I am not going to name any of them but many conservative writers have recently posted strong criticisms of the Trump/Pelosi spending deal

The spending being envisaged goes far beyond  what taxes will bring in so where is the money coming from?

There are two answers to that:  Borrowing money and simply printing any extra money you need.  But you can't do that! many people will say.  You just can't print money willy nilly!  Sadly, you can -- if you are President of the United States or some other country.  And ever since the gold standard was abolished, all governments have been doing just that.  Normally, however, governments are pretty cautious about how much new money they create. Milton Friedman's recommendation that the money supply should be expanded by no more than 4% p.a. is normally somewhere in the ballpark.

Obama, however, really got the bit between his teeth and created a huge pile of new money.  He was no Friedmanite and if he wanted to spend money on something he spent it.  And the media stayed Shtumm about it.

Now normally, that should have created galloping inflation.  The buying power of the greenback should have dropped sharply.  In Weimar Germany, Zimbabwe and Venezuela that has happened.  Runaway spending shot all prices up to previously unimagined levels, which completely destroyed people's savings.  Even big savings could no longer buy much.  Money that could once have bought a car might now only buy you a cup of coffee.

So why has that not happened in the USA? That's the big question.  Economists have no clear answer to it.  Some of the new money has gone into increased real estate prices and some has gone into historically low interest rates and some has gone into increased reserves held by financial institutions but there must be something more.  But what? And how long will the party go on?  Nobody knows.

But Trump is a qualified economist so he can see clearly what has happened and has decided that he will join the party.  He has decided that Obama must not have all the fun.  So he is in fact set to outspend Obama, which gives all conservative economists severe heartburn.

So is he wrong?  Is he building up a financial disaster for all Americans? Conventional economic theory says he is but actual practice in the Obama era says he isn't.  We are in an era of great gaps between economic theory and economic reality.  But that gap does create an opportunity for "free" infrastructure spending.  Obame spent the "free" money he created on gifts to Iran etc. So big infrastructure spending is at least a lot better than that.  Trump is simply using the time-out from economic orthodoxy on projects which will have lasting value.  He is very canny to have seen the opportunity and seized it.  He should be congratulated, not condemned for his wise spending  -- JR.

**********************************

CNN anchor Victor Blackwell chokes up on air after Trump rips ‘infested’ Baltimore

Blackwell seems to think that "whitey" is to blame.  How about placing blame on those who live there -- mainly blacks and their usual high crime-rate -- and those who have run the city for many years: the Democrats

A CNN anchor got choked up on air Saturday after President Trump ripped Rep. Elijah Cummings and the city, calling it “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.”

“Donald Trump has tweeted more than 43,000 times. He’s insulted thousands of people, many different types of people. But when he tweets about infestation, it’s about black and brown people,” Victor Blackwell said.

“The president says about Congressman Cummings’ district that no human would want to live there,” Blackwell continued.

“You know who did, Mr. President? I did, from the day I was brought home from the hospital to the day I left for college, and a lot of people I care about still do.”

SOURCE 

*********************************

'Speaking of failing badly, has anyone seen what is happening to Nancy Pelosi's district in San Francisco': Trump now attacks the House Speaker's city following his stinging attack on Baltimore and says Democrats 'always play the race card'

President Donald Trump is defending his verbal attack on the city of Baltimore and Rep. Elijah Cummings and has taken to Twitter to revile Nancy Pelosi and her district of San Francisco.

Trump sparked outrage on Saturday when he blasted Baltimore as a 'disgusting, rodent-infested mess' and Cummings as 'brutal bully', leading Speaker Pelosi and other Democrats to condemn the president for his harsh words.

But the president seemed unfazed and shifted his focus to Pelosi on Sunday writing, 'Speaking of failing badly, has anyone seen what is happening to Nancy Pelosi's district in San Francisco', adding 'it's not even recognizable lately'.

On Saturday Nancy Pelosi, who was born in Baltimore and is the daughter of a former Baltimore Mayor, came to Cummings' defense on Twitter.

