Brilliant!!

Trump’s bypassing of Congress with his four executive orders yesterday was brilliant politically! He has not been known as a good politician ... but he just proved the pundits wrong. Yes, these executive orders may not pass judicial muster ... but they do show the American public what the Republicans are willing to do ... and what the Democrats are unwilling to do ... and may actually force the Dems back to the bargaining table. His executive orders did the following:

- temporarily suspended the payroll tax (social security tax) through the end of the year

- reinstated the prohibition against evictions due to lack of rental payments

- augmented state unemployment benefits by $400 per week (replaced the expired $600 per week)

- suspended student loan repayment through the end of the year ... and continued zero interest costs for same

Nancy Pelosi had thought she had a winner with her $3 trillion “my way or the highway” boondoggle ... and she did have the Republicans boxed in. So, what did the Orangeman do? He went outside the box and showed America how far he was willing to go. I believe that these executive orders might be vacated by the courts ... and possibly should be. But Trump has made his political hay ... while the sun wasn’t shining. And I expect the American people will appreciate his efforts.

Of his four executive orders, his only error might be his temporary suspension of the payroll tax for people earning less than $100,000 per year. The problem here is that many retired people and people on Medicaid automatically jump to the conclusion that their benefits will be jeopardized ... and the Dems will be sure to try to push this half truth. But this needs to be recognized as a potential problem and maybe needs to be let slide.

(Interesting sidelight: Trump’s aggressiveness with these executive actions may be inspired by the recent Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of President Obama’s executive order protecting illegal immigrant children, known as DACA).

STAND UP FOR AMERICA!

Headlines

These headlines are real ... they have all been discovered on Internet news sites. 

Guess which ones came from Politico?

Trump gives himself a 'C' on communicating

Poll: Half of college students believe their college loans will be forgiven

Cuomo tiptoes toward 2020 run [for president]

Politifact: Trump debt claim 'mostly false' -- even though his numbers are accurate

Mess: Oscar ratings fall double digits from '16 ...

Taxpayers foot $1M bill to clean up Dakota Pipeline protest area

Showdown: Trump and Ryan head for clash ...

McConnell, Ryan meet with Trump: Promise 'bold agenda'

Trump administration solicits border wall proposals from contractors

New gold rush as floods shake lose old California deposits

Trump wants to cut EPA budget by $2 billion, cut 3,000 staff

Whites are privileged, so they should pay more taxes

Godzilla vs. Rodan

I'm not a Godzilla aficionado but I do know that these movies represented the struggles between titans.  My picking Rodan (out of 20 or more Godzilla foes) as this giant Japanese lizard's combatant is because it is the only one I remember.  Nevertheless, I have chosen this metaphor to represent the battle of ideologies that is currently taking place here in the United States ... a battle between the Tea Party and the Occupiers.  If I may, I think the Tea Party represents populous opposition to big government sprawl whereas the Occupiers resent the growing disparity between fat-cat CEOs/universities and their employees/students.  Unfortunately, many Occupiers have extrapolated these resentments into a unthinking condemnation of capitalism.

To me, the Tea Party is opposing the bigger danger, a government that insinuates itself into every alcove of our lives ... destroying institutions and democratic traditions that have worked so well during the last 235 years.  This over-reaching government strategy clearly is working under the current Obama administration. Our economy has ground to a virtual halt, I think, in opposition to a hostile government that feels it can pick economic winners and losers ... and our credit rating continues to slip as we pile up gigantic sovereign debt.

The Occupiers, beneath the gusto of youthful exuberance and monstrous irresponsibility, do still have a few points to make.  Yes, the executives  of many of our companies have stepped over the line of economic self-interest (read "greed" if you wish) to the point where they are clogging their company's arteries with plutocratic plaque.  And this is because much of their firm's ownership is now in the hands of mutual funds, hedge funds and exchange traded funds.  These financial entities are so short-term profit oriented that they care not if executive salaries spiral out of hand.  I have addressed this dislocation in the past in a blog titled Turd on the Table. 

Also colleges have become burdened with administrative bloat and therefore pass these costs on to their students with spiraling tuitions which then translates into student loans that are crushing their graduates.  I contend that this inflation is as much due to the heavy hand of government intrusion into the economics of education as it is to generic growth (see: "Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble").  This problem too can be solved without a national revolution as advocated by the Occupiers.  In fact I suspect that, if the Tea Party has its way and our federal government is reined in, this problem will disappear within a generation.

So who will win this B-movie struggle?  Let us hope that it is, like it always was on the big screen, Godzilla (the Tea Party).  But I also hope that Rodan's (the Occupier's) rising out of that mountain egg also teaches some key lessons ... even in its defeat.

"Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble"

There are a variety of gripes being voiced by the "Occupiers" of Wall Street and other cities ... from "millionaires are evil" to "legalize pot now."  However, there is one complaint that has merit and deserves some focus: "I owe $50,000 [or much more] on my college loans and I can't find a job to begin paying it back."  It is estimated that there are now close to one trillion dollars of college loans outstanding.  This is a particularly onerous burden for such graduates who majored in gender of other hyphenated studies and are all vying for the only jobs they are realistically qualified for -- that of teaching gender and other hyphenated studies courses.  And the entity that they owe this money to is (drum roll please) the federal government ... since The Barry has nationalized almost the entire student-loan industry.  Therefore, a good many of these demonstrators unknowingly hate the very one they love.

The real reason that there is this financial dislocation is that colleges and universities have, for years, been increasing tuitions and fees far beyond the rate of inflation.  And the reason that they have been able to do this is that the federal government has insinuated itself into the economics of this industry with numerous grants, student loan guarantees, and a drumbeat about the importance of a college education.  (Ignoring the fact that neither Bill Gates nor Steve Jobs completed college.)  Somehow, like in the health care industry, whenever the federal government meddles in things, inflation rates there go haywire.

And what have these higher-education institutions been doing with all this largess?  The have bloated up their administrations with Deans of Diversity (kind of like the job Michelle Obama had in Chicago), Directors of Sustainability, etc. ... and their pampered staffs ... as well as numerous professors of gender and other hyphenated studies.  In my opinion, this is the next bubble that is about to be pricked by the exigencies of today's economic situation.  It is difficult to imagine that all the brilliant minds in almost all of these pedagogical institutions don't realize the precariousness of their situation  ... and start shedding administrative and hyphenated professorial staffs so that they might freeze or even reduce tuitions (Princeton possibly being the small exception.)

And, when this bubble does burst, may I make a prediction?  Instead of stepping out of the way and allowing an educational-industry normalcy to get re-established, the federal government will insert itself even further to prop up this silly situation ... with something like TARP II.  Will we never learn that capitalism has its own self-healing mechanisms?