DMZ

Well lets be clear, peace is better than war and meetings are generally good.

However, before we declare the job done, we need to see if anything was accomplished.

It was certainly a big boost for the North Korean dictator who can point out how the US President came to him.

That is OK if in fact he takes significant steps to reduce his nuclear program.

That's what remains to be seen.

The last round didn't seem to result in any such result but we will see if there is any substance outside of the propaganda value for both sides.

We did have a long period in which North Korea was excluded, legitimately, form most international discussions.

We now have a President who seems to admire dictators and who is willing to pander to their egos, as long as they do the same with him.

Is the world safer today?

Not at all certain it is, but time will tell.

Debates

Watching the first two Democratic debates, or at least parts of them was interesting but these are sort of the qualifying debates.

Most of the candidates have no realistic chance of becoming the nominee so they have to make enough of an impact in these showcases to secure enough funding to get to the early primaries.

Of course a few of the candidates don't seem to be at all serious, even if they think they are.

Still, ultimately it is the public that will decide, at least the democratic public and who they eventually coalesce around is difficult to predict at this point.

I think a few years ago on the Republican side, Jeb Bush was the clear favorite.

You see how that worked out.

You have to inspire some passion in your base to do well in the primaries.

Sometimes favorites try too hard to not make mistakes.

Making America Second Rate

America has held a leadership position politically, economically and militarily for a number of years now.  We are now seeing that dominance, in economics and politics start to diminish.

We clearly maintain the largest military structure and it doesn't seem like it is going to be reduced any time soon.  However, we are seeing our economic leads and our political leads fading.

We are challenged to a large extent economically by rising economic powers as well as some older European ones.  Clearly China has the second largest economy and is likely to surpass us in the not so distant future.  To some extent this is simply due to the enormous population advantage they have so as they modernize the economy has tremendous growth potential.  We on the other hand are not helping ourselves by starting to restrict some trade opportunities and focusing on old industries instead of the industries of the future.

We also spend more of our GDP on the military than any of our rivals.  This is not the most productive use of those funds as it is not creating much in the way of new industries or opportunities.

Part of this dominance is tied to our leadership role in world.  We are clearly seeing that slipping.

Our wild accusations, failure to live up to international agreements and our imposition of tariffs and sanctions that are seemingly arbitrary are causing more and more countries to reconsider their relationship with us.  We have to some extent alienated our closest allies and emboldened our enemies.  Our policies are proving ineffective and self defeating.  In the areas we have initiatives, ongoing we seen effectively no positive results.  North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, the Middle East, the Ukraine are all either the same or worse than they were a couple of years ago.

Our approach, as apparently inspired by conservative media, is to bully these countries into submission.  There is no evidence that it is working and there is evidence that it is causing them to bypass some of our influence.

We are simply not in as strong a position today as we were two years ago despite propaganda on the right.  Nothing is better and much is worse.  Debt is soaring, our prestige has suffered and we are seeing attacks on our assets.  The one area that seems positive is our attacks on ISIS but that started before the administration and their policies have simply ceded the area to Russia.

Sex Abuser

There is no doubt or at least there shouldn't be that our current President was lecherous and unfaithful most of his life.

He clearly cheated on his wives multiple times and we have audio and visual proof that he was OK with abusing his position as a wealthy man to visually and physically abuse women.

Certainly much of it was consensual and while despicable its within most codes of conduct, unless you are of course particularly religious.

However, there is not real doubt that he abused women, many women, many times.

I think even his supporters are aware of that, and in a perverted way, many of his most ardent supporters admire that he did it and got away with it.

Much of his appeal is to the outliers in what is considered by the majority as civilized society but considered by them the land of political correctness.

They yearn for the days of white male dominance where the old boys club winked at such behavior as long as you didn't step over the line of leaving physical evidence of your behavior.

Obnoxious behavior, date rape, inappropriate comments and even physical touching was just the boys being boys.

The challenge was to see how much you could get away with.  This was immortalized in many old movies where a slap on the face for unwelcome advances was, well cute.

Women were expected to protect themselves and if they wore overly provocative clothes or went to a man's room, well what did they expect?

The latest accuser of the president has some questions to answer, but we know he knew her and I think everybody knows he probably did it.

