Who Should You Trust on the Economy, Kamala or Trump?

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It’s the Number One Issue for Americans. So. Who should you trust on the economy more, Kamala, or Trump?

I want to help you think about this question.

You might think that there’s an easy answer. But I have to confess that it’s not so simple. I know that’s surprising to hear from me. People think of me as a die-hard against Trump. And yet I’ve always told you that I’m not on the left, and I often write about the ways in which Trump makes sense. That doesn’t mean, at the same time, that I sort of excuse or condone the…fascism.

This is a time of breakdown, and there are no easy answers left.

What Are Kamalanomics, Anyways?

Let’s begin with Kamala.

She’s often criticized for not offering the kinds of granular policy details pundits want (mostly for the sake of their own careers.)

But the truth is those don’t matter—not anymore.

We know what Kamala’s philosophy is by now.

That’s revealed to us in the kinds of policies she’s proposed, all of which share a theme. A tax credit for kids. A tax credit for houses. Penalties for price gouging.

Kamala calls all this a “new way forward.” Is it?

I think that oversells it. Quite a bit. Kamalanomics is neoliberalism, touched up here and there, softened at the edges. What does neoliberalism say? The hard version says: we must never interfere with the invisible hand, which is sort of an all-powerful superhuman being, omniscient.

This is a softer version. It says that we can tinker around with markets, at the edges, but still, they should and must remain the prime, fundamental institution in society. It is what mediates and directs social organization, more or less all of it. From healthcare to retirement right down to the formation of relationships.

The invisible hand isn’t allowed to punch so hard, so often, and there are attempts to guide its often violent, jerky movements, in this version of the story. The invisible hand is something that’s to be sort of contained from its most extreme actions. But it’s still very much, make no mistake, the Hand of God, more or less, replacing in modernity what roles religion had in pre-modernity.

It directs, guides, shapes all facets of human behavior, and it’s never to be questioned. Except in the most extreme cases, says Kamalanomics, which is, for example, when entire generations can’t afford homes, or when people can’t even afford food.

It’s not that this is bad. It’s fine, good, OK.

At this juncture in human history, we’d be fools not to question the invisible hand, because of course, that’s how we ended the Great Depression, or rebuilt Europe after the war, or created social democracy, and so on.

So. It’s not that this is bad.

But it is that this isn’t what it’s being made out to be. By Kamala’s own team, by those who are sort of unquestioning advocates, etcetera. This isn’t some kind of Grand Philosophical Revolution. It’s not some kind of Radical Historic Momentous Paradigm Shift.

It’s just…a very, very slightly softer version of the same old paradigm, which is neoliberalism.

That’s…progress. Of a sort. It’s a baby step, and like I said, that’s good, because when you’re trapped in the box of failed paradigms, maybe that first step is the hardest one.

But it’s…underwhelming. It pains me to confess that. I’m not wowed by it. I’m not moved by it much, as much as I share the enthusiasm.

It’s not, for example, magically going to give Americans decent healthcare so their life expectancies reach European levels (five to ten years more), it’s not going to magically solve the problem of generational downward mobility, it’s not going to erase the debt that’s crippling young people for life, and so on.

And that is a problem.

Nobody’s expecting leaders to outright solve these problems, in one go. We all know how complex and entrenched they are. And in that sense, voters are being magnanimous, maybe too much so.

But leaders should at least care about them.

And on that score, Democrats are failing. Not just for me, or to me. But to…the average person. People don’t trust them on the economy not because they have bad ideas, but because they don’t seem to care. To recognize or acknowledge or even admit how tough things have gotten for the average person over decade upon decade of stagnation.

That’s a very, very big problem. Because…well…how do you get here? To presenting a version of neoliberalism that’s sort of the same old monster, just with maybe boxing gloves, as if you’re any match for a twelve ton beast with jagged teeth…a version softened ever just so, at the very sharpest edges…to a country in this much pain?

It’s sort of a tell that the Democrats don’t understand the levels of pain out there. They’re just blind to all that, having lived in their own bubble so long. The policies aren’t bad. But they’re not very good either. They’re just sort of there.

If I was still the Chief Economist of One of the World’s Biggest Corporations, and somebody on my team came back to me with something like this, I’d be pretty annoyed. I’d call it the lowest common denominator. I’d say it lacked vision and ambition. I’d say it was the least risky option, and that bugged me, because without risk there’s no return, and certainly not reinvention.

See what I mean a little bit?

Voters aren’t connecting with Kamalanomics for all these reasons. It’s underwhelming, but more than that, it’s easy to sense that it’s sort of the same old paradigm, which is sort of a monstrous one. And we’re asking it to behave itself, and be nice. But monsters are going to eat you, regardless.

This is what predatory capitalism does, after all, and nowhere in Kamalanomics, do we see the vision or ambition to say something like: this version of capitalism’s turned predatory, and we’re going to fix it.

