DonOld Trump tells American GOP voters to elect him because he supports racism

Echo opinion published in the Los Angeles Times by LZ Granderson:

In September 2024, there were 254,000 jobs were added to the US economy, bringing the unemployment rate down to 4.1%. When President Obama was elected, the Great Recession had pushed the rate to 7.8%. President Trump inherited a rate of 3.6%, and he gave President Biden a mishandled pandemic and 6.4% unemployment.

(Vice-Presiddent Harris😊), the next president is likely going to inherit an economy that is strong, even if many Americans aren’t feeling that way. The next president will also bring with them a narrative about the economy. 

In the case of DonOLD Trump, it’s a story we’ve heard far too many times: Blame the minorities.

Over the eight years of the Obama administration, wages went up and unemployment reached historic lows, but the subprime mortgage crisis that began in 2007 left a lasting mark on housing. How could it not, when home ownership fell to its lowest point since 1965? Construction slowed, but demand for housing did not, and that’s how we ended up with the affordability crisis we have now.

Trump wants voters to blame desperate migrants for the shortage of affordable housing, but it was his friends on Wall Street who began this cycle.

Just as it was his intentional downplaying of the pandemic during the first few months — something he said he did to prevent panic — that left Americans misinformed and sent the economy into a tailspin. Instead of preparing us, Trump told us to blame China. That rhetoric sparked a wave of anti-Asian hate crimes.

During the Obama administration, more than 2.5 million immigrants were deported. That’s more than any other administration had forced out before, and Americans were still losing their homes — because that housing crisis was caused by corporate greed, not by illegal immigration.

Trump fared well in 2016, by blaming desperate Black and brown people as the root cause of housing problems and any other economic issue, neatly avoiding any context about Wall Street’s role. And because this helped get him to the White House the first time, I understand why there’s a temptation for his campaign now to couch this rhetoric as policy — to claim, for instance, that deporting people will ease the housing shortage or that disaster relief money for victims of Hurricane Helene was diverted to migrants at the border.
But it’s not policy.

It’s just racist. And, so, ❗💥💢we need to just call it out for what it is❗😡

This week, the Trump campaign sent out a press release that read “Kamala’s Open Border Jeopardizes FEMA’s Hurricane Response.”

It was in response to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas reiterating that the Federal Emergency Management Agency may not have enough funds to make it to the end of hurricane season in November. The agency initially raised concerns at the beginning of the season in June, and the Biden administration overhauled aspects of FEMA relief to get funds out quicker. From Hurricane Katrina in 2005, through 2021, FEMA has spent more than $12 billion a year. From 1992, to 2004, it was $5 billion.

It was weather, not immigrants, that forced more than 3.3 million Americans out of their homes in 2022, nearly half that number for more than a month. 

Nevertheless, the Trumpzi campaign didn’t mention climate change, perhaps because the former president still thinks it’s a hoax. But, the data show more funds were needed in response to the sweeping damage caused by natural disasters, not because of any trend in immigration.

Trump fared well in 2016, by blaming desperate Black and brown people as the root cause of housing problems and any other economic issue, neatly avoiding any context about Wall Street’s role. And because this helped get him to the White House the first time, I understand why there’s a temptation for his campaign now to couch this rhetoric as policy — to claim, for instance, that deporting people will ease the housing shortage or that disaster relief money for victims of Hurricane Helene was diverted to migrants at the border.

But it’s not policy.  It’s just racist.

And yet, the Trump campaign’s press secretary said: (false❗) “FEMA run out of money for the rest of the hurricane season because Kamala Harris used funds for giveaways to illegal immigrants.”

That’s not true❗ (In other words.....🤥 a lie. )

During the vice presidential debate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) took every opportunity he could to fault migrants and immigration for economic issues, echoing his boss. For his part, Trump’s comments about immigrants “poisoning the blood of our country” echoed Adolph Hitler. No wonder Vance compared Trump to Hitler in 2016, before switching allegiances.

Now the two of them are floating “mass deportation” as a solution … to problems caused by corporate greed. Never mind that deportations would aggravate many problems, including food costs and housing shortages.

In 2019, more than half the farmworkers in the country — 450,000 — were immigrants. In addition to the billions it would cost for the Trump-Vance deportation plan, what do you think would happen to food prices if they had their way? And to housing availability if a huge percentage of construction workers were deported? In Texas, half of the industry’s laborers undocumented.

Blaming Black and brown people might be red meat on the campaign trail, but it just isn’t sound economic policy.

