I gotta say, I really don’t understand how the current Presidential election is even close. I mean, I do and I don’t. I keep remembering what politics was like in the past. I mean, it wasn’t that long ago that Gary Hart had to drop out of the running for President because he had an extramarital affair with Donna Rice. That was 1988. Now, almost half of the voters are enthusiastically supporting a candidate who has been adjudicated liable in court for sexual assault, who has been found guilty of the crime of making false business records so that his extramarital affair with a porn star would not become common knowledge prior to the 2016 election, who openly demonizes minorities, who has threatened to put millions of our neighbors in concentration camps and then deport them, who has encouraged Russia to do “whatever the hell it wants” in Europe, who dines with white supremacists and Nazis, etc. It just boggles my mind. It really does. And the open hatred of people like me, transgender people. You know, I go to the grocery store, and I think 40% of the people I run into hate me enough to support this modern American Nazi. You know, it’s like “What kind of a world do I live in?” It’s like I went to bed in a normal world, and woke up in this dystopian parallel universe where politicians encourage people to hate me by demonizing everything transgender as “wokeness.” I guess I should rewatch Cabaret. It’s really our own version of 1930s Germany.
It's a bit depressing that this election, and so, at least to an extent, the fate of the country and the world, come down to a handful of moronic Pennsylvanians puzzling over the question of whether to have spaghetti for dinner or a plate of poo.
let me start by saying i am a never-trumper, and have been a never-trumper since he announced his run for POTUS 9 yrs ago.
your opinion, which almost speaks for itself, demonstrates why we are where we are with politics in the USA . obama: "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
hillary: “You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?”
the breadth of trump supporters have decidedly mixed opinions of trump and his policies [to the extent he has any policies] - but to a person, they hate the liberal elites in gen'l [appears you may be one of those liberal elites], and they hate the clintons in particular.
opinions such as yours only reinforce their opinions.
not all trump supporters hate Joanie, or any transgender people. in fact, i know several who are accepting of all GSM [gender & sexual minority] people. they just have no respect for many liberal policies, and especially the liberals' often foolish and dangerous economic policies.
note, i am not supporting trump's proposed economic policies - incl'g on immigration, which is very much an economic policy. i believe them to be more dumb and dangerous than harris' policies. but harris' economic policies are dumb and dangerous nonetheless.
Let's go back to 2016((do we have time travel yet?). Polls showed that more and more Americans were being turned off by politics and politicians that often managed to say nothing useful. Stepping into the fray was a television reality star and real estate magnate already know for saying outrageous things, outrageous behavior(like wrestling fellow billionaire Vince McMahon) and business bankkruptciex( check out Atlantic City casi os). But Trump sold himself as the anti-politician, the antithesis to the usual collection of mealy mouths. Republicans ran a weak slate in the primaries. Demicrats ran a relatively unlikeable candidate, hampered by voter sexism. The real question is why Republicans voted for him the first place. His antics and lying since have solidified his standing among conservatives too lazy to verify his les. Proof of my view? Try having a discussion with one of his supporters about facts. You might as well go into a field and have the same discussion with a herd of cattle.
Joanie, I think I understand, at least in some aspects. First of all, I think many people (even some Democrats!) see the various charges that Trump faced were trumped up (so to speak!). They know that normal people would never have faced such charges and that "exceptions" were made in terms of statutes of limitations and some other areas. I don't think you can really compare today to Gary Hart (the Tribune in the past couple days had that incident on its "On this day" feature, by the way) to today. That occurred 36 years ago. That's a VERY long time ago in terms of social change since then. When I read the "today in the news" item, in fact, I was thinking of how he wouldn't have been booted out today over that. I know that you think people who support Trump hate you but may I suggest that that is not necessarily true? I don't think they think anything about you. I think it's more that a lot of Trump supporters liked the economy when he was president, thought he kept us out of wars and armed conflicts, and prevented a lot of illegal immigrations -- and are not at all happy about what the Biden-Harris administration has created during its terms. To quote "American President," Louis says to the prez, "(Twelve million people -- or whatever the number was) don't give a damn about your life. THey give a damn about their own."
I don't know if this makes any sense to you -- you probably don't agree -- but I think it's an explanation, which is why I was trying to give you.
Are you saying, like the Germans who voted for the Nazi party in 1932 didn’t really hate Jews; they just liked the other Nazi policies and the Jews were just unfortunate that they got caught in the crossfire? Are you saying that the people who voted for the Nazi party in 1932 liked that Hitler said the Germans didn’t really lose World War I, that they were sold out by international Jewish bankers? You know, make Germany great again? Do Trump supporters just not care what will happen to immigrants and sexual minorities? That they are willing to take away our rights as long as they believe that their 401(k)s will be larger? Is that what you are saying? 'Cause that's what it sounds like to me.
I'm not quite sure how you got there and I'm fairly certain Trump will not lead to Nazi Germany. In fact, I'll say that since he already served once, he won't. I don't actually have many conversations with Trump supporters (I don't know too many!) but I don't think they think immigrants (and I mean those here legally) and sexual minorities will lose their rights. People here illegally? That point in the debate might have been when I said, "a pox on both their houses" and turned it off. And now I will go an look up into on Trump and transgender individuals.
Trump says he will make gender transition illegal “at any age.” He says, “I will ask Congress to pass a bill establishing that the only genders recognized by the United States government are male and female and they are assigned at birth.” So under Trump, I will be legally male even though I have breasts and a vagina, and I will be required to use male bathrooms and locker rooms. Trump is clearly promoting hatred against the transgender community, as Hitler promoted hatred against Jews. Just listen to his tone of voice--we are disgusting is the message.
