All posts by Frugal Ron

Frugal Ron is passionate about numbers. If something can't be quantified, how can it be discussed? He loves questioning those things that others hold sacred.

Racism and Donald Trump

Frugal Ron has spent the last four years trying to understand how anyone could possibly vote for Donald Trump or approve of his performance as president. After engaging in countless social media and real life conversations and spending a great deal of time listening, three reasons come up:

  • Racism.
  • Abortion.
  • Stupidity.

These three reasons are not mutually exclusive, meaning a racist might also be just plain stupid. The most rabid Trump supporters may in fact qualify with all three reasons.

Far and away the most important reason people support Trump is their mutual racism. Trump owes his victory in 2016 to racism and there is published research documenting this. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/polq.12737. Consequently, this article focuses on racism in the US.

This article isn’t going to solve the issue of white racism. Frugal Ron’s goals are much more limited. Hopefully, we can define racism, identify the  level of racism in the US, show the ridiculous non-logic of racism and  identify ways to prevent racists from ever again electing another lying, incompetent racist like Donald Trump.

This article is about racists and helping non-racist voters understand the ugliness Donald Trump represents. Consequently, the language used is the way racists talk. Please be offended, not at Frugal Ron but at racists.

Racism defined

Racism is defined as, “Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior. The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.”

Racism requires a societal power structure behind it to empower the discrimination. Trump supporters fear this power structure is threatened. Indeed, to racists, electing a black man to two terms of the presidency is about as serious a threat to white privilege as you can get.

Identifying the amount of racism in the US is  difficult. For some reason, racists refuse to own-up to being racists. Even neo-Nazis refuse to admit being racists. They may refer to themselves as “realists” who believe white people are superior, but they are never “racists”. Think of how miserable it must be for people whose whole lives are defined by their racism and yet they are too ashamed to admit it.

This is a real problem for racists. Trump supporters can’t defend his racism without clearly identifying themselves as racists. Yet, they can’t stand to see Trump denigrated. So, they foolishly try and defend his stupidity, his incompetence and his lies.  People who somehow manage to dress themselves in the morning and somehow manage to hold jobs, wind-up sounding like blathering idiots defending Trump’s actions.

Trump has a special bond with fellow racists. No matter how badly Trump’s policies impact his racist followers, their loyalty never wavers. For example, Trump designated the US steel industry for special protections. He put tariffs on steel imports and affected countries put reciprocal tariffs on US agricultural products. 

According to Laurie Fischer, CEO of the American Dairy Coalition, “Overall, the impact of the trade war on exports has taken more than 10%— or $1.78 per hundredweight — from already depressed US milk prices.” In addition, Trump’s efforts to curtail immigration threatens the very existence of many dairy operations. And, taking stupidity to new heights, Trump threatens to close the US/Mexico border forcing Mexico’s remaining buyers of US milk products to look for more dependable suppliers. Yet, dairy producers, probably some of the most racist people in the US, remain firmly committed to Trump.

A large majority of voters believe the Trump presidency is a disaster, However, to evangelical racists, not only is Trump the greatest president in history, he was delivered to us by God to save our country at this critical juncture. Racists and the rest of us truly live in two separate worlds.

The Republican conundrum

Republicans proudly claim they are fiscal watchdogs, always on the lookout for government waste. However, they are very selective about what they perceive as government waste.

For example, President George W. Bush’s handpicked leaders of Iraq and Afghanistan, along with their cronies, robbed US taxpayers blind. In Afghanistan, US government auditors say $6 billion was lost and another $8 billion was wasted from 2003 to 2012.

In Iraq, $12 billion in U.S. currency was transported from the Federal Reserve to Baghdad in April 2003 and June 2004, where it was dispensed by the Coalition Provisional Authority. A Vanity Fair magazine report concluded that of this sum, “at least $9 billion has gone missing”.

No Republican groundswell ever complained about all this waste of hard earned taxpayer money and nothing was ever done until President Barack Obama took office and ordered audits.

In another example, Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was convicted by a jury of cheating US taxpayers out of $6 million. But, to watchdog Republicans, this was just a show trial. “All millionaires cheat on their taxes,” one of these Republican guardians of our nation’s finances stated as an excuse for their lack of interest.

In an exhaustive and thoroughly documented analysis https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-tax-schemes-fred-trump.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage The New York Times reported Donald Trump and his parents avoided nearly $500 million in taxes, partially by underreporting assets and using shell companies. To Republicans, there is nothing wrong with lying to avoid taxes, “That is just smart business.”

However, if a black man in Milwaukee, Wisconsin is collecting between $54 and $370 per week in unemployment benefits and another $105.63 per month in food stamps, that is a different story altogether. “That’s what’s destroying this country! Nigger’s living like kings and sitting on their asses while being supported by hardworking white taxpayers!

Measuring racism

Because people won’t own up to being racists, measuring the level of racism in the US requires us to use proxy measures. A CNN poll http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2018/images/05/07/rel5b.-.trump.pdf of adults released last May found Americans, by a wide margin (56 percent to 37 percent, with a +/- 3.5 percent margin of error), think Barack Obama was a better president than Donald Trump.

That’s all fine and well, but it is the 37 percent figure that is important. The 37 percent of respondents who are so blinded by their hatred that they got the answer to that question wrong are what we can easily define as racists. I don’t know of a more accurate measure of racism in the US than this CNN poll.

At this writing, the Gallup poll measures Trump’s approval rating at 39 percent. This matches the average throughout his term. While some political analysts marvel at how consistent Trump’s poll numbers are, Frugal Ron has an easy explanation. Trump’s racist followers will never leave him and another two percent of the population are just plain stupid, or expect he will pass an anti abortion law. Even Trump can figure out how important the racist vote is to his future. Without them, he’s done. And, the economy may crash or Trump may blunder his way into a war and that 37 percent of racist voters will never desert him.

At first glance, a 37 percent voting block doesn’t seem dominant. What is important is the concentration. First of all, Trump’s approval rating among Republicans floats around 85-90 percent. All those 37 percent of voters who we identified as racists fit into the group of Republicans who support Trump. They are the tail that wags the Republican dog. Combine racists with greedy rich people willing to donate big money to Republican candidates in exchange for tax cuts and you have a potent political force.

As far as concentration, white racism rules in rural areas and small towns. These areas are Trump’s strongholds. With Republican gerrymandering of Congressional and state legislative districts and the outsized weight given to low population rural states by the Electoral College, the 37 percent of voters who are racists have a large influence.

Outside of the South, these are also areas that have virtually no black people living there. The typical Midwestern white racist has maybe only seen a handful  of black people during their entire lives and has never actually had a conversation with a black person.

White racists look at this picture of African Americans and assume that both these young ladies are stupid (perhaps mentally retarded), are sexually promiscuous (have frequent unprotected sex with multiple partners outside of marriage), constantly lie, are lazy, won’t pay their bills, and are constantly in trouble with the law (but that is always the police’s fault). But, wait! This stereotype is a perfect description of Donald Trump!

Frugal Ron often uses the terms “Trump supporter”, “racist” and “Republican” interchangeably. Granted, there may be a few people misidentified. Perhaps, they can identify with African Americans and Hispanics that have put up with stereotyping for centuries?

Republicans have actively courted racists since 1964, when Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater voted against voting rights bills for black people. Today, without the racist vote, Republicans would be irrelevant as a political party.

Frugality forgotten

On the flip side, the Republican party sold it’s soul to recruit racists. Republicans had a trademark of fiscal frugality. Now, they are the party of hyper-borrow and hyper-spend. Donald Trump’s $trillion government spending deficits (the largest non-recession deficits in our country’s history) and his spending increases make a mockery of the Republican brand.

When Obama left office,  US defense spending was more than the next six biggest defense spending countries in the world combined. At the start of the Trump Administration, the US had 4,018 active nuclear warheads.

According to research published in Safety magazine https://www.mdpi.com/2313-576X/4/2/25 , “The results found that 100 nuclear warheads is adequate for nuclear deterrence in the worst case scenario, while using more than 100 nuclear weapons by any aggressor nation (including the best positioned strategically to handle the unintended consequences) even with optimistic assumptions (including no retaliation) would cause unacceptable damage to their own society.

One might assume this is the time to cut spending. But not Trump. Since taking office, he has raised defense spending by $200 billion annually.

There is obviously a dichotomy here. A Wisconsin dairy producer who couldn’t defend Trump’s wasteful defense spending answered, “Well, at least he isn’t giving all the money to Niggers like Hillary would have!” But of course, none of these dairy operators will admit to being racists.

It is hard to fathom how far the Republican party has fallen. President Dwight D. Eisenhower (the last great Republican president) once noted, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

In today’s environment, a forward thinking Republican that wants to make life better for all US citizens and will work with Democrats to achieve that end will find their legislative career ending in the next Republican primary.

Nigger money 

College educated people born and raised in urban environments have no idea of the level of racism and hatred in rural areas and small towns. Frugal Ron spent half his life on a farm in Jackson County, Wisconsin and learned to despise rural close mindedness and many rural residents blaming their problems on someone else.

The “someone else” was anyone that was different from them that these folks figured are getting a better shake than they are. Racists are obsessed with what they call “Nigger money”. Nigger money is legislation voted on by liberal Democrats that will enable black people to live like kings without working. These programs are paid for by hardworking, under appreciated white taxpayers.

A perfect example of Nigger money is the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. Racists are livid that they are paying the health care costs of irresponsible, drug using, black people who never worked a day in their lives. The reality is that the most indigent black people qualified for Medicaid before and after Obamacare and far more white people than black people are taking advantage of the Affordable Care Act.

Economists can’t understand why low income rural white people insist on voting against their own self interests when they support politicians like Trump who want to eliminate the Affordable Care Act. Unfortunately, you have to live in rural America to understand that improving their and their families lives means nothing to racists if they perceive blacks and Hispanics’ lives will improve because of Obamacare.

The threat to America

The emergency on our southern border has nothing to do with hoards of imaginary Mexican criminals coming across the border and raping and killing native born citizens. To racists, the real emergency is that the US is on the way to becoming a non-white majority country, somewhere around 2045. Huge influxes of non-white immigrants having babies born in the US able to vote in 18 years are the real national emergency.

To hear one of them tell it, “The Niggers, Mexicans, towel-heads and all the rest will get together and elect a Nigger president who’ll raise taxes on white people like Obama did so Niggers can live even better than us. They’ll tax hard working white people so hard we won’t be able to survive!”

Just as a matter of clarification, Obama did raise taxes on rich people, and a great majority of them are white. The tax increase cut the federal budget deficit in half. As far as spending, Obama raised federal government spending 28.9 percent over his two terms in office. This is the lowest percent spending increase of any two term president since Bureau of Economic Analysis records were collected in 1929.

The other point that non-white people will vote for their own self interests hasn’t been established. However, given that white people have voted for their own self interest throughout the majority of the US’s history lends credibility to racist fears.

Attacking our culture

Trump supporters are paranoid that their Christian values and culture are under attack. Again, some clarification is needed here. 

Indeed the values Jesus Christ espoused and practiced of providing free healing, food, shelter, charity and unconditional love to the destitute while condemning the rich for their greed is under daily attack, by Donald Trump and his supporters.

Oh, but for the good old days when a Christian president and his wife lived in the same wing of the White House and taxpayers didn’t have to spring for separate hotel rooms when they travelled.

On the other hand, the religion of hate, prejudice and greed practiced by Trump and his supporters is also under attack. Every television show and movie that depicts people of color or non-majority sexual orientation as real people chips away at their culture. Every time a rural person finds accurate news and information on the internet, that chips away at their culture that is founded on ignorance.

The worst threat of all is rural de-population. Every time an old, set-in-their way, racist dies is one less Republican vote. Every time a rural young person goes off to college or to the city for a job and finds that black people and gays are ordinary people, that is another Republican vote lost.

