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On Monday, Trump will be installed as president, so naturally everyone is speculating about what he will do once he gets the keys to the White House. Interestingly, much of the speculation is around the foreign policy issues he inherits. The neocons in the media are working hard to keep Ukraine in the news, so they are making claims about what Trump will and will not do with Putin. The Israel lobby wants Israel to be number one, so they are focusing on Iran.
What does not get noticed is Trump was elected on domestic issues. In the last election, Israel and Ukraine were far down the list for all voters. The number one issue was the economy. Immigration was the next big issue. The typical Trump voter looks at Ukraine as a boondoggle and Israel as an unsolvable problem. Logically, these two issues should be far down the list for Trump, but the media is focusing on them, which speaks to the power of their respective lobbies.
The first hint of what Trump has in mind for Ukraine came last month when Trump’s personal envoy to Ukraine and Russia said that it will take one hundred days to get a deal with Russia over Ukraine. This was a big shift from prior claims about Trump ending the war in a few days. Kellogg has also shifted with regards to what is happening in the war. The business about there being a stalemate has been dropped in favor of an acknowledgment that Ukraine is in trouble.
What the “one hundred days” tells us is Trump is not going to litter his first one hundred days with the Ukraine matter. It is a custom to assume that the first one hundred days of a new administration set the tone, so it is not an accident that Kellogg was suddenly using that phrasing. It is a signal that the Ukraine matter is not in the list of items that will take up the president’s time starting in January. To whom it was a signal is not all that clear and whether they understood it is unknown.
Time is the way to think about what Trump is planning for his second term. He has just one term and that means he has about eighteen months to get his domestic agenda pushed through Congress and the administrative state. Once we get to the summer of 2026 his party will be busy throwing the midterms. This means they will not pass anything the people want but instead focus on angering the base. After the election, Trump will get nothing from Congress.
This is a lesson Trump learned the hard way the first time. Once he won the election, he was swept up in a series of events that forced him to use his time in ways that had no benefit to him. He became the salesman wasting his days tending to customer service issues, rather than finding and closing new business. The number one skill for a salesman is time management. If you fail to manage your time, you fail. This is true for presidents, especially reformers like Trump.
It is why the signs point to Trump being something of a do-nothing president with regards to foreign policy issues. With Ukraine, he can do nothing, and it will resolve itself, as far as Trump is concerned. He inherited an unsalvageable mess from Biden, so no deal is better than any deal. Spending any time on it is a waste, so the one hundred days will probably turn into forever. The post-war deal with Russia will be left to the governments of Europe and the EU.
As for Israel, the signs are there for a delaying action. Kellogg was asked about it and reiterated the usual lines about pressuring Iran to abandon its nuclear program, which they largely did long ago. Michael Waltz, the new national security adviser, seems to get his opinions on Iran from Fox News. One suspects that he was picked because he will do what the boss says. Despite talk of new sanctions, Trump remains opposed to a war with Iran, or an Israeli war with Iran.
Another signal that the Middle East may be down there with Ukraine on the priority list is the fact Trump has signaled his disdain for Netanyahu. He was not invited to the inaugural and Trump has tweeted some untoward things about him. He also posted a link to Jeffrey Sachs calling Netanyahu a “deep, dark son of a bitch”, which is not the sort of thing you say about your friends. Trump has also been clear about wanting out of Syria, especially now that it is in chaos.
What may be shaping up for the first half of the Trump term is a policy of doing nothing with regards to the foreign policy hotspots. Trump and his advisors can answer questions and make the usual noises, but when it comes to investing time, the scarcest commodity Trump possesses, the administration will be stingy. These issues will get the absolute minimum amount of time and only so that they do not become a time waster for the domestic agenda.
It is looking like Trump learned that the most important card any president can play in politics is his attention. There is not much anyone can do if Trump simply de-prioritizes Ukraine, for example. “We are looking into it” works just as well against the schemers behind things like Ukraine as it does his own voters. Perhaps this time, instead of saying this regarding domestic issues, Trump will be saying it regarding foreign policy, to focus on the issues that matter to him.
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Dear thezman,
I hope you are having a wonderful day. Please advise me that your certificate is renewed and I can close this case.
Best regards,
-Shivansh Agarwal
Thank you very much please!
Come again!!!
You are welcome sir. We appreciate your business.
Devi Agarwal
Dear Shivansh,
Can you get my website to page 1 on Google please.
Yours hopefully
A. Punter
No cooking in the room!
Luther’s Turd
This post is a lie! I happen to know Microsoft closes service tickets without even bothering to ask. Heck, without bothering to fix the problem.
Nice try “Shivansh”, you bot 🤖. 😏
Sir,
Microsoft does that because it is a US company. We Indians are proud of our customer service.
Best regards,
Devi Agarwal
ANOTHER BOT!
