Author: A.T.

He’s gutted the State Department and installed Putin’s guy.  (Trump had never even met Tillerson before coming within 3 million votes of Hillary.  What a coincidence that we’d wind up with the only American Putin awarded the Order of Friendship.)

“Gutting the State Department” doesn’t take long to say — just as “burning the library of Alexandria” is just a few words.  But for so much institutional knowledge needlessly to have been lost?

It is to cry.

Watch Rachel explain.  This is hugely consequential stuff.

And speaking of Trump and Russia . . . the President apparently lied when he denied involvement in softening the Ukraine plank at the Convention.

That’s a separate must-see clip.  Watch!

Oh!  And that giant CIA dump from WikiLeaks which would appear to be a tremendous blow to our national security?

There appears to be exactly one degree of separation between Donald Trump and Julian Assange.  His name is Nigel Farage — sitting with the President at a small dinner a couple of weeks ago, visiting Assange in London Thursday. It comes around 16:30 into this 18-minute clip. 

As he was exiting the Ecuadorian embassy (Assange’s asylum for the past five years), Farage told a reporter he “couldn’t remember” why he’d been there. And White House press secretary Sean Spicer had no clue either (an amusing 60-second clip).  But given Farage’s history with Assange, it was probably not to discuss coffee imports.

“WikiLeaks.  I love WikiLeaks!” — Donald Trump October 10th, 2016.

How does this end well?

With millions of new, high-paid jobs created by finally getting Mexico’s boot off our neck?

USA TODAY:

A Border Tax Could Make Your Next Car Cost $2,500 More

DETROIT — Proposals for a border tax to pay for a wall with Mexico and encourage increased manufacturing in the U.S. would add hundreds to thousands of dollars to the cost of every car and truck sold here, including those assembled in American factories.

There’s even a risk the tax could raise prices and reduce sales so much that the U.S. loses manufacturing jobs, according to the Motor Equipment Manufacturers Association, the umbrella group for several supplier associations representing 1,000 companies. . . .

I know we’re going to win so much we’ll get tired of winning, but so far the winners have been ISIS, whom he’s handed a “blessed” recruiting tool; China, to whom by abandoning the TPA he’s handed leadership in the Pacific region; and Russia, whose journalist-murdering dictator hopes to see Western liberal democracies thrown into disarray.  (“What,” says our President.  You think we don’t kill people?”)

Have a great weekend.

For the first time in 70 years, the world finds itself without a leader.  The consequences would seem to range from merely “bad,” if we’re fortunate, to something much worse.

In truth, it’s hard to grasp that this is even really happening.  That it’s not just a TV show.

(What’s more, that it’s happening with a huge assist from our primary adversary of those past 70 years, Moscow.)

(And that it’s happening, in a sense, as the culmination of work begun in 1958 when Fred Koch helped found the rabidly anti-communist John Birch Society.*)

(And as questions about team Trump’s Russia connections are now joined by this must-read story of his Azerbaijani deal.)

So how do we fix this?

Do we wait for something truly awful to happen?

Do we suffer a long, slow slide toward a long, drawn-out impeachment?

Do we wait for the Captain Queeg moment that has surely crossed the brain pans of all my older readers, as it has mine?

Or at some point possibly sooner rather than later do we rip the bandage off — real fast — as responsible Republicans invoke Section 4 of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution?

That would be my preference.  “Reckless, unhinged, and petty” are not what the world needs right now.

*What irony, that two of the key forces that converged (along with others) to give us Trump would start from such polar opposite places — the Soviet Union and the John Birch Society.  Though of course Soviet communism is long dead; Russia is a kleptocracy whose ruler may be nearly as wealthy as the Kochs. Not that the Kochs supported Trump directly — they opposed him in the primary, presumably agreeing with Colin Powell that he was “a national disgrace,” with Karl Rove that he was “a complete idiot,” with 51 former Republican national security officials that he was “dangerous.”  But the work the Kochs had funded over the decades to help build Republican turn-out certainly made a difference in an election as close as this one, where Trump came within 3 million votes of his superbly qualified, steady, respected opponent.

We’re almost twins, Andrew Gillum and I — except for his being young, black and straight; his mom having driven a school bus; his becoming Tallahassee’s youngest city commissioner at 23 and mayor at 35 (now running for governor), my last election having been for high school class treasurer.

If you have 5 minutes, watch Andrew’s story.

I don’t take sides in Democratic primaries; but if Andrew wins, I’ll be with him all the way.

“When We Rise” is the 8-hour ABC docudrama you missed last week that chronicles the equal rights movement Cleve Jones helped lead.  Click here to watch it on YouTube.  America’s capacity to overcome prejudice (“Irish need not apply!”) has never been better on display than here.

We hurtle toward utopia and Armageddon at ever increasing speeds.