So yes, there is a culture war going on in this country. The undeniable truth is that knowledge is power. Unfortunately for Trump supporters, an anti-knowledge president may provide some temporary comic relief, but time, knowledge and truth are racists biggest enemies.

The “other problems” racists deal with

Considering white people are supposed to be a master race, white racists certainly have a difficult time finding intelligent leadership. Donald Trump’s lack of intelligence is well documented. From claiming windmills cause cancer to considering nominating his daughter to head the World Bank, you don’t find find this kind of stupid everyday.

In another example, James Hart Stern, a 54-year-old black man, is the new president of the National Socialist Movement (NSM). Stern convinced Jeff Schoep, the long time leader of the neo-Nazi hate organization to hand over leadership to him. You just can’t make this kind of stuff up!

Stern’s first move as president was to address a pending lawsuit against the group by asking a Virginia judge to find it guilty of conspiring to commit violence at the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. Next, he plans to transform the hate group’s website into a space for Holocaust history lessons. 

Schoep, the group’s former leader, claims he was, “Duped”. I expect this happens quite frequently to Mr. Schoep.

Besides less than intelligent leadership, racists deal with their own lack of logic. Racists became openly hostile to professional football players who knelt during the National Anthem. “Disgusting lack of respect for the flag and dishonor to fallen soldiers who fought for the flag as well as a miserable lack of patriotism,” racists claimed.

Yet the same racists seemed to think it was a very good idea to preserve monuments to Confederate leaders that showed no patriotism whatsoever when they broke their oaths to defend the United States, destroyed and desecrated many US flags on the battlefield and were responsible for killing many soldiers defending the US and the flag.

Surprising how the actions of those people who claim that white people are the most intelligent race are the best example of why white people aren’t the most intelligent race.

Dealing with racism

Derek Black was one of the rising stars of the neo-Nazi movement. He disavowed his beliefs, transformed his life, changed his name to Roland Derek Black, wrote a book, Rising Out of Hatred and started a PhD program at the University of Chicago.

Megan Phelps Roper’s parents headed the Westboro Baptist Church. While growing up, Ms. Roper and her family would picket at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq holding up “God hates Fags” signs. Ms. Roper left the Westboro Church and broke with her family. She is no longer preaching hate and fear—but instead, a message of love, tolerance and anti-bullying. She has become an advocate for people and ideas she was once taught to despise; Ms. Roper is now an activist and speaker who lobbies to overcome divisions and hatred between religious and political divides.

These are great stories, but unfortunately, too few of them exist. In both of these cases, transformations occurred at young ages. People who worked to convert them would constantly show them how ludicrous their beliefs were.

The important point here is that this is not about traditional Democrat and Republican issues. What we are talking about is man’s inhumanity to man that Donald Trump and his supporters represent. We are a country of immigrants. Do we want to be a country that separates thousands of immigrant parents from their children because they happen to have been born with the wrong color skin?

It is worth pointing out again that knowledge is power. One of the best ways to combat racism and hate is for government to spend money to bring high speed internet service and knowledge to rural areas. If you’ve ever tried to access the internet in many rural areas, you can understand how frustrating it is to get rudimentary information on the web. Ignorance, hate and racism flourish in this environment.

In summary, don’t expect 60 year old farmers with no contact with black people to suddenly give up their racism. In a democracy, to take power away from the Donald Trump’s of the world, rational people of all colors need to vote together for leaders that work for the good of all citizens.


Promises

The original intent of this article was to measure Donald Trump’s  effectiveness in fulfilling his campaign promises. After finishing the piece, it was clear that this is an  ineffective way to measure presidential success. One president could fulfill 75% of his campaign promises with none of them improving the lives of voters and a second president could fulfill only one of his 100 campaign promises. However, if that one fulfilled promise enhanced the lives of all citizens, the second presidency would be considered far more successful than the first.

Consequently, this column measures Trump’s effectiveness in keeping campaign promises while also measuring how those accomplishments impact our lives.

The Washington Post identified 282 Trump campaign promises. The following are what Frugal Ron considers some of the most important.

Border wall

“I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great great wall on our southern border and I’ll have Mexico pay for that wall.”

Perhaps Trump’s most famous promise, hasn’t gone very well for him. It is interesting that every congressional representative with a Congressional district touching the US/Mexico border is against building a wall. This hasn’t been lost on the rest of Congress and the Senate.

Mexico definitely is not going to pay for Trump’s wall. Congress, which controls the federal government’s purse strings will also not fund his wall. This leaves Trump with the only option of declaring a National Emergency and using unallocated defense department construction funds to build the wall.

So, just how is a border wall going to stop people from taking a boat on water around the wall?

There are a couple of problems with this plan. First, we are not at war with Mexico, so enforcing border integrity is a police function, not a defense department function. This makes using defense department funding for the border a problem.

Second, Trump appointees heading the FBI, the CIA, the NSC and the Defense Department do not categorize the situation at the Mexico/US border as a National Emergency. The bottom line is that Trump can declare his National Emergency, but the declaration will more than likely be held up for years in the courts. Getting by that, the US government will need to use the power of eminent domain to seize much of the private land to build Trump’s wall. This will take even longer.

Trump can declare a National Emergency but he will be long gone from office before it ever gets out of the courts. His successor will simply end the National Emergency. This is a failed campaign promise.

Since the wall has not and will not be built, there is no impact on U.S. citizens.

Balance the federal budget

“It can be done. … It will take place and it will go relatively quickly.  … If you have the right people, like, in the agencies and the various people that do the balancing … you can cut the numbers by two pennies and three pennies and balance a budget quickly and have a stronger and better country.”

“I will eliminate the U.S. debt in eight years!”

Trump’s promise to balance the federal budget has not gone well for him either. Two years into his presidency, federal government net borrowing is $1.042 trillion. This is a 43% increase in federal borrowing since President Barack Obama left office. Evidently, saving two pennies here and three pennies there has not gotten the job done for Trump. This is a failed campaign promise.

Taxes on corporate income were $325,7 billion when Obama left office. Currently, they are $162.7 billion. This contributes to the skewing of incomes in the U.S. with the rich having a larger percentage of wealth and a declining middle class.

Deficit loving liberals love to borrow money like there is no tomorrow and Trump is no exception. Republican Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush all ran up big deficits. Unfortunately, $trillion annual government spending deficits are not sustainable and led to major recessions. The impact on U.S. citizens today from Trump’s deficit is the false prosperity we have at this writing. Judging from experience,  it will also lead to another disastrous economic meltdown.

Cut federal government spending

Trump promised during his presidential campaign to cut federal government spending by 20%.

When Obama left office, total US government expenditures were $4.263 trillion. At the end of the third quarter of 2018, they were $4.608 trillion, an increase of $345 billion This is a failed campaign promise.

Trump’s racist supporters never cease to see a glimmer of gold in all this red. As a number of Wisconsin dairy producers have told Frugal Ron’s associate, “At least Trump isn’t giving all the money to niggers like Hillary would have.” Unfortunately, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Frugal Ron’s main source of economic data, does not have a line item for “Money given to niggers”, so it is impossible to verify their claim.

Regardless of how this money is spent, Trump is showing his true socialist colors by using government money to buy prosperity. Many other socialist world leaders have tried to use massive increases in government spending to buy long-term prosperity and it has never worked.

Lower the trade deficit

Trump promised “brilliant trade” policies that would drop the national trade deficit “like you’ve never seen before.”

Two years into Trump’s presidency, the US trade balance (that includes goods, services, interest, dividends, wages and all other kinds of transactions) stands at -$527.6 billion. This is a 15% increase from the trade deficit at the end of Obama’s term. This is a failed campaign promise.

Trump and his lackeys tell farmers and other exporters that today’s tariffs are just short-term pain that will be well worth the long-term gain. There are no facts to back up this claim.

Today’s $527.6 billion annual trade deficit has absolutely nothing to do with unfair trade deals signed by previous U.S. presidents.  This is simply anther Trump lie that shows his complete lack of understanding of how international trade works.

A country’s international trade balance has nothing to do with trade agreements. It has everything to do with net national savings. Economists use the equation: (Government revenues – Government spending) + (Private income – Private spending) = (Exports – Imports).

Our huge government deficit overwhelms our private savings and consequently, we have huge trade deficits. If Trump could get his act together and lower our federal government spending deficit by $528 billion, all other things staying constant, we will have a trade surplus.

Our net national savings deficit impacts our markets dramatically. Currency markets change the value of the dollar relative to other currencies and this changes a country’s Terms of Trade until our trade balance equals our net national savings.

In more practical terms, U.S. dairy products are more expensive to Chinese buyers because of our savings deficit. This gives the Chinese a price incentive to buy their cheese and such from the European Union, New Zealand and Australia and not the U.S. Lower international demand for U.S. dairy products lowers domestic prices. Add in the impacts of tariffs and one starts to understand the real causes for the pain U.S agriculture is experiencing.

The savings deficit also impacts domestic manufacturers that produce just for the U.S. market. While our exports are more expensive to foreigners, their imports are cheaper here.

The flip side of our $528 billion trade deficit is that the US has an annual international savings deficit of $528 billion. In other words, our country is going in hock to the rest of the world for $528 annually.

All the grandstanding about trade agreements is just that. We are losing countless jobs to foreign companies and putting our agricultural producers through a world of hurt while the blowhard Trump attacks our trade partners and refuses to touch the real cause of our trade deficits, a $trillion federal budget deficit.

Family Maternity Leave and Universal Day Care

“Child care is such a big problem. We’re going to solve that problem. That means we need working mothers to be fairly compensated for their work and ensure they have affordable quality child care for their kids.”

“We can provide six weeks of paid maternity leave to any mother with a newborn child whose employer does not provide the benefit.”

Yeah, right.

These are failed campaign promises.

Appoint Supreme Court justices that will overturn Roe versus Wade and make abortion illegal

“If we put another two or perhaps three justices on, that will happen. And that will happen automatically, in my opinion, because I am putting pro-life justices on the court.”

Trump has kept his promise by putting two anti-abortion justices on the Supreme Court. Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s continued longevity has so far frustrated his plans for appointing a third justice. Since Republicans control the Senate, they have also appointed a number of like minded judges to lifelong terms on the federal judiciary. This is a fulfilled campaign promise.

Whether or not three other justices will vote to overturn Roe versus Wade is another question. The last thing our country needs is another unenforceable law.

Liberals have a pollyannish belief in the power of big government. In this fantasy land, all we need to do is enact a law outlawing abortion and young women will stop having sex except for procreation. Passing a law to stop people from consuming alcoholic beverages didn’t work with Prohibition. Passing laws prohibiting people from using illicit drugs isn’t working and passing a law making abortion illegal  sure won’t stop women from getting abortions.

Women with money (translated, white women), will travel to get a safe abortion. This is already happening. There are no abortion clinics in North or South Dakota. Is anyone so foolish that they believe women in those two states no longer get abortions? Not hardly. So many out-of-state women are getting abortions in Minnesota that they have a separate group for them in their records.

Even if the Supreme Court makes abortion illegal throughout the U.S., women with money will just travel further. There are some other un-intended consequences of anti-abortion laws:

  • With white women still able to get abortions, the law’s primary impact will fall on poor women (translated, women of color). The result could very well be many more black and brown babies and very few white ones. Since most Trump supporters are racists, this is not a good thing for them.
  • Abortion is illegal throughout Latin America, which includes Central America, South America and the Caribbean. This hasn’t lowered their rate of abortions compared to the U.S. According to the Guttmacher Institute, the the annual rate of abortion in Latin America is estimated at 44 per 1,000 women of reproductive age (15–44). The abortion rate in the U.S. is 14.6 abortions per 1,000 women of childbearing age (ages 15-44).  The lower abortion rate in the U.S. is attributed to contraceptive availability and sex education.
  • A high percentage of abortions are non-invasive, drug induced. People have a way of circumventing foolish laws. In South America, there is a robust black market in abortion drugs. Make abortion illegal in the U.S. and the result could very well be safe, effective, low-cost and completely free of government involvement.
  • Any abortion law would only to apply to the poorest and most vulnerable women. This is unfair and unfair laws divide our country even more than it is now.
  • The last thing we need is another law rammed down the majority’s throats.

