Nov 132016
 
 November 13, 2016  Posted by at 9:56 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,


Andy Thomas: Grand Ol’ Gang

Stupid Americans Elect An Absurd and Dangerous President (Spiegel)
Trump Adviser Scaramucci Takes Aim at Conservatives’ Budgetary Restraint (BBG)
Trump’s Truthful Heresy On Globalization And Free Trade (Steve Keen)
Clinton Blames FBI’s Comey For Her Defeat In Call With Donors (R.)
Sidney Blumenthal: Right-Wing FBI Agents Took Down Hillary In Coup D’État (ZH)
NY Times Publisher Vows To ‘Rededicate’ Paper To Reporting Honestly (Fox)
President Trump: How & Why… (Jonathan Pie)
Putin Aide: Trump Could Build Confidence With NATO Pullback (AP)
S&P Predicts Hard Brexit And Fresh Downgrade For UK (G.)
Obama: Greeks ‘Need Hope’ (Kath.)
Erdogan: If 3 Million Refugees March To Europe, EU Won’t Know What To Do (TM)
US To Accept Refugees That Australia Refuses To Resettle (BBC)

 

 

Just trying to make friends.

Stupid Americans Elect An Absurd and Dangerous President (Spiegel)

Although Trump will become the democratically elected 45th president of the United States on January 20, he remains a dangerous man. He is dangerously indifferent, unbalanced and inexperienced — and he is dangerously racist. Trump believes in the superiority of the white race, and if he implements the worst of his campaign promises, he will not be the first elected leader to do so. In other words, 60 million Americans acted stupidly. They cast their votes for xenophobia, racism and nationalism, the end of equal rights and social conscience, for the end of climate treaties and health insurance. Sixty million people followed a demagogue who will do little for them. And yet… this election goes deeper than that.

It says more than that, and all of us, including the media, politicians and civil societies, and unfortunately the entire West, which is now threatened, would be wise to pay far closer attention. Those who have lived in New York or experienced dinner conversations in Georgetown and debates at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, know how brilliantly intelligent and worldly Americans can be. But these are closed circles – ones that are unfortunately nowhere near as open as they like to claim, inaccessible as they are to the vast majority of Americans who could never afford access. Once you get outside such circles, such cosmopolitan thinking isn’t nearly as widespread.

Those who have traveled recently from the East Coast to the West Coast, and witnessed the neglect and deterioration of entire towns and cities in states like Georgia, Alabama and Louisiana, have seen with their own eyes that connections have been severed in American society. Those who have seen what the disappearance of the steel industry has done and what the computer chip has wrought is familiar with the widespread frustration among the white working class, a group that has been left behind. Harvard University and Akron, Ohio, or Wall Street and Birmingham, Alabama, no longer have anything in common when 0.1% of society possesses 90% of the wealth. This is when the American dream is dead and when hate thrives – hate for immigrants, women, the media, and hate for anything that seems elitist or is simply different.

This doesn’t justify the hate – it simply explains it. The tragedy here is that Clinton offered ideas to fight the roots of this hatred, ideas like a higher minimum wage and investments in infrastructure and education. It is tragic because it was too late for credible plans. Trump had no ideas, but he sensed that the left-behinds yearn for strength. After Barack Obama’s victories, the pundits said that demographic change meant that no US election could be won again without the Latino vote. But Trump gave the Latinos a big fuck you, insinuating that the left-behinds are superior. His words were as crude as those spoken in Germany 80 years ago.

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“Business people like Mr. Trump understand you can grow yourself out of excessive debt.”

Trump Adviser Scaramucci Takes Aim at Conservatives’ Budgetary Restraint (BBG)

Don’t expect President-elect Donald Trump to adhere consistently to traditional Republican economic policy, or even to positions Trump staked out during his election campaign. That’s the message in an opinion piece written in the Financial Times by Trump economic adviser Anthony Scaramucci that took a swipe at the budgetary discipline promoted for years by fiscal conservatives in the U.S. and Europe. It may point to a coming rift between the new executive branch and the Republican-controlled Congress. “Mr. Trump is a different type of leader not burdened by rigid ideology,” Scaramucci said. “He is not dogmatic about policy positions. Rather, he has set bold targets from which to begin negotiations.”

Scaramucci ran though some of Trump’s previously-announced plans, including a proposal for a 10-percent one-off repatriation fee for companies. Trump would “ideally” like to see corporate tax rates cut to 15% from 35%, he said, adding that even a reduction to equal the U.K. rate of 20% would add nearly $600 billion to U.S. GDP. Founder of the investment firm SkyBridge Capital, Scaramucci, 52, was named on Friday to the executive committee of Trump’s transition team. The 16-person list also includes Dune Capital CEO Steve Mnuchin, who was finance chairman of Trump’s campaign; Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee; and three of the president-elect’s children.

