From Bloomberg:
China is considering a U.S. request to shift some tariffs on key agricultural goods to other products so the Trump administration can sell any eventual trade deal as a win for farmers ahead of the 2020 election, people familiar with the situation said.
Recall Mr. Trump’s attempts to buoy Boeing, intervene in merger talks, support the steel industry through protection, and so forth. Also consider the attempts to politicize the Fed. Now consider this entry from The Library of Economics and Liberty:
Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky could talk some about what that means. Both benefitting personally from it and also being a victim of it. He’s an incredibly sharp minded man (Jewish?? Anyone know, please enlighten me)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3g1PUi2wnA
https://youtu.be/bpemnn2b8ts?t=1238
This was put out about 16:30 military time today (USA). I assume the cable networks will be on it pretty quickly.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/16/judge-barr-mistrust-mueller-1278030
I’m hoping large portions of the Mueller Report will be in Friday’s hardcopy NYT. I’m lucky I can get a free copy of that, I’m debating going out to get a WSJ Friday as well, but they would probably highlight the same portions as NYT does?? We’ll see I guess.
Gives a decent picture of the race so far. Haven’t heard much on Biden lately, other than similar to Warren he was sputtering on his fund-raising attempts. In case I haven’t made it clear, I’m not voting for Biden, under any circumstances including if he were to win the nomination. I’d sooner vote for Elizabeth Warren, and I’m not exactly giddy over her.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/16/elizabeth-warren-campaign-money-2020-1278232
I think we should coin the word trumpofascism, which is an attempt at fascism so stupid and clumsy that the actual effects are unknowable and virtually random.
We may have a “rough idea” or a “rough draft outline” of the “actual effects”. This being the post-1950 window-dressing version:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/13/world/europe/italy-do-gooders-buonisti-matteo-salvini.html
However, nothing beats the Colonel’s original recipe donald trump death camps:
https://www.revealnews.org/article/us-government-uses-several-clandestine-shelters-to-detain-immigrant-children/
https://www.revealnews.org/blog/government-acknowledges-15-to-20-migrant-children-held-in-out-of-network-facilities/
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/22-immigrants-died-ice-detention-centers-during-past-2-years-n954781
Which style caged child do you prefer in your I-C-E bucket?? Raped, molested, drugged, or death by dehydration?? Remember now, the Republican constituency’s order is always right and we kill them just how you voted for it. At I-C-E “we do children right”.
Bill Weld would like your term for all of this. He’s running against Trump for the Republican nomination. He also noted Trump is certainly not an economic conservative:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/15/politics/bill-weld-2020-trump/index.html
He’s just Silvio Berlusconi only with even worse hair and worse makeup. Nothing new here.
For the record, I’m only sharing these two links because some of Menzies’ Wisconsin colleagues (who shall go unnamed) told me Menzie is a closet FOX news fan.
https://youtu.be/p4ozAACcc8I?t=128
https://youtu.be/hSnxuzDm7C0?t=14
OK, it is possible I could have just told one of the biggest lies I have ever told in my life, but don’t you think it’s more fun if I just leave you guessing??
https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/3041/Will-John-Kasich-run-for-president-in-2020
My “Spidey-sense” is telling me this is just a sex tease for fundraising purposes (At this moment I do not think he will run or announce a run). Still I would love others thoughts on Kasich (preferably Republican commenters thoughts. Yes, I’m talking to YOU commenter PeakSageForTheAges)
It’s ridiculous to imply Trump is a fascist.
Trump has to react to the lying, cheating, and stealing Chinese, incorrect Fed policy, European subsidies, etc..
We have white bag ladies and black guys sleeping in parks, but we rather spend enormous amounts of money on tens of millions of poor illegal immigrants and their children to educate them, pay for their newborns, provide food stamps, etc., while they remit billions of dollars to their countries working under the table.
The Chinese are trying to punish Trump and influence elections by targeting red states. Correcting wrongs is not fascism.
Ridiculous is the perfect term to describe the latest incoherent rant from PeakStupidity. One would think you’d be able to come up with new materials. But NOOOOOOOOOOO. The same old tireless gibberish from the peanut gallery!
“We have white bag ladies and black guys sleeping in parks, but we rather spend enormous amounts of money on tens of millions of poor illegal immigrants and their children to educate them, pay for their newborns, provide food stamps, etc., while they remit billions of dollars to their countries working under the table.”
I bet this racist rant has those MAGA wearing hillbillies all excited. I really do believe Peaky is a Russian bot whose only purpose is to stir the pot for the Racist in Chief!
Pgl, you’re the perfect useful idiot.
The Russians, Chinese, and socialists love you, along with your dunderhead leftist confederates.
Yes – your usual childish rant. Even Herr Trump comes up with best retorts.
You make Mark Twain smart!
I am not sure from this exchange who lowered hisself to what level.
“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”
Not even specifying that these are government decisions and making blanket statements about an entire ethnic group. You know some people might think you’re a racist PeakTrader. But I know, someday, action star Jackie Chan or master thespian Ge You is going to come visit your house, and you’re going to prove all of those people wrong Peak.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ys3yVu42ZI
PeakTrader, that TV scene was taped 47 years ago. It’s always good Peak, that you’re keeping current with the times.
