Richard Rowland

Very informative, matcheknife. Thanks for sharing.

moldyoldy

Billionaire Carl Icahn, President Donald Trump’s longtime friend and former special adviser, sold $31.3 million in shares of a steel-related company just before Trump announced tariffs on imported steel and aluminum.

http://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-pal-carl-icahn-unloaded-121446090.html

Crayons Loc: St Jo, Texas

Great; Hope it was Cheap ChiCom Steel.

Lonewolf

Thats the sreel trump used in trump tower


quote=11r20]Great; Hope it was Cheap ChiCom Steel.[/quote]

Crayons Loc: St Jo, Texas

[quote=Lonewolf]Thats the sreel trump used in trump tower

How long has Trumpy been livin Rent Free in that empty head of yours?
TDS much?

JFlorio Loc: Seminole Florida

Just saw where Cohen's resigning. Hmm, wasn't sure about the tariff thing but having an investment banker resign over them makes me think they may be the right way to go. I know most of your power players on both sides of the aisle, especially Ryan are owned by big g*******t business. You'd think this would be a simple fix. If your tax is 15% on a certain good our tax will be the same; etc. etc,.. [quote=11r20]

Richard Rowland

Here's Bob Livingston's perspective, regarding the tariff's. Perhaps, I should have created a new thread featuring Bob's perspective.

Richard, thanks for subscribing since 10/23/2015. Unsubscribe

First, I would like to say that the timing of Donald Trump's announcement on expansive trade tariffs is unusual if not impeccable. I say this only if Trump's plan was to benefit establishment g*******ts by giving them perfect cover for their continued demolition of the market bubbles that they have engineered since the crash of 2008.

If this was not his plan, then I am a bit bewildered by what he hopes to accomplish. It is certainly not the end of trade deficits and the return of American industry. But let's explore the situation for a moment...

Trump is in my view a modern day Herbert Hoover. One of Hoover's first actions as president in response to the crash of 1929 was to support increased tax cuts, primarily for corporations (this was then followed in 1932 by extensive tax increases in the midst of the depression, so let's see what Trump does in the next couple of years). His hyperfocus on massive infrastructure spending resulted in U.S. debt expansion and did nothing to dig the U.S. out of the unemployment abyss. In fact, infrastructure projects like the Hoover Dam, which were launched in 1931, were not paid off for over 50 years. Hoover oversaw the beginning of the Great Depression and ended up as a single-term Republican president who paved the way socially for FDR, an essential c*******t and perhaps the worst president in American history.

I'm hitting readers with all of this because I am growing rather tired of the contingent of Trump apologists in the liberty movement scrambling to defend every single Trump action no matter how illogical. These people should know better.

The key to all of this is the fact that many of Trump's policies are things that I and many others have argued for in the past. The problem is, he is implementing them out of order, which will only make such policies appear destructive in the end, rather than constructive.

In terms of the implementation of tariffs, the people who are defending this action at this time do not seem to understand the basics of international trade. Tariffs can only be enacted from a position of economic strength. This strength comes from internal self-sufficiency in production, meaning, in order for the U.S. to force a trade balance (which is what tariffs are supposed to do) the U.S. must have a strong industrial base and must be capable of producing most if not all necessary goods and goods in broad demand.

The fact is, U.S. manufacturing has been utterly outsourced by the very corporations Trump just gave a 10 percent tax cut to, and rebuilding that industrial base would take decades. Why? Because there are no incentives for corporations to bring manufacturing back.

As I already stated, Trump is instituting potentially solid policies but he is doing so out of order. Tax cuts for corporations should have been enacted only as an incentive for manufacturing jobs to be returned to America. Instead, corporations got tax cuts for absolutely nothing. And will those tax cuts go towards more jobs or innovation? Nope. They will be going to pay off unprecedented corporate debts, and stock buybacks, most of which were accrued through unprecedented corporate debt.

Will this stock buyback bonanza even generate new highs in the Dow? Probably not. But I'll explain why that is later.

If Trump had given tax incentives for corporations to bring manufacturing back into the U.S., and then given those corporations a few years to make the shift, only then would tariffs have been an effective action. But as the situation stands now, we have minimal tangible production in this country, and, historic debts held by the same overseas competitors that Trump is now seeking to "teach a lesson."

