Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy
Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy
tax reform reality check: a person making 22.5K sees an annual withholding tax saving of about $188, that's $7.84 per bi-monthly check. I wonder where those billions went......Will the prez's working class fans buy a clue?
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy
Diplomacy lesson in the Trump era: "either they are with me or there is no money"
During his speech to the State of the Union, held on Tuesday night before Congress, the US president continued the tradition of taking stock of his first year in the White House and coined a new philosophy in the style of George W. Bush and his «They are with me or they are with the terrorists»
Author: Sergio Alejandro Gómez | internet@granma.cu
February 1, 2018 00:02:16
The President of the United States spoke in the same nationalist and protectionist tone that catapulted him to the White House. Photo: AFP
Between half truths about the economy, which seek to hide the serious problems of his Government, and threats against the world to distract attention, President Donald Trump offered Tuesday a lesson in diplomacy made in Washington.
During his speech to the State of the Union, held on Tuesday night before Congress, the US president continued the tradition of taking stock of his first year in the White House and coined a new philosophy in the style of George W. Bush and his «They are with me or they are with the terrorists».
The New York tycoon, more accustomed to business than anything else, now found his own formula for disaster: "either they are with me or they forget money".
It happened while he was speaking about his controversial decision to move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, which has raised a wave of global outrage over its possible consequences in the Palestinian conflict.
He added that shortly after announcing the measure, "dozens of countries voted in the General Assembly of the United Nations against the sovereign right of the United States to make this recognition".
He recalled that those same nations - were in fact 128, including their biggest allies - received only last year 20 billion dollars in economic aid.
"That's why tonight I'm asking Congress to pass laws to help ensure that dollars for foreign aid always serve US interests and only go to the friends of the United States," he said.
The philosophy is not new, although it had never been so clear. The White House has already threatened to cut off all cooperation with Pakistan, one of its allies in the fight against terrorism, should it fail to fulfill a list of demands.
The same applies to aid to Palestinian refugees, which is being used with blackmail to achieve concessions in favor of Israeli interests.
But the threats with the checkbook in hand are not reserved for the «adversaries», but they also touch the friends of all the life.
"The era of the economic surrender of the United States ended," said the President in the same nationalist and protectionist tone that catapulted him to the White House.
He added that business with his country from now on would have to be "fair" and "reciprocal".
"We will work to correct the commercial ill-treatment and negotiate new ones. And we will protect American workers and US intellectual property through strict application of our business rules. "
Since the end of World War II, the United States has been the main champion of free trade, with which it has managed to maintain its global economic primacy and gratify the countries that align with its geopolitical interests. However, the new administration seems convinced that it is time to pass the bill.
Europe calibrates for months its response to a protectionist measure of Trump and Brussels say they are willing to act to protect their interests.
China, from the other side of the world and in a vertiginous ascent, is willing to occupy the spaces left by Washington.
If that is the treatment reserved by the new White House occupant for those who support him, it is not surprising that the speech in the State of the Union has been prolific in threats against countries that refuse to follow his orders.
Trump boasted of the sanctions he has applied against Cuba and Venezuela, without going too deep into the subject.
Surrounded by a minority and recalcitrant group of the Cuban community in the United States, Trump announced on June 16 last year in Miami new measures to strengthen the blockade and make travel more difficult between the two countries.
With excuses without any evidence, the State Department also reduced the staff of its Embassy in Havana last September and paralyzed the delivery of a visa, while demanding the departure of 17 Cuban diplomats in Washington.
The new administration also announced the return to failed policies by launching an Operational Force on the Internet against Cuba last week, which recalls other subversive projects such as ZunZuneo and Commotion.
Against Venezuela and its legitimate authorities, the new obsession of Washington in the region, is directed a battery of sanctions that further aggravate the economic crisis in the country and that add to the boycott of the right.
Trump also took pride in his government's support for the protagonists of the internal turmoil in Iran earlier this month, which bear the hallmark of covert CIA operations, according to several analysts.
He continued his escalation of tensions against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and devoted himself to bragging about his supposed successes in the fight against terrorism.
Despite having promised during his campaign the end of the failed wars of the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan, Trump increased the number of troops deployed in the Middle East and granted an extra 80 billion dollars to the Army budget for the fiscal year 2018
In another nod to the military sector, the president took advantage of the State of the Union to announce that he had signed a decree to end the closure of the US prison at the Naval Base in Guantanamo, located in illegally occupied territory.
The end of that controversial detention center -not the return of the territory to Cuba- was one of the main promises of former Democrat Barack Obama, who could not fulfill it during his eight years in office because of the resistance of Congress.
"But we must be clear: terrorists are not simply criminals; they are illegal enemy fighters, "Trump said. "And when they are captured abroad, they must be treated like the terrorists they are."
Precisely the prison in Guantánamo became famous for the images of US soldiers torturing the detainees, which led to several bills to try to prevent similar incidents. Trump's statement seems to indicate that preserving the elemental rights of the prisoners will not even be a concern of his Government.
But, regardless of what the United States does with its policy of arbitrary arrests, the demand of Cuba and many other countries of the world continues to be centered on the end of the illegal occupation of that territory in Guantánamo.
Trump, of course, did not mention that topic on Tuesday night. Maybe he does not know the story or was too focused on appearing "presidential" before an audience that applauded him - less the Democrats - but behind his back mocks the ignorance and inability to govern the President, who makes headlines in the mainstream media. communication from that country and even on the shelves of bookstores.
CUBA DOES NOT TOLERATE THE INTROMISSION IN ITS INTERNAL AFFAIRS
On Wednesday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs delivered to the Charge d'Affaires AI of the United States in Havana, Lawrence Gumbiner, a diplomatic note expressing its strong protest against the claim of the United States Government to flagrantly violate Cuban sovereignty, in which Regarding national competence to regulate information flows and the use of mass media, while rejecting the attempt to manipulate the internet to carry out illegal programs for political and subversion purposes, as part of their actions aimed at to alter or change the constitutional order of the Republic of Cuba. The same note was sent by the Embassy of Cuba in Washington to the Department of State.
- The protest was motivated by the announcement of the Department of State, on January 23, of the decision to convene an Internet Task Force, composed of officials of the United States Government and representatives of non-governmental organizations, with the objective of declared to "promote in Cuba the free and unregulated flow of information. According to the announcement, this Task Force will "examine the technological challenges and opportunities to expand Internet access and independent media" in Cuba.
- The Minrex note again demands that the United States Government cease its subversive, interfering and illegal actions against Cuba, which undermine Cuban constitutional stability and order, and urges it to respect Cuban sovereignty, International Law and the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
- In its message, the Cuban Foreign Ministry reiterates the determination of the Government of Cuba not to tolerate any type of subversive activity or interference in its internal affairs and, as a sovereign country, to continue defending itself and denouncing the interfering nature of this type of actions.
- Cuba will continue to regulate the flow of information as is its sovereign right and as it is practiced in all countries, including the United States. Cuba will also continue advancing in the computerization of its society, as part of the development of the country and in terms of the social justice objectives that characterize its Revolution.
(Cubaminrex)
http://www.granma.cu/mundo/2018-02-01/l ... 8-00-02-16
Google Translator
During his speech to the State of the Union, held on Tuesday night before Congress, the US president continued the tradition of taking stock of his first year in the White House and coined a new philosophy in the style of George W. Bush and his «They are with me or they are with the terrorists»
Author: Sergio Alejandro Gómez | internet@granma.cu
February 1, 2018 00:02:16
The President of the United States spoke in the same nationalist and protectionist tone that catapulted him to the White House. Photo: AFP
Between half truths about the economy, which seek to hide the serious problems of his Government, and threats against the world to distract attention, President Donald Trump offered Tuesday a lesson in diplomacy made in Washington.
During his speech to the State of the Union, held on Tuesday night before Congress, the US president continued the tradition of taking stock of his first year in the White House and coined a new philosophy in the style of George W. Bush and his «They are with me or they are with the terrorists».
The New York tycoon, more accustomed to business than anything else, now found his own formula for disaster: "either they are with me or they forget money".
It happened while he was speaking about his controversial decision to move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, which has raised a wave of global outrage over its possible consequences in the Palestinian conflict.
He added that shortly after announcing the measure, "dozens of countries voted in the General Assembly of the United Nations against the sovereign right of the United States to make this recognition".
He recalled that those same nations - were in fact 128, including their biggest allies - received only last year 20 billion dollars in economic aid.
"That's why tonight I'm asking Congress to pass laws to help ensure that dollars for foreign aid always serve US interests and only go to the friends of the United States," he said.
The philosophy is not new, although it had never been so clear. The White House has already threatened to cut off all cooperation with Pakistan, one of its allies in the fight against terrorism, should it fail to fulfill a list of demands.
The same applies to aid to Palestinian refugees, which is being used with blackmail to achieve concessions in favor of Israeli interests.
But the threats with the checkbook in hand are not reserved for the «adversaries», but they also touch the friends of all the life.
"The era of the economic surrender of the United States ended," said the President in the same nationalist and protectionist tone that catapulted him to the White House.
He added that business with his country from now on would have to be "fair" and "reciprocal".
"We will work to correct the commercial ill-treatment and negotiate new ones. And we will protect American workers and US intellectual property through strict application of our business rules. "
Since the end of World War II, the United States has been the main champion of free trade, with which it has managed to maintain its global economic primacy and gratify the countries that align with its geopolitical interests. However, the new administration seems convinced that it is time to pass the bill.
Europe calibrates for months its response to a protectionist measure of Trump and Brussels say they are willing to act to protect their interests.
China, from the other side of the world and in a vertiginous ascent, is willing to occupy the spaces left by Washington.
If that is the treatment reserved by the new White House occupant for those who support him, it is not surprising that the speech in the State of the Union has been prolific in threats against countries that refuse to follow his orders.
Trump boasted of the sanctions he has applied against Cuba and Venezuela, without going too deep into the subject.
Surrounded by a minority and recalcitrant group of the Cuban community in the United States, Trump announced on June 16 last year in Miami new measures to strengthen the blockade and make travel more difficult between the two countries.
With excuses without any evidence, the State Department also reduced the staff of its Embassy in Havana last September and paralyzed the delivery of a visa, while demanding the departure of 17 Cuban diplomats in Washington.
The new administration also announced the return to failed policies by launching an Operational Force on the Internet against Cuba last week, which recalls other subversive projects such as ZunZuneo and Commotion.
Against Venezuela and its legitimate authorities, the new obsession of Washington in the region, is directed a battery of sanctions that further aggravate the economic crisis in the country and that add to the boycott of the right.
Trump also took pride in his government's support for the protagonists of the internal turmoil in Iran earlier this month, which bear the hallmark of covert CIA operations, according to several analysts.
He continued his escalation of tensions against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and devoted himself to bragging about his supposed successes in the fight against terrorism.
Despite having promised during his campaign the end of the failed wars of the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan, Trump increased the number of troops deployed in the Middle East and granted an extra 80 billion dollars to the Army budget for the fiscal year 2018
In another nod to the military sector, the president took advantage of the State of the Union to announce that he had signed a decree to end the closure of the US prison at the Naval Base in Guantanamo, located in illegally occupied territory.
The end of that controversial detention center -not the return of the territory to Cuba- was one of the main promises of former Democrat Barack Obama, who could not fulfill it during his eight years in office because of the resistance of Congress.
"But we must be clear: terrorists are not simply criminals; they are illegal enemy fighters, "Trump said. "And when they are captured abroad, they must be treated like the terrorists they are."
Precisely the prison in Guantánamo became famous for the images of US soldiers torturing the detainees, which led to several bills to try to prevent similar incidents. Trump's statement seems to indicate that preserving the elemental rights of the prisoners will not even be a concern of his Government.
But, regardless of what the United States does with its policy of arbitrary arrests, the demand of Cuba and many other countries of the world continues to be centered on the end of the illegal occupation of that territory in Guantánamo.
Trump, of course, did not mention that topic on Tuesday night. Maybe he does not know the story or was too focused on appearing "presidential" before an audience that applauded him - less the Democrats - but behind his back mocks the ignorance and inability to govern the President, who makes headlines in the mainstream media. communication from that country and even on the shelves of bookstores.
CUBA DOES NOT TOLERATE THE INTROMISSION IN ITS INTERNAL AFFAIRS
On Wednesday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs delivered to the Charge d'Affaires AI of the United States in Havana, Lawrence Gumbiner, a diplomatic note expressing its strong protest against the claim of the United States Government to flagrantly violate Cuban sovereignty, in which Regarding national competence to regulate information flows and the use of mass media, while rejecting the attempt to manipulate the internet to carry out illegal programs for political and subversion purposes, as part of their actions aimed at to alter or change the constitutional order of the Republic of Cuba. The same note was sent by the Embassy of Cuba in Washington to the Department of State.
- The protest was motivated by the announcement of the Department of State, on January 23, of the decision to convene an Internet Task Force, composed of officials of the United States Government and representatives of non-governmental organizations, with the objective of declared to "promote in Cuba the free and unregulated flow of information. According to the announcement, this Task Force will "examine the technological challenges and opportunities to expand Internet access and independent media" in Cuba.
- The Minrex note again demands that the United States Government cease its subversive, interfering and illegal actions against Cuba, which undermine Cuban constitutional stability and order, and urges it to respect Cuban sovereignty, International Law and the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
- In its message, the Cuban Foreign Ministry reiterates the determination of the Government of Cuba not to tolerate any type of subversive activity or interference in its internal affairs and, as a sovereign country, to continue defending itself and denouncing the interfering nature of this type of actions.
- Cuba will continue to regulate the flow of information as is its sovereign right and as it is practiced in all countries, including the United States. Cuba will also continue advancing in the computerization of its society, as part of the development of the country and in terms of the social justice objectives that characterize its Revolution.
(Cubaminrex)
http://www.granma.cu/mundo/2018-02-01/l ... 8-00-02-16
Google Translator
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy
How Donald Trump Rode in on “Dark Money”
Glen Ford, BAR executive editor 01 Feb 2018
How Donald Trump Rode in on “Dark Money”
“It wasn’t the Russians that brought us Trump, but the usual suspects: private equity and hedge funds bandits.”
A team led by University of Massachusetts professor emeritus Thomas Ferguson reveals that “a giant wave of dark money” flowed into Donald Trump’s campaign coffers in the last months of the 2016 election, enabling him to go heads up with Hillary Clinton’s $1.4 billion juggernaut in the final stages of the contest. The identity of Trump’s late-campaign godfathers is “shrouded,” according to a paper authored by Ferguson and his collaborators, Paul Jorgensen and Jie Chen, but all signs point to “a sudden influx of money from private equity and hedge funds.” The cash infusion brought Trump’s total spending up to $861 million. Although that’s still substantially less than Hillary’s total outlays, Trump’s dark money arrived just in time to capitalize on Clinton’s failure to mount an effective blitz in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Thus, it wasn’t the Russians that brought us Trump, but the usual suspects: private equity and hedge funds bandits. Ferguson notes that a number of private equity managers “who do not appear in the visible roster of campaign donors” began to show up “prominently around the President” after his upset win -- masters of dark money, creeping into the light to claim their rewards.
“Trump owes a huge debt to the vultures of financial speculation.”
Prof. Ferguson specializes in tracing corporate money to deduce the political leanings and schemings of the various corporate sectors. During the Obama administration, Ferguson’s research showed Silicon Valley and the high-tech sector were Barack Obama’s most reliable corporate allies, in terms of campaign contributions and political support. (And he, in turn, dutifully served the digital oligarchs.) The new study indicates that Trump owes a huge debt to the vultures of financial speculation. But then, virtually every corporate sector is seeing its wish-lists fulfilled under this president, who over the past year has proven his loyalty to his class.
Or, some would argue that he has been bludgeoned into that posture. Certainly, the bulk of the ruling class and their attendants, interpreters and enforcers were horrified that the Orange Menace might destabilize the two-capitalist-party system, undermine the free global flow of capital and jobs, and allow the momentum of the military offensive begun by Barack Obama in 2011 to falter. That threat to the imperial order has passed. Trump’s savage assault on the very concept of regulation; his willingness to renegotiate NAFTA and the Trans Pacific Partnership; and the rise of the generals as both day-to-day and overall policy managers in his White House, are “normalizing” Trump. The Republican tax cut -- a looting spree – although not engineered by Trump, redounds to his benefit in 1% circles. As their unearned gains accrue, the Lords of Capital appreciate the uses of The Donald. Orange is the new normal – a measure of how insane late stage capitalism has become.
“Silicon Valley and the high-tech sector were Barack Obama’s most reliable corporate allies.”
Democrats are not happy, sensing that their partnership with the clandestine services to eject Trump by non-electoral means is losing steam by the day. After almost two years, the predicate offense -- that Trump and the Russians colluded in hacking the Democrats -- has not been proven, or even convincingly presented. By now, the media-CIA-Democrat version of “resistance” is hoping that Trump will somehow self-destruct through some act or statement that is beyond the pale -- except that nobody knows where “beyond” is.
Decent people thought Hillary Clinton had stepped beyond civilized discourse when she greeted news of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s murder, cackling, “We came, we saw, he died.” Nothing so vile and savage had passed the lips of any ranking diplomat of a major power since World War Two, yet Clinton not only kept her job, but would have become president were it not for the late campaign cash infusions from hedge funders to Donald Trump. Clinton’s murder-drenched cackle was a more shocking affront to civilization than any outburst yet recorded by Trump -- a man not clever enough to paraphrase Julius Caesar -- including his barroom cracker commentary on “shithole” countries.
“Orange is the new normal.”
The corporate Demo-press case for a Trump-Putin axis looks more and more like a Potemkin construct -- a daily assemblage of front page portals to nowhere, all façade with no back. One must eat and breathe manure to pull the likes of Donald Trump even deeper into the muck, from below – but that has been the mission the premiere corporate media have assigned themselves. Whatever aura of fairness and credibility that still clings to their filthy corporate carcasses, is irrevocably fading. And that is a good thing, just as it is a good thing that President Trump is despised by about half the country; and that Hillary Clinton is even less popular than Trump; and that the global public’s trust in the United States has plummeted dramatically under Trump’s presidency. What true radical does not wish for the dissolution of the mad pox of U.S. imperialism and all its interlocking institutions, with hope that this will signal the end of half a millennium of Europe’s rapacious wars against the rest of the planet, and of capitalism’s war against the Earth, itself?
In truth, imperialism, internally and externally, shudders under the weight -- not of Donald Trump’s orange mane, but of its own contradictions. Trump is an excretion of the system. Late stage capitalism is the mother of monstrosities, subverting science itself -- the sum total of humankind’s acquired knowledge and labor -- to the enslavement of the species; the path down which Amazon, Google, Apple and the other techno-omnivores are rushing, propelled by the same for-profit engine that carved up our ancestors’ worlds into edible chunks for a rich, white few.
“The media-CIA-Democrat version of ‘resistance’ is hoping that Trump will somehow self-destruct through some act or statement that is beyond the pale.”
The unraveling of this system is the overarching story of our times, a saga of great crime -- and real resistance. The oppressors’ media cannot tell this story, so they must smother reality with a daily narrative of lies: “counter-speech,” as Google, Twitter and Facebook have dubbed their new policy. They want to monopolize (and, of course, monetize) the human story -- no dissenting versions allowed. One immediate aim is to disappear Black Agenda Report and a short list of other left publications, and then move on to other white-outs.
(It is really quite amazing that senior and junior imperial heads of state -- Obama, Merkel, Macron, May -- and titans of industry -- Bezos, Zuckerberg, Pichai -- were so quick to affix their own imprimaturs to the crude hit piece put out by the red-baiters at PropOrNot , and showcased on the front page of the Washington Post, back in late November, 2016. The combined audiences of the dozen or so targeted lefty sites would have little impact on a national electoral contest. But again, empire demands a monopoly.)
