One take on a Trump Economy

For those of you saying that Trump is great for the economy, I suggest you ponder this: TikTok.

His latest use of national security to challenge the market and the concept of private property.

It was because of national security concerns that he insisted that an American firm take ownership of the firm. He wanted the data in American servers and owned by an American firm. If it failed to meet those two criteria, it would not be allowed to do business in the United States.

That threat, that demand is huge in itself. I do not believe that TikTok had done anything wrong. Their sin, I believe, is that they are tied to the Chinese government, and that is a problem as All those Americans with their memes and whatever would be exposed to the Chinese government.

Anyway, let us grant that the it was a national security issue. At the end of the day the deal so far is not in compliance with the conditions required by the President. Data will now be kept and managed by Oracle in the US, but ownership will be divided between the current Chinese parent company, Oracle and Walmart.

The second condition is simply not met. But we are not done. Also for this deal to happen requires that someone give the federal government $5 Billion for a history program / project that Trump had introduced last week. $5 Billion is a lot of history.

So we are forcing a foreign company to sell a substantial part of itself to American interests to do business here. That is a Chinese practice. We are now adopting Chinese business practices. We are also adopting Chinese government practices with this intrusion of the executive into private business. And lastly, for the pleasure of doing this business in the US, courtesy of the President he is exacting a $5 billion dollar fee.

And one more point. You might be pondering why is Walmart getting involved here? Walmart is today making the transition from brick and mortar to both online and brick and mortar. Tiktok, the cool social media / streaming service solidifies their presence online. The President has facilitated such a deal from the White House.

You are witnessing something very new. And if Trump is here for four more years. . . You ain’t seen nothing. America is going to compete by having the government at the table. It will be, going forward, very much a player. And if you want to succeed in such an economy, you will have connections to the White House.

This is new, but it really is not. This is how we got the various robber barons of the late 19th century and their trusts. Tariff’s and trusts go hand in hand.

I am basing this on quick reads so I welcome people telling me where I am wrong.