Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[barmar]

 

I think you are either misreading the situation or not being clear in your language choice. There is no chance of the Senate Republicans convicting unless there is enough public backlash that they would fear from not convicting genuine political harm, i.e., elections and re-elections. Honor, honesty, integrity, abiding by oaths of office - those immigrants were long ago deported.

Well, I did say "any hope" -- I didn't really expect it.

 

Maybe what I'm thinking is that it will take a number of offenses to get that public backlash, since we can't expect it from the Senators on their own.

[Winstonm]

Well, I did say "any hope" -- I didn't really expect it.

 

Maybe what I'm thinking is that it will take a number of offenses to get that public backlash, since we can't expect it from the Senators on their own.

 

I was absolutely shocked yesterday when I read about an interview with Bill Gates where he made an idiotic statement about Elizabeth Warren's proposed wealth tax and then went on to be unwilling to state for the record that he would not vote for Trump in 2020.

 

What has happened to this country when even one of the richest people on earth thinks of his self-interest before thinking of anyone or anything else? I suppose that kind of wealth considers itself a global citizen and the fate of the U.S. is of no consequence to them personally - a massive miscalculation on their part. Just ask the oligarchs under Putin.

[Chas_P]

Chas, would I be right in thinking that should a link between those two events be demonstrated, that would be enough to convince even you of wrongdoing?

 

As I've said before in this forum, what I would like to see is comity between our two major political parties and a mutual commitment to improving the lives of average Americans. Sadly, all I've seen from the Democrats for 3+ years is "my way or the highway". I'm not a Republican and I don't really like Trump; he's brash, vulgar and, as Ken says, "scum". But I cannot see how removing him from office will improve the lives of average Americans; if you feel otherwise, please elaborate. While you're at it, please tell us how your, Winston's, Richard's, John's, and Arend's lifestyles have been diminished by the Trump presidency and how those same lifestyles would be enhanced by a Warren presidency. Please bear in mind that unemployment is at an all-time low, the stock market is at an all-time high as is consumer confidence. I anxiously await your response.

[hrothgar]

While you're at it, please tell us how your, Winston's, Richard's, John's, and Arend's lifestyles have been diminished by the Trump presidency and how those same lifestyles would be enhanced by a Warren presidency. Please bear in mind that unemployment is at an all-time low, the stock market is at an all-time high as is consumer confidence. I anxiously await your response.

 

Hey there Chas

 

Why is it that you have time to post a new bunch of bullshit but you never managed to provide any response to the discussion from last week?

Its almost like you're trying to distract from that whole impeachment discussion...

[hrothgar]

As I've said before in this forum, what I would like to see is comity between our two major political parties and a mutual commitment to improving the lives of average Americans. Sadly, all I've seen from the Democrats for 3+ years is "my way or the highway". I'm not a Republican and I don't really like Trump; he's brash, vulgar and, as Ken says, "scum". But I cannot see how removing him from office will improve the lives of average Americans; if you feel otherwise, please elaborate. While you're at it, please tell us how your, Winston's, Richard's, John's, and Arend's lifestyles have been diminished by the Trump presidency and how those same lifestyles would be enhanced by a Warren presidency. Please bear in mind that unemployment is at an all-time low, the stock market is at an all-time high as is consumer confidence. I anxiously await your response.

 

My life is diminished when my government places children in concentration camps

 

I don't think anything more needs to be said

[kenberg]

The question that Charles asks could lead to some discussions. I am about to go for a walk in the woods, later I am going to a book club where we will discuss Chabon's Moonglow. If HC had been elected, I suspect I would be doing exactly the same. So does it just not matter who is president?

 

Let me try it this way. Some years back, after dealing with a substantial kidney stone, a doc gave me some pain killers. Reluctantly I took them but only for a couple of days and then, on general principles,I threw the stuff out (in some appropriate way). More recently a dentist wanted to give me some pain killer and I absolutely refused. He said I would not be able to reach him over the week-end if I changed my mind, I said that was ok. So the opioid crisis has nothing to do with me, right? I'm not so sure. Besides the misery to others, it causes distrust. I have several reasons for being distrustful of the medical profession, I don't need another.

 

So it is with Trump. There are reasons to distrust politicians, and most people do distrust them, but DT is really in a class by himself on this. Charles agrees with my description of DT as scum. On general principles, it cannot be good to have a piece of scum sitting in the Oval Office. It won't stop me from hiking today, but it's not good.