EVERY American knows you would be “Dave”, not Devi.
We’re on to you!
Nowadays, he might be Devi with a blue dress on.
(Lord have mercy…)
It is a blue sari sir. Here is a picture –
https://www.buzzfeed.com/soniathomas/look-at-these-stunning-pictures-of-transgender-classical-dan
Thank you for coming, see you in hell!
It is working, thanks! So now saar, please kindly do the needful and close the ticket.
p.s. Don’t forget to show bobs and vegene!
If Trump back burners foreign policy – good. Actually DAMN good. US foreign policy has been an unmitigated disaster for decades. Rollback regulations, incentivize repatriation of industry, robustly secure and enforce the border and start rounding up and deporting illegals. That would be a decent start. Probably a pipe dream though…
Absolutely…Trump would be very wise to get out of all of these foreign entanglements, for nothing good can come of them for him…The problem is that Trump wasn’t a wise man last time, so where did this new found wisdom come from?! Perhaps an old dog can learn new tricks!? Let’s hope….
I prepared for Trump to have learned nothing, but I hope the last four years of being endlessly fu**ed with and shot at has clarified and focused his thinking.
Someone please tell me why “incentivize”?
Where did this come from, the people that start every sentence with “So..”, or throw in a random “I know right?” or “if you have any questions just ask myself”.
WTF??
Previously, it was simply INCENT. In other words, “We can incent better performance through profit sharing”.
Good grief.
I agree. To turn the noun “incentive” into a transitive verb “incentivize” sounds just ghastly to people of finer sensibilities and grammar Nazis.
The proper usage for “incentivize repatriation of industry” would have been “provide incentives for the repatriation of industry”
Impactful is not a word.
Performant is not a word.
How about “problematic”?
Or ‘reimagine’.
You can always identify a Karen by her problematic glasses.
I despise that style of glasses. Look at me please! I have glasses! I must be smart!
“Problematic” is problematical.
They’ve made a bastard of the language!
And a bitch of communication.
Bitchize… sounds like something a rapper would say lol.
This is all unacceptable!!
it be exhausting!
Incent and peppermint, the color of time…
I was in Italy a few months ago, and they use the word “allora” as their version of “so” to start a sentence. “So”, I guess annoying word fillers are universal.
Recently, I have heard “comfortability”. Why use one syllable when six will do.
Whenever someone would say “right?” at the end of a sentence, I used to say, “How would I know if it’s right, you’re the one saying it.” But I got exhausted from volume.
OK then-
I know, right?
The first time I heard “weaponize” I mocked the fellow using it. Then it started showing up in print.
The somethings we have been doing have been a disaster, so full speed ahead with the nothings!
Remember when the old drooly groper Bush the elder had his wrinkly self strapped to someone and ‘jumped’ for the last time?
I am picturing Nudelman and Vindman strapped together serving the country in a HALO mission over Ukraine. That will be the extent of Trump’s ‘foreigner policy’ the First 100.
But to fool Putler, aim them head first, no chute. That’ll learn them Russkies!
“Head first, no chute.” My gods. The American Tsar Bomba.
I hope you are right. Israel and Ukraine are evil, troubled hellholes best left alone. I find troublesome the imperial ambitions over Greenland and to the degree they are real Canada, though. No one voted for Manifest Destiny The Sequel, and suspect these are to divert attention over the promised mass deportations, which are the whole ball of wax. Last go round Trump wasted time on tax cuts, so maybe he learned his capital is limited despite his history of bankruptcies.
I have no problem with the Greenland push. They have a lot of minerals they can’t afford to extract. Canada and the Panama Canal statements are “art of the deal” negotiation tactics to get better agreements.
I see it as imperialism and oppose it root and branch. The 60,000 or so in Greenland don’t need to be GAE subjects.
Aren’t they part of the EU? They’re already GAE subjects. There is an American military base in Greenland IIRC – they’re already occupied.
And with what funds do we purchase Greenland? Oh yeah, a trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon it’s just small change…
Luther’s Turd
“Luther’s Turd” as a signoff leaves a terrible aftertaste
As in, wtf was he talking about…don’t care
In purely pragmatic terms, there are potential natural resource advantages to pursuing deals with Canada and Greenland.
The main thrust is probably Greenland, because it is a potential vehicle for skirting China’s dominance in rare earth reserves and processing as well as sidestepping the environmental lunatics in the US that will block renewed rare earth recovery and processing efforts.
The advantage of no international border between Canada and the US with regard to tar sands is pretty obvious. The problem is that most Canadians have the political outlook of Californians.
Not so much the ones who actually live in oil country, though.
