump counsel, did not respond directly when asked by email why condo buyers were told that Trump Jr. had bought a unit. In general, Garten said, allegations in the lawsuit “were never proven.”

A July 2007 newsletter sent to condo buyers also stated that the resort was being “developed by one of the most respected names in real estate, Donald J. Trump.”

Further buttressing buyers’ belief that Trump was one of the developers, not just a brand name, Trump personally signed an August 2007 letter to condo buyers that identified him as exactly that. It was on the letterhead of P.B. Impulsores, the Mexican company named in unit purchase documents as the resort developer.

In the end, Wonkette concludes that "Trump’s one redeeming quality (his hot daughter) is not very redeeming after all, because she is a gross grifty pathological liar. (But hot.)" Yesterday Trump was in Pennsylvania trying to persuade blue collar swing voters there that he's trustworthy on economic issues and won't rip them and their families oft way he has ripped off everyone who has ever entered into a deal with him. The man who outsources everything he can to low-wage hell-holes around the world and who uses the cheapest components he can find for anything with his name on it-- from steaks and drywall to entire buildings-- declared America's economic independence. Over the course of the campaign you no doubt heard Trump bellowing about the outrageous behavior of companies like Nabisco, Ford, Carrier, and other U.S.-based companies for outsourcing manufacturing. What you might not have heard was what Trump always hides, that he was investing in and profiting from those same outsourcing firms, even as he criticized them for shipping jobs overseas. He didn't mention that at his Pennsylvania rally yesterday, which would have been more honest had it been called "Trump First" instead of "Declaring America's Economic Independence."



And, yeah, he's the guy who always stands up and pledges huge sums of money to charities to tremendous acclaim and applause-- but then systematically stiffs the charities

In May, under pressure from the news media, Donald Trump made good on a pledge he made four months earlier: He gave $1 million to a nonprofit group helping veterans’ families.

Before that, however, when was the last time that Trump had given any of his own money to a charity?

If Trump stands by his promises, such donations should be occurring all the time. In the 15 years prior to the veterans donation, Trump promised to donate earnings from a wide variety of his moneymaking enterprises: “The Apprentice.” Trump Vodka. Trump University. A book. Another book. If he had honored all those pledges, Trump’s gifts to charity would have topped $8.5 million.

But in the 15 years prior to the veterans’ gift, public records show that Trump donated about $2.8 million through a foundation set up to give his money away-- less than a third of the pledged amount-- and nothing since 2009. Records show Trump has given nothing to his foundation since 2008.

...In the 1980s, Trump pledged to give away royalties from his first book to fight AIDS and multiple sclerosis. But he gave less to those causes than he did to his older daughter’s ballet school.

In recent years, Trump’s follow-through on his promises has been seemingly nonexistent.

The Post contacted 167 charities searching for evidence of personal gifts from Trump in the period between 2008 and this May. The Post sought out charities that had some link to Trump, either because he had given them his foundation’s money, appeared at their charity galas or praised them publicly.

The search turned up just one donation in that period-- a 2009 gift of between $5,000 and $9,999 to the Police Athletic League of New York City.

That's one of the (many) reasons he's refusing to release his tax returns. They'll show just how uncharitable he is, and has always been... despite all the bragging about his generosity.