I’m going to be scathing in my critique because these people are both dishonest and incompetent and deserve to be called out on it.
Here’s their formula:
It’s a ridiculously simplistic formula.
First, a stylistic quibble. What is up with those asterisks in the denominator? I’ll give the authors the benefit of the doubt and assume that they wanted the formula to be understandable by people who aren’t familiar with standard math notation, in which the juxtaposition of variables indicates multiplication. But to see it written that way in an official document is just… weird.
The i subscripts in the formula just indicate that the formula is to be applied to one country at a time — country i. I’ll therefore omit the ‘i’s from the rest of the discussion.
∆𝜏 is the amount by which the tariff currently being placed on that particular country should change (according to the Trump administration bozos) in order to drive the bilateral trade deficit to zero. In other words, 𝜏 (the existing rate) + ∆𝜏 (the change in rate) would be the correct final rate (according to the formula) to achieve the dubious goal of a trade balance.
The inanity of insisting on bilateral trade balances
We’re off to a bad start already, because the notion that every bilateral trade deficit should be zero is ridiculous on its face. Let’s look at a simplified example. Suppose Malawi sells us only mangoes, and the US (henceforth ‘we’, since I’m American) sells them only air conditioners. In order for the trade deficit to be zero, we need to buy the same dollar amount in mangoes that they buy in air conditioners, and we should adjust the tariffs we impose on Malawi until that happens. Why is this desirable? Why should the amount of mangoes be linked to the amount of air conditioners? Who the hell knows? It’s just Trump’s idiotic obsession, and it makes no sense.
To make the stupidity even more obvious, think of an analogous situation. Ernesto sells tacos from a taco truck, and George runs a landscaping business. George occasionally buys tacos from Ernesto, and Ernesto hires George to mow his lawn. Suppose Ernesto pays more to George each month than George spends buying tacos from Ernesto. Is Ernesto being cheated? Is he subsidizing George? No and no. George gets every taco he pays for, and Ernesto gets his lawn mown on schedule. It would be ridiculous to say that either of them is being cheated, and ridiculous to say that the goal should be to make the amounts even.
Why is Trump obsessed with trade deficits? It’s because he is confused enough to believe that the existence of a bilateral trade deficit — a trading deficit with a particular country, Malawi in my example — means that they are cheating us and that we’re subsidizing them. He actually believes that we are just handing over the money, getting nothing in return. In reality, we get every frikkin’ mango we pay for, and they get every air conditioner they pay for. No one is being cheated, and to demand that the dollar amounts should match is idiotic and pointless.
Trump actually declares in his executive order that trade deficits are a “national emergency”. He does this because he doesn’t have the authority to impose tariffs unless it’s a national emergency. Otherwise, the job falls to Congress, where it belongs. Trump is lying about the supposed national emergency.
The formula
According to the USTR statement, the x in the formula is the dollar value of what we export to a particular country, while m is the dollar value of what we import from them. The numerator, x – m, is therefore equal to the trade imbalance. If x is bigger than m, then the difference is positive, and we are running a trade surplus. If x is less than m, then x – m is negative, and we have a trade deficit. But note that they have it backwards in the formula: it should be m – x, not x – m. Why? Because the denominator is positive. If both the numerator and denominator are positive, as they would be in the case of a trade surplus, the formula would deliver a ∆𝜏 that is positive. In other words, the formula as written would actually increase the tariffs for the countries with whom we have a trade surplus, and it would decrease the tariffs for countries with whom we have a trade deficit. The formula therefore punishes the (supposedly) good guys and rewards the (supposedly) bad ones, which is opposite to the administration’s intentions. One more indication of their clown car incompetence.
They could easily have corrected the formula if they were aware of the error. Just put a negative sign in front of the formula, or swap x and m, or redefine x and m as the amounts exported and imported by the other country, instead of the amounts exported and imported by the US. Any one of those three would fix the problem, but no.
Let’s assume that we have corrected that mistake for them and that the numerator now equals the amount of the trade deficit, not the surplus. What about the denominator? Well, it just so happens that the values they chose for 𝜀 and 𝜓 are 4 and 0.25, respectively. Those multiply to 1, thus canceling each other. How convenient. These charlatans actually and blatantly chose the values so that they would cancel out, instead of using the most accurate numbers they could find in the literature. They cheated.
After that suspiciously convenient choice of parameters, the formula is now just ∆𝜏 = trade deficit divided by total imports:
Do they actually apply this formula? No. They massage its output even more. They divide ∆𝜏 by two, for no good reason. That means that for the formula to match the actual tariffs, they should multiply the denominator by 2. They fail to do that, as you’d expect. Why 2? My hypothesis is that even those dunces realized that the numbers they were getting from the formula were ridiculously large, and dividing by 2 was a way to get them down to a range that they considered reasonable. More number fudging with no theoretical justification.