The main objective is to make endless war palatable, as imperialism attempts to bomb, blockade, occupy and bluster its way out of a cascade of crises. Unable to compete with the Chinese command economy, its “soft” power exhausted, the U.S. empire plays the only strong card it has left: its massive military, now centered on a special operations force roughly as large as the entire French Army. War becomes both the means of imperial survival and justification for its continued existence: the how and the why of empire.
That’s why there is no such thing as a “resistance” that is not loudly and consistently anti-war.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com .
https://blackagendareport.com/how-donal ... dark-money
bolding added
Glen Ford, BAR executive editor 01 Feb 2018
How Donald Trump Rode in on “Dark Money”
“It wasn’t the Russians that brought us Trump, but the usual suspects: private equity and hedge funds bandits.”
A team led by University of Massachusetts professor emeritus Thomas Ferguson reveals that “a giant wave of dark money” flowed into Donald Trump’s campaign coffers in the last months of the 2016 election, enabling him to go heads up with Hillary Clinton’s $1.4 billion juggernaut in the final stages of the contest. The identity of Trump’s late-campaign godfathers is “shrouded,” according to a paper authored by Ferguson and his collaborators, Paul Jorgensen and Jie Chen, but all signs point to “a sudden influx of money from private equity and hedge funds.” The cash infusion brought Trump’s total spending up to $861 million. Although that’s still substantially less than Hillary’s total outlays, Trump’s dark money arrived just in time to capitalize on Clinton’s failure to mount an effective blitz in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Thus, it wasn’t the Russians that brought us Trump, but the usual suspects: private equity and hedge funds bandits. Ferguson notes that a number of private equity managers “who do not appear in the visible roster of campaign donors” began to show up “prominently around the President” after his upset win -- masters of dark money, creeping into the light to claim their rewards.
“Trump owes a huge debt to the vultures of financial speculation.”
Prof. Ferguson specializes in tracing corporate money to deduce the political leanings and schemings of the various corporate sectors. During the Obama administration, Ferguson’s research showed Silicon Valley and the high-tech sector were Barack Obama’s most reliable corporate allies, in terms of campaign contributions and political support. (And he, in turn, dutifully served the digital oligarchs.) The new study indicates that Trump owes a huge debt to the vultures of financial speculation. But then, virtually every corporate sector is seeing its wish-lists fulfilled under this president, who over the past year has proven his loyalty to his class.
Or, some would argue that he has been bludgeoned into that posture. Certainly, the bulk of the ruling class and their attendants, interpreters and enforcers were horrified that the Orange Menace might destabilize the two-capitalist-party system, undermine the free global flow of capital and jobs, and allow the momentum of the military offensive begun by Barack Obama in 2011 to falter. That threat to the imperial order has passed. Trump’s savage assault on the very concept of regulation; his willingness to renegotiate NAFTA and the Trans Pacific Partnership; and the rise of the generals as both day-to-day and overall policy managers in his White House, are “normalizing” Trump. The Republican tax cut -- a looting spree – although not engineered by Trump, redounds to his benefit in 1% circles. As their unearned gains accrue, the Lords of Capital appreciate the uses of The Donald. Orange is the new normal – a measure of how insane late stage capitalism has become.
“Silicon Valley and the high-tech sector were Barack Obama’s most reliable corporate allies.”
Democrats are not happy, sensing that their partnership with the clandestine services to eject Trump by non-electoral means is losing steam by the day. After almost two years, the predicate offense -- that Trump and the Russians colluded in hacking the Democrats -- has not been proven, or even convincingly presented. By now, the media-CIA-Democrat version of “resistance” is hoping that Trump will somehow self-destruct through some act or statement that is beyond the pale -- except that nobody knows where “beyond” is.
Decent people thought Hillary Clinton had stepped beyond civilized discourse when she greeted news of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s murder, cackling, “We came, we saw, he died.” Nothing so vile and savage had passed the lips of any ranking diplomat of a major power since World War Two, yet Clinton not only kept her job, but would have become president were it not for the late campaign cash infusions from hedge funders to Donald Trump. Clinton’s murder-drenched cackle was a more shocking affront to civilization than any outburst yet recorded by Trump -- a man not clever enough to paraphrase Julius Caesar -- including his barroom cracker commentary on “shithole” countries.
“Orange is the new normal.”
The corporate Demo-press case for a Trump-Putin axis looks more and more like a Potemkin construct -- a daily assemblage of front page portals to nowhere, all façade with no back. One must eat and breathe manure to pull the likes of Donald Trump even deeper into the muck, from below – but that has been the mission the premiere corporate media have assigned themselves. Whatever aura of fairness and credibility that still clings to their filthy corporate carcasses, is irrevocably fading. And that is a good thing, just as it is a good thing that President Trump is despised by about half the country; and that Hillary Clinton is even less popular than Trump; and that the global public’s trust in the United States has plummeted dramatically under Trump’s presidency. What true radical does not wish for the dissolution of the mad pox of U.S. imperialism and all its interlocking institutions, with hope that this will signal the end of half a millennium of Europe’s rapacious wars against the rest of the planet, and of capitalism’s war against the Earth, itself?
In truth, imperialism, internally and externally, shudders under the weight -- not of Donald Trump’s orange mane, but of its own contradictions. Trump is an excretion of the system. Late stage capitalism is the mother of monstrosities, subverting science itself -- the sum total of humankind’s acquired knowledge and labor -- to the enslavement of the species; the path down which Amazon, Google, Apple and the other techno-omnivores are rushing, propelled by the same for-profit engine that carved up our ancestors’ worlds into edible chunks for a rich, white few.
“The media-CIA-Democrat version of ‘resistance’ is hoping that Trump will somehow self-destruct through some act or statement that is beyond the pale.”
The unraveling of this system is the overarching story of our times, a saga of great crime -- and real resistance. The oppressors’ media cannot tell this story, so they must smother reality with a daily narrative of lies: “counter-speech,” as Google, Twitter and Facebook have dubbed their new policy. They want to monopolize (and, of course, monetize) the human story -- no dissenting versions allowed. One immediate aim is to disappear Black Agenda Report and a short list of other left publications, and then move on to other white-outs.
(It is really quite amazing that senior and junior imperial heads of state -- Obama, Merkel, Macron, May -- and titans of industry -- Bezos, Zuckerberg, Pichai -- were so quick to affix their own imprimaturs to the crude hit piece put out by the red-baiters at PropOrNot , and showcased on the front page of the Washington Post, back in late November, 2016. The combined audiences of the dozen or so targeted lefty sites would have little impact on a national electoral contest. But again, empire demands a monopoly.)
The main objective is to make endless war palatable, as imperialism attempts to bomb, blockade, occupy and bluster its way out of a cascade of crises. Unable to compete with the Chinese command economy, its “soft” power exhausted, the U.S. empire plays the only strong card it has left: its massive military, now centered on a special operations force roughly as large as the entire French Army. War becomes both the means of imperial survival and justification for its continued existence: the how and the why of empire.
That’s why there is no such thing as a “resistance” that is not loudly and consistently anti-war.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com .
https://blackagendareport.com/how-donal ... dark-money
bolding added
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy
Remarks by President Trump on Tax Reform
Issued on: February 5, 2018
Sheffer Corporation
Blue Ash, Ohio
2:33 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, I love the state of Ohio. What great memories. (Applause.) And we’re starting to boom, you know that.
It’s great to be back in Ohio, and be here with the hardworking men and women of Sheffer Corporation. Congratulations. (Applause.)
We have a lot of great people with us today. We have our Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin. (Applause.)
A man that you know very well and has done an amazing job and a great job in helping us with the massive tax cuts that are helping everybody so much. And everyone has fallen in love with it. I’ll tell you, Rob Portman, he knows his stuff. Thank you, Rob. Thank you. (Applause.)
A terrific guy, a friend of mine from day one, and he’s been behind me from day one, Jim Renacci. Jim. Jim, thank you. Jim has been a great friend of mine. (Applause.)
Lieutenant Governor Mary Taylor, and Secretary of State Jon Husted. (Applause.)
And another great friend of ours, Brad Wenstrup, couldn’t be here. He’s — Army Reserve duty. That’s okay, right? That’s a good excuse. That’s the only excuse we’d accept. Great guy. (Applause.)
I want to thank you all, and I want to thank Jeff Norris and everyone here at Sheffer Corporation for hosting us at this really incredible facility. We just toured it. I love equipment. (Laughter.) And I love workers. You have them both. But it’s really something. Wonderful place.
I’m here in the beautiful Cincinnati. I’ll tell you, you know I was here — I worked here for a long time. People don’t know; most people don’t know. Swifton Village, long time ago. Really? Oh, you know Swifton.
Came here a long time ago. I had a great success with my father. I was a young success. And, you know, if I didn’t have a success, maybe I would have gone and just done something else. Who knows? But I spent a lot of time in this state and a lot of time in Cincinnati, and I love it.
And what I really want to do — and come here and give something very big back. And that’s tax cuts, I signed into law. Your paychecks are going way up. (Applause.) Your taxes are going way down. And right now, for the first time in a long time — and you’ve seen it — factories are coming back. Everything is coming back. They all want to be where the action is. America is once again open for business. Right? (Applause.)
We’ve already created nearly 2.6 million jobs since the election, including more than 200,000 new jobs in manufacturing. We love manufacturing. (Applause.) Those are real jobs, not the other kind where they talk but there’s nothing there.
We’re bringing back those four magnificent words: “Made in the USA.” (Applause.) We’ll count “USA” as one word. Is that okay? (Laughter.) I just said — have to think about that one. (Laughter.)
Unemployment claims have hit a 45-year low. Think of that. I mean, just think of that. (Applause.)
And something that I’ve been talking about for two years — campaigning, and everyone said, you’ll never do it. After years of wage stagnation, wages — you saw what happened two days ago and a month ago — wages are now, for the first time in many years, rising. (Applause.)
In fact, more companies are pursuing pay increases right now than at any time in the last long period of time — they actually say, in the 21st century. Can you imagine that? It’s amazing what people with some good ideas can do. It’s amazing what we’ve done together.
This has been an incredible journey, but it’s happening even faster. And wait until you see GDP over the next year or two. Wait until you see what happens to our country. Because people can feel it. Billions and billions of dollars are being poured back into the United States.
At the center of America’s resurgence are the massive tax cuts that we just passed before Christmas. Remember two things. Number one, I said, “We’re going to be saying ‘Christmas’ again.” And, number two, I said I was going to give you a Christmas present. (Laughter and applause.)
And I don’t know if you remember, I was going to sign it around January 5th. And then I heard one of the hating groups on television: “He promised a Christmas present.”
Now, here’s a thing that hasn’t been done in a long time, many years — really never done to this extent. You include ANWR, which is tremendous energy potential. And you include getting rid of our individual mandate — the worst thing there is in Obamacare, which really leads to the repeal of Obamacare.
When you look at those things — I mean, there hasn’t been anything. But I said, I want to give them a great Christmas present.
So January 5th — so I heard them say, “He didn’t make it with the Christmas present.” So I said, “You know what? Move that bill up a few days. We’ll move.” And it was rather inconvenient for a lot of people. I said, “We have to sign it.” So we signed it just before Christmas. Better, right? (Applause.) Better.
Otherwise I would have been hearing — Rob — “He did not fulfill his campaign obligation or promise”. Right? So now they can’t say it. Just one more thing we check off the list.
But it is the biggest tax cut and reform in American history. And at the heart of our plan is tremendous relief for working families and for small businesses.
A typical family of four, earning $75,000, will see an income tax cut of more than $2,000 a year — and you’re already seeing it — slashing their income tax bill in half. (Applause.)
We nearly doubled the standard deduction, meaning the first $24,000 dollars earned by a married couple will be 100 percent tax-free. Not bad. (Applause.)
And we have doubled the child tax credit. That was compliments very much of Ivanka Trump. She would press us. Right, Rob? (Applause.) She would press us. Pretty amazing. But we got it done. Not easy.
And we had, by the way, we had no Democrats. We had nobody. Not one. Including your other Senator, who voted against it. No, he voted against it.
I don’t care — Republican, Democrat — they voted against it. And if they ever got in, and if they ever took over, your taxes would go way up and you’d see some bad things happening. So, wouldn’t be good. That I can tell you. Would not be good.
When I signed the tax cuts six weeks ago, it set off a tidal wave of good news that continues to grow every single day. Before the ink was dry, companies were announcing thousands and thousands of new jobs and enormous investments to their workers.
Apple announced a $350 billion investment in America. And when I heard it, I said, “No, no. They mean $350 million.” Because I’ve been saying to the head of Apple — good guy, Tim Cook — from the beginning — as soon as I first met him, I said, “Tim, it’s not complete until you start building plants in our great states. Otherwise, when you build them where you’re building them, I’m not interested. You got to build them.”
And believe me, the reason it’s happening is because of what we did. But I heard the number. I heard “350,” and I figured it was $350 million. That’s a big plant. You know, $350 [million] is big. Even for your great company, it’s big. (Laughter.)
So I figured they’re going to build a big, beautiful plant someplace. Then they came to me. They said, “Sir, it’s not $350 million. It’s $350 billion.” Right? (Applause.) That’s a big number. I would have been happy with the $350 million, but you know, I like this number slightly better.
And they’re going to do incredible things. They’re going to build plants. They’re going to build a tremendous campus. They’re going to hire 20,000 people.
Mobil just announced a fantastic $50 billion investment, if you look at that. Exxon Mobil. Fantastic.
Fiat Chrysler announced 2,500 jobs are coming back to Detroit — to Motor City. Two thousand five hundred. And do you know where they’re coming from? (Applause). Mexico. (Applause.) No, think of it.
Nothing against Mexico. We are re-negotiating NAFTA, I can tell you that. We are renegotiating. (Applause.) I’ve been telling you that for a long time. I’ve been — either you renegotiate or you terminate. But we’re renegotiating. We’ll see what happens.
But Chrysler, leaving Mexico, coming back to Motor City with a massive plant. I mean, you haven’t heard that in — how many years would you say, Rob? Thirty? Twenty-five?
We’re reversing it. And many other companies are coming back and many other car companies are coming back. And a lot of them, which is of most interest to you, are coming back to Ohio. (Applause.) They’re coming back here. Right here.
And right here in Cincinnati, on this very beautiful factory floor, the Sheffer Corporation announced that every single worker was getting a $1,000 tax cut bonus. You are so generous. Thank you. (Applause.) Congratulations, everybody. That’s good. That’s good.
Hardworking, patriotic Americans like you are what make this country run, and run like no other. But we took away all of that pride and all of that incentive and we’re losing so many of our companies and we’re losing so many jobs.
And how long have I been talking about this? Ten, fifteen, twenty years, I’ve been talking. You know, some of you have heard me saying this as a private businessperson — “We’re losing all our jobs. We’re losing our companies.” They’re coming back.
It’s your grit, it’s your pride, and your determination to do the job right. It’s the foundation of American strength and the key to America’s future.
But you know, you can work hard, but if you don’t have the right leader setting the right tone — in all fairness, I’m not even saying — I am non-braggadocios. (Laughter) But if I don’t set a tone like, “You’re not going to keep taking our jobs.” You’re not going to keep doing what you’re doing.”
And wait until you see what’s happening over the next two or three months with what we’re doing to countries that have treated us so unfairly. In many cases, so-called “friendly countries.” I don’t call them “friendly.” I don’t call them “friendly.”
But it’s all changing and those companies are coming back and those jobs are coming back.
So you are among more than 3 million Americans who have received a tax cut bonus because of the tax cuts that we just signed into law.
Everywhere I go, I love to hear what people plan to do with the money. So, I thought we could take a few minutes to hear from some of your coworkers. You know who I’m talking about, right? I assume you like these people. (Laughter.) I assume it’s central casting. Right, boss?
Tyler Berkshire — do you know him — joined Sheffer Corporation through an apprenticeship — come on up here, Tyler — six years ago. And now he is a machinist, and a talented one. (Applause.) They like him, okay.
Nice to be loved. It’s nice to be loved. I figured they would only send popular ones up here, you know. (Laughter.) The unpopular ones — don’t’ worry, you don’t have to worry about. (Laughter.)
In addition to his $1,000 bonus, his paychecks are bigger because he’s paying less taxes. Tyler, you’re up here. I’m going to give you a chance — like, maybe 30 seconds or less — (laughter) — to explain what you’re going to do with all that extra money. In this case, over $1,000. (Applause.)
MR. BERKSHIRE: Thank you, Mr. President. And with the tax cut and the bonus, I will be trying to save up money to start a family and eventually get a bigger house. (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, I like that idea. That’s good. (Applause.)
MR. BERKSHIRE: And I appreciate all your hard work that you’ve been putting in, and all your — Rob Portman, and everybody else. So I just want to say thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate it, Tyler. That’s beautiful. (Applause.) Beautiful job. Thank you, Tyler. Beautiful job. Thank you, Tyler.
That’s a good guy there, Jim. I think he’ll probably be very supportive of you. (Laughter.) I think everybody is going to be supportive. We need people that are going to do a great job and keep us in the right direction. (Applause.) You know, we need them badly too. Or it all goes back to where it was and worse.
Oh, but did we catch them in the act, or what? You know what I’m talking — (laughter) — oh, did we catch them in the act? They are very embarrassed. They never thought they were going to get caught. We caught them. Hey, we caught them. It’s so much fun. We’re like the great sleuth. (Laughter.)
Deana Spoleti is also with us. Where’s Deana? She joined Sheffer — come on up, Deana — in 2012 as a customer service rep, and has climbed her way all the way up to become a manager. (Applause.)
Deana is looking at a tax cut of $1,500 and that is on top of her $1,000 that Sheffer is already giving her. So that’s $2,500-plus. What are you going to do with that money Deana? How are you?
MS. SPOLETI: I’m good, thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.
MS. SPOLETI: Thank you for being here.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you, Deana.
MS. SPOLETI: When they asked me what this would mean to my family, really what it means to my family is the same that it means to all hardworking American families right now who are reaping the benefits of your tax cuts. It means that we’ll have money in the bank, more money to make ends meet.
Personally, for my family, my husband Tim and I are in the process of buying a home. And in the fall, both of kids, Katie and Matthew, will be going to college. So we’ll be using that money. That will be like a bonus we receive — thank you, Sheffer — a one-time bonus, but it will be an ongoing bonus in our paycheck every week. And it will just help us make ends meet. So thank you very much.
THE PRESIDENT: Wow. Great job. Thank you. (Applause.) Beautiful.
Oh, I’m glad she’s not running against you, Jim. That’s very good. Thank you very much. She’s doing a great job?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Good.
Like Tyler and Deana, millions of workers are thrilled to have more money to save for their children’s college, or to fix their home, or put aside money for a rainy day.
But believe it or not, Nancy Pelosi and those in Congress who want to raise your taxes —
AUDIENCE: Booo —
THE PRESIDENT: They want to raise your taxes. They don’t want to give the money to the military, where we need it. You know, without the military, we might not be here, or we might not be here for long, believe me. (Applause.) Believe us all.
Nancy Pelosi — what she’s doing to this country. And she’s gone so far left, and Schumer has gone so far left. Oh, I look forward to running against them. (Laughter.)
We’ve got to do well in ’18, and I know we’re going to do great in ’20. But I think we’re going to do well in ’18. I think we’re going to do well in ’18. I think we’re going to do very well. (Applause.) They have gone left. They want to raise your taxes.
You know, I figure we’re safe. Historically, when you win the presidency — you know the story. Just, for whatever reason it is — and I think I figured it out. Nobody, really, has been able to explain it properly. I think I figured it — the party wins the presidency. And now the people are happy and you see tax cuts, in this case, or whatever that party is — but you see the big tax cuts, you see what we’re doing, jobs are coming back.
And the people that voted for us become complacent a little bit. They’re happy. And it’s only two years — between ’16 and ’20 — and so it’s two years. So it’s a short time.
So the people are happy. And they don’t get out, and they don’t vote like they should. Maybe they go to a movie in ’18. None of you are going to a movie, I hope. Right?
