China has *Already* Lost the Trade War. Meantime, the U.S. Might Sanction China’s Largest Oil Company

[John Foote + 1,135]

23 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

Also those new USA suppliers will likely invest in very modern machinery, CNC turning centers and mill machines, which will crank out the product with very short lead times. 

The majority of my professional life has been in and out of the kinds of places you advocate. Highly palletized, very high mix, low volume, CNC machines are great for shorter lead-times and productivity. The CNC programmer, and very skilled welders, are top of the pecking order. It's not work the majority can do. Parts unloaders/CNC operators, it's good work, but only OK money. What we are talking about is productivity levels, and the USA absolutely competes very well.

The tooling issue you worry on, doesn't concern me so much. Tools typically are Japanese, and with low volumes (rarely more than 100 a years, typically less than 20), the economics argue against the kind of tooling traditional industries like the auto industries requires to minimize overall component costs. Maybe the odd mold for an exotic plastic, but generally the tooling is really the programming.

My oil and gas career was relatively short, recruited to bring high tech discipline into supply chain, but in oil and gas the cost of goods in upstream is a very small portion of the cost, the cycle time to market. I am used to concept to market being maybe 18 months with a few years of high profitability. Let the Chinese copy, by the time they have it dialed in it's a cheap commodity. The change wasn't something Aramco really wanted, although some value mapping ideas I tried to integrate were used for a version of industrial development.

The other problem with tooling is so much economic activity today is in bytes, not physical product. Tooling isn't an issue. AI is going to change things like most can't conceive. I argued in vain in KSA they should target the 21st century for industrial development, not late 19th, early 20th industries. The USA needs to do the same. In that respect, the nature of the American system is much better than most of the world. Just don't let the emerging oligarchs lock things down. Roosevelt had to brake up big oil early in the 19th century, and if we aren't smart we'll all be economic slaves to software.

[BenFranklin'sSpectacles + 762]

4 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

Well, I do not. Yes, he has made great strides when dealing with North Korea, and in dealing with China, and you have to give him credit for that. Those are great accomplishments.  Actually, I cannot think of another person in America who could have pulled it off, or who had the guts to do it.

But being an American President has a unique responsibility.  And that is to be and to project being a moral voice. And here Trump fails miserably.  In my view beating up on migrants, putting people into detention jails and putting their infants and children into these dog cages, is not what we are about in America.  Americans are above all a voice for morality on the world stage.  When the monsters oppress, Americans are the people who raise up their voices, and in some cases their swords, to stand for decency.  When the President loses the pedestal of Decency, he collapses that moral voice.  And Trump did not have that pedestal, even in his personal life, to start with. 

I am disgusted with his treatment of the migrants.  Now you can argue "Policy" as to immigration and Emigration all day long, but let's remember, the USA is the world's Moral Leader and is what stands between decency and the Dark Side of the Force.  And when it comes to morality and decency, Mr. Trump has gone over to that Dark Side.  So, for me, no, it is not "good enough." 

There are things that you just do not do in your life.  You do not sit in some Bar and then go slide your hand up some young woman's skirt sitting next to you to go "feel her pussy."  You are not introduced, she has no idea who you are, and her "pussy" is her private part and not there for you to go fondle while she is sitting with her girlfriends having a drink.  She is not your personal whore.  You just do not even think about doing that. Even by New York's non-existent moral standards, you do not do that.  OK, that was before he was elected President.  What it does is describe a frame of reference that I personally find disgraceful.  People are not sex toys, people have an inherent worth and everyone is entitled to be treated with dignity.  Trump fails with the migrants and puts the women in cages precisely because in the past he put his finger where it did not belong.  It is an attitude problem, and in my view in that he is a failure.  So NO, that is not good enough for me. 

Of course, it benefits the world when the US acts as a "moral voice" instead of acting in its own best interests.  I notice foreigners are quite interested in keeping us "moral". 

Personally, I'm done with that crap.  I sacrificed a lot contributing to the "moral voice".  The only thanks I received was constant denigration, the economic destruction of my community, and demands that I give more. After that, the ingrates of the world can take their entitlement and shove it.  Let them figure out their own problems; the US should wash its hands of it. 

Better yet, the US should use its overwhelming military power to demand repayment for 70 years of peace and security.  That's what the ingrates really deserve. 

[TheTester + 4]

Let's do a little tally.

The US has tried to get all of its traditional allies to sanction Huawei. The result was that one or two countries went with the ban and are now reconsidering it, while the other twenty or so major powers (among which are France, Germany, UK, Italy, Spain, even Canada) are slowly starting to ignore America's sanctions altogether, because they would rather not be behind African countries in having access to breakthrough technologies like 5G than continue submitting to the US' increasingly unsuitable demands. In other words, US soft power did a little free fall since 2016.

China's trade surplus with the US grew since 2016, even if you discount the profits of US companies working in China. If you count that, the trade deficit has grown even more, largely from America's China-based companies' profits suffering immensely.

China has managed to find reliable trading partners outside the US. Russia can do better to supply China with everything that the US is trying to cut it off from, with the exception of high-end semiconductors, which TSMC, South Korean and Japanese industries, and rising domestic Chinese chip-makers are better at anyway. Meanwhile the trade war has cut the US off from access to the world's first and best 5G supplier, and soon African countries will have better internet than the world's dwindling hegemon. Keep in mind that 5G is a breakthrough technology that is important for so many things; cloud computing, the internet of things, digital economy, and even military applications are only a few of the more notable ones.

Foreign investments in the US have dropped by a factor of 3 or so since 2016, while foreign investments in China have only grown.

US manufacturing has started to decline since late 2018. Chinese manufacturing (already 3x bigger than US' industrial sector) has kept rapidly expanding at roughly 5% YoY growth.

China now buys 6x more oil from Saudi Arabia than the US does. This grants China swathes of soft power over Saudi Arabia; a country whose allegiance is absolutely crucial in underpinning the US dollar's status as the world's primary reserve currency. Mind you, Russia is now also a member of OPEC+, and has its own influence over Saudi Arabia.

Speaking of the US dollar, the inversion of the 10Y2Y yield curve signals a coming recession in the US, and many factors suggest that it will not be a small recession. The US economy is unsustainable and debt continues to grow even while the US controls the world's reserve currency; something that Russia and China are working to gradually undermine, and will be undermined even more in the coming recession. The last recession caused federal debt to skyrocket from <70% of GDP to >100%.

But regardless of what happens during the coming financial crisis, China will eventually succeed in undermining the dollar, because all of its aggregate resources vastly surpass that of the US'. This means that China will match and overtake pretty much every industry the US has enjoyed monopolies in, and the PRC will inevitably attract more foreign investment and attention. Without the US dollar as the world's reserve currency, US economy will sooner or later tumble like a house of cards. If selling American bonds is a nuclear button for China, this currency attack is a full-on antimatter weapon, and the US has nothing to respond with.

So how exactly is China losing the trade war? Everything that has happened suggests that China is winning by a huge margin.