The number of U.S. abortions reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fell by two percent year over year and by 24 percent over the span of the  decade ending in 2015, the latest year data is available for. If we really want to lower  the number of abortions, the best solution is to step-up the programs that have been so successful in the past. Real solutions include making the relatively new Long Acting Reversible Contraceptives, that are much more effective, more available; along with more effective and universal sex education at younger ages.

Defund Planned Parenthood

“I would defund it because of the abortion factor, which they say is 3 percent. I don’t know what percentage it is. They say it’s 3 percent. But I would defund it, because I’m pro-life.”

A March, 2018, NBC and Wall Street Journal poll found Planned Parenthood is the U.S.’s most popular political institution or figure. It beat out the FBI, the Me Too Movement and Robert Mueller.

Trump failed repeatedly with a Republican controlled House and Senate to defund Planned Parenthood. Defunding isn’t going to happen with a Democratic controlled House.

A lesson for future presidents: Don’t take on an organization that has close to double your approval rating. This is a failed campaign promise.

Repeal the Affordable Health Care Act

“Real change begins with immediately repealing and replacing the disaster known as Obamacare.”

“We’re going to have insurance for everybody. There was a philosophy in some circles that if you can’t pay for it, you don’t get it. That’s not going to happen with us.”

Trump was unable to repeal or replace Obamacare. He has, however, managed to cut some parts of the legislation.

According to a Fox News poll conducted in October, 2018, the Affordable Care Act has its highest popularity ever with 53% of registered voters having a favorable opinion of it and 42% an unfavorable opinion. The same poll found only 37% of registered voters approve of Trump’s handling of health care and 55% disapproving.

As far as providing health insurance for everybody, four million fewer people had health insurance in 2018 compared to 2016. Both of Trump’s health care campaign promises are failed campaign promises.

Restore manufacturing

My plan includes a pledge to restore manufacturing in the United States.”

In the 25 months of Trump’s presidency, there has been a net gain of 373,000 manufacturing jobs. This is a 1.4% annual gain. this is just slightly above the 0.5% annual gain in the last 25 months of Obama’s term. While certainly not a transformational change, he never said how many jobs he would restore in his campaign pledge. At this point in time,  this is a fulfilled campaign promise.

End the Iran nuclear deal

“This deal if I win will be a totally different deal. This will be a totally different deal.”

The goal of the Iran Nuclear Deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was to keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapon for 15 years while integrating Iran into the global economy. Iran was following all the conditions in the agreement, including allowing inspections when Trump decided the agreement had to be renegotiated.

Iran refused to accommodate changes in the original deal between Iran, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and the European Union. While Trump’s Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, National Security Council and the Joint Chiefs of Staffs of all the military branches advised Trump to keep the treaty, he pulled the U.S. out of the agreement. Trump also slapped economic sanctions on Iran with the goal of reducing Iranian oil exports to zero.

According to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats in February, 2019,, “While we do not believe Iran is currently undertaking the key activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device, Iranian officials have publicly threatened to push the boundaries of JCPOA restrictions if Iran does not gain the tangible financial benefits it expected from the deal,”

The “tangible financial benefits” Coats referenced are benefits Iran was promised by US participation in the agreement. By blocking US trade with Iran and trying to enforce a trade embargo on Iran, Trump is risking Iran’s pushing the boundaries of the nuclear treaty.

Trump’s bluster about “fire and fury” towards North Korea caused them to make 20 years of progress in missile and nuclear weapons development in one year. Trump’s belligerent actions towards Iran may mean two new countries will join the nuclear club during his watch. When the U.S. once again has a real president, fixing this mess will be one of his or her biggest challenges.

The bottom line on this campaign promise depends on what you call a “different deal”. If “no deal” qualifies as a “different deal” to you, then this campaign promise was fulfilled.

Restore American prestige globally

Trump invented the idea that the U.S. had lost global prestige during the Obama Administration. In fact Obama was one of the most respected presidents internationally in our history. The Paris Climate Accord and the Iran Nuclear Accord were results of the respect and influence he had. For good measure, he received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Conversely, Donald Trump is the consummate international laughing-stock. During one of his speeches at the United Nations, the audience and delegates openly laughed as Trump was repeating his standard lies about his accomplishments. During Trump’s state visit to England, protesters had a giant 20 foot high Baby Trump balloon (complete with diaper).

Respect and disrespect are both earned. No previous U.S. president has ever deserved and received this level of disrespect.This is a failed campaign promise.

Drain the swamp

Trump continually promised during his campaign to “drain the Washington swamp”. Unfortunately, what he has created is more like a giant septic tank.

There are $8,000 custom dining room sets for Trump’s HUD secretary as well as the plethora of extravagant plane trips and other trappings of power former EPA head Scott Pruitt indulged. Then, there are  former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s possible criminal misdeeds. Even more disgusting are the industry lobbyists hired to oversee the people who used to pay them.

But, the deepest, rankest part of the septic tank is Donald Trump himself. Maintaining control of his business interests while foreign interests and domestic lobbyists patronize his hotels is the reason a Democratic controlled House is finally investigating Trump’s violations of the Emolument Clause. Then there are the 6,420 lies Trump told in his first 649 days in office.

Hanging over everything is the question of how many laws Trump has broken. The answer will come when the Mueller investigation results are released and when all the House investigations end. This is a failed campaign promise.

End bureaucratic regulations

During the Jimmy Carter Administration, ending bureaucratic regulations meant improving all of our lives. He passed bills that deregulated the trucking industry and brought capitalistic competition to a dormant industry. He also passed an airline deregulation bill that made air travel affordable and available for millions more people.

When Trump brags about ending environmental regulations, his victories are society’s greatest defeats. While Trump and his minions say more research is needed about climate change and its causes, they continually ignore the new research that is published finding that global warming is accelerating, oceans are rising faster than predicted, glaciers are melting at even more alarming rates and that cataclysmic weather events are happening more often.

An Alaskan glacier, still there but shrinking.

On another front, federal safety regulations were not enacted in a vacuum. As Trump’s former oil industry lobbyist and now Coast Guard safety regulator eliminates ocean drilling regulations enacted after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, we all lose.

Closer to Frugal Ron’s home is Ashley Furniture in Arcadia, Wisconsin which is a graphic example of why OSHA is needed. The following is from an OSHA press release:

“In a three-and-a-half year period, 4,500 employees at Ashley Furniture Industries Inc., in Arcadia, experienced more than 1,000 work-related injuries. One worker became another terrible statistic when he lost three fingers in July 2014 while operating a dangerous woodworking machine without required safety mechanisms in place. Of the injuries recorded, more than 100 were caused by similar machinery.”

“After the incident, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration conducted an inspection of the facility. Investigators identified 12 willful, 12 repeated and 14 serious safety violations at Ashley Furniture’s Arcadia location, carrying a total of $1,766,000 in penalties. The company has also been placed in the Severe Violator Enforcement Program for failure to address these safety hazards. OSHA previously cited the Arcadia facility in 2014 after an employee suffered a partial finger amputation.”

“Ashley Furniture has created a culture that values production and profit over worker safety, and employees are paying the price,” said U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez. “Safety and profits are not an ‘either, or’ proposition. Successful companies across this nation have both.”

https://www.osha.gov/news/newsreleases/region5/02022015

Ashley Furniture also paid OSHA a $1.2 million fine in 2014. The company has paid a total of $3,598,460 in worker safety violation fines. Companies like Ashley Furniture are why it is imperative to keep OSHA regulations in place.

Trump obviously has no qualms about jeopardizing worker safety or are futures in his quest to say he has eliminated government regulations. This is a campaign promise Trump fulfilled.

Summing-up

Donald Trump has not delivered on more of his campaign promises than any other president. Legislatively, there has probably not been a president whose party controlled both the House and Senate that has accomplished less.

When one party controls the presidency and the Senate, it is a slam dunk that unless judicial nominees are obscenely unqualified, they will be approved. When Republicans control Congress and the presidency, there will always be a huge tax cut for rich people and massive spending increases. Other than that, Trump’s legislative accomplishments are signing a farm bill, a bill to clean garbage out of the oceans and a prison reform bill (that he deserves a great deal of credit for getting passed). If he got that little accomplished with Republicans controlling Congress, don’t expect much for the remainder of his time in office.

Trump’s ship already sailed long ago.

However, the bigger issue is the harm Trump has done to this country in his two years in office. For true conservatives, his huge spending increases, his unsustainable deficits and his job destroying trade deficits are mind numbing. He has concentrated more wealth in fewer hands than ever before in this country. Economic policies can be fixed, one only wishes the same for his environmental policies. Real experts agree that the longer we ignore climate change, the more painful our final solutions and problems will be.

What good has Trump done? His record of failure is a testament to the failure of socialistic big spending and big government policies.

 

Sources

Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) data, Quarter 3, 2018; Table 3.2, Federal Government Current Receipts and Expenditures, Line 49, Net Lending or Net Borrowing. February, 2019.

Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) data, Quarter 3, 2018; Table 3.2, Federal Government Current Receipts and Expenditures, Line 43, Total expenditures. February, 2019.

Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) data, Quarter 3, 2018: Table 4.1. Foreign Transactions in the National Income and Product Accounts, Line 33, Balance On Current Account, NIPA’s. February, 2019.

Bureau of Labor Statistics, Interactive data, Employment Hours and Earnings, Current Employment Statistics, All Manufacturing Jobs, Not seasonally adjusted. February, 2019.

Wall Stupidity

I am unable to fathom the stupidity of Donald Trump and the people who support him. The case in point today is Trump’s Wall.

First, the smoke and mirrors. Trump claims he needs $5 billion to build his 30 foot high concrete wall along the whole Mexican border. The Homeland Security Administration says it would cost $21.6 billion. Senate Democrats commissioned a study and found the cost would be over $70 billion and annual maintenance would cost another $150 million. This figure includes buying millions of acres of private land for the wall. Expect the jack boot of an over reaching federal government to use eminent domain to force landowners to sell their property.

Next comes the lies. Trump claims Mexico will pay for his wall with proceeds from the US, Canada, Mexico trade pact that he has negotiated. This is untrue. Even if the trade pact is approved by Congress, there is absolutely no language dictating any funding for the wall. This is simply another Trump lie.

Finally comes the stupidity. Trump’s wall will fail to keep people out of the US. There are the obvious tried and true methods to circumvent the wall using ladders and ropes and tunneling underneath. There are also far easier ways.

Map of United States and Mexico border where proposed wall will go. Blue is water.

Notice on the map that there are bodies of water on both the east and west coasts of Mexico. For any Trump supporters reading this, I will point out that boats can float on the water. If the boats have motors, they can travel quite quickly and safely. Also, not even Trump has  proposed building  walls along the US coast north of the Mexican border along the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean.

South Texas beach on the Gulf of Mexico.

The above photo is of a south Texas beach. The wet stuff is the Gulf of Mexico. It is very easy to bring a small boat in close to land where immigrants can jump out and wade onto shore. I don’t have pictures of California shoreline, but I expect the same opportunities exist there.

Another alternative is farther north. Since 2016, Mexican citizens can enter Canada without a Visa. Canada has already noticed an uptick in Mexicans entering Canada and then walking across the border into the US. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/mexicans-crossing-us-canada-border-immigration-1.4760153 Build a wall on the Mexican border and this becomes a torrent.

