Trump Ends Neoliberalism

Trump has broken the back of neoliberalism - as his voters wanted. He mimics their social biases (which he does not believe privately - except the racism) and has essentially thrown the wealthy and upper middle class under the bus. 

He has also created industrial policy, with tariffs which, with correct support, can be used to provide what his voters want while making prices rise for everyone else. He has also created conditions for value added taxes. The question is whether he or a successor adopt this solution and the extent to which exemptions and exclusions from the VAT are allowed and, if so, who controls them. The Congress cannot really do the fine work on doing this fairly that the executive branch can - like tariff policy.

The question is whether or how to give more money to the bottom third of income holders - which is about 77% of the population - either through a higher minimum wage & higher child tax credits - distributed through wages rather than either the IRS directly or indirectly through individual tax filing.

Also, the financial assets that hold pensions are not doing poorly. The speculative side is losing money. His voters don't care. I don't either. The bottom 77% of households have tax free income (and if they are invested in speculative assets, they are getting what they deserve) or are temporarily poor because they have had business losses - including those carried over. Switching to a VAT economy eliminates these advantages - especially if an ASSET VALUE ADDED TAX allows for employer based taxation of high wages, dividends and interest and ignores individual capital gains and losses. The latter can also lead to employee ownership - an essentially cooperativists concept that libertarian socialists support.

A tariff policy favors workers (and by implication overseas workers) over capital. Because it (or VAT) can be manipulated by the executive branch, using them (or VAT exemptions) creates industrial policy that the Soviets and Chinese would envy. 

While Trump voters do not understand this, the Russian and Chinese systems where the connected have the power are the same as the old Soviet system. Oligarchs and senior party members have the some crony relationships with the supreme leader  (and his secret policy) in either case. For some reason, American conservatives don't get the joke. Too funny.