 

There are many many people out there who are not reading this post or anyone else's post, they are busy with their lives, and I can well imagine a "So how does it affect me" approach. I would like them to think it over. For me, many decisions are of the "general principles" sort. it cannot be good to have someone like Trump in office, even if I cannot point to exactly any pain that it is causing me specifically.

[Winstonm]

In national elections, the gap between those who will always vote Republican and those who will always vote Democrat is fairly narrow. Results then stem from the ability to sway those voters who are not slavish to any party. Example of this are the Obama/Trump voters, especially in the midwestern states.

 

Imagine this country with a pliant rather than adversarial press and no whistleblower protections; with no whistleblower and no press willing to publicize wrongdoing, the president of Ukraine would have been forced to create a fake investigation into Joe Biden, implying improper and untrustworthy behavior, if not actual criminal, and continue the fraud by making a public announcement that he had done so in return for a White House meeting with the U.S. president and have his fears of withheld arms alleviated.

 

That brings up some questions:

 

1) Assuming Biden would be the Democratic candidate, would that fake investigation and announcement, compounded by the perpetual amplification of it by media outlets be enough to sway those non-party voters?

2) Would it be an acceptable and proper method of campaigning?

3) Is coercing another country to create a fake and misleading investigation for the sole purpose of damaging the opposition candidate's election damaging to the democratic election processes of the U.S.?

4) Would answers 1-3 change if a different president from the opposition party were in office?

[Zelandakh]

As I've said before in this forum, what I would like to see is comity between our two major political parties and a mutual commitment to improving the lives of average Americans.

An excellent ideal. I suggest that a good start to that would be for the Senate to call votes for the half doyen or so bills that have passed in the House, such as the one on background checks for gun owners. There is broad approval for that within the USA so it seems an obvious step to finding common ground.

 

 

Sadly, all I've seen from the Democrats for 3+ years is "my way or the highway".

I think you have to be looking at American politics through extremely partisan glasses to reach the conclusion that Reps have been reaching out across the isle and Dems creating a divisive policial environment.

 

I'm not a Republican

Sorry but I honestly do not believe that. It is a strange thing that I have noticed how de facto Reps often say they are independents. Indeed, I once had an American friend who was a registered Democrat but who voted Republican in every election during the years in which I knew her. She also consistently brought up only conservative talking points and in recent times posted many conservative memes on Facebook including obviously fake news. I even posted a couple of times to point out the most ridiculous, which is why she is unfortunately an ex-friend.

 

and I don't really like Trump; he's brash, vulgar and, as Ken says, "scum".

Being dislikable, brash and vulgar is not a reason to consider impeachment. Scum is a term that can mean many different things that may or not be impeachable. The word I find that fits best is "dodgy", as everything he does has the appearance of being questionable even if it is perfectly legitimate. It is like the movements of a stage magician that provide cover to the underlying deception of a trick.

 

But I cannot see how removing him from office will improve the lives of average Americans; if you feel otherwise, please elaborate. While you're at it, please tell us how your, Winston's, Richard's, John's, and Arend's lifestyles have been diminished by the Trump presidency and how those same lifestyles would be enhanced by a Warren presidency. Please bear in mind that unemployment is at an all-time low, the stock market is at an all-time high as is consumer confidence. I anxiously await your response.

There you go again with the conservative talking points. The US economy has continued the recent trend, as has been the case internationally. Labour markets are generally tight across the board. The question of how the US economy would be without DJT as POTUS is something of an academic one. The tax cut is one thing that has had an effect. The general effect of that is to have US Government debt finance corporate stock buybacks. The second aspect of WH policy that has had a major effect on the economy are tariffs and it is difficult to see these as a positive for, well, anyone really. At the very least, my understanding is that most economists believe that removal of the tariffs, which would surely be one result of his removal from office, would improve the lives of ordinary Americans, since they are in fact the ones that primarily end up paying for them.

 

What I feel more personally though is that the erosion of support for structures built up over time, such as NATO and friendly agreements between countries, has simply made the world a more dangerous place. Combined with the increase in hate speech and crimes, not only in the USA but also spreading out internationally, I would say that practically every person in the Western world ought to view events with concern. Perhaps even more seriously the status of American democracy in the world is pretty much at an all time low due right now, at least within my lifetime. Now America might not be the best example of democracy but it is certainly the one that carries the most weight. It is this that has made the USA, imho, a force for good in the world and why I have always argued against anti-American sentiment. At the moment it is difficult to see American policy as that of an ally but rather that of a school yard bully. I do not know how Winston, Richard and Arend feel about it, but for me the relationship between Europe and the USA is important, perhaps even critical. I have not really considered the effects of a Warren presidency but my assumption would be that that relationship would improve.

