A good friend called to report that the bay areas of south Texas are already seeing the crimp from reduced trade. The US has stopped cross border trucking. And so Mexico has trade sanctioned 90 US food and consumer items, making them uncompetitive in Mexico. Meanwhile the US helps suppliers for US automakers Ford GM Chrysler but not the foreign makers here in the US. And so we favor the cities with US plants but not those with foreign plants, understandable but discriminatory.
This is only the start of increased nationalism across the world.
Dave Hendricks in his column in the Sat San Antonio paper notes this is a mistake.
And of course Congress is selectively singly out which execs need to give money back. This worried even Jay Leno as he spoke with President Obama on the tonite show. Gee who is the next enemy. Now even smaller companies are canceling routine sales bonus trips for insurance salesmen and such. The losers, hotel employees, the little people.
A few years back Congress got the great idea of slapping a sales tax on yachts over a certain length. The theory was the same we hear from Barack now, the buyers can afford it, what happened? Work at US shipyards showed to a stop, all the boats were then brokered overseas exempt from the tax. The losers, US shipyard workers and brokers. Singling out selective groups for harsh punishment brings unintended consequences.
Professor Elam 
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