It fits into the credo he spelled out in the Access Hollywood tape.  Still, some of his supporters are probably high fiving his ability to get away with it.

Another notch in his belt so to speak.

Policies?

Well we are imposing more sanctions on Iran and are apparently willing to have talks with them without preconditions.  They have said they see no point in dealing with us since we are not trustworthy.

We obviously aren't as we withdrew from an agreement that was lawfully entered into and with which they were complying.

If we are going to honor lawful agreements, why would anyone deal with us?

Maybe it was a bad agreement, maybe it wasn't, but it was probably better than no agreement at all.

As we muddle along with no clear policies, just the latest fantasies of the dontard, we see our position in the world being demeaned.

We see increased costs because of the tariffs, farmers in trouble, no additional manufacturing, no trade agreement yet with our North American neighbors, more asylum seekers, no progress in reducing any one's nuclear program, no reduction in Russian aggression and less unity in NATO.

Letting a quirky TV network guide policy decisions is clearly not the best strategy.

Democratic Division

One of the reason's the Democrats lost the last election was that certain supporters of the nominee's primary opponent held resentments that prevented them from voting for her.

These resentments were fanned on social media by groups that opposed her election.

Some of that was probably done by the Russians, but I'm fairly convinced that other right wing groups also contributed.

Now Americans criticizing a candidate is fine, we have free speech, but people have to understand  these items for what they are.

Groups dedicated to right wing issues want to suppress or diminish the democratic vote.

They have used various tactics like making voting more difficult, gerrymandering and negative ads.

Perhaps the idea of making the divisions seem so great that progressive voters stay home allowing their ideals to be squashed is the most insidious.

There are some real differences in the candidates that need to be explored and debated so the best candidate can emerge.  However if the discussion turns bitter and acrimonious it could lead to some supporters of the losing candidate staying home.

Of course that is their right but they do have to realize that such actions can lead to a regressive regime threatening progressive ideal such as choice, equality for all, universal health care and the cementing of a Supreme Court that will prevent future progress for years.

Understand that whoever the candidate turns out to be in the process, the failure to support him/her is in fact support for the republican candidate.

Winning isn't Everything

We are now apparently fully engaged in the campaign for the next President.  It doesn't seem like the current one ever stopped.

We have a lot of contenders for the democratic nomination and I guess that's OK it will get sorted out over time.  Still the main issue that gets talked about is what is needed to win, not what the country needs.

One of the things that helped the current president emerge from the long list of Republican candidates was that he seemed different, taking positions unequivocally about certain things.

Most of his positions consisted of meaningless sound bites and after getting elected not much has changed.

Still the public wants to hear ideas about where the country is headed, not platitudes.

We do see a few candidates with ideas and the debates might clarify it more.

We need a leader to emerge, not a politician, who has real concern for all the people in this country, and a vision of the future which isn't a retreat into a past that is gone.

America has a greatness about it and part of that is inclusion and progress.

We need a President who can take us there.

Drone ?

It really shouldn't be a question about who is more truthful, the US or Iran, however, based on the amount of lying in this administration, it is.

Its especially an issue in this situation because:

The Pentagon didn't think Iran had the capability to shoot down such a high flying drone.

Iran has provide detailed coordinates and very likely has proof concerning where the wreckage was recovered.

Our failure to respond immediately since if it was in international airspace, we probably would.

Still I would like to see more evidence if in fact the drone was where we said it was.

The data released so far contained errors and misinformation, maybe not intentional.

For the sake of our credibility we need to release detailed data supporting our position.

The Real Fake News

One of the things that has always been true but seems even more true recently is that some media counts on people just reading the headlines.

The headlines can however be quite misleading, especially when they are inspired by partisan sentiments.

I saw an article today that implied in its headline how a new policy by our current President was going to revitalize the coal industry.  The article itself said no such thing.

Yes the new policy would roll back some environmental restrictions on use of coal in power plants but it also noted that no one wants to invest in coal when cleaner alternatives like natural gas are cheaper.  It went on to point out how coal based plants are still closing at record rates.

So the headline was at best misleading and more likely a political stunt designed to let "headline readers" believe that coal was being revived.  Some of the quotes in the article were attributed to people with close ties to the administration re-election campaign and clearly it was designed to provide a false impression in certain swing states.

