it would be good to be writing about other things. In the near future, I will be writing about other things. But how can you not write about Donald Trump in these times?
I’ve been an observer of Donald Trump since the 1980s. If you lived in New York In the 80s or 90s, you couldn’t get away from him. He was on the front page of the New York Post seemingly every day. The good looking man about town, the guy who got things done.
To use a baseball metaphor, he was always one who swung for the fences.
In the early 1980s, New York City was in bad financial straits, at a time when Manny thought that cities were over, that everyone wanted to move to the suburbs. Trump made two brilliant decisions In this era- He built the beautiful Trump tower in 1983, And he was a major partner in the rebuilding of the old Commodore hotel, next to Grand Central terminal. Trump made an awful lot of money with these two Ventures, Which were very positive For New York City.
But no great batter swings for the fences every time. Trump did.
In the 1980s, Atlantic City arose as a center for legalize gambling. A number of gambling hotels were doing well there. In 1990, Trump, who already owned two casinos in Atlantic City, Swung for the fences and built Trump Taj Mahal, With an astonishing 2248 rooms, at a cost of $1 billion, financed by junk bonds. Many at the time thought that this hotel was way too big for Atlantic City. It was – Trump Taj Mahal went bankrupt. Then, after the creditors got screwed, Trump made it go of it again. It went bankrupt for a second time. The bondholder got four cents on the dollar. Trump’s fellow investors got less than that if anything.
Trump‘s swing for the fences led to many other bad decisions, including an airline that went out of business pretty quick, and his ill-fated purchase of the plaza hotel, which he sold at a loss. There were other bankruptcies. Trump somehow always did better off than the people who invested with him.
Now, the guy who swings for the fences every time is the president of the United States.
He’s done one very good thing – he has broken the back of the illegal alien trade on the Mexican border. unauthorized crossings are down well over 90%.
But he has also ruined our friendly relationship with Canada and with Western Europe. it was under Trump that trade deals with Canada and Mexico were struck in 2018; now Trump says that those 2018 Trump deals are no good.
Trump‘s mocking of Canada‘s Right to exist is even worse than his reneging on his trade deal with them. Many Canadians will never trust the US again. Canadians used to travel in huge numbers to New York City and Florida every year – not anymore.
Trump has long Said that our treaty allies don’t pay enough for their own defense. He’s been correct in that. Obama and Biden said the same thing. Some progress was made in this direction By some of the European countries, especially after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Trump deserves some of the credit for that Increased defense spending.
I think that NATO has been a huge American asset, and that it was always a huge Extension of American power, even when the Europeans were unwisely Skimping on their own defense costs.
Trump has repeatedly hinted at taking America out of NATO, or not defending NATO allies who didn’t spend enough. These comments have weakened American credibility.
The Imposition of huge tariffs by the US , against friend and foe,after a Bewildering, couple of months of threats, Are likely to damage not just the US economy, but the world economy. Many Average Americans own stock, either outright or via 401(k) pension plans - The value of these have gone down since Trump took office, They are likely to go down much further today.
The US has legitimate complaints against some of his trading partners, But I don’t see the EU or UK as particularly bad actors, and I don’t see Canada as being a bad actor at all.
The late Charlie Munger, who worked closely with Warren Buffett for many years at Berkshire Hathaway, Is regarded as one of the more astute and thoughtful investors in modern history. In 2011, before Trump ran for office the first time, Munger said that Trump was temperamentally unsuited for the office of the presidency.
The guy whose Taj Bondholders got four cents on the dollar is now driving the world economy into the rocks. He doesn’t know what he is doing.
21 comments:
Had to laugh at the photo of Chris Ruddy, boss of Newsmax, and Rudi Giuliani ringing the bell to open the NY Stock Exchange this morning with stupid grins on their faces. Shortly afterwards Newsmax stock price had fallen by almost 20%.
Fox News is the unquestioned king of subservient Trump television.
One of their clown show commentators, Jessie Waters, was disrespectful to Mr. Ford, the premier of Ontario, because Ford dared to say that he did not want to Canada to join the United States.
