Tuesday, December 31, 2024
It Was The Worst Congress In The Modern Era
The 118th Congress got very little done - far less than the past 16 congresses. That was because the Republicans (who controlled the House) was too busy fighting with each other to do the people's business. Sadly, the 119th Congress won't be any better.
Americans Give Predictions For 2025 (In A Gallup Poll)
The charts above are from a Gallup Poll -- done between December 4th and 15th of a nationwide sample of 2,121 adults, with a 2 point margin of error.
A Bit Of Humor(?) From Robert Reich
Robert Reich says there's a better idea than the U.S. making Canada the 51st state:
Trump wants to buy Greenland and annex Canada as the 51st American state.
When I first heard these ideas I thought he was joking, but as with all things Trump, he’s not … quite.
Last week, while naming a new ambassador to Denmark (which controls Greenland’s foreign and defense affairs), Trump made clear that his first-term offer to buy Greenland could, in the coming term, become a deal the Danes cannot refuse.
He seems to want Greenland because of its strategic location at a time when the melting of Arctic ice is opening new commercial and naval competition. He’s also interested in Greenland’s reserves of rare earth minerals needed for advanced technology.
But Trump isn’t stopping there. He also wants to annex Canada. This proposal appears more a public needling of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau than a serious plan.
Yet Trump has continued to tease the idea of annexing Canada on social media. “I think it’s a great idea,” he wrote in a recent post.
This is all bonkers, of course.
But as long as we’re considering changing national borders, why not do it in a more sensible way?
How about the West Coast states of Washington, Oregon, and California becoming the 11th province of Canada? After all, the politics of these blue states would fit much better with Canada’s than with Trump’s America.
Meanwhile, the New England states (Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut) and New York could become the 12th Canadian province, for much the same reason.
While Trump is toying with the idea of annexing Canada, these blue American states should bid him goodbye and be annexed by Canada.
Hell, Trump might just go along. He doesn’t like these blue states anyway. They all voted against him in 2016, 2020, and again in 2024. He’s been looking for ways of getting even. Why not simply disown them?
Letting Canada annex these blue states would also simplify Trump’s war on undocumented immigrants, since many of them reside in these states.
America First Legal, a nonprofit run by Trump’s incoming deputy chief of staff for policy, Stephen Miller, has already written to local elected officials in California and New York warning them not to try to become sanctuaries — threatening that the officials could be personally “criminally liable” if they refuse to support federal government efforts to detain and deport illegal immigrants.
But if California, New York, and other blue states were annexed by Canada, the problem disappears.
Of course, this leaves the pesky question of whether Canada would accept America’s West Coast as its 11th province and New York and New England as its 12th? I’ll leave that question to Canadians.
Monday, December 30, 2024
Trump/Musk Have Two Immigrant Agendas And Both Are Wrong
Trump spent the campaign talking about mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. He claimed they are criminals who take the jobs Americans could have. Both claims are nonsense.
Undocumented immigrants commit crimes at a much lower rate than American citizens do. They are mainly refugees who come for their safety and desperate people who just want to provide for their families. And they eagerly take the low-paying, dangerous, and dirty jobs that citizens shun. In doing those jobs, they provide a service to this country.
And they boost the economy - both by spending much of the money they make to buy products from U.S. businesses and by paying over $7 billion in taxes (while getting no benefits from the government).
But that is only part of the Trump/Musk immigrant agenda. They want to increase the number of immigrants entering on H-1B visas. Those visas are used by U.S. corporations to import skilled workers. They claim they need those workers. They don't!
They import those foreign workers because of greed! They can pay them less because the workers want to come to this country and the visa will allow them to enter. If the worker then tries to join a union or ask for better pay or working conditions, the corporation can just cancel their contract and have them deported.
These are the jobs that American workers would love to have, but corporations would have to pay them the prevailing wage and allow them to unionize if they wanted. And there is NOT a shortage of Americans skilled enough for these jobs.
They are deporting the workers we need and importing the workers we don't need!
