As a Brit living in the UK even I am aware of this but how does this stark message reach those who need it most? The US MSM seems to be doing its darndest to keep the truth from the American electorate rather than helping it make an informed choice. Yet they will not escape Trump’s wrath should he make it to the WH. Both they and Trump voters are turkeys voting for Christmas.
The US media have, as usual, been driven by ratings, and serious discussions about the economy don't buy eyeballs. Nevertheless, you would think that Trump's gross incompetence and callousness would have filtered through to the masses after 8 years of his nonsense. And I think it has, to a large extent. People want to burn down "the establishment" and will vote for him precisely because he is perceived as a crazy anti-establishment figure.
We are hoping there will be sufficient numbers of rational people in a handful of swing states to finally dispense with this ridiculous old man.
I am hoping that there are sufficient numbers of anti-trumpers out there to keep America sane. If trump get in there, the world will believe that America has gone crazy. I don't understand how anyone who pays attention to real things, not just listening to trump spew his lies and bizarre comments but paying attention to what he is really saying. In this case, "burning down the establishment" is the same as burning down America. Please, get out and vote blue. Let's keep the insanity out of the White House!
It really shouldn't be close at all, there is NO choice for reasonable people. An articulate, intelligent, conscientious, energetic, successful person with a vision for moving America forward in excellent ways vs. a convicted felon who instigated a lethal insurrection against the country/Constitution he took an oath to protect as well as defying the espionage act with the theft of top secret documents and who has nothing to offer America except cozying up to dictators, advancement of white supremacy, division and tax cuts for the very wealthy.
It’s extremely easy to understand that people want to live in peace and happiness, not fear.
During Democrats, lower and middle class increase standard of living. During Republicans, billionaires become richer and lower and middle class Americans needs are ignored. That's a fact.
Imagine wearing these kinds of t-shirts in a red state 👇 🤣
And having worked in the jails and prisons I am honestly hoping that many rally folks will not vote … or cannot but just like the noise!!
Also to be clear don has said “he is doing away with the federal bureaucracy which means social security, pensions, Medicare etc…. Do MAGA’s are ya gonna take a chance on losing your money 💰?
Right on. The only policy promoted by the incompetent Republicans are lies. There is no sane choice. It is a One Party Choice to save democracy. I know what happened in Pakistan. This keeps feeling similar.
The lower and middle class are not better off now. Real wages are down and the income inequality gap between the lower and middle classes and billionaires has increased significantly. Inflation and handouts are not the way to "lift" people up.
Inflation is caused by borrowing, mortgages, credit cards, that is short term inflation, long term inflation (inflation creep) is caused by the interest on debts, all debts, public, corporate private). Inflation has nothing to do with "handouts" Chris.
If by handouts you mean slopping at the government trough, then the real pigs are the corporations, the millionaires, the billionaires, the 10% of Americans who can take advantage of government programs that were devised to be socialism for the rich and corporations, including especially our tax code.
Inflation is caused by the government printing money. Everyone's house and used cars are seemingly more valuable since the prices rise, but if real wages don't keep up (which they haven't), then this is especially not good for the lower and middle classes.
Handouts, (ie the Government giving people money), is not the way to lift people up. I'm not a fan of big corporations getting handouts either. Less government would be helpful all the way around. We don't need our candidates to try to "fix" things by promising things like $25K for your first home...wide open borders don't help either.
I just met someone from Germany. She says that people in Germany think he is ridiculous and that Germans feel sorry for Americans that half of us are being led astray by a con man. They should know about con men, shouldn't they?
We should know about con men too; didn’t our soldiers fight and die for democracy in World War II as well? It may have been a lifetime ago for many of us, but the lessons still apply.
Jan : you are right : tRUMP is also burning down himself and the MAGA cult: every time he opens his mouth. "Shady " Vance is even worse! 🔥 look at their policy centerpiece::(killing women and girls , while denying those who want children IVF treatments. 🙄 Idiots all! Losers! For sure : even if they "win"! Like the billionaire's 'jackasses' they rode in on. If they want a class war : they will surely have one! There are more of US than there are of them. And even though We are not elephants : We Will Never Forget!
William Farrar ; Some MAGAt women are most likely, indoctrinated to view those who want to be sexually active without intending to have a child, as 'promiscuous' ,Even when married and only with her husband. If they were raised Catholic, like I was, it seems unfair to them that any woman would have relations especially out of wedlock, when they themselves were "good girls" and abstained, even when single.
Thanks Laurie, but that doesn't quite explain the mentality and motivation of MAGA women.
By the way, it is men that have that view, women have the view that men do.
some cultures are afflicted with the madonna whore syndrome. Especially those cultures that coddle the male infant and child, the ones that produce Momma boys.
I’d like to believe (and trust that I’m not naive in saying) that even if ‘the establishment’ as you refer to the government and our economic system were to burn down that the spirit of these United States would survive and rise from what might remain. We are more, much more, than our form of government, even as we are a part of it. We are an ideal, and a spirit that gives heart to that ideal and to the extent that ideal holds merit and truth it will not die, even if it appears to burn to mortal eyes.
Yes, let’s hope there are many many more rational people out there. Around here there are about fifty Trumpf signs or flags to one Harris. Really frightens me. The Trumpfers are accepting of a felon, liar 🤥, business failure, old doddering insane conman, etc., to represent them as president of the USA. Still concerned about the boxes of classified documents he stole. Yes, stole. What did he do with the information. Was he selling it? To whom ? What did he copy?
Les Moonves, then CEO of CBS gave it away, when he told the board of directors. Trump is bad for America but great for CBS and they all chuckled in response.
The corporate media have a vested interest in keeping Trump front and center in the American tableau.
I love your analogy, Ann! You are right about MSM. Most of them are owned and run by far-right MAGAs. They only allow what they want to be aired. They want to keep the orange man in the running for the White House so they pick and choose what to air. They do what I've heard many call "sane-washing" to make it look as if the orange man is still cognizant of his surroundings when the truth is, he is old and suffering from dementia. I believe their purpose is to get him in the White House and then use Amendment 25 to put the vice-president in office. That would be couch vance and absolutely no sane person wants that! Vote blue, America, up and down the ballot!
You wish. No matter how nuts, he pulls eyeballs. Hulk Hogan in a suit. Amendment 25 would get us JD Vance, the angry little twit who threw his family under the bus in his autobiographical pre-presidential aspirational memoire. (JFK's prepresidential book was Profiles in Courage.) Just like Clarence Thomas, a working class kid who by virtue of intelligence and hard work benefitted from DEI to graduate from Yale law school. With chips on their shoulders and deep self hatred projected on those they left behind.
Peggy Freeman: tRUMP is 'crazy' like a FOX and full of guile, shrewdness. He just wants to appear hapless and clueless. He is a hateful opportunist predator. Who kills with no shame. Very scary indeed.
If you actually believe that Trump's mental pathology is all just an act, you too are affected by Trump contagion. He is seriously mentally damaged, and VERY dangerous.
I would bet that his handlers and sycophants are well aware of Trump’s mental deterioration, but are still determined to find him useful for their own evil agendas. I do not know who they are in their multitudes, but they are more terrifying than Trump.
Not being a professional and evaluating him, I obviously could not know his mental pathology. He pulls out the stops with the distractions and culture war horrors. To the point of killing people ( Covid misinfo, disparaging comments about Black's. Jews, Muslims, women of : :all races denying emergency medical care. I never said it was an act. But the extent to which he has control 🤔 over his actions is unknown by the casual. but freaked out observer. He certainly is not a well balanced ethical or sympathetic man He seems to enjoy hurting people. I have no doubt about how dangerous he is. The media sometimes does sanewashing to make him appear less of a threat: but who really believes that. I never said he is a sane, or harmless guy. As I said: He wants to appear to be an independent "cut _up" and his followers think he is a " hot $#it" rebel who is owning the Libs". He distracts from the puppet masters who control him with money and flattery., so the voters can't see where all their hard earned money is going : up to the billionaires.
Thomas : If you actually believe that I'm in thrall under tRUMP and cannot see his dangerousness: you have not read ANY of my posts during the almost 3 years that I have been a member of this forum. Please don't be affected by his contagion by gaslighting someone just because you can.
"The US MSM seems to be doing its darndest to keep the truth from the American electorate rather than helping it make an informed choice."
I tend to view it more as this way: A large percentage of Americans find an "information bubble" that suits them -- i.e. panders to their biases -- and rarely venture out of it. The media outlets are there to attract people and so reinforce the bubble that keeps their audiences intact.
Any American who WANTS to know the truth about any issue will not be lacking for resources out there. They just need to have some critical thinking skills.