The Canada thing only makes sense if you’re breaking it up first. We take the oil provinces and let the various tribes of homosexuals and Frenchmen (I repeat myself) carve up the rest into a sort of sex-tourism version of the Balkans. I had never given any thought to Greenland. As someone else pointed out, if we’re buying it, we don’t have the money. That’s like the price of 10 or 12 Ukraine adventures. Maybe the idea is to base the dollar on mineral wealth in a sort of modernized return to the gold standard? Every dollar can be redeemed… Read more »
“ various tribes of homosexuals and Frenchmen (I repeat myself) “
Hey! I have French Canadians in the family!! And…you’re correct.
“a sort of sex-tourism version of the Balkans”
Nobody is going to Canada for that, although Montreal did have that red light district for quite a while.
This is why it would be smarter to bring in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba in as separate states and leave the rest of the provinces as some kind of economic wasteland.
No way, brah. Before legalization, the Canadian government grew its potent marijuana in the cave laboratories of British Columbia.
Can’t have Greater America without Canadian California!
Like, dude!
You mean Kern County (Bakersfield)?
Oops, sorry, scorching-azzed Bakedfield looks nothing like Alberta.
Mostly brown Californians (> half the state). Canadians are more like Minnesotans or Bay Staters: white people with wokism.
There needs to be a wall on the northern border, too. Most of Canada is far to the left of Vermont.
I want a moat along with it.
They’ll just skate across it in winter.
Jack: printing funny money to buy or lease Greenland would be good business. Agree on Canada. On Panama, we should have never given it away.
Just stopping the flow of money and weapons to Ukraine and Israel would be a great plenty of action. That’s not a do-nothing. He will be fighting nominal Republicans all the way, plus Democrats wanting to make Trump fail.
Greenland is an awesome idea. Anyone who won’t self-deport is dropped off in an orange jumpsuit on some ice field in the middle of the island. He’ll have plenty of company — that’s where we will exile all the Democrats.
Greenland is an awesome idea. Anyone who won’t self-deport is dropped off in an orange jumpsuit on some ice field in the middle of the island.
That might change my mind if it were possible.
Since diversity is our greatest strength, one imagines that resettling several million sub-Saharans and mestizos there will soon make Greenland the envy of the developed world. It can’t hurt to try.
It’ll be the breadbasket of the North Atlantic in nothing flat…
The sight of skinny blacks and Squatemalans plowing up the glaciers to sow corn and sorghum might make it worthwhile.
This thread is hilarious.
Meh, we already have our own Siberia in Alaska to build the camps in.
Camps? We don’t need steenking camps! I’m thinking put the first aliquot down with about half the number of tents and sleeping bags and let them figure it out themselves. The rest all set down with nothing.
I predict in a few years, the Europeans will give us some kind of award for bringing polar bears back from the brink of extinction.
I wonder how things would’ve turned out if the invasion of Canada had succeeded. Seriously. Maybe there’d be two Americas, maybe the Civil War never happens, who knows. Lebensraum for everybody!
Interesting question. The Underground Railroad no longer ends in Canada. Each state that decides to oppose the Fugitive Slave Act has to keep them. One thinks the folly of such a policy would have been apparent rather quickly.
I remember when I was a kid the television saying (over maudlin music) that America was obligated to take in and nurse Greenland, like a terminally ill orphan, because we’d ruined it forever when a bomber crashed at Thule and low-level nuked the place. It was PBS, so Greenland annexation was the official government line, circa 1980. Coverage of Trump’s Greenland bit—which he’s been running for many years now—hasn’t mentioned this, maybe because media “don’t know anything” as Ben Rhodes famously said (but someone could tell them), maybe for the usual partisan reasons (Trump is not allowed to be understood),… Read more »
maybe because they’re not free to speak negatively of nuclear things right now
If Kubrick remade DR. STRANGELOVE, the Chill Wills character would be trying to prevent a nuclear first strike.
Slim Pickens. The great Slim Pickens.
Yes, thanks.
Heh!
Once got cold-cocked at a party thrown by a Chillus Willis. Down like the proverbial log.
(Neither Chillus nor the Bell Biv deVoes tripleganging on me from behind were white…thank gosh my Skins showed up. Right real Swastika yobbo thrashers they were, put those Doc Martins to good use.)
from the canal to the glacier, the U.S. will replace her
Make America Great(er)
Eretz Ymerica
I frequently reflect on the situation that Lyndon Johnson found himself in after his landslide win in 1964. Johnson’s priority was his Great Society domestic program, but his administration bogged down and eventually collapsed over Vietnam. (I think that the Great Society programs were, by and large, badly conceived, but they were Johnson’s priority.) Johnson could have pretty much walked away from Vietnam in 1965, blamed the mess on the Kennedy advisors whom he despised, and permit Vietnamese unification. By 1968 no one would have remembered. If Trump is smart, he’ll follow the Z-man’s counsel concentrate on his domestic priorities,… Read more »
Vietnam was supposed to be easy. No American soldier would have set foot there had the regime had any idea what it was in for. I think some folks felt the same way about Ukraine a few short years ago. Perhaps the LBJ analogy is more appropriate for Biden. And in other ways too.
