2020 U.S. Election

[Dirty_habiT]

Fuck north Korea and their leaders.  We'll fuck them in the ass until they love us.

 

Also, the point of cutting off trade to China was not to bring it back to the USA entirely, it was to ..... cut off trade w/ China.  We hurt them by not giving them as much of our money.  I'm fine w/ us trading with other countries that aren't into shit head politics.

[Hua Guofang]

How do you feel about the relationship the US has with Saudi Arabia?

 

 

Regards DPRK, I don't think the US has a leg to stand on there. How do you threaten a country that has nukes and acts crazy? Sanctions haven't stopped them, threats didn't stop them. Whaddaya do?

 

Regards Trade,

Edited December 9, 2019 by Hua Guofang

[Hua Guofang]

Regards trade, Trump did campaign very heavily on that and blamed trade deficits with the loss of manufacturing jobs and problems with the US economy. Here's part of his key speech on that in Pen:

 

To understand why trade reform creates jobs, and it creates a lot of them, we need to understand how all nations grow and prosper. Massive trade deficits subtract directly from our gross domestic product. From 1947 to 2001, a span of over five decades, our inflation-adjusted Gross Domestic Product grew at a rate of 3.5 percent. However, since 2002, the year after we fully opened our markets to Chinese imports, the GDP growth rate has been cut in half.

.......

Our trade deficits, we don’t even want to talk about it. Our budget deficits are massive.

.......

On trade, on immigration, on foreign policy, we are going to put America first again.

.......

https://time.com/4386335/donald-trump-trade-speech-transcript/

 

 

 

Trump continues in his presidency to say that trade deficit is very bad for economy - https://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/26/trump-trade-deficits-tweets-237623 - it's a signature policy for him

 

 

Manufacturing jobs are up: https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckdevore/2019/03/11/trumps-policy-magic-wand-boosts-manufacturing-jobs-399-in-first-26-months-over-obamas-last-26/#627a4bbc20a6 

 

 

Trade deficit is at a historic high:

Trump vowed to end 'chronic trade deficits.' Well, trade deficits just hit a record high.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/03/13/donald-trump-vowed-fix-trade-deficits-record-high-editorials-debates/3083731002/

 

Trade deficit with China has been going up, interesting to see where it sits for 2019 since that's when the tariffs kicked in: https://www.axios.com/trump-trade-deficit-world-china-6c0e421a-872d-4232-951c-511e0c785f68.html 

 

 

 

 

 

So, Trump never campaigned on a platform of attacking China's economy. he stated reasons for the trade war are making China’s markets more fair for US businesses – ending favoritism for domestic companies, forced technology transfers, and intellectual property theft. The strategic element is blocking China's tech industry from things like semi-conductors, US university research labs, etc. Trump campaigned on bringing manufacturing jobs back to America by not outsourcing to foreign countries and and improve the nation's economy by reducing the trade deficit. There is a job spike in US manufacturing but it doesn't seem to be related to trade.

 

Nothing wrong with you prefering not to trade with China, for whatever reason, I'm just not seeing a link to campaign or policy platforms of the govt.

 

 

[Hua Guofang]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand commence with the spinning of the report into the FBI investigation.

 

 

One of the main reasons society is polarised is because people get their opinions from partisans. I know it's long, but if you want to hold an opinion on the report, you should read it yourself, otherwise you jusst getting played.

 

https://www.justice.gov/storage/120919-examination.pdf - That's the actual report

 

https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-director-christopher-wray-response-to-inspector-general-report - that is the actual response from Dir. FBI.

[Dirty_habiT]

On 12/8/2019 at 9:17 PM, Hua Guofang said:

The strategic element is blocking China's tech industry from things like semi-conductors, US university research labs, etc.

