The Political Thread

09-12-18: jubakpicks.com/what-if-china-actually-welcomes-the-trump-administrations-tariffs/   IF HE IS CORRECT (???), Not Good For Our Economy…

 
China trade hardliners in the Trump administration, such as advisor Peter Navarro, have predicated their tariff campaign against China on the theory that hiking tariffs on more than $500 billion in Chinese exports to the United States (as proposed at the moment) will cause such pain to the Chinese economy that the government in Beijing will come back to the negotiating table willing to meet the administration’s demands on tariffs, subsidies for Chinese exporters, currency valuations, and intellectual property protection.

But what if that basic assumption is dead wrong? What if even though U.S. tariffs do impose some pain on the Chinese economy, it is a level of pain that President Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders are willing to accept because that pain significantly advances their goal of gaining Chinese independence in key technology industries?

That’s the thesis of a post today on Bloomberg.com and the post by Michael Schuman is well worth considering since #1, I think it is right in its essentials, and #2 it turns everything about the U.S.-China trade confrontation on its head with really negative consequences for emerging market financial markets and economies.

Schuman’s argument goes like this.

Higher U.S. tariffs on $500 billion in Chinese exports (plus restrictions on some sensitive high-technology goods from the United States) provide the Chinese government with a perfect cover to raise tariffs on U.S. technology products and push ahead with its Made in China 2025 initiative.

That plan targets global (and in many cases U.S.-led) high technology industries where China wants to seize global leadership.

As part of that plan, the government will make significant investments into domestic Chinese companies in those industries, will encourage domestic companies to buy their technology products from those Chinese technology companies, and will limit foreign involvement in these key Chinese industries.

See any way that the Trump administration’s trade policies actually advance those goals?

The official China Daily put it this way: The trade war is a “blessing in disguise.” The newspaper didn’t put it quite spell out the details to this blessing but Schuman does:

“Trump’s trade sanctions have given Beijing another excuse to drag its feet on free-market reforms, to support local companies and to harass and exclude foreign business —all things Chinese leaders are inclined to do anyway.”

As Schuman writes “The Communist Party prefers Chinese to buy Xiaomi phones and Geely cars, not iPhones and Buicks.” And Beijing wants those phones and cars–both domestic and foreign–made with an increasing percentage of domestically produced technology content. READ MORE…

Sept 12, 2018 14:15:50 GMT -5 utahyank said:

reminds me of the old saw that if you ask two economists what to do you will get three opinions....of course it would be easy to find economists that disagree with any policy...probably easy to find a hundred to disagree...big deal....the proof will be in the results....Arthur Laffer was laughed at (no pun intended), but his policies generated great growth during the Reagan years.....the policies of the Trump administration are producing record economic growth....and he is trying to reduce the trade defecit with China, which is huge....why would anyone be against that.....oh...yes...now I know, because it is another way to criticize Trump...that's all it is..

UTAH: The article was for Investment Advice not to criticize Donald (MY GOD).  But since you brought up Donald, NOW THIS:

MORE Donald STUFF & LIES:

As of 09-10-18, Donald had LIED over 4,713 times since taking office… “YOU SAID WHAT?”

The Media tries to be Polite and says, “He mis-stated facts. Yes, I can see that happening once & a while.

But, when it happens Daily, sometimes, many times (multiple times) in one day = LIES.

Donald has lied more than other modern day President, even Nixon.

Donald is a Compulsive Serial Liar…I believe he does such, to Distract & Deflect us from paying attention to the truth/facts in regards to his so many pending problems.

--08-28-18: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-warns-evangelicals-of-violence-if-gop-loses-in-the-midterms/ar-BBMA2Fc?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U147DHP

 Donald cannot help, but lie; which is normal for an Extreme Serial Compulsive LIAR.

Donald, now claims the Progressive Left will cause violence if the Democrats win the Mid-Terms. This is a Huge Lie and is called Fear-Mongering (A Fear-Talker).

The only Ones, who started more Violence (Hate Crimes/Events), were his Extreme White Supremacist Nazi-Like Dark Age Belief Followers after Donald was ELECTED.

The Progressive will only Dance, Smile, Dance, Laugh & Party if the Democrats win the Mid-Term Elections…

---08-29-18: DONALD, also lied again, a couple of days ago, when he stated that the DOW just crossed 26,000 for the first time.

The DOW crossed & close above 26,000 on 01-26-18 at 26,616.71. He just cannot help himself = Like a LYING CHILD!!!

09-06-18: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/revealed-trump-inauguration-crowd-photos-were-edited-after-he-intervened/ar-BBMWxOE?li=BBnb7Kz  
A government photographer edited official pictures of Donald Trump’s inauguration to make the crowd appear bigger following a personal intervention from the president, according to newly released documents.

The photographer cropped out empty space “where the crowd ended” for a new set of pictures requested by Trump on the first morning of his presidency, after he was angered by images showing his audience was smaller than Barack Obama’s in 2009.

