So Trump has been busy, and not in a positive way.
1). It’s not over, it’s not time to move on. . The Mueller report was very specific: Trump attempted to obstruct justice repeatedly, and it is up to Congress to investigate it. This is their job as per the constitution, a document that Trump swore he would protect, and naturally he is cooperating fully.
Yeah. Right.
House Democrats have been using their subpoena power to demand appearances from Robert Mueller, Bill Barr, not to mention a 1920s law that states they can demand anyone’s tax returns. And Trump, as he promised he would, is stonewalling them. Now it’s not as if that’s entirely unprecedented: Presidents as recently as Obama resisted Congressional subpoenas. The difference is that in previous instances, accommodations were reached. But Trump isn’t any more interested in reaching accommodations than he is in paying people who work for him. He regards the House Democrats not as an equal branch of government, but enemies, and enemies must never be accommodated, bargained with or reasoned with. Enemies must be stopped cold, period. So although he has yet to build a wall between us and Mexico, he is busily constructing a wall between the Executive and Legislative branches of government.
Basically he is now attempting to exert executive privilege over the Mueller report. This, of course, makes no sense at all. He didn’t assert executive privilege over the original investigation, so there is absolutely no basis upon which to apply it now. Except he is…because stonewalling subpoenas worked SO well for Richard Nixon.
Except Nixon didn’t have a Mitch McConnell watching his back. While McConnell’s polls continue to erode in his native Kentucky, his senate majority firmly has Trump covered, making any threat of impeachment an empty one. All impeachment will do is galvanize Trump’s base and end up failing in the Senate because there aren’t twenty Republicans willing to jump ship.
Their philosophy is very simple. Since the Mueller report did not find definitive proof that Trump conspired with the Russians, therefore there was no crime for Trump to have impeded and therefore there’s no basis for impeachment. This, of course, ignores his firing of James Comey; his repeated attempts to get rid of Robert Mueller; his lies; his urging his underlings to lie; his refusal to testify; his instructions to his subordinates to impede justice which only didn’t happen because they disobeyed him. Urging people to commit a crime is in itself a crime, something that McConnell and his ilk simply don’t care about. They care about power, first and foremost and exclusively. The fact is that if Hillary Clinton had behaved in this manner when they spent years investigating her, they’d have dragged her to court. If Obama had stonewalled them to this degree, they would have impeached him. But with Trump they let it go and defend him.
The simple fact is this: they have no right to be called Senators. They have abrogated their responsibility to the voters in specific and the people in general. They still obsess about Hillary’s emails while ignoring the fact that Trump gives out his private phone number and speaks to people like Justin Trudeau on non-secured phone lines.
2). My house is a very very very fine house. Get out.. Trump’s latest plan is to evict undocumented residents from public housing as a way to further impede immigrants and make their lives miserable. Here’s the problem: it’s estimated that as many as 55,000 kids can be tossed out of their homes who are in fact legally entitled for aid because they’re either legal US citizens or residents. But hey, they’re kids, and kids don’t vote, so to hëll with them.
3). Let’s do Chinese.. I admit, I’m no expert on world economic matters. But I fail to understand the reasoning behind picking a trade war with China. What is the advantage in pìššìņg øff a country to whom we are in debut to the tune of $1.13 trillion dollars? That’s the bottom line to me. Couldn’t they, y’know, economically sink us if they felt like it? Yes, that would lead to a catastrophic world depression, but they’d be the ones sitting on top, so why would they care?
Then again, what else can we expect from Trump? The New York Times reported that during a ten year period he lost more money than anyone in history. Or who knows? Perhaps he didn’t. Perhaps he made false tax claims “for sport” because ostensibly that was what all real estate developers of the time did. It makes sense. After all, he has the emotional developmental level of a five year old, so it would make sense that he would justify his actions with the oldest of excuses: Everyone else is doing it, so why shouldn’t I? The classic response to that, of course, is: If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you? The answer of course is No, not immediately. First he’d take out a loan, buy the bridge, change its name to the Trump bridge, repaint it gold, and THEN jump.
I can’t even bring myself to bring up Iran. It’s just too much for one week.
PAD
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Missed Freak Out Fridays.
I read somewhere once that if China did try and force a payoff it would ruin their economy just as hard. I might be misremembering this.
