Nostalgia

Demolition Derby

I have attended a couple of uniquely-American demolition derbies in my knickers days. The secret was to run into other cars going backwards so that you didn’t destroy your car’s radiator which meant steam-belching mechanical inoperability (you lost).

STAND UP FOR AMERICA!

Food Banks

Food line in San Diego

Are so many out-of-work Americans so poor that they take to their cars, spend $20 for gasoline and wait in line for half a day to receive a $35 food hand-out? How does this make any economic sense?

Leveling the Playing Field

Many American free-traders are wearing blinders. The rest of the world has erected punitive tariffs against our products -- 25% on cars going into China and 100% on motorcycles going into Japan, etc. -- yet when Trump places selective tariffs on steel and aluminum, our Chamber of Commerce predicts the end of the world. We are still living with the fiction that trade barriers caused the Great Depression ... not the real culprit, very tight monetary policy.

Trump's (and Wilbur Ross's)  instincts are right ... either the rest of the world should level the playing field to American products or we will reciprocate in kind. The multitude of countries who have been wallowing in balance of payments surpluses with the U.S. should think twice before issuing hollow tariff threats. They have much more to lose than to gain.

Trump is actually wrong on one count -- this country has a long way to go before we are truly great again. Too many of our industries are on life support (or dead) due to not just unfair tariffs but also numerous subsidies by foreign countries on their industries ... just those with value added taxes (VATs) have a huge competitive advantage which is not being negated by Trump's push-back ... and they should. No wonder we are running close to trillion dollar trade deficits with the rest of the world. We are fighting these trade wars with both hands tied behind our backs ... tariffs and VATs. And I have read that there is a high positive correlation between negative trade balances and government spending deficits.

Trump is playing our economic offense correctly. But he needs to keep up the pressure before we can feel that that we have bulldozed the playing field level.

Headlines

All from Internet news sites. Guess which ones from Politico?

At Ohio rally, Trump keeps making campaign promises

Trump bans transgenders from serving in the military

Stocks hit new record again and again and again ...

Levin: Trump treating Schumer, Pelosi better than Sessions

Wasserman Schultz [IT] aide arrested trying to leave country

State Department denies rumors of Tillerson departure

Fall Preview: New Hillary nook blames everyone ...

Tucker: Trump's attacks on Sessions are 'nuts'

House Republicans seek to dodge border wall vote

Princeton hopes to promote 'healthy masculinity' on campus

End of diesel and gas cars in UK ... by 2040 ...

Trump gives Sessions a stay: Won't fire -- for now ...

Color Me Skeptical

There is quite a bit of excitement about the possibility of autonomous autos. If in 20 years or so "driverless" are the only cars, buses and trucks on the roads (as breathlessly predicted), then the following diverse conveyances will have become automous. Color me skeptical at least because of these:

- The Indianapolis 500

- Street sweepers

- Emergency vehicles

- Road graders/pavers

- Parade floats

- Mail-route mini-trucks

- Gear-shift vehicles

- Dump trucks

- Funeral processions

- UPS trucks

- Off-road and all-terrain vehicles

- Low riders

- Pavement marking vehicles

- Drive-thru windows

- Car chases

- Garbage trucks

- Snow plows

- Monster truck shows

- Antique autos

- School buses

- Tandem trailer trucks

- High school senior-day honk-a-thons

- Parking space searches

- Clown cars

- Specialized recyclables pick-up trucks


Do I make my point?