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Wednesday, November 9, 2016
We have only two things from Trump
All we have from Trump are two things he has observed:
1. That "we are led by very, very stupid people..." video here:
And
2. That "you never have to default because you just print the money, I hate to tell you...."
These 2 things are all we really have with Trump at this point.
Not quite: things are also going to be "great" and/or "terrific". No policy but childlike talk about things going to be "great".
The man is either going to go down as one of the best presidents or the worst. No in between.
One thing that struck me while watching some of the coverage is Killary's disregard for the rustbelt states. She took them for granted, barely campaigned there and faced the wrath of the working classes the Democrats are meant to represent.
Forget the GOP, the Democrats may never recover from Trump's thumping.
He has PLENTY of policy the MSM didnt report on it...
He is going to end the Sequestration, repeal ACA and replace it with a national plan with heavy individual subsidies, put 35% tariffs on the USD zombies which will eliminate "the deficit!" thus providing him political cover from the morons, $1T infrastructure, re-organize NATO for anti-terror and put a plan together with Russia for ME, etc..
They didnt report on it and he didnt run on it either it would have been too egg head and he doesnt work that way anyway he leads with emotional persuasion and then follows up with material systems competency once he gets the deal...
All the MSM attention on non-material systems issues wrt Trump is W-O-M-A-N-I-S-H .... and boo-hoo too bad the woman didnt win alpha male in charge now....
No terrible "free trade" deals is almost an automatic win. You can count on less war and kills than with Hillary almost certainly so it's a win on that front.
Just by "not being Hillary" he is automatically better! Although the potential to disappoint is also there, but he has more upside than downside IMO, contrary to Obama for example. We won't have to wait too long before knowing what it will be either way.
Matt, Trump isn't going to do any of it. He'll have to find a way of blaming Congress for not doing any of the stuff he made up in his head at the spur of the moment, like making Mexico build the wall. I can understand him saying that the US is going to build the wall. That's an achievable policy. Forcing an ostensibly friendly country do something that they don't want to do is asking for trouble. One, Mexico isn't going to do it, and everyone knows it. Two, Trump ends up looking like one of the supposed bad negotiators he never stops bleating about.
Trump lost me a long time ago: he started off saying some really insightful stuff (which shows that there is a brain lurking in there somewhere), but quickly went batshit. Whether his batshittery was genuine or for electoral gain, we'll soon find out. His batshittery, nevertheless, was seen as an irrelevance and the rightly pissed off working class voted for him, and were justifiably turned off by Killary's weird personality of superiority, condescension, awful policies and the fact that there was something extremely disturbing about her. The terrible campaigns Kerry and Gore fought are as nothing to the one Killary fought and lost. Had the Dems not played funny buggers and cheated Bernie out of the nomination, the Bern would be the 45th POTUS.
There is no question that Killary would have been an awful and dangerous president, just as were so many before her. Trump, however, us an unknown, and he can use that to good effect if he so desires. Hopefully he'll tone down his ultra-alpha male aggression, pettiness and vindictiveness and instead use the clean sweep to do some good. The anti-Trump Republican Congress may block him. We'll see on that: it's dangerous to block him, but the GOP may not survive a successful Trump presidency. But I do genuinely wish him all the best: he's the one president who can really shake things up. If he continues with the demagoguery, racism, ludicrous claims and policies, he'll go down as worse than Dubya!
To all Americans, help me out here. The GOP is in love with NAFTA and all the other so-called "free trade" agreements in the pipeline that further crush the American working and middle classes. Trump claims he wants to renegotiate NAFTA and all the rest of these agreements. Is Trump able to use the power of the executive to overrule the Congress on this, or is this a case of Trump having to back down and look like an emasculated buffoon for promising and not delivering on the most important, but characteristically and thoroughly unthought, promise?
Matt is hoping that will be "financed" by reduced trade deficits. As much as I would love Germany crumble due to to their, fallacy of composition, export-driven model and come to their senses I very much doubt Trump will be able to do much on time to have effect.
