Posted on 04/29/2011 1:13:57 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Via Mediaite, which has excerpts from last night’s F-bomb cavalcade. One of our commenters in Headlines watched the clip and observed that Trump is basically a leftist caricature of Republicans brought to life. Precisely — but with the caveat that something like 20 percent of the GOP wants to embrace the caricature. (That number might already be slipping.) He knows he’s too compromised on conservative principles to get traction with the base so he overcompensates with tell-it-like-it-is populist bravado aimed at framing himself as the ultimate regular-guy outsider. Calling the Chinese MFers is the logical extension of that; if he can’t address economic anxieties with a serious policy solution, at least he can do it with rhetorical empowerment. That’s why Reagan, who did have a serious Cold War strategy, didn’t have to say “Tear down this motherf***ing wall” instead.
Just to follow up on the point about leftist caricature, though, I’m intrigued by this tidbit from his trip to New Hampshire:
Even as reporters assailed him with questions this week about the president’s birth certificate, Mr. Trump sought to dispel any notion that his candidacy is a public relations gimmick. He dangled the idea that reporters would be “surprised” by what he announces next month, soon after his NBC television show ends for the season on May 22.
“When the show is over, I will be free to announce,” he said. “I think you will be surprised at a number of things, but I think you will be surprised at what my announcement is.”
He’s not dumb, so he surely realizes by now that he has no shot at winning. As much as voters may enjoy this sort of “f*** the world” pandering on the stump, they’re not going to entrust the nuclear arsenal to a guy prone to rhetoric like this. Remember how Howard Dean, another man of righteous rage, was ahead in the polls until the primaries began and he suddenly realized that he was a bit too “much” for most Democrats? Trump will experience that too. So he’s almost certainly not going to run, in which case, what will the “surprising” announcement be? If he walked out and admitted that this has all been a goof aimed at seeing just how far he could get in the GOP polls using lowest-common-denominator populist rhetoric, it’d be one of the great pranks of all time. Liberals would go from loathing him to building statues of him in an instant. I know he’s not going to say that — realistically, he’ll give some excuse about being “better able to influence the process on the outside” or whatever — but still. It’d be epic. Content warning for what follows, if you please.
CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO OF HIS SPEECH
No, he just doesn't have much in the way of class, character or values (other than himself).
Other than 'Obama has a phony biography,' what Trump says is beneath serious consideration.
I cheer him as Obama's heel-biter, but as a serious candidate for president? No way.
If the PRC would stop buying our debt, they’d be doing us a favor.
There are two reasons why the natural tendency for interest rates to rise in the face of so much debt issuance haven’t come to be yet:
1. the PRC buying our paper.
2. Now the Fed’s QE programs.
If interest rates rose as they should have been all through the 00’s, the cost of issuing so much debt in ALL sectors (government, muni, private, mortgage) would have gone up and people wouldn’t have been doing such idiotic things as buying houses on interest-only loans.
The PRC was an enabler to this process, and we enabled the PRC with an equally idiotic “free trade” policy.
None of the milquetoast contenders we currently see have that type of temperament.
Yea, the problem is that there is no data to back up this presumption. The increase in US trade tariffs was far greater under the Fordney-McCumber Act of 1922, and we had eight years of a pretty good economy. We had higher tariffs in 1909.
The “conventional wisdom” surrounding Smoot-Hawley is more of the rampant BS that poses as economic theory in the US. The truth is that trade collapsed in the time after S-H for the same reason that trade collapsed even *harder* in 2008 to early 2009: the collapse of the banking system worldwide. In 2008, we had loaded ships that could not leave port because the shipping company could not get a letter of credit from bankers for the purchaser of the products. So the products were not leaving ports. That’ll slow trade down a little, and it had nothing to do with tariffs. The fall-off in trade in 2008 to early 2009 was harder and faster than the fall-off following the passage of Smoot-Hawley, and we had no tariffs enacts by anyone, anywhere.
The truth is this: In the days of Fordney-McCumber and Smoot-Hawley, nations retaliated by raising or lowering their own tariffs. We had tariff acts about every eight or nine years in the US Congress, and the tariffs we’ve mentioned here actually had lower rates than tariffs passed a decade+ earlier in the Congress. Tariff rates went up and down in response to the various political winds blowing across the world markets.
Today, nations respond to world events by devaluing their currencies (eg, look at Japan’s actions on the value of their yen in the last couple of years, China’s actions over the last decade, the EU’s actions when the Euro got too strong). Instead of using tariffs to manipulate trade, nations now use their currencies.
“Free trade” is one of those fairy tales that parents tell their children when they want them to grow up to be economists and have a nice cushy job in a university with no accountability and a fat retirement pension.
And the truth of why we had a global depression in the 30’s is why we’re sleepwalking through one now: The banking system world-wide imploded. Back then, as now, the European banks were in far worse shape than US banks, and they didn’t have a central authority to manage the banking crisis. The Fed accelerated the crash of the banking system by first raising rates, then meddling in the banking sector. As Bernanke told Milton & Rose Friedman at a dinner held for the Friedmans: “You were right. We (the Fed) did it.”
Trump is not running. He would not have said these words if he were.
Didn’t Rev Graham verbalize his support of Trump the other day? This is Trumps way of saying No to running
And I have to add this:
If we had not built the huge hydro projects that were rammed through the Congress in the 30’s, we also would not have won WWII.