Next problem: according to the corrected formula, ∆𝜏 should be negative in the case of trade surpluses. That is, we should decrease the tariffs on imports from those countries. If the existing tariff rate is small enough, it should even go negative, according to the formula, in order to balance our trade with that country. Trump doesn’t like that, so he has arbitrarily declared that everyone will pay a minimum of 10%, whether there’s a trade deficit or a trade surplus. In other words, the policy, which is already misguided, is also unfair — it says that it’s OK for the US to screw other countries by imposing high tariffs, even if they’re doing the “right” thing and allowing us to run a trade surplus with them.
The actual rates
Here are the charts spelling out the actual tariff rates.
The chart labels them “Reciprocal Tariffs”, but that is a lie, since the formula doesn’t take into account the tariff rate charged by the other countries on our exports to them. It’s completely missing from the formula. They aren’t reciprocal tariffs, they’re misguided tariffs in response to trade deficits, and they punish US importers instead of the countries selling us those goods and services.
The label on the middle column is wrong for the same reason, and it’s even further wrong because it depicts a bilateral trade deficit as a quantifier of “currency manipulation and trade barriers”, which it isn’t. We can run a bilateral trade deficit for no other reason than that Americans want more of what the other country is selling us than they want from us. That’s not “currency manipulation and trade barriers”, and the Trump administration is dishonest for trying to sell it that way.
The numbers in the middle column are apparently those that come straight out of the formula. You can tell, because the tariffs that are actually being imposed by the US are just the middle column divided by 2. That’s the arbitrary factor of 2 I mentioned above. The only exceptions are in those cases where dividing by 2 would leave a less than 10% tariff, in which case the tariff is set to 10%. Gotta make sure that everyone gets screwed at least that much.
The US Trade Representative’s explanation
Now some excerpts from the USTR statement. The very first paragraph:
Reciprocal tariffs are calculated as the tariff rate necessary to balance bilateral trade deficits between the U.S. and each of our trading partners. This calculation assumes that persistent trade deficits are due to a combination of tariff and non-tariff factors that prevent trade from balancing. Tariffs work through direct reductions of imports.
Well, duh. The phrase “tariff and non-tariff factors” covers literally every possible factor in the entire world. Yes, there are actual reasons that we buy more in mangoes from Malawi than they buy from us in air conditioners. Therefore we should conclude that we’re getting ripped off?
While individually computing the trade deficit effects of tens of thousands of tariff, regulatory, tax and other policies in each country is complex, if not impossible, their combined effects can be proxied by computing the tariff level consistent with driving bilateral trade deficits to zero.
Not by any reasonable person. You need to do the homework before making policy decisions that will affect the entire world economy. If they want less of what we’re selling than we want of what they’re selling, that can lead to a trade deficit, independent of all the factors they list above.
This doesn’t mean that trade practices can’t be unfair, but it does mean that to assume something nefarious is going on merely because we’re running a bilateral trade deficit is stupid.
If trade deficits are persistent because of tariff and non-tariff policies and fundamentals, then the tariff rate consistent with offsetting these policies and fundamentals is reciprocal and fair.
No. If we like Malawian mangoes more than the Malawians like our air conditioners, nothing is broken. Nothing is unfair. No reason to blindly punish the Malawians. It just means that American demand for Malawian mangoes is greater than Malawian demand for American air conditioners. No big deal.
A case could be made for nudging the US’s global trade deficit — which is the aggregate trade deficit we’re running with all of our trading partners put together — toward zero, but trying to eliminate every bilateral trade deficit is bonkers. These people are clueless.
Consider an environment in which the U.S. levies a tariff of rate τ_i on country i and ∆τ_i reflects the change in the tariff rate. Let ε<0 represent the elasticity of imports with respect to import prices…
Right there they say that ε < 0, but a few sentences later they assign it a value of 4. The last time I checked, 4 was greater than 0, not less. Their sloppiness is consistent, at least. What is wrong with these folks?
let φ>0 represent the passthrough from tariffs to import prices, let m_i>0 represent total imports from country i, and let x_i>0 represent total exports. Then the decrease in imports due to a change in tariffs equals ∆τ_i*ε*φ*m_i<0. Assuming that offsetting exchange rate and general equilibrium effects are small enough to be ignored, the reciprocal tariff that results in a bilateral trade balance of zero satisfies:
As noted earlier, they have the numerator backwards. It should be positive for a trade deficit, not negative, in order for ∆𝜏 to be positive, which represents an increase in tariff rates.
To calculate reciprocal tariffs, import and export data from the U.S. Census Bureau for 2024. Parameter values for ε and φ were selected. The price elasticity of import demand, ε, was set at 4.
Which inside the Trump administration is less than 0, lol. And how convenient that εφ multiplies to 1, as noted above.
