Wednesday, July 12, 2017
How Fox News Covered Donald Trump Jr. Meeting
I tend to ignore Fox News and focus on legitimate news sources. On the other hand Fox News is the primary news source for many Republicans and Trump supporters. Consequently, I though that it would be helpful for folks who do not get their information from Fox News to view how it covered the issues. In a sense, Fox News does what news sources in Russia tend to do for Putin. It finds a way to defuse bad news for Trump and it exaggerates good Trump news when it is available. It is not surprising that Trump supporters live in a different world than many of us. The thing separates the US from Russia is that Trump's efforts to subvert the reporting from legitimate news sources has not worked. Most Americans do not believe that the NYT and Washington Post are fake news sources as Trump and Fox News claim. Without legitimate news sources and an independent judiciary we would look more like Russia does today. Many Russians are happy with their system. They don't respect democracy but they have never experienced it. It is messy, and it does not always reflect popular opinion, but most Americans would rather have this messy system than the less messy Russian system of governance.
A Conservative Hold Out Finally Gives Up On Trump
Russ Douthat has been a reliable spokesperson for conservative causes on the NYT for a long time. He has even believed that the Republican Party was good for conservatism. He is also an intellectual who never felt comfortable with Donald Trump as the leader of the Republican Party. Despite his discomfort with Donald Trump he thought that he would probably survive the investigations of the Trump campaign's connection with Russian meddling in the election. He no longer holds that view.
The emails which forced Donald Trump Jr. to release them before they were published by the NYT are incriminating, The junior Trump, along with the president's son-in-law and the manager of the Trump campaign at that time, were eager to accept an offer of help from a foreign power with an intention of discrediting US democracy. That revelation shifts the odds that the Trump campaign will be found guilty of collusion. The Special Counsel has the power to push its investigation even deeper. The Russians upheld their end of the bargain. They did what they are capable of doing to tip the election in Trump's direction. They released hacked information to Wikileaks and they employed an army of trolls to spread propaganda through the social media and other means. Russia did not do this without the expectation of a reward for their efforts on Trump's behalf. That may be what got Michael Flynn in trouble when his undisclosed meetings with Russian officials about relief from US sanctions were captured by US surveillance. In any case, the "Russia thing" is not going away. The Republican Congress and the White House will find it even more difficult to govern in this climate. The Republican Congress will cling to Donald Trump until it looks like supporting Trump will harm them in the 2018 elections. The Russian government bet on the wrong horse. Trump was easy to recruit but he has been too inexperienced in the nuances of governance to avoid entrapment.
The emails which forced Donald Trump Jr. to release them before they were published by the NYT are incriminating, The junior Trump, along with the president's son-in-law and the manager of the Trump campaign at that time, were eager to accept an offer of help from a foreign power with an intention of discrediting US democracy. That revelation shifts the odds that the Trump campaign will be found guilty of collusion. The Special Counsel has the power to push its investigation even deeper. The Russians upheld their end of the bargain. They did what they are capable of doing to tip the election in Trump's direction. They released hacked information to Wikileaks and they employed an army of trolls to spread propaganda through the social media and other means. Russia did not do this without the expectation of a reward for their efforts on Trump's behalf. That may be what got Michael Flynn in trouble when his undisclosed meetings with Russian officials about relief from US sanctions were captured by US surveillance. In any case, the "Russia thing" is not going away. The Republican Congress and the White House will find it even more difficult to govern in this climate. The Republican Congress will cling to Donald Trump until it looks like supporting Trump will harm them in the 2018 elections. The Russian government bet on the wrong horse. Trump was easy to recruit but he has been too inexperienced in the nuances of governance to avoid entrapment.
Monday, July 10, 2017
What Does The Law Say About Trump's Campaign Meeting With Russian Lawyer
There have been several articles in the press about the meeting between Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort who was the Trump campaign manager at the time of the meeting. Donald Trump Jr. stated that he asked Kushner and Manafort to attend the meeting because they might receive useful information from the person invited to the meeting at Trump Tower. This article by a distinguished law professor explains how the meeting may be construed as collusion with a foreign government. It will also become another avenue to pursue in the investigations that are underway.