Correct, Drew. It is the old “If you owe $100 to the bank, they own you. If you owe $1,000,000 to the bank, you own the bank…”
You have the debt on the books. If you demand payment, and they don’t pay, then you have to write it off, and you are in bankruptcy.
And, as per usual, CharlieE thinks cute sayings are the way the world really runs.
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No.
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First of all, foreign exchange reserves (typically bonds as is most of what China holds as form of our debt) have conditions to them. A country can have any two (but not all three) of the following:
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A fixed exchange rate
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An independent monetary policy
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Free capital flows
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Most countries want to have a fixed or pegged exchange rate as a point of monetary policy decision. It helps to (theoretically) minimize the price instability that can accompany times of volatile capital flow. Some of the various terms and conditions here are forms of safeguards. They’re there to help insure that no one involved with foreign exchange reserves declares they’re just arbitrarily cashing in a debt all at once or suddenly demanding twice the agreed upon interest rate payments.
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Now, China can sell off our debt to others- even in large amounts -while making noise about it. They did this in 2015 and 2016. Because so many others were willing to invest in US debt, it created barely a ripple in the US economy. And that’s actually the biggest weapon they would have right now.
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The other safeguard in place is that, despite China getting all of the talk right now for obvious reasons, China is not the majority holder of our debt. Yes, they, along with Japan, are in the top two foreign holders of US debt, but roughly 70% of US debt is held by domestic investors. China holds somewhere around 6% at best in recent years.
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And that’s not uncommon anywhere. When you look up most national debts you’ll find that domestic investors make up the majority of the debt holders. That’s intentional. No country wants other countries to have that much financial power over them.
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And that is why CharlieE’s worldview via cute folksy sayings falls apart.
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The US can’t just refuse to pay.
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If the US defaults on the debts- even intentionally and even if it’s only to one country -the value of US debt drops and the value of the dollar drops. If Trump were to pull here what he has loved pulling on contractors and the little people he thinks he can screw over and just declare that he/we aren’t paying anymore, the impact on the global markets would be damaging and the impact on our economy would be disastrous.
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The strength of the US dollar would drop globally. Our buying power would shrink. Anything that is imported would become more expensive for us and we’d see a jump in what we pay at the gas pumps. Households would have less money to put into local economies, and the impact would be noticeable. We’d do damage to the global economy with such an act, but it’s highly likely we’d see a massive recession if not an outright depression.
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Our country as a whole would be impacted in another way. If the powers that be simply decided that they weren’t paying their debts, fewer people would risk buying that debt each year. The country takes in via taxes less than it spends annually. We finance ourselves by getting loans.
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This has become even more true under Trump as his policies are skyrocketing our debt and deficit and he’s borrowing money (from China of all places) to put US farmers on welfare since his idiotic trade war has hurt their ability to sell their produce to foreign markets. Under Trump, we are more dependent than ever before on borrowing to survive.
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These almost naturally inbuilt safeguards help to protect us from them or them from us when it comes to anyone pulling a totally shady deal. However, there are still tricks they can play if Trump keeps acting like a dìçk.
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China could choose to play hardball. They could create the equivalent of a run on the bank. It would be an extremely high risk move, but they could sell off all or almost all the US debt they have in one go while citing issues with our paying off our debt or other irregularities. If done right, it would devalue our bonds and damage the dollar. There would be global market issues as well, but the system could be gamed to hurt us more than everyone else.
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Theoretically, we could see the dollar could fall and other countries could follow China in attempting to sell off their holdings. This would further damage our dollar’s value. Additionally, if China not only dumps our debt but reduces its buying at a time when the US is increasing its debt and thus its supply of new treasuries into the market, it could lead to a fair sized rout in the bond market.
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If China floods the market with our treasury bonds, the supply of US bonds spikes and fixed income prices would fall while yields would rise. If yields climb it would become more expensive for US companies and for regular people like us to borrow. This would cause the US economy to slow down. It would also become more expensive for the US to issue debt. The US would also have to pay higher rates to borrowers. The $15 trillion of debt held by investors would also see a fall in value. Equities could be sent crashing as well if the yields climbed significantly enough.
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They own us in this deal far more than we own them. However, the most damaging weapon they have is a bit of a roll of the dice for them. Oh, the odds are great that it could hurt us badly, but the roll of the dice is whether they can control the chaos and havoc they create to minimize the damage to them. Played right, it hurts us badly and only stings the rest of the world. Played wrong, it dings the world markets so badly it hurts their economy and their ability to manage, sell, and maintain their debt. The odds for them of playing it right isn’t as bad as Doctor Strange’s 1 in 14,000,605 path to victory, but it’s also not as safe for them as even a 50/50 proposition.