ISN'T THIS BACKWARDS? DON'T BOTH OF THESE MISGUIDED AGENDAS HURT THE COUNTRY AND ITS WORKERS?
Sunday, December 29, 2024
Five Areas Economists Will Be Watching In 2025
The economy is good right now (although it could be fairer). With Trump as president the economy won't get any fairer, but it could get worse. Here are five areas that economists will be watching in 2025:
1. Tariffs
Trump’s plans to impose sweeping tariffs are likely to be one of the biggest threats to the economy, experts say.
The president-elect has vowed to penalize the country’s largest trading partners by levying tariffs — an extra 10 percent on Chinese goods and 25 percent on imports from Mexico and Canada — that economists say could quickly raise prices. The necessities that could soon be getting costlier range from big-ticket items such as cars and appliances to everyday basics like groceries and gas. During his campaign, Trump also discussed sweeping tariffs on all imports, not just from those countries, which would affect even more goods if implemented.
“Tariffs make things more expensive,” Alex Durante, an economist at the Tax Foundation, a right-leaning think tank, told The Washington Post. “They shrink the economy, and they make people poorer.”
2. Deportations
A recent surge in immigration has helped power economic growth and boost the job market. But economists say Trump’s plans to deport millions of undocumented migrants and curb immigration more broadly could hobble the labor market.
3. Tax cuts
The sweeping tax cuts Trump signed into law in his first term are set to expire at the end of 2025. Those will “almost certainly” be extended, according to Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center.
The gains, though, would be concentrated at the top: The wealthiest Americans would see the largest gains, with families making over $450,000 reaping nearly half the benefits if existing tax cuts are extended, according to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center.
4. Inflation
The Federal Reserve has made strides in bringing down inflation with a series of aggressive interest rate hikes. But lately, progress has stalled, and economists say it could unravel even further next year if Trump moves forward on some of his more draconian tariff and immigration plans.
Deutsche Bank estimates that one measure of inflation — now at 2.8 percent — could rise to as much as 3.9 percent next year if the new tariffs are enacted, up from original estimates of about 2.5 percent.
5. Stocks
During his last term, Trump routinely boasted about the stock market’s performance, which reached new highs under his watch. But economists say a repeat performance may be tough to pull off.
Stocks have continued their ascent under Biden, with all three major indexes — the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq composite index — hitting all-time highs in recent weeks. That’s boosted the portfolios of the country’s wealthiest, allowing them to keep spending in a way that’s powering the economy.
But the market’s heyday may soon be coming to an end: Stocks tumbled after the Federal Reserve suggested in mid-December that it is rethinking how often it will cut interest rates next year. And economists warn that any additional curveballs, including government policies that hamper growth, could quickly reverse recent gains.
Saturday, December 28, 2024
Is Trump Stupid And Narcissistic Enough To Invade Greenland?
In his first term, Donald Trump said he wanted to buy Greenland from Denmark. The government of Denmark made it very clear that would never happen.
But Trump's desire to own Greenland has not ceased. Just before Christmas, Trump posted on his social media site that " for purposes of national security" he feels the "ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity". Note that he didn't say anything about buying it this time - just owning and controlling it.
Greenland is a large island with an area of about 836,330 square miles, but it has a small population of only about 57,000 people. It has a small police force, but no military. The defense of the island is done by Denmark.
That defense is by the Royal Danish Navy's 1st Squadron. That squadron consists of:
Four Thetis-class patrol vessels
and three Knud Rasmussen-class patrol vessels
Those vessels would be useless, because Trump would not have to attack the island from the sea.
The United States has a base in Greenland - the Pituffik Space Base. There are only a few soldiers stationed there and it is blocked by ice most of the year, but it's airfield remains operational all year. Within just a few hours, the U.S. could fly in a substantial numbers of troops - enough to seize the island easily!
Denmark is not taking Trump's words as a joke. They have voted to substantially increase funding for Greenland's defense. If they are smart, they will station a substantial amount of Danish troops on the island to prevent a takeover - at least for the next four years.
Is it possible Trump would try to seize Greenland? I think it is.
