if Trump cuts rates on businesses it will be a huge boom for all. some even talking about cutting capital gains an if that goes thru-dow will soar. plus all of those stupid obama regulations are also gonna disappear. bill clinton listening to newt gingrich did all of that and we boomed. im very optimistic going forward .
Don't mind our negativity too much. Just trying to be realists. We've had almost 30 years of bad monetary policy now dating back to Greenspan, rates nowhere to go but up, massive entitlements/debts, the federal government is still huge and in bed with most industries. And some of the solutions to these problems like doubling down on infrastructure/military spending are just the same old failed Keynesian spending plans we've had from the past few Presidents.
We'll see what happens. But I think we gotta "sober up" before real growth happens unfortunately.
Everyone wants a quick fix but there are some major headwinds IMO.
The bond markets really gonna limit the kenysians plans corporations have been fluffing numbers ever since the "recovery" started via m&a and share buybacks.. most of the big companies outside of your googles and amazons aren't really growing it's all fluff on piles of debt.. at best we heading for stagflation IMO.. guess we'll see
You do know the details that carrier is closing a different plant and still shipping some jobs to Mexico right? And part of the "deal" is free advertising for carrier..
It's just photo op nonsense for people who don't bother to look beneath the surface...
If obama was doing it republicans would be screaming taxpayer bailout you commie..
The hypocracies in the left/right one party system of big government astound me.. just mindboggling how mindless people have gotten about politics and not using their own judgement.. like you say it's like rooting for a football team at this point.. they will just blindly root for their team regardless...
Yeah, I know it is a crony deal. But Trump never ran as a small gov't free market guy either.
He ran as part of his platform that he would "get tough" with companies and he reiterated that claim in the speech. Will it hold true? Obviously no idea, probably not. But he didn't jettison that talking point or anything.
I'm just saying his message is still consistent on that front.....Even if I think it is populist nonsense.
Was volunteering at habitat restore few weeks back and store manager when talking about store safety.. broke out a great quote of "common sense isn't as common as it used to be".. part of the problem with American society (beyond everything corrupted issue we harp on all the time) is we are just plain dumbed down by TV, internet, mass media, shitty education system etc. we feel it's our god given right to make furnaces at carrier for 24 an hour when Mexicans will do the same job for half that price. Americans need to evolve with the changing world, can't just do same shit we were doing 40 years ago and expect to get paid more for it.
just what happens when you have it too good too long I suppose... complacency thick.. as Jefferson said every generation needs a revolution we haven't had one in a long as time..
just what happens when you have it too good too long I suppose... complacency thick.. as Jefferson said every generation needs a revolution we haven't had one in a long as time..
The protectionism/"saving jobs"/tariffs shit never works it's uneconomically sound long term.. just delaying the inevitable allowing unsound economic practices to continue longer.. sometimes people just need to lose jobs and learn a new trade for the changing times.. that's just how the world works..bad times are when people are at their best cause they are desperate and need to better themselves.... having a cushy safe easy job are when people are least productive.. we've been cushy too long and the rest of the world is humgry and increasingly better educated..
anyway free market capitalism is long dead ill quit ranting about it lol
anyway free market capitalism is long dead ill quit ranting about it lol
Another thing is this is a big country with a lot of opportunity.
People just need to move.
There is nowhere in the bill of rights or constitution that says you get to live in rural Ohio doing what your father did for your entire whole life. Automation/robotics and even 3D printing just gonna accelerate a ton over the next few decades.
Another thing is those jobs were union jobs, for Trump to save a bunch of union jobs you know the GOP is changing into a more populist party.
He just did what he neeeded to do to win election.. that's how he won.. stealing the traditionally democrat union guys from Hilary.. winning the upper Midwest states... painting himself as the guy that is gonna save them from losing their jobs..
now that she he's in it's photo ops "saving" 1000 jobs and banksters run Wild inside the administration..
my dad worked for printing industry (non union) his entire life and had to retire earlier when the last recession hit.. he was fiscally responsible and saved hard his entire life.. he's fine.. shit happens.. if I didn't evolve and learn a trade get a better education and be better equipped for today's world I'd be completely fucked..
