Let’s talk about politics. US politics.

When politics comes up, my American friends say “NO, we can’t talk about politics. This will all end in shouting.” This wasn’t my experience in Canada. "Oh, but this is different, this is American politics.“ Nah…I’ve lived in both San Francisco and Georgia. I’ve had Democrat friends, Republican friends, and Libertarian friends. When I spoke politics with them, there was never a problem.

So what do I want out of government?

Well…first, I’m a videogame developer, I play and make videogames. I want a country with good videogame development jobs, and lots of people buying videogames. (Feel free to take my conclusions about games and apply it to jobs and the economy. I will focus on games, because they are my industry).

Second, my old roommate was a trans man. I’ve dated a lesbian. I care about LGBT rights. Now, maybe you as an audience member care about different groups. (Black rights. Veterans rights. Etc). This is fine. I will speak about the group I know best.

I think these two issues are enough to get started.

Notice that so far there isn’t a political party here. LGBT rights are more often supported by democrats, but Dick Cheny was the first VP to support gay marriage. Democrat Bill Clinton passed the largest modern anti-gay legislation in DOMA and DADT. So we really need to look at the individual politician, not the party.

And there is no clear best party for videogames. The landmark supreme court case in videogames would be Brown vs Entertainment Merchants Association, which was a 7-2 decision, with one Republican dissent, and one Democrat dissent.

So what should government do?

This is usually where one of my various libertarian friends would speak up and say "as little as possible.” And to some degree, this is right. A smaller government means less taxes, which might result in more people buying videogames, or videogame companies that don’t go out of business.

But there are things we do want, things that are worth paying taxes for. We want police. A country with less theft means selling more videogames. Police can also stop hate crimes against LGBT. We want fire departments. We want affordable food (if people are struggling to afford food, they won’t buy videogames). We want antidiscrimination laws for LGBT. We want good transportation (like roads and fast internet). Transportation gets people to work, delivers food, delivers videogames. We want health care (if people die, they aren’t playing videogames).

Now, a libertarian might speak up and say “but we should privatize!” Well…in some cases yes, in some cases no. Here’s an article about privatized firefighting:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tina-dupuy/firefighting-in-the-1800s_b_247936.html

It was terrible. There’s a reason why firefighting is now a government job.

So if firefighting is better when controlled by the government, then should everything be controlled by the government? Absolutely not. Videogames made by the government…suck. All my favourite videogames were made by private corporations.

Basically, people play videogames when they’re not afraid they’re going to die/starve/have no place to live. Transportation helps them get to work, and get to the store to buy videogames. Education helps them get jobs, and helps make a workforce that can create videogames. Health care and firefighters help them live. If done right, any of these can be government controlled.

“But the president can’t do anything anyway”

I hear this a lot this presidential campaign. This is not true. Yes, congress can (and probably will) try to block everything they can. But Elizabeth Warren had a very good Op Ed in the New York Times recently about what a president can do with an un-cooperative congress. (And let’s be clear, this republican-controlled congress doesn’t like Hillary, doesn’t like Bernie, and doesn’t like Trump, so they will be un-cooperative).

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/29/opinion/elizabeth-warren-one-way-to-rebuild-our-institutions.html?_r=0

And we saw a very good example of this a couple of weeks ago, when the Obama Administration directed schools to accomodate transgender students:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-administration-to-instruct-schools-to-accommodate-transgender-students/2016/05/12/0ed1c50e-18ab-11e6-aa55-670cabef46e0_story.html

This didn’t require congress. Congress couldn’t make this stop. Why didn’t this happen sooner? (And I’m still waiting on…honestly some Obama campaign promises from 2008). But the point is, yes, the president can get things done, even without congress.

Let’s talk about an election issue–Health Care

Alright, so let’s talk about some of the messy details. Would it be a good idea to have a single government health care system (as proposed by, say, Bernie Sanders)? From the videogame standpoint…it might be slightly beneficial. Canada has such a system, and pays less tax per capita on health care. Less tax dollars hopefully translates into a few more videogame sales. Not to mention, companies with health insurance pay some percentage of employees salary towards this insurace, which now instead would be yet more money in people’s pockets. Fewer people bankrupted due to medical bills also hopefully translates into more videogame sales.

But what about LGBT concerns? Government control can mean government tyranny. Now, normally in a democracy, tyranny won’t hurt the majority population. But it can hurt a minority, like the LGBT. Shortly after World War 2, the British man who cracked the German code (Alan Turing) was arrested for being gay, and forced by the government to take various drugs and hormones. He committed suicide.

