Category: Uncategorized

The analogy connecting Trump and Le Pen is obvious and mostly accurate, but there are differences between the two campaigns that probably dictate a different result:

1.  Trump got there first:   There is nothing about his bumbling administration to date that would inspire confidence in Le Pen, even if she is more competent than he is.

2.  Le Pen isn’t running against Hillary Clinton:  The insider/outsider dichotomy that was such a big part of the American campaign doesn’t work in the French runoff.

3.  Le Pen presents a more obvious threat to the investments of the French voting public:  Trump didn’t have to promise to pull out of the euro, with all of the short-term implications that brings.

4.  Le Pen doesn’t have an apparently successful business background:  Plenty of people voted for Trump based on his record of getting things done in the private sector.  Le Pen is a career politician with no record of accomplishing anything.

5.  Trump swaggers more convincingly:  It’s just harder for a woman to swagger.  For once, we should be grateful for sexism.

The only way Le Pen wins in May is if turnout is extremely low.  That is unlikely to happen, but the possibility can’t be completely dismissed.  She has a puncher’s chance.

 

To an American, there are clear domestic analogies to the four principal figures in the race:  Obama; Sanders; Trump; and Cruz.  One is young, charismatic, and inexperienced, and wants to govern above party; one wants to make France a Bolivarian republic (does he have any idea what Venezuela is like these days?); one wants to make France great again by bringing back Vichy; and the last has a hankering for Thatcherite Britain, and holds others to a higher ethical standard than he imposes on himself.

I will readily concede that it is very possible that Macron could be completely ineffective, due to his lack of support in the National Assembly, and that his administration could just be five more years of aimless drift.  In light of the alternatives, however, Hollande without the chicks doesn’t look so bad.

Choisissez bien, mes amis.

Kim Jong-Un apparently views Qaddafi as an example of what happens if you’re an eccentric dictator without nuclear weapons.  As I’ve noted before, nuclear weapons don’t guarantee your regime’s survival, as Mikhail Gorbachev could tell you.  That aside, does the Qaddafi analogy hold water?

No, for the following reasons:

1.  The North Korean regime already has a very powerful conventional deterrent.  Any attack on the regime runs the risk of an artillery assault on Seoul that could kill millions.  Qaddafi didn’t have anything like that.

2.  It’s far from clear that nuclear weapons would have saved Qaddafi.  They would have been completely useless against the Libyan rebels, and they might not have been much of a deterrent against the limited US, British, and French intervention, given that he didn’t have an obvious way of delivering them to the homes of his enemies.

In reality, North Korean nukes are a source of instability and danger to the regime, not a guarantee of its survival.  Their only legitimate function is to serve as a symbol of the regime’s power and success to the North Korean people, but that is likely to backfire in the near future.

According to the NYT, Sarah Palin, Kid Rock, and Ted Nugent met with Trump at the White House yesterday, received the grand tour, and discussed foreign affairs.

Really.  With that kind of setup, you don’t even need a punchline.

Do I wish I could have been a fly on the wall?  You betcha!

“To be honest, we don’t really care what’s in the bill, as long as we can call it an Obamacare replacement, and it passes.  We need to look like strong, competent leaders, and we want to move on to tax cuts for wealthy people.  If some people, including our supporters, get hurt, they’ll get over it–where else are they going to go?”  (Trump, Reactionaries, and PBPs)

“Obamacare is the spawn of the devil.  It is an unjustified intrusion of the federal government into private business and individual choices.  It must be eliminated in its entirety.  Let markets rule and freedom reign!”  (Conservative Libertarians, a/k/a the Freedom Caucus)

“Gee, throwing millions of people off their insurance, or giving them “insurance” that is actually worthless, doesn’t sound like a great idea to us, particularly since Clinton won our districts in 2016.  We weren’t elected to make people’s lives worse.”  (Christian Democrats)

And so, there is a guaranteed majority of Republicans in favor of any bill that purports to be an Obamacare replacement, but not enough votes to pass the House, let alone the Senate.  Both CL and CD votes are necessary to get to 216 and 51.  So far, no luck with that.

In spite of their awesome destructive power, nuclear weapons have very limited utility for offensive purposes, because:

1.  You can’t use them in a civil war, because they would kill too many of your  supporters.
2.  You can’t use them against non-state actors, because the collateral damage to  innocent parties would be too great.
3.  You can’t use them against a country with a second strike capability, due to the  obvious risk of retaliation.
4.  You can’t use them in an imperialist war, because there would be no point in  destroying the land you want to exploit.
5.  You don’t need to use them in a war against a country with a feeble conventional  force.

And so, you can only imagine launching a nuclear first strike against a hostile country with a strong conventional army, but no second strike capability.

Can you say “North Korea?”

Thus far, a nuclear attack on North Korea has not been suggested in public.  In light of the paucity of decent options, and Trump’s desperate need to be seen as a winner, I expect that to change in the near future.

Life in the time of Trump.

Great danger lies ahead.

A kind of war

Not seen before.

Korea filled with dead.

Perhaps we’ll make it through this time.

Perhaps we’ll just luck out.

If not this time, for sure the next.

Of that, I have no doubt.

Four notorious right-wing economics commentators (I’m not sure it’s accurate to call them economists) penned an op-ed in yesterday’s NYT calling for a deferral of tax “reform” and an immediate cut to the corporate tax.  In their view, the benefit of the tax cut will be enjoyed primarily by employees, not shareholders, and some of the rest will generate new investments and growth.

