Credit Where Credit is Due: a shout out thread for Things Trump Did Right

[bilby]

But if you were a college professor receiving generous endowments you might believe our country is just fine.

You clearly do not know any college professors. No, we are not fine.

If you are a US college professor recieving generous endowments, then you are presumably living in or before the 1970s, so at least are unaffected by Trump (or even Reagan).

 

[Shadowy Man]

But if you were a college professor receiving generous endowments you might believe our country is just fine.

You clearly do not know any college professors. No, we are not fine.

I have heard that many grad programs in the sciences are shutting down enrollments because of the expectation of reduced resources due to the federal funding stoppages. This will gut a lot of science programs and cause a brain drain.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Even if most college professors are democrats, most democrats are not college professors. There are working class democrats too. Many of whom have been hit by similar economic impacts as RVonse. They just don’t believe that the Republicans truly want to fix that. If the debt is as big a problem as RVonse thinks then why are the Republicans wanting to increase it with their next budget?

 

[KCFlyer]

I have heard that many grad programs in the sciences are shutting down enrollments because of the expectation of reduced resources due to the federal funding stoppages. This will gut a lot of science programs and cause a brain drain.

My old neighbor is the director of neuroscience at a university. They are already feeling Musk's cuts. They slashed "indirect costs". Those costs were needed to perform the direct cost of research. And that means research will scale back. This will most likely push him into retirement.

My brother didn't like Trump but he liked him better than Harris. And he has reverted to excusing a lot of Trump's shit. He defended Musk's cuts. I reminded him that just a month ago, he had gone to the Mayo Clinic for an issue that has been eluding his local doctors. He was amazed at the place. I reminded him that Trump basically shuttered the CDC and NIH and pulled us out of the WHO....and the Mayo Clinic relies on those places to stay on the cutting edge of medicine. That one made him pause.

 

[laughing dog]

Our economy is going strong by any generally recognized standards.

So, I don’t understand the basis for your distorted view of the economy.

We all live and observe different things so that makes sense to me. If you have been in heavy manufacturing you would believe our country is in dire straights and on its last ropes.

That is nonsense. I know people who are in heavy manufacturing who believe no such thing at all.

More importantly, there is well-accepted metrics for analyzing the status of an economy. The economy of the US is still the envy of the world despite some of its issues.

But if you were a college professor receiving generous endowments you might believe our country is just fine. You would think the college professor would at least see a dim future, concerning our $30+ trillion deficit with interest greater than the military budget. But those people aren't because life is great for them so they put this out their mind and everything has to be good for the rest of us too. Even and after 6 or 7 zeros the deficit numbers all just look normal to them. So if your life is good I can see why you would think Trump is such a pig that you should not have to put up with. That makes sense to me.

"Generous endowments"? My wife would hardly agree on that no matter what dimension you are referring to.

Your obsession with the federal debt is admirable but misplaced. Around 3/4 of the federal debt is owned by US citizens, investors, and financial funds,the Federal reserve, and state and local governments. Only 1/4 is owned by foreign entities,

This distinction is important when looking at the US debt because it means that we are repaying 3/4 of it over time to ourselves. This suggests from an overall (or macroeconomic ) perspective, there is little burden of repayment since the repayment represents a transfer of resources that stay within the country.

The remaining 1/4 (roughly 8 trillion) represents an actual loss of resources to overseas holders of debt. But that repayment is also spread out over time as well.

Since I have personally been in involved in 2 major plant closings and possibly a 3rd, my opinion is no doubt tilted how I view the economy though. The fact that this 3rd plant (I still work at) was marked for death but now survives only because of Trump causes my bias to be even more pronounced.

I do see some good news and rational thinking coming back though. At least the majority opinion today seems to have altered their view that heavy manufacturing is good for the economy. I can remember a time not long ago during Clinton and Bush when CNN would not even say that much. The propaganda back then said manufacturing and making goods was for evil suckers and that real money was made hedging stocks and manipulating financial instruments. Will this late coming common sense and rational thinking be enough to save us all at such a late stage? I guess we are about to find out.

Protecting any industry involves a tradeoff: helping a sector is the benefit, making products more expensive for everyone is the cost. Whether it is a good idea or not, depends on who you ask. Neither of my brothers - both Magas - do not like the idea of paying more for stuff so that other people can have good paying jobs.