I don't know that I agree about this.  China has been stealing R&D work and conducting industrial espionage for decades now.  You can't create a highly successful product anymore without them directly copying it.  This goes way beyond imitation is a form of flattery.  This is straight up, we'll TRY to make the same shit you made, for cheaper, undercut your price, market it as the same product, and we spent zero dollars to do it.  Fuck a bunch of that.  I'm fairly certain that's what we wanted to get away from.  The more business and trade we do with China, the more buildings we have over there, and workers that are working over there, the more security holes there are to be exploited.

 

It's like leaving your SNES games at the kid's house down the street that manages to "lose" the games you left over there.  You, after a while, if you're smart, stop playing with that kid.  This is that exactly.  You don't want to respect us, but you want all our money.... eat a whole bag of your favorite corn puffed penis shaped cereal.

 

That's my opinion on trading with China.  We just need to learn how to get along without countries that try to ram us in the ass at every turn..... and that's what we're doing under Trump's presidency.

 

I know there will be a lot of pearl clutching over what I said, and I will be interested to hear what others think.... but I highly doubt it will change what I think or how I feel about it.

[misteraven]

Japan used to do the same thing.

[misteraven]

2 hours ago, Dirty_habiT said:

We just need to learn how to get along without countries that try to ram us in the ass at every turn..... and that's what we're doing under Trump's presidency.

No more $300 42 inch flatscreens at Costco.

[Dirty_habiT]

Haha, I get it..... but .... does the average person actually need that?  I wouldn't buy something like that anyway because i always flinch at the fact that it's going to fail and then i get left holding the bag on warrantying it if they're nice enough to do that..... or junking it and starting over after questioning if the $300 was "worth it".

 

I **try to buy "pro-sumer" level of products.  I've actually kind of "quit" Amazon because of their cheap shit.  They've got america addicted to buying stuff because it's "fast" and "convenient".  I will tell you what's not convenient is the number of times we've had to deal with filing claims and returning stuff because it was some bullshit product rushed out the door by a country that doesn't care if it lasts any time at all.

 

I used to not be that "made in America" type person, but more and more I find myself wanting to buy things that are made in USA because, to some degree, it's made to a higher standard.  We have excellent engineering here in America, probably some of the best in the world if not the best in the world.  We have hard working people that won't work for pennies on the dollar because they know their worth.  Companies that take pride in their product, like how you're doing everything possible to make your t-shirts the best you can possible make them.  You do not see that level of care going into shit you can buy on Amazon or Costco for that matter.

 

My dad keeps trying to tell me that Costco has great deals on bulk chicken breast and stuff..... and all I can think is I don't want that frozen chinese freighter chicken breast... harvested off of beaten chickens that were fed the cheapest crap possible to survive.  I don't know that that is really how their food is made, but that's where my mind goes when anything is "cheap" or "convenient" anymore.

[misteraven]

37 minutes ago, Dirty_habiT said:

Haha, I get it..... but .... does the average person actually need that?  I wouldn't buy something like that anyway because i always flinch at the fact that it's going to fail and then i get left holding the bag on warrantying it if they're nice enough to do that..... or junking it and starting over after questioning if the $300 was "worth it".

 

I **try to buy "pro-sumer" level of products.  I've actually kind of "quit" Amazon because of their cheap shit.  They've got america addicted to buying stuff because it's "fast" and "convenient".  I will tell you what's not convenient is the number of times we've had to deal with filing claims and returning stuff because it was some bullshit product rushed out the door by a country that doesn't care if it lasts any time at all.

 

I used to not be that "made in America" type person, but more and more I find myself wanting to buy things that are made in USA because, to some degree, it's made to a higher standard.  We have excellent engineering here in America, probably some of the best in the world if not the best in the world.  We have hard working people that won't work for pennies on the dollar because they know their worth.  Companies that take pride in their product, like how you're doing everything possible to make your t-shirts the best you can possible make them.  You do not see that level of care going into shit you can buy on Amazon or Costco for that matter.

 

My dad keeps trying to tell me that Costco has great deals on bulk chicken breast and stuff..... and all I can think is I don't want that frozen chinese freighter chicken breast... harvested off of beaten chickens that were fed the cheapest crap possible to survive.  I don't know that that is really how their food is made, but that's where my mind goes when anything is "cheap" or "convenient" anymore.