PeakTrader Of course it’s ridiculous to imply Trump is a fascist. Terms like fascist and socialist have their place. But here Menzie just likes to agitate against Trump with them. Trump first and foremost is a patriot. Make America Great Again, for God’s sake, is emblazoned on millions of hats worn proudly by many including veterans across this land. He came to Washington with a military-backed strategy and a big stick. He has used it to clean up the three-letter agencies and the federal judiciary. It next will be used by law enforcement officers to roust out of bed all responsible for the 2016 soft coup against him — a treasonous act the likes of which this country has never before seen.
A patriot? Oh wait – you are Trump’s parrot. Got it!
Oh great and powerful OZ, aka JBH. You might explain how law enforcement will roust out of bed all those responsible (301,003 indictments?) for a treasonous act that occurred in 2016. That would be BEFORE Trump was an official member of the government, a private citizen.
Even a non strict interpretation of Article II, Section 3 would indicate there was no “Levying war against the United States” by lawfully investigating a private citizen.
A coup? Seriously? And a treasonous one at that!
But we all know what you’re thinking: if Trump can completely control federal agencies and the courts, he can use the law to go after his enemies. Very Orwellian and no surprise you’re on board. Yes, that’s exactly the definition of….
PT,
Repeating another well-worn lie. It has been shown repeatedly (no, not gong to bother with links now, leave that to somebody else, but this has cited many times) that immigrants are a net plus fiscally, especially the illegal ones who are not eligible for lots of welfare state benefits but pay taxes. They can be a burden in certain localities with especially large numbers, particularly for schools, that bit of the story is right, but then that gets offset by them having much lower crime rates and starting businesses and stimulating the local economy.
The most anit-immigrant places are poor places that do not have any, e.g. West Virginia. The ones with lots of them are doing great economically and fiscally. Get real, PT.
Barkley, you’re full of false assumptions
You haven’t been in the inner cities with large illegal immigrant populations, like LA and Santa Ana.
Poor people need and use more government services. Illegals use fake IDs.
Also, I’ve shown illegal immigrants from six countries south of the U.S. border cause much more crime than U.S. citizens and immigrants from other countries.
You’ve been totally corrupted.
PeakTrader: Seriously, how do you know Barkley hasn’t been to that heckhole of a city, LA? And boy, if that gives you the willies, don’t go into central Seattle!!!!
By the way, how have you “…shown illegal immigrants from six countries south of the U.S. border cause much more crime than U.S. citizens and immigrants from other countries.”
Menzie Chinn,
“91 percent of federal criminal aliens were citizens of Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Colombia or Guatemala.”
That should give you a clue, but I posted many clues, including about twice as many Hispanics per 100,000 are in jail than whites, which is another burden on the system.
There are some parts of LA you don’t want to live in, although waking up to roosters may not be as bad.
PeakTrader: Source?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/opinion/immigration/407312-one-in-five-us-prison-inmates-is-a-criminal-alien%3famp
Also, immigrants from Asia and Europe have much lower crime rates than U.S. citizens, and immigrants from Mexico and Central America have higher crime rates than U.S. citizens.
PeakTrader: That’s an *opinion piece*.
You forget: PT is an expert on all things California. Just ask him.
Sure, he didn’t know Sonny Bono is no longer mayor of Palm Springs or that he’s been dead for two decades or that the Sierra foothills are on the west side, not the east. Or that Clint Eastwood hasn’t been mayor of Carmel for 31 years.
OK, he’s embarrassed that Bakersfield is an all-American Republican city and that Barstow is one too. But don’t let such trivia fool you. He’s a California expert. Fer shure.
Menzie Chinn, see the GAO link in the article – page 27.
Noneconomist, repeating lies often only works on fools.
Or page 17
Peaky loves to share right wing spin!
https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/407312-one-in-five-us-prison-inmates-is-a-criminal-alien
“THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL”
SHARYL ATTKISSON?
Attkisson has published stories linking vaccines with autism, despite the fact that the scientific community has found no evidence of such a link. Then there was her false claims that CBS was hacking her computers.
Her own writing starts with “New, little-reported statistics seem to prove two competing points in the illegal immigration debate”.
Maybe it is not being reported because this woman lies a lot. Or just spins the mess out of the documents she cites. “Criminal aliens”? Seriously? What percent of immigrants are from Latin America in the first place? Hint a lot. Which is of course what scares Peaky. He is afraid of BROWN people including the law abiding ones!
BTW – I used to live in LA and I was not afraid of any of their neighborhoods. Peaky – do grow up someday!
PT: who was the fool who said Californians should look to a guy who’s been dead for 21 years for advice on how to be a mayor? The fool who didn’t know he was dead? (The mayor of “a Republican city” that hasn’t been one for, oh, a decade?)
“You haven’t been in the inner cities with large illegal immigrant populations, like LA and Santa Ana.”
You have? I doubt it as something tells me that they would see you and have fun beating the mess out of you. Now run back into mommy’s basement before you have to see a brown person.
“There are some parts of LA you don’t want to live in, although waking up to roosters may not be as bad.”
PeakRacist in his rawest form!
