America’s New Enemy – Europe

Donald Trump’s hopeful prediction:  The notion of a post-Brexit European Union shattering under a flood of anti-globalist populism. Like most of his predictions and understandings of the rest of the world, he was wrong. He witnessed the devastating wipeout (almost 2 to 1) in the French presidential election of Trump-clone populist Marine Le Pen by a 39-year-old centrist who had never held elective office. He openly chastised NATO leaders about not carrying their fair share of military costs and slammed “bad, very bad” Germany for making such good products that too many Americans opt for German-quality over American-made equivalents that there is a massive trade imbalance favoring Germany.

He refused to confirm a virtually unanimous global Paris-accord pledge to contain climate change (more later) – that “Chinese hoax” that his own military is spending billions to deal with and prepare for – and described his Vatican meeting as a success notwithstanding a dour Pope who handed The Donald that prelate’s encyclical admonishing the world to take responsibility for our massive abuse of the environment. The Art of the Deal author, el Presidente, applied his flawed real estate bully tactics to people who have genuine power on a massive scale, and described his totally failed foray into Europe as a “home run.”

What The Donald generated in Europe was backlash. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, clearly editing the extreme feelings she was really feeling, suggested that she could no longer trust the United States as an ally. Immediately following Trump’s return to the United States, as she continued with her reelection campaign in Munich, which Trump secretly believes she should lose in a populist sweep, Merkel directed her remarks to the growing anti-Trump feelings coursing through her constituency: “The era in which we could rely completely on others is gone, at least partially… I have experienced that over the last several days… It is now time that we really take our own fate into our own hands… Naturally, we’ll maintain our friendship with the United States … wherever possible… But we have to realize that we Europeans are going to have to fight on our own behalf.”

Trump’s “I’m gonna psyche them out” awkward world-leader handshake is all part of that uber-dealmaker act. And the reaction of world leaders has ranged from annoyance and shock to outright snickers. “America First” increasingly been interpreted as a need for Europe to separate from the United States and  to allow America to become an isolated, go-it-alone major power, to be accessed only on occasion and then with trepidation and care. On May 25^th, as neophyte, The Donald, lectured mostly seasoned European leaders on international affairs, chastising their inadequate funding support for Nato. His words were greeted with… well, look at the above-left picture and you tell me.

They don’t like him. They don’t trust him. They do not think he has a clue about what he is expounding on. They will reduce their dependence on and contact with the United States, and they sure as heck will not let him attempt to divide and conquer by assaulting German trade separate and apart of the European Union. Mr. Trump has pushed post-Brexit Continental Europe closer together, united against a new common threat: Donald Trump’s vision of America First.

For E.U. politicians seeking a cause to ignite their constituency – particularly in France and Germany mired in recent or upcoming elections – The Donald has become the perfect foil. Angela Merkel’s star is rising again, and with opposing Trump now viewed as a politician’s test of confidence, power and independence, her party already experienced some early victories in local elections. France’s new, young and dynamic President, Emmanuel Macron, clearly benefitted by running against a Trump-clone, just as Trump’s image crashed and burned… even before his recent European tour. The more politicians trashed and mocked Donald Trump, the higher they rise in their home country’s popularity polls. We are increasingly isolated, increasingly “America last” to the rest of the world.

Word in Europe is that Trump will “imminently” announce U.S. withdrawal from the 200-nation Paris climate accord, joining the only two other holdouts: Syria and Nicaragua. The reactions to this “more than just a rumor” were swift in coming. The United Nations’ main Twitter page quoted Secretary-General António Guterres as saying, "Climate change is undeniable. Climate change is unstoppable. Climate solutions provide opportunities that are unmatchable."

Yet, we will simply step off the stage and let the rest of the world grow those “alternative energy jobs” … because why should we create jobs to support a “Chinese hoax”? Most large U.S. companies support remaining locked to the Paris accord. Right wing Republicans (seeking a regulation free business environment) and too many Evangelicals (who don’t believe God would let that happen) do not. Guess who elected Donald Trump?