So what happens is, they sort of take it for granted. They sit back. And then they get clobbered because the other people are desperate. And they get out and they have more energy.
But I think, because of what we’ve done, because of the tremendous success we’ve had, I have a feeling that we’re going to do incredibly well in ’18.
And I have to say this: History is not on our side. But it’s not because of that word, “complacency.” You win the presidency and you take it easy, and then they come and surprise you in the midterms. They call them the “midterms.”
We’ve got to get out there and win or they’re going to take — and I say it — a Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer. They want to raise your taxes.
They don’t want to give the money to the military, which we have to. Because our military, because of Obama and even beyond Obama — it’s depleted. It’s in bad shape. And we’re going to build it stronger than it ever was before. We’ve already started. We’ve already started. (Applause.)
So that’s what happened. And that’s happens in midterms. But we’re not going to let it happen to us. I mean, it’s — traditionally, that’s what goes on.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: They never met Donald Trump.
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, I love that person. Whoever — where is he? (Laughter.) I love him. I knew I liked that man. I saw him standing — thank you. (Applause.)
But we’re going to be in there fighting because we don’t want that tradition to go. We want to have tremendous success. We want to get Jim in, and we want to get a lot of other people in. But we have to have to have tremendous — we have to have tremendous success.
And if we don’t, we’re just foolish. We can’t — I know we’re going to do great in ’20 because, by that time — see, what happens is, if you did badly ’18, now you’re all angry again and you’re going — and now, ’20 comes along. But we want to do great in ’18. And we’re going to do really well in ’20. That’s when we go again, and we keep this great journey going, okay? (Applause.)
So start thinking about ’18, start thinking about November, start finding out exactly that little slot. You’re not going to a restaurant — although you could. You could go and vote, and go to a restaurant. But that’s what happens, and we’re not going to let that happen to us.
In addition to the bonuses created by our tax cuts, economists estimate that our business tax cut will raise the income of a typical family by an average of $4,000. (Applause.)
So Nancy Pelosi, again, said that’s “crumbs.” Well, she’s a rich woman who lives in a big, beautiful house in California who wants to give all of your money away. And she talked about crumbs.
And I really think her statement about crumbs — because you’re getting thousands and thousands of dollars, and you’re getting it every year. So I think her statement “crumbs” will be equivalent — and I said this the other day for the first time. When I first heard the word “deplorable” — (laughter) — I thought it was a bad thing, but I had no idea it was not going to be good for our opponent.
It was not good because about two days after she said it, I go to a rally. And everyone is wearing shirts, “I am a deplorable.” “We’re all deplorables.” (Applause.) I said, what’s going on with the word “deplorable,” Rob. You know, we had that, right? It just went pretty wild. It was not a good day for her.
And I think this is not a good day for Nancy Pelosi. She’s our secret weapon. (Laughter.) No, she’s our secret — I just hope they don’t change her. There are a lot of people that want to run her out. She’s really out there. And I’m supposed to make a deal with her?
But you know, the other day — did anybody happen to see the State of the Union Address? Right? Okay. (Applause.) So I got good marks.
But I said, we have the lowest black unemployment in the history of our country. It was like — it was a game. You know, they play games. They were told, “Don’t even make a facial movement.” And I’m talking about, you have the lowest Hispanic unemployment in the history of our country. This isn’t me saying — this is the charts, the polls. We have the lowest in the history of our country. Dead silence. Not a smile.
In fact, there was one guy — when I said, the lowest African American unemployment, he was sort of clapping like — who was that guy? He was a nice guy. I think he was a reverend. And he was clapping. And I wouldn’t say it was exactly a rousing — but he was putting his hands together. And I want to find out who he is. I’m going to send him a letter of thank you. And he was probably severely reprimanded. Don’t you think, Rob? I think so — because he was the only one.
So that means they would rather see Trump do badly, okay, than our country do well. That’s what it means. It’s very selfish. And it got to a point where I really didn’t even want to look too much during the speech over to that side. Because, honestly, it was bad energy. That was bad energy.
You’re up there, you’ve got half the room going totally crazy, wild — they loved everything, they want to do something great for our country. And you have the other side, even on positive news — really positive news, like that — they were like death and un-American. Un-American.
Somebody said, “treasonous.” I mean, yeah, I guess, why not? (Laughter.) Can we call that treason? Why not? (Applause.) I mean, they certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much.
But you look at that, and it’s really very, very sad. So we have to keep it going because this country is turning, and it’s turning much faster. And I said I’m going to do it, but it’s happening faster than I thought.
And a big part of it is the fact that the companies kicked in because nobody saw that. AT&T came in, another one came in, another one — Comcast.
So many companies kicked in — hundreds. Now it’s going to end up being thousands of companies. This company, too. It’s a little smaller than AT&T, but we’ll take it. (Laughter.) For the people in this room, it’s much more important than AT&T. Right? (Applause.)
But great companies like this — many companies. And that’s — honestly, we said, come February 1st, nobody is going to beat it because you’re going to get your checks and you’re going to see you have more money. Because they’re taking a lot less taxes out of your check. And I just don’t think that anybody can beat it.
And Senator Brown voted against us, and fought us like crazy. Okay? Just remember that. He voted against you. Just — when you go in there, he voted against you. Not good. Not good.
So we’ve gone from being one of the highest-taxed countries anywhere in the world to being one of the most competitive because when our workers have a level playing field, which they didn’t have, they can compete and win against anyone in the world.
And that goes for our companies. But we were forcing our companies out. Now we’re bringing our companies back in. And if they don’t want to come in, that’s okay. But they’re not going to be so happy, believe me. And I told you that a long time ago. It’s not like the old days.
And when our workers win, who really wins? Our country wins because we’re all in this together. We’re one team, one people, and one family. And we’re saluting one great American flag, and everybody stood up yesterday. There was nobody kneeling at the beginning of the Super Bowl. (Applause.) We’ve made a lot of improvement, haven’t we? That’s a big improvement. (Applause.)
And on top of that, it was a good game. So a lot of good things happened. But there was no kneeling before that Super Bowl.
Today, we’re thrilled to be joined by several business leaders who understand just how true all of the things that we’re saying are. We’re also thrilled to have a lot of the fake news media in the back. Those cameras are rolling. Hi, folks. (Laughter.) That’s what good about doing it live. They can’t cut you. (Applause.) You know, when you do a tape, you end up saying, “Well, wait a minute. What happened to the four sentences that they cut out? Where are those four sentences?”
That’s true. A lot of fake news, but that’s okay. Hey, they’re doing their thing. Whatever — I don’t know what they’re thinking, but they’re doing their thing.
I want to start with a man I watched today on Fox, and he was terrific — Jeff Norris. Jeff, come on up. (Applause.) We know Jeff. So we know every employee has already received a $1,000 bonus, and they’ve gotten a lot of tax — really lower tax — so they’re doing a lot better. But Jeff, why don’t you tell us a little bit more about your plans for the future of the company, and also what you have in mind for the money, which is going to be a lot, that you save on taxes.
MR. NORRIS: Thank you. Well, first of all, welcome everybody here. And it’s such a blessing to have you here, President Trump. In all my years, you pray for a President like this that will take care of the working class and businesses, and we finally have one here. And I’ll talk about my stuff in a little bit — (laughter) — but we need to make sure that we support President Trump, especially in 2018. (Applause.)
And we need to vote out people that are an obstacle to him. In manufacturing, our job is to remove obstacles. This man can remove obstacles, and we need to clear the path for him. (Applause.)
What we plan on doing with the tax savings: invest it in our people, our processes, and our equipment, and continue to try to make America great again. And like you said before, we’ve got the greatest workforce in the world, we just need a level playing field just a little closer. It doesn’t have to be there; just a little closer because our people can do it. And I’m just proud to have you as our President. And I wish you the best, and God bless you.
Thank you, Mr. Trump.
THE PRESIDENT: You’ve been doing such a good job. I want to thank you for doing such a great job, too. Thank you.
AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA!
THE PRESIDENT: That’s what it’s all about. That’s true.
Greg Carmichael is the CEO of Fifth Third Bancorp — big bank — which is headquartered right here in Cincinnati. Greg, please step up. Tell us what you’re doing, with respect to all of those incredible workers. You have 14,000 of your employees, and you’re doing something very special for them, so I’d like to hear it. Thank you, Greg. (Applause.)
MR. CARMICHAEL: Mr. President, thank you. Thank you for everything you’ve done for our nation. And we thank you for your efforts and your leadership in bringing tax reform to America.
At Fifth Third Bank, we’re already feeling the effects of the tax benefit, and we’re working to pass those benefits onto our employees.
Immediately upon the announcement of the passing of the legislation, Fifth Third Bank announced an investment in our employees that included raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, and providing a $1,000 bonus for over 13,500 of our valuable employees. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: That’s good. That’s fantastic.
MR. CARMICHAEL: We’re investing in our employees because of the contribution they make to our bank, to their families, and the communities in which they serve.
Mr. President, thank you for bringing meaningful tax reform in jumpstarting the U.S. economy. Thank you. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Fantastic. Thank you. It’s a great bank, too. Thank you very much.
That’s a lot of employees — 14,000. Big bank, great bank.
Matt Schron is general manager at Jergens Incorporated, a manufacturing company founded by his family 75 years ago in Cleveland. You must be very rich. (Laughter.) Matt, why don’t you come on up and tell us about these massive cuts and how they’re benefitting your people, your employees, your workers. Thanks, Matt. (Applause.)
MR. SCHRON: Mr. Trump, thank you very much for your leadership on this tax reform. I’m honored to be here today representing Jergens and the manufacturing community. Jergens was founded in 1914 during World War II, manufacturing airplane seat components. Today, we’re a worldwide leader in workholding, fixturing, and specialty fasteners.
Last year was a record year for Jergens. And thanks to your tax cuts, we see continued success in the future. Jergens is going to be using your tax breaks to invest in our greatest asset: our employees.
In April, during our annual performance reviews, we’re going to be doubling the annual rate increases that we will be providing our employees. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Wow.
MR. SCHRON: In addition, we’re going to be using your tax break to invest in capital for our machine shop, and also research and development for our company, which will help us to hire more people in the future.
So, Mr. Trump, your tax break has three benefits: one, more money for our employees; two, we’re going to have more equipment for our facility; and three, we’re going to be able to hire more people.
Mr. Trump, thank you very much for your leadership in the tax reform.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Matt. Thank you very much. (Applause.) Great job. Great company. Great company. Thank you very much. Great job you’ve done.
Finally, Chris Irion is the CEO of e-Cycle, an environmental services company in Columbus that recycles and resells smartphones. Let’s see, you recycle smartphones. Think about that one. (Laughter.) What about when they smash those phones with a hammer? (Laughter.) Can you bring them back to life? Oh, what you would find. Oh, can you imagine that, Rob, what we would find? Do most people, when they toss a phone, do they smash them with a hammer? No? Not too many.
Well, if you could recycle them, I’m with you all the way, Chris. (Laughter.) I just saw that, I said, “Boy, this is exciting.” Could be the most exciting part of this visit. (Laughter.)
Come on up, Chris. I understand that you have a big announcement to make. Let’s give us the news. Thank you.
MR. IRION: Thank you, Mr. President. I’m pleased to announce that e-Cycle paid out our largest bonus in company history this past Friday. One-hundred percent of all of our hourly and salaried employees participated in this bonus program of over $350,000. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Great.
MR. IRION: In addition, due to the greatest tax reform package just passed in U.S. history, we’re celebrating with an additional $1,000 tax reform bonus for all of our 55 employees. (Applause.)
For all the e-Cycle team members watching right now, thank you for everything that you do.
Thank you again, Mr. President, for believing in the American worker and the American Dream. You just made America great again.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you, Chris.
And thank you all for investing in our great American workers and our great American companies. Every job you create makes our country stronger and the future of our country brighter.
Jobs are about more than paychecks. Good jobs are the cornerstone of a safe and a strong and a proud America. There is nothing more important than the sense of pride and accomplishment that comes at the end of a hard day’s work. And all of us — me, you, all of us in this room — we know that feeling. Just about every day, we know that feeling.
That’s why we want every American to know the dignity of work, the pride of a paycheck, and the satisfaction of the statement, “Job well done.” (Applause.)
Creating good jobs is also an important part of fighting the drug epidemic that has affected millions of Americans, bringing new hope to struggling communities. And it’s gotten to a point where it’s never been worse.
People form blue ribbon committees, they do everything they can. And, frankly, I have a different take on it. My take is, you have to get really, really tough — really mean — with the drug pushers and the drug dealers. We can do all the blue ribbon committees we want. (Applause.) We have to get a lot tougher than we are. And we have to stop drugs from pouring across our border.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: You got to build that wall.
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, we’re building the wall. Believe me. We’re building the wall. Don’t even think about it. (Applause.)
Somebody said, the other day, “Well, he really didn’t want to build the wall. He was just using that –” We’re building the wall, or a lot of other things aren’t going to happen. (Applause.)
And the ones that don’t want security at the southern border or any other border, are the Democrats. They don’t care about the security of our country. They don’t care about MS-13 killers pouring into our country. And we bring them out almost as fast as they come in. But nobody was bringing them out before us. And these are killers.
But our guys are tougher than them, and that’s what we need. Sorry. (Applause.)
And our Democrats ought to get smart, and they ought to get tough, or the situation is going to get very bad. But we’re going to win.
As we speak, our wonderful First Lady is visiting Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, hearing directly from doctors about their incredible work treating beautiful, precious, little babies who are born addicted to opioids, and how government can help them save lives.
And, actually, Mrs. Portman is with Melania right now. They’re together. Your wife, I hear, does an incredible job with the hospital. So thank you, Rob, very much. Appreciate it. (Applause.)
America will not overcome this epidemic overnight. But just like Americans always will — I do think we have to change our ways, and we will — but we will prevail. We’re going to beat it. We’re going to get tough, we’re going to get angry, and we’re going to win.
Our children are being decimated. You know, one drug dealer can kill thousands of people. One drug dealer. If you ever did an average — nobody has ever seen this, you’ve probably never heard this before — but if you ever did an average, a drug dealer will kill thousands of people. And we don’t even come down on these people. So it’s time to start, and that time is now. Right now. (Applause.)
We want every American to live a life of meaning, of purpose, and of joy. And we want every American to have a job they love so they can wake up each morning excited to go to work, like all of you people are. Right? You’re excited. You love it — thinking about where I’m going to put that next big, beautiful machine. One-year expensing. (Laughter.) You buy the machine now, one-year expensing.
That will be one of the biggest things — nobody even talks about it — in our tax cut plan. Right? The one-year expensing. Nobody thought they’d ever see that in this country, and I think that’s going to have a great incentive. I think that’s going to have a tremendous incentive. (Applause.)
They don’t talk about that one, and — you know, people don’t talk about that. Most people don’t know what it means, but some of the people in this room do. It’s the one-year expensing. You watch. That’s going to have a big impact.
That’s why our tax bill also creates new opportunity zones rewarding those who invest in distressed communities and create more jobs for those who have, too often, simply been left behind.
Workers will not only make more money because of our tax cuts. Starting this month, you will keep that money in your pocket, in your bank, or you may want to buy something. But you’re going to keep the money that you earned. You’re going to spend it. The government won’t be spending it for you. Something really nice about that. (Applause.)
Families in the great state of Ohio — remember, for two years, you heard, “Donald Trump has to go through Ohio.” I said, I love Ohio. I worked here. I was here. I lived here. I mean, it was great.
But they said, “Donald Trump has to go through Ohio.” And did we ever go through Ohio. Right? (Applause.) We went through Ohio.
And now it’s much better than even Election Day. I saw that — they just showed that to me inside. Much better than even Election Day. And we did well on Election Day. That was about one minute after the polls closed. “Donald Trump has won the state of Ohio.” That wasn’t too close, right? (Applause.)
We’re going better now because — you know what? Now, we’re producing. Before it was talk. See, before it was talk. It was like the State of the Union. Now, they thought I gave a State of the Union last year that was really good. They didn’t call it the State of the Union because you weren’t there for a year. But it was nevertheless, sort of, the same thing. They thought it was very good.
But they said, this was one better because last time was aspirational. I said, “We’re going to get this, we’re going to get that.” And we’ve actually produced much more than I said I was going to produce. When’s the last time you heard that?
With judges; with the Supreme Court Justice, Gorsuch, who is great; with so many different things. (Applause.) And then, of course, topped off by the tremendous tax cuts and the individual mandate, and all of the different things we’ve done — ANWR. So many different things.
And, by the way, the big thing that nobody talks about that you would be talking about: regulation. We’ve cut regulation. I actually think — I’m here to talk about tax cuts — but I actually think that cutting regulation has more of an impact, or as much. We have cut more regulation in one year than any President has cut in four, eight, or, in one case, sixteen years. More. (Applause.)
And we have a ways to go. We haven’t finished. We’re probably 47, 48 percent of the way there. We have a ways to go. Some of it’s statutory. You can only go so fast. You have to do this, and then wait 90 days. Do this, and wait 120 days. But all those clocks are ticking.
Families in Ohio will see a tax cut of more $8 billion this year — $8 billion. That’s good. That’s good. (Applause.)
And even more good news. Major electric and gas companies are lowering your utility prices and your utility bills because of tax reform, which is a big win not only for families, but a really big win, when you think of it, for the manufacturers. For places like this.
The energy costs are going down. Like, other countries — they’re going up. You know why ours are going down, right? Because I believe in a lot of good, clean, but old-fashioned stuff that really works and really has power behind it. (Applause.)
There’s never been a better time to hire in America, to invest in America, and to start living the American Dream. There’s never been a better time than this. Because the future of America doesn’t belong to the privileged few, it belongs to all of the people — all of those people that I saw for two years now.
It belongs to those people. The forgotten man and women. They worked hard. They paid taxes. They worked hard. They paid taxes. That’s what they did. They worked; they worked; they worked. They paid; they paid; they paid. And then they were forgotten by the politicians. You’re not forgotten anymore. You’re not forgotten anymore. And that’s what happened on November 8th, they weren’t forgotten. (Applause.)
Now the Democrats are trying to figure, “Let’s see. You know we forgot about those people for about 100 years. How do you get them back into the fold?” It’s not going to be so easy for them because you’re going to remember. It belongs to the hardworking men and women who play by the rules, follow our laws, and give their best, and who never, ever, give up.
The fact is, the future belongs to you. You are the ones who raise America’s great and beautiful families, support America’s communities, and uphold our values, our principles, and the American way of life.
Workers like you carve the steel into our skyscrapers — and I just got to see a lot of it — by great machinists, by great mechanics, by great people. You build the machines that power our cities and teach the next generation of children what it means to be a proud American.
You are the ones who are shaping our destiny. You are the ones who are restoring our prosperity. And you are the ones who are making America great again. (Applause.)
We love you, Ohio. God bless you. I will see you soon. We’ll be back.
Jim, get in there and fight. Get in there and fight. We need you. We need you.
Rob, thank you very much. Thank everybody. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you very much. (Applause.)
END
3:20 P.M. EST
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-st ... -reform-3/
Booj Democracy is a clown car, on fire, going over a cliff.
Issued on: February 5, 2018
Sheffer Corporation
Blue Ash, Ohio
2:33 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, I love the state of Ohio. What great memories. (Applause.) And we’re starting to boom, you know that.
It’s great to be back in Ohio, and be here with the hardworking men and women of Sheffer Corporation. Congratulations. (Applause.)
We have a lot of great people with us today. We have our Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin. (Applause.)
A man that you know very well and has done an amazing job and a great job in helping us with the massive tax cuts that are helping everybody so much. And everyone has fallen in love with it. I’ll tell you, Rob Portman, he knows his stuff. Thank you, Rob. Thank you. (Applause.)
A terrific guy, a friend of mine from day one, and he’s been behind me from day one, Jim Renacci. Jim. Jim, thank you. Jim has been a great friend of mine. (Applause.)
Lieutenant Governor Mary Taylor, and Secretary of State Jon Husted. (Applause.)