 

Edited August 16, 2019 by TheTester

[Rob Martin 0]

From some remarks I have observed

HK- Yes, Trump gave Rocketman a voice, made him feel special. The Rocketman needed a bit of stroking. He is always looking for a handout, of which HK has received many. Let their wealthy Chinese neighbour help him. Make no mistake, any mistake from HK will have dire consequences. China has fun watching these 2 go at it. It's a minor distraction at this point. Makes for fun reading, 'the little man and the big man sharing a moment  together '. 

China- Trump is one confused man but IMO he is right about about China. They are drinking America's milkshake. He will not back down till he he feels that the playing field is 'level'  or 'leveler' to create a new word.

Mexico- Trump is not against imigration per se. No country should allow people to cross their borders as they please. There is a Mexican/US problem and no one wants to fix it. Good idea, but when it comes to execution, Trump fails over and over. 

[Shaggy + 1]

Thread title suggest that US is "winning" but this article suggest the opposite. Any thoughts about this other article?

https://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/Middle-East/Chinas-Ultimate-Play-For-Global-Oil-Market-Control.html

I am new to the commenting business, read plenty of everyone's post in various threads here, and finally decided to comment.

[James Regan + 1,776]

Just seen a report where China are adamant they will continue to buy Iranian crude regardless of the Blockade. The Iranians are also ramping up the rhetoric regarding the straights of Hormuz, apparently they can unleash hell on any foreign power who is patrolling the water way. 

If China really does ignore the US threat of more sanctions what can the US realistically do as sanctions can only go so far before it will turn physical, ie could we see any military action, especially if we see a bilateral  cocktail of Iran and China?

Something has to give, this pressure cooker situation can't go on with only rhetoric at some point someone will need to dump or get of the pot...

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

China has *Already* Lost the Trade War. Meantime, the U.S. Might Sanction China’s Largest Oil Company

Tom Kirkman August 6 in Oil (General) 

 

Tom, I always enjoy your themes, and especially your take on the general state of the oil world. And I'm an American, a patriot, and a supporter of the administration . . . in most things. However, vis a vis the above title, I don't think it makes any difference whether or not we sanction China's largest oil company. I'll explain. 

When Chiang Kai-shek was in power, life in China was primitive. A group of revolutionaries walked for two years, over 18 mountain chains, in the years 1934-'35. They walked all the way from the southeastern corner of China to the northwest corner, fighting all the way. At the end of it, a new president was installed by coup. That man was Mao Zedong. He called those men's hike "The Long March" and coined a term, "The Hundred-Year Marathon." President Xi recently referred to "The Long March." Part of their giant plan was to gain worldwide superiority. Currently, they are building out the New Silk Road, which begins in China, with land and maritime routes traversing the Middle East, and just about all of them ending in Russia. They are openly buying crude oil from Iran--without waivers and with no apparent fear of sanction. They have several other eager sellers at their beck and call: Putin and MbS at the forefront. And they can sell it for a much better price than the US can. 

So what does China have to lose? Trade! But they also have the so-called "Nuclear Option" in their back pocket--they are holders of $1.5 Trillion of our US Treasury bills. If they dump them, they badly damage themselves, but they also throw the world markets into chaos and, get this, very likely change the "Oil Currency" from US dollars to another currency, likely their own. It would be educational for every man and woman reading and commenting about how the US is winning the trade war with China to read Pillsbury's excellent book, "The One-Hundred Year Marathon." The Chinese people have only begun to climb out of poverty; they are still accustomed to pain. They are a much, much greater threat to the United States than Russia. The One Belt/One Road Initiative (the New Silk Road) is in financial trouble, but China can likely build this out, given enough time and foreign participation. If the hundred-year marathon began about 1950, they have 30 more years in which to win the battle. Oil is much different than soybeans and oilmen are much different than farmers. Sure, it takes some money to plant and fertilize and irrigate and harvest soybeans, but they're renewable. Making oil requires holding just the right pressure and temperature on organic humus for a million years, and even then it's nonrenewable, requires sophistication and great expense to harvest, and more to transport. Unfortunately, though the US was blessed with riches beyond equal, oil wasn't one of them. We have been reduced to cracking rocks for our precious commodity--this shale oil is small potatoes compared to the vast pools off Guyana and under the deserts of Saudi Arabia, or even the Arctic Ice Circle. 

So basically, we're not exactly in the driver's seat here. Oh, maybe for a few years, but then we're going to be a competitor of China: as an oil buyer from Russia and Saudi Arabia and other OPEC+ countries that, as T. Boone always says, "don't much like us." We need to wise up! Right now we're basically giving away our Tier One shale oil for pennies on the dollar. When we get down to Tier Two and Three--which is only about two years down the road--then we're going to find ourselves in a world of hurt. And with damn few allies who really give a hoot. No matter how much the Green New Deal people yammer on, we're still going to be about 90% reliant on fossil fuels when the sweet spots are long gone. Again, I'm a loyal American, but our president has been very poorly informed: We need $75 oil to make our oil business profitable and sustainable, and we need a bonafide energy plan that outlasts our Tier One rocks. Soon, unless things change, we're going to be in the same spot as the soybean farmers: no market except ourselves. 

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

11 hours ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

Tom, I always enjoy your themes, and especially your take on the general state of the oil world. And I'm an American, a patriot, and a supporter of the administration . . . in most things. However, vis a vis the above title, I don't think it makes any difference whether or not we sanction China's largest oil company. I'll explain. 

No issue with your opnions and expanation, Gerry.  I am very much aware that my views tend to be in the minority and pretty far from mainstream.

What I see Trump trying to do with the trade war with China is reverse the imbalance of the the last 30 years or so, where trade is favorable to China and distinctly unfavorable to U.S.

Trump's methods tend to annoy others, but the trade and economic results speak for themselves.  China is losing, while the economy of the U.S. is robust, jobs are returning to U.S. and U.S. inflation is low. 

Talk of recession is nonsense, as a recession only starts after 2 consecutive Quarters of econonic shrinkage.  There hasn't even been 1 Quarter of economic decline since Trump took office and reversed Obama's economic downward spiral and jobs bleeding to overseas.  Recession is not imminent, despite the panic, hue and cry from NYT, CNN and other MSM that want Trump removed from office by any means necessary.

 

 

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

3 hours ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Talk of recession is nonsense, as a recession only starts after 2 consecutive Quarters of econonic shrinkage.  There hasn't even been 1 Quarter of economic decline since Trump took office and reversed Obama's economic downward spiral and jobs bleeding to overseas.  Recession is not imminent, despite the panic, hue and cry from NYT, CNN and other MSM that want Trump removed from office by any means necessary.

Update, I just read this:

Politics to Support Wall Street Multinationals – Democrats Plan to Block Trump Trade Reset

Justin Trudeau traveled to Washington DC for a meeting with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and democrat leadership.  After the political ideologues held the meeting, Trudeau and Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland tabled the Canadian ratification on the USMCA trade agreement.

It was obvious both groups of avowed leftists agreed to stall the USMCA for politics.

On August 13th White House emissary National Security Advisor John Bolton met with Britian’s Chancellor of Exchequer Sajid Javid, and the public became aware of efforts toward a six month post Brexit U.S-U.K trade agreement that would become effective on November 1st, 2019; immediately the day after Brexit was official.