Scaramucci said global economies are still battling deflation largely because of a movement toward fiscal austerity that followed the 2008-2009 global economic crisis. “While easy-money monetary policies have exacerbated the income divide, central bankers handcuffed by political dysfunction have had little choice but to provide extraordinary accommodation,” he said. “Business people like Mr. Trump understand you can grow yourself out of excessive debt.”

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Steve illustrates his view with an excellent critique of David Ricardo, but I have no space for that here. Read the article.

Trump’s Truthful Heresy On Globalization And Free Trade (Steve Keen)

Dear President Trump, Nothing shuts a loud party down faster than the neighbours bashing the door in. You have just done that to the Washington Party, which—regardless of whether the President has been a Republican or a Democrat—has been the party of Globalisation and Free Trade ever since the 1970s. You declared that this party might have been good for the Washington and Wall Street elites, but it’s been bad for their neighbours, “the forgotten people” of America who once made up its manufacturing workers. So forget it folks, the party’s over. Go home. You’re right. Plenty of people will try to convince you that globalization and free trade could benefit everyone, if only the gains were more fairly shared.

The only problem with the party, they’ll say, is that the neighbours weren’t invited. We’ll share the benefits more equally now, we promise. Let’s keep the party going. Globalization and Free Trade are good. This belief is shared by almost all politicians in both parties, and it’s an article of faith for the economics profession. You are right to reject it. It’s a fallacy based on a fantasy.. [..] the gains from trade for everyone and for every country that could supposedly be shared more fairly simply aren’t there in the first place. Specialization is a con job—but one that the Washington elite fell for (to its benefit, of course). Rather than making a country better off, specialization makes it worse off, with scrapped machinery that’s no longer useful for anything, and with less ways to invent new industries from which growth actually comes.

Excellent real-world research by Harvard University’s “Atlas of Economic Complexity” has found diversity, not specialization, is the “magic ingredient” that actually generates growth. Successful countries have a diversified set of industries, and they grow more rapidly than more specialized economies because they can invent new industries by melding existing ones. My favourite example here is sailboards. To invent them in the first place, it helps to have local industries producing both surfboards and sails. Of course, specialization, and the trade it necessitates, generates plenty of financial services and insurance fees, and plenty of international junkets to negotiate trade deals. The wealthy elite that hangs out in the Washington party benefits, but the country as a whole loses, especially its working class. Forget it folks, the party’s over. Go home.

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It couldn’t have been her own fault, could it?

Clinton Blames FBI’s Comey For Her Defeat In Call With Donors (R.)

Hillary Clinton blamed FBI director James Comey for her stunning defeat in Tuesday’s presidential election in a conference call with her top campaign funders on Saturday, according to two participants who were on the call. Clinton was projected by nearly every national public opinion poll as the heavy favorite going into Tuesday’s race. Instead, Republican Donald Trump won the election, shocking many throughout the nation and prompting widespread protests. Clinton has kept a low profile since her defeat after delivering her concession speech on Wednesday morning. Clinton told her supporters on Saturday that her team had drafted a memo that looked at the changing opinion polls leading up to the election and that the letter from Comey proved to be a turning point.

She said Comey’s decision to go public with the renewed examination of her email server had caused an erosion of support in the upper Midwest, according to three people familiar with the call. Clinton lost in Wisconsin, the first time since 1984 that the state favored the Republican candidate in a presidential election. Although the final result in Michigan has still not been tallied, it is leaning Republican, in a state that last favored the Republican nominee in 1988. Comey sent a letter to Congress only days before the election announcing that he was reinstating an investigation into whether Clinton mishandled classified information when she used a private email server while secretary of state from 2009 to 2012.

Comey announced a week later that he had reviewed emails and continued to believe she should not be prosecuted, but the political damage was already done. Clinton told donors that Trump was able to seize on both of Comey’s announcements and use them to attack her, according to two participants on the call.

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Blumenthal’s the Clinton ally that Obama told her to stop conferring with. He’s rumored to be the main reason she set up her private server, in order to keep talking to me regardless, and keep it all secret.

