An Economist Privately Contacted Me...

I received a message from an economist on Messenger. She told me that she was texting in stream-of-thought mode, and was not editing for grammar. 

I had posted on Facebook about Trump's penchant for inviting foreign companies to expand business in the United States. What this does is brings low-paying jobs to the US, while sending profits overseas. This will certainly result in trillions of dollars sent out of the United States. 

So, in Trumpland, Americans purchasing foreign goods to save money is a bad thing. But sending wealthy foreigners trillions of dollars because they contribute negatively to our economy (providing low-paying jobs that do not pay a living wage) is perfectly fine. 

That was the jist of my post. 

Then I received a message from the economist. I will list her main points here. I think they're good food for thought. 

1. Foreign employers bring jobs to the United States because our labor is cheaper than in their own countries. We may have expertise or resources that don't exist in their country, and the profit margin is higher when they produce things that will be sold to Americans in the US due to tariffs or other factors.

2. With US wages on decline compared to the cost of living and inflation, American labor is now less expensive globally than it once was. Americans will be provided with low wage jobs by foreign companies seeking higher profits. We will be creating more items in the US while we become more impoverished. This has a negative impact on the economy overall.

3. Where these factories are built, there will be an increasing dependence on government programs like Medicaid and SNAP.

4. The increase of dependence on government programs necessitates the need for higher taxes. This generally falls on the declining middle class. For local government, the people who work at the factories will converge around the area, putting pressure on public services like water and sewer, which increases government spending on those services which will require an increase in property taxes.

5. The company has generally been given a tax free period by the local government, often 10 years. This means that for 10 years they've been creating tax burdens although they haven't contributed financially to help with those burdens. And even if they did help with those—even when they start paying taxes after 10 years—the amount they contribute do not equal the tax burden they create.