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| This woman is an idiot |
When I was still working for Fox News I remember meeting K.T. McFarland, Trump's new Deputy National Security Adviser.
One of the things that I enjoyed at Fox or, perhaps I should say, found interesting, is that I would meet many of these well-known and sometimes very high-placed "important people" and I would talk to them and see how f'cking clueless they were about economics. You can read about one of my past encounters here, with former Reagan Administration Budget Chief, David Stockman.
K.T. McFarland was one of these people that I met, too. A total idiot.
We were discussing the economy and she started talking about how America is "broke" and "China is our banker." I asked her if the U.S. would run out of dollars? She just looked at me as if I was completely off my rocker. I repeated, "Do you think we will run out of dollars?" She had no response.
Fast forward to now, where's she's Trump's new Deputy National Security Adviser.
So, I can now predict this: Trump will NEVER impose tariffs on China and the "great deal" he will negotiate will be nothing or, pablum at best because K.T. McFarland, having Trump's ear now, will certainly be telling him to go easy on China because they are our banker and they may "call in their loans."
It's getting pretty clear to me that things will not only NOT change under Trump, but the neoliberal onslaught that is gutting the working people of the world and which, is driving electoral "revolutions" everywhere, will go even deeper into failure. The desperation among the people will become so acute now. They will be let down enormously by Trump.
Not just McFarland. None of those that Trump has appointed or is rumored to be considering for high office are representative of ordinary Americans or even understand them, since they have lived in the bubble most or all of their lives. In addition, the transition regarding lower level appointments has been farmed out to Jim DeMint's Heritage Foundation.
ReplyDeleteSo far I haven't seen even one person that is not clueless economically.
But look at Bernie. He had Stephanie by his side and he was still clueless.
That all seem to be morons, the whole lot of them. It's bipartisan, too.
Agreed. Terrible. People are going to go nuts when they see how little change they voted for.
ReplyDeletec'mon Fed.... c'mon Fed.... its all we got...
ReplyDeleteOK, this is funny:
ReplyDeleteKia Makarechi Verified account @Kia_Mak
Trump’s deputy director of the NSA thinks Rudy Giuliani is on Twitter as @xxxxxxx37583982” :(
Mayor Rudy Giuliani@xxxxxxx37583982 Nov 24
🦃🏈🇺🇸Today let us all be thankful that God gave us America and let us be part of it.
KT McFarland Verified account @ktmcfarland
@xxxxxxx37583982 Thank you Rudy for turning NYC around & protecting us in our hour of need You remain "America's mayor"
As Bugs Bunny would say, what a maroon! Anyway, someone obviously gave her a heads-up because she's deleted the tweet.
They all think "we are out of money!". Is hopeless, this will lead us to WWIII eventually and that's what really concerns me.
ReplyDeleteIt's a moronfest.
It's pretty bad...
ReplyDeleteTrump: So China has got us by the balls, what can we do? Declare bankruptcy?
ReplyDeleteMy god, this tragedy writes itself.
If you think these picks are bad, wait 'til he announces his economic people. He already has idiots like Scaramucci advising him. The same Scaramucci who called him a "hack," un-American and a "born-rich dude from Queens."
ReplyDeleteYep, looks like the Donald is gonna fuck things up big time.
ReplyDeleteHow many more stupid wackos does Trump have to surround himself with before we conclude that this isn't triangulation, strategy, lulling his enemies into a false sense of security, or any of the other excuses are putting together but this is what he genuinely believes?
There are many intelligent "conservatives" who'd jump through hoops to get into government, yet Trump has picked the dumbest of the dumb. Evidently he believes these dummies are smart. That's worrying. As Tony Schwartz, the author of The Art of the Deal, has said, Trump isn't interested in policies and is not particularly intelligent. Daddy's money doesn't make you smart. You get the impression that he doesn't grasp the gravity of the office and that the decisions he'll make can do real damage. I mean, really, Haley, McFarland, and now possibly Giuliani as secretary of state? This "basket of deplorables" still has space for Huckabee and Santorum.