Sidney Blumenthal: Right-Wing FBI Agents Took Down Hillary In Coup D’État (ZH)

After weeks/months of the Hillary campaign bashing Trump for “irresponsibly” questioning the legitimacy of the election process, Clinton-insider, Sid Blumenthal, is apparently making the media rounds in Europe attributing her loss to a “coup d’etat” organized by “a cabal of right-wing agents of the FBI in the New York office attached to Rudy Giuliani.” “It was the result of a cabal of right-wing agents of the FBI in the New York office attached to Rudy Giuliani, who was a member of Trump’s campaign.”I think it’s not unfair to call it a coup. Yeah, a coup d’etat.” Of course, Blumenthal is well known within Clinton world for his wild conspiracy theories as John Podesta pointed out he is “lost in his own web of conspiracies.” “Sid is lost in his own web of conspiracies. I pay zero attention to what he says.” It would probably be pointless to highlight for Sydney that there would never have been an FBI investigation had Hillary not blatantly violated multiple federal laws for her “convenience”…details.

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If the NYT had actually “reported on both candidates fairly”, the change wouldn’t have been necessary. Then again, the Dems are blaming the press for having been biased AGAINST HER! Anything goes.

NY Times Publisher Vows To ‘Rededicate’ Paper To Reporting Honestly (Fox)

The publisher of The New York Times penned a letter to readers Friday promising that the paper would “reflect” on its coverage of this year’s election while rededicating itself to reporting on “America and the world” honestly. Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., the paper’s embattled publisher, appealed to Times readers for their continued support. “We cannot deliver the independent, original journalism for which we are known without the loyalty of our subscribers,” the letter states. New York Post columnist and former Times reporter Michael Goodwin wrote, “because it (The Times) demonized Trump from start to finish, it failed to realize he was onto something. And because the paper decided that Trump’s supporters were a rabble of racist rednecks and homophobes, it didn’t have a clue about what was happening in the lives of the Americans who elected the new president.

Sulzbergers letter was released after the paper’s public editor, Liz Spayd, took the paper to task for its election coverage. She pointed out how its polling feature Upshot gave Hillary Clinton an 84% chance as voters went to the polls. She compared stories that the paper ran about President-elect Donald Trump and Clinton, where the paper made Clinton look functional and organized and the Trump discombobulated. Spayd wrote, “Readers are sending letters of complaint at a rapid rate. Here’s one that summed up the feelings succinctly, from Kathleen Casey of Houston: “Now, that the world has been upended and you are all, to a person, in a state of surprise and shock, you may want to consider whether you should change your focus from telling the reader what and how to think, and instead devote yourselves to finding out what the reader (and nonreaders) actually think.”

She wrote about another reader who asked that the paper should focus on the electorate instead of “pushing the limited agenda of your editors.” “Please come down from your New York City skyscraper and join the rest of us.” Sulzberger—who insisted that the paper covered both candidates fairly- also sent a note to staffers on Friday reminding the newsroom to “give the news impartially, without fear or favor.” “But we also approach the incoming Trump administration without bias,” he said.

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Jonathan Pie is a spoof news reporter played by actor Tom Walker. Not a bad rant. h/t Nicole

President Trump: How & Why… (Jonathan Pie)

In case you missed it, I shot my bolt early this week & went viral in the process.

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Stop blaming Russia for NATO making up a reason to continue to exist.

Putin Aide: Trump Could Build Confidence With NATO Pullback (AP)

Vladimir Putin’s spokesman says one way Donald Trump could help build confidence with Russia after he becomes president would be to persuade NATO to slow down its expansion or withdraw its forces from Russia’s borders. Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with AP that this “would lead to a kind of detente in Europe.” But unfortunately, he said, Russia now sees “NATO’s muscles … getting bigger and bigger and closer and closer to Russian borders.” At a NATO summit in July, the Western alliance said it is building up positions in Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in response to what it sees as escalating tensions with Russia. The United States is sending 1,000 troops to Poland next year. Trump has praised Putin as a strong leader and suggested that the U.S. could abandon its NATO commitments, which include mutual defense in case of attack.

The president-elect says NATO was created to confront a threat — the Soviet Union — that no longer exists and has called the alliance “obsolete” and a bad deal for America. He argues that the U.S. gets too little out of decades-old security partnerships like NATO, which is anchored in Europe but traditionally led by the United States. Peskov, who is considered one of Putin’s closest aides, called NATO “an instrument of confrontation.” When its forces are being enlarged and deploying closer and closer to Russia’s borders, he said, “we do not feel ourselves safe.” “Of course, we have to take measures to counter,” Peskov said. As “confidence-building measures” to reduce U.S.-Russia tensions in a Trump presidency “let’s say slow down or withdrawal of NATO’s military potential from our borders potentially would ease this situation,” he said.