Many additional voices from around the world also chimed in against Mr. Trump: “The prime minister of India said it would be a ‘crime’ to spoil the environment for future generations… Finland's prime minister said climate change won't be reversed ‘by closing your eyes.’… In Berlin, the head of the European Commission lectured Mr. Trump that ‘not everything in international agreements is fake news.’” CBSNews.com, May 31^st. The United States is rapidly becoming globally perceived as a pariah, an unraveling democracy, a rogue state led by an irrational narcissist.

Donald Trump’s “bumbling, arrogant fool” image is no longer relegated to private conversations between and among Europe’s leaders behind closed doors. He may have sway with the U.K., desperate to negotiate trade treaties with anyone willing to prove Brexit was not a mistake, and with his puppet-master bro, Vladimir Putin, but he is now fair game for just about any political figure in the E.U. (a growing global phenomenon) seeking to solidify their constituencies. And young French leader, Emmanuel Macron, is no exception.

“The newly installed French president compared Mr Trump to the increasingly autocratic leaders when commenting on pictures of a tense handshake between them at the Nato summit in Brussels last week [third week in May].

“Mr Macron said the tense handshake, which last several seconds with both men's knuckles looking white before Mr Trump was forced to pull away first, was ‘not innocent’ and was designed to show he was not a pushover. 

“He told French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche: ‘Donald Trump, the Turkish president or the Russian president see relationships in terms of a balance of power… ‘That doesn’t bother me. I don’t believe in diplomacy by public abuse, but in my bilateral dialogues I won’t let anything pass.’“ Independent.co.uk, May 30^th. (red/green in the original). But Donald Trump is considered a joke all over the E.U. OK, not just the E.U. His proclivity to tweet without thinking or editing – e.g., “Despite the constant negative press covfefe” (his early morning 5/31 typo-infested tweet) – is the stuff that goes viral on the Web and builds the careers of comedians who mimic him and his hapless staff.

But wait, there’s more. Take this story, for example. The European press calls it Donald Trump’s “magical orb of world domination,” the glowing soccer-ball artifact President Donald Trump clasped with Saudi Arabian King Salman on his recent trip to that nation (pictured far right above). On May 30^th, noting that the orb apparently “loses power and is somewhat less threatening on these [northern European] latitudes,” prime ministers from Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Iceland posed for the above-center photograph with a… er… well… real soccer ball. At The Donald’s expense.

Facing a rising tide of questions about his and his senior staff’s connection with an election-manipulating Russia (with rising U.S. polls supporting impeachment), having trouble recruiting replacements for his revolving door assemblage of White House advisors, witnessing a defiant North Korea escalate their weapons testing into the Sea of Japan, watching a nascent rebellion even among his base over the abominable health care reform act passed in the House with his total support and now facing global mockery over his ineptness with international leaders, Donald is becoming an isolated, ineffective, powerless and seriously-damaged political leader.

I’m Peter Dekom, and what kind of American president would take extreme steps against his traditional allies while embracing a traditional enemy that continues to support policies and actions directed at destabilizing and destroying the credibility of the United States of America?

A Battle Lost Before It Has Begun

Picture a cat cornered, the extreme reaction, or the more moderate response of a frustrated group, bored with trying to accommodate a disruptive outsider, eventually realizing that they simply are going to have to isolate and ignore that which they can neither control nor mollify. Donald Trump believes he can bring the rest of the world to heel through bilateral – “me, the Art of the Deal American superstar one-on-one with you, the smaller and less significant world leader – negotiations, where he can pick them off, one-by-one. Unfortunately for the under-prepared Donald Trump, (a) globalization is bigger than that and (b) the world does not seem to be willing to play the Donald’s game.

Take for example on Germany’s “bad, very bad” trade imbalance (Trump’s own words) with the United States. Trump expects to force Germany into one of those bilateral trade agreements under the threat of new tariffs directed at German imports into the United States. Unfortunately for Mr. Trump, Germany cannot negotiate trade agreements on its own. It is legally unable to act on trade except as part of the European Union, and a tariff on Germany evokes a total EU retaliation against the United States. Not to mention Germany’s disgust otherwise with Donald Trump and his new “America First” agenda, a policy they appear deeply committed to oppose to the extent of any impact on them.