“That can’t happen today”? Well…monopoly on health care has caused problems in Canada for LGBT people. I met an activist years ago who told how bad things were in Tornoto, claiming that they were “worse than China”…let me google that–I assume this was what she meant:

http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/clarke-institute.html

This was, at the time, the sole medical gatekeeper in the Toronto area for transgender treatment. Because Canada has a single government health care system, everyone in Toronto went through this clinic.

To say this wouldn’t happen in the US is…wishful thinking.

To some degree it already does. Medicaid programs are on a per-state basis. Some of them cover transgender health care. Some do not. I learned this when people on my twitter feed claimed that their costs would be higher under Bernie Sanders’ plan. If he just expanded Medicaid to cover everyone? Yeah, many state plans exclude LGBT.

So then…does Hillary have the best plan for LGBT people? Well…that depends, which LGBT people? Government tyranny can be bad for LGBT people, yes. But a free market will be bad for the poor LGBT. Homeless youth shelters are often filled with kids who were kicked out by their parents for being gay. In many parts of the US it’s legal to fire people for being gay. To ignore poor LGBT people in favour of rich LGBT people…doesn’t help.

In the end, I don’t know that there is an obvious better strategy here.

Next policy: build a wall, and make Mexico pay for it

Steel walls can’t sell videogame consoles.

No really, this is an expensive project, costs lots of taxpayer dollars. I don’t see how it would lead to the sale of more videogames. Even supposing Mexico pays for it, Mexicans buy videogames too–bankrupting the Mexican government sounds bad for the videogame business. Bad policy.

Next policy: Education

I want to do a little bit of math here. (I am trained as a Mathematician).

We pay for 13 years of education (Kindergarten through grade 12). Let the cost of 1 year of education be X. So far, the education budget is 13X. We also provide some funding for universities. Now, universities tend to be cheaper to run, because instead of one teacher in front of 30 students, you have one professor in front of 100 students. Also, fewer people go to university. So…maybe it’s 1/2X to fund a year of university. And we don’t fully fund university right now–only half fund it, so 1/4X per year. Four years of university means 4*(¼)X = X. This means the total cost of education is about 13X for schools, plus 1X for univesity which equals 14X.

If we instead fully funded those four years of university, then the net cost of university would be 2X. And the total cost of education would be 15X.

14X versus 15X

Fully funding public universities, would be (if done right) a 7% increase in the education budget. "If done right". Of course, a university that builds a football stadium becomes much more expensive–we don’t want to pay for that. A college that goes into debt due to buying a lot of real-estate (as Burlington Colllege did under Jane Sanders) also becomes more expensive.

Alright, maybe I should actually do some googling to verify my numbers, instead of just using 14X and 15X. The US spends $550 billion on public schools. The US offers $36 billion in grants. The US collects $62 billion in tuition. Here’s a 2014 article (before the election) which notes that the amount of money the US government spends on College Grants and tax breaks for students is $69 billion–more than is being collected through college tuition:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/heres-exactly-how-much-the-government-would-have-to-spend-to-make-public-college-tuition-free/282803/

I want to open with these points, because I’ve seen a lot of people act like tuition-free college would cost a lot. Not really.

But we still haven’t determined if this would be a good or bad policy. Let’s talk about videogames then.

Actually, I’m going to first talk about some game design. Human beings put much more value on things they own. Give someone a toy, let them play with it for an hour, and then offer to buy it. They might refuse, or ask a lot of money. But they care a lot less about buying something they never had. People like what they already own.

The same is true in government. Lets say a politician said they were going to get rid of public high school. Grade 9-12? Gone. Would you like this policy? It could save a lot of taxpayer money! (like $200 billion taxpayer money–big numbers!) Maybe you’re a libertarian and love this idea. But most people reading this won’t like this policy, because people care more about the things they already have (free high school) than things they don’t have (free college).

So: the policies are…. Free public college (Bernie Sanders). Hillary Clinton plans on expanding Pell Grants. Trump has suggested cutting the department of education, which would end Pell Grants. Which of these is best?

From an LGBT perspective, Pell Grants are not a good solution. They are given based on the income of the parents. Kids whose parents have good income are expected to get help from their parents. But as mentioned above, parents can disown LGBT kids (happened to my roommate). So if your parents make money, but refuse to to support you…what now? I’ve also known kids who were scared to come out of the closet while they were in university because they thought their parents would cut them off. For LGBT people, Bernie’s plan is best.