'@RepCummings is a champion in the Congress and the country for civil rights and economic justice, a beloved leader in Baltimore, and deeply valued colleague. We all reject racist attacks against him and support his steadfast leadership,' she tweeted.

But Trump took her tweet as a chance to criticize her and call her a racist.

'Someone please explain to Nancy Pelosi, who was recently called racist by those in her own party, that there is nothing wrong with bringing out the very obvious fact that Congressman Elijah Cummings has done a very poor job for his district and the City of Baltimore. Just take a look, facts speak far louder than words!'

'Speaking of failing badly, has anyone seen what is happening to Nancy Pelosi’s district in San Francisco. It is not even recognizeable lately. Something must be done before it is too late. The Dems should stop wasting time on the Witch Hunt Hoax and start focusing on our Country!

He was likely referencing San Francisco's homelessness crisis that counted over 8,000 homeless people in the streets, according to a January tally. 

Trump also blasted Democrats for 'playing the Race Card' and making him out to be a racist for his digs at Cummings, who is black.

'The Democrats always play the Race Card, when in fact they have done so little for our Nation’s great African American people. Now, lowest unemployment in U.S. history, and only getting better. Elijah Cummings has failed badly!' he tweeted.

Trump first launched his Twitter attack on Cummings on Saturday after the Democrat criticized conditions at the Southern border.

The outraged president defended the border detention centers as 'clean, efficient and well run, just very crowded', calling the camps superior to Cummings' own district in Maryland.

'Cumming District is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess. If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous & filthy place,' Trump tweeted.

'Why is so much money sent to the Elijah Cummings district when it is considered the worst run and most dangerous anywhere in the United States. No human being would want to live there. Where is all this money going? How much is stolen? Investigate this corrupt mess immediately!' he added.

SOURCE 

********************************

Bernie Sanders criticizes Trump for his 'racist' comments about Baltimore – four years after he compared the city to a 'Third World Country'

Bernie Sanders has launched a scathing criticism of the president following Trump's 'racist' remarks about 'rat infested' Baltimore - four years after he compared the city to a 'Third World Country'.

When Sanders was asked about the president's remarks, the senator said it was 'unbelievable that we have a President of the United States who attacks American cities, who attacks Americans, who attacks somebody who is a friend of mine.'

But a clip recorded on the campaign trail in 2015, during Sanders' first attempt to lead the Democrats, captured the candidate suggest the area showed no signs of being within a developed economy, referring to infrastructure and jobs.

The clip was dug up by a Twitter account called Trump's War Room and was shared in the wake of the backlash Trump received for saying Rep. Elijah Cummings' district was rat 'infested.'

Sanders' full comments at the time were: 'Anyone who took the walk that we took around this neighborhood would not think you're in a wealthy nation. You would think that you were in a Third World country.

'But today what we're talking about is a community in which half of the people don't have jobs. We're talking about a community in which there are hundreds of buildings that are uninhabitable.'

The comments were not the first time Sanders singled out the congressional district for particular criticism. In 2016 he again used Baltimore as an example of the America's disproportionate distribution of wealth.

SOURCE 

********************************

Elizabeth Warren wants to break up big tech. Its workers don't want to break up with her

Twenty years ago, Jeff Few joined Amazon when it was still an upstart, aiming to break the grip of behemoths such as Barnes & Noble and Blockbuster in the market for books and movies.

"I saw it as this force that would finally enable something closer to a direct democracy," Few recalled.

Now, Amazon is a titan of e-commerce, and Few, who lives in Seattle and went on to work for Apple and Adobe, has embraced, and donated $300 to, a Democratic presidential candidate who has fiercely criticized his industry and called for the breakup of its biggest players - Senator Elizabeth Warren.

He is far from alone among tech employees. Although Warren has painted tech giants such as Google and Facebook as modern-day villains in her scathing picture of the American economy, she is emerging as a top choice for donations from tech workers, according to an analysis of campaign contributions by The Boston Globe.