And another great friend of ours, Brad Wenstrup, couldn’t be here. He’s — Army Reserve duty. That’s okay, right? That’s a good excuse. That’s the only excuse we’d accept. Great guy. (Applause.)
I want to thank you all, and I want to thank Jeff Norris and everyone here at Sheffer Corporation for hosting us at this really incredible facility. We just toured it. I love equipment. (Laughter.) And I love workers. You have them both. But it’s really something. Wonderful place.
I’m here in the beautiful Cincinnati. I’ll tell you, you know I was here — I worked here for a long time. People don’t know; most people don’t know. Swifton Village, long time ago. Really? Oh, you know Swifton.
Came here a long time ago. I had a great success with my father. I was a young success. And, you know, if I didn’t have a success, maybe I would have gone and just done something else. Who knows? But I spent a lot of time in this state and a lot of time in Cincinnati, and I love it.
And what I really want to do — and come here and give something very big back. And that’s tax cuts, I signed into law. Your paychecks are going way up. (Applause.) Your taxes are going way down. And right now, for the first time in a long time — and you’ve seen it — factories are coming back. Everything is coming back. They all want to be where the action is. America is once again open for business. Right? (Applause.)
We’ve already created nearly 2.6 million jobs since the election, including more than 200,000 new jobs in manufacturing. We love manufacturing. (Applause.) Those are real jobs, not the other kind where they talk but there’s nothing there.
We’re bringing back those four magnificent words: “Made in the USA.” (Applause.) We’ll count “USA” as one word. Is that okay? (Laughter.) I just said — have to think about that one. (Laughter.)
Unemployment claims have hit a 45-year low. Think of that. I mean, just think of that. (Applause.)
And something that I’ve been talking about for two years — campaigning, and everyone said, you’ll never do it. After years of wage stagnation, wages — you saw what happened two days ago and a month ago — wages are now, for the first time in many years, rising. (Applause.)
In fact, more companies are pursuing pay increases right now than at any time in the last long period of time — they actually say, in the 21st century. Can you imagine that? It’s amazing what people with some good ideas can do. It’s amazing what we’ve done together.
This has been an incredible journey, but it’s happening even faster. And wait until you see GDP over the next year or two. Wait until you see what happens to our country. Because people can feel it. Billions and billions of dollars are being poured back into the United States.
At the center of America’s resurgence are the massive tax cuts that we just passed before Christmas. Remember two things. Number one, I said, “We’re going to be saying ‘Christmas’ again.” And, number two, I said I was going to give you a Christmas present. (Laughter and applause.)
And I don’t know if you remember, I was going to sign it around January 5th. And then I heard one of the hating groups on television: “He promised a Christmas present.”
Now, here’s a thing that hasn’t been done in a long time, many years — really never done to this extent. You include ANWR, which is tremendous energy potential. And you include getting rid of our individual mandate — the worst thing there is in Obamacare, which really leads to the repeal of Obamacare.
When you look at those things — I mean, there hasn’t been anything. But I said, I want to give them a great Christmas present.
So January 5th — so I heard them say, “He didn’t make it with the Christmas present.” So I said, “You know what? Move that bill up a few days. We’ll move.” And it was rather inconvenient for a lot of people. I said, “We have to sign it.” So we signed it just before Christmas. Better, right? (Applause.) Better.
Otherwise I would have been hearing — Rob — “He did not fulfill his campaign obligation or promise”. Right? So now they can’t say it. Just one more thing we check off the list.
But it is the biggest tax cut and reform in American history. And at the heart of our plan is tremendous relief for working families and for small businesses.
A typical family of four, earning $75,000, will see an income tax cut of more than $2,000 a year — and you’re already seeing it — slashing their income tax bill in half. (Applause.)
We nearly doubled the standard deduction, meaning the first $24,000 dollars earned by a married couple will be 100 percent tax-free. Not bad. (Applause.)
And we have doubled the child tax credit. That was compliments very much of Ivanka Trump. She would press us. Right, Rob? (Applause.) She would press us. Pretty amazing. But we got it done. Not easy.
And we had, by the way, we had no Democrats. We had nobody. Not one. Including your other Senator, who voted against it. No, he voted against it.
I don’t care — Republican, Democrat — they voted against it. And if they ever got in, and if they ever took over, your taxes would go way up and you’d see some bad things happening. So, wouldn’t be good. That I can tell you. Would not be good.
When I signed the tax cuts six weeks ago, it set off a tidal wave of good news that continues to grow every single day. Before the ink was dry, companies were announcing thousands and thousands of new jobs and enormous investments to their workers.
Apple announced a $350 billion investment in America. And when I heard it, I said, “No, no. They mean $350 million.” Because I’ve been saying to the head of Apple — good guy, Tim Cook — from the beginning — as soon as I first met him, I said, “Tim, it’s not complete until you start building plants in our great states. Otherwise, when you build them where you’re building them, I’m not interested. You got to build them.”
And believe me, the reason it’s happening is because of what we did. But I heard the number. I heard “350,” and I figured it was $350 million. That’s a big plant. You know, $350 [million] is big. Even for your great company, it’s big. (Laughter.)
So I figured they’re going to build a big, beautiful plant someplace. Then they came to me. They said, “Sir, it’s not $350 million. It’s $350 billion.” Right? (Applause.) That’s a big number. I would have been happy with the $350 million, but you know, I like this number slightly better.
And they’re going to do incredible things. They’re going to build plants. They’re going to build a tremendous campus. They’re going to hire 20,000 people.
Mobil just announced a fantastic $50 billion investment, if you look at that. Exxon Mobil. Fantastic.
Fiat Chrysler announced 2,500 jobs are coming back to Detroit — to Motor City. Two thousand five hundred. And do you know where they’re coming from? (Applause). Mexico. (Applause.) No, think of it.
Nothing against Mexico. We are re-negotiating NAFTA, I can tell you that. We are renegotiating. (Applause.) I’ve been telling you that for a long time. I’ve been — either you renegotiate or you terminate. But we’re renegotiating. We’ll see what happens.
But Chrysler, leaving Mexico, coming back to Motor City with a massive plant. I mean, you haven’t heard that in — how many years would you say, Rob? Thirty? Twenty-five?
We’re reversing it. And many other companies are coming back and many other car companies are coming back. And a lot of them, which is of most interest to you, are coming back to Ohio. (Applause.) They’re coming back here. Right here.
And right here in Cincinnati, on this very beautiful factory floor, the Sheffer Corporation announced that every single worker was getting a $1,000 tax cut bonus. You are so generous. Thank you. (Applause.) Congratulations, everybody. That’s good. That’s good.
Hardworking, patriotic Americans like you are what make this country run, and run like no other. But we took away all of that pride and all of that incentive and we’re losing so many of our companies and we’re losing so many jobs.
And how long have I been talking about this? Ten, fifteen, twenty years, I’ve been talking. You know, some of you have heard me saying this as a private businessperson — “We’re losing all our jobs. We’re losing our companies.” They’re coming back.
It’s your grit, it’s your pride, and your determination to do the job right. It’s the foundation of American strength and the key to America’s future.
But you know, you can work hard, but if you don’t have the right leader setting the right tone — in all fairness, I’m not even saying — I am non-braggadocios. (Laughter) But if I don’t set a tone like, “You’re not going to keep taking our jobs.” You’re not going to keep doing what you’re doing.”
And wait until you see what’s happening over the next two or three months with what we’re doing to countries that have treated us so unfairly. In many cases, so-called “friendly countries.” I don’t call them “friendly.” I don’t call them “friendly.”
But it’s all changing and those companies are coming back and those jobs are coming back.
So you are among more than 3 million Americans who have received a tax cut bonus because of the tax cuts that we just signed into law.
Everywhere I go, I love to hear what people plan to do with the money. So, I thought we could take a few minutes to hear from some of your coworkers. You know who I’m talking about, right? I assume you like these people. (Laughter.) I assume it’s central casting. Right, boss?
Tyler Berkshire — do you know him — joined Sheffer Corporation through an apprenticeship — come on up here, Tyler — six years ago. And now he is a machinist, and a talented one. (Applause.) They like him, okay.
Nice to be loved. It’s nice to be loved. I figured they would only send popular ones up here, you know. (Laughter.) The unpopular ones — don’t’ worry, you don’t have to worry about. (Laughter.)
In addition to his $1,000 bonus, his paychecks are bigger because he’s paying less taxes. Tyler, you’re up here. I’m going to give you a chance — like, maybe 30 seconds or less — (laughter) — to explain what you’re going to do with all that extra money. In this case, over $1,000. (Applause.)
MR. BERKSHIRE: Thank you, Mr. President. And with the tax cut and the bonus, I will be trying to save up money to start a family and eventually get a bigger house. (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, I like that idea. That’s good. (Applause.)
MR. BERKSHIRE: And I appreciate all your hard work that you’ve been putting in, and all your — Rob Portman, and everybody else. So I just want to say thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate it, Tyler. That’s beautiful. (Applause.) Beautiful job. Thank you, Tyler. Beautiful job. Thank you, Tyler.
That’s a good guy there, Jim. I think he’ll probably be very supportive of you. (Laughter.) I think everybody is going to be supportive. We need people that are going to do a great job and keep us in the right direction. (Applause.) You know, we need them badly too. Or it all goes back to where it was and worse.
Oh, but did we catch them in the act, or what? You know what I’m talking — (laughter) — oh, did we catch them in the act? They are very embarrassed. They never thought they were going to get caught. We caught them. Hey, we caught them. It’s so much fun. We’re like the great sleuth. (Laughter.)
Deana Spoleti is also with us. Where’s Deana? She joined Sheffer — come on up, Deana — in 2012 as a customer service rep, and has climbed her way all the way up to become a manager. (Applause.)
Deana is looking at a tax cut of $1,500 and that is on top of her $1,000 that Sheffer is already giving her. So that’s $2,500-plus. What are you going to do with that money Deana? How are you?
MS. SPOLETI: I’m good, thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.
MS. SPOLETI: Thank you for being here.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you, Deana.
MS. SPOLETI: When they asked me what this would mean to my family, really what it means to my family is the same that it means to all hardworking American families right now who are reaping the benefits of your tax cuts. It means that we’ll have money in the bank, more money to make ends meet.
Personally, for my family, my husband Tim and I are in the process of buying a home. And in the fall, both of kids, Katie and Matthew, will be going to college. So we’ll be using that money. That will be like a bonus we receive — thank you, Sheffer — a one-time bonus, but it will be an ongoing bonus in our paycheck every week. And it will just help us make ends meet. So thank you very much.
THE PRESIDENT: Wow. Great job. Thank you. (Applause.) Beautiful.
Oh, I’m glad she’s not running against you, Jim. That’s very good. Thank you very much. She’s doing a great job?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Good.
Like Tyler and Deana, millions of workers are thrilled to have more money to save for their children’s college, or to fix their home, or put aside money for a rainy day.
But believe it or not, Nancy Pelosi and those in Congress who want to raise your taxes —
AUDIENCE: Booo —
THE PRESIDENT: They want to raise your taxes. They don’t want to give the money to the military, where we need it. You know, without the military, we might not be here, or we might not be here for long, believe me. (Applause.) Believe us all.
Nancy Pelosi — what she’s doing to this country. And she’s gone so far left, and Schumer has gone so far left. Oh, I look forward to running against them. (Laughter.)
We’ve got to do well in ’18, and I know we’re going to do great in ’20. But I think we’re going to do well in ’18. I think we’re going to do well in ’18. I think we’re going to do very well. (Applause.) They have gone left. They want to raise your taxes.
You know, I figure we’re safe. Historically, when you win the presidency — you know the story. Just, for whatever reason it is — and I think I figured it out. Nobody, really, has been able to explain it properly. I think I figured it — the party wins the presidency. And now the people are happy and you see tax cuts, in this case, or whatever that party is — but you see the big tax cuts, you see what we’re doing, jobs are coming back.
And the people that voted for us become complacent a little bit. They’re happy. And it’s only two years — between ’16 and ’20 — and so it’s two years. So it’s a short time.
So the people are happy. And they don’t get out, and they don’t vote like they should. Maybe they go to a movie in ’18. None of you are going to a movie, I hope. Right?
So what happens is, they sort of take it for granted. They sit back. And then they get clobbered because the other people are desperate. And they get out and they have more energy.
But I think, because of what we’ve done, because of the tremendous success we’ve had, I have a feeling that we’re going to do incredibly well in ’18.
And I have to say this: History is not on our side. But it’s not because of that word, “complacency.” You win the presidency and you take it easy, and then they come and surprise you in the midterms. They call them the “midterms.”
We’ve got to get out there and win or they’re going to take — and I say it — a Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer. They want to raise your taxes.
They don’t want to give the money to the military, which we have to. Because our military, because of Obama and even beyond Obama — it’s depleted. It’s in bad shape. And we’re going to build it stronger than it ever was before. We’ve already started. We’ve already started. (Applause.)
So that’s what happened. And that’s happens in midterms. But we’re not going to let it happen to us. I mean, it’s — traditionally, that’s what goes on.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: They never met Donald Trump.
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, I love that person. Whoever — where is he? (Laughter.) I love him. I knew I liked that man. I saw him standing — thank you. (Applause.)
But we’re going to be in there fighting because we don’t want that tradition to go. We want to have tremendous success. We want to get Jim in, and we want to get a lot of other people in. But we have to have to have tremendous — we have to have tremendous success.
And if we don’t, we’re just foolish. We can’t — I know we’re going to do great in ’20 because, by that time — see, what happens is, if you did badly ’18, now you’re all angry again and you’re going — and now, ’20 comes along. But we want to do great in ’18. And we’re going to do really well in ’20. That’s when we go again, and we keep this great journey going, okay? (Applause.)
So start thinking about ’18, start thinking about November, start finding out exactly that little slot. You’re not going to a restaurant — although you could. You could go and vote, and go to a restaurant. But that’s what happens, and we’re not going to let that happen to us.
In addition to the bonuses created by our tax cuts, economists estimate that our business tax cut will raise the income of a typical family by an average of $4,000. (Applause.)
So Nancy Pelosi, again, said that’s “crumbs.” Well, she’s a rich woman who lives in a big, beautiful house in California who wants to give all of your money away. And she talked about crumbs.
And I really think her statement about crumbs — because you’re getting thousands and thousands of dollars, and you’re getting it every year. So I think her statement “crumbs” will be equivalent — and I said this the other day for the first time. When I first heard the word “deplorable” — (laughter) — I thought it was a bad thing, but I had no idea it was not going to be good for our opponent.
It was not good because about two days after she said it, I go to a rally. And everyone is wearing shirts, “I am a deplorable.” “We’re all deplorables.” (Applause.) I said, what’s going on with the word “deplorable,” Rob. You know, we had that, right? It just went pretty wild. It was not a good day for her.
And I think this is not a good day for Nancy Pelosi. She’s our secret weapon. (Laughter.) No, she’s our secret — I just hope they don’t change her. There are a lot of people that want to run her out. She’s really out there. And I’m supposed to make a deal with her?
But you know, the other day — did anybody happen to see the State of the Union Address? Right? Okay. (Applause.) So I got good marks.
But I said, we have the lowest black unemployment in the history of our country. It was like — it was a game. You know, they play games. They were told, “Don’t even make a facial movement.” And I’m talking about, you have the lowest Hispanic unemployment in the history of our country. This isn’t me saying — this is the charts, the polls. We have the lowest in the history of our country. Dead silence. Not a smile.
In fact, there was one guy — when I said, the lowest African American unemployment, he was sort of clapping like — who was that guy? He was a nice guy. I think he was a reverend. And he was clapping. And I wouldn’t say it was exactly a rousing — but he was putting his hands together. And I want to find out who he is. I’m going to send him a letter of thank you. And he was probably severely reprimanded. Don’t you think, Rob? I think so — because he was the only one.
So that means they would rather see Trump do badly, okay, than our country do well. That’s what it means. It’s very selfish. And it got to a point where I really didn’t even want to look too much during the speech over to that side. Because, honestly, it was bad energy. That was bad energy.
You’re up there, you’ve got half the room going totally crazy, wild — they loved everything, they want to do something great for our country. And you have the other side, even on positive news — really positive news, like that — they were like death and un-American. Un-American.
Somebody said, “treasonous.” I mean, yeah, I guess, why not? (Laughter.) Can we call that treason? Why not? (Applause.) I mean, they certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much.
But you look at that, and it’s really very, very sad. So we have to keep it going because this country is turning, and it’s turning much faster. And I said I’m going to do it, but it’s happening faster than I thought.
And a big part of it is the fact that the companies kicked in because nobody saw that. AT&T came in, another one came in, another one — Comcast.
So many companies kicked in — hundreds. Now it’s going to end up being thousands of companies. This company, too. It’s a little smaller than AT&T, but we’ll take it. (Laughter.) For the people in this room, it’s much more important than AT&T. Right? (Applause.)
But great companies like this — many companies. And that’s — honestly, we said, come February 1st, nobody is going to beat it because you’re going to get your checks and you’re going to see you have more money. Because they’re taking a lot less taxes out of your check. And I just don’t think that anybody can beat it.
And Senator Brown voted against us, and fought us like crazy. Okay? Just remember that. He voted against you. Just — when you go in there, he voted against you. Not good. Not good.
So we’ve gone from being one of the highest-taxed countries anywhere in the world to being one of the most competitive because when our workers have a level playing field, which they didn’t have, they can compete and win against anyone in the world.
And that goes for our companies. But we were forcing our companies out. Now we’re bringing our companies back in. And if they don’t want to come in, that’s okay. But they’re not going to be so happy, believe me. And I told you that a long time ago. It’s not like the old days.
And when our workers win, who really wins? Our country wins because we’re all in this together. We’re one team, one people, and one family. And we’re saluting one great American flag, and everybody stood up yesterday. There was nobody kneeling at the beginning of the Super Bowl. (Applause.) We’ve made a lot of improvement, haven’t we? That’s a big improvement. (Applause.)
And on top of that, it was a good game. So a lot of good things happened. But there was no kneeling before that Super Bowl.
Today, we’re thrilled to be joined by several business leaders who understand just how true all of the things that we’re saying are. We’re also thrilled to have a lot of the fake news media in the back. Those cameras are rolling. Hi, folks. (Laughter.) That’s what good about doing it live. They can’t cut you. (Applause.) You know, when you do a tape, you end up saying, “Well, wait a minute. What happened to the four sentences that they cut out? Where are those four sentences?”
That’s true. A lot of fake news, but that’s okay. Hey, they’re doing their thing. Whatever — I don’t know what they’re thinking, but they’re doing their thing.
I want to start with a man I watched today on Fox, and he was terrific — Jeff Norris. Jeff, come on up. (Applause.) We know Jeff. So we know every employee has already received a $1,000 bonus, and they’ve gotten a lot of tax — really lower tax — so they’re doing a lot better. But Jeff, why don’t you tell us a little bit more about your plans for the future of the company, and also what you have in mind for the money, which is going to be a lot, that you save on taxes.
MR. NORRIS: Thank you. Well, first of all, welcome everybody here. And it’s such a blessing to have you here, President Trump. In all my years, you pray for a President like this that will take care of the working class and businesses, and we finally have one here. And I’ll talk about my stuff in a little bit — (laughter) — but we need to make sure that we support President Trump, especially in 2018. (Applause.)
And we need to vote out people that are an obstacle to him. In manufacturing, our job is to remove obstacles. This man can remove obstacles, and we need to clear the path for him. (Applause.)
What we plan on doing with the tax savings: invest it in our people, our processes, and our equipment, and continue to try to make America great again. And like you said before, we’ve got the greatest workforce in the world, we just need a level playing field just a little closer. It doesn’t have to be there; just a little closer because our people can do it. And I’m just proud to have you as our President. And I wish you the best, and God bless you.
Thank you, Mr. Trump.
THE PRESIDENT: You’ve been doing such a good job. I want to thank you for doing such a great job, too. Thank you.
AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA!