@diggityis on a similar tip, but was struggling finding things even made here anymore last I checked.

 

But yeah, I get it. I'm a believer in 'buy once, cry once' and believe its a likely a better plan towards being 'green' than buying some tee made of recycled PET bottles only to discover that the waste generated to recycle a plastic bottle into usable textile has a heavier footprint than your average cotton tee. Was just talking to another friend about this recently.

[Hua Guofang]

9 hours ago, Dirty_habiT said:

I don't know that I agree about this.  China has been stealing R&D work and conducting industrial espionage for decades now.  You can't create a highly successful product anymore without them directly copying it.  This goes way beyond imitation is a form of flattery.  This is straight up, we'll TRY to make the same shit you made, for cheaper, undercut your price, market it as the same product, and we spent zero dollars to do it.  Fuck a bunch of that.  I'm fairly certain that's what we wanted to get away from.  The more business and trade we do with China, the more buildings we have over there, and workers that are working over there, the more security holes there are to be exploited.

 

It's like leaving your SNES games at the kid's house down the street that manages to "lose" the games you left over there.  You, after a while, if you're smart, stop playing with that kid.  This is that exactly.  You don't want to respect us, but you want all our money.... eat a whole bag of your favorite corn puffed penis shaped cereal.

 

That's my opinion on trading with China.  We just need to learn how to get along without countries that try to ram us in the ass at every turn..... and that's what we're doing under Trump's presidency.

 

I know there will be a lot of pearl clutching over what I said, and I will be interested to hear what others think.... but I highly doubt it will change what I think or how I feel about it.

Yep, well aware of how China operates, I worked there for 5 years and part of my role was advising companies how to protect IP and and insider threat.

 

There's no doubt that Trump is being much tougher than any recnet president on China - the Obama admin massively dropped the ball here and we're all paying the price for that now. However, the theft of IP through forced joint ventues is not what it is all about - it's only part of it. The trade war is also about the trade deficit, restrictions on foreign investment, the "buy China first" plan (can't recall the actual name, China 2025 I think) and a bunch of other things. IP theft is only one element, and that's the stated policies from the White House, Treasury, USTR, etc. The unstated strategy - which we can only really guess at, is decoupling the US economy from the Chinese so that the US can starve China of many tings, including tech, etc., in order to slow their development down.

 

 

I don't think Trump is doing as much on trade as you think. Take the US Korea FTA deal as an example. He made the big announcement of the deal being reached over a year ago but it has sat there ever since. It has not been through Congress and hasn't been signed into law. Secondly, the KORUS trade deal is something like 95% the same as the orginal deal. And some (not all) of the changes are meaningless. Take for instance the issue of Korea importing US vehicles - The new deal increases the amount of US cars allowed to be imported into Korea without tariffs each year from the original limit. Problem is, Korea never even reached the original cut off point - the market for US cars isn't there in the first place - they can increase the quota all they want, won't increase the amount of US cars to be sold.

 

The same was with the new NAFTA. The new deal is ridiculously close to the old deal and most of the new stuff was what was coming in anyway under the TPP, which Trump said was the worst deal ever.

 

For me, Trump is just the same as most politicians just with a different facade. He's more about selling you his announcables than effecting real change, for the most part.

 

Now before I cop the "Orange man bad" silliness that goes on here, I can back up everything that I've said with objective fact and evidence, if people are willing to read. I'm 100% happy that Trump is taking it to China in trade, he's doing what others shoudl have done before him. However he's also giving them a free pass in the South China Sea and was basically cornered into signing the recent law on Hong Kong relations. I'm just calling a spade a spade, I'm just as critical of the things that Obama got wrong as I amfor what I think Trump is getting wrong. The whole debate is so polarised that it's easy to slip into ad homeneim bullshit and repeating the lines we're all fed from the TV (if you're critical of Trump, you're a triggered extreme left liberal. If you're pro-Trump, you're a deplorable Russia puppet).

