Everything going according to plan

We Democrats sometimes have a hard time grasping just what Trump supporters wanted to achieve. There may not be a wall, but he certainly took a swipe at everything global. We apparently do not need the world, even if they make all our socks shoes and underwear. But to summarize the big picture: disrupt everything as much as possible if the federal government or UN or even NATO is involved.

So now that the government is shut down, he takes this opportunity to freeze federal wages for all of 2019 once they come back. This is because (Fox News, Trumpists) "the government does not do anything." Only the functions of border security, immigration and a few infrastructure jobs are needed. Oh, there might be a few other things, but they do not affect Trump's main activity.

So people that work for NIH, Center For Disease Control, all government funded medical research, climate change and all them nasty things that are too difficult for the Trump voter to understand, they are not needed. Maybe in their old age, but that is too far to plan ahead.

Stocks going down? No problem, Trump base does not own any and Trump's own wealth is tied up in real estate, which survives recessions.

Money

There is no gold standard anymore, so money is basically a way to exchange goods and services and to plan for the future on personal and public levels. I got trained in science, so materials are more real than money for me. We will eventually come to a point where wealth per person can only go down or stay at a level if population stays steady.

Money only has meaning if we think there is a future and the money is still worth something. For this reason people want the near future to be very much like the present. If there is a drastic change in the future, the cash you stashed away is not worth as much as you thought. Both right and left wingers resist huge change. This is why many Democrats are centrists. They get lobbied and the lobbyists want things to stay the same or improve for their issue.

When you go to the bank for a loan or you save for retirement the money is most closely related to material. Only people with huge amounts of "collateral" (things: real estate, factories, hotels, airlines etc) are trusted with this imaginary money to spend, build etc etc. Your investments are most likely in stocks or CD accounts, so these also relate to actual property. The bank holds your money, but it can lend it to reliable customers who then convert  the borrowed money to real things. Shops, stores, trucks, retail goods etc. Your money is tied to physical objects.

The future is the tricky part. You have to try to imagine the future. So does your government. They have to plan for social security payments, Medicare etc. All this is based on the calculated work force and the GDP and the GDP per person. You think your money is worth something in the future. If the entire population or earth were to disappear in say 20 years, the value of your money would quickly go down to almost nothing. The cash (with ongoing inflation) would exist for a short while, as we would all disappear sooner or later, but would still need to eat and function for 20 years. It could be something like an asteroid that we knew was going to wipe us out. Or drought from climate change etc. etc.

Back to the present, the working class person that gets by, just, understands quite well that money is not wealth, and work no longer is worth much. Getting a paycheck and spending it by the next paycheck is a very real state. Work is simply converted to goods and to pay the rent. These people are unlikely to own anything more than the furniture etc. as well as a car. With maybe a car loan.

Economics is an odd field that seems to be too big for its pants. It thinks it can overrule material things. Libertarians have an undying faith in free market. This book is otherwise OK but since it is so optimistic it has no Plan B.

I've read a few bits, not spending my dollars on it. It will have no bearing on my decisions even if i read it.

 Individual situations, the opposite end compared to  GDP or national levels is the focus of Freakanomics. Famous quotes deal with items like "why do drug dealers still live with their mom and dad?"

This Michael Lewis book is my favorite. It tells how individuals calculate value on personal issues and decide. It also describes some bigger things where we have decision makers make decisions, but based on too small a sample population or other group. We try to do statistics in our head. We are very conservative when faced with a situation where we could lose. We go out of our way to prevent loss. The two Israeli psychologists who worked on this economics issue are profiled in the book. The economics outlined relates to consumers, marketing, insurance etc.

Trump the failed President

Trump gave a speech at his inauguration. It was well written, by someone, and outlined his "America first" policy well. After that he has failed as a communicator. Sure, he tweets:

The tweets worked fine during the campaign. The job of the president is somewhat different. He needs to convey an understanding of whatever topic he is commenting on. He only tweets to get some "likes" from his voters of 2016. And to see his text. He loves to see it.

He has attacked caravans of immigrants and refugees. He attacks daily some target. Attack is his only defense. The Senate is also stalling. Interrogating Comey, they centered on Hillary emails. Hillary is not president and she is not going to jail. There is not a jury in the country that could give her a fair trial.  And the Senate tactic is merely stalling.

Trump can speak, but most what he says is captured from Fox pundits or experts from the White House feeding him whatever he is able to read in a half a page of text. He reads what "sounds good." Like many Republicans he attempts to change "climate change" into air quality. We have good air quality because we scrub exhaust from power plants. Soot does not float over the landscape. Mercury does, as it is vaporized at that temperature. The air is "clean" and carbon dioxide is good for plants. In fact, it is not harmful yet, but current plants have evolved to deal with current levels. Many other factors affect plant growth, and plants grown too fast are low on nutrients from the ground that we need in out diet.

In any case, the point is that it is the CO2 that is bad, no matter how clean our emissions. There is no clean coal. Nearly all politicians know this. I am not sure about Trump. The explanation is too long for him to bother following for five minutes. He knows he won't support taxes for coal or tax credit support for alternative energy. Trump made up his mind about most issues long ago. When he tweeted from his office or couch to Obama years ago, and before that. He has never changed his mind about anything. Most of the items relate to Trump and his wealth in some manner, and he has never taken the initiative to run any of his businesses in any other manner.

So, yes he is dumb, but not too dumb to grasp quickly what is good for Trump in any issue. Trump, not the Trump presidency or the USA. He does not even care at this point that he will lose a 2020 election. The rare conditions that gave him several rust belt states in 2016 no longer exist.

Country dragging through 2 more years of Trump

The red states are going to pretty much stick to Trump, though there is less support for his tariffs and a few more policies, since about six months ago. The jobs are not going to come back and Trump is ruining some of the jobs here with the expensive steel. Ford is struggling, GM fearing the same fate.

But can we put up with the antics of this man in the media for two more years? Not to mention the Russia thing. Resignation would be a relief for his party.

You could just read your favorite news and watch only Netflix and Hulu, but some Trump news and stunts would trickle through. As he claims, it is all about him now. He tears up NAFTA and signs another NAFTA etc etc.

The other concern is the dirty campaign he will run against a Democrat. It will be ugly. He has shown that he has given up any hope of being a president for all. He is a president for the white Republicans and especially the white working class that voted for him. Long ago he decided he will play to them. He may not even want a second term, but he has to show his fans at his rallies he is not giving up on any of his promised goals. They really did think he was going to Make America Great Again. If you gave him support and he pushed all his agendas through, we would go back to the 1950s. Those post war years were a growth economy. There is no similar situation now. The populist will rise and fall with this agenda. He may feel better falling down fighting for his causes.

The bigger question is how to make America even as good as it was through the end of 2016. The temporary economic bump of Trump tax cuts will only go for a short while longer. The economic outlook is not good by 2020. Stocks are stagnant in the Trump era all through 2018. We will quit making a lot of the smaller cars here.