Wait for triangulations of politicians to muddle through the whole issue for the whole legislature (while they hope for not a second term from Trump).
It won't be so easy to remove out neoliberals from the establishment out of the institutions they control. Ditto for neocons from foreign policy. They won't go away w/o fighting, that's what they do for a living after all, it's their job.
But certainly if someone can clean up the house is Trump.
Trump is not going to use executive privilege. He now has rhe power of the people behind him; he can go straight to them the way Reagan and FDR did and be believed. He is going to tell them to vote the House and Senate incumbents out of office if they don't do what the people tell them to do. Meaning, he's going to remind them of the power of their vote.
The man is a lot shrewder than people give him credit for.
It won't be so easy to remove out neoliberals from the establishment out of the institutions they control. Ditto for neocons from foreign policy. They won't go away w/o fighting, that's what they do for a living after all, it's their job.
Of course Ignacio, they assasinate presidents they don't like before breakfast.
Foot, he has specifically mentioned that he wants to kill the 'sequestration' which is the moron Peterson thing where they think they have to "pay for" things...
This is where Ryan has to immediately yield or he imo should face severe consequences....
MRW, shred or not (and I lean heavily to lucky rather than shrewd), Trump cannot singlehandedly overturn a GOP that is neoliberal to its core. Unless he views himself as some sort of fascist leader and is going to call for people on the streets (i.e. violence) and is willing to take a wrecking ball to Washington, he just will not do any of this.
Trump can say what he wants, but the GOP will scream "deficit", "debt", "Weimar Republic". The GOP can claim to have integrity: they opposed Obama's Weimar spending and they'll oppose Trump's Zimbabwe spending.
As Footsoldier said, the US has unfortunately been primed for a balanced budget. And with control of the Senate, House and White House, they're going to look like awful liars when they can't pass an amendment they've been promising for decades if they ever have the power to sign it into law. Whatever Trump's ill-thought-out stream of consciousness policies are, they'll never see the light of day.
The lunatics have finally taken over the asylum. Trump is Jack Nicholson, and Congress is the Native American Chief who'll smother Trump to death and then run out into the woods to howl at the moon and kick shit.
And with control of the Senate, House and White House, they're going to look like awful liars when they can't pass an amendment they've been promising for decades if they ever have the power to sign it into law.
The Balanced Budget Act was passed in 1997, John. Clinton did it and it caused the Great Recession.
Maybe it was 1996. Can't remember. The current Treasury Secretary, Jacob Lew, drafted it. And our putz president doesn't know enough about the working of the federal government to challenge it.
Trump cannot singlehandedly overturn a GOP that is neoliberal to its core.
We are witnessing the collapse of both the GOP and Dem establishments, which are really factions of the single elite that rules the US and compete for power.
This is likely only the beginning of a struggle that I expect to occupy the 2020's. It's not going to be resolved quickly. It involves a national and international reset that can only develop ("evolve") over time without some revolutionary event that compresses time.
The title of my master's thesis was Evolution or Revolution: Toward a Theory of Social Change. Social change happens either gradually through evolution or suddenly revolution. But even with revolution, gradual changes prepare the way for the sudden reversal.
Right, but the problem is that reducing that trade deficit is not going to happen any time soon, so all the "run out of money" people will start hyperventilating as usual, and the very serious and concerned about the future of his grandchildren (le sight...) Ryan will try to stop it.
The question if people will care a single bit about it or will just follow on Trump if he decides to go ahead regardless of not having a 'balanced budget'. So the preliminary is over and we will see if there is an internal fight to stop Trump.
Politicians being cowards by nature, I think Trump will get on with it and they will get on board to not get their ass kicked and increase spending (regardless of the deficit going up, down or sideways).
I'm virtually certain that Trump will figure out a way to advance his agenda without alienating those in his own party. There is no agenda without them. Period. But if Trump fails to build a wall on the southern border he might as well give up the ghost politically speaking. He's stuck having to deliver on that one no matter what. It's non negotiable politically. It was the symbolic bedrock of his campaign.
