It's Not the Job of the Government to Dictate Where Businesses Should Go

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

14 hours ago, Zhong Lu said:

Executive orders and declarations of national emergency are supposed to be RARE instances. They are NOT supposed to be used anytime the president wants to do something Congress does not approve of.  It doesn't matter which party controls the presidency.  With each new presidential cycle, the US is sliding more and more into a dictatorship. 

As I recall, Franklin Roosevelt created the New Deal and the Civilian Conservation Corps by Executive Order.  Now, those and Social Security are rather far-reaching events, would you not say?  

When the Congress is stalled, then the Executive can and does issue an Executive Order.  Tends to move things along. 

[Zhong Lu + 845]

4 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

As I recall, Franklin Roosevelt created the New Deal and the Civilian Conservation Corps by Executive Order.  Now, those and Social Security are rather far-reaching events, would you not say?  

When the Congress is stalled, then the Executive can and does issue an Executive Order.  Tends to move things along. 

Personally, I think we should pass a law where executive orders can be invalidated by a vote of any SINGLE branch of Congress unless in a war as declared by Congress.  This Executive Order shi- has gone too far.  If/when Elizabeth Warren wins the presidency a lot of these Trump supporters on this forum are suddenly going to discover the importance of balancing presidential power and I'll be here to tell them "I told you so."  

Edited August 30, 2019 by Zhong Lu

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

Just now, Zhong Lu said:

Personally, I think we should pass a law where executive orders can be invalidated by a vote of any SINGLE branch of Congress.  

that's all very nice, Zhong, but please keep in mind that nobody elected you.  The people voted and they elected Mr. Trump.  Good or bad, the country will ride it out. 

Try to mellow out a bit.  The country is going to survive Mr. Trump. Hey, look at all the other guys it survived.  Coolidge, Hoover, Jackson, lots of loose cannons were Presidents here.  The Americans will carry on.  Always have, always will.  It is what makes this such a truly great country!

America - ya gotta just love it, warts and all.  What a great place!  Beats Canada six ways to Sunday. 

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

On 8/24/2019 at 10:06 PM, Douglas Buckland said:

The President is well within his rights to issue an executive order prohibiting trade with other soveriegn nations IF it is a matter of national security and not simply economic policy. He has ordered that no American company can do business with North Korea and Iran. Why do you think China should be any different IF they are determined to be a threat to nation security?

Answer me this, could Premier Xi ban Chinese companies from doing business with the US? Keep in mind that he is the "dear leader" (your term, not mine) for life.

If your answer is that he can, then why are you castigating Trump for using the same tactic?

 

On 8/24/2019 at 11:23 PM, Zhong Lu said:

Because Xi is a dictator and Trump is supposed to be the president of a democratic country.  Trump's declaration is something you would expect a dictator like Xi or Putin to do.  

What I'm castigating is the hypocrisy of Trump supporters.  They declare Obama to be this or that, and yet when Trump does the very same thing or worse, such as unilateral declarations of executive privilege of what private businesses should or should not do, they find some excuse for him.  

 

 

(Excerpt below from attached PDF)

The International Emergency Economic Powers Act: Origins, Evolution, and Use

The International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) provides the President broad authority to regulate a variety of economic transactions following a declaration of national emergency. IEEPA, like the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA) from which it branched, sits at the center of the modern U.S. sanctions regime. Changes in the use of IEEPA powers since the act’s enactment in 1977 have caused some to question whether the statute’s oversight provisions are robust enough given the sweeping economic powers it confers upon the President upon declaration of a state of emergency. 

Over the course of the twentieth century, Congress delegated increasing amounts of emergency power to the President by statute. The Trading with the Enemy Act was one such statute. 

Congress passed TWEA in 1917 to regulate international transactions with enemy powers following the U.S. entry into the First World War. Congress expanded the act during the 1930s to allow the President to declare a national emergency in times of peace and assume sweeping powers over both domestic and international transactions. Between 1945 and the early 1970s, TWEA became a critically important means to impose sanctions as part of U.S. Cold War strategy. Presidents used TWEA to block international financial transactions, seize U.S.-based assets held by foreign nationals, restrict exports, modify regulations to deter the hoarding of gold, limit foreign direct investment in U.S. companies, and impose tariffs on all imports into the United States. 