 

Finally, I do not really understand why the question you present here (how will removing him from office will improve the lives of average Americans?) is somehow to be conflated with the actual question currently facing Congress (has he abused the office of POTUS to such an extent that he should face a trial in the Senate?) The moment that we, as citizens, put self interest ahead of defending our system of government from abuses of power is the point where we open the door to the death of democracy. This is why I think it is important for Dems to go through this process, even if they know it has little chance of resulting in a successful vote in the Senate and even at the risk of it being a net negative in terms of elections. I would hope that you, as a presumably educated man, would be interested in protecting US democracy from obvious abuses of power. It is important, much more so than the DOW, National Debt or any other economic indicator.

[y66]

From Public Hearings Start With A Bang by Noah Feldman at Bloomberg:

 

It’s no surprise that Ambassador William Taylor is expected to be the first witness to testify when the House of Representatives opens public impeachment hearings against President Donald Trump next week.

 

First, he’s an astoundingly credible witness — straight from central casting, as Trump himself likes to say about some of his appointees. As a matter of prosecutorial strategy, that makes him an ideal first witness for House Democrats to lay out their case for the first time to the public.

 

Second, the content of Taylor’s deposition was extraordinarily damning. That’s because it nailed Trump’s abuse of power, the fundamental element of the “high crimes and misdemeanors” for which Democrats aim to impeach.

 

His biography alone will make Taylor believable to the viewing public, not only to anti-Trump Democrats but even to pro-Trump Republicans. Unlike some other witnesses, he can’t be dismissed as an anti-Trump partisan or, like U.S. Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, an immigrant. As Taylor said introducing his deposition testimony: “For 50 years, I have served the country, starting as a cadet at West Point, then as an infantry officer for six years, including with the 101 Airborne Division in Vietnam.” He went on to work at the Department of Energy; as a Senate staffer; at NATO; with the State Department in Afghanistan, Iraq, Jerusalem, and Ukraine; and at the nonpartisan United States Institute of Peace. (He had me at 101st Airborne in Vietnam. This so-called “deep state” turns out to have some pretty impressive people working for it.)

 

Moreover, if Taylor revealed any implicit political leanings, they were Republican. His first stint as ambassador to Ukraine came after he was appointed to the role by George W. Bush. When asked by the Trump administration to reprise the role, he asked two people for advice: his wife and an unnamed “respected former senior Republican official who has been a mentor to me.”

 

For all of these reasons, Taylor is an ideal witness for House Democrats to begin with: an honest, unbiased person with detailed recollections.

 

Now to the content of his testimony. In his deposition last month, Taylor testified that President Trump conditioned aid to Ukraine and a White House visit on Ukraine investigating Joe and Hunter Biden. His most fundamental revelation was that he was told in no uncertain terms that Trump was demanding that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy publicly announce an investigation of Burisma, the energy company that put Hunter Biden on its board, before the U.S. would unfreeze military aid and agree to a White House visit. It was this testimony by Taylor that first seems have jogged the memory of EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland, who’d initially said there was no “quid pro quo” but now seems to have reversed himself.

 

The takeaway here is the essential one for the impeachment case: Trump abused the office of the presidency by coercing Ukraine to attack the political rival he seems to see as most threatening to his re-election, Joe Biden. Abuse of office isn’t just a high crime deserving impeachment: it’s the high crime par excellence. Democrats need to keep the abuse of power front and center, and Taylor’s testimony does so in dramatic fashion.

 

Taylor’s deposition also highlighted what prosecutors call “consciousness of guilt” by illustrating Trump’s repeated insistence that there was no quid pro quo. By saying he wasn’t committing the very crime he was committing, Trump was proving that he knew he was committing it. After Taylor’s now-famous text message to Sondland, the latter responded, “The President has been crystal clear no quid pro quo’s of any kind.” The idea that Trump was “clear” seems to rest on Trump and his associates repeatedly reciting the words “no quid pro quo” — even as they created and enforced a quid pro quo.

 

As prosecutors, House Democrats can’t afford to confuse the public. Even the simple phrase “quid pro quo” might be in danger of losing its meaning as a result of Trump’s defensive word-cloud.

 

The prosecutors’ answer is credibility and simplicity. Here’s the best witness you could imagine saying that Trump abused his power. The remedy for that is impeachment. Taylor’s testimony will set the stage for others; but it’s also just about enough on its own.

Trump abused his power. The remedy is impeachment. This is not close.