I've been an umpire a d basketball referee for many years. I can't count the number of times I've been blamed for a team losing. It never seems to have anything to do with errors and displays by the lovers. This is America. Everyone needs scapegoats. Immigrants are the reason for crimes and welfare. Liberal politicians cause crime and inflation. This is nothing new in the United States. Want personal responsibility? I'm still waiting for my check from Ed McMhon in the mail and fot someone to award me a free split level and a luxury car. My desires make as much sense as the political blame game.
You're partially correct. The Germans knew they lost World War I. What really upset them was the peace treaty they felt was forced on them and its terms. Hitler promised to right the wrongs and make Germany great again. Sound familiar? So far as Jews are concerned, yes, Hitler hated them. I have read Mein Kampf. Other Nazis hated them because Hitler told them that Jews were the source of their problems(sound familiar?). This is why I so often compare Trump to Hitler. Trump's strategy is right out of the Nazi playbook.
How do tariffs work? Sometimes not very well if at all. I listen to Planet Money which did a story of trade fraud where China exported a product to a subsidiary company in Thailand that then exported it to the US and escaped the tariff. This is fraud because the tariffs are on products made in China. While that case is illegal, Chinese companies have been setting up factories outside of their borders to provide the same products at very competitive prices.
Unfortunately, both parties are supportive of increasing tariffs on Chinese made products.
There are three reasons for tariffs. Protecting a domestic industry from competition. Historically this was to allow inefficient domestic industries to retain market share. But the modern issue has been to protect domestic industries from 'dumping' of products by foreign producers that are selling at artificially low prices. Dumping is generally supported by government regulatory (environment, labor, etc.), export and tax policy with the goal of dominating a global industry or supporting their domestic employment and GDP growth. This is the goal of China and India in many industries. The second reason is to maintain capacity in domestic industries that are considered strategic. These industries, like chips and video screens, need to be defended from countries that might use embargos in times of crisis. They also restrict participation in industries that are considered potential avenues for intrusion or intrusive influence on domestic markets. The third reason is to force a change in the structure of supply chains. The example of a Chinese manufacturer shifting production to Mexico to avoid a tariff may still be beneficial in improving the supply chain and reducing the ability of the Chinese government to restrict production and export. These reasons are why the Biden Administration not only retained all of the Trump tariffs but actually expanded them. It is also why the EU has followed suit on goods produced in Asia in addition to the tariffs that they apply to US goods.
All true. Although I don't think the stated reasons you list are always the real reasons.
A fourth reason is to appease laborers in swing states. In that case, the proponents of the tariffs does not need to care if tariffs are effective, or being evaded. They collect their benefit when the implement the policy.
Like the pandering around the sale of US Steel to Nippon Steel. The pretense is that the sale will reduce American jobs and prestige when the reality is that US Steel needed to be 'saved' several decades ago, and without the sale they will most likely spiral out of business.
If a party or candidate wants to win Pennsylvania, they had better oppose the Nippon deal.
US Steel has itself to blame for resisting innovation and not moving to electric arc furnaces which are more efficient. This was also aligned with labor interests.
The UK has been considering providing subsidies to a foreign steel firm if it agrees to keep blast furnaces running in the UK. The fig leaf of an argument is that steel is essential for national defense and they cannot allow themselves to be depended on imports for steel. The problem with that argument is that they need to import iron in order to make steel.
i'm curious, marc - while you argue logically about the reasons for tariffs, you leave out the fact that tariffs are a tax on consumers. setting aside the 'dumping' argument, tariffs allow domestic industries to charge more than they would absent the tariffs on foreign competitors.
i'm not arguing for blind acceptance of foreign producers' and foreign govts' predatory trade practices - just for an acknowledgement of the impact on the consumer.
I agree. The purpose of tariffs is to increase the costs of imported goods and are a tax on consumers. I also agree that tariffs that are solely aimed at protecting less efficient domestic industries from competition from more efficient foreign industries are always bad when the foreign competitor has similar social and regulatory requirements (even if they still have lower cost labor) and the foreign nation is not a geopolitical adversary.
So, I think the tariff tax is similar to other taxes paid by the public to fund national defense, infrastructure programs, R&D, etc. Politicians never like to admit that they are doing something that costs their constituents money. But I think that it better to be honest about the costs and provide a good reason for them.
There are two problems. Not with your reply, but the issue. One is the idiocy of the American people when it comes to economics. I am a retired social studies teacher. It bores students and they don't care. Or, as a student told me a long time ago, "That's why we elect Congreemen, to take care of that stuff for us." The other is politics. What we are being told is absolute no sense on all levels. Unfortunately MAGAs are lapping it up. Of course tariffs are usually bad. Think about it logically. Banning products reduces competition. Does it mean manufacturing will return to America? Usually not. If that was going to happen, the jobs wouldn't have gone away in the first place. It's simply cheaper to ship products here from overseas manufacturers than make it here. Union contracts, production costs, salaries, shippig- it's not easy to make stuff in America. Now, companies all over the cou try must deal with minimum wages. And don't forget that if a country is publicly traded, the investors are more concerned with profits than where the products are made. But, hey, it sure sounds patriotic to MAGAs.
Ceteris paribus. One of the problems with the free trade regime since WWII is that it rewarded countries that were low-cost producers for the wrong reasons. They were not more efficient and effective and thus superior producers. They were lower cost because they had the advantage of US currency policy which favored them (like Japan), they benefited from currency manipulation (like China), and/or they benefited from lax to non-existent regulations on the environment, child labor, workplace safety, work hours, intellectual capital, slave labor, etc. etc. (like China, India, and all of south and southeast Asia). It should also be easier to make things in America, but we somehow need a more level playing field.