The detail was revealed in investigative reports released to the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act by the inspector general of the US interior department. They shed new light on the first self-inflicted crisis of Trump’s presidency, when his White House falsely claimed he had attracted the biggest ever inauguration audience.

The records detail a scramble within the National Park Service (NPS) on 21 January 2017 after an early-morning phone call between Trump and the acting NPS director, Michael Reynolds. They also state that Sean Spicer, then White House press secretary, called NPS officials repeatedly that day in pursuit of the more flattering photographs.

--09-11-18: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-wanted-to-up-tax-rate-to-44percent-says-woodward-book/ar-BBNaLH3?li=BBnb7Kz  
U.S. President Donald Trump had to be talked out of raising personal income tax by four percentage points, astonishing his chief economic adviser.

The revelation comes in The Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward’s book Fear: Trump in the White House, which is released today.

In it, Woodward says that former National Economic Council director Gary Cohn had discussed tax reform legislation with the president and during the conversation, Trump suggested dropping the top corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent.

But Trump's suggestion to compensate for the difference appeared to shock Cohn.

"I'll take the personal top rate to 44% if I can get the corporate rate to 15%," Trump said, according to Woodward.

“Sir, you can't take the top rate up," Cohn reportedly responded. "You just can't."

"What do you mean?" Trump reportedly replied. Cohn told Trump he would "get absolutely destroyed" if this happened.

In July 2017, former White House adviser Steve Bannon had raised the idea of including a top tax rate of 44 percent for the 44,000 Americans earning more than $5 million a year to pay for tax cuts, which would raise around $18 billion a year, The Intercept reported.

Woodward's book, seen by Business Insider, also alleges that Cohn was shocked at how Trump did not understand how U.S. federal debt worked. The book outlines a conversation in November 2016 about how the Federal Reserve was likely to increase interest rates.

Trump said: “We should just go borrow a lot of money, hold it, and then sell it to make money."

Cohn explained that this would increase the deficit and actually add to the debt and was "astounded at Trump's lack of basic understanding" about what government borrowing meant.

"It was clear that Trump did not understand the way the US government debt cycle balance sheet worked," Woodward wrote.

Cohn is the latest figure to emerge from Woodward’s book casting aspersions on the intelligence of Trump. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis reportedly told associates that Trump "had the understanding of a fifth or sixth grader."

Scott Pruitt,former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said the president lacked knowledge “when it comes to things like the Constitution and rule of law.” Meanwhile, former White House deputy chief of staff Katie Walsh reportedly said working with him was “like trying to figure out what a child wants.”

--09-11-18 Another Lie: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/10/trump-tweet-facts-wrong-white-house-adviser-kevin-hassett-trump  
From a White House that coined the term “alternative facts”, admissions are rare and apologies even rarer. But on Monday, the American people were treated to both.

The White House’s chief economic adviser, Kevin Hassett, admitted that Donald Trump had been wrong to claim that GDP growth was higher than the unemployment rate for the first time in 100 years.

On Monday morning, Trump wrote on Twitter: “The GDP Rate (4.2%) is higher than the Unemployment Rate (3.9%) for the first time in over 100 years!”

Asked about the veracity of the statement later that day at a White House press briefing, Hassett said: “So I can tell you what is true. … What is true is that it’s the highest in 10 years. And at some point somebody probably conveyed it to him adding a zero to that and they shouldn’t have done that.”

Standing behind the same podium where the former White House press secretary Sean Spicer once falsely claimed that Trump’s inauguration drew the largest crowd there had ever been, Hassett thanked the reporter for the chance to set the record straight.

“We numbers geeks here at the White House are grateful when the press finds mistakes that we make – we don’t like making mistakes.

--09-11-18 BRAVO!!!: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/you-should-be-ashamed-of-yourself-key-trump-aide-stephen-miller-condemned-by-childhood-rabbi/ar-BBN9Dnv?li=BBnbfcL  
The childhood rabbi to Stephen Miller, special adviser to Donald Trump and a key architect of his “zero-tolerance” immigration policies, criticized his former charge on Monday as a purveyor of “negativity, violence, malice and brutality” who had learned nothing from his Jewish spiritual education.

Rabbi Neil Comess-Daniels of Beth Shir Shalom, a progressive reform synagogue in the beachside city of Santa Monica where Miller grew up, devoted his sermon marking the Jewish New Year to a striking denunciation of Miller and the now-abandoned policy he championed of separating immigrant families at the border.

“Honestly, Mr Miller, you’ve set back the Jewish contribution to making the world spiritually whole through your arbitrary division of these desperate people,” the rabbi said. “The actions that you now encourage President Trump to take make it obvious to me that you didn’t get my, or our, Jewish message.

“This is the season of apology, and to get to an apology, shame over past actions is necessary. Some shout at others when they are self-righteous enough: you should be ashamed of yourself! That’s not something I would ever shout or demand.” But Comess-Daniels went on to say it was up to Miller to acknowledge his wrongdoing.