On August 14th Speaker Nancy Pelosi quickly rushed a press release saying the House would never support that interim U.S-U.K trade agreement, using cover story of worry about Ireland/Northern Ireland peace accord.  Beyond all the talking points the baseline reason for Pelosi’s opposition is Democrats do not support Brexit.  Both the immediacy and the construct of the counter-maneuver by Pelosi were noted. [House in recess].

Immediately after the deal between President Trump and Prime Minister Boris Johnson became public; an intense international media effort began to push a narrative of the “U.S. heading to a recession”.  The group of corporate financial media interests; those who advance the interests of Wall Street and are adamantly adverse to a global trade reset; and the political opposition to Donald Trump, began using a recession talking point in unison.

There is a clear, albeit complex, timeline of Trump’s trade strategy that is evident to those who are following closely.

The confrontation with China is one part; the removal of the back-doors into the US economy (NAFTA) is another part; a looming confrontation with the EU over their protectionist exploitation of one-way tariffs is yet another part.

The strategy to deal with each of the three primary negative trade elements (China, NAFTA, EU) is clear within President Trump’s trade reset.

• Bilateral deals with ASEAN partner nations and simultaneous crushing tariffs on China deals with one problem.  China’s removal of U.S. wealth and jobs is halted.
• The construct of the USMCA, and country of origin for source material and strict enforcement mechanisms, deals with the second problem: NAFTA’s fatal flaw.
• An reciprocal and barrier removing agreement between the U.S. and U.K; which can open a tariff free trade highway between North America and Europe; creates the leverage for Trump (benefit for Johnson) that begins to deal with the EU problem.

In the big picture President Donald Trump has purposefully stalled the process of supply chain globalization and cheap labor evaluation.  Trump is resetting global manufacturing supply chains, with U.S. incentives for relocation.   This is bringing wealth and jobs back into the United States (and North America).

In essence Trump is engaged in a process of:

(a) repatriating wealth (trade policy);

(b) blocking exfiltration of wealth (main street policy);

(c) creating new and modern economic alliances based on reciprocity (bilateral deals); and

(d) dismantling the post WWII Marshall plan of global trade and one-way tariffs (de-globalization).

In all of these efforts U.S. multinational corporations, big companies on Wall St, are heavily opposed to President Trump because they have invested in those overseas operations.  Those companies facilitated the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs.

There is also now a clear alignment between those Wall Street multinationals, and democrats like Nancy Pelosi.   Wall Street’s ability to pay Pelosi and political leadership to protect their multinational interests; in combination with corporate promises of funding to Pelosi’s party; has created the unholy alliance of united interests.

That’s why Nancy Pelosi instructed Justin Trudeau to stall the Canadian ratification of the USMCA.  That’s the motive behind why Pelosi is working to stall, perhaps even eliminate, the USMCA ratification in the House.  This is also why Pelosi reacted so quickly to the framework of a deal between President Trump and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

It is a political strategy and calculation for Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to attempt to sink the U.S. Main Street economy.  Weakening Trump’s China confrontation; blocking the USMCA; and impeding a trade agreement between the U.S. and U.K. are part of that calculation.

Prior to this week Hollywood was openly praying for a recession to weaken President Trump’s reelection efforts. However, this week we are now seeing Wall Street, and the media pundits therein, openly cheering for an economic recession for exactly the same purpose.

The aligned interests of Wall Street, media pundits and Democrats are all contingent upon harming the U.S. economy.  That is how severely ideological modern democrats are.

The democrats are willing to destroy Main Street in order to retain power.

There are trillions at stake.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

 

[Jakridge + 122]

17 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

Well, I do not. Yes, he has made great strides when dealing with North Korea, and in dealing with China, and you have to give him credit for that. Those are great accomplishments.  Actually, I cannot think of another person in America who could have pulled it off, or who had the guts to do it.

But being an American President has a unique responsibility.  And that is to be and to project being a moral voice. And here Trump fails miserably.  In my view beating up on migrants, putting people into detention jails and putting their infants and children into these dog cages, is not what we are about in America.  Americans are above all a voice for morality on the world stage.  When the monsters oppress, Americans are the people who raise up their voices, and in some cases their swords, to stand for decency.  When the President loses the pedestal of Decency, he collapses that moral voice.  And Trump did not have that pedestal, even in his personal life, to start with. 

I am disgusted with his treatment of the migrants.  Now you can argue "Policy" as to immigration and Emigration all day long, but let's remember, the USA is the world's Moral Leader and is what stands between decency and the Dark Side of the Force.  And when it comes to morality and decency, Mr. Trump has gone over to that Dark Side.  So, for me, no, it is not "good enough." 

There are things that you just do not do in your life.  You do not sit in some Bar and then go slide your hand up some young woman's skirt sitting next to you to go "feel her pussy."  You are not introduced, she has no idea who you are, and her "pussy" is her private part and not there for you to go fondle while she is sitting with her girlfriends having a drink.  She is not your personal whore.  You just do not even think about doing that. Even by New York's non-existent moral standards, you do not do that.  OK, that was before he was elected President.  What it does is describe a frame of reference that I personally find disgraceful.  People are not sex toys, people have an inherent worth and everyone is entitled to be treated with dignity.  Trump fails with the migrants and puts the women in cages precisely because in the past he put his finger where it did not belong.  It is an attitude problem, and in my view in that he is a failure.  So NO, that is not good enough for me. 

Mr. Eck it seems to me you are a victim of the mainstream media.  Trump beating up on migrants?  Obama's administration implemented the policies you are Indicting him for.  Infants and children in cages is a leftist talking point aimed at demoralizing a constituency so Trump wont win in 2020.  Most of the images floating around the media and internet of children in cages in American custody were taken during the Obama administration.  Were you as disgusted with the treatment of immigrants during obamas reign as you are now?  How does Bill Clintons factual reputation (suicided friends and all) stand up to your pedestal of decency?  Cigar inserts, BJ's, and blue dress cum rags in the Oval office are ok, but bragadocia pussy talk crosses the line?  

I, as a life long American, stand with this president, warts and all, because he Obviously loves this country and wants to make it successful for all Americans. He wants us to stop being ripped off by China, He wants all Americans to be successful whether white, black, brown, or what the hell other color.  We don't care about race, gender, sexual preference or whatever other stigma leftists put on us or him, all we care about is our country prospering so we have the ability to provide wealth for our families and to help others prosper.  There are millions of us that feel this way and we, for the most part, unfortunately remain silent during the onslaught of unfounded political and racial attacks made by people that obviously have animus towards our country and way of life.

Edited August 17, 2019 by Jakridge

[JR EWING + 123]

On 8/7/2019 at 6:40 PM, SKEP said:

It took U.S. over 20 years to realize that China and their Communist Party are all in on an economic and trade war against them.  

It took Trump to do something about it.

How long will it take China to figure out they already lost.

China's in denial .  .  .  Just like OPEC is in denial.

Complete nonsense. China already adapting to US. China outmanouvered trump who already knows the chinese aint coming to visit in Sept much to the annoyance if the petulant child running the US into the ground. All the child could do to try save face was tweet that maybe they wont come already knowing they aint coming. You all now have an expensive Christmas over there.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

5 hours ago, Jakridge said:

Mr. Eck it seems to me you are a victim of the mainstream media. 