It’s just racism❗

@LZGranderson

Tariff man's incompetent trade policies - inflexible and risky

Donald Trump is Disrupting the U.S. Economy
Essay by Robert Brent Toplin published in History News Network

Robert Brent Toplin is Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington and previously was a professor of history at Denison University. He has published several books about history, politics and film.

Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act was a failure! But, of course, Donald Trump, himself, is an economic disaster; so, he has zero understanding about the horrible impact of the failed tariffs implemented during the 1930s, the ones that drove people into bread lines.

Donald Trump has been president for only two of the ten years of America’s economic expansion since the Great Recession, but yet he eagerly (and wrongfully!) takes full credit for the nation’s advancement. It has been easy for him to boast because he had the good fortunate to occupy the White House during a mature stage of the recovery. The president’s fans attribute booming markets and low unemployment to his leadership even though Trump’s words and actions at the White House have often broken the economy’s momentum. In recent months, especially, Trump’s interference in business affairs has put U.S. and global progress at risk.

An article that appeared in the New York Times in May 2019 may offer some clues for understanding why Trump has been less than skillful in managing the country’s financial affairs. 

Tax records revealed by the Times show that from 1985 to 1994 Donald Trump lost more than a billion dollars on failed business deals. In some of those years Trump sustained the biggest losses of any American businessman. The Times could not judge Trump’s gains and losses for later years because Trump, unlike all U.S. presidents in recent decades, refuses to release his tax information. Nevertheless, details provided by the Times are relevant to a promise Trump made during in 2016. 

Candidate Trump advertised himself as an extraordinarily successful developer and investor who would do for the country what he had done for himself. Evidence provided by the Times suggests that promise does not inspire confidence.

Trump’s intrusions in economic affairs turned aggressive and clumsy in late 2018. An early sign of the shift came when he demanded $5.7 billion from Congress for construction of a border wall. House Democrats, fresh off impressive election gains, stated clearly that they would not fund the wall. The president reacted angrily, closing sections of the federal government. 

Approximately 800,000 employees took furloughs or worked without pay. Millions of Americans were not able to use important government services. When the lengthy shutdown surpassed all previous records, Trump capitulated. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that Trump’s counterproductive intervention cost the U.S. economy $11 billion.

Trump’s efforts to engage the United States in trade wars produced more costly problems. Trump referred to himself as “Tariff Man,” threatening big levies on Chinese imports. Talk of a trade war spooked the stock markets late in 2018. Investors worried that China would retaliate, inflating consumer prices and risking a global slowdown. Then Trump appeared to back away from confrontations. Stupid Donald Trump aided a market recovery by tweeting, “Deal is moving along very well . . . Big progress being made!”

Donald Trump claimed trade wars are “easy to win,” but the market chaos of recent months suggested they are not. When trade talks deteriorated into threats and counter-threats, counter-punching intensified. In May 2019, China pulled away from negotiations, accusing the Americans of demanding unacceptable changes. Trump responded with demands for new tariffs on Chinese goods. Trump also threatened to raise tariffs against the Europeans, Canadians, Japanese, Mexicans, and others. U.S. and global markets lost four trillion dollars during the battles over trade in May 2019. Wall Street’s decline wiped out the value of all gains American businesses and citizens realized from the huge tax cut of December 2017.

Trump’s confident language about the effectiveness of tariffs conceals their cost. Tariffs create a tax that U.S. businesses and the American people need to pay in one form or another. Tariffs raise the cost of consumer goods. They hurt American farmers and manufacturers through lost sales abroad. They harm the economies of China and other nations, too (giving the U.S. negotiators leverage when demanding fairer trade practices), but the financial hits created by trade wars produce far greater monetary losses than the value of trade concessions that can realistically be achieved currently.

Agreements between trading partners are best secured through carefully studied and well-informed negotiations that consider both the short and long-term costs of conflict. The present “war” is creating turmoil in global markets. It is breaking up manufacturing chains, in which parts that go into automobiles and other products are fabricated in diverse countries. Many economists warn that the move toward protectionism, championed especially by Trump, can precipitate a global recession.

Trump’s approach to trade had unfortunate effects early in the Great Depression. In 1930 the U.S. Congress passed the protectionist Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act that placed tariffs on 20,000 imported goods. America’s trading partners responded with their own levies. Retaliatory actions in the early 1930s put a damper on world trade and intensified the Depression. 