Debt is the next issue which needs to be addressed before tariffs can ever be implemented in a practical way. In terms of national debt, rather than setting up a plan to reduce U.S. debt expenditures, Trump is increasing debt by reducing taxes while at the same time increasing spending. Trump did not take a hard stand on the debt ceiling debate as he originally claimed he would, and so, the debt train continues unabated.

Who is going to purchase this debt, I wonder? Over the past several years the largest buyer of U.S. treasury debt was the Federal Reserve through fiat money creation. Now, the Fed has tapered quantitative easing and is dumping their balance sheet at a rate faster than anyone expected. The Fed is pulling the plug on it's artificial support of the economy.

The next largest buyers are major foreign central banks in countries like China, Japan and to some extent the EU. If the debt buyers of last resort are now the very same countries Trump is seeking to enact tariffs over, how do you think this little theater will end? Yes, with a dump of U.S. treasury bonds and perhaps the dollar as world reserve by those very same nations.

But what about the U.S. consumer? Isn't the consumer market in America so enticing that nations like China would "never dare" dump U.S. debt or the dollar? No, not really. If we are talking about a trade "war," then a country like China, which has a vast manufacturing base and which has also been building up its own domestic consumer market would be willing to make the sacrifice. America would be hurt far more by the threat debt default and the loss of the dollar's international buying power than China ever would be by the loss of American consumers. With tariffs being implemented, they may lose the American consumer anyway.

Our retail market is hardly as appetizing as it was 10 years ago given the decade of drudgery Americans have endured, with the largest number of working age citizens no longer participating in the jobs market, as well as real worker wages in continued decline while the American consumer is now more indebted than at any other time in history.

All of these negative effects are weighing down our economy while the Federal Reserve is quickly deflating the fraudulent markets that the establishment used during the Obama administration to argue that America was "in recovery." Of course, alternative economists have known since the beginning that this was a lie, and that the only thing propping up the economy and stock markets was central bank manipulation.

The Fed under Jerome Powell has made it crystal clear that they will be raising interest rates and cutting the Fed balance sheet, perhaps more than their dot plots had indicated in the past. Without low rates and a steadily rising balance sheet we have already seen the results. Stocks in particular have gone crazy compared to the past few years, dumping nearly 10 percent one week, spiking about half that the next week. One thing is certain, the supposedly endless bull market induced by the Fed years ago is now over. The economy is in heart attack mode.

It is no coincidence that the first two times the Fed reduced its balance sheet the Dow plunged over 1,000 points. The latest dump of $23 billion at the end of February resulted in a drop of around 1,500 points. It is too early in this process to know what the trend will be, but it seems to me that stocks are being steam valved down every month. With a marked decline just after a balance sheet dump, followed by a less impressive dead cat bounce the week after.

In the meantime, Trump's "trade war" is now being blamed in the mainstream for the decline in stocks that the Fed is actually responsible for. As I have always said, Trump is the ideal scapegoat for the inevitable economic crisis the central bankers have staged.

So, to summarize, while Trump has indeed set in motion policies that conservatives in general tend to approve of, he has done so in an impractical way that will ultimately be blamed for a market crash. Is Trump aware that his policies are creating a perfect distraction for the banking elites? I believe we will know for certain the answer to that question before 2018 is over.

To t***h and knowledge,

Brandon Smith

pafret Loc: Northeast

Excellent analysis and spot on with his observation that tariffs cannot be imposed from a position of weakness.

Richard Rowland

I did, however, question and am a bit confused, about his assertion that citizens no longer participate in the job market, and the declining wage thing. I'm under the impression, things are looking better in those areas.

pafret Loc: Northeast

I worked for a Recruiting agency for a brief period when there was a huge demand for Software IT people to fix Sarbanes-Oxley related problems. The vast majority of people who were placed were H1B Indians. Americans were extremely rare to the point that I finally left that job. The Indians were coming in with advanced degrees, (Masters and Doctorates) and working for the same money as a Journeyman Software Engineer. This is the situation that prevails when you alter immigration to favor those with high education only, they take the high level good paying jobs Americans used to hold because Americans don't typically go after the higher degrees and then work for coolie wages. This influx of foreigners competing for our better jobs has not abated. All of thos Americans who are incurring enormous debt to get a degree have a rude awakening, Their better educated import will work for less and they will be in debt forever. We have found a new way to ens***e Americans.

Manufacturing has been k**led by lack of prosecution of dumping by various nations, China and Japan particularly. Couple that with NAFTA and an overbearing EPA which regulates whole industries out of business and you have job loss and job flight to less over-regulated countries. We have a history of inventing industries and then loosing the jobs and technical capacity to produce. Consider Texas Instruments as an example, where are computer chips made now?