Hardly.  I live in the countryside, there is no mainstream media here.  Assuredly no television. Even if there was, I would ignore it.  Nobody in that mainstream media has anything intelligent to say.

5 hours ago, Jakridge said:

Trump beating up on migrants?  Obama's administration implemented the policies you are Indicting him for.

That is very true.  Obama is no hero.  He imported some very ugly people into his administration.  Those ugly people started this (the caging and the gulag camps).  There is no excuse for that.  As the elected President, it was his responsibility to see to it that that did not happen, than when it did, he would instantly put a stop to it, and would dismantle that.  He did not.  That is inexcusable.  I turn my back when he goes by. 

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump (who is on a tear to dismantle whatever Obama did) is perfectly content to continue those grotesque, reprehensible policies.  Indeed, it would seem he glories in it.  His disgraceful choices for Homeland Security shrug their shoulders and make statements such as :  "Well, those parents chose to bring those children here to these conditions, so it is the parents' fault."  Kirstjen Nielsen was hired on her Nordic good looks alone.  Talent?  Morality?  Ethics?  No, no, no.  Did she pass the "good-looker" test?  Here she is, you tell me:

This is a woman with a heart of stone.  You don't recruit and hire women like that.  They have no morality.  Trump has failed America by hiring Neilson and then vetting that policy.  That is just disgraceful.  You say you are "proud" to be an American?  what, with that woman as your compatriot?  What else: you approve and glory in the frisking of genitals at the airport? 

5 hours ago, Jakridge said:

Were you as disgusted with the treatment of immigrants during obamas reign as you are now? 

Yes.  It churned my stomach.  It is a complete, utter, total failure of Government, and a complete, total, utter disgrace.  It is even worse than the internment camps of Roosevelt during WWII, where Americans of Japanese ancestry were locked up as criminal aliens, the entire Constitution ripped up and burned, their property looted and stolen - by the national Government.  Just appalling. that is what happens when expediency takes the front seat, kicking decency to the curb.

5 hours ago, Jakridge said:

How does Bill Clintons factual reputation (suicided friends and all) stand up to your pedestal of decency? 

There is no decency in Mr. Clinton.  He was a disgrace.  I remind you he was impeached by the House of Representatives over that Blue Dress episode, which itself was just appalling.  The Senate refused to vote for removal from office.  The Senate disgraced itself. Hardly the first time for the United States Senate, which has a very, very long history of disgracing itself.  Just appalling.  And in case you are wondering, no, I do not shake Mr. Clinton's hand, nor that of Mrs. Clinton.  I think the United States people have had quite enough of the Clintons.  Finally.  

5 hours ago, Jakridge said:

I, as a life long American, stand with this president, warts and all, because he Obviously loves this country and wants to make it successful for all Americans.

You can stand with him all day long for all I care, but I remind you that there is no evidence that "he loves this country."  None. 

There is no evidence that "he wants to make is successful for all Americans."  Just for example, there is not one house that has been built for a homeless family. Not one. The federal government has done nothing for the 5,000 families still with wrecked houses on Staten Island, which I remind you is a part of New York City.  Nothing. You can make the argument that it should not be the responsibility of FEMA, but that is a political argument. Right now it is a FEMA responsibility, and FEMA has failed,its Director has failed, and Trump ignores it, not interesting.  Trump is perfectly happy to see the School Lunch program dismantled.  There are people in America so poor that they cannot afford school lunch for their kids. That lunch program was instituted a long time ago to alleviate some of the worst effects of that poverty.  I live in a very rural part of America, one of the most rural States, and I see the poverty everywhere. Don't tell me about poverty, my neighbors are all poor.  It snows seven feet a year here, and I see people who cannot afford to buy snow tires.  They need that old car to get to work, I have a neighbor down the road who is so poor that he could not pay a garage to change his clutch, so he was doing it in a snowback in February, lying underneath his ancient pick-up on a sheet of cardboard.  Don't lecture me about the poor; they are all around me.  The median wage here in this State is $14.42/hour.  One-sixth of the workforce Statewide earns the minimum wage, ten bucks.  You try living and raising a family on ten bucks.  I have neighbors who shut off the furnace at night in the bitter winter and sleep under a pile of blankets because they cannot afford the oil or propane for heat.  During the day they put the temperature dial at fifty.  You try living at 50 degrees.  They have to hunt and kill a deer or they have no meat at all, for the entire winter.  You try living like that. I don't see Trump even thinking about any of it.  Not even on the Washington radar.  For anybody.  It is such a disgrace.  

Don't tell me that Trump "loves his country."  If you really love the country, you love the people in that country. And you don't let them live in abject, grinding poverty.  All those Presidents are perfectly happy to go fly around in some airplane that costs  $2,643 a minute to operate, while 16% of the population is below the poverty line.  How do you rationalize that?  You cannot.  It is just appallingly bad.  

6 hours ago, Jakridge said:

I, as a life long American, stand with this president, warts and all

Hey, be my guest.  You can "stand" with him all day long.  "Warts"?  You call his behavior "warts"?  Don't rationalize appalling behavior. 

6 hours ago, Jakridge said:

He wants us to stop being ripped off by China

Yes, he has taken forceful steps to put an end to the USA being the foil for communist mercantilists, I give him full credit for that.  Should have happened twenty years ago. One group of Americans gloried in the China phenomenon so that they could profit at the expense of another group of Americans.  I blame Wall Street and certain MBA schools for that abuse. The underlying root causes, one group of Americans abusing and exploiting another group, but at least Mr. Trump finally forces the issue. Good for him!

6 hours ago, Jakridge said:

He wants all Americans to be successful

Unfortunately, there is zero evidence of that.  He treats entire groups and classes of Americans as so much dirt, a perpetual servitude class.  He is hardly alone in that attitude. He even treats his 60-man Secret Service detail like that, requiring them to go place his golf ball in a more favorable location when he is out on his golf course in New Jersey.  Look, I really don't care if the man cheats at golf, he wants to be petty about some game, see if I care.  But then don't go bragging about how good you are, that you have the best score in the club, when you require the Secret Servicemen to enable the cheating. Pathetic. It reveals a mindset of dishonour. Again, golf is a silly game, so see if I care; it is merely illustrative of a mindset.  

Getting back to wanting all Americans to be successsful, that is simply not true.  He is perfectly content to have a certain class of Americans be and stay rich. Specifically, people who are rich enough to go buy apartments in his buildings.  Everybody else, hey who cares?  Those people don't exist, and vote Democratic in any event, so don't even bother. They can stay poor.  That includes the populations of Indian reservations, a population nobody in Washington even thinks about. 

6 hours ago, Jakridge said:

all we care about is our country prospering so we have the ability to provide wealth for our families and to help others prosper.  There are millions of us that feel this way

That incidentally includes me.  I refuse to do manufacturing outside the USA and Canada.  Keep those wages here at home.  Lead by example. 

Your man Trump is a huckster, a mass-merchandiser.  Everything his family got involved in was a hustle.  China manufacturing?  His daughter's merchandise line was sourced from some of the lowest-wage countries on the planet.  Trump himself?  The towels in his hotels and golf courses are sourced from China.  Don't kid yourself. 

