Everybody Talkin’ ‘Bout Trump!

Love him or hate him, his name is on everyone’s lips.

President Donald Trump is the most talked about person in the world today. His face is the most recognized face on the planet Earth.

Liberal talk shows talk about him, so called “conservative” talk shows talk about him. Every radio and television talk program talks about Donald Trump. If it wasn't for Donald Trump, these yammering dolts wouldn't even have a show. He is all they ever speak of.

Yes, 90% of it is negative press since the American media is bent hellaciously to the Left but as it has been said by many a famous person; “There’s no such thing as bad publicity”

Trump Derangement Syndrome dominates the Liberal American Landscape. The Leftists here in the formerly, and soon to be again, industrialized North East will just be having a normal conversation and then suddenly, bam! Like a bolt out of the blue they will blurt out:  “I hate Donald Trump!”

But we were only just ordering pizza.

Our “Allies” at the G7 are all abuzz at the audacity of President Trump’s demands that they open up their markets to U.S. goods. How dare he want equity for American markets? How arrogant!

But off they go to try and solve the riddle Mr. Trump has given them: “What do they do if they are frozen out of the U.S. market?”

All of Europe’s leadership is currently trying to sharpen their pencils.

If the United States is to bring back manufacturing in this country then we need a more favorable environment in which to sell the goods we produce. This is the heart of the matter.

The other G7 leaders can snear, give him the hard stare, they can protest and they can even try to crush Mr. Trump's hand but they better start thinking about how they can play ball with the United States.

Otherwise they could be on the outside looking in.

Vermont Hurt by Canadian Tariffs

Vermont shares a boarder with Canada. Major Vermont products consist of: Milk, Cheese and Maple Syrup. These are also the products Canada taxes at 270% of value in order to protect their similar markets from Vermont's competition. Despite the downplaying about the amount of business this amounts to by the Political Left, these industries mean a great deal to the state of Vermont to the point that dairy is subsidized by taxpayer money. I can personally attest to the high quality and the civic pride in which Vermonters have in these products.

It would be better for the Vermont state taxpayer to be able to have their dairy industry stand on its own. Opening up the Canadian marketplace for Vermont goods would be a good place to start.

Vermont did not vote for Donald Trump but as President, Donald Trump has their interests in mind.

We have yet to hear Bernie Sanders chime in about the impact of Canadian tariffs on Vermont exports. I would be interested in what he has to say. After all, he's a Vermont Senator.

Libertarianism and Tariffs

Now in my vast Libertarian library, every tome describes Tariffs as bad for business. And technically, on the surface, they appear to be just that. But that is the clinical interpretation of the device. When taking the reality of the situation, like right now, tariffs make a whole lot of sense.

First, my clinical texts all rely on the premise that our trading partners are playing by the same set of rules that we are. But they clearly are not.

A state run business can take the measure of dumping their inventory at below market rates and make up for the shortfall by shifting profits from more successful facets of their business collective. This does not happen under a capitalistic system since getting other businesses to give up their gains so another organization can take the loss would be next to impossible to pull off.

But totalitarian China can pull it off and they did.

What the dumping does is destroy the local industry to the point where most of the producers go out of business and the ones who do survive can no longer produce quantities to meet a larger demand. This produces dependence on the foreign imports and eventually China will make the money they lost taking the risk, back. They are then free to raise prices since their competition has been wiped out.

In the face of this threat to local industry, tariffs are a useful tool to combat such anti-capitalist practices by our “allies”.

Telling it Like it Is

So our President is telling it like it is to our European neighbors. He’s looked at our deals and he doesn't like them and wants a better deal. Europe doesn't want to give him one and would have dismissed Mr. Trump's overtures completely if he didn't throw up tariffs to get their attention. Well, he seems to have gotten their attention alright. And the thing I like the best is…

Mr. Trump is not bluffing.

Fed Chairwoman Yellen Knows Economy is Shit

Nobody believes the economy, after 8 years of stumbling along since the Federal Government driven housing market crash of 2007, is even close to a full scale recovery. Nothing has changed and nothing will change until the government structures that lead to the Bernie Madoff-like Ponzi scheme crash, burn and are blown away to scatter and disappear on the winds of history.

Barack Obama’s delusions of a robust economy are just that, the rantings of a rabid ideolog who will never take a step back even as the White House burns to the ground and the American people come for him with torches and pitchforks. Everything is just fine in Obama’s world. Fine for him and his apparatchiks perhaps but not so fine for everybody else who has to deal with his confiscatory regulations, taxation, illegal alien give-a-ways and dictatorial executive orders. 