A round trip ticket from Mexico City to Winnipeg, Canada costs $348 (arrival and departure mid-week in February). From the airport, they take a 200 mile bus ride to get close to the US border and then walk across a field to get to North Dakota and throw away their return flight ticket. This is a fraction of the cost and infinitely safer than paying smugglers to get across the Mexican border now.

The point of all this is so simple that even Trump supporters should be able to figure it out. If US taxpayers build an $70 billion wall on the Mexican border, Mexicans can either choose to fly over it or boat around it. Unless, of course, they choose more expensive or riskier alternatives like tunnels or ladders and ropes.

So, one might ask, “Why do we shut down a big chunk of our government and jeopardize the finances of hard working government workers to waste $70 billion to build  a wall that would be absolutely useless at keeping immigrants out of our country?”

The answer is that we have a mentally retarded president with an army of racist supporters who don’t bother looking at maps and seem incapable of thinking.

 

 

 

Our National Nightmare

The Donald Trump presidency rests on three pillars: Stupidity, Lies and Racism. Like being in a never ending pinball machine, with Trump in office, the United States ricochets from one disaster to the next.

Stupid is as stupid does

Sometimes we just need to recognize the obvious. If we see a bird that looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, flies like a duck and walks like a duck, then it obviously is a duck. Likewise, if someone constantly says and does stupid things, then that person is obviously stupid. Following this logic, Donald Trump is stupid. Worse, he surrounds himself with stupid. Even worse, after ten years of electing Tea Party stupid, we have Congressional stupid to support presidential stupid.

Many people claim that Trump is unpredictable. These people have not paid attention to his modus operandi. Simply ask yourself, what is the stupidest thing anyone could do under a given set of circumstances and you can predict Trump’s actions.

Some examples

With polar ice caps melting at far faster rates than predicted, ocean levels rising and global warming contributing to unprecedented flooding, what is the STUPIDEST thing Trump could do in setting out the country’s future energy policy? Obviously, the answer would be to promote more coal-burning power plants and require power plants using cleaner, safer (and cheaper) energy to subsidize the more expensive coal powered plants.

Ask yourself, “What is the STUPIDEST thing Trump could do before negotiating nuclear disarmament with North Korea?” The answer of course is to break the nuclear accord signed with Iran after the Iranians destroyed their nukes, over 500 centrifuges that would have allowed them to quickly replace the destroyed nuclear bombs and followed the agreement explicitly.

What is the STUPIDEST thing Trump could possibly do if he wanted to end the FBI investigation of his presidential campaign’s collusion with Russians?  That’s simple, go on national television and do an interview with Lester Holt and brag that the real reason you just fired the FBI director was that he wouldn’t end the Russian investigation.

What is the STUPIDEST thing Trump could possibly do if he wanted to keep an international trade embargo and other sanctions on North Korea to force them to dismantle their nuclear weapons? The answer is to hold a summit with the North Korean leader and walk out with absolutely no concrete plan for nuclear disarmament. Then, proclaim to the world that North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat. Forget about political oppression, slave labor camps and murdering his own uncle, Kim Jong Un, “loves his people”.

What is the STUPIDEST thing Trump could possibly do when negotiating trade issues with the Canadian prime minister? Lie and claim the US has a trade deficit with Canada and then claim the Canadians burned down the White House during the War of 1812. Then, go to a Republican fund raiser and brag about lying to the Canadian prime minister. Then, after the G-7 Meeting in Montreal, complain that Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister didn’t treat you with enough respect. By the way, it was the British that burned down the White House during the War of 1812.

What are the STUPIDEST things Trump could possibly do if he wanted to keep fuel prices low in the US? The answer is to end the nuclear agreement with Iran, end trade with them, and for good measure, send a letter to heads of state of oil producing Gulf nations telling them they wouldn’t last a week without US help.

What is the STUPIDEST possible thing Trump could do if he wanted to keep up the facade that he is “draining the swamp” of special interests and lobbyists setting our country’s agenda? Send his political appointees to the World Health Organization meeting and try to scuttle the science backed research recommendations to encourage mother’s to feed their babies breast milk. The US delegation, supporting the milk formula industry, threatened Ecuador, the country sponsoring the breast milk resolution, with losing military and financial aid if they went through with introducing the legislation. Russia saved the day by being the resolution’s sponsor. Since Russia has the videotapes and photos of Trump’s romp with Russian prostitutes after the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant, the US delegation obviously couldn’t threaten them. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/08/health/world-health-breastfeeding-ecuador-trump.htm

What is the STUPIDEST thing Trump could possibly say about Russian interference in the 2016 election that has been confirmed by the CIA, NSA, FBI, House Intelligence Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee?  “I asked him again, “Trump said after what he described as several brief, informal chats with Putin in Danang, Vietnam, where they were attending a regional conference. “You can only ask so many times . . . He said he absolutely did not meddle in our election. He did not do what they are saying he did. I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it . . . I think he’s very insulted, if you want to know the truth.”

In light of the fact that multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals show that 97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree: Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities. In addition, most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position, what is the STUPIDEST thing Trump could say?  “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”

What is the STUPIDEST possible thing Trump could do concerning all his legal troubles? Hire Rudy Giuliani as his lead lawyer.

This list is nowhere near inclusive of Trump’s stupid statements and actions. He continues to add more everyday. Frugal Ron apologizes if he missed your favorite example of Trump’s idiotism.

Mystery solved

Frugal Ron has been trying for two years to understand how someone who surrounds himself with loyalists of limited intellect and who doesn’t understand how to use data or research could possibly be a billionaire. A recent article https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/trump-lied-to-me-about-his-wealth-to-get-onto-the-forbes-400-here-are-the-tapes/2018/04/20/ac762b08-4287-11e8-8569-26fda6b404c7_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8dd3a16e8d6b by Johnathon Greenberg, who started the original Forbes magazine lists of the world’s wealthiest people, explained the mystery. Trump lied.

As Greenberg writes, “Eventually, nearly every one of Trump’s pronouncements about his wealth unraveled.”

Greenberg was able to cut through many of Trump’s lies about his wealth, but couldn’t fathom the full extent of his lies. “But Trump was so competent in conning me that, until 35 years later, I did not know I’d been conned. Instead, I have gone through my career in national media with a misinformed sense of satisfaction that, as a perceptive young journalist, I called Trump on his lies and gave Forbes readers who used the Rich List as a barometer of private wealth a more accurate picture of his finances than the one he was selling. The joke was on me — and everyone else. Trump’s fabrications provided the basis for a vastly inflated wealth assessment for the Forbes 400 that would give him cachet for decades as a triumphant businessman.”

You read it here first. If Trump’s tax returns are ever leaked, my prediction is that we will find the reason he has been hiding them are that he has huge interest payments to some sleazy Russian and/or Ukrainian  oligarchs. If we divide these interest payments by even loan shark interest rates, my further prediction is that Donald Trump is much closer to being broke than to being a multi-billionaire.

Moving on, the cost of stupid

Donald Trump takes a great deal of  credit for the low unemployment rate the US currently enjoys, However, Figure 1 shows unemployment rates on the same trajectory they have been on since 2010 and the end of the Obama Administration in January 2017.

Figure 1

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Unemployment Rate,Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey.

Also, looking at the data in Figure 1 from the early part of the George W. Bush presidency, starting in 2001, it is obvious that unemployment dropped during the false prosperity from 2003 to 2007. This was the result of Bush’s tax cuts for the rich and out of control government spending increases. Obviously, the Piper was paid in 2008 with the worst recession since the Great Depression.

As history repeats itself, we clearly see trends emanating from Trump’s out of control spending increases and 2018 tax giveaway to the rich in the federal budget deficit. When Barack Obama left office, Federal Government Net Savings were -$714.0 billion. After just five quarters of Donald Trump’s borrow and spend policies, the Federal Government Net Savings are -$910.0 billion. This is the biggest deficit in our country’s history in a non-recession year. Remember this huge deficit is only after six months of Trump’s tax give away to the rich. Expect the federal spending deficit to go higher as the numbers reflect a full year of Trump’s tax giveaway and ultra-liberal spending increases.

In earlier columns, Frugal Ron has predicted the current Republican effort to buy prosperity will result in another crash and burn for our economy. The question isn’t if this will happen , but when.

Predicting the “when” is very difficult. The Ronald Reagan and George Bush recessions happened relatively shortly after debt went out of control due to their exorbitant spending and ridiculous tax cuts. George W. Bush got four years of fake prosperity, but his recession was much more severe than his predecessor’s.

Trump’s incredibly stupid trade war

Our government spending deficit is entwined with our country’s trade balance. This is where Trump’s stupidity affects all of us.

Trump continually blames other countries and “unfair trade agreements” for our trade deficits. This is just plain stupid, stupid, stupid.

A rule of economics that Trump hasn’t come to terms with is that a country’s Current Account = Capital Account. In other words, a country’s net savings always equals that country’s Merchandise & Trade Balance.

While Trump wastes time foolishly proclaiming our trade deficits are due to unfair trade agreements, our trade deficit is exploding.  This is mostly fueled by Trump’s huge government spending deficit that impacts our country’s net savings. When Obama left office, our Merchandise & Trade Balance was -$487.4 billion. Five quarters later, the trade deficit is now -$569.0 billion, the highest since the fourth quarter of 2008 when George W. Bush left office. Why has the trade deficit grown? From the figures above, our annual federal budget deficit has grown by $196 billion since the end of the Obama presidency. This has negatively affected our country’s Capital Account (net savings). As our federal budget deficit continues to grow, one of two things will happen. Either the trade deficit will continue to explode or the country will slide into a recession.

It gets worse…

While Trump’s policies make our products less competitive internationally and he exports even more jobs, that isn’t the worst of it. Trump is a big government liberal who believes government needs to pick the winners and losers in our economy. When he puts tariffs on steel products coming into the country, that doesn’t affect our overall trade balance. All else staying the same, we continue a -$569 trade deficit.

What does happen is that we will import less steel and make domestic steel providers richer because of the drop in competition. They didn’t become richer because they improved their productivity or developed more creative products. They became richer because the government made them that way. On the other hand, domestic users of steel, such as auto manufacturers, have to compete with products made in other countries with steel that isn’t charged a tariff. These companies are the losers from the government imposed tariffs.

If they market internationally and the countries they export to happen to put countervailing tariffs on their products to reciprocate for the tariffs the US enacted, these companies are hit with a double whammy. This is why Harley Davidson will move manufacturing out of the US for the motorcycles they sell internationally.

Avoid idiots in glass houses

Trump continually talks about other country’s unfair trade practices. For example, Canada’s milk quota system has been a disaster for Canada’s dairy producers and consumers. It survives only because Canada negotiated World Trade Organization restrictions on dairy imports. The program is a perfect example of how a powerful lobby is able to use trade restrictions to reward a few at the expense of many.

However, because of Canada’s relatively small population and because of the quota system, their per capita dairy consumption is low, Canada’s dairy import restrictions have a small impact on world milk prices.

Contrast this with the US sugar program that keeps sugar prices in the world’s largest market roughly three times international prices and all but locks out imports.  A number of year’s ago some creative importers tried to circumvent the US quotas by importing tea that contained 85% sugar and 15% tea and then separating it in the US. It worked for awhile.

Another dandy example of a market distorting policy benefitting the few and costing the many is a part of the NAFTA Agreement that requires all goods produced in Mexico to be transported into the US on a US owned truck. No matter how new and safe a Mexican semi is and how experienced the driver is, they can’t deliver goods into the US. At considerable cost and loss of efficiency, they have to be off loaded onto a US truck.

While the Canadian dairy program has a pin prick impact on international dairy prices, the US’s Price Loss Coverage Program (PLC) is like a sledge-hammer on other countries’ commodity prices during years of abundant supplies.  If the market average price for corn drops to $2.50 a bushel, US producers get a government check for the difference between the Reference Price of $3.40 per bushel and the $2.50 market price times all the corn they produce. Next year, US producers make planting decisions based on a $3.40 minimum price while the rest of the world ‘s farmers hope the price doesn’t go below $2.50.

