A posting every day; an interesting idea every three months…
One of our most prominent Americans said that she always carries “hot sauce” in her purse, but she never said what brand:
Why not capitalize on this with Hillary Clinton Hot Sauce (TM)? It should be a huge seller on the coasts!
Lloyd Blankfein, who amassed a fortune of more than $1 billion while working at Goldman Sachs, was a supporter of Hillary Clinton, and therefore justice, back in 2016 (Business Insider). It made sense to Mr. Blankfein to have higher income tax rates, at least for individuals and corporations that did not push activities offshore (with help from Goldman?), to fund a larger welfare state.
If helping 50 percent of Americans with fatter government paychecks and welfare checks (Hillary) is good, then helping 80 percent (Bernie) has to be better, right?
Wrong! Apparently one can have too much social justice. “Bernie Sanders Would ‘Ruin Our Economy,’ Says Ex-Goldman Sachs Boss” (NYT, February 12):
Lloyd Blankfein warned on Twitter that Mr. Sanders was “just as polarizing” as President Trump.
Bernie Sanders has proposed a wealth tax on the richest Americans, blasted big businesses for turning huge profits while paying little in taxes and said he believed billionaires should not exist.
“If I’m Russian, I go with Sanders this time around,” he wrote, referencing that country’s efforts to support Mr. Trump in 2016.
(i.e., to discourage working class Americans from referring to The International Jew, a Wall Street billionaire Jew says that U.S. election outcomes are determined from a foreign capital; nobody would ever make the leap in reasoning from “The most important things in the U.S. are controlled by Putin and his buddies” to ” The most important things in the U.S. are controlled by international Jewish financiers”)
Related:
…. but 1+ million migrants per year is good for the U.S.?
“Hillary Clinton: Europe must curb immigration to stop rightwing populists” (Guardian):
“I think Europe needs to get a handle on migration because that is what lit the flame,” Clinton said, speaking as part of a series of interviews with senior centrist political figures about the rise of populists, particularly on the right, in Europe and the Americas.
“I admire the very generous and compassionate approaches that were taken particularly by leaders like Angela Merkel, but I think it is fair to say Europe has done its part, and must send a very clear message – ‘we are not going to be able to continue provide refuge and support’ – because if we don’t deal with the migration issue it will continue to roil the body politic.”
Clinton’s remarks are likely to prove controversial across Europe, which has struggled to form a unified position ever since more than 1 million migrants and refugees arrived in the EU in 2015.
The EU population is 508 million. So 1 million migrants since 2015 is a much lower percentage of the total population than the roughly 1 million immigrants per year into the U.S. (population 330 million).
The apparent contradiction between Hillary’s opposition to Donald Trump in the U.S. and her opposition to migrants in Europe was addressed a day later. “Hillary Clinton calls for reform, ‘not open borders,’ in explaining European migration remarks” (NBC):
“Maybe Hillary has understood the lesson,” Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, told The New York Times. “If you don’t control migration it will affect mostly poor people, people living on the outskirts, working classes.”
The “EU needs a more comprehensive policy that builds societies that are both secure and welcoming,” she continued.
“On both sides of the Atlantic, we need reform. Not open borders, but immigration laws enforced with fairness and respect for human rights. We can’t let fear or bias force us to give up the values that have made our democracies both great and good,” she wrote.
“Can’t just keep doing the same things.”
“There are solutions to migration that do not require clamping down on the press, on your political opponents and trying to suborn the judiciary, or seeking financial and political help from Russia to support your political parties and movements.”
But what are the solutions? Hillary is keeping them secret until she is elected President?
I thought about this during a recent trip to Montgomery County, Maryland (DC suburb). All of my Uber drivers were immigrants. None spoke English fluently. One driver had immigrated from El Salvador 13 years ago and didn’t speak English well enough to qualify for legal immigration to Canada, for example. It looks as though a family of four is entitled to welfare (e.g., housing subsidies) if earning less than $89,850 per year (table). If you consider subsidized health insurance to be welfare, the income number for a family of 4 in Maryland is $100,400 per year (March 1, 2018). How are people who don’t speak English going to earn enough to get off welfare? And, if they can’t get off welfare, why will existing taxpayers in Maryland welcome more immigrants at the same skill level?