There are more and more stories like that, many of which are originated by Fox where the headline is not supported by and sometimes contradicted by the story within.

Do we see similar misrepresentations on the liberal side?  I'm sure some exist, but it really seems much more flagrant on the right.

The solution is to read the articles, they maintain a bit of journalistic integrity there.

Or else believe the real "fake" news.

Respect for All

Suppose the Pledge of Allegiance was changed so that instead of under God it went under Allah?

The outrage would be hard to control, especially on outlets like Fox news and various conservative radio shows.

Of course there is essentially no difference between under God and under Allah unless you believe Islam has a different God than Christianity.

Since Christians are taught there is in fact only one God, even if some believe in the trinity, you would be denying your Christian faith to believe that.

Its not going to happen and in many places they don't say under God at all because of the separation of Church and State.

The point is that if there is only one God, what does it matter what we call him/her/it?

I've seen interviews where Americans have gotten fired up by certain conservative talk shows to believe that the Government was getting ready to impose Sharia law.

Clearly this wasn't about to happen.

We have a President who every chance he gets wraps himself in the flag, an action aptly described as the last recourse of a scoundrel.

The flag does represent America but the respect you show it is for America, not the material it is made of.

America is and always will be the people who reside here, not matter what religion, political party, race, sexual orientation, or gender they might be.

Each of them deserves to be respected.

Who Was Criminal?

We live in a world where we get to see things once unavailable to us.

There was a recent incident in Phoenix which involved a young family where a four year old girl apparently picked up a $1 doll at a store.  Possibly other low dollar items were stolen but that is not established yet.

The actions of the police, caught on cell phones, seem both extreme and probably racist.

They are seen threatening the parents with drawn guns in front of the children when nothing in the video indicates either failure to cooperate or any resistance.

If we didn't have the videos, this would have probably been adjudicated in favor of the police, but the videos are in fact damning and I suspect they will be held to account.

Police deserve our support and respect but they are not supposed to terrorize us.  At times they seem to act like some citizens are simply not entitled to respect and due process.

It is a tough job but they have to be held to the highest standards.  When they behave atrociously they need to face the consequences.

The actions of our law enforcers caught on camera seem to be much more criminal that a 4 year old taking a $1 doll.

BTW, the store owner decided not to press charges.

Fathers Day

Fathers day just doesn't get the same attention as Mother's day and it shouldn't, generally.

Still its the day to celebrate Father's so I wish all the fathers a good day!

Foreign Relations?

Well after a couple of years of this administration, have we seen improvement in any of our foreign initiatives?

According to the dontard he has accomplished great things, but lets think about it.

We are embroiled in what looks to be an escalating trade war with China that shows almost no signs of improvement.  It is clearly in the interests of both parties to resolve it, but progress seems non-existent and while China is losing some market, we are paying the tariffs, losing our ability to export commodities there and it will cost us jobs.  Not a great accomplishment yet.

North Korea was ballyhooed but it seems like nothing has really changed.  They are still developing Nuclear Weapons and we are still imposing sanctions.

Iran was going to be forced to give up supporting terrorists and be forced to the negotiating table after we withdrew from a deal they were complying with.  They aren't negotiating and might be attacking cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

Russia has continued its aggressive behavior and continues to consolidate its gains in the Ukraine.  No progress at all.

We decided to try to effect regime change in Venezuela but so far it hasn't worked and has led to an expansion of Russian and Cuban influence in the area.

We had started to see a bit of a thaw with Cuba, but that seems to be over now.

We have managed to evict ISIS from its strongholds on the land but the organization is not destroyed.

Syria, with Russian support seems to have no chance at regime change.

Israel, at least the hardliners there may be receptive to our action of moving the Embassy to disputed Jerusalem, but that obviously strengthens the terrorist recruiting ability.

Many of our allies now think we are unreliable and while some of them have increased defense spending, it hasn't led to a reduction in ours.

Canada and Mexico still haven't agreed to a new trade agreement and while they are likely to, it is very similar to the one we had.

Most of the world looks at us as unpredictable and unreliable, which might be the plan.  If its a good strategy is a matter of opinion.

These are the major areas, but the list could continue, our reductions in foreign aid, but I'm just not seeing any great accomplishments.