And I note that Mr. Kirkman has issued you a "Great Response!" gold cup for your comment.  I must say I am disappointed, Tom. 

And P.S:  It is "van Eck," not "Eck."  The name is Dutch.  I am not American; for the record, I am an immigrant, and I remain Dutch. I have no intention of doing the naturalization exercise and abandoning fealty to the King. I live here, run my plants, and am perfectly happy to do so. I find Americans to be perfectly nice, warm-hearted, generous people, overall a pleasant society.  If you don't like it, I suppose you can always kick me out.  "Go back home."  I can hear you chanting that on the street corner now.  Please don't throw stones at my dogs, though; not their fault. They are Americans, too. 

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

No, no, you can stay, and so can your dogs. I think you have a great deal to add to the discussion. In fact, I am pleased to see so many diverse ideas floated down this stream . . . and I'm sure Tom Kirkman is as well. They say that we're all about 99% alike in our DNA, but you'd never know it by reading these several comments. I'll relate a corny story. When I was six, a rancher's son, my Marlboro father advised me to pray for the president. That man was Ike Eisenhower, an easy man to pray for. Since then, I have prayed for some real stinkers! Since there is a moral to every story, I'll tell you mine: by the time a man or woman has climbed the greased pole to a top position in the political firehouse, he or she is so massively compromised that the best we can hope for is rule by fiat. Whatever President Trump's many transgressions in life--and I am sure they are many--he has kept his word on which he campaigned, almost to the letter. My favorite president was Mr. Eisenhower. My second most favorite was George H. W. Bush, but he broke his campaign promise, which was no new taxes. We should all praise America, but we also shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the person who set up much of our government, including the banking system, was gunned down by the Vice-President of the United States, Aaron Burr. Alexander Hamilton threw his shot away, thinking it all a folly for two men of their stature to be wasting a fine day, out in the woods, dueling. But Mr. Burr, while wanted for Hamilton's murder in the state of New York, finished out his term. Then, when President Lincoln was assassinated, an alcoholic miscreant, a slavery sympathizer named Andrew Johnston, basically abbreviated Reconstruction. Along those lines, if we have to blame somebody, let's blame Nixon--he's the one who first went to China and started all this mess. 

[Zhong Lu + 845]

Except for some manufacturing leaving China, it's the US companies that are paying the tariffs.  The tariffs are in effect a tax on private companies operating in China.  

China isn't blinking.  But Trump is.  

Edited August 17, 2019 by Zhong Lu

[James Regan + 1,776]

6 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

Hardly.  I live in the countryside, there is no mainstream media here.  Assuredly no television. Even if there was, I would ignore it.  Nobody in that mainstream media has anything intelligent to say.

That is very true.  Obama is no hero.  He imported some very ugly people into his administration.  Those ugly people started this (the caging and the gulag camps).  There is no excuse for that.  As the elected President, it was his responsibility to see to it that that did not happen, than when it did, he would instantly put a stop to it, and would dismantle that.  He did not.  That is inexcusable.  I turn my back when he goes by. 

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump (who is on a tear to dismantle whatever Obama did) is perfectly content to continue those grotesque, reprehensible policies.  Indeed, it would seem he glories in it.  His disgraceful choices for Homeland Security shrug their shoulders and make statements such as :  "Well, those parents chose to bring those children here to these conditions, so it is the parents' fault."  Kirstjen Nielsen was hired on her Nordic good looks alone.  Talent?  Morality?  Ethics?  No, no, no.  Did she pass the "good-looker" test?  Here she is, you tell me:

This is a woman with a heart of stone.  You don't recruit and hire women like that.  They have no morality.  Trump has failed America by hiring Neilson and then vetting that policy.  That is just disgraceful.  You say you are "proud" to be an American?  what, with that woman as your compatriot?  What else: you approve and glory in the frisking of genitals at the airport? 

Yes.  It churned my stomach.  It is a complete, utter, total failure of Government, and a complete, total, utter disgrace.  It is even worse than the internment camps of Roosevelt during WWII, where Americans of Japanese ancestry were locked up as criminal aliens, the entire Constitution ripped up and burned, their property looted and stolen - by the national Government.  Just appalling. that is what happens when expediency takes the front seat, kicking decency to the curb.

There is no decency in Mr. Clinton.  He was a disgrace.  I remind you he was impeached by the House of Representatives over that Blue Dress episode, which itself was just appalling.  The Senate refused to vote for removal from office.  The Senate disgraced itself. Hardly the first time for the United States Senate, which has a very, very long history of disgracing itself.  Just appalling.  And in case you are wondering, no, I do not shake Mr. Clinton's hand, nor that of Mrs. Clinton.  I think the United States people have had quite enough of the Clintons.  Finally.  

You can stand with him all day long for all I care, but I remind you that there is no evidence that "he loves this country."  None. 

There is no evidence that "he wants to make is successful for all Americans."  Just for example, there is not one house that has been built for a homeless family. Not one. The federal government has done nothing for the 5,000 families still with wrecked houses on Staten Island, which I remind you is a part of New York City.  Nothing. You can make the argument that it should not be the responsibility of FEMA, but that is a political argument. Right now it is a FEMA responsibility, and FEMA has failed,its Director has failed, and Trump ignores it, not interesting.  Trump is perfectly happy to see the School Lunch program dismantled.  There are people in America so poor that they cannot afford school lunch for their kids. That lunch program was instituted a long time ago to alleviate some of the worst effects of that poverty.  I live in a very rural part of America, one of the most rural States, and I see the poverty everywhere. Don't tell me about poverty, my neighbors are all poor.  It snows seven feet a year here, and I see people who cannot afford to buy snow tires.  They need that old car to get to work, I have a neighbor down the road who is so poor that he could not pay a garage to change his clutch, so he was doing it in a snowback in February, lying underneath his ancient pick-up on a sheet of cardboard.  Don't lecture me about the poor; they are all around me.  The median wage here in this State is $14.42/hour.  One-sixth of the workforce Statewide earns the minimum wage, ten bucks.  You try living and raising a family on ten bucks.  I have neighbors who shut off the furnace at night in the bitter winter and sleep under a pile of blankets because they cannot afford the oil or propane for heat.  During the day they put the temperature dial at fifty.  You try living at 50 degrees.  They have to hunt and kill a deer or they have no meat at all, for the entire winter.  You try living like that. I don't see Trump even thinking about any of it.  Not even on the Washington radar.  For anybody.  It is such a disgrace.  

Don't tell me that Trump "loves his country."  If you really love the country, you love the people in that country. And you don't let them live in abject, grinding poverty.  All those Presidents are perfectly happy to go fly around in some airplane that costs  $2,643 a minute to operate, while 16% of the population is below the poverty line.  How do you rationalize that?  You cannot.  It is just appallingly bad.  

Hey, be my guest.  You can "stand" with him all day long.  "Warts"?  You call his behavior "warts"?  Don't rationalize appalling behavior. 