Newsmax will have a hard time keeping up with this kind of nonsense.
Wow, so much to say, which I will do over the weekend. For now we have an early taste of summer in Blighty and the village pub garden awaits.
However I cannot go without doffing my cap to all the sudden left wing converts to free, unfettered trade. Their shamelessness is magnificent.
We didn’t have unfettered trade before.
But what we have now is a president reneging on his own 2018 trade deals with Canada and Mexico,
And unilateral tariffs against the EU that don’t make sense. The EU was not a perfect free trader before, but neither was the US. The differences with the EU could have been the subject for a reasonable negotiation. but that is not the path that he chose.
Trump's tariffs of course are nutty. All tariffs are self-defeating and only make home consumers poorer. Trump cites economic growth under McKinley's tariffs but that was a time of almost no income taxes and barely any cross-border supply chains. There's also the counter-factual; growth may well have been higher without tariffs.
It's only fitting that Trump's announcement was a clown show full of fake statistics.
But the hypocrisy is a wonderful. The EU bleats but the EU is specifically designed to be a protectionist bloc behind high tariff walls. They all bleat but many other countries were happy with their own tariffs on US imports. The solution is obvious. The world can negotiate tariffs down. Standby for the world to not do that.
If Trump wants the US to export more cars then the US just has to produce better cars. No amount of economic finagling will get around that. If Trump isn't willing to say that then he's being cowardly.
Trump might be in trouble here and not only because some Americans are looking at their shrinking 401Ks. The US exports its inflation via the dollar reserve system. He might have induced countries to consider alternative arrangements. If enough significant economies move off of that then the US economy will become a smoking crater.
The Trump administration doesn’t even understand how European taxation works. An American made car sold in Germany is subject to tariff. ( import tax ) and also VAT. The Trump people regard VAT as an unfair barrier to trade, but that’s completely untrue, since the same VAT percentage will apply to any German made cars that are sold in Germany.
Your comments on American cars are spot on. A lower German tariff would mean some more US cars would be sold in Germany, but not too many.
And I don’t know why any Japanese would want to buy an American car. One of the biggest selling vehicles in America is the ( up to 5000 pounds weight ) Ford F150 pickup. Vehicles like this would be too wide and long for some Japanese streets, and garages.
The Trump administration sees EU food standards for beef and chicken as being an unfair barrier to trade. But why can’t US producers produced products that meet the standards for such a huge market?
etc.
Unless you are buying a truck I agree with Phantom and Pete an American car isn't worth exporting. The American automobile industry hasn't made a good car since 1976. The reason for that being primarily cafe standards.
Phantom has a NY perspective on Trump, in the 70s and 80s the NYC market and social scene was overly saturated with Trump. This was not the case with the rest of the country. Everyone knew who he was, but he was not in our local press and social news like he was in NY. Back then news and social commentary were still primarily LOCAL. You had the NY Region, DC Region, Atlanta, Chicago, St Luis, and LA Regions. Philly was always just Philly a dark bubble unto itself. Now all news is saturated nationally. The internet changed news coverage forever in the US.
The over saturation of the NY region with Trump during that time period gives you phantom a different view than most in the country because of familiarity, which does breed contempt.
The first run of Trump my candidate came in second, I don't think Cruz would have won the Presidency even if he had won the nomination though. I will say that Trump proved to be a great President in that first term. I will also say that the stolen Biden election was something we as a nation needed. If they hadn't stolen the election and placed a deadman in the chair we would never have experienced just how bad it could be until the last 4 years of Biden. It was the experience of the Biden Presidency a four year weekend at Bernie's that has brought us to the point we are now at. The out of control left caused the shift.
Every county in the country had an increase in republican votes, and they weren't for the republican brand. They were for Trump and against the direction the left was dragging us kicking and screaming into. The republican party gained nothing, when Trumps term is done it's going to be a very interesting election. I don't see any leaders in either party.