What is the grand theory supporting the current policy? That the children of someone who couldn’t learn English in 13 years are going to be above-median learners and earners?
Or maybe this is just adverse selection? Immigrants who are really bad at learning languages differentially choose to drive Ubers? The rest of the El Salvadorans who came 13 years ago are executives now?
“The Plot to Subvert an Election” (nytimes) shows that the Russian plot against Hillary (and therefore all of us) is so obvious that it takes 30 browser pages to explain.
One thing that the newspaper does not explain is whether the Russians are still engaging in mind control.
“As Critics Assail Trump, His Supporters Dig In Deeper” (nytimes, June 23, 2018) says that “Mr. Trump’s approval rating among Republicans is now about 90 percent.” It was written nearly 2 years following the election. If the idea that Donald Trump would make a better president than Hillary Clinton exists only because of Russian actions during 2016, how is it that tens of millions of people continue to hold this view in 2018?
Readers: Who has the patience to wade through this New York Times exposé? Does it say whom the Russians will pick to be our next president?
“Chelsea Clinton: Kathy Griffin’s Trump-beheading photo ‘vile and wrong'” quotes Chelsea Clinton as saying “It is never funny to joke about killing the president.”
Let’s accept this as true. But isn’t the necessary implication that it is at least sometimes funny to joke about killing people who are not the president? When are those occasions? And why would it be funnier to imagine the death of a non-president versus imagining the death of a president?
Right next to my hotel…
The inauguration of the Trumpenfuhrer has prompted fresh outpourings of grief from my Facebook friends. What could be worse than “Orange McFuckface” in the White House, a man “so corrupt that his mere presence on the national stage inspires people to hate crimes and harassment, and whose narcissism prevents him from seeing the stakes he’s playing with: our republic, global stability, and the climate”? (typical quote)
How about being diagnosed with ALS at age 34? Amazon is currently streaming Gleason, based primarily on a video journal that Steve Gleason started for his unborn son in case the child never got a chance to know him. If you weren’t previously impressed by the determination of professional football players, you will be by the time you finish this movie.
Grousing about the challenges of daily life with an adult partner? (But never on Facebook! Plenty of complaints about King Donald I but I’ve never seen anyone complain about laundry left on the floor in the domestic environment.) Check out what Michel Rae Varisco signs up for (given Louisiana’s no-fault divorce system, she could have walked away, with most of the cash, on any day that the marriage was no longer convenient for her).
How about practical inspiration for those of us without a terminal disease? We can turn the camera around from time to time. When our kids are adults they’ll be able to see and hear us. We can write some autobiographical material that will help adult children understand their roots even if we’re not around when they happen to get curious.
A friend expressed puzzlement over his former apartment-mate’s Facebook feed: “He used to be a Republican.” The feed contains, interspersed with family and gourmet food photos, links to various anti-Trump articles, e.g., coverage of a preliminary hearing in a recently filed civil lawsuit alleging that, back in 1994, Donald Trump had sex with a 13-year-old girl (“Any woman who wants to make money by suing a man would be well-advised to allege rape,” said one divorce litigator). Underneath the story about the now-35-year-old woman’s quest for cash through litigation is a photo of our former Republican voter shaking hands with Hillary Clinton hash-tagged #ImWithHer.
[The 35-year-old woman didn’t file a criminal complaint against The Donald, so the only remedy available to her is cash. Attorneys promise that an anonymous witness will come forward to say that she observed an anonymous 12-year-old girl being raped in 1994, said nothing, continued to work for the organizer of the rape (not Trump) for eight more years, and is just now ready to speak up, but only in the context of a cash-seeking civil suit.]
How did this former Republican turn into an apparently passionate and certainly well-connected Democrat? Subsequent to his apartment-sharing days he became a high-level executive in a Silicon Valley giant. Why would a rich person support a candidate that promises to raise taxes? “Forget the FBI cache; the Podesta emails show how America is run” (Guardian) offers one possible explanation:
the emails that really matter are the ones being slowly released by WikiLeaks from the hacked account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair John Podesta. They are last week’s scandal in a year running over with scandals, but in truth their significance goes far beyond mere scandal: they are a window into the soul of the Democratic party and into the dreams and thoughts of the class to whom the party answers.
