Robert Mueller had dinner in Georgetown tonight......looks like David McCallum aka “Ducky” from NCIS is on the job : )

 

 

 

tv man, go read a book

paul krugman’s newsletter from this morning

Tuesday, May 7, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/column/paul-krugman


Trade war, what is it good for?


Paul Krugman
Opinion Columnist

If you’re trying to understand why we may be on the brink of a full-scale trade war, with a huge expansion of U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods and, inevitably, Chinese retaliation, it may help to remember what happened a few weeks ago, while Notre Dame was burning.

As you may recall, Donald Trump decided to tell French firefighters how to do their job, tweeting that they should use “flying water tankers” to douse the flames. The French civil defense department responded with a tweet — in slightly fractured English — that didn’t mention Trump, but pointed out that water-bombing could cause the entire cathedral to collapse.

What does this have to do with trade? What the water-bombing incident shows us is that Trump has strong opinions on everything, even when he is completely ignorant of the subject. Fortunately, when it came to French firefighting, he couldn’t turn those opinions into action. Unfortunately, when it comes to trade policy, he can: U.S. trade law gives the president enormous discretionary authority to impose tariffs.

Trump’s tweets over the past few days may well be featured in future economics textbooks as perfect illustrations of how people misunderstand the basics of international trade and trade policy. In fact, I can pretty much guarantee it, since I’m the co-author of two textbooks.

First, Trump is still saying that because we run a $500 billion trade deficit with China — it’s actually $379 billion, but who’s counting? — that means we lose $500 billion. As some economists quickly pointed out, by this logic we all lose when we go shopping at our local supermarkets. After all, do the supermarkets buy anything from us in return? No!

Second, Trump keeps asserting that China is paying the tariffs he has already imposed. This could be true, if tariffs were driving Chinese prices down; in fact, the threat of more Chinese tariffs on U.S. agricultural exports is one reason grain prices have just plunged to a record low.

But enough time has passed for economists to look at the actual results of Trump’s trade policy so far, and the Chinese are not, in fact, paying the tariffs. As I wrote a couple of months ago, “to a first approximation, foreigners paid none of the bill, U.S. companies and consumers paid all of it.”

So if you’re trying to make sense of what’s happening on trade, you should start with the basic point that Trump has no idea what he’s doing, that there isn’t any coherent U.S. policy goal.

That still leaves the question of why what seemed to be a deal in the making may have fallen apart (or maybe not: this could all be theater.) Last week it looked as if China would mollify Trump by offering some “tweetable deliveries” — promises to buy U.S. products that would let him claim victory without leading to any substantive change in Chinese policy. Did the Chinese actually, as the administration claims, start to walk back some of their promises? Did a trade hard-liner get Trump’s ear? Did Trump hear that the likely deal would probably be panned by the news media? Nobody knows.

One thing is certain, however: If we do get into a full-scale trade war, for whatever reason, it will be very hard to end it, and the world economy will never be the same.

Heads up: I'll be on vacation for the next two weeks. Next newsletter: May 28!

In keeping with the quality control of Trimp properties (rats, roaches and raw sewage at Trimp restaurants), we now have hazardous fecal coliform levels in Trimp swimming pools



https://qz.com/1612352/pools-at-trum...th-inspectors/

No one cares about that shit tho and only makes him more likeable to a large chunk of people. Things like Biden's voting record and bill legislation will be much more harmful than Bernie's silly public access TV show which by the way rules:

wow he had the same terrible posture way back when! and here i thought it was an age thing (like my great grandma)

i’m watching...

-

the goths start at 14’

he’s nice and lets them talk. even when they speak gibberish lolol

it’s like a social studies teacher

Imagine cracking his back for him and the proceeding sound wakes up every child and dog in the neighbourhood.

the walls of the indoor amusement park would fall hahaha

anywya that was a fairly nice cable access show. more “bernie listens” than bernie speaks. which is refreshing. i saw it all hahaha.

I guess you're an idiot

I'm glad that you're not buying into ilduclo's nonsense. That article was overly positive yet he chose to copy and paste the only negative paragraph. Sad!

Hah look at this idiot who can't win an argument because he cherrypicks shit

ildouche doesn’t listen to anyone who disagrees with him. he’s got everyone on ignore. i guess he’s ignoring you too now.

me, i don’t care for cognitive closure. the whole point of a forum is to discuss shit.

And people say that progressives are the close minded speech nazis haaaaaa

some are, lol

but anyway...

Exactly, they're hypocrites!

 

From last I heard eleven hours ago, not one Democrat has entered the Secure Room to read the 99.9% unredacted version.

