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The Politics Thread

Toups
in Off Topic Lounge

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Hmmmmm:

 

President Donald Trump was confused about the dollar: Was it a strong one that’s good for the economy? Or a weak one?

 

So he made a call ― except not to any of the business leaders Trump brought into his administration or even to an old friend from his days in real estate. Instead, he called his national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, according to two sources familiar with Flynn’s accounts of the incident.

 

Flynn has a long record in counterintelligence but not in macroeconomics. And he told Trump he didn’t know, that it wasn’t his area of expertise, that, perhaps, Trump should ask an economist instead.

 

Trump was not thrilled with that response ― but that may have been a function of the time of day. Trump had placed the call at 3 a.m., according to one of Flynn’s retellings ― although neither the White House nor Flynn’s office responded to requests for confirmation about that detail.

 

[...]

 

Unsurprisingly, Trump’s volatile behavior has created an environment ripe for leaks from his executive agencies and even within his White House. And while leaks typically involve staffers sabotaging each other to improve their own standing or trying to scuttle policy ideas they find genuinely problematic, Trump’s 2-week-old administration has a third category: leaks from White House and agency officials alarmed by the president’s conduct.

 

“I’ve been in this town for 26 years. I have never seen anything like this,” said Eliot Cohen, a senior State Department official under President George W. Bush and a member of his National Security Council. “I genuinely do not think this is a mentally healthy president.”

 

There is the matter of Trump’s briefing materials, for example. The commander in chief doesn’t like to read long memos, a White House aide who asked to remain unnamed told The Huffington Post. So preferably they must be no more than a single page. They must have bullet points but not more than nine per page.

 

Small things can provide him great joy or generate intense irritation. Trump told The New York Times that he’s fascinated with the phone system inside the White House. At the same time, he’s registered a complaint about the hand towels aboard Air Force One, the White House aide said, because they are not soft enough.

 

[...]

 

Information about Trump’s personal interactions and the inner workings of his administration has come to HuffPost from individuals in executive agencies and in the White House itself. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of losing their jobs.

 

While some of the leaks are based on opposition to his policies – the travel ban on all refugees and on visitors from seven predominantly Muslim nations, for instance – many appear motivated by a belief that Trump’s words, deeds and tweets pose a genuine threat.

 

[...]

 

Richard Nephew, a State Department expert on Iran sanctions under Obama, said some of the leaks from the agencies are likely efforts to let the public know that their advice has not been followed, in the event something bad happens down the road. “This, I think, is about making it clear that these folks have tried to do the right thing and there is only so much they can do with a hostile administration,” Nephew said.

 

[...]

 

“I think it’s a cry for help,” said Elizabeth Rosenberg, a counterterrorism expert at the Treasury Department under Obama. She said many staffers still working in the national security agencies under Trump see what’s happening and are driven by a simple motive: “Incredulity, and the need to share it.”

 

The White House has denied many of these accounts, including the idea that Trump owns (let alone wears) a bathrobe.

 

[...]

 

But what were only hypothetical concerns on the campaign trail are now life-and-death decisions inside the White House – as evidenced by the death of a Navy commando in a botched raid in Yemen on Jan. 29. Trump approved that raid following a dinner meeting that included his top political adviser, former Breitbart News Chairman Stephen Bannon, whose permanent membership in the National Security Council was itself the basis of widespread leaks and warnings from the national security establishment.

 

“The intelligence community is desperately looking for a way to get some leverage in altering dangerous policies away from a catastrophic vector,” said Rick Wilson, a former Pentagon official familiar with intelligence issues who has become a vocal Trump critic.

Evans said at some point the White House will have to get serious about harmful leaks if they want to control their message, just as Gingrich’s office had to two decades ago. He described the method of intentionally releasing tidbits to various staffers to see what turned up in print. “If the administration gets serious about leaks, they’ll do the blue-dye test and find them,” Evans said.

 

But to Cohen, who now teaches at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, the problem is not the leakers. It’s the president. Because Trump has shown no true affection or respect for anyone outside his immediate family, Cohen said, he cannot expect that of his staff. “This is what happens when you have a narcissist as president.”

 

 

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    Of course, the big dummy would be ignorant as to whether a weak dollar or a strong one benefits the U.S. economy- that has a lot to do with trade, something for which he seems to have a very unrealistic notion of how it operates. I wonder how much his father "contributed" to the Wharton School of Business in order to take him. 

     

    So ironic that Trump was always trying to diminish President Obama's credentials when Trump himself is as ignorant as the day is long!

    Edited by DramatistDreamer

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    Besides having someone in the WH who is utterly ignorant on what having a weak dollar vs. a strong one means for the general economy, here's more disturbing news for anyone who still thinks the Orange Menace will be a boon to the U.S. economy.

    Of course, in the scheme of things a booming stock market can often mean very little for everyday Americans but having a failing one definitely portends worse financial times for everybody.

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    The bottom line is financial markets don't like instability. The stock market jumped now because everyone is thrilled at the idea of the upcoming cash grab but it's pretty inevitable that the bottom will fall out because - say it with me - Republicans always screw up the economy.

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    29 minutes ago, marceline said:

    The bottom line is financial markets don't like instability. The stock market jumped now because everyone is thrilled at the idea of the upcoming cash grab but it's pretty inevitable that the bottom will fall out because - say it with me - Republicans always screw up the economy.

     

    This!  Hubris always wins the day with the GOP.

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    For all the talk about Dem messaging, I feel like this is one that we keep missing and we need to keep it simple. Republicans. Always. Screw Up. The Economy. Always. The last time Repubs had the White House and Congress we got the Great Depression. Reagan gave us Black Monday in 1987. W gave us the crash of 2007. Red states all over the country are disasters: Brownback's Kansas "experiment" is an unmitigated failure, Walker helped drive Wisconsin to the bottom of job creation, Ohio's well on its way to a recession thanks to Kasich.

     

    Republicans always screw up the economy.

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    Why is that?  Does it have to do with trickle-down economics?  Because, it seems to me that cutting taxes for the wealthy doesn't guarantee that the wealthy will spend more in order to boost the economy overall.  If anything, I think the wealthy stay wealthy (or become even wealthier) because they don't spend.

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    23 minutes ago, Khan said:

    Why is that?  Does it have to do with trickle-down economics?  Because, it seems to me that cutting taxes for the wealthy doesn't guarantee that the wealthy will spend more in order to boost the economy overall.  If anything, I think the wealthy stay wealthy (or become even wealthier) because they don't spend.

    Trickle down doesn't work. Never has been proven to. In 2010 and 2011 when the economy was still slowly recovering, Corporations and the Wealthiest 1% were shown to have more cash in the bank than ever and not spending it. Corporations were not investing and creating jobs nor were the wealthiest 1%. It sounds great in theory but has never been proven.  We live in a consumer driven economy. One thing my brother and I disagreed on were the George W Bush taxcuts where there was a rebate provided to individual tax payers. Was it a good idea? Maybe not because it generated a false boom and sense of security that didn't really exist. But there is also no proof that giving corporations the rebate versus consumers would have magically created jobs as my brother claimed.

     

    The stock market is booming now because of all the deregulation happening or that is going to happen. But as @Marceline said what the stock market likes most is stability and steady growth. Harding and Hoover led to the depression, Reagan led to the Savings and Loan debacle and the crash of 1987, George W Bush led to bailouts needed for Wall Street to keep us from sinking into a depression. Next time it happens I doubt there will be any bailout and like 1929 even the rich bankers will go broke

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    I just

     

     

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