For Armageddon, start with the notion of an unstable North Korean dictator and an unstable American president — and note (as I’ve offered before): nuclear winter is not the solution to global warming.

For utopia, how about this headline I missed in November:

Tesla’s solar roof to cost less than a regular roof – even before energy production, says Elon Musk

. . . Musk said during the meeting earlier this afternoon:

“It’s looking quite promising that a solar roof [can] actually cost less than normal roof before you even take the value of electricity into account. So the basic proposition would be ‘Would you like a roof that looks better than a normal roof, last twice as long, costs less and by the way generates electricity?’  Why would you get anything else.”

That’s including the labor costs and without subsidies for solar, Musk added. . . .

Has there ever been a more exciting time to be alive?  Nearly free energy is on the way, just as we already have nearly free communications (I can make a Skype call to China — a video call, no less — for free!).

The implications — if we can learn to distribute the benefits — are spectacular.  So far we seem to be solving the world’s technological challenges faster than its political ones.  Although with this particular breakthrough, the gains are easily distributed to any homeowner with a roof, which is a good start.  (Less good for coal miners, but we hope some at least can thrive installing roofs.)

The Russia thing just grows . . . and makes that little $5 novel I mentioned Tuesday even juicier. About how Russia rigged an American election.

Enjoy.

Harder to enjoy, because it’s shelved in the non-fiction section, is whatever has led us to a consistently pro-Putin president.

A president whose Commerce Secretary co-chairs, with an oligarch, a Cyprus bank known for laundering Russian money; whose Attorney General lied to Congress about meeting with Putin’s ambassador during the campaign; whose National Security Advisor resigned after lying about his conversations with that that same ambassador; whose campaign manager seems to have been all but Putin-picked; whose Secretary of State Putin awarded Russia’s Order of Friendship  . . . and on and on.

It seems to be widely accepted by people buying stocks at record highs that the economy is going to boom as this administration — barely out of the gate yet already functioning like a “fine-tuned machine” — does all the things its “stupid, stupid” predecessor never thought to do.  “Massive” middle class tax cuts; major business tax cuts; a big ramp up in defense spending; better, cheaper health care (of course!  just make it better and cheaper! why didn’t we think of that!); a giant infrastructure bill that will produce so many good jobs you could almost call it the American Jobs Act.

But I would be cautious here.  “They don’t ring a bell at market tops,” to be sure, and the market may just continue to go straight up from here.  There has never been a more business-friendly, billionaire-dominated administration.

But what will happen if the Republican Congress, facing an explosion of the National Debt like the one Republicans Reagan/Bush handed Democrat Clinton (who gradually turned deficits into the surplus that he handed Bush) . . . or the one Republican Bush handed Democrat Obama (who averted a depression and handed Republican Trump a National Debt once again, finally, shrinking relative to the size of the economy) . . .

. . . what will happen if, in that context, Congress says no?

Sure the stock market expects some of that.  Some further awkwardness from the Russia stuff.  Some reluctance on the part of Mexico to pay for the wall.  (And zero economic benefit, should it ever get built, from the wall.)  A lot of skepticism is already baked in.  But there’s also this: as my friend John Hook notes, the current bull market is “the second longest cyclical bull market since 1900. The only longer, 1921-1929, was only one month longer. A cyclical bear market (-20% or more) is overdue.”

He goes on: “The trailing P/E of the Wilshire 5000 is 25.8 — very high. The 4Q trailing operating earnings P/E of the S&P 500 is 24.8, very high—only higher in 1895 and 1999-2000 (and 2002 with EPS depressed in a crash). The Shiller CAPE P/E of 28.66 is third highest ever.  The only higher were 1929 and 2000, both huge crashes.”

He backs up his concerns with reams more data, but this simple summary: “Buy low. Sell high. Now is high.”

“Timing the market” successfully is all but impossible as a long-term strategy.  In a taxable account especially, even fortuitous timing won’t make up for the drag of the taxes and transacti0n costs.

But if right now you’re in the market more deeply than you can truly afford, what a great time to cut back!

If you’re someone who, having seen her portfolio decimated, would finally throw in the towel in despair and disgust — to salvage something — why not sell now instead and salvage everything?  (Not to say sell everything; but salvage everything from what you do sell.)

If you can picture your stocks dropping sharply without your losing sleep or heart — hang on.  At least to much of what you own.  It could be years before a correction starts*, and at least so far in America, corrections have always been followed by recovery to much higher heights.

Have a great weekend.

*Or hours.

Her whole show was — as they generally are — so worth watching Monday night.  It began with the connection of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to Russia (via Cyprus).  Bet you didn’t see that coming; neither did I.  And it was all interesting.  But here is the must-see segment. The Trump Russia connections seem impossibly unlikely to have been coincidence.