They expected that the Russian economy would collapse due to sanctions at the same time the Russian military collapsed due to the Ukrainian resistance (which was indeed very formidable in the beginning). Neither happened, and once they did not, which we knew in the first six months or so, it became obvious that this was yet another quagmire for the neocons and others holding 300 year old grudges against the Romanovs.
It has been a quagmire for the Russians too. Putin sent in a token force and expected capitulation within days of the SMO. Here we are 3 years later, probably over 100k dead or wounded, the storage yards near empty, parts of Russia being occupied.
The benefits Russia has gained are largely totally unseen, at least if you take their rationale seriously. The rationale was having NATO on their border and the risk of a NATO invasion. But if successful, the Ukraine war only prevents that risk. So it will appear to the average Russian that absolutely nothing changed.
Russia is filled with Russians, so they have some pride in Putin’s gambits. His main success was showing the world that Globohomo is a paper tiger, militarily and sanctions-wise.
I’m not really criticizing Russia here, just that it has been a quagmire that was totally unexpected in the beginning.
Wars almost never work out the way the ruling class hopes or at least what they say publicly. Given the opening stages of the war (SMO), Putin really believed it. Britain was ruined by a war it started and was on the winning side.
Britain post WW2 was in a much healthier shape than the US of today. Not sure WW2 is the issue.Britain did not invade Poland so I question your chronolgy.
Sweden did not fight in WW2 and look at it!Or Portugal.France didn’t do much fighting in WW2 either.
Poland would not have been invaded if not for British (and French) interference. Britain wanted a war and they got it.
Regardless of the relative shape of Britain after 1945 vs America today, Britain would have been in much better shape in 1945 had the war not happened. They didn’t even end rationing until well into the 1950s.
Hitler’s demands for Poland were absolutely reasonable and any other leader would have made the same demands.
“Hitler’s demands for Poland were absolutely reasonable and any other leader would have made the same demands.”
Demanding a sovereign country bifurcate itself for the sake of a community on it’s Eastern border is not reasonable. Hilter was open that he wanted a greater self sufficient Germany that had enough farmland. The plan was always looking East, to conquering and removal of the European peoples that he considered to be non-people.
Britain’s entry into the war is still up for debate about whether or not it was good idea. However, we can’t redeem Hitler on the mistakes of Churchill.
“I’m not really criticizing Russia here, just that it has been a quagmire that was totally unexpected in the beginning.”
I’m not sure that it was totally unexpected. The Russians seem to have moved with great intelligence. I don’t blame them for hoping for blitzkrieg with their C list military though.
Perhaps, but the destruction of that globo-homo kleptocracy run by the piano man may well be worth the sacrifice.
The SMO has only emboldened the emerging BRICS alliance. Look at the Global South embracing a new world alignment devoid of the rules based order of fools.
Luther’s Turd
OT. Try to look at the bright side on BRICS. If they become a force to be reckoned with they will likely have to change the acronym to BRRIC. Stability will have to be restored to southern Africa in order to exert control over the continent and extract resources. None of the participant governments mollycoddle inept ethnic quagmires and “human rights”. BRRhodesiaIC.
Ah yes; the morally upright BRICS.
As well as scrupulously competent, we get our best programmers from there.
Yes, they have suffered ~100k dead, but they have gained 7.5 million new white citizens with the prospect of adding that many again if they annex all the way to Odessa. The materials cost is irrelevant because they have more metal and energy than they could use in a thousand years. They have won the only metrics that matter: manpower, soft power (respect around the world), and amplified internal social cohesion.
Had BoJo the Clown (acting on GAE’s behalf) not disrupted the deal that they had established in Istanbul in March 2022, Russia’s token force would have led to an acceptable resolution. Since that didn’t happen, they had to go back to the drawing board, retool and apply the lessons learned to improve their military and it’s industrial base. Sure they’ve had losses, but look at them rolling now. The most battle hardened military force in the world. Why does no one talk about the debacle this has been for NATO? 8 years they spent building and training the Ukraine army… Read more »
Europe is the biggest loser…for now.
In the long run, let us hope this leads to Europe’s nationalist renewal, and then may all the Brown world tremble.
I wonder if Trump’s demand for increased EU states’ contributions to NATO is his way of making it implode?
Europe has been weakened, which benefits both Russia and the GAE. I suspect that was a primary motivator for the latter.
I think that weakening the EU – blowing up the pipeline, making it more dependent on the USA, implementing a soft version of the Morgenthau plan, etc., was very much a consolation prize for the GAE.
‘(I think that the Great Society programs were, by and large, badly conceived, but they were Johnson’s priority.)’
‘Badly conceived’ lol. Like the L.A. fires are ‘inconveniently hot’.