Then, after World War II, U.S. leaders acted on lessons learned. They promoted tariff reduction and “free trade.” Their strategy proved enormously successful. Integrated trade gave nations a stake in each other’s economic development. The new order fostered seventy years of global peace and prosperity. Now, thanks to incompetent leadership with Donald Trump, who acts like he is unaware of this history, the United States is promoting failed policies of the past. 

It is not clear how the current mess will be cleaned up. Perhaps the Chinese will bend under pressure. Maybe Trump will agree to some face-saving measures, accepting cosmetic adjustments in trade policy and then declaring a victory. 

Perhaps Trump will remain inflexible in his demands and drag global markets down to a more dangerous level. Markets may recover, as they did after previous disruptions provoked by the president’s tweets and speeches. Stock markets gained recently when leaders at the Federal Reserve hinted of future rate cuts. It is clear, nevertheless, that battles over tariffs have already created substantial damage.

Pundits have been too generous in their commentaries on the president’s trade wars. Even journalists who question Trump’s actions frequently (wrongly!) soften their critiques by saying the president’s tactics may be justified. American corporations find it difficult to do business in China, they note, and the Chinese often steal intellectual property from U.S. corporations. 

Pundits also speculate that short-term pain from tariff battles might be acceptable if China and nations accept more equitable trade terms. Some journalists are reluctant to deliver sharp public criticism of Trump’s policy. They do not want to undermine U.S. negotiators while trade talks are underway.

American businesses need assistance in trade negotiations, but it is useful to recall that the expansion of global trade fostered an enormous business boom in the United States. For seven decades following World War II many economists and political leaders believed that tariff wars represented bad policy. Rejecting old-fashioned economic nationalism, they promoted freer trade. Their wisdom, drawn from a century of experience with wars, peace and prosperity, did not suddenly become irrelevant after Donald Trump’s inauguration. Unfortunately, when Trump championed trade wars, many Americans, including most leaders in the Republican Party, stood silent or attempted to justify the radical policy shifts.

Since the time Donald Trump was a young real estate developer, he has demonstrated little interest in adjusting beliefs in the light of new evidence. Back in the 1980s, when Japan looked like America’s Number One economic competitor, Donald Trump called for economic nationalism, much like he does today. “America is being ripped off” by unfair Japanese trade practices,” Trump protested in the Eighties. He recommended strong tariffs on Japanese imports. If U.S. leaders had followed Donald Trump’s advice in the Eighties, they would have limited decades of fruitful trade relations between the two countries.

America’s and the world’s current difficulties with trade policy are related, above all, to a single individual’s fundamental misunderstanding of how tariff’s work. Anita Kumar, Politico’s White House Correspondent and Associate Editor identified Trump’s mistaken impressions in an article published May 31, 2019. She wrote, “Trump has said that he thinks tariffs are paid by the U.S.’s trading partners but economists say that Americans are actually paying for them.” Kumar is correct: Americans are, indeed, paying for that tax on imports. This observation about Trump’s misunderstanding is not just the judgment of one journalist. Many commentators have remarked about the president’s confusion regarding who pays for tariffs and how various trading partners suffer from them.

The United States’ economy proved dynamic in the decade since the Great Recession thanks in large part to the dedication and hard work of enterprising Americans. 

But in recent months the American people’s impressive achievements have been undermined by Donald Trump's clumsy interventions. It is high time that leaders in Washington acknowledge the risks associated with the president’s trade wars and demand a more effective policy course. 

George Will op-echo - questions tax cuts for the rich

Honestly, outside of a few predictable and prescriptive support letters and some partisan paid advertisements, there's not much in the way of enthusiams for the Republican's tax cuts for the rich reforms. This echo is excerpts from a George Will opinion:

"...legislation’s drafters anticipate, indeed proclaim, is that Congress will not allow (a recession) to happen what the legislation says, with a wink..."~ George Will

Conservative opinion writer George Will is skeptical about the wrong minded Republican initiative to "get something done", even if doing so creates political division and nobody knows the outcome.

George Will: Nobody knows if a tax cut bill built on hope will stir growth

George Will is a conservative columnist who writes for The Washington Post

Amid uncertainty about whether our run of economic gain will stay, or whether debt will cripple us, is a tax cut is worth a try?

The Republicans’ tax legislation is built on economic projections that are as confidently as they are cheerfully made concerning the legislation’s shaping effect on the economy over the next 10 years. 