And again, if tariffs are Trumpian nonsense with no benefits, then why has the Biden Administration retained all of them while adding new ones. If they are stupid and awful when Trump proposes them then they are stupid and awful when Biden does the same.
Your answer to me is perfect example of the problem I illustrated. Tariffs need to be based on commonsense economic strategy, not who supports it. What if Biden is also wrong? Does that make it more palatable to you? Or does it make it right if both sides support them? By, the way, I did not sat stupid and awful. My example was to show why most of the time they don't work- no matter who proposes them. My response concerned Trump supporters. I said nothing about Trump, though I could have because he was playing politician, not smart economist. I'm wrong plenty of times on this forum. But address what I said, not your own personal political preference.
Agreed. I think there is a reasonable debate on tariffs, which may be similar to sanctions in terms of usefulness. The policy decision is what is important, regardless of administration. My issue on the coverage in the media, and the CNN fact check, is that the same policy is flaunted as ignorant when it is Trump and is overlooked when it is Biden. I read your MAGA comments in a similar vein, since the pro-Biden unions also support the tariffs. I used to be totally free trade and ignored the auto workers unions when they made the 'level playing field' argument back in the 80's. But I think I was wrong then, and that there is a role for a different trade strategy. I think I generally support the Biden Administration tariff policies. I would expect a journalist to ask both candidates about their views and use the same framework to assess them.
i disagree with your comment about the alleged 'idiocy' of the american people re economics.
1. as mark twin said: we're all ignorrant, just in different fields.
2. many intelligent, and very intelligent people are literate, but innumerate, or just don't have a good grasp of numbers and how they work. does that make them idiots, re economics, or anything else?
that said, i agree with most of the rest of your comment above.
While I very much appreciate your explanation of the dew point, please tell us you didn't sit with a frowny face through EVERY quip?? I voted for more than usual and was literally laughing out loud at at least three of them. Have some laughs today, Garry :-)
Sorry, Garry, but I thought that dew point one was excellent. Maybe "even Jesus" is a commonly-used form of emphasis but I'd never heard it so I actually did a spit-take I laughed so hard! But, I do appreciate the weather lesson and now I know, if not how dew point is measured, it's significance. Always good to learn something new first thing in the morning.
I don't drink, because I think it all tastes terrible & have never actually had a beer!
My dad thought it was funny when I was about 12 to switch my Coke for a beer when I had to walk away for a minute, but didn't think it was that funny when I tried it & sprayed it out all over him when I tasted that crap.
That is my sole experience with beer & I'll be 75 in a month.
They weren’t my favorite quips, but I remembered the time a kid threw up in grade school so I voted for that one. It’s always fun when it’s not you. On a related note a woman fainted at my dad’s 90th birthday party and as the paramedics took her away I told the remaining guests, “when you’re 90 years old and an ambulance comes… and it’s not for you, it’s a good day.” (She was fine after some fluids)
I'll second the Brad Biggs recommendation. He's always an insightful read. And by breaking it into 10 points, you can slide by any topic that doesn't interest you.
Brad Biggs 10 things on the Bears is a must read for Bear fans. The only reason I subscribe digitally to the Tribune is to read the 10 things on the Bears by Brad. Block out plenty of time it can be a long read but it's so intelligently written. All matter of fact, he doesn't try to be funny or cute and everything he talks about seems so well researched. I wish more sport writers would study this guy. So glad you pointed this out.
In regard to Trump and his lies, it's what he does. He could stand on a beach on a bright sunny day and say it's dark outside and half his followers would agree. It works for him. Has since the 1970's. Nobody should ever be surprised when he lies. It works for him. And he knows this, but it does say something about the people that agree with him.
Before we get too smugly far over our skis, can we do a reality check? The way people are writing makes it sound like Trump’s crappy debate performance has now made the race 60-40 Harris. I suspect that’s not the case. Trump’s appeal has never been his leadership ability or even his coherence, both nonexistent; it’s that’s he’s given permission to publicly emerge all the latent racism/antisemitism/homophobia… that was suppressed for a while by its being socially unacceptable. You think that’s changed? I just hope that a large enough sliver of waffling independents plus a large enough cadre of newly motivated-to-vote Swifties is enough to carry the day. But let’s not kid ourselves that the race is run and won by Trump’s behaving on one more night exactly the way everyone expected him to.
The debate mattered in that the bar for Trump is always so low, while the bar for Harris was pretty high. I hate to sound like a cliche, but she had to be ten times better than Trump or we would be pounding nails in her coffin right now. There was a lot of pressure on her and she didn't cave. A winner in my book.
I couldn’t agree more. Trump was actually somewhat restrained on Tuesday (if only because of the mike rule) compared to how he was with Clinton. I remember watching the debates in 2016 and thinking that he was deliberately trying to tank, maybe finally listening to his old pal Howard Stern’s warnings about how much he’d hate being president. He couldn’t possibly have come off as more ignorant, or less qualified.
Boy was I wrong. If he was trying to tank, his strategy apparently didn’t work, and he obviously didn’t hate the job enough to refrain from re-applying for it twice since then.
No! Following baseball has always involved following stats. If your team, as mine, is the Sox, these are the only stats this season has offered us. Just being a fan. (Of course, one could make the point that following any stats in any sport is a little OCD!)
Question for the PS hive: is it legal for a president-elect to conduct business on behalf of the country? Specifically, I refer to Trump's boast that he would call Putin and Zelenskyy after the election and before he takes office would resolve the conflict. Did he just promise to commit another crime, or is that legal. (I'm thinking of the Logan Act.)
Yes!!! I felt like I was the only person who heard that my debate-watching group. At the time I thought he meant he had, previously, talked to Putin after the last election. Either way, really problematic. And not a single news outlet I've seen has referenced it.
