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.
Erik,
I know exactly what I am talking about as I just cited portions of the bill that are in the public domain and you are citing liberal talking points.
It appears that facts are not something you care about.
Hi Keiths
Your list is mostly assertion based and essentially a Gish gallop. Do you believe we would be better off today if the country had elected Kamala Harris?
colewd:
It isn’t, and you know that. Otherwise you’d pounce on it instead of running away.
Do you even know what a Gish gallop is? Wikipedia:
This isn’t a real-time debate with time limits. We’re exchanging comments on a blog, and you aren’t being rushed. You’ve had 3 1/2 weeks to respond to my list, fercrissakes, and you’ve failed to disprove even a single item.
Do you believe that your “let’s change the subject to Harris” dodge will work any better this time than it did the first?
Seems this bill is now law. My take is that the president is working strictly for himself, but some Republicans in Congress do mention their concern about screwing their voters to enrich their donors (even richer than now). However, these Republicans must balance the danger of alienating their voters against the danger of angering Trump and their donors, and the latter is considered much more dangerous. So long as their voters will support Trump no matter what, the donors (and threat of being primaried) are going to win – and did.
Today there was an article about a committed Trump supporter whose wife was just dragged off by ICE to be deported. His reaction was, well, this sucks but his support for Trump is not diminished. Yeah, this is an isolated incident, but it does illustrate the flavor of Trump’s support, and fits with Trump’s claim that he could shoot someone on 5th avenue and not lose a single vote. The danger for Republican representatives voting against Trump isn’t losing to a Democrat, but rather losing in a primary to a more right-wing Republican. After all, these people represent red districts (or states). Nate Silver says that of the 435 seats in the House, 390 are “safe”, meaning safe for the party, not the individual. There might be 2 or 3 Republican seats in the Senate that aren’t a lock, at most.
So the point is, the voters represent a minor and hypothetical danger. Voting for them and against Trump is a clear and present danger. Which is why we see absolutely terrible legislation passed along party lines, and why we seen totally incompetent buffoons confirmed for judgeships and cabinet positions.
(There is speculation that Trump nominates anti-qualified idiots like Kennedy and Hegseth and Bove, at least in part, as a way of rubbing the Senate’s face in their groveling servitude.)
The bipartisan Congressional Budget Office is not “liberal talking points”. Here’s how they summarise the bill: “The wealthiest households will see a $12,000 increase from the legislation, and the bill will cost the poorest people $1,600 a year, mainly due to reductions in Medicaid and food aid.”
Now, what I cited is how the bill actually is geared, as opposed to what you think would happen to your personal economy on anecdotal basis.
The fact is that you are an enabler of an immoral criminal anti-constitutional autocrat. How the bill passed showed it yet again. It was passed on a partisan basis, and on the basis of “having a talk” with Trump, not on the basis of introducing changes to the bill. Here’s the latest example (at 1:25):
So the answer to the actual question is: There is nothing different about the bill now compared to before. The Rep voted in favour because Trump promised to override the bill after it’s passed, i.e. the modus operandi of the current administration is lawlessness, not due process, and the Rep is fine with that, calling it “masterful”. And every self-proclaimed fiscal conservative voted in favour of raising the debt ceiling by $5 trillion in a bill that supposedly reduces government spending.
By the way, we are talking about the bill because you failed on every single point that was under discussion previously, such as that Trump doesn’t know what tariffs are (and neither do you), he is a rapist, business fraudster, anti-constitutional insurrectionist, or that he switched sides for Putin in the Ukraine war. Your whining that facts are liberal talking points conclusively proves that you are hopelessly lost in cultist brainwash propaganda.
Happy 4th of July, Americans. I’m sure most of you can survive your dump of a country. Many Russians are surviving theirs, so it cannot be that bad.
I think you should understand how voting works before you pontificate. You can’t seriously assert that everything every branch of government does, no matter what, was voted for by the selection of a particular candidate.