This claim to prescience (George Will speak..."the fact of knowing something before it takes place"); fore knowledge must amaze alumni of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, which were 85 and 158 years old, respectively, when they expired less than 10 years ago in the unanticipated Great Recession.

The predictions of gross domestic product and revenue growth assume, among many other things, continuation of the current expansion. It began in June 2009, and has been notable for its anemia relative to other post-1945 expansions: Its average annual growth rate has been 2 percent; theirs, 4.3 percent. 

But it also has been remarkably durable. It is 102 months old; the average since after World War II is 58 months. Unless the business cycle has been repealed, a recession is almost a certainty during the 10-year window for which the tax bill has been tailored.

What the legislation’s drafters anticipate, indeed proclaim, is that Congress will not allow to happen what the legislation says, with a wink, will happen. 

So, this might mark the historic moment when Washington decided that it no longer will bother to blush. The legislation says the tax reductions for individuals will expire by 2025. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, however, says “we have every expectation that down the road Congress will extend them.” 

Of course Congress will. The phantom expiration is an $800 billion fudge, a cooking of the books in order to cram the tax bill into conformity with arcane parliamentary procedures that make the measure immune to filibuster. We have been down this road before: For the same reason, some George W. Bush tax cuts of 2001 were scheduled to expire at the end of 2010; 82 percent of them (measured by revenue) did not.
In 2002, when Dick Cheney (the former Vice President) – a strict constructionist, but not of economic data – said, “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter,” the publicly held national debt was 33 percent the size of GDP; today, it is 75 percent. At some point, the debt’s size matters, and we seem determined to learn the hard way where that point is.

This tax (ie "tax cuts for the rich") legislation, is an amalgam of earnest hoping and transparent make-believe; it's a serious lunge for sustained 3 percent economic growth.

Without this, the economy will buckle beneath the strain of 10,000 of the elderly each day becoming eligible for Social Security and Medicare. The Republicans purport to know how changed tax incentives will affect corporations’ and individuals’ decisions, and how those decisions will radiate through the economy. 

Republicans do not know – nobody does.

Economics is a science of incentives, and like all sciences it is never “settled.” Both Republican and Democratic sides, with their thumping predictions, have given hostages to the future, which will deal harshly with some. Perhaps most. Possibly all of them.

US Economy - Dollar hits an 11-year high

In other words, gold is for jewelry!

I don't understand people who want to return to using the value of gold as the standard for currency.

Gold doesn't support people to share wealth. Rather, gold is hoarded and only the people who have it can become wealthy. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal, reports how investors are bullish for the U.S. dollar. With growing confidence, the U.S. dollar becomes the standard economists measure their own currency against. Ira Iosebashvili and Ian Talley reported how the dollar reached it's highest level against major currencies since September 2003! This is a sign that investors believe the U.S. economy will continue to grow this year; but, that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade.  A stronger greenback could spell trouble for U.S. exports, since it forces foreign consumers to pay more for U.S. products.  

But, it also "fuels U.S. stocks and bond markets" and makes it cheaper for Americans to travel abroad.  

Well, maybe the dollar will make travel abroad cheaper for Americans, but the current security risk of going to Europe might make travel to Asia much more desirable.  

Nevertheless, under President Obama's leadership, the nation has risen up from the depth of a Great Economic Recession in 2007, to economic prosperity.  

Americans must make use of those wonderful U.S. dollars, to spread the wealth. We should provide economic security to those who need increases in the minimum wage. We have a social obligation to protect important social safety nets for hard working citizens who worked for, and deserve Social Security and health care. It's the capitalistic theory of growing wealth by sharing it with those who need a helping hand. As the U.S. dollar becomes increasingly strong, Americans have the privilege to share the wealth in the humanitarian capitalistic way.

Let's give everyone the opportunity to become wealthy enough to buy gold for jewelry!

Tea Leaves- Jobs in Your Stock Portfolio

Although the stock market might look like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow this week, the tricky leprechaun, hidden in a Republican slight of hand, is dancing with lecherous glee, as corporate profits are made off the backs of the unemployed.
Job searches are now as predictable as reading green tea leaves and just as mystifying, while corporate profits grow like weeds.

Reading the New York stock market indicators this week are pretty easy, especially when the graphs track upward. Investors might even welcome mystics to tell us when to buy and sell in this somewhat surprise bull market. Nevertheless,  job seekers need more than mystics to explain where to go for employment.  Among the 7.9 percent stubborn unemployment data are many who are now labeled "long term unemployed" or "extended unemployed",  like they have disabilities that stigmatize them to employers.

