Hillary Is Spinach, Trump Is Cotton Candy

[TexasTowelie]

By William Leffingwell,
Cayey, Puerto Rico

The pundits attribute Donald Trump’s surprising victory to a reaction among his followers to the establishment and to anger over their demotion from a previous financial and social status. They also resent the increasing cost of health care and the failure of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) to fully solve that issue. In addition, they feel threatened by the more elevated place of African Americans in society and the increase in other minorities. They are angry but not so much at the establishment as just angry because these issues aren’t getting solved.

We all want solutions to these problems, and we all feel hurt, angry, or at least sympathetic to these feelings. Hillary Clinton wants to solve them as much as anyone, but she realizes that for every problem there is a solution that is simple, easy, and ... wrong.

She analyzes these problems in a professional way and refuses to offer quick, painless, and ultimately ineffective solutions. What she offered would have been good for America, the economy, and the well being of Americans even if it wouldn’t have been a perfect and quick solution. In essence she offered spinach, not exciting and even a little distasteful to many. Trump, on the other hand, offered impractical, unrealistic, and seriously vague (“Trust me!”) solutions that he promised would solve all these problems quickly and with astounding results. They were superficially attractive but without substance or real nourishment for the American economy — cotton candy.

Clinton understands that the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs for relatively unskilled and uneducated workers is due not so much to low-wage countries taking those jobs — although that is true to some extent — but from the ability of technology to change manufacturing so that one person can do the work of several. This has blessed us with an array of goods inconceivable a generation ago at prices that put them within the reach of almost everyone. This is taken for granted and forgotten by protesters of “the establishment.” Unfair? Probably. But it helps explain the attitude of Trump voters. Punishing trading partners will not restore those jobs and could lead to a worldwide recession.

Read more: http://www.sanjuanweeklypr.com/pdf/Nov-18-16/viewpoint.pdf (Bottom of page 2)