The right wing has an information bubble, it is reinforced by Fox, NewsMax, OANN, the Blaze, Truth Social and the ShitterFB algorithms.
There is no parallel on the left. Just reading RR's and other substack articles and comments one can easily see that we are being exposed to the right wing view, as well as other sources. Whereas those on the right get only news and info that confirms their bias. Most of them have never even heard of news that contradicts their beliefs. They don't even know that Haitians eating dogs has been effectively refuted, but believe it because that is what their sources tell them.
And then there is the much talk about critical thinking, which even those on the left have a deficiency.
For innstance HAMAS claims that over 41,000 Gazans were killed by the Jews, and voila the left sees 41,000 innocent women and children. Do they stop and realize that HAMAS is the sworn enemy of the Jews and has threatened genocide of the Jews, and that maybe, just maybe the 41,000 is a wild exagerration, and that they are purposefully leading one to believe that all of the 41,000 are women and children, when in fact about half are fighting age males that constitute the battalions of HAMAS and Islamic Jihad.
Half a million Russians have been killed in the Ukraine war, that Putin started, horrific statistic, until you consider that 99.999999999999999999% were soldiers.
Stalin (Russia) claimed that 26 million Russians died in WWII, but 8 million of them were soldiers, which Stalin fed into battle as bullet absorbers, that leaves 18 million civilians. I find that hard to believe that more Russian civilians than soliders died, especially since the German Army never reached Moscow.
Never the less it appears to be a game of one up man ship. Jews say 6 million died at the hands of the NAZI's, and 18 million divided by 6 million equal 3, So according to Russian propaganda, Russia suffered e times more than the Jews.
It is wonder we can breathe at all, because we are up to our necks in bullshit.
Read Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands before you talk about the Russian WWII dead. Most (not all) of the so-called Russian war dead were on the western fringes of the Soviet Union in Ukraine, the Belorussian and Ukrainian SSRs etc. and including the Jewish populations there. And there were many civilians among the total - capture a town, herd every inhabitant into the church and set fire to it.
Don't take the Jews' word for their deaths, then - you don't have to because the German military left its own tally of their killings on the Eastern Front.
And on the current killings in Gaza, it happens that the Gazan health authorities' estimates of deaths in previous conflicts have been found after those conflicts to have been fairly accurate. Even if one had to halve the current estimates it would still be quite some total and no, not all the deaths may be women and children but a lot are.
In other words, on all these subjects there are ways you can get a bit closer to the truth - don't tar everything with the same brush. I would agree though that standard American media is as usual not a good place to start.
I don't agree about the HAMAS health ministry estimates. I heard Martin Griffiths on Amanpour and Company, say that the UN accepted HAMAS, because he triangulated. WTF does that mean, triangulated with what and who. The only source of stats is from HAMAS, period.
People believe what they are pre disposed to believe, and that includes the USSR estimates.
I don't accept anything at face value, especially when the sources have a motive to exaggerate
And Haitian immigrants are eating pets. 40% of America believes that swill..
Totally agree with you Ann. As a fellow Brit I am astounded that Robert's piece is the first truly critical article I have read on this issue which clearly lays out the facts. One alarming policy not mentioned is Trump's threat to 'increase tarrifs on John Deer tractors/farm equipment by 200%' will kill the agriculture sector; in addition to the ridiculous plan to 'round up all immigrants and deport them.' The man is truly unhinged. Americans are facing starvation, insolationism, and a total collapse of their economy - not to mention the added knock on effects on the global economy. I for one would be calling for a total distancing of all American funded industry/imports here in the UK should Trump win as this will drag the UK down with it if we don't.
Re the proposed deportation of “illegal” migrants I was walking across the Ghetto in Venice a few days ago and saw a stunningly moving bas relief of Jews being herded into buses. It struck me then what this proposal really means.
Ann, it harkens back to hitler's time for me, too. I made a comment on a news feed that asked MAGA to take a minute and think of this scenario. You're in your home and suddenly you are invaded by militia. They round you up and herd you to this camp. When you ask, 'why are you doing this?' they tell you they are rounding up all the MAGAs and deporting them to the shit-hole countries the orange man has targeted. As they herd you onto the box car that will take you to that country, they brand your arm with a number. The orange man's is number one. Does it sound vaguely familiar? That's what the Nazis did in Germany. I asked them to put themselves in the position they are screaming they want immigrants to be in. It is nuts but some just cannot do that. They think that because they kiss the orange man's ring it will not happen to them until it does. Vote blue, America, up and down the ballot!
Thanks Peggy. As I've said before, the MAGA folks just need to look up the story of "The Night of the Long Knives". They probably won't do it and won't learn from it if they do. Cheers... GH
Fret not: King Biden I, per the alt right's clownish supreme court, has SUPREME POWER to nullify Bunkerboy's fraudulent election, should it come to that.
Exactly. Agree entirely about the plan to replace Trump with Vance and asap after his inauguration (should it be some awful disaster come to pass) too.
“Turkeys voting for Christmas” is a common Brit saying BTW. I’ve never heard “turkeys voting for Thanksgiving” but it would work just as well.
she does need to hammer on how her policies will help people with their bread and butter concerns. Do NOT rely on abortion to carry too much of the weight to get her elected. It won't IMO.
Let's see now, 47% of the voting public are confirmed MAGAts, so the economy is not the issue with them, 47-50% are anti MAGAts. So Harris reaching for the 3 to 6%, most of whom probably don't vote anyway.
The Female vote is over 50% of the country, and it is highly motivated to vote for Harris, themale voteis highly motivated to vote against Harris, but they are MAGAts anway.
I honestly do not think that the economy is the issue, it is with the Billionaires, the Corporations, the franchisee's, these are the people that place ads on radio, TV and papers.
My personal opinion is that inflation and the economy are issues contrived by the money powers, those grise eminece's behind the throne. The same folk who pay for Polls, own and/or control the corporate media.
Joe and Jan six pack may bitch about the price of eggs, butter and tomatoes, primarily because that is what talking heads on TV tell them to bitch about, but if they aren't been told what to think and bitch about, there thoughts are preoccupied with their own little world and bubble.
You see we don't know what to complain about, to worry about until some one tells us our fly is open or are slip is showing.
We are cattle being led around by a ring through our nose, or is it sheep being herded by the shepherds crook.
Robert speaks to this in his excellent 14-part 'Wealth & Poverty' class he taught at Berkeley; available on YouTube. There was time when corporations were responsible to their employees, the communities in which they operated, and their shareholders. Now, it's only the latter.
So long as customers tip, the companies will not pay fair wages. It is tough but you have to say no tips.
There are no franchises or big box stores in my county, but one or twice a year I venture into the real world, and when I do, I always stop at a Jersey Mikes or Jimmy John's. (I have a thing for Italian hoagies, subs some call them, Grinders in California, but never as good as the one's in Philadelphia, when one goes to pay, there is first a selection for tip, 10 or 20 percent, and the kid at the cash register goes out of their way to remind you to pay their wages, because the franchise owner doesn't.
No such thing at Mackie D's, Booger King or Kentucky Flayed Chicken.
Well, your government could always legislate. France did, specifically for restaurants, and the price on the menu is now what you pay. And with a realistic overall minimum wage set by government even the Americans could get there .
The MSM (and Herr Marx or Gospodin Marx?) seem oblivious to reality. Your candidate is unfit. And a loser. And a tyrant.
Here are the fundamentals. "Today, there are about 91 million Americans who have voted for Biden and House Democrats since 2016, and about 83 million who have voted for Trump or House Republicans. If this pool of voters votes that way again, and if they constitute 80 percent of those voting in 2024 (a fairly conservative assumption), then the other 20 percent of voters would have to favor Trump by 18 points for him to overcome that deficit." Podheizer. Not to mention enthusiasm and new registrations favor Democrats.
Your comment speaks for itself! His father tried to help him out by buying $100,000 worth of casino chips and not use them (an infusion of money) but that was not enough to fix his son's mess!
He treats his businesses as his personal bank accounts. What do you think he will do if he is president? Any contracts will go directly to HIS businesses! The scariest part of all is that he will have the nuclear codes of America!
Jan, and he'll sell off the entire country, land, resources, trade deals, assets, .... to the highest domestic or foreign bidders. And hell will come to us all. And I worry not about contracts going to his businesses, but to nefarious foreign actors who wish us harm and tfg being too self-absorbed to ponder or care.
Leaving aside all the other defects of tariffs, they are devilishly difficult to enforce. They are ad valorem, meaning they are a function of cost. As the cost happens in another jurisdiction it is difficult to audit. Evasion does require deceit to disguise the cost the importer pays but it is often more than worth it. Trump is an idiot.
Tariff's are complicated, And do serve a purpose, but they must be applied judiciously and wisely, not carte blanche as Trump does.