Not really seeing what I would call accomplishments at all.

Our Government, is it Honest?

Well an admitted liar has resigned as the press secretary for the administration that easily holds the record for most lies.

I have no idea what the future holds for her and in some respects she simply carried out the orders of the main liar, but don't think that is going to be much of an excuse, although she probably will end up with the so called news channel that host the most liars.

We seem to accept that lying is commonplace and we see so much of it we don't register much shock anymore.

There is of course a history of how lying became something we expected from the Government and which now has eroded some basic aspects of society.

There were probably always some misinformation but the revelations in the Pentagon Papers had a significant impact on the American psyche.  Followed up shortly thereafter with Iran-Contra and we were off to the races.

As the Internet grew we got Wiki-Leaks where secrets were revealed some of which contradicted public positions.

We have evolved to the point where everybody is either lying or accusing other of lying.

We need to restore trust in our Government, that they aren't covering up things that we need to know, like contaminates in our water supply or other dangers to our health and safety.

This is supposed to be our Government and it should have our interests as its primary concern.

Unfortunately too often it seems that large companies that can make large donations get the consideration.

That needs to change.

Checks and Balances

We are currently in the midst of a constitutional crisis concerning the roles of the legislature and the executive branches.

Most Americans don't seem to care very much.

Our Government is a series of checks and balances.

The Executive branch was recognized as the one with the greatest opportunity for abuse of power so congress was given two significant checks on that power.

First it has the power of the purse meaning that its the only branch that can authorize funds.

Second it has the power of oversight,

While there have been some abuses of the first check we are seeing an outright refusal of the current administration to allow the oversight to proceed.

This is a challenge to the very nature of our Government and shouldn't be tolerated.

Are Americans Entitled to Know?

During the Watergate crisis, President Nixon went on the air and said Americans needed to know if the President was a crook, and that he wasn't one.

Of course that wasn't completely true and as the investigation and hearings proceeded he eventually resigned from office.

We now have an administration that is effectively saying the same thing (no collusion, no obstruction) although the report he cites doesn't actually support either statement.

There was plenty of collusion, which by the way isn't the actual crime and clear evidence of obstruction.  Not all of it was by the current President, although a simple reading of the report is that if he wasn't the President he would have been charged.

Congress is conducting hearings to try to get to the truth, but the administration is unprecedented fashion is both refusing to testify and claiming executive privilege.

Whether the hearings would indicate that there were actual crimes committed or not would of course require the hearings to be conducted.

This is one of Congress' responsibilities to oversee the Executive branch and make sure they are acting in accordance with the law.

Americans do have the right to know and the Congress has the obligation to find our.

If the administration has nothing to hide, the question is what are they worried about?

Wrong Question

You see a lot of talk about whether we can afford things like universal health care, or secure retirements for all,

I think that is the wrong question.  Providing every member of our society with needed health care or a comfortable retirement after years of service isn't a matter of cost, its an obligation.

The idea that some members of our society will be forced to go without treatment is simply not an option.

Also, our seniors shouldn't be choosing between necessities because they can't afford to live comfortably.

Even primitive societies provided these things to their members and it is morally reprehensible not to.

Will the solutions cost money?  It may require some changes in how the money is flowed but generally it won't necessarily cost more than our current systems.  If you consider the amount countries that provide universal health care spend to us, we spend more.

Is our care better?  Perhaps in some cases, but on the whole it isn't.

So the question shouldn't be "Can we afford it?", it should be "How do we fund it?".

Efficient Production

There is a fundamental economic principle which is that production will migrate to the most efficient method.

This is simply because the most efficient method will be able to compete better than all the other methods.  This is not an instantaneous change, although it can happen rapidly at times.

You also have to consider what is the discriminating factor.

Certainly coffee made at home is more efficient in price than coffee bought outside, but the second may actually be more efficient from a time perspective, especially considering the range of choices provided.

Still certainly for commodities and manufactured items, price is usually the deciding factor.

This has led to the decline in American manufacturing as advances in trade and transportation have allowed other countries to compete effectively in our markets.

The more significant labor is as a cost, the more competitive cheap labor countries become.  Of course we are also replacing expensive labor with robots and automation leaving us with our current situation, which is to some extent a real crisis.