 

[blastula]

Sean Carroll did a podcast episode about the science funding cuts.

Bonus | Cuts to Science Funding and Why They Matter – Sean Carroll

www.preposterousuniverse.com

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It is necessary, and it hasn't been referred to Congress by Trump. Musk has no legitimate authority approved by Congress, and his transparency is that of a murky swamp. When legitimate government is restored to USA there will be investigations of Musk's activities by Senate committees and Musk will face charges for breaking the law and for engaging in subversive activities. He will go to prison and then be deported to South Africa.

When? I certainly hope that will occur but I don't expect it to happen.

That's pessimistic. Taken at literal face value you seem to be saying that democracy will never be restored to USA. Alternatively, that even if it is, that as often happens the perpetrators will somehow escape justice. But the crimes in this case are so huge that there will be millions demanding justice, and they won't be quite. In fact they will see that a precedent has been set, that if you are not happy with what is done that you can storm the capital, so I think the new authorities will realize that to avoid repetitions of past actions that they need to act with the full force of the law (and the Supreme Court better comply or they can also face consequences).

Regarding the latter point, the forces of democracy will be so strengthened by people observing the example of non-democracy, that it is quite possible that they will be granted the authority to dismiss members of the Supreme Court and make new rules about how long judges can serve and limits on their power via strong rules about ethics.

Reality tends to be pessimistic. You can make noise. They don't care.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Fortunately, Trump has(had) the balls to enact tariffs and lower regulations even though the paid off economists have always said otherwise. Trump is only copying China's playbook, which has served them extremely well over the past 30 years. Thanks to our egg head economists destroying our country, Trump's tariffs may indeed be too little too late. We will just have to wait and see what happens next 4 years.

But either way that still beats the Democrat playbook of doing absolutely nothing but listening to idiot paid off economist's while our country goes into the night.

China's playbook--that made them a repressive government that's heading for disaster? They've kept their economy running too hot, the problems are coming home to roost because they ran out of room to cook the books. People had jobs doing things that weren't needed, now they have a major wave of unemployment because they ended up with too much ghost stuff that didn't pay the bills.

And The Felon's tariffs are a case of making the problem worse, not helping it. You bought a supertanker's worth of snake oil. You're the one that's going to be paying those tariffs, not the rich. It's a gargantuan shift of taxes from the wealthy to the middle class.

 

[Elixir]

NPR reports that the cartels’ fentanyl labs in northern Mexico have all shut down and moved south under unprecedented heat from law enforcement.
I bet that’s been a big inconvenience for them. The lab operators they interviewed said they even had to lay people off.
But good job, Donny.
Did RV mention that yet?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yes, the China tariffs led to thousands of new jobs in America when they were supposed to lead to millions.

The usual result of tariffs. In most cases countries would end up ahead if they simply paid the wages of the people whose jobs went overseas rather than imposed tariffs that brought the jobs back.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

By many objective measures (though NOT income equality) the country has never been more prosperous, so only in a spoiled wet-dream could it be "going into the night."

Yup. This probably isn't the best place for this but it's relevant and I'm way behind on reading so I'll post it here:

(Yeah, this is AEI but while they cherry pick they're normally honest.)
Average hourly wages are outpacing inflation. (And this actually understates the effect because the best jobs tend to be salaried.)

Chart of the Day . . . or Century?

As I wrote in the summer of 2018 on CD, I’ve probably created and posted more than 3,000 graphics on CD, Twitter, and Facebook including charts, graphs, tables, figures, maps, and Venn diagrams over the last 15 years. Of all of those graphics, I don’t think any has gotten more attention, links...

www.aei.org

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Our economy is going strong by any generally recognized standards.

So, I don’t understand the basis for your distorted view of the economy.

We all live and observe different things so that makes sense to me. If you have been in heavy manufacturing you would believe our country is in dire straights and on its last ropes. But if you were a college professor receiving generous endowments you might believe our country is just fine. You would think the college professor would at least see a dim future, concerning our $30+ trillion deficit with interest greater than the military budget. But those people aren't because life is great for them so they put this out their mind and everything has to be good for the rest of us too. Even and after 6 or 7 zeros the deficit numbers all just look normal to them. So if your life is good I can see why you would think Trump is such a pig that you should not have to put up with. That makes sense to me.