Unfortunately, the last attempt at an international agreement to eliminate more trade barriers broke down because then President George W. Bush refused to negotiate eliminating market distorting US agricultural programs.

While almost all countries have trade distorting practices, the trade agreements Trump vilifies eliminated thousands of them. Furthermore, only a complete idiot would criticize other countries’ trade distorting practices considering the indefensible ones we have.

We’re trying to accomplish what?

It is difficult to understand what Trump is trying to accomplish with his trade wars. He claims China and the European Union have unacceptably high trade surpluses with the US. He wants to renegotiate trade agreements,. However, our trade deficit is due to our own national savings deficit.  No country can sign a trade agreement with us specifying a certain level of trade surplus or deficit because even we can’t control our own savings deficit. The world’s worst negotiator doesn’t leave his adversaries any viable options.

Some days Trump and his advisors claim they want to stop China from stealing our trade secrets. Obviously, none of these people have ever applied for a US patent. Before a patent is granted, all applications go through a review process. During this period, all formulas, drawings and whatever makes the product unique are released to the public. If anyone can prove they developed and marketed a like product in the past, they can stop the patent.

The more important point is that we make the product’s trade secrets open to the public. This is why whenever a US patent application reaches the review stage, the applicant will apply for patents in every country they hope to market the product. Someone else can review the patent, copy it and market it in any country the original developer fails to patent it in. Also in the US, a developer can copy a patent, make some changes and if the second developer can prove the new product is a “significant improvement”, apply for their own US patent and market their new product here.

Trade and inflation

A result of bad government is inflation. During Trump’s disastrous presidency, signs of inflation are everywhere. Average US regular unleaded gas prices, (according to the American Automobile Association) are $2.87 per gallon. A year ago they were $2.26. JP Morgan announces the June 14, 2018 Prime Interest Rate is 5.00 percent. When Obama left office, it was 3.75 percent. General Motors announced that due to Trump’s tariffs, new car prices would rise thousands of dollars.

The list goes on and on. Because of inflation, people will make inefficient buying decisions. If someone thinks they need a new car within a couple years, they will buy it now instead, given the expectation that the automobile will be more expensive when they need it.

Inflation erodes the value of savings that frugal people accumulated over their lifetimes. It also makes the $1.3 trillion of US treasury bond debt that China owns less valuable since it will be paid off with inflated dollars. The Chinese have been very explicit to past US administrations that they will not let this happen.

Pay attention to what might happen if the Chinese finally lose patience with Trump. If they decide to quit buying more treasury bills and help finance his $trillion deficits, this could have a major impact on interest rates. If they decide to start cashing in their T-bills, and other countries follow suit, this could set off a financial meltdown.

The lies

The second pillar of Trump’s presidency are his lies. On May 31, 2018 the Washington Post reported its latest tally of Donald Trump’s false and misleading statements since taking office was at 3,251. That is averaging more than 6.5 lies per day.

Unfortunately, the pace of lies is picking up. In Trump’s first 100 days in office, he averaged a mere 4.9 lies per day. However, in May 2018, he averaged eight false claims per day, including a then record 35 in one speech in Nashville, Tennessee on May 29. The Washington Post’s Fact Checker reviewed all the claims Trump made in his Montana rally last week and found that 76 percent were false or suspect. Trump is a prolific liar, not a good liar. If he was a good liar, he wouldn’t gotten caught 3,251 times.

The bottom line is that Donald Trump is a perpetual liar that can’t be trusted. Everything he says must be assumed to be a lie.

Immigration, first some logic

The US has an aging population and a declining birth rate. This is a recipe for economic disaster. The solution is to welcome all the immigrants we can conceivably get, regardless of their skin color, sexual orientation or religion.

In 1970, there were about 3.1 taxpayers for every Social Security recipient. That is now down to 2.9 taxpayers to every recipient. By 2035, the ratio is expected to be around 2.1 taxpayers to every recipient.  According to a Social Security Administration study, between 2011 and 2032, it is estimated the number of people eligible for old age benefits will increase by 65 percent while the number of people paying Social Security taxes will increase by 18 percent.

If you want a real world example of what can happen with an aging and declining population, Japan is ahead of us with an even more aging population and a longer history of declining birth rates. Japan’s economy is in a long-term stagnation — the country’s GDP has been among the G7’s lowest over the past 20 years, coming second only to Italy. We don’t want to follow the Japanese model.

We don’t have an immigration problem in this country, we have a race problem.

Racism

While the Trump presidency stands on the three pillars of stupidity, lies and racism, it is truly racism that drives Trump and his supporters. As long as Trump works to make America white (and Christian) again, his supporters don’t care about his stupidity, how many lies he tells or how immoral he is.

To Trump and his rabid supporters, there was absolutely nothing wrong with separating parents from their children at the border. Locking the traumatized children in cages, hauling them to all corners of the country and not telling their parents where they were was perfectly acceptable.

All of these migrants have brown skin. For Trump and his supporters, it isn’t like they are real people that have feelings for their children like white people would have.

Trump made the point himself at the meeting where he made his “shit hole countries” remark. In the same meeting he asked why we couldn’t get more people from countries like Norway. I would bet every nickel I have that if a boat load of blond haired, blue eyed illegal immigrants from Norway tried to get into the US, those children wouldn’t have been torn away from their parents.

Trump categorizes families fleeing violence or simply wanting a better life in the US as drug dealers, murderers, rapists and animals. He has the audacity to claim, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

Never to let the truth interfere with a good lie, Trump has no proof the Mexican government is sending us anybody. The people that are immigrating are making their own decisions based on the same conditions generations of immigrants before them made. They want a better life.

Most people judge Trump’s immorality based on his three unsuccessful marriages, his affairs with playmates, porn stars and Russian prostitutes and the 19 women that have accused him of sexual assault. However, bad as these are, they pale in comparison to the immorality he showed in tearing families apart.

While reasonable people can disagree on tax and spending policies and still be friends, basic humanity is different. I find it extremely difficult to have any respect for anyone that supports Trump’s separating children from their parents and locking the children in cages. Shame on the United States and all of us for allowing this to happen.

The white nigger

Imagine a racist teaching their child, “Now Junior, you must hate all black people because they constantly lie and have no morals . They are stupid and are constantly in trouble with the law. Worse, they won’t take responsibility, they always claim they didn’t do anything wrong and the cops are prejudiced against them.  And, they live off hard-working tax payers like us with all sorts of scams.”

And Junior says, “But Mommy, that’s Donald Trump!”

These are hard times for racists. Having to defend a low life liar like Donald Trump while condemning a successful, honest, articulate, faithfully married class act like Barack Obama is not easy.

It is interesting watching Trump’s apologists and supporters. they don’t bother defending Trump’s stupidity, lies, immorality or racism. They attempt to make the point that President Barack Obama was worse. One banner on social media proclaimed “OBAMA LIED 19 TIMES ABOUT BEING ABLE TO KEEP YOUR OWN DOCTOR!”

Personally, I don’t know anyone that had to switch doctors because of Obamacare, but this is beside the point. If we start the week on Sunday morning, 19 lies won’t even get Trump through Tuesday.

And then there is the big scandal right around the corner that is going to bring Obama down. Turns out Trump’s claim that Obama had Trump Tower’s phones bugged was just another Trump lie. Some of Trump’s aides were making suspicious contacts with Russians and the FBI got a court order to tap their personal cell phones. The other Trump lie about Obama planting a spy in the Trump campaign was equally scurrilous. When other Trump campaign workers were also making suspicious contacts with Russia, the FBI had one of their long time informants make contact with the Trump campaign employees to figure out what they were up to. Thanks to the House Republicans for blowing the informant’s cover.

It is impossible for Trump’s racist followers to accept that Obama kept from being investigated the good old-fashioned way. He didn’t break any laws.

If the truth doesn’t work, the Trump loyalist just out right lie. Since most of these folks claim they are good God-fearing Christians, we can surmise that the Commandment about bearing false witness doesn’t apply when you are lying about a black guy.

My favorite though is that Barack Obama is a Communist. Just a few points:

When  Obama’s predecessor George W. Bush took office, the US had a budget surplus of $152 billion. When Bush left office, the budget had an annual deficit of $781 billion. When Obama left office, the deficit was down slightly to $738 billion. Which one is the Communist destroying our country?

When Bush assumed the presidency, thee US Merchandise and Trade Balance was -$404 billion. When Bush left office, it was $686 billion. When Obama left office the Merchandise and Trade Balance was down to -$461 billion. Which one is the Communist destroying our country?

During Bush’s term in office, the S&P 500 Stock Index dropped 35 percent. During Obama’s term, it went up 163 percent. Which one is the Communist destroying our country?

During Bush’s term in office, the unemployment rate went up  47 percent. During Obama’s term, it went down 55 percent. Which one is the Communist destroying our country?

During Bush’s presidency,  annual federal government spending went up 74 percent. During Obama’s term, it went up only 24 percent. Which one is the Communist destroying our country?

Both Bush and Obama kept inflation at record low rates during their two terms in office.

And last but not least, during Bush’s term, per capita annual health care costs rose 63 percent. During Obama’s term, these costs went up 31 percent. In addition, 27 million previously uninsured people had health insurance at the end of Obama’s term. Oh, but for the good old days when we had a Communist out to destroy our country as president!

Wrapping up…

Our leadership void in this county is deeper than just the presidency. We have a Republican controlled Congress that has abdicated their oath to the Constitution and to the people. Instead they pledge their loyalty to their party’s excuse for a president. There is a simple solution, reasonable people must turn out and reshape Congress and their priorities next November.

While we are struggling through the worst leadership crisis in our country’s history, there is one bright spot. Barack Obama and Donald Trump have done more to destroy racial stereotypes and done more damage to the racist cause than anyone can imagine. We might not see changes in the current generation, but for younger people, the truth is obvious.

 

The Problem With Science

Science is non-partisan. This make it problematic for many people. Unfortunately, folks of all political stripes take published research that agrees with their worldview and hold it up as justification for their long-held beliefs. Published research that doesn’t fit, well that is just bad science.

This attitude makes it impossible for the aforementioned people to learn and change. In a world where knowledge is power, this is bad for them and for the rest of us.

Before going further, it is important to acknowledge that there is dishonesty in research and publication. It is also true that if you look hard enough, you can find some research to prove almost any viewpoint.  Rather than throw our hands in the air and proclaim that all is hopeless, we can eliminate most problems by only relying on peer-reviewed published research in journals that have been around a long time. You can google a journal to find out if it has been around awhile or is simply a newer publication that will publish anything for money.

University, wisconsin, science, bascom hall, research
The University of Wisconsin, one of the world’s leading research and science institutions.

It is important to focus on the forest, not the trees. For example, I can reliably state that the vast majority of climate based research tells us that our global climate is getting warmer, that polar ice caps are melting, ocean levels are rising, these changes are caused by people and the continued consequences are life altering. Are there outlier researchers disputing these findings? Absolutely.

I can also reliably state the vast majority of research tells us  conventionally produced food in the United States is safer now than it ever has been and is the world’s safest. Is there outlier research disputing this? Absolutely.

What seems to exasperate all this is that some people want to believe the outlier research so badly they pay exorbitant fees to get one of these researchers to tell their group of like-minded people what they want to hear. In other cases, authors go after the mass market with books proclaiming alarmist bad science and rake in millions. The problem with all this is that the din of outlier science drowns out the overwhelming amount of peer-reviewed, published research.

