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

[KCFlyer]

their proposed deletion of references to the Enola Gay.

The word 'gay' is no longer allowed in public discourse.

They'll just call it Enola Homosexual

 

[Politesse]

I have a few ounces of gold, myself. I collect old coins and such, but in no way do I regard gold as a viable hedge against any collapse of the dollar. A few ounces might keep you going a few months, so hold your gold, but don't buy it by the pound, unless you want to freeze your assets. If our society were to collapse that totally, I'm not sure you'd be able to used gold (by the ounce) to buy groceries and such or that gold would ever become the prime method of payment in such a situation. Silver would, in my opinion, be a more likely unit of exchange, and even that might be unlikely if we fell into a barter society.

Gold is, IMO, too expensive to be used as a prime method of payment. Gold, currently being valued nearly $3,000 per ounce, would have to be cut into small pieces or ground into dust.

Oh, a coyote will take it happily; they know a guy, and fence it all at their leisure. Btu the gold is just enough to get you out of the country, you're on your own after that.

 

[Politesse]

their proposed deletion of references to the Enola Gay.

The word 'gay' is no longer allowed in public discourse.

They'll just call it Enola Homosexual

Enola No-Homo. Or in textbooks, the "Enola* [see footnote]"

 

[Shadowy Man]

So Trump's six bankruptcies "are a feature not a bug."

The bankruptcies themselves are not the feature. The experience gained going through six of them is.

So, the experience of five bankruptcies was not enough to avoid a sixth? Or are we assuming that bankruptcies is not a bad thing for a business? I’m confused.

 

[Elixir]

Rumpsuckers admire a guy who isn’t afraid to go bankrupt.
Again and again and again and again and again.
Rumpsuckers are not known for their acumen. They don’t realize that bankruptcy means stiffing other people.

 

[Swammerdami]

I will NOT try to predict the future. And since I've already exceeded the cliched "3-score and ten" I may miss out on the excitement anyway.
Serious question: Are there serious thinkers who have predicted the world situation (especially financial aspects) for the 2030's and late 2020's?

A major crisis does seem likely, but will it be much worse than the 2008 crisis? During that crisis, the "worst of our lifetimes", bank accounts and the dollar retained value, and asset prices recovered fairly quickly. (Out-of-the-money homeowners were raped but that's off-topic here.)
Maybe I'm too optimistic, but I think there's a good chance that the Dollar will muddle along despite Putin's efforts to destroy it.

If there should be a cataclysm so severe that banks are shuttered, then ZiprHead is probably right: Guns and bullets may be the important asset to have stocked, rather than precious metals. I live in Thailand, so our scenarios may be different. But a major collapse of the U.S. Dollar will plunge the entire developed world into chaos.

I have a few ounces of gold, myself. I collect old coins and such, but in no way do I regard gold as a viable hedge against any collapse of the dollar. A few ounces might keep you going a few months, so hold your gold, but don't buy it by the pound, unless you want to freeze your assets. If our society were to collapse that totally, I'm not sure you'd be able to used gold (by the ounce) to buy groceries and such or that gold would ever become the prime method of payment in such a situation. Silver would, in my opinion, be a more likely unit of exchange, and even that might be unlikely if we fell into a barter society.

Gold is, IMO, too expensive to be used as a prime method of payment. Gold, currently being valued nearly $3,000 per ounce, would have to be cut into small pieces or ground into dust.

Is there no middle ground between business-as-usual and Armageddon? It would be giving up for the financial system to be shut down and an ad hoc coinage introduced.
What happened in Weimar Germany, or some of the other victims of hyperinflation? Did they not continue to use paper money, even if it took wheelbarrows to carry the paper?

Serious question: Are there serious thinkers who have predicted the world situation (especially financial aspects) for the 2030's and late 2020's?
I'd be very interested in seeing the "likely" scenarios, with their probability estimates.

 

[unapologetic]

Tell that to all the seniors who are buying gold right now.

We seniors are buying in fear of what Rump wants to/is doing. Not because of the economy up to now.

Or are we assuming that bankruptcies is not a bad thing for a business?

It allows fraudsters like Rump to walk away from a bad situation leaving others holding the bag (debt). He never lost any of his own money. So has no fear of bankruptcy.

