Donald Trump Doubles Down on BREXIT

Donald Trump says tear up all trade agreements and that will solve the steel workers problems.  But the fact is technology and automation have reduced the steel worker job number.  Steel output in the U.S. today is about equal to what it was in 1990 pre-NAFTA pre China.

Meanwhile, the conservative leaders of BREXIT have to admit they have no plan for implementation of BREXIT, and the E.U. is not making life easy for them.  If you want access to the E.U. for trade, you have to be owning up to the responsibilities of being a member of the E.U.  So what are the conservative leaders doing, they are walking back from their promises.

So voters who swallow easy answers should be aware that easy answers are never an outcome.

Musings on a NY Primary Tuesday 6/28

i know there are some elections today that matter, but I don't know if there is one where I live.  Good thing it is only 1 1/2 blocks away and I will just walk by and see if I should be voting.  Of course, I won't know the candidates and will be voting blindly.  Since I am a political junkie, what does that imply about the voters who are not and on what basis do they vote?

David Brooks analyzes how culture affects people and can influence how they vote.  It is a complex analysis focused on the thoughts of J.D. Vance's new book, Hillbilly Elegy.  I think I will download it on my Nook for a read and I hope the Democrats do too.  They need to be competitive with white male voters who are not cultural elites.

I now quote David Brooks who in these words trashes both the Kardashians and Talk Radio.

"But the honor code has also been decimated by the culture of the modern meritocracy, which awards status to the individual who works with his mind, and devalues the class of people who work with their hands."

"Most of all, it has been undermined by rampant consumerism, by celebrity culture, by reality-TV fantasies that tell people success comes in a quick flash of publicity, not through steady work. The sociologist Daniel Bell once argued that capitalism would undermine itself because it encouraged hedonistic short-term values for consumers while requiring self-disciplined long-term values in its workers. At least in one segment of society, Bell was absolutely correct."

"There’s now a rift within the working class between mostly older people who are self disciplined, respectable and, often, bigoted, and parts of a younger cohort that are more disordered, less industrious, more celebrity-obsessed, but also more tolerant and open to the world."

Link to Brook's column, well worth reading

Meanwhile, one GOP senator is preventing the EXIM Bank from approving financings over $10 mm and forcing capital intensive manufacturers to expand abroad rather than in the U.S.A.  So no one should wonder why Donald Trump did well in GOP primaries.  He understands the need for financing and can communicate that to people angry about their kids not finding good employment in their community.

And lastly, NASA is about to have a satellite orbit Jupiter and discover things about that mysterious planet.  Would the Tea Party support NASA, or the CDC, or the NIH?  Do they even believe in science as a true depiction of Noah's Arc is being opened in Kentucky by the Creationist Museum, which has dinosaurs present with early people.

Populism Explained

The link is a fairly long read, but it boils down to politics runs on money and people with money like winners and don't like losers.  It quotes Adam Smith's belief that one should identify with the unfortunate and illustrates that when the unfortunate become sufficiently numerous and grieved, they want others to hurt like they hurt.  Even if the solutions (or lack thereof in Donald Trump's case) will not help them.

Link to Column on insights another watching of the Deer Hunter created

Sometimes Clarity Comes in the Fog of Waking Up

Learning that the U.K. voters have decided by 52% to 48% to leave a United Europe, and then reading that the Spanish Socialist government is threatened by a party to its left, and then contemplating the angry support of both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, I came to epiphany that the elite leaders of almost every country in the world are paying the price for corruption and implementing policies that favor the rich over the middle class.

While logic tells me that globalization and technology are the driving forces behind this reduction in economic opportunity for the middle class, the middle class focus on trade agreements and migration/immigration means there is room for populist politicians to take advantage of this.

As a member of the intellectual elite by education, but not birth, I have to accept some responsibility for this but I am not sure what the alternative is.  Free Trade has enriched the world.  Free Trade and globalization have created the upper middle class around the world.  Immigration is what has made the U.S. and the U.K. more competitive economically than countries that are not open to immigration.  The angry populists are not open to those arguments and I really fear what damage a governing angry populist government might do.

Sunday Musings 6/19/16. Lack of Compromise is Foundation for Country "not moving in the right direction"

There is good reason 80% of the U.S. population feels the country is going in the wrong direction.  If you are a Democrat, the Republicans don't allow any progress on any problems and are actively making progress against policies that Democrats support.  If you are a Republican, the Democrats don't allow you to implement what you really want to implement and policies that the Democrats support, and you oppose, are moving in the Democratic direction.  So the partisan political thought of winner needs to take all is dominating thoughts.  The real issue is the partisan divide.  No one likes it, but no one sees a clear path to resolving it because resolution will require some one to lose.  And no one wants to lose.  So without compromise being possible, we are at a loggerheads, and we are not moving in a proper direction.  If compromise were possible, I would at least say we are not moving in the wrong direction because we are addressing problems.

GOP Senators Run Away From Trump Over Guns

You cannot make this stuff up about how off the rail the GOP is on certain issues.

Donald Trump finally says something coherent and positive about speaking the to NRA about its policy of allowing people on the Terrorist Watch List to be able to buy guns and Jeff Sessions, the GOP Senator from Alabama, says there is no way he can support that.

Jennifer Rubin Panics

I have been panicking ever since it became clear that a substantial component of the GOP has become   certifiably crazy.

But now one of the GOP apologist pundits has done likewise.

Link to Jennifer Rubin column