The Trump Effect: Significant Drop in Tourism to the United States

Among the many things that Der Trumpenführer claims he will do is bring back jobs to America. Like most of what the man says, the claim is untrue, especially in terms of coal industry jobs and manufacturing jobs.  And in one industry, the travel industry, Trump is undermining jobs and  could be the cause of job losses.  It seems that many foreign tourists have no desire to visit America given the hate, bigotry and discrimination that Der Trumpenführer have unleashed.  Frommers reports that there has been a "devastating drop" in tourism to the USA.  Indeed, the husband and I are headed to the UK in August to visit a much more LGBT welcoming country.   Here are highlights from travel experts at Frommers:

Though they may differ as to the wisdom of the move, the travel press and most travel experts are of one mind: They are currently drawing attention to an unintended consequence of the Trump-led efforts to stop many Muslims from coming to the U.S., pointing to a sharp drop in foreign tourism to our nation that imperils jobs and touristic income.  It’s known as the “Trump Slump.” And I know of no reputable travel publication to deny it. Thus, the prestigious Travel Weekly magazine (as close to an “official” travel publication as they come) has set the decline in foreign tourism at 6.8%. And the fall-off is not limited to Muslim travelers, but also extends to all incoming foreign tourists. Apparently, an attack on one group of tourists is regarded as an assault on all. As far as travel by distinct religious groups, flight passengers from the seven Muslim-majority nations named by Trump were down by 80% in the last week of January and first week of February, according to Forward Keys, a well-known firm of travel statisticians. On the web, flight searches for trips heading to the U.S. out of all international locations was recently down by 17%.  A drop of that magnitude, if continued, would reduce the value of foreign travel within the U.S. by billions of dollars. And the number of jobs supported by foreign tourists and their expenditures in the United States—and thus lost—would easily exceed hundreds of thousands of workers in hotels, restaurants, transportation, stores, tour operations, travel agencies, and the like.  

According to the Global Business Travel Association, in only a single week following announcement of the ban against certain foreign tourists, the activity of business travel declined by nearly $185 million.  Other observers, including local tourist offices, have reached similar conclusions. In referring to New York City’s $60 billion tourist industry alone, the head of the city’s tourist effort complained that his agency’s effort to portray the United States as a welcoming destination to foreign citizens “was all in jeopardy.” Several other tourist officials have made like statements. . . . .  there is plenty of evidence for a negative conclusion.  

As I have long said, hate and bigotry carry a heavy economic cost.  Given Virginia's heavy reliance on tourism, this is not welcomed news. One can only hope that Trump hotels are especially hard hit - a number of bankruptcy would be a form of divine justice.  Are you paying attention Rep. Scott Taylor?

Too Many Risks to Virginia Offshore Drilling?

President Obama has indicated that he wants to open areas offshore from Virginia's coast for oil and gas exploration.  The move has outraged environmentalists while thrilling Virginia Republicans who never seem to pause to worry about potential disasters that could happen.  As always, there is talk of creating new jobs, but as a former in-house attorney for a major oil company some years ago, I remain very skeptical about boasts of the number of jobs created.  From my experience, most of the technical workers would be imported in from elsewhere and send their earnings back to their home states and at best Virginia would see increases in rentals of some office space, residential housing rentals, and some small amount of business for local marine suppliers.   A column in the Virginian Pilot looks at the risks involved.  For those who don't know, the American Petroleum Institute is a lobbying arm of the major oil companies and its "studies" are about as reliable as something coming out of The Family Foundation on gays.  Here are excerpts:

IT TAKES a lot of assumptions to conclude that offshore drilling will benefit Virginia:

-- That the Navy will reverse years of analysis and decide that drilling poses no danger to its training mission offshore or its installations onshore.
-- That oil companies won't imperil Hampton Roads' tourism and commercial fishing with a spill, as has happened everywhere else.
-- That despite years of resistance, every state in America will now agree to simply hand over royalties to Virginia.
-- That Maryland and North Carolina won't care when Virginia tries to seize their territory.
-- That oil jobs - notoriously transient and temporary - will abandon places like Texas and Louisiana for Hampton Roads.
-- That a time with some of the lowest gas prices in recent history is also the time to start drilling for some of the most expensive oil and gas on the planet.

Despite all that, the White House' decision Tuesday to allow drilling off four Southeastern states was cheered by pro-petroleum politicians and their supporters. Among the parcels included was "Lease Sale 220," off Virginia's coast.

The federal decision comes less than five years after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. That disaster killed 11 and fouled huge swaths of the Gulf of Mexico. The environmental damage is inestimable.

The scope of the Deepwater Horizon disaster temporarily halted efforts to open Virginia's coast, but memories are short. Politicians from Virginia Beach Mayor Will Sessoms to U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine cheered this week's decision.

U.S. Rep. Scott Rigell, as he has before, claimed that offshore drilling would "create 25,000 good-paying jobs for Virginians." The source of that number - which has risen from 19,000 in recent years - is a study commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute. The same report concludes that Atlantic coast offshore drilling would produce 279,562 jobs by 2035.

