Skip to main content

Trump proves he is completely clueless on what's the real reason behind the mass layoffs epidemic in big businesses and how to deal with it


Donald Trump's response to recent General Motors' decision to close plants and slash jobs, proves that he is completely clueless on what's the real reason behind the mass layoffs epidemic in US big businesses and how to deal with it.

The media circulated what Trump thinks to do about it, including threats against GM to impose auto tariffs, or, his most beloved action: penalties on foreign cars.

Yet, perhaps the most hilarious part in the whole story, is that one of the key frontline tools of the global neoliberal capital immediately published an 'in your face' article to make Trump realize that he is completely powerless too, against the forces of the markets. Here are some interesting parts:

... market forces are tough to beat, even if you’re president. Trump captured the White House thanks in large part to the story he told -- that he could reverse America’s industrial decline. He promised to bring back manufacturing and fossil-fuel jobs written off as casualties of global trade and over-regulation.

But almost halfway through Trump’s first term, divergences from his “Make America Great Again” story line continue to pile up, pushed along by technology, globalization and a changing climate.

[...]

It’s unclear whether Trump has authority to revoke subsidies without action by Congress. It’s also difficult, if not impossible, for Trump to overcome the dynamics that are driving companies to choose robots over humans, discontinue brands and close plants. Some are choosing to build nearer to their consumers and supply chains, including in China, while others are moving production lines to lower-cost countries, like Mexico.

[...]

Market forces, however, have proved too powerful. For Mary Barra, GM’s chief executive, the plan to close a handful of older plants and dismiss more than 14,000 employees came down to basic economics. Consumers are shunning sedans like GM’s Chevrolet Cruze in favor of pickups and SUVs. With some factories down to one shift a day, GM said it needed to cut its capacity to make traditional passenger cars and free up resources to invest in autonomous and electric vehicles. It’s keeping lower-cost production in Mexico.

[...]

GM’s restructuring comes less than two years after Trump praised the company for promising to invest $1 billion in its U.S. operations. It was one of many such pledges by large companies -- even though some were reiterating existing plans -- meant to gain favor with the new administration. The jobs GM promised, however, have largely gone to Silicon Valley, where it’s developing autonomous vehicles.

GM shares are down 10 percent this year, compared with the S&P 500 Index’s 0.3 percent gain. The carmaker was up 0.4 percent to $36.85 in early New York trading on Wednesday.

Like GM, Ford Motor Co. said it will exit much of the passenger-car market to focus on SUVs and trucks. It also has said it will lay off workers as part of an $11 billion restructuring.

[...]

Jawboning aside, Trump was unable to stop job losses at a Carrier Corp. air-conditioning plant in Indianapolis. Soon after winning office, he made a highly publicized visit to the factory in a bid to stop Carrier from moving positions to Monterrey, Mexico. The company kept the plant open after receiving millions in state subsidies. But about 600 workers ended up losing their jobs anyway.

The U.S. still is a manufacturing heavyweight, but companies increasingly are choosing automation over human labor. Some forces buffeting manufacturers are the result of other Trump policies. He has worked to lower oil prices by cutting environmental rules and pressuring petrostates. U.S. consumers have responded by purchasing yet more SUVs and trucks, which accounted for about 65 percent of new-vehicle sales in September. Tariffs have also raised prices on aluminum and steel, forcing up production costs.

The neoliberal globalists (that Trump's supporters hate so much), even gave Trump a hint on what's the real reason behind this mass-layoffs epidemic. In short, it could be described as accelerating hyper-automation, but it will probably fall on Trump's deaf ears.

Poor Donnie looks like a tragic figure, squeezed by the ruthless forces of the markets that himself rushed to protect from his first minute in the US presidency.

He hired Goldman Sachs banksters to run the economy, deregulated the system even more, tried to lure the big capital with further tax-cuts and generous subsidies. He was only asking for a few thousand jobs (under any conditions) in return. But the big capital barons happily received his gifts and now give him 'the finger', ignoring his expectations. Welcome to the deregulated casino-capitalism Mr. Trump!