I’ve never heard a less independent-sounding “independent”. 5 of Petrushka’s 6 prediction points were overseas, yet are Biden’s fault. Despite escalation under Trump. There’s the constant use of ‘liberal’ as a pejorative, the dismissal of all negatives due to suspicion of the source (‘radical liberal’, no doubt), not the substance… still, Trump has promised to use his sweeping powers wisely, so I’m sure there’s absolutely nothing to worry about.
Allan:
I counted, and colewd has referred to himself as “independent” and to “independent voters” no less than eight times during this discussion. It’s a magical incantation for him — a way of easing the embarrassment he feels at being an obvious cultist. He’s an independent, you see, and therefore he cannot possibly be a member of the Trump cult. We can take his word for it.
Besides adorning himself with the “independent” label, he feigns open-mindedness with pseudo-criticisms of the Dear Leader such as
“See how open-minded I am? I criticized the Dear Leader. How could I possibly be a cult member?”
I have no idea who he thinks he’s fooling.
He is fooling himself. And then by way of projection he thinks everybody else has been fooled.
keiths,
Since elections are about choice it’s the only thing that matters to the independent voters. If you don’t address this you are spinning your wheels.
Allan Miller,
Hi Allan
There is always something to worry about. The question is if there is less to worry about now vs 4 years ago when you compare the executive leadership in our perspective countries.
Erik,
Your judgement based on your own bias is not a fact. You are obviously anti democracy in how you approach politics. This is not a fact but my perception of someone who attacks candidates, has no balanced thought about them and wants to force people into his own ideology.
Regardless of my opinion (and yours), Trump is a rapist and serial adulterer.
Regardless of my opinion (and yours), Trump is a multi-bankrupt and corrupt business fraudster. And so on.
Your grasp on what counts as a fact and what counts as an opinion needs some major work. And since this work is entirely up to you, no progress can be expected.
All words denoting politicians or ideologies become pejorative. You have attributed things to me that I have not said, or you have at least implied them. I do not blame Biden for anything, because I don’t think he was aware of what was being done in his name.
colewd:
Independent James Buchanan voters:
colewd,
One of the many questions of mine that you’ve been running away from:
Which is it? Is it OK for the president to screw the American people, since “independent” voters like you (lol) chose him?
Erik,
This statement is patricianly false and results in most your statements being at best misleading. I am wondering if you are capable of balanced dialogue given your news sources.
keiths,
You again start with an unsupported premise.
I assume by this you voted for Harris without even an analysis of the potential outcome a Harris presidency would have on our country.
Have you voted for a republican or independent candidate recently? I am wondering if you have been a far left liberal all your life?
colewd:
Um, no. I gave you the numbers. Once they know the impact on taxes and spending, 78% of people oppose the bill and only 11% approve. Trump and the Republicans in Congress rammed it through anyway.
I’ll ask again. Do you think the president and Congress should work for the American people, or against them?
Trump continues to lie about the bill. When asked about the shitty poll numbers today, he claimed that the bill is “very popular” and that “the only poll that was done was a Democrat poll”. Both of those claims are false. Your Dear Leader is a pathological liar.
You assume based on what? Bill, that’s pathetic. Nothing I’ve said supports that inference.
Yes, not that it matters. The topic is Trump. He’s a terrible president and a terrible person. I can back that up, and you can’t defend him, which is why you keep trying to change the subject.
My opposition to Trump makes me “a far left liberal”? Am I also a commie Marxist socialist who hates America? Lol. Stop trying to change the subject. Screw up some courage and defend your Dear Leader for a change. You’ll fail, but at least you can say that you tried instead of running away.
colewd,
For your convenience, I’m reposting this from the previous comment page:
colewd:
Haha. Let’s take a look at my list, broken down by item:
Go through that list and explain why each item “has little to do” with the Dear Leader’s fitness as president. Or run away, as you’ve been doing for weeks. No one will be surprised.
Patricianly false? 😀 So I have been guessing correctly that a major part of your inability to adjudicate facts is that you do not know the meanings of words. Not only are facts over your head, but also conversation as such.