THE PRESIDENT: That’s what it’s all about. That’s true.
Greg Carmichael is the CEO of Fifth Third Bancorp — big bank — which is headquartered right here in Cincinnati. Greg, please step up. Tell us what you’re doing, with respect to all of those incredible workers. You have 14,000 of your employees, and you’re doing something very special for them, so I’d like to hear it. Thank you, Greg. (Applause.)
MR. CARMICHAEL: Mr. President, thank you. Thank you for everything you’ve done for our nation. And we thank you for your efforts and your leadership in bringing tax reform to America.
At Fifth Third Bank, we’re already feeling the effects of the tax benefit, and we’re working to pass those benefits onto our employees.
Immediately upon the announcement of the passing of the legislation, Fifth Third Bank announced an investment in our employees that included raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, and providing a $1,000 bonus for over 13,500 of our valuable employees. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: That’s good. That’s fantastic.
MR. CARMICHAEL: We’re investing in our employees because of the contribution they make to our bank, to their families, and the communities in which they serve.
Mr. President, thank you for bringing meaningful tax reform in jumpstarting the U.S. economy. Thank you. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Fantastic. Thank you. It’s a great bank, too. Thank you very much.
That’s a lot of employees — 14,000. Big bank, great bank.
Matt Schron is general manager at Jergens Incorporated, a manufacturing company founded by his family 75 years ago in Cleveland. You must be very rich. (Laughter.) Matt, why don’t you come on up and tell us about these massive cuts and how they’re benefitting your people, your employees, your workers. Thanks, Matt. (Applause.)
MR. SCHRON: Mr. Trump, thank you very much for your leadership on this tax reform. I’m honored to be here today representing Jergens and the manufacturing community. Jergens was founded in 1914 during World War II, manufacturing airplane seat components. Today, we’re a worldwide leader in workholding, fixturing, and specialty fasteners.
Last year was a record year for Jergens. And thanks to your tax cuts, we see continued success in the future. Jergens is going to be using your tax breaks to invest in our greatest asset: our employees.
In April, during our annual performance reviews, we’re going to be doubling the annual rate increases that we will be providing our employees. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Wow.
MR. SCHRON: In addition, we’re going to be using your tax break to invest in capital for our machine shop, and also research and development for our company, which will help us to hire more people in the future.
So, Mr. Trump, your tax break has three benefits: one, more money for our employees; two, we’re going to have more equipment for our facility; and three, we’re going to be able to hire more people.
Mr. Trump, thank you very much for your leadership in the tax reform.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Matt. Thank you very much. (Applause.) Great job. Great company. Great company. Thank you very much. Great job you’ve done.
Finally, Chris Irion is the CEO of e-Cycle, an environmental services company in Columbus that recycles and resells smartphones. Let’s see, you recycle smartphones. Think about that one. (Laughter.) What about when they smash those phones with a hammer? (Laughter.) Can you bring them back to life? Oh, what you would find. Oh, can you imagine that, Rob, what we would find? Do most people, when they toss a phone, do they smash them with a hammer? No? Not too many.
Well, if you could recycle them, I’m with you all the way, Chris. (Laughter.) I just saw that, I said, “Boy, this is exciting.” Could be the most exciting part of this visit. (Laughter.)
Come on up, Chris. I understand that you have a big announcement to make. Let’s give us the news. Thank you.
MR. IRION: Thank you, Mr. President. I’m pleased to announce that e-Cycle paid out our largest bonus in company history this past Friday. One-hundred percent of all of our hourly and salaried employees participated in this bonus program of over $350,000. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Great.
MR. IRION: In addition, due to the greatest tax reform package just passed in U.S. history, we’re celebrating with an additional $1,000 tax reform bonus for all of our 55 employees. (Applause.)
For all the e-Cycle team members watching right now, thank you for everything that you do.
Thank you again, Mr. President, for believing in the American worker and the American Dream. You just made America great again.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you, Chris.
And thank you all for investing in our great American workers and our great American companies. Every job you create makes our country stronger and the future of our country brighter.
Jobs are about more than paychecks. Good jobs are the cornerstone of a safe and a strong and a proud America. There is nothing more important than the sense of pride and accomplishment that comes at the end of a hard day’s work. And all of us — me, you, all of us in this room — we know that feeling. Just about every day, we know that feeling.
That’s why we want every American to know the dignity of work, the pride of a paycheck, and the satisfaction of the statement, “Job well done.” (Applause.)
Creating good jobs is also an important part of fighting the drug epidemic that has affected millions of Americans, bringing new hope to struggling communities. And it’s gotten to a point where it’s never been worse.
People form blue ribbon committees, they do everything they can. And, frankly, I have a different take on it. My take is, you have to get really, really tough — really mean — with the drug pushers and the drug dealers. We can do all the blue ribbon committees we want. (Applause.) We have to get a lot tougher than we are. And we have to stop drugs from pouring across our border.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: You got to build that wall.
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, we’re building the wall. Believe me. We’re building the wall. Don’t even think about it. (Applause.)
Somebody said, the other day, “Well, he really didn’t want to build the wall. He was just using that –” We’re building the wall, or a lot of other things aren’t going to happen. (Applause.)
And the ones that don’t want security at the southern border or any other border, are the Democrats. They don’t care about the security of our country. They don’t care about MS-13 killers pouring into our country. And we bring them out almost as fast as they come in. But nobody was bringing them out before us. And these are killers.
But our guys are tougher than them, and that’s what we need. Sorry. (Applause.)
And our Democrats ought to get smart, and they ought to get tough, or the situation is going to get very bad. But we’re going to win.
As we speak, our wonderful First Lady is visiting Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, hearing directly from doctors about their incredible work treating beautiful, precious, little babies who are born addicted to opioids, and how government can help them save lives.
And, actually, Mrs. Portman is with Melania right now. They’re together. Your wife, I hear, does an incredible job with the hospital. So thank you, Rob, very much. Appreciate it. (Applause.)
America will not overcome this epidemic overnight. But just like Americans always will — I do think we have to change our ways, and we will — but we will prevail. We’re going to beat it. We’re going to get tough, we’re going to get angry, and we’re going to win.
Our children are being decimated. You know, one drug dealer can kill thousands of people. One drug dealer. If you ever did an average — nobody has ever seen this, you’ve probably never heard this before — but if you ever did an average, a drug dealer will kill thousands of people. And we don’t even come down on these people. So it’s time to start, and that time is now. Right now. (Applause.)
We want every American to live a life of meaning, of purpose, and of joy. And we want every American to have a job they love so they can wake up each morning excited to go to work, like all of you people are. Right? You’re excited. You love it — thinking about where I’m going to put that next big, beautiful machine. One-year expensing. (Laughter.) You buy the machine now, one-year expensing.
That will be one of the biggest things — nobody even talks about it — in our tax cut plan. Right? The one-year expensing. Nobody thought they’d ever see that in this country, and I think that’s going to have a great incentive. I think that’s going to have a tremendous incentive. (Applause.)
They don’t talk about that one, and — you know, people don’t talk about that. Most people don’t know what it means, but some of the people in this room do. It’s the one-year expensing. You watch. That’s going to have a big impact.
That’s why our tax bill also creates new opportunity zones rewarding those who invest in distressed communities and create more jobs for those who have, too often, simply been left behind.
Workers will not only make more money because of our tax cuts. Starting this month, you will keep that money in your pocket, in your bank, or you may want to buy something. But you’re going to keep the money that you earned. You’re going to spend it. The government won’t be spending it for you. Something really nice about that. (Applause.)
Families in the great state of Ohio — remember, for two years, you heard, “Donald Trump has to go through Ohio.” I said, I love Ohio. I worked here. I was here. I lived here. I mean, it was great.
But they said, “Donald Trump has to go through Ohio.” And did we ever go through Ohio. Right? (Applause.) We went through Ohio.
And now it’s much better than even Election Day. I saw that — they just showed that to me inside. Much better than even Election Day. And we did well on Election Day. That was about one minute after the polls closed. “Donald Trump has won the state of Ohio.” That wasn’t too close, right? (Applause.)
We’re going better now because — you know what? Now, we’re producing. Before it was talk. See, before it was talk. It was like the State of the Union. Now, they thought I gave a State of the Union last year that was really good. They didn’t call it the State of the Union because you weren’t there for a year. But it was nevertheless, sort of, the same thing. They thought it was very good.
But they said, this was one better because last time was aspirational. I said, “We’re going to get this, we’re going to get that.” And we’ve actually produced much more than I said I was going to produce. When’s the last time you heard that?
With judges; with the Supreme Court Justice, Gorsuch, who is great; with so many different things. (Applause.) And then, of course, topped off by the tremendous tax cuts and the individual mandate, and all of the different things we’ve done — ANWR. So many different things.
And, by the way, the big thing that nobody talks about that you would be talking about: regulation. We’ve cut regulation. I actually think — I’m here to talk about tax cuts — but I actually think that cutting regulation has more of an impact, or as much. We have cut more regulation in one year than any President has cut in four, eight, or, in one case, sixteen years. More. (Applause.)
And we have a ways to go. We haven’t finished. We’re probably 47, 48 percent of the way there. We have a ways to go. Some of it’s statutory. You can only go so fast. You have to do this, and then wait 90 days. Do this, and wait 120 days. But all those clocks are ticking.
Families in Ohio will see a tax cut of more $8 billion this year — $8 billion. That’s good. That’s good. (Applause.)
And even more good news. Major electric and gas companies are lowering your utility prices and your utility bills because of tax reform, which is a big win not only for families, but a really big win, when you think of it, for the manufacturers. For places like this.
The energy costs are going down. Like, other countries — they’re going up. You know why ours are going down, right? Because I believe in a lot of good, clean, but old-fashioned stuff that really works and really has power behind it. (Applause.)
There’s never been a better time to hire in America, to invest in America, and to start living the American Dream. There’s never been a better time than this. Because the future of America doesn’t belong to the privileged few, it belongs to all of the people — all of those people that I saw for two years now.
It belongs to those people. The forgotten man and women. They worked hard. They paid taxes. They worked hard. They paid taxes. That’s what they did. They worked; they worked; they worked. They paid; they paid; they paid. And then they were forgotten by the politicians. You’re not forgotten anymore. You’re not forgotten anymore. And that’s what happened on November 8th, they weren’t forgotten. (Applause.)
Now the Democrats are trying to figure, “Let’s see. You know we forgot about those people for about 100 years. How do you get them back into the fold?” It’s not going to be so easy for them because you’re going to remember. It belongs to the hardworking men and women who play by the rules, follow our laws, and give their best, and who never, ever, give up.
The fact is, the future belongs to you. You are the ones who raise America’s great and beautiful families, support America’s communities, and uphold our values, our principles, and the American way of life.
Workers like you carve the steel into our skyscrapers — and I just got to see a lot of it — by great machinists, by great mechanics, by great people. You build the machines that power our cities and teach the next generation of children what it means to be a proud American.
You are the ones who are shaping our destiny. You are the ones who are restoring our prosperity. And you are the ones who are making America great again. (Applause.)
We love you, Ohio. God bless you. I will see you soon. We’ll be back.
Jim, get in there and fight. Get in there and fight. We need you. We need you.
Rob, thank you very much. Thank everybody. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you very much. (Applause.)
END
3:20 P.M. EST
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-st ... -reform-3/
Booj Democracy is a clown car, on fire, going over a cliff.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy
Trump’s Tax Cuts, Budget, Deficits…Trump’s Recession 2019?
February 14, 2018 by jackrasmus
By
Jack Rasmus
Copyright 2018
“Lies and misrepresentation of facts have become the hallmark of American politics in recent years more than ever before. Not just lies of commission by Trump and his crew, but lies of omission by the mainstream media as well.
In Trump’s recent package of tax cuts for corporations, investors and millionaires, the lie is that the total cuts amount to $1.5 trillion—when the actual amount is more than $5 trillion and likely even higher. And in his most recent announcement of budget deficits the amounts admitted are barely half of the actual deficits—and consequent rise in US national debt—that will occur. Even his $1.5 trillion so-called infrastructure spending plan, that Trump promised during his 2016 election campaign, and then throughout 2017, amounts to only $200 billion. The lies and exaggerations are astounding.
The mainstream media, much of it aligned against Trump, has proven no accurate in revealing the Trump lies and misrepresentations: They echo Trumps $1.5 trillion total tax cut number and provide no real analysis of the true total of the cuts; they low-ball the true impact of Trump’s budget on US annual budget deficits and the national debt; and they fail to expose the actual corporate subsidy nature of Trump’s ‘smoke and mirrors’ infrastructure plan.
Trump’s multi-trillion dollar tax cuts for business, investors and the wealthiest 1%, plus his annual trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, plus his phony real estate industry handouts that parade as infrastructure spending together will lead the US economy into recession, most likely in early 2019. Here’s the scenario:
The massive deficits will require the central bank, the Federal Reserve, to raise short term interest rates. What’s called the benchmark federal funds interest rate will rise above 2% (currently 1.5%). The longer term 10 year US Treasury bond rate will rise to 3.5% or more. Those rates have already been rising—and their rise already provoking stock and bond market corrections in recent weeks which should be viewed as ‘dress rehearsals’ of more serious financial asset market retreats and contractions yet to come.
As this writer has argued repeatedly in recent publications, both the US real economy and financial markets (stocks, junk bonds, derivatives, etc.) are ‘fragile’ and increasingly susceptible to a significant downturn. In 2007-08 central bank interest rates rose to 5% and that precipitated a crash in subprime mortgage bonds and derivatives that set off the contraction in the economy. With the US economy not fundamentally having recovered from 2008-09 still to this day, and with household and corporate debt well above levels of 2008, it will take less of a rise in interest rates to provoke another similar reaction.
The US real economy is already weak. GDP numbers don’t reflect this accurately. Important sectors like autos and housing are softening or even stalling already. Consumption will falter. Consumers have loaded up on household debt. At $13.8 trillion, levels are equal or greater than 2007. They have also been depleting their savings to finance consumption in 2017-18. And despite all the recent media hoopla, there’s been no real wage gains occurring for 80% of the workforce in the US. Moreover, renewed inflation now occurring will reduce households’ disposable income and buying power even more this year. Rising taxes for tens of millions of households in 2018-19 will also negatively impact consumption spending. Don’t expect consumption to rise in 2018 as interest rates, taxes, and prices do. Just the opposite. Consumption makes up 70% of the US economy and it is now nearly exhausted. It will stagnate at best, and even retreat steadily beginning in the second half 2018.
Like the real economy, the US financial markets are fragile as well. They are in bubble territory and investors are getting increasingly edgy and looking for excuses to sell—i.e. take their super capital gains of recent years and run to the sidelines. A rise in rates much above the 2% and 3.5% noted will provoke a significant credit contraction (or even freeze). Money capital (liquidity) will dry up for non-bank companies, investment and production will be scaled back, layoffs will rise rapidly, and consumption will collapse—together bringing the economy down. It’s a classic scenario the forces behind which have been steadily building. And it won’t take too much more to provoke the next recession—likely in early 2019. The Federal Reserve’s plans to hike rates four more times this year will almost certainly set the scenario in motion.
Trump’s $5 Trillion Business-Investor Tax Cuts
Trump & Congress—with the mainstream media in train—say the Tax Cut Act just passed amounts to $1.5 trillion. But that’s not the true total value of the business tax cuts. That’s what they claim is the deficit impact of the tax cuts. (But even that deficit impact is grossly underestimated, as will be shown shortly).
Here’s the true value of the business-investor tax cuts:
1. $1.5 trillion cut due solely to reducing the corporate nominal tax rate from 35% to 21%.
2. Another $.3 trillion for the new 20% tax deduction for non-corporate businesses (lowering their effective tax rate from 37% to 29.6%).
3. $.3 trillion more for ending the business mandate for the Affordable Care Act
4. Still another, at minimum, $.5 trillion for a combined accelerated business depreciation writeoffs (a form of tax cuts for writing off all equipment added by business in the year purchased instead of amortized over several years); plus repeal of the Alternative Minimum Tax for Corporations: and a roughly halving of the AMT for individuals. But that’s not all.
5. The wealthiest 1% households, virtually all investor class, get their nominal individual income tax rate reduced from 39.6% to 37%. Moreover, the 39.6% did not kick in until an income level of $426,000 was reached. Now the threshold for the even lower 37% does not start until $600,000 income is reached. All that amounts to at least another $.5 trillion in tax cuts.
That’s a total of $3 trillion so far in tax cuts in the Trump Plan. But the further, really big tax cuts come for US Multinational Corporations. Their ‘take’ will be another $2 trillion in tax reduction over the next decade.
The Multinationals have hoarded between $2-$2.7 trillion in cash offshore in order to avoid paying taxes on their earnings. But that $2 trillion is a gross underestimation. First of all, it’s a figure for only the 500 largest US multinationals. What about the hundreds of thousands of other US corporations that also have foreign subsidiaries in which they park their cash to avoid taxes? And what about the unreported cash and assets they’re hoarding in offshore tax havens in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Vanuatu and elsewhere? That too is not part of the $2.-$2.7 trillion. Another reason to doubt the $2 trillion is accurate is that they already had $2 trillion stuffed away offshore back in 2011-12. According to the business periodical, Financial Times, the largest US corporations by January 2012 “are collectively sitting on an estimated $2,000bn of cash”. Does anyone believe they stopped diverting profits and cash offshore after 2011-12 for the past five years?
If one conservatively estimates there’s $4 trillion in cash stuffed offshore to avoid taxes (accumulating since 1997 when Bill Clinton conveniently allowed them to begin doing so), the new Trump tax act allows them to pay a tax of only 10% on average if they ‘repatriate’ (bring back) that cash. If they paid the prior 35% tax rate, it would cost them $1.4 trillion in 2018-19, the first year of the Trump tax. But estimates of this provision in the Trump bill show they plan to pay only $339 billion. So they will be saving approximately $1.061 trillion in the first year alone. Thereafter for the next nine years they pay only 8% to 15.5%, instead of the 35%. That amounts to at minimum another $1 trillion in tax savings for multinational US corporations under the Trump tax.
6. In short, US multinational corporations will get a tax reduction of at least $2 trillion
The Trump tax cuts for businesses and investors thus total $5 trillion over the next decade!
So how do Trump, Congress, and the media get to only $1.5 trillion? Here’s how they do it:
They raise taxes on the middle class by $2 trillion in the Trump tax plan. That leaves the $5 trillion in business-investor cuts, minus the $2 trillion in middle class tax hikes, for a net $3 trillion in cuts. But they admit to only $1.5 trillion in net tax cuts. So where’s the difference of the other $1.5 trillion? That difference is assumed to be ‘made up’ (offset) by the US economy growing at a GDP rate of 3-3.5% (or more) for the next ten years—i.e. more than 3% for every year for ten more years without exception!
That 3-4% annual overestimated economic (GDP) growth for the US economy is based on ridiculous assumptions: that slowing long term trends in US productivity and labor force growth will someone immediately reverse and accelerate; that the US will now grow at double the annual rate it did the previous decade; and that there’ll be no recession for another decade when the historical record shows the typical growth period following recession is 7-9 years and the US economy is already in its 8th year since the last recession. (If there’s a recession, then the annual GDP growth for nine years will have to average close to 5% a year—a figure never before ever attained!).
It’s all Trump ‘smoke and mirrors’, lies and gross misrepresentations. But no matter, for its really all about accelerating the subsidization of corporations and capital incomes for the wealthiest 1% by means of fiscal policy now that the central bank’s 9 years of subsidization of capital incomes by monetary policy (i.e. near zero rates, QE, etc.) is coming to an end.
Trillion $Dollar US Deficits for Years to Come
The US budget deficit consequences of the Trump tax cuts are therefore massive. Instead of averaging $150 billion a year on average (the $1.5 trillion) the effect will be three to four times that, or around $300 to $400 billion a year!
