23 Wednesday Aug 2017
Posted | August 23, 2017 12:42:04 | Economics
In a fiery speech tonight, President Trump demanded funding for a wall, threatening to shut down the government if he does not get his way.
In the same speech, he proclaimed he would likely terminate NAFTA.
This is absolutely crazy stuff.
By the way, whatever happened to the idea that Mexico would pay for the wall?
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Disclaimer: The content on this site is provided as general information only and should not be taken as investment advice. All site content, including advertisements, shall not be construed as a recommendation to buy or sell any security or financial instrument, or to participate in any particular trading or investment strategy. The ideas expressed on this site are solely the opinions of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the opinions of sponsors or firms affiliated with the author(s). The author may or may not have a position in any company or advertiser referenced above. Any action that you take as a result of information, analysis, or advertisement on this site is ultimately your responsibility. Consult your investment adviser before making any investment decisions.
Did anyone ever believe Mexico would pay for the wall? Not everything Trump says is brilliant, or to be believed. On the other hand, it is also obvious that few people understand his extreme method of negotiating. I am really enjoying having a president who knows how to negotiate. Now let the commenters here tell me all about how much they cannot understand it.
I only understand that it is apparent that you, yourself, have probably never played at the big boy table.
Because it was all working fine until Trump came to office.
Then why’d you get Trump?
I think we should be billing, forcefully, Mexico for the costs of their citizens being in the USA. Likewise, the rest of Central America. But we pay them to line their Swiss bank accounts, oppress the people and facilitate the travel of these stone age denizens to our country where they are lost in a modern society and learn the ways of the leech. Send the bill to their countries (with profit built in because there is no free lunch even when the lunch is free).
May sound harsh but until naysayers to the idea are willing to give up 100% of their wealth to the invaders, they shouldn’t ask me to contribute.
“Not everything Trump says is brilliant, or to be believed”. It is refreshing to hear a Trump fan actually admit that Trump is a liar.
Is he going to finally make a stand on something? Afghanistan was an incredible dissapointment. Would be nice to see him actually get something out of the Republican Senate for once.
Dylan Ratigan in his famous MSNBC rant about dysfunctional, BOUGHT government described the ONLY way to fix that – a prez who mans the bully pulpit and admits that the government is bought clearly and directly to the citizens then uses vetoes and public pressure to prevent veto overrides to actually fix things. That is the only way because the combination of un/misinformed/propagandized and/or apathetic/disillusioned voters combined with a totally corrupted system won’t allow a true fix in any other way.
I’m not holding my breath on that. While Trump is just enough of an outside-the-swamp person to do it, which is why the swamp hates him so much and is attacking him from every direction, I don’t think he’s bright enough to see that let alone pull it off.
+ 100
I agree re: Afghanistan. The wishy washy slap and tickle way they want to handle it is pathetic and insulting. Either crush the place to what ever came before Stone Age (current status) or let that area of the globe destroy itself by wallowing in the deepest recesses of the Stone Age. I would pick the latter.
Trump: “our nation must seek an honorable and enduring outcome”
Blogger Michael Krieger: “…at 16 years old, this is already the longest war in American history. It was a war started after the most deadly terrorist attack on American soil, and near the height the U.S. imperial power. Nevertheless, the war’s been a complete and total failure. It was a failure under Bush, it was a failure under Obama and it will be a failure under Trump. To believe that Trump will usher in an ‘honorable and enduring outcome’ in Afghanistan is to say he will succeed where his predecessors failed merely because…he’s Trump. Not gonna happen.”
The next “plan” – “Vietnamization” along with “peace with honor”. Too young to remember those? Look them up.
The -UNFIXABLE CORE PROBLEM- for NATIVE military maintenance of peace in Vietnam and ALL of the countries we’ve tried to “nation build” in the 21st century – soldiers are not willing to DIE for some artificial, nebulous concept of a “country” especially one run by, in the case of Afghanistan and Iraq (and formerly Vietnam), governments that are rated among the most corrupt in the world. They will avoid combat and/or RUN as we saw in Iraq in order to achieve their primary goal as a soldier – collecting a steady paycheck. Who’s actually in charge militarily in Iraq? Religious militias.
The Afghan government is effectively one of the least corrupt in the world. Simply because it is properly limited. Like Jefferson’s was.
What the progressive idiots who run around “rating” things, and believing that drivel to boot, call “corrupt”; largely comes down to bilking money out of invading armies and UN dimwits. In exchange for promises that they’ll harass their own population. And then not following through. Since they are well aware their population, as opposed to most others’, is properly armed. Meaning, they have the same guns as the government does. Hence aren’t the simple, bent over, pliant slaves looking starry eyed at Massa in awe, that progressives are so fond of.