LOL, PT, you have really set yourself up for this one.
So, I just checked overall crime rates by cities in the US for 2018 on Wikipedia.
Here are some for border ones per 100,000 population:
San Diego, CA 367
El Paso, TX 379
Laredo, TX 322
For Santa Ana that you particularly bemoNED 488
Here are some for non-border cities not known for lots o immigrants:
DC 949
Indianapolis 1334
Minneapolis 1101
Sorry, PT, you are completely and totally wrong. It is about time you faced the facts here before you shoot off your trap and make a bigger fool of yourself.
Barkley, that doesn’t explain, who commits crime:
Incarceration rates by race per 100,000 are:
White non-Hispanic: 450
Hispanic: 831
Black: 2,306
It should be noted, many Hispanics identify themselves as white and likely commit more violent crimes than whites.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States#Ethnicity
You may also want to look at actual FBI data:
Hispanics are responsible for a disproportionately higher rate of murders, rapes, robbery, aggravated assault, etc. than non-Hispanics.
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/tables/table-43
You need to look at actual data rather than skewed and ignorant studies.
And, it makes sense, when crime rates are much higher in Mexico than the U.S. and 10% of Mexico immigrates to the U.S., you’ll get much higher crime rates.
Of course, a high percentage of Mexicans just want a better life and are not criminals, but there are criminals.
PT,
Oh, shown that you are totally off on the question of immigrants and crime you shift over to just purely ethnic and racial categories. Keep in mind that few of those blacks are immigrants, and the majority of Hispanics are not iimmigrants, although a higher percentage than of blaxks and whites, but then you conveniently leave out Asians, who have an even lower crime rate than whites, but a much higher percentage of them are immigrants.
Yes, you really did just come from a KKK meeting. The inimitable pgl is right.
Barkley, see the GAO report I cited above.
So this story is saying the Chinese will start buying soybeans again but Boeing, Ford, and GM will suffer. Ah yes – Wilbur Ross is now short selling these 3 companies. Insider trading. Drain the swamp!
I hoped for the definition…….of “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
“That witticism — I’ll call it “Einstein Insanity” — is usually attributed to Albert Einstein. Though the Matthew effect may be operating here, it is undeniably the sort of clever, memorable one-liner that Einstein often tossed off. And I’m happy to give him the credit, because doing so takes us in interesting directions.”
I see the disloyal opposition, aka a field of N+1 entrants rolling toward a repeat of 2016 nominating a W Bush light [on morality] candidate, running on “how awful Trump and his imagery” appears to be as preached in the opposition media.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/einsteins-parable-of-quantum-insanity-20150910/
Someone put a lot of $ on Tiger Woods at 14:1 in the masters!
The odds for Trump in 2020 are much closer!
Happy Trump Day!
ilsm,
Presumably whoever is the Dem candidate will emphasize issues that did well for them in 2018 such as health care. But I see nothing damaging to the Dem candidate by pointing out the many awful things Trump has done. Are they all supposed to roll over and pretend he is wonderful. The list of things to criticize him for is very long, so long it is almost hard to know what to emphasize more than what.
Yeah, if all the Dem candidate does is whine about Trump, that will not do it. But in 2018 they found issues the public likes, and hopefully the Dem candidate, whoever, will push those issues effectively as well as holding Trump’s feet to the fire.
Barkley,
I do not expect a democrat who can get the “party” nomination will be credible on issues that might attract “unaffiliated”.
If they sink Bernie again!
Dear Folks,
I have no love for Trump. But to call this sort of thing Fascism is a bit much. All administrations favor some groups over another. The Library of Economics and Liberty is a very reactionary group, hostile to any state intervention against the interests of business. So this feeling is understandable, but a bit overblown.
J.
Julian Silk Trump hasn’t been in power long enough to go full blown fascist, but he certainly has fascist tendencies and his supporters are receptive to fascist political persuasion. Trump believes in an all controlling strong leader. That’s a fascist principle. Trump likes to demonize racial groups. That’s right out of the old fascist playbook. Trump appeals to the working poor and small business folks. That’s a fascist trait. Trump has no regard for truth. That’s a hallmark of fascism. Trump’s economic policies follow the fascist playbook, as Menzie noted. And if you ever doubted his MAGA hat supporters vulnerability to fascist leader speeches, I suggest you read a very famous book: Crowds and Power by Elias Canetti. It’s an oldy but goody.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowds_and_Power
I believe it’s out of print since I read it in college, so here’s a pdf version:
http://asounder.org/resources/canetti_crowdsandpower.pdf
Trump even shows his teeth at rallies, just like a good fascist wannabee.
2Slugs,
stick to stochastics, I am not sure what I believe, much less deciding what to agree with you about presumptions to Trump’s beliefs.
I believe Trump’s supporters could make hay replacing the dromedary in the hump day commercials with the reigning prez.
Happy Trump Day!
You have it about right, 2slug. Trump has not gone full-blown fascist, partly because he has been blocked to a substantial extent by our still in place checks and balances. But he clearly has strong tendencies in that direction, probably more so than any US president ever, and his core crowd, the people who show up to chant at his rallies, clearly would fully support it if he were to declare martial law in connection with a National Emergency on the eve of the 2020 election, something I think Michael Cohen is worrying about.
