Looking Beyond The Trump-Carrier Headlines

By Chris Rossini

The headlines read that Donald Trump has saved 1,000 U.S. jobs. Carrier is not moving to Mexico. Trump isn't even in office and he's already "winning" for the American people, right? That's definitely going to be the takeaway by a majority of individuals.

But government is a massive smoke-and-mirrors operation. Citizens are always encouraged to focus on "the seen". In other words, you can "see" with your own eyes that 1,000 jobs will remain in America. But there is also "the unseen," and that aspect is supposed to be avoided like the plague. You are never (ever) supposed to think two steps ahead. And to government's good fortune, most people don't.

For example, most people "see" government raise the minimum wage to $15 and they think it's great. What they don't see is that all individuals without the skills to earn the arbitrary wage are forced (by law) into unemployment.

Many see the U.S. government's overthrow of dictators in Iraq and Libya and think that it's fantastic! What they don't see is the chaos, resentment, and desire for revenge that boils in the minds of those who live there. 

We can go on and on. The U.S. government is the biggest government in mankind's history. They inflict previously unforeseen damage every single second.

The takeaway is this: the use of aggressive force (which is the government's primary offense against its citizens) cannot improve society. It can only set it back.

Violent and aggressive force destroys. It cannot create.

Once the belief that government force can improve society is accepted (and it is surely accepted today) then a steady decline in living standards must ensue. Government acts ... the "unseen" consequences arrive ... and government acts again, which produces even more "unseen" consequences.

We've all heard of compound interest right? Well think of government solutions as the reverse. The more that it acts, the more compound devastation it must produce.

The only net positive that government can do is to shrink itself into virtual insignificance. That's it. America was once a land of opportunity that produced the greatest wealth ever known to mankind because Americans were free from their government. In relative terms, the government was insignificant to their lives.

So, with all of that being said, is the Trump-Carrier deal a good thing overall?

There's no way to know.

If you look at the headline (which is all that you're supposed to look at) then 1,000 jobs will stay in the U.S. Of course, no one wishes for anyone else to lose their jobs, but at the same time, we live in a constantly changing world. Jobs are not meant to be permanent. If they were, we would be stuck in a nightmare world that's much different than ours.

Fortunately, things do change. As bad as things are now, they can always get better. 

In order to really know if the Trump-Carrier deal is a good thing overall, we would have to see the terms of the deal. As of this writing, the terms are being kept secret.

The deal would be a good thing if government were to extricate itself from Carrier's business altogether. That would be best case scenario. The next best case would be to move in the direction of non-involvement. In other words,  no more special favors (Carrier is heavily subsidized by the government), no more government contracts, no more "regulations" to stifle competition, no more "regulations" to stifle Carrier's own business. And of course, the big one: lower net taxation.

Is that even a remote possibility in this day and age?

It's extremely unlikely.

Also, are we to expect the president (or president-elect) to negotiate "deals" with every single American company? Can American companies now merely threaten to go to Mexico in order to get a sweetheart deal for themselves?

Is this bizarro situation considered a "free society" these days? Or is it just authoritarianism with a different wrapper?

The real solution is simple: Violence destroys. Legalized and institutionalized (i.e., government) violence destroys on a massive scale and it can't be any other way.

Here's the good news. The other side of the coin can be chosen at any time. While violence destroys, peace creates! 

Peel away the violence and liberty will take care of the rest.