Reagan

When Ronald Reagan ran for President the establishment wing of the party known as the Rockefeller wing was totally against Reagan and predicted disaster for the party. Here are just a few of the many comment made about Reagan. To be more precise, they thought him an extremist, un-electable, an ultra-right wing nut, dumb, ignorant and, more to the point, not one of their crowd. Former Republican Senator Chuck Percy of Illinois in 1975 to the New York Times: “A Reagan nomination and the crushing defeat likely to follow could signal the beginning of the end of our party as an effective force in American life.” Republican Representative Pete McCloskey of California in 1976: “A Reagan win would be a disaster for the GOP.” In 1976, Reagan was publicly told by two Republican governors to get out of the race against Ford: What goes around comes around.

Trade deficits

The Clinton administration signed the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and it was supposed to offer trade between Mexico and Canada without any import taxes. There is some argument but many experts believe the agreement can be cancelled by giving six months notice. Trump has talked about building a wall on our southern border and having Mexico pay for it. The US currently imports 58 billion more from Mexico than what the US exports to Mexico so we have negative balance of trade. Trump can threaten to cancel NAFTA if Mexico refuses to pay for the wall or he can cancel the treaty and place a ten percent import tax which will pay for the wall in two years. He can bypass this by saying that any goods produced by American companies in Mexico will face an import tax when they bring these products into the US. This will discourage American companies from moving to Mexico and keep jobs here in the US. Mexico like most of our trading partners needs the US far more than the US needs Mexico so they will come around using the right negotiating skills.

Even playing field

Martin Friedman was the economist who pushed the concept of free trade and his arguments were sound but they were based on having a level playing field. The US trade with China is not on a level playing field and it is costing jobs across America. China places an import tax on American goods and the US does not have an import tax on goods from China. Simple as that! In addition China uses currency manipulation to discriminate against imports. When countries exchange goods though trade they have to account for the difference in currency and in the case of China this means the difference between the Juan and the Dollar. When a country is selling more stuff to the world than it is buying (a trade surplus) the price of its currency is supposed to go up. People and businesses are buying the currency of that country to get the things from that country, which increases demand for that currency. Increase in demand for something pushes its market price up. A currency is said to be “strong” when its price is up, and it can buy more things. China has a large trade surplus but the value of the Juan is not going up because the Chinese government is buying large quantities of US treasuries and this is called currency manipulation. A country is selling more than it is buying and has a trade surplus. If markets are working correctly, its currency would become “strong” because the world is buying its currency to buy its stuff, so its goods would start to cost more. Trump is saying two things about China. First he will place an import tax on goods coming into the country from China. Second he will increase the tax to offset the effects of any currency manipulation. These changes will allow American companies to compete and will tend to bring jobs home and encourage new business growth. All of the criticism of Trump will disappear if he is able to create new high paying jobs. The best welfare plan is a good job.

Blah, blah, blah

When people say they are upset with the Washington establishment they mean a number of things but there is one area where it is very clear why they are upset and I have felt this for many years. If I am watching a political program and they are going to have a senator or congressman from each side to discuss the issues, I change the channel. The reason is simple. I know in advance what each side is going to say almost word for word. It doesn’t matter what questions they asked they have the same answers. They are so common they have a name called talking points. They have those memorized and have used them every time they run for re-election. Most people refer to these words as blah, blah, blah. One of the reasons that people are attracted to Trump is that he unpredictable. His arrogant, bombastic, often time rude answers to questions are not only entertaining but unexpected and considered refreshing by many of his backers. The establishment Washington insiders are beside themselves and totally at a loss. It is frightening to them to realize that all that they have learned over the years is being tossed out with the bath water. The disgust with Washington is so broad that many feel that Bernie Sanders backers will vote for Trump. The only way that Trump can win the White House is to get people who normally do not vote to go to the polls. In the last Presidential election 93 million eligible voters stayed home because they were so disillusioned by the blah, blah, blah that they just gave up on politicians.