They don’t realize that bankruptcy means stiffing other people.

For some people that is part of the charm.

What happened in Weimar Germany, or some of the other victims of hyperinflation?

I have read that in Zimbabwe (2008) people would spend their entire pay the same day they were paid. Before it could lose value. Sometimes during lunch or breaks.

 

[Swammerdami]

I think Trump should be applauded for taking a perfect centrist position on some issues.

Should the Ambassadors to Canada and Mexico treat those two countries as sovereign entities? Libtards with their DEI principles would surely argue for the sovereignty of even the most shithole country. Right-wingers, OTOH might believe that most countries -- and certainly all those in the Western Hemisphere -- should acquiesce to being vassals of Emperor Trump (or to the joint Trump-Putin hegemony).

Yesterday, the Ambassador designates to Canada and Mexico appeared before the Senate. With his appointments Trump has adopted the CENTRIST position: the Ambassador designated for Canada regards that country as sovereign and did not support the clamorings for it to be annexed by the U.S. In a show of 50-50 balance, however, when the Ambassador designated for Mexico was asked a similar question his response was "when American lives are at stake, all cards should be on the table."

This is not the only issue where Trump has found perfect compromises. For example, Democratic Senators are torn between shutting down the government and keeping it open. They should feel happy to pass the CR and turn the decision over to Trump: He can then proceed with his plans to shut down 50% of the government and leave the other 50% open. I receive monthy SocSec checks, and will be grateful if these checks are cut only 50%. I expect Trump to be called The Great Compromiser. Nobody's ever seen anything like it.

 

[TV and credit cards]

The VA just did half a procedure on me. Now I’m walking around with a camera hanging out my ass.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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.

Cars are a substantial expense for most people.

The one thing on that list that bites is health care--and note that much of that is paid by insurance. Otherwise we are equal or ahead.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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.

Let's look more carefully at the China situation. Their economy is royally fucked--the government tried to maintain growth with simulated demand. It's not that China wants companies to invest in production in China--in many cases they already have too much. Rather, it's that China doesn't want the money to flee from theft by Beijing. And theft there certainly has been--the system is corrupt enough that the top people inevitably are corrupt. Don't adequately kiss ass and you get charged with corruption and lose your money.

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.

Devaluing a currency is easy. It's just very bad for the country that does it.

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.

The US treasury isn't bankrupt. It probably will be when the Republicans get done looting, though.

Look at what they're after now: Take a trillion dollars from help for the poor (a lot of that is going to people utterly unable to work) and give it to the rich in the form of tax cuts. Even worse than his prior approach of tax cuts running up the deficit.

 

[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.

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.

You're basing this on a house of cards. An awful lot of money comes into the US as payment for services. But since there are no goods it doesn't get counted in terms of the balance of trade.

And what connection does that have to the efficiency of US labor??? US labor stinks because unions widely raise costs, not just in terms of wages but in terms of how many people need to be employed. An awful lot of effort goes into having multiple people do what one could have.

 

[bilby]

Cars are a substantial expense for most people.

Sure. But how often does a poor person buy a new car?

It's new cars that are shown on that graph. Not car repairs and parts, gasoline, car insurance, car registration, road tolls, car loan interest, or even used cars. Those are the "substantial expenses" most people have from car ownership.

You are moving the goalposts.

 

[Elixir]

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

* He lowered prices on stocks.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Its China's industrial policy that Trump most wants to emulate.

China's industrial policy is to enslave the people of China for the benefit of the elite.

Really? I see that the U.S. GINI is higher than China's. China's is about the same as Thailand's. (The U.S.-China comparison may tell us more about the U.S. than about China. Among "High Income" countries, only Panama, Guyana and Chile have higher GINIs than the U.S. --  List of countries by income inequality.)

Also comparing average income is useful when comparing GINI. China is now ahead of India, most of SE Asia and almost all of Africa for GDP (PPP) per capita. (If that does not impress, look at the data just a few decades ago.) China scores even higher on GDP (nominal) per capita, ahead of Malaysia, Serbia, Brazil.

Whatever its faults, China has made HUGE advances by several measures in recent years. -- Progress SO rapid that many older views of China are now obsolete.)