I think the Logan act only applies to issues between the US and other countries. I think it is fine for him to offer to be a mediator of a peace conference between Russia and Ukraine. Private citizens, like Jimmy Carter, have done this in the past. The extent of the backdoor alignment with the State Department isn't always clear. There would probably be an issue if an agreement included the tacit or implicit commitment of any US resources.
I think Harris could have had a better response on abortion. When Trump was saying it should be "up to the states," Harris should have insisted it should not be up to anyone except a woman and her doctor. And she could have borrowed Pete B's defense of late-term abortion: it happens when there is something profoundly wrong with a pregnancy and requires families to make gut-wrenching decisions that are not helped with government interference.
re abortion/reproductive healthcare, she also shd have called him out on [and i paraphrase faithfully] the claim that 'everyone wnated the change to states deciding abotion law'.
a lie, of course, and typical trump - shocking, but not surprising.
I find myself checking the White Sox score each day and tracking their road to most losses. With 15 games left, Eric has painted a grim picture.
But I have developed a taste for following “worst ever phenomenon”. So after the Sox, can we have a JD Vance watch? He has come out of the box as the worst ever VP candidate in American history and continues to amaze in being bad. He is smoking Sarah Palin and is pretty much in a class by himself.
It is fun to hear Trumpers lamely defend him. He could become truly historic and potentially be the key factor in Trump’s defeat in November.
So after the No-No Sox, can we get the Oh-No Vance?
while i agree vance is a bottom feeder, and contender for the WOAT VP candidate, is he really worse than palin, quayle, spiro agnew, thomas eagleton, or andrew johnson?
i too take perverse pleasure [?} in following the white sox this season - not watching on tv, or listening on the radio - but following on espn.com gamecast, and reading [paul sullivan in The Trib, The Athletic] about the exploits and foibles of the sox.
Oh, to be 40 years younger and able to recall off the top of my head the relationship between wet bulb and dry bulb temperatures, which allows one to determine the current dew point temperature (the temp at which air with the current amount of water vapor will begin to condense: the higher the air temp, the higher the dew point and the more one is likely to sweat). Instead, despite introducing several sections of UIC and UIUC students to this stuff as their geography TA during the mid-80s, I had to look it up. One of the most popular lab sessions of introductory courses on weather and climate involved students taking turns with the sling psychrometer: heading outside, twirling paired glass thermometers for a couple of minutes, and waiting for someone to lose their grip and send the thing flying.
I have a sling psychrometer, but have never used it. All I use it for is to calibrate other thermometers to check how accurate they are. It was a buck at a garage sale years ago.
Google it to find free downloadable charts that let you determine dew point with it. Provided that you have the little cotton sock that fits on the end of the wet bulb thermometer, that is, and get the sock wet before you start slinging. Otherwise, carry on as before!
I always enjoy Eric's takedowns of that blowhard Kass. "Commies"?? Is he stuck in a 1960's sitcom? On a more serious note, I've lived in a socialist-democracy (Norway) and cringe every time I see "socialist" used as an insult. The hyphen-democracy part makes a truly HUGE difference!
Hell will freeze over before the Saudis liberalize, even that murderous prince & his insane NEOM city that's supposed to be a magnet for the world's wealthy will be a multi-billion dollar flop & will be just as repressive as the rest of that backwards country.
That Saudia Arabia is a single country is a consequence of the Aramco Oil Company getting the tribes in the region to agree. Norway had a national identity long before it was a major oil producer.
Norway is a capitalist country with a large social welfare system. Socialist countries are not capitalist as they prohibit or restrict private ownership of the means of production, control prices and wages, and attempt to plan the economy. Venezuela is the corollary to Norway. Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves and should be wealthier than Norway, but they are socialist and rank as one of the poorest nations in the world. They also fail to provide the social welfare system of Norway in spite of claiming that socialism is superior at providing those services.
In his book "Eat the Rich," the late humorist P.J. O'Rourke speculated why democratic socialism works so well in Scandinavia but not necessarily elsewhere. He posited that in the harsh Nordic climate, generation after generation of people have learned that they have to help one another out in order to thrive and survive. So it's part of their culture. Maybe there's something to that?
great reference, michael. i loved most of p.j. o'rourke's books. i recall listening to Parliament of Whores as a book on tape - i got to laughing so hard, several times, that i had to slow down and pull off the road.
I gotta say, I really don’t understand how the current Presidential election is even close. I mean, I do and I don’t. I keep remembering what politics was like in the past. I mean, it wasn’t that long ago that Gary Hart had to drop out of the running for President because he had an extramarital affair with Donna Rice. That was 1988. Now, almost half of the voters are enthusiastically supporting a candidate who has been adjudicated liable in court for sexual assault, who has been found guilty of the crime of making false business records so that his extramarital affair with a porn star would not become common knowledge prior to the 2016 election, who openly demonizes minorities, who has threatened to put millions of our neighbors in concentration camps and then deport them, who has encouraged Russia to do “whatever the hell it wants” in Europe, who dines with white supremacists and Nazis, etc. It just boggles my mind. It really does. And the open hatred of people like me, transgender people. You know, I go to the grocery store, and I think 40% of the people I run into hate me enough to support this modern American Nazi. You know, it’s like “What kind of a world do I live in?” It’s like I went to bed in a normal world, and woke up in this dystopian parallel universe where politicians encourage people to hate me by demonizing everything transgender as “wokeness.” I guess I should rewatch Cabaret. It’s really our own version of 1930s Germany.
Brilliantly written. Totally agree.
