Donald Trump

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

btw - Ditto for the games people play with illegal voting.

How many documents does WikiLeaks have to leak to show that the people in control of the Democratic party have no integrity? Who gives a crap about standards of proof coming from them when they've admitted to staging frauds as their standard business model?

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

3 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

btw - Ditto for the games people play with illegal voting.

How many documents does WikiLeaks have to leak to show that the people in control of the Democratic party have no integrity? Who gives a crap about standards of proof coming from them when they've admitted to staging frauds as their standard business model?

Michael

To show whom? The mainstream media (MSM)?

--Brant

Sir William (MSM), he, snug as a flea,

Lay all this time a-snoring;

Nor dreamed of harm, as he lay warm

In bed with Mrs. Loring (AGW).

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

4 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Sir William (MSM), he, snug as a flea,

Lay all this time a-snoring;

Nor dreamed of harm, as he lay warm

In bed with Mrs. Loring (AGW).

Brant,

Then there's this one I also learned as a child (quoted from public domain sources):

Quote

The Boy Who Cried Wolf

There was a Shepherd Boy who tended his sheep at the foot of a mountain near a dark forest. It was lonely for him, so he devised a plan to get a little company. He rushed down towards the village calling out “Wolf, Wolf,” and the villagers came out to meet him. This pleased the boy so much that a few days after he tried the same trick, and again the villagers came to his help. Shortly after this a Wolf actually did come out from the forest. The boy cried out “Wolf, Wolf,” still louder than before. But this time the villagers, who had been fooled twice before, thought the boy was again lying, and nobody came to his aid. So the Wolf made a good meal off the boy’s flock.

Moral: A liar will not be believed, even when telling the truth.

You would think all those intellectual types, including media pundits, who have been exposed had heard these things growing up.

Maybe it's modern education or sumpin'...

  

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

4 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

To show whom? The mainstream media (MSM)?

Brant,

I forgot, people concerned with illegal voting and tired of scams are probably all racists, too.

   

Michael

[merjet]

Trump to nominate Dr. Ben Carson to head Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Writers for the Washington Post aren't happy about it, but he looks good to me. An article by Carson dated 23 July 2015. 

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dr. Ben Carson is a true productive hero.

He's not in line with victimization stories.

So no doubt more folks on the left than WaPo will hate his appointment.

He's going to get people in poor neighborhoods to look up and rise as individuals like he did, not wallow in their collective misery and trade their votes for government handouts.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

On 12/3/2016 at 2:31 PM, KorbenDallas said:

Sarah Palin is skeptical, too (underlines are mine):

Here's what Alex Jones thinks about the Carrier deal.

Interestingly, the really great part of this video is after he talks about Sarah.

btw - I disagree with him on what Sarah said, just as I disagree with those who apparently agree with her. I don't think anyone really looks at her words, especially these: "Gotta’ have faith the Trump team knows all this." She actually means those words. Issuing a caution does not negate them. She almost assuredly will be a part of Trump's cabinet.

Anyway, Alex's produced part of the video where he used "The Trump Effect" as a meme organizer is inspiring as all get out.

Enjoy.

(Except for Korben, who hates Alex Jones no matter what he says.  )

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

No sooner did I post that, then I came across this:

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

 

btw - I disagree with him on what Sarah said, just as I disagree with those who apparently agree with her. I don't think anyone really looks at her words, especially these: "Gotta’ have faith the Trump team knows all this." She actually means those words. Issuing a caution does not negate them. She almost assuredly will be a part of Trump's cabinet.

Michael

That is an empirically resolvable assertion.   We shall see. 

I love testable assertions  I am so empirical.  

[Peter]

I remember back in the 40’s and 50’s much of the news was slanted to the right, but we had the “red menace” back then too. Reporters and journalists believed in integrity. Now, most of the media is left wing, totalitarian, and evil. They believe in being the propaganda arm of “the elites” who should be ruling, in their opinion.