But, please, rape should be a simple and obvious topic. You are defending a rapist and serial adulterer. And for some reason you do this only for Trump, not for all rapists. Have you considered going consistent? (You may have to look up some words here. Please do.)
Edit: You should read Trump’s Playboy interview. It’s him being himself there, so you can get a more adequate idea of his character, instead of the idolatrous personality cult image you have right now. Or is it that you do not click links that say Playboy? Well, truth may be very uncomfortable, but it is the truth regardless of your opinion 🙂
Are you offended for some reason? And the reason is not that *you* keep inserting Biden and Obama everywhere where they do not belong?
Your, let’s see, second post in this thread says, “I am not inclined to pay attention to lectures on stupidity from people who insisted Biden was mentally competent.” And you treat the entire discussion as if
– It goes without saying that everybody here insists that Biden is mentally competent
– The right response is to sabotage the discussion, because the *real* topic is Biden’s mental health.
What about your own mental health? Or, more pertinently, how about staying on topic and talking in complete sentences, instead of partisan soundbites aimed at triggering the libs?
Whataboutery re: the UK doesn’t really address anything. People in the US typically latch on to the ‘free speech’ angle, because someone is in jail for a Facebook post. But I would suggest we have more freedom of speech right now than many in the US enjoy. Your administration shows repeatedly that it cares nothing for the Constitution.
I voted for the representative of the current governing party (in our slightly different system we vote for representatives, who effectively choose the PM). But I feel no restraint in criticising Starmer, who has proved a huge disappointment.
I was referring to Bill, as an afterthought to my prior post about him. I mentioned you as it was your list that he blames Biden for.
colewd,
I am wondering if you have been a far left liberal all your life?
There it is again. It seems almost tautologous to append far-left, since a certain sector (‘independents’?) see all liberals as far left. It adds an extra swipe to the pejorative.
This one is especially for petrushka.
First, USA pauses military support deliveries to Ukraine. The sources are WH spokesperson Anna Kelly and Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell.
Second, Trump has a phone call with Putin discussing potential cultural exchange. At the same time, Russian army launches its largest aerial assault on Ukraine’s major cities.
Third, Trump has a phone call with Zelensky, where Zelensky is on topic – military support deliveries have been paused. Trump’s answer in the phone call is said to have been no, and that he would check if anything has been paused. Outside the phone calls, Trump has fully denied that there is any pause in weapons deliveries while at the same time saying Biden has been sending too much.
Weapons deliveries seem to be a relevant matter for a commander-in-chief to decide. In this situation there are two main options:
1. Trump does not know what is going with the deliveries
2. Trump lies
Both are very bad scenarios. You see, petrushka, the answer here cannot be that Biden stumbled on the stairs or that Obama bombed Libya. The relevant issue is whether Trump has a handle on what is happening around him. This is just to confirm that you, petrushka, are so terribly off your rocker that you are honestly not in a position to judge whether Trump or Biden are off theirs.
I am not a fortune teller, but I think Ukraine’s fate was baked in when its allies thought Russia would lose a war of attrition.
I followed this every day from weeks before the invasion. There was widespread hope that Putin would be replaced. There was this fantasy that sanctions would cripple Russia. Both of these hopes run counter to Russian history. These hardships, in the Russian psyche, are equivalent to the effect of aerial bombing on Britain.
The Russia/Ukraine feud goes back hundred of years. I do not know how the latest iteration will end (or pause), but it is foolish to think this is Russia’s Vietnam.
Lambasting me is easy and cheap. If you are as smart as you think you are, tell us what should be done, and explain why it wasn’t done in the first six months of the war. Or in 2014.
I’m confused about your stance on Biden’s mental competence. Are you denying he is impaired?
keiths,
It’s your burden to defend your own assertions. The independent voters are not buying what you are selling as evidenced by the results of the last election. Your list is simply far left talking points.
Both you and Eric make assertions and pass them off as facts. This is the same as the far left and far right media spin. Someday a DNA test might help implicate Trump of rape if in addition you could prove beyond reasonable doubt that the event was indeed forced and not consensual. At this point no criminal jury has reached this conclusion and the testimony of the accusing woman does not even lead to a DNA test implicating Trump committed rape.