“[German Chancellor Angela] Merkel did not mention Trump by name. But in remarks earlier in the weekend, before leaving Sicily, she told reporters that the discussion with him on climate change, in particular, had been ‘extremely difficult, indeed unsatisfying. It’s a situation where there are six countries lined up against one.’… [Merkel,] the leader of Europe’s most powerful nation suggested the U.S. was no longer a reliable ally.

“‘The era in which we could rely completely on others is gone, at least partially,’ Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel said during a campaign speech in Munich. ‘I have experienced that over the last several days… ‘It is now time that we really take our own fate into our own hands,’ she added… ‘Naturally, we’ll maintain our friendship with the United States … wherever possible,’ Merkel said. ‘But we have to realize that we Europeans are going to have to fight on our own behalf.’

“Although Trump touted ‘big results’ in a tweet Sunday [5/28] about his European trip, Merkel’s comments were a potentially far-reaching negative assessment of his meetings with European Union officials and NATO heads of state in Brussels and the leaders of major industrialized nations at the Group of 7 summit in Sicily, Italy.” Los Angeles Times, May 29^th. This is Angela Merkel being polite in public statements. In private, not so much, and you can pretty clearly see where this is heading.

Indeed, the very cornerstone of Donald Trump’s going-forward worldwide trade policy is to side-step negotiations with groups of treaty-linked nations and force them, one-by-one, into direct treaty negotiations with the U.S. That approach may have borne fruit in his deal with powerful China, but increasingly, Donald Trump is finding few members of major trade groups prepared to break ranks and deal signally with the U.S. Certainly not Germany or any other member of the EU.  

“Trump argues that the U.S. has greater leverage bargaining with individual countries, reasoning that America’s large market means it has more to offer and that virtually every country is running a trade surplus with the U.S… But the bilateral path is a nonstarter in Germany’s case. And it won’t be much easier elsewhere.

“Since Trump formally withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, fulfilling a campaign promise on his first day in office, not one of the other 11 Trans-Pacific countries has come forward to express a desire for an individual deal with the U.S.

“Instead, Japan, Australia and the others are trying to push through the Pacific Rim free-trade agreement without the U.S. Their hope is that they can salvage the hard-fought pact and that America, which would be left out of tariff savings and other benefits, would feel the need to sign back on…

“There’s little chance Trump will reverse course, but the reluctance of nations to negotiate with the U.S. alone points to the difficulties ahead for the president’s economic agenda and his goal to forge better trade deals, which he sees as key to expanding the economy and creating higher-paying jobs.

“The reluctance was evident at last weekend’s gathering [5/20-21] of Asia-Pacific economies in Hanoi, where the U.S. Chamber of Commerce met with trade officials from about half of the 21 economies represented… ‘I didn’t see a lot of countries lining up or raising their hands to volunteer to do bilaterals with the U.S.,’ said Tami Overby, the chamber’s senior vice president for Asia… Overby said other countries will be closely watching how the Trump administration proceeds in renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement. Those negotiations could begin as soon as mid-August.

“Trump’s chief trade negotiator, Robert Lighthizer, has said he expects much of the NAFTA talks with Canada and Mexico to be two-sided, and his statement at the Hanoi meeting reaffirmed ‘the president’s strong commitment to promoting bilateral free and fair trade.’… Trump’s preference for bilateral talks repudiates at least part of the post-World War II economic order established under the U.S. leadership. That order includes several multi-nation institutions, including the World Trade Organization, an adjudicating body with more than 160 countries as members.

“The Trump administration has been sharply critical of the WTO as it seeks to advance the president’s America First move away from globalism… Former U.S. trade officials from both parties agree that an exclusive focus on bilateral negotiations would be a mistake. It’s true that America’s market size and scope make it highly attractive to other economies, thereby giving the U.S. some clout in the bargaining room. And multinational negotiations do tend to be more complex and time-consuming.