Underwater

In 2008 the big banks were in trouble because there were so many home loans that were underwater, meaning the appraised value of the home was less than the mortgage owed. Homeowners, many of who had little to no equity in the house, walked away from their homes and turned them back to the banks. This put the banks in jeopardy and the government stepped in to help by bailing out the banks. The Troubled Asset Relief Program initially gave the Treasury purchasing power of $700 billion to buy illiquid mortgage-backed securities and other assets from key institutions in an attempt to restore liquidity to the money markets. The fund was created on October 3, 2008 with the passage of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act Many people wondered at that time why the government didn’t bail out the homeowners instead. Here is what the situation looked like in 2008. Nearly 29 percent of U.S. homeowners with mortgages owe more on their homes than their properties are worth — the definition of "underwater." That's about 14.7 million borrowers, and they collectively owe $700 billion. Notice that the 700 billion needed to pay off the loans of all the homes underwater was the same amount given to the banks. If all these home owners had paid off their loans the banks would not have needed the bailout. As a matter of fact the government would have only needed to pay off a portion of the loans, enough to bring them above water and these homeowners could have remained in their homes.

Killing families

Recently Trump was criticized for saying we should kill the families of ISIS members. Once again the political correct said that is not the American way. How soon we forget the fire bombings of Japanese and German cities during WW 2. The purpose was to kill civilians in order to demoralize the enemy and it worked. Here is the story of just one city. On the evening of February 13, 1945, an orgy of genocide and barbarism began against a defenseless German city, one of the greatest cultural centers of northern Europe. Within less than 14 hours not only was it reduced to flaming ruins, but an estimated one-third of its inhabitants, possibly as many as a half a million, had perished in what was the worst single event massacre of all time. We are now faced with an enemy that thinks nothing of beheading civilians and throwing gay men off of tall buildings and selling women into slavery and our concern is that we look bad in the eyes of the world. Do we think that by taking the high road the ISIS people will see the light and try to be more like us?

Torture or not

Because of Trump’s recent comment about bringing back water boarding and things even worse, the conversation around torture has been revived. Many who want to be politically correct say things like, it is not the American way. Some years ago I wrote up a scenario to illustrate that things like torture are not as simple as them seem and here is a reprint. I offer this bit of history to set the stage for the subject of torture as seen through the eyes of people in the west and in particular the people of the United States. To illustrate my point, I want you to assume that you are the President of the United States and a message has just be posted on an Islamic Internet site saying that 12 nuclear bombs have been planted in 12 major cities throughout the US and one will be exploded the first Friday of each month for the next 12 months. The purpose is to bring the US economy to its knees, which will result in a worldwide depression and thus give these groups the opening they need to take over. Whether this is logical thinking is not the point because it is what they believe. Many of these terrorist feel in their hearts that they are doing the work of God so they are highly motivated but the leadership behind these zealots has ulterior motives. The CIA comes to you and says they have captured a man whom they believe knows the locations of these bombs and they want permission to use any means to convince him to divulge this info. To make this more to the point they are not interested in something like water boarding, which will leave him physically unharmed but they want permission to use means that will result in death. They present you will four scenarios. First he is tortured and killed and they find the bombs and disable them. Second he is tortured and killed and there are no bombs. Third he is not tortured and there are no bombs and forth he is not tortured and the first bomb goes off in downtown Chicago. Make your choice and then redo the experiment but this time you know for sure which of the above four options is for real. Has your choice changed? If you chose not to torture and the bomb went off and next week they bring you another terrorist and you are faced with the same conditions, do you change your mind? Examine each of these options and see if your ideas about torture change with conditions. Now look at the situation through the eyes of the public. How do they view you and your presidency if you chose not to act and the bomb exploded and how do they view your actions if you chose to act and there was no bomb. Are you a hero or a goat in their eyes depending on the outcome? Can a person make a blanket statement that torture is wrong and we will not do it? If you chose not to torture and all 12 bombs exploded could you sit in your office and say that you protected the constitution and that is the most important thing or would you say it doesn’t make sense to save the constitution and lose the country. Do you torture or not? I saw a program where this scenario was presented to a group of experts and their conclusion was that the President should allow torture to find the bombs and then he should be tried by the Supreme Court as a criminal. These are the experts! Dah!!

Crime

During the 1960’s laws were passed to liberalize punishment for crimes and the crime rate rapidly increased. In the 60’s the murder rate was around 9,000 per year and that more than doubled to 20,000 by the mid 70’s and then held steady in the 20,000 rage until the mid 90’s when the Crime control bill was passed. After that the murder rate began to decline to the 14,000 level where it remains today. One of the results of the Crime bill was the increase in the number of prisoners which went from 600,000 in 1995 to 1,600,000 in 2010. There is now a push to reduce punishment for drug users while maintaining strong sentencing for drug pushers. This is something that common sense should have dictated from the start. Users need rehab. As the release of these prisoners makes room, the cells can be filled with the drug criminals that are destroying the inner cities. Fully one half of murders are committed by inner city drug wars and 90% of these are blacks killing blacks. Blacks are disproportionately represented in prison and as these drug war killers are put in prison the number of blacks will increase even more and there will be a push to release drug dealers who do not have a record of violent behavior although the sale of drugs is a prime cause of violent crime. When people say that selling drugs is not a violent crime they are mistaken. What they mean is the person doing the selling is not violent but the users trying to get money to pay the dealer often times resort to violence to get money to pay for drugs. This whole thing about crime and punishment is the pendulum swinging and the way things often work.