A brutal war is taking place right now between the corporate super-giants across the globe. The car industry in Germany proceeds in mass layoffs too because the robots are penetrating rapidly in every production process. Clueless and powerless politicians like Trump are feeding the global corporate beast instead of trying to figure out how they could control it.

Donnie and his most faithful supporters must be wondering now 'how the hell did that happened?'. They will turn against the usual scapegoats, one more time: the immigrants 'who are taking the jobs'. That's all they know. That's how far they can go to figure out what's going on. They will never pay attention to the unprecedented technological challenges to seek for an alternative answer. They will never blame corporations, they will never blame capitalism.

And the worst part is that most of them don't even realize that they are doing corporate beast's job by directing the popular anger against immigrants. And so, the corporate monsters are left completely unscrutinized to play their games and maximize their profits at the expense of the rest, in this ruthless global market arena.

Comments

  1. One way to address this problem would be to pin tariffs to the country of manufacture. In other words, produce in China, pay tariffs on Chinese-made goods. Because they are.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Too little production. Too much immigration.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The wounded US imperialist beast becomes more dangerous than ever as desperately seeks to start a WWIII

globinfo freexchange   It seems that the declining Western superpower is losing ground and tries hardly to avoid the inevitable.    The US imperialist beast, despite all the destruction that causes, is failing to fulfill its utter objectives. Which in short, are the dissolution of Russia and China, looting their vast resources, as well as the full expansion of the destructive neoliberal model throughout these areas and other countries allied with the Sino-Russian bloc.   Most importantly, the wounded beast is loosing much of its strength due to the rapid de-dollarization that has started approximately ten years ago, as dollar had become the front line of the US imperialist sweeping force since the early 70s.   As if nothing has changed, the beast insists on using the same tools to prevail in the global geopolitical field, ignoring the unprecedented changes and complexities under current circumstances.    In a move (as it seems) of desperation, the United States House of Representative

Atlanta Police Violently Arrest Emory Students & Faculty to Clear Gaza Solidarity Encampment

Democracy Now!   As a wave of student protests against Israel’s war on Gaza continues to spread from coast to coast, schools and law enforcement have responded with increasing brutality to campus encampments.    One of the most violent police crackdowns took place at Emory University in Atlanta on Thursday, when local and state police swept onto the campus just hours after students had set up tents on the quad in protest against Israel’s war on Gaza as well as the planned police training center known as Cop City.    Police used tear gas and stun guns to break up the encampment as they wrestled people to the ground, and are accused of using rubber bullets. Among those arrested were a few faculty members.    Democracy Now! spoke with two of the arrested professors: Noëlle McAfee, chair of the philosophy department, and Emil’ Keme, professor of English and Indigenous studies. Also with Palestinian American organizer and medical student Umaymah Mohammad, who describes how Emory has repeat

Indiana University Brings In SNIPERS & Then LIES About It

Katie Halper   Katie Halper talks to Aidan Khamis and Bryce Greene, who was arrested at Indiana University where snipers have been brought in. Bryce Greene is a student, writer, organizer and media critic based in Indianapolis. He is a contributor to Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting. He was arrested and banned from Indiana University's campus for participating in the Gaza solidarity encampment at Indiana University. Aidan Khamis is an organizer for Palestine Solidarity Committee IU and IU divestment coalition.  

"Student Intifada": Stanford, University of Michigan, Indiana University, & more

The Real News Network   Seven months into Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, a student-led grassroots movement is spreading across the US and beyond, hearkening back to the student protests of the ‘60s that played a pivotal role in ending the US war in Vietnam.    In what is being called the “student intifada,” with over 100 encampments going up at different college and university campuses, students, faculty, grad students, and other campus community members are exercising civil disobedience, occupying space on campuses, defying brutal repression from administrators and police, combatting skewed and wildly lopsided narratives in corporate media, and pressuring their universities to “disclose and divest” their investments in companies and financial institutions connected to Israel.    TRNN speaks with encampment organizers/participants from the University of Michigan, the Indiana University, and Stanford University, and gets updates from encampments from New York to California. 