Yeah DB system hilariously abused
the funny part about the trumpers is the immigrants in tech land are the ones keeping America afloat and ahead of the world.. trump and his crew wanna limit immigration.. go into protectionism ... go backwards and revive coal and shit it's quite comical really..
the guys that started google.. current goggle CEO.. Microsoft CEO.. the day we close our borders and stop letting in hungry intelligent people ... is the day this country is completely fucked..
the funny part about the trumpers is the immigrants in tech land are the ones keeping America afloat and ahead of the world.. trump and his crew wanna limit immigration.. go into protectionism ... go backwards and revive coal and shit it's quite comical really..
the guys that started google.. current goggle CEO.. Microsoft CEO.. the day we close our borders and stop letting in hungry intelligent people ... is the day this country is completely fucked..
In the end the number one thing America has left going for it is we are still a melting pot where we attract intelligent/hungry people from all over the world trying to escape poverty or some fucked up situation.. and provide them with a fairly open (restrictions grown over years I'd argue) canvas to be creative and innovate as they please.. creating the next big thing the world wants to have..
[h=1]Trump's Treasury Secretary Pick Is A Lucky Man... Very Lucky[/h]Authored by Jesse Eisinger, originally posted at ProPublica.org,
Steven Mnuchin has made a career out of being lucky.
The former Goldman Sachs banker nominated to become Donald Trump’s treasury secretary had the perspicacity to purchase a collapsed subprime mortgage lender soon after the financial crisis, getting a sweet deal from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Now, if he’s confirmed, he will likely be able to take advantage of a tax perk given to government officials.
Mnuchin was born into a family of Wall Street royalty. His father was an investment banker at Goldman Sachs for 30 years, serving in top management. He and his brother landed at the powerful firm, too. After making millions in mortgage trading, Mnuchin struck out on his own, creating a hedge fund and building a record of smart and well-timed investment moves.
He dodged disaster when he inherited his mother’s portfolio. She was alongtime investor with Bernie Madoff, the largest Ponzi schemer in American history. After she died in early 2005, Mnuchin and his brother quickly liquidated her investments, making $3.2 million. The Madoff trustee, Irving Picard, sued to retrieve the money from the Mnuchins, as he did from other Ponzi scheme winners, contending that they were fake gains. A court ruled that Picard could only claw back money from those who had cashed out within two years before the collapse. The Mnuchins, having pulled out roughly three years before, got to keep their Madoff money. That something was dodgy about Madoff was an open secret on Wall Street.
After the financial crisis, the FDIC seized IndyMac, whose irresponsible mortgage loans failed as the housing bubble burst. Desperate to offload the bank, the FDIC subsidized the takeover by sheltering Mnuchin and his team of investors, including hedge fund managers John Paulson and George Soros, from losses. The investors injected $1.55 billion into the bank in 2009. They changed the name to OneWest and five years later, sold it to lender CIT for more than $3 billion, doubling their investment.
Mnuchin also benefited from what may have been a nice fluke a little later. He served as the co-chair of Relativity Media, a film and entertainment company, for about eight months until May 2015. Relativity filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcyin July 2015. Just before it collapsed, Relativity paid off a $50 million loan to Mnuchin’s bank, OneWest, in full.
Paying off one creditor in full just before filing for bankruptcy looks questionable, especially when there is the appearance that such a deal isn’t at arm’s length. One Relativity investor cried fraud and sued in 2015, contending that Relativity used its loans for improper purposes, including to make payments to OneWest. Mnuchin’s lawyer called the claims preposterous and the suit was initially thrown out. A lawyer for the investor, a film financing company, told the Los Angeles Times that it planned to refile.
Mnuchin was blessed again when the Obama administration did not crack down harder on foreclosure abuses. OneWest got a reputation among activists and borrowers as one of the more feckless banks, accused of throwing borrowers out of their homes, denying mortgage modifications, and targeting the elderly with reverse mortgages. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency settled with OneWest, and over a dozen other banks and mortgage servicers, over its robosigning practices in 2011. That regulatory settlement, called the Independent Foreclosure Review, was an utter debacle, as ProPublica has detailed. Regulators set up a process for consultants to review how the servicers had handled modification reviews, which meant in effect that the banks were monitoring themselves. The regulators did not punish any top financial executives over foreclosure mistreatment. In a happy circumstance for Mnuchin, the Department of Justice and state attorneys general did not include OneWest in their subsequent and more punitive settlement over foreclosure bad behavior.