The dramatis personae of the liberal class are all present in this amazing body of work: financial innovators. High-achieving colleagues attempting to get jobs for their high-achieving children. Foundation executives doing fine and noble things. Prizes, of course, and high academic achievement.
There are wonderful things to be found in this treasure trove when you search the gilded words “Davos” or “Tahoe”. But it is when you search “Vineyard” on the WikiLeaks dump that you realize these people truly inhabit a different world from the rest of us. By “vineyard”, of course, they mean Martha’s Vineyard, the ritzy vacation resort island off the coast of Massachusetts where presidents Clinton and Obama spent most of their summer vacations. The Vineyard is a place for the very, very rich to unwind, yes, but as we learn from these emails, it is also a place of high idealism; a land of enlightened liberal commitment far beyond anything ordinary citizens can ever achieve.
Then there is the apparent nepotism, the dozens if not hundreds of mundane emails in which petitioners for this or that plum Washington job or high-profile academic appointment politely appeal to Podesta – the ward-heeler of the meritocratic elite – for a solicitous word whispered in the ear of a powerful crony.
Everything blurs into everything else in this world. The state department, the banks, Silicon Valley, the nonprofits, the “Global CEO Advisory Firm” that appears to have solicited donations for the Clinton Foundation. Executives here go from foundation to government to thinktank to startup. There are honors. Venture capital. Foundation grants. Endowed chairs. Advanced degrees. For them the door revolves. The friends all succeed. They break every boundary.
But the One Big Boundary remains. Yes, it’s all supposed to be a meritocracy. But if you aren’t part of this happy, prosperous in-group – if you don’t have John Podesta’s email address – you’re out.
So there you have it! If he wants his kids to get a job ten years from now at a Manhattan-based non-profit, he needs to be at a Hillary fundraiser today.
Due to the fact that my vote in Massachusetts doesn’t count and due to having predicted Hillary’s victory back in April 2015, I haven’t been paying too much attention to election news. Has anyone bothered to sift through the clutter to figure out what the practical policy differences might be between the two main candidates? Let me try to make an outline and then readers can fill in details.
Sources: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies/and https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/
Taxes
Trump wants to cut rates, bringing them down closer to Singapore’s, Ireland’s, etc. Hillary wants to raise tax rates, bringing them closer to what France charges.
(Federal Reserve shows that actual collections as a percentage of GDP haven’t varied much since the mid-1950s, despite wildly different headline rates, which suggests that the only way for the government to get more money is via Americans becoming wealthier (per-capita GDP growth) or by expanding population (more people to tax).)
Immigration
Trump wants to cut back on illegal immigration and redesign legal immigration to favor those who are likely to earn a lot and therefore pay a lot in taxes? Hillary wants to continue the expansion of immigration, especially from non-Western countries, that began under JFK. Essentially everyone who is currently in the U.S. illegally will be able to become a citizen, perhaps without paying a fee? (“Hillary will work to expand fee waivers to alleviate naturalization costs”)
Foreign Policy
Trump wants to stop poking Russia with a stick. Hillary thinks that we are clever enough to use our military and economic power to bend foreigners to our will.
Nation of Victims
Hillary promises to assist Americans with disabilities (but we’re already the world leaders in collecting disability benefits).
Hillary promises to assist Americans who are victimized by their self-identification as “women”: https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/womens-rights-and-opportunity/ says women will get paid more when they work, will get paid when they don’t work, and won’t have to divert any of this increased pay to contraceptives or abortions (which will be subsidized by taxpayers? But aren’t about half of them women?). [If identifying as a “woman” triggers the requirement for so much government assistance, wouldn’t an intelligent citizen simply identify as a “man”? Hillary promises to make changing your gender easier.]
Trump makes no corresponding promises.
Getting Taxpayers to Fund Your Kids
Trump says that anyone who can create or obtain custody of an additional child will pay less in taxes (see also Donald Trump’s child care tax deduction idea). He also promises some Federal money so that poor families can enjoy “school choice” (private schools, charter schools, magnet schools).