The hypocrisy of misusing science

This gets ridiculous when people wave the banner of climate based science yet decry the safety of conventionally produced food (including GMOs). Published research for climate science and food safety each had to pass the same rigorous review processes in prestigious science journals. The hypocrisy is rampant in promoting the validity of one type of research while decrying the other. Either you believe in science or you don’t. You can’t pick the one you want to believe in and discard the other if equal rigour went into both fields of research. And yes, the opposite holds true for those who passionately defend the research on food safety and condemn the vast majority of climate research.

Science destroys the racist myths that defines today’s Republican Party. Most studies find white children’s IQ’s roughly one standard deviation higher than black children. However, when white and black children with the same family income levels and home environments are compared, the IQ differences disappear.

Likewise, published research in criminology journals document significantly longer prison sentences for black men than white men in the same court rooms for similar crimes and similar criminal backgrounds. Athletes that knelt during the national anthem used their platform to highlight these studies and other abuses in the criminal justice system. Republicans did everything possible to change the debate from unequal criminal justice (where they couldn’t win) to patriotism.

The point of all this is that if we spent as much time learning from well done published research as we do fighting it, we would all be better off. Having a certain level of skepticism is a healthy thing. Letting one’s emotions, prejudices and long-held paradigms over-ride good science is not a healthy outcome.

Not all unpublished research is bad. This website in particular uses a great deal of research that only appears here. Frugal Ron cites data sources and often provides formulas so readers can access the data, do the math themselves and reach their own conclusions. Transparency is the key in cases like this.

Epilogue

On a personal note, to head off accusations of Frugal Ron’s own hypocrisy, this author acknowledges he has read the research detailing the very negative consequences of sugar consumption and acknowledges the research’s accuracy. Frugal Ron, knowing it is impossible for him to die young, will continue pouring maple syrup on his pancakes, drinking orange juice and occasionally eating ice cream. Frugal Ron respects the research on sugar, accepts the ramifications and chooses to ignore it.

The Real Conservatives

Not only do we live in an era of fake news, we live in an era of fake logic. Out of control spenders that gleefully give the rich giant tax cuts financed by foreign borrowing are hailed as conservatives. A bigoted president with a record of over a thousand lies in his first year in office that has had three marriages, has 19 women accusing him of sexual misconduct, supports a perverted pedophile for the Senate and defends a wife beater is hailed as a great Christian by his supporters. So, if you are wondering if down is really the new up and up is the new down, perhaps it is time for a reality check with real data.

Conservatives spend less!

I realize the above subtitle is an amazing assertion. Figure 1 clearly points out, there are some spending consistencies related to political party affiliation. Republicans Reagan and George W. Bush came close to doubling federal government spending in their eight year terms.  They increased the budget at roughly 250% of the rate of the Democrats. George H.W. Bush increased the rate of spending more in four years than either Clinton or Obama did in eight years!

Figure 1.

This trend of the conservative party continues with the Republican who presently occupies the White House. Even though US defense spending under Obama was larger than the next six largest defense spending countries combined, Donald Trump proposes increasing that by another $195 billion over the next two years.

Breaking campaign promises, Trump proposes big cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Yup, take money away from the sick and old people. That seems to be the Republican Christian thing to do. Gotta teach those old people responsibility.

Trump proposes spending $1.2 trillion over the next 30 years to upgrade our nuclear arsenal. Yet, North Korea has proven time and again that it doesn’t make any difference how big a nuclear arsenal you have, the real difference is how you use it. On August 8, 2017, Trump stated, “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.” North Korean threats have continued, along with more nuclear and missile tests. North Korea called Trump’s bluff.

North Korea has maybe one or two missiles with nuclear warheads capable of hitting the US. Yet, they made Trump look like a drunken polka dancer playing to their tune. The US now has over 4,000 active nuclear warheads. How many more do we need to waste money on to deter the rational and pragmatic leaders Russia and China have?

Conservatives borrow less!

Yes siree! Those Republicans are a frugal bunch indeed! The only thing they seem to enjoy more than spending is borrowing. While they used to accuse Democrats of tax and spend, Republicans’ motto is “Borrow and Spend”.

Figure 2.

And, things could have been worse. If George H.W. Bush hadn’t weaned himself of the Republican “deficits don’t matter” Kool Aid and implemented a tax hike in 1990, we could have been put through the same debt induced economic crash his son visited upon us 17 years later.

The amazing story is the turnaround Bill Clinton did during his presidency where we actually paid off debt. Of course, George W. Bush reversed that foolish practice with predictable results.

The present  resident of the White House proposes increasing the federal debt by another $194 billion next year and $7 trillion over the next ten years. Yes, in this up is really down world, his supporters actually call him a conservative.

When Congressman Paul Ryan goes through his spiel about how our present safety net programs are economically unsustainable, it would be fun to ask him how fiscally sustainable it is to elect Republicans?

Trade Balances and Foreign Borrowing

A country’s trade balance always equals its net national savings. More technically correct is to say a country’s current account and capital account are always equal.

Figure3.

The US had a -$738 billion net government savings during Obama’s last year in office. This huge negative balance overwhelms our private savings giving us an overall negative net national savings or Capital Account Balance. Currency markets aren’t controlled by anything other than market forces. A big savings deficit means the dollar increases in value making imports cheaper and our exports more expensive. This continues until our trade balance equals our net national savings. Cut off trade with a country like Mexico that we have a big trade deficit with and the deficit just moves to other trading partners.

Figure 3 actually illustrates two things. First is the size of our trade balance and second, how much we borrow from other countries to finance our budget deficit. The net national savings value is also on the Bureau of Economic Analysis site in Table 5.1 Savings and Investment, Line 35.

During the Clinton years, we actually had federal budget surpluses, yet we still had a negative net national savings and trade balances. During those years, consumers added lots of debt. We had a booming economy that attracted foreign investment. This accounted for our savings deficit. Also, we had too much money chasing too few goods. This would normally be a recipe for runaway inflation. Fortunately, foreign trade (imports) were the cure for that problem.

The important point is that the Clinton trade and savings deficits were market driven. A truly conservative government got out-of-the-way of the credit and other markets.

Trump’s proposed huge budget deficits will logically give us a larger net national savings deficit. This will make imports cheaper in the US and make exports (such as agricultural products) more expensive to buyers outside the US as our trade deficit matches the savings deficit. All the trade negotiations and trade delegations that we waste time on won’t affect the driving factor that our Current Account will equal our Capital Account.

Stock Markets Love Republicans!

Well, not really. Republicans continually believe they can buy prosperity. Anyone can figure out from the data above that Republicans use huge tax cuts for the rich along with out of control spending increases to finance a false prosperity like we have now. After several years, the Piper must be paid.

Figure 4.

Ronald Reagan came into office in 1981 and his stock market crash came in 1987. The markets recovered by the time he left office. George W. Bush took office in 2001 and we had a false prosperity until 2008 when the markets crashed and stayed that way into Obama’s presidency.

This contrasted with Clinton and Obama whose limited spending increases coincided with drama free market increases. Especially Clinton, who got the government out of the market’s way by balancing the federal budget and provided the conditions for real economic growth.

We are once again living in a false economy fuelled by foreign borrowing. History indicates that recent stock market gyrations are just that. Since we are following the George W. Bush script of huge tax cuts with out of control spending, the real crash may be a few years off.

One of the real hoots I get is reading social media posts that describe Obama as a socialist and a communist! Lots of African along with Central and South American leaders have fit one of those descriptions. None of those socialists/communists presided over a 163% increase in their stock markets, held government spending increases lower than any of their predecessors and kept inflation at the lowest levels ever recorded. Yup, Obama was a unique president!

Employment

Figure 5.

The interesting thing about this table is that Reagan’s presidency looks pretty good. But, after you add George H.W. Bush’s term in, twelve years of borrow and spend economics leaves you about where things were when Reagan succeeded Jimmy Carter.

Buying prosperity looks good in the short term but Obama and especially Clinton’s true conservatism wins out in the longer haul. If only Republicans could quit criticizing them long enough to learn from the Democrats and mimic their successes.

Healthcare

Figure 6.

Figure 5 really doesn’t need much explanation. Obamacare added 27 million uninsured people in what is one of the greatest legislative accomplishments in my lifetime.

Economic Growth

Figure 7.

One of the Federal Reserve Presidents, Janet Mester, stated last November, “Government needs policies that increase immigration, not reduce it.” Perhaps she was looking at the data in Figure 7 and how it correlates to Figure 6. Arguably, some of the Clinton GDP growth can be attributed to the large increase in immigrants. The much slower growth during the Obama years might also be blamed on the slowdown in immigration.

Figure 8.

If we want more economic growth, logically, we want more people. With an aging Baby Boomer population leaving the workforce, the most obvious source is immigrants.

Summary

After writing this article, I ask myself why I spent as much time as I did on it. Quite frankly, I don’t expect it will have any impact on Trump supporters. Hopefully, in a world where we are inundated with false hoods, it will provide some fodder for rational people.

After the last election, I wrote in a post that we are two worlds living in one nation. This is even more accurate today.

Since then, I’ve tried to listen a lot. What I have learned is that one of the world’s in our nation differentiates themselves by their ignorance. The strange thing is this is an ignorance of choice.

These folks simply refuse to recognize news organizations with decades and centuries long reputations for accuracy. An article that fails to portray their hero as anything but a great Christian valiantly trying to save the nation after eight years of Obama rule makes that news organization only worthy of their scorn. Even when forced to acknowledge facts, their loyalty never wavers. Trump’s supporters don’t give a rat’s behind about the facts and data in this article. All they care about is that he hates the same people they do as much as they do.

What this reminds me of is a WWII documentary filmed toward the end of the war where a near starving German woman wearing rags in a burned out relic of her city staring down the gun barrel of a US soldier was still proclaiming her loyalty to Hitler.

Hitler’s based his power on appealing to German nationalism and focusing hatred on Jews and any other non-German ethnic group. They, of course, were the cause of all Germany’s problems. For Donald Trump, the same nationalism and racism comes through loud and clear. What I’ve learned from my social media forays is that his supporters have a vitriolic hatred of Blacks, Hispanics and Arabs that meters down to anyone that isn’t white and practicing the same form of Christianity they are. Of course, they aren’t racists (by their own measurements).

Are there similarities? Hitler didn’t have to shut down the media, his supporters did. Hitler borrowed wherever he could to finance his military buildup. He loved military parades and Trump is planning a giant one in Washington this year. Hitler never admitted a mistake. Both shared the same disdain for the truth. Trump wants more money and support for the police.

The most disgusting and despicable comments I’ve ever heard a US president make are Donald Trump’s wanting to know why we allowed people from shithole country’s like Africa, Haiti and El Salvador to come into the US and not allow more immigration from places like Norway. This is my litmus test. Anyone still supporting Trump after those remarks is either a racist or condones racism. I have no use for either.

The scariest part is how the Nazis, oh excuse me, the Republicans rally to Trump’s defense and try to delegitimize the world’s most respected law enforcement agency in their blind loyalty to head off his possible indictment. The summary here is simply this. We need to stand up to this bigotry and hatred of facts. Facts may not impact Trump loyalists, but there is hope for their kids.  Rationale people need to unite in the next elections. Roughly 38-40 percent of voters are die-hard Trump supporters. Every one of them will vote. Staying on the sidelines is not an option.

Why Republicans Can’t Govern

Republicans have been a dominating election winning machine.  Using a combination of gerrymandered districts, voter suppression laws and a message that resonates with bigots, they have majorities in both the House and Senate and also hold the Presidency. Sadly for the Republicans, never have so many accomplished so little.

Republicans won the presidency with the promise of bringing jobs back to the US. Yet, according to the latest quarterly report, here we are with the biggest quarterly trade deficit since George W. Bush was in office. (Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis, Table 1.1, U.S. International Transactions, Line 30). After failing to overhaul the health care system, Republicans  moved on to adding $1,0 trillion in additional deficits over the next ten years with their tax cut plan. A reasonable person might ask,”What in the heck is going on here?” There are three  reasons for this unprecedented incompetence.