 

I'd prefer to focus on primary documentation rather than the media's take on things. I'd also prefer to focus on what has actually taken place rather than how we feel about the people.

[Hua Guofang]

Sorry, was wrong on the tariffs on US cars, it was a ceiling on cars with emission standards:

 

Details here if you're interested: https://www.vox.com/2018/9/24/17883506/trump-korea-trade-deal-korus - https://www.cato.org/publications/free-trade-bulletin/trumps-first-trade-deal-slightly-revised-korea-us-free-trade

[Dirty_habiT]

I read your post, and I'm going to read those links in the morning when I get to work.  My initial thought on USA cars not selling well in Korea is that they're probably pricey by the time they get over there, tariff or not.  I don't think of any other country besides maybe some countries in Europe, Japan, or Australia as countries that have "a lot of money".  And I'm not turning this into a dick measuring contest, I'm just saying that I  would be willing to bet that if you asked every Korean if they'd like to have an American made car over what they can afford that is made in Korea they'd probably take it.  I could be totally wrong about that, it could be a cultural thing (I have nothing against Korean made goods).

 

I'm also glad that Trump is "taking it to China" ... I think it's something that we should have never fallen into the trap of doing in the first place.  I work with a guy that's about 10 years my senior and he has two young teenage kids that are growing up here in America.  He's a guy that moved here from China, away from his family.  He is hard to understand for me sometimes because of his thick accent, but he's incredibly smart and I immensely enjoy talking to him about stuff that is not work related.  I especially like teaching him phrases that we use that are some what slang, and explaining to him what they mean.  For instance, we were talking about girls liking boys the other day and I joked that "I can't even get a girl to punch me in the face."  He was really intrigued and I explained to him that if I can't get a girl to dislike me, then I have no chance of getting one to like me.  In any case, I like listening to his evaluation of life in the USA vs. life back home.  We talked, recently, about how during the holiday times, many families in China shower the younger folks with very large sums of money.

 

I was so taken back by that idea, I had no idea they did that.  I told him that if people did that in America that the kids would do stupid shit like buy shoes and video games.... ice cream cones and piss it all away almost instantly.  Then we got into talking about how the culture in China teaches people to be good with their money and save, and since that is the case that it is ok to give money to young people because they will likely choose wisely what to do with it.  I know that's a tangent, but what I would much rather see China do, than what they are doing.... is agree that their government system sucks balls and relinquish control to something more like what we have in the USA.

 

I'm not saying that because I think what we're doing is "the best".... but I do believe that it is very close to "the best" that could be done in terms of electing leaders.  Fixing the organizational problems within the country and the flow of assets is probably the first step towards improving.

 

This is going to sound real crazy, but in the future, if we can't all learn to get along, we're going to fuck ourselves over.  Not you, not me, not anyone else.... everyone.  It's not a blame game, it's a "none of these kids are getting along on this block enough to play football together, " thing.  I think there are ways this can be accomplished for everyone without removing the cultures that people have in their own countries.  I don't agree that we should have some sort of world leader either, I just think that everyone's countries should treat their inhabitants with dignity and do what they can to afford them the opportunity to lead successful lives.  It seems like, from what I understand, VERY difficult to do that in some places.

[Hua Guofang]

The Appellate Body of the WTO was effectively shut down by the US today.

 

That body is the dispute settling mechanism of world trade - it's where you go to sort shit out so the world isn't an endless stream of unilateral tariffs and trade shitfights.

 

I don't know why they are doing it, I've read analysis that argues that the current US admin prefers to use power instead of multilateral agreements/cooperation to achieve its goals. I don't know if that's true and I don't know what the stated aims are of the US govt, they may be different and credible.

 

It's a complex matter that will pass many people by unawares, but it's a pretty big deal either way in how the US conducts itself on the global stage.

[misteraven]

Starting to wonder if long term this is a ll a good thing. Not sure globalization was such a good thing when you look back on history. Starting to sometimes look like colonialism with a new paint job.