When Henry VII ascended the throne after Bosworth, he found that he had become sovereign over a country that was the armpit of Europe. Poor, exploited, the roads were in disrepair, travel outside of London in the rain and your oxcart would be swalled up by potholes.
England's source of revenue (which was silver in those days)was export of raw wool, to the Low countries, were it was processed and turned into fabric, which was then imported.
England imported all fine goods, including artists.
Henry thenlevied an export tariff on raw wool, and the Netherlanders would not buy it, this forced the English to develop their own woolen industry. Which benefited my family, who were woolers, and all they did was sheer sheep, full the wool, dye it and bundle it for sale abroad.
Within a few years they were damming streams, building fulling mills and textile mills, and the family became wealthy, buying land, then renting it and leasing messauges and even
a coal mine to an Abraham Shaw.
It paid off, because by the time his son Henry VIII became sovereign, England was wealthy, so wealthy that he passed a Sumptuary Law that forbade commoners to wear fine linen, silks, furs, feathers in their hat and to otherwise dress like the nobility.
Even his adivsor Thomas Cromwell, who was not of the nobility could not dress like them, finally he was so rich that he could build and outfit with over 100 brass cannons, the biggest man of war ever made at that time the Mary Rose.
If you want to see how far England came because of export tariffs, compare a painting of Henry VIIII to his father Henry VII.
Henry VII also spurred other industries with import tariffs like silversmithing, alas the English never really mastered the art, but to the rescue came the Huguenots, fine silvermiiths, btw, Paul Revere was a silver smith, and he learned his trade from his Huguenot father, Apollonius Revoire.
The place to impose tariff's are on industries which you want to encourage. The only reason America lags behind Taiwan in the semi conductor industry, is because Intel and Nvida, used their profits to buy back stock to reward the investors (and CEO's/Chairman of the Board).
American corporations do not invest in product enhancement, R&D or innovation, they rest on their laurels and pour profits into investors, until they go bankrupt, and are taken over by foreign manufacturers and investors. Wash,rinse, repeat.
The sad truth is that a 200% import tariff on tractors will hurt the farmer in the short run, but it will in fact force John Deere and Caterpillar to keep manufacturing in this country.
What needs to be done is to put import tariffs on airplane parts, computer parts, cell phones and bring the industries and home back, but the uproar from our screen addict will be deafening, just look how they screeched when they threatened to ban Tik Tok.
I know he retained them. The systems were set up so it was expedient to do so I expect. I am very hostile to tariffs because I was involved in their enforcement. Take my word for it they are monumentally difficult for the authorities. In the past they were a primary source of revenue along with land tax. I suspect the customs duties were by quantity rather than by cost. In the 20th century they were primarily for protection rather than revenue. The higher the tariff the less imports there will be. That is a poor result if you are trying to collect revenue. Don’t forget that tariff policy deepened the Great Depression due to retaliation. It would be very easy to put tariffs on American exports. Many of them are electronically transmitted and can be tapped with ease. Tariffs are deeply stupid.
That is a fascinating topic. I've often wondered about the American overseas vote, and forgot to include myself when I served in the Navy overseas.
There are between 3 and 4 million eligible voters living overseas, but relatively few vote. (Ballots have to be requested from the state considered the last "official residence" and that's where the ballots are counted.)
Writing from a north Atlanta suburb with Helene passing through for another few hours.
Today, in Washington DC, the World Mental Health Coalition holds a very important meeting to warn about Donald Trump's mental pathology -- which makes him a danger.
Stay safe, Thomas! Helene was a monster! I live in Florida but thankfully, in the center of the state. We got wind and rain but not what our coastal neighbors had to deal with! Vote blue, America, up and down the ballot!
Thank you, Peggy. I'll be early voting in person as soon as it opens up on October 15. Quite often, I'll add a note or two about what's happening here in Georgia.
Everyone's still talking about his "protector of women" riff he gave on the 24th in Savannah.
I just talked to my sister there in Georgia. She said the eye passed over during the night while she was asleep! I do remember his comments about "protector of women" and it made my skin crawl! Eeeewwwww! Looking forward to hearing how things are going in your neck of the woods!
Unbelieveably, Trumps "protecter of women" appeals to that percentage of the female population that votes for him, that's why the vote for him in the first place, we can only hope that the majority of women were and are as repelled as you are.
So many women think the orange man is repugnant! I hope, like you, that the majority of women in this country are repelled enough by the orange man they vote blue in November!
Whenever I start to feeling down -- and I didn't realize your connections with Georgia, Peggy -- I play this video of Senator Raphael's speech at the FIRST Kamala Harris rally in Atlanta in late July. It is one of the best welcoming addresses I have ever heard -- and it always leaves me filled with hope and more than a few joyful tears.
We are so lucky to have these two wonderful senators. Keep in mind that Rev. Warnock beat his Republican opponents FOUR straight times. Twice in the November elections of 2020 and 2022, and twice in the January run-offs.
So if EVER you need some picking up .... I think we're going to get the last laugh again.
Oh Thomas! What a powerful message! As I listened to Sen. Warnock, I thought about Rep. John Lewis and everything he did for our country. Sen. Warnock is powerful like that. The letter to his daughter made me cry. Thank you for sharing that. What I saw in the crowd was happiness, enthusiasm, hope and laughter. We need that so much now. Vote blue, America, up and down the ballot!
Yes we are, Thomas! More votes for Kamala than last time! A huge blue Tsunami washing over and sending MAGA out! Let's do this! Vote blue, America, up and down the ballot!
The current fractional reserve rate is 0%, which means that financial institutions when they finance debt (mortgages, car loans, boats, airplanes and credit cards) are not required to keep any reserves on hand.
Reserves are government securities, corporate securities and demand deposits (checking accounts) Savings accounts are not part of the reserve base.
When, say, the fractional reserve rate was 10%, like when I bought my home, the bank was required to have on hand enough reserves (bonds and checking accounts) to cover 10% of the loan. Today they have none, and everything penny in interest that they take in from the loan is profit. And payment on principal, simply decreases the balance of the loan on the books, and also decreases the amount of money in circulation.
Were it not for debts, public, corporate private, there would be no money in circulation.
The greater the demand for debt, the more money in circulation. If you want to get through a recession, then encourage indebtedness, if you want to shrink and economy raise interest rates and deter indebtedness.
Financial institutions lose nothing, especially if they have already recouped their initial fractional reserve investment, which today is nothing, when a bankruptcy is declared.
That is why they are able to bundle and sell mortgages and car loans, because what the other financial institution is actually buying is the interest, The seller of a loan simply zero's the books of the initial loan, it has lost nothing.
We must be ambitious and aggressive, Ann Higgins. just like Kamala Devi essentially is and is starting to be more in the open. Why, she's even giving Trumpelstiltskin a run for his money in swing states like North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada. Perhaps, even Ted Cruztello may lose his Senate seat in Texas. The sky's the limit, as I continue to predict we Democrats will win big this time (and I'm willing to bet $1,000 that our margin will be 11 million votes). After all, not only have the banana Republicans failed miserably at "commanding" the US House of Representatives under Speaker Johnson, with one of the worst records in the history of our Congress, the last time they held the Presidency due to the Electoral College manipulations of Pukin's hackers, we had 2 million MAGA deaths in the Americas owing to Covid-19 and their stupid refusal to heed sound scientific advice.
They believe trump. I guess they didn't realize that Covid was like the flu and would just go away (according to trump)! They believed trump! They do not live in the real world, they live in trump's world! I wish there were a pill to give them to make them wake up to trump's lies! In the meantime, we need to get out in record numbers and vote for Harris/Walz!
Excellent! Thank you for this informative, creative video. I he already shared it with the media, people leaning toward Trump (because they felt the economy was better) and Harris voters for them to share. You are brilliant!
If you’re in a browser there are 3 dots on the lower right of your comment, select that. On the phone app, I don’t know, it refuses to size to my iPad screen, so I don’t use it.
People are ignorant of history - they don’t know that when a Trump ICE descends on a small business to round up workers to deport, mistakes will be made in the frenzy. Innocents will be collected and held in detention camps without legal recourse. Businesses will be ruined. Some people will be injured or killed. Consumers, and the general economy, will be damaged. Any people of any ethnicity who support Trump are not only ignorant! They are blind and stupid too…
What about the Muslims and young black males who have said that they won't vote Democrat?
They are in essence saying that they will be happy with Trump,even if they don't vote for him, one less vote for Kamala is one more vote that Trump doesn't need, thus a vote for Trump.
What kind of deal do you think that Muslims and young black males, or blacks period, will get from Trump?
Thank you Prof. Reich for your brilliant new video that reminds us yet again in the most vividly convincing way that Trump has indeed lost more marbles that he'll ever be able to replace.