Look around you. A smaller and smaller percentage of what's around you is the result of heavy manufacturing. Of course the industry hasn't fared too well. And add in the effects of unions and things get even worse. There are areas where the US product is 10x the price of an equivalent first-world foreign product.

The problem is that while The Felon promises to make your situation better he's not going to. He's promising budget cuts that simply can't happen within what he's said he's going to do. And he's going to kill a lot of people through denial of resources. You realize an awful lot of people on Medicaid simply do not have the ability to work? And he wants to abolish the debt ceiling--not the act of someone who is looking to cut the deficit!

 

[bilby]

Average hourly wages are outpacing inflation.

Average hourly wages are pacing food and shelter.

People don't buy a new car, furniture, clothing, or TVs every week or every month. Poor people certainly don't - the waged (rather than salaried) being counted amongst them.

But they buy food and pay rent. And they don't get to choose when they need medical care. So their wages need to keep pace with increases in the price of those things, not with some generalized price index that includes the luxury goods they aren't buying.

 

[RVonse]

Fortunately, Trump has(had) the balls to enact tariffs and lower regulations even though the paid off economists have always said otherwise. Trump is only copying China's playbook, which has served them extremely well over the past 30 years. Thanks to our egg head economists destroying our country, Trump's tariffs may indeed be too little too late. We will just have to wait and see what happens next 4 years.

But either way that still beats the Democrat playbook of doing absolutely nothing but listening to idiot paid off economist's while our country goes into the night.

China's playbook--that made them a repressive government that's heading for disaster? They've kept their economy running too hot, the problems are coming home to roost because they ran out of room to cook the books. People had jobs doing things that weren't needed, now they have a major wave of unemployment because they ended up with too much ghost stuff that didn't pay the bills.

And The Felon's tariffs are a case of making the problem worse, not helping it. You bought a supertanker's worth of snake oil. You're the one that's going to be paying those tariffs, not the rich. It's a gargantuan shift of taxes from the wealthy to the middle class.

Its China's industrial policy that Trump most wants to emulate. In China, large profitable corporations are required to re-invest in China. They can not just offshore profits and pay little to no taxes like mega corporations and elites do in the US. For the first time in decades, corporations have an incentive to invest in the productive manufacturing of real stuff again- in the US.

But Trump's ultimate success will be whether he can successfully devalue the US dollar. I speculate the recent rush of gold from London to New York and the proposed audit of Fort Knox probably has something to do with this. Perhaps Trump will negotiate another Bretton Woods with the BRIC countries after he shows them how much gold and other land assets the federal government really does have. Biden and others have foolishly used our dollar as a weapon on the rest of the world and this high value of our dollar has also crushed and killed domestic manufacturing from the US (which it has). We will see if Trump can be successful reorganizing the playing field to allow the US to gain more manufacturing again.

Despite all the rhetoric otherwise Trump is extremely smart and talented with negotiating. He talks like a 4th grader but has a LOT of experience with bankruptcies; the perfect skill set needed for the conditions of our US treasury right now.

 

[laughing dog]

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Fortunately, Trump has(had) the balls to enact tariffs and lower regulations even though the paid off economists have always said otherwise. Trump is only copying China's playbook, which has served them extremely well over the past 30 years. Thanks to our egg head economists destroying our country, Trump's tariffs may indeed be too little too late. We will just have to wait and see what happens next 4 years.

But either way that still beats the Democrat playbook of doing absolutely nothing but listening to idiot paid off economist's while our country goes into the night.

China's playbook--that made them a repressive government that's heading for disaster? They've kept their economy running too hot, the problems are coming home to roost because they ran out of room to cook the books. People had jobs doing things that weren't needed, now they have a major wave of unemployment because they ended up with too much ghost stuff that didn't pay the bills.

And The Felon's tariffs are a case of making the problem worse, not helping it. You bought a supertanker's worth of snake oil. You're the one that's going to be paying those tariffs, not the rich. It's a gargantuan shift of taxes from the wealthy to the middle class.

Its China's industrial policy that Trump most wants to emulate. In China, large profitable corporations are required to re-invest in China. They can not just offshore profits and pay little to no taxes like mega corporations and elites do in the US. For the first time in decades, corporations have an incentive to invest in the productive manufacturing of real stuff again- in the US.