On top of that there’s Trump’s latest US budget, which projects another $300 billion for the next two years alone. With the majority of that total $150 billion a year caused by escalation of the Defense-War budget as the US builds up its tactical nuclear, naval and air forces in anticipation of more aggressive US moves in Asia. Last year’s budget deficit was $660 billion. The Congressional Budget Office estimates deficits of $918 billion by 2019. Independent estimates by Chase bank put it at $1.2 trillion. And that’s just the early years and assuming there’s no recession, which will balloon deficits by hundreds of billions more in reduced tax revenues due to a contracting US economy.
Independent projections are for US deficits to add $7.1 trillion over the next decade. But that’s an underestimate that assumes not only no recession, but also that defense-war spending will not rise beyond current projection increases, and that government costs for covering price gouging by the healthcare and prescription drug industries (for Medicaid, Medicare, CHIP, government employees) will somehow not also continue to accelerate. The likely true hit to US deficits—and therefore the US national debt—will well exceed $12 trillion! The US could easily see consecutive annual budget deficits of $1.5 trillion. That will mean a US debt total rising from current $20 trillion to $32 trillion (or more) over the coming decade.
From Tax Cuts, Deficits & Debt to the Next Recession
How does this potentially translate into recession? Here’s a very likely scenario:
The US central bank, the Fed, has already begun raising interest rates. That has already begun slowing key industries like auto and housing. It will soon impact consumers in general, who are near-maxed out with credit card, auto, student loan, and mortgage debt, and facing further accelerating inflation in rents, healthcare costs, transport, state and local taxation, and prices for imported goods.
The massive deficits will require the central bank to raise interest rates perhaps even faster and higher than before. Slowing foreigners’ purchases of US government bonds to pay for the accelerating debt, may require the Fed to raise rates still further. It’s 2007-08 all over again!
Rising Fed interest rates and inflation will also continue to depress bond prices. That has already begun, and to spill over to stock prices as the major contraction in stock prices in February 2018 has revealed. Both bond and stock prices are headed for further decline.
Should stock market prices correct a second time this year, this time by 20% or more, the contagion effects across markets will result in a general credit crunch for non-financial corporations and businesses. US corporate debt has risen even more than US household or government debt since 2009. The corporate junk bond markets will experience a crisis, as US Zombie companies (i.e. those in deep debt, an estimated 12% to 37% of all US corporations, depending on the source) cannot get new financing and begin to go bankrupt.
These stock and bond market effects, and emerging Zombie company defaults, will result in a general investment pullback by non-financial corporations. That will mean production cuts that result in layoffs and further wage stagnation and slowing consumption spending. The next recession will have begun.
The Central Bank (FED) Will Precipitate the Next Recession—As It Did in 2007
This scenario is all the more likely if the general argument that the US economy is both financial and non-financially weak and fragile is accurate. The weakness in the real economy and fragility in the financial markets mean that Fed interest rate hikes cannot exceed 2.0%, and longer term rates (10 year Treasury bonds) cannot exceed 3.5%, before the system ‘cracks’ once again and descends into recession. With the Fed rates at 1.5% and approaching 2% and the Treasury at 3% and approaching 3.5%, the US economy today is well on its way to approaching its limits.
Just as it was interest rates peaking in 2007 that precipitated (not caused) the crash in (subprime) mortgage bonds, that then spilled over through financial derivatives to the rest of the credit system—today the bond markets may once again be signaling the ‘beginning of the end’ of the current cycle. The new contagious derivatives may not be mortgage based bonds and CDO and CDS financial derivatives, as in 2008; the new financial contagion will be driven by the new financial derivatives—i.e. Exchange Traded Funds(ETFs), and related ETNs and ETPs—with their effects amplified by Quant hedge funds’ automated algorithm-based trading.
In summary, Trump tax cuts and Trump’s budget will exacerbate US budget deficits and debt and cause the central bank to raise interest rates even faster and higher. Those rate hikes cannot be sustained. They will lead to another credit crisis—this time even sooner than they did in 2007 given the even weaker US economy and more fragile financial markets. The next recession may be sooner than many think.
Dr. Jack Rasmus
Dr. Rasmus is author of the recently published books, ‘Central Bankers at the End of Their Ropes: Monetary Policy and the Coming Depression’, Clarity Press, August 2017, and ‘Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy, Clarity, 2016. His forthcoming book later in 2018 is ‘Taxes, War & Austerity: Neoliberal Policy from Reagan to Trump’, Clarity Press. He blogs at jackrasmus.com and tweets at @drjackrasmus
https://jackrasmus.com/2018/02/14/trump ... sion-2019/
Trump is the personification of his Class.
February 14, 2018 by jackrasmus
By
Jack Rasmus
Copyright 2018
“Lies and misrepresentation of facts have become the hallmark of American politics in recent years more than ever before. Not just lies of commission by Trump and his crew, but lies of omission by the mainstream media as well.
In Trump’s recent package of tax cuts for corporations, investors and millionaires, the lie is that the total cuts amount to $1.5 trillion—when the actual amount is more than $5 trillion and likely even higher. And in his most recent announcement of budget deficits the amounts admitted are barely half of the actual deficits—and consequent rise in US national debt—that will occur. Even his $1.5 trillion so-called infrastructure spending plan, that Trump promised during his 2016 election campaign, and then throughout 2017, amounts to only $200 billion. The lies and exaggerations are astounding.
The mainstream media, much of it aligned against Trump, has proven no accurate in revealing the Trump lies and misrepresentations: They echo Trumps $1.5 trillion total tax cut number and provide no real analysis of the true total of the cuts; they low-ball the true impact of Trump’s budget on US annual budget deficits and the national debt; and they fail to expose the actual corporate subsidy nature of Trump’s ‘smoke and mirrors’ infrastructure plan.
Trump’s multi-trillion dollar tax cuts for business, investors and the wealthiest 1%, plus his annual trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, plus his phony real estate industry handouts that parade as infrastructure spending together will lead the US economy into recession, most likely in early 2019. Here’s the scenario:
The massive deficits will require the central bank, the Federal Reserve, to raise short term interest rates. What’s called the benchmark federal funds interest rate will rise above 2% (currently 1.5%). The longer term 10 year US Treasury bond rate will rise to 3.5% or more. Those rates have already been rising—and their rise already provoking stock and bond market corrections in recent weeks which should be viewed as ‘dress rehearsals’ of more serious financial asset market retreats and contractions yet to come.
As this writer has argued repeatedly in recent publications, both the US real economy and financial markets (stocks, junk bonds, derivatives, etc.) are ‘fragile’ and increasingly susceptible to a significant downturn. In 2007-08 central bank interest rates rose to 5% and that precipitated a crash in subprime mortgage bonds and derivatives that set off the contraction in the economy. With the US economy not fundamentally having recovered from 2008-09 still to this day, and with household and corporate debt well above levels of 2008, it will take less of a rise in interest rates to provoke another similar reaction.
The US real economy is already weak. GDP numbers don’t reflect this accurately. Important sectors like autos and housing are softening or even stalling already. Consumption will falter. Consumers have loaded up on household debt. At $13.8 trillion, levels are equal or greater than 2007. They have also been depleting their savings to finance consumption in 2017-18. And despite all the recent media hoopla, there’s been no real wage gains occurring for 80% of the workforce in the US. Moreover, renewed inflation now occurring will reduce households’ disposable income and buying power even more this year. Rising taxes for tens of millions of households in 2018-19 will also negatively impact consumption spending. Don’t expect consumption to rise in 2018 as interest rates, taxes, and prices do. Just the opposite. Consumption makes up 70% of the US economy and it is now nearly exhausted. It will stagnate at best, and even retreat steadily beginning in the second half 2018.
Like the real economy, the US financial markets are fragile as well. They are in bubble territory and investors are getting increasingly edgy and looking for excuses to sell—i.e. take their super capital gains of recent years and run to the sidelines. A rise in rates much above the 2% and 3.5% noted will provoke a significant credit contraction (or even freeze). Money capital (liquidity) will dry up for non-bank companies, investment and production will be scaled back, layoffs will rise rapidly, and consumption will collapse—together bringing the economy down. It’s a classic scenario the forces behind which have been steadily building. And it won’t take too much more to provoke the next recession—likely in early 2019. The Federal Reserve’s plans to hike rates four more times this year will almost certainly set the scenario in motion.
Trump’s $5 Trillion Business-Investor Tax Cuts
Trump & Congress—with the mainstream media in train—say the Tax Cut Act just passed amounts to $1.5 trillion. But that’s not the true total value of the business tax cuts. That’s what they claim is the deficit impact of the tax cuts. (But even that deficit impact is grossly underestimated, as will be shown shortly).
Here’s the true value of the business-investor tax cuts:
1. $1.5 trillion cut due solely to reducing the corporate nominal tax rate from 35% to 21%.
2. Another $.3 trillion for the new 20% tax deduction for non-corporate businesses (lowering their effective tax rate from 37% to 29.6%).
3. $.3 trillion more for ending the business mandate for the Affordable Care Act
4. Still another, at minimum, $.5 trillion for a combined accelerated business depreciation writeoffs (a form of tax cuts for writing off all equipment added by business in the year purchased instead of amortized over several years); plus repeal of the Alternative Minimum Tax for Corporations: and a roughly halving of the AMT for individuals. But that’s not all.
5. The wealthiest 1% households, virtually all investor class, get their nominal individual income tax rate reduced from 39.6% to 37%. Moreover, the 39.6% did not kick in until an income level of $426,000 was reached. Now the threshold for the even lower 37% does not start until $600,000 income is reached. All that amounts to at least another $.5 trillion in tax cuts.
That’s a total of $3 trillion so far in tax cuts in the Trump Plan. But the further, really big tax cuts come for US Multinational Corporations. Their ‘take’ will be another $2 trillion in tax reduction over the next decade.
The Multinationals have hoarded between $2-$2.7 trillion in cash offshore in order to avoid paying taxes on their earnings. But that $2 trillion is a gross underestimation. First of all, it’s a figure for only the 500 largest US multinationals. What about the hundreds of thousands of other US corporations that also have foreign subsidiaries in which they park their cash to avoid taxes? And what about the unreported cash and assets they’re hoarding in offshore tax havens in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Vanuatu and elsewhere? That too is not part of the $2.-$2.7 trillion. Another reason to doubt the $2 trillion is accurate is that they already had $2 trillion stuffed away offshore back in 2011-12. According to the business periodical, Financial Times, the largest US corporations by January 2012 “are collectively sitting on an estimated $2,000bn of cash”. Does anyone believe they stopped diverting profits and cash offshore after 2011-12 for the past five years?
If one conservatively estimates there’s $4 trillion in cash stuffed offshore to avoid taxes (accumulating since 1997 when Bill Clinton conveniently allowed them to begin doing so), the new Trump tax act allows them to pay a tax of only 10% on average if they ‘repatriate’ (bring back) that cash. If they paid the prior 35% tax rate, it would cost them $1.4 trillion in 2018-19, the first year of the Trump tax. But estimates of this provision in the Trump bill show they plan to pay only $339 billion. So they will be saving approximately $1.061 trillion in the first year alone. Thereafter for the next nine years they pay only 8% to 15.5%, instead of the 35%. That amounts to at minimum another $1 trillion in tax savings for multinational US corporations under the Trump tax.
6. In short, US multinational corporations will get a tax reduction of at least $2 trillion
The Trump tax cuts for businesses and investors thus total $5 trillion over the next decade!
So how do Trump, Congress, and the media get to only $1.5 trillion? Here’s how they do it:
They raise taxes on the middle class by $2 trillion in the Trump tax plan. That leaves the $5 trillion in business-investor cuts, minus the $2 trillion in middle class tax hikes, for a net $3 trillion in cuts. But they admit to only $1.5 trillion in net tax cuts. So where’s the difference of the other $1.5 trillion? That difference is assumed to be ‘made up’ (offset) by the US economy growing at a GDP rate of 3-3.5% (or more) for the next ten years—i.e. more than 3% for every year for ten more years without exception!
That 3-4% annual overestimated economic (GDP) growth for the US economy is based on ridiculous assumptions: that slowing long term trends in US productivity and labor force growth will someone immediately reverse and accelerate; that the US will now grow at double the annual rate it did the previous decade; and that there’ll be no recession for another decade when the historical record shows the typical growth period following recession is 7-9 years and the US economy is already in its 8th year since the last recession. (If there’s a recession, then the annual GDP growth for nine years will have to average close to 5% a year—a figure never before ever attained!).
It’s all Trump ‘smoke and mirrors’, lies and gross misrepresentations. But no matter, for its really all about accelerating the subsidization of corporations and capital incomes for the wealthiest 1% by means of fiscal policy now that the central bank’s 9 years of subsidization of capital incomes by monetary policy (i.e. near zero rates, QE, etc.) is coming to an end.
Trillion $Dollar US Deficits for Years to Come
The US budget deficit consequences of the Trump tax cuts are therefore massive. Instead of averaging $150 billion a year on average (the $1.5 trillion) the effect will be three to four times that, or around $300 to $400 billion a year!
On top of that there’s Trump’s latest US budget, which projects another $300 billion for the next two years alone. With the majority of that total $150 billion a year caused by escalation of the Defense-War budget as the US builds up its tactical nuclear, naval and air forces in anticipation of more aggressive US moves in Asia. Last year’s budget deficit was $660 billion. The Congressional Budget Office estimates deficits of $918 billion by 2019. Independent estimates by Chase bank put it at $1.2 trillion. And that’s just the early years and assuming there’s no recession, which will balloon deficits by hundreds of billions more in reduced tax revenues due to a contracting US economy.
Independent projections are for US deficits to add $7.1 trillion over the next decade. But that’s an underestimate that assumes not only no recession, but also that defense-war spending will not rise beyond current projection increases, and that government costs for covering price gouging by the healthcare and prescription drug industries (for Medicaid, Medicare, CHIP, government employees) will somehow not also continue to accelerate. The likely true hit to US deficits—and therefore the US national debt—will well exceed $12 trillion! The US could easily see consecutive annual budget deficits of $1.5 trillion. That will mean a US debt total rising from current $20 trillion to $32 trillion (or more) over the coming decade.
From Tax Cuts, Deficits & Debt to the Next Recession
How does this potentially translate into recession? Here’s a very likely scenario:
The US central bank, the Fed, has already begun raising interest rates. That has already begun slowing key industries like auto and housing. It will soon impact consumers in general, who are near-maxed out with credit card, auto, student loan, and mortgage debt, and facing further accelerating inflation in rents, healthcare costs, transport, state and local taxation, and prices for imported goods.
The massive deficits will require the central bank to raise interest rates perhaps even faster and higher than before. Slowing foreigners’ purchases of US government bonds to pay for the accelerating debt, may require the Fed to raise rates still further. It’s 2007-08 all over again!
Rising Fed interest rates and inflation will also continue to depress bond prices. That has already begun, and to spill over to stock prices as the major contraction in stock prices in February 2018 has revealed. Both bond and stock prices are headed for further decline.
Should stock market prices correct a second time this year, this time by 20% or more, the contagion effects across markets will result in a general credit crunch for non-financial corporations and businesses. US corporate debt has risen even more than US household or government debt since 2009. The corporate junk bond markets will experience a crisis, as US Zombie companies (i.e. those in deep debt, an estimated 12% to 37% of all US corporations, depending on the source) cannot get new financing and begin to go bankrupt.
These stock and bond market effects, and emerging Zombie company defaults, will result in a general investment pullback by non-financial corporations. That will mean production cuts that result in layoffs and further wage stagnation and slowing consumption spending. The next recession will have begun.
The Central Bank (FED) Will Precipitate the Next Recession—As It Did in 2007
This scenario is all the more likely if the general argument that the US economy is both financial and non-financially weak and fragile is accurate. The weakness in the real economy and fragility in the financial markets mean that Fed interest rate hikes cannot exceed 2.0%, and longer term rates (10 year Treasury bonds) cannot exceed 3.5%, before the system ‘cracks’ once again and descends into recession. With the Fed rates at 1.5% and approaching 2% and the Treasury at 3% and approaching 3.5%, the US economy today is well on its way to approaching its limits.
Just as it was interest rates peaking in 2007 that precipitated (not caused) the crash in (subprime) mortgage bonds, that then spilled over through financial derivatives to the rest of the credit system—today the bond markets may once again be signaling the ‘beginning of the end’ of the current cycle. The new contagious derivatives may not be mortgage based bonds and CDO and CDS financial derivatives, as in 2008; the new financial contagion will be driven by the new financial derivatives—i.e. Exchange Traded Funds(ETFs), and related ETNs and ETPs—with their effects amplified by Quant hedge funds’ automated algorithm-based trading.
In summary, Trump tax cuts and Trump’s budget will exacerbate US budget deficits and debt and cause the central bank to raise interest rates even faster and higher. Those rate hikes cannot be sustained. They will lead to another credit crisis—this time even sooner than they did in 2007 given the even weaker US economy and more fragile financial markets. The next recession may be sooner than many think.
Dr. Jack Rasmus
Dr. Rasmus is author of the recently published books, ‘Central Bankers at the End of Their Ropes: Monetary Policy and the Coming Depression’, Clarity Press, August 2017, and ‘Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy, Clarity, 2016. His forthcoming book later in 2018 is ‘Taxes, War & Austerity: Neoliberal Policy from Reagan to Trump’, Clarity Press. He blogs at jackrasmus.com and tweets at @drjackrasmus
https://jackrasmus.com/2018/02/14/trump ... sion-2019/
Trump is the personification of his Class.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy
Trump, Putin, and Nikolas Cruz Walk Into a Bar…
John Steppling
February 20, 2018
“The U.S. today creates enemies. It often seems the primary activity of America, the manufacturing of global enemies and threats…”
“Since the FBI never inspected the DNC’s computers first-hand, the only evidence comes from an Irvine, California, cyber-security firm known as CrowdStrike whose chief technical officer, Dmitri Alperovitch, a well-known Putin-phobe, is a fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank that is also vehemently anti-Russian as well as a close Hillary Clinton ally.”
— Daniel Lazare
“The masses did not mistakenly choose fascism. Rather, there is a more fundamental nonidentity between class consciousness and mass movements. Fascism was not a Falschkauf (mistaken purchase) followed by buyer’s remorse. The people fought for it, fiercely and stubbornly—though this desire for fascism is also a desire for suppression, a “fight for servitude,” if you will, or an “escape from freedom,” as Erich Fromm put it in the title of his 1941 book.”
— Ana Teixeira Pinto
This week an angry dead end kid named Nikolas Cruz took his legally purchased AR-15 and walked into a school and opened fire. The FBI knew about Cruz because he had been reported to them. Cruz had been reported to the school, too. But nobody followed up. Cruz himself is one of those unpleasant looking young men that are visibly angry, and who exhibit, even in photographs, a quality of emotional disturbance. But nobody followed up. The FBI is too busy writing narrative fiction about Russia. The FBI is more concerned with constructing terrorist threats and then busting various patsies and making a big show of their success. This same week the US has continued to bomb Yemen alongside Saudi Arabia. This same week Mike Pence stomped around the site of the Winter Olympics and managed to insult most every foreign leader in attendance, but most acutely the hosts of this event. But then Pence is a vulgar rube from the hinterlands of Indiana. A fundamentalist Christian whose knowledge of the world is even smaller than his boss the President.
The Hill reported….“Approval of the FBI has increased among Democrats and decreased among Republicans since President Trump took office, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll.” So, uh, Dems and liberals are fawning over the FBI because, presumably, Mueller is after Satan-in-Chief The Donald, while Repuplicans are pouting because, presumably, the FBI isn’t dropping the fictitious investigation of Russian collusion. Meanwhile, the FBI, famed for various cluster fucks like Waco and Ruby Ridge, not to mention COINTELPRO and countless undercover surveillances on journalists and dissidents of all kinds, is being embraced by liberal America. (COINTELPRO, as a reminder, attacked the Black Panther party, and among its victims were Fred Hampton Geronimo Pratt, and Mumia Abu Jamal. And it was J.Edgar Hoover who wrote letters that described Hampton as the ‘new black messiah’ — one that needed to be dealt with). That is your virtuous FBI. Now part of this is just the desire among liberals for the status quo. At all costs. It is liberals far more than Republicans who want a Norman Rockwell America. The arch conservative wants something closer to gated communities of whiteness and armed privitized security roaming the streets keeping their property safe. It is the liberal Democratic voter who WANTS TO BELIEVE in the goodness of America. Who wants to believe in all that progress in civil rights and gender equality. But both will in the end default to authoritarian political control. They always have.
