Today’s Poser

Would all you never-Trumpers turn back the clock to 2016 ... including giving up all your IRA gains, our employment expansions, our trading policy improvements, our progress against terrorism, our energy independence, etc. ... in order to get your favorite liberal candidate elected in 2020?

Trumpisms

Trump is evil. Absolutely everything he does as president is pulling this country down. He has accomplish nothing in his over two years in office. All he does is play golf and watch TV. Anything that is good today was accomplished by his Nobel-Prize winning predecessors. He is an absolute doofus and has orange hair to boot. Here are some of his braggadocios policy statements and self-puffing accomplishments. Agree or disagree?

Many NATO members should be paying up for what they had committed to — True  False
North Korea needs to denuclearize or be vaporized — True  False
Germany connecting to a Russian oil pipeline defeats the purpose of NATO — True  False
We have destroyed the ISIS caliphate and should withdraw from Syria — True  False
China’s trade practises with the US are very unfair and need fixing — True  False
Mueller’s Russian collusion investigation is a witch hunt — True  False
If a nation does not protect its borders, it is not a nation ... we need a wall — True  False
Tax cuts and regulation reform will jump start the American economy — True  False
We have long promised to move our embassy to Jerusalem. Now is the time — True False
After 18 years of war, it is time to get out of Afghanistan — True  False
The Iranian nuclear deal is a complicit disaster and needs to be nullified — True  False
Middle East nations should pay us for their defense — True  False
The Iranian theocracy does not serve its people and needs to be reformed — True  False
Our intelligence agencies don’t always get things right — True  False
We need to make America energy independent — True  False
We need a more thorough migrant vetting process in countries rife with terrorists — True  False
Saudi Arabia is key to Middle East peace — True  False
Visa lotteries do not produce the best migrants, should be stopped — True  False
We need to bring manufacturing back to our country— True False
Chain migration is also insane and needs to be stopped — True  False
We need to arm the Ukrainian government to push back against the Russians — True  false
NAFTA has been a disaster for US manufacturing and needs renegotiating — True  False
Why are we  taking migrants from “shithole” countries — True  False
The Paris Climate Accord was a gigantic wealth transfer mechanism and should die — True  False
The United States will never be a socialist country — True  False
Our military needs to refunded and  revitalized — True  False

And this is not the half of it. Romney said Trump was “a fake and a fraud.” And he is not getting anything done. Agree?

Energy Independence

I have written in the past about "oil industry subsidies." Rather than using a hyperlink, I will just reproduce my 2011 blog entry text here:

Semantics are wondrous things.  Many politicians, including some Republicans, are now calling for the elimination of oil industry "subsidies" as one small way of closing our heinous budget deficit.  These subsidies supposedly total $4.4 billion per year (see: Oil Industry Subsidies.) This is a very small amelioration (less than 0.3%) considering that our budget deficits are now running around $1.6 trillion per year.

Now, I am old enough to remember what these oil-industry "subsidies" really are.  They used to be called "oil depletion allowances."  These allowances were meant to equate to "depreciation" in other industries.  In other words, as an oil company either purchased or leased the mineral rights to a piece of land ... and then extracted the oil, there was a reduced value to this land since the oil was being extracted.  Thus oil companies were allowed to "depreciate" this depleted oil deposit to allow them to then go and buy or lease other land to look for more oil. 

Can we thus call the ability of General Motors to depreciate the machinery (robots, machine tools, etc.) it uses to make cars an "auto-industry subsidy?"  If we did, all hell would break loose.  Now maybe the formulas used to calculate oil depletion allowances need to be reformulated given the new technology used in oil extraction.  But to eliminate these oil-industry "subsides" entirely is but another step in our tree huggers' attempt to emasculate the United States' energy-producing capabilities.  This is a little like playing Russian Roulette with five bullets in your six-shooter.

I pretty much said what needed to be said back in 2011, but now Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire is using this same demagoguery against Scott Brown in their Senate race up there. If we are ever going to achieve energy independence in this country, it will not be by eliminating this valid accounting process for oil exploration companies. Machinery wears out and is obsoleted ... and needs to be replaced. That is why depreciation is a valid accounting entry for manufacturing companies. Such is also the case for oil in the ground. Once it is gone then the high prices paid for this resource is lost unless it was allowed to be depreciated like any other income-producing asset. This is not a "subsidy" ... it is simply a logical accounting rule ... something that seems continually to be lost on liberals ... and naive voters

Why the media, accounting professionals and university professors don't come to defend this age-old accounting practice is beyond me.  Oh, yes ... I think I just answered my own question.