Please.... would someone point out that the Trump tax cuts that primarily benefited the wealthier Americans was created out of star-dust. The money was, and continues to be borrowed, with the national debt still expanding at a frightening rate. This debt falls to the middle class to pay, along with their children and grand-children. If allowed into the White House again he will double it. Ellis Johnson M.D.
Debt is a funny thing, not understood by the citizen. The national debt is not the household debt. You owe money to someone else,who can have you arrested, take your property and hound you forever.
Our national debt is owed to ourselves. Granted the Association of Primary Dealers in Government Securities sells it to foreign sovereign funds, central banks and investors, but they are unable to foreclose on us if we don't pay them.
It isn't the debt that is the problem, it is the interest on the debt that is the problem, it is the interest that is primarily responsible for devaluation of the medium of exchange, aka inflation.
Let's say that Congress does not fund the government this year. The treasury would not print government securities and this cabal of 25 financial institutions, The Association of Primary Dealers in Government Securities https://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/primarydealers
Would not have any bonds and bills to buy from the Treasury and sell to the Fed, the Saudi and China sovereign funds, European Central Banks, the World Bank and IMF..
You would have an immediate world wide depression. you really would.
Let say we have the fictional balanced budget, where the budget supposedly matches expected revenues (expected is the key word).
The Treasury still prints up bonds and bills, sells them at discount to the APDGS, who then sells them to the Fed and foreign investors., but the revenue comes in later, probably less than expected. And where does the revenue go?
It goes to pay 1st the interest on the debt, and then 2nd to the principal.
As of July 2024, the United States government has a monthly interest rate of 3.33 percent on its debt, continuing an upward trend in interest rates that began at the beginning of 2022
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that interest payments will total $892 billion in fiscal year 2024 and rise rapidly throughout the next decade — climbing from $1 trillion in 2025 to $1.7 trillion in 2034. In total, net interest payments will total $12.9 trillion over the next decade
But we owe it to ourselves, there is no sheriff out there ready to dispossess us, however a country can act as a sheriff.
In fact a lot of wars were fought in Europe as for the purpose of paying off debts.
The first international bankers, besides the Templars, were the Fugger brothers of Italy, Christians who loaned Ferdinand and Isabella a princely sum, but the royals reneged on the debts and the Fuggers were the first in history to go bankrupt. They did not have a powerful monarch that would or could declare war on Spain to reover the loan.
Isabella and Ferdinand were cash poor, but there way out was to issue and edict declaring Muslims and Jews persona non grata , and set a date of Aug 3,1492, the same day Columbus set sail for them to leave, and then the king confiscated all of the property left behind.
At root my friend, is defining what is a medium of exchange, currency, money.
The choices are
1. Barter, How much labor are you worth to buy food at Safeway, put gas in your car, or pay your electric bill,much less pay for that iPhone and computer.
2. Some resource, When Rome was a Republic before it was an Empire, legionaires were paid in salt, hence our word salary.
Resources are scarce and they are plentiful, once salt was scarce and thus valuable because with it you could preserve fish and meat. Then copper, then bronze and later gold and silver.
However there isn't enough gold or silver to serve the function of gold, and it is not fungible, except through dire means, and requires proofing and constant weighing.
There was a practice of coin clipping,people would shave the edges of coin to collect the silver, until it was little more than a grain. A law was passed that made coin clipping a capital offense (hanging, along with smuggling)
Russia adopted a 100% gold standard, where a ruble was valued at .981 grams fine, and they printed only enough rubles to cover the gold on hand, and the result was a perpetual shortage of money, which is a depression. The depression was rationalized and excused as the exigencies of the cold war., in the west communism was to blame, well in a way it was, because the USSR adopted the Marxian gold as the standard of value, as opposed to the labor theory of value, the value of labor was weighed against gold.
3. Printing press money. The real definition of what is meant by fiat money, Examples are the German hyperinflation of 1922, South America companies like Argentina have resorted to fiat money. and the Continental of the American Revolution, however we are't told the truth about the Continental, because the Bank of England counterfeited the Continental into obscurity.
Washington's troops outside of Trenton, intercepted a wagon train, with barrels of forged Continentals, and that was not the only shipment.
4. A fractional reserve debt money system. Which is a system which the quantity of the medium of exchange can be regulated based on consumer demand.
When consumer demand responds to interest rates, then interest rates can regulated the amount of dollars in circulation(the benefit is that as debts are paid off, the are taken off the books.. double entry book keeping, if not we would not be able to walk down the street, there would be so much money in circulation (OK that is an exaggeration )
The down side is that the interest on the debt, creates inflation, two kinds, long term and short term, long term is why a $.05 Clark Bar in 1946 costs $1.50 today, why a Car that cost $2,000 in 1964 costs $35,000 today, why a home that cost $9,000 in 1960 costs $240,000 today.
Short term inflation is why a loaf of bread that cost $1.98 in 2017 costs $4.98 today.
If there was competition, instead of conglomerates and collusion, that price today would go down. Eggs are an example of price response to demand and supply, but apparently perishables like milk and eggs are the only response.
5. Unknown mechanism for a medium of exchange. If anybody has an idea, a workable one other than those mentioned above. Go for it.
In closing I mention that the world and the United States have experience gold and silver inflation and depression.
The silver mines of Potosi, Bolivia actually led to the demise of the Spanish Empire, there was so much silver in ciruclation that the Spanish Real was worthless, and that led to the loss of the Netherlands as a Spanish possession.
In America the discovery of the Comstock lode, created a boom, and Virginia City rose from the desert, but it wasn't long before there was a silver inflation, and the response of Congress was to demonetize silver, and gold became the official monetary unit of the country, this led to a 23 year year long depression, 1873-1896, (The long depression, worse than 1930
Mainstream media continues to cover this like a normal election. Why hasn’t anyone mentioned Rachel Maddow’s documentary about Russia interfering in the elections on any of the news shows? Why hasn’t anyone gone to prison for this in the government? Insanity!
As a Brit living in the UK even I am aware of this but how does this stark message reach those who need it most? The US MSM seems to be doing its darndest to keep the truth from the American electorate rather than helping it make an informed choice. Yet they will not escape Trump’s wrath should he make it to the WH. Both they and Trump voters are turkeys voting for Christmas.
The US media have, as usual, been driven by ratings, and serious discussions about the economy don't buy eyeballs. Nevertheless, you would think that Trump's gross incompetence and callousness would have filtered through to the masses after 8 years of his nonsense. And I think it has, to a large extent. People want to burn down "the establishment" and will vote for him precisely because he is perceived as a crazy anti-establishment figure.
We are hoping there will be sufficient numbers of rational people in a handful of swing states to finally dispense with this ridiculous old man.
I am hoping that there are sufficient numbers of anti-trumpers out there to keep America sane. If trump get in there, the world will believe that America has gone crazy. I don't understand how anyone who pays attention to real things, not just listening to trump spew his lies and bizarre comments but paying attention to what he is really saying. In this case, "burning down the establishment" is the same as burning down America. Please, get out and vote blue. Let's keep the insanity out of the White House!
It really shouldn't be close at all, there is NO choice for reasonable people. An articulate, intelligent, conscientious, energetic, successful person with a vision for moving America forward in excellent ways vs. a convicted felon who instigated a lethal insurrection against the country/Constitution he took an oath to protect as well as defying the espionage act with the theft of top secret documents and who has nothing to offer America except cozying up to dictators, advancement of white supremacy, division and tax cuts for the very wealthy.
It’s extremely easy to understand that people want to live in peace and happiness, not fear.
During Democrats, lower and middle class increase standard of living. During Republicans, billionaires become richer and lower and middle class Americans needs are ignored. That's a fact.
Imagine wearing these kinds of t-shirts in a red state 👇 🤣
teespring.com/stores/libtees-2
Kamala: The only choice. She will preserve our Democracy.
Can't wait to vote for our FIRST woman president!
It’s unreal how many people are still MAGAs
And having worked in the jails and prisons I am honestly hoping that many rally folks will not vote … or cannot but just like the noise!!
Also to be clear don has said “he is doing away with the federal bureaucracy which means social security, pensions, Medicare etc…. Do MAGA’s are ya gonna take a chance on losing your money 💰?
Right on. The only policy promoted by the incompetent Republicans are lies. There is no sane choice. It is a One Party Choice to save democracy. I know what happened in Pakistan. This keeps feeling similar.
The lower and middle class are not better off now. Real wages are down and the income inequality gap between the lower and middle classes and billionaires has increased significantly. Inflation and handouts are not the way to "lift" people up.
