I normally ignore NY Times columnist David Brooks, who is such a dependable and predictable shill for the monied elites that he seldom has anything new or interesting to say. But the title of today’s piece, The Coming Political Realignment, caught my eye, so I read it:
The column is ostensibly about how Donald Trump is redefining our core political debate from Big vs. Small Government to Open vs. Closed Country. Brooks uses the occasion to lecture the unwashed masses about the dangers of reversing course on our free-trade, open-borders agenda that he and his rich clients favor. Just a few little problems with his argument:
- He cites a study by the Peterson Institute claiming that "past trade liberalization laws added between $7,100 to 12,900 in additional income to the average household.”
- OK, first of all, The Peterson Institute? A billionaire-funded organization whose entire agenda consists essentially of screwing average people by slashing programs like Social Security and Medicare, so we can cut taxes on the ultra-rich. Hardly an unbiased source!
- And I checked this “study” Brooks cites—know how they came up with those figures? They took the total claimed “additional income” and divided by the number of households. But it’s well known that the 1% have taken almost all income gains in recent years, so the figures are, well, bullshit. The incomes of “average households” have stagnated badly, as everybody knows.
- Next, Brooks tells us that "A study by Peter Petri and Michael Plummer estimates that the Trans-Pacific Partnership…would boost American incomes by $131 billion.”
- Same problem! How will that sweet $131 billion get distributed? Bernie Sanders is exactly right when he says that our economy works great for billionaires, just not for ordinary people.
- Petri and Plummer are both affiliated with the Peterson Institute, with personal agendas centered on promoting trade with Asia.
- And, of course, the TPP is more about protecting the profits of multinational corporations than reducing trade barriers, which are already quite low.
Brooks is an awful, awful man.