Following committee investigations that discovered that the United States had been in a state of emergency for more than 40 years, Congress passed the National Emergencies Act (NEA) in 1976 and IEEPA in 1977. The pair of statutes placed new limits on presidential emergency powers. Both included reporting requirements to increase transparency and track costs, and the NEA required the President to annually assess and extend, if appropriate, the emergency. However, some experts argue that the renewal process has become pro forma. The NEA also afforded Congress the means to terminate a national emergency by adopting a concurrent resolution in each chamber. A decision by the Supreme Court, in a landmark immigration case, however, found the use of concurrent resolutions to terminate an executive action unconstitutional. 

Congress amended the statute to require a joint resolution, significantly increasing the difficulty of terminating an emergency. 

Like TWEA, IEEPA has become an important means to impose economic-based sanctions since its enactment; like TWEA, Presidents have frequently used IEEPA to restrict a variety of international transactions; and like TWEA, the subjects of the restrictions, the frequency of use, and the duration of emergencies have expanded over time. Initially, Presidents targetedforeign states or their governments. Over the years, however, presidential administrations have increasingly used IEEPA to target individuals, groups, and non-state actors such as terrorists and persons who engage in malicious cyber-enabled activities. 

As of March 1, 2019, Presidents had declared 54 national emergencies invoking IEEPA, 29 of which are still ongoing. 

Typically, national emergencies invoking IEEPA last nearly a decade, although some have lasted significantly longer--the first state of emergency declared under the NEA and IEEPA, which was declared in response to the taking of U.S. embassy staff as hostages by Iran in 1979, may soon enter its fifth decade. 

IEEPA grants sweeping powers to the President to control economic transactions. Despite these broad powers, Congress has never attempted to terminate a national emergency invoking IEEPA. Instead, Congress has directed the President on numerous occasions to use IEEPA authorities to impose sanctions. Congress may want to consider whether IEEPA appropriately balances the need for swift action in a time of crisis with Congress’ duty to oversee executive action. Congress may also want to consider IEEPA’s role in implementing its influence in U.S. foreign policy and national security decisionmaking.  ...

 

International Emergency Economic Powers Act _ Origin _ Evolution _ and Use.pdf

[Zhong Lu + 845]

6 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

that's all very nice, Zhong, but please keep in mind that nobody elected you.  The people voted and they elected Mr. Trump.  Good or bad, the country will ride it out. 

Try to mellow out a bit.  The country is going to survive Mr. Trump. Hey, look at all the other guys it survived.  Coolidge, Hoover, Jackson, lots of loose cannons were Presidents here.  The Americans will carry on.  Always have, always will.  It is what makes this such a truly great country!

America - ya gotta just love it, warts and all.  What a great place!  Beats Canada six ways to Sunday. 

And I have no problems with Trump remaining as president into the second term, so long as the Republicans lose Congress.  

And if Warren becomes president, I'm going to root hard for Susan Collins and the Republicans in the Senate because I sure don't ever see the Republicans winning the House again in the next 30 years.  

Edited August 30, 2019 by Zhong Lu

[Zhong Lu + 845]

@ Tom It doesn't matter.  You would have jumped all over Obama if he had made such a declaration.  Hence my charges of hypocrisy.  When the shoe's on the other foot, and someone like Warren is president, and she starts declaring national emergencies over climate change, I'm going to remind you of all of those quotes right back at you.  

Edited August 30, 2019 by Zhong Lu

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

8 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

 

Try to mellow out a bit.  The country is going to survive Mr. Trump. Hey, look at all the other guys it survived.  Coolidge, Hoover, Jackson, lots of loose cannons were Presidents here.  The Americans will carry on.  Always have, always will.  It is what makes this such a truly great country!

America - ya gotta just love it, warts and all.  What a great place!  Beats Canada six ways to Sunday. 

They did break up once and killed each other for about 4 years.

I count two: better weather and cheaper booze. However, I think our healthcare and education systems are superior.

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

13 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said:

 

International Emergency Economic Powers Act _ Origin _ Evolution _ and Use.pdf 1.72 MB · 0 downloads

Emergency measures are classic dictator moves.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_Fire_Decree

 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

5 hours ago, Enthalpic said:

They did break up once and killed each other for about 4 years.

In our neck of the woods, that is called a "frank exchange of opinion"!

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

5 hours ago, Enthalpic said:

Emergency measures are classic dictator moves.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_Fire_Decree

 

We shall have the Grand Army of the Republic.....   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuP2wvTAj0E

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

7 hours ago, Enthalpic said:

Emergency measures are classic dictator moves.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_Fire_Decree

 

It's a bit of a stretch to compare the Reichstag fire, the subterfuge surrounding it and the resulting events to giving emergency trade power to Trump, don't you think?