[kenberg]

In national elections, the gap between those who will always vote Republican and those who will always vote Democrat is fairly narrow. Results then stem from the ability to sway those voters who are not slavish to any party. Example of this are the Obama/Trump voters, especially in the midwestern states.

 

Imagine this country with a pliant rather than adversarial press and no whistleblower protections; with no whistleblower and no press willing to publicize wrongdoing, the president of Ukraine would have been forced to create a fake investigation into Joe Biden, implying improper and untrustworthy behavior, if not actual criminal, and continue the fraud by making a public announcement that he had done so in return for a White House meeting with the U.S. president and have his fears of withheld arms alleviated.

 

That brings up some questions:

 

1) Assuming Biden would be the Democratic candidate, would that fake investigation and announcement, compounded by the perpetual amplification of it by media outlets be enough to sway those non-party voters?

2) Would it be an acceptable and proper method of campaigning?

3) Is coercing another country to create a fake and misleading investigation for the sole purpose of damaging the opposition candidate's election damaging to the democratic election processes of the U.S.?

4) Would answers 1-3 change if a different president from the opposition party were in office?

 

 

This Biden business will be tricky, maybe impossible, to navigate. As I understand it, HB was paid more, substantially more, than would be expected based on his qualifications. If I am wrong about this then no problem, but if it is true that HB was paid extravagantly then this will be a political problem for JB even if there is no legal problem for either B. People will ask "Why the extra pay" and the answer will be "Because he was the son of the vice-president". This answer will probably be the correct answer, regardless of whether there was any benefit to those doing the paying. To charge either B with a crime there would have to be evidence that he did something wrong. For someone deciding how to vote, the standard would be different. More like "HB is presumably not so stupid that he had no idea why he was being offered this large salary, he decided to take it, that's not a plus". Of course it is JB, not HB, who will be on the ballot. Voters will, reasonably I think, want JB to be able to say more than "We did nothing wrong". or "Nobody has any proof that we did anything wrong". The optics were clear, and JB will be held accountable at the ballot box for how he dealt with this.

[Winstonm]

 

 

This Biden business will be tricky, maybe impossible, to navigate. As I understand it, HB was paid more, substantially more, than would be expected based on his qualifications. If I am wrong about this then no problem, but if it is true that HB was paid extravagantly then this will be a political problem for JB even if there is no legal problem for either B. People will ask "Why the extra pay" and the answer will be "Because he was the son of the vice-president". This answer will probably be the correct answer, regardless of whether there was any benefit to those doing the paying. To charge either B with a crime there would have to be evidence that he did something wrong. For someone deciding how to vote, the standard would be different. More like "HB is presumably not so stupid that he had no idea why he was being offered this large salary, he decided to take it, that's not a plus". Of course it is JB, not HB, who will be on the ballot. Voters will, reasonably I think, want JB to be able to say more than "We did nothing wrong". or "Nobody has any proof that we did anything wrong". The optics were clear, and JB will be held accountable at the ballot box for how he dealt with this.

There is no question that HB profited mightily from his father's position. It was a scummy thing to do.

 

The impeachment, however, has nothing should have nothing to do with either HB or JB.

[y66]

A weird thing about the current highly polarized moment is that most of the electorate happens to have lived through a historically anomalous low-polarization era, which they mistake for the norm.

 

Finishing “The Republic For Which It Stands,” which is both 1) great history and 2) proof that anyone who says “we’ve never been so divided” should stop talking about politics and take up water polo or something. https://amazon.com/Republic-Which-Stands-Reconstruction-1865-1896/dp/0199735816

[kenberg]

There is no question that HB profited mightily from his father's position. It was a scummy thing to do.

 

The impeachment, however, has nothing should have nothing to do with either HB or JB.

 

On this we agree. A standard defense trick is "Look over there, look behind you, look down, look up, look anywhere except at what's in front of you". If everyone just said "No, I don't care who or what, I am not falling for that" we would all be better off.

 

I was addressing, in response, the problems that I think this causes for Biden's candidacy. I think those are real and they are along the lines that I say. But it is irrelevant for impeachment.

[cherdano]

I don't think HB was paid an unusual amount for being a board member. It's just that someone with his, uhm, track record in the field wouldn't normally become board member.

[kenberg]

I don't think HB was paid an unusual amount for being a board member. It's just that someone with his, uhm, track record in the field wouldn't normally become board member.

 

Yes, that's pretty much as I understand it. Presumably someone who chooses such appointments figured it couldn't do the company any harm, might do some good, so do it. It's hardly illegal to hire the vice-president's son and for that matter we can't expect him to turn down all job offers, but we can expect a person to have a pretty good sense of just why it is that he is being hired.