“But experienced trade negotiators say that there is no inherent advantage in taking a strictly bilateral approach, and that two-way negotiations could create what Kantor calls a ‘spaghetti bowl of agreements,’ a mishmash of trade relationships that don’t align with each other and are difficult to manage.

“Globalization and advances in commerce and shipping have made it easier for businesses to quickly divert trade even as many goods have become fungible. A U.S. deal with any single country, for instance, would not be enough to solve the vexing problem of cheaper foreign steel and steel products, which has troubled American industry. The steel problem involves many countries and reflects a global glut of supply, thanks mostly to China’s heavy production.

“To take another example, a U.S. trade deal with China could include a reduction of shipments of car tires to American shores. But that would probably just prompt U.S. buyers to shift to comparably cheap tires from Thailand and other low-cost producers. That’s exactly what happened when Washington slapped tariffs on Chinese tire imports: Neither the domestic market share nor employment in tire manufacturing went up.” LA Times.

Think we will remain competitive? Picture a United States with continued budget cuts to education, a decrease in the availability to student loans, struggling with healthcare issues, facing massive federal budget cuts to job-creating scientific research… and straining to find even a few countries in the world ready to redefine their U.S. trade agreements by leaving the power of their international trade alliances to go it alone with Donald Trump and his woefully-transparent “America first” agenda.

And Putin is loving every minute of Donald Trump’s slow and consistent efforts to alienate his European “allies,” if not most of the rest of the world under this implementation of “America first.” As Europe turns away from the United States, Russia is leaning in. Take this little excerpt from the May 29^th New York Times as a sample of what is to come, even as Russia is meddling in local elections: “All the while, Russia is assiduously courting Italy, a country that once had the largest Communist party outside the Soviet bloc and that many analysts consider the soft underbelly of the European Union… In Rome, Mr. Trump left behind an embassy without an ambassador, and forfeited a geopolitical playing field that Moscow’s ambassador in Rome, Sergey Razov, is exploiting…

“The effects of Russian attempts to influence Italy can already be seen. Long shaky, Italian politicians across the spectrum, ever mindful of business ties and energy deals, are wobbling more than ever on the hard line the European Union has taken toward Moscow since its land grab in Ukraine in 2014.

“The enforcer of that tough-minded approach has been Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who has acted as Europe’s main liaison with Russia. But the erosion of her relationship with Mr. Putin over Russia’s meddling in Ukraine has created a breach that many in Italy hope their country will step into.

“Italy’s many Russia enthusiasts are heartened by the recent visit of [Italian] Prime Minister Gentiloni [to Moscow]. His predecessor, Mr. Renzi, visited Mr. Putin at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum last year and said he opposed the ‘automatic’ renewal of sanctions on Russia.”

Europeans seem to find Putin less objectionable than Donald Trump, who has to have had the most disastrous trip to Europe of any recent American president. Saying it was a “home run,” Donald, doesn’t actually make it one. Bi-lateral trade negotiations? There may be a few countries stupid or powerful enough to walk that line, but for the most part, this vector is dead on arrival. The biggest loser: the American people.

I’m Peter Dekom, and insert an awkward Donald Trump “international leader” handshake here.

Global Stability

Watching the Office of the Presidency lurch and sway, Congress react and split, the stock market rise and fall… the question of “stability” of our entire system most definitely becomes a rising challenge. At the center of this question is the reality of Donald Trump himself. I cannot dwell on the extreme sociopathology armchair “psychiatrists” apply to the president’s behavior, which truly requires a more direct, in-person diagnosis. Nevertheless, there are aspects of Mr. Trump’s personality that are confirmed by his own actions.

Over-confidence – “who knew healthcare was so complicated?” – and a habit of self-praise that seems to be the most common aspect of Trump’s tweets and speeches seem a bit easier to address. And the roiling litany of crises almost daily – most stemming from these rather clear personality traits – are setting a stage for increasing political instability that impacts the credibility and operational efficiency of the United States itself. Social media and 24/7 news have become tools of narcissists everywhere… including Mr. Trump. Some people consider that level of self-confidence to be the president’s strength… others, not so much.