With bad news for business everywhere as a back drop, Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen has issued her notice that an interest rate hike could, perhaps, may, be on the table come the end of the year.

With the murmurs of criticism still ringing in her ears from the Feds back-tracking on raising the interest rates in early September, the pressure builds upon Ms. Yellen to do SOMETHING. Banks, especially the small ones, are getting killed by the low rates. There is no money to be made in the lending of money and if things suck this bad with rates at zero, how is lowering them to a negative rate going to do anything? It’s a step in the wrong direction.

So why has the Fed been keeping rates so low for so long?

Because they see what the rest of us know. The economy is lousy. The leftist Democrats are lousy for business. The leftist Republicans are lousy for business. The Government is lousy for business. They take too much and give to the undeserving. It’s the Robin Hood principle gone mad.

So in such a climate, businesses and people pull in their horns. They aren’t going to take risks with their capital and will only pay to maintain what they have and struggle to do that. There is no confidence in things getting better any time soon with the gang of grasping power mongers running the nation right now. Companies continue to retool and shed jobs, cut costs and budget down. As market efficiencies increase, they are offset by additional costs. Glad talk it all you want but Obama's perceived economic recovery isn't happening. It's more like economic anemia. It ain't dying but it's not feeling too great. 

One year left.

One of the Fed’s jobs, besides doing the bidding of the big banks, is to make the present President of the United States look good. Yellen, like Greenspan before her, is trying to keep the economy from crashing under the current President/Dictator. But this time it will be a race to the finish-line. Yellen is under pressure of the present economic malaise to raise rates and under pressure from banking and government lobbyists not to raise them.

Look for her, despite the rumblings to the contrary, not to raise rates this year and we will continue to bumble about towards the 2016 election as the burdens of increasing costs for things like housing, healthcare, college tuition and government overhead continue to eat away at the American standard of living.

Trump 2016!

Libertarians Unite

Yes I know that’s what is known as a Libertarian oxymoron since Libertarians are notorious non-joiners.

But the many individuals that make up the Libertarian consciousness have made an impact on this presidential election. It wasn’t an election that the Democrat won or the Republican would have won, it was an election where both parties lost.

Let’s take a look.

We had an incumbent president with a below 50% approval rating, presiding over a nation with a real unemployment rate of around 15% and whose wanton patronage of the Public Sector has now all but guaranteed the bankruptcy of this nation. The only boon to the economy president Obama has presided over is that the sale of guns has gone through the roof.

Then there is Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts who, as a businessman, managed to balance the state budget and put in place the Rainy Day fund that the now Governor, Deval Patrick, will rely on to keep the budget in balance since his management of the state has been less than stellar. But for all the good Romney has done with business and saving the Salt Lake City Olympics, he has tried too hard to be everything to everybody most of the time. His image as one sympathetic to big business did not help him and he never rose above a 50% approval rating either.

It was the Republican Party that has most resisted change this election cycle. Instead of embracing the masses of Tea Party groups that sprang up with the passage of the National Healthcare Initiative, the GOP fought them tooth and nail and even abandoned Tea Party candidates who were voted in as GOP candidates.

Neither did they embrace the Libertarians out there especially Ron Paul who, as the pillar of Libertarian principles, was branded a “Kook” and out of step with the mainstream. Dr. Paul was dismissed by mainstream conservative media and even had to withstand a withering attack by so called conservative radio talk show hosts across the nation.

And yet the Republican Party wonders out loud why they lost.

It has now come to light that the election wasn’t won or lost because of women’s issues or because the welfare nation has grown or even the rise of the Hispanic voting bloc. It was because 3 million registered Republicans stayed home and did not vote. It has also been reported that 8 million registered Democrats did not make it to the polls either. Also the voter turnout was less that the previous presidential contest featuring Obama vs. McCain. Looks like many voters just stayed home.

So how can you say a candidate would be a winner of such a contest?

There is no people’s mandate in this election. It only serves to prove that people wanted neither party.

Why? Because they are the same party, there is no difference.

I wonder what the vote would have looked like if "None of the Above" was on the ballot.

Romney Understands the Economy

And President Obama clearly does not.

If you want anything in this world and wish to bring it about through your own hands and you still vote for Obama just because he’s black or you’re black, you deserve what you’re going to get.

