Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[froot loops]

It should be reinforced that President Barack Hussein Obama II had to save the US auto industry. Trump is talking credit for allegedly saving jobs that weren't leaving.

It has to be reinforced because of the Nation's has had a bout of collective amnesia. GM and Chrysler would have had to liquidate. The suppliers would have went bankrupt and Ford would have been screwed as well. This is a reminder, all of this stuff went down during a lame duck ransition period. Once of the best things Goerge. W. Bush did as President is go along with President Elect Obama''s teams suggestion to give the temporary bailout to keep things running. Then when they could smooth things out you could go for a managed bankruptcy, which is what they did.

A lot of the people in the GOP didn't want to lift a finger, they wanted creative destruction. I guess people forget this. The collective amnesia is really acute right here in Michigan, where the state went for Trump. When guys like Wing dog say how terrible PBO was, I just chalk it up to that forgetfulness.

[Da Geezer]

C'mon SLF, UKBB asked for proof.

The Guardian says:

Non-secure calls to foreign leaders

Trump and Mike Pence, the vice-president-elect, declared they had spoken with 31 foreign heads of state since the election. But they appear to have done so without briefing materials from the state department and potentially on non-secure phone lines

.

SLF, you claim to be a lawyer and you should know better than this. All that article says is that, according to the leftist writing the article, Trump/Pence might "potentially" have used a non-secure, which the Trump campaign denies. That doesn't hint at "evidence"

And, talking to a foreign leader without a briefing from the State Department might actually be good. Let's be clear that the DOS's major accomplishments include taking a war victory and turning it into a flaming mess in the Middle East, GUARANTYING a deliverable Iranian nuclear weapon within (now) 8 years, and providing cover for Hillary's violation of the Espionage Act. If I were the President-elect, I'd keep those folks as far from Trump Tower as possible.

[Da Geezer]

Froot, did you ever consider that some of these calls to/from foreign leaders might be business related.

[froot loops]

Haha, we're going to hear 8 years of these excuses for Trump. It is all about the leftists. Yes all these leaders calling him are about business. He is President Elect, his sole business should be about being President. His businesses should not be relevant at all.

To be sure he is taking calls that are nonsecure. His personal cell phone is not secure, Trump Tower's switchboard is not secure.

[The Oracle]

How the fuck would you know, were you there????? Didn't think so.

[The Oracle]

Gonna be a long 4 years with Trump tweeting every tom, dick and harry cause of his dumb thin skinned, insecure ass.

[Da Geezer]

...I'm not sure why the dollar's relative value would be a lock-step indicator along with GDP growth rate.

I didn't say lock-step. I'm dead sure I could find examples where the dollar rose in value during recessions. Like everything else in economics, there are scores of factors affecting any particular period of time.

Keep in mind that the value of the dollar is always a measure of its value relative to some other store of value. For example, a "higher dollar" is like saying a "lower pound" (when viewed as a binary system). This makes US goods more expensive in Britain and British goods less expensive in the US. In general, a higher dollar depresses our exports, increases our imports, and negatively affects our balance of trade deficit. This is why Trump rails about China keeping its currency at 50% of what a market for money would indicate.

So why do I point to it as good news? As I've said so many times, a dollar bill is a certificate of good conduct that entitles its holder to a claim on the American economy. If you wanted to have a claim against a given economy, you would pay more for that piece of paper. The fact that a world market in that most fungible if items, money, indicates that outsiders want dollars means they expect good times and lots of goodies on which they can spend their dollars. A higher dollar also means ( again, relative to other economies), anticipated growth, and growth is the goal that solves unemployment, national debt, and so many other problems.

Hack, please imagine that the "pie" is 7% bigger next year. That is roughly $ 1.25 TRILLION bigger. Any growth we have now (1.5%) almost all goes to the top 20%. And I've argued even that tiny growth is vastly overstated because spending on things like the EPA are counted as "contrubutors" to GDP when history will show they actually stymie the economy with regulations ( the $1.9 T we have talked about previously)

The first time I can remember the dollar being really strong was under Reagan.

[Da Geezer]

Oracle said:

How the fuck would you know, were you there????? Didn't think so.

Are you talking to me or to froot?

[Da Geezer]

Oracle said:How the fuck would you know, were you there????? Didn't think so.

But let's just assume you are talking to me. The conversation went something like this:

froot: Trump is making calls to foreign leaders on non-secure lines.

UKBB: (addressing froot) Proof?

SLF: (in reply to UKBB) here is a link that addresses the issue.

Geezer: (after reading the link, to SLF) No, here is the exact quote from the article. The article says "potentially", and that is not evidence.

Geezer: besides, they might have been business calls

Oracle: How the fuck would you know, were you there????? Didn't think so.

Oracle, this was a seventh-grade level discussion. No need to bring in a third-grade argument.

[The Oracle]

3rd grade is probably too generous when discussing the new prez. Pre-k tops.

[The Oracle]

And, no, i wasn't talking to you.

[AlabamAlum]

You talking to me??

[Da Geezer]

LMAO

[Da Geezer]

Sen. Joe Manchin announces his support for Sessions as AG. Look for Manchin to become a Republican in the near future.

[hack]

Froot, did you ever consider that some of these calls to/from foreign leaders might be business related.

They probably were. Trump is going to milk this conflict of interest for all it's worth.