Trump: Dangerous as Heck

As you can see I changed the title of this post from Trump: Dangerous as Hell. The reason is quite simple. Trump's dangers do not include the world as a radioactive wasteland; Clinton's do. Trump's dangers are economic. 

No, it is not tariffs or immigration. He is mostly right on these. It is like Trump is stuck in a time warp to the 80's in advocating what the original George Bush called "Voodoo Economics." To a degree this voodoo actually worked. Dropping the federal marginal tax rate from 70% to 35% would tend to increase the economy. This added to the fact that there was a business cycle meant that Reagan's tax cuts mostly paid for themselves in revenue. Reagan dramatically increased military spending and made no cuts in domestic spending, this meant huge deficits. Trump is proposing the same kind of thing. But the situation is different. The US is currently at the height of the business cycle, not its bottom, so revenue will be on a downward trend. The highest US marginal tax rate is about 40%, so cutting it to, lets say 30%, will not have the same stimulus as cutting from 70 to 35 did. 

What makes Trump's proposal dangerous is the high level of debt the US has right now. This is a bipartisan problem. Bush roughly doubled the debt from 5 trillion to 10 trillion. He added at least 1 trillion to the US unfunded liabilities by adding a prescription drug benefit to Medicare—without paying for it. He also added a huge amount, no one knows how much, to future liabilities for the veterans of his wars. He was, fiscally speaking, a demographic train wreck as our population ages. 

I know I am supposed to say that Obama was even worse, but they were both equally bad. Obama continued Bush's wars, but at a reduced level, so that is good. But Obama also added a huge amount to the budget by introducing ObamaCare. Obama also doubled the debt. While the deficits have gone down, oddly enough borrowing continues to grow. This year the deficit will be around 600 billion dollars, at what may very well be the height of the business cycle. But at the same time the debt of the US will increase by 1.4 trillion. I have no explanation of the difference in the size of the increase beyond the fact you can't trust government numbers. 

In this environment, a tax cut is foolhardy in the extreme. Increasing military spending, when the US is already spending more than the rest of the world combined is also foolhardy in the extreme.

So on domestic fiscal policy I would say that Clinton is slightly better. But at this point what difference does it make if Clinton's foreign policy leads to war and possible nuclear holocaust. It would seem that Obama is paving the way for a Clinton War with Russia. 

The old phrase "lessor of two evils" has always been a metaphor since neither candidate was actually evil. In this election cycle it is not a metaphor. 

I will announce my vote tomorrow. 

Comey Baloney

No doubt you are expecting me to say something negative about Comey's decision not to prosecute Clinton. You are right. Not in the way you might expect. I honestly do not know what I would have done is his situation. There are several things going on. 

The first is some variant of the Peter Principle. Infogalactic describes it this way:

The Peter principle is a concept in management theory formulated by Laurence J. Peter in which the selection of a candidate for a position is based on the candidate's performance in their current role, rather than on abilities relevant to the intended role. Thus, employees only stop being promoted once they can no longer perform effectively, and "managers rise to the level of their incompetence."

In other words, Comey has been promoted one too many times. 

But put yourself in Comey's Brooks Brothers' suit. You know how the world works. In a normal case, Clinton would plead guilty to a misdemeanor, would pay a huge fine, modest for her, and that would be the end of it. But the normal procedure won't work as Clinton is running for president. She can't plead guilty to anything, no matter how deserved. So rather than influence the political process, Comey called her reckless, and allowed anyone on the fence to fill in the blanks. 

Apparently this infuriated a large number of his agents. He could just ride that out, but then a new batch of 650,000 emails were found. If he did not release this information, someone would leak it. This would be the worst possible outcome for him as it would then appear he was hiding them. So Comey announced to the world that they existed. 

No doubt there were interesting conversations with his superiors. Again he faced unfortunate choices. If he is still FBI chief under a Clinton presidency, you can guess what those conversations might have been. He is most likely to resign for personal reasons, and then get a nice job somewhere quiet. But in any event he was in "dire straits." He could not expect to receive "money for nothing" in the future. 

So today Comey declared that the emails held nothing new. I actually thought that they wouldn't, and predicted on Facebook that nothing would be released, referring to both this scandal and Anonymous' supposed release of damaging material on Clinton. I was however surprised that that the announcement of the examination was complete took place after only a few days. (edit: I did my math wrong!) I do not see how 650,000 emails could be examined in that time. There probably isn't time for there to be any new leaks, regardless of what is in these emails.

But that is just how the world works. Comey understands it. I understand it. You understand it. 

I can describe Comey in one word.

Incoherent. Incompetent. Incontinent.  

Thiel Speech at the National Press Club

One of the better arguments in favor of a Trump presidency. I will announce my vote tomorrow. 

No Joke: The United States Just Committed an Act of War Against Russia

I am not sure what Obama is thinking, but the US has committed an Act of War against the Russian Federation. Is he preparing for President Clinton's planned war? Is Obama trying to force a future President Trump into a war? When someone does something catastrophically dumb, it is hard to piece together the motivation. 

The US Government, in a planned leak to NBC, said that they have ALREADY accessed Russian military and domestic systems. 

U.S. military hackers have penetrated Russia's electric grid, telecommunications networks and the Kremlin's command systems, making them vulnerable to attack by secret American cyber weapons should the U.S. deem it necessary, according to a senior intelligence official and top-secret documents reviewed by NBC News.

I know when I said that a war was planned the response of many was "yeah, right."  The war has already started. Hopefully it won't escalate. 

Here is the official Russian response:

Question: How would you comment on the reports that US military hackers have penetrated Russia’s telecommunications networks and electric grid?

Maria Zakharova: Regarding the recent media reports that US military hackers have penetrated Russian’s telecommunications networks and electric grid, as well as “the Kremlin’s command systems”, we expect a response from the US authorities, including the White House and the Department of State with a legal assessment of the reports.

The absence of an official reaction from the US Administration will signify the existence of state cyberterrorism in the United States, and in case the threats related via the US media are executed, Moscow will have full authority to bring charges against Washington.

The US has sponsored terrorism directly and indirectly though Saudi Arabia for years. Now they have decided to cut out the middle man and become terrorists themselves. 

Here is Stefan Molyneux's explanation: 

Molyneux exagerates the Soros connection to the voting machine company. It is a Soros ally that owns it, and for whatever reason these machines are supposedly not being use in this election. 

My Electoral Prediction

I hope to complete the final blog post in my current series, Trump: Dangerous as Hell, soon. 

But while we wait, I wanted to give my prediction for the election. I predict that Trump will win the popular vote, but the election itself will be a tie at 269 electoral votes each. The fact that Maine can give one electoral vote to Trump out of the four they have does give Trump a path to 270, the number needed to win.

On what do I base my prediction? This election cycle has been one dissapointment after another. We are all looking forward to a resolution next Tuesday. We will get another disappointment. It seems only fair and logical.