That Great Society agenda, with its Civil Rights and Immigration Acts (’64 and ’65 respectively), fundamentally transformed the U.S. into the diversity, race-grievance, and feminist State it currently is. Those three lesbo fembots named Kristin running the LAFD are everywhere now, empowered to the max. KareNation.
You let ’em, they’ll burn the whole nation down and blame you when it’s done.
As for LBJ, he was a traitor to God and country.
At root, the Civil Rights Movement liberated a population of dumb savages to prey upon the intelligent, lawful and productive elements of society. And in the process, the latter lost a great deal of their freedom.
Truer words have NEVER been spoken. Amazing way to sum up decades of civil “rights” horror inflicted on white people.
It also greatly enriched and empowered — to status of supremacy — roughly one-half of the population, to detriment of the other half.
The female half of the U.S. became one of New Amerika’s Protected Classes, in adversarial relationship with the male half. Bingo, females now are the moral and spiritual betters of males and their legal and social superiors.
Sixty years of don’t need no man has consequences. You hearing me today, Malibu?
Kristin, Kristine, and Kristina. You can’t make this stuff up.
More evidence of the simulation thesis. Either that or God as the Divine Jokester.
Oh, that’s the Boss’ signature. Rubbing it in the nation’s face.
Is this just a coincidence or does ‘Kristin’ and it’s variants correlate with lesbianism or manly women?
That would be Butchin, Butchine, and Butchina…
Haha!
“I think that the Great Society programs were, by and large, badly conceived, but they were Johnson’s priority.”
And the US still reels from badly conceived TGS. Speak of the administrative state.
But could LBJ really have walked away from Nam? There’s a school of thought that JFK was going to do that and it cost him his life.
They finally took JFK out because he publicly threatened both the CIA and the cryptocracy in general. Not because of Nam policy.
I think it was all of a piece. Nam was a mighty big grift for the MIC, and they didn’t like the idea of having that delectable brisket sandwich dashed from their lips right as they were about to bite into it.
Yes. It was the things we discussed, and a number of other elements besides. But threatening to ‘shatter the CIA into a thousand pieces’, well, things happened quickly after that.
JFK knew it was, and is, a spiritual war. And he knew that the intel establishment — mostly Ivy League secret-society types — was neither on the side of God nor of traditional America.
The America imposed since ’63 has been Their America. That was the year of the real coup, and nothing has been the same since.
You had to have been alive back then to appreciate it fully.
Lady Bird Johnson owned the company that did 90% of the heavy equipment transport and supply to Vietnam.
When done, they just left ’em there. It would cost too much to bring used equipment back.
There were a lot of powerful groups he rubbed the wrong way. Pretty much sealed his fate.
JFK was reportedly ready to pull the plug on Vietnam and defang the agency pushing for intervention.
Given his fate, I don’t think Johnson was going to do that.
Don’t forget, the Vietnam of the Intel Community was Indonesia…where they took out another sitting President with a revolution. They needed its banks to launder the Air America opium trade from the original Golden Triangle. (Along with protecting the oil platforms in the Mekong Delta for the Six Sisters.)
For the IC, Southeast Asia was a turf war over black budget resources.
Obama’s mother and grandmother played a heavy role in it.
I predict Trump’s fan club will get the same Trump they had during his original term as grand poohbah — a largely ineffectual fella who, at best, barely moves the ball in the direction his supporters would prefer to see it go. The teeth have been removed from the office of the presidency. The technocratic oligarchs at the top have rigged things so well that one guy (ceremoniously dubbed “president”) cannot possibly interfere with their machinations. It often feels as if the entire Trump phenomenon is an expertly orchestrated distraction.
Spot on. Outside of appointing judges, the presidency has largely been emasculated. The Power Structure runs the show. Therefore, the focus on Trump, although understandable, is largely a red herring.
Exactly. Ukrainian ultra-patriot Vindman proved just how much power a well-placed cog has.
I think Trump intends to make some serious inroads…Trump and Putin have lit a fire under all the nationalists’ asses. Look at Europe. The real Resistance is coming together and, though shaky and uncertain, starting to make itself heard.
Of course the neocons’ bastard offspring, the Luttnick/Ellison/Thiel/Fink crowd, are fighting to take the captain’s wheel. That’s a given, just part of the calculation. It doesn’t mean they own us yet.
Probably. If Trump doesn’t defang the deep state and “intelligence” hydras, but settles for his guys running them for 4 years, the leftist onslaught will resume shortly.
I predict we’re going to get a nice interregnum from the “progress” of history and nothing more. A four-year break from the madness is going to be a nice respite before the coming collapse.
If we’re even partially prepared for the looming collapse, then, it doesn’t need to be a collapse like the messianics want. Let’s hope to steer things in our direction.