Rather a stretch, I think.
It’s about electoral popularity, trying to retain an edge for 2020. I see Trump’s relations with the business community as quite strained, actually.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-16/trump-ceo-strategy-council-is-said-to-be-disbanding-after-exodus
And what drove these CEOs to part company with Trump? Oh yea – Trump is indeed a racist according to them. BTW – they are correct.
https://www.economist.com/business/2019/04/13/lobbying-in-donald-trumps-washington
PeakTrader: ” while they remit billions of dollars to their countries working under the table.”
If he really cared about undocumented workers Trump could stop it in an instant by putting a few of the white guys who illegally hire them in jail. Instead you have racists like Donald Trump who exploit white nationalism for cynical political purposes and at the same time Trump illegally uses undocumented workers at his many properties.
Give it up. It’s not about the economics or Trump would do something real about it. Instead it’s about racism for political power.
Joseph, Trump’s black girlfriend of two years doesn’t believe he’s racist.
But you know Trump better.
Your racism is showing again.
How do you know “the white guys” hire illegals. Hispanics may also be hiring Hispanics, but I guess the white guys need to go to jail.
Right, PT: There are lots of HIspanic land owners in agriculture, dairy, and ranching who are hiring the tens of thousands of undocumented workers they need to keep their operations going.
You must have learned that in your widespread travels in California (which apparently began and ended in Huntington Beach) or in recent discussions with Sonny Bono even though he’s been dead for 21 years.
No doubt there are lots of Hispanic contractors and subcontractors who are doing same.
If not informative, we can always count on you to be entertaining.
Ken Starr questions the fairness of the Mueller report? Seriously? This guy?
https://www.mediaite.com/trump/ken-starr-says-he-fears-mueller-team-put-together-an-anti-trump-report/
I guess Starr is concerned that the investigation did not spend more time looking at Bill Clinton’s sex life!
Total get your point Monsieur and it is a profound one.
However you need to propose a **direct** solution and put it to practice (by calling your MP or tweeting to the President) given the reality that US Industrial Production is too unstable, yet China’s Export is very stable. — This is just one facet of the myriad of problem. — Or see it this way: regardless there’s Brexit or not, Britain long yield is going down; regardless there’s trade war or deficits or not, US long yield is going down.
You have to propose **direct** solutions in the blog and put it to discussion.
The doers are constantly doing — millions call them “stupid”. By trying they change the world (for better or worse). You voiced strong concern now if it’s sufficiently “grave” for you, you need to change things and protect your country, right?
Timely blog post Menzie.
American purists say that socialism is only about direct government ownership of the means of production while the common usage of the term ‘socialism’ has evolved considerably since the early 20th century to denote more intervention and wealth re-distribution.
I describe the Trump regime as one of ‘Corporate socialism’. The priorities are simply different from other rich western socialist countries. We should get over these semantic battles, recognize that we are all socialists now and evaluate public policy on a program by program basis.
It is tempting to label the Trump administration ‘fascist’ but you could just as easily label the Israeli government as a ‘fascist’ because the of the rhetoric of superior culture and the use of military strategy and tactics popularized by the Nazi regime prior to and during WW II.
Does that help? Not really. Would that kind of language catalyze Americans into reviewing concepts related to the well-defined secure economic property rights and to what extent ethnic, racial and sectarian criteria should be deployed to relax those collective and individual economic property rights on a case by case basis?
It is odd that those who emphasize well-defined secure economic property rights were and perhaps still are viewed as ‘right wing’. It is also odd that folks who oppose ethnic, racial and other sectarian exceptions to well-defined secure economic property rights, are viewed as ‘left-wing’.
Even weirder are the large numbers of North Americans who believe that discriminating against specific groups is somehow good for freemarket capitalism. Along similar lines, many seem to believe that boot-heel capitalism still works and remains desirable in the age of proliferating nuclear weapons and an information technology economy.
you could just as easily label the Israeli government as a ‘fascist’
Unfortunately there’s an alarming level in truth in that. Today’s Israel is not your grandfather’s Israel. For the first forty years of Israel’s history it was largely a western oriented country, with a liberal democratic tradition. But that all started to change when Russian Jews and extreme orthodox Jews started coming to Israel. At one time Israel was a shining city on the hill in an otherwise hellhole region. Today Israel is just another corrupt, intolerant state in a region dominated by corrupt, intolerant states. Bibi Nutandyahoo belongs in prison.
I guess Trump needs the votes of a bunch of ancient Cubans living in south Florida really badly:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cuba/us-is-lifting-ban-on-us-lawsuits-against-foreign-firms-in-cuba-pompeo-idUSKCN1RT1NJ
“WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration is lifting a long-standing ban against U.S. citizens filing lawsuits against foreign companies that use properties seized by Cuba’s Communist government since Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday. The major policy shift, which the State Department said could draw hundreds of thousands of legal claims worth tens of billion of dollars, is intended to intensify pressure on Havana at a time Washington is demanding an end to Cuban support for Venezuela’s socialist president, Nicolas Maduro. But President Donald Trump’s decision, which was quickly denounced by Cuba as “an attack on international law,” could also further strain economic relations with U.S. allies in Europe and Canada, whose companies have significant interests on the island.”