The first reason…

First is Donald Trump. in an earlier column written after his electoral victory , Frugal Ron wrote “Never before has such an unqualified and ill prepared president assumed office”. He’s been all of that and more.

Soon to be Ex-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson describes Trump as a “f____ing moron”. Although a bit course for this website, Frugal Ron finds himself at a loss to produce a more accurate, concise and eloquent description.

Besides being a moron, Trump’s biggest liability to Republicans is his inability to keep his word.  He’ll reach a deal and turn around a few days later and demand financing for his wall or some other moronic idea and halt the legislative process.

On international trade, Trump claimed he could eliminate our perpetual trade deficit by renegotiating unfair trade agreements. Not having the intellectual capability to understand that a nation’s Merchandise and Trade Balance equals a country’s Net Savings is a major limitation for Trump.

The second reason…

Although Trump is a huge liability to Republicans, the second and bigger reason for their failure to govern is an out of touch Republican establishment This includes everything from the Republican Congressional leadership, the majority of Republican office holders and  their major donors.

Republican orthodoxy calls for ending government programs and cutting taxes for the rich. Making the Affordable Care Act their first target was a huge mistake. Perhaps the most successful government program in the last 50 years, Obamacare had slashed the rate of health care increases, added 20 million more people to the ranks of insured and did all this for about the same government cost as the previous hodge podge of programs.

Polling by Hart Research Group found that 54% of Americans wanted the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) kept and fixed and only 40% want the law repealed and replaced. Faced with these numbers, what would you expect Republicans to do? Of course, they went full steam ahead to undo Obamacare.

No sane person would possibly think that pricing health insurance out of reach for 20-30 million US citizens (depending on which version of Republican dogma was being voted on) is a good thing. Besides the people priced out of the health insurance market, millions more will have to forego saving or spending money to support other parts of the economy because their health insurance costs skyrocketed.

There was a time, before Ronald Reagan, when Republicans were actually conservatives. Back then, Republicans refused to vote for bills until the repercussions of the repercussions of a specific bill were discussed and addressed. No more.

Without a thought, today’s reckless Republicans plunge ahead to jeopardize the entire healthcare industry that represents 18% of the US’s GDP. Do these fools expect the 20-30 million people that would have lost their health insurance because of Republican legislation  will all magically enjoy perfect health and never get injured or pregnant? It probably never occurred to these Republican zealots that if  people can’t afford insurance, maybe they won’t be able to pay five figure and higher medical bills if they do wind up in the hospital? I never heard one Republican in favor of repealing Obamacare  describe where the money to cover the uninsured’s medical cost was going to come from.  Before Obamacare, 30% of these costs were absorbed by Medicaid. However, Republican plans call for cutting back those funds also.

Republicans seem to be the only people with IQs over 70 that can’t grasp that if the healthcare industry is treating 20-30 million more patients that aren’t providing an insurance income flow and can’t pay for their treatment, many hospitals and clinics will close. Consequently, even wealthy Republicans will die because healthcare is too far away.

Out of touch takes on new meaning when you look at how Republicans intended to spend their ill gotten domestic savings. Savings from shutting down after school programs that allow working parents to keep their jobs while their children are safe, meals on wheels and a myriad of other programs that keep seniors alive were to go for defense spending increases. Never mind that current defense spending is higher than the next six highest defense spending countries in the world COMBINED. Other savings were pegged to go for tax cuts for the wealthy. Never mind that today’s wealth is the most concentrated in our country’s history.

The third reason…

The third reason Republicans can’t govern is because of a very small minority of their members  that throw wrenches into the party plans. While most Republicans live in their private fantasy land, a very small minority see things much more clearly. Perhaps unwilling to repeat the same mistakes when lemming like Republicans followed President George W. Bush down the path to a calamitous war and a devastating recession, Senators McCain, Collins and Murkowski stood up to the Republican establishment and their twittering president.

Republicans lie

Making governing more difficult, Republicans seem to pick up from their president. They flat-out lie when describing the tax cuts for the rich and their effects on the rest of us.

Perhaps pictures work better than words, although I expect even these will not sway Trump supporters. The proposed Republican tax cut will increase federal budget deficits an average of $100 billion per year over the next ten years over present levels.

Table 1

Sources: Bureau of Economic Analysis, Table 3.2 and Table 1.1.5 and Department of Labor, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.

Republicans claim the tax cuts will increase jobs. History tells us this simply won’t happen. The red line is the annual federal budget balance as a percent of Gross Domestic Product(GDP). The federal budget is expressed as a percent of our nation’s total economic output to eliminate inflation’s impact. Notice how job creation mimics the budget deficit. President George W. Bush’s tax cuts and huge spending increases ballooned the deficit and President Barack Obama’s even bigger tax cuts devastated job creation. As the deficit became a smaller percent of the economy, job creation increased.

Who were the winners of the Bush/Obama tax cuts? Only the rich people who got the cuts. (Note, the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages only measures full time jobs, not part time.)

Table 2

Sources: Bureau of Economic Analysis, Table 3.2 and Table 1.1.5

Republicans also argue that their tax cuts and associated bigger deficits will lead to more economic growth. The red line is identical to Table 1. Again, the annual percent change in GDP (economic) growth mostly mirrors the federal budget balance.

An interesting point is that after the initial Bush tax cuts in 2001, GDP grew. This is the effect of Republicans using high government spending increases combined with tax cuts paid for with government borrowing to buy prosperity. It simply doesn’t work. The Piper was paid in 2008 when the country was plunged into the deepest economic downturn in a generation.

History tends to repeat it self for those who don’t pay attention to it. Clearly, most Republicans don’t pay attention to history.

The blame game

While this column singles out most Republicans for this mess, they aren’t the real problem. If anything, Republicans are consistent. They get elected, they pass big tax cuts for the rich using the same tired trickle down economic arguments over and over, they spend money like crazy, run up huge deficits that send our net national savings (Capital Account) spiraling into an abyss, causing our Merchandise and Trade Balance (Current Account) to go into an equally huge deficit and then the whole economy goes into another boom to bust recession.

This scenario happened with Reagan and both Bush’s and will repeat itself again. Most anyone should have been able to figure this out long ago. And, this leads us to the real culprits of this mess, anyone who voted for these misfits. We didn’t get a moron for president by accident and we aren’t getting an incompetent Republican Congress more interested in following dogma and their financial backer’s wishes by accident.  There’s a lesson to be learned here.

Racism and More In Our Times

Donald Trump and his supporters actions and words after the deadly riots in Charlottesburg, Virginia illuminated their racism for the world to see.  Yet, the real story is bigger than their racism. It is that their philosophy is all about conformity and conformity to their standards.

To fit into Trump’s America, you not only need to be white and Christian, but also heterosexual. To Trump supporters, Mexicans threaten our safety and jobs, Muslims are terrorists, we need more police to enforce law and order in cities because of black people’s propensity to commit crimes, Gays are a threat to our children and transgenders are a threat to little girls using the restroom, And, of course, all these groups threaten our American culture (whatever that is) because they are “different”.

As with almost everything else, Republicans don’t let peer-reviewed scientific research get in the way of what they “know” is the truth. The reality is that terrorism is committed almost exclusively by native-born citizens and not immigrants. Crime rates for immigrants are lower than for native-born Americans. Toddlers with guns kill many more US citizens annually than Muslim terrorists do.

In their quest for conformity, Republicans demand transgenders accept the gender listed on their birth certificates. Gays, well we “know” their sinful lifestyles are  their choice, so they must give up their same-sex attractions. Muslims, Hindus and other heathens must give their hearts to Jesus to become real Americans. African-Americans are crap out of luck in this era of conformity. They can probably find some level of acceptance if they dress, act and sound like former Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson.

The point here is that Donald Trump supporters are terrified that their culture is under attack by people who are different. Perhaps, if they had more confidence in their culture, they wouldn’t be so paranoid.

The symbolism (actually racism)

Trump supporters aversion to facts complicates meaningful discussions. Instead, they have shifted the argument to one about symbolism. The symbolism in this case are glorified statues of Confederate generals and leaders long overdue for removal.

Trump supporters claim removing these statues is an attempt to re-write history. This is absurd. Over 50,000 books and pamphlets have been written about the Civil War. Not one has been or will be re-written as the statues are taken down. Countless textbooks contain information on the Civil War. None of these are being re-written.

History tells us is that none of these generals or Confederate political leaders ever deserved any type of statue or immortalization. First of all, all the Confederate generals were traitors.They all were active officers in the US Army before joining the Confederacy and had signed the following oath:

“I, _____, appointed a _____ in the Army of the United States, do solemnly swear, or affirm, that I will bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and that I will serve them honestly and faithfully against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever, and observe and obey the orders of the President of the United States, and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the rules and articles for the government of the Armies of the United States.”

Confederate officers broke their oaths and deserted their posts. Worse, not only did they refuse to defend the United States of America, they fought against the nation they swore to protect. There is no better definition of a traitor.

Second, Generals Lee, in particular was an incompetent military leader. Although he won some early battles before the Union identified  their top generals, when crunch time came, Lee’s recklessness, overconfidence and  poor judgement came to the forefront.

If you have any doubts, make a trip to the Gettysburg Battlefield. Great generals deserving immortalization don’t order 15,000 troops to march three-quarters of a mile across open fields punctuated by fences to attack a dug in force on high ground. Standing on top of Little Round Top, where Union forces turned the area below them into a killing field, one realizes that Lee cost the Confederacy the war with his blunder.

On July 4, 1863, the day after Lee’s Gettysburg debacle, Vicksburg, Mississippi fell to Union forces commanded by General Ulysses Grant, This victory gave the Union full control of the Mississippi River, effectively splitting the Confederacy into two.

Lee knew his efforts to win the Civil War and preserve slavery were lost, but he kept the carnage going for almost two more years. Even after General Sherman took Atlanta in September of 1864 and Savannah in November, Lee kept the war going.  His soldiers figured this out and the “brave and proud wearers of the Gray” deserted in such droves that even Lee admitted the desertions made it impossible to field an effective army.

Third, another myth about General Lee was his gallantry and honor. Yet, Lee’s chain of command of all Confederate forces included the Rebel prison camp in Andersonville, Georgia.

Robert H. Kellogg, sergeant major in the 16th Regiment Connecticut Volunteers, described his entry as a prisoner into the prison camp, May 2, 1864:

“As we entered the place, a spectacle met our eyes that almost froze our blood with horror, and made our hearts fail within us. Before us were forms that had once been active and erect;—stalwart men, now nothing but mere walking skeletons, covered with filth and vermin. Many of our men, in the heat and intensity of their feeling, exclaimed with earnestness. “Can this be hell?” “God protect us!” and all thought that he alone could bring them out alive from so terrible a place. In the center of the whole was a swamp, occupying about three or four acres of the narrowed limits, and a part of this marshy place had been used by the prisoners as a sink, and excrement covered the ground, the scent arising from which was suffocating. The ground allotted to our ninety was near the edge of this plague-spot, and how we were to live through the warm summer weather in the midst of such fearful surroundings, was more than we cared to think of just then.”

Of the about 45,000 Union prisoners that entered Andersonville, almost 13,000 died. Most died due to disease brought on by starvation and no shelter from the Georgia sun and rain. So much for Confederate gallantry and honor.

While Trump supporters claim that Confederate memories are not being properly honored, it is worthwhile looking back in history to see how other unsuccessful rebellion leaders were treated.

Typically, they were beheaded, their heads were jammed onto a stake and left to rot in public view. Another variation was hanging, again leaving their carcasses to rot in public view. Even in the enlightened 20th Century, 50 years after the Civil War, results were similar. After the British put down the 1916 Easter rebellion in Ireland, they had a one day court-martial for the rebel leaders and executed them the next day.