People today do not appreciate how much of the electrical power abundance of WWII was a purely fortuitous outcome of the government trying to create jobs with the hydro dam projects and the REA. I remember reading somewhere that in 1944, the Manhattan Project was consuming about 40% of all power generated in the US, and another big chunk of power was going into aluminum smelting that in turn was used to produce aircraft. Aluminum smelting takes huge amounts of power even today.
We had that power at that time purely by accident. Projects like the TVA and Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia helped us win the war as well.
His problem is he leads like a loose, poorly directed cannon.
None of the milquetoast contenders we currently see have that type of temperament.
Palin perhaps excepted. But you're right, we have a real serious problem in finding the candidate to beat Obama.
Trump is vastly different from recent POTUSA candidates in that he has vast property holdings. These properties have to be managed and nurtured. As POTUSA he would have to separate himself from all these assets. Though Trump has sons whom it has been rumered can take over the business/estate I doubt Trump is ready to totally abandon any part for being POTUSA. In a way it would be interesting if he went the other way but perhaps he is just staking out a claim to make a better USA. With Obama gone and other policies in place he could well have his place in USA history. I believe Trump realized/knew the language even if suited to the audience use in Las Vegas would stir the media.
Really, so we are the only country that has to follow the world trade rules? We are import tariffing now, by devaluing the dollar. So those jobs will all be coming back now? Trump mention that?
If it were as simple as just taxing the products we buy from overseas(when our prices are already skyrocketing) , one of the last three presidents would have done it. Didnt Obama make similar promises as Trump on this on trade? You think Obama doesnt know he needs US jobs to win re-election? Or Bush?
What is never mentioned is the drawbacks of doing that. Who is going to be the growing number of consumers the next 40-50 years?
What about automation and computers? Dont they kill certain US jobs?
Nope, it's all so simple.
Tariff are like a consumption tax. I am for it. Especially from China. I like the punitive aspect. Time we fight the Free Traitors and nothing pisses them off like tariff talk. I LIKE IT!
You are getting it right now, and it's increasing every day as the dollar drops. You know what the tax-activity rule is? We will see how those increases in prices, the devaluation tariff, affects our consumption and jobs. We dont have to elect a con-man like Trump to find out he is full of crap.
Of course at the same time Trump is going to demand the Arabs lower that same 'consumption' tax on oil, because that one is bad???. Could it be he is just playing to the suckers?
Inflation is the scary thing. When all this monetization becomes real money (as people get serious jobs—it’s got to happen or the nation ends), the price increases we’re seeing now will be the “good ol’ days.”
One of my professors explained to me that monetizing the national debt in Weimar...I think in 1930, but don’t call me on that date...initiated 170,000% annual inflation.
And their liabilities were LESS than ours in comparison with our respective GDP’s.
I’m not an economist, by far. Perhaps kissing up to our communist enemies and trading American workers for slaves is good for American workers. Maybe the Free Traders are correct. All I know is that CEO’s are the scum of the earth, and Perot was right.
Trump is lying to you. I know you want a target to blame, to believe all those evil presidents rig a system so they will have high unemployment in this country, that there is an easy fix some con man like Trump can just whip up like Moses parted the Red Seas. He is just making up stuff.
Think about what the US consumer trend will be in the next 20 years. Which way is it heading? Are we really the only one with no tariffs? Can China just raise tariffs at will? Can we really raise them without causing serious problems to ourselves? All of a sudden it's not easy.
China could simply appeal to the World Trade Organization, the international body charged with enforcing global trading rules, which could challenge the tax.
China could also respond by closing its increasingly important market to U.S. exporters, which would be a major blow to American jobs and manufacturing. China has become the No. 3 market for U.S. exporters, with sales jumping 31% from the previous year.
And that doesn't even count the goods being made in China by U.S. companies. General Motors sells more cars in China today than it does in the United States, for example
CNN Money: How Donald Trump's 25% tariff on China could start trade war
While I applaud Palin and hope she continues to use the platform she has, I don't think she has “it”.
As things continue to worsen the American people will demand leadership which will lead to: a) re-elect Obama which will embolden the left to push farther down the road to liberal fascism and corporatism which will last for an extended period, or... b) a strong Republican will emerge who will demand respect from other nations and unleash the American entrepreneurial spirit much like Reagan did.
The squishy middle is about to evaporate.
“BRUSSELS—The European Commission is prepared to bring a World Trade Organization case against China over its export credit policies, provided a European Union company lodges a justified complaint with the commission, E.U. trade chief Karel De Gucht said in a statement this week. Chinese export credits are a major source of anger among European companies, who complain that they give Chinese firms an unfair advantage when competing for business in global markets. The commission, the E.U.’s executive arm, has been examining whether China's policies violate WTO rules on government subsidies. “
APRIL 28, 2011 WSJ : EU May Push WTO China Complaint
Trump is lying when he says China can just raise tariffs on us and vice versa. He is projecting a simple world that doesnt exist.
I think he’s speaking from his perspective in dealing business with them....which it’s a whole lot more than that when you are the leader of the USA. He doesn’t have a firm grasp on the realities of the climate he’d be working in as Pres. ...little if any idea of the rules of play...he makes his own as he goes along I think....won’t work on the Interantional stage let alone Washington.
I think he’s speaking from his perspective in dealing business with them....which it’s a whole lot more than that when you are the leader of the USA. He doesn’t have a firm grasp on the realities of the climate he’d be working in as Pres. ...little if any idea of the rules of play...he makes his own as he goes along I think....won’t work on the Interantional stage let alone Washington.
every single day of my life.
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