Mnuchin was fortunate once more to pick the right candidate, Trump, early; most of Wall Street assumed that Hillary Clinton would win and bet accordingly with its political donations.
What good happenstance, then, that Trump didn’t mean what he said about Wall Street on the campaign trail.
On the stump, Trump said, “We will never be able to fix a rigged system by counting on the people who rigged it in the first place.” He attacked Goldman Sachs by name, saying that the bank “owns” Ted Cruz, whose wife worked at the firm. “I know the guys at Goldman Sachs,” he said, “They have total, total control over [Cruz]. Just like they have total control over Hillary Clinton.” Trump put an image of Goldman CEO and chairman Lloyd Blankfein, along with other Jewish figures in finance like George Soros and Janet Yellen, in a commercial late in the campaign that was widely decried as anti-Semitic.
Trump did not feel such a strong antipathy for Goldman that he passed over a firm veteran to be his treasury secretary.
Mnuchin still owned $97 million of CIT stock as of last February. The Treasury Department will likely require him to sell those shares, since it poses a conflict of interest for the treasury secretary to own a stake in a financial institution. But therein lies a final good break for Mnuchin: According to a provision of the tax code, he can defer taxes, as long as he complies with certain conditions. That benefit, available to all officials who are required to sell investments upon taking a government job, could be worth millions to Mnuchin.
Steven Mnuchin has made a career out of being lucky.
The former Goldman Sachs banker nominated to become Donald Trump’s treasury secretary had the perspicacity to purchase a collapsed subprime mortgage lender soon after the financial crisis, getting a sweet deal from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Now, if he’s confirmed, he will likely be able to take advantage of a tax perk given to government officials.
Mnuchin was born into a family of Wall Street royalty. His father was an investment banker at Goldman Sachs for 30 years, serving in top management. He and his brother landed at the powerful firm, too. After making millions in mortgage trading, Mnuchin struck out on his own, creating a hedge fund and building a record of smart and well-timed investment moves.
He dodged disaster when he inherited his mother’s portfolio. She was alongtime investor with Bernie Madoff, the largest Ponzi schemer in American history. After she died in early 2005, Mnuchin and his brother quickly liquidated her investments, making $3.2 million. The Madoff trustee, Irving Picard, sued to retrieve the money from the Mnuchins, as he did from other Ponzi scheme winners, contending that they were fake gains. A court ruled that Picard could only claw back money from those who had cashed out within two years before the collapse. The Mnuchins, having pulled out roughly three years before, got to keep their Madoff money. That something was dodgy about Madoff was an open secret on Wall Street.
After the financial crisis, the FDIC seized IndyMac, whose irresponsible mortgage loans failed as the housing bubble burst. Desperate to offload the bank, the FDIC subsidized the takeover by sheltering Mnuchin and his team of investors, including hedge fund managers John Paulson and George Soros, from losses. The investors injected $1.55 billion into the bank in 2009. They changed the name to OneWest and five years later, sold it to lender CIT for more than $3 billion, doubling their investment.
Mnuchin also benefited from what may have been a nice fluke a little later. He served as the co-chair of Relativity Media, a film and entertainment company, for about eight months until May 2015. Relativity filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcyin July 2015. Just before it collapsed, Relativity paid off a $50 million loan to Mnuchin’s bank, OneWest, in full.
Paying off one creditor in full just before filing for bankruptcy looks questionable, especially when there is the appearance that such a deal isn’t at arm’s length. One Relativity investor cried fraud and sued in 2015, contending that Relativity used its loans for improper purposes, including to make payments to OneWest. Mnuchin’s lawyer called the claims preposterous and the suit was initially thrown out. A lawyer for the investor, a film financing company, told the Los Angeles Times that it planned to refile.