Every “news story” with a Trump quote also has commentary, so I think Trump’s tweeting and bypassing the spin of the media is a huge advancement in communications. Americans can avoid the slant and left wing selection of stories. I don’t intend to start reading tweets though . . .  so a web site devoted to just what the President says might also have a lot of readers like me.

Peter

[merjet]

Boeing CEO waits for Trump's trade play

Note the part of the article about Boeing's exports to China and the associated American jobs. Trump's past haranguing about China has been very cavalier. 

He has accused China of weakening its currency in order to export more goods to the USA. As I've pointed out before, such weakening is a two-way street. Weakening its currency results in it paying more for imports, such as these airplanes manufactured by Boeing.

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

55 minutes ago, merjet said:

As I've pointed out before, such weakening is a two-way street. Weakening its currency results in it paying more for imports, such as these airplanes manufactured by Boeing.

Merlin,

So all we need to do is install Boeing plants in all those empty factory buildings throughout the rust belt, enjoy the Chinese generosity in stimulating the American economy and the problem is solved, huh?

What's wrong with Trump that he just can't see that?

Michael

[merjet]

3 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

So all we need to do is install Boeing plants in all those empty factory buildings throughout the rust belt, enjoy the Chinese generosity in stimulating the American economy and the problem is solved, huh? 

......................

What's wrong with Trump that he just can't see that?

Mr. Snarky arrives.

...............

I don't know. Please tell us your opinion. I will consider it.

[Mikee]

http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2016-donald-trump-choice/

[Thank you Matt Drudge]

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

6 hours ago, merjet said:

I don't know. Please tell us your opinion. I will consider it.

Merlin,

It's simple math.

If you add 10, but remove 10,000, that's an overall loss, not a gain.

It doesn't matter how many times you keep saying 10 were added.

(Just so you understand the metaphor, crony capitalism with China = +10 jobs, but due to plants closing, etc., it also = -10,000 jobs. I'm inventing the numbers, but I believe the ratio is about right. Of course, this might mean different things to the 10 who got a job as opposed to the 10,000 who lost their jobs--or the crony elites who pocketed the gross of the money in both cases.  )

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

18 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

So all we need to do is install Boeing plants in all those empty factory buildings throughout the rust belt, enjoy the Chinese generosity in stimulating the American economy and the problem is solved, huh?

What's wrong with Trump that he just can't see that?

Here are some people who definitely didn't feel the generosity coming from China. They switched from hardcore Democrats and voted for Trump (except the wife, who didn't vote for president).

Should anyone mention it to these folks, I think the logic of cheaper shit from China creating American jobs would be lost on them. (Notice the video shots of the desolation where thriving plants should be.)

Does anyone see the irony about Boeing? These folks used to manufacture tanks and bombs and other weapons--that is "folks" kinds of weapons. Boeing, which benefits from China financial monkeyshines, does elite weapons.

Hmmmmm...

I wonder if there is a parallel worth pondering...

 

Apropos, notice what these folks say about the second amendment. Without guns, they don't eat.

I think the elites have a hard time imagining what it is to live like that. To the elites, this guy has to be exaggerating... Everybody knows food comes from supermarkets and restaurants.

 

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

20 hours ago, merjet said:

He has accused China of weakening its currency in order to export more goods to the USA. As I've pointed out before, such weakening is a two-way street. Weakening its currency results in it paying more for imports, such as these airplanes manufactured by Boeing.

Merlin,

I lived for 32 years in Brazil where they did exactly this. I've translated thousands of contracts (literally) dealing with this subject. So even though I am not versed in higher math, I am versed (up to a point) in the practical side of international trade laws and deals.

It doesn't work the way you say. It should work the way you say if you deduce reality from principles, but it never works out that way once people get involved. At least it didn't with Brazil.

To start with, I don't know about Chinese contracts, but with Brazilian ones, they were not allowed to be in made in dollars. (Or in English, for that matter. Valid agreements were in Portuguese. Sworn English translations could be made and they did have some legal standing, but the Portuguese version always took legal precedence.)