It's a bit depressing that this election, and so, at least to an extent, the fate of the country and the world, come down to a handful of moronic Pennsylvanians puzzling over the question of whether to have spaghetti for dinner or a plate of poo.
let me start by saying i am a never-trumper, and have been a never-trumper since he announced his run for POTUS 9 yrs ago.
your opinion, which almost speaks for itself, demonstrates why we are where we are with politics in the USA . obama: "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
hillary: “You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?”
the breadth of trump supporters have decidedly mixed opinions of trump and his policies [to the extent he has any policies] - but to a person, they hate the liberal elites in gen'l [appears you may be one of those liberal elites], and they hate the clintons in particular.
opinions such as yours only reinforce their opinions.
not all trump supporters hate Joanie, or any transgender people. in fact, i know several who are accepting of all GSM [gender & sexual minority] people. they just have no respect for many liberal policies, and especially the liberals' often foolish and dangerous economic policies.
note, i am not supporting trump's proposed economic policies - incl'g on immigration, which is very much an economic policy. i believe them to be more dumb and dangerous than harris' policies. but harris' economic policies are dumb and dangerous nonetheless.
Maybe a key difference from 1988 is that many people are voting against a candidate/party who they fear more than voting for one they like.
Let's go back to 2016((do we have time travel yet?). Polls showed that more and more Americans were being turned off by politics and politicians that often managed to say nothing useful. Stepping into the fray was a television reality star and real estate magnate already know for saying outrageous things, outrageous behavior(like wrestling fellow billionaire Vince McMahon) and business bankkruptciex( check out Atlantic City casi os). But Trump sold himself as the anti-politician, the antithesis to the usual collection of mealy mouths. Republicans ran a weak slate in the primaries. Demicrats ran a relatively unlikeable candidate, hampered by voter sexism. The real question is why Republicans voted for him the first place. His antics and lying since have solidified his standing among conservatives too lazy to verify his les. Proof of my view? Try having a discussion with one of his supporters about facts. You might as well go into a field and have the same discussion with a herd of cattle.
Joanie, I think I understand, at least in some aspects. First of all, I think many people (even some Democrats!) see the various charges that Trump faced were trumped up (so to speak!). They know that normal people would never have faced such charges and that "exceptions" were made in terms of statutes of limitations and some other areas. I don't think you can really compare today to Gary Hart (the Tribune in the past couple days had that incident on its "On this day" feature, by the way) to today. That occurred 36 years ago. That's a VERY long time ago in terms of social change since then. When I read the "today in the news" item, in fact, I was thinking of how he wouldn't have been booted out today over that. I know that you think people who support Trump hate you but may I suggest that that is not necessarily true? I don't think they think anything about you. I think it's more that a lot of Trump supporters liked the economy when he was president, thought he kept us out of wars and armed conflicts, and prevented a lot of illegal immigrations -- and are not at all happy about what the Biden-Harris administration has created during its terms. To quote "American President," Louis says to the prez, "(Twelve million people -- or whatever the number was) don't give a damn about your life. THey give a damn about their own."
I don't know if this makes any sense to you -- you probably don't agree -- but I think it's an explanation, which is why I was trying to give you.
Are you saying, like the Germans who voted for the Nazi party in 1932 didn’t really hate Jews; they just liked the other Nazi policies and the Jews were just unfortunate that they got caught in the crossfire? Are you saying that the people who voted for the Nazi party in 1932 liked that Hitler said the Germans didn’t really lose World War I, that they were sold out by international Jewish bankers? You know, make Germany great again? Do Trump supporters just not care what will happen to immigrants and sexual minorities? That they are willing to take away our rights as long as they believe that their 401(k)s will be larger? Is that what you are saying? 'Cause that's what it sounds like to me.
I'm not quite sure how you got there and I'm fairly certain Trump will not lead to Nazi Germany. In fact, I'll say that since he already served once, he won't. I don't actually have many conversations with Trump supporters (I don't know too many!) but I don't think they think immigrants (and I mean those here legally) and sexual minorities will lose their rights. People here illegally? That point in the debate might have been when I said, "a pox on both their houses" and turned it off. And now I will go an look up into on Trump and transgender individuals.
Trump says he will make gender transition illegal “at any age.” He says, “I will ask Congress to pass a bill establishing that the only genders recognized by the United States government are male and female and they are assigned at birth.” So under Trump, I will be legally male even though I have breasts and a vagina, and I will be required to use male bathrooms and locker rooms. Trump is clearly promoting hatred against the transgender community, as Hitler promoted hatred against Jews. Just listen to his tone of voice--we are disgusting is the message.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u53PXo3gg8s&t=25s
Well, ugh.
I've been an umpire a d basketball referee for many years. I can't count the number of times I've been blamed for a team losing. It never seems to have anything to do with errors and displays by the lovers. This is America. Everyone needs scapegoats. Immigrants are the reason for crimes and welfare. Liberal politicians cause crime and inflation. This is nothing new in the United States. Want personal responsibility? I'm still waiting for my check from Ed McMhon in the mail and fot someone to award me a free split level and a luxury car. My desires make as much sense as the political blame game.
That's displays and losers.
You're partially correct. The Germans knew they lost World War I. What really upset them was the peace treaty they felt was forced on them and its terms. Hitler promised to right the wrongs and make Germany great again. Sound familiar? So far as Jews are concerned, yes, Hitler hated them. I have read Mein Kampf. Other Nazis hated them because Hitler told them that Jews were the source of their problems(sound familiar?). This is why I so often compare Trump to Hitler. Trump's strategy is right out of the Nazi playbook.
How do tariffs work? Sometimes not very well if at all. I listen to Planet Money which did a story of trade fraud where China exported a product to a subsidiary company in Thailand that then exported it to the US and escaped the tariff. This is fraud because the tariffs are on products made in China. While that case is illegal, Chinese companies have been setting up factories outside of their borders to provide the same products at very competitive prices.