 

It does not require great cynicism to say "I think I get it". Maybe this can be defended, but it will take some clarity and some frankness. Huffing and puffing won't do it.

[hrothgar]

 

It does not require great cynicism to say "I think I get it". Maybe this can be defended, but it will take some clarity and some frankness. Huffing and puffing won't do it.

 

I agree that Hunter Biden a problematic figure

 

Between the drug abuse and getting drummed out of the naval reserve and leeching off daddy, he's really not Presidential material.

Lucky that he's not running.

 

And, for what its worth, I really don't want to see the Democrats pick Joe Biden as their candidate.

I think that he's a really risky choice.

I think that there is a real danger that he melts down.

 

NONE OF WHICH EXCUSE WHAT TRUMP IS DOING

This is a stupid distraction, made all the more ridiculous by the Trump families deep and systemic corruption.

[Winstonm]

Margaret Sullivan at the WaPo:

 

November 10, 2019 at 3:00 p.m. CST

 

The national media’s shortcomings have been all too obvious in recent years as Donald Trump has gleefully thrown the norms of traditional journalism into a tizzy.

 

They’ve trafficked in false equivalence. Allowed President Trump to play assignment editor. Gotten mired in pointless punditry.

 

Granted, it’s been a mixed record. Journalists have done a lot right — they have pointed out lies, dug out what’s really happening, skillfully explained and analyzed.

 

But on Wednesday — as televised impeachment hearings begin in the House of Representatives — journalists need to be on their game. The stakes don’t get much higher when it comes to fulfilling their core mission: informing citizens of what they really need to know.

 

Here’s a refresher course in what needs to go right.

 

Stress substance, not speculation. Journalists and pundits love to ponder about how the public is reacting to news, though they aren’t much good at it.

 

Avoiding that would be a public service.

 

“Decline to speculate on how this is playing to voters in the swing states,” is the advice of New York University professor and press critic Jay Rosen.

 

A related issue: The extreme likelihood that the media will be focusing on the partisan fight, rather than the substance of what is being proved or not proved in the hearings themselves.

 

“Journalists can focus less on combat and more on clarity,” is how Rosen puts it.

 

Don’t let stunts hijack the coverage. If we know anything about Trump’s reaction when things get tough, it’s that he and his allies will haul out some attention-grabbing performance art and its distractions.

 

Trump will act out — because that’s what he does.

 

Recent example: Republican members of Congress barging into a secure facility on Capitol Hill where a Pentagon official was to testify before the House Intelligence Committee. It got plenty of TV and other media coverage and allowed Republican criticism of “the process” — however empty — to take center stage.

 

Not so recent example: Trump’s “news conference” at an October 2016 debate featuring three women who had accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault or sexual harassment in the past. It was an obvious effort to distract from the sexual-misconduct allegations against the then-candidate himself and to embarrass his general-election opponent, Hillary Clinton.

 

“The hearings are going to be a three-ring circus when they should be a one-ring circus,” said Tim O’Brien, executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion and a Trump biographer.

 

The media, he predicted, will find it hard “not to be distracted by the dancing clowns in one ring and the flaming-sword swallower in another, but to keep our eye on the tightrope walker in the center.”

 

They are going to have to make some choices about what’s really important and what is pure distraction.

 

Avoid Barr-Letter Syndrome. It was a little over six months ago that Attorney General William P. Barr took it upon himself to summarize the Mueller report in a misleading letter that the news media — pretty much en masse — represented as an accurate summation of the 448-page report about Russian interference in the 2016 election and its aftermath.

 

You might remember some headlines and news reports that said, essentially, “no collusion, no obstruction.”

 

Of course, that’s not what the report said, as Mueller himself later tried to set straight.

 

You’d think journalists would have learned that lesson. But then more recently came the release of a partial, rough summary of Trump’s phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky that asked for “a favor.” (The phone call, of course, is at the heart of the impeachment hearings, which explore Trump’s holding up military aid to Ukraine in trade for help in damaging his political opponents.)

 

In the initial round of coverage, almost all in the news media characterized this as “the transcript,” which strongly suggested that it was verbatim. It wasn’t — though it was damning enough, anyway.

 

Partly as a result, we see legions of Trump fans in T-shirts with the words “Read the Transcript.”(Actually, anybody who reads the transcript would discern abuse of power.)

 

“Effective propaganda,” as O’Brien characterized it. “It’s meant to delude.”

 

Propaganda brought to you in part by the insistent gullibility of the media.

