To Those Of You Who Believe America's Greatest Threat Lies Outside The US

#21

The next time Pelosi, Dem Cal, denounces a border barrier/wall at the border with Mexico on the grounds such a barrier is immoral I suggest Trump propose the removal of the barrier at Cal’s southern border with Mexico on the grounds that the majority of Californian’s, as evidenced by their self-proclaimed sanctuary state status and overwhelming election of Democrats, find the barrier morally offensive and unjust. Trump could propose this as a state’s rights issue. In addition, he could present the proposal as a cost-cutting measure - I’m sure re-using/relocating the removed materials to Texas to be used to construct a barrier there would be greatly appreciated by the majority of Texans.

Once the immoral and ineffective barrier is removed, reassigning the border patrol from Cal’s southern border and placing them on Cal’s border with AZ and Nevada would seem a logical next step. Yes, but what about Cal’s border with Oregon? Well, since both Oregon and it’s identical twin to the north, Washington, are solidly down with the liberal cause, and since the vast majority of those folks crossing Cal’s southern border are obviously computer/software engineers, Bill Gates and his ilk would no doubt be ejaculated - no, the past tense of the verb, ejaculate, is not correct - I meant, overjoyed at the prospect of assisting foreign-born “underserved” while continuing to ignore homeless US citizens that fill the streets and alley ways of their major cities, many of which have been scarred for life as a result of their participation in 18 years of war in the Middle East.

With respect to Pelosi and the wall - I’m being only slightly facetious - I think.

#22

Most protectionist president since Hoover.

Makes Obama look like a free trader.

Has massively expanded government control over the economy.

Any Republican president would have done this with a majority government, only more competently.

Any Republican president would have done this with a majority government, only more competently.

Reducing government through his wild incompetence and negligence is perhaps his greatest achievement.

Trump is running objectively the most crony-filled and corrupt administration in modern history.

#23

Where? You don’t mean tariffs, do you?

I agree they’re bad, but those are taxes, not regulations.

#24

Noticing institutional inertia is good, but both Stratfor and Peter Zeihan have been wrong.

They didn’t predict oil falling below $50 a barrel (they predicted +$100, peak oil instead), they thought the Jihadi war in Syria would be short lived, and that Russia wouldn’t intervene.

With this, I don’t think they have good models to predict what the effect of crypto currencies will be in a post-5G world.

Even if they only take a fraction of the market, that has large implications for how well the U.S. government can issue its debt and expect takers.

#25

I was paraphrasing a piece from the Wall Street Journal. Any deregulation Trump has engaged in is dwarfed by his massive meddling in the economy.

The president is clobbering allies and adversaries alike with protectionist tariffs, and it seems everyone wants to hear from Mr. Irwin, 55, who last year published “Clashing Over Commerce,” a history of U.S. trade policy. We’re sitting in a little office in the shadow of Stanford’s Hoover Tower, named for the president who signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff in 1930, America’s last exercise in unabashed protectionism.

Mr. Irwin is at pains to point out the differences between the two men. “Trump has escalated the rhetoric on trade to something we’ve never seen in previous presidents,” he says. “Even Herbert Hoover never bad-mouthed other countries and said we’re being manipulated and taken advantage of, and we’re losing.” Sure, Hoover would “always talk about the need to protect domestic industry from foreign competition—but in a very dispassionate, neutral way.”

Mr. Trump may be the first openly protectionist president since Hoover, but what Mr. Irwin finds most frustrating about him is that “he never really defines what a ‘better’ trade deal is. His judgment of trade comes down to the trade balance, which he uses as a sort of ledger, as a businessman would, rather than think more broadly about the national economic impact of trade.” It is impossible for every country to run a trade surplus, but “Trump thinks about trade in these zero-sum terms, about whether there’s profits or losses, and he views exports as good and imports as bad.”

That may be because Mr. Trump “comes from the casino industry, the real-estate industry, where you either get the project or not; you either win against the house or you lose against the house.” He fails to see that in international trade, imbalances “aren’t an indication that one country is beating another, or that one is ‘winning’ and the other’s ‘losing.’ ” Mr. Trump’s rhetoric and vocabulary are “not the way economists think about trade at all.”

#26

Nonsense, of course. We have been supporting foreign industries since WW II–to OUR detriment. We literally destroyed the manufacturing capabilities of both Germany and Japan. What did we then do? We REBUILT both with the newest, most modern facilities and equipment, which (at least temporarily) gave both countries a HUGE advantage over our own, domestic manufacturing which was reliant on old, somewhat outdated equipment.

#27

That’s not reacting to the point though. The Washington Examiner states that the savings Trump has initiated due to regulations is just below $8 Billion.

The effects of the tariffs is something to the tune of $250 billion, just to China alone.

#28

Thank you sir, from a former drunken sailor (current drunken…drunk, I guess? ) who had to quit spending when he ran out of his own money…

#29

Who CARES what the Washington Examiner states? That has NOTHING to do with what I posted.

#30

What you posted had nothing to do with what he posted, that’s the point.

He’s saying

“Any deregulation Trump has engaged in is dwarfed by his massive meddling in the economy.”

And cost-wise, that’s correct. You didn’t respond to this Dave.