A) they don’t want to know the truth
B) they already know the truth

Either way, all their grandstanding won’t change a thing!
(Shut Up Jerry)

this one is for the non-illiterates

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...ideas-collide/

Trump’s two worst economic ideas collide
Catherine Rampell

At 12:01 a.m. Friday, President Trump’s two worst economic ideas finally collided — and made each other even worse.

To be sure, there are a lot of terrible economic theories espoused by this president (tax cuts pay for themselves, government shutdowns are fun, scam artists should roam free, etc.). But the specific bad ideas I’m referring to are:

1. Trade wars are good and easy to win; and
2. It’s smart for the president to publicly bash the Federal Reserve.

Last fall, Trump began loudly complaining about the Fed’s interest rate hikes, in defiance of a multidecade-long policy for the White House to never comment on Fed decisions. The reason for this norm is clear: Central banks must be politically independent in both practice and perception in order to credibly commit to stable prices. If the public believes that politicians rather than independent technocrats control the printing press, inflation can easily spiral out of control. Lots of other countries throughout history (Venezuela, Argentina, pre-euro Italy) have served as cautionary tales.

But none of that mattered to Trump. He has been throwing tantrums about the Fed’s modest interest rate increases, claiming that they threaten both the U.S. economy and his presidency. At one point, there were even reports that Trump was considering taking the unprecedented and cataclysmic step of firing the Fed chair whom he appointed, Jerome H. Powell.

Markets paid attention. As it turns out, China did, too.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Beijing noticed Trump’s latest Fed-related outbursts and interpreted them as evidence that the president was freaked out about the underlying health of the U.S. economy. They suggested that he might be secretly desperate to make a deal, any deal, with China:


In other words, our dealmaker in chief failed to realize that berating the Fed not only harms the long-run credibility of the central bank; it also hurt his near-term negotiating position with China.

After previously expressing a willingness to make serious concessions, China started playing hardball. Negotiations broke down, and then Trump responded by more than doubling existing tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese imports, from 10 percent to 25 percent, on Friday. He has also threatened to add tariffs to an additional $325 billion in Chinese goods that aren’t currently taxed.

Trump seems to believe that these tariffs are an end unto themselves because they are bringing “wealth” into the country by forcing China to pay “billions” into the U.S. Treasury:


This is, to be clear, incorrect.

Two separate studies by separate teams of all-star economists have found that 100 percent of the tariffs Trump has imposed so far are being passed along to, and paid by, U.S. consumers. One of those studies also found that workers in heavily Republican counties were being hurt the most by Trump’s trade wars, thanks to both the tariffs the president has imposed on our imports and the tit-for-tat retaliation other countries have slapped on our exports.

In other words, Trump’s Fed war has worsened his trade war. And in a particularly painful, the trade war might also soon heighten his Fed war.

After all, worsening trade tensions could put the Fed in a bind. An escalation in tariffs is likely to increase uncertainty, slow down business investment and hiring, and ultimately drag on growth. But it might also raise prices, since as those studies I cited note, the cost of the tariffs so far has been passed through to U.S. consumers.

That first effect — slowing growth — would nudge the Fed toward looser monetary policy. The second effect — higher inflation — could instead nudge the Fed toward tighter monetary policy. If a spike in inflation is clearly from a transitory shock (such as a one-time increase in tariffs), Fed officials should ignore it; but even so, it might be hard to tell in the moment what’s behind any given change in the pace of price growth.

Powell acknowledged these challenges when asked by Marketplace’s Kai Ryssdal last year about the tools available if trade wars slow the economy:


Basically, escalating trade tensions could make the central bank’s already very difficult job even more difficult — and thereby provide even more fodder for Trump to complain about Fed policies.

The moral of the story: Neither trade wars nor Fed wars are good and easy to win. But especially not when fought simultaneously.

So what do you think will be the outcome of all this?

well, i don’t have a crystal ball, and if powell can’t tell how could i possibly, but besides universal pain and suffering from a global recession (lol) seems to me the marketwatch exchange with powell signals a risk for stagflation, which is when you have economic decline and high unemployment, but prices go up (instead of down due to lack of demand). stagnation + inflation.

last thing this happened here was in the 70s—actually started before the oil crisis and continued after. that’s what ushered in thatcherism and reaganomics.

eta: actually it was milton friedman’s monetarism that got us out of stagflation. but after the last recession there is not a lot of room to cut interest rates and stimulate the economy.

DJIA off over 670$ in 5 days, thanks, Trimp!

again, not for functional illiterates

—

I led a platoon in Iraq. Trump is wrong to pardon war criminals.
Soldiers pay attention to example. Murderous leaders command murderous units.