Mnuchin was blessed again when the Obama administration did not crack down harder on foreclosure abuses. OneWest got a reputation among activists and borrowers as one of the more feckless banks, accused of throwing borrowers out of their homes, denying mortgage modifications, and targeting the elderly with reverse mortgages. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency settled with OneWest, and over a dozen other banks and mortgage servicers, over its robosigning practices in 2011. That regulatory settlement, called the Independent Foreclosure Review, was an utter debacle, as ProPublica has detailed. Regulators set up a process for consultants to review how the servicers had handled modification reviews, which meant in effect that the banks were monitoring themselves. The regulators did not punish any top financial executives over foreclosure mistreatment. In a happy circumstance for Mnuchin, the Department of Justice and state attorneys general did not include OneWest in their subsequent and more punitive settlement over foreclosure bad behavior.
Mnuchin was fortunate once more to pick the right candidate, Trump, early; most of Wall Street assumed that Hillary Clinton would win and bet accordingly with its political donations.
What good happenstance, then, that Trump didn’t mean what he said about Wall Street on the campaign trail.
On the stump, Trump said, “We will never be able to fix a rigged system by counting on the people who rigged it in the first place.” He attacked Goldman Sachs by name, saying that the bank “owns” Ted Cruz, whose wife worked at the firm. “I know the guys at Goldman Sachs,” he said, “They have total, total control over [Cruz]. Just like they have total control over Hillary Clinton.” Trump put an image of Goldman CEO and chairman Lloyd Blankfein, along with other Jewish figures in finance like George Soros and Janet Yellen, in a commercial late in the campaign that was widely decried as anti-Semitic.
Trump did not feel such a strong antipathy for Goldman that he passed over a firm veteran to be his treasury secretary.
Mnuchin still owned $97 million of CIT stock as of last February. The Treasury Department will likely require him to sell those shares, since it poses a conflict of interest for the treasury secretary to own a stake in a financial institution. But therein lies a final good break for Mnuchin: According to a provision of the tax code, he can defer taxes, as long as he complies with certain conditions. That benefit, available to all officials who are required to sell investments upon taking a government job, could be worth millions to Mnuchin.
More swamp draining.. lol
Theranos a great example of our one party system of corrupt big government promoting/supporting a culture of corporate corruption.. http://www.wsj.com/articles/theranos-whistleblower-shook-the-companyand-his-family-1479335963
---------
Trumps defense pick Mattis has ties to Theranos - MarketWatch
By Christopher Weaver
(2:17)
The Wall Street Journal
Published: Dec 2, 2016 6:24 am ET
After retiring, Gen. Mattis took a seat on the board of the embattled blood-testing startup
Mattis testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2010.
Retired Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, has a four-year-long connection with Theranos Inc., the embattled blood-testing startup.
Gen. Mattis joined Theranos’s board in July 2013, a couple of months after his retirement. As of Thursday night, Theranos’s website listed Gen. Mattis as a company director. Theranos referred questions about Gen. Mattis’s directorship to him.
Donald Trump picks Gen. Mattis for defense secretary
The four-star general is a career Marine who has been critical of the Iran nuclear deal and U.S. troop withdrawals from Afghanistan.
His ties to the company stretch back to his days overseeing the military’s operations in the Middle East and central Asia.
In 2012, Gen. Mattis, then leading the military’s Central Command, pressed for the U.S. Army to procure Theranos lab equipment and deploy it in the battlefield, according to senior military officials involved in Army medical research. The officials said officers and civilian personnel involved in a review of the technology were told Gen. Mattis sought the procurement.
Theranos a great example of our one party system of corrupt big government promoting/supporting a culture of corporate corruption.. http://www.wsj.com/articles/theranos-whistleblower-shook-the-companyand-his-family-1479335963
---------
Trumps defense pick Mattis has ties to Theranos - MarketWatch
By Christopher Weaver
(2:17)
The Wall Street Journal
Published: Dec 2, 2016 6:24 am ET
After retiring, Gen. Mattis took a seat on the board of the embattled blood-testing startup
Retired Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, has a four-year-long connection with Theranos Inc., the embattled blood-testing startup.