“Although he’s never been professionally diagnosed as such, psychologist Dan McAdams did a thoughtful and lengthy exposition of Trump’s personality for The Atlantic that suggests he’s a narcissist. Such a personality is characterized, in part, by bragging (something Trump excels at).

“In the workplace, corporate narcissism comes with an array of pros and cons. The upshot of narcissism can be a leader that’s viewed as visionary and charismatic. As Michael Maccoby observed in Harvard Business Review, ‘Today’s CEOs–superstars such as Bill Gates, Andy Grove, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, and Jack Welch–hire their own publicists, write books, grant spontaneous interviews, and actively promote their personal philosophies.’ 

Yet as Maccoby notes, Freud shone a light on a narcissist’s dark side. Narcissists tend to emotionally isolated, highly distrustful, and rage against perceived threats. Achievements can feed feelings of grandiosity. (see this, or this, or this, or many of Trump’s other tweets).” FastCompany.com, May 17^th.

What is fascinating, in a bad way, is how the United States is slip-sliding downwards in ratings scales from credible sources the world over. I’ve already addressed The Economist’s downgrading of the United States into a “flawed democracy” status, so today I would like to look at another such rating system, the “Fragile States Index” created by the Fund for Peace based on a set of detailed numerical analytics based on these four major categories: cohesion, economics, political indicators, social/demographic pressures.

John McLaughlin, distinguished practitioner in residence at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and former Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2000-2004 and Acting Director of the CIA in 2004, writing for the May 17^th The Cipher Brief:

“Some results are jarring, some are intuitively correct and unsurprising; and some thrust forward countries and issues most people might not be thinking about… It’s jarring, for example, to see the United States and the United Kingdom among the countries whose scores have worsened in the last year, despite positive scores on many of the measures. This is largely a reflection of harsh political campaigns, an uptick in factionalized politics, and the growing number of disaffected groups. This doesn’t mean that either country is about to collapse of course — in fact, both are judged very stable in the study — but it does underline that even prosperous veteran democracies can begin to develop political pathologies…

“[But the status of many other nations is equally significant.] Among the intuitively correct and unsurprising findings are that Finland maintains its top position as the world’s least fragile country. After all, during my last trip to Finland, I asked a colleague why Finland scored consistently higher than most countries on educational tests. And she said simply, as though it should be self-evident, “Because we are all Finns!” In other words, it’s not surprising that a small country (population 5.4 million), with a uniform language, a homogeneous population, and a well-established democracy living in a vicinity with others, can achieve prolonged stability. 

“Nor is it surprising that South Sudan, the world’s newest country, has returned to the top spot as the most fragile country on the globe, given what we have seen in the way of ethnic cleansing, contested elections, food shortages, and political frictions. Other countries with similar profiles, not surprisingly, are also in this category: Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and the Central African Republic all merit very high alert status.”

The above map reflects that Fragile States Index, and as you may have guessed, dark blue suggests the greatest level of political stability while dark brown reflects the extreme opposite. You probably noticed that the United States, which was once depicted as dark blue, has moved into the lesser, green category. “Regarding the study’s utility, government in particular should value the index as a critical component in the area of warning. Avoiding surprise and anticipating discontinuities is an important job for the intelligence services, the military, and our diplomats.” The Cipher Brief. The rating system, which does not react violently to the daily news reports, is intended as a tool for risk analysts – from business and academia to government.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I think that the operative word when you apply the Fragile States Index criteria to the United States is “warning.”

The Stark Mythology of Jobs, Jobs, Jobs – Dethroning King Coal

Without massive government direct investment in infrastructure, scientific research and education, without a “quality first” nation jobs priority, the American “good paying jobs” picture is bleaker than a burned down forest. Even the Trump vectors towards infrastructure are heavily dependent on the private sector given the right to implement usage fees (such as highway and bridge tolls) that will slam ordinary people traveling or just going to work. Thus the net economic benefit enhances the builder/investor corporations, sustains tax reductions for the rich and makes life simply more expensive (a new indirect regressive tax) for most Americans. The infrastructure jobs created will be more than offset by the increased cost of living to the rest of us.