Inattentiveness

President Obama’s management style is inattentiveness … fund raisers, golf, and his March-Madness brackets always have precedence over the business of governing.  This might be less of a flaw if our fearless leader had surrounded himself with competent managers instead of political hacks.  But, as it turns out, this administration failing is both good and bad.

We are seeing much of the malignant results in the Obamacare debacle, our still-suffering economy (despite the recent unemployment rate), and our many foreign policy disasters.  It seems to this observer that, any time a policy issue does make it onto Obama’s radar screen, he guides it into a mountain side.  These management flaws are too often adroitly covered up by his likable folksy nature and political spin that rivals Hurricane Katrina ... dished out by his legions of acolytes (including that common streetwalker, Jay Carney.)

But some beneficial results also occur due to his and his administration’s inattentiveness.  Many pockets of our government, when left to their own devices, still are achieving remarkable results … witness the Republican-led deficit reduction programs, our nation's drive toward energy independence, the development in Area 51 of a super-secret high-altitude drone (see: Foreign Policy Article) and, I do believe, the Bin Laden and Somali pirate killings. There are surely other national successes that have escaped Obama's heavy hand.  Perhaps if he were encouraged to play even more golf ...?

Obama’s Legacy

Heads of state are aptly remembered for what they had accomplished while in office … their legacy if you will.  There are big legacies and not-so-big legacies.  Clearly those Presidents who are memorialized on Mt. Rushmore have left big legacies … winning important wars, freeing the slaves, establishing for posterity firm democratic guidelines, ridding our nation of malignant structural forces, curing economic malaise, setting high ethical and moral standards, etc. According to the Associated Press, Obama wants his legacy from his second terms as President to be the following:

 - “an immigration law that would deal firmly but compassionately with millions of illegal residents”;

-  “an economic model that demands more money from the rich to shrink the debt;”

- “a tax system that is fairer and simpler for families;”

- “a bigger emphasis on education,”

- “more made-in-America energy,” and

- solving our “old problem of gun violence.”

See: A.P. Story

If one actually believes these pronouncements, our current White House occupant has not carved out for himself the loftiest of goals.  These stated objectives, to me, seem short-term and opportunistic … ignoring many of the gigantic economic, social, cultural, infrastructure, and geo-political conundrums that we face as a nation. And, truth be told, he has not, in the first half of his tenure, accomplished very much even toward his previous picayune pronouncements … other than through his rhetoric (which is all too often hollow and divisive).

So, seeing that we have to live with this man for the next four years, it sure would be nice if his upcoming inaugural address on Monday were to set a higher standard for his next four year than what we are being shown in the quoted Associated Press piece.  And it would be even nicer, were he to do so, I and the rest of the country would find ourselves nodding our heads in belief and enthusiastic agreement.

A Stopped Clock Is Twice Right

President Obama occasionally gets things right. In his State of the Union address he called for more "safe, clean nuclear power plants." And yesterday he called for $54 billion of federal loan guarantees to those who would build this new generation of nuclear power. See: Loan Guarantees. IF we can take him at his word (the big "if" is on purpose), then this would be an important step forward in the U.S.'s attempt to achieve energy independence. In this speech he also mentioned more offshore drilling for gas and oil. This would be wonderful if it happened, but my cynicism takes over here and such a development (ANWR too?) I'm afraid, is even more suspect.

It would seem to this author that the real path to our nation's energy independence might require the following steps:
1) Build as many new nuclear power plants as can be economically financed and open up Yucca Mountain for long-term nuclear waste disposal (if required).
2) Aim to generate all our electrical needs from nuclear energy (east and west coast) and from coal-fired plants (middle America). No more natural gas and oil-fired electrical power plants should be given permits.
3) Encourage all Americans to heat their homes with natural gas and help build the infrastructure and offer the tax incentives to accomplish this. The objective should be no more oil-heated homes.
4) Specify that kerosene, diesel fuel, and gasoline are the most desirable fuels for transportation vehicles (air, rail, and ground). Offer the necessary incentives to achieve better mileage in these vehicles (including hybrid technology). Investigate liquefied coal as a long-term vehicular fuel option.
5) Set a national goal of ceasing all foreign oil imports within ten years (using the above methodologies and including oil recovery from our vast oil shale deposits.) I predict that the price of Mideast oil would plummet as a consequence of just such a goal setting.
6) Stop wasting federal funds on solar, tidal, geothermal, and wind-power projects and use these funds instead on the above items. Let the private sector fund any of these "green" projects that make any economic sense (likely very few).

I can dream can't I? Tick ... tick ... tick.