From a videogame perspective…there are two benefits to college.

One: you get a strong work force. A lot of videogame development happens in California, where college was free for years. Canada also has a lot of videogame development, where university is cheap.



Two: college students play a lot of videogames. I know I did. I bought more games in college than any other time in my life. So…videogames want lots of people to go to college. This means either Bernie or Hillary.



Now, to be fair, not all industries work like videogames. Spending money on college won’t be good for some businesses. But for videogames: yes, please spend government money on college; it’s good for our sales, and a good way for us to recruit skilled computer programmers.

Trickle down economics vs Trickle up economics

So…there’s this ongoing argument of where’s the best place to put money into the economy. Proponents of trickle down economics say that low taxes on the rich and businesses stimulate jobs, and this is ultimately good for the poor. Proponents of trickle up economics say that giving tax breaks to the poor mean that the poor go out and buy more stuff, which drives the economy, whereas the rich just put the money in the bank. Which of these is actually true?

Both?

During the economic collapse of 2008, at first when a few people lost jobs, videogame sales went up for a few months. But then when they couldn’t find jobs for years, or found much lower paying jobs, videogame sales tanked. A thriving middle and lower class is important for videogames. A millionaire keeping an extra $10,000 on their tax return maybe buys one copy of our game. One hundred lower and middle class people getting $100 extra on their tax return could buy many copies of our game.

I said “both” though, and it’s true. Trickle down economics can also work. There are some Canadian provinces which have decided that they want to be a center for game development, so they offer huge tax breaks to game developers. A lot of game developers have moved to Quebec and Ontario to get lower taxes. Just last year, my friend in California lost his videogame job because it moved to Canada.

One thing to note about this “trickle down” approach is that it is zero sum. When my friend in California lost his job…sure someone in Ontario gained a job. But were new jobs being created? Not really. The job moved.

Now, you might be thinking…it sounds like there’s a good reason to give tax breaks to the poor (drive up sales) and tax breaks to businesses (get them to relocate to your state or province). Why give tax breaks to rich people who are not businesses? Well…I do know a game developer who moved from England to the US for lower personal income taxes. So it can make it easier to attract the most talented people in the world to your videogame studio. There are fewer benefits, however.

Minimum wage laws

OK, so…let’s apply some of what we just learned to an actual policy. Minimum wages give more money to the poor and working class, at the expense of businesses. But which businesses? Some video game developers aren’t paid much money, but still usually paid much more than minimum wage. $30,000 is on the low end of salaries I’ve heard of in game development (I started at $50,000, and that was 11 years ago).

The federal minimum wage is $7.25. Hillary has promised $12. Bernie has promised $15. I assume Trump wants $7.25. $7.25 annually is $15,080. $12 annually is $24,960. $15 annually is $31,200.

So…a $15 minimum wage would not really raise costs of the game industry, but it would likely increase sales. It’s pretty much all upside. Would this be true of a minimum wage job like restaurant work? Maybe not. (To be fair, in Seattle where they raised the minimum wage to $15 per hour, there has been steady job growth. Supposedly when restaurant workers can afford to eat out at restaurants, it’s good for restaurant jobs). But for videogames, just in terms of raw economic greed, yeah, $15 minimum wage sounds great! More customers for us AND no increase to costs.

NAFTA, and high skill immigration

So…videogame developers want to recruit the best, most talented people in the world, and bring them together. I am Canadian. I have been in the US for 11 years on visas created by NAFTA. Both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders want fewer high skill workers like me. They both think NAFTA was bad.

NAFTA was definitely good for videogames. Allowing high skill immigrants like me to work in the US means the US has the best videogame studios in the world. Maybe Bernie or Trump will deport me. This will just encourage game development jobs to move to Canada.

Hillary is the clear winner here.

Now, I do understand that other trade deals might indeed be bad deals (TPP). But I ask myself does Bernie want me in this country? Does Trump? Does Hillary?

Low skill immigration, and illegal immigrants

You know…when your two measures are LGBT rights and videogames…I don’t really have a strong opinion on this one. Videogame developers don’t have a need for an illegal immigrant workforce. (Agriculture needs them, videogames do not).