It’s highly unusual for Peskov to travel abroad separately from Putin, but he is chairman of the board of the Russian Chess Federation and came to New York to attend Friday’s opening of the world championship match between Russia’s Sergei Karyakin and Norway’s Magnus Carlsen. The organizers invited Trump to attend but he did not show up. On other global issues, Peskov said in an interview Thursday at the venue for the championship that there is no possibility of “a breakthrough” to end the more than five-year Syria conflict unless the so-called moderate opposition is separated from “terrorist groups” including the Nusra Front and Islamic State extremists. The U.S. was supposed to do this under a Russia-U.S.-brokered cease-fire, but Peskov said Washington, unfortunately, was unable to do so. The cease-fire collapsed in September as the Syrian army launched an offensive on rebel-held eastern Aleppo under the cover of Russian warplanes.

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Within a year lots of Britons will realize that being out of the EU is a blessing.

S&P Predicts Hard Brexit And Fresh Downgrade For UK (G.)

Britain is in store for a hard Brexit that will hit the UK economy and lay bare the deep divisions in British society, a leading ratings agency has warned. In a bleak assessment of the UK’s prospects following the EU referendum, Standard & Poor’s said Britain was a diminishing global economic power on the verge of losing the ability to freely export goods and services to the EU. S&P said the UK was at risk of a further downgrade, following its unusual decision to slash the rating by two notches from the top AAA rating to AA, following the 23 June referendum. Moritz Kraemer, S&P global ratings chief sovereign credit officer, described that downgrade as “an extraordinary rating action, underlining the unprecedented step that is Brexit”.

He added: “Far from healing festering wounds, as was then PM David Cameron’s intention, the referendum has deepened and laid bare the schisms in British society. “Most of the economic impact will hit Britain itself. The second-round effect on the world economy is likely to be more limited, as the UK economy accounts for a small and shrinking share of global GDP.” The agency cited data from the International Monetary Fund, which suggested the UK’s share of the world economy will shrink from about 5% in 1980 to just over 3% in 2020. Kraemer said: “It is hard to fathom how a rather hard Brexit can be avoided unless both sides become much more flexible than they appear today. Nothing today suggests that a common quest for compromise will overcome the gulf that now looks as wide as the English Channel.”

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He could do much more, or have done at least, and all there is is words.

Obama: Greeks ‘Need Hope’ (Kath.)

You have played an important role in making sure that Greece remains in the eurozone and have repeatedly stated that it should get serious debt relief. Why did you do this and what should the way forward be in terms of promoting reforms, dealing with the debt issue and the strengthening of European institutions? How can the US help Greece in this, in practical terms? Is this going to be a priority during your visit to Berlin? Greece is a democracy, and the future of Greece will be decided by the Greek people. I have strongly supported efforts to keep Greece in the eurozone because I share the view of the vast majority of Greeks that this outcome is in Greece’s best interest. I believe that European integration is one of the greatest political and economic achievements of modern times, with benefits for EU members, the United States and the entire world.

Europe is our largest economic partner and we have a profound economic interest in a Europe that is stable and growing. Without question, Greece had to take steps to reform its economy, and I want to commend the Greek government, including Prime Minister Tsipras, and the Greek people for the very difficult and painful steps they’ve taken to show that Greece is working to help itself. The Greek budget is now in surplus and Parliament has passed tough reforms that will help make the Greek economy more competitive.

But there’s still clearly more to be done. My visit will therefore be an opportunity to reaffirm US support for reforms that improve the business climate, ensure that the imbalances that caused the crisis don’t re-emerge, and lay the foundation for a stronger economic recovery that helps improve the daily lives of the Greek people. I am a strong believer that to make reforms sustainable, people need hope. The IMF has said that debt relief is crucial to put Greece’s economy on a sustainable path and set the stage for a return to prosperity. This is why I will continue to urge Greece’s creditors to take the steps needed to ensure the country is well placed to return to robust economic growth, including by providing meaningful debt relief. Getting that done would not only fuel the Greek economic recovery, it would also show that Europe can make its economy work for everyone.

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How many times have I said the refugee deal would backfire on the EU?

Erdogan: If 3 Million Refugees March To Europe, EU Won’t Know What To Do (TM)

In yet another veiled threat to the European Union, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey currently hosts 3 million refugees and that if they were to march to Europe, the EU would not know what to do with them. In an interview with the Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV, Erdogan said the 3 million refugees in Turkey could march to Europe, without explaining how they might do that. In a progress report released earlier this week, the EU severely criticized Turkey for backsliding in democracy but praised its efforts to contain refugees inside the country. Criticizing Europe for not accepting even 100 or 500 refugees, Erdogan brought to mind the EU’s promise to give Turkey 3 billion euros in June in addition to another 3 billion.

