Trump’s Impact on the U.S. Economy Has Lots of Interesting Turns and Twists
What happens when the U.S. elects a president whose sole economic platform is making rich people (and corporations) richer? What happens when Wall Street sees a new business milieu in which many restrictions, financial and environmental, are removed? Stock prices soar, of course.
But what happens to segments of the economy that depend on the good will that people in other countries have (or had) for our country, who now regard us as something of a cruel, bizarre joke. Therein lies the rub.
Take tourism as an example. Suppose you’re a hotelier, and the life blood of your business is the influx of tourists coming to visit America. Suppose you’re trying to make your living in an environment in which the leader of the country your customers formerly visited is regarded as a weird blend of liar/clown/criminal/racist/child?
Here’s the answer: you suffer. America’s share of international tourism has dropped 16% in March, compared to the same month in 2016, according to Foursquare data released Wednesday.
It’s worth stressing that the international economic conditions (with the exception of Great Britain) are better now than they were last year. This down-turn in tourism is solely because of anger and increased hassle experienced by South and Central America and the global Muslim communities worldwide.
Yep. And I’m sure MarcoPolo will be along soon with his theory as to why us idealogues are wrong again. providing his theory as to the real causal relationship. Perhaps demonic intervention.
The thing is, I am as far removed from an ideologue as one could possibly be.
About 15 years ago, I became fixated on a discussion topic: The topic was “The New Deal”, and the opening that sparked the discussion was something along the lines of: “It’s hard to see the New Deal as it really was back then. A complete restructuring of the relationship between government and society… everything changed radically, there were no sacred cows… everything changed. Given that, if we were to imagine a ‘New Deal’ in today’s time, what would it look like? What would a modern ‘New Deal’ policy slate entail?”
The question seemed innocent enough, but it absorbed my imagination and focus. In the following years, I threw myself into learning as much as possible about virtually every policy, every discipline… laws that had been tried in other countries and their impacts, laws that had been abandoned here… trying to separate causality and correlation, etc.. all trying to envision or engineer the ideal policy for the modern era.
It empowered me by divorcing me from any given party or ideology. I’m now a pragmatist… I’ve focused on what the ideal policy is, and so I will, at any time support whatever policy is closest to the ideal, and I will oppose any policy that is further from the ideal than the status quo is…
One cannot call me an ideologue, because nothing that I support stems from any ideology. Just a pragmatic desire to find a governing policy that works best. (Note that I used a goal of “maximizing productivity of society while minimizing external negative impacts on all individuals within society” to serve as a sort-of figure of merit while constructing my set of ideals.)
Craig,
Wow, I guess in your opinion that I’m one of those millions of “deplorable’s”, eh!
I have no idea why US tourist figures are down in any given month, but I would seriously doubt international animosity toward the newly elected President is the sole cause.
You failed to mention the number of people traveling to the US for business actually increased by nearly 5%. In addition, the percentage of more affluent travelers visiting the US has increased.
This could mean US travel restrictions and perceived hassles with security compliance, are beginning to affect the “backpacker” and educational type of traveler, or that the US dollar has gained strength against the Euro and other currencies making the US a more expensive option.
Part of the explanation could also be this class of traveler is less economically prosperous in 2017 and less likely to travel.
Foursquare Direct is a reputable organization, but it methodology is limited.
( or you could be right, maybe it’s a fear of demonic intervention.)