[Jakridge + 122]

16 hours ago, Zhong Lu said:

As a matter of fact, Trump has on multiple occasions used executive orders and declarations of national emergency to get around Congress.  The border wall comes to mind.  And you're missing this point: if Obama had said American companies should not invest in X country with some tweet, Trump supporters would have jumped on him like a tick on a passing deer.  

Where is the outrage when Trump says these things? Where is the outrage when Trump uses emergency actions and executive orders to do an end-around on Congress? 

Answer: from you there is none, which means you're a hypocrite.  You have no ideals.  All you have is cynicism and party identification and membership.  If we're going to use fancy Russian words here, I could just as well say you're an apparatchik.  

Here's a rule: the people most likely to condemn others of an activity are themselves the most likely to partake of it when given the opportunity.  

This is irrational zhong  All presidents have issued executive orders since it became law passed by Congress.  If Obama had gone after China like Trump is, I, and many others would have supported it.  What you seem to refuse to believe here is that I, and most Trump supporters, are Americans first.  Statements like 'you have no ideals' are irrational and have no place in intelligent debate.  Good day sir!

[Zhong Lu + 845]

No.  You're Republicans first, and Americans second.  

[Jakridge + 122]

Just now, Zhong Lu said:

No.  You're Republicans first, and Americans second.  

Nuh ahh 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

10 minutes ago, Zhong Lu said:

No.  You're Republicans first, and Americans second.  

Well, I am neither.  I am not Republican, nor am I American. I just happen to live here, and participate in this society and this economy. 

So:  given that, how do you account for my personal support of the Trump tariff initiatives?  I don't see how you can. 

The point is this:  the tariffs serve a quite legitimate purpose.  They remove a serious downdraft on the American economy, by placing a cost wall onto those foreign producers that are using some mechanism to gain unfair advantage.  That unfair advantage could be ignoring environmental consequences of production (which American producers do not ignore), thus shifting those costs onto the backs of their public; it could be labor costs, by developing a social structure where millions are paid little over subsistence wages; by developing tax and banking subsidies to shift costs off their exported items, in order to be able to under-price the US producer.  Now the historical problem within the USA is that the Clintonistas do not understand the impacts that these internal China policies have when their products are sold into the USA market.  The net result is that China product is effectively dumped, and US producers have no hope of ever matching that artificial costing profile, so the US factories end up closing.

When you shut down 50,000 factories and throw millions out of work, you do great damage to the US economic engine.  And one consequence of that mass shutdown, little understood by the Clintonistas and little appreciated in the press, is that innovation also shuts down, as there is no market for any innovated product. It is this double-whammy that is so damaging. The Clintonistas, in disastrous ignorance, then pursue the same damaging policies with their "Trans-Pacific Partnership," which would place these policies into cement, effectively converting the USA into a grain and pork supplier to China and the recipient of all manufactured goods on whatever terms the Chinese would present in the future. 

The Trump tariffs shut this exploitation down.  They  can and they will exclude Chinese manufacture from the US marketplace. Whether the Chinese goods end up excluded is ultimately up to the Chinese themselves.  Either they stop their mercantilist posture, or the USA tariffs will continue to increase until they are forced out.  Is that a good thing or a bad thing?  Well, if you subscribe and adhere to the idea that US manufacturing is a great thing, and the US can and should manufacture industrial and consumer good besides military hardware and guns, then it is a good thing.  If your vision of America is that it is a producer of grains, pork, fish, lumber, and coal for China, and that's it, for the rest, the Americans must buy the items from the Chinese, then the tariffs are a bad thing. Interestingly, the Clintonistas seem to be quite comfortable with that prospect.  Personally, I get the impression that they have not thought it through.  Conversely, they may not be thinking about it at all.  I don't get the impression that either Clinton really understands the issue. Trump, for all his flaws, seems to grasp it. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

9 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

It's a bit of a stretch to compare the Reichstag fire, the subterfuge surrounding it and the resulting events to giving emergency trade power to Trump, don't you think?

Well, he's Canadian, so you have to make allowances for the hyperbole.......

[Zhong Lu + 845]

25 minutes ago, Jakridge said:

Nuh ahh 

Yes uh.  

[Zhong Lu + 845]

Tariffs or otherwise, manufacturing isn't moving back to the US.  US will have to go Germany's route and do high end manufacturing if they want manufacturing again.  But for that you need a better social net and education system then what the US has today. Even Africa today outcompetes America in cost of manufacturing.  