We have a choice in every election and in the past I have made the wrong choice. Lets see where this one goes based on the old adage: ” Are you better off than you were 4 years ago”
Allan Miller,
I don’t see all liberals as far left as many people I know are liberal but reasonable thinkers that do not take far left media talking points as facts.
Based on both Keiths and Erics tendency to call their opinions based on media spin facts I think a lazy “far left” label is probably accurate. I am asking Keiths for confirming evidence of his far left position and his non response to questions about his leanings is pretty telling.
I do not see you as being in the same camp as Eric and Keiths at this point as your posts show you are making reasonable claims and you are clear when you are simply stating your opinion.
petrushka,
Once again, I wasn’t referring to you
colewd,
And there it is again. Of course, I am aware that what many in America consider to be ‘left’ would be soundly centrist in Europe. There is an almost pathological resistance to genuinely socialist principles in the US – hence your idiot chief and his “Comrade Kamala” nonsense. He knows it angries up the blood of the average American. But to call organs like the Washington Post ‘far left’ – and to dismiss everything contained within as a consequence – itself sounds like brainwashing. If you dismiss all that (inevitably where the strongest criticism will reside), you’re left with Fox.
Allan Miller,
Nor was I referring to you.
I agree that the word socialism is poison in the US..
Whether that is pathological is purely a matter of preference.
I think our vision of socialism was shaped by looking at the Soviet Union. You are aware that the New York Times won a Pulitzer Prize for whitewashing Stalin?
That, and numerous other examples, shaped our perception of the political philosophy, and of the people who espouse it. There are less draconian versions, but it seems from our POV, to be a trap door. Difficult to moderate or backtrack from.
Not to mention, inefficient and ultimately, unworkable.
There’s a whole thread here devoted to Trump’s bad economic policies, but no mention of how Europe set retirement benefits assuming population growth. There is no pleasant way to adjust to population decline.
The correct answer is: Yes, you are confused. And unfortunately you are hopelessly confused. You are confused about why in a thread about Trump’s disastrous character and track record there is no discussion about Biden’s mental competence. You feel that this discussion is horribly biased. To be fair and balanced, a thread about Trump’s lack of understanding of tariffs should include an equally thorough assessment of Biden’s cognitive capacity, in your opinion.
Here’s my opinion: Your level of conversation is very telling about *your* mental competence. You are not there, cognitively. But even so, Trump is worse. He is more disastrous than you. It is truly amazing how he can pull this off.
See for yourself how you go here from Stalin to Europe’s retirement benefits, calling both “socialism”. This lazy labelling of everything outside USA as “socialism” is an incurable American pathology that prevents Americans from forming a rational view about anything.
This is how (about) half of Americans have been conned into the personality cult of a criminally convicted clown right now. But looking at this optimistically: From this absolute bottom of the barrel the only way for you is up 🙂
You have very very specific (and silly and stupid) requirements here. “No matter that on inside circles this is common knowledge and there are years of circumstantial evidence on video, I only accept it when there is a jury whom I like, instructed by a judge whom I like, reaching a unanimous verdict that I like!” Seriously, this is Donald “Grab ’em by the Pussy” Trump we are talking about! What a sicko you are 😀
And of course by extension you are saying that all his *other* trials and convictions mean nothing either. I have praise for you again: Thanks for making it lucidly clear that no evidence ever can shake your faith in your orange idol.
You already had four years of him before Biden. And now half a year again… Have you learned nothing?
Of course you learned nothing! Why am I even asking 😀
colewd:
I’ve been doing that, but you keep running away. Be brave and defend your Dear Leader.
For instance, I pointed out that Trump pardoned people who violently assaulted police officers on January 6th. That’s a fact. You made a couple of lame attempts at defending him:
1. You said that other defendants were supposedly denied due process while awaiting trial (“as I understand it”, you said, lol.) I pointed out that the treatment of other people was irrelevant:
2. You questioned the amount of jail time they had spent, as if the sentences were excessive, while providing no evidence that they were. I responded:
3. You replied that most of them had spent “a fair amount” of time in jail. I responded:
4. At that point you lapsed into your usual well-poisoning and subject-changing. I asked you no less than six times to address the Dempsey case, and you fled each time.