[Hua Guofang]

2 hours ago, misteraven said:

Starting to wonder if long term this is a ll a good thing. Not sure globalization was such a good thing when you look back on history. Starting to sometimes look like colonialism with a new paint job.

To a degree, I think you're right, but it's the same with all things, though. there's always good and bad (think of the vaccines and medical advances that have made their way around the world, crypto uptake is globalisation, the spread of graf to other parts of the world from NYC is globalisation, being able to holiday outside of your own country is globalisation, eating Thai/Chinese/Lebanese/Morroccan food is globalisation - shit, the United States of America was born out of globalisation!)

 

Globalisation is usually defined as the spread of people, ideas and commerce around the world, and with that, you'd say it started with Vasco da Gamma, Columbus, Zheng He, Marco Polo, etc., and includes a huge amount of good shit, as listed above, and the bad shit, such as colonialism, slavery, global terrorism, wars in the Mid East, etc.

 

I favour global cooperation, where it benefits the majority, but that can't come at great cost to the minority. Big, complicated issues that take generations to nut our way through, but I don't think we should ditch it all because it's difficult.

 

On balance, lookig back at history, I don't know if it's a good thing or not. But I am convinced that it's inevitable. Try telling humans that they can't travel, import/export, adventure, tell people elsewhere of their ideas, etc. It's going to happen, we need to find the best way possible of doing it, there's no other possible way.

 

.

Edited December 11, 2019 by Hua Guofang

[diggity]

Re: Buying US made. 
I think this is something you should all try just to get some perspective on the current state of affairs.  Start with something that means a lot to you and see how it goes from there. 
 

Skateboarding for instance.  As far as I can tell, from my research. It’s not possible. They hang up is bearings. There aren’t any that I can find that are made in the US. Next best thing you can do is go Swiss made but that’s still not buying American, but atleast it’s not China. 
 

One the hosts on one of the shows we promote takes shit another step and only tries to buy shit made in Mississippi. It’s a real challenge for him. When he bought tires, he had to move to a different rim size. Dudes committed.  Same dude turned down a massive deal with Walmart cause it doesn’t align with their values. 

Edited December 12, 2019 by diggity

[Hua Guofang]

No idea how accurate this is but the dude is an econ professor at Berkley and previously Yale and Harvard, so I'm assuming he's not a complete idiot.

 

 

 

 

Robert Reich

 

@RBReich

 

Trump’s China deal:

China agrees to buy $50b of ag products next year.

That's a gain of $29b from before Trump tariffs.

Trump tariffs have cost US farmers $11b.

U.S. taxpayers have spent $28b on emergency payouts to farmers.

 

So loss to US is $39b.

.

[Hua Guofang]

Said before Trump won the primary, of course....

 

 

[misteraven]

6 hours ago, Hua Guofang said:

No idea how accurate this is but the dude is an econ professor at Berkley and previously Yale and Harvard, so I'm assuming he's not a complete idiot.

 

 

 

 

Robert Reich

 

@RBReich

 

Trump’s China deal:

China agrees to buy $50b of ag products next year.

That's a gain of $29b from before Trump tariffs.

Trump tariffs have cost US farmers $11b.

U.S. taxpayers have spent $28b on emergency payouts to farmers.

 

So loss to US is $39b.

.

I'm obviously not an economist, not have I followed the stories closely, but there is a very real trade deficit between the USA and China. I understand that we forfeited most of our manufacturing infrastructure to create a service based economy, but the country is making small gain in recognizing how vulnerable it leaves us by outsourcing so much of our manufacturing, as well as the long term impacts of having done so (definitely pros and cons to it). In any case, there is no way you can make corrections to the situation without incurring pain. Not necessarily saying I agree with the decisions he's making, but this reminds a lot of the austerity debate in that people fail to think of it at a human level. If you spend outside your means and get yourself in a jammed up spot, turning that shit around is going to be painful in the near term considering the preceding was unsustainable.