Matt, you're doing it again -- giving Trump too much credit in the smarts department. ;)
I don't think he trolls. When he makes ape-shit crazy comments he means them.
Take this ape-shit crazy shit comment:
"The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive." -- Trump tweet, 2012
He's not only denying the human effects of global warming, but he goes beyond being simply ignorant on the subject to being ape-shit crazy by blaming the Chinese for creating this "hoax."
Such an ape-shit crazy thing to say has to be an obvious troll attempt to get headlines, right? He can't possibly be serious.
Except ...
Trump Picks Top Climate Skeptic to Lead EPA Transition
"Choosing Myron Ebell means Trump plans to drastically reshape climate policies" (September 26, 2016)
John:Trump can say what he wants, but the GOP will scream "deficit", "debt", "Weimar Republic". The GOP can claim to have integrity: they opposed Obama's Weimar spending and they'll oppose Trump's Zimbabwe spending.
That is a natural but serious misunderstanding of US politics. From Hoover / FDR to Carter / Reagan, the Dems were the big spender party (the Repubs had been earlier, from the Civil War to Hoover) . But since Reagan / Carter, the Repubs have been the big spenders (someone has to be). They spout all that crap when a Dem is in office, but completely ignore it the instant a Repub is. The Dems probably believe the crap, their own lies rather more.
We are witnessing the collapse of both the GOP and Dem establishments, which are really factions of the single elite that rules the US and compete for power.
I doubt that very much as the corporate media will take people into their bossom and stroke their hair while whispering it will be alright.
Trump didn't write the The Art of the Deal; Tony Schwartz (TS) wrote it -- Trump just read it (and if at that).
TS never believed the book would ever be taken seriously, let alone have such a huge success,that's why he was shocked when the book's critics praised it -- except for John Kenneth Galbraith who rightfully mocked and trashed the book, as TS said in a recent BBC interview and who, btw, agreed with JKG:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04dggn1
The phrase I believe was "truthful hyperbole." TS came up with it. It's a bullshit phrase as he said himself in the said interview above. Again, he thought that readers would see the book as simply an entertaining puff piece, never to be taken seriously.
Not quite: things are also going to be "great" and/or "terrific". No policy but childlike talk about things going to be "great".
ReplyDeleteThe man is either going to go down as one of the best presidents or the worst. No in between.
One thing that struck me while watching some of the coverage is Killary's disregard for the rustbelt states. She took them for granted, barely campaigned there and faced the wrath of the working classes the Democrats are meant to represent.
Forget the GOP, the Democrats may never recover from Trump's thumping.
We have "yuuuuuge" too. Hoping for a yuuuuuge fiscal stimulus.
ReplyDeleteI cannot tell a lie, Putin did it.
ReplyDeleteHe has PLENTY of policy the MSM didnt report on it...
ReplyDeleteHe is going to end the Sequestration, repeal ACA and replace it with a national plan with heavy individual subsidies, put 35% tariffs on the USD zombies which will eliminate "the deficit!" thus providing him political cover from the morons, $1T infrastructure, re-organize NATO for anti-terror and put a plan together with Russia for ME, etc..
They didnt report on it and he didnt run on it either it would have been too egg head and he doesnt work that way anyway he leads with emotional persuasion and then follows up with material systems competency once he gets the deal...
All the MSM attention on non-material systems issues wrt Trump is W-O-M-A-N-I-S-H .... and boo-hoo too bad the woman didnt win alpha male in charge now....
No terrible "free trade" deals is almost an automatic win. You can count on less war and kills than with Hillary almost certainly so it's a win on that front.
ReplyDeleteJust by "not being Hillary" he is automatically better! Although the potential to disappoint is also there, but he has more upside than downside IMO, contrary to Obama for example. We won't have to wait too long before knowing what it will be either way.