Yes, he has taken forceful steps to put an end to the USA being the foil for communist mercantilists, I give him full credit for that.  Should have happened twenty years ago. One group of Americans gloried in the China phenomenon so that they could profit at the expense of another group of Americans.  I blame Wall Street and certain MBA schools for that abuse. The underlying root causes, one group of Americans abusing and exploiting another group, but at least Mr. Trump finally forces the issue. Good for him!

Unfortunately, there is zero evidence of that.  He treats entire groups and classes of Americans as so much dirt, a perpetual servitude class.  He is hardly alone in that attitude. He even treats his 60-man Secret Service detail like that, requiring them to go place his golf ball in a more favorable location when he is out on his golf course in New Jersey.  Look, I really don't care if the man cheats at golf, he wants to be petty about some game, see if I care.  But then don't go bragging about how good you are, that you have the best score in the club, when you require the Secret Servicemen to enable the cheating. Pathetic. It reveals a mindset of dishonour. Again, golf is a silly game, so see if I care; it is merely illustrative of a mindset.  

Getting back to wanting all Americans to be successsful, that is simply not true.  He is perfectly content to have a certain class of Americans be and stay rich. Specifically, people who are rich enough to go buy apartments in his buildings.  Everybody else, hey who cares?  Those people don't exist, and vote Democratic in any event, so don't even bother. They can stay poor.  That includes the populations of Indian reservations, a population nobody in Washington even thinks about. 

That incidentally includes me.  I refuse to do manufacturing outside the USA and Canada.  Keep those wages here at home.  Lead by example. 

Your man Trump is a huckster, a mass-merchandiser.  Everything his family got involved in was a hustle.  China manufacturing?  His daughter's merchandise line was sourced from some of the lowest-wage countries on the planet.  Trump himself?  The towels in his hotels and golf courses are sourced from China.  Don't kid yourself. 

And I note that Mr. Kirkman has issued you a "Great Response!" gold cup for your comment.  I must say I am disappointed, Tom. 

And P.S:  It is "van Eck," not "Eck."  The name is Dutch.  I am not American; for the record, I am an immigrant, and I remain Dutch. I have no intention of doing the naturalization exercise and abandoning fealty to the King. I live here, run my plants, and am perfectly happy to do so. I find Americans to be perfectly nice, warm-hearted, generous people, overall a pleasant society.  If you don't like it, I suppose you can always kick me out.  "Go back home."  I can hear you chanting that on the street corner now.  Please don't throw stones at my dogs, though; not their fault. They are Americans, too. 

Van as in van (from or of) Eck, as Mac or Mc being son of or Abu being Son of etc.

Intetesting tit bits we learn each day.

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

1 hour ago, Zhong Lu said:

Except for some manufacturing leaving China, it's the US companies that are paying the tariffs.  The tariffs are in effect a tax on private companies operating in China.  

China isn't blinking.  But Trump is.  

They're blinking quite a bit in Hong Kong right now, no tovarisch? 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

Quote

I have neighbors who shut off the furnace at night in the bitter winter and sleep under a pile of blankets because they cannot afford the oil or propane for heat.

Vermont doesn't let you burn wood? That's what the "poor" around here do. That's what I did, when times were tough. 

[Jakridge + 122]

9 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

Hardly.  I live in the countryside, there is no mainstream media here.  Assuredly no television. Even if there was, I would ignore it.  Nobody in that mainstream media has anything intelligent to say.

That is very true.  Obama is no hero.  He imported some very ugly people into his administration.  Those ugly people started this (the caging and the gulag camps).  There is no excuse for that.  As the elected President, it was his responsibility to see to it that that did not happen, than when it did, he would instantly put a stop to it, and would dismantle that.  He did not.  That is inexcusable.  I turn my back when he goes by. 

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump (who is on a tear to dismantle whatever Obama did) is perfectly content to continue those grotesque, reprehensible policies.  Indeed, it would seem he glories in it.  His disgraceful choices for Homeland Security shrug their shoulders and make statements such as :  "Well, those parents chose to bring those children here to these conditions, so it is the parents' fault."  Kirstjen Nielsen was hired on her Nordic good looks alone.  Talent?  Morality?  Ethics?  No, no, no.  Did she pass the "good-looker" test?  Here she is, you tell me:

This is a woman with a heart of stone.  You don't recruit and hire women like that.  They have no morality.  Trump has failed America by hiring Neilson and then vetting that policy.  That is just disgraceful.  You say you are "proud" to be an American?  what, with that woman as your compatriot?  What else: you approve and glory in the frisking of genitals at the airport? 

Yes.  It churned my stomach.  It is a complete, utter, total failure of Government, and a complete, total, utter disgrace.  It is even worse than the internment camps of Roosevelt during WWII, where Americans of Japanese ancestry were locked up as criminal aliens, the entire Constitution ripped up and burned, their property looted and stolen - by the national Government.  Just appalling. that is what happens when expediency takes the front seat, kicking decency to the curb.

There is no decency in Mr. Clinton.  He was a disgrace.  I remind you he was impeached by the House of Representatives over that Blue Dress episode, which itself was just appalling.  The Senate refused to vote for removal from office.  The Senate disgraced itself. Hardly the first time for the United States Senate, which has a very, very long history of disgracing itself.  Just appalling.  And in case you are wondering, no, I do not shake Mr. Clinton's hand, nor that of Mrs. Clinton.  I think the United States people have had quite enough of the Clintons.  Finally.  

You can stand with him all day long for all I care, but I remind you that there is no evidence that "he loves this country."  None. 

There is no evidence that "he wants to make is successful for all Americans."  Just for example, there is not one house that has been built for a homeless family. Not one. The federal government has done nothing for the 5,000 families still with wrecked houses on Staten Island, which I remind you is a part of New York City.  Nothing. You can make the argument that it should not be the responsibility of FEMA, but that is a political argument. Right now it is a FEMA responsibility, and FEMA has failed,its Director has failed, and Trump ignores it, not interesting.  Trump is perfectly happy to see the School Lunch program dismantled.  There are people in America so poor that they cannot afford school lunch for their kids. That lunch program was instituted a long time ago to alleviate some of the worst effects of that poverty.  I live in a very rural part of America, one of the most rural States, and I see the poverty everywhere. Don't tell me about poverty, my neighbors are all poor.  It snows seven feet a year here, and I see people who cannot afford to buy snow tires.  They need that old car to get to work, I have a neighbor down the road who is so poor that he could not pay a garage to change his clutch, so he was doing it in a snowback in February, lying underneath his ancient pick-up on a sheet of cardboard.  Don't lecture me about the poor; they are all around me.  The median wage here in this State is $14.42/hour.  One-sixth of the workforce Statewide earns the minimum wage, ten bucks.  You try living and raising a family on ten bucks.  I have neighbors who shut off the furnace at night in the bitter winter and sleep under a pile of blankets because they cannot afford the oil or propane for heat.  During the day they put the temperature dial at fifty.  You try living at 50 degrees.  They have to hunt and kill a deer or they have no meat at all, for the entire winter.  You try living like that. I don't see Trump even thinking about any of it.  Not even on the Washington radar.  For anybody.  It is such a disgrace.  