Trump has reached even new low in utter stupidity!
There’s a tendency that your mob decry a liar by lying.
If your mob continues chanting half truths, I see all of you as equal.
@ Zi Zi
Is that an exact quote from Confucius??? Asking for a friend.
PeakTrader: You are talking to hermetically sealed minds. You will never get through them. Repeat, never. So do not butt your head against a brick wall. Nearly all of this batch has self-selected to come to Econbrowser since the advent of Donald Trump. They’ve found company here. Note carefully the tenor of their comments. Each of these posters has a distinctively different content pattern. Yet they all have the identical thread of vitriol in common. What place does vitriol and anger have on this site? Frankly, none. You certainly don’t engage in it.
Vitriol is synonymous with nastiness, castigation, deprecation, disparagement, quibbling, putting down, nit-picking, fault-finding, hatefulness, sarcasm, and so on. All of these are face evident in their comments. The etymology of vitriol centers around the chemical root of acidic. As with the mind so with the body. Natural law. Hence their physical ill-health is perfectly predictable. Though of all people – since blessed with genetic smarts and a bookish education think they know more than everybody else — they haven’t the foggiest clue about the importance of alkaline-acid balance in the body, or its Siamese twin tranquility-stress in the mind. They are literally stewing in their own juices. Which is what makes their state of health both physical and emotional so predictable. And naturally they blame everyone else for this, now especially Donald Trump and his family.
Knowing this you are wiser. Here I make a presumption about your openmindedness. This wisdom will enable you to modify the decisions you make today to achieve a better outcome in the future. Should you so choose.
JBH, also I may add, during the Industrial Revolution, immigrants from Europe had roughly the same skills and education as the domestic population. So, if population doubles, GDP would double.
However, with this batch of immigrants, since the 1960s, they have much lower skills and education than the domestic population. So, if population doubles, GDP would less than double.
Of course, a small percentage have higher skills and education than the domestic population. And, leftists wonder why income and wealth inequality increased, and why we’re spending so much more on entitlements, although there are many more poor white and black citizens.
PeakTrader Let me guess. You flunked Growth Accounting 101. Am I right?
“if population doubles, GDP would double.”
I wonder what Robert Solow would do with this illiterate bit of “economics””. Capital shallowing does not reduce productivity in PeakIdiot’s world?
2slugbaits, you believe incomes of low skilled immigrants with little education and wealth will exceed U.S. median income.
You must of took government accounting from Bernie.
PT: You “must of” been the top student in your grammar studies. Home school?
What a stupid comment even for you. Misrepresent what he said? Oh yea – you misrepresent everything.
“with this batch of immigrants, since the 1960s, they have much lower skills and education than the domestic population”.
Source for your latest racist rant? Oh I’m sure you read that crap on Vdare.
Even the dumbest person from Central America has 10 times your intelligence Peaky!
Pgl is very generous with other people’s money, particularly for the devastation of black Americans.
And, yet, Pgl repeatedly calls others racist.
That’s why he believes he’s so smart.
That’s all you got? You can’t defend your racist lies so you just fire off childish insults?
As a person who lives in Seattle and sees a whole lot of brilliant, well educated immigrants, I think it’s pretty clear that people like Peak Trader just can’t compete. That doesn’t even take into account those who come with next to nothing except ambition and a high energy level. It’s not too surprising that he wouldn’t want to come here. He would get out worked by immigrants of all levels of economic status and out smarted by most of the immigrants here. The children of all of those immigrants will make Seattle a wealthier, more productive place in the future, too, assuming that we actually educate them and don’t get stupid and send their parents away.
Peak Trader is also forgetting the history of immigration and prejudices against immigrants. Eastern Europeans, Italians, Irish, and all those other European immigrants he seems to think were more productive were all consider inferior at the time. Catholics were considered a threat. Check the religious preferences of Supreme Court justices now if you are concerned about Catholics as a threat. There’s always going to be some numb nut who is afraid of whoever is coming here. It’s a reactionary thing. We don’t have conservatives these days, just reactionaries.
Willie, I’m sure, you can’t compete with immigrants.
That’s why you view them as supermen and superwomen.
There are hundreds of millions more of them living in much poorer countries willing to live in the U.S..
I guess, you believe open borders will make America great again.
According to Willie, anyone, who doesn’t believe in unlimited immigration must be a “numb nut” “afraid” of immigrants.
No wonder our immigration policies are a joke.
That’s a pure reactionary misread, and several leaps of logic that make no sense. You must not be fluent in English.
Or maybe Peak Trader is really a DNC operative sent to make right wingers look dim. Or maybe a Russian bot. You never know these days.
Hey, JBH, are you ever going to inform us of where it was that yo udid “graduate study in math and econometrics”? Or are you jjust going to buck the hapless Peak Trader up after he gets his behind wiped for making outright factually false claims? With all that econometrics study, one would hope you could help him out.
Maybe JBH can explain Peaky’s economic growth model. Labor force doubles so output doubles even if the capital stock is unchanged? Robert Solow is rolling in his grave!