Moneywise, these contracts were pegged to some kind of index the Brazilian government adopted (this changed a lot). Why? According to Brazilian law, it was illegal back then (and probably still now) to agree to a legal act using currency that was not legal tender. The dollar could not be used in Brazilian courts to settle debts (that's the meaning of legal tender), so dollars had no legal standing as Brazilian legal tender. The Brazilian government, however, could rate Brazilian legal tender against a foreign currency and it did so through indexes. And, the government being the government, it could even have reserves in a foreign currency (which had their respective indexes). 

I imagine this same reasoning holds for Chinese law. I would have to check to be sure, but I find it hard to imagine otherwise due to the nature of China's legal reasoning in other areas.

I don't know how many court documents from lawsuits I translated that dealt with American companies getting screwed by these variations in index. Because when there is more than one legal index for currency, one index can go up (like say for manipulating currency value) and another index can stay the same (like the "cesta básica" index which roughly means monthly cost for essential goods for a family of four, or sundry treasury bond indexes, or inflation index, or any number of reasons to play funny-math with money). What this means in practice is that an American company can enter into a trade agreement with a Brazilian company for, say, $10,000 and only receive $7,000 after all the indexes are calculated (that is, devaluations, inflation, etc. have been indexed), and, under Brazilian law, the contract would be legally honored and settled.

So it all depends on what index the government allows contracts with foreign companies to be made with.

Then there's this. Often an American company would do one deal as a "loss leader" for show, which the Brazilian government would publicize to the skies in the press for propaganda reasons, while the company was granted tons of concessions regarding labor, raw materials, etc., backstage. Once again, crony insiders prospered and everyone else got screwed.

I could go on and on because the face of corruption does not have only one form. It gets fun once we got into real estate, intellectual property, mineral rights, and so on and other laws kick in.  

I keep harping on jobs because, according to your position about Boeing making more money from China for selling more product at a higher price, that kind of transaction should create more jobs, right? But it doesn't work out that way and there's a reason for it.

As you say, China might pay more for imports, but does it pay more in dollars for imports? The dollar is the only currency that matters to an American company. 

But suppose the American company does get more dollars for some reason (and I assure you, it will not be due to the currency manipulation unless China and company need a loss leader for show like I said above). In a free market deal, companies that sell more products for higher prices tend to grow. They sell more, they get more profits, so they make more products to get more profits. That's the way it's supposed to work, right?

Well that means more jobs.

However, in my experience (and, frankly, according to common sense), companies and elite crony insiders who make their money from corruption tend to sock it away in the islands somewhere. No new jobs. Except for maybe 10 here and there to process orders, do logistics, and the like. That's where I got my jobs figures from.

In your way of calculating, the deal is divorced from reality. The math says it's supposed to work like XXX, so the reality is what you imagine happens. China pays more for imports, thus America gets wealthier from that particular deal. But when you look, really look at the results, that's not what happens.

Why?

Because reality is reality. In my way of thinking, figuring out reality is the only reason to look at the math in the first place. Math qua math is interesting for mathematicians, but it's not all that valuable to everyone else. It needs to be pegged to reality. Once you factor in human nature, corruption, backstage deals and so on, plus a HUNGRY ruling class elite that doesn't mind screwing everyone else in crony capitalism arrangements, things start making sense. And there's this, too. The elites can run the math to be anything they want it to be.

The reality--for anyone with eyes--will be (and is) closed plants, thousands of miles of desolation, and no jobs for Americans. But full pockets for the elites.

All this is another way of me saying I don't give a damn about treating as legitimate the offshore accounts of Boeing+China insiders. Especially when it results in so much hardship for so many people. 

I do care about living in a good society where people are relatively well off. Free markets--true free markets, not the crony insider bullshit structures--are how we get there.