Recent evidence suggests the elasticity is near 2 in the long run (Boehm et al., 2023), but estimates of the elasticity vary. To be conservative, studies that find higher elasticities near 3-4 (e.g., Broda and Weinstein 2006; Simonovska and Waugh 2014; Soderbery 2018) were drawn on. The elasticity of import prices with respect to tariffs, φ, is 0.25.
It wasn’t to be conservative. It was to fudge the numbers so that the product εφ came out to be 1. And picking a value of 4 for elasticity isn’t “being conservative” in the sense of “this value is more likely to be correct”. It’s conservative in the sense of “we’d better make this number big because otherwise the tariffs will be so outrageously huge that everyone will see that we’re idiots.”
Think about it. They want φ to be small (whether or not the evidence supports it), because they want to maintain the fiction that other countries will mostly absorb the tariffs and that importers and retail customers will shoulder less of the burden and therefore experience less inflation. On the other hand, a small φ balloons the value of ∆𝜏 to ridiculous levels. So they set 𝜀 to 4 to bring ∆𝜏 down, even while acknowledging that the true value of 𝜀 is closer to 2.
The recent experience with U.S. tariffs on China has demonstrated that tariff passthrough to retail prices was low (Cavallo et al, 2021).
I haven’t verified that, but either way I would sure like to see the actual number. Why didn’t they include it? Is it really 0.25? In any case, the question of pass-through to retail prices is irrelevant when you’re trying to determine which country is absorbing the cost of the tariffs. It’s the pass-through factor to importers that is relevant, and that is close to 1, even if the pass-though to retail customers is less. That means that US importers are bearing the cost of the tariffs and passing some of that cost on to consumers. It’s inflationary, and it’s a tax by the US government on US importers, not a tax on foreign countries. Which contradicts Trump’s whole rationale.
The reciprocal tariffs were left-censored at zero.
No, they were “left-censored” at 10, as you can see by looking at the charts. 10 is the minimum tariff you’ll see in the third column of the charts.
Higher minimum rates might be necessary to limit heterogeneity in rates and reduce transshipment.</p
No explanation of why “heterogeneity in rates” is to be avoided, and no comment on the fact that it isn’t avoided, given the large range of new tariff rates in the third column of the charts. That means there’s still plenty of incentive for transshipment. Take Vietnam, for instance, with a new rate of 46%. There’s a *lot* of incentive for them to transship through one of the countries with a 10% rate.
Tariff rates range from 0 to 99 percent.
There is no inherent limit. Tariffs could be 100%, 180%, or 2100%. 99% is an arbitrary limit. Tariffs could even be negative in a perverse world, in which case the government would be giving importers a bonus for importing more and nudging us toward a trade deficit. Obviously that wouldn’t happen in practice, but my point is that the 99% is arbitrary, and anyone who thinks tariffs are limited to being less than 100% doesn’t understand tariffs.
The unweighted average across deficit countries is 50 percent, and the unweighted average across the entire globe is 20 percent.
It’s pointless to state the unweighted average. An unweighted average is really just a weighted average with all of the weights set to 1. That gives Liechtenstein equal weight with China, which is stupid. Our trade volume with China is some 1,770 times as great as our trade volume with Liechtenstein, but these geniuses are weighting them evenly and presenting the average as if it had some kind of significance. Morons.
Weighted by imports, the average across deficit countries is 45 percent, and the average across the entire globe is 41 percent. Standard deviations range from 20.5 to 31.8 percentage points.
Here, they tell us that the import-weighted average of tariffs is 41 percent. Combine that with their assumed pass-through rate of 0.25. meaning that exporters in other countries will shoulder 75% of the tariff burden. That’s unrealistic and it clashes with the actual data, but even if you take the Trumpers at their word and assume that only 25% of the additional cost due to tariffs is passed to importers, that’s still over 10%, because 0.25 * 41% is greater than 10%. 10% import inflation! So much for Trump’s campaign promise: “I’ll reduce prices on day one.” Idiot.
Good job, Trump supporters. By voting for him, you put power in the hands of these dishonest and incompetent economic doofuses.
petrushka:
Difficult to communicate to them, or to us? If the latter, you just succeeded. Glad to hear that you wouldn’t vote for Trump.
I am too, but that doesn’t mean that policy is unimportant. In fact, policy is one of the main indicators of integrity (or the lack thereof).
Extra scrutiny can’t compensate for shittiness. See: the Trump administration.
colewd:
We don’t have to wait. Historians and other political scholars have already weighed in, and Trump is consistently ranked among the five worst presidents in American history.
For instance, the 2024 APSA Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey, which polled 154 scholars, ranked Trump dead last. 45th out of 45. And not just last, but last by a large margin. Here is a scatter plot of rating vs ranking. The best presidents are in the lower right, and they are the names you’d expect: Lincoln, Washington, FDR. The worst presidents are in the upper left: Trump, Buchanan, Andrew Johnson. Look how far to the left Trump is. His rating is significantly worse than Buchanan and Johnson, who are already in the toilet.