But Trump's ultimate success will be whether he can successfully devalue the US dollar. I speculate the recent rush of gold from London to New York and the proposed audit of Fort Knox probably has something to do with this. Perhaps Trump will negotiate another Bretton Woods with the BRIC countries after he shows them how much gold and other land assets the federal government really does have. Biden and others have foolishly used our dollar as a weapon to the rest of the world and this high value of our dollar has also crushed and killed domestic manufacturing from the US (which it has). We will see if Trump can be successful reorganizing the playing field to allow the US to gain more manufacturing again.

Despite all the rhetoric otherwise Trump is extremely smart and talented with negotiating. He talks like a 4th grader but has a LOT of experience with bankruptcies; the perfect skill set needed for the conditions of our US treasury right now.

Devalue the dollar? There is no official exchange rate - the international value of our currency is determined by the demand for dollars and the supply of dollars.

As far as experience with bankruptcies - it takes no skill to go bankrupt. And the US is nowhere close to bankruptcy.

 

[Elixir]

Devalue the dollar? There is no official exchange rate.

Why confuse trumpsuckers with facts?
Their orange jebus can screw them sideways and they thank him for the attention.

 

[RVonse]

​

Fortunately, Trump has(had) the balls to enact tariffs and lower regulations even though the paid off economists have always said otherwise. Trump is only copying China's playbook, which has served them extremely well over the past 30 years. Thanks to our egg head economists destroying our country, Trump's tariffs may indeed be too little too late. We will just have to wait and see what happens next 4 years.

But either way that still beats the Democrat playbook of doing absolutely nothing but listening to idiot paid off economist's while our country goes into the night.

China's playbook--that made them a repressive government that's heading for disaster? They've kept their economy running too hot, the problems are coming home to roost because they ran out of room to cook the books. People had jobs doing things that weren't needed, now they have a major wave of unemployment because they ended up with too much ghost stuff that didn't pay the bills.

And The Felon's tariffs are a case of making the problem worse, not helping it. You bought a supertanker's worth of snake oil. You're the one that's going to be paying those tariffs, not the rich. It's a gargantuan shift of taxes from the wealthy to the middle class.

Its China's industrial policy that Trump most wants to emulate. In China, large profitable corporations are required to re-invest in China. They can not just offshore profits and pay little to no taxes like mega corporations and elites do in the US. For the first time in decades, corporations have an incentive to invest in the productive manufacturing of real stuff again- in the US.

But Trump's ultimate success will be whether he can successfully devalue the US dollar. I speculate the recent rush of gold from London to New York and the proposed audit of Fort Knox probably has something to do with this. Perhaps Trump will negotiate another Bretton Woods with the BRIC countries after he shows them how much gold and other land assets the federal government really does have. Biden and others have foolishly used our dollar as a weapon to the rest of the world and this high value of our dollar has also crushed and killed domestic manufacturing from the US (which it has). We will see if Trump can be successful reorganizing the playing field to allow the US to gain more manufacturing again.

Despite all the rhetoric otherwise Trump is extremely smart and talented with negotiating. He talks like a 4th grader but has a LOT of experience with bankruptcies; the perfect skill set needed for the conditions of our US treasury right now.

Devalue the dollar? There is no official exchange rate - the international value of our currency is determined by the demand for dollars and the supply of dollars.

As far as experience with bankruptcies - it takes no skill to go bankrupt. And the US is nowhere close to bankruptcy.

The Triffin Dilemma

• The Triffin dilemma was identified by Belgian-American economist Robert Triffin in the 1960s.
  
  
• The dilemma arises because a country needs to limit its money supply to maintain currency stability, but also increase the money supply to serve as a global reserve currency.
  
  
• • The dilemma creates a trade deficit for the country that issues the reserve currency.
  • The dilemma can lead to a loss of confidence in the reserve currency, which could cause the world economy to become unstable.
  Example
  • • The US dollar is an example of a currency that is subject to the Triffin dilemma. The US needs to supply the world with more dollars than it takes in to meet the demand for dollars as a trade currency. This creates a trade deficit for the US.

The Triffin dilemma is why US labor has become so much more expensive than the rest of the world. NOT because US labor is unproductive.

Anyone can go bankrupt, I agree with you. The US had no trouble going bankrupt but it will take an expert (of bankruptcies) like Trump to recorver from it.

