As Rush has just pointed out, there is a huge industry in this country tied to elections. Those who raise funds. Those who run campaigns and act as paid consultants to the candidates. Those who produce the advertisements that appear everywhere day and night. Those who charter transportation for their candidates. And provide security. And so on and on and on.
Trump does not need or use any of that and he threatens their important little niche in our society. That is exactly why they oppose him.
Well, just how huge is that industry? Can we have some quantification of it that allows us to understand its size in comparison to other industries? Did Mr. Limbaugh quantify just how much money advertisers spend on political advertising in comparison to non-political advertising, for example?
FEC: $7B spent on 2012 campaign
Seems to me to be a good size industry.
I suspect many things seem one way or another to you, and yet in fact are not at all as they seem. A $7B industry is not, as industries go, that big of an industry. I haven't checked, but I don't think it's anything more than what might be called a line of business or practice area/focus at one or several professional services firms.
- Accenture revenue: $31B
- McKinsey & Company revenue: $8.3B
- Deloitte revenue: $35B
- Omnicom Group revenue: $15.3B
- Interpublic Group revenue: $7.5B
I know that to an individual $7B is a lot of money. It's a huge sum for an individual public relations firm or political consultancy. Even the companies above would not leave $7B on the table, so to speak. But to refer to the sums spent across what is in fact several industries -- advertising/media, transportation, hotels and lodging, food and beverage, and consulting and public relations at the least -- that's really not that much.
- Size of US industries as of 2014 -- Remember that what Rush said (per you) is that there's a "huge" industry built around politicking. Well, whatever it is, even if it qualifies as an industry, it ain't huge.
What is a little bit interesting, if that be the best term for it, is that a somewhat small quantity of buyers -- namely the candidates -- spend $7B on "stuff" purchased from suppliers in the industries noted above (and perhaps a few others), but for that to be surprising, it'd need to be the sum spent solely by Presidential hopefuls. Why? Because upon considering not just Presidential elections, but also those for U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, governorships, state legislative office, sheriffs, etc., $7B is tantamount to "chump change" even though in total it's less so.
So how does Rush come to say what he did about the "huge" industry surrounding political campaigns? Well, first and foremost, his whole stock in trade is is ability to inflame his listeners and devotees by appealing to their ire over their not having received "something" that someone else did. I think too that what allows Rush to call the "industry" huge is that he knows the demographics of his audience, and accordingly he realizes
- most of his listeners have no idea what it means to be an industry,
- most of his listeners have no idea what is or is not a huge industry and aren't likely to check,
- to most of his listeners, $7B sounds huge
- to everyone who doesn't dwell in the world of big numbers, $7B is huge, and for anyone it is a huge sum to have as a personal net worth, the value of sales in the company they own, the endowment of their high school or college, and other measures that are applicable at an individual or very local level, i.e., a level at which an individual can actually relate.
For as much as I find little that Rush says of merit beyond entertainment, I nonetheless know the man isn't a complete fool. Far from it. The man knows that his job, his
raison d'etre is to generate listenership for the radio networks that carry his show. The "Chicken Little" approach is an excellent way to do that. Accordingly, he's quite adept at choosing molehills out of which he can make mountains.
In all due respect, I don't think you know what anything means to Rush's audience or what 'sounds huge'. On the other hand,
if you listen to the man on the street interviews, it is pretty clear that most Obama, Hillary, or Bernie supporters don't know what anything in government costs and would say that an $18 trillion dollar national debt was no problem. In fact some of them here on USMB have said that. But they are nevertheless insulted if it is pointed out they don't know much about much.
My point is not to be argumentative so much as to emphasize that
many fans of many people would find such negative opinion of those fans to be personally insulting. For instance, I don't tune into Rush on a daily basis, but will catch parts or all of his show if out and about in the car or traveling.
If asked if I am a fan, I probably am as much as anybody is even though I don't always agree with him or appreciate his approach to some things. And I definitely know how much money $7 billion is and it is not irrelevant to anybody.
Red:
Ignorance (willful or pardonable) is not something limited to conservatives. There are, IMO, plenty of folks who support Mssrs. Obama and Sanders and Mrs. Clinton's economic policies and who don't also understand, independently of what they've heard but not studied themselves, exactly why. Put another way, folks can or do believe "the right thing" for the wrong reasons.
He're an example that is much discussed by the Presidential hopefuls.
One can favor or oppose free trade (trade without artificial restrictions), but regardless of which side one takes on the topic, the instant I hear people extolling their position on the basis of free trade providing for more domestic jobs, I know that whether I agree with them or not, they are "barking up the wrong tree" because free trade's primary benefit is that it keeps prices low, not that it boosts the quantity of jobs that come available.
Job creation happens when productivity, not trade, is increased, and productivity is increased by innovation, by creating something that one is better suited to produce, and thus sell, than are the other folks who may also be able to produce it, but who cannot inherently do so as efficiently (inexpensively) as one can. To the extent that labor is necessarily a major and unavoidable component of the production of "whatever," producing that which one (as a nation) is best at producing is what will create jobs.