This isn’t a partisan thing. They published a breakdown of the results by the party of the respondents (Republican/Democrat/Independent) and their position on the conservative vs liberal spectrum (conservative/moderate/liberal), and all of those groups ranked Trump among the five worst presidents. The results for Trump:
That survey was not an outlier. Here are the Trump rankings according to five different surveys, including the one above:
And those are all based on Trump’s first term. His second term is looking even worse.
Think about it. According to the people who study these things for a living, Trump is one of the worst presidents we’ve ever had. Yet you’ll see red-hatted MAGA morons running around saying that Trump is the best president ever and that he deserves to have his face carved into Mt. Rushmore. It’s ludicrous, and it’s why this is such an abomination. The face of our worst president next to the face of our best, draped on a government building.
All of this is why reality-based people shake their heads at you and your fellow cult members, Bill.
Wow. The latest Fox News poll shows that 58% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy, and a whopping 64% disapprove of his handling of inflation.
Those numbers are abysmal. The public is finally recognizing how incompetent Trump is when it comes to the economy.
keiths,
In USA the classic way of dealing with domestic economic situation is to go to war. The agreement for war is easy to get. If the question is “Do you want Iran to develop nukes?” then you have secured around 90% of both parties. On the other hand, a question like “Should US Army invade Iran?” shall be avoided even though this is what actually makes war.
May have something to do with the fact that whatever you are watching is not news. When it comes to the Minnesota assassin, the news is KARE 11. This from an hour ago:
In USA real news are harder to find than in other countries on average, but if I can find them from half a globe away, then so should you. The most important thing is of course to be clear on what journalism is and seek it out uncompromisingly. Banish political commentary, Infowars, Breitbart, Tucker Carlson, Laura Loomer, Tim Pool and the likes from your intake, or at least make sure that they don’t dominate. You have been regurgitating them without filter and that’s unforgivable for a grown man.
In the rest of the world, this is called simply voter. This is what voting is: You look at the candidates and you cast your vote on one. And on each elections you can freely pick whomever. It’s called simply voting.
Sad to hear that in USA only “independent voters” can do this. Sounds like goddamn Stalinism you have over there. Nobody reasonable would find this defensible, much less superior to elections in the rest of the world.
Erik,
I think I mentioned that Boelter seemed to be a kook. Possibly schizophrenic.
Did your sources say what was in his notebooks? There are rumors.
I cannot see the future, but I’m inclined to think he cannot successfully be prosecuted. In fact, I have yet to see any evidence that he did it. I’ve been on a jury, and nothing reported so far could be considered evidence of guilt. I stress, reported so far.
Diagnosing mental illness is not something one should do on the basis of news reports, but in this case, it can be suspected. I encountered several schizophrenic people while working in protective services.
They were highly intelligent and literate.
Rumors of a Boelter letter to the FBI are just rumors, but they are highly inflammatory, and if they are not officially denied, they will tend to confirm my suspicion about his mental health.
It’s been nearly a day since they hit the internet.
keiths,
https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_c41645f7-9b7f-40c2-8f19-6e12aaab3c72
Yet the only one that got more votes in history is Biden who was part of the Covid mail in ballet year. Votes are hard data vs polls that have been wrong in the last few elections.
Big Cult 🙂
Short version: There are multiple posts on the internet saying the “Boetler manefesto” says Tim Walz hired him to do a political assassination.
There are numerous possibilities:
1. The rumors are simply false. In which case, the authorities need to speak up immediately.
2. The letter exists, but the alleged request from Walz is a delusion.
3. The letter is deliberately designed to gum up the prosecution.
4. Something else.
And you just added another one. You are very deeply lost, boy. That you hate information, journalism and facts is probably the least of your problems.
Are you saying the letter doesn’t exist?
I don’t know if it does, but international news organizations are beginning to report it.
I certainly don’t claim that accusations against Walz are credible.
I will not be surprised if this never goes to trial.
Erik:
Yeah, it’s ridiculous. Trump is desperate to deflect attention away from his dismal performance on the economy and his dismal poll numbers in general. (“I hate FAKE pollsters, one of the Worst, but Fox will never change their discredited pollster!”) He’s amoral enough to go to war in order to save his own political skin.
Here’s powerful evidence of that:
Reporter:
[It’s actually stronger than that. They have evidence that Iran isn’t building a nuclear weapon.]
Trump:
Reporter:
Trump:
On another occasion, he said:
His evidence that she and the intelligence community are wrong? Nada. Zilch.
Here’s what Gabbard said in her testimony before the Senate:
In an attempt to defend Trump, a White House social media account published a video clip from Gabbard’s testimony. Guess what part they left out? The part in bold above. The sleaziness of this administration is incredible.
For her part, Gabbard is trying to downplay the obvious contradiction between what she said and what the Dear Leader said, claiming that she and Trump are “on the same page”. Like Trump’s other minions, she knows that a willingness to lie is a job requirement in this administration.