Abortion

Hmm…again, when I’ve restricted myself to the two issues of LGBT rights and videogames, it becomes hard to use those to argue for or against abortion. Lesbians who are getting an abortion probably have a very good reason (like rape). But on the other hand, there’s genes associated with being gay, and if someone tests for those and gets an abortion, that’s bad too.

A higher population caused by an abortion ban might be good for videogame sales. But on the other hand, crime rates tend to drop when abortion is legal. And a stable society with low crime is good for videogames. Also, mothers with a child they can’t afford don’t play many videogames.

So…what is abortion? Well, for the most part it’s a couple of pills, which leads me to…

Drugs and prohibition

Making stuff illegal usually backfires. It backfired when alcohol was made illegal. Making drugs illegal currently brings a lot of crime, and we don’t get to tax the drugs. Making abortion illegal…in the past meant a black market for abortions, where people could die from a bad doctor. Nowadays people would try to cook abortion pills the way people try to cook meth. People would die. Other people would get the dosage wrong, and stay pregnant but with a damaged fetus. People would be scared to go to the doctor if something went wrong.

From a videogame perspective, I think the downsides of making drugs illegal (expensive government enforcement, increased crime) generally outweigh the upsides (fewer people using drugs…maybe?) Drugs don’t really stop people from buying and playing videogames. (I’ve played plenty of videogames with people who are high. It sucks if they’re on your team, though, because they will play bad).

Wall Street

Alright so, what is the value of Wall Street to the game industry? Captial! Loans! Making games is very expensive, the least expensive game I’ve worked on probably cost $10 million to make. And you need this money up-front, because you make the game first, and sell it later. For startups, there is a venture captial world. For game developers with more of a proven track record, they might get a loan from a bank. For a well-known game company, they might have a stock listing, allowing investors to buy a share of the company (giving the company an infusion of money). These are good things. Games get made partially because of these investments. Thanks Wall Street!

So…Wall Street is good then right?

Well…these parts are good. But this is not all Wall Street does. Take Short Selling, where you essentially gamble that a stock will go down. If you’ve invested heavily in shorts, you now want to see that company fail or misstep. Short selling is illegal in most countries, and…legal in the US (why?)

Take leverage. The stock market crash of 1929 was caused because banks would be allowed to borrow several times the amount of money they had, which they would then invest into the stock market. If stocks go up, they pay off their loan, and make a lot of money. If stocks go down, they have no way to pay.

Alright, so what is the current leverage of the big banks? Leverage is legally restricted by capital. The current maximum ratio was changed in 2013 from 20:1 to 17:1

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100880857

I’m having trouble finding listings of captial for the big banks. Listings of assets seem to be here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_banks_in_the_United_States

And here’s a politifact check on how much the banks grew and consolidated from 2010, which gives us another data point.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/apr/27/sherrod-brown/six-largest-banks-getting-bigger-brown-said/

So…the banks are larger than they were in 2010 (and larger than they were in 2008). Their share of the total GDP has dropped slightly to 58% because the rest of the economy has grown. The leverage ratio maximum is also 17:1 instead of 30:1 which it was in 2008, so the six largest banks need to keep $584 billion in capital rather than the $324 billion in capital they would be required to keep in 2008. (Well, they were smaller in 2008, so they’d need to keep less). Alright, so the six biggest banks have 9.7 trillion dollars in assets, but have larger capital requirements than 2008. This might not be so bad if the risk is properly managed.

But that’s not where the big problem lies. Remeber the short selling I mentioned above? Where Wall Street gambles on which direction a stock will go? Yeah. The big problem lies in the derivatives:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-25/5-us-banks-each-have-more-40-trillion-dollars-exposure-derivatives

There are now five banks with over 40 trillion dollars in exposure to derivatives. According to the New York Times US Banks have $280 trillion of derivatives on their books. So…if I have my understanding of terminology correct, Goldman Sachs has 0.9 trillion in assets, which means it only needs to keep 0.05 trillion in capital, and it has 55 trillion in exposure to derivatives. This is a 1000:1 ratio.

Glass-Steagall has been brought up frequently this election. One of the key reforms of the Glass-Steagall act of 1933 was to limit banks to either taking deposits from citizens, or being an investment business, not both. Glass-Steagall was repealed in 1999 (or at least the two provisions within the act that restricted affiliations between commercial banks and securities firms). Reinstating Glass-Steagall has been a rallying cry of Bernie Sanders. But there’s a problem where the 2008 crisis started from investment firms like Lehman Brothers, not from the hybrid banks.