It’s not that whatever loons happen to hold court in Kabul at any given time, are some sort of saints. But rather that they are sufficiently limited that they can’t do much of anything. Hence, paying them to do anything, aka corrupting them, isn’t all that lucrative a racket. America wouldn’t so corrupt either, if Goldman Sachs knew the government simply didn’t have the means to force taxpayers to bail them out. Due to every American having rifles and rocketry with hair triggers pointed directly at any aspiring taxman who might feel a bit frisky, and government itself being limited to shop for their guns in the same old gun shops any old poppy grower shops for his.
Afghanistan has a nickname – “The graveyard of empires” for a reason. Not one country that has ever to tried to invade it has succeeded, and usually their empire ends after trying to hold on to it for too long. Just ask the USSR, (now just Russia), the Roman Empire and the British Empire. The reason we are there is because of it’s location and it’s importance as a trade route of old. It borders Iran and Pakistan too. We will never give it up but it is strategically important to be there – but we will dump our treasure there and lose it.
He can’t, so he won’t. He made a bonfire out of his political capital, and will be a tough talking lame duck for however long he lasts.
The man has no idea how to do the job. All he can do is cry about how unfair everyone is to him.
i also stopped believing in him august 22…it’s clear …he has submitted to washington’s empire…not the maverick president i thought he would be…his bombastic rhetoric is hollow…huge disappointment…and the beat goes on
Independent of the wall – I hope he does shut the government down. It’s about damn time. The bloated government is more than half of this nation’s problems. They could fire half of the government workers and we wouldn’t see any loss of productivity. It’s turned into a workfare program that allows retirement at 55 with million dollar pensions. Can you say GREECE?
And if Mexico refuses to play ball and make NAFTA a fair agreement for the US – then rip up the agreement. I’m tired our jobs going south with hoards of illegal indigents coming north. Anybody who thinks that’s “fair trade” has got a screw loose.
We need a wall as a symbol. Anybody who has spent time in Los Angeles should understand that. We don’t need more illegal freeloaders & blood suckers in our cities who couldn’t care less about being loyal Americans.
+1000
You do know that “government shutdown” means 2/3 of employees won’t come to work during the shutdown and then will be paid upon return. The other “essential” employees will continue working and will only get paid once the shutdown is over.
Essentially it means you will pay for people to do no work, nor even show up to work. Paid vacay.
Gubberment? Shut the bitch down… no productive person will notice a thing.
If they could genuinely shut it down, as in absolutely all of it, it would be the greatest boon since the Founding, for productive people.
Government – this includes the US military, the Pentagon, the FBI, the CIA, the diplomats, your social security check, your government subsidized health care, your IRS tax refund that you are owed. Also highway repairs, national parks, fire fighting in national parks. We also have big floods coming from a record storm that is going to barrel through the south – no help from the federal government on that if the government is shut down. But if you don’t care about any of this, then you are both stupid and cruel.
Every single government agency could cut it’s workforce by 30% and nobody would know the difference as far as output is concerned if the agencies were managed with the efficiency of private businesses.
IOW’s if government agencies could fire workers for incompetence or laziness without threats or interference from the public unions it would solve more than half the problem.
Anybody who has worked in government knows that it’s practically impossible to fire a lazy or incompetent public employee. It’s not unusual for public employees to have personnel jackets as thick as a phone book and still retain their jobs.
Until you look deep within the weeds you have no idea how much waste and fraud goes on inside these agencies.
Why? Because none of them are held financially accountable for their screw-ups. It’s all other people’s money. Easy come, easy go.
“By the way, whatever happened to the idea that Mexico would pay for the wall?”
Trying to hold Trump to his words? That is a TOUGH JOB. He changes by the minute.
Off subject, but… maybe not.
EASY to make Mexico pay for the wall:
Charge every truck that crosses the border $200. Every car $100. Every person $25.
(Or whatever numbers are needed to make it work..)
Poof, it’s paid for……..
How about an Amish-style wall building, with everybody pitching in to help.
Or charge an additional $50 surcharge for every remittance wired from the US to Mexico.
Charging remittances (and/or withholding taxes like citizens have to pay) would solve the problem overnight.
Trump can get 100% cooperation from the big government types simply by threatening to make US policy consistent. Either everyone gets withholding tax — citizens and illegals alike — or no one gets withholding taxes and government shuts down.
We all know the big government types will sacrifice citizens without batting an eye, but they won’t sacrifice their own cushy lifestyle.