When Trump sends his people, he's not sending his best. He's sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with them. They're bringing crazy ideas. They're bringing incompetence. They're wackos. And some, I assume, are good people.
And some, I assume, are good people.
ReplyDeleteThat's the problem. They are convinced they mean well and are right. It's a combination of moral superiority and the Dunning-Kruger effect.
"We are all confident idiots"!
ReplyDeleteSome are clearly more so than others. The ones to look out for are pseudo-intellectuals chickenhawks like Rumsfeld or Giuliani: they genuinely believe themselves to possess remarkable epistemological insights, which can only be proven through immense bloodletting, and then can't help but lecture a shocked onlooking world. All bizarre stuff.
Trump's not going to reach the heights of Rumsfeld, but he's going to give it his best.
A tactic is sometimes to never hire people who could look better than yourself....
ReplyDeleteI guess Trump isn't taking any chances on that score.
ReplyDeleteFalwell says he turned down Trump Cabinet position (Ed Sec)
ReplyDeleteMatt,
ReplyDeleteThis crazy standard will result in the dumbest and weirdest government in American history. What now, Trump doesn't understand that it is vital to have competent people in positions of power and to advise him? Trump may believe he knows everything and he himself is the best adviser to have, but having incompetent Brownie-Katrina-like characters is begging for disaster.
Jerry Falwell Jr? Trump has gone fucking mad. That's it. I really wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but the people he's surrounding himself with aren't fit for the lowest posts in local government.
That ludicrous conspiracy theory that Trump is a Kremlin agent isn't looking so ludicrous! That reminds me, I have to rewatch The Manchurian Candidate. The original of course, not the godawful remake with Denzil Washington.
John, I still think Trump is potentially good in some departments (specially as a foreigner).
ReplyDeleteHe is unlikely to start new wars (maybe toughen the stance with Iran but not as far as starting a conflict). One thing Trump has done is measure the mood and appetite for war in the US: it's just not there, specially for young people (the ones who have to fight those stupid wars). Unless he goes full fascist (don't think so), he won't do any stupid shit on that department. He may increase military spending but not start new conflicts.
He may be crazy enough to pull something like "the coin"! If they do not see a way around 'debt' issues he may just erase the debt thought some technical subterfuge. The man knows the government cannot run out of US dollars, even if he thinks the debt is too high. Yes, to a rational mind those two things seem at odds, but this is a fact that 90% of humanity (being optimistic!) is impossible to grasp.
Within that faux logic ultimately "the coin" becomes a solution. Sure first we will have to go through a period of 'balanced budgets' and trying to curve the trade deficit (which will probably fail), but ultimately may lead to a potential "mind blowing" event. One of the problems is the word "debt" in the "public debt", as people just does not understand how the whole thing works and social memes and semantics are getting in the way of operational effectiveness, removing that word from the false (but apparent) problem will help a lot.
If anything else, he will trade to curve the trade deficit (I said try, succeed? doubt it). I know Mike is saying here he won't do anything about China, he is probably right, but he may try to do some things and reverse some trade deals. IMO this is important because 'gold-bug lite' and export-oriented nations are the source of much of the economic malaise nowadays (this includes Germany and China), and inflicting some damage through reducing their surplus may (may!! just a possibility) force them to re-examine their unsustainable positions and ideologies (in case of China, pragmatically, to focus more on internal growth and demand and developing internal assets the earlier than they thought, in case of Germany having to abandon the religion of balanced-budgets and trade surplus economics).
Worst case scenario, "worse is better": we surely need more pain to see this through, is masochistic and stupid, but is the world we live in. Things getting worse gives us little windows of opportunity for potentially changing things for the better, this maybe yet an other one. Is a desperate position, but is the only one we have, although so far "we" (the majority" have been losing badly to the sociopaths and/or incompetents at the top on every of this opportunities in the last decades, gotta keep trying (until morale improves?).
John the Falwell thing now Devos thing is:
ReplyDeleteVouchers in & Darwin out...
The other thing this is just a Deputy position and she has nuclear weapon systems experience that Trump wants to modernize so they will need people who would know how to do that without violating key intl agreements
ReplyDelete