The Daily Escape:
Bluebells, Brussels Belgium April 2017 photo by Francois Lenoir
In many ways, it is too easy to criticize Donald Trump. While we can have differing opinions on matters of policy, they only account for a few of the issues Wrongo has with Trump. Most are his unfathomable attempts to avoid telling the truth. Consider his interview with The Economist which posted the entire transcript on Thursday. Letâs focus on this excerpt:
The Economist: Another part of your overall plan, the tax reform plan. Is it OK if that tax plan increases the deficit? Ronald Reaganâs tax reform didnât.
Trump: Well, it actually did. But, but itâs called priming the pump. You know, if you donât do that, youâre never going to bring your taxes down.[Snip]
Economist: But beyond that itâs OK if the tax plan increases the deficit?
Trump: It is OK, because it wonât increase it for long. You may have two years where youâllâŚyou understand the expression âprime the pumpâ?Yes.
We have to prime the pump.Itâs very Keynesian.
Weâre the highest-taxed nation in the world. Have you heard that expression before, for this particular type of an event?Priming the pump?
Yeah, have you heard it?Yes.
Have you heard that expression used before? Because I havenât heard it. I mean, I justâŚI came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good. Itâs what you have to do.
Ok, so how did the guy from the Economist keep a straight face? The reporter is thinking John Maynard Keynes, the great British Economist, who came up with the idea of âpriming the pumpâ in the 1930âs. By the way, Keynesian pump-priming is temporary government spending to boost temporarily weak demand. It is designed to boost growth, (and jobs) during a downturn, but we canât assume that it will boost the economyâs growth rate.
Trumpâs idea for pump-priming is more tax cuts. Heâs following classic trickle-down economics, and claims that his tax cuts will boost investment, productivity growth, and labor supply, and thus raise the long-term growth rate of the economy. In this regard, Trump conflates Keynes, whoâs been proven right, with Arthur Laffer, who wasnât.
But, didnât Trump graduate from Wharton with a business degree? Nobody gets out of Wharton without knowing that Keynes was the âpump primerâ. And his saying that he coined the phrase ‘prime the pump’ a few days ago? Unfortunately, there are only two explanations: first, Trump is 70 years old and his cognitive skills are starting to desert him. Or second, he is a pathological liar.
Wrongo wants to go with #2.
He just wants to sell America something with his name stamped on it. But since America isnât buying a hotel, heâs trying to sell Trumponomics, Trumpcare, etc. He does not really care about the details, he just wants to pass it, and to claim it is a success. Thatâs Americaâs tragedy.
So with Comeygate, Trumpcare and pump-priming, we all need to unplug and try, just try to relax on Saturday. We had a full moon and clear skies over the fields of Wrong on Thursday, so today we listen to âClaire du Luneâ by Claude Debussy. It is the third movement of âSuite bergamasqueâ. Its name comes from Verlaine’s poem Clair de Lune, “moonlight” in French. Here it is played by Dame Moura Lympany, British pianist, who died in 2005:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
I want to add this bit… and since I am nearly 66, I understand the world Trump saw as a young man pretty well. In the era when Trump went to school, a “business degree” was really the lowest degree a man would get. A dedicated student from Trump’s social class would have become an MD or lawyer, or gone for a PHD.
So while Trump may have been told about pump priming, no one really cared what he learned. His degree could easily have been based on a gentlemen’s C.