Hillary promises to pay parents for not working and the money will come from “making the wealthy pay their fair share–not by increasing taxes on working families.” (so a wealthy person can escape the higher taxes by having a W-2 job and being in a multi-person household? Or is that still not a “working family”?) Hillary promises free daycare (“preschool”) for all American kids starting at age 4. Child care will be limited to less than “10 percent of [family] income” (so a family with zero income can have 8 kids and park them in daycare 24/7 at taxpayer expense?)
Hillary leads with “no child should ever have to grow up in poverty” and then provides details. If we take her at her word, anyone can escape poverty by having a child since (a) the government doesn’t want to take kids away from parents, or at least not the mother, and (b) the child cannot be lifted out of poverty without giving the parent(s) an above-poverty-line lifestyle. Another implication of this philosophy is that people without jobs can have an unlimited number of children, assured that taxpayers will take care of these kids through adulthood (and beyond?).
Summary: Trump wants people with jobs to have more kids; Hillary wants people without jobs to have more kids.
Related: The Son Also Rises: economics history with everyday applications (successful people tend to have successful children, but not because of inherited wealth)
Appointing Judges
Hillary will find liberal judges to bless everything that the Great Mother in Washington does for her children? Trump will let his sister (a Federal appeals court judge) pick boring, but competent, people?
Gun Nuts (subsection of “Appointing Judges”?)
Hillary promises to torture gun nuts with paperwork and regulation. Men who’ve been defendants in custody or child support lawsuits won’t be able to own guns because it is conventional for female plaintiffs to accuse them of domestic violence and Hillary says she will “stop domestic abusers from buying and owning guns.”
Trump says that he will appoint Supreme Court justices who will continue with the current interpretation of the Second Amendment (i.e., that ordinary citizens can have guns).
Health
Hillary will cure Alzheimer’s, Autism, and HIV/AIDS (see the top-level issues page), but mental health problems are too tough to be erased with Federal dollars? And cancer has already been beaten by Obama’s “moonshot”? (Not to be confused with Nixon’s “War on Cancer”)
Trump doesn’t promise any advances in medicine or science.
Business and Trade
Hillary will make it illegal for an American to get a job paying less than $15/hour (Labor). She will “say no to trade deals, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership…” Hillary will help small businesses (but not if they want to hire anyone at less than $15/hour) and radically change the American legal system for handling contract disputes, at least when it is a big company and a small company fighting (her plan). [Hillary doesn’t explain why a big company wouldn’t then just try to avoid contracting with small companies. Or perhaps have an overseas division contract with a small company overseas rather than subjecting themselves to the new tilted playing field.]
Trump also will bail out on “the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which has not yet been ratified.” (Trade) He promises to harass China and Mexico (but not Canada?). He complains about Mexico having a value-added tax (but the U.S. will need one soon too given how we spend!).
Is that it?
Readers: Are the above the main substantive differences between what the candidates propose to do? If not, please add some more sections via comments below.
[Note that I’m specifically ignoring statements about K-12 education because there isn’t much that a federal politician can do about state-run schools. I’m also ignoring the questions about personal character that have been raised, e.g., Trump’s comments about what American women will do for guys who are rich and/or famous and the Clinton dynasty’s billion-dollar revenue stream from selling access and influence. The question is what these two would do as part of the job of President assuming that (a) one of them wins, and (b) whoever wins delivers on promises made to voters.]
My Facebook friends aren’t too worried about Hillary’s health. Here’s a typical posting:
I would vote for Hillary Clinton for president if she was in a permanent coma that she could never wake up from. #ImWithHer
Aside from showing the death of the subjunctive, this posting presumably shows that the voter is presumably comfortable with the Democrat’s VP candidate actually doing the Presidential job. That led me to wonder if Americans in general wouldn’t be happier with both headline candidates withdrawing from the race. Would that automatically lead to the VP candidates facing off?
At that point both parties would have fairly generic and inoffensive candidates, no? The Democrats wouldn’t have the spouse of the former leader (go Argentina!) and a person who’d banked (some of it in a family-run foundation) $1 billion as a result of serving in politics . The Republicans wouldn’t have, well, Trump.
What do readers think? Could everyone relax a bit if the current Presidential candidates stepped down in favor of the VP candidates?