Trumponomics and media in the United States of Dystopia

"President Trump spoke with @TheEconomist about Trumponomics and every answer is bananas" 
[Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Michigan Justin Wolfers on Twitter, 11 May 2017]

Who thought that Anthony John Abbott when he was Australian prime minister was the most ill-intentioned, ignorant  and embarrassing leader of a nation to have ever existed to date in the developed world during the 21st century?

Well he now pales in comparison with Donald John Trump (pictured above).

Excerpts from the transcript of The Economist interview with the U.S. President on 4 May 2017:

Another part of your overall plan, the tax reform plan. Is it OK if that tax plan increases the deficit? Ronald Reagan’s tax reform didn’t.
[President Trump] Well, it actually did. But, but it’s called priming the pump. You know, if you don’t do that, you’re never going to bring your taxes down. Now, if we get the health-care [bill through Congress], this is why, you know a lot of people said, “Why isn’t he going with taxes first, that’s his wheelhouse?” Well, hey look, I convinced many people over the last two weeks, believe me, many Congressmen, to go with it. And they’re great people, but one of the great things about getting health care is that we will be saving, I mean anywhere from $400bn to $900bn.

…………

That all goes into tax reduction. Tremendous savings.

But beyond that it’s OK if the tax plan increases the deficit?
It is OK, because it won’t increase it for long. You may have two years where you’ll… you understand the expression “prime the pump”?

Yes.
We have to prime the pump.

It’s very Keynesian.
We’re the highest-taxed nation in the world. Have you heard that expression before, for this particular type of an event?

Priming the pump?
Yeah, have you heard it?

Yes.
Have you heard that expression used before? Because I haven’t heard it. I mean, I just… I came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good. It’s what you have to do.

It’s…
Yeah, what you have to do is you have to put something in before you can get something out.

………

So you would have a bigger deficit, a stimulus, to prime the pump that would lead to faster growth?
So I happen to think that 3% is low. But you can’t do it if your companies are leaving the country because taxes are too high. Now, I’m going to do something there too. If our companies leave the country, number one they’re leaving for numerous reasons but one of the big reasons is the taxes are so high. When they leave—go back to trade for a second, when they leave the country, go to a certain country wherever it may be, and they fire all their workers in the United States and on the assumption they build cars or air conditioners or whatever they’re building, and they open a plant someplace else and then they send the air conditioner or the car into our country with no tax, that’s not going to happen anymore. They’re going to have a very large tax to pay, in the vicinity of 35%.

Now when you do that, number one they're not leaving the country anyway. So we’re not leaving. I don’t know if you saw what’s happening. Ford has announced massive expansions in the United States. General Motors cancelled a big plant in Mexico and a big plant in Europe. They’re all cancelling plans because I told them, I said… I get along with them great. But I said, “Look, we don’t mind if you leave the country. You can build all you want out of country, I hope you enjoy your plant. But when you build your car, you’re going to have a 35% tax when you bring it back in. And if your numbers work, we wish you well. But that’s what you’re going to have. You’re going to have a 35% tax.”

So I mean, I have, it has, I haven’t been given massive credit for it yet, but I have been given some because I just see polls out in Michigan and different places, that really are affected by this, have been unbelievable, you know, much bigger than election day. But that’s not a tax increase, that’s no tax. In other words, all you have to do is don’t leave and you won’t have a… but we’re bringing our taxes down so low that you won’t even need the barrier because the taxes are so low, that people are going to stay.

The other thing, just in case we… I believe it could be anywhere from $4trn to $5trn outside, you know don’t forget we’ve been talking about $2.5trn for four years now. I’ve been using $2.5trn, the same number we’ve all been using for years. Well, you know, it grows. I think it… I wouldn’t be surprised if it was $5trn but, you know, we’re close. We’re letting that money come back in. And that has two barriers which you have to watch. It’s got a barrier of the tax, which we will take care of. We’re going to make it 10%. Now it’s 35%...

Sorry, 10%? The repatriation taxes?
The repatriation. Inversion. The corporate inversions, which is a disaster, with the companies leaving. But they want to bring back their money. Number one, the tax is too high but the other thing that’s too high is the bureaucracy.

……….

I have a friend who said even if you wanted to bring it back in you can’t because you have to go through so many papers, so many documents, so many…

You have to do… Steve, they told me you’ve got to sign books and books of stuff, you pay millions of dollars in legal fees and they almost don’t allow you to bring it back in.

Can I ask you a question about the politics of tax?
It should be like one page.

Excerpts from the transcript of a Time interview with President Trump, published 11 May 2017:

For instance I don’t watch CNN. I don’t watch MSNBC. Scarborough used to treat me great. But because I don’t do interviews and stuff and want to … He went the other way. Which is fine. He’s got some problems. But I don’t watch the show anymore. It drives him crazy. I don’t watch the show.

I do watch Fox in the morning, and their ratings have gone through the roof because everyone knows I’m watching Fox. But they’re pleasant. And if I do something wrong they report on it. I don’t mean they – if I do something wrong. But it’s really, honestly it’s the most accurate.