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It’s not something they would likely try unless Trump really pushes the stupid when dealing with China. However, most of the people around him will try to stop him hitting that level because at least they- unlike him -have some understanding of the consequences of his actions here.
Jerry, I just stumbled across your posts. If I may ask, what is your educational/professional background? I ask because as a layman it seems to me that your knowledge of economics goes beyond common knowledge.
Background at this point? Just shy of 20 years law enforcement.
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Original college majors before saying, “fûçk this.. “? English literature and accounting.
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Hobbies these days? Geek stuff, reading, and keeping up with investments in my meager portfolio that I hope will act as an additional source of funds at retirement time to add to the stuff handled through work & my state retirement benefits.
And Jerry, in an attempt to disparage my 2 minute reply at 1AM, goes into a fifteen minute diatribe on international finance, during which he essentially proves my point while deny that it does any such thing. Jerry, why ain’t you in Washington???? (yes, that WAS an insult! 😉
Summary – If China should try and call in it’s debt, it would disrupt its own markets so much that it would hurt them and others more than it would likely hurt us, so not much chance they would do it…
Nope.
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You fail the reading comprehension test.
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You stated we owned the bank because of the size of the debt. We don’t own the bank and you obviously don’t know how much of our debt is owed to China to begin with.
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You used an example of us just not paying the bank and how that hurts the bank. You are- much as you frequently are -wrong. It would inconvenience the bank while flushing us down the toilet.
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China can make several moves that hurt us and them about equally. China can pull one move that hurts us far worse than them, but it’s a risky move.
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But, overall, your “you own the bank” bs is flawed since China isn’t the bank. They’re an investor. The bank doesn’t allow either party to own the other, but China still has more options to hurt us worse in the deal than there are options that hurt them worse.
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The system is designed to prevent most forms of damage that people discuss when they talk about China cashing in the debt we owe. The section of my post covering that wasn’t just for you, it was for everybody.
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But, for you? The last section of the post laying out the one move China can play in the game that is a risky Gambit but one that if successful hurts us long-term fr more than it does them.
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It’s not a move most have for considered a probable option for China in most years, but in most years they weren’t dealing with an America run by the King of the Idiots, Donny Trump.
Jerry, sorry, you fail the logic test. This is actually a category of MAD that everyone can experience. Yes, they MIGHT be able to hurt us more than they are hurt. After all, they have been hurting us for decades with little consequences for themselves. You still gloss over how much IT WILL HURT THEM! We are their largest market, which is why the tariffs hurt them more than us. Yes, short term it hurts both of us, but in long term, it hurts them worse as they scrounge for markets and other nations that they can extort…
I am sure that in your world view you will not recognize the advantages to us that will occur, but remember, WE ARE AMERICANS, and while one soybean grower is lamenting his fate, and a kid is complaining his phone costs too much, somewhere else another is rolling up his sleeve and relishing this new opportunity.
CharlieE
May 11, 2019 at 4:50 am
Correct, Drew. It is the old “If you owe $100 to the bank, they own you. If you owe $1,000,000 to the bank, you own the bank…”
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You have the debt on the books. If you demand payment, and they don’t pay, then you have to write it off, and you are in bankruptcy.
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As you’re slowly moving the goalposts from “you own the bank” to something closer accuracy, I unfortunately have to tell you you’re still a ways off of bullseye. Throwing in the jingoistic patriotism rhetoric to appeal to the base doesn’t help you get any closer, either.
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Spewing nonsense about how we’re Americans and someone somewhere will roll up their sleeves because there’s an opporyunity in the making is irrelevant to the finacial stituation or the impact on the country that a run on our debt creates.
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But keep on moving those goalposts from where you originally planted them. You might get closer to reality.
Jerry, Jerry, Jerry,
Ok, so ‘moving the goalposts’ is one way of saying ‘explaining a simple concept in more words because a pedantic elite doesn’t like it…’
So, the basic concept is still that, with a large debt, both parties have a hold on the other. The other, explaining in simple words, is that total default is not a likely action. If the Chinese should start selling off their debt (probably at a deep discount) it will hurt them as much, if not more, than it will us.