Matt, Trump isn't going to do any of it. He'll have to find a way of blaming Congress for not doing any of the stuff he made up in his head at the spur of the moment, like making Mexico build the wall. I can understand him saying that the US is going to build the wall. That's an achievable policy. Forcing an ostensibly friendly country do something that they don't want to do is asking for trouble. One, Mexico isn't going to do it, and everyone knows it. Two, Trump ends up looking like one of the supposed bad negotiators he never stops bleating about.
ReplyDeleteTrump lost me a long time ago: he started off saying some really insightful stuff (which shows that there is a brain lurking in there somewhere), but quickly went batshit. Whether his batshittery was genuine or for electoral gain, we'll soon find out. His batshittery, nevertheless, was seen as an irrelevance and the rightly pissed off working class voted for him, and were justifiably turned off by Killary's weird personality of superiority, condescension, awful policies and the fact that there was something extremely disturbing about her. The terrible campaigns Kerry and Gore fought are as nothing to the one Killary fought and lost. Had the Dems not played funny buggers and cheated Bernie out of the nomination, the Bern would be the 45th POTUS.
There is no question that Killary would have been an awful and dangerous president, just as were so many before her. Trump, however, us an unknown, and he can use that to good effect if he so desires. Hopefully he'll tone down his ultra-alpha male aggression, pettiness and vindictiveness and instead use the clean sweep to do some good. The anti-Trump Republican Congress may block him. We'll see on that: it's dangerous to block him, but the GOP may not survive a successful Trump presidency. But I do genuinely wish him all the best: he's the one president who can really shake things up. If he continues with the demagoguery, racism, ludicrous claims and policies, he'll go down as worse than Dubya!
To all Americans, help me out here. The GOP is in love with NAFTA and all the other so-called "free trade" agreements in the pipeline that further crush the American working and middle classes. Trump claims he wants to renegotiate NAFTA and all the rest of these agreements. Is Trump able to use the power of the executive to overrule the Congress on this, or is this a case of Trump having to back down and look like an emasculated buffoon for promising and not delivering on the most important, but characteristically and thoroughly unthought, promise?
ReplyDeleteimo depends on how he keeps the momentum going...
ReplyDeletehe will implement "if you are not with me, then you are against me..." type policy...
Ayn Rand love boy Ryan speaking right now... sounds very contrite wrt Trump...
Up to this point, Trumps proposals and Ryan's house proposals are quite different...
imo he has to get rid of Ryan and maybe McConnell and get his own people in there...
Ryan: "we need to unify as a party... blah, blah, blah..."
ReplyDeleteIf Congress is being obstructionist Trump could call on the people to march on the streets.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteRegarding his proposed tax cuts, under current law bills can’t be introduced in Congress unless they are ‘paid for’,
So, for example, to introduce a tax cut it has to be paid for by spending cuts.
Yes, Congress could change the law or override it but that would require Senate approval, and that takes a 60% majority that Republicans don’t have.
Which is hilarious because the paid for part is complete gold standard, household budget tripe !
So Trump is going to be hand tied by the fiscal conservative lies and propaganda of the last 40 years.
Oh, the irony.
I hope you guys that voted for trump are ready for a balanced budget ammendment because that is now 100% certainty.
Matt is hoping that will be "financed" by reduced trade deficits. As much as I would love Germany crumble due to to their, fallacy of composition, export-driven model and come to their senses I very much doubt Trump will be able to do much on time to have effect.
ReplyDeleteWait for triangulations of politicians to muddle through the whole issue for the whole legislature (while they hope for not a second term from Trump).
It won't be so easy to remove out neoliberals from the establishment out of the institutions they control. Ditto for neocons from foreign policy. They won't go away w/o fighting, that's what they do for a living after all, it's their job.
But certainly if someone can clean up the house is Trump.
@John,
ReplyDeleteTo all Americans, help me out here. . . .
Trump is not going to use executive privilege. He now has rhe power of the people behind him; he can go straight to them the way Reagan and FDR did and be believed. He is going to tell them to vote the House and Senate incumbents out of office if they don't do what the people tell them to do. Meaning, he's going to remind them of the power of their vote.
The man is a lot shrewder than people give him credit for.