You claim to be a Christian. Did I misread the Sermon on the Mount? Did Jesus actually say “Blessed are the violent lawbreakers, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”?
I’ll ask again: Was Trump right to pardon Dempsey?
Allan Miller,
There are more networks with news other than fox that are not heavy left leaning. Newsman just went public. CNN which was very left leaning a year ago appears to becoming more credible by voicing both conservative and liberal views.
No, that’s not true. In times when people are highly polarized, certain words can be used in pejorative ways, but that hasn’t always been so.
Inadvertently, you raise an interesting point. The executive branch of the US government is over 2 million people not counting members of the military. These people work at many dozens of agencies, offices, task forces, and on and on. Their job, considered generally, is to interpret laws passed by Congress and signed into law, then convert these interpretations into rules, regulations and practices, and finally to determine whether these rules etc. are being followed as intended, and make corrections (administrative courts and the like) as needed. The sheer number of laws involved is enormous, and the number of rules and regulations in support of them is many times enormous.
It should be pretty obvious that no human being could possibly be aware of everything that is “being done in the name of the President.” No President could possibly be aware of more than a tiny fraction of all these things. There is, for example, pretty good evidence that Trump had no good idea of everything in his bill, much less that he actually read any of it. However, an administration led by either party is going to try to steer this vast administration in directions preferred by that party’s leaders. The President himself can only focus on a few policy practices, and not even know all that’s happening within those.
So the accusation that any president is unaware of what’s happening in his name is disingenuous. Of course he’s almost entirely unaware. It’s unavoidable. But it’s easy, if you dislike the generally direction a Democrat administration, to say “well, Biden was a doddering old fool suffering dementia, so that’s the explanation.” Conversely, you can argue (along the same lines) that Trump is knowingly and deliberately hurting people because he’s crazy and mean. Do you seriously believe Trump knows how a tariff works?
The way a President shapes and directs a bureaucracy of over 2 million people is by selecting cabinet secretaries who share his views, knowing that those secretaries will populate the top layers of their agencies with congenial people, and this process penetrates down 4 or 5 levels into the bureaucracy. Approximately the top 5000 people in the executive branch are political appointees, below whom we find the career people.
No knowledgeable person would ever make the idiotic claim that electing a single person must mean approving of what this sizeable army of unknown people do in any detail. If you argue that by electing Trump, all of his voters endorse everything Musk did, you’ll be laughed at. However if we are willing to generalize a bit, we cannot be astonished when we elect a convicted felon and he has no use for the rule of law.
In practice, this doesn’t seem to work well, at least in what I’ve watched. The liberal and the conservative will make conflicting claims, they will call one another brainwashed liars, and then we get a commercial. Scott Jennings isn’t an analyst, he’s a mouthpiece. The viewing public is not informed.
It seems that you are primed to simply reject stories from outlets you have decided are ‘heavy left-leaning’. Even if they report his actual words. What makes them heavy left-leaning? Not fawning over Trump. You are an active participant in your own brainwashing.
It was directly in reply to me. Not sure who “if you’re so clever” is supposed to refer to, if not the person under whose quote the rest hangs?
petrushka,
Hence barely a murmur at the removal of millions from Medicaid. Of course, my socialist free healthcare comes at a tax cost. It has its problems. And loud MAGA-lite voices are calling for an insurance-led system here. Mystifyingly, they look in envy at the US system and say “I want some of that”…
Someone joked that Breaking Bad would have been 10 minutes long in the UK. Walter White needs treatment, gets treatment… [and scene].
Speaking of cost, American health care system – even though it barely provides anything and, being American, is decidedly not “socialist” – is the costliest of them all, and it’s not particularly close. This graph is relative to GDP, i.e. the right kind.
So, if the main worry is cost, then go “socialist”. However, such a decision would require Americans to be sane, an obvious impossibility.