The rising nations (like China) and smart net exporters (like Germany) are doubling down on direct government support for infrastructure, scientific research and education. Anyone can go to top German universities, virtually for free. Even Americans just dropping in for that free education. We get public education cuts and staggering student loans. And as new U.S. patents are falling almost in direct proportion to the withdrawal of governmental support, patents in those rising nations are skyrocketing. In case you don’t see the obvious, in a technologically-driven world, the countries that push the technology envelope prosper, while those who rely on a stellar past without investing in the future fade into oblivion. It has been that way throughout history. No exceptions. Ever. Oh, and fewer and fewer good “jobs, jobs, jobs.”

Tax-incented “job creators” are also motivated to use newfound expansion money – where they project economic opportunity – to invest in automation… not labor. So the money that used to be paid to those displaced workers is now paid to those who own the machines. And where labor is necessary, increasingly, it is for short-term contract labor, a harsh reflection of the new “gig” economy where workers have no benefits. Accelerating polarization, economic inequality.

That most permanent workers demand some form of a healthcare package – in a nation with far and away the most healthcare-cost nation on earth – is a further disincentive for companies to expand their workforce. This little factor led American car manufacturers to move tons of manufacturing plants to Canada where the hourly rates were the same, but healthcare was covered by a very effect government single-payer governmental healthcare system. $1,500 a car back then. A big deal.

True, we are at a disadvantage in healthcare. When healthcare became a governmental benefit, Canada was then really a part of the UK, and generally, Europe’s healthcare grew in a period of low economic, post WWII growth (rebuilding from the damage)… so prices for doctors and hospitals were comparably moderate. U.S. healthcare grew up, without WWII damage, in a period of extreme prosperity, strong unions, where medical costs escalated accordingly. So while most nations keep their healthcare costs under 10%+ of their GDP, we spend 20% of our GDP. Thus, a 10% reduction in our healthcare costs becomes a 2% slam to our GDP. But you can clearly see how lack of affordable healthcare makes the United States that much less competitive and how our cost-history make solving our healthcare issues “very complicated.” Little wonder that a 20% sector is attracting the most job growth.

Yet almost every major corporate focus, driven to increase efficiencies and hence profitability, is on using technology to replace labor. In the early years, the first jobs to go are those requiring the least skills – those requiring a high school or less education. Routinized manufacturing, low level bookkeeping and data tracking/storage, even retail sales (do you use Amazon?)… soon to move on to any job requiring driving a car or truck.  As Donald Trump purges undocumented workers from construction and agriculture, do not be surprised as sophisticated “picking machines” and “drywall installation robots” take over. Consumer prices will soar; job creation, not so much. sIn time, artificial intelligence will also slowly slam higher level jobs, from financial analysts rising to doctors and lawyers.

Most of us grew up enamored of cars. Love ‘em. Fast, sleek or just plain practical. But as younger generations enter the job market, where inflation-adjusted pay ain’t what it used to be, increasingly they are moving closer to the center of cities (where the jobs are), using mass transportation… and where customized transport that used to be provided by car ownership, turning to Uber and Lyft instead. Owning a car is just too expensive when your pay is low and rent is high. When cars do become driverless, which is inevitable, the thrill of driving a car will slide farther down the scale of “I need that.” But try and pry a smart mobile phone from the hands of Y and Z generation-people and watch them fight! A different world.

So you will get a polarization in labor that reflects and exacerbates income inequality to politically unsustainable. Sooner or later the American body politic will understand that a populist pledge for new and better jobs is a manipulative sham. We have absolutely no near-term or long-term realistic plan on how to deal with a world where most jobs have been or will be replaced by self-teaching automation. Socialism? Taxing the automated machines as if they were workers? Universal basic income? Really? In the United States? But sooner or later…

So now we come to perhaps the most egregious jobs-pledge in recent politics: deregulating job safety, financial and environmental regulations in the name of reinstating “King coal” as the nation’s primary energy source. Nobody who can see the obvious has the slightest belief that this will work, only desperate coal miners grasping at non-existent straws from truly lying politicians. As international pressures mount – note how G-7 leaders pressed the president to honor the Paris climate change accords – and global demand for coal plummets (driving the price to levels where it will soon be uneconomic to extract), coal is, you should forgive the expression, toast… burnt toast, but toast nonetheless. And the notion of “clean coal” – a euphemism for shoving coal-processing and burning effluents into deep underground spaces for future generations to deal with – is a great big lie.