By Waitman Wade Beorn
Waitman Wade Beorn, a combat veteran of Iraq, is a Holocaust and genocide studies historian, a lecturer at the University of Virginia, and the author of “Marching Into Darkness: The Wehrmacht and the Holocaust in Belarus.” He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point.

May 9

In early 2003, as a cavalry officer, I stood in front of my scout platoon at dusk after a long day preparing to deploy to Iraq. I spoke with them about the law of war and how they should treat civilians when we got into theater. It wasn’t a long conversation, but I felt that giving clear guidance about what was acceptable — and not acceptable — was important. They should treat the civilians as they would neighbors, I told them. Soldiers take most seriously the things their leadership makes most serious.

On Monday, President Trump pardoned the convicted war criminal Michael Behenna, who had murdered Ali Mansur, an unarmed, naked Iraqi, by shooting him in the head and chest. Making a specious claim of self-defense, Behenna argued that Mansur threw a piece of concrete at him and “ stood up like he’s coming at me.” And so he neutralized this threat, a naked man, already released by the Army. Behenna was supposed to be returning Mansur home to his village. A military court convicted Behenna of unpremeditated murder. American soldiers testified against him. The military court of appeals and a review panel upheld that conviction, though he was paroled early, in 2014.

Even before pardoning Behenna, Trump demonstrated a disturbing flippancy toward war crimes. He has repeatedly expressed support for former Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher, another alleged war criminal. Gallagher’s own men told investigators that he had, according to the New York Times, “shot a girl in a flower-print hijab who was walking with other girls on the riverbank.” In 2017, Gallagher walked up to a 15-year-old prisoner of war and “stabbed the wounded teenager several times in the neck and once in the chest with his hunting knife, killing him.” He then texted images of his “kill” to friends. Even in the tightknit Special Operations community, fellow SEALs were horrified and repeatedly reported Gallagher’s behavior until charges were brought. He faces court-martial at the end of the month. Trump tweeted that Gallagher would be given better conditions in confinement “in honor of his past service,” an honor many would say he threw away long ago.

Trump has also publicly supported Maj. Matt Golsteyn, who is charged with premeditated murder in the shooting of an unarmed man and the burning of his body in Afghanistan. “I will be reviewing the case of a ‘U.S. Military hero,’ ” the president tweeted.

In at least three instances, then, our commander in chief appears to have preferred to overlook serious war crimes in favor of a warped notion of patriotism and heroism. Trump subscribes to a “bad things happen in war” mentality — odd for a man who actively avoided military service.

This attitude is incredibly dangerous. It doesn’t just undermine the enforcement of military justice; it also sends a message to our armed forces about just what kind of conduct the United States takes seriously.

In my book “Marching Into Darkness,” I wrote about the German army’s participation in the Holocaust at the small-unit level. One conclusion was that, even given the premeditated, racist and highly ideologized environment of the Wehrmacht, the culture of each unit and the institutional leadership most directly influenced whether war crimes were committed. Murderous leaders led murderous units, I found.

Fortunately, the U.S. military does not exist in this kind of ethical quagmire. Compared with our opponents in the modern age, we have taken much more care to prosecute warfare in accordance with the laws of war. We have systems of military education that highlight our values and the law of armed conflict. And we have a military justice system that, while not perfect, prosecutes and condemns those service members who commit atrocities. In short, we have a foundation of military ethics that our combat leaders can stand on.

But what happens when that ethical foundation erodes or crumbles? There are things we can learn from the German military and the Holocaust that are relevant today — without arguing that we are Nazis. One lesson is the influence of an institution’s culture on criminal behavior during wartime. The German state intentionally created such a culture (another important distinction from the current situation). Before a German soldier set foot in the Soviet Union, he received several unmistakable clues about what behavior would be acceptable. The Commissar Order explicitly called for the summary execution of all Red Army political officers, an act that violated all laws of war, including those that Germany was party to. Also, the guidelines for German troops, disseminated the day before the invasion, stated that “this war demands ruthless and aggressive action against Bolshevik agitators, snipers, saboteurs, and Jews and tireless elimination of any active or passive resistance.” “Passive resistance” would be interpreted liberally. Last, and most striking in light of Trump’s pardon of Behenna, was the Jurisdiction Order. Issued in May 1941 directly by Adolf Hitler, it informed troops that “for offenses committed by members of the Wehrmacht and its employees against enemy civilians, prosecution is not compulsory, not even if the offense is at the same time a military crime or violation.” Soldiers were literally told that they would not be tried for behavior that would be a crime anywhere else in Europe.