Pundit mistakes

This election cycle is making it quite apparent that many Americans are disgusted with their elected leaders but there is another group that is even more disgusting and they are the pundits. For those who have never read Teddy Roosevelts essay on the Man in the Area, please do so and you will understand why many would be disgusted with the talking heads. These are the people who don’t take the risk of running for public office but instead stand on the sidelines and second guess those who do take the risk. They ask gotcha questions hoping to embarrass, they use hindsight to point out mistakes and they Monday morning quarterback the decisions of the risk takers. Anytime a risk taker misspeaks they gleefully play it over and over. Now these people are getting a taste of their own medicine as their predictions have been totally wrong. Maybe they will show these over and over. Not!

Experts fooled

One of the smaller but important groups that have been thrown into a tizzy by Trump are the so called political experts. These are the people who have spent most of their lives becoming experts in the field of politics and now find themselves on the outside looking in. They are lined up either as liberals or conservatives and are totally immersed in the politics of the past where each side stakes out principals that they live and die by. They are the ones who always vote the party regardless of the candidate. As these poor souls look back over the past eight months and all that they have said and predicted and find themselves looking like idiots they are now considered as irrelevant by the average voter. It is like a scientist, who spent his life proving that the earth was flat and woke up one day to find it was round. They are not happy campers as the people have decided that enough is enough and no longer want to hear the standard bladder about liberals and conservatives and this is the stuff these experts live and die for. Most voters have reached the point where they no longer tuned in to hear politicians because they knew what was going to be said before it was said. It is like coach speak. We had an offensive plan to score more points than the other team and we had a defensive plan to keep the other team from scoring more than we did. Blah, blah, blah! While Trump causes concern for many voters, they are thrilled with him exposing the balderdash that the average politician spews out. For years these typical pols have been so afraid they might say the wrong thing that they just kept repeating their talking points ad nauseam. As weird and strange as Trump is, he has become like a breath of fresh air.

Bad air

According to the Global Burden of Disease Study, air pollution causes more deaths than malnutrition, obesity, alcohol and drug abuse, and unsafe sex. Cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases, as wells as respiratory infections, account for the majority of deaths from air pollution. Furthermore, half of the air pollution mortality is statistically attributed to outdoor air pollution, researchers said, while the other half is attributed to indoor air pollution that generally comes from burning coal or wood for heating or cooking. If power plants were changed over from coal to natural gas this would eliminate sulfites, sulfates, nitrites and nitrates all of which cause acid rain. It would also eliminate heavy metals like mercury, lead and arsenic and the huge piles of coal ash that are accumulating. The ash contains many other poisons which contaminate landfills. The natural gas is available and cost less than coal but there seems to be no push to change over. Why is that?

New judge

When President Obama ran for office the first time in 2008, I voted against him for two reasons. The first was his lack of experience and the second was that there was a democratic senate and if an opening came on the Supreme Court a new judge could be appointed with a minimum of debate. I do not know what makes a good judge but I want a knock down drag out fight and you need a senate in the opposite party of the president to get such a fight. Now that Scalia has died the new judge should be appointed by Obama and confirmed by the Republican controlled senate. There are at least a dozen important decisions that must be made between now and June and the court must have the full complement of 9 judges to properly do their job. With the way Trump is exciting the electorate the next administration could have a Republican President and Senate and that is not the best way to choose a judge. Both political parties believe that if they had complete control that they could produce a utopian country but keep in mind that both always put party above country.