Inflation is caused by borrowing, mortgages, credit cards, that is short term inflation, long term inflation (inflation creep) is caused by the interest on debts, all debts, public, corporate private). Inflation has nothing to do with "handouts" Chris.
If by handouts you mean slopping at the government trough, then the real pigs are the corporations, the millionaires, the billionaires, the 10% of Americans who can take advantage of government programs that were devised to be socialism for the rich and corporations, including especially our tax code.
Inflation is caused by the government printing money. Everyone's house and used cars are seemingly more valuable since the prices rise, but if real wages don't keep up (which they haven't), then this is especially not good for the lower and middle classes.
Handouts, (ie the Government giving people money), is not the way to lift people up. I'm not a fan of big corporations getting handouts either. Less government would be helpful all the way around. We don't need our candidates to try to "fix" things by promising things like $25K for your first home...wide open borders don't help either.
What is your suggestion then? Surely not to merely "trust in Trump!"
That comment Adam was kind of facetious, wasn't it? And in logical fallacy terms, a strawman.
I’d suggest not giving the reins back to those who got us here. So option B looks much better.
Still time to make a blue tsunami. Do something.
https://www.mobilize.us/ft6/
I just met someone from Germany. She says that people in Germany think he is ridiculous and that Germans feel sorry for Americans that half of us are being led astray by a con man. They should know about con men, shouldn't they?
We should know about con men too; didn’t our soldiers fight and die for democracy in World War II as well? It may have been a lifetime ago for many of us, but the lessons still apply.
Jan : you are right : tRUMP is also burning down himself and the MAGA cult: every time he opens his mouth. "Shady " Vance is even worse! 🔥 look at their policy centerpiece::(killing women and girls , while denying those who want children IVF treatments. 🙄 Idiots all! Losers! For sure : even if they "win"! Like the billionaire's 'jackasses' they rode in on. If they want a class war : they will surely have one! There are more of US than there are of them. And even though We are not elephants : We Will Never Forget!
Yet there are MAGAt women. I would like to see a woman dissect the mentality of a MAGAt female.
William Farrar ; Some MAGAt women are most likely, indoctrinated to view those who want to be sexually active without intending to have a child, as 'promiscuous' ,Even when married and only with her husband. If they were raised Catholic, like I was, it seems unfair to them that any woman would have relations especially out of wedlock, when they themselves were "good girls" and abstained, even when single.
Thanks Laurie, but that doesn't quite explain the mentality and motivation of MAGA women.
By the way, it is men that have that view, women have the view that men do.
some cultures are afflicted with the madonna whore syndrome. Especially those cultures that coddle the male infant and child, the ones that produce Momma boys.
The thing is, I thought a nation that would vote for George Bush jr a second time wasn't quite "all there".So, no complacency for me.
I’d like to believe (and trust that I’m not naive in saying) that even if ‘the establishment’ as you refer to the government and our economic system were to burn down that the spirit of these United States would survive and rise from what might remain. We are more, much more, than our form of government, even as we are a part of it. We are an ideal, and a spirit that gives heart to that ideal and to the extent that ideal holds merit and truth it will not die, even if it appears to burn to mortal eyes.
Yes, let’s hope there are many many more rational people out there. Around here there are about fifty Trumpf signs or flags to one Harris. Really frightens me. The Trumpfers are accepting of a felon, liar 🤥, business failure, old doddering insane conman, etc., to represent them as president of the USA. Still concerned about the boxes of classified documents he stole. Yes, stole. What did he do with the information. Was he selling it? To whom ? What did he copy?
So agree with you
Is 70% enough?
From your lips to God's ear, Michael! We must, must win in November! Vote blue, America, up and down the ballot!
He and his cult followers have a “concept “of what they would replace the establishment with 🤪
Ashes
So are the rest of us.
Les Moonves, then CEO of CBS gave it away, when he told the board of directors. Trump is bad for America but great for CBS and they all chuckled in response.
The corporate media have a vested interest in keeping Trump front and center in the American tableau.
Profits dear friends, profits.
I love your analogy, Ann! You are right about MSM. Most of them are owned and run by far-right MAGAs. They only allow what they want to be aired. They want to keep the orange man in the running for the White House so they pick and choose what to air. They do what I've heard many call "sane-washing" to make it look as if the orange man is still cognizant of his surroundings when the truth is, he is old and suffering from dementia. I believe their purpose is to get him in the White House and then use Amendment 25 to put the vice-president in office. That would be couch vance and absolutely no sane person wants that! Vote blue, America, up and down the ballot!
You wish. No matter how nuts, he pulls eyeballs. Hulk Hogan in a suit. Amendment 25 would get us JD Vance, the angry little twit who threw his family under the bus in his autobiographical pre-presidential aspirational memoire. (JFK's prepresidential book was Profiles in Courage.) Just like Clarence Thomas, a working class kid who by virtue of intelligence and hard work benefitted from DEI to graduate from Yale law school. With chips on their shoulders and deep self hatred projected on those they left behind.
Peggy Freeman: tRUMP is 'crazy' like a FOX and full of guile, shrewdness. He just wants to appear hapless and clueless. He is a hateful opportunist predator. Who kills with no shame. Very scary indeed.
If you actually believe that Trump's mental pathology is all just an act, you too are affected by Trump contagion. He is seriously mentally damaged, and VERY dangerous.
I would bet that his handlers and sycophants are well aware of Trump’s mental deterioration, but are still determined to find him useful for their own evil agendas. I do not know who they are in their multitudes, but they are more terrifying than Trump.
Not being a professional and evaluating him, I obviously could not know his mental pathology. He pulls out the stops with the distractions and culture war horrors. To the point of killing people ( Covid misinfo, disparaging comments about Black's. Jews, Muslims, women of : :all races denying emergency medical care. I never said it was an act. But the extent to which he has control 🤔 over his actions is unknown by the casual. but freaked out observer. He certainly is not a well balanced ethical or sympathetic man He seems to enjoy hurting people. I have no doubt about how dangerous he is. The media sometimes does sanewashing to make him appear less of a threat: but who really believes that. I never said he is a sane, or harmless guy. As I said: He wants to appear to be an independent "cut _up" and his followers think he is a " hot $#it" rebel who is owning the Libs". He distracts from the puppet masters who control him with money and flattery., so the voters can't see where all their hard earned money is going : up to the billionaires.
Thomas : If you actually believe that I'm in thrall under tRUMP and cannot see his dangerousness: you have not read ANY of my posts during the almost 3 years that I have been a member of this forum. Please don't be affected by his contagion by gaslighting someone just because you can.
"The US MSM seems to be doing its darndest to keep the truth from the American electorate rather than helping it make an informed choice."
I tend to view it more as this way: A large percentage of Americans find an "information bubble" that suits them -- i.e. panders to their biases -- and rarely venture out of it. The media outlets are there to attract people and so reinforce the bubble that keeps their audiences intact.
Any American who WANTS to know the truth about any issue will not be lacking for resources out there. They just need to have some critical thinking skills.
and get out of their comfort zone in addition to the thinking skills.
And that is why "critical" thinking" is hard.
Right! -- I'm going add on edit > "and the inner strength to want to venture out of the bubble."
The right wing has an information bubble, it is reinforced by Fox, NewsMax, OANN, the Blaze, Truth Social and the ShitterFB algorithms.
There is no parallel on the left. Just reading RR's and other substack articles and comments one can easily see that we are being exposed to the right wing view, as well as other sources. Whereas those on the right get only news and info that confirms their bias. Most of them have never even heard of news that contradicts their beliefs. They don't even know that Haitians eating dogs has been effectively refuted, but believe it because that is what their sources tell them.
And then there is the much talk about critical thinking, which even those on the left have a deficiency.
For innstance HAMAS claims that over 41,000 Gazans were killed by the Jews, and voila the left sees 41,000 innocent women and children. Do they stop and realize that HAMAS is the sworn enemy of the Jews and has threatened genocide of the Jews, and that maybe, just maybe the 41,000 is a wild exagerration, and that they are purposefully leading one to believe that all of the 41,000 are women and children, when in fact about half are fighting age males that constitute the battalions of HAMAS and Islamic Jihad.
Half a million Russians have been killed in the Ukraine war, that Putin started, horrific statistic, until you consider that 99.999999999999999999% were soldiers.
Stalin (Russia) claimed that 26 million Russians died in WWII, but 8 million of them were soldiers, which Stalin fed into battle as bullet absorbers, that leaves 18 million civilians. I find that hard to believe that more Russian civilians than soliders died, especially since the German Army never reached Moscow.
Never the less it appears to be a game of one up man ship. Jews say 6 million died at the hands of the NAZI's, and 18 million divided by 6 million equal 3, So according to Russian propaganda, Russia suffered e times more than the Jews.
It is wonder we can breathe at all, because we are up to our necks in bullshit.