Gen. Mattis joined Theranos’s board in July 2013, a couple of months after his retirement. As of Thursday night, Theranos’s website listed Gen. Mattis as a company director. Theranos referred questions about Gen. Mattis’s directorship to him.
Donald Trump picks Gen. Mattis for defense secretary
The four-star general is a career Marine who has been critical of the Iran nuclear deal and U.S. troop withdrawals from Afghanistan.
His ties to the company stretch back to his days overseeing the military’s operations in the Middle East and central Asia.
In 2012, Gen. Mattis, then leading the military’s Central Command, pressed for the U.S. Army to procure Theranos lab equipment and deploy it in the battlefield, according to senior military officials involved in Army medical research. The officials said officers and civilian personnel involved in a review of the technology were told Gen. Mattis sought the procurement.
[h=1]Donald Trump Is Right: Deficits Don’t Matter[/h]
[h=3][/h]BY DAVID DAYEN
[h=5][/h]May 11, 2016
“Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter,” Vice President Dick Cheney said when the Bush administration sought a second round of tax cuts in 2003. This fits with a rich tradition of conservative tax-cutters abandoning deficit hawkery when they want to hand money to favored groups. But some economists on the left agree with Cheney that deficits don’t matter—at least not as much as more jobs and prosperity for all—and their views are getting newfound attention because of an offhand comment by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
[h=4]MOST POPULAR[/h]
Trump found himself well outside of mainstream thinking about deficits and debt last week when he suggested that the United States could borrow money to shore up the economy and simply ask for discounts on the debt later. Doing so would sap confidencein U.S. Treasury bonds, considered the safest financial investment in the world. The resulting interest rate rise would defeat the purpose of getting a discount on the debt, not to mention potentially triggering financial catastrophe.
Trump later explained that he was merely referring to buying back existing debt at a discount if interest rates went higher, lowering the nominal value. This is something the U.S. does routinely. But Trump went further when he told CNN on Monday, “This is the United States government… you never have to default because you print the money.”
Trump’s statement sounds a lot like Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), a tenet of economists who believe in de-emphasizing the need for deficit reduction because the U.S. controls its own currency. Balanced budgets, to MMTers, take money out of the hands of ordinary Americans who can put it to more productive use through job creation and consumer spending. The deficit only matters once you reach full employment, when overheated consumer demand can lead to inflation. But we’re nowhere near that point right now, meaning there’s plenty of room for deficits, without any possibility of default.
One MMT advocate, Stephanie Kelton of the University of Missouri-Kansas City, worked for Bernie Sanders in the Senate and now advises his campaign. But even Sanders emphasizes deficit reduction, by promoting higher taxes on the wealthy and Wall Street transactions. Kelton’s worldview, and in this instance Trump’s, goes far beyond even Sanders’s comfort level on the issue.
I’m almost certain that Donald Trump had no intention of stumbling into this philosophical debate, traditionally fought between the left and the far left. But his freewheeling style of political rhetoric often drops him into uncharted territory. In this case, Trump exposed an unsaid but prevalent conservative hypocrisy about deficits.
As Cheney’s quote about Reagan shows, Republicans habitually ignore deficits when they obtain power. It’s a matter of convenience, a tempting way out of the fiscal responsibility trap that makes it difficult for politicians to keep their campaign promises. But every time a Bill Clinton or a Barack Obama gets the keys to the Oval Office, Republicans flip the script, generating a sudden fear of mountains of debt. Congressman Paul Ryan has been claiming the U.S. is about to turn into Greecefor eight years. A deficit hawk industry in Washington comes alive to tell the nation that we’re broke. This creates practical constraints on liberal spending programs to help the poor and the elderly.
Trump’s comment that America can’t default on its debt, and can money-print its way out of trouble, shreds that Republican playbook. Deficit fear-mongering loses its punch if the GOP’s new leader dismisses an animating principle of how conservatives defend against social spending.
There’s a mirror for this on the left, too, where establishment economists criticize MMT for downplaying the deficit. Paul Krugman argued a few years ago that if you printed too much money, interest rates on government debt would spiral higher, leading to hyper-inflation. MMTers counterthat Krugman is creating political constraints where none actually exist. The intricacies of this argument can make you woozy, but suffice to say that the divide between Krugman and Bernie Sanders supporters on display in the presidential primary are also evident here, only in far more technical form.