She also interviewed New Yorker editor David Remnick, who knows Russia as well as almost anyone, and who co-authored this compelling cover story, just out.

Paul, of Peter, Paul & Mary, sings sweetly about impeachment.  Here.

Tom Friedman, of the New York Times, writes compellingly about The Five Trump Administrations.

. . . It is hard to avert your gaze from a president who will say anything about anything. It’s so unusual, like a flying elephant or a horse that can talk, that you can’t help but stare. But it’s such a waste of energy. I wonder if the Chinese are spending their days this way. I suspect they’ve added another high-speed rail line just since Trump’s election. . . .

My pal David Pepper used to know Putin, back in their St. Petersburg days (Putin now heads Russia; David, the Ohio Democratic Party) and published a novel this past July — The People’s House — that uncannily depicts Russian hacking of an American election over a huge oil treasure.  Five bucks for the e-book, two bucks on Audible.  The Wall Street Journal called it “a candidate for the sleeper political thriller of the year .”

Enjoy.

I’m writing this before the Oscars.  La-La Land is nice enough, but if Hidden Figures doesn’t win Best Picture, I hope you’ll see it anyway, because it surely was.

And speaking of our long, bumpy — but ultimately magnificent — march toward equality, here is the story of a remarkable week on the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson when it was guest starring Harry Belafonte instead.  Wow.

Finally, please join me in welcoming a terrific new DNC Chair, former Labor Secretary Tom Perez — whose passion is matched only by his intelligence, effectiveness, and compassion — and a terrific new DNC Treasurer, Bill Derrough (pronounced DAR-row), who we are fortunate has signed on for this 18-year gig.  (Turns out, DNC Treasurer carries an 18-year term.)  The son of a mom who spoke no English when she arrived from Central America and a decorated war veteran dad who was 35 years a union carpenter  . . . the product of our public school system . . . Bill has made his fortune helping hundreds of troubled companies restructure, as when he worked with unions to help save thousands of jobs and tens of thousands of pensions, while returning creditors’ 100 cents on the dollar, in the American Airlines reorganization.  (My own level of financial expertise, when I took on the treasurer’s role, was in advising financially troubled individuals to cut up their credit cards.)

Now that I won’t still be asking you for money.  (Click here to make real the “dollar a year” nature of the job.  Give $18, if you’re a normal person; $180 if you’re a little bit affluent and determined to help launch a 2018 blue tide; $1,800 if you’re the white sheep in the Koch brothers’ family.  I’ll see it the minute you do, if I’m on-line, to jump through the screen and say thanks.)

But first . . .

It may not be too late to find a town hall at which to express your views.  Click here and enter your zip code.

And also . . .

Borealis shareholders may recall my writing — here and, mainly, here — about IATA’s first “e-taxi” conference two years ago.  IATA is the International Air Transport Association. E-taxi is “electric taxi” — where planes won’t have to wait for tugs to back out of their gates, and can park parallel to the gate instead of nose-in, for boarding and deplaning from BOTH front and rear doors.  So I was heartened to see that IATA’s second e-taxi conference has been scheduled for Singapore May 23-24.  In the intervening two years, as noted here from time to time, WheelTug’s primary competitor, Honeywell/Safran, has suspended its e-taxi effort, and the FAA has signed a pre-certification agreement with WheelTug that could lead to full FAA approval and “entry into service” in a couple of years (but may not, or may take longer).  So this is a lottery ticket I would be loath to cash in any time soon . . . even though, as with even the best lottery tickets, there is a real chance of total loss.

But mainly . . .

Paul Krugman writing in the New York Times (subscribe!) on “economic arrogance” —

According to press reports, the Trump administration is basing its budget projections on the assumption that the U.S. economy will grow very rapidly over the next decade . . .

I guess this was only to be expected from a man who keeps insisting that crime, which is actually near record lows, is at a record high, that millions of illegal ballots were responsible for his popular vote loss, and so on: In Trumpworld, numbers are what you want them to be, and anything else is fake news. But the truth is that unwarranted arrogance about economics isn’t Trump-specific. On the contrary, it’s the modern Republican norm. And the question is why.

Before I get there, a word about why extreme growth optimism is unwarranted.

The Trump team is apparently projecting growth at between 3 and 3.5 percent for a decade. This wouldn’t be unprecedented: the U.S. economy grew at a 3.4 percent rate during the Reagan years, 3.7 percent under Bill Clinton. But a repeat performance is unlikely.

For one thing, in the Reagan years baby boomers were still entering the work force. Now they’re on their way out, and the rise in the working-age population has slowed to a crawl. This demographic shift alone should, other things being equal, subtract around a percentage point from U.S. growth.