 

Problem I see is that like most aspects of government intervention is they step in with this charade of having to regulate something in order to 'fix' a problem and almost always end up creating far worse problems, which then compel more heavy handed interventions.

 

Likewise, it's a super basic manipulation technique to crop a view in specific ways to present the picture you want to show. I see this as the same thing... Yes, there is a massive trade imbalance between the USA and China. Yes, both countries massively manipulate their currencies / economies in an attempt to create strategic advantage. Yes, if suddenly you push back hard, it's likely the other party is going to push back just as hard, if not harder. Yes, cleaning up messes suck in the interim.

 

Obviously I'm vastly simplifying here, but no more so than summarizing Trump's China Deal as you have.

 

Best bet is for the people to demand that government abandons meddling is foreign trade altogether, knowing it'll take time for the markets to correct and find a natural equilibrium based off supply and demand. Only reason they should be involved is in the monitoring of national security and perhaps to insure the respect of intellectual property. Yes, it would be painful for quite a while as decades of manipulation are undone and slowly replaced with an honest implementation of free market dynamics.

[Mercer]

The government should not hinder the free market.

 

Everyone should buy the highest quality / lowest price and benefit themselves as a consumer whenever possible, that's how a "free market" works. It rewards those who can produce a higher quality, or lower price. That's not to say that if I'm presented with similar choices I'll buy American, just for the slight virtue signal value it adds I guess, but there's no way I'd ever drop 6k on an American made iPhone, if the one made in China is selling for 1K.

 

The worlds economy isn't a zero sum game, an illusion due to the way our brains are wired. It's counterintuitive, and proven that nations that impede free trade, and disregard taking advantage of the free market are always worse off. If bananas grow better in central America, don't build a heated greenhouse in Alaska. Just buy bananas from central America. Sure, you won't have banana plantation jobs in Alaska, but Alaskans can, and will find other consumer demands to fill, and minimise any waste of scarce resources paying for $50 bananas.

 

Think about what would actually happen if we brought all the (relatively low paying) manufacturing jobs back to the United States? Either the prices here would have exponential increases due to 10x labor cost increases, or the market would just create 10x pressure to import immigrants willing to take low paying factory jobs (the people we originally didn't want "stealing" jobs from Americans in the first place) completely defeating the purpose.

 

TLDR, don't buy American unless it makes sense, base your purchasing decisions on how much you think they'll benefit you.

Edited December 14, 2019 by Mercer

[Hua Guofang]

For me it's not so much about whether it is all right or wrong. I'm not an economist and don't have much of an idea on it so I just listen.

 

My concern with the current Pres. is that he's been more about announcements than actual substance. He makes a lot of facts and figures up that are not backed by fact and creates 'deals' that the general public don't have the time to sift through or are too technical for the lay person to grasp. He relies on people's ignorance (which is something I find characteristic of conservatives, in the political sense, not the economic sense) and the cult like following he's created. He'll make a big announcement about this purchase as if it's a huge victory. Yet this cat is saying that when you crunch the numbers, it's actually a loss.

 

Leaving ideology aside, I'm all about transparency and letting people decide based on the facts, which is why I posted that.

[Dirty_habiT]

@Mercer- those are good points.  I think I specifically "buy American" when it comes to metal parts that are machined, or tools for working on cars.  I have a rule about Harbor Freight and that's that I don't buy anything from them that has a motor or is electrical..... I buy things like zip ties because cheap zip ties are almost as good as expensive ones.  But everything in that store has a noticeably "chinese feel" to it.  I have nothing against the Chinese, what I should say is "manufactured outside of the USA with no QC or care put into whether or not the product lasts."  It's easier for me to just say Chinese.

 

In reality, I avoid Harbor Freight like the plague.  I usually don't go in there for any reason.  I have treated Walmart the same for many many years now, growing tired of their "bargain basement" approach to goods.  I've definitely been thinking like that about Amazon lately too.  It's obvious when you see 10 different products they sell that are the same thing with different "no-names" on them.  Like brands nobody has ever heard of in their life.  Crap brands.  Amazon is participating in this selling the cheapest shit possible except they've got a leg up on Walmart brick and mortars in that there are no skewed "customer ratings" on isles when you walk in walmart.