Those jobs will take years to recreate because those industries are moribund from illegal competition and over regulation. The wealth of this nation was not created by burger-flippers or "service industry" workers and an upsurge in these jobs is meaningless.

Trump is correct when he says that protecting our steel industry is a matter of national security. We have no lead smelting plants left in this country, the EPA succeeded in shutting down the last one a few years ago. In the event of a shooting war where are we going to get the lead for bullets? Who will supply us chips for our smart bombs? Where will the next replacement of the ubiquitous smart phones come from? The key determining factor in winning WWII was our massive manufacturing capacity to create and supply the weapons of war.

This capacity was created by the unique circumstance of a nation suddenly leaping into an uber industrial revolution and men like John Jacob Astor - Cornelius Vanderbilt - Andrew Carnegie - John D. Rockefeller - Henry Ford - Joseph P. Kennedy were the Tycoons who created that leap and the industrial strength to drive it. This is no longer a frontier nation and most of what these men had created is now sorely in need of repair and rebuilding. Where is the money to come from? We have been at war almost continuously since Vietnam and any expenditure for war is a wasted resource. That is true whether it is a defensive war or an offensive one.

Circumstances are very different. Tariffs have had a bad name since Smoot-Hawley put them on over twenty thousand specific items and precipitated the trade wars which caused the depression to be prolonged. Hopefully Trump can walk the narrow line, which protects our remaining industry, while not provoking a world wide trade war. Whether we have a depression is not in his hands, but in the control of the Federal Reserve and they seem to be moving in that direction.

moldyoldy

You are right about the Indians and the H1B visas, the money they make here for a lower level job is so much more than what they make at home. I have seen the influx for many years, business has no incentive to hire Americans, and the government keeps allowing more H1B visas. Even trump uses this process for cooks and maids, which is strange.

Richard Rowland

When compared to real intelligence, I consider myself dumber than a box of rocks. I suppose most of what I think is from gut instinct. While I read and consume information as much or more than the average that isn't what I consider real intelligence, it's just being informed.

Still, in my limited capacity, I've concluded that America's run is over, tariffs or not. Having thought about America's declining circumstances and how history shows the rise and fall of prosperous societies over the course of eons, I've concluded that Trump's, or anyone's attempt to stop the slide is a lost cause. I've reduced the myriad tomes of economic theory of cause and effect down to a simple conclusion.

It seems reasons know only to the God's, why a nation rises and falls. However, it's those same God's that have seemingly smiled on a society, sending it on its way to power and prosperity, then deciding to pull the plug and give their blessing to the next recipient, thus emptying the cup of the former into the cup of the present, which seems, now, to be China.

pafret Loc: Northeast

]
The eight stages of the rise and fall of civilizations

Sociologists and anthropologists have described the stages of the rise and fall of the world’s great civilizations. Scottish philosopher Alexander Tyler of the University of Edinburg noted eight stages that articulate well what history discloses. I first encountered these in in Ted Flynn’s book The Great T***sformation. They provide a great deal of perspective to what we are currently experiencing.

Let’s look at each of the eight stages. The names of the stages are from Tyler’s book

From bondage to spiritual growth – Great civilizations are formed in the crucible. The Ancient Jews were in bondage for 400 years in Egypt. The Christian faith and the Church came out of 300 years of persecution. Western Christendom emerged from the chaotic conflicts during the decline of the Roman Empire and the movements of often fierce “barbarian” tribes. American culture was formed by the injustices that grew in colonial times. Sufferings and injustices cause—even force—spiritual growth. Suffering brings wisdom and demands a spiritual discipline that seeks justice and solutions.

From spiritual growth to great courage – Having been steeled in the crucible of suffering, courage and the ability to endure great sacrifice come forth. Anointed leaders emerge and people are summoned to courage and sacrifice (including loss of life) in order to create a better, more just world for succeeding generations. People who have little or nothing, also have little or nothing to lose and are often more willing to live for something more important than themselves and their own pleasure. A battle is begun, a battle requiring courage, discipline, and other virtues.

From courage to liberty – As a result of the courageous fight, the foe is vanquished and liberty and greater justice emerges. At this point a civilization comes forth, rooted in its greatest ideals. Many who led the battle are still alive, and the legacy of those who are not is still fresh. Heroism and the virtues that brought about liberty are still esteemed. The ideals that were struggled for during the years in the crucible are still largely agreed upon.