Communities that were thriving with a local manufacturing plant are in many cases faced with real economic hardship as those plants have closed.  Those that have stayed open have oftentimes survived by automating and eliminating jobs.

Labor is obviously people and our economy is consumer driven, once again people.  People who make less spend less.  Sometimes not at first, they dip into savings, home equity, and incur credit card debt, but eventually those sources dry up.

Eventually some new equilibrium is reached, but to get there a lot of pain is required.

Reality Show?

The "crisis" with Mexico is now resolved, at least for the time being.

Of course last week we didn't have a crisis, than we did, now we don't.

It might depend on any number of factors, indigestion, insomnia, slow Taco delivery.

I've been trying to see what was gained from the ruckus and I can't figure it out, so I'll wait for someone else to.

I would suspect the best way to tell would be to see if the number of undocumented immigrants seeking asylum goes down.

Still if you ever watched the show Apprentice, you know the winners and losers sometimes were measured by very subjective criteria.

Think they wanted to keep everyone is suspense as long as possible for the reveal at the end when he would declare your fired after reciting some convoluted rationale.

Sometimes it made almost no sense at all but it was real, although it was called a reality show.

Much like this presidency.

Incels

The internet has turned some things that used to be simply gripe sessions into causes.

Take for example Incels (Involuntarily celibate).  We used to call that a bad weekend or a losing streak.

Now it is apparently a societal plot by the secret women societies to exclude any men who don't exhibit the right set of feature to be worthy of selection.

Of course in today's world there actually is a method of selection, swipe right or swipe left.

We had to depend on less certain signs, like did she return your smile?

This required people to leave their house and be in close proximity to the opposite sex, say at high school dances.

I think they still have those but I would be surprised if they aren't going silent as everyone listens to their own music via headphones.

The fact that this sort of negates the social concept of a dance.

It certainly limits conversation.

Of course one would think that the problem exists in both sexes.  Maybe its the involuntary part that's different, its always been generally believed that it was the women who decided that question.

Still using the odd definitions of today, I suppose if they reject less than perfect partners and the most desirable partners reject less than desirable partners, there should be large groups on both sides.

Seems like a story as old as time.

Jobs

Job creation had a poor May and wage growth was tepid.

One data point doesn't make a trend but it really isn't inconsistent with what we've been seeing.  We have headwinds in exports and imports thanks to the ongoing trade wars and prospective tariffs on Mexico.

Tariffs have no cost the average tax payer more than the modest tax break they received from the tax bill.  Not that it was that big a tax break.

Will there be a recession?

There's a fairly good chance of one since much of the economy is really built on sand.  The jobs of the future are in renewable resources, improved health care facilities and measure to combat climate change.

Those jobs would pay well no and be an investment in the future.

This administration wants to drill, dig and pollute.

Not a recipe for success.

D-Day

Seventy-five years ago on the beaches of Normandy the allied invasion of Europe started.  They faced various levels of resistance.

Thousands would die but ultimately they were able to establish beachheads and start the march to Berlin.

To the extent that any war can be a justified war, the destruction of NAZI Germany seems a good candidate.  

We should remember the cost of rooting it out once it was allowed to get deeply established.

We see some of its ideas taking hold again, both here and in Europe.

We can't let that happen.

Nonsensical Comments

So the dontard believes that using other peoples money to prop up defense to unneeded levels makes up for being a draft dodger?

Of course it doesn't and no one believes it does.

Its just one of the many stupid things he says on a regular basis.  Climate change is a Chinese hoax.

Everything that doesn't look good is exactly where he wants to be.

Didn't see all the protesters in Britain, just large crowds of supporters.

On and on he goes and the fact that anyone buys into any of it is hard to defend.

Still we have a network here that tries to.

Economic Thoughts.

The economy is a very complex system but often a single factor can impact it significantly.

Some of that is simply mathematical but some of it is also based on psychological factors.

Everyone is always trying to predict how something impacts the overall economy, because the most successful strategy is to be ahead of the crowd, but not so far ahead as to go broke waiting for them to catch up to where you are.

So what about this economy?

In many ways it is considered robust, but is it?

Three areas that are still weak are manufacturing, mining and farming.