 

I've been specifically avoiding buying products on amazon lately when I search for stuff on duckduckgo.com by doing "-amazon.com"  in my searches to subtract out all their matches.... because I don't want their cheap bullshit.  I was real close to canceling my Amazon Prime membership the other day after they renewed my yearly membership without warning.  I guess it was my fault for not knowing it was coming up but now it's written on my white board and next year I'll cancel before they auto-renew me without no prior warning.  I mean, it makes sense.... why tell someone that you're going to charge them money if it could potentially cause them to cancel before you get the money?

[Hua Guofang]

[Hua Guofang]

sting...

 

 

 

 

@JoeBiden

 

This same poll has you losing to me by 7 points.

Quote Tweet

 

Donald J. Trump

 

@realDonaldTrump

· Dec 16

Approval Rating in Republican Party = 95%, a Record! Overall Approval Rating = 51%. Think of where I’d be without the never ending, 24 hour a day, phony Witch Hunt, that started 3 years ago!

8:59 AM · Dec 17, 2019·Twitter Web App

[Hua Guofang]

A mock up for what is to be put up in the next day or so by members of the Republican party, or so I'm informed by way of Tweet:

 

[Hua Guofang]

lol, current White House PRess Secretary has got more DUI charges to her name than she's done press conferences.

 

[misteraven]

Who wants to bet that the impeachment stuff rallies the shit out of the right and helps tank the lefts chances of winning this next round?

 

I could give a shit at this point who wins and am no fan of Trump, but it’s still occasionally fascinating (between intermittent nausea) to watch the slow motion train wreck that is our political landscape. Clearly the left haven’t learned dick from their profound upset last round since they’re all but handing him the election on this next one. 
 

Seeing @Mercer’s post about Virginia and all the other tail wind behind an increasingly divided country, we’ll see how much longer the shit show continues before it breaks down into actual mass civil violence. Likely why they’re trying so hard to take away everyone’s guns. 

[Hua Guofang]

I'm not willing to call it either way. I originally thought that nothing would come of the Ukraine stuff either way, but here we are.

 

I'm no Hillary fan, she resembles what is wrong with elite politics. However, I do believe that she'd be less damaging than Trump (and no, I don't believe all that idiotic shit about her and murders and pedo rings that was made up by those who oppose her). Neither am I a Biden, AOC, whoever fan. But I think most of them would be less damaging than Trump. I also think Trump is odds on to win the election if he's not removed from office.

 

New Post/ABC poll:

-- 71% of Americans say Trump should allow top aides to testify at Senate trial

-- 55% say House hearings have been fair to Trump (not a "coup")

-- 49% say Trump should be impeached *and removed,* versus 46% who say he shouldn't

 

 

The 45 who even entertain the idea that this is a coup is what scares me and goes to the crux of what is bad about Trump. He's willing to threaten the security of the nation for his own political benefit and he counts on the ignorance of his support base when it comes to constitutional law.

 

For what it's worth, the current govt here is 100% guilty of invoking national security when it comes to protecting themselves from embarrassment as well. But not to the point of threatening destabilisation and serious violence. 

 

[Hua Guofang]

I also think that people have been conditioned to allow Trump to get away with shit that many other leaders would be called account on.

 

This has occurred because of the political climate - trust in media and institutions is plummeting and Trump capitalises on that by attacking any media service that doesn't praise him as 'fake news'. All news outlets have biases and get stuff wrong, nobody is innocent. However he only ever trashes any org that doesn't agree with him or is critical.

 

His whataboutism with Clinton and the claim to be 'draining the swamp' is a deflection to set him aside from elite politics, which everyone is sick of. Yet he embodies elitism and the swamp and through his strategy of deflection is given a pass on some crazy corrupt shit (his family works for him, for fuck sake!!)  by fomenting hate for the 'other' making any attack on him support for 'the other'.