Friday, July 7, 2017
Donald Trump Found A Good Home In The Post Truth Republican Party
Many conservative Republicans have been critical of Donald Trump's disregard for the truth. They take the position that Trump is an anomaly. They point to conservative intellectuals in conservative think tanks who have good ideas on policies like healthcare. They will reform the Republican Party and return it to what it was before Trump. Paul Krugman makes a different argument. He doesn't mention the fact that Obamacare, which Republicans want to repeal, was derived from ideas generated by a conservative think tank. It was successfully implemented by the Republican governor Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. It only became a bad idea under President Obama. Nonetheless, Krugman had no problems debunking the idea that reformists in conservative think tanks will restore the Republican Party to its former glory. He simply pointed out all the lies that they are making about Obamacare and their proposed replacement bill. Of course, he understands the idea of false equivalency, which requires us to point out that our political parties are equally bad, but he rejects that idea. After reviewing all of the lies coming from Republican leaders he concludes that the Republican Party has become the Post-Truth political party. Donald Trump has surrounded himself with Republicans who share his disregard for the truth. They were not hard to find. The House majority leader Paul Ryan is perfectly happy with the terrible bill passed by the Republican House. It cuts taxes for the wealthy, and it pays for the tax cuts by making huge cuts in Medicaid. Ryan defends the loss of healthcare coverage in the new bill by arguing that it was voluntary. Those who could not afford to pay for the higher premiums behaved like good consumers. They chose not to purchase the insurance. The Republican Party has also either denied global warming or it has argued that it is unrelated to human consumption of fossil fuels. In other words, they reject the findings of the scientific community. Donald Trump's rejection of scientific evidence is perfectly consistent with Republican orthodoxy.
Wednesday, July 5, 2017
Noam Chomsky Interview On The Global Risks That We Face
Noam Chomsky has been one the world's most trenchant intellectuals over the last fifty years. Many questions were raised in this interview but it can be summed up in a few sentences. Chomsky believes that we are at greater risk from nuclear warfare than we have been since the cold war. We hear a lot about the risk from North Korea but Chomsky is more concerned about the US modernization of it's nuclear capabilities. It threatens other nations with nuclear weapons who might be worried about being the target of a surprise attack. They might be motivated to strike first. The other catastrophe that concerns him is global warming. The danger is very real but the Republican Party has sided with the fossil fuel industry in resisting government efforts to participate in limiting its impact on our future.
He had nothing to add about Donald Trump that we do not already know. His major concern about Trump is that his policies will be dictated by the corrupt political party which he nominally leads. He has taken anti-intellectualism to a new level but his war against science and reason is consistent with Republicanism and much of its base. He regards Bernie Sanders as the most popular politician in America at this moment. His campaign, which was essentially New Dealism, demonstrated that a popular campaign can be conducted without reliance on funding from the usual suspects. The Democratic Part lost its working class base during the Clinton and Obama administrations according the Chomsky. It seems to him more like what the Republican Party was before it moved to the far right. Both parties have been captured by neo-liberal ideology.
He had nothing to add about Donald Trump that we do not already know. His major concern about Trump is that his policies will be dictated by the corrupt political party which he nominally leads. He has taken anti-intellectualism to a new level but his war against science and reason is consistent with Republicanism and much of its base. He regards Bernie Sanders as the most popular politician in America at this moment. His campaign, which was essentially New Dealism, demonstrated that a popular campaign can be conducted without reliance on funding from the usual suspects. The Democratic Part lost its working class base during the Clinton and Obama administrations according the Chomsky. It seems to him more like what the Republican Party was before it moved to the far right. Both parties have been captured by neo-liberal ideology.
Monday, July 3, 2017
Will Trump's Trade War Create US Jobs?
Paul Krugman won his Nobel Prize in economics by his contributions to international trade theory. He knows more about this subject than Donald Trump, who seldom makes efforts to learn more about subjects so that he can make informed decisions. Trump may not understand international trade theory but he does understand how his base will respond to his decisions. The steel industry and its labor unions will be pleased if Trump imposes tariffs on steel imports into the US. Trump and many in the steel industry will claim that the tariffs will create US jobs. Krugman provides an informed opinion on the relationship between steel tariffs and net job creation in the US.
Krugman's most obvious point is that tariffs on steel will make steel more expensive to producers in the US that purchase steel to build things like automobiles. That will make US cars more expensive and reduce jobs in the car industry. The better way to increase net jobs in the US would be for the government to invest in infrastructure that would increase the demand for steel.
Krugman reminds us, however, that there would indirect effects from steel tariffs that would impact net job creation in the US. For example, prices would rise in the US and the Fed would respond by raising interest rates. That would dampen the large housing market and it would also cause the dollar to increase in value by making US treasuries a better investment. That would be harmful to US exports because it would increase the real price of US products in foreign markets.