(Of course these comments are NOT to defend any particular Trump utterance.)

I fully agree that China has made huge advances--that doesn't refute the notion that it's for the benefit of their elite.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And the US is nowhere close to bankruptcy.

Tell that to all the seniors who are buying gold right now. I'm certainly not the only one who thinks the US is bankrupt either.

When I was younger, I can remember my grandparents putting their savings in the bank and investing in US bonds. They actually trusted the banks (being insured by the US) and the US bonds themselves. Now when I watch television shows that my then grandparents would have watched, every other advertisement is to buy gold from a dealer in order to insure their savings. This difference in the public's faith of the US treasury did not come from no where. And its not just the old generation who are worried. Many younger people are "prepping" and buying freeze dried food knowing they can eat in case of a huge hyper inflationary event. Even the billionaire class is affected by the US treasurey. They are out purchasing silos and retreats in other parts of the world.

The grifters told them to. Just because a lot of people got scammed is no reason you should try to get scammed also!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

When I was younger, I can remember my grandparents putting their savings in the bank and investing in US bonds. They actually trusted the banks (being insured by the US) and the US bonds themselves. Now when I watch shows that my then grandparents would have watched, every other commercial is how to buy gold from a dealer to protect their savings. I don't think believe this difference in faith of the US treasury came no where. And its not just the old generation who are worried. Many younger people are "prepping" and buying freeze dried food so they know in case of a huge hyper inflationary event they can eat. Even the billionaires who should not be worried are worried when you see how they are buying silos and retreats in other parts of the world.

What the hell kind of TV are you watching??? This is the kind of advertising you will see on primarily conservative TV. It's not mainstream.

Yup, see ads for such stuff, you know you're watching right wing garbage.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Of course nobody, not even RVonse himself, believes that this was written by RVonse! My question to @RVonse is how did he let this bizarrely-corrupted quote tree pass? There are buttons labeled Preview and Edit. If this performance is indicative of your editing skill, it's no wonder you've been reluctant to link to your scholarly peer-reviewed articles on bankruptcies, the "Triffin Dilemma" and why Trump's fraud convictions make him an ideal candidate to fight fraud in government.

Actually, we probably are close to bankruptcy--because the Republicans are playing corporate raider. And what usually happens to the husk left behind??

... Now when I watch television shows that my then grandparents would have watched, every other advertisement is to buy gold from a dealer in order to insure their savings....

Something so obvious that your economics professors may not have mentioned it is that when a huckster ADVERTISES his snake oil, it's because he'd rather that YOU buy it then that he drink it himself.

I'm not ashamed to admit that my savings include several ounces of gold. (It's a hedge, easy to buy, easy to sell.) But based on RVonse's enthusiasm I'm going to reconsider and perhaps SELL the gold!

Yup, be very wary of any investment pitch. As with all ads, if it's not targeted it's incredibly inefficient and thus almost certainly an indication that it's not something you want.

 

[bilby]

Actually, we probably are close to bankruptcy

How is that even possible?

What debts does the US have that are not denominated in US dollars?

Bankruptcy is a declaration that you cannot and so will not pay your debts; But there is no circumstance under which the US government cannot pay any debt denominated in US dollars.

It could choose not to pay its debts - but that's not bankruptcy, it's just delinquency.

It could render its debts worthless (or just worth less) by inflation, but that makes them no less easy to pay or to service - the creditors may end up with a stack of worthless dollars, but they will still get paid the dollars they are owed; it's not bankruptcy if you pay what you owe, even if the creditor was hoping that the payment would be more valuable than it turned out to be.

So how could the US ever be bankrupt? "Close to bankruptcy" is a meaningless concept for a fiat currency issuer, all of whose debt is denominated in their own currency.

Does the US owe anyone Gold, Silver, euros, Yen, Roubles, or any other currency or commodity, whose supply is outside US Government control?

 

[unapologetic]

Sure. But how often does a poor person buy a new car?

I have a friend who buys the worst/cheapest POS he can find. Never puts any money into it. And just replaces it every 2-3 years with another POS. Only bothers with liability insurance, not damage. (never had an accident as far as I know).