BTW – I think Peaky took statistics from John Lott.
pgl,
Bob Solow remains among the living, well into his 90s and still pretty articulate.
Barkley, you’ve been knocked out so many times, you have no idea what’s going on.
Yeah, PT, I did forget that pgl brought up Diamond before I did, but go ahead and name any other matter on which I have been “knocked out.” I forecast it will take longer than for JBH to inform us of his graduate alma mater.
Can’t let JBH’s remarks ( i.e., “hermetically sealed minds”, “etymology of vitriol centers around the chemical root of the acidic”, “the importance of alkaline-acid balance in the body or its Siamese twin tranquility” ) pass without reference to Dr. Strangelove and memorable lines from General Jack D. Ripper (the great Sterling Hayden):
“I can no longer sit back and allow communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to SAP AND IMPURIFY ALL OF OUR PRECIOUS BODILY FLUIDS.”
When law enforcement begins rousting out those fellow law enforcement officers who (in some unexplained way) committed treason by investigating Russian involvement in the election, they will be doing so with THEIR bodily fluids working as the bodily fluids of American patriots should, minds open and not hermetically sealed, tranquil in their quest to punish communist evildoers across this country.
noneconomist The difference is that in the movie General Jack Ripper believed it was the Russians who were sapping our bodily fluids; in JBH’s case he thinks the Russians are the heroes because they helped elect Trump and it’s liberal Democrats who are the enemy.
Trump is actually the opposite of a fascist. He believes in returning power to the people and the individual. The real “fascists” are liberals who think they know best and want to impose their beliefs on everyone else, by force if necessary. You can see this in the debate over global warming, race, gun control, LGBT……. no dissenting views allowed…… get “woke” or face the wrath of government coercion.
“He believes in returning power to the people and the individual.”
You mean Jared, Ivanka, and Al Capone!
sammy,
liberals represented by the democrat cabal spewed for by the self professed liberal media are militarists, interventionists, wall st tools and followers of Frankfort School post modern immorality.
what do you call a prosecutor who failed to get any indictments, who steps out of the slanted role saying he did not “exonerate” the ‘guilty until proven innocent chief executive who must be deposed’?
my answer: a “liberal” tool. or a Stalinist.
ilsm wall st tools and followers of Frankfort School post modern immorality
Huh? So you’re associating the Frankfurt School with Wall Street??? Maybe you should read:
https://www.amazon.com/Dialectical-Imagination-Frankfurt-Institute-1923-1950-ebook/dp/B007CJLZWE
I’m guessing that Marcuse would be turning over in his grave at the thought. And in Trump’s case, I think I would say “post-modern amorality.”
a prosecutor who failed to get any indictments, who steps out of the slanted role saying he did not “exonerate” the ‘guilty until proven innocent chief executive who must be deposed’?
I think you’re misreading what Mueller said. Mueller’s very cramped statement was that he could not indict a sitting president because of OLC rules; however, he could not say that Trump was exonerated either. Put another way, given that OLC rules precluded the possibility of indicting a sitting president, there were only two options available to him. The first option was to fully exonerate Trump of obstruction of justice. That would not have been consistent with what Mueller found. The other remaining option was to say that Trump could not be exonerated. Effectively, that means that Trump would have been indicted if he had been anyone other than the president. In fact, Mueller was clearly inviting Congress to impeach Trump.
BTW, there are a dozen other unnamed individuals that are still subject to legal jeopardy who are being investigated by other district DAs. There’s a very good chance that Trump is one of the unnamed dirty dozen.
Sammy, you’re trying to make a rational, logical and reality-based case to these “hermetically sealed minds”. Logic just can not be allowed to enter as it could influence and (horror of horrors) perhaps even modify their lock step thinking. Just look at the comment string: still Trump hating, failure to understand Hillary’s election loss, can’t get by the NO COLLUSION issue, open borders, ignoring the subject illegal</b immigrants by simplifying to simple immigrants, mocking, etc. Its all just a huge show of their bigotry.
Sammy, you’re trying to make a rational, logical and reality-based case to these “hermetically sealed minds”.
Seriously – all three of you Trump toadies use exactly the same slogan? I guess you got the same email from Stephen Miller.
No originality at all from the Trump toadies of late!
They will not stand by and allow their bodily fluids to be impurified by liberals whose tranquility has been harmed by out of balance body acids that cause hermetic sealing of cerebral density.
Some guy (obvious lib radical) named George T. Conway III (seems like we should know him from somewhere) is calling for Trump’s impeachment. In a piece in today’s WaPo Conway’s charges are more than interesting and damning. Its conclusion, after comparing and contrasting Trump’s follies with those of Nixon, says:
“The investigation that Trump tried to interfere with here, to protect his own personal interests, was in significant part an investigation of how a hostile foreign power interfered with our democracy. If that’s not putting personal interests above a presidential duty to the nation, nothing is.
White House counsel John Dean famously told Nixon that there was a cancer within the presidency and that it was growing. What the Muller report disturbingly shows, with crystal clarity, is that today there is a cancer in the presidency: President Donald J. Trump.
Congress now bears the solemn constitutional duty to excise that cancer without delay.”
Those Trump hating libs just won’t stop, will they?