Although I'm not an economist, I tend to believe the reason our US Congress didn't act to eliminate the dreaded March 1st sequester cuts is because corporations wanted the curtailment.  In my opinion, corporations that pay lobbyists to prevent such disasters told Republicans about the unexpected bonus the sequester would bring to corporate profits.  In other words, companies could lay off workers by blaming the sequester, while their labor costs would be reduced, driving profit margins. This is what happened after the 2008 Great Recession, when the stock market crashed. Employers used the crash to lay off workers who they knew would never be rehired.  It's the same with the sequester.

So, now the rich  and richer are getting wealthier, because the stock market expects to see higher profit margins. Still, the unemployed are stuck in an economic dark hole.  They have no place to go except to work at low paying jobs, after their unemployment benefits expire. 

This impact isn't just for the here and the now.  As the unemployed take low paying jobs, their Social Security benefits will also be reduced by virtue of their lower income.  

Where are the jobs?  I suspect some employment opportunities will be available in health insurance sales, as 2014 begins the period when Americans will be looking for coverage to comply with the Obamacare regulations.  Likewise, I suspect health insurance carriers are a good place to put some stock dividend money right now.  Those are my tea leaf prognostications.

Those of us living on fixed incomes may justifiably welcome the current bull market as our new best friend.  Nevertheless,  it's a good idea to keep the memory of 2008 brewing in our minds. 

Every good tea leaf reader will tell you that our fortunes change with every fresh cup. 

Yet, if obstructionists Republicans in the US Congress passed President Barack Obama's jobs bill, the stock portfolios would continue to rise, while the unemployed could look at paychecks instead of tea leaves to predict their futures.

Fiscal Cliff Geology Metaphor - A Leadership Fault Line

Unless political leadership erupts, beginning the day after Christmas and before December 31, all Americans can justifiably accuse the US Congress of abdicating it's responsibility to lead our nation out of another potential recession. 

We're at the brink of a "fiscal cliff", a geologic metaphor, meaning, our nation's economy is sitting on an economic fault line.  We're precariously close to a fiscal earthquake, which is about to displace and shatter our slow recovery from the last Republican caused 2008 recession. 

Let's be clear. Republicans caused our Great Recession and they're about to push us into another one. Why? Because of greed. 

Our 2008 Great Recession erupted when Republican policy led to banking deregulation, feeding massive greed by the investment sectors.  Money dried up.  Ordinary people found themselves fiscally under water and unable to pay mortgates. A shortage of money ripped the scab off of the Mydoff ponzi scheme and average Americans lost huge chunks of 401K investment money in the ensuing multi systems abyss.  A shortage of money drove businesses into bankruptecy, causing a spike in unemployment.  Although President Obama tried to resolve the Recession with massive public funds called "The Stimulus", the Republicans obstructed a good chunk of the spending, calling it wasteful.  

Nevertheless, Republicans never point out how their fiscal policies were like parasites, infecting greedy Wall Street moguls, who took advantage of innocent investors, before the 2008 stock market collapse.

Our nation's fiscal geologic metaphor is approaching a leadership fault line. Americans are bystanders, watching helplessley and incredulously, while our US Republican led Congress, paid for by tax payers, do nothing to avoid a double dip Recession.

Republicans seem intent on driving this fiscal metaphor into a tsunami, rather than resolve the problem.  

Republicans, led by Fault Line Speaker John Boehner, can avoid the impending earthquake by voting on the Democratic plan to balance deficit reduction with tax revenues.  It's that simple.

Frankly, America's Congressional leadership problem is more acute than the economic realities of doing nothing to stop a double dip Recession.  Of course, we can fix this by throwing all obstructionist Republicans out of office in 2014; but, until then, we must hold the edge of the "cliff" long enough to un-elect those who are causing stress on our nation's economic fault line.

In other words, we'll somehow have to endure the outrageous behavior of greedy Republicans, who would rather see middle class Americans pay more taxes, than to increase the rate paid by those who earn more than $250,000 a year.

Faulty leadership in the US House of Represenatives must be replaced. Otherwise, Republicans will be held responsible for driving our nation into every economic abyss in modern history - Republicans were in charge prior to The Great Depression; they were in charge prior to The Great Recession and, likewise, the Republican House Leaderhship is responsible for leading America into another avoidable earthquake.  

There's another sports metaphor about "three strikes", but this time, I believe, the third call will mark the end of the Republican party.