J-Rod10 said:
That money would have never seen US soil without the tax change. They've been hoarding it overseas for a decade due to nothing more than the tax laws that were on the books.
For it to be promoting offshoring work, as you say, the manufacturing sector stateside is absolutely booming, at levels not seen since the early 2000s.
Timing is everything in this discussion. The tax changes allow companies to make profits overseas and to bring that cash back at a lower tax rate than if they had earned the money in the US. Hence it encourages future profits to be "earned" overseas and actively discourages investment in the US- That's from here on in.
Jobs have rebounded progressively over the last 6 years or so and have continued, albeit at a lower pace, under the current administration. Some of that is in manufacturing but not a lot. The US had basically come close to what economists call "full employment" in 2017. That doesn't mean that everyone has a job and people in areas that are economically depressed are not counted if they are not looking for a job.
Those are the people that Trump promised he would bring back coal mines and manufacturing and none of that has happened or is likely to happen much. Coal for general heating and power generation is more expensive than gas, so simple economics kill those jobs. What Trump is doing to those people is to try to kill their healthcare and do deny them benefits unless they have work, which ain't going to happen.
Apple cash being repatriated was going to happen eventually for them to continue to build their business. Trump just made it cheaper for them to do so and they took advantage of the offer - as they should.
His SOLAR tariff just hurts jobs. The cost of panels is a relatively small part of the installed cost. More than 2/3 of the cost is locally manufactured frames and wiring and installation. All he did there was to protect a couple of inefficient manufacturers as a knee jerk reaction and so he would look good. A policy of investing in new technologies was what the last administration did and not always very well. This administration thinks we should go back to the Golden days of big oil doing what they please and future generations can pay for it.
He cannot do a deal where he doesn't understand the issues and he is too lazy to spend the time doing so. Instead he listens to people who piss in his ear. That's why we now have a Middle East policy dictated by a
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