Trump's tax reforms are a bigger gift to business than most expected
 

-by Joseph Stiglitz
[url]https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/04/trump-tax-reforms-business-republicans-debt[/url]
[QUOTE]While Trump the candidate criticised the growth of US national debt, he now proposes tax cuts that would add trillions to the debt in just the next 10 years – not the “only” $1.5tn that Republicans claim would be added, thanks to some growth miracle that leads to more tax revenues. Yet the key lesson of Ronald Reagan’s “voodoo” supply-side economics has not changed: tax cuts like these do not lead to faster growth, but only to lower revenues.[/QUOTE]
Here comes the Laffer Curve crap.

In my clickbait follow-through today I landed on Snopes.com to read about Trump:
[URL="http://www.snopes.com/trump-puerto-rico-golf-course/"]Did Donald Trump Bankrupt a Golf Course, Leaving Puerto Rico with $33 Million in Debt?[/URL]
TL/DR the answer is more nuanced and less satisfying -- which is why I called it clickbait.
Wikipedia:
[QUOTE]Betteridge's law of headlines is one name for an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no." It is named after Ian Betteridge, a British technology journalist,[1][2] although the principle is much older. As with similar "laws" (e.g., Murphy's law), it is intended as a humorous adage rather than the literal truth.[3][/QUOTE]
While I was on Snopes I came across another Trump tidbit that was kind of cute:

[URL="http://www.snopes.com/trackdown-trump-character-wall/"]Did a 1950s TV Episode Feature a Character Named Trump Who Offered to Build a Protective Wall?[/URL]

[QUOTE]The television series Trackdown really did produce an episode featuring a “Trump” character who came to town claiming that only he could prevent the end of the world by building a wall (and also sold special force propelling umbrellas to deflect meteorites). The episode (S1, E30) aired on CBS in 1958 and was titled “The End of the World,” featuring actor Lawrence Dobkin playing the role of “Walter Trump.” A synopsis of the episode from the Classic TV Archive reads as follows:
[QUOTE]Walter Trump, a confidence man, puts on a long robe and holds a tent meeting in the town of Talpa. He tells the townspeople that a cosmic explosion will rain fire on the town and that he is the only one that can save them from death. Ranger Hoby Gilman attempts to prove Trump is a fraud.[/QUOTE]
While Dobkin appeared in at least three other episodes of Trackdown, this was the only occasion in which he portrayed the Walter Trump character

A relevant portion of dialog from this episode has been transcribed below:

[QUOTE]Narrator: The people were ready to believe. Like sheep they ran to the slaughterhouse. And waiting for them was the high priest of fraud.

Trump: I am the only one. Trust me. I can build a wall around your homes that nothing will penetrate.

Townperson: What do we do? How can we save ourselves?

Trump: You ask how do you build that wall. You ask, and I’m here to tell you.[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=kladner;469223]-by Joseph Stiglitz
[url]https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/04/trump-tax-reforms-business-republicans-debt[/url]

Here comes the Laffer Curve crap.[/QUOTE]
Reagan promised to cut taxes, raise defense spending, and balance the budget. He fulfilled the first two promises. As to the third, the Federal budget ran deeper in the red than it ever had before (200 billion a year). The federal debt doubled, and kept growing. That's how well tinkle-down economics generated more revenue.

If you want to see someone like [i]Il Duce[/i], I recommend an old movie called [i]A Face in the Crowd[/i]. The way the lead character lost his following is something I would [i]love[/i] to see happen to [i]Il Duce[/i]. Except, I'm not sure it would work...

American Kakistocracy
 

[URL]https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/american-kakistocracy/542391/[/URL]
Note that the author is "[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Ornstein"]Norman Ornstein[/URL], political scientist and resident scholar at the conservative [U]American Enterprise Institute.[/U] The situation is too catastrophic for even gallows humor to be appropriate.
A commenter from the DKos piece which led me to The Atlantic points out that when the military rules with ineptitude and corruption it is termed a "[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khakistocracy"]khakistocracy[/URL]."
[QUOTE]From cabinet officials jetting around on the public dime, to Trump's shattering of ethical norms, to disregard for congressional procedure—there’s a case to be made that the United States is governed by the least scrupulous of its citizens.
[I]
Kakistocracy[/I] is a term that was first used in the 17th century; derived from a Greek word, it means, literally, government by the worst and most unscrupulous people among us. More broadly, it can mean the most inept and cringeworthy kind of government. The term fell into disuse over the past century or more, and most highly informed people have never heard it before [B](but to kids familiar with the word “kaka” it might resonate)[/B].[/QUOTE] Emphasis mine. :smile:

As much as reading stuff like this is disheartening, many of the same problems would have occurred if HC were elected.

[QUOTE=rogue;469641]As much as reading stuff like this is disheartening, many of the same problems would have occurred if HC were elected.[/QUOTE]
I have no love, and little respect for HRC, but it is hard to imagine that the government would be in such complete disarray under her. Instead of destabilizing the world with chaotic flailing, we would be witnessing destabilization by cold calculation, courtesy of the Clinton-Nuland cabal.