So you can put all the tariffs on China you want.  The irony is that manufacturing was already leaving China even before the tarriffs for other Asian and African countries and Trump is merely accelerating a preexisting trend.  

Edited August 31, 2019 by Zhong Lu

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

6 minutes ago, Zhong Lu said:

Tariffs or otherwise, manufacturing isn't moving back to the US.  US will have to go Germany's route and do high end manufacturing if they want manufacturing again.  Even Africa today outcompetes America in cost of manufacturing.  

That is complete rubbish, Zhong.  I invite you to take a hard look at the resurgence of the American aluminum casting industry.  Hundreds of plants, large and small, are back up and running, exclusively because of the Trump tariffs.  Before, they were closed down.  The entire industry was saved by the Trump tariffs. 

Do you maintain that iron casting is "high end"?  I consider that a stretch.  Today there is the American manufacture of cast-iron wood stoves. That is a business that would, absent tariff protection, be put out of business by foreign casting companies.  Today there is a thriving wood-stove iron casting business in the USA.  You want a nice wood stove?  You have the option of buying American.  At a decent price, and you can get a great stove, with a great warranty.  Can you get that from Africa?  I don't think so. 

Edited August 31, 2019 by Jan van Eck

[Zhong Lu + 845]

Congrats.  So now there is 1-2 industries doing well.  In the meantime GM and steel continues to shut down plants.  

Edited August 31, 2019 by Zhong Lu

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

6 minutes ago, Zhong Lu said:

Congrats.  So now there is 1-2 industries doing well.  In the meantime GM and steel continues to shut down plants.  

I give up.  You are simply completely irrational.  Good bye, Mr. Lu. 

[Zhong Lu + 845]

The company is closing several plants as part of a restructuring to focus on electric and driverless cars. By Casey Leins, Staff Writer March 6, 2019, at 4:25 p.m. ... GM's plants in Baltimore and Warren, Michigan, are also scheduled to close this year, and the company's last plant in Detroit will close in January 2020.Mar 6, 2019

 

[Zhong Lu + 845]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-steel-to-idle-two-furnaces-as-demand-falls-11560900740

 

U.S. Steel to Idle Two Furnaces as Demand Falls

Manufacturers are buying less metal; flooding also has slowed steel deliveries

Edited August 31, 2019 by Zhong Lu

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

On 8/29/2019 at 11:33 PM, Zhong Lu said:

First, I don't know what the heck is a tovarisch.  And second, I speak Chinese at a second grade level.  So if you could,  please stick to English, because both of us understand it better.

Checks and balances work only if the participants choose to obey the checks and balances.  What's increasingly become clear to me and many others is that neither Democrat nor Republican presidents are willing to obey these checks and balances.  

Executive orders and declarations of national emergency are supposed to be RARE instances. They are NOT supposed to be used anytime the president wants to do something Congress does not approve of.  It doesn't matter which party controls the presidency.  With each new presidential cycle, the US is sliding more and more into a dictatorship.  

Your counterargument is that the US is not a dictatorship because it's not "as dictator-like as China."  As I see it that's a shitty argument because that's like arguing "Bob the Serial Killer is a good person because he's killed less people than Mao Ze Dong."  

Missed this because it wasn't a reply. 

The checks and balances are there for a reason, and given the ossification of Congress, it's a damn good thing a president can have executive orders, because otherwise it would be IMPOSSIBLE to govern. All the stink in Britain about shutting down parliament (perfectly legal by their rules) was to thwart the opposition party's plan to gum up the proceedings with nothing but legislative tricks. Our Congress loves to do the same thing, hence executive orders. 

I call you comrade because you sound like a true believer, cut right from the Stalin "useful idiot" mold. If you're too young to remember those days I'd recommend some reading. "Those who don't understand history are doomed to repeat it".

Your analogy is specious, not worth a reply 

[Zhong Lu + 845]

Those who accuse others of being "true believers" are always the true believers themselves.  Just as those who accuse others of having authoritarian tendencies are often the most authoritarian themselves.  When I heard Trump attack Obama for being dictatorial because he uses "too many executive orders" I KNEW that when Trump became president he would abuse the very same thing and that his supporters would find excuses for it.  So far I have been proven right.  

Tell me: when's the last time you've said anything bad about Trump? I'm telling you: it's a f-ing cult and I hate cults of all variety.  

As I said earlier: most of you are Republicans/Trumpists first, Americans second.  Just look at the evidence of your behavior.  

Edited August 31, 2019 by Zhong Lu