Unfortunately, both parties are supportive of increasing tariffs on Chinese made products.
Tariffs would increase the cost of #45’s merchandise because he’s known to have products produced in China.
There are three reasons for tariffs. Protecting a domestic industry from competition. Historically this was to allow inefficient domestic industries to retain market share. But the modern issue has been to protect domestic industries from 'dumping' of products by foreign producers that are selling at artificially low prices. Dumping is generally supported by government regulatory (environment, labor, etc.), export and tax policy with the goal of dominating a global industry or supporting their domestic employment and GDP growth. This is the goal of China and India in many industries. The second reason is to maintain capacity in domestic industries that are considered strategic. These industries, like chips and video screens, need to be defended from countries that might use embargos in times of crisis. They also restrict participation in industries that are considered potential avenues for intrusion or intrusive influence on domestic markets. The third reason is to force a change in the structure of supply chains. The example of a Chinese manufacturer shifting production to Mexico to avoid a tariff may still be beneficial in improving the supply chain and reducing the ability of the Chinese government to restrict production and export. These reasons are why the Biden Administration not only retained all of the Trump tariffs but actually expanded them. It is also why the EU has followed suit on goods produced in Asia in addition to the tariffs that they apply to US goods.
All true. Although I don't think the stated reasons you list are always the real reasons.
A fourth reason is to appease laborers in swing states. In that case, the proponents of the tariffs does not need to care if tariffs are effective, or being evaded. They collect their benefit when the implement the policy.
Like the pandering around the sale of US Steel to Nippon Steel. The pretense is that the sale will reduce American jobs and prestige when the reality is that US Steel needed to be 'saved' several decades ago, and without the sale they will most likely spiral out of business.
Zactly!
If a party or candidate wants to win Pennsylvania, they had better oppose the Nippon deal.
US Steel has itself to blame for resisting innovation and not moving to electric arc furnaces which are more efficient. This was also aligned with labor interests.
The UK has been considering providing subsidies to a foreign steel firm if it agrees to keep blast furnaces running in the UK. The fig leaf of an argument is that steel is essential for national defense and they cannot allow themselves to be depended on imports for steel. The problem with that argument is that they need to import iron in order to make steel.
i'm curious, marc - while you argue logically about the reasons for tariffs, you leave out the fact that tariffs are a tax on consumers. setting aside the 'dumping' argument, tariffs allow domestic industries to charge more than they would absent the tariffs on foreign competitors.
i'm not arguing for blind acceptance of foreign producers' and foreign govts' predatory trade practices - just for an acknowledgement of the impact on the consumer.
I agree. The purpose of tariffs is to increase the costs of imported goods and are a tax on consumers. I also agree that tariffs that are solely aimed at protecting less efficient domestic industries from competition from more efficient foreign industries are always bad when the foreign competitor has similar social and regulatory requirements (even if they still have lower cost labor) and the foreign nation is not a geopolitical adversary.
So, I think the tariff tax is similar to other taxes paid by the public to fund national defense, infrastructure programs, R&D, etc. Politicians never like to admit that they are doing something that costs their constituents money. But I think that it better to be honest about the costs and provide a good reason for them.
There are two problems. Not with your reply, but the issue. One is the idiocy of the American people when it comes to economics. I am a retired social studies teacher. It bores students and they don't care. Or, as a student told me a long time ago, "That's why we elect Congreemen, to take care of that stuff for us." The other is politics. What we are being told is absolute no sense on all levels. Unfortunately MAGAs are lapping it up. Of course tariffs are usually bad. Think about it logically. Banning products reduces competition. Does it mean manufacturing will return to America? Usually not. If that was going to happen, the jobs wouldn't have gone away in the first place. It's simply cheaper to ship products here from overseas manufacturers than make it here. Union contracts, production costs, salaries, shippig- it's not easy to make stuff in America. Now, companies all over the cou try must deal with minimum wages. And don't forget that if a country is publicly traded, the investors are more concerned with profits than where the products are made. But, hey, it sure sounds patriotic to MAGAs.
Ceteris paribus. One of the problems with the free trade regime since WWII is that it rewarded countries that were low-cost producers for the wrong reasons. They were not more efficient and effective and thus superior producers. They were lower cost because they had the advantage of US currency policy which favored them (like Japan), they benefited from currency manipulation (like China), and/or they benefited from lax to non-existent regulations on the environment, child labor, workplace safety, work hours, intellectual capital, slave labor, etc. etc. (like China, India, and all of south and southeast Asia). It should also be easier to make things in America, but we somehow need a more level playing field.
And again, if tariffs are Trumpian nonsense with no benefits, then why has the Biden Administration retained all of them while adding new ones. If they are stupid and awful when Trump proposes them then they are stupid and awful when Biden does the same.
Your answer to me is perfect example of the problem I illustrated. Tariffs need to be based on commonsense economic strategy, not who supports it. What if Biden is also wrong? Does that make it more palatable to you? Or does it make it right if both sides support them? By, the way, I did not sat stupid and awful. My example was to show why most of the time they don't work- no matter who proposes them. My response concerned Trump supporters. I said nothing about Trump, though I could have because he was playing politician, not smart economist. I'm wrong plenty of times on this forum. But address what I said, not your own personal political preference.