So here’s a question: Short Selling is banned in lots of countries–why is it legal in the US? Why are derivatives legal? They aren’t an investment in a company that can be used by that company to grow their business. They’re basically just gambling.

On his website, Bernie’s plan has very few details. (Maybe “Wall Street speculation” means derivatives?)

https://berniesanders.com/issues/reforming-wall-street/

Hillary’s website goes into much more detail:

https://www.hillaryclinton.com/briefing/factsheets/2015/10/08/wall-street-work-for-main-street/

Specifically, she wants “tougher margin and collateral requirements for securities financing and derivatives transactions”. Good, I’ll take that. I hope this means less banks with 1000:1 derivative exposure. She wants to strengthen the CFTC which is tasked with policing the derivatives market. Cool. She wants to toughen regulation of risky derivatives. Sounds good.

So…this is a little thin on details, but I read this to mean that she will put some restriction on held capital on derivatives relative to the derivative’s leverage.

Donald Trump…doesn’t have a Wall Street policy that I can find. Although he is on the record as saying he would not support another bailout. (Chaos and global economic collapse).

Breaking up the big banks. Would this solve anything? Like…hypothetically if you broke up the six big banks into banks 10% of the size…but they still had the same 1000:1 exposure to derivatives relative to capital, are they still screwed in a downturn? Maybe not–it’s possible they would own different derivatives, and thus only some would go bankrupt.

Alright, so, what’s best for videogames? From what I can tell, ban derivatives, high frequency trading, and all forms of speculation. No candidate has even proposed this. But this seems like common sense legislation, at least from a videogame perspective. Why have no candidates proposed a ban on derivatives? I only have one conclusion. Bernie Sanders is not tough enough on Wall Street. Hillary Clinton is not tough enough on Wall Street. Donald Trump is not tough enough on Wall Street.

Hmm…so since Trump hasn’t listed a plan, who’s better between Bernie and Hillary?

If there’s any chance that splitting up the big banks would mean that they would own different derivatives, and thus not all go under at the same time in the next crash…sounds like upside. That’s one point for Bernie.

Now, which one places the largest restriction on derivatives? Looking up more details…

http://www.npr.org/2016/02/12/466465333/sanders-favors-a-speculation-tax-on-big-wall-street-firms-what-is-that

Sander’s plan is to tax them (and if you tax them then you can discourage companies from trading them). But is plan includes not just a tax on derivatives, but also a tax on stocks and bonds–so derivatives are not particularly discouraged any more than a stock is.

Hillary’s plan is devoid of numbers from what I can tell, but seems to have more focus on the part of derivatives that is actually concerning and which experts are saying will lead to another economic crash (the extra leverage…which she wants to put a cap on). This doesn’t address the part of derivatives where they are just legalized gambling and not an investment in a company. And maybe that’s ok. Some un-productive gambling being legal as long as the stakes aren’t so high that it risks bankrupting the entire economy is…not hurting anything.

So…while there are aspects of Sander’s plan that I like, I think Hillary’s plan could be better for avoiding another crash, as it seems to focus more on the issues which financial analysts say will cause the next crash. Bernie’s plans seem like they might potentially make the next crash less painful, however (breaking up banks, and slowing down trading) so if you think there’s no avoiding the next crash, then he might be the better candidate.

As a downside, Bernie’s plan taxes stock purchases (could be bad for videogames if it slows down stock investment. But it would also cause less stock volatility, so videogame companies could be more sure of their stock price). it is also just more tax revenue in general, so if it’s spent on literally anything that is more useful than gambling, it’s a net win. Bernie’s plan raises more tax revenue. Hillary’s plan spends more money on regulating wall street.

So basically, if we don’t crash, Bernie’s plan is probably better (more tax revenue, less money spent on government oversight). Hillary’s plan reduces the likelihood of a crash. Bernie’s plan might make an inevitable crash hurt less.

ISIS

In general, military spending is kind-of unproductive, at least for the videogame business. It’s a lot of taxpayer money being pulled out of the economy, for much less returning to the economy. The Iraq war cost over 2 trillion (that’s like 50 years of free public college) and could cost $6 trillion once interest is factored in (like 150 years of free public college). And sure, some of this came back in manufacturing jobs, but most of this money just left the US economy, and maybe made Iraq better. Maybe.