Read Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands before you talk about the Russian WWII dead. Most (not all) of the so-called Russian war dead were on the western fringes of the Soviet Union in Ukraine, the Belorussian and Ukrainian SSRs etc. and including the Jewish populations there. And there were many civilians among the total - capture a town, herd every inhabitant into the church and set fire to it.
Don't take the Jews' word for their deaths, then - you don't have to because the German military left its own tally of their killings on the Eastern Front.
And on the current killings in Gaza, it happens that the Gazan health authorities' estimates of deaths in previous conflicts have been found after those conflicts to have been fairly accurate. Even if one had to halve the current estimates it would still be quite some total and no, not all the deaths may be women and children but a lot are.
In other words, on all these subjects there are ways you can get a bit closer to the truth - don't tar everything with the same brush. I would agree though that standard American media is as usual not a good place to start.
I don't agree about the HAMAS health ministry estimates. I heard Martin Griffiths on Amanpour and Company, say that the UN accepted HAMAS, because he triangulated. WTF does that mean, triangulated with what and who. The only source of stats is from HAMAS, period.
People believe what they are pre disposed to believe, and that includes the USSR estimates.
I don't accept anything at face value, especially when the sources have a motive to exaggerate
And Haitian immigrants are eating pets. 40% of America believes that swill..
Confirmation bias big time
Totally agree with you Ann. As a fellow Brit I am astounded that Robert's piece is the first truly critical article I have read on this issue which clearly lays out the facts. One alarming policy not mentioned is Trump's threat to 'increase tarrifs on John Deer tractors/farm equipment by 200%' will kill the agriculture sector; in addition to the ridiculous plan to 'round up all immigrants and deport them.' The man is truly unhinged. Americans are facing starvation, insolationism, and a total collapse of their economy - not to mention the added knock on effects on the global economy. I for one would be calling for a total distancing of all American funded industry/imports here in the UK should Trump win as this will drag the UK down with it if we don't.
Re the proposed deportation of “illegal” migrants I was walking across the Ghetto in Venice a few days ago and saw a stunningly moving bas relief of Jews being herded into buses. It struck me then what this proposal really means.
Ann, it harkens back to hitler's time for me, too. I made a comment on a news feed that asked MAGA to take a minute and think of this scenario. You're in your home and suddenly you are invaded by militia. They round you up and herd you to this camp. When you ask, 'why are you doing this?' they tell you they are rounding up all the MAGAs and deporting them to the shit-hole countries the orange man has targeted. As they herd you onto the box car that will take you to that country, they brand your arm with a number. The orange man's is number one. Does it sound vaguely familiar? That's what the Nazis did in Germany. I asked them to put themselves in the position they are screaming they want immigrants to be in. It is nuts but some just cannot do that. They think that because they kiss the orange man's ring it will not happen to them until it does. Vote blue, America, up and down the ballot!
Or you get invaded and they say they are rounding up all non-MAGA.
But I'm a MAGA you protest (and you are in fact a MAGA).
"Not according to our records mam. Please come with us."
Point is,no one is safe when the rule of democratic law gives way.
Excellent point, Steve!
They think because they are WHITE it can't happen to them.
They won’t of course. In their heads they are immune to his wrath. If they could feel empathy they wouldn’t follow him.
Thanks Peggy. As I've said before, the MAGA folks just need to look up the story of "The Night of the Long Knives". They probably won't do it and won't learn from it if they do. Cheers... GH
Trump's proposed tariff on John Deere equipment has led to his latest branding opportunity: TRUMP Hoes.
"Nobody, but nobody, knows hoes like your favorite president, little ole me."
I actually wrote about this. Mainstream media betrayed us.
Fret not: King Biden I, per the alt right's clownish supreme court, has SUPREME POWER to nullify Bunkerboy's fraudulent election, should it come to that.
He CANNOT win now! ZERO percent! Oops.
Exactly. Agree entirely about the plan to replace Trump with Vance and asap after his inauguration (should it be some awful disaster come to pass) too.
“Turkeys voting for Christmas” is a common Brit saying BTW. I’ve never heard “turkeys voting for Thanksgiving” but it would work just as well.
Here in the USA, we often say: "like chickens voting for Colonel Sanders."
Slugs voting for salt is another, more appropriate one, I would aver! ;o)
she does need to hammer on how her policies will help people with their bread and butter concerns. Do NOT rely on abortion to carry too much of the weight to get her elected. It won't IMO.
Let's see now, 47% of the voting public are confirmed MAGAts, so the economy is not the issue with them, 47-50% are anti MAGAts. So Harris reaching for the 3 to 6%, most of whom probably don't vote anyway.
The Female vote is over 50% of the country, and it is highly motivated to vote for Harris, themale voteis highly motivated to vote against Harris, but they are MAGAts anway.
I honestly do not think that the economy is the issue, it is with the Billionaires, the Corporations, the franchisee's, these are the people that place ads on radio, TV and papers.
My personal opinion is that inflation and the economy are issues contrived by the money powers, those grise eminece's behind the throne. The same folk who pay for Polls, own and/or control the corporate media.
Joe and Jan six pack may bitch about the price of eggs, butter and tomatoes, primarily because that is what talking heads on TV tell them to bitch about, but if they aren't been told what to think and bitch about, there thoughts are preoccupied with their own little world and bubble.
You see we don't know what to complain about, to worry about until some one tells us our fly is open or are slip is showing.
We are cattle being led around by a ring through our nose, or is it sheep being herded by the shepherds crook.
She covers it quite a lot, but how much does the MSM report it?
Robert speaks to this in his excellent 14-part 'Wealth & Poverty' class he taught at Berkeley; available on YouTube. There was time when corporations were responsible to their employees, the communities in which they operated, and their shareholders. Now, it's only the latter.
So long as customers tip, the companies will not pay fair wages. It is tough but you have to say no tips.
There are no franchises or big box stores in my county, but one or twice a year I venture into the real world, and when I do, I always stop at a Jersey Mikes or Jimmy John's. (I have a thing for Italian hoagies, subs some call them, Grinders in California, but never as good as the one's in Philadelphia, when one goes to pay, there is first a selection for tip, 10 or 20 percent, and the kid at the cash register goes out of their way to remind you to pay their wages, because the franchise owner doesn't.
No such thing at Mackie D's, Booger King or Kentucky Flayed Chicken.
Well, your government could always legislate. France did, specifically for restaurants, and the price on the menu is now what you pay. And with a realistic overall minimum wage set by government even the Americans could get there .
The MSM (and Herr Marx or Gospodin Marx?) seem oblivious to reality. Your candidate is unfit. And a loser. And a tyrant.
Here are the fundamentals. "Today, there are about 91 million Americans who have voted for Biden and House Democrats since 2016, and about 83 million who have voted for Trump or House Republicans. If this pool of voters votes that way again, and if they constitute 80 percent of those voting in 2024 (a fairly conservative assumption), then the other 20 percent of voters would have to favor Trump by 18 points for him to overcome that deficit." Podheizer. Not to mention enthusiasm and new registrations favor Democrats.
I just want to know one thing, how did Trump bankrupt his casino? Even a novice businessman would have to be an absolute idiot to bankrupt a casino!
Well.......Trump's an idiot.
Your comment speaks for itself! His father tried to help him out by buying $100,000 worth of casino chips and not use them (an infusion of money) but that was not enough to fix his son's mess!
The only thing that could fix the mess that is Donald J Trump is a new law allowing retroactive Abortion !
My understanding is that it was 3 casinos he managed to bankrupt.
Keith Olson : Buying too many bimbos? And showing off a dozen Gold toilets. Too many unprofitable golf courses? Yachts? Lawyers....protection..
He treats his businesses as his personal bank accounts. What do you think he will do if he is president? Any contracts will go directly to HIS businesses! The scariest part of all is that he will have the nuclear codes of America!
Jan, and he'll sell off the entire country, land, resources, trade deals, assets, .... to the highest domestic or foreign bidders. And hell will come to us all. And I worry not about contracts going to his businesses, but to nefarious foreign actors who wish us harm and tfg being too self-absorbed to ponder or care.
He hates everyone.
Jan Yes,: He was quoted as saying " We have nukes: Why not use them?"
Smokey, thanks!
Leaving aside all the other defects of tariffs, they are devilishly difficult to enforce. They are ad valorem, meaning they are a function of cost. As the cost happens in another jurisdiction it is difficult to audit. Evasion does require deceit to disguise the cost the importer pays but it is often more than worth it. Trump is an idiot.
President Bidem kept Trump's origibal tariffs in place Many prices are falling
Protectionist policy may raise some domestic prices. This is offset, however, by higher donestic wages.