Furthermore, both Reagan and Clinton inherited depressed economies, with unemployment well over 7 percent. This meant that there was a lot of economic slack, allowing rapid growth as the unemployed went back to work. Today, by contrast, unemployment is under 5 percent, and other indicators suggest an economy close to full employment. This leaves much less scope for rapid growth.

The only way we could have a growth miracle now would be a huge takeoff in productivity — output per worker-hour. This could, of course, happen . . . But it’s hardly something one should assume for a baseline projection.

And it’s certainly not something one should count on as a result of conservative economic policies. Which brings me to the strange arrogance of the economic right.

As I said, belief that tax cuts and deregulation will reliably produce awesome growth isn’t unique to the Trump-Putin administration. We heard the same thing from Jeb Bush (who?); we hear it from congressional Republicans like Paul Ryan. The question is why. After all, there is nothing — nothing at all — in the historical record to justify this arrogance.

Yes, Reagan presided over pretty fast growth. But Bill Clinton, who raised taxes on the rich, amid confident predictions from the right that this would cause an economic disaster, presided over even faster growth. President Obama presided over much more rapid private-sector job growth than George W. Bush, even if you leave out the 2008 collapse. Furthermore, two Obama policies that the right totally hated – the 2013 hike in tax rates on the rich, and the 2014 implementation of the Affordable Care Act – produced no slowdown at all in job creation.

Meanwhile, the growing polarization of American politics has given us what amount to economic policy experiments at the state level. Kansas, dominated by conservative true believers, implemented sharp tax cuts with the promise that these cuts would jump-start rapid growth; they didn’t, and caused a budget crisis instead. Last week Kansas legislators threw in the towel and passed a big tax hike.

At the same time Kansas was turning hard right, California’s newly dominant Democratic majority raised taxes. Conservatives declared it “economic suicide” — but the state is in fact doing fine.

The evidence, then, is totally at odds with claims that tax-cutting and deregulation are economic wonder drugs. So why does a whole political party continue to insist that they are the answer to all problems?

It would be nice to pretend that we’re still having a serious, honest discussion here, but we aren’t. At this point we have to get real and talk about whose interests are being served.

Never mind whether slashing taxes on billionaires while giving scammers and polluters the freedom to scam and pollute is good for the economy as a whole; it’s clearly good for billionaires, scammers, and polluters. Campaign finance being what it is, this creates a clear incentive for politicians to keep espousing a failed doctrine, for think tanks to keep inventing new excuses for that doctrine, and more.

And on such matters Donald Trump is really no worse than the rest of his party. Unfortunately, he’s also no better.

Off to Atlanta for the DNC elections.  If you missed who’s running, and whom I think you should support, click here.

. . . I am NOT OKAY WITH ANY OF THE OTHER CANDIDATES FOR DNC CHAIR, and should one of them prevail I would consider myself more firmly estranged from the Democrats and their future candidates.  The level of mistrust the DNC and the Clintons have earned is quite high, and it’s time for the party elders and insiders such as yourself to take the necessary steps to repair that trust, starting with voting for one of the above progressive candidates this coming weekend. . . .

Sincerely,

Lisa P.

I replied:

Thanks, Lisa.  Unless you were absolutely certain Virginia would go for Hillary, it strikes me as awfully reckless to have voted for Stein. We got Trump because of passionate, idealistic people who said the heck with the Supreme Court for the next 30 years, if it’s not Bernie, I just don’t care.  I’ll stay home.  Or vote for Stein. Or Johnson. Or even for Trump, “to send a message.”

And now you’re saying it about Sam or Keith (both of whom ARE great, you’re right about that).

Those idealists who voted for Nader gave us Bush and the war in Iraq and the Scalia Court that made it easier for Trump to win . . .  and a good bit else.  (Pushed mankind past the point of no return on climate change?)

I get the appeal of adamant idealism, but I’ve always thought the true idealist does what’s necessary to move the world toward her ideals.  Nader voters gave us Bush, who moved the world exactly backward.

Idealists who refused to vote for Hillary (though she was strongly endorsed by Bernie and they shared virtually all the same goals and platform positions) gave us Trump/Pence/Bannon and all that will entail.

I would have said the same of anyone who failed to vote for Bernie, had he won the nomination.

That said, I appreciate your input and, of course, strongly share your goals.  We all do.

Andy

And lots more, but you get the gist.

People are upset.

They should be upset.

I’m upset!

(As Trump’s sister is alleged to have said when a friend asked why she didn’t live in Trump Tower: “Have you met my brother?”)

Even Fox News is becoming upset. I refer you again to the minute at the top of this post.

But the solution is not to attack each other or expect the one perfect savior.  It’s contributing our effort and resources — and enthusiasm — toward a massive 2018 turn-out that turns state legislative chambers and Congress blue.

That won’t solve all the world’s problems.  But it’s the necessary first step.  And we have some terrific people running to lead the charge.