So, did these Confederate traitors ever deserve statues built-in their honor?  Not hardly. If they had resigned their commissions to fight for a just cause like ending slavery, history might look at them differently. But, to knowingly lead thousands of men to their slaughter in a vain attempt to defend and preserve an unforgivable sin like human servitude, may their souls and statues rot in Hell together.

More than symbolism

As repulsive as it is for black families to go to a public park overshadowed by a statue of a general who sought to keep their ancestors, them and their future generations  in slavery, that’s not what Black Lives Matter and their supporters are focused on. There are bigger issues here for them.

An article in Vanity Fair,  https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/07/data-police-racial-bias,  cites 18 academic studies , legal rulings and media investigations chronicalling police brutality to blacks. Two of those studies are summarized below.

study by a University of California, Davis professor found “evidence of a significant bias in the killing of unarmed black Americans relative to unarmed white Americans, in that the probability of being black, unarmed, and shot by police is about 3.49 times the probability of being white, unarmed, and shot by police on average.” Additionally, the analysis found that “there is no relationship between county-level racial bias in police shootings and crime rates (even race-specific crime rates), meaning that the racial bias observed in police shootings in this data set is not explainable as a response to local-level crime rates.”

An independent analysis of Washington Post data on police killings found that, “when factoring in threat level, black Americans who are fatally shot by police are, in fact, less likely to be posing an imminent lethal threat to the officers at the moment they are killed than white Americans fatally shot by police.” According to one of the report’s authors, “The only thing that was significant in predicting whether someone shot and killed by police was unarmed was whether or not they were black. . . . Crime variables did not matter in terms of predicting whether the person killed was unarmed.”

Further, Department of Justice investigations in Baltimore, Maryland; Ferguson, Missouri and Cleveland, Ohio all found a “pattern and practice” of discrimination against African-Americans that targeted them disproportionately for traffic stops, use of force, and jail sentences.

Yes, there is racism in the United States. Black people have every right to call it out and try to bring about change. Along with them, other minorities, Gays, Transgenders and everyone else threatened by the Trump Administration needs to make their voices heard. Most important, they need to vote.

The enemy

Frugal Ron’s mother often told him while he was growing up that Negroes were all lazy, shiftless and always carried knives to cut up the white people they robbed. Frugal Ron figured because he was much less racist than his parents and his children are even more color blind, that eventually racism would die away. Charlottesburg ended that dream.

A cure for racism
Reason for hope…

Most of the violent Nazi and white supremacists in pictures are young. Hate is reinventing itself. Worse, Donald Trump, because of the office he holds, gives legitimacy to their prejudice and racism.

To the 39% of voters, including the 80% of Republicans ,who still support Donald Trump after his Charlottesburg fiasco, I genuinely offer you my sympathy. You’ve closed your eyes and souls to the beauty and diversity different cultures and religions bring to the United States. Your dark vision of our country  runs completely contrary to reality. Most pointedly, although you love to blame Barack Obama and liberals for all your problems, your miserable bigoted lives are all on you.

 

Progressive Taxation, A Few Kind Words

Progressive taxation is the concept that the wealthiest among us should pay the most taxes. This makes sense since the rich have the most to gain from a strong national defence to protect their way of life, a strong police force and criminal justice system to protect their wealth and a world-class education system  providing the skilled workers they need to keep their companies growing.

In 2010, some states elected Republican governors and legislators that disagreed with the idea of progressive taxation. These people believed that if their states cut taxes for the rich, that these people would turn around and create more jobs. “Trickle down” for the masses, so to speak. In 2017, Republicans want to apply these tax cuts across the entire U.S. in hopes of creating many more jobs and stimulating the economy.

Republicans like to call states “laboratories for democracy”. Logically, we should look at the data from these laboratories before jettisoning progressive taxation. We should also apply lessons learned by the states.

For this analysis, four states were picked. In addition, United States data is also included and used as a benchmark. California and Kansas are chosen because they took diametrically different directions from 2011 forward in addressing their futures. California implemented the country’s biggest tax increase and Kansas implemented the country’s biggest tax cut. Minnesota and Wisconsin are included because they are adjacent and similar in many ways. However, their elected representatives followed completely different tax policies.

Information on individual taxpayer rates used below are found at http://www.tax-rates.org/. State income tax estimates used below utilize 2016 tax rates. The numbers provide a consistent means of comparison between states.

California

  • In 2012, voted to raise taxes on people making over $1 million annually, bringing the top tax rate to 13.3 percent, the highest in the U.S. This means that all income over $1 million for a single person are  taxed at a13.3 percent rate.
  • An individual making $30,000 annually or a couple making twice that will pay $594 in state income tax.
  • An individual or couple making $1,500,000 annually will pay $175,562 in state income tax
  • California’s sales tax rate is 7.5 percent and can be as high as 9.75 percent

Kansas

  • The most dedicated adherent to the tax cut philosophy is Kansas Governor Sam Brownback. With the aid of his Republican legislature, he passed huge tax cuts that were signed into law in May, 2012. They were implemented in 2013.
  • Brownback promised that state tax revenues would grow and replace the lost revenue from tax cuts. He also predicted a surge in hiring as new businesses moved to Kansas and established businesses flourished and expanded. None of these happened.
  • Because of continued tax revenue shortfalls and Kansas burning through their financial reserves, bond rating agencies continually downgraded Kansas’s credit rating.
  • Brownback blamed the revenue problems on lower agricultural and oil prices. Numerous studies have shown this is not true.
  • Because of tax revenue shortfalls, school funding formulas were changed and some schools simply shut down early when they ran out of money.
  • After finding the state with a $900 million budget shortfall, the Republican led Legislature passed veto proof tax revisions in 2017 rolling back earlier tax cuts.
  • An individual making $30,000 annually will pay $854 in state income tax.
  • An individual making $1,500,000 annually will pay $68,474 in state income tax.
  • Kansas’s sales tax is 6.5 percent.

Minnesota

  • Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton (D), raised the tax rates in 2011 on singles making over $150,000 annually and couples making over $300,000 to  generate $500 million in extra revenue to fund schools and infrastructure.
  • An individual making $30,000 annually will pay $1,065 in state income taxes.
  • An individual making $1,500,000 will pay $142,571 in state income taxes.
  • Since the tax increases were implemented, Minnesota has had continual budget surpluses.
  • Minnesota’s sales tax is 6.875 percent and can be as high as 8.375 percent.

Wisconsin

  • According to an April 2017 Brief published by the Public Interest Institute, “Over the course of six years and three biennial budgets, a wide variety of changes to Wisconsin tax laws have generated a total taxpayer savings of $4.756 billion, the LFB [Legislative Fiscal Bureau] estimates.” http://www.limitedgovernment.org/brief24-12.html
  • Besides the aforementioned tax cuts, according to the Wisconsin Budget Project, “The Manufacturing and Agriculture Credit, which lawmakers passed in 2011, nearly wipes out income taxes for manufacturers and agricultural producers — at a very steep price. The tax credit reduces state income tax revenues by $284 million a year in fiscal year 2017 and in subsequent years.” The Manufacturing and Agriculture Credit (MAC) provides tax credits to companies and individuals that purchase eligible equipment. The average tax credit for individuals with annual incomes over $1 million is $27,632. A very small percentage of these tax credits went to agricultural producers with manufacturers receiving the great majority.
  • Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) proclaimed that between lowering taxes and “getting government out of the way of employers, who will then help Wisconsin create 250,000 jobs by 2015, and as we create those new jobs, we will be able to add 10,000 new businesses.” As of December 2016, the latest period data  is available, Wisconsin has still not added the 250,000 jobs Walker promised.
  • An individual making $30,000 annually will pay $927 in state income taxes.
  • An individual making $1,500,000 will pay $110,266 in state income taxes.
  • Wisconsin’s sales tax rate is 5.5 percent and can be as high as 6.0 percent.
The results

All of the above states elected new governors in 2010 and began implementing new policies in 2011 when they assumed office. Because of this, the following analysis compares performance to 2010, the year before they took office. Three measures are used to analyze what has happened in the above states. Job growth, measured using the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages compiled by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, is the most accurate measure of full-time jobs added to the economy.

A second measure is the change in wages, again using the very accurate Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. The third measure is Gross Domestic Product, which analyzes total economic output.

Frugal Ron acknowledges some  shortcomings in this analysis. The period being studied is short. Added to that, the 2016 data is marked “Preliminary”. Rather than trying to measure correlations and determine statistical significance, consider this an observational study and look at trends.

Job Growth

Figure 1

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages June/2017.

Many factors impact job growth in a state. Figure 1 tells us in no uncertain terms that lowering taxes DOES NOT positively outweigh those other factors.

California, with its mega tax increases and in spite of previously being a high tax state is pulling away from the rest of the country insofar as adding jobs is concerned. Minnesota, the maroon line,  is almost perfectly aligned with the U.S job growth.

The states that sacrificed their education systems, their roads and infrastructure for the holy grail of having low taxes for the rich have the poorest job gains to show for it. While the differences between Minnesota and Wisconsin are relatively small (compared to Kansas and California), the difference is widening. There is no evidence that the rich, after getting their taxes cut,  turn around and create jobs.

Figure 2

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages June/2017

Figure 2 illustrates Kansas’s problem dramatically. While Figure 1 is cumulative , Figure 2  illustrates how the wheels are falling off the bus in Kansas and highlights why the Republican led Legislature had to step in with some fiscal discipline.

People want their children to have a better life than they have. The secret to attaining this goal is education. When schools are in as much trouble as the ones in Kansas are, their students will have trouble competing in a global economy. this is not the environment that draws companies to relocate or expand in Kansas.

Wages

Figure 3

Source: Department of Labor, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages June, 2017

The Wage graph shows many of the same trends one sees in Figure 1. California and Kansas are widely separated. Minnesota is outpacing Wisconsin again.  One of the interesting takeaways from this graph are how closely the states and the U.S. average were in 2014 and how dramatically they have separated as their divergent tax policies take affect. Over the last two years, the gap has widened considerably with the states that invested in their schools taking a big lead.

Both California and Minnesota went out of their ways to tax rich people at high rates, yet their average wage increases are outstripping Wisconsin and especially Kansas. Clearly, companies that pay high wages have not flocked to Kansas and Wisconsin. Even though someone making over $1.5 million annually could save over $10,000 by moving to Kansas, this isn’t enough enticement to get them to actually do it.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

Figure 4

Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis., GDP Regional/State June, 2017

GDP is a big picture look at an economy. If our Congress and president had any common sense at all, they would be copying California’s progressive tax and spending policies instead of Kansas’s.

Frugal Ron has reached the breaking point of hearing Republicans complain about President Obama’s economic policies and results while in the same breath lauding Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker policies. Pay attention to results people! If Walker’s policies worked, shouldn’t Wisconsin’s redline in the above three graphs be far above the U.S.’s black line?

Logic and Republicans

Kansas and Wisconsin made tax cuts benefiting businesses and high income individuals. Clearly they did not work. The degree of failure was proportional to the level of tax cuts each state made. Governors in both  states made unrealistic promises that raised expectations and actually magnified their failures.

Without a doubt, there is no logical reason to pursue tax cuts nationally with any expectation that they will better the lives of anyone but the rich. Adding in the recent experience of President Bill Clinton raising taxes on the wealthy, balancing the federal budget and bringing on the greatest and longest economic growth in our history with President George W. Bush and his tax cuts and resulting deficit bringing about the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression and all we can do is shake our heads in disbelief at Republican attempts to repeat their disasters.

Yet,  this madness of ignoring data and logic are Republican trademarks. From ignoring the impact of fossil fuels on climate change to ignoring data on increasing birth control access’ impact on lowering abortion numbers, Republicans rejoice in their blissful ignorance.  In their protective group think cocoon, anyone explaining the science of carbon dating is part of the attack on Christianity. Republicans may not be stupid but that doesn’t stop them from acting that way.