CUTTING CORPORATE TAXES VS FEEDING THE CHILDREN. The propaganda from both sides is irrational. Dems are framing this new plan as cutting taxes for billionaires at the people’s expense. GOP are framing this as a fiscally sound trajectory. Neither is right. But the way they frame these in emotional terms is what gets under your skin. The Children! Grandma! OMG! The fact is that overall spending is going up, not down (despite what Elon Musk is claiming). Plus they are piling on more debt. Deficit up to? Not sure. The GOP don’t have the cajónes to make the necessary cuts. I am the guy rooting for what the LWs say GOP will do but never actually do.
WHAT DOES TRUMP REALLY WANT? White House staffers keep saying that foreign nations are all desperate to meet and negotiate a trade agreement. Trump even said they were all coming to kiss his ass. That’s a quote. We can call it kissing the ring or bending the knee. Unbelievable. Staffers refuse to say which nations are involved. Trump said each deal would be a “tailored deal”, not “off-the-rack”. That makes sense since these are individual trade agreements. But what does Trump really want? I see no evidence of him as a free trader wanting 0% tariffs in both directions. It seems he wants to work a WIN-LOSE deal with these nations where import tariffs to USA are higher than export tariffs to each nation. My hunch is based on my opinion of Trump as a con man trying to make his opponent a Loser. It’s how he feels good about himself. We shall see. I wouldn’t be surprised if each trade deal doesn’t change much at all. Trump just wants credit for the deal. This is another reason regulated trade is nuts. Business people shouldn’t be dependent on politicians and bureaucrats manipulating the system for one side or the other’s advantage. Just get out of the way. Let people trade. Trade is Win-Win.
WAY TO GO WAYMO! I am seeing some griping from San Franciscans about Waymo, the automated, driverless ride sharing technology developed by Google. People in SF were outraged. Market St is a car-free area. This will just be unsafe for pedestrians! Some were angry that it was Google behind the whole thing. My hunch is that there was more to the story, and there was. This 2.2 mile stretch of road bans private vehicles, but allows public transit, taxis, bicycles, commercial vehicles, and emergency vehicles. LOL. That’s not car-free. If you are going to allow taxis in this area, then Waymo deserves to have access too. IMHO, Waymo test results have been very encouraging. Waymo has less accidents than human driven cars, despite news stories shrieking about Waymo accidents blocking emergency services. Rhetoric over reality.
CHURCH OF TRUMP. Hacksaw recently made some comments about the Dodgers visiting President Trump. Hacksaw had a few slams for Trump and that really ruffled feathers with many in the audience who are already unsubscribing. I can see an NFL/MAGA guy reacting that way. But on a broader scale, it is amazing the way MAGA thinks Trump can do no wrong. I was listening to a press conference of Trump at a coal mining plant and he was dishing out lies and distortions all over the place. But what he says also has an element of truth to it. The distortion and lies typically appeal to culture issues that rile up the MAGA base. So they eat up this delicious message. Then today I saw a tweet from Fleegle talking about a young adult switching from Dem to MAGA. I said this: “There are elements of truth and elements of fiction. That’s what makes Trump’s message so appealing to some. They figure it’s a binary choice between Trump and Kamala/Dems/MSM, but there are other POVs. There’s a whole world of rational thinkers promoting individual rights and free markets.” Too many think there are only two camps. Red vs Blue. People need to be educated on alternative POVs and possibilities.