OR change the US Code detailing the approved procedure for the hiring of aliens to eliminate a ridiculous, obvious (I found it in a few minutes of reading and it is actually offset within the code so no one misses it) giant loophole for employer (non)liability and start a southward exodus TOMORROW and avoid building a stupid, expensive wall.
Once again, it’s ALL a farce… as usual.
Let the employers hire whomever they want — subject to withholding taxes like ordinary citizens have to pay.
If illegals want some of “their” money back, they can file tax forms like ordinary citizens.
Vintage Trump, on his game. Nothing new here that Trump has not said before. Same people who did not get it before the election, still do not get it. Still mostly business as usual in DC swamp, seemingly on auto-pilot for war against Russia, to win where Napoleon and Hitler failed. USA is great at starting wars, making messes and resolving very little. Eisenhower was right about military-industrial-congressional complex. Shades of LBJ and Vietnam, but instead of Guns and Butter it is Guns and Obamacare. Hillary’s favored doubling down on Obamacare penalties, premiums and deductibles seems to be going into effect, and Trump is continuing Obama’s illegal health insurance bailouts. Getting bent out of shape by vintage Trump summer reruns of election 2016 messages about walls, etc. is crazy. Not that Hillary/DNC racial, gender and Civil War politics and fake Russia election hacking claims and beating of Russia war drums is a sign of sanity. Still amazes me that Hillary spent $1.1 billion to Trump’s $100 million in election 2016, and Trump got over 300 electoral votes and swept the geographic USA apart from the left coasts. Russian hacking does not explain this. USA needs more diversity of viewpoints in its mass media and less 24×7 war/gender/racial propaganda.
Excellent rant, Joel.
The “money line” in there was “Still amazes me that Hillary spent $1.1 billion to Trump’s $100 million in election 2016, and Trump got over 300 electoral votes”
Now we know precisely why “the media” hates Trump and was frantically pushing the absurd “Russian hacking” story.
Most of that $1.1 billion was media advertising that turned out to be practically worthless.
God forbid future candidates should realize this. Wouldn’t be good for business at all.
Read it carefully. Move debt ceiling and no wall.
Don’t move debt ceiling, Gov shutdown, he’ll push for the wall.
My take anyway.
Move debt ceiling = no wall.
“Believe me, if we have to close down our government, we are building that wall”
I think you’re reading too much into it.
I believe Trump meant that he’ll shut the government down (if necessary) to get the wall built.
He’s not going to manipulate the crowd with words after his claim to fame on the campaign trail was to build a wall.
After 4 years if the wall is not finished or under construction Trump is toast.
Did Trump say it had to be a physical wall?
Because a withholding tax would be 1000x more effective than any wall. Let the illegals come in, work their cabooses off, and then discover their wages belong to the US government. All loot / proceeds from the tax goes to pay for enhanced customs inspections.
Illegals will stop coming once illegal work ceases to be profitable for them.
The problem is they don’t just come here to work. They come here to leech off the system with free medical, free education for their rugrats and all the other social benefits. that goes along with stepping on US soil.
Turn off the government benefit spigot then see how many show up to cut your lawn.
The Deep State appears to have neutralized Trump for now giving him zero victories on his campaign promises. This is done so that he does not win a second term or either resigns or is impeached. However, while Trump is on soft ground, so is the Deep State that really has no legal grounds for their action. This is a massive “bought and paid for” Government that is exerting its bullying force on a single individual who won the Presidential election fair and square.
Because Trump is being roughed up, he has to come up with bravado phrases such as “shut down of the Government” to have his base propped up. I doubt whether the Government will shut down even if he is given a rough time with the debt ceiling issue. The US simply cannot afford to default on its payments to the rest of the world that provides it the credit.
As always, the debt ceiling matter is one of negotiation between the parties to get some of their pet agenda items passed. He will threaten his opposition of a shutdown Government if he does not get at least some of his items through. I predict he will get a few paltry items thrown his way but not the significant ones on which he campaigned on. Whether these few items he gets will give him enough substance to maintain or grow his base is the real question. Here is where we will learn if Trump is truly the negotiator he says he is.
However, his base is much larger than that portrayed by the MSM. If he gets virtually nothing, and the pressure continues right up until the next general election, I suspect there will be a civil war in America in 2018 as the economy would probably have crashed hard by then.
Every time Trump says, “i must be honest” or “believe me” he’s telegraphing how dishonest is he is. Who says this , every third sentence.
I think what he’s doing is two fold, laying out a case where he can blame others if these “promises” don’t happen and by holding large rallies in regions that are overwhelmingly pro-Trump use the media images to scare politicians into supporting him or not crossing him
You are so funny
Mexico is perfectly willing to pay for Trumps incarceration.