Sure, tariffs on imported goods can also make jobs appear in a nation. But when jobs are forced into existence via tariffs, those jobs are artificially created, thus temporary at best. Yes, the people who have those jobs will get paid. Yes, they'll spend their money, mostly domestically. But will the goods they produce be exported outside the country if they are pricier than comparable goods produced abroad? Some might, but mostly they won't be. The result is that the money paid to holders of those newly created jobs is just money rolling around within an economy, not new money being drawn into the economy from elsewhere.
Seeing as we already know the jobs that were "sent" overseas when manufacturers moved some or all of their production operations to Mexico or China were "sent" there because the cost of labor is so much lower there. We also know that if we were to impose sufficiently high tariffs on manufactured goods imported from China, Mexico or wherever at least some producers will return their production to the U.S. for the purpose of supplying U.S. consumers who will in turn have to pay for those goods, inclusive of their higher labor costs. And we know little export of those goods produced by "recaptured" labor will get exported because countries like China and Mexico can produce the exact same goods regardless of whether a U.S. company or other country's company owns the factory.
So what does the imposition of import tariffs (and other restrictions on free trade) mean for the manufacturer? Any or all of several things:
- The maker may split its production operations between the U.S. and a foreign country, selling the U.S. made goods only in the U.S. and the rest sold globally. If they can afford to own the fixed assets needed to produce in both countries, this is what they'd do. But U.S. consumers will pay more for whatever goods the maker produces and sells exclusively to U.S. consumers because the maker will still expect to earn a profit on its goods. The profit margin may be lower or the gross profit earned will be less, but either way, less money accrues to producer because quantity demanded is inversely proportional to price (the slope of a demand curve is negative). (Not including Veblen goods, and most goods aren't that.)
- The maker may exist the U.S. marketplace and decide that selling in China and other parts of the world is more profitable seeing as it cannot afford to produce in both the U.S. and those other places. We all can see that's even fewer jobs being performed in the U.S. than if nothing had changed, and that's even before considering the indirect losses that'd result from such a choice.
- The maker may bring all production back to the U.S. In this scenario, it will yield some profits to foreign competitors who operate in foreign markets because the U.S.-made goods are more expensive. The only way the producer can make the goods cost competitive abroad is to "dump" them onto those foreign markets, thereby accepting lower profits. Trust me, that would be allowed to last for long, certainly not if shareholders and governments can do anything about it.
The preceding is a very simple example, but it illustrates how by understanding how supply, demand and free trade function in the macroeconomic realm, whether one favors or opposes free trade, one can tell instantly from what another says as the reason why they favor or oppose free trade whether they do so for the "right" reason -- something intrinsic to the actual functioning of free trade -- or the "wrong" one, something external to what free trade is and can or cannot achieve. Almost without exception, free trade opponents, Bernie and Donald included, oppose free trade and yet not one of them will openly say that what they actually want to and must use to bring back those jobs is tariffs, which by definition are curtailments of free trade, but they are not trade of any sort. Too, not one of them has even remotely broached the downsides of tariffs. Similarly, not one person whose posts I've read on USMB has said a word about it being tariffs (maybe other forms of protectionism as well) that they favor.
Now when folks do own up to what it is about tariffs that will bring manufacturing back to the U.S., then I know they know what they are talking about and have simply made a conscious decision about whether the seeing protectionism or free trade as being better for the U.S. in the near term. With such folks, I'd then ask them for what they see as their long term solution. There are, however, no such folks commenting on USMB about free trade (bringing manufacturing back to the U.S.) of whom I've had reason to ask that because not one has shown they "get" the different impacts of free trade, restrictions on it, and productivity.
So, no, whom one supports is irrelevant to me; a person can support a liberal or a conservative and and very clearly to me not know what one is talking about.. What matters to me is what one supports and why, but the "why" needs to be something that makes sense with the way things actually work, in this case, the way economics works. That is unless someone has invented a whole new system of economics of which I'm unaware.
Blue:
They might. If they are insulted, well, they are. I'm not trying to insult folks. I'm trying to be honest with them and in what I have to say. Sometimes the truth hurts, and sometimes reality bites, but that doesn't me articulating that "such and such" is the reality isn't something to take personally. There are certainly topics about which I know little, but then I also don't have much to say about those topics because I know quite well that I am not well informed enough to even know if what I may hear about them, let alone what I might think of them, is BS or not.
When someone says of me that I suffer from myopia on a given matter, I know whether I do or not, no matter what they say. If they are right, they are. That's no insult, and I'll willingly agree with them. More likely, however, is that knowing I'm not well versed on something, I'm not going to have much to say, so they won't have cause to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about. What I do when I don't understand something is ask questions so that I can gain an understanding.
Green:
Fan, not a fan....I wasn't going there. I'm just speaking of the bulk of the man's audience, which in all likelihood is comprised of folks who agree with Rush. Are they personal fans of his? I don't know. I often enjoy reading Fareed Zakaria's editorials. Would I call myself a fan of his? Probably. Do I agree with him? Sometimes yes, sometimes no, but I nonetheless always find his remarks enjoyable to read; he gives me things to think about, or ways to think about them, that sometimes I hadn't identified prior to reading his column.