School suspensions

There are things going on in the public schools that no one talks about and they are disturbing. In an effort to lower the dropout rate of black students, new procedures have been implemented. Based on the evidence that if students drop out they end up in poverty all the stops have been pulled out to keep them in school. Here is a situation that is all too prevalent. A high school student sits in the classroom and does nothing. He says he has no interest in the class and doesn’t know what is going on and doesn’t want to know. Sometimes this student will disrupt the class by talking with other students and sometimes they will do odd things like just lying down on the floor. A special teacher is assigned to this student and the two of them go to a special room where the teacher literally pleads with the student to do some small amount of work. It appears and have no evidence to back this up but if the student stays in high school for the full four years they somehow graduate. By using this procedure the school can show that they have reduced the dropout rate and increased graduation rates. I have been in algebra and chemistry classes where there are students, as many as one fourth of the class, who have no idea what is going on. How these students manage to graduate is something that should be looked into. The data collects both suspensions and expulsions and the difference is time. An expulsion is for a year but suspensions vary in time. Last year, Minneapolis Public Schools suspended or expelled 4,896 students: 3,801 African Americans, 372 American Indians, 292 Latinos and 328 whites. St. Paul excluded 4,418 students from class for a day or longer, the state’s threshold for reporting disciplinary data: 3,109 African Americans, 101 American Indians, 472 Latinos and 397 whites. It is easy to see why there is a tendency to avoid talking about this problem.

Judgment

Public TV and radio stations often say that they are independent but critics say they lean left. Whenever Republicans get control they move to limit funding to these organizations and when the Democrats get in office they vote to further fund these people. Does this cause these news groups to move to the left? The same thing holds for government employees. The Republicans want to cut and the Democrats want to grow. How do career civil servants react to this? Do the people at the IRS, the state department and attorney general’s office feel more secure with Democrats and if so does that effect their judgement as in cases like those pending against Hilary and the Clinton Foundation?

$10 tax

President Obama will call for a $10 per barrel surtax on oil in his upcoming budget. One wonders about the timing of such a tax. The average price of oil during Obama’s years in office has been over $90 per barrel so why propose such a tax now when the price is $30. The companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 energy sector are expected to lose a collective $28.8 billion this calendar year, down from $95.4 billion in net income earned during the industry's bonanza year of 2008, according to a USA TODAY analysis of data from S&P Capital IQ. The President expects the oil companies to pass this increase on to the consumers and this will most adversely affect the low to middle income groups. The money will be allocated by the government to various programs designed to fight climate change.

Likeability

I recall reading about the Kennedy/Nixon debates and how people who watched on TV thought that Kennedy won but those who listened on radio believed that Nixon won. Those thoughts stuck in my mind and a few years later when I was watching Andy on Mayberry RFD, I suddenly realized that Hollywood could create the next president of the United States. Then to prove the adage that truth is greater than friction, along came Ronald Reagan and words like charisma and telegenic entered my vocabulary. This tread has continued to the present day and the new word is likeability and we see that being played out in the primaries. We have candidates like governors Jeb Bush and John Kasich who have outstanding records of job creation, lower taxes while taking their states weighed down with debt to budget surpluses and the voters seem not to be interested. They are overshadowed by the powerful personality of Trump. While this can be attributed to TV personality, there is another underlying reason why this is happening. I was watching Jeb talk about his record as he went from item to item showing how government can be effectively run and I have seen this it other states but when it comes to the federal government something changes. Here all too often great speeches are given but nothing much changes and this is at the heart of today’s frustration with the federal government. I offer the VA as one example. For years veterans have been poorly treated by the VA and for years government officials have said they will change things. The latest attempt happened less than two years ago. VA Secretary Robert McDonald, the former chairman, president and CEO of Proctor & Gamble who came to the VA just three and a half months ago, has made clear in his words and early deeds that there must be sweeping systemic changes at the VA. And also what he calls a change in the "culture" that permeates the VA. Like all things in the news this has faded into the background but once again nothing is changing. The Vets are still waiting in line far too long

Muslim stats

As President Obama visits a Mosque today in his quest to make sure we do not brand all Muslims as terrorist, it is time to look at some statistics. There are about 1.6 billion Muslims in the world and only an estimated 300,000 are radical terrorist and the US is fighting to, as the President says, to weaken and destroy these groups. But what of the rest! A recent PEW survey covering hundreds of thousands of Muslims in 29 countries reveals some startling information. 27% believe that if a Muslim leaves the faith they should be executed. This represents 237 million Muslims. 345 million believe in Honor Killings. This is the practice of families killing female members who behave in an immoral manner, things like dating outside the religion or having premarital sexual relations. 281 million believe that the cutting off of the hands of thieves is acceptable and whippings and stoning as punishment for other crimes. This last statistic is not just relevant to Muslim countries as the survey showed that in western countries these beliefs are also prevalent. Asked if public whippings, cutting off hands and stoning would be acceptable provided the following results. France 42% agree England 35% agree US 26% agree. Like I said, somewhat startling!