Guest Post by Scott Adams
Back in 2014 B.T. (Before Trump), the headlines were all about income inequality. I don’t recall hearing much of anything about immigration in the news. Then candidate Trump – the Master Persuader – told us that immigration was a big problem. Almost instantly the media started treating it like the biggest issue in the world. The public followed. And when Trump won, do you know how the experts who had been wrong about 100% of everything for a year explained it? They said President Trump won because he picked policies that people liked.
Well, not exactly.
What happened is that candidate Trump persuaded us that immigration was a big problem. And in so doing, he pushed the issue of income inequality off the page. Do you remember the last time you saw CNN obsessing about income inequality? I thought it was the public’s biggest issue two years ago. Did it just sort of stop being one?
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No, President Trump is in our heads. He told us what our priorities were and we accepted it, even if we hated his plans. Some people think is it a priority to get tougher on immigration, some think the opposite. But we all agree the issue is important.
If you had asked me in 2014 to list my country’s top 10 problems, immigration would not have been on the list. Now it’s usually at the top of the news. Trump did that. And by doing it he showed us a level of leadership that I have never seen in my lifetime. Even if you don’t like where he is leading us.
But here’s the interesting part. If you want to address income inequality, what is one of the best ways to do it? Answer: Limit immigration. That means higher wages for American citizens and lower profits for the top 1% who want cheap labor.
I saw a factoid yesterday that illegal immigration from Mexico is way down lately, presumably in anticipation of the Trump administration being tough. That’s an indicator of rising wages to come. I suppose the top 1% can pass along the higher costs to some extent. But the jobless guy who gets a job won’t be too unhappy that his food is 10% more expensive. He still comes out ahead. And if the employer gets a Trump tax cut, she doesn’t need to pass along as much of the higher wage expense to consumers.
Speaking of jobs, if Trump’s job-creation hype evolves from anecdotal to real, that’s a great way to reduce income inequality too. As I have often said, economies run on psychology, and Trump is a master of psychology. He proved that already by injecting enough optimism into the system that it goosed the stock market, and business confidence in general. That should translate into more investments and a better economy.
The Trump administration also recently tightened their connection to historically black colleges to see how they can help. The best way to reduce income inequality is to address the hardest cases first, to get the most bang for the buck. And the African-American community is coming from the deepest hole. We see no results there yet, but the move makes sense from the perspective of addressing income inequality.
The Trump administration remains skeptical of climate change alarmism for now. Aggressive remediation would cost jobs, which would make income inequality worse. So Trump is on the right side of climate change when it comes to income inequality. But what if climate change is the disaster that most scientists believe it will be? What does that do to income inequality?
Well, my best guess is that the disruption from warming would force the top 1% to hire lots of people to fix all the problems caused by the climate. We might need that sort of global challenge to create enough human jobs as the robots start taking all of the manufacturing work and more. None of this is completely predictable, but it is hard for me to see how the need to adjust to climate change creates fewer jobs.
As I said above, the main reason that income inequality is no longer a major headline is that Trump made us believe that other issues are more important. But the other reason that you no longer see liberals make the trend toward greater income inequality their flagship issue is funnier.
Trump is solving it.
Trump expresses what most average productive people are thinking and feeling.
That is why he won, it’s that simple.
More women are getting college educations than men. But you don’t see many women (thank god) programmers, network engineers, DBA’s, or engineers.
From my experience most women work their 8 hrs. That’s it. Additionally – in my field: software development – they aren’t very fast.
– goosed the stock market, and business confidence in general. That should translate into more investments and a better economy. –
Scott, the only issue I have with your take on this is that the FED has believed this flawed logic for going on 9 years. The markets have roared higher, but capital and labor investment has lagged, badly. Real inflation on the other hand has exploded. That is the root cause of income equality. Lets just hope that the fed raising interest rates begins to lower the cost of some necessities, and pop the bubbles in the stock market, RE Market, Bond Market, Car market, and basically every other “financialized” market in current existence. Then those job and wage gains may actually buy something….
Trump won cuz ‘The Beast’ called 1/2 the country Deplorable.
What a stupid politician!!!
Income inequality is a fact – and should be. Those who can work harder, faster, more accurately SHOULD be paid more.
The Left created a fraud about how income inequality should not exist. They are welcome to command the tide to go out as well, and find out what King Canute did.
Wanna bet homelessness is next up on the libtard media after disappearing for 8 years.
Unfortunately Trump is pushing RINOcare. I wonder if he is getting bad advice or he believes in Ryan’s bill?
He probably realizes it’s the best he’s gonna get from them at this time.
The alternative is to leave everything as it is.
Will people, the voters, put enough pressure on the Republicans to change this? To drop it and introduce something different?
Maybe, but they don’t have a history of doing it.
This is bs-immigration has been a big deal for many years.
Illegal immigration was/is a giant slap in the face of the public by both parties – an affront to reason. 30 years ago we thought we had a deal to seal the border in exchange for amnesty. We got the amnesty but the border remained a sieve – because they wanted it that way. Don’t piss on my leg & tell me it’s raining. Even is it were a “small thing” (and it’s not), “the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones”. (Luke 16:10)
Greetings,
I currently work on the technical side of entertainment. Female technical workers are exceptionally rare. To be good enough to get paid for that kind of work requires a dedication to the art that goes beyond that of a job. You have to live it and, frankly, I’ve yet to meet a female that lives it.
I also now work in designing and manufacturing precision tools used in the recording and broadcast industry. Consequently, I go to big events where there are thousands of inventors just like me and the number of female inventors could probably be counted on a single hand. They simply do not exist.
I suspect that this has to do with evolution and the different roles played by men and women. The skill set needed for hunting (time, space, navigation, focus) is very much different than the skill set needed by the females.
We see this played out in chess as well given that we’ve never had a female world chess champion.
I suppose once the SJWs notice the chess thing men will be playing minus a rook or two.
Jeeeez! Don’t say that! Pay no attention to the percentage of young women who CHOOSE to go into hard science (or don’t).
Income inequality worries are driven by unearned income and wealth of the 0.1% rising rapidly.
My bet is that when the bubble does finally burst, it will be they who lose the most. They’ll still be rich and we won’t be, but the gap will be smaller and people will worry about other things.
My bet is that when the bubble bursts, the 0.1% will find a way to suck their losses out of YOU. Hence, what happened in 2007 – 08. First time the bailout came to a vote, no deal. THAT was you and I talking, then the 0.1%, AKA known as “the owners” had a “talk” with the slimy temple monkeys and whores in the pit on the Potomac and let them know what their campaign contributions would look like next cycle. Then, mysteriously, we had another “vote”, my how things changed. That was their voice. Of course, come election time, the sheeple voted for the same temple monkeys and whores, because “my congressman represents me”. Yea, OK, they represented you all the way to the unemployment line….until that changes, grab your wallet, cuz when it hits again, expect another “vote” like back then.
You may be right.
My big fear is that when the smoke clears and all the competing claims of ownership are sorted out, we’ll discover that title to everything (every piece of property, farmland, every patent, every copyright, you name it) will be in the hands of the hereditary royalty who rule from the shadows (above the level of central banks and political systems) and we’ll all be utterly reduced to landless serfdom.