There’s a video of Trump—I think first circulated by Jimmy Dore—showing him talking off the cuff, on a stage, about Israel. In the video he expresses his surprise that Netanyahu, despite his assertions, doesn’t want a deal, while the Palestinians were desperate to take any deal. It really shows how innocent Trump is in some ways. Someone as aggressively online as him is bound to eventually stumble onto one of *those* videos that jump containment at Telegram and end up in compilations on YouTube. You know the ones: IDF soldiers beating up Palestinians in wheelchairs or confused kids with Downs-Syndrome;… Read more »
IMO Ukraine is in the sunk cost column on the national spreadsheet. Israel is in the fixed cost column.
Get me cheap energy, make me not have to look and the Island of Misfit Toys every fucking day nor hear their diktats.
Get someone in a perp walk. Someone held accountable. I’d settle for a few leftwing shill scapegoats.
Good attitude. Gotta start somewhere so yeah, turn a batch of lower-lever operatives. Then light them up.
Trump wasted his political capital on tax cuts as well the last time around. I think that he realizes that was a mistake as tax cuts weren’t a big issue. Trump wants to go down in the history books. That’s not going to happen with another tax cut.
Immigration reform and Greenland would do the trick.
Agree. Tax cuts are the “ same old same old” especially with the real base of Trump’s victory.
The Third Worldization of the country and putting the crazies back in the cages are the real issues.
Yep. Trump won’t go down in history by cutting the marginal rate from 22% to 20%. And he knows it.
Well, he has already gone down in history. The rest is gimme pudding.
Right now, he’ll go down as a disrupter who didn’t actually accomplish anything. That’s probably not what he wants.
We need massive tax increases just to stop growing the debt, let alone paying it down.
Nope. We’re screwed with the debt. If you raise taxes or cut spending enough to really dent the deficit, you’d cause a recession, which would lower GDP and thus, ironically, make the debt to GDP situation even worse.
We’ve seen this before. At some point, there’s no normal way out. You have to have inflation combined with low rates.
Exactly. I expect more circular adjustments to make the official inflation lies even greater. In the 1990s they installed three into the formulas: substitution effect, calling part of inflation technological improvement, and substituting housing costs with rent estimates. Coincidentally, these all lower the official inflation figures. If we were still using the formulas from Carter’s era, Biden would have much higher figures, as anyone who goes to the grocery store already knows.
I have no idea how they’ll do it, but inflation combined with very low interest rates is the easiest way out of this.
Theoretically, Congress could come up with a deal where the US very slowly raises taxes and cuts spending to address the deficits w/o tanking the economy. It would take a decade or more of sound policy and everyone working together.
That won’t happen. Defaulting on the debt is simply impossible, so you’re left with inflation and financial repression. It’s been done before. It’s not anything new. It can – and will be – done.
Don’t forget hedonic adjustment and geometric weighting. That substitution is a killer too. It turns a measure of inflation into a measure of surviving. Actual examples of substitution in the inflation numbers are steak and hotdogs. If you have to buy hotdogs because steak went up too much, you are experiencing a large drop in standard of living. Hedonic adjustments have been used to take an item that has gone up and price and adjusted to that over at the BLS, the price actually fell. It’s not just inflation. It’s GDP. It’s unemployment. It’s productivity. Every number the BLS comes… Read more »
BLS, short for BLSHT
It could be avoided but I don’t expect it to. Shutting down government offices wholesale would be a short-term disruption, but not nearly as deep as most think. Overpaid government workers are a major cause of high-priced housing. Government office buildings are a major cause of high-priced commercial RE. And economically speaking, most produce not goods, but bads.
So long as they didn’t do something stupid to extend the amount of time the ex-government workers could afford to stay home on the couch, those people will have to get jobs producing something of value to society, for a change.
Unfortunately, when you cut a government bureaucracy, they will then concentrate the cuts in the most public facing way.
Like if your school board gets a cut, they aren’t going to clean out the local BOE, they’re going to fire teachers, cut or eliminate extracurricular activities, not buy new books and other supplies etc.
Whatever public-facing benefits any bureaucracy happens to create are the very first things that bureaucracy will cut. The primary purpose of any bureaucracy, be it public or private is to protect itself from cuts and expand its budget and scope.
That’s true, which is why you need to yank the entire department out by the roots. Start with DoE (both), HHS, HUD, FDA. Lock the doors, put the buildings up for sale. I’d include Agriculture, in the first tranche, but they run Food Stamps / SNAP and I don’t think we are quite ready for the diversity to get all uppity. Though I suppose it has to happen sometime…
Tax cuts will happen because republicans are in power and that’s what republicans do. However, it’s probably not going to involve the expenditure of much political capital. More likely (if Trump has any sense at all), he’ll make the country club republicans expend capital with him to get those cuts. I imagine that deal has already been made. I’m sure the legislation is already teed up and ready to go.