Tomgram: William Hartung, How to Wield Influence and Sell Weaponry in Washington
 

[B]Massive Overkill [/B]
[B]Brought to You By the Nuclear-Industrial Complex [/B]
By [URL="http://www.tomdispatch.com/authors/williamhartung"]William D. Hartung[/URL]
(Opening paragraph by Tom Engelhardt, introducing the article named above:)
[QUOTE]When it comes to the art of the deal, at least where arms sales are concerned, American presidents, their administrations, and the Pentagon have long been Trumpian in nature. Their role has been to beat the drums (of war) for the major American weapons makers and it’s been a highly profitable and successful activity. In 2015, for instance, the U.S. once again took the [URL="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/26/us/politics/united-states-global-weapons-sales.html"]top spot[/URL] in global weapons sales, $40 billion dollars of them, or a staggering 50.2% of the world market. (Russia came in a distant third with $11.2 billion in sales.) The U.S. also [URL="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/R44716.pdf"]topped sales[/URL] of weaponry to developing nations. In these years, Washington has, in fact, peddled the products of those arms makers to [URL="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/20/global-arms-weapons-trade-highest-point-since-cold-war-era"]at least 100 countries[/URL], a staggering figure if you stop a moment to think about the violence on this planet. Internationally, in other words, the U.S. has always been an open-carry nation.[/QUOTE]And the opening words from Hartung himself:
[QUOTE]Until recently, few of us woke up worrying about the threat of nuclear war. Such dangers seemed like Cold War relics, associated with outmoded practices like building fallout shelters and “[URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_1jkLxhh20"]duck and cover[/URL]” drills.

But give Donald Trump credit. When it comes to nukes, he’s gotten our attention. He’s prompted renewed concern, if not outright alarm, about the possibility that such weaponry could actually be used for the first time since the [URL="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176031/tomgram%3A_christian_appy%2C_america%27s_hiroshima_and_nagasaki_70_years_later/"]6th[/URL] and [URL="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176032/tomgram%3A_susan_southard,_under_the_mushroom_cloud_--_nagasaki_after_nuclear_war/"]9th[/URL] of August 1945. That’s what happens when the man in the Oval Office begins[URL="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/08/trump-north-korea-warning-241409"] threatening[/URL] to rain “fire and fury like the world has never seen” on another country or, as he did in his presidential campaign, [URL="http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-nuclear-weapons-cnn-debate-2015-12"]claiming[/URL] cryptically that, when it comes to nuclear weapons, “the devastation is very important to me.”
[/QUOTE]
Today I am hearing that Repub Bob Corker is pushing to limit the president's power to destroy the world via nuclear conflagration. Not holding my breath on that one.

Thomas Frank (of [i]Listen, Liberal[/i] fame) savages the pundit class in an op-ed for [i]The Guardian[/i]:

[url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/12/aghast-donald-trump-thomas-frank]We’re still aghast at Donald Trump – but what good has that done?[/url]
[quote]The parade of the aghast is the obverse of the gullible way our pundits usually contemplate American leaders – lionizing them as men of crisis, admiring their gravitas as they go from international summit to emergency bank bailout. And now the buffoon Trump has exposed it all as a fraud.
...
They are aghast, almost every one of them, and they compete fiercely with one another to say just how aghast they are. It is a ‘parade of the aghast’, as an acquaintance calls it, with all the skills of the journalist reduced to a performance of perturbation and disgust.[/quote]
NakedCap's Lambert Strether, who once was a fairly well-placed member of the Dem-Party machine, [url=https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/11/200pm-water-cooler-11142017.html]adds[/url], "And I would bet money very few of the aghast lost their homes to foreclosure in the crash, or lost their jobs, or lost a family member or friend to opioids. I bet they’ve all got dental. What in the world have they got to be aghast about?"

Interface
 

So, I've been re-reading Stephenson and Jewsbury's [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interface_(novel)"]Interface[/URL].

Scarily resonates with where we currently find ourselves. No need for a biochip brain implant; just give the President a smart phone with an internet connection....

[URL]https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/12/05/plunder-capitalism/[/URL]
I still find it amazing that I agree so often with someone described as-
[I][QUOTE][B]Paul Craig Roberts[/B] is a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal.[/QUOTE][/I][QUOTE]What we are witnessing in the US and indeed throughout the western world is the total failure of capitalism. Capitalism is now merely a looting machine. The financial sector no longer supplies capital for production. What the financial sector does is to turn discretionary consumer income into interest and fee payments to banks. Aggregate demand can only grow through debt expansion, and the consumers reach a point where they cannot expand their debt.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]Nothing is left of the West except looters at work. This tax bill is an abomination, an act of brutal plunder. Its sponsors should be tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail, if not hung from a lamp post.[/QUOTE]

Perhaps [i]Il Duce[/i] has found a way to get everyone's minds off the antics of that Pugsley Addams impersonator running the PRK:

[url=http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-42246564]US to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital[/url]

Let the festivities begin!