The Tariffs.... and foreign Policy
Since WWII the US has transferred it's wealth and industry to the rest of the world. The intention was to raise the rest of the world to our standards and end the need for war. Instead it scuttled the american middle class and wars just shrank in scale. The rust belt was born out of our politicians facilitating the shift of manufacturing out of the US, both parties are responsible for that. Now is a time for reset and reconstruction.
The first piece of that is a more level playing field. Other nations can not be allowed to tax us at 40 while we only tax them at 2. That's what tariffs are a tax, nothing else. The best tariff is a zero tariff, but it has to be zero on both sides. Trumps tariffs are directly aimed at that goal. A flat even field of zero trade barriers. Product competition rather than national competition.
The fact of the matter is right now the US can not compete. The reasons for this are many and multilayered. The tariffs are the tool to allow us to get back in the game.
So far we have over $7 Trillion dollar of commitments to rebuild american manufacturing, the only way this was achieved was through the tariffs. And the next 3 1/2 years will bring more investment. Think about it three and a half more years to go in the Trump Presidency. The thought makes some want to jump out a window, and others swoon. Me I just want a bowl of popcorn and to be able to lay out commentary on the show.
Reagan brought us 20 years of growth and stability with just tax cuts. A prosperity that was ate away at and squandered since 2000, we spent the last 25years not just neglecting our infra structure but actively and purposefully dismantling it. The attack on fossil fuel has been a slow suicide whose poison has seeped into every aspect of our lives.
That is the other key piece to all this that Trump is putting back on the table, American Energy. The US has unlimited Oil and LNG along with centuries worth of coal. We have no choice but to go through an energy boom. We have the natural resources to not only build and power a new manufacturing base, we have the abundance to supply other nations. Creating a wealth and power base that our economy has never had.
The nice thing about oil and gas production and export is most of the pieces are already in place. Even the export facilities they were almost complete at the end of Trumps last term. We need to drill and flood the market. Within two years we will begin to see the effect.
Reagan brought 20yrs of prosperity with a tax cut. Trumps tax cuts are already in place and not the only piece he has put on the table. The manufacturing investment and the drilling and exporting of fuel is the second piece. Those two pieces if allowed to be achieved will give the nation a boon for the next 40 if not longer.
I do say if allowed to be achieved. Face it Trump is crazy, and no one in power anywhere in the world likes him. Except of course Bibi, but they share a lot of the same personality traits. The Circus is in town and will be for the next 3 years. I think it will be a great show filled with tons of drama and excitement, both positive and negative. I say enjoy it.
The moving of US jobs to China and other places started in earnest under the Reagan administration. I remember it well.
Bruce Springsteen sang a song about it at the time –“ My Home Town ‘
Now Main Street's whitewashed windows and vacant stores
Seems like there ain't nobody wants to come down here no more
They're closing down the textile mill 'cross the railroad tracks
Foreman says, "These jobs are going, boys, and they ain't coming back"
To your hometown
If CAFE ( mileage ) standards prevented the US auto makers from making good cars, why didn’t it prevent Toyota and Mercedes-Benz from making good cars?
As far as I know, the foreign auto makers have never complained about Fleet mileage standards.
I think that most US cars are pretty good these days; it’s just that there’s nothing distinctive about US sedans, and things like huge pick up trucks won’t have much appeal the average non US driver
Troll -
"Other nations can not be allowed to tax us at 40 while we only tax them at 2."
That's the wrong way round. A 40 per cent tariff (say, imposed by Canada on US exports to Canada) is a 40 per cent sales tax on Canadian consumers, not the US exporters. That array of enhanced tariffs which Trump went through last week was nothing more than a string of taxes imposed on you, not other countries.
Phantom -
It's natural, as we become more wealthy, that lower skilled, lower paying jobs will move to less wealthy countries. And we want that. We really want our descendants moving up into higher value work. One days, maybe, Vietnam, China and India will shed the jobs they gained to Africa, and so on.
The really daft thing is shedding those jobs while importing millions of useless, parasitical immigrants without a hope of being productive. That is a catastrophe we have allowed to unfold and simply must be reversed.