Where coal is being mined in high labor-cost countries like the U.S., it is subject to the same implementation of labor-saving technologies applied to the mining and oil/gas industry in this modern era. “With much of the low-lying fruit already picked with respect to global resources, the current generation of miners is facing the prospect of having to drill deeper in more remote areas while also processing ore bodies of lower concentrations. This often means having to operate in more dangerous situations while creating more waste.

“The new generation of automation and control (A&C) technologies is expected to play a key role in helping mining companies tackle these new challenges… ‘Automation and control for leading companies is seen as a major differentiator,’ says Bill Ellerton, mining expert with Siemens Ltd. A&C can give companies greater control over levels of granularity for what they're managing, and, as Ellerton points out, ‘smart mines are more competitive from the start.’” Mining-Technology.com (May 2008).

A January 25th report from Brookings fills in the details: “automation has been eating into coal jobs over a long period of time—years before concerns about climate change led to the environmental regulations that President Trump solely blames for the industry’s decline. Nationwide, employment in the coal mining industry peaked in 1920, when it employed roughly 785,000 people. The more recent decline started in 1980, when the industry employed approximately 242,000 people. By 2000, 15 years before the Environmental Protection Agency first proposed the Clean Power Plan and released new pollution guidelines to cut toxic emissions from power plants, industry employment had dropped to 102,000. By 2015, coal mining had shed 59 percent of its workforce, compared to 1980…

“In the next decade, the coal mining industry will likely lose even more jobs to automation. According to a report from the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) in Winnipeg, Canada, the mining industry is primed for automation. It is highly capital intensive, pays relatively well, and buys expensive equipment. The industry has already adopted various automated technologies, including autonomous haul trucks and loaders; autonomous long-distance haul trains; semi-autonomous crushers, rock breakers, and shovel swings; automated drilling and tunnel-boring systems; automated long-wall plough and shearers; autonomous equipment monitoring; and GIS and GPS technologies. All of these technologies are already in use, and their deployment will be ramped up in the next 10–15 years…

“The IISD report concludes that automation is likely to replace 40–80 percent of workers in a mine, with newer mines and those with many years of life left most susceptible to automation.”

What’s worse, industry-leaders have seen the handwriting on the wall; they know that consumers want clean industry in their neighborhoods, that those who smear the environment will get massive bad publicity if not massive lawsuits. So notwithstanding our government’s new climate-change-denying-deregulating mantra, coal is over and not coming back. “The pressure to shift more of the country’s electric supply to renewable sources is not just a rallying cry for environmentalists. Some of the power industry’s biggest customers, like General Motors and Microsoft, have made a commitment to clean energy. And to help them meet it — and keep them from taking their business elsewhere — utilities are changing their ways.

“West Virginia, where coal is king, is no exception… Appalachian Power, the leading utility there, is quickly shifting toward natural gas and renewable sources like wind and solar, even as President Trump calls for a coal renaissance. Appalachian Power still burns plenty of coal, but in recent years it has closed three coal-fired plants and converted two others to gas, reducing its dependence on coal to 61 percent last year, down from 74 percent in 2012.” New York Times, May 26^th.

Meanwhile, companies now feel free now to dump industrial waste into public waterways and into the atmosphere. Changing weather patterns, insect/disease migration and encroaching seas continue to wreak global havoc. Is it worth it to support a false and unsustainable jobs-pledge against decimating our environment?

Oh, and did you note how this blog didn’t even address the impact of globalization – which may have positive benefits for most of us but always displaces some of us? How our raising tariffs to protect uncompetitive industries will generate trade wars that will hurt all of us? All part of the stark mythology of “jobs, jobs, jobs.”

I’m Peter Dekom, and I wonder how many of these inane and self-destructive policies are irreversible.