Yanis Varoufakis Banned from Germany as Berlin Police Raid & Shut Down Palestinian Conference

Democracy Now!   As Germany intensifies its crackdown on pro-Palestinian voices, Democracy Now! spoke with Greek economist and politician Yanis Varoufakis, one of the planned speakers at a conference in Berlin last weekend that was forcibly shut down by police. The Palestine Congress was scheduled to be held for three days, but police stormed the venue as the first panelist spoke.    Germany's Interior Ministry had also banned some conference speakers from even entering the country, including Varoufakis, the Palestinian British surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sittah and the Palestinian researcher Salman Abu Sitta.    " This is not about protecting Jewish lives and Jews from antisemitism. It's all about protecting the right of Israel to commit any war crime of its choice, " says Varoufakis.    Varoufakis speaks also about freeing Julian Assange and his new book Technofeudalism .      Related: Germany again on a dark path towards fascism

Pro-Palestinian Campus Encampments Spread Nationwide Amid Mass Arrests at Columbia, NYU & Yale

Democracy Now!   Palestinian solidarity protests and encampments are appearing on college campuses from Massachusetts to California to protest Israel's attacks on Gaza and to call for divestment from Israeli apartheid. This week, police have raided encampments and arrested students at Yale and New York University.    Palestinian American scholar and New York University professor Helga Tawil-Souri describes forming a faculty buffer to protect students, negotiating with police, and the ensuing crackdown that led to over 100 arrests Monday night.    Uptown in New York City, the encampment at Columbia University is entering its seventh day despite mass arrests of protesters last week. "In my opinion, the NYPD were called in under false pretenses by the president of the university," says Joseph Slaughter, professor at Columbia University. "The university is being run as a sort of ad-hocracy at this point, the senior administration making up policies and procedures and pro

'Make no mistake, the full-scale assault on Rafah would be a human catastrophe': Guterres

Al Jazeera English   United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has appealed for an end to the bloodshed in Gaza. He says the Middle East is at risk of explosion if the fighting continues. In his speech, Guterres urged Israel’s allies to press its leadership to stop the war on Gaza.  “ I appeal to all those with influence over Israel to do everything in their power to help avert even more tragedy. The international community has a shared responsibility to promote a humanitarian ceasefire, the unconditional release of all hostages, and a massive surge in life-saving aid, ” he said. “ It is time for the parties to seize the opportunity and secure a deal for the sake of their own people. ”

Day 1846: Julian Assange still in prison and under slow-motion execution by the Anglo-American imperialist criminals

failed evolution   On 11 April 2019, the Ecuadorian government of traitor Lenin Moreno, invited the Metropolitan Police into the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and they arrested Julian Assange . Since then, Assange is kept in Belmarsh high security prison in London, without actual charges.   The real reason world's number one political prisoner is still kept in this high security prison, is because he exposed horrendous war crimes carried out by the US imperialists and their allies.   The ruthless Western imperialist regime wants to punish the No1 real journalist in the world and make him an example for any Whistleblower or real journalist who will attempt to expose its big crimes in the future.   And the Anglo-American axis has now become officially a fascist coalition , framed by the rest of its Western pets. UK's Home Secretary Priti Patel, one of the most ruthless ever, decided to extradite Julian Assange to US. No surprise of course. The only question we had in mind is

Biden PANICS Over Israel's Genocide

Owen Jones   Biden's latest move tells us one thing: they're panicking. 

Day 1859: Julian Assange still in prison and under slow-motion execution by the Anglo-American imperialist criminals

failed evolution   On 11 April 2019, the Ecuadorian government of traitor Lenin Moreno, invited the Metropolitan Police into the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and they arrested Julian Assange . Since then, Assange is kept in Belmarsh high security prison in London, without actual charges.   The real reason world's number one political prisoner is still kept in this high security prison, is because he exposed horrendous war crimes carried out by the US imperialists and their allies.   The ruthless Western imperialist regime wants to punish the No1 real journalist in the world and make him an example for any Whistleblower or real journalist who will attempt to expose its big crimes in the future.   And the Anglo-American axis has now become officially a fascist coalition , framed by the rest of its Western pets. UK's Home Secretary Priti Patel, one of the most ruthless ever, decided to extradite Julian Assange to US. No surprise of course. The only question we had in mind is