 

Beware mealy-mouthed and misleading language. Punditry will be running even more amok than usual once the hearings begin. And we’ll be hearing a lot about what a divided nation we have and how ugly politics has become. We’ll be hearing the term “quid pro quo” endlessly.

 

Jon Allsop, writing in Columbia Journalism Review, suggested “quid pro quo” is inaccurate: “A president threatening to withhold military aid to a country unless it offers dirt on a domestic political rival, as Trump did, is not merely trading favors.” Questions about extortion or bribery — far riskier terms for would-be “balanced” journalists — are closer to the mark.

 

As for “polarization,” it’s a kind of false equivalence expressed in a single term, suggested Rosen: “We hear, ‘Oh things are so polarized now,’ when this is really about what’s happened to the Republican Party.”

 

In a potent Twitter thread last week, Ezra Klein of Vox pointed out that Trump’s abuses are so blatant that he “is the easiest possible test case for ‘Can our system hold a president accountable?’ And we are failing, because Republicans are failing.”

 

When journalists opt for safe language, when they pointlessly speculate, or succumb to Trump’s sideshow, they flunk the test.

 

Time to study up and ace it.

Avoid the Barr-Letter Syndrome - perfect!

[akwoo]

I'm going to offend Kenya and Kenyans for a moment, because Kenyan politics are not as bad as I'm about to describe. But - among countries that hold reasonably free and fair elections - they're one of the closest at the moment. I need a catchy name for this particular brand of dysfunction, so I'll call it "Kenyan democracy".

 

In Kenya, there are several 5 or so major tribes. Every time there is an election, one candidate promises that, if they win, they will devote all the resources of the state to tribes A, B, and C, and the other candidate promises to devote all the resources of the state to tribes D and E. Each grouping is about 50%, and whichever tribes mobilize their voters best wins the election, and for the next 5 years, the government devotes all its resources to its supporting tribes, and the other tribes get only a few scraps. (The tribes do sometimes realign between elections, so the next election might be between a candidate for tribes A, D, and E and one for tribes B and C.)

 

The system persists because the voters, by and large, don't believe there is such a thing as the national interest, only tribal (and individual) interests. If a politician tried to promise a government that distributed the resources of the state roughly evenly, they wouldn't get many votes, because most voters prefer the candidate that promises extra benefits to them, and also because no voter would actually believe them.

 

Apparently, there is now a significant portion of the US electorate that believes that Kenyan democracy is the natural and proper course for a democracy.

 

In Kenyan democracy, there is nothing wrong with the President using the government to benefit their own electoral chances, and hence the the future of the people who vote for it. A government isn't supposed to govern for everyone - it's supposed to govern for the people who voted for it, and elections are supposed to be war by non-violent means to see who which side would be able to subjugate the other without actually any killing happening.

 

Indeed, pretending to be fair, to serve everyone's interests, is prima facie evidence of corruption, because everyone is selfish and no one could possibly actually want to do that.

[barmar]

I was absolutely shocked yesterday when I read about an interview with Bill Gates where he made an idiotic statement about Elizabeth Warren's proposed wealth tax and then went on to be unwilling to state for the record that he would not vote for Trump in 2020.

 

What has happened to this country when even one of the richest people on earth thinks of his self-interest before thinking of anyone or anything else? I suppose that kind of wealth considers itself a global citizen and the fate of the U.S. is of no consequence to them personally - a massive miscalculation on their part. Just ask the oligarchs under Putin.

Gates was joking. He's one of the country's biggest philanthropists, and was one of the founders of the Giving Pledge, in which billionaires pledge to give the majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes. He also exaggerated the amount that the wealth tax would cost him.

 

If he's worried about paying too much in taxes, it could be because it would reduce the amount he can use for his preferred causes, not because he's worried about his personal bank account. Does that count as self-interest?

[Winstonm]

Gates was joking. He's one of the country's biggest philanthropists, and was one of the founders of the Giving Pledge, in which billionaires pledge to give the majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes. He also exaggerated the amount that the wealth tax would cost him.

 

If he's worried about paying too much in taxes, it could be because it would reduce the amount he can use for his preferred causes, not because he's worried about his personal bank account. Does that count as self-interest?

 

I'll let Elizabeth May respond:

 

The problem with the argument, “Bill Gates does more with his money than the government would!” is that we cannot and *should not*, base tax laws on how we hope rich people will spend their money. Tax laws are not case by case basis. We’re trying to have a fu#king society here.