If Trump were honest, when asked “What is your evidence?”, he would reply “My poll numbers suck, and that’s all the evidence I need.”
By the way, in the first exchange described above, Trump also claimed that he opposed the Iraq War from the start, saying “Don’t go in, don’t go in,” which is a lie.
ETA: Here’s a CNN fact check. Trump has lied about this again and again:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/29/politics/fact-check-trump-false-claim-opposed-iraq-invasion
colewd:
Trump got a lot of votes. Therefore sexual assault, violating the Constitution, ignoring court orders, and weaponizing the Justice Department are OK? Not to mention all the other criticisms that you’re too scared to address?
“The Dear Leader is 18 points underwater on the economy, and 30 points underwater on inflation? It can’t be. I don’t like that. I DON’T WANT THAT! Fake polls! Everyone loves the Dear Leader and trusts his handling of the economy!”
Suppose it were the other way around, and people overwhelmingly approved of Trump’s economic moves. Would you be questioning the polls then, Bill?
Thankfully, not all Trump voters are members of the cult. Unlike you, some of them can actually be swayed by the evidence, and the evidence is overwhelming:
– Trump has claimed that foreign countries will pay the tariffs, which is false.
– He’s claimed that trade deficits reflect money that we are losing, which is false.
– He’s claimed that the tariffs won’t affect our country, but they already have, and it’s going to get worse if he sticks to his plans.
– He’s the TACO man. Repeatedly chickening out of his own policy decisions doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.
– He has said, moronically, that kids will have to be happy with two dolls instead of 30 at Christmas.
– He’s claimed to have struck 200 trade deals, when there aren’t even that many countries in the world.
– He has promised “90 deals in 90 days”. The count so far? Zero, with only 18 days to go. He’s only managed to get two “general frameworks” of deals.
– He claimed he would bring prices down on “day one”. They’re up.
– He keeps haranguing Fed Chair Jerome Powell, who is far smarter than he is, and has threatened to fire him.
Chumps like you will ignore all of that or rationalize it, but not every Trump voter is a chump.
It’s easy to tell whether a politician is lying. More difficult to tell what the truth is. I’m pretty sure Iraq had poison gas prior to the invasion. And pretty sure that wasn’t the actual motive for invading.
The US has been bombing and invading all my life. It would be interesting to try to figure out if any of it has created a long term benefit.
It’s easier to predict the short term consequences of something like bombing. More difficult to predict the consequences 20 or 50 years later. I recently encountered the question, what would the world be like if the US hadn’t entered WWI.
keiths,
Yes he did. How given your characterisations did this happen? A position needs to make sense of all the data.
keiths:
colewd:
People have been doing stupid things since time immemorial, and that includes large groups of people. Are you actually suggesting that it’s impossible for people to vote for creepy, corrupt, incompetent politicians? Or that if they do vote for them, it means that the politicians aren’t actually creepy, corrupt, and incompetent after all? That makes no sense.
“Donald Trump is a serial sexual predator, and lots of people voted for him” is not some kind of nonsensical or self-contradictory statement. It’s the truth. And the fact that you’re afraid to challenge it (along with the other items in my list) is a sign that you know it’s true.
So if you want to know why so many people voted for Trump despite the serious flaws I’ve listed, why not start with yourself? Look in the mirror and ask yourself “Why did I vote for a man who has been accused by over 25 women of predatory behavior, who bragged on tape about repeatedly assaulting women, and who was even found in court, by a jury, to have assaulted a woman?”
Then do the same for the other items on my list and report back to us.
Moreover, Donald Trump was elevated to a position where people had to vote for him – he was made the Republican Party presidential candidate. The Republican Party took the insurrectionist, the guy who stole government secrets and stored them in his bathroom and bedroom – deeds that absolutely disqualify someone from being a presidential candidate – and decided yup, we will go with this guy, nevermind his insurrection, nevermind his theft and peddling of government secrets, nevermind his election lies, nevermind that he was twice impeached during his first term, and so on and so forth. The Republican Party made it so that the ineligible Trump became candidate, so that hardened Republican voters (and racists and misogynists and overall doofuses) had no choice but to vote for him.
Also American judicial system failed at arriving at the correct decision. For example the “absolute impunity” decision by SCOTUS is easily unconstitutional and so was the 9-0(!) decision to insist Trump remain on ballot in Colorado whose supreme court had observed the 14th Amendment by deciding to take the insurrectionist off ballot.
The Republican Party miscarried, SCOTUS miscarried, so people inevitably ended up voting for Trump. The American famous law and order and checks and balances are in a very sorry state.
Yes, for you it is very hard to tell what the truth is because you love conspiratorialising and you wallow in it.
By the way, just now Trump bombed Iran. For you it is very odd and it is very hard to tell what the truth is, but Trump bombed Iran.
keiths,
Your explanation for the inconsistency is that “people do stupid things”. So your refutation is a bald assertion. Trump won the election by not only an electrical majority but a sweep of the swing states. These are the real facts and you have no counter argument beyond a bald assertion.
