Government always the problem, except..

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When there is a Republican in the White House..

How is this for hypocrisy...

Fox News and much of the conservative media slipped into messiah mode coverage this week when news broke that Carrier, the air conditioner giant, has decided to not move approximately 1,000 manufacturing jobs from Indiana to Mexico as the company had previously planned. President-elect Donald Trump took credit for having negotiated the respite.

Cheering Trump’s hands-on approach and his commitment to the working class, Fox talkers portrayed the Republican’s maneuver in relentlessly glowing terms. “A Big Win For Donald Trump,” announced Bill O’Reilly’s show last night.

Fox’s Stuart Varney claimed Trump had played hardball with Carrier and won: “He strong-armed them. What’s wrong with that?” (According to reports, it was likely the lure of additional tax incentives that convinced Carrier to keep the jobs in Indiana, not being “strong-armed” by Trump.) Trump’s cheerleader-in-chief Sean Hannity was just gobsmacked by the whole thing, saying on his radio program that he "can't think of a time in my lifetime where a president-elect or a president ever" did this. 

Hannity loved the fact that Trump reached out to corporate America, which is fascinating because you know what Hannity didn’t love in 2009? He didn’t love when newly elected President Obama reached out to Detroit’s auto industry in the form of an $80 billion-dollar bailout. Back then, an unhinged Hannity called Obama every name in the book as conservative pundits accused the president of trying to destroy democracy and capitalism.

Fox News and the entire right-wing noise machine relentlessly denounced Obama as he tried to rescue American manufacturing jobs, which the federal bailout eventually did. One independent study estimated the aggressive government move saved 1.5 million jobs. “This peacetime intervention in the private sector by the U.S. government will be viewed as one of the most successful interventions in U.S. economic history," the study’s author wrote.

Lots of people might forget, especially in light of the bailout’s stunning success, but Obama’s push to help the Detroit industry once served as a defining line of GOP attack. The bailout symbolized the dangers of Obama's alleged socialist/gangster leanings. This, despite the fact it was actually President George W. Bush who unveiled the first phase of the bailout plan during the final weeks of his presidency, in order to "avoid a collapse of the U.S. auto industry."

Nonetheless, the topic soon became a cornerstone of the Tea Party and its overheated attacks on Obama, amplified by Fox News.
Remember how Varney this week toasted Trump for having “strong-armed” Carrier? Back in 2009, the host was furious that Obama was allegedly trying strong arm the public into buying American cars: “[N]ow you're in the position where the government somehow has to coerce or force us all into buying the small cars that it insists Detroit puts out." (Varney routinely whined that Obama was a “bully” to business.) 

Meanwhile, Glenn Beck, then with Fox News, claimed the bailout reminded him of "the early days of Adolf Hitler." Fox favorite Michelle Malkin compared the auto deal to a "crap sandwich," and a "lemon" the U.S. taxpayers would be stuck with "for life."

Hannity himself berated Obama for engaging in what he called a "mission to hijack capitalism." And in the infamous words of Rush Limbaugh, it was as if General Motors and Chrysler "bent over and grabbed the ankles." (Limbaugh loves Trump’s Carrier deal, by the way.)

Fox News Cheers Trump Over 1,000 Carrier Jobs; Denounced Obama For Saving 1.5 Million Auto Industry Jobs

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Haha, what consequences? A nice big tax break, perhaps?

President-elect Donald Trump has warned companies of "consequences" if they leave the United States. He was speaking in Indiana, where he took credit for saving 1,000 jobs at the air-conditioning company Carrier Corp, which planned to move to Mexico.

Donald Trump vows 'consequences' for companies leaving US - BBC News

How about this. Companies threaten to leave the US. Trump intervenes, as visible as possible. Company desists, pocketing a nice tax break. Company happy, Trump happy, his supporters happy.

Apart from the fact that perhaps the company wasn't going to leave anyway, or leaves later in a less visible way (simply stopping investing in domestic plants and opening up plants abroad, with the help of the tax break..)

Economic policy in times of Twitter..

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Actually, Bernie Sanders was already on to this:

Earlier on Thursday, former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders criticised the Carrier deal as a reversal on Mr Trump's campaign promise to save all the jobs.

The Vermont Senator penned a Washington Post op-ed, saying Mr Trump had endangered jobs by signalling "to every corporation in America that they can threaten to offshore jobs in exchange for business-friendly tax benefits and incentives".

Donald Trump vows 'consequences' for companies leaving US - BBC News

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At least there are still a few consequential conservatives:

Trump boasted about his deal to keep about 1,100 Carrier jobs in Indiana, and also took aim at other companies who may be thinking about moving jobs out of the country. "Companies are not going to leave the United States anymore without consequences. Not going to happen. It's not going to happen, I'll tell you right now," Trump said on Thursday. Pethokoukis, a scholar with the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, called it the worst economic speech since Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale promised to reverse Reaganomics in 1984.

"The idea that American corporations are going to have to make business decisions, not based on the fact that we've created an ideal environment for economic growth in the United States, but out of fear of punitive actions based on who knows what criteria exactly from a presidential administration. I think that's absolutely chilling," he said in an interview with CNBC's "Closing Bell."

Trump's Carrier speech 'absolutely chilling,' economic analyst says

And Tylor Cowen isn't impressed either:

One of Donald Trump’s most consistent campaign promises has been to prevent U.S. businesses from moving good jobs to Mexico -- whether through taxes, jawboning, or more drastic means, such as an outright prohibition. Economists might regard this as a misguided form of protectionism, but in fact, it’s worse than that: If instituted, it could prove a major step toward imposing capital controls on the American economy and politicizing many business decisions.

Let’s consider how such a policy would be enforced in practice... The biggest irony of this whole Trump initiative is that it likely would lead to higher U.S. trade deficits. Economists stress the offsetting nature of trade flows and capital flows. As the accounting identities are constructed, a higher trade deficit corresponds to higher capital inflows, and a lower trade deficit corresponds to higher capital outflows. (To see the nature of these balanced transactions, imagine China selling goods and accumulating Treasury bills in return, a form of investment in this country.)

So a Trumpian plan to limit capital outflows, through whatever means, is also -- if only indirectly and without such intent -- a plan to boost the trade deficit. How’s that for making America great again? The laws of economics and politics have not yet been repealed.

Trump's Disastrous Pledge to Keep Jobs in the U.S. - Bloomberg View

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The hypocrisy is even worse, we forgot about the Export-Import Bank..

President-elect Donald Trump’s deal announced Thursday with Carrier Corp. to keep manufacturing jobs in Indiana raises a potential contradiction for Republican lawmakers such as House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) who lauded the agreement after last year’s bruising battle to shutter the U.S. Export-Import Bank. For years, Republicans called for closing the Ex-Im Bank, which subsidizes U.S. exports.

They said it represented a prime example of crony capitalism by which the government picked winners and losers by offering federal subsidies. Some conservatives have already criticized the same kind of government activism behind Mr. Trump’s announcement, in which Indiana officials agreed to give United Technologies Corp. $7 million in tax breaks over 10 years to encourage the company’s Carrier unit to keep about 1,000 jobs in the state.

Donald Trump’s Carrier Deal Highlights Potential Double Standard on Ex-Im Bank - Real Time Economics - WSJ

This is just laughable..