It would destroy relations with Denmark and NATO (and possibly end U.S. involvement in NATO), but Trump doesn't care much about either. He thinks it would enhance his own legacy.
Trump is not very smart and completely ignorant of foreign affairs - and his narcissism and egomania could easily drive him to make such a colossal blunder.
Don't write this off as a joke. It's much more likely a power move by an authoritarian.
Trump Isn’t The Cause Of What Ails America. He’s The Consequence.
Donald Trump isn’t the cause of what ails America. He’s the consequence. The real causes go back four decades.
FOR THREE DECADES after World War II, America created the largest middle class the world had ever seen. During those years, the earnings of the typical American worker doubled, just as the size of the American economy doubled.
Over the last 40 years, by contrast, the size of the economy has more than doubled again, but the earnings of the typical American have barely budged (adjusted for inflation). Most of the gains have gone to the top.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the CEOs of large corporations earned an average of about 20 times the pay of their typical worker. Now they rake in over 300 times the pay of an average worker.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the richest 1 percent of Americans took home about 10 percent of the nation’s total income. Today they take home more than the bottom 90 percent put together.
Then, the economy generated hope. Hard work paid off. The living standards of most people improved through their working lives. Their children enjoyed better lives than they had. Most felt that the rules of the economic game were basically fair.
Although many women, Black people, and Latinos were still blocked from getting a fair share of the economy’s gains, the nation committed itself to changing this. New laws guaranteed equal opportunity, barred discrimination, promoted affirmative action, and expanded educational opportunity for all.
Today, confidence in the economic system has sharply declined. Its apparent arbitrariness and unfairness have undermined the public’s faith in it. Cynicism abounds. Equal opportunity is no longer high on the nation’s agenda.
Recent American history can be divided into five periods:
1946-1979, we grew together. Almost everyone gained ground.
1980-2008, the great U-turn. Most economic gains began going to the top.
2008-2010, the financial crisis. The banks were bailed out but millions of Americans lost their jobs, homes, and savings. The experience revealed the gross inequalities of wealth and power that underlay the new economy. This caused widespread disillusionment with the system.
2010-2016, anger at the establishment. Both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump emerged as anti-establishment candidates — although Trump’s anti-establishment persona was fake (and still is).
2016-2050, the choice between oligarchy and democracy. The 2024 election represented a lurch toward oligarchy, but I believe Trump and his oligarchy will overreach, and we’ll choose a more robust democracy.
***
WHEN MOST PEOPLE STOP BELIEVING that they and their children have a fair chance to make it, the tacit social contract begins to unravel. And a nation becomes susceptible to demagogues such as Donald Trump peddling the politics of hate.
Many of the most vocal proponents of the “free market” — including Elon Musk, executives of large corporations and their ubiquitous lawyers and lobbyists, denizens of Wall Street and their political lackeys, and numerous multimillionaires and billionaires — have been actively reorganizing the market for their own benefit.
The consequence has been a market created by those with great wealth for the purpose of further increasing their wealth.
This has resulted in ever-larger upward distributions inside the market, from the middle class, working class, and poor to a wealthy minority at the top.
Because these distributions occur inside the market, they have largely escaped notice. We tend to debate only downward “redistributions” that occur outside the market, through taxing the rich and transferring some benefits to the poor and working class.
Musk and Trump want to reduce such redistributions.
But the hidden upward redistributions inside the market are arguably larger.
This is why it’s so important that those of us who care about social justice speak out and explain what has happened. And why it’s crucial that Democrats focus on reversing the staggering inequalities of this era and getting big money out of politics.
Otherwise, the only explanation most Americans receive for what has happened comes from Trump authoritarians who falsely blame immigrants, “socialists,” the “deep state,” “woke”ism, Democrats, Black people, women, and other countries.
And the only agenda most Americans receive for remedying what has occurred is by backing Trump and Musk and their lurch toward fascism.
My friends, the underlying issue is not the size of government. It’s whom the government is for. The fundamental choice is democracy or oligarchy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)