#31

Our greatest threat is from the younger generations who have been brainwashed from kindergarten to college to embrace communism and socialism. My two nephews are prime examples of this. They are flaming reds, and they post their opinions on social media. That has done nothing to further their careers which now have nothing to do with the undergraduate degrees they received in college.

#32

Mercantilism doesn’t aggro those two things.

Communists welcome tariffs on foreign products; the only other economist I’ve seen embrace such a policy like Peter Navarro, is himself a Marxist economist.

And that’s one more economist than Navarro himself can name, apparently.

#33

I guess the gist of your confusing post is that Trump is greatest threat because of his tariff policies toward Canada, Mexico and China.

You Trump haters can’t seem to comprehend that he has succeeded in re-negotiating NAFTA which was a very unfair trade agreement for U.S. companies and workers. He is in the process of leveling the playing field with China which has placed high tariffs on our exports to their country while we have maintained low tariffs on their imports to our nation.

His policies seem reasonable to me, but for open border advocates like you, I can see where you would be upset. Since you believe that borders are immoral, it’s perfectly okay for other countries to take advantage of us.

#34

I’m saying Mercantilism isn’t antagonistic with Socialist thinking, and that it doesn’t work. “Greatest threat” is not something I’m weighing in on.

By re-adopting language, wholesale, from the TPP.

And then throwing in measures that will ensure car production will overshore, not just from here, but from all of North America.

Screwing the Mexicans over royally, and to no benefit on our end. We’ll just continue to buy cheap foreign made cars, made in a country across the ocean instead of over the border.

You’re shifting goal posts in a very strange way Send. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

The issue here is trade, and the fine print of this deal is pretty revealing.

What is good about the USMCA, is precisely what was good about NAFTA. Goods that will remain duty-free.

We get a sliver of liberalization with Canada on agricultural goods, but in exchange for protectionism for far more industrial goods, which will drive up costs. Hurting cost of living, and cost of doing business for Americans.

What’s more, if we fail to implement the USMCA at the same time we take NAFTA down, the net result will be that more and more companies will simply buy their goods in Mexico (the King of free Trade deals), and bring them here. It’ll be cheaper that way than shipping direct.

Companies that recently re-shored, will overshore once again; because they won’t be able to handle the transfer costs of all the intermediate goods being taxed. If you can dramatically lower the taxes on your screws and components by just assembling the thing somewhere else, you probably will.

#35

OK, CS. We GET it. You don’t like our President OR his policies. We MUST secure our southern border and we need to do it NOW! Once that’s done, we can address immigration policy, but we must FIRST put as much of a halt to ILLEGALS pouring across our border as possible. As this is written, we have another 10,000 illegals headed for our borders from Central America and Mexico. Some of these people might be bringing needed labor to a few farmers and roofing companies, but some are also bringing criminality, disease, alcoholism, dangerous drugs and socialistic beliefs that they wish to impose on us and our children. We’re seeing an outbreak of measles–something that hasn’t been a problem in the U.S. for DECADES. One guy was caught who was suffering from FLESH-EATING bacteria which he COULD have spread to Americans had he not been caught by the border patrol.

#36

I don’t get the urgency when we’re in a 47-year low, as, once again, reported by Trump’s own CBP head.

This seems more like a delayed response to the illegal immigration circa 2007, not today’s.

You yourself admitted that we can estimate how many are coming by how many we catch crossing, so…

Dave, calm down and answer me this question: have you ever actually heard of a flesh-eating epidemic?

I’m pretty sure you haven’t, as while human-to-human transfer is possible, it’s a rare occurrence.

#37

We’ve CAUGHT almost 80,000 illegals in 2018. Just IMAGINE how many got by without being caught! That’s enough “votes” to swing almost any election, which is what the Democrats are shooting for.

#38

And again the farce with voting…

Even legal poor Hispanics have the lowest voter participation rate of anyone. With illegals, you’re not even breaking 10%.

The overwhelming part of voter fraud is committed by citizens; illegals don’t care.

You have an obsession with elections Dave, they don’t. Quit pushing your own mindset onto them.

#39

BS. We’re finding out this weekend that Texas has discovered tens of thousands of non-citizens registered to vote in Texas and about 60% of them that HAVE voted at least once. You’re being willfully blind here, AS. Their report doesn’t SAY that they are mostly illegals, but they are NOW illegals if they registered and voted illegally, regardless.

#40

You’re not discerning enough Dave, and you don’t follow up, I’ve caught you twice making statements that didn’t amount to anywhere close to what you claimed.

And here’s #3; those were legal residents Dave, not illegals:

https://www.star-telegram.com/news/state/texas/article225094315.html

Unless you’re saying Texas makes a habit of handing out Drivers license’s or other documentation to illegals,
the entire reason they know people aren’t citizens in the first place, is because they identified themselves to officials as legal permanent residents.

Even if all 58,000 are illegal votes (they don’t know, these could be people who naturalized and simply weren’t updated in the system) and all were cast in the 2018 election (though Texas officials are are claiming these are votes across several, not just one), that’s less than 1% of the vote that year.

<1%.

It’s not evidence of illegals voting, and if some of them are, it shows how truly minuscule that number must be.

If you want a repeat of Gov. Rick Scott’s 2012 investigation that found, are ready for it? 85 Illegal voters in Florida, be my guest. I’m all for the check up, and it’s predictably low turn out.

I’m underwhelmed Dave. I have bigger problems than this, and so do you.