What inconsistency? You are using words that are way over your head.
You said, “If your argument is about how Trump will be seen historically then you have made your prediction. We can wait and see how you did in a few years.” This is a very stupid thing to say, because Trump already had a first term. We can just look at his first term to outline a track record of his fitness for office.
During his first term, Trump was impeached twice. This is the history we already have. He is right now, as we speak, the absolute worst president of USA. And yes, he was elected again – because we also have, as we speak, the absolute worst Republican Party ever, the absolute worst SCOTUS ever, and the absolute worst electorate ever (specifically voters like you who fail to observe and take in lessons from the prior track record of a candidate and instead think “let’s wait and see a few more years, well, decades”). These things go together just fine. There is no inconsistency.
keiths:
colewd:
What inconsistency? Trump is awful, voting for awful people is stupid, people do stupid things, people voted for Trump. I’m not seeing an inconsistency.
Um, no. “People have been doing stupid things since time immemorial, and that includes large groups of people” is backed up by history. Have you never studied history?
Yes, Trump won by an “electrical majority”, lol. How does that contradict any of my criticisms of him? Seriously, Bill, lay out the logic for us.
Are you actually saying “The Dear Leader can’t be a sexual predator, because he won the election?” How does that follow? Do the votes somehow erase the predation? Does Trump’s election win somehow nullify his stupidity regarding the Declaration of Independence? Go down my list, explaining item by item why “Trump won the election” means that each item is false. You won’t, of course, because my list scares you.
Votes don’t magically transform the man into something he isn’t, and it isn’t impossible to vote for a creepy, corrupt, incompetent guy, so why do you think your argument has any force?
Also, if winning the election erased Trump’s faults, or if it means they were never there in the first place, then by your logic Biden’s victory erased his faults, or they were never there in the first place. So why did you criticize Biden?
Dude, for 11 days (or is it 12?) you have been looking for excuses not to address my list. It couldn’t be more obvious that you can’t defend the Dear Leader against my charges, because if you could, you would have done so long before now.
You’ve demonstrated that you support Trump for purely irrational, emotional, and tribal reasons — you’re a cultist, after all — so why pretend otherwise? The support came first, and now you are hunting (without success) for reasons to justify it. It should be the other way around. The reasons should come first, and the support should follow if the reasons are good. They aren’t, you know it, and that’s why you can’t defend the Dear Leader.
Incidentally, how are the peace negotiations going? Is Trump ending any wars yet?
Corneel,
Pakistan nominates Trump for Nobel Peace Prize, praising ‘stellar statemanship’
Trump keeps working very hard for this prize. Maybe even too hard.
Yes, the irony is total and complete. Absolute cringe.
You have to drop more than six bombs to get a Nobel peace prize.
The bombing was history when I made my post. I was commenting on how long it takes for the consequences to be observed. Every American president drops bombs. Ask Gaddafi.
As official denial, and lack of official denial, are both seen as confirmatory of conspiracy, it’s hard to see it being falsifiable, for those keen on this way of thinking.
And if the guy was black, or Muslim, I doubt we’d be seeing any speculation on his mental health. More: “who radicalised him, and what can we do about ‘these people’?”.
keiths,
Now you are reasoning in a circle. Trump is awful so therefore people do stupid things.
TDS appears to be more than a lazy label.
colewd,
Ok let’s try this: if you don’t think that Trump is awful, can you then give us some reasons why he is good? TIA.
Are you speculating on his motive?
keiths:
colewd:
I will now add “circular reasoning” to the list of bogus claims you’ve made about my position. Is that really what you think, or are you playing dumb in order to deflect attention away from your failure to face The List?
“People do stupid things” is not my conclusion. It’s a given, and it was established millennia before Trump took his dorky ride down the golden escalator. Not only do people do stupid things, they sometimes do stupid things en masse, such as voting for creepy, corrupt, incompetent politicians. It’s the herd mentality. The “inconsistency” you’re pointing to isn’t an inconsistency at all.
I repeat:
If you had a sister or daughter who was sexually assaulted by a popular politician, would you look her in the eye and say “What he did to you is OK. Lots of people voted for him”?
When you start abandoning your morals for the Dear Leader, you know you are deep in the cult. It’s shameful.
Whose motive? And for what?
Erik:
The Pakistanis wanted to be first in line to massage Trump’s ego. It’s cringe, yes, but it’s smart. It’s hilarious to me that the Orange Dork doesn’t realize how often he gets played by flatterers.
petrushka, to Allan:
Alan:
Boelter’s motive for the Minnesota killings.
faded_Glory,
Hi FG
While I am sympathetic to those who do not like is style I think his policies are far superior to the democratic alternative.