Agreed. I think there is a reasonable debate on tariffs, which may be similar to sanctions in terms of usefulness. The policy decision is what is important, regardless of administration. My issue on the coverage in the media, and the CNN fact check, is that the same policy is flaunted as ignorant when it is Trump and is overlooked when it is Biden. I read your MAGA comments in a similar vein, since the pro-Biden unions also support the tariffs. I used to be totally free trade and ignored the auto workers unions when they made the 'level playing field' argument back in the 80's. But I think I was wrong then, and that there is a role for a different trade strategy. I think I generally support the Biden Administration tariff policies. I would expect a journalist to ask both candidates about their views and use the same framework to assess them.
i disagree with your comment about the alleged 'idiocy' of the american people re economics.
1. as mark twin said: we're all ignorrant, just in different fields.
2. many intelligent, and very intelligent people are literate, but innumerate, or just don't have a good grasp of numbers and how they work. does that make them idiots, re economics, or anything else?
that said, i agree with most of the rest of your comment above.
I do know what the dew point is & that's the most important thing to tell in any summer weather forecast!
Anything over 60 means you sweat a lot & over 70 is pure hell, as it's living in the worst tropical place without any A/C or even a breeze!
I didn't vote for a single quip this week, they all sucked!
While I very much appreciate your explanation of the dew point, please tell us you didn't sit with a frowny face through EVERY quip?? I voted for more than usual and was literally laughing out loud at at least three of them. Have some laughs today, Garry :-)
Sorry, Garry, but I thought that dew point one was excellent. Maybe "even Jesus" is a commonly-used form of emphasis but I'd never heard it so I actually did a spit-take I laughed so hard! But, I do appreciate the weather lesson and now I know, if not how dew point is measured, it's significance. Always good to learn something new first thing in the morning.
Actually footage of Garry Spelled Correctly missing the point
https://youtu.be/8SIEGnwTCUM?si=NXffX3hc3j2Uwo94
I don't drink, because I think it all tastes terrible & have never actually had a beer!
My dad thought it was funny when I was about 12 to switch my Coke for a beer when I had to walk away for a minute, but didn't think it was that funny when I tried it & sprayed it out all over him when I tasted that crap.
That is my sole experience with beer & I'll be 75 in a month.
They weren’t my favorite quips, but I remembered the time a kid threw up in grade school so I voted for that one. It’s always fun when it’s not you. On a related note a woman fainted at my dad’s 90th birthday party and as the paramedics took her away I told the remaining guests, “when you’re 90 years old and an ambulance comes… and it’s not for you, it’s a good day.” (She was fine after some fluids)
Except I was the one throwing up in first grade, until both my tonsils & adenoids were removed!
I'll second the Brad Biggs recommendation. He's always an insightful read. And by breaking it into 10 points, you can slide by any topic that doesn't interest you.
Brad Biggs 10 things on the Bears is a must read for Bear fans. The only reason I subscribe digitally to the Tribune is to read the 10 things on the Bears by Brad. Block out plenty of time it can be a long read but it's so intelligently written. All matter of fact, he doesn't try to be funny or cute and everything he talks about seems so well researched. I wish more sport writers would study this guy. So glad you pointed this out.
In regard to Trump and his lies, it's what he does. He could stand on a beach on a bright sunny day and say it's dark outside and half his followers would agree. It works for him. Has since the 1970's. Nobody should ever be surprised when he lies. It works for him. And he knows this, but it does say something about the people that agree with him.
Trump the next day:
Everybody knows that debate was RIGGED! Nobody has been treated more unfairly than me in the history of debates!
Before we get too smugly far over our skis, can we do a reality check? The way people are writing makes it sound like Trump’s crappy debate performance has now made the race 60-40 Harris. I suspect that’s not the case. Trump’s appeal has never been his leadership ability or even his coherence, both nonexistent; it’s that’s he’s given permission to publicly emerge all the latent racism/antisemitism/homophobia… that was suppressed for a while by its being socially unacceptable. You think that’s changed? I just hope that a large enough sliver of waffling independents plus a large enough cadre of newly motivated-to-vote Swifties is enough to carry the day. But let’s not kid ourselves that the race is run and won by Trump’s behaving on one more night exactly the way everyone expected him to.
Well stated Rick!
The debate mattered in that the bar for Trump is always so low, while the bar for Harris was pretty high. I hate to sound like a cliche, but she had to be ten times better than Trump or we would be pounding nails in her coffin right now. There was a lot of pressure on her and she didn't cave. A winner in my book.
Exactly. I seem to recall HRC won all her debates with Trump. How’d that work out?
I couldn’t agree more. Trump was actually somewhat restrained on Tuesday (if only because of the mike rule) compared to how he was with Clinton. I remember watching the debates in 2016 and thinking that he was deliberately trying to tank, maybe finally listening to his old pal Howard Stern’s warnings about how much he’d hate being president. He couldn’t possibly have come off as more ignorant, or less qualified.
Boy was I wrong. If he was trying to tank, his strategy apparently didn’t work, and he obviously didn’t hate the job enough to refrain from re-applying for it twice since then.
Does anyone besides me think the No-No White Sox section is getting a little OCD?
No! Following baseball has always involved following stats. If your team, as mine, is the Sox, these are the only stats this season has offered us. Just being a fan. (Of course, one could make the point that following any stats in any sport is a little OCD!)
Well, there’s stats and then there’s stats ‘n stats ‘n stats ‘n stats.
I see it as 1) EZ’s nose for news noticed this back in April? And as a college editor, an easy item to cut and paste each week with minor updates.
No. This team really is THAT bad. Worst baseball team ever, one of the worst pro teams (of any sport) ever.
Question for the PS hive: is it legal for a president-elect to conduct business on behalf of the country? Specifically, I refer to Trump's boast that he would call Putin and Zelenskyy after the election and before he takes office would resolve the conflict. Did he just promise to commit another crime, or is that legal. (I'm thinking of the Logan Act.)