With her denunciations of big tech and corporate greed, Warren has tapped into simmering discontent within the industry itself about the size, power, and ethics of its companies. So, while tech executives have often resisted calls from Washington to regulate the industry, employees are contributing to Warren and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the candidates with the most aggressive positions on corporate oversight.

"I agree tech companies are becoming increasingly powerful," said Vicki Tardif, who works on search products at Google and helped organize a major protest there last fall. She says she has contributed to Warren. "I'm a citizen first - I'm a Google employee second."

Looking at just the big four tech companies that she wants to break apart - Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google - and some of their affiliates, Warren received some $144,000 in itemized donations from their employees over the first six months of the year.

Warren has been a particularly vocal critic of big tech in recent months. In March, she detailed a plan that would require the biggest companies - those with annual revenue of $25 billion - to separate their technology platforms from their e-commerce activities. So Google's massive ad-sales operation would split off from its ubiquitous search engine; Amazon could not have both an e-commerce platform and a sales business on it.

Warren looks to be setting the tone in a Democratic field that is generally taking a harder line toward the industry. Former vice president Joe Biden and Harris have said it is worth taking a look at her plan, but stopped short of a full-throated endorsement. Buttigieg has said he "potentially" agrees with it, but, during a town hall in March, raised questions about other aspects of big tech: "It's not how big they are, it's how they act." In May, Sanders said he agreed Facebook should be broken up.

Warren and other candidates have also called for big corporations such as Amazon to pay significantly more in taxes. But she, in particular, has drawn the ire of conservative tech mogul and Trump ally Peter Thiel, who called her the Democratic candidate he is most scared of.

In some ways, well-to-do tech employees backing populists such as Warren and Sanders are acting against their own interests. Both candidates are antitrust hawks who want to limit the reach of big corporations; both have supported job actions by low-wage workers at Amazon and drivers for Uber and Lyft.

Warren's and Sanders' success with tech workers is partially due to the industry's liberal leanings, and many employees interviewed for this story emphasized her overall candidacy in describing her appeal, not her specific positions on big tech.

"She's a wonk," said Alex Whitworth, a data scientist at Facebook who kicked $250 toward her campaign. "That's strongly appealing to me, as a wonk."

For other tech donors, their willingness to back candidates critical of their industry may also be due in part to tensions with their bosses. The tech industry has been roiled by walkouts and protests over contracts with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other government agencies and the military. There is also lingering anger over the role social media networks played in the disinformation campaign Russians used in the 2016 elections.

"We have this tech-lash phenomenon that's been building over the past few years," said Ben Tarnoff, editor of Logic magazine, which covers technology. "There's a large and vocal constituency in the tech sector that is making the case these companies have a responsibility for the tech they're building."

Interviews with tech employees who support Warren and Sanders reveal a well of reservations about the increasing power of big corporations and enthusiasm for candidates who are addressing it head-on.

"I like working at Amazon. It's been the best job of my career," said Michael Sokolov, a senior software development engineer who donated $250 to Warren. "However, I don't like the fact that our economy is dominated by gigantic super-corporations."

Many Democratic candidates have criticized the tech industry while mingling with its luminaries at fund-raisers. Warren's success among its employees could undermine her image as a fierce critic, although her campaign pointed out it has a policy of not holding private fund-raisers or reaching out directly to members of any industry.

And some of Warren's long-held positions align directly with demands of tech workers scrutinizing their own industry. Last fall, thousands of Google employees walked out in protest of the company's policy requiring workers to settle disputes in forced arbitration, instead of through lawsuits, which workers said has allowed Google to keep accusations of serious problems such as sexual assault secret. Warren has been a vocal opponent of forced arbitration for years and proposed prohibiting companies that use the practice from getting federal contracts.

"We've been advocating for an end to forced arbitration. We had to push our company for that," said Tanuja Gupta, another organizer of the Google walkouts, who has donated $333.82 to Warren's campaign. "I find it incredibly appealing that there's a political candidate who's willing to do that for all workers and end forced arbitration."

Several donors expressed reservations about Warren's plan to break up tech companies, including whether it would do enough to address the industry's problems.

SOURCE 

************************************

For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

**************************