Krugman understands that globalization has been disruptive in some communities just as other communities might have benefited from globalization. On the other hand, globalization has already happened. Efforts to reverse globalization would also be disruptive. The impact of reversal would be harmful to some communities while other communities benefit. For example, tariffs would favor capital intensive industries that produce fewer jobs per unit of output than industries that are not capital intensive. That would tilt income distribution away from labor by reducing the demand for labor.
Joe Nocero echoes many of the points made by Krugman. He adds some value to the discussion by describing how Trump may use national security as a way to impose tariffs on steel by short circuiting the normal path that would be used to impose tariffs. He also puts Trump's plan to help the steel industry in the context of Trump's other plans that have demonstrated his incompetence. Trump has little regard for the failures of his many policy initiatives. He only cares about how they play with his base of supporters. That is Trump governance in a nutshell.
Krugman's most obvious point is that tariffs on steel will make steel more expensive to producers in the US that purchase steel to build things like automobiles. That will make US cars more expensive and reduce jobs in the car industry. The better way to increase net jobs in the US would be for the government to invest in infrastructure that would increase the demand for steel.
Krugman reminds us, however, that there would indirect effects from steel tariffs that would impact net job creation in the US. For example, prices would rise in the US and the Fed would respond by raising interest rates. That would dampen the large housing market and it would also cause the dollar to increase in value by making US treasuries a better investment. That would be harmful to US exports because it would increase the real price of US products in foreign markets.
Krugman understands that globalization has been disruptive in some communities just as other communities might have benefited from globalization. On the other hand, globalization has already happened. Efforts to reverse globalization would also be disruptive. The impact of reversal would be harmful to some communities while other communities benefit. For example, tariffs would favor capital intensive industries that produce fewer jobs per unit of output than industries that are not capital intensive. That would tilt income distribution away from labor by reducing the demand for labor.
Joe Nocero echoes many of the points made by Krugman. He adds some value to the discussion by describing how Trump may use national security as a way to impose tariffs on steel by short circuiting the normal path that would be used to impose tariffs. He also puts Trump's plan to help the steel industry in the context of Trump's other plans that have demonstrated his incompetence. Trump has little regard for the failures of his many policy initiatives. He only cares about how they play with his base of supporters. That is Trump governance in a nutshell.
Sunday, July 2, 2017
Ben Bernanke Tells Central Bankers That Economic Growth Is Not Enough
Ben Bernanke, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, delivered a speech at a conference of European central bankers in Sintra. The focus of his speech was on the US but it also has implications for Europe. He began is speech with a review of economic conditions in the US. He stated that despite the cyclical upswing in the US, many Americans are dissatisfied with the economy. He explained why they were dissatisfied and he turned his attention to the longer term issues that we face so that Americans can cope with the economic disruptions that accompany economic growth.
Bernanke cited four major reasons for the dissatisfaction that has led to the rise of populism and the election of Donald Trump in the US:
The first reason is easy to understand but harder to explain. Real median income for males in the US today are lower than they were 38 years ago in 1979. Economic growth over that period has not led to rising wages for the median male worker.
Rising income inequality, which is indicated by the lack of growth in median real income, has also been accompanied by lower economic and social mobility. This contrasts dramatically with the social mobility that Americans experienced between the end of the second world war and 1979. 90% of Americans born in 1940 earned more than their parents by 1980. Only 50% of Americans born in 1980 earn more than their parents do today. Income and wealth inequality is higher in American than it is in most other developed nations. Many Americans can tolerate income inequality but not when it is accompanied by falling social mobility. Equality of opportunity is an important value that has been lost along with rising economic outcomes.
The rise in populism in the US has often been explained by the "death from despair" that we have seen within the white working class. Death from drugs, alcoholism, and suicide exceed deaths from auto accidents and firearms combined in the white working class. However, the problem is even broader than that among the white working class. The labor force participation rate among prime aged Americans between the ages of 25-54 was 97% in 1960. Today it is only 88%. This has been accompanied by breakdowns in the structure of many families. Children and the elderly are not supported by their families as they were when almost everyone was in the labor force.