Yes!!! I felt like I was the only person who heard that my debate-watching group. At the time I thought he meant he had, previously, talked to Putin after the last election. Either way, really problematic. And not a single news outlet I've seen has referenced it.
I think the Logan act only applies to issues between the US and other countries. I think it is fine for him to offer to be a mediator of a peace conference between Russia and Ukraine. Private citizens, like Jimmy Carter, have done this in the past. The extent of the backdoor alignment with the State Department isn't always clear. There would probably be an issue if an agreement included the tacit or implicit commitment of any US resources.
Thanks, Marc. In addition, I subsequently heard a couple of lawyers weigh in that the Logan Act is never enforced.
I think Harris could have had a better response on abortion. When Trump was saying it should be "up to the states," Harris should have insisted it should not be up to anyone except a woman and her doctor. And she could have borrowed Pete B's defense of late-term abortion: it happens when there is something profoundly wrong with a pregnancy and requires families to make gut-wrenching decisions that are not helped with government interference.
re abortion/reproductive healthcare, she also shd have called him out on [and i paraphrase faithfully] the claim that 'everyone wnated the change to states deciding abotion law'.
a lie, of course, and typical trump - shocking, but not surprising.
I find myself checking the White Sox score each day and tracking their road to most losses. With 15 games left, Eric has painted a grim picture.
But I have developed a taste for following “worst ever phenomenon”. So after the Sox, can we have a JD Vance watch? He has come out of the box as the worst ever VP candidate in American history and continues to amaze in being bad. He is smoking Sarah Palin and is pretty much in a class by himself.
It is fun to hear Trumpers lamely defend him. He could become truly historic and potentially be the key factor in Trump’s defeat in November.
So after the No-No Sox, can we get the Oh-No Vance?
while i agree vance is a bottom feeder, and contender for the WOAT VP candidate, is he really worse than palin, quayle, spiro agnew, thomas eagleton, or andrew johnson?
i too take perverse pleasure [?} in following the white sox this season - not watching on tv, or listening on the radio - but following on espn.com gamecast, and reading [paul sullivan in The Trib, The Athletic] about the exploits and foibles of the sox.
BobE, that is the point of the Oh-No Vance watch. We have a number of weeks to the election. Can Vance continue to screw things up or does he mello?
He has the potential to be the WOAT, but we need to see the entire campaign (especially if Trump loses).
So the final comparisons are on hold for now. Personally I am hoping JD makes history.
Oh, to be 40 years younger and able to recall off the top of my head the relationship between wet bulb and dry bulb temperatures, which allows one to determine the current dew point temperature (the temp at which air with the current amount of water vapor will begin to condense: the higher the air temp, the higher the dew point and the more one is likely to sweat). Instead, despite introducing several sections of UIC and UIUC students to this stuff as their geography TA during the mid-80s, I had to look it up. One of the most popular lab sessions of introductory courses on weather and climate involved students taking turns with the sling psychrometer: heading outside, twirling paired glass thermometers for a couple of minutes, and waiting for someone to lose their grip and send the thing flying.
I have a sling psychrometer, but have never used it. All I use it for is to calibrate other thermometers to check how accurate they are. It was a buck at a garage sale years ago.
Google it to find free downloadable charts that let you determine dew point with it. Provided that you have the little cotton sock that fits on the end of the wet bulb thermometer, that is, and get the sock wet before you start slinging. Otherwise, carry on as before!
I have the little cotton sock, the thing came in a plastic molded tray with everything, even the chart.
Reader(s)?
I always enjoy Eric's takedowns of that blowhard Kass. "Commies"?? Is he stuck in a 1960's sitcom? On a more serious note, I've lived in a socialist-democracy (Norway) and cringe every time I see "socialist" used as an insult. The hyphen-democracy part makes a truly HUGE difference!
Of course it’s easy to be a social-democracy when you’re fabulously wealthy like Norway is. It would be nice if, say, Saudi Arabia took the hint.
Hell will freeze over before the Saudis liberalize, even that murderous prince & his insane NEOM city that's supposed to be a magnet for the world's wealthy will be a multi-billion dollar flop & will be just as repressive as the rest of that backwards country.
So true, Rick!! Sadly, it's a way of life and an attitude that doesn't translate well to countries like Saudi Arabia or 'Murica :-(
That Saudia Arabia is a single country is a consequence of the Aramco Oil Company getting the tribes in the region to agree. Norway had a national identity long before it was a major oil producer.
and therefore.... ?
...we should not expect that it could follow a path similar to Norway.
Norway is a capitalist country with a large social welfare system. Socialist countries are not capitalist as they prohibit or restrict private ownership of the means of production, control prices and wages, and attempt to plan the economy. Venezuela is the corollary to Norway. Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves and should be wealthier than Norway, but they are socialist and rank as one of the poorest nations in the world. They also fail to provide the social welfare system of Norway in spite of claiming that socialism is superior at providing those services.
In his book "Eat the Rich," the late humorist P.J. O'Rourke speculated why democratic socialism works so well in Scandinavia but not necessarily elsewhere. He posited that in the harsh Nordic climate, generation after generation of people have learned that they have to help one another out in order to thrive and survive. So it's part of their culture. Maybe there's something to that?
great reference, michael. i loved most of p.j. o'rourke's books. i recall listening to Parliament of Whores as a book on tape - i got to laughing so hard, several times, that i had to slow down and pull off the road.
At least in my bubble on social media, it's much more socially acceptable to say you're a communist than it is to say you love capitalism.
Trump has become a caricature. It’s amazing that any reasonable person could support him.
Reminds me of a famous Adlai Stevenson quote. When told that every thinking person would vote for him, he replied that he’d need more votes than that.
And, of course, he didn't get them.