From liberty to abundance – Liberty ushers in greater prosperity, because a civilization is still functioning with the virtues of sacrifice and hard work. But then comes the first danger: abundance. Things that are in too great an abundance tend to weigh us down and take on a life of their own. At the same time, the struggles that eng****r wisdom and steel the soul to proper discipline and priorities move to the background. Jesus said that man’s life does not consist in his possessions. But just try to tell that to people in a culture that starts to experience abundance. Such a culture is living on the fumes of earlier sacrifices; its people become less and less willing to make such sacrifices. Ideals diminish in importance and abundance weighs down the souls of the citizens. The sacrifices, discipline, and virtues responsible for the thriving of the civilization are increasingly remote from the collective conscience; the enjoyment of their fruits becomes the focus.

From abundance to complacency – To be complacent means to be self-satisfied and increasingly unaware of serious trends that undermine health and the ability to thrive. Everything looks fine, so it must be fine. Yet foundations, resources, infrastructures, and necessary virtues are all crumbling. As virtues, disciplines, and ideals become ever more remote, those who raise alarms are labeled by the complacent as “k**ljoys” and considered extreme, harsh, or judgmental.

From complacency to apathy – The word apathy comes from the Greek and refers to a lack of interest in, or passion for, the things that once animated and inspired. Due to the complacency of the previous stage, the growing lack of attention to disturbing trends advances to outright dismissal. Many seldom think or care about the sacrifices of previous generations and lose a sense that they must work for and contribute to the common good. “Civilization” suffers the serious blow of being replaced by personalization and privatization in growing degrees. Working and sacrificing for others becomes more remote. Growing numbers becoming increasingly willing to live on the carcass of previous sacrifices. They park on someone else’s dime, but will not fill the parking meter themselves. Hard work and self-discipline continue to erode.

From apathy to dependence – Increasing numbers of people lack the virtues and zeal necessary to work and contribute. The suffering and the sacrifices that built the culture are now a distant memory. As discipline and work increasingly seem “too hard,” dependence grows. The collective culture now tips in the direction of dependence. Suffering of any sort seems intolerable. But virtue is not seen as the solution. Having lived on the sacrifices of others for years, the civilization now insists that “others” must solve their woes. This ushers in growing demands for governmental, collective solutions. This in turns deepens dependence, as solutions move from personal virtue and local, family-based sacrifices to centralized ones.

From dependence back to bondage – As dependence increases, so does centralized power. Dependent people tend to become increasingly dysfunctional and desperate. Seeking a savior, they look to strong central leadership. But centralized power corrupts, and tends to usher in increasing intrusion by centralized power. Injustice and intrusion multiplies. But those in bondage know of no other solutions. Family and personal virtue (essential ingredients for any civilization) are now effectively replaced by an increasingly dark and despotic centralized control, hungry for more and more power. In this way, the civilization is gradually ended, because people in bondage no longer have the virtues necessary to fight.
Another possibility is that a more powerful nation or group is able to enter, by invasion or replacement, and destroy the final vestiges of a decadent civilization and replace it with their own culture.

Either way, it’s back to crucible, until suffering and conflict bring about enough of the wisdom, virtue, and courage necessary to begin a new civilization that will rise from the ashes.

Thus are the stages of civilizations. Sic t***sit gloria mundi. The Church has witnessed a lot of this in just the brief two millennia of her time. In addition to civilizations, nations have come and gone quite frequently over the years. Few nations have lasted longer than 200 years. Civilizations are harder to define with exact years, but at the beginning of the New Covenant, Rome was already in decline. In the Church’s future would be other large nations and empires in the West: the “Holy” Roman Empire, various colonial powers, the Spanish, the Portuguese, and the French. It was once said that “The sun never sets on the British Empire.” Now it does. As the West began a long decline, Napoleon made his move. Later, Hitler strove to build a German empire. Then came the USSR. And prior to all this, in the Old Testament period, there had been the Kingdom of David, to be succeeded by Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome.

These are hard days, but perspective can help. It is hard to deny that we are living at the end of an era. It is painful because something we love is dying. But from death comes forth new life. Only the Lord knows the next stage and long this interregnum will be. Look to Him. Go ahead and v**e, but put not your trust in princes (Ps 146:3). God will preserve His people, as He did in the Old Covenant. He will preserve those of us who are now joined to Him in the New Covenant. Find your place in the ark, ever ancient and yet new.