Exactly. Trump needs to tell the GOP, give me immigration restrictions and securing the border, then I’ll support tax cuts. Not the other way around.
Sounds good but somehow those restrictions and the border stuff never seems to happen. It’s always the Charlie Brown/football thing.
But to hell with Greenland. I don’t want more outposts for the Blackberry Fruitcake Empire, I want the BFE to shrivel upon itself.
I don’t care about Greenland, but getting it would ensure that he’ll be remember 100 years from now.
I agree with this. If Greenland’s resources have to leave Greenland, they should go to a European (white) civilization, not the Shlomo-owned 3rd-world shithole that America has become.
The real problem with tax cuts is they almost never impact the base very much. They tend to be tarted up with giveaways to rich people who are overpaying their local political games, and refundable credits to encourage welfare people to pop out more kids.
And while corporate cuts on paper would be good for Americans, supply/demand won’t readjust with all the current barriers to entry. You need new, entrepreneurial producers, which the admin state will not allow. And the existing corps like Disney will keep working around the rules with their foreign workers programs.
America had a much better economy under “draconian” tax rates. I’m not saying those high tax rates caused the better economy, but it falsifies the idea that taxes cripple the economy. A lot of money was spent on plant and equipment in that era because it was all tax deductible. Nobody actually paid the high rates. We were the most economically powerful country in the world. In many categories we produced more than 50% of the world’s production. We were also the largest creditor nation ever (we’re now the biggest debtor ever) earning vast income streams from that credit extended… Read more »
I’m not saying lower is always better. Obviously, the “capital gains” crap came along to deal with changes to tax law. While it used to be a good investment strategy was to buy blue chips and cash (or reinvest) the dividends, tax policy gave us the ephemeral and usually imaginary valuations that pumped up stock options.
But the other thing to keep in mind is that when taxes go up, that money goes to the guys who are keeping the wars going and importing our replacements. That’s not a winning strategy for our side.
Taxation and economic policy was entirely incidental to the historically unique position the GAE found itself in post WW2. Would have been prosperous regardless of policy. Will never be repeated. But at least a couple of generations of Americans look back on it as the way things ought to be, as if it can be reproduced. Which it can’t.
My sense is the American people don’t care about endless meddling around the world and would be content with giving it a good leaving alone. Of course the media will try to make things a crisis, but aside from the folks who want to make sure they agree with the TV, that can be ignored.
America has been meddling for the last thirty-five years, to no ones benefit except the meddlers.
With regards to Israel, anything Trump tries to not do will be met with instant resistance, not just from Dems, not just from the media, not just from his own party (ahem), but from his cabinet as well. We all know the tail wags the dog here. We just saw how Congress shamefully jumped into action to shame the ICC for calling a war criminal a war criminal. Nothing has changed on that front. He can’t just punt on this. He also, obviously, cannot focus on fairy tales from the media (Russiagate, piss tape), sob stories (kids in cages, Muslim… Read more »
Hrrrrmmmmm…. There’s a lot of truth there… and not disagreeing with any of it… but one has to look beyond Blumpf when making predictions about this kind of stuff. You have to look at what the bad guys are doing too. While it is true that they are going to continue to call the shots on some things… they are in very, very deep trouble. Right now all they can do is continue to throw sand and monkey wrenches into the works in hopes of turning the Dirt People against Trump. They are doing that with gay abandon because it… Read more »
Mass deportations and confirmations are the focus. Trump has zero leverage on Russia short of a deal that creates a team-up with them to hang the people responsible for that debacle. There is value in getting some daylight between Russia and China. On Israel, the public has voted: stay out of it. I would not be surprised to hear he wants an Egypt-Israel styled peace treaty with Iran. Those take time, but it would largely end the fighting over there. Greenland is Alaska-east. Odds are good that it sits on massive energy deposits. We’re not buying Greenland for the views.… Read more »
“On the economy: tariffs! Tariffs for everybody!”
I was with you right up until your last sentence. Calling for tariffs is worse than calling for pirates. At least the pirates will spend the booty on piratey things. Give the money to government, they will import more foreigners, and entangle us further in foreign affairs.
Ya gotta starve the beast. Feeding him is a terrible idea.
The purpose of tariffs is not raising revenue. The purpose is to make our producers competitive with foreign producers. Sadly, I don’t think it will work. We’ve had 55 years of pogroms on the productive economy. Undoing it will not be easy or accomplished in 4 years.
Tariffs can’t do that. All it can do is impoverish Americans, and at the same time, raise money for the guys who import our replacements and interfere globally.
If your goal is to make American products competitive, a far better idea would be decriminalizing the stealing of foreign goods. Won’t take merchants very long to stop carrying anything foreign, and we haven’t enriched our oppressor
Is it correct that Trump can do nothing on Ukraine for 100 days? I would see that as ideal, but the Clown Prince of Kiev is going to be asking for another handout before then. A large percentage of Congressional Republicans are going to want to give him another blank check. Hopefully this has already been worked out with the leadership and they have been told they have to put him off for now. Would he veto an aid bill after a neocon created media crisis? Let’s hope so.