Don't tell me that Trump "loves his country."  If you really love the country, you love the people in that country. And you don't let them live in abject, grinding poverty.  All those Presidents are perfectly happy to go fly around in some airplane that costs  $2,643 a minute to operate, while 16% of the population is below the poverty line.  How do you rationalize that?  You cannot.  It is just appallingly bad.  

Hey, be my guest.  You can "stand" with him all day long.  "Warts"?  You call his behavior "warts"?  Don't rationalize appalling behavior. 

Yes, he has taken forceful steps to put an end to the USA being the foil for communist mercantilists, I give him full credit for that.  Should have happened twenty years ago. One group of Americans gloried in the China phenomenon so that they could profit at the expense of another group of Americans.  I blame Wall Street and certain MBA schools for that abuse. The underlying root causes, one group of Americans abusing and exploiting another group, but at least Mr. Trump finally forces the issue. Good for him!

Unfortunately, there is zero evidence of that.  He treats entire groups and classes of Americans as so much dirt, a perpetual servitude class.  He is hardly alone in that attitude. He even treats his 60-man Secret Service detail like that, requiring them to go place his golf ball in a more favorable location when he is out on his golf course in New Jersey.  Look, I really don't care if the man cheats at golf, he wants to be petty about some game, see if I care.  But then don't go bragging about how good you are, that you have the best score in the club, when you require the Secret Servicemen to enable the cheating. Pathetic. It reveals a mindset of dishonour. Again, golf is a silly game, so see if I care; it is merely illustrative of a mindset.  

Getting back to wanting all Americans to be successsful, that is simply not true.  He is perfectly content to have a certain class of Americans be and stay rich. Specifically, people who are rich enough to go buy apartments in his buildings.  Everybody else, hey who cares?  Those people don't exist, and vote Democratic in any event, so don't even bother. They can stay poor.  That includes the populations of Indian reservations, a population nobody in Washington even thinks about. 

That incidentally includes me.  I refuse to do manufacturing outside the USA and Canada.  Keep those wages here at home.  Lead by example. 

Your man Trump is a huckster, a mass-merchandiser.  Everything his family got involved in was a hustle.  China manufacturing?  His daughter's merchandise line was sourced from some of the lowest-wage countries on the planet.  Trump himself?  The towels in his hotels and golf courses are sourced from China.  Don't kid yourself. 

And I note that Mr. Kirkman has issued you a "Great Response!" gold cup for your comment.  I must say I am disappointed, Tom. 

And P.S:  It is "van Eck," not "Eck."  The name is Dutch.  I am not American; for the record, I am an immigrant, and I remain Dutch. I have no intention of doing the naturalization exercise and abandoning fealty to the King. I live here, run my plants, and am perfectly happy to do so. I find Americans to be perfectly nice, warm-hearted, generous people, overall a pleasant society.  If you don't like it, I suppose you can always kick me out.  "Go back home."  I can hear you chanting that on the street corner now.  Please don't throw stones at my dogs, though; not their fault. They are Americans, too. 

Okay Mr. van Eck allow me to retort.

I am curious to know where it is exactly you get your information about these people if you do not follow any media or have a television. How exactly do you get the details of peoples personal lives, feelings, and morality? Unless mrs. Nielsen is your ex-wife then pardon me. But frankly it sounds like you have a very deep guttural hatred for the woman based on something you have learned from somewhere. Just curious. If you are not an avid New York Times reader I would be surprised. Personally I believe you have fallen for the propaganda line put out there by the Democrat Party and anti-American leftist that will make up and do anything they can to impugn this President and the people that support him because he has thrown a cog in the wheel of the globalist agenda . I have heard many accounts from several border agents and people that work in the detention facilities that the things you were listing that is going on in the gulags, as you say, simply are not true. One of us is being lied to. I choose to believe the people in uniform that work there and not the mysterious information flow you are getting. And yes I do have proof that President Trump loves this country and wants to make every American successful. He says it at every one of his rallies over and over again and not only that, his actions to me indicate it as well. He has done everything that he has campaigned on short of building the wall which we hope and pray comes soon but, as I'm sure you know, the democrats do not want our border secure.

As to your rant on the poor I am very well aware they are around as well as I live in rural Southern Alabama. But being a conservative American that loves his country and loves God, I am of the opinion that we are not to sit around and wait for the government to help people out, we help them out personally. My church and many of us down here go to Great Lengths to help the people around us. Sounds like you guys need more of that kind of thing up where you are. And I have lived like that Mr van Eck, my Carpenter pay isn't much but at least I don't have to live like that anymore.

I'm sure you are a very nice man and I am glad to have you in our country. But to be honest you do sound a little bitter. Let me ask you sir, if I were poor and wretched and gathered tens of thousands of other poor wretched friends and illegally entered your kings domain would I be welcomed by the Dutch, brought in, processed, and set free in your Homeland? I kind of doubt it.  The USA welcomes more immigrants into its borders than any other country in the world, mostly because more people want to come here than any other country in the world because we are a great country. We have to process these people we can't just have open borders and when you come in illegally it is just that, illegal. If I rob a bank with my children with me I will be separated from my children, if there is no Uncle George or Aunt Jean to come pick them up and take them home then the children have to be kept someplace. You call it cages because that is the narrative being dished out to impugn this president. They will try everything they can to do so like I said before because he is disrupting their plans to denigrate this country.  It is how socialism and communism operate and treats its people, they are trying to do that to all countries in the world and have no doubt this is a battle between  socialism and free market  representative government  that exist currently as America . Rich people are bad and we are a rich country so we have to be brought down. Trump is stopping that from happening and their hair is on fire. I applaud him for it. God bless  Mr. Van Eck

Edited August 17, 2019 by Jakridge

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

47 minutes ago, Jakridge said:

President Trump loves this country and wants to make every American successful. He says it at every one of his rallies over and over again and not only that, his actions to me indicate it as well.

 

[Tom s + 5]

On 8/6/2019 at 9:24 PM, Tom Kirkman said:

China has *already* lost the trade war with the U.S. but they just haven't realized it yet.

Trump keeps outmaneuvering Xi.

For reference, look at what has happened recently with Mexico and U.S.  Mexico has capitulated.

Just wait for China to realize that they will no longer be calling the shots in their trade with the U.S.

Here's the latest move:

The U.S. Might Sanction China’s Largest Oil Company

 

China has smoked US in trade war.  Trump has induced a recession more than likely while China is still growing at over twice as fast. China hasn't had negative growth in over 40 years.  They will grow by 1 or 2% and US will go into recession and trump has dug his own grave and will lose the election as a result.  The alternative is him making a bad deal for the US just for the sake of making a deal or starting a war at this point.  China has no reason to make a deal.  Another year and half he is gone.  He painted himself into a corner trying to act tough and everyone is paying for it.  Typical psycho narcissist move.

[Zhong Lu + 845]

6 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

They're blinking quite a bit in Hong Kong right now, no tovarisch? 

They're giving the protesters rope to hang themselves.  The strategy is to wait for them to go too far, crash the HK stock market (which the majority of HK people have their retirement funds in) then step in to "restore order."

I've seen it happen before.  

For that matter they're applying a similar "give them rope to hang themselves" strategy in response to Trump's tariffs.  When the recession hits in a year or two, guess who people are going to blame it on? 