CoRev illegal</b immigrants by simplifying to simple immigrants,
Do you understand the legal difference between illegal immigrants and immigrants seeking political asylum? It’s the Trump Administration that has been breaking the law by not following US laws and treaty obligations. That’s why so many people at DHS have passively resisted Trump’s illegal orders.
Why did CoRev put that gibberish partial sentence in bold? Oh yea – it was his attempt to color code it to highlight the fact that this is a subject where he has zero understanding. So the answer to your question is clear: he does not understand the difference. Of course understanding important matters is not CoRev’s job. He gets paid to parrot the Sarah Huckabee line.
pgl.
The illegal immigrants are coached to say they are seeking asylum because of persecution, when, in fact, they just want a better life in the US. Then they get released and vanish, never showing up for their asylum hearing. Simple.
That is why we need the wall. We have to stop them on the other side of the border, so they can’t come in and immediately be granted privileges such as due process, etc. which they will take advantage of. Let them apply for asylum from outside the country, like everybody else.
2slugs and my ole fren pro growth liberal, yes, I do understand the difference. Do you understand the difference between playing/gaming the system by claiming asylum (not just political) and having outsiders pay and provide training and aid to those in how best to playing/gaming the immigration system.
We do not have open borders because of the influx of illegal immigrants over the past several DECADES. You lost an election largely because of this issue. One day you might get out of your hermetically sealed make believe and/or modeled world to see what is actually happening. What your world considers the norm seems CRAZY to the average US voter outside the handful of urban centers. They may let you know how crazy in 2020.
I don’t think you do understand the difference, otherwise you wouldn’t have said they were illegal immigrants. Those seeking asylum entered the country legally. Got that? They entered the country legally. It’s up to the legal system to decide whether or not they are entitled to stay in this country. It’s not up to an uninformed citizen calling himself “CoRev” to make that determination.
2slugs, why did you ignore the point of my comment? ” Do you understand the difference between playing/gaming the system by claiming asylum (not just political) and having outsiders pay and provide training and aid to those in how best to playing/gaming the immigration system.”
Your claim: ” It’s up to the legal system to decide whether or not they are entitled to stay in this country.” is true. When the immigrant(s) miss their first court date they become illegal when entering seeking asylum. Those who over stay their visa (estimated at ~49% of illegals) become illegal the day after the visa expires. Those sneaking in are immediately illegal. If they are caught and do not apply for some special status (asylum, work , etc) they remain illegal. If the special status is denied or they miss the appointment for review they become again illegal. In 2017 the Failure To Appear rate was 43%, and that’s only related to number of scheduled case not of total reviews needed for speedy processing.
Concentrating on the asylum category until the recent past is deceiving since playing/gaming the system by claiming asylum is the new ploy since Trump limited visas and closed down the Obama unattended minor policy.
CoRev Do you understand the difference between playing/gaming the system by claiming asylum
Oh, I see. There are hordes of liberal lawyers descending upon Central America colluding with unsuspecting women and children and telling them how to enter America. This is just a Fox News wet dream. It’s today’s version of the welfare queen driving around in a Cadillac and Reagan’s “strapping young buck” buying T-bones with food stamps. If you’re an old, white racist who watches Fox, then you no doubt find that storyline convincing. Those asylum seekers don’t need to game the system by telling lies; all they need to do is accurately relate the facts. After reading what the Mueller report has to say about the pervasive lying and thoroughgoing mendacity all around the White House (Romney called in “sickening”), I don’t think Team Trump should be accusing terrified families of fabricating tales in order to gain entry into this country.
Concentrating on the asylum category until the recent past is deceiving since playing/gaming the system by claiming asylum is the new ploy since Trump limited visas and closed down the Obama unattended minor policy.
The recent influx is coming from Central America, that’s why the concern is about asylum status. You’re following the same Fox News racist playbook by lumping refugees from Central America in with ordinary Mexicans wanting work visas. They are different groups reflecting different existential conditions and they fall into different legal categories. And those coming from Central America are not fleeing US authorities; they are presenting themselves at ports of entry. It’s telling that you scream about the need for immigrants to follow the letter of the law, but you seem quite relaxed about Trump and the DHS brazenly violating both the letter and the spirit of asylum laws. Secretary Nielsen was fired because she refused to follow an illegal order from Trump. Do you have anything to say about Trump issuing illegal orders to the Border Patrol and then after Trump leaves town the Border Patrol supervisors had to tell their agents to ignore Trump’s illegal order? Care to comment on that? Sort of reminds me of the Mueller report’s finding of Trump issuing illegal orders, which were then ignored.
2slugs, is mockery all you have? You have not shown any evidence for your denials. For instance blah, blah no references Fox News, oh and President Trump lied. Really!?! Obama, Comey, Clinton (both), lied, but to discuss real obstruction we need only go back Bleach Pitting, telephone smashing, unsecured server Hillary for an egregious example.
It looks like The DOJ is doing its own investigation on who and what was the genesis of this at the very least unethical spying effort. How many FBI and DOJ officials will be leaving office?
What amazes me is the exaggerations of the Russian attempts, maybe for ~1/2 a century, to influence our elections. But, only the 2016 election is important, because your candidate lost.