And of course, any reference to the unique qualities of American ingenuity is automatically ‘jingoistic patriotism rhetoric’ revealing your true intentions. You HOPE that America will be hurt, and any opinion where we DON’T get hurt is anathema. Sorry, but I am a bit more optimistic than that. I mean, Obama didn’t destroy American, so I somehow doubt that Trump can do it either.
No, moving the goalposts is exactly that- you’re moving the goalposts.
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You did what you’ve done in the past and what has become common with conservatives. It was something popularized on conservative talk radio- especially with Beck -and became dámņëd near SOP for conservatives in the vapid day of the Tea Party and has absolutely become SOP with Trump supporters. Can’t say something informed or logical? Just deliver a folksy sounding bumper sticker saying and build your point around that. Whatever you said likely isn’t close to correct as is, and it’s almost never correct when applied to the larger, more complex issue. But you’ll swear it is and was even as you have to shift and squirm in the face of information that makes you have to move your goalposts.
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“And of course, any reference to the unique qualities of American ingenuity is automatically ‘jingoistic patriotism rhetoric’ revealing your true intentions.”
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Look, I know conservatives like throwing around idiotic jingoistic patriotism rhetoric in the place of actual thought or intelligent ideas, but, sorry, that doesn’t mean it stops being empty, meaningless idiotic jingoistic patriotism rhetoric. I mean, sure, it gives you a warm fuzzy feeling, but it’s a poor substitute for actually thinking.
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Well, you went for two clichéd stupidities- (1) folksy sayings and (2) idiotic jingoistic patriotism rhetoric in the place of intelligent discourse -drilled into you by conservative talk radio and Fox News, so why not go for the trifecta? Why not declare that pointing out your poor excuses for thinking is some form of hating America or wanting to see America fail?
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“You HOPE that America will be hurt, and any opinion where we DON’T get hurt is anathema. Sorry, but I am a bit more optimistic than that.”
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Nope. Not even close. If I wanted to see America hurt, I’d have voted for the orange šhìŧ stain that’s President right now. If I wanted to see America hurt, I’d be rooting for Trump to keep acting like an airheaded buffoon in his dealings with China and his asinine trade war antics. That would be the people on your side of the political divide.
President Fûçkfáçë Von Clownstick: “I’m hitting China with new tariffs! Just watch that China money roll in as they pay for them! #WINNING”
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Reality: “Uhm… tariffs are just a tax on the American people. You’re making Americans pay more and you’re hurting American farmers.”
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President Fûçkfáçë Von Clownstick: “Watch this! I’m going to hit China with EVEN MORE tariffs! And I’m telling China not to retaliate to my tariffs!”
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China: “Hey, Fûçkfáçë Von Clownstick, we’re retaliating.”
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Stock Market: “Uhm… I’m plunging like a wreacking ball in the ocean here…”
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American Farmers: “We’re really hurting and starting to panic here.”
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President Fûçkfáçë Von Clownstick: “We’re making America great again! #MAGA”
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MAGA Nat Brigade: “Winning!!! We have a real man as President again!”
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Dow plunges 700 points amid escalating trade war between US, China
Today 1:40 PM
https://www.syracuse.com/business/2019/05/dow-plunges-700-points-amid-escalating-trade-war-between-us-china.html
wreaking ball?
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f’n typos…
Wow…
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And speaking of vapid idiotic jingoistic patriotism rhetoric
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Farm bankruptcies have soared over the past year as the price of corn and soybeans have plummeted. Retaliatory Chinese tariffs on U.S. soybeans have made a difficult economic environment that much tougher on American farmers.
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Cotton said when asked Monday by “CBS This Morning” about the economic affect a new round of tariffs would have on farmers. “There will be some sacrifices on the part of Americans, I grant you that, but I also would say that sacrifice is pretty minimal compared to the sacrifices that our soldiers make overseas that are fallen heroes that are laid to rest in Arlington make.”
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https://news.yahoo.com/sen-cotton-tells-farmers-trade-war-will-hurt-but-real-war-is-worse-201926096.html
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Hey, don’t worry about Trump bankrupting your farm and killing off your family’s livelihood with his trade war, guys. People have died in other wars.
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He’s shoved it so far in there, we may need the jaws of life to free Tom’s head from Trump’s ášš.
And why, exactly, would we *want* to pull Tom’s head out?
