Ironies In This Election Cycle

1st, the deep GOP field has produced two front runners: Trump & Cruz; that no credible politician wants to be their running mate.  What is wrong with that picture and is anyone pondering how to correct GOP policies so they have some coherency with the voters desires.

Of course, that is easier said than done.  As the voters desires are very conflicted.  Both within the GOP between the Tea Party, the religious right, Reagan Democrats, and the secular business community; and within the broad middle between those who want a strong military and those who see the danger of trying to build a democracy with military force.

And even within those divisions there is another basic fundamental desire of the vast majority of the voters that has a conflict within it.  The voters want lower taxes, affordable health insurance, a strong military while protecting Social Security and Medicare.  The math for all that does not add up, but the election process does not allow for candidates to discuss the realities of that math.

The plight of the factory worker economy is real, but it is not simply immigration and free trade that caused their problems.  Technology has reduced the number of people needed to manufacture stuff, and if fewer people are needed to produce, fewer people are needed to manage people.  We are fortunate enough that free trade has increased global demand for things where the U.S. has a comparative advantage.  And people who work in those industries are doing well, but face the same pressures from a capitalistic economy.  Not every company succeeds all the time and they have to adjust their work forces and points of production.

So if you are looking for the root cause of all this angst, it is the triumph of my alma mater, the University of Chicago, which said corporate manager's primary goal is to maximize shareholder value.  While I believe that, there is an economic cost to workers who must alter their role in the economy as companies adjust and that produces the anger that is present in this year's voting.

A family owned company can consider the benefits of being benevolent toward workers, but a public company cannot.  So we have both Trump, Cruz, Sanders and Clinton criticizing Carrier's relocation of jobs from Indiana to Mexico and you wonder what big business could do to lessen the political pressure on themselves and improve the lot of the American worker.  One way , might be to avoid the tone deafness that the Verizon President showed when she said of the strikers,  "What is the difference between being an employee and a contract worker?"  Well, if there is no difference, why have contract workers.

Have a good week, my faithful readers.

A WAPO columnist has similar thoughts a day later than this post