In 2004 there were over 13 million workers in manufacturing. This dropped to less than 11 million during the financial crisis and has been slowly improving since. However, the latest numbers show us still down over a million workers.  Considering population growth there are less manufacturing jobs available.  Still we have grown from the lowest point and we see that data claimed as a measure of an improved economy.

The big increase in employment has been in service jobs and generally they don't pay as well as manufacturing.

So the average American is having more trouble paying bills and saving for the future, even if fully employed.

This is one of the reason that we see so much income and wealth inequality, since the workers continue to get a smaller share of the pie as they are forced into lower paying jobs.

It wouldn't take much, maybe some increased cost because of tariffs to make the whole thing tumble.

Time will tell.

Paying for Tarifs

Manufacturers need to sell their products to stay in business.  Products that are essentially equal compete based on price.  Tariffs on a particular nation increase the price of that nations product.  If the tariff increases the price higher than its competition it won't get sold.  Manufacturers will reduce the price if at all possible to sell it.  It should be noted that the replacement item, is by definition more expensive than the original item, costing the buyers more.

The sentence above is a simplistic explanation as to who pays for tariffs.  What should be noted is that its always paid either fully or partially by the buyer, but the manufacturer or producer may lose profits.

In a simple example take an item that sells for $100.  First, the tariff is applied on the value of the imported item, not the final sale price.  So say that item when imported costs the importer $50 (the rest of the price includes the sellers costs and profit).  If it is hit with a 25% tariff the tariff would be $12.50.  If passed along completely to the consumer it would result in a final price of $112.50, not $125.

Now if a product is available that can be sold for less than $112.50 it will get more sales.  Assume the replacement product costs $105.  In that cast the manufacturer either reduces his price so he can match that price or accepts less sales.  In our example, and I apologize for the math, the $6250 of the imported item would have to be reduced to no more than $55 all things being equal.  With a 25% tariff, the price of the imported item would have to be reduced to $44.  So to stay competitive the manufacturer would absorb $6 in costs which could be viewed as paying part of the tariff.  However the tariff instead of being $12.50 is now $11 which is still passed on to the consumer, even thought the ultimate price increase was only $5.

In many scenarios the actual outcome is that the competitor sees and opportunity to raise its price from the $105 price point to say $110, make more profit and still capture more market share.

For all of you non-math lovers, the simple answer is that tariffs cause higher prices which consumers pay.  It may impact the place of manufacture or it may not, but it impacts our wallets.

Breaking Rules

One of the things that was that was part of the "American" way was good sportsmanship.  The idea that you try as hard as possible to defeat an opponent, but at the end you follow the rules and treat the opposition with respect.

It might actually be something we borrowed from the Brits, who tend to exemplify it.

While it clearly is something that originated in the playing fields it was something that we treasured, at least we used to.

We even have rules for how to fight wars, the Geneva conventions

Americans mostly expect that you will abided by the rules, although sometimes a little cheating is acceptable, unless you get caught.

The question though, is caught by who?

In politics the rules are enforced by the voters, or at least they are supposed to be.  Yes the parties and the legislative bodies, as well as the courts get involved, but ultimately it is the voters who decide what is and what is not acceptable.

They are falling down on the job.

We saw a significant change in how the rules are followed in 2016, and saw bullying and lying as well as involvement of a foreign power end up with the help of a not representative electoral college, give us a rule breaking President.

In some parts of the country it was felt that following the rules wasn't working especially in States where manufacturing had declined and those good paying high benefit jobs also vanished.

Still, they wanted the rules to be broken to change that and ended up with a reverse Robin Hood, taking from them and giving to the rich.

More Senseless gun Violence

So this last attack was in Virginia beach.

Twelve dead for no reason except one man's anger and easy availability of guns.

Watching the survivors describe the incident, you can tell it was life changing for them, coming so close to death and knowing the victims.

Imagine it changes their whole opinion on the issue.

They saw incidents on the news but they didn't think it could happen to them.

Maybe its a mistake for the news to not show the truly horrendous violence to avoid offending viewers.  Better to be offended than dead.

If these shooting were being done by a terrorist group we would have an all out campaign to stop them.

Maybe we need to realize the terror is real even if the people doing it aren't joined in some plot.

They simply all own guns.