Well, we may not want to, but if we had to…
Sorry, just realized that I am playing golf, and Jerry run-on-the-mouth is playing basketball. The score is not on number of words or obscenities Jerry, it is on logical points. You are too busy repeating every liberal meme available, whether it really applies or not, that you finally have gone into word vomit…
As CharlieE finds more and more new ways to fail…
(Is CharlieE actually Donald Trump?)
No CharlieE isn’t President Fûçkfáçë Von Clownstick, I am……
Really Jerry? President Fûçkfáçë Von Clownstick? Does someone need a diaper change? Oh, Jerry…You Can Sit the Fûçk Down and Shut the Fûçk Up Now.
Pat, bless your heart…
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I didn’t create the name, but it’s too good to not use.
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https://youtu.be/C2OYxFlW0Yg
In my apazines, i used to refer to him as “the-only-President-we-currently-have”, but typing that got old and copy/pasting it was a pain.
So now he’s “der Fooey”.
Hey, Mike, in a week or so I’ll be sharing convention space with your brother.
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What are the odds of his shooting me if I look at him and say, “OMG… You’re… You’re… You’re Mike Weber’s brother!”
“Today’s decision is deeply disturbing because it makes clear that five justices on the Court are not faithful to the principle of stare decisis and are willing to abandon precedent when necessary to reach a desired outcome in a case,” Kristen Clarke, the president of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, told Newsweek.
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“This raises grave questions about the Court’s willingness to respect other important precedents, like Roe v. Wade,” Clarke continued. “Across the county we are witnessing a carefully coordinated attack on Roe v. Wade, with abortion proponents bent on reopening the ruling before a newly configured Supreme Court.”
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SUPREME COURT OVERTURNING 40-YEAR-OLD PRECEDENT IS ‘DEEPLY DISTURBING’ DECISION FOR OTHER LANDMARK CASES: EXPERTS
https://www.newsweek.com/supreme-court-overrule-precedent-roe-v-wade-1424322
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To save some of you the trouble…
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“Stare decisis is a doctrine, or an instruction, used in all court cases and with all legal issues. Stare decisis means that courts look to past, similar issues to guide their decisions. These past decisions are known as precedent. Precedent is a legal principle, or a rule, that is created by a higher court decision.”
1) Obstruction of Justice can only occur when there is a crime to obstruct. As there was no crime, Trump could not be charged with obstruction.
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34303.pdf
2) Peter, will you go back and review/ amend/ correct the last two-three years of posts? You have publicly accused the rightfully elected President of crimes and actions that have been fully investigated. For your own reputation, it’s time to accept the humble pie and admit you were sucked in by anti-Trump bias.
If you have any sense of honour, it’s time to admit you were wrong, and apologise.
Where does it say a crime has to have occurred for it to be obstruction? The very thing you linked to talks about impeding an investigation. An authority can suspect a crime occurred, investigate and find no evidence of said crime, but if you lie or destroy evidence while it’s happening that’s still obstruction.
1) You are incorrect. Beyond misreading you own link and apparently not looking at any other source for verification of the what’s accurate, you apparently haven’t actually read the Mueller Report. You should feel free to go do so.
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2) Rewrite?!? you apparently haven’t actually read the Mueller Report. It doesn’t quite say what Trump sycophants, conservatives, and idiots (but I repeat myself) think it says. You should go and read it before posting further.
It’s settled legal fact that someone can satisfy the corrupt intent criterion for obstruction even if the individual himself committed no underlying crime.
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See as an example United States v. Rickie Durham, 10-2315 (3rd Cir. 2011)
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/219675/united-states-v-rickie-durham/
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More recently, a A court in Utah held that an individual could be found liable for obstruction where the individuals only apparent motive was to protect a friend from a criminal charge.
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See State v. Maughan, 2013 UT 37
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Those are merely two of many examples where people have been charged with obstruction even when an investigation showed no crime was committed on their part.
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Pure and simply, Obstruction of Justice is defined as the noncompliance with the legal system by interfering with (1) the law administration or procedures, (2) not fully disclosing information or falsifying statements, and (3) inflicting damage on an officer, juror or witness.
And now, there his refusal to sign the Christchurch Agreement. Just as we thought he couldn’t sink any lower…
Of course not. This administration isn’t going to agree to something like that. Combat hate speech and extremism? Never. They know that’s the bread and butter concepts of building and keeping their base.