Joseph Kishore over at WSWS wrote back in 2016 already:
“… the Times article set the tone for a wave of war-mongering commentary in the American media. Lipton was interviewed on the cable news channels and the Public Broadcasting System’s evening news program. Democratic Senator Ben Cardin declared on MSNBC that the US had been “attacked by Russia.” He called for an independent commission, citing the bipartisan panel set up after 9/11. CNN commentator Jake Tapper referred to Russia as the “enemy” and openly wondered, in the course of interviewing former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden, whether President-elect Trump was “siding with the enemy.”
But most Democrats believe in Russian evil doing. They believe Putin is a tyrant. They WANT TO BELIEVE. Now, the logic of Crowdstrike and all those US security experts on cyber warfare is that only the most sophisticated hackers could have penetrated the protections of the U.S. government, while at the same time only the most unsophisticated cyber hackers, revealing their amateurish clumsiness by leaving a variety of Russian language clues in the meta data, could have done such a thing. It is the same logic that posits Taliban or ISIS commanders, cunning…evil geniuses..who plot the overthrow of western civilization..but who are also simultaneously primitives living in caves. The Russians are also evil geniuses but also primitives.
On one level the U.S. loves the uneducated. America has never trusted intelligence or education. But they have to at the same time be the best. The best at everything. The best killers. The most violent soldiers. Etc. But not the most educated. Trump’s approval ratings climb as he cuts funding to libraries and the arts. Such actions have always been an electoral winner in the USA.
Edward Luce had a cogent piece at Financial Times of all places. He wrote
America’s elites have stored more wealth than they can consume. This creates three problems for everyone else. First, elites invest their surpluses in replicating their advantages. Kids raised in poorer neighbourhoods with mediocre schools stand little chance. Their parents cannot match the social capital of their wealthier peers. The drawbridge is rising. The gap between the self image of meritocratic openness and reality is wide. Psychologists call this “self-discrepancy”. Economists call it barriers to entry.
This is an important observation. He also added …
Social capital is about knowing what to say to whom and when, which is a sophisticated skill. Technical learning is for others. Children of the elites are learning how to raise money for philanthropic causes. Economists define this as a positional good. Sociologists call it virtue signalling. Mr Trump calls it political correctness.
And finally, Luce points out that the new bourgeoisie (not his word) are suffering from a loss of even the appearance of a meritocracy. Too few jobs for what are now the over-educated (well, over degreed). And Luce concludes with a particularly astute insight. The bourgeoisie are finding they need Trump. Without him there is no distraction. And then he poses the question for these aspiring classes; do they really love the highly educated as they claim? Do they deserve admiration because of their degrees? And here we touch upon the core issues at work socially in the Trump phenomenon. Trump is easy and even enjoyable to make fun of. He IS a distraction. But Trump also serves a very clear purpose for the 1%. Those who reign above the haute bourgeoisie. For Trump is still implementing the same policies that Hillary Clinton would have. The same wars, by and large. The same military build up. All the right people are still making money. The difference is in Trump’s less important appointments. The difference is Jeff Sessions for one. And the various minor cabinet hacks and flunkies he has installed in positions of limited but not insignificant power. He is normalizing in a way unprecedented, the weaponized ignorance of the Christian right. And this includes, of course, the open racism and xenophobia on display and perhaps crystalized in Mike Pence’s boorish crassness at the Olympics. Pence suffers no doubts. The new Christians of televangelism never do. These are creationists and believers in the rapture. That they are barking mad has been known for a while now, but never before have they entered the corridors of power. The 1% carry on as before. So does the Pentagon and CIA — though the infiltration of the Christian extremists in the Air Force is well documented. Remember, all Presidents must have prayer breakfasts for fuck’s sake. They must go to Church. They get a dog, and they put on leather bomber jackets for photo ops. And they have a spiritual advisor. There is a whole laundry list of must do’s. What is different now is that stupidity is being not just normalized but accepted as, perhaps, a virtue. Beavis and Butthead go to Washington. Bill & Teds excellent adventure on Capital Hill. How different, really, was George W. Bush? (the newly rehabilitated GWB, in a curious charm make over…but I digress…).
“Cruz himself is one of those unpleasant looking young men that are visibly angry, and who exhibit, even in photographs, a quality of emotional disturbance. But nobody followed up. The FBI is too busy writing narrative fiction about Russia. The FBI is more concerned with constructing terrorist threats and then busting various patsies and making a big show of their success…”
So, no, the aspiring haute bourgeoisie do not REALLY love education. The hard work of studying is for proles. For asian kids and social climbers and those quota scholarship kids. The idea of learning having some inherent value is now fully gone from the public imagination. Socrates who? He played *soccer* for Brazil, no? Literally nobody reads. I mean book stores are closing en masse. The Gutenberg era is over. I wrote recently on my blog about Hugh Kenner. I used to sneak into his lectures at UCSB in the early 70s. There are no Hugh Kenners anymore. Erudition is to become an obsolete word.
The state of Minnesota is taking Huckleberry Finn off high school reading lists. Harper Lee is being taken off, too. No doubt others will follow. Hurtful. Twain’s epic novel is, apparently, “hurtful”. I am coming, I have to admit, to just not care about who has hurt feelings.
All those social correctives that looked to rid the culture of racist images and language are now appropriated for other purposes. For narcissistic vehicles for anger. For America is as angry a society as the world may have ever seen. All that I see now, the new McCarthyism, the Russophobic propaganda that is swallowed wholesale, and not just swallowed but used as a kind of narcotic — is carried along and draws energy from a deep reservoir of rage. The old Puritan consciousness that wants nothing more than to chastise and shun is alive in the U.S. today. All these hurt feelings are expressions of the narcissistic desire to believe in our own uniqueness and specialness. And such subjective manufacture helps distract from the increasing sadism of American society overall.
The real violence of a system based on inequality is buried. It is obscured. The violence of capital, of wage slavery is mystified. All relations under capitalism are coercive. And when the early Capitalist class collaborated with the Church to burn a few hundred thousand women as witches in the early 1700s, across Europe, they were setting a structural dynamic in motion. The Inquisition and witch burning were not the result of magic, but of the need for scapegoats and for ridding the system of autonomous women and small craftspeople. It set up a class war, essentially, one mediated in that case by a deep hatred of women. And fear. The destruction of various celebrities (mostly) for sexual *misconduct* has already been appropriated by NATO and CAA and even Paul Kagame got in the act (see Emma Watson and the Rwandian war criminal share a dais…all to *help* women in war torn areas, or something. I mean who knows. But it’s mind numbing how quickly such things are activated). Angelina Jolie, who never saw a country she didn’t want to bomb or quarantine (see marriage and honeymoon in Namibia) is also is out stumping for NATO aggressions under cover of protecting women in war zones. No mention of stopping war zones from being created, of course. #MeToo became, as quick as you can write hashtag, a vehicle for the exact opposite of that for which it began. And this was predictable.
Today the system has other scapegoats and other needs than it did during the witch trials in Europe. But the violence of capital is alive throughout the carceral system, alive in black communities where cops operate as anti insurgency soldiers bent on pacification. Fallujah or Baltimore, there is not a lot of difference. And the violence of Nikolas Cruz will cause great oceans of tears and hand wringing. Get rid of guns. Ok, how about those in the hands of cops- or those in the army or Marine corps? Those are OK, because they don’t shoot up schools. Well, not *our* schools, anyway. There is a sort of pattern recognition in the public now. Shoot up a school is a certain class of irrational violence. People will posit notions about anti depressants or whatever. And it might have some truth to it. Maybe a lot, but I can guarantee that few will read anything about the beliefs of these *sick* shooters. That they all, like Anders Breivik, adhere to classic fascistic values and ideology. They do not fall out of the sky. They are the product of a vast number of forces, but they also kill not just because they suffer humiliation and are frustrated and emotionally disfigured. Or, rather, that emotional disfigurement creates the fascist sensibility. They do not think it is wrong, what they do. Cruz had a history of aggressive behaviour toward women. He was a member of ROTC and posted constantly on social media with various guns and weapons. Those who knew him said he was obsessed with guns. The chilling photos of cops in SWAT attire arresting a kid who wanted to be just like them. There is a strange closed loop of morbid mimetic activity on display.
The U.S. today creates enemies. It often seems the primary activity of America, the manufacturing of global enemies and threats. Of late it is Putin and Kim Jong Il. But they are only the latest in a long line. U.S. police departments, heavily militarized, and increasingly trained in Israel for counter insurgency, are no longer in the policing business but rather in the soldiering business. They are militia, not peace officers. The dysfunctional extreme for what this produces is Nikolas Cruz. But how far is Cruz from the Florida cop who murdered a begging man, on his knees, on video? How far from George Zimmerman? One suspects those three might enjoy a beer together and share many of the same values. I am always struck when reading about these alleged lone wolf shooters how NOT alone they are. Klaus Theweleit’s seminal work Male Fantasies should be required reading.
But if male-female relations of production under patriarchy are relations of oppression, it is appropriate to understand the sexuality created by, and active within, those relations as a sexuality of the oppressor and the oppressed. If the social nature of such “gender-distinctions” isn’t expressly emphasized, it seems grievously wrong to distinguish these sexualities according to the categories “male” and “female.” The sexuality of the patriarch is less “male” than it is deadly, just as that of the subjected women is not so much “female” as suppressed, devivified.
— Klaus Theweleit
Theweleit didn’t see genocide as the thwarted expression of inhibited sexual energies. His point was rather that the production of gender and sexuality are intimately tied to the content of anti-Semitism and overt racism—both before, during, and after the fall of the Weimar Republic. Fascist sexuality is not so much repressed as it is ideological: it idealizes virility and fertility as political imperatives.
— Ana Teixeira Pinto
The cultural post modernism of today, at least in the U.S., is technologically sophisticated and socially hyper conservative. The neoliberal system might marginalize white nationalists but they cultivate their symbolism and much of their rhetoric. A Nikolas Cruz desired completion as the captain of capitalist manhood. His failures, his lack of productive labor, his relative poverty, escalated his hatred of those he saw as responsible — and at the head of that list one would guess would be women. But the indoctrination of men like Cruz, or boys, begins earlier. As Theweleit writes,
No man is forced to turn political fascist for reasons of economic devaluation or degradation. His fascism develops much earlier, from his feelings; he is a fascist from the inside.
The violence of the U.S. military, globally, inflicted on the most defenseless nations and people cannot be separated from cops in Chicago or Baltimore or Los Angeles, nor from Fallujuh and Libya and Syria. I mean the U.S. has occupied Afghanistan for sixteen years. The U.S. military metaphorically rapes these countries. And it is a kind of re-colonializing. Sylvia Federici called the World Bank and IMF “the new Conquistadors”. Nor can it be separated, finally, from Harvey Weinstein or James Toback. Nor from the lynch mob hysteria that has coopted the entire #metoo* phenomenon.
Nikolas Cruz sensed he was broken, and his longing for restoration was reflected back at him by those men who would later capture him. Kevlar and weaponry, helmeted faceless phallic superbodies. He could only merge with his fantasy through mimetic approximation. Cruz may be seen as insane, but he was not *only* insane.
The anti-Russian propaganda that is spewed out daily by mainstream media is an insidious and destructive force that also cannot really be separated from the tidal swell of violence on the streets and in the institutions of U.S. society. Manufacturing contempt for North Korea or Yemen or Libya is not *only* propaganda. It has consequences to the psyches of the people that must absorb that inculcating assault. (Go back and read Ben Judah’s bizarre and lurid anti Putin piece at Newsweek, July 2014 — the one with Putin in shades on the cover, his eyes reflecting a burning …we presume…America. Read it now and just try to digest that this is what passes for *real* news as opposed to fake news).
In March of last year Brian Cloughly began an article on this massive anti Russian propaganda this way…
On January 30 NBC News reported that “On a snowy Polish plain dominated by Russian forces for decades, American tanks and troops sent a message to Moscow and demonstrated the firepower of the NATO alliance. Amid concerns that President Donald Trump’s commitment to NATO is wavering, the tanks fired salvos that declared the 28-nation alliance a vital deterrent in a dangerous new world.
One intriguing aspect of this slanted account are the phrases “dominated by Russian forces for decades” and “vital deterrent” which are used by NBC to imply that Russia yearns, for some unspecified reason, to invade Poland. As is common in the Western media there is no justification or evidence to substantiate the suggestion that Russia is hell-bent on domination, and the fact that US troops are far from home, operating along the Russian border, is regarded as normal behaviour on the part of the world’s “indispensable nation.”
This is just one example out of literally hundreds and hundreds. One could find the same against Maduro and Venezuela and against the DPRK. It hardly needs pointing out that Hollywood produces endless paeans of love for militarism and male destructiveness. Capitalism produces economic inequality and as such cannot exist without political and social oppression. The contradictions of Hollywood’s endless fascist product and its equally endless hand wringing over sexual harassment or gun control should be obvious. The sexual harassment in Hollywood goes back to Shirley Temple. It is built into a system in which all parties are there to monetize themselves. It is also true that men with power must punish those beneath them. They cannot exist without subordinates. What Theweleit wrote of the *soldier male* (his term for the prototype ur fascist) that the most urgent task facing him…“is to pursue, to dam in, and to subdue any force that threatens to transform him back into the horribly disorganized jumble of flesh, hair, skin, bones, intestines, and feelings that calls itself human.” Hollywood produces narratives that make the non human heroic. The first Terminator was a watershed moment in that respect. A film whose message was that an android…no, a ‘killer’ android…made a better parent than the human version.
Propaganda that creates phantom enemies is justified because Trump is now the perfect villain. And as such, is a tool of the ruling class. He is the justification for the abandonment of all notions of integrity and honesty, compassion or honour. One case of harassment I know of included a woman who had signed a non disclosure agreement and took payment of tens of thousands of dollars. She disclosed anyway and was applauded as heroic. It is not heroic to break your word. To take a payoff and then snitch anyway. But punishment is its own justification. Trump’s vulgarity is a kind of pride in ignorance trope. He intentionally chooses to be crude, because that is what his base desires. They may not admit it, those suburban small businessmen and managerial white class — but they do. A sense of shunning the soft and sensitive. Stories about escorts and golden showers only adds to his appeal. Those guys wish they could afford escorts. Trump is the grandson of a whore house owner, after all. He never sold himself as Adlai Stevenson.
So, Mark Twain is hurtful. Libraries are being shuttered across the country. Book stores are closing. The U.S. poverty levels have exceeded those of many developing countries. The compulsive hatred of Putin by many who have almost zero idea about Putin or Russian history is disproportionate to any rational analysis, but not surprising. Trump and Putin are like weird doppelgangers in the liberal imagination.
For the propagandists of the exceptional and indispensable nation the by-product of their creative activities is Nikolas Cruz. Trump shares with the far right parties growing across Europe the open disdain for democracy and free speech. Cruz was wearing a Trump cap in one of his Instagram photos. He wasn’t wearing a Che t-shirt. He wanted to kill antifa. He was not an isolated mentally disturbed killer. He was a fascist killer. He wanted to be made whole and inviolate. The way all fascists want to be whole, but cannot.
http://www.greanvillepost.com/2018/02/2 ... nto-a-bar/
John Steppling
February 20, 2018
“The U.S. today creates enemies. It often seems the primary activity of America, the manufacturing of global enemies and threats…”
“Since the FBI never inspected the DNC’s computers first-hand, the only evidence comes from an Irvine, California, cyber-security firm known as CrowdStrike whose chief technical officer, Dmitri Alperovitch, a well-known Putin-phobe, is a fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank that is also vehemently anti-Russian as well as a close Hillary Clinton ally.”
— Daniel Lazare
“The masses did not mistakenly choose fascism. Rather, there is a more fundamental nonidentity between class consciousness and mass movements. Fascism was not a Falschkauf (mistaken purchase) followed by buyer’s remorse. The people fought for it, fiercely and stubbornly—though this desire for fascism is also a desire for suppression, a “fight for servitude,” if you will, or an “escape from freedom,” as Erich Fromm put it in the title of his 1941 book.”
— Ana Teixeira Pinto
This week an angry dead end kid named Nikolas Cruz took his legally purchased AR-15 and walked into a school and opened fire. The FBI knew about Cruz because he had been reported to them. Cruz had been reported to the school, too. But nobody followed up. Cruz himself is one of those unpleasant looking young men that are visibly angry, and who exhibit, even in photographs, a quality of emotional disturbance. But nobody followed up. The FBI is too busy writing narrative fiction about Russia. The FBI is more concerned with constructing terrorist threats and then busting various patsies and making a big show of their success. This same week the US has continued to bomb Yemen alongside Saudi Arabia. This same week Mike Pence stomped around the site of the Winter Olympics and managed to insult most every foreign leader in attendance, but most acutely the hosts of this event. But then Pence is a vulgar rube from the hinterlands of Indiana. A fundamentalist Christian whose knowledge of the world is even smaller than his boss the President.
The Hill reported….“Approval of the FBI has increased among Democrats and decreased among Republicans since President Trump took office, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll.” So, uh, Dems and liberals are fawning over the FBI because, presumably, Mueller is after Satan-in-Chief The Donald, while Repuplicans are pouting because, presumably, the FBI isn’t dropping the fictitious investigation of Russian collusion. Meanwhile, the FBI, famed for various cluster fucks like Waco and Ruby Ridge, not to mention COINTELPRO and countless undercover surveillances on journalists and dissidents of all kinds, is being embraced by liberal America. (COINTELPRO, as a reminder, attacked the Black Panther party, and among its victims were Fred Hampton Geronimo Pratt, and Mumia Abu Jamal. And it was J.Edgar Hoover who wrote letters that described Hampton as the ‘new black messiah’ — one that needed to be dealt with). That is your virtuous FBI. Now part of this is just the desire among liberals for the status quo. At all costs. It is liberals far more than Republicans who want a Norman Rockwell America. The arch conservative wants something closer to gated communities of whiteness and armed privitized security roaming the streets keeping their property safe. It is the liberal Democratic voter who WANTS TO BELIEVE in the goodness of America. Who wants to believe in all that progress in civil rights and gender equality. But both will in the end default to authoritarian political control. They always have.
Joseph Kishore over at WSWS wrote back in 2016 already:
“… the Times article set the tone for a wave of war-mongering commentary in the American media. Lipton was interviewed on the cable news channels and the Public Broadcasting System’s evening news program. Democratic Senator Ben Cardin declared on MSNBC that the US had been “attacked by Russia.” He called for an independent commission, citing the bipartisan panel set up after 9/11. CNN commentator Jake Tapper referred to Russia as the “enemy” and openly wondered, in the course of interviewing former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden, whether President-elect Trump was “siding with the enemy.”
But most Democrats believe in Russian evil doing. They believe Putin is a tyrant. They WANT TO BELIEVE. Now, the logic of Crowdstrike and all those US security experts on cyber warfare is that only the most sophisticated hackers could have penetrated the protections of the U.S. government, while at the same time only the most unsophisticated cyber hackers, revealing their amateurish clumsiness by leaving a variety of Russian language clues in the meta data, could have done such a thing. It is the same logic that posits Taliban or ISIS commanders, cunning…evil geniuses..who plot the overthrow of western civilization..but who are also simultaneously primitives living in caves. The Russians are also evil geniuses but also primitives.
On one level the U.S. loves the uneducated. America has never trusted intelligence or education. But they have to at the same time be the best. The best at everything. The best killers. The most violent soldiers. Etc. But not the most educated. Trump’s approval ratings climb as he cuts funding to libraries and the arts. Such actions have always been an electoral winner in the USA.