“As far as I can remember, until now the EU has only given Turkey 250-300 million euros”, Erdogan said. The EU has been criticized for not taking any concrete action against Turkey despite growing despotism in the country for the sake of a refugee deal that was agreed earlier this year. Following a further crackdown on media and the opposition last week, several EU politicians called for a suspension of accession talks with Turkey until the rule of law is restored. Erdogan’s veiled threat to Europe came amid increasing criticism from the continent. Meanwhile, Galip Ozturk, the owner of one of the largest passenger bus fleets in Turkey, wrote on Twitter on Friday that he is ready to transport migrants to the EU border upon Erdogan’s orders.

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Aussies are good at cattle trade?!

US To Accept Refugees That Australia Refuses To Resettle (BBC)

Australia and the US have reached a resettlement deal for asylum seekers held in offshore detention centres in Papua New Guinea and Nauru. Under the agreement, the migrants there will be assessed and the most vulnerable will be resettled in the US. About 1,200 people are being held in the asylum centres on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea and on Nauru island. Australia’s policy of sending migrants who arrive by boat to offshore facilities has been criticised. Announcing the deal with the US on Sunday, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the resettlement process would be gradual. “US authorities will conduct their own assessment of refugees and decide which people are resettled in the US,” he said.

He did not say how many refugees would be relocated, but said that women, children and families would be prioritised. The agreement, to be administered with the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR, is available only to those currently in the processing centres. “It is a one-off agreement. It will not be repeated,” Mr Turnbull said. US Secretary of State John Kerry confirmed the arrangement, adding that his country was “very engaged” with the UNHCR and helping refugees “there and in other parts of the world”. Refugees who are eligible for asylum in the US but reject it would be offered a 20-year Nauru visa instead.

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Home Forums Debt Rattle November 13 2016

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  • #31328

    Andy Thomas: Grand Ol’ Gang • Stupid Americans Elect An Absurd and Dangerous President (Spiegel) • Trump Adviser Scaramucci Takes Aim at Conservatives
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle November 13 2016]

    #31329
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    I posted this a Ian Welsh”s place;
    Comfort dogs, hug centers, counseling centers?
    I’d say the first order of business is to fix the psychologically ill and fractured U.S. society.
    A bunch of grown up babies with the maturity of infants.
    Shameful post election behavior…

    It was Clinton’s election to lose; and SHE did. Was it dirty politics? No more so than what the DNC did to Bernie.
    Boo hoo; Usians got the president they deserve, in spades.
    Now, if everybody can calm down; Trump may prove to mellow out a bit now that he has the office.
    If not; oh well, be careful what you wish for; frankly my dear, I don’t give a shit anymore…

    #31330
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Addendum; I call b*llsh*t on the Comey letter as the reason for Clinton’s defeat.
    Just eliminate the letter and there is a mountain of evidence of corruption, collusion (Lynch), and outright pay to play via the Clinton Foundation and her husband(?) Bill.
    The rot runs so deep, it defies defining.
    The Usians are 100% responsible for their apathy and impotence.

    #31331
    rapier
    Participant

    Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Trump is corrupt in the good old fashioned way. One on one, mano y mano. The Clinton’s and Obama in the new way, institution to institution. Linkedin institutional player to liinkedin institutional player. Trump’s way may be better system wide wise or it may not be but we may never find out. The linked in are already swarming to the administration and Trump, with the attention span of a gnat, is already talking about being a part time president.

    If the bizarre reversal in the stock markets does not break down and the DOW rises above 19,000 then you will know the deal is done, the fix is in and the wiseguys are still in control.

    Meanwhile “But not to worry. There will be plenty of opportunities for you to learn from your mistakes. You see, the battle that took place in your polling stations on the 8th of November was just that. A battle. We, the freedom loving peoples of the western world, well, we’re just getting warmed up. To quote the man: “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet“.

    So retreat to your safe spaces, grab your adult colouring books and put on a happy face my special snow flakes because regardless of whoever/whatever you are and regardless of what nation it is you reside in, we, the deplorables, are coming for you”

    Sorry Snowflake But It’s Not Over…

    Zero Hedge helpfully linked that article. So you see, free market fans and fascists can get along just fine thank you.

    https://media.nbcphiladelphia.com/images/1200*675/Trump+Graffiti+nazi.jpg

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