It won't be so easy to remove out neoliberals from the establishment out of the institutions they control. Ditto for neocons from foreign policy. They won't go away w/o fighting, that's what they do for a living after all, it's their job.
ReplyDeleteOf course Ignacio, they assasinate presidents they don't like before breakfast.
He'll be taken out by the CIA if he goes anywhere near the bricks (to build a wall.
ReplyDeleteFoot, he has specifically mentioned that he wants to kill the 'sequestration' which is the moron Peterson thing where they think they have to "pay for" things...
ReplyDeleteThis is where Ryan has to immediately yield or he imo should face severe consequences....
MRW, shred or not (and I lean heavily to lucky rather than shrewd), Trump cannot singlehandedly overturn a GOP that is neoliberal to its core. Unless he views himself as some sort of fascist leader and is going to call for people on the streets (i.e. violence) and is willing to take a wrecking ball to Washington, he just will not do any of this.
ReplyDeleteTrump can say what he wants, but the GOP will scream "deficit", "debt", "Weimar Republic". The GOP can claim to have integrity: they opposed Obama's Weimar spending and they'll oppose Trump's Zimbabwe spending.
As Footsoldier said, the US has unfortunately been primed for a balanced budget. And with control of the Senate, House and White House, they're going to look like awful liars when they can't pass an amendment they've been promising for decades if they ever have the power to sign it into law. Whatever Trump's ill-thought-out stream of consciousness policies are, they'll never see the light of day.
The lunatics have finally taken over the asylum. Trump is Jack Nicholson, and Congress is the Native American Chief who'll smother Trump to death and then run out into the woods to howl at the moon and kick shit.
@John,
ReplyDeleteAnd with control of the Senate, House and White House, they're going to look like awful liars when they can't pass an amendment they've been promising for decades if they ever have the power to sign it into law.
The Balanced Budget Act was passed in 1997, John. Clinton did it and it caused the Great Recession.
Maybe it was 1996. Can't remember. The current Treasury Secretary, Jacob Lew, drafted it. And our putz president doesn't know enough about the working of the federal government to challenge it.
ReplyDeleteTrump cannot singlehandedly overturn a GOP that is neoliberal to its core.
ReplyDeleteWe are witnessing the collapse of both the GOP and Dem establishments, which are really factions of the single elite that rules the US and compete for power.
This is likely only the beginning of a struggle that I expect to occupy the 2020's. It's not going to be resolved quickly. It involves a national and international reset that can only develop ("evolve") over time without some revolutionary event that compresses time.
The title of my master's thesis was Evolution or Revolution: Toward a Theory of Social Change. Social change happens either gradually through evolution or suddenly revolution. But even with revolution, gradual changes prepare the way for the sudden reversal.
We already have a balanced budget right now except for the disgraced foreign USD zombies... deficit about = to trade deficit...
ReplyDeleteUS domestically is conducting an intergenerational transfer of savings accounts... boomers are retiring and dis-saving while gen next is saving...
get off "the deficit!" it doesnt matter if it was zero domestically as long as leading flow was adequate...
Right, but the problem is that reducing that trade deficit is not going to happen any time soon, so all the "run out of money" people will start hyperventilating as usual, and the very serious and concerned about the future of his grandchildren (le sight...) Ryan will try to stop it.
ReplyDeleteThe question if people will care a single bit about it or will just follow on Trump if he decides to go ahead regardless of not having a 'balanced budget'. So the preliminary is over and we will see if there is an internal fight to stop Trump.
Politicians being cowards by nature, I think Trump will get on with it and they will get on board to not get their ass kicked and increase spending (regardless of the deficit going up, down or sideways).
I'm virtually certain that Trump will figure out a way to advance his agenda without alienating those in his own party. There is no agenda without them. Period. But if Trump fails to build a wall on the southern border he might as well give up the ghost politically speaking. He's stuck having to deliver on that one no matter what. It's non negotiable politically. It was the symbolic bedrock of his campaign.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteExcellent commentary here at MNE as always.