Reich is not telling the whole story.. And Democrats are shilling for Wall Street's misguided trade theories.
Hey, it's Vlad from Vladivostok! How's the weather in Russia? You still have that meathead in charge or has he fallen out of a window yet?
Tariff's are complicated, And do serve a purpose, but they must be applied judiciously and wisely, not carte blanche as Trump does.
When Henry VII ascended the throne after Bosworth, he found that he had become sovereign over a country that was the armpit of Europe. Poor, exploited, the roads were in disrepair, travel outside of London in the rain and your oxcart would be swalled up by potholes.
England's source of revenue (which was silver in those days)was export of raw wool, to the Low countries, were it was processed and turned into fabric, which was then imported.
England imported all fine goods, including artists.
Henry thenlevied an export tariff on raw wool, and the Netherlanders would not buy it, this forced the English to develop their own woolen industry. Which benefited my family, who were woolers, and all they did was sheer sheep, full the wool, dye it and bundle it for sale abroad.
Within a few years they were damming streams, building fulling mills and textile mills, and the family became wealthy, buying land, then renting it and leasing messauges and even
a coal mine to an Abraham Shaw.
It paid off, because by the time his son Henry VIII became sovereign, England was wealthy, so wealthy that he passed a Sumptuary Law that forbade commoners to wear fine linen, silks, furs, feathers in their hat and to otherwise dress like the nobility.
Even his adivsor Thomas Cromwell, who was not of the nobility could not dress like them, finally he was so rich that he could build and outfit with over 100 brass cannons, the biggest man of war ever made at that time the Mary Rose.
If you want to see how far England came because of export tariffs, compare a painting of Henry VIIII to his father Henry VII.
Henry VII also spurred other industries with import tariffs like silversmithing, alas the English never really mastered the art, but to the rescue came the Huguenots, fine silvermiiths, btw, Paul Revere was a silver smith, and he learned his trade from his Huguenot father, Apollonius Revoire.
The place to impose tariff's are on industries which you want to encourage. The only reason America lags behind Taiwan in the semi conductor industry, is because Intel and Nvida, used their profits to buy back stock to reward the investors (and CEO's/Chairman of the Board).
American corporations do not invest in product enhancement, R&D or innovation, they rest on their laurels and pour profits into investors, until they go bankrupt, and are taken over by foreign manufacturers and investors. Wash,rinse, repeat.
The sad truth is that a 200% import tariff on tractors will hurt the farmer in the short run, but it will in fact force John Deere and Caterpillar to keep manufacturing in this country.
What needs to be done is to put import tariffs on airplane parts, computer parts, cell phones and bring the industries and home back, but the uproar from our screen addict will be deafening, just look how they screeched when they threatened to ban Tik Tok.
We are a freakin nation of self obsessed addicts.
I know he retained them. The systems were set up so it was expedient to do so I expect. I am very hostile to tariffs because I was involved in their enforcement. Take my word for it they are monumentally difficult for the authorities. In the past they were a primary source of revenue along with land tax. I suspect the customs duties were by quantity rather than by cost. In the 20th century they were primarily for protection rather than revenue. The higher the tariff the less imports there will be. That is a poor result if you are trying to collect revenue. Don’t forget that tariff policy deepened the Great Depression due to retaliation. It would be very easy to put tariffs on American exports. Many of them are electronically transmitted and can be tapped with ease. Tariffs are deeply stupid.
Robert Walker, see my post above about how Henry VII used tariffs to make England wealthy and independent of foreign powers.
Professor Reich: as an overseas voter, i have my ballot printed out and will mail it today. i guess we all know who i'm voting for for POTUS!
That is a fascinating topic. I've often wondered about the American overseas vote, and forgot to include myself when I served in the Navy overseas.
There are between 3 and 4 million eligible voters living overseas, but relatively few vote. (Ballots have to be requested from the state considered the last "official residence" and that's where the ballots are counted.)
Writing from a north Atlanta suburb with Helene passing through for another few hours.
Today, in Washington DC, the World Mental Health Coalition holds a very important meeting to warn about Donald Trump's mental pathology -- which makes him a danger.
Stay safe, Thomas! Helene was a monster! I live in Florida but thankfully, in the center of the state. We got wind and rain but not what our coastal neighbors had to deal with! Vote blue, America, up and down the ballot!
Thank you, Peggy. I'll be early voting in person as soon as it opens up on October 15. Quite often, I'll add a note or two about what's happening here in Georgia.
Everyone's still talking about his "protector of women" riff he gave on the 24th in Savannah.
I just talked to my sister there in Georgia. She said the eye passed over during the night while she was asleep! I do remember his comments about "protector of women" and it made my skin crawl! Eeeewwwww! Looking forward to hearing how things are going in your neck of the woods!
Unbelieveably, Trumps "protecter of women" appeals to that percentage of the female population that votes for him, that's why the vote for him in the first place, we can only hope that the majority of women were and are as repelled as you are.
So many women think the orange man is repugnant! I hope, like you, that the majority of women in this country are repelled enough by the orange man they vote blue in November!
The proverbial Fox guarding 💂♀️ the hen 🏠.
Whenever I start to feeling down -- and I didn't realize your connections with Georgia, Peggy -- I play this video of Senator Raphael's speech at the FIRST Kamala Harris rally in Atlanta in late July. It is one of the best welcoming addresses I have ever heard -- and it always leaves me filled with hope and more than a few joyful tears.
We are so lucky to have these two wonderful senators. Keep in mind that Rev. Warnock beat his Republican opponents FOUR straight times. Twice in the November elections of 2020 and 2022, and twice in the January run-offs.
So if EVER you need some picking up .... I think we're going to get the last laugh again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl1joi_Jyic
Oh Thomas! What a powerful message! As I listened to Sen. Warnock, I thought about Rep. John Lewis and everything he did for our country. Sen. Warnock is powerful like that. The letter to his daughter made me cry. Thank you for sharing that. What I saw in the crowd was happiness, enthusiasm, hope and laughter. We need that so much now. Vote blue, America, up and down the ballot!
The "letter to Chloe" ALWAYS gets me. And I just LOVE the faces in that crowd!!
We're going to do this again... more to follow.
Yes we are, Thomas! More votes for Kamala than last time! A huge blue Tsunami washing over and sending MAGA out! Let's do this! Vote blue, America, up and down the ballot!
Thomas : I hope you survive this storm, in good health. Also the orange hurricane/tornado.
We only lost our hot water -- going under into the crawl space to try turn the gas water heater back on. Thank you.
Good luck : be careful.
Prof., am curious. How come no media pundit or opposition Democrat has asked Trump to explain his 6 bankruptcies?
bankruptcy for the rich is a strategy to dump debt
The current fractional reserve rate is 0%, which means that financial institutions when they finance debt (mortgages, car loans, boats, airplanes and credit cards) are not required to keep any reserves on hand.
Reserves are government securities, corporate securities and demand deposits (checking accounts) Savings accounts are not part of the reserve base.
When, say, the fractional reserve rate was 10%, like when I bought my home, the bank was required to have on hand enough reserves (bonds and checking accounts) to cover 10% of the loan. Today they have none, and everything penny in interest that they take in from the loan is profit. And payment on principal, simply decreases the balance of the loan on the books, and also decreases the amount of money in circulation.
Were it not for debts, public, corporate private, there would be no money in circulation.
The greater the demand for debt, the more money in circulation. If you want to get through a recession, then encourage indebtedness, if you want to shrink and economy raise interest rates and deter indebtedness.
Financial institutions lose nothing, especially if they have already recouped their initial fractional reserve investment, which today is nothing, when a bankruptcy is declared.
That is why they are able to bundle and sell mortgages and car loans, because what the other financial institution is actually buying is the interest, The seller of a loan simply zero's the books of the initial loan, it has lost nothing.
We must be ambitious and aggressive, Ann Higgins. just like Kamala Devi essentially is and is starting to be more in the open. Why, she's even giving Trumpelstiltskin a run for his money in swing states like North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada. Perhaps, even Ted Cruztello may lose his Senate seat in Texas. The sky's the limit, as I continue to predict we Democrats will win big this time (and I'm willing to bet $1,000 that our margin will be 11 million votes). After all, not only have the banana Republicans failed miserably at "commanding" the US House of Representatives under Speaker Johnson, with one of the worst records in the history of our Congress, the last time they held the Presidency due to the Electoral College manipulations of Pukin's hackers, we had 2 million MAGA deaths in the Americas owing to Covid-19 and their stupid refusal to heed sound scientific advice.
They believe trump. I guess they didn't realize that Covid was like the flu and would just go away (according to trump)! They believed trump! They do not live in the real world, they live in trump's world! I wish there were a pill to give them to make them wake up to trump's lies! In the meantime, we need to get out in record numbers and vote for Harris/Walz!