CNN in the morning, Chris Cuomo, he’s sitting there like a chained lunatic. He’s like a boiler ready to explode, the level of hatred. And the entire, you know the entire CNN platform is that way. This Don Lemon who’s perhaps the dumbest person in broadcasting, Don Lemon at night it’s like – sometimes they’ll have a guest who by mistake will say something good. And they’ll start screaming, we’re going to commercial. They cut him off. Remember?

I’ve seen things where by mistake somebody they bring in a guest and it turns out to be a positive. And they go, I mean they get just killed. The level of hatred. And poor Jeffrey Lord. I love Jeffrey Lord. But sometimes he’s sitting there with eight unknown killers that nobody ever heard of. And CNN actually is not doing nearly as well as others. They’re all doing well because of me. But it’s not doing as well as others that are doing better actually. But Fox treats me very fairly. MSNBC is ridiculous. It’s just bad.

It’s an ability I never thought I’d have. I never thought I’d have the ability to say, they’re doing a big story on me on CNN and I won’t watch it. And it’s amazing, it doesn’t matter. But it really, the equilibrium is much better. As far as newspapers and things, I glance at them. They’re really dishonest. I mean they’re really dishonest……

You see a no-talent guy like Colbert. There’s nothing funny about what he says. And what he says is filthy. And you have kids watching. And it only builds up my base. It only helps me, people like him. The guy was dying. By the way they were going to take him off television, then he started attacking me and he started doing better. But his show was dying. I’ve done his show. … But when I did his show, which by the way was very highly rated. It was high highest rating. The highest rating he’s ever had.

Political Meme of the Week

via @LesStonehouse 

Tweet of the Week

Quotes of the Week

“Director of Public Prosecution, Ms Marianne Ny, has today decided to discontinue the investigation regarding suspected rape (lesser degree) by Julian Assange.” [Swedish Prosecution Authority, media release, concerning the seven year investigation of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, 19 May 2017]  

This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history! [U.S. President  Donald  J. Trump tweeting on 18 May 2017 after discovering that the official FBI investigation into Russian interference in the 216 presidential election had been widened]

If you can pay rent, buy food for a week, pay for phone etc and buy drugs on $267.80 a week, you should be made treasurer. [@mrumens, commenting on Turnbull Government plan to drug test unemployment benefit recipients, 11 May 2016]

This is a government of poor data ethics. Hand-waving at risks associated with sloppy data-architecture. Self-congratulatory culture of applause over a mediocre to disastrous experience of digital governance. Vindictive and retributory exploitation and commodification of citizen data. The Australian government isn’t a fit and proper data custodian.  [Internet activist and journalist Asher Wolf writing at medium.com on 9 May 2017]

The standout demographic characteristic of One Nation voters was their lack of education. The typical One Nation voter didn’t finish school, much less, as Marr put it, “set foot in a university”. [Mike Seccombe writing in The Saturday Paper, 6-12 May 2017]

Clarence Valley NSW: a timely reminder as widespread rain again hits the Australian east coast

Australian Bureau of Meteorology probability forecast for 19 May 2017 as of 18 May here.

The Daily Examiner, 8 May 2017, p.3:

THE flood protection around Grafton is not as robust as many people believe warns a local emergency management specialist.

The Clarence Valley Council’s emergency management officer Kieran McAndrew said up-to-date modelling showed Grafton levees capable of withstanding a one in 25-year flood.

“Many people are under a misunderstanding the levees provide one in 100-year protection,” he said.

“They don’t. They were designed to provide that level of protection, but better modelling in the 50 years since they were constructed shows they only ever provided on one in 25-year protection…..

Mr McAndrew said recent major flooding in the Tweed and Richmond and moderate flooding in the Clarence had revealed the lack of understanding of flood protection in and around Grafton. He said there was a danger of complacency in the community……

“If there was a prolonged overtopping event in Grafton it would be much more serious than Lismore because in Lismore there are hills people can reach from the CBD. We don’t have that luxury in Grafton. And because of the volume of water in the Clarence, flood heights fall much more slowly. It means the city would be inundated for much longer.”

He said the Clarence Valley Council had applied to the NSW Government for a grant for a project to determine the floor heights of all properties in flood-prone areas around Grafton. The data would help residents understand the potential impact of a levee overtopping on their property.

Will Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's lack of judgement place Australia at risk?

Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Wentworth, Malcolm Bligh Turnbull, was happy to say this to the Australian people on 20 April 2017, during an interview with ABC TV 7.30 current affairs host Leigh Sales:

“I do. I trust the judgment, the wisdom of the American government, the president and the vice president.”

Two days later he meets with U.S. Vice President Pence in Sydney and showers him with uncritical praise of American policy.

Two weeks after that he was in the United States meeting with President Donald Trump and expressing solidarity with his government.

Of that visit the prime minister stated; “It was great for Lucy and I to meet with the president and Mrs Trump. Again, that was more family than formal.”