So should you trust Kamala on the economy? I don’t know. I won’t say I don’t trust her, but I will say that if this is all I trust her to do, then it’s not going to accomplish very much. America’s long run trends will remain exactly what they are today, which is people’s lives falling apart in many respects, generation after generation doing worse, while the economy, stagnating or shrinking for the average person, destabilizes society—and we discussed that last time.

Trumponomics 2.0

What about Trump? Should we trust him with the economy more?

On the face of it, it seems absurd: here’s a guy who’s been convicted of fraud, and we’re asking him to run the economy. Go ahead and chuckle, I do.

But I’m not so sure that so many of Trump’s ideas are bad ones.

I know it’s shocking to some of you to hear me say that. Go ahead, chuckle again. Has Umair lost it?

Trump wants to bring jobs back to America.

That’s not a bad idea. It’s a good one, and it’s an incredibly necessary one, more so than pundits and elites and people yet know, because right now, the indications, scary ones, are that the jobs engine is utterly broken.

Jobs aren’t being created anymore. At least not the ones we should want, stable ones, well paying ones. What’s being created are part-time dead end low-wage jobs, which mean people are already having to cobble together lives of side hustles and so forth.

You can’t have a stable society that way.

So Trump’s idea isn’t a bad one.

And it’s sad that Democrats don’t get this much. Why aren’t they talking about bringing jobs back to America? Why do they think Americans will be happier just because Indians and Filipinos have jobs? They’re in la-la land, folks, still drunk on neoliberalism.

There has been way, way too much offshoring. It’s not good for economies or societies. The stuff we get now is junk, mostly, badly made, of incredibly low quality, and sure it’s cheap, but that’s what you get. This is what globalization did to the economy in many respects: it was a race to the bottom, and again, on this score, Trump’s right.

Trump wants to end all this by raising tariffs. And here the waters get murkier. Tariffs end up being paid for by average people, usually.

A large part of the huge wave of inflation that struck over the last half decade is because trade barriers have been rising around the world.

But something has to give. The economy has to be rebalanced somehow. There need to more, better jobs domestically, for there to be a middle class again, or else we remain on the path we’re on. And in that respect, the options are limited. How do you stop predatory capitalism’s race to the bottom? The options are limited. You can tax wealth, which nobody will ever do in our lifetimes, you can raise corporate tax rates, which is a bad idea when the jobs engine is already this broken, you can invest heavily, which again, nobody’s ever going to do in our lifetimes, in nationally owned industries.

And then there are tariffs.

So Trump’s idea of tariffs is a bad one. Make no mistake. But. A bad idea in the service of a cause that’s in many respects a far more sensible that Democrats espouse—and who knows what cause they espouse, anyways, for the economy?

And even then, there are no good options.

You see, however we try to rebalance the economy, someone’s going to have pay the price. Who’s that someone going to be? The ultra-rich? Don’t kid yourself. Mega-corporations? Think again. The political class? Go ahead and laugh. The price is going to be paid by the average person somehow. And in that respect, sure, if tariffs raise prices, but at least create jobs, stabilize the middle and working class, maybe the calculus is at least tenable. Maybe. We don’t know. What we do know is that it’s risky, and it’s a gamble, but do we really want to go on like this?

No decent jobs? No careers? No middle class? No industry? Nothing for our kids and grandkids except becoming neo-serfs? You see, the paradox here is that Trump, weirdly, seems to understand that. But Democrats seem not to care about it at all.

Trump actually called something like a New American Industrialism the other day. And I have to admit, that’s a pretty strong vision.

No, that doesn’t mean I condone or excuse the rest of Trumpism, from taking away rights from women and minorities to scapegoating immigrants and so on. I don’t.

But we’re just talking about the economy, which is Issue Number One.

And I have to confess that right about now, I probably lean towards Trump more than Kamala. Shocking, I know.

Who Should You Trust on the Economy?

Does that mean you should trust Trump more? Nope. Of course not. It means that you should think all this through. See through Kamala’s branding and word games to understand that a softer version of neoliberalism is still…underwhelming. And maybe the opposite is true, too: Trump’s social stances are repellent, but his economic vision, if it’s a New American industrialism, actually…maybe that’s something that’s powerful to a lot of people, and for good reason.

*I’ve left fossil fuels out of this, for a reason, because we’re not making any serious attempts to curb emissions, which still rise globally, and America’s are effectively offshored to China and India, and that’s before we get to AI. So that’s a wash—whomever tells you they’re a green politician in this day and age is just flat out lying to you, at least outside fragments of Europe. So I wouldn’t take that too seriously—climate change is a problem that’s over, in the sense of brace yourself, we failed.

That’s a lot. Go right ahead and yell at me if you must. I’m surprised, too, and I’m sort of pained, chuckling at myself, for saying all this. It’s a funny time. Here we are, caught between failing liberalism and rising authoritarianism. Both choices are pretty bleak, if you ask me, and in the end, if we’re going to just recoil, and be forced to choose the lesser evil, well, I suppose having to make that choice is the real problem.

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