-Reducing taxes
-Peace through strength
-Lower regulations for business
-Border control
-Reducing government overhead
-Attempting to end wars like Ukraine.
-Strong position against Iran (terror sponsor) obtaining a Nuke
How’s the peace going?
Life is not very peaceful in Iran right now, isn’t it?
Is the Ukrainian war any closer to ending than before Trump took office?
The man is all mouth and no trousers. Bluster is what you get, but no delivery.
faded_Glory:
I went looking for this, because I just knew that someone somewhere would have counted all the times Trump boasted about ending the Ukraine war within 24 hours. CNN did:
Fact check: It wasn’t ‘in jest.’ Here are 53 times Trump said he’d end the Ukraine war within 24 hours or before taking office.
53 times. That dipshit had no idea how to end the war that quickly and he still doesn’t. This was his grand strategy:
I can’t decide — was he stupid enough to think he could pull it off, or was this just a lie he repeated 53 times in order to help himself get elected? Either way, he’s pathetic.
Promise made, promise not kept. And then he lied about it in a Time magazine interview instead of owning up to his failure:
Interviewer:
Trump:
“In jest”? What a pathetic, incompetent, dishonest and insecure man.
Bill — can you really not see what a blowhard your Dear Leader is? He’s “all mouth and no trousers”, as faded_Glory put it. He’s also a pathological liar and such an emotional toddler that he can’t bring himself to acknowledge his failures, even when they’re as obvious as this one.
He’s exactly what we don’t need in a leader, yet you voted for him.
faded_Glory,
On Iran we will see. Given they are the largest state sponsor of terror I agree they needed their nuclear program dismantled. I think both Obama and Biden handled them very poorly as they did not show strength in their negotiations.
I don’t think you have been reading what people have been posting. It is not about his *style*. He is amoral. There is no kindness or compassion to anything he does; The man must have no soul.
Further, I am seriously wondering why anyone would start a list with reasons why someone is good with stating that his policy includes “[r]educing taxes”. You might have thought of a little more unselfish thing to put on top of your list. Just saying …
The thing that really struck me was that you approve of the fact that he takes a “[s]trong position against Iran (terror sponsor) obtaining a Nuke”. You do realise that the bombing of nuclear facilities in Iran was a breach of international law don’t you? Do you really condone violating international law?
Corneel,
I respectfully disagree with the “TDS” type comments. Most of the comments here I have already heard from far left media sources like MSNBC. Trump is a guy with strengths and weaknesses like all Presidents. His strengths are a good fit for what our country needs right now given the current state of our country and the world.
Due to both left wing and right wing propaganda it is very hard to have a realistic view of the world unless you have time and are able to take deeper dives into the issues. This is what Keiths was doing initially with this post by looking into the tariff policies potential effects.
If you want to defeat the current agenda you need better ideas as the ad hominem type attacks are falling on deaf ears of independents now as evidenced by the last election.
Iran was not a threat to the security of the USA, so Trump cannot invoke the right of preemptive self-defense. This means the bombings are a violation of international law. This is a fact, not “propaganda”.
And please stop falsely accusing people of commiting the ad hominem fallacy. It is very rude and in this case it makes you look silly because you managed to do it in a post where you yourself used an ad hominem in your post:
Oh, and calling people “deranged” is NOT respectful, either.
Corneel:
Here’s an example that the bombing brought to mind. After the US killed Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike in 2020, Iran wanted to retaliate by killing John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, both of whom were key players in shaping the Trump administration’s Iran policy. The threat was serious — Iran tried to hire hitmen in the US to carry out the killings — so both Bolton and Pompeo were provided with government protection.
Biden maintained that protection throughout his entire term because the threat remained serious. Trump revoked it immediately upon taking office. In fact, Trump revoked Bolton’s protection on Inauguration Day, and Pompeo’s a couple of days later. Why? Because both men had said things critical of Trump.
Trump is so petty, so immoral, so devoid of scruples that he chose to put their lives in danger as revenge for the things they had said. The kicker? Pompeo had actually campaigned for Trump, including speaking at a Trump rally the day before the election. Trump, who demands loyalty from everyone, showed zero loyalty to a guy who had served in his administration and had actually campaigned for him.
Imagine how childish and horrible a man has to be to revoke protection for two people who are under threat for the very things they did while serving in his administration. Trump is a whiny toddler, but he’s a toddler who has the power to endanger his critics and he doesn’t hesitate to abuse that power. What an awful human being. Bill should be ashamed of himself for supporting the guy.
I know that Bolton hired a private security detail after the Orange Whiner revoked his. Not sure whether Pompeo did so, but both of them are still at risk, and that risk is undoubtedly greater now that the bombing has taken place.
colewd:
Even if you ignore the fact that the bombing was illegal under international law, as Corneel points out, and even if you think it was in the best interests of the United States, Trump’s decision remains appallingly reckless and irresponsible. Why? Because Trump ignored what the intelligence community (including his own Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard) was telling him about the situation in Iran.