Even if you’re getting free stuff from the government, how long do you think this will last? You can’t distribute what isn’t coming in. Redistribution of wealth relies on one thing…wealth. And the Obama plan won’t bring wealth to the government bank account.

President Obama does not know this, Romney does.

It was clear from the debate that one candidate understands what’s happening in the economy and one does not. You can’t fix something if you don’t understand it. Romney sees it clearly.  How do I know? He SAID so. He spelled it all out. The more you tax people, the less money they have to spend. Duh!

But the political Left will never see it. They are standing with their fingers in their ears, eyes closed, going “La-la-la-la-la” while Romney is explaining this simple concept. They don’t see it because they have never understood it.  

The economy goes beyond politics. Politics will not make people start buying all the stupid stuff we all used to buy. Three quarters of the economy depends on people buying Salad Shooters, George Forman Grills and Pastry Toasters. This is what makes America, no, the World, run! And America drives the world economy because we buy the most stupid stuff. It’s practically a birthright. To us,  dogs, cats and rabbits are pets but to many countries in the world they are “alternative food supplies”. While some people are dressing a cat for diner, we’re dressing them in expensive pet outfits for Halloween or Christmas. This is civilization!

But this is a free choice by people who work hard for the money THEY earn! It’s their money and they can do anything they want with it.

But you tax it away, they’ll stop. They’ll give up the pets and the pet food and the pet clothes. They’ll stop buying the new microwave oven and hold onto the old one for as long as they can. They’ll stop traveling and spending the money because they won’t know if the place they work for, the Salad Shooter Company, is going to lay them off or maybe they already have. It becomes a slow downward spiral.

And yet again, this is a rebuke of the Socialist left. Once again they got it “wrong”.  The steps they have taken have been failures since they've never addressed the fundamental problem of spending money the nation hasn't earned yet. If they were going to work, they would've worked by now.

You want something more than a government handout?

 

Presidential Choices Now Clearly Drawn

Now that Mitt Romney has chosen budget hawk Paul Ryan as his vice president and the ideological divide never broader in the history of our nation.

Do you vote for fiscal responsibility or fiscal disaster?

The United States is going to have an economic crash. I’ve got 7 to 13 Billion reasons to think it so. The choice is who you want in the presidency when that happens. Do you want the people who know and believe a collapse is going to happen and have a plan to avert or fix it or the people who are just going to keep the money spigot on until the economy goes over the cliff?

The funny thing is that people who are on the dole and are receiving government benefits will probably be voting for the wrong guy. It’s Romney who actually wants to save Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. I personally won’t mind seeing these government transfer schemes collapse and burn.

I find myself on the fence.

Another 4 years of the Obama administration and the collapse of the government entitlement system is assured. There won’t be enough money to pay for even a bit of it and although they will try, there won’t be enough money left in the private economy to take. End of system.

With Paul Ryan’s budget plan and Mitt Romney’s quoted resolve to keep the status quo on these money sucking programs, it is probably a good bet that even when the economy crashes they will attempt to “save” them although cuts will be in order.

The thing I’m concerned about come the fiscal collapse is that if ObamaCare is left in place, the resulting shortages in medicine, doctors and equipment will create a greater hardship than if Romney actually tried to keep the pyramid up so to speak. Anyone who has tried to make even a routine doctor’s appointment knows what I mean. Even people on the left side of the fence do not believe for a moment that this will improve. Other than that, let it all burn.

But this is a dilemma for the American people to decide. Because of the irrational behavior of our present group of politicians on both sides of the aisle, one side allowing vast groups of illiterate Goths into the country to become a government dependent voting class a la Hugo Chavez or the other side that supplies a slightly better educated voting group with perpetual War and Drug Prohibition to keep the military, judicial and correctional jobs flowing.

It is a good thing that Romney went with the money guy instead of the military guy for V.P. since the last thing we need in the Whitehouse right now is another military mind since the last 58 years of warfare has only served to sour me on its effectiveness as an economic engine.

The lines are drawn so let the contest begin. No accusation will be too outlandish; no act will be too bizarre. Down will be up and up will be down. It will be raining hotdogs and hamburgers with one syndicate trying to wrest power from another syndicate trying desperately to hold onto it.

You won’t be able to believe anything you hear and none of what you read. You may even doubt your eyes. Elvis, Bruce Lee and Amelia Erhart  will come back and Jesus will stop by for tea with your dead grandmother.

Nothing will be clear and everybody will be out in the street to declare "What about me?".

Please try to hold onto your humanity.