ReplyDeleteRe. the wall ... before Trump roles up his sleeves and starts helping with the digging, he first has to attend to the Trump U. fraud suit in New York.
And speaking of New York, specifically the borough of Manhattan where the people there know Trump best, how did they vote?
NYC borough breakdown:
http://abc7ny.com/politics/how-each-nyc-borough-voted-(and-hillary-didnt-win-them-all)/1598306/
Matt, with all due respect, you're giving "Two Corinthians" Trump too much credit. The guy, like his university, is a fraud.
"Nobody Reads Bible More Than Me" -- Trump
Greek, What people don't understand wrt Trump is that when he talks probably 90% of the time he is trolling... at least 90%...
ReplyDeleteMatt, you're doing it again -- giving Trump too much credit in the smarts department. ;)
ReplyDeleteI don't think he trolls. When he makes ape-shit crazy comments he means them.
Take this ape-shit crazy shit comment:
"The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive." -- Trump tweet, 2012
He's not only denying the human effects of global warming, but he goes beyond being simply ignorant on the subject to being ape-shit crazy by blaming the Chinese for creating this "hoax."
Such an ape-shit crazy thing to say has to be an obvious troll attempt to get headlines, right? He can't possibly be serious.
Except ...
Trump Picks Top Climate Skeptic to Lead EPA Transition
"Choosing Myron Ebell means Trump plans to drastically reshape climate policies" (September 26, 2016)
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trump-picks-top-climate-skeptic-to-lead-epa-transition/?wt.mc=SA_Twitter-Share
PS:http://www.skepticalscience.com/a-comprehensive-review-of-the-causes-of-global-warming.html (h/t: Tom Hickey)
John:Trump can say what he wants, but the GOP will scream "deficit", "debt", "Weimar Republic". The GOP can claim to have integrity: they opposed Obama's Weimar spending and they'll oppose Trump's Zimbabwe spending.
ReplyDeleteThat is a natural but serious misunderstanding of US politics. From Hoover / FDR to Carter / Reagan, the Dems were the big spender party (the Repubs had been earlier, from the Civil War to Hoover) . But since Reagan / Carter, the Repubs have been the big spenders (someone has to be). They spout all that crap when a Dem is in office, but completely ignore it the instant a Repub is. The Dems probably believe the crap, their own lies rather more.
He calls it "truthful exaggeration":
ReplyDeletehttp://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=9080
It's from Art of the Deal .... I read it in the 80s...
Get with the Dilbert guy on this Trump has a whole MO....
Tom,
ReplyDeleteWe are witnessing the collapse of both the GOP and Dem establishments, which are really factions of the single elite that rules the US and compete for power.
I doubt that very much as the corporate media will take people into their bossom and stroke their hair while whispering it will be alright.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTrump didn't write the The Art of the Deal; Tony Schwartz (TS) wrote it -- Trump just read it (and if at that).
ReplyDeleteTS never believed the book would ever be taken seriously, let alone have such a huge success,that's why he was shocked when the book's critics praised it -- except for John Kenneth Galbraith who rightfully mocked and trashed the book, as TS said in a recent BBC interview and who, btw, agreed with JKG:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04dggn1
The phrase I believe was "truthful hyperbole." TS came up with it. It's a bullshit phrase as he said himself in the said interview above. Again, he thought that readers would see the book as simply an entertaining puff piece, never to be taken seriously.
"John Kenneth Galbraith "
ReplyDeleteOh you mean the guy who wrote the book "Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went." in 1975? ie after Bretton Woods?
He knew nothing about any of this I'm not impressed sorry...
TIP: Trump is ALWAYS selling something.... he is well trained and knows how to do this...
"Again, he thought that readers would see the book as simply an entertaining puff piece, never to be taken seriously."
ReplyDeleteSounds like Trump's campaign... yet he won... hmmmmmm....
So what are you saying that the book wasnt a best seller?
TIP: It was....
Are you saying he didnt win the election?
TIP: He won....
So I dont know what you are trying to do here... are you trying to create an alternate reality for yourself?
I dont see any value in that...