It's not likely to do so without imperiling others.   The U.S. Navy uses the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Virginia for training. In 2010, the military concluded that 72 percent of the "Lease Sale 220 area should have no oil or gas activity due to our intensive training and testing in the area and the danger this would present to oil and gas industry personnel and property."

Sessoms, Warner, Kaine and Rigell - indeed, every elected official in Virginia - is acutely aware that Oceana Naval Air Station was nearly gutted in 2005, after the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission decided houses and businesses had been allowed too close to the fence line. There was serious consideration of moving the Navy's East Coast master jet base to Florida, a prospect that would have hollowed Hampton Roads.

Navy officials aren't likely to welcome drilling in the Virginia Capes, especially after the military has warned repeatedly of the dangers, including in 2006:

"Any structures built in the water... would restrict where military air wings can fire their weapons, drive aircraft further away from the coast, increase fuel costs and wear and tear on the airframes, increase flight times en-route to training areas, and increase the risk to aircrews...."

No matter what great benefits proponents promise, the dangers are real: To Navy operations, to the environment, to the tourism industry, to commercial fishing.

None of these cautions is likely to deter drilling supporters, who've proven themselves willing to make the assumptions necessary to support the petroleum industry. Experience shows the dangers are more likely than 279,562 jobs.

The threats are greater than the promises that the Hampton Roads economy and environment won't be damaged by an industry with a long history of destruction.

Sadly, I agree with the editorial, not that this will deter the pawns in the pockets of the petroleum industry.

GOP Intrasigence: A Million Jobs at Stake

Once again the country stands poised to see economic havoc wrought on many families and businesses due to GOP intransigence on the issue of spending cuts and tax increases.  Sadly, the Congressional GOP seems to prefer a renewed recession over any policy change that would upset the insane extremists and economic saboteurs of the GOP base. Extremists who all too often wrap themselves in the mantle of "godly Christians" even as they push for policies that would slash spending that aids the poor, the homeless and the working poor.  The big question thus becomes one of it and when the rest of the public will bestir themselves to promise sufficient electoral pain against the GOP if the effort to destroy the economy yet again doesn't cease. An editorial on the New York Times looks at the disturbing state of affairs.  Here are excerpts:

With enormous struggle, the sluggish economy managed to create 2.2 million jobs last year. But beginning at the end of this month, at least half that amount — more than a million jobs — will start to disappear because of a mindless government austerity program that no one in Washington seems able to stop. 

From the armed forces to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, every program except for most safety-net benefits is about to be cut by an arbitrary process known as the sequester, instigated by the 2011 Republican rampage against government. Over the next seven months alone, the cuts will reduce defense spending by $55 billion and nondefense discretionary spending by $27 billion.

The Bipartisan Policy Center, a respected independent group, said at least a million jobs will be lost this year and next because of the slowdown caused by withdrawing so much money from the economy. The Congressional Budget Office says up to 1.4 million jobs are at stake. 

This isn’t fortune telling; the effect of the coming sequester was already evident in last week’s announcement that the economy actually contracted during the final quarter of 2012. Much of the decline was directly due to the 22 percent reduction in spending by the Pentagon and military contractors in anticipation of the sequester’s effects. 

With the economy teetering on a knife edge, it is clear that this is the worst moment to initiate an indiscriminate budget cut. Government spending at this time can spell the difference between growth and shrinkage. But Republicans are willfully blind to this reality. Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the second-ranking Republican, called it a “Keynesian pipe dream” last week, saying that only spending cuts will help the economy. 

Congressional Republicans seem perfectly serene about allowing the sequester to take effect in a few weeks, so eager to prove they are budget cutters that they are willing to ignore the coming economic storm. “I think sequester’s going to happen,” said Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma. “I think people want it to happen.”

Congress should be thinking about ways to accelerate the economy, instead of remaining preoccupied with a short-term deficit. Nonetheless, the coming job losses could be sharply reduced if half or more of the spending cuts were replaced by revenue increases, as President Obama and Congressional Democrats have demanded. That would lower the amount of spending pulled out of the economy to bring down the deficit, replacing the cuts with taxes from the rich or companies with high cash reserves that are less likely to spend it. 

The money could be raised by eliminating tax loopholes for energy companies, hedge fund managers and other high-end recipients of federal largess, but Republicans won’t even consider the idea. “The tax issue is finished, over, completed,” Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, said recently.

In other words, bring on the unemployment. The first jobs to go will be in the defense sector, but the losses will soon spread as contracts to states and cities are cut, education and police grants are cut, and payments to Medicare providers are cut. Even the aid just approved for victims of Hurricane Sandy will fall under the sequester’s ax. Americans are about to find out what happens when an entire political party demands deficit reduction at all costs, because those costs will be enormous. 

One can only hope that those about to lose their jobs understand that it is Republicans who bear responsibility and that these victims of GOP insanity will hand out retribution against the GOP beginning here in Virginia in November.