Given the following, one wonders if Australia should trust the current U.S. government as much as Turnbull professes he does.

The Washington Post, 15 May 2017:

President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said Trump’s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.

The information the president relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials said.

The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said Trump’s decision to do so endangers cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State. After Trump’s meeting, senior White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and the National Security Agency.

“This is code-word information,” said a U.S. official familiar with the matter, using terminology that refers to one of the highest classification levels used by American spy agencies. Trump “revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies.”

The New York Times, 15 May 2017:

In fact, the current official said that Mr. Trump shared granular details of the intelligence with the Russians. Among the details the president shared was the city in Syria where the ally picked up information about the plot, though Mr. Trump is not believed to have disclosed that the intelligence came from a Middle Eastern ally or precisely how it was gathered.

General McMaster did not address that in naming the city, in Islamic State-controlled territory, Mr. Trump gave Russia an important clue about the source of the information.

Like the United States, Russia is also fighting in Syria, where it has stationed troops and aircraft. The two countries share some information, but the cooperation is extremely limited, and each has widely divergent goals in the civil war there.

Russia’s primary focus has been propping up the government of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, not directly battling the Islamic State. The United States, in contrast, views the Islamic State as the primary threat, and is aiding rebels who are fighting both the Islamic State and the Syrian government.

The Washington Post, 16 May 2017:

H.R. McMaster, the president's top security adviser, repeatedly described the president's actions in a press briefing just a day after a Washington Post story revealed that Trump had shared deeply sensitive information with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during an Oval Office meeting last week.

"In the context of that discussion, what the president discussed with the foreign minister was wholly appropriate to that conversation and is consistent with the routine sharing of information between the president and any leaders with whom he’s engaged," McMaster said. "It is wholly appropriate for the president to share whatever information he thinks is necessary to advance the security of the American people. That’s what he did."

McMaster refused to confirm whether the information the president shared with the Russians was highly classified. However, because the president has broad authority to declassify information, it is unlikely that his disclosures to the Russians were illegal — as they would have been had just about anyone else in government shared the same secrets. But the classified information he shared with a geopolitical foe was nonetheless explosive, having been provided by a critical U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so delicate that some details were withheld even from top allies and other government officials.

McMaster added that Trump made a spur-of-the-moment decision to share the information in the context of the conversation he was having with the Russian officials. He said that "the president wasn’t even aware of where this information came from" and had not been briefed on the source.

McMaster's pushback came just hours after Trump himself acknowledged Tuesday morning in a pair of tweets that he had indeed revealed highly classified information to Russia — a stunning confirmation of the Washington Post story and a move that seemed to contradict his own White House team after it scrambled to deny the report.

Trump's tweets tried to explain away the news, which emerged late Monday, that he had shared sensitive, “code-word” information with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador during the White House meeting last week.

Trump described his talks with the Russians as “an openly scheduled” meeting at the White House. In fact, the gathering was closed to all U.S. media, although a photographer for the Russian state-owned news agency was allowed into the Oval Office, prompting national security concerns.

The Atlantic, 16 May 2017:

Would the president have so abjectly tried to impress representatives of any other country? He blabbed because he bragged, and he bragged because he values Russia’s and Putin’s goodwill so bizarrely much. As the economist Justin Wolfers noted, if officials had not revealed the truth to the media, the Russians would now genuinely have damaging kompromat on Trump: the secret of a dereliction of duty that would have gotten anybody else in government fired, if not indicted.

On 18 May 2017 the Full House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has set a 9.30am 24 May 2017 hearing date to investigate if President Trump interfered in an FBI probe into the his election campaign's ties to Russia.

Even in the face of Trump’s intelligence disclosures to the Russians Turnbull declares his trust in the current U.S. Government.

As a member of the top-secret Five Eyes global surveillance and intelligence sharing group Australia is potentially affected by Trump’s loose lips and, it is becoming increasingly possible that a prime minister who trusts Trump is an additional risk to his own country's national security.

And people wonder why their council rates keep rising

Council rates don't just rise because the dollar value of lots in a local government area increase or because a council needs to play catch-up with its infrastucture build and road maintenance debts.

Rates may also rise over time because of other cumulative costs. Including the cost of too many people vandalizing or illegally dumping on property owned or managed by a council.

Here is a classic example. The result of someone obviously wanting to take a vehicle somewhere a vehicle was not meant to go.

There are timber bollards at both ends of a walking track at the rear of the Bowling Club in Iluka, a quiet little village at the mouth of the Clarence River.

Replacing, repositioning or re-erecting these bollards costs Clarence Valley Council money in the form of material and/or manhours. 

I am reliably informed that this is the third time this has happened in the last four weeks and that these bollards were also vandalised around 18 months ago.

 Photographs of vandalised bollards supplied

Now the majority of people living in the NSW Northern Rivers region are rightly proud of the greenspaces within their towns and villages and the natural forests inbetween.

So the next time you see someone doing something like this - report it to your local council and if appropriate then call the police.

Remember, doing so just might save you some money in the long run.