The Wehrmacht proceeded to commit some of the worst atrocities in the history of modern warfare on a scale that obviously dwarfs anything we have seen in Iraq or Afghanistan. But the underlying lessons remain valid. Murderous leaders led murderous units. Soldiers took their cues from the guidance they were given and the examples they were shown. They were often more likely to commit war crimes because of their commanders’ signaling than because of Nazi ideology. (In my research on the Wehrmacht, I also discovered the corollary to be true: Leaders opposed to criminality led units that did not commit crimes.)

When Trump champions war criminals as brave patriots who are simply victims of political correctness, he seems to push for a climate that condones unethical and criminal behavior. He appears to write off war crimes as the cost of doing business. If this is the example our military is given, we should not be surprised to see more Behennas and Gallaghers. Referring to the infamous Army “kill team ” in Afghanistan in 2009-2010, a senior military official noted the importance of the brigade commander’s aggressive guidance, which rejected any attempt to “win hearts and minds.” The official observed that “clearly, the guys who were pulling the trigger are the proximate cause of the crime, but the culture itself is the enabler.”

No reasonable person would claim that Trump is Hitler or that the U.S. military is the German army in World War II. Cases like those stand out as so horrific precisely because the American military has the strong ethical foundation the Wehrmacht lacked and generally does not commit war crimes. But the dynamics of units in combat at ground level can be strikingly similar across time and space, and so we ignore historical lessons at our peril. Perhaps that’s why one case study from my research on the German army and the Holocaust forms the foundation of a training module for the U.S. military in conjunction with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and West Point. It is used by ROTC programs and military units across the country.

Leaders are constantly making policy, by what they do — and by what they don’t do. Trump’s posture endangers our deployed men and women by betraying the trust of host nations that we will prosecute those rare individuals who commit crimes against their people.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlo...013_story.html

lmao. that article wasn’t about who can vote. it’s about leadership.

please

your rube goldberg justifications are the derangement

“i am quite disturbed but what about irrelevant whataboutisms”

Repub FCC Commissioner Michael O'Reilly spoke to an audience of debt collectors at ACA International. Debt collectors are one of the country's most zealous users of robocalls, a tool they deploy to hound people in debt.

"Repeat after me," O'Reilly said, "'Robocall is not a bad word."

They hound me about student loan debt I don't have

Living expenses for poor students now being taxed at 37%, a feature of the new Repulsian tax plan. Thanks, Trimp and Yertle!

Seekyoulow (trumps tiny attorney) is appealing the release of his financial records to the judge denied a Senate hearing for SCOTUS appointment, Merrick Garland....

:lol:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donal... hpmg00000067

In other Seekyoulow news, the little guy suborned perjury

just how tiny is that little fellow? He is surprisingly buttery, though.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/20/polit...sed/index.html

democrats’ latest primary polls



uncle joe way ahead of grandpa bear(nie)

beto in the land of the forgotten

biden-warren ticket?
biden-harris?

I think Biden is way up there more just from familiarity over 8 years as VP

yeah but 20pts is 20pts...

I'm already over the election cycle and we're literally 18 months away. It's going to be a long time.

lmao

i know what you mean

but here’s to booting that ugly orange mutha

if we do, it will all have been worth it

if we don’t, then, okay, i’ll be the first to punch the wall

we need to approve the wall being built first.

hahahaha

i forgot about that one

lmao blob on tv saying “ russia is a hoax” ha ha ha ha

he keeps saying no collision lololo

get off the teevee motherfuker. what’s the news.

is he quitting? please fucking quit lol.

-

lol he keeps huffing. has breathing problems. will he croak?

is this a press comference or display of moaning?

fucking moaning donnie

fucking crybaby professional victim lololololo

throwing a tantrum

oh here comes nancy

she suspects “lack of confidence at the greatness of the challenge” ha hahaaaaa ahaa

i believe her

now here’s chucky

has a 35 page infrastructure plan. orange blob “is looking for every excuse”

haaa haaa haaaa

he ran away he says. oh haaa haaa haaaa. yep. “it was planned? he said.

oh here comes nancy again. tag team.

they’re politely tearing him a new asshole haaa haaa haaa

good job.

now ron johnson is putting it on obama

haaaa haaaa haaaaa!

“thanks obama!”

ridiculous distraction. but at least he admits infrastructure is a problem.

it was such a spectacle. i was lucky to see it live. i hope you guys get a chance to see the full video because it’s hilarious to see a fat old man who is supposed to be the leader of the free world act like a 4 year old throwing a tantrum lolololo.

it’s very worrisome of course, but i prefer to laugh