She testified that although Iran was still enriching uranium,
When that was pointed out to him by a reporter, Trump said “Well, then my intelligence community is wrong” and “Well, she’s wrong.” That’s bullshit. He had no evidence that they were wrong. He had no reason to trust himself over them. Based on what, his spidey-sense? They are the ones doing the intelligence work while Trump plays golf or posts all-caps screeds on Truth Social.
Either he was stupid enough to think that he was right and they were wrong, or he was sleazy enough to want to discredit them in order to buttress his decision to bomb. It’s funny how often the question comes up: “Is Trump being stupid, or is he lying?” Either answer shows that he’s unfit for the presidency.
This isn’t the first time Trump has done this. During his first term in office, he actually sided with Vladimir Putin over his own intelligence community. The IC found that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. So did Robert Mueller and the Senate Intelligence Committee. Nevertheless, Trump chose to believe Putin, of all people:
Yes, we mustn’t insult Honest Vlad. Putin and his advisers must laugh their asses off when they talk about how gullible Trump is and how easy it is to manipulate him.
colewd:
As if that discredited those comments. MSNBC reported that Trump bombed Iran. Is that “fake news” because it came from a “far left media source”? Or is it possible that MSNBC was telling the truth? Claims about Trump stand or fall on their own merits, independent of the source.
That’s unfortunate for you, because it puts the burden on you to address our criticisms individually rather than dismissing them as “TDS” or coming from a “far left media source”. I’ve been asking you for two entire weeks to address my list and you still haven’t discredited even a single item on it.
This is just your “suspect sources” claim all over again. It didn’t work last time, and it isn’t working this time. If my claims are wrong, show us instead of just trying to wave them away.
Right. Lincoln had strengths and weaknesses, and Trump has strengths and weaknesses. They’re just alike. No difference.
Oh, wait. Scholars rate Lincoln as our best president, and Trump as our worst. Maybe there is a difference. Perhaps it’s possible for one president to be better or worse than another. How can we figure it out? I know — let’s look at their character, their actions, and their competence. We could even make a list and discuss it. What do you say?
My dives have been plenty deep, and I have the facts to back up my claims. You don’t have the facts to dispute them, or you would have done so already.
I’ve lost count of the times I’ve explained the ad hominem fallacy to you. I even did it earlier in the thread. At some point will you actually try to learn what it is? Yes, that will deprive you of one of your go-to dodges, but wouldn’t you rather be truthful and correct?
It is not fallacious to criticize someone. Think about it. Would you seriously argue that any criticism of Biden or Obama is off-limits because it would be an ad hominem attack?
Please read up on it and let that tired canard go.
THE AD HOMINEM FALLACY FALLACY:
I’m just lurking here. Any attempt at predicting the long term consequences of this episode are vacuous.
It’s no secret that I thought Biden was a mental basket case, but you will find nothing in my post history predicting or wishing for bad results from his policies. Even from the ones I disagreed with.
I’ve followed all the doomsaying about the Iran conflict and thought it was all rubbish. Not because I think everything is okay, but because predictions in general are rubbish.
The immediate effect of the American bombing has been to deprive Israel of its raison d’etre for the war. It remains unknown how this will play out. If you think you know what will happen, how much are you willing to wager?
Corneel,
This is a bald assertion and not a fact. This shows you are very vulnerable to propaganda because you do not know the difference between a fact and propaganda. The largest state sponsor of terrorists that repeats “death of Israel and America” that can produce a nuclear weapon is clearly a treat.
Do you really lack this much empathy for Americans and other countries that face this threat from Iran sponsored terror cells?
I called this an ad hominem “type” attack which means repeatably attacking a person and not his policies. If people continue to do this I will continue to point out the weakness in the arguments. My statement is simply that this tactic is not effective as shown by the independent electorates voting pattern which is important in winning an election in the United States has not been effective.
keiths,
Are you really going to claim that MSNBC is an unbiased news source 🙂
colewd:
Which part of this sentence…
…is confusing you? Truth is truth (and falsehood is falsehood), no matter who states it. Pay close attention, and see if you can discern a pattern:
If MSNBC says something true, it’s true.
If MSNBC says something false, it’s false.
If Fox News says something true, it’s true.
If Fox News says something false, it’s false.
If Trump says something true, it’s true.
If Trump says something false, it’s false.
If Obama says something true, it’s true.
If Obama says something false, it’s false.
If keiths says something true, it’s true.
If keiths says something false, it’s false.
If colewd says something true, it’s true.
If colewd says something false, it’s false.
Did you detect the pattern? Whether something is true depends only on whether it’s true, not on who is saying it. The statement “2 + 2 = 4” remains true even when the Radical Left Lunatics at the Failing MSDNC Fake News Network say it.
When you say
…you are not discrediting those comments. You’re just fumbling for an excuse not to address their substance.