Wall Street, and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, have taken the Krugman side of the argument, but in a peculiar way. Financial executives who went nuts at the Trump comments acknowledged that the U.S. re-negotiates debt and prints money, but that someone running for president should never say this. “For a president to say these kinds of things publicly would have the opposite effect you would want in that they would put the economy into recession,” said Jim Paulsen, chief investment officer at Wells Capital, to Politico.
It’s true that confidence plays a role in capital markets, and if a national leader is openly devising schemes to lower our obligation to creditors, those creditors can get nervous. And questioning the full faith and credit of the United States isn’t just a bad look; it’s unconstitutional. But what’s really going on is that Trump is threatening an established order.
Liberals have used the constraint of deficits while in power even more strongly than Republicans. The Obama White House has boasted that, since 2009, the deficit has fallen at the fastest rate since the end of World War II. In 2009, under Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, Congress instituted a “paygo” rule that forced all spending to be paid for, made progressive priorities in social programs more difficult to achieve, and allowed Republicans to demonize Democrats as the party of higher taxes.
If the deficit really doesn’t matter, Democrats would have to live up to their image as the party of the people, and work to provide better opportunities for them. And they would have to spend federal money to do it. Behind the mockery of Trump’s monetary positions is the truth that mainstream Democrats aren’t prepared for the implications of an MMT world. They would rather hold off the left by claiming that their hands are tied because of the deficit.
Such moderation makes the wealthy funders of Democratic campaigns far more comfortable, and it leads many in the media to laud Democrats as the more responsible, serious party. But such cuts don’t lead to more jobs, higher wages, and a better life; spending on infrastructure or health care or education does. Democrats should listen again to Trump’s stray remark for the grain of truth in it: Deficits don’t matter. The sooner the party realizes that, the better off its constituents will be.
[h=3][/h]BY DAVID DAYEN
[h=5][/h]May 11, 2016
“Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter,” Vice President Dick Cheney said when the Bush administration sought a second round of tax cuts in 2003. This fits with a rich tradition of conservative tax-cutters abandoning deficit hawkery when they want to hand money to favored groups. But some economists on the left agree with Cheney that deficits don’t matter—at least not as much as more jobs and prosperity for all—and their views are getting newfound attention because of an offhand comment by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
[h=4]MOST POPULAR[/h]
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Trump found himself well outside of mainstream thinking about deficits and debt last week when he suggested that the United States could borrow money to shore up the economy and simply ask for discounts on the debt later. Doing so would sap confidencein U.S. Treasury bonds, considered the safest financial investment in the world. The resulting interest rate rise would defeat the purpose of getting a discount on the debt, not to mention potentially triggering financial catastrophe.
Trump later explained that he was merely referring to buying back existing debt at a discount if interest rates went higher, lowering the nominal value. This is something the U.S. does routinely. But Trump went further when he told CNN on Monday, “This is the United States government… you never have to default because you print the money.”
Trump’s statement sounds a lot like Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), a tenet of economists who believe in de-emphasizing the need for deficit reduction because the U.S. controls its own currency. Balanced budgets, to MMTers, take money out of the hands of ordinary Americans who can put it to more productive use through job creation and consumer spending. The deficit only matters once you reach full employment, when overheated consumer demand can lead to inflation. But we’re nowhere near that point right now, meaning there’s plenty of room for deficits, without any possibility of default.
One MMT advocate, Stephanie Kelton of the University of Missouri-Kansas City, worked for Bernie Sanders in the Senate and now advises his campaign. But even Sanders emphasizes deficit reduction, by promoting higher taxes on the wealthy and Wall Street transactions. Kelton’s worldview, and in this instance Trump’s, goes far beyond even Sanders’s comfort level on the issue.
I’m almost certain that Donald Trump had no intention of stumbling into this philosophical debate, traditionally fought between the left and the far left. But his freewheeling style of political rhetoric often drops him into uncharted territory. In this case, Trump exposed an unsaid but prevalent conservative hypocrisy about deficits.