The economic issues faced by too many Americans have led to a distrust of government. Only 20% of Americans agree that the government will do what's right or almost right most of the time. That is explained to some extent by economic policies under Reagan, Clinton and George Bush. Taxes have been cut primarily for the wealthy and government support for social welfare programs has eroded over this period. The US economy grew much faster between 1945 and 1970. That period of unusual growth was also accompanied by a rise in government programs that enabled economic growth. We are now in period of more normal economic growth during which public welfare programs such as education are no longer supported as they were during the faster economic growth period.
Bernanke then turns to what's missing today. We need programs that will help individuals and localities adjust to slower economic growth and the rapid economic changes that have been underway for many years. Donald Trump exploited the economic issues that led to the rise in populism but the populist promises he made during his campaign have fallen by the wayside. Instead his administration is leaning towards the traditional supply side orthodoxies long favored by the Republican Party. The implication is that they are a part of the problem and not part of the solution.
Bernanke concludes by stating that we live in a world of imperfect capital markets and public goods markets. There is no guarantee that our political response to the resulting problems will be optimal or equitable. Tax and transfer policies might be helpful but they have to be done right. They will be resisted if they look like handouts to people. That usually leads to resentments which some politicians exploit. Bernanke does not offer any easy solutions because the problems we face are built into our system. The problems are serious but difficult to rectify. Central bankers have done what they can by keeping interest rates low but fiscal policies will also be required to deal with our problems. There is much slack in many of our economies even with zero interest rates. He mentions some of the structural problems in many of our inflexible labor markets but he warns us that they need to forward looking as well as backwards looking. Forward looking programs must accompany government efforts to increase the flexibility of the labor force.
Bernanke cited four major reasons for the dissatisfaction that has led to the rise of populism and the election of Donald Trump in the US:
The first reason is easy to understand but harder to explain. Real median income for males in the US today are lower than they were 38 years ago in 1979. Economic growth over that period has not led to rising wages for the median male worker.
Rising income inequality, which is indicated by the lack of growth in median real income, has also been accompanied by lower economic and social mobility. This contrasts dramatically with the social mobility that Americans experienced between the end of the second world war and 1979. 90% of Americans born in 1940 earned more than their parents by 1980. Only 50% of Americans born in 1980 earn more than their parents do today. Income and wealth inequality is higher in American than it is in most other developed nations. Many Americans can tolerate income inequality but not when it is accompanied by falling social mobility. Equality of opportunity is an important value that has been lost along with rising economic outcomes.
The rise in populism in the US has often been explained by the "death from despair" that we have seen within the white working class. Death from drugs, alcoholism, and suicide exceed deaths from auto accidents and firearms combined in the white working class. However, the problem is even broader than that among the white working class. The labor force participation rate among prime aged Americans between the ages of 25-54 was 97% in 1960. Today it is only 88%. This has been accompanied by breakdowns in the structure of many families. Children and the elderly are not supported by their families as they were when almost everyone was in the labor force.
The economic issues faced by too many Americans have led to a distrust of government. Only 20% of Americans agree that the government will do what's right or almost right most of the time. That is explained to some extent by economic policies under Reagan, Clinton and George Bush. Taxes have been cut primarily for the wealthy and government support for social welfare programs has eroded over this period. The US economy grew much faster between 1945 and 1970. That period of unusual growth was also accompanied by a rise in government programs that enabled economic growth. We are now in period of more normal economic growth during which public welfare programs such as education are no longer supported as they were during the faster economic growth period.
Bernanke then turns to what's missing today. We need programs that will help individuals and localities adjust to slower economic growth and the rapid economic changes that have been underway for many years. Donald Trump exploited the economic issues that led to the rise in populism but the populist promises he made during his campaign have fallen by the wayside. Instead his administration is leaning towards the traditional supply side orthodoxies long favored by the Republican Party. The implication is that they are a part of the problem and not part of the solution.
Bernanke concludes by stating that we live in a world of imperfect capital markets and public goods markets. There is no guarantee that our political response to the resulting problems will be optimal or equitable. Tax and transfer policies might be helpful but they have to be done right. They will be resisted if they look like handouts to people. That usually leads to resentments which some politicians exploit. Bernanke does not offer any easy solutions because the problems we face are built into our system. The problems are serious but difficult to rectify. Central bankers have done what they can by keeping interest rates low but fiscal policies will also be required to deal with our problems. There is much slack in many of our economies even with zero interest rates. He mentions some of the structural problems in many of our inflexible labor markets but he warns us that they need to forward looking as well as backwards looking. Forward looking programs must accompany government efforts to increase the flexibility of the labor force.
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