Edited August 18, 2019 by Zhong Lu

[Michael Sanches + 187]

On 8/16/2019 at 8:26 PM, Jan van Eck said:

the USA is the world's Moral Leader and is what stands between decency and the Dark Side of the Force. 

I love my country. But, we are not the world's moral leader. We kill over a million babies a year.

1. We cut them up in the womb, vacuum out the pieces, and then reassemble them in a pan to make sure no pieces, such as an arm or a leg, were left inside to cause infection. Why doesn't the TV show this "moral leadership.?"

2. Our previous President, Obama, voted against the "Baby Born Alive Act" in Illinois, saying doctors have the right to kill babies born alive if the think the baby won't have a high quality life. I don't see this as moral leadership.

Despite his personal failings, with his judicial appointments President Trump has infinite more moral leadership than his predecessor.

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

On 8/7/2019 at 9:24 AM, Tom Kirkman said:

China has *already* lost the trade war with the U.S. but they just haven't realized it yet.

Trump keeps outmaneuvering Xi.

As a follow-up to my original theme of this thread, I was pleasantly suprised to read this article in the New York Post:

 

China’s Xi to Trump: Help us save face

China has upped the ante in its trade dispute with America. By allowing the yuan to fall on foreign-exchange markets, Beijing has shown how far it will go in response to existing US tariffs on Chinese goods, as well as additional ones now threatened by President Trump.

But China’s moves also signal weakness: Beijing can no longer play the tit-for-tat tariff game. And because the devaluation has raised the risk of capital flight from China, the currency move also hints at desperation.

With or without the devaluation, Beijing is in a tough spot. On one side, the Communist Party can ill afford a trade war, since it has an implicit contract with the Chinese people to deliver prosperity in exchange for autocratic rule. But Beijing cannot countenance Washington’s demands that China import more from the United States, cease cyber theft and let Americans do business in China without Chinese partners.

These aren’t new demands, but the Trump White House wants them guaranteed in Chinese law. This last point, China’s leadership claims, is an affront to the country’s sovereignty — already a sensitive issue, given the turmoil in Hong Kong.

China has always held the weak economic hand in this dispute. Its export-dependent economy needs overseas sales, which comprise one-fifth of its gross domestic product. More than a quarter of those exports go to the United States, meaning 5% of China’s economy is exposed in this trade dispute. By contrast, the United States counts on exports for about 12% of its GDP, and barely 8% of its total exports go to China, leaving just 1% of the US economy exposed.

Moreover, some 30% of US goods sold in China are off limits to tariffs, as they constitute components, mostly to computer and iPhone assemblies, that support Chinese exports.

These relative disadvantages showed themselves early in the dispute. American firms began moving their operations elsewhere, while many Chinese firms have decamped to other Asian countries, in large part to avoid the American levies. Even the perennially upbeat (and suspect) official Chinese government statistics show that the economy is suffering — China’s GDP during the second quarter grew in real terms at its slowest rate since 1992.

Export volumes appear to have dropped more than 4% in the past year. Imports have also declined by more than 5%, indicating a drop in employment and consumer spending. While official figures still suggest a robust Chinese jobs market, surveys of Chinese media show a marked drop in help-wanted advertising.

These economic setbacks have also constrained China’s access to hard currencies, primarily the dollar, forcing a dramatic ebb in China’s once-mighty flow of overseas investments. In the first half of 2018, investment volumes ran at a quarter of their pace during this same period in 2017.

Long before the recent devaluation, these severe economic setbacks had already put China’s yuan under pressure. Until recently, the People’s Bank of China resisted that downward push. They did so because China needs financial capital, and in reaction to a loss of the global purchasing power of the yuan, Chinese wealth holders will send their money abroad.

The Chinese also understand that a devaluation to offset the Trump tariffs would mean that Chinese operations would receive fewer dollars for each sale; in other words, manufacturers would pay the tariffs for the American buyers. Given these risks, the Chinese currency devaluation indicates that the leadership is in a bind.

Sovereignty issues matter a great deal to the Chinese. If the Americans were to relent on this point, Beijing would sign a deal quickly. But the White House has good reasons for insisting on changes in the law. American presidents since Bill Clinton have all complained about Chinese trade practices, and Beijing has continually offered assurances that it always reneges on. Trump’s hard line is a response to this past duplicity.

The United States could have an agreement tomorrow if the White House were willing to accept China’s vague promises. But America doesn’t need to give in to the Chinese obstinacy. Even now, talks continue. China might yet succumb to economic pressure and yield to American demands — but the prospect of a deal would brighten considerably if the White House could offer Xi a means of saving face on the sovereignty issues.

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

So to annoy the lurking, persistent China spammer who I keep banning and he keeps coming back with a new spammer sock ......

 

A Lifetime Contract

"... In 2017 the 19th Chinese Communist Party Congress removed term limits, effectively giving Xi Jinping a lifetime contract. He promised a new era of Chinese power and world leadership. 

But something happened on the way to that grand new era of Chinese power and leadership…a guy named Trump. 

Donald Trump had been watching from the grandstands. He saw how the Chinese tricked American business and political leaders. Getting concessions while refusing to play by generally accepted rules of trade. Like Lucy with the football, they lured companies and investors with promises of access to their enormous market, only to pull the football away after they got what they wanted. Citizen Trump saw how they were stealing billions of dollars of our intellectual property every year. All of this was costing us millions of good paying jobs. He could not understand why we let them get away with it. 

So, he decided to run for president and do something about it. He won and he has. For the first time in recent history, we have a head coach who really wants his team to win. One who is not so easily intimidated. He has made it clear that he doesn’t want a trade war. But if the Chinese want one, they will get one. It is a trade war they cannot win. A trade war which will have far reaching consequences for their economy. 

To get their attention and demonstrate his seriousness, President Trump selected tariffs as his weapon of choice. If the Chinese wanted to trade like a world citizen, they would have to behave like one. If they didn’t, he would impose tariffs on their goods coming into our market at rates that mirror the tariffs imposed on our products going into theirs.  ...

 

... The placid President Xi thought he could bluff or delay any resolution of the dispute. Xi counted on the on-coming election forcing President Trump to back down. He counted wrong. 

Sino experts see the Chinese economy stagnating. Manufacturing and foreign investment are going south. Attempts to manipulate their currency only made matters worse. His inner circle must know that Trump holds the cards. Hoping that a new President would simply surrender after next November is foolhardy. Can they seriously believe that as their first official act, a President Biden or Harris would capitulate? Would anyone bet the economic future of their nation on that? 

The Chinese have to trade to grow. We don’t. 

To make matters worse, the residents of Hong Kong are demonstrating just how they feel about President Xi’s efforts to impose mainland communism upon them. Xi is now boxed in. Belatedly, he is learning that real free-market capitalism and dictatorial communism are more like oil and water. He is caught between two worlds. We wonder if he can survive in either?  ...

[Zhong Lu + 845]

The problem in China is they don't teach English very well, so even if the Chinese wanted to do what the Russians do (professional international trolling), they probably can't do it.  

Edited August 18, 2019 by Zhong Lu