As Cheney’s quote about Reagan shows, Republicans habitually ignore deficits when they obtain power. It’s a matter of convenience, a tempting way out of the fiscal responsibility trap that makes it difficult for politicians to keep their campaign promises. But every time a Bill Clinton or a Barack Obama gets the keys to the Oval Office, Republicans flip the script, generating a sudden fear of mountains of debt. Congressman Paul Ryan has been claiming the U.S. is about to turn into Greecefor eight years. A deficit hawk industry in Washington comes alive to tell the nation that we’re broke. This creates practical constraints on liberal spending programs to help the poor and the elderly.
Trump’s comment that America can’t default on its debt, and can money-print its way out of trouble, shreds that Republican playbook. Deficit fear-mongering loses its punch if the GOP’s new leader dismisses an animating principle of how conservatives defend against social spending.
There’s a mirror for this on the left, too, where establishment economists criticize MMT for downplaying the deficit. Paul Krugman argued a few years ago that if you printed too much money, interest rates on government debt would spiral higher, leading to hyper-inflation. MMTers counterthat Krugman is creating political constraints where none actually exist. The intricacies of this argument can make you woozy, but suffice to say that the divide between Krugman and Bernie Sanders supporters on display in the presidential primary are also evident here, only in far more technical form.
Wall Street, and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, have taken the Krugman side of the argument, but in a peculiar way. Financial executives who went nuts at the Trump comments acknowledged that the U.S. re-negotiates debt and prints money, but that someone running for president should never say this. “For a president to say these kinds of things publicly would have the opposite effect you would want in that they would put the economy into recession,” said Jim Paulsen, chief investment officer at Wells Capital, to Politico.
It’s true that confidence plays a role in capital markets, and if a national leader is openly devising schemes to lower our obligation to creditors, those creditors can get nervous. And questioning the full faith and credit of the United States isn’t just a bad look; it’s unconstitutional. But what’s really going on is that Trump is threatening an established order.
Liberals have used the constraint of deficits while in power even more strongly than Republicans. The Obama White House has boasted that, since 2009, the deficit has fallen at the fastest rate since the end of World War II. In 2009, under Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, Congress instituted a “paygo” rule that forced all spending to be paid for, made progressive priorities in social programs more difficult to achieve, and allowed Republicans to demonize Democrats as the party of higher taxes.
If the deficit really doesn’t matter, Democrats would have to live up to their image as the party of the people, and work to provide better opportunities for them. And they would have to spend federal money to do it. Behind the mockery of Trump’s monetary positions is the truth that mainstream Democrats aren’t prepared for the implications of an MMT world. They would rather hold off the left by claiming that their hands are tied because of the deficit.
Such moderation makes the wealthy funders of Democratic campaigns far more comfortable, and it leads many in the media to laud Democrats as the more responsible, serious party. But such cuts don’t lead to more jobs, higher wages, and a better life; spending on infrastructure or health care or education does. Democrats should listen again to Trump’s stray remark for the grain of truth in it: Deficits don’t matter. The sooner the party realizes that, the better off its constituents will be.
Drilling has gotten a lot cheaper the last 10 or 15 years.
The lifting cost for my company is only $9 per barrel . We can compete with the OPEC nations on cost to produce oil if the government would get rid of some of this regulation that they have imposed upon us the last 8 years.
The government just recently started charging us $48,000 just to visit an offshore platform for an annual inspection.
This use to be no charge.
On top of the 48k just to visit there are twice as many BSEE regulations then there was 10 years ago and the fines are much higher .
Plus they also charge a $4 per barrel tax just to ship oil through a pipeline .
Despite all of the above my companies lifting cost is still below $9 per barrel .
American companies could thrive just fine on $40 oil if the government would stay out .
They don't until they do..
over a trillion lost in bonds since trump got elected..
30 year bond bull may be finally ending as we begin to hit the limits..
Reagan entered office at the complete opposite fiscal extreme that trump is.. with rates sky high and lotsa fiscal room to debt.. vs where we at now with rates at zero for 7 years creating a bubble in bonds equities anything you can name ...