Excellent! Thank you for this informative, creative video. I he already shared it with the media, people leaning toward Trump (because they felt the economy was better) and Harris voters for them to share. You are brilliant!
I just hope enough people will pay attention to it and stop being blinded by trump! I do not understand how anyone can vote for him.
(have not he. Can’t edit)
If you’re in a browser there are 3 dots on the lower right of your comment, select that. On the phone app, I don’t know, it refuses to size to my iPad screen, so I don’t use it.
People are ignorant of history - they don’t know that when a Trump ICE descends on a small business to round up workers to deport, mistakes will be made in the frenzy. Innocents will be collected and held in detention camps without legal recourse. Businesses will be ruined. Some people will be injured or killed. Consumers, and the general economy, will be damaged. Any people of any ethnicity who support Trump are not only ignorant! They are blind and stupid too…
What about the Muslims and young black males who have said that they won't vote Democrat?
They are in essence saying that they will be happy with Trump,even if they don't vote for him, one less vote for Kamala is one more vote that Trump doesn't need, thus a vote for Trump.
What kind of deal do you think that Muslims and young black males, or blacks period, will get from Trump?
Republicans are the largest group of idiots on parade that I have ever seen in my 73 years. And I have seen a lot of idiots during that time.
100% agree!
Thank you Prof. Reich for your brilliant new video that reminds us yet again in the most vividly convincing way that Trump has indeed lost more marbles that he'll ever be able to replace.
He started out with a marble deficit anyway!
Done - I've let friends and relations who are US citizens know.
Please.... would someone point out that the Trump tax cuts that primarily benefited the wealthier Americans was created out of star-dust. The money was, and continues to be borrowed, with the national debt still expanding at a frightening rate. This debt falls to the middle class to pay, along with their children and grand-children. If allowed into the White House again he will double it. Ellis Johnson M.D.
It another case of his “ making shit up as he goes along”
Tariffs are paid by the people who pay the price to get foreign goods here
Econ 101!!!
It will certainly cost us at the end
Let not go there
Social Security, Medicare etc all will be gone when don does away with the federal bureaucracy !!
Wanna guess how many people at the rallies need those??
Bet it’s lots!! Do they know that … maybe not?
Pls tell em’ that’s the chance they’re taking !!
Debt is a funny thing, not understood by the citizen. The national debt is not the household debt. You owe money to someone else,who can have you arrested, take your property and hound you forever.
Our national debt is owed to ourselves. Granted the Association of Primary Dealers in Government Securities sells it to foreign sovereign funds, central banks and investors, but they are unable to foreclose on us if we don't pay them.
It isn't the debt that is the problem, it is the interest on the debt that is the problem, it is the interest that is primarily responsible for devaluation of the medium of exchange, aka inflation.
Let's say that Congress does not fund the government this year. The treasury would not print government securities and this cabal of 25 financial institutions, The Association of Primary Dealers in Government Securities https://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/primarydealers
Would not have any bonds and bills to buy from the Treasury and sell to the Fed, the Saudi and China sovereign funds, European Central Banks, the World Bank and IMF..
You would have an immediate world wide depression. you really would.
Let say we have the fictional balanced budget, where the budget supposedly matches expected revenues (expected is the key word).
The Treasury still prints up bonds and bills, sells them at discount to the APDGS, who then sells them to the Fed and foreign investors., but the revenue comes in later, probably less than expected. And where does the revenue go?
It goes to pay 1st the interest on the debt, and then 2nd to the principal.
As of July 2024, the United States government has a monthly interest rate of 3.33 percent on its debt, continuing an upward trend in interest rates that began at the beginning of 2022
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that interest payments will total $892 billion in fiscal year 2024 and rise rapidly throughout the next decade — climbing from $1 trillion in 2025 to $1.7 trillion in 2034. In total, net interest payments will total $12.9 trillion over the next decade
But we owe it to ourselves, there is no sheriff out there ready to dispossess us, however a country can act as a sheriff.
In fact a lot of wars were fought in Europe as for the purpose of paying off debts.
The first international bankers, besides the Templars, were the Fugger brothers of Italy, Christians who loaned Ferdinand and Isabella a princely sum, but the royals reneged on the debts and the Fuggers were the first in history to go bankrupt. They did not have a powerful monarch that would or could declare war on Spain to reover the loan.
Isabella and Ferdinand were cash poor, but there way out was to issue and edict declaring Muslims and Jews persona non grata , and set a date of Aug 3,1492, the same day Columbus set sail for them to leave, and then the king confiscated all of the property left behind.
At root my friend, is defining what is a medium of exchange, currency, money.
The choices are
1. Barter, How much labor are you worth to buy food at Safeway, put gas in your car, or pay your electric bill,much less pay for that iPhone and computer.
2. Some resource, When Rome was a Republic before it was an Empire, legionaires were paid in salt, hence our word salary.
Resources are scarce and they are plentiful, once salt was scarce and thus valuable because with it you could preserve fish and meat. Then copper, then bronze and later gold and silver.
However there isn't enough gold or silver to serve the function of gold, and it is not fungible, except through dire means, and requires proofing and constant weighing.
There was a practice of coin clipping,people would shave the edges of coin to collect the silver, until it was little more than a grain. A law was passed that made coin clipping a capital offense (hanging, along with smuggling)
Russia adopted a 100% gold standard, where a ruble was valued at .981 grams fine, and they printed only enough rubles to cover the gold on hand, and the result was a perpetual shortage of money, which is a depression. The depression was rationalized and excused as the exigencies of the cold war., in the west communism was to blame, well in a way it was, because the USSR adopted the Marxian gold as the standard of value, as opposed to the labor theory of value, the value of labor was weighed against gold.
3. Printing press money. The real definition of what is meant by fiat money, Examples are the German hyperinflation of 1922, South America companies like Argentina have resorted to fiat money. and the Continental of the American Revolution, however we are't told the truth about the Continental, because the Bank of England counterfeited the Continental into obscurity.
Washington's troops outside of Trenton, intercepted a wagon train, with barrels of forged Continentals, and that was not the only shipment.
4. A fractional reserve debt money system. Which is a system which the quantity of the medium of exchange can be regulated based on consumer demand.
When consumer demand responds to interest rates, then interest rates can regulated the amount of dollars in circulation(the benefit is that as debts are paid off, the are taken off the books.. double entry book keeping, if not we would not be able to walk down the street, there would be so much money in circulation (OK that is an exaggeration )
The down side is that the interest on the debt, creates inflation, two kinds, long term and short term, long term is why a $.05 Clark Bar in 1946 costs $1.50 today, why a Car that cost $2,000 in 1964 costs $35,000 today, why a home that cost $9,000 in 1960 costs $240,000 today.
Short term inflation is why a loaf of bread that cost $1.98 in 2017 costs $4.98 today.
If there was competition, instead of conglomerates and collusion, that price today would go down. Eggs are an example of price response to demand and supply, but apparently perishables like milk and eggs are the only response.
5. Unknown mechanism for a medium of exchange. If anybody has an idea, a workable one other than those mentioned above. Go for it.
In closing I mention that the world and the United States have experience gold and silver inflation and depression.
The silver mines of Potosi, Bolivia actually led to the demise of the Spanish Empire, there was so much silver in ciruclation that the Spanish Real was worthless, and that led to the loss of the Netherlands as a Spanish possession.
In America the discovery of the Comstock lode, created a boom, and Virginia City rose from the desert, but it wasn't long before there was a silver inflation, and the response of Congress was to demonetize silver, and gold became the official monetary unit of the country, this led to a 23 year year long depression, 1873-1896, (The long depression, worse than 1930
DEFEAT TREASONOUS, TERRORIST, NAZIS, FELONS, RAPISTS AND CON REPUBLICONS EVERYWHERE. VOTE TO PRESERVE DEMOCRACY AND FREEDOM.
Mainstream media continues to cover this like a normal election. Why hasn’t anyone mentioned Rachel Maddow’s documentary about Russia interfering in the elections on any of the news shows? Why hasn’t anyone gone to prison for this in the government? Insanity!
There’s not enough cells in the present prison system to accommodate all of the Trump backers who belong there !
Remember when Russian "meddling" was first reported in 2015, on page 9, at the bottom, in small print.
Our MSM just sucks for the most part. It's as if nothing was learned the last 8 years, too often anyway.
But it aired on MSNBC then just went away!???
The quest to end Superpacs: Initiative (Question 1) on the Maine ballot.
If voters pass it, and it is upheld by the courts, it would spell the end of Superpacs everywhere.
https://blubrry.com/anotherway/136644559/s6e8-the-campaign-in-maine/?sbe=1#autoplay