Richard Rowland

Makes sense to me. Thanks, pafret.

Geo

SAY GOODBYE TO A NAFTA DEAL? ... WAPO'S DAMIAN PALETTA: "Trudeau says NAFTA talks broke down after Pence made ultimatum": "Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said months of intense negotiations between his country, the United States and Mexico imploded Tuesday when Vice President Pence demanded that any deal expire automatically in five years.

"Trudeau said he was prepared to travel to Washington this week to try to finalize a rework of the North American Free Trade Agreement, but Pence, in the phone call, said a meeting would occur only if the 'sunset' provision was agreed to in advance.

"'I had to highlight that there was no possibility of any Canadian prime minister signing a NAFTA deal that included a five-year sunset clause, and obviously the visit didn't happen,' Trudeau said Thursday. ... Trudeau said Thursday that he felt the United States, Mexico and Canada were on the verge of a renegotiated NAFTA that he described as a 'win, win, win' before the talks stalled after the Pence phone call." https://wapo.st/2J7uOKL

THROWDOWN ... CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER JUSTIN TRUDEAU on the tariffs, in a speech yesterday: "Let me be clear: These tariffs are totally unacceptable. For 150 years, Canada has been America's most steadfast ally. Canadians have served alongside Americans in two world wars and in Korea. From the beaches of Normandy to the mountains of Afghanistan, we have fought and died together.

"Canadian personnel are serving alongside Americans at this very moment. We are partners in NORAD, NATO, and around the world. We came to America's aid after 9/11 - as Americans have come to our aid in the past. We are fighting together against Daesh in Northern Iraq.

"The numbers are clear: The United States has a $2 billion U.S. dollars surplus in steel trade with Canada - and Canada buys more American steel than any other country in the world, half of U.S. steel exports. Canada is a secure supplier of aluminum and steel to the U.S. defense industry, putting aluminum in American planes and steel in American tanks. That Canada could be considered a national security threat to the United States is inconceivable. ...

"In closing, I want to be very clear about one thing: Americans remain our partners, friends, and allies. This is not about the American people. We have to believe that at some point their common sense will prevail. But we see no sign of that in this action today by the U.S. administration."


CUE THE WEST WING PALACE INTRIGUE: BEN WHITE, ANDREW RESTUCCIA and NANCY COOK: "War inside Trump trade team triggers global angst": "Senior administration officials profess privately to not knowing exactly what Trump will ultimately decide to do on trade at any given moment. The uncertainty has led the president's advisers to compete for his attention in a bid to sway him, leading to nasty behind-the-scenes fights that are increasingly bursting into public view.

"The week began with a statement that the administration would move ahead with trade levies on China, just days after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said a trade war with the world's second-largest economy was 'on hold.' Trump's senior trade adviser Peter Navarro publicly rebuked Mnuchin's statement on Wednesday, calling it an 'unfortunate sound bite.'

"One senior administration official said privately this week that Navarro's public scolding of the Treasury secretary was a 'firing-level offense' but held out no hope that Trump would take any action." https://politi.co/2swjWis

JUST SAYING: Typically a White House communications director would help implement a strategy for communicating the administration's position on major policy initiatives. It's been three months since Hope Hicks departed the White House and seemingly no process has been put in place to permanently fill her slot.

-- AND THE REACTION ON THE HILL AIN'T SO GREAT EITHER ... BURGESS EVERETT: "Republicans gobsmacked by Trump's tariffs: GOP lawmakers thought the president was going to hit China — not key U.S. allies": "Republicans are bitterly protesting the Trump administration's decision to impose sweeping tariffs on U.S. allies — alarmed that the White House ignored their frenzied lobbying campaign and afraid that the party could suffer at the polls in November. ... Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) called it 'bad news' and predicted imminent retaliation from the key U.S. allies.

"Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said there is 'mounting evidence that these tariffs will harm Americans.' And Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) warned that similar policies 90 years ago sparked the Great Depression. 'This is dumb. Europe, Canada, and Mexico are not China, and you don't treat allies the same way you treat opponents,' Sasse said. '"Make America Great Again" shouldn't mean "Make America 1929 Again."' https://politi.co/2su3lM4

ALL OF THIS IS IN ADDITION to the fact that it was looking extraordinarily unlikely that Congress would ratify a new NAFTA this year anyway.