I’m not an economist, and I haven’t made a study of this, but I can apply common sense to the facts.  Their argument is implausible, for the following reasons:

1.  Plenty of corporations are already sitting on cash mountains.  To the extent that the money is being used at all, it is for share buybacks, not for wage increases or new investment.  Why would increasing the size of the mountains make any difference?
2.  It makes sense to conclude that workers would get most of the benefit from the additional corporate earnings if you assume that they, and not the management or the shareholders, hold most of the bargaining power.  This would occur in fields with labor shortages and/or powerful unions.  Does that sound like an accurate description of most businesses in America in 2017?

It is my understanding that the vast majority of studies show that the principal beneficiaries of a corporate tax cut are capitalists.  If and when this happens (and I think it will), expect the cash mountains to grow, and for share prices to rise, and not much else, other than an increase in the federal deficit.

Paul Krugman looks at the evolution of retail and, quite reasonably, asks why retail jobs aren’t treated with the same respect by the government and the public as a whole as mining and manufacturing jobs.  Here are the reasons:

1.  The effect of lost mining and manufacturing jobs is less diffuse, but more intense:  When the mine closes, there frequently is no work to be had in the area.  The same is less true of the local Walmart.  When your community goes down the drain, people complain, and get noticed.

2.  Mining and manufacturing jobs have traditionally paid better than retail jobs:  No elaboration is necessary.

3.  Mining and manufacturing jobs bring in money from outside the community, while retail jobs recycle local resources:  In a sense, mining and manufacturing create “exports” that add wealth to the community.

4.  Mining, and to a lesser extent, manufacturing jobs require specialized skills that do not necessarily translate to other employment:  If you lose your job at a store, you can probably get another retail job requiring similar skills somewhere else in your town.  If you’re a miner, and the mine closes, what do you do now?

5.  Mining jobs have a mythology attached to them; retail jobs don’t:  Being a miner is physically difficult and dangerous work, so miners have been viewed as a sort of heroic band of brothers fighting both capitalists and the elements. There is no retail equivalent of that.  As a result, miners have “Matewan,” and retail workers have “Superstore.”

All that aside, retail is a far bigger component of our economy than mining, and you have to be concerned about where all these workers are going to go in the future.  Are all of our retail employees going to end up working in ALFs?  If not there, where?

The newbie dictator named Kim.

No one knows much about him.

This much is for sure.

If he really wants war,

His chances of winning are slim.

There is no doubt the Conservatives are going to win an overwhelming victory in the upcoming election.  Here are the real unknowns:

1.  Will the divisions on Brexit in the Conservative Party get better, or worse, after the election?  I’m guessing the answer is worse.  The economic stakes for the country will become more pressing and obvious as time goes on, and party discipline will be less of an issue with a huge majority.  Effective opposition to the government may well shift from Labour to pro-business members within the party.

2.  What happens to Labour after it is crushed?  One imagines Corbyn will resign or be replaced, but his followers will still be there.  In my view, the odds on a split and the ultimate demise of the party are no worse than even.

Obama’s foreign policy credo was, famously, “Don’t do stupid stuff.”  He delivered, too;  whatever mistakes he made were the result of inaction, not adventurism.

As you would expect, the Trump Administration has quite a different ethic. Based on what we’ve seen thus far, I would describe it as “Doing stupid stuff is perfectly OK as long as it makes you look like a decisive, unpredictable, strong leader.” That’s likely to get us in a lot of trouble down the road, but America voted for it, so the entire world will have to live with the consequences.

Mohammed’s Radio

Democrats are restless

But they’ve got no place to go.

And Trump is always trying to tell them

Something they already know.

And so their anger and resentment flow.

 

(Chorus)

Don’t it make you want to rock and roll all night long?

Mohammed’s radio.

I heard somebody singing sweet and soulful

On the radio.

Mohammed’s radio.

 

North Korea’s got their problems, too.

Even Netanyahu’s got the West Bank blues.

I went and asked Steve Bannon ’cause I thought that he would know.

I knew he stood up all night listening to Mohammed’s radio.

 

(Chorus)

 

Republicans are desperate

Trying to get things through.

Though they’re cutting tax

Ignoring facts

Their leaders just don’t have a clue.

And so their red is bleeding into blue.

 

(Chorus)

 

Parody of “Mohammed’s Radio” by the late, great Warren Zevon, who belongs in the Hall of Fame.

Gay marriage.  Abortion battles.  Pornography on the internet and on TV. Bathroom bills.  Sometimes it seems like our society is just drenched in sex.  No wonder some Christians want to resort to the “Benedict option” and head for the hills.

That’s a shame, in a way, because America is still a far more Christian place than they acknowledge, all of the public discourse about sex notwithstanding:

1.  Christian traditions still predominate:  They may have lost some of their original meaning, but they’re still here.

2.  Christian ethics are still generally accepted:  If you truly think America is a pagan country, you need to read a bit about what ancient Rome and Greece were actually like.  It will change your mind.

3.  Christianity infuses our politics:  I don’t just mean over abortion and gay rights.  Virtually all of the important political movements of the last 200 years, including the civil rights movement, have their roots in Christian thought.

Happy Easter!

A local home remodeling company is running a commercial in which they laud themselves for their success and their scrupulous business practices.  At the end of the ad, they give credit to God and speculate about how large their company could be, with His help, in the future.

The commercial irritates me for two reasons.  First, it is a cynical and not terribly subtle way of soliciting business from like-minded Christians.  Second, it essentially takes the position that the success of the firm is due to God’s favor, which presumably has been earned by the owners through their hard work and virtue.  It is a manifestation of what has come to be known as the prosperity gospel.

If the owners of this business were living in South Sudan, they wouldn’t be running this commercial; instead of attributing their success to God and their own righteousness, they would probably be hiding out in a swamp somewhere. The fact is that the world is full of injustice; some of us are just luckier than others.  This is an issue that all religions, including Christianity, have to confront.

The authors of the Book of Job understood this, and provided an answer. Whether you find it satisfactory or not is up to you.