[y66]

From Noah Smith at Bloomberg:

 

The border crisis of 2019 is winding down after a surge in the number of apprehensions at the southern border to the highest since 2007. In contrast to the early 2000s, when there was a spike in illegal crossings by Mexican laborers looking for work, most of those entering now are families and children seeking asylum from the broken societies of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

 

At the peak of the influx in May, some commentators were suggesting that an appreciable fraction of the entire population of those three Central American countries might end up living in the U.S. But then border apprehensions began to decline as precipitously as they had risen. By September, they were back to the levels of the previous year.

 

Why did this happen? To some degree, it’s seasonal; in the past, border crossings tended to peak in March, but recently the peak has come in May. That means that the wave of migration may start up again in the early months of 2020.

 

But President Donald Trump’s policies may also have been partly responsible for the drop. Mass detention of migrant families has been the most visible and divisive of those policies, generating widespread outrage at the poor conditions at detention facilities and leading some critics to liken them to concentration camps. But other Trump initiatives have probably had a bigger effect on migrant flows.

 

First, Trump made a number of major changes to the asylum process. In June, he issued a rule making most people ineligible for asylum if they passed through a third country on the way to the U.S. and failed to seek refuge in that country (the rule is being challenged in the courts, but it’s in effect for now). In a similar vein, Trump has reached agreements with the governments of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador stipulating that asylum seekers from each of those countries must try to get asylum in any of the countries they pass through before requesting it in the US.

 

In addition, Trump’s so-called Migrant Protection Protocols now require many asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their claims are processed. The administration has also sped up adjudication of asylum requests, which means migrants don’t get to remain in the U.S. for as long while waiting for a court date. These and other changes have made it almost impossible for Central Americans to get asylum in the U.S., and much more difficult to live in the country while waiting for a claim to go through.

 

Finally, Trump bullied Mexico into making it harder for Central Americans to reach the U.S. border in the first place. In response to tariff threats, Mexico deployed troops to its southern border with Guatemala in order to stop migrant caravans from entering; it also beefed up its troops at the U.S. border. In a strange way, Trump has thus fulfilled one of his most notorious campaign promises: to make Mexico pay the cost of stopping Latin American migration.

 

So the American public (or at least those who determined the outcome of the Electoral College) got what it asked for -- a president who was willing to brutalize poor desperate migrants and transform the U.S. into a much less welcoming country in exchange for a slight slowing of demographic change.

 

But in the long term, these policies won’t matter much. As researchers Michael Clemens and Jimmy Graham of the Center for Global Development outline in a recent blog post, migration pressure from Central America is destined to slacken a lot in the very near future.

 

The reason is falling fertility. Central Americans are having fewer kids.

 

As Clemens and Graham show, this has led to a plunge in the growth rate in the number of young adults in those countries. Many of them will need to stay home to take care of aging parents and take over family businesses, leaving fewer who want to leave for the U.S. Clemens and Graham argue that a similar drop in the growth rate of Mexico's population of young adults was followed 13 years later by a steep decline in migration rates. If Central America follows a similar pattern, migration from El Salvador and Honduras will begin to slacken in about 2021, while Guatemala will follow soon after.

 

Clemens and Graham also argue that simply letting Central Americans enter the U.S. as guest workers would have done a lot to slow the flow of border-crossing. Though many asylum-seekers come with their children, parents might be willing to come alone temporarily if it gave them a chance to earn some money to send back to their families.

 

So Trump’s policies may have been a lot of effort — and done a lot of damage to the U.S.’s reputation as an open and humane country — for very little gain. Even those who want to prevent Central American immigration could have simply waited for the migration wave to end. Instead, the U.S. is left with a militarized border, resentful southern neighbors and a byzantine asylum system designed to reject people rather than give them protection.

[y66]

From David Leonhardt at NYT:

 

When Thomas Philippon moved to Boston from his native France 20 years ago, he was a graduate student on a budget, and he was happy to discover how cheap American telephone use was. In those days of dial-up internet connections, going online involved long local phone calls that could cost more than $10 apiece in France. In the United States, they were virtually free.

 

Philippon eventually got a Ph.D. in economics at M.I.T. and decided to stay here. He’s now a professor at New York University. And over the years, he has noticed something surprising about his adopted country: Internet usage is no longer a good deal.

 

Today, his parents pay about 90 euros (or $100) a month in the Paris suburbs for a combination of broadband access, cable television and two mobile phones. A similar package in the United States usually costs more than twice as much.

 

Figuring out why has become a core part of Philippon’s academic research, and he offers his answer in a fascinating new book, “The Great Reversal: How America Gave Up on Free Markets.” In one industry after another, he writes, a few companies have grown so large that they have the power to keep prices high and wages low. It’s great for those corporations — and bad for almost everyone else.