Until a free market structure can be firmly established and actually exist without being co-opted once again by the cronies, Trump will probably intervene in ways that will piss off ideological purists and the ruling class alike. I don't mind, either. In an emergency, it's common sense to put out a few fires at the start just to get going. I don't mind because I can tell the difference between an emergency and a policy, and I know where he is going. It's toward freedom, real freedom, not away from it.

Once we get there (to truly free markets), if he then does what he's doing to put out fires, it will not be acceptable. But you cannot take purity practices from there and transplant them to here at this moment. That won't work. There are too many goddam crony elites gumming up everything.  

Michael

[merjet]

12 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

It's simple math.

If you add 10, but remove 10,000, that's an overall loss, not a gain.

It doesn't matter how many times you keep saying 10 were added.

......

I'm inventing the numbers,

That's some inventing, alright. Without a credible justification, your simple math is simply arbitrary.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

14 minutes ago, merjet said:

Without a credible justification...

Try this:

And this:

And this:

Three's enough.

But there are plenty more where that came from. Entire swaths of the country like that.

That may be abstract to you and arbitrary and not credible, but that's the reality my math is pegged to. And man, can I get you some more of that reality. All you want to look at for days on end.

After all, how many Starnesvilles does it take before someone realizes there's a problem with the way the ruling class has been running things (with plenty of trained math experts at that  )? 

Anywho, I did something about it. I campaigned for Trump and he won. Now it's going to be fixed.

Michael

[merjet]

31 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I lived for 32 years in Brazil where they did exactly this. I've translated thousands of contracts (literally) dealing with this subject. So even though I am not versed in higher math, I am versed (up to a point) in the practical side of international trade laws and deals.

...................

I keep harping on jobs because, according to your position about Boeing making more money from China for selling more product at a higher price, that kind of transaction should create more jobs, right? But it doesn't work out that way and there's a reason for it.

As you say, China might pay more for imports, but does it pay more in dollars for imports? The dollar is the only currency that matters to an American company. 

I do, too. The company I worked for did cross-currency transactions, and I was quite aware of them.   Also, you gave this Brazil example several months ago (link), and I responded to it (link).

I didn't say anything about Boeing creating more jobs by selling to China. Implicitly I referred to Boeing keeping jobs that already exist. Recall the old adage, a penny saved is as good as a penny earned.

Your question is mere diversion. What's relevant is that China pays more in yuan, and that matters to China. Jeesh.  

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

2 minutes ago, merjet said:

What's relevant is that China pays more in yuan, and that matters to China.

Merlin,

The hell it does.

All China has to do is print more.

China does this not to spend more value, hell, it can print valueless money at will, but to get illicit value--i.e., more dollars for nothing.

Michael

[merjet]

MSK, I'm not looking for credible justification in terms of pictures. A credible justification would be in terms of numbers of  jobs firmly tied to reality and involve trade with China.

[merjet]

4 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

The hell it does.

All China has to do is print more.

The hell it doesn't. China has to deal with domestic inflation and the value of its currency versus many others for all its imports and exports.  

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Just now, merjet said:

MSK, I'm not looking for credible justification in terms of pictures. A credible justification would be in terms of numbers jobs firmly tied to reality and involve trade with China.

Merlin,

I know you're not looking.

It's damn inconvenient to see the effects of causes.

But there's cause and effect in those pictures. With China trade deals. You may not see it, but I see it. And tons of Trump supporters see it.

Those pictures don't fit your math formulas well, do they?

They're horrible to look at, anyway.

Why not just pretend they have nothing to do with this topic?

   

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

5 minutes ago, merjet said:

The hell it doesn't. China has to deal with domestic inflation and the value of its currency versus many others for all its imports and exports.

Merlin,

Of course China has to deal with inflation. You think that's going to stop anything?

If you think China is the bastion of a free market economy, I have a bridge to sell you cheap.

(btw - In the few dealings I had with Chinese, they are killers. These guys know what they're doing to take advantage of loopholes.  )

Michael