ISIS as a threat stands out, though. Largest refugee crisis in Europe since WW2. Politicians have cried wolf a lot, so it’s easy to assume this time is just another “terror threat” that really isn’t that threatening. But what if this time is different? What if it’s closer to WW2? The refugee numbers suggest that this one is a big deal.

Ultimately, videogames don’t really care if it is that threatening. If the Axis had won in WW2…honestly, Videogames would probably still exist, perhaps a little censored. Regardless, the videogame industry would rather save the taxpayer dollars and not get into a costly war.

LGBT though? I don’t think ISIS likes gay people, so yeah, this is an LGBT issue.

So…our two key issues are in conflict here. And the politicians aren’t terribly consistent–Trump and Bernie want out of the middle east, but also want to destroy ISIS. Can’t have both! Hillary doesn’t want out of the middle east, so at least she’s consistent? Tiebreaks go to Hillary, for having lots and lots of experience.

Global Warming

Hmm…this is not really a videogame issue, or an LGBT issue.

I think the key here is balance. Destabilizing entire regions due to rising sea level is not good. Having Florida sink into the ocean is not good. Getting lots of refugees fleeing from island countries is not good. All this implies aggressive environmental regulations. But a big economic slowdown would also not be good, which could happen if companies leave America for countries with fewer regulations. But if you get every country in the world to agree to regulation, then you’re just as competitive and also the world doesn’t end. Win-win!

So really, what you need is a fantastic negotiator. Someone who could make a great deal with all the other countries. Could this be Donald Trump’s time to shine? Wait no, he says global warming isn’t real, and wands to cut the Environmental Protection Agency. I don’t necessarily mind a plan that focuses more on business (a good economy means more videogame sales in the short term). But Trump doesn’t seem informed on the issue at all. A trade-off is fine, if you understand the trade.

So…between Hillary and Bernie then? On the one hand Bernie cares a lot. He called global warming a bigger threat to the US than ISIS. Hillary also doesn’t have the best record (politifact says “Hillary Clinton supports fracking” is a “mostly true” statement). On the other hand, as I mentioned, the best way to move forward on the environment is to make deals with every other country on the planet. To be honest, Hillary made far more friends in Washington than Bernie; she’s a friend-maker, he isn’t. And she served as secretary of state, so she’s practiced at negotiating with foreign leaders.

Basically, Global Warming is a global problem. Someone with foreign policy negotiating skills, who is good at making deals and has a high charisma modifier can make the biggest impact. This might very well make Hillary the better candidate in this area, even if her individual track record on the environment is worse.

EDIT: I have received a factual correction:

The one thing where I think I need to disagree is your description of Hillary as charismatic. Granted, I haven’t looked too closely at her, but what I’ve seen and heard generally agree around the idea that she’s less charismatic and more simply adept at interpersonal skills. To use a 3E analogy, her Cha modifier isn’t terribly strong, but the Politician class allows access to the social skills, and she’s maxed them all out. And with all her experience over the decades, she’s leveled up enough to make that formidable.



Campaign Finance Reform

Yeah, it should happen. The game industry shouldn’t need to bribe politicians every year. Technically all three remaining candidates agree. Two of them did not have Super PACs during the primary (Bernie and Trump). And Hillary was on the right end of the Citizen’s United case (the supreme court ruling that allowed Super PACs).

China

So one of the big policy points that’s on Trump’s site that I don’t see on the Democrats side is China. Let’s take a look:

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/us-china-trade-reform

To be honest, there are some good ideas here. Know how I mentioned above that a good negotiator could be good for the environment? Well here’s Trump saying he would negotiate for Chinese factories to have the same environmental regulations as US factories. Enforcing intellectual property laws would also be a very, very big deal, especially for the videogame industry (which struggles to sell in China).

I don’t know if Trump can achieve what he’s suggesting here, although he is negotiating from a relative point of strength. China was willing to bail out the US debt in 2008, because US exports are so important to China. It’s conceivable that he could negotiate some of these points. Both environmental regulations, and intellectual property would be a pretty big deal given the size of China.

I have to hand it to Trump for this one; neither Democrat has outlined a similar plan.

Conclusion

This is the kind of political discussion I want to see, and have been struggling to find this election season. I would describe myself as Canadian, and not someone who fits well into the mold of either American party. I’ve tried my best to be somewhat unbiased here. Or rather, made my biases for videogames and LGBT issues very clear, and then tried to determine which candidate best fits these goals. Hopefully it gave you some insight.