 

For me the perfect example are some of the discussions on this website. I've never once voiced support for Clinton and neither have I shown any tendency to be comprehensively for one side of poolitical ideology (one tendency is usually balanced by another). Yet, my cynical attitude toward Trump translated into being labelled as left, democrat supporter (I'm not even American...) and Obama lover, etc.

 

That's largely because of the tribalism that the Trump team tapped into and their strategy of playing the person not the argument - I mean the way Trump calls people names like Crooked Hillary, Do-nothing Dems, etc. He's never addressing their actual positions but attacking them as corrupt, incompetent or extreme. That is conditioning and the tribe has responded. You see different but similarly damaging tactics from other elements of the polity (not even going to say 'left' there, because that's just buying into the strategy and ignores the large amount of Reps and independents that act against Trump as well).

[Hua Guofang]

This goes to what I was saying about his goal of announcables as well, this is a quick take on the 'trade deal' with China, that is supposed to be about IP protection, leveled playing fields for investment along with trade imbalance.

 

But I'm betting my magical third testicle that in the wash up there will be little to no movement on investment - the econ model that allows the Party to stay in power simply won't allow open access to China's markets, banking and info flows - and only announcables on IP protection that won't be followed through on, just like what happened in the Obama era.

 

SupChina, where the below article comes from is a credible source that focuses on China issues, not US domestic politics.

 

Is Trump’s trade deal a nothingburger?

Part of the SupChina Weekly Briefing newsletter. Subscribe for free

The editorsDecember 16, 2019

Newsletter

https://supchina.com/2019/12/16/is-trumps-trade-deal-a-nothingburger/

 

From the White House: On December 13, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative released a statement announcing a “phase one trade agreement” between the U.S. and China. The statement was not modest about boasting of the Trump administration’s achievements:

The United States and China have reached an historic and enforceable agreement on a Phase One trade deal that requires structural reforms and other changes to China’s economic and trade regime in the areas of intellectual property, technology transfer, agriculture, financial services, and currency and foreign exchange.  The Phase One agreement also includes a commitment by China that it will make substantial additional purchases of U.S. goods and services in the coming years.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer further claimed that the deal will “nearly double US exports to China over the next two years.”

The Beijing side of the story: However, in Chinese state media, a U.S. commitment to cut its tariffs on China is the only concrete commitment in the text. There is also an ominous paragraph that makes clear this is not a done deal yet, as it still requires “legal review, translation and proofreading.”

The bottom line: The trade deal doesn’t amount to much, per Scott Kennedy, who researches Chinese business and economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies:

…by [the Trump] administration’s own metrics, the trade war has not paid off. Total U.S.-China trade and direct investment have slowed, but these changes reflect the diversion of trade to others, not the movement of manufacturing back to the United States. Moreover, far from abandoning its efforts to achieve technological independence, China is doubling down on what it calls “self-reliance.” The deal’s apparent big winners, U.S. farmers, were not in harm’s way before the trade war, and they likely would have sold just as much in aggregate to China had the trade war never commenced.

Beyond the “gain” of returning to the pre-trade-war status quo, mutual trust between the two governments is lower than ever. After 529 days of spiraling tensions, it “will become harder than necessary to find ways to cooperate with the Chinese on pressing regional and global issues such as climate change,” Kennedy points out.

Just in the last week, two stories have made it clear that the stakes of U.S.-China rivalry are only getting higher:

• “The American government secretly expelled two Chinese Embassy officials this fall after they drove on to a sensitive military base in Virginia,” the New York Times reported, adding, “The expulsions appear to be the first of Chinese diplomats suspected of espionage in more than 30 years.”
• Beijing ordered all government offices and public institutions to remove foreign computer equipment and software within three years. The Financial Times notes that the order “is the first publicly known instruction with specific targets given to Chinese buyers to switch to domestic technology vendors, and echoes efforts by the Trump administration to curb the use of Chinese technology in the US and its allies.”