But nothing else.
Who’s gonna put him there… Cocaine Mitch McConnell. Sounds like a nothing burger to me.
Not many people know this, but the US Capitol building used to have a flat roof. Then back in 1948, one night that dome landed there from the planet Ignoramous, and they have been in control of our government ever since. I will be one happy person when they find enough unobtainium to repower that damn thing out of here.
Not sure why all these puffing and huffing about the greatest Presidente we ever had. 10,000 tweets later look at all his wonderful achievements! Stay the course! That’s how you run Washington! What a deep thinker! Hail the Chief!
The election of Trump was just the beginning: https://youtu.be/NHqnG4lEDWQ
He is playing to the crowd. See Nazis.
But not Obamabots.
Can someone explain how the BlacksForTrump2020.com guy gets behimnd Trump? Select Enter on that website and read the loony stuff that is rascist against indians.
Reblogged this on World4Justice : NOW! Lobby Forum..
Welcome President Hillary didn’t last very long.
Which comes first, stock market crash or Trump leaves office?
Neither. Deep state always comes first.
“Believe me, if we have to close down our government, we are building that wall”
…
Really? Shutdown?
There will be no shutdown. In past “shutdowns” the vast bulk of federal employees are deemed “essential” and keep working (though some won’t get paid till shutdown over).
POTUS has great discretion in who merits “essential” status.
Most folks wouldn’t even know a shutdown occurring … if not for the media screaming nonstop over it … and blaming DJT/Republicans.
+1
If they genuinely shut down absolutely every function, never to return, that would be awesome. But they won’t.
Yes, that would be great, no air travel, no highways, no military, no court system, no law enforcement, total chaos only to eventually become a ward of the first belligerent state actor to fill the vacuum.
….No government ran versions of above….. Very different than no version at all. IOW, pretty much what everyone who escaped comparatively well governed Europe for America, knowingly preferred to the government version. And ditto for their kids and grandkids,who kept moving West, away from the ever so busy leeches that followed them across the pond to do the only thing leeches are capable of: Leech.
Of course, eventually the poor freedom seekers who just wanted to be left alone, ran out of frontier. And the leeches caught up, once again in a position to enslaving rob and harass those who wanted nothing to do with them, and could live perfectly well without a gang of leeches. And over time, the leeches even successfully indoctrinated the descendants of the once-were-frees, to the point where many of them genuinely believe perfectly functional planes would fall out of the sky, and noone would be able to clear a road, were it not for them paying 50+% of all they work for, to a leech army living large while contributing nothing useful whatsoever.
“This is absolutely crazy stuff.”
…
Sure … but nothing he didn’t say on campaign trail … and why folks voted for him.
Lies on top of lies on top of lies…. but Trumplings love those sweet little lies.
Crumbling Empires always produce the worts kind of leaders.
If you are referring to our unelected Gov’t SES level, mostly authoritarian minded interventionist bureaucrats, collectively known as the “deep state”, I agree with you 100%.
Sorry: worse
Everyday, a bunch of drug addicts outsmart the DEA.
Every day a bunch of people who dropped out of middle school outsmart the customs / border control agencies.
Apple Computer makes the IRS look stupid every business day.
Hillary ignored so many national security laws its hard to even make a list… and we’ll ignore the murders — ummm, mysterious deaths — of Vince Foster and Seth Rich (and a White House chef). Hillary doesn’t like loose ends, and will kill — umm, “disappear” — anyone who crosses her.
Whatever Trump does / doesn’t do — the facts are that defying that government pays really well. Better than playing by the rules. Government bureaucrats feature prominently on lists of bad guys. Campaign contributors like George Soros sponsor political violence and are praised for it.
Trump isn’t shutting down the government — rampant corruption and cronyism is shutting down the government.
I feel sorry for America. You deserve better than Trump. My condolences.
Thanks. We ALL deserve a better government…
But NOBODY deserves a HILLARY!!
We’ll take what we’ve got, thank you !!!!!
Hey Billy. As long as you are satisfied. I’m not sure I would be, but then, he is your president, not mine. By the way I hope that storm in the gulf doesn’t hit Texas too hard. Best wishes.
The only thing worse than the Donald neo neocon is the old neocon Killary. I didn’t vote because I can’t pick between Lockheed Martin or Raytheon.
Hillary has a level head and would not start a nuclear war just because she woke up in a bad mood. I have my doubts about Trump in that regard. Trump is turning out not to be any kind of “dove” – he is unstable, angry and would do anything to distract us all from the Russia investigation.