Ah yes, Corev, the half century of Russian attempts to influence our elections.
Who can forget the 1968 election when Russian hackers penetrated DNC servers and found emails connecting Hubert Hunphrey to nefarious plots to help North Viet Nam win victory?
How do we not remember their attempts to establish doubts in the minds of millions of Americans who daily turned to Facebook for information on their computers? Or their planting various fake stories on various computer platforms?
Or the day FBI director J. Edgar Hoover went on national television to announce the finding of new, perhaps damaging emails, on Humphrey’s personal email account, which he had used instead of the official government account he was supposed to use as Vice President?
Thanks for the reminder that your knowledge and understanding of history is unparalleled. What would we do without you?
It’s fascinating an ignorant comment translating the past to current technology. noneconomist, have you no knowledge of technological history or imagination?
You might be interested in this:
“Over the course of 11 presidential elections between the end of World War II and the fall of the Soviet Union, we identified three secret attempts to influence an election.
• 1960: Through his ambassador to the United States, Mikhail Menshikov, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev offered Adlai Stevenson help from a secret propaganda campaign. However, Stevenson declined the offer. He lost in the Democratic primary to John F. Kennedy.
• 1968: The Soviet Union’s ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Dobrynin, offered to secretly fund Hubert Humphrey’s campaign against Richard Nixon. Humphrey declined the bribe.
• 1976: Fearing that anti-communist Democrat Henry “Scoop” Jackson stood a good chance at winning in the wake of Nixon’s resignation, the KGB began a smear campaign. Soviet spies forged FBI paperwork to make it appear Jackson was secretly gay and sent the fake reports to newspapers around the United States during the election and for years after.
Notably, the past attempts to help a candidate were arranged through the ambassador. And much of the investigation into last year has focused on meetings the current Russian ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, had with key officials on Trump’s team before Trump became president.
Some of those meetings allegedly involved former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn (who in 2015 took $45,000 from RT), Attorney General Jeff Sessions (who was a top Trump advisor during the campaign) and Jared Kushner, Trump’s senior advisor and son-in-law.” (look it up yourself it might take you seconds.)
And this is the declassified stuff, which covers efforts since ~WWII, well over 50 years. What surprises me is your knee jerk protection/defense/disbelief in past efforts while you probably blamed Trump for their 2016 attempts.
You get it somewhat, but then, no surprise, you don’t. Russia’s DIRECT interference in this election was, if not unprecedented, certainly unequaled.
They used cyberwarfare to attempt to gain votes for their preferred candidate. To do this, they created fictitious identities and fictitious organizations. They hacked only ONE candidate’s emails, The social media campaign they created was also unprecedented. In this election, a foreign power, as we now know (and one of our foremost adversaries) violated criminal and campaign laws. Trump’s response to this? maybe it was a 400 pound guy in New Jersey. Or, Russia, if you’re listening, find those emails.
2016 was not 1968 or 1976. The landscape is similar, but the cyberscape isn’t. It was a new ball game played and directed in the shadows by noncitizens—not from Central America–but noncitizens from Europe and Asia. with high degrees of technical expertise. Their manager was a 17-year KGB agent who is now one of those world leaders most admired by our President.
As the New York Times noted: “…the real danger that the Muller Report reveals is not of a president who knowingly or unknowingly let a hostile power do dirty tricks on his behalf, but of a president who refuses to see that he has been used to damage American democracy and national security.”
But please. Do continue being unconcerned–you do a good Alfred E. Neumann “What, me worry?”– while blissfully deluding yourself that it was nothing out of the ordinary, just business as usual. You’ve always been very good at delusions.
Noneconomist, now you’re changing the goal posts. You mocked: “Ah yes, Corev, the half century of Russian attempts to influence our elections.
Who can forget the 1968 election when Russian hackers penetrated DNC servers and found emails connecting Hubert Hunphrey to nefarious plots to help North Viet Nam win victory?…” and a list of modern/current versions of attempts.
Being ignorant and one of the Russian staff is just too cute.
For someone who can’t–or simply doesn’t want to– recognize the difference(s) between election interference in 1968 and 2016, your response is a perfect example of your continued cluelessness, no matter the subject.
Noneconomist, being clueless is citing 1968 email servers. I’d explain, but it would be beyond your Russian training.
How about Humphrey’s emails? Wait! You mean there were none? Wow! Who knew? You’re really on top of things, CR.
Gee, that would mean there were no hacked servers or any cyberwarfare like that of 2016. Or that the election interference of 1968 paled in comparison to 2016.
If only I’d thought of that.
Noneconomist, “Gee, that would mean there were no hacked servers or any cyberwarfare like that of 2016. Or that the election interference of 1968 paled in comparison to 2016.
If only I’d thought of that.”
You didn’t! You only assumed that the success of earlier efforts were less than those in 2016. Only the Russians know and definitely not you. Only you fail to realize that the Manchurian Candidate was written in 1959, and is as accurate today as your ASSinine assumptions.
Go back and tell your Russian handlers that you’ve failed as badly as they did.
I doubt that you have ever considered why those DEM and Hillary emails off those open servers were accessed? Pelosi perfectly described the democratic mentality, “A glass of water with a “D” on it could get elected.”