Edward Luce had a cogent piece at Financial Times of all places. He wrote
America’s elites have stored more wealth than they can consume. This creates three problems for everyone else. First, elites invest their surpluses in replicating their advantages. Kids raised in poorer neighbourhoods with mediocre schools stand little chance. Their parents cannot match the social capital of their wealthier peers. The drawbridge is rising. The gap between the self image of meritocratic openness and reality is wide. Psychologists call this “self-discrepancy”. Economists call it barriers to entry.
This is an important observation. He also added …
Social capital is about knowing what to say to whom and when, which is a sophisticated skill. Technical learning is for others. Children of the elites are learning how to raise money for philanthropic causes. Economists define this as a positional good. Sociologists call it virtue signalling. Mr Trump calls it political correctness.
And finally, Luce points out that the new bourgeoisie (not his word) are suffering from a loss of even the appearance of a meritocracy. Too few jobs for what are now the over-educated (well, over degreed). And Luce concludes with a particularly astute insight. The bourgeoisie are finding they need Trump. Without him there is no distraction. And then he poses the question for these aspiring classes; do they really love the highly educated as they claim? Do they deserve admiration because of their degrees? And here we touch upon the core issues at work socially in the Trump phenomenon. Trump is easy and even enjoyable to make fun of. He IS a distraction. But Trump also serves a very clear purpose for the 1%. Those who reign above the haute bourgeoisie. For Trump is still implementing the same policies that Hillary Clinton would have. The same wars, by and large. The same military build up. All the right people are still making money. The difference is in Trump’s less important appointments. The difference is Jeff Sessions for one. And the various minor cabinet hacks and flunkies he has installed in positions of limited but not insignificant power. He is normalizing in a way unprecedented, the weaponized ignorance of the Christian right. And this includes, of course, the open racism and xenophobia on display and perhaps crystalized in Mike Pence’s boorish crassness at the Olympics. Pence suffers no doubts. The new Christians of televangelism never do. These are creationists and believers in the rapture. That they are barking mad has been known for a while now, but never before have they entered the corridors of power. The 1% carry on as before. So does the Pentagon and CIA — though the infiltration of the Christian extremists in the Air Force is well documented. Remember, all Presidents must have prayer breakfasts for fuck’s sake. They must go to Church. They get a dog, and they put on leather bomber jackets for photo ops. And they have a spiritual advisor. There is a whole laundry list of must do’s. What is different now is that stupidity is being not just normalized but accepted as, perhaps, a virtue. Beavis and Butthead go to Washington. Bill & Teds excellent adventure on Capital Hill. How different, really, was George W. Bush? (the newly rehabilitated GWB, in a curious charm make over…but I digress…).
“Cruz himself is one of those unpleasant looking young men that are visibly angry, and who exhibit, even in photographs, a quality of emotional disturbance. But nobody followed up. The FBI is too busy writing narrative fiction about Russia. The FBI is more concerned with constructing terrorist threats and then busting various patsies and making a big show of their success…”
So, no, the aspiring haute bourgeoisie do not REALLY love education. The hard work of studying is for proles. For asian kids and social climbers and those quota scholarship kids. The idea of learning having some inherent value is now fully gone from the public imagination. Socrates who? He played *soccer* for Brazil, no? Literally nobody reads. I mean book stores are closing en masse. The Gutenberg era is over. I wrote recently on my blog about Hugh Kenner. I used to sneak into his lectures at UCSB in the early 70s. There are no Hugh Kenners anymore. Erudition is to become an obsolete word.
The state of Minnesota is taking Huckleberry Finn off high school reading lists. Harper Lee is being taken off, too. No doubt others will follow. Hurtful. Twain’s epic novel is, apparently, “hurtful”. I am coming, I have to admit, to just not care about who has hurt feelings.
All those social correctives that looked to rid the culture of racist images and language are now appropriated for other purposes. For narcissistic vehicles for anger. For America is as angry a society as the world may have ever seen. All that I see now, the new McCarthyism, the Russophobic propaganda that is swallowed wholesale, and not just swallowed but used as a kind of narcotic — is carried along and draws energy from a deep reservoir of rage. The old Puritan consciousness that wants nothing more than to chastise and shun is alive in the U.S. today. All these hurt feelings are expressions of the narcissistic desire to believe in our own uniqueness and specialness. And such subjective manufacture helps distract from the increasing sadism of American society overall.
The real violence of a system based on inequality is buried. It is obscured. The violence of capital, of wage slavery is mystified. All relations under capitalism are coercive. And when the early Capitalist class collaborated with the Church to burn a few hundred thousand women as witches in the early 1700s, across Europe, they were setting a structural dynamic in motion. The Inquisition and witch burning were not the result of magic, but of the need for scapegoats and for ridding the system of autonomous women and small craftspeople. It set up a class war, essentially, one mediated in that case by a deep hatred of women. And fear. The destruction of various celebrities (mostly) for sexual *misconduct* has already been appropriated by NATO and CAA and even Paul Kagame got in the act (see Emma Watson and the Rwandian war criminal share a dais…all to *help* women in war torn areas, or something. I mean who knows. But it’s mind numbing how quickly such things are activated). Angelina Jolie, who never saw a country she didn’t want to bomb or quarantine (see marriage and honeymoon in Namibia) is also is out stumping for NATO aggressions under cover of protecting women in war zones. No mention of stopping war zones from being created, of course. #MeToo became, as quick as you can write hashtag, a vehicle for the exact opposite of that for which it began. And this was predictable.
Today the system has other scapegoats and other needs than it did during the witch trials in Europe. But the violence of capital is alive throughout the carceral system, alive in black communities where cops operate as anti insurgency soldiers bent on pacification. Fallujah or Baltimore, there is not a lot of difference. And the violence of Nikolas Cruz will cause great oceans of tears and hand wringing. Get rid of guns. Ok, how about those in the hands of cops- or those in the army or Marine corps? Those are OK, because they don’t shoot up schools. Well, not *our* schools, anyway. There is a sort of pattern recognition in the public now. Shoot up a school is a certain class of irrational violence. People will posit notions about anti depressants or whatever. And it might have some truth to it. Maybe a lot, but I can guarantee that few will read anything about the beliefs of these *sick* shooters. That they all, like Anders Breivik, adhere to classic fascistic values and ideology. They do not fall out of the sky. They are the product of a vast number of forces, but they also kill not just because they suffer humiliation and are frustrated and emotionally disfigured. Or, rather, that emotional disfigurement creates the fascist sensibility. They do not think it is wrong, what they do. Cruz had a history of aggressive behaviour toward women. He was a member of ROTC and posted constantly on social media with various guns and weapons. Those who knew him said he was obsessed with guns. The chilling photos of cops in SWAT attire arresting a kid who wanted to be just like them. There is a strange closed loop of morbid mimetic activity on display.
The U.S. today creates enemies. It often seems the primary activity of America, the manufacturing of global enemies and threats. Of late it is Putin and Kim Jong Il. But they are only the latest in a long line. U.S. police departments, heavily militarized, and increasingly trained in Israel for counter insurgency, are no longer in the policing business but rather in the soldiering business. They are militia, not peace officers. The dysfunctional extreme for what this produces is Nikolas Cruz. But how far is Cruz from the Florida cop who murdered a begging man, on his knees, on video? How far from George Zimmerman? One suspects those three might enjoy a beer together and share many of the same values. I am always struck when reading about these alleged lone wolf shooters how NOT alone they are. Klaus Theweleit’s seminal work Male Fantasies should be required reading.
But if male-female relations of production under patriarchy are relations of oppression, it is appropriate to understand the sexuality created by, and active within, those relations as a sexuality of the oppressor and the oppressed. If the social nature of such “gender-distinctions” isn’t expressly emphasized, it seems grievously wrong to distinguish these sexualities according to the categories “male” and “female.” The sexuality of the patriarch is less “male” than it is deadly, just as that of the subjected women is not so much “female” as suppressed, devivified.
— Klaus Theweleit
Theweleit didn’t see genocide as the thwarted expression of inhibited sexual energies. His point was rather that the production of gender and sexuality are intimately tied to the content of anti-Semitism and overt racism—both before, during, and after the fall of the Weimar Republic. Fascist sexuality is not so much repressed as it is ideological: it idealizes virility and fertility as political imperatives.
— Ana Teixeira Pinto
The cultural post modernism of today, at least in the U.S., is technologically sophisticated and socially hyper conservative. The neoliberal system might marginalize white nationalists but they cultivate their symbolism and much of their rhetoric. A Nikolas Cruz desired completion as the captain of capitalist manhood. His failures, his lack of productive labor, his relative poverty, escalated his hatred of those he saw as responsible — and at the head of that list one would guess would be women. But the indoctrination of men like Cruz, or boys, begins earlier. As Theweleit writes,
No man is forced to turn political fascist for reasons of economic devaluation or degradation. His fascism develops much earlier, from his feelings; he is a fascist from the inside.
The violence of the U.S. military, globally, inflicted on the most defenseless nations and people cannot be separated from cops in Chicago or Baltimore or Los Angeles, nor from Fallujuh and Libya and Syria. I mean the U.S. has occupied Afghanistan for sixteen years. The U.S. military metaphorically rapes these countries. And it is a kind of re-colonializing. Sylvia Federici called the World Bank and IMF “the new Conquistadors”. Nor can it be separated, finally, from Harvey Weinstein or James Toback. Nor from the lynch mob hysteria that has coopted the entire #metoo* phenomenon.
Nikolas Cruz sensed he was broken, and his longing for restoration was reflected back at him by those men who would later capture him. Kevlar and weaponry, helmeted faceless phallic superbodies. He could only merge with his fantasy through mimetic approximation. Cruz may be seen as insane, but he was not *only* insane.
The anti-Russian propaganda that is spewed out daily by mainstream media is an insidious and destructive force that also cannot really be separated from the tidal swell of violence on the streets and in the institutions of U.S. society. Manufacturing contempt for North Korea or Yemen or Libya is not *only* propaganda. It has consequences to the psyches of the people that must absorb that inculcating assault. (Go back and read Ben Judah’s bizarre and lurid anti Putin piece at Newsweek, July 2014 — the one with Putin in shades on the cover, his eyes reflecting a burning …we presume…America. Read it now and just try to digest that this is what passes for *real* news as opposed to fake news).
In March of last year Brian Cloughly began an article on this massive anti Russian propaganda this way…
On January 30 NBC News reported that “On a snowy Polish plain dominated by Russian forces for decades, American tanks and troops sent a message to Moscow and demonstrated the firepower of the NATO alliance. Amid concerns that President Donald Trump’s commitment to NATO is wavering, the tanks fired salvos that declared the 28-nation alliance a vital deterrent in a dangerous new world.
One intriguing aspect of this slanted account are the phrases “dominated by Russian forces for decades” and “vital deterrent” which are used by NBC to imply that Russia yearns, for some unspecified reason, to invade Poland. As is common in the Western media there is no justification or evidence to substantiate the suggestion that Russia is hell-bent on domination, and the fact that US troops are far from home, operating along the Russian border, is regarded as normal behaviour on the part of the world’s “indispensable nation.”
This is just one example out of literally hundreds and hundreds. One could find the same against Maduro and Venezuela and against the DPRK. It hardly needs pointing out that Hollywood produces endless paeans of love for militarism and male destructiveness. Capitalism produces economic inequality and as such cannot exist without political and social oppression. The contradictions of Hollywood’s endless fascist product and its equally endless hand wringing over sexual harassment or gun control should be obvious. The sexual harassment in Hollywood goes back to Shirley Temple. It is built into a system in which all parties are there to monetize themselves. It is also true that men with power must punish those beneath them. They cannot exist without subordinates. What Theweleit wrote of the *soldier male* (his term for the prototype ur fascist) that the most urgent task facing him…“is to pursue, to dam in, and to subdue any force that threatens to transform him back into the horribly disorganized jumble of flesh, hair, skin, bones, intestines, and feelings that calls itself human.” Hollywood produces narratives that make the non human heroic. The first Terminator was a watershed moment in that respect. A film whose message was that an android…no, a ‘killer’ android…made a better parent than the human version.
Propaganda that creates phantom enemies is justified because Trump is now the perfect villain. And as such, is a tool of the ruling class. He is the justification for the abandonment of all notions of integrity and honesty, compassion or honour. One case of harassment I know of included a woman who had signed a non disclosure agreement and took payment of tens of thousands of dollars. She disclosed anyway and was applauded as heroic. It is not heroic to break your word. To take a payoff and then snitch anyway. But punishment is its own justification. Trump’s vulgarity is a kind of pride in ignorance trope. He intentionally chooses to be crude, because that is what his base desires. They may not admit it, those suburban small businessmen and managerial white class — but they do. A sense of shunning the soft and sensitive. Stories about escorts and golden showers only adds to his appeal. Those guys wish they could afford escorts. Trump is the grandson of a whore house owner, after all. He never sold himself as Adlai Stevenson.
So, Mark Twain is hurtful. Libraries are being shuttered across the country. Book stores are closing. The U.S. poverty levels have exceeded those of many developing countries. The compulsive hatred of Putin by many who have almost zero idea about Putin or Russian history is disproportionate to any rational analysis, but not surprising. Trump and Putin are like weird doppelgangers in the liberal imagination.
For the propagandists of the exceptional and indispensable nation the by-product of their creative activities is Nikolas Cruz. Trump shares with the far right parties growing across Europe the open disdain for democracy and free speech. Cruz was wearing a Trump cap in one of his Instagram photos. He wasn’t wearing a Che t-shirt. He wanted to kill antifa. He was not an isolated mentally disturbed killer. He was a fascist killer. He wanted to be made whole and inviolate. The way all fascists want to be whole, but cannot.
http://www.greanvillepost.com/2018/02/2 ... nto-a-bar/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
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kidoftheblackhole
- Posts: 318
- Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 6:09 pm
Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy
Steppling's nasty side is on display here. The full throated support amongst workers for fascism was far less than he believes/assumes/claims. One of the central tenets of the Nazis was VIOLENTLY breaking all working class resistance (and they never fully succeeded). There are some interesting thoughts in the rest but it mostly counts as musings which are too time consuming to go through in depth because they are largely orthogonal to the social criticism we are trying to produce.
Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy
You are entirely correct. I had caught that first quote by that Pinto person, which was a 'red flag' for sure but let it pass cause I skimmed and didn'tkidoftheblackhole wrote: ↑Wed Feb 21, 2018 7:18 pmSteppling's nasty side is on display here. The full throated support amongst workers for fascism was far less than he believes/assumes/claims. One of the central tenets of the Nazis was VIOLENTLY breaking all working class resistance (and they never fully succeeded). There are some interesting thoughts in the rest but it mostly counts as musings which are too time consuming to go through in depth because they are largely orthogonal to the social criticism we are trying to produce.
see Steppling doubling down on that sentiment.I gotta do better. This ain't the first time either, in these moments he sets himself apart from the working class. God knows we all get frustrated, the shit I hear from my nearest makes me want to pound my head against the wall. But ya don't do that shit in public, we should realize what we purport to represent.Or mebbe it's that Foucault or Adorno who he often quotes. I don't know much about either but have seen enough of Foucault to be pretty sure he's full of shit.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
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kidoftheblackhole
- Posts: 318
- Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 6:09 pm
Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy
No, no, you're doing great work finding and highlighting posts from all corners of the web including Steppling. I don't want to give the impression that I'm against it, I was more posting to explain why I take a distant approach to things like this. There is just too much to do to devote time to breaking down commentary that barely rises above what DU is talking about. Plus it just doesn't matter what anyone "thinks" (myself included). Of course, if someone else jumped on it I would be more than willing to collaboratively go through it with them.blindpig wrote: ↑Thu Feb 22, 2018 1:04 pmYou are entirely correct. I had caught that first quote by that Pinto person, which was a 'red flag' for sure but let it pass cause I skimmed and didn'tkidoftheblackhole wrote: ↑Wed Feb 21, 2018 7:18 pmSteppling's nasty side is on display here. The full throated support amongst workers for fascism was far less than he believes/assumes/claims. One of the central tenets of the Nazis was VIOLENTLY breaking all working class resistance (and they never fully succeeded). There are some interesting thoughts in the rest but it mostly counts as musings which are too time consuming to go through in depth because they are largely orthogonal to the social criticism we are trying to produce.
see Steppling doubling down on that sentiment.I gotta do better. This ain't the first time either, in these moments he sets himself apart from the working class. God knows we all get frustrated, the shit I hear from my nearest makes me want to pound my head against the wall. But ya don't do that shit in public, we should realize what we purport to represent.Or mebbe it's that Foucault or Adorno who he often quotes. I don't know much about either but have seen enough of Foucault to be pretty sure he's full of shit.
I am working on something for (possible) publication, tentatively titled "Clarifications" with some kind of subtitle like "Toward a Contribution to Political Criticism" to indicate that it is a modest but serious offering on laying the (materialist) groundwork for left critique without directly offering one.
Right now it is a series of rough essays that need to be connected together and properly introduced. I would like to share it but it is a mess at the moment.
Something like the link below is very good and indicative of what needs to be worked out,but there are also enough issues with it that what I am aiming for touches on different ground despite a good deal of superficial similarity.
https://lonelyhourreflections.wordpress ... cquire-it/
Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy
I'll be very interested to see what you've been up to.kidoftheblackhole wrote: ↑Thu Feb 22, 2018 1:49 pmNo, no, you're doing great work finding and highlighting posts from all corners of the web including Steppling. I don't want to give the impression that I'm against it, I was more posting to explain why I take a distant approach to things like this. There is just too much to do to devote time to breaking down commentary that barely rises above what DU is talking about. Plus it just doesn't matter what anyone "thinks" (myself included). Of course, if someone else jumped on it I would be more than willing to collaboratively go through it with them.blindpig wrote: ↑Thu Feb 22, 2018 1:04 pmYou are entirely correct. I had caught that first quote by that Pinto person, which was a 'red flag' for sure but let it pass cause I skimmed and didn'tkidoftheblackhole wrote: ↑Wed Feb 21, 2018 7:18 pmSteppling's nasty side is on display here. The full throated support amongst workers for fascism was far less than he believes/assumes/claims. One of the central tenets of the Nazis was VIOLENTLY breaking all working class resistance (and they never fully succeeded). There are some interesting thoughts in the rest but it mostly counts as musings which are too time consuming to go through in depth because they are largely orthogonal to the social criticism we are trying to produce.
see Steppling doubling down on that sentiment.I gotta do better. This ain't the first time either, in these moments he sets himself apart from the working class. God knows we all get frustrated, the shit I hear from my nearest makes me want to pound my head against the wall. But ya don't do that shit in public, we should realize what we purport to represent.Or mebbe it's that Foucault or Adorno who he often quotes. I don't know much about either but have seen enough of Foucault to be pretty sure he's full of shit.
I am working on something for (possible) publication, tentatively titled "Clarifications" with some kind of subtitle like "Toward a Contribution to Political Criticism" to indicate that it is a modest but serious offering on laying the (materialist) groundwork for left critique without directly offering one.
Right now it is a series of rough essays that need to be connected together and properly introduced. I would like to share it but it is a mess at the moment.
Something like the link below is very good and indicative of what needs to be worked out,but there are also enough issues with it that what I am aiming for touches on different ground despite a good deal of superficial similarity.
https://lonelyhourreflections.wordpress ... cquire-it/
Lemme tell ya something, the above link and what you propose are sorely needed. As bad as that liberal pustule DU is(I' took a look a couple weeks ago and yikes! I think it's worse now, or perhaps more 'honest' in it's reactionary nature) most of the self-described communist on twitter are dingbats at best, wreckers and 'ops' at worst but a few 'sharp knives' and more than a few honestly feeling their way along. You wouldn't believe the shit, from "fully automated space communism" to "Mao makes me cum" and every sort of 'imperialism(Chinese, Iranian, Venezuelan...)
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."