American media landscape is such that you do not have any idea what actual news look like. You only know talk shows. In such a landscape, it is imperative for the viewer to be able to distinguish the source and the reporting, and in worse cases be able to verify facts autonomously. For example, Trump says something is the source – and even if it is CNN that reports it, you should understand that this does not change the fact that Trump said it!
You have none of this analytical capability. This is why, for example, you manage to disbelieve that Trump is a rapist, despite the E.Jean Carroll case. What was the E.Jean Carroll case about? E.Jean Carroll said that Trump raped her. Trump was found guilty. And then Trump continued claiming that he did not rape her. As a result, Trump was found guilty of defamation on top of the rape. What kind of defamation? Whenever Trump says he did not rape E.Jean Carroll, he is defaming E.Jean Carroll! This is how clearly Trump is a rapist!
Yet you want a court case with semen samples and what not (omg what a sicko you are, in addition to being ridiculously stupid). And, of course you want it streamed on your favourite network with your favourite commentators – otherwise you’ll dismiss it as leftist propaganda. See how idiotic you are? Nah, you don’t. Be as you are 🙂
Edit: And you cannot dismiss Trump’s sexual assaults by that he is wealthy and famous. In fact, Trump says on the Grab the Pussy tape that he can do it exactly because he is wealthy and famous. You have everything about Trump upside down. You will never get things right. You will forever remain wrong.
Flint:
And not even an effective mouthpiece. Here’s a prime example of his fecklessness:
Transgender Navy vet challenges Scott Jennings on military ban
The Navy vet pointed out that there is no evidence that the presence of transgender people in the military reduces combat readiness or unit cohesion, which undercuts Trump and Hegseth’s rationale for the ban. Jennings and Shermichael Singleton argued that Trump, as commander in chief, can make these decisions based on his personal opinion of how the military should be run.
Another panelist raised the obvious objection: what if, hypothetically, Trump wakes up tomorrow morning and decides that black people don’t belong in the military because in his personal opinion, they reduce combat readiness and unit cohesion? What, precisely, is the difference?
Jennings and Singleton both rolled their eyes and proclaimed the question ridiculous, but when pressed on it, neither could say why it was ridiculous. They just kept changing the subject.
At one point Singleton said “We should focus on the issue at hand. That’s what I think,” when in fact the issue at hand was precisely what he was being asked about: namely, what justifies the banning of one group when the banning of another group is off-limits?
What’s the point of CNN paying commentators who are just going to pull a colewd and refuse to defend their claims?
Musk’s AI Robot Blames Trump and Its Own Creator for Texas Flooding Deaths
Let’s now hear how Grok is a biased leftist socialist commie mainstream fake news media. It would be particularly funny to hear this from colewd who has openly been quoting Grok in his posts because his own brain is not functional enough https://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musks-ai-robot-blames-trump-and-its-own-creator-for-texas-flooding-deaths/
Allan Miller,
A clue to heavy left or right leaning is constant attacking a candidates that are in the same party. Trump is attacked most on MSNBC with pundit Rachel Maddow. Biden was and attacked most by Fox pundit Sean Hannity. You see them continually repeat the same points as an indoctrinating method.
As you mentioned fawning over Trump is something Sean Hannity does continually. When Harris replaced Biden fawning was the rule across most liberal outlets until to bloom came off the rose.
Notice that I just said, American media landscape is such that you do not have any idea what actual news look like. You only know talk shows.
A sane person would try to disprove me. A sane person would scramble around and find something resembling news, facts, information, and journalism to mention (there are scraps of it in USA). But colewd proves my point and brings up talk shows and punditry only.
A major reason why America is as lost as it is is because journalism in it has been lost, decades ago. (A story for another thread.)
And, colewd, for the sake of completeness you should not forget that you also tend to turn to Grok for what you consider facts. Actually the last one was so long ago that it’s about time for you to do it again.
Erik,
We agree on this point. I am old enough to remember what news did look like but it has yet to re appear in our media.
Do you have real news where you live?