Trump said that he would end the flow of illegal aliens very quickly, and he has done that. He should be taking a victory lap on that matter, but he can’t with all his insane shenanigans about conquering Greenland, and taxing the penguins in the south Atlantic, etc..
Fair question. Until the introduction of cafe standards the American Car industries strength and design were all about size and 20-22 foot long 7 feet wide full size cars like Lincolns, Caddy's, Impala's, LTD's etc either large luxury or large family cars that was 3/4s of the american domestic market the other 25% going to muscle cars various models all designed around the late great V8.
The foreign markets didn't evolve from those styles of vehicles. The american companies had to scale everything down. Once scaled down there is no reason to buy american vs japanese other than personal taste. The only thing we didn't scale down was Pickup Trucks.
Mercedes is a luxury automobile no matter the model and does not qualify as a comparison as would Rolls and Ferrari. You can find toyota, ford, nissan chevy in any construction yard, supermarket, factory parking lot. You won't see any of those.
What midrange American car do you believe any european would buy? What model is to you would be a good export?
Pete no I have it right but your not understanding. That +40 passed onto the foreign consumer is a barrier of production and export on the us. A Widget that costs 10 to make in both countries that are exactly the same quality. Germany sells the widget made in germany to the german people for 12, but they sell the german people the exact same american widget for 50, guaranteeing that the german will buy the german made widget preventing it from being worthwile to export american widgets because it can't compete due to the german tariff. That is how europe has used their Tariffs, as protectionist tools.
Which is the standard we are now enacting on everyone in turn. The same way European countries make it to expensive to buy our widgets there we will now use to make european widgets to expensive to buy here.
and I totally agree with the rest of your comment.
A few years ago Steve Bannon said: “The Democrats don't matter. The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”
The point is to disorientate at all points and all thimes. Trump has certainly achieved that. Just now we learn of 104 per cent tariffs on some Chinese goods. Part of me hopes the Chinese retaliate just to see how high they can go.
If trade imbalances are a national security threat then what is educating vast numbers of Chinese students in US universities every year? It would at least be consistent to evoke the visas and send them back.
Some of what Trump is trying to achieve is really good.
I think it’s a valid thing to want much of your critical pharmaceutical and protective equipment manufacturing sourced domestically, etc. I think that it’s super important to keep bad actors like China from stealing western intellectual poverty. And if he can negotiate lower tariffs for US exporters, that’s terrific.
But he loses the plot, quickly, when he talks about friendly actors , like Canada and the EU “ ripping us off “ and “ raping “ the US. That’s imbecile talk.
don't know why my other comments came out anonymous....
Did you know that most of our power transformers are made in china? The ones on every other telephone poles.
Canada and the EU are ripping us off, the whole purpose of the EU was to create one Block out of many to specifically counter the US economically.
It amazes me that you can't see that the tariffs and non-tariff barriers to our goods as ripping us off.
The only reason for tariffs is protectionism. All tariffs should be zero on both sides, and until they are it is a battlefield. Trump is using them to zero out the unbalance between us and other nations. Just today he paused all Tariffs for 90 days on every nation except those that have initiated retaliatory tariffs to give those nations the opportunity to negotiate.
Troll -
Fair comment on your last point but you did say "Other nations can not be allowed to tax us at 40 while we only tax them at 2." No nations are taxing other nations. In the end, if you buy the German widget, Trump is taxing you.
That's if these tariffs last. I go for a walk and when I return Trump has slapped 125 per cent on Chinese goods and pit a 90 day stay on the rest. Who knows how it will look by Monday? How can you plan a business like this?
Somewhere in the US an American will have paid (say) $100,000 for a container of Chinese made goods. As it stands he will have to stump up an extra $125,000 just to take delivery at the port. China is all the things its critics say, but this is chaotic.
I just heard Navarro speak on Sean Hannity’s radio show
Navarro continues to say that VAT as it exists in Europe is an unfair barrier to trade
He doesn’t know what he’s talking about
I've just read a Navarro profile and his Wiki page. He's a crank. It's genuinelly bizarre that he's anywhere near the Oval Office.
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