 

Many Americans have a choice between only two internet providers. The airline industry is dominated by four large carriers. Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google are growing ever larger. One or two hospital systems control many local markets. Home Depot and Lowe’s have displaced local hardware stores. Regional pharmacy chains like Eckerd and Happy Harry’s have been swallowed by national giants.

 

Other researchers have also documented rising corporate concentration. Philippon’s biggest contribution is to explain that it isn’t some natural result of globalization and technological innovation. If it were, the trends would be similar around the world. But they’re not. Big companies have become only slightly larger in Europe this century — rather than much larger, as in the United States.

 

What explains the difference? Politics.

 

The European economy certainly has its problems, but antitrust policy isn’t one of them. The European Union has kept competition alive by blocking mergers and insisting that established companies make room for new entrants. In telecommunications, smaller companies often have the right to use infrastructure built by the giants. That’s why Philippon’s parents can choose among five internet providers, including a low-cost company that brought down prices for everyone.

 

In air travel, European discount carriers like easyJet have received better access to the gate slots they need to operate. The largest four European airlines control only about 40 percent of the market. In the United States, that share is 80 percent, and, as you’d expect, airfares are higher. Even Southwest Airlines has begun to behave less like a low-fare carrier.

 

The irony is that Europe is implementing market-based ideas — like telecommunications deregulation and low-cost airlines — that Americans helped pioneer. “E.U. consumers are better off than American consumers today,” Philippon writes, “because the E.U. has adopted the U.S. playbook, which the U.S. itself has abandoned.”

 

The European Union has created an impressively independent competition agency that’s willing to block mergers, like General Electric-Honeywell and Siemens-Alstom. In the United States, the process is more political, and companies spend vastly more money on campaign donations and lobbying. Lobbyists — and, by extension, regulators — justify mergers with dubious theories about money-saving efficiencies. Somehow, though, the efficiencies usually end up raising profits rather than lowering prices.

 

Whirlpool’s 2006 purchase of Maytag is a good example. The Justice Department rationalized the deal partly by predicting that foreign appliance makers would keep the combined company from raising prices. But Whirlpool later successfully lobbied for tariffs to keep out foreign rivals. Washers, dryers and dishwashers have all become more expensive.

 

The consolidation of corporate America has become severe enough to have macroeconomic effects. Profits have surged, and wages have stagnated. Investment in new factories and products has also stagnated, because many companies don’t need to innovate to keep profits high. Philippon estimates that the new era of oligopoly costs the typical American household more than $5,000 a year.

 

It’s a problem that should inspire bipartisan action. Some solutions feel conservative: reducing licensing requirements and other bureaucratic rules that hamper start-ups. Others feel progressive: blocking mergers, splitting up monopolies and forcing big business to share infrastructure.

 

There are signs that the politics of antitrust are shifting. Several Republicans, like Senator Josh Hawley, now talk about the issue, and many Democrats — not just Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, but also Amy Klobuchar — do too.

 

But we have a long way to go. Too often, both parties are still confusing the interests of big business with the national interest. And American families are paying the price.

[barmar]

I'll let Elizabeth May respond:

 

I never suggested he shouldn't be subject to the wealth tax, nor did he (even taken literally, he just objected to making it too large). I was just pointing out that it's disingenuous to describe his opinion as self-centered, when he's one of the most generous people in the world.

[Winstonm]

I never suggested he shouldn't be subject to the wealth tax, nor did he (even taken literally, he just objected to making it too large). I was just pointing out that it's disingenuous to describe his opinion as self-centered, when he's one of the most generous people in the world.

 

The self-centered aspect comes with a vote for Trump and his tax policies.

[Chas_P]

I have intentionally avoided this message board for the last few days because I’ve felt that it has deteriorated into nothing more than a pissing contest. I am ashamed of my participation in that contest and no longer wish to engage. We are all Americans (well maybe not Zelandakh who says he is a German but just wants to get in on the pissing), and hopefully we all wish only the best for our fellow countrymen. I’ve just finished reading a review of Justice Neil Gorsuch’s book, A Republic, If You Can Keep It. Justice Gorsuch opens the book, not with judging, but with a discussion of civics and civility. He warns that “just as we face a civics crisis in this country today, we face a civility crisis too.” Too many Americans know neither our political principles nor how to engage in fruitful political discussion. I haven’t read the book yet, but I intend to. So with those thoughts I leave you to your endeavors. I’ll see you again on November 3, 2020.