 

[Swammerdami]

I listen to the Orange Fascist only in snippets, like 0:18 to 0:38 in this YouTube. He made an interesting Freudian slip. Talking about how tariffs are "beautiful" and will make America "so strong and so rich," he says "It will never be so rich." I assume he was trying to say, "It was never so rich" but a Freudian slip accidentally caused him to tell the truth by inverting the tense, and thus inverting the meaning.

 

[laughing dog]

​

Fortunately, Trump has(had) the balls to enact tariffs and lower regulations even though the paid off economists have always said otherwise. Trump is only copying China's playbook, which has served them extremely well over the past 30 years. Thanks to our egg head economists destroying our country, Trump's tariffs may indeed be too little too late. We will just have to wait and see what happens next 4 years.

But either way that still beats the Democrat playbook of doing absolutely nothing but listening to idiot paid off economist's while our country goes into the night.

China's playbook--that made them a repressive government that's heading for disaster? They've kept their economy running too hot, the problems are coming home to roost because they ran out of room to cook the books. People had jobs doing things that weren't needed, now they have a major wave of unemployment because they ended up with too much ghost stuff that didn't pay the bills.

And The Felon's tariffs are a case of making the problem worse, not helping it. You bought a supertanker's worth of snake oil. You're the one that's going to be paying those tariffs, not the rich. It's a gargantuan shift of taxes from the wealthy to the middle class.

Its China's industrial policy that Trump most wants to emulate. In China, large profitable corporations are required to re-invest in China. They can not just offshore profits and pay little to no taxes like mega corporations and elites do in the US. For the first time in decades, corporations have an incentive to invest in the productive manufacturing of real stuff again- in the US.

But Trump's ultimate success will be whether he can successfully devalue the US dollar. I speculate the recent rush of gold from London to New York and the proposed audit of Fort Knox probably has something to do with this. Perhaps Trump will negotiate another Bretton Woods with the BRIC countries after he shows them how much gold and other land assets the federal government really does have. Biden and others have foolishly used our dollar as a weapon to the rest of the world and this high value of our dollar has also crushed and killed domestic manufacturing from the US (which it has). We will see if Trump can be successful reorganizing the playing field to allow the US to gain more manufacturing again.

Despite all the rhetoric otherwise Trump is extremely smart and talented with negotiating. He talks like a 4th grader but has a LOT of experience with bankruptcies; the perfect skill set needed for the conditions of our US treasury right now.

Devalue the dollar? There is no official exchange rate - the international value of our currency is determined by the demand for dollars and the supply of dollars.

As far as experience with bankruptcies - it takes no skill to go bankrupt. And the US is nowhere close to bankruptcy.

The Triffin Dilemma

• The Triffin dilemma was identified by Belgian-American economist Robert Triffin in the 1960s.
  
  
• The dilemma arises because a country needs to limit its money supply to maintain currency stability, but also increase the money supply to serve as a global reserve currency.
  
  
• • The dilemma creates a trade deficit for the country that issues the reserve currency.
  • The dilemma can lead to a loss of confidence in the reserve currency, which could cause the world economy to become unstable.
  Example
  • • The US dollar is an example of a currency that is subject to the Triffin dilemma. The US needs to supply the world with more dollars than it takes in to meet the demand for dollars as a trade currency. This creates a trade deficit for the US.

The Triffin dilemma is why US labor has become so much more expensive than the rest of the world. NOT because US labor is unproductive.

The Triffin dilemma is explicitly applicable to a world of fixed exchanges. We don't live in the world any more. We live in a world of floating exchange rates. In any case, it has nothing to do with the US going bankrupt.

Anyone can go bankrupt, I agree with you. The US had no trouble going bankrupt but it will take an expert (of bankruptcies) like Trump to recorver from it.

The US is not bankrupt. Nor is it necessarily going bankrupt. So what are you going on about?

 

[laughing dog]

I listen to the Orange Fascist only in snippets, like 0:18 to 0:38 in this YouTube. He made an interesting Freudian slip. Talking about how tariffs are "beautiful" and will make America "so strong and so rich," he says "It will never be so rich." I assume he was trying to say, "It was never so rich" but a Freudian slip accidentally caused him to tell the truth by inverting the tense, and thus inverting the meaning.

Perhaps, but the inverted meaning is the more likely outcome.