01-18-2017, 05:11 PM
(01-18-2017, 12:15 PM)TeacherinExile Wrote: And adding more fuel to the firestorm that is "fake news"--
"Why NBC News Isn’t ‘Fake News’ for Reporting Trump’s Job Creation Claims"
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-nbc...2017-01-18
President-elect Donald Trump says NBC News was “totally biased” and producing “more fake news” for a report it published Tuesday that pointed out that many companies are preemptively, or in many cases retroactively, announcing job-creation plans to avoid being targeted by the president...
Unless you're a "fly on the wall" in the boardroom of the corporations mentioned in the NBC News report, there is really no way--short of filching the secretary's minutes--of discerning some ulterior motivation behind these big job announcements. Given the rash of such announcements, following so closely on the heels of Trump's election, it may seem downright conspiratorial to some. (But I don't buy in to fuzzy conspiracy theories as a general rule.) Certain corporations may indeed be acting preemptively. Surprise! It won't be the first time in American history that a major corporation--or indeed an entire industry--has succumbed to presidential jawboning. It could even be a healthy thing, as long as no conflict of interest is involved.
Two things are certain in my mind. Whatever the underlying rationale of such announcements, Trump will no doubt take credit in some way, as is his wont. And that's just good politics. The public, by and large, and his supporters especially will see him as making good on a key campaign promise: bringing jobs back to America. That augurs well for him and the GOP in the mid-terms, barring some unforeseen development on the domestic or foreign policy front.
Perhaps so, although if it turns out that these jaw-boning effects turn out to be drops in the bucket, or flashes in the pan, it may augur less well.