The American bankers and military contractors got paid last year, so the pressure for new money will be far less now. Unless Trump asks Congress for Ukraine money, Johnson will not do anything. Biden sent billions in the last month, so that works in Trump’s favor, oddly enough. He can just point to that money when Zelensky demands more money. My sense is Kellogg made the rounds and learned that Ukraine is in deep trouble and there is nothing that can be done to change it. He also seems to have learned that Zelensky will never do a deal with… Read more »
Yeah, I saw the 100 days as a way to simply let the situation unfold. The Russians are obviously in the final stage of grinding down the Ukranian military. Waiting 100 days allows the outcome to be even more clear.
The Trump team offers to negotiate. The Ukrainians refuse. Trump says, “Well, I tried, but the Ukrainians won’t come to the table. Europe, you handle this.”
If Trump tells the Ukes and Euros the jig is up and the money/weapons supply is done, they can take it from there and get the best deal from Russia they can (it won’t be much). It is the US money and weapons that are keeping this fiasco going.
This is very similar to the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. Not a single American citizen would have cared if it was not in the “news” everyday. It’s simply not our problem, and only effects the politicians who are laundering money through Ukraine.
Reports are emerging that the Ukrainians are selling Western weapons on the open market, including to the Latin American narcotics cartels. I suspect this has been the case from the start, but the significance of the stories becoming more prominent is to lay the groundwork for cutting off funds. Propaganda has to be understood and appreciated in our Soviet-style system, and as a guide for what is planned. Watch in the days ahead for more reports of distinctly European weapon systems recovered from firefights on the southern border.
The Defense contractors got paid, but Blackrock and Archer Daniels Midland haven’t. What happens to their investment if Trump lets it all wither on the vine? Surely they will put pressure on Republicans to do something.
Who’s feeling bamboozled yet? Upvote for yes you are; downvote for no.
Baitin’ n’ switchin’ for MAGA!
Remember friends, I said they’d possibly deport a token 500k immigrants and people would fall for it… and lo’ and behold, they’re saying MAYBE 1 milly violent criminals only! Hurray! We def need a state of emergency to [checks notes] enforce the existing laws around crime and immigration!
Don’t worry, you’ll get another round of the ever-expanding police surveillance state this term though.
No matter how much he wishes to avoid, the events will draw him to the international front. If missives start flying over us bases in ME thanks to netanyahoo, he will have to either have to start shooting or bring them home. In Ukraine, he will be shocked to find how many us soldiers are directly involved in the war and will need to make a decision to shut down operation and that will make the front collapse. Then there is this Houthi business of shutting down all ocean trade, “china-china-china” aligned with “Russia-Russia-Russia”, and whichever other pot Biden is… Read more »
Missiles, not missives
Hugs, not drugs…
“…start shooting or bring them home.” Bring them home.
We have been shooting for the last thirty-five years. Let’s try something different.
If we can let the Somalis get away with dragging Ranger corpses through Mogidishu, and let the Taliban humiliate us in Afghanistan, I don’t think removing troops from Syria and Ukraine will be any worse. It will probably be salubrious to remove the troops of our own volition rather than withdraw them things have become untenable [again].
Yep. And the smart play is to announce that we are leaving, and that our missiles and bombers are leaving last. Don’t F with us, and you can do what you want with the country after we are gone. Otherwise, you thought Gaza was a mess…
Why in humiliation? Assad is gone – simply declare mission accomplished and go home.
Reading Sundance’s analysis of Trump’s Cabinet picks at Conservative Treehouse, I’m going to disagree with all the naysayers declaring this iteration as another marionette show.
I think Trump is gearing up to do exactly as the Zman predicts: he’ll merely make noise towards the neocon agenda while attempting a major shakeup of our ossified domestic DC bureaus.
Question Z-man…why are some of my comments suddenly being moderated?
This has always been an issue. The spam tool is a bit over zealous at times.
[…] ZMan peers behind the curtain. […]
Trump’s instincts are to stay out of foreign entanglements, but he has made commitments. His natsec appointments are generally very hawkish, and it remains to be seen how resolute he will be in the face of the “provocations” which are certain to come.
Trump dislikes both Netanyahu and Zelenskyy on a personal level, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he disagrees on policy. Again, we shall see.
Ukraine has been designed as a forever war. That bunch of neocon lunatics will simply wait Trump out.
I think there is a significant chance Trump can be duped into an Iran war by the usual suspects. I suspect we will see a big push for this from Bibi.
He probably figures his time is getting short since he is nearly as old as Trump and he does have his own legal issues at home.