What happened to my beloved USA ? On Saturday, 70% of the Proglibocrats in three Western states voted willingly for an avowed Socialist (Bernie), a man blatantly offering goodies to those lazy citizens (many of them privileged college students) with their hands out. I can only hope and pray that the ecru and fuscia colored pantsuits of his opponent are sufficiently repugnant to otherwise ignorant Proglibocrats to cause them to walk down the Socialist candy lane. Enough said. WHAT THE HECK !
Just finished watching the new season of House of Cards on Netflix, and wow, it’s certainly becoming a reality show, accurately portraying the present state of affairs in Washington, D.C. The show, now in its fifth season, plots the political careers of Democrats (not that it matters) Francis Underwood, played by Kevin Spacey, and his lovely and ambitious wife, Claire (Robin Wright). Shadowy and slimy to the core, the Underwoods climb the political ladder while breaking multiple laws, breaking others’ careers, and even slipping in two murders and a pair of induced suicides. Despite blatant evidence against him, Francis always manages to blackmail the storyline’s key political players and maintain razor-thin alibis and cover-ups.
Shift to today’s Washington D.C., where the presumptive Proglibocrat candidate for POTUS, Hillary Clinton, dances and dodges her way around assorted schemes, malfeasance, and scandals. We all know the content. What is striking is that absolutely nothing happens in terms of holding her accountable despite absolutely overwhelming evidence of felonius wrongdoing. With 150 agents actively pursuing the email scandal, one in which elementary schoolchildren could reach an educated conclusion in five minutes, nothing happens. No indictments. No special prosecutors. I wonder what they all have on FBI Director, James Comey. Hillary is clearly Francis Underwood in a large pantsuit. J. Edgar Hoover would roll over in his grave ! WHAT THE HECK !
At a town hall meeting in Tacoma a few days ago, Chelsea Clinton, campaigning on behalf of her mother, pointed out that Americans are still facing “crushing costs” from health insurance companies and providers, even under terms of Obamacare. She went further to suggest that her Mom could use executive orders to curb those costs. Wait a minute. The Proglibocrats back in 2010 told us that Obamacare was a panacea for our health care woes, and now want to whine and complain about the outcomes. Gosh we are stupid ! WHAT THE HECK !
As a young teen, I recall vividly the scene around our dinner table at home, munching on my Mom’s wonderful cooking while listening to Walter Cronkite (CBS) or John Chancellor (NBC) detail the day’s casualty figures from Vietnam. Phrases like, “losses were light “, or “ground was gained at modest cost” were commonplace, and after a while, no one seemed to blink an eye. Other than a few hippies, and sporadic college campus protests, the horrors of war became accepted; the terrible evils that man is capable of ceased to really trouble us. And the bottom line was that no one around the world, other than America, was doing anything to combat the horrors of Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam or Pol Pot in Cambodia. Perhaps we can blame the absence of CNN and Fox News for our apathy, but then again, we did have Walter Cronkite speaking to us at our dinner tables each night.
Is that scenario above much different than today’s growing indifference and acceptance of random acts of terror perpetrated by Islamic extremists around the world ? After a few days, memories and mention of San Bernadino and Paris and Fort Hood and Burkina Faso and Westgate Shopping Mall in Kenya fade away from national awareness and discussion. And soon, the Wisconsin presidential primary will push the atrocities committed at the Brussels airport this week to the backburner of news reporting. And this is in a world of instant social media and immediate on-the-ground press coverage.
But unlike the late-1960’s, America is not at the forefront of combatting the pure evil that threatens the civilized world, preferring instead to be isolationist and tolerant and politically correct toward the instruments of that evil. “After all, it’s only a small 10% minority that is manipulating the faith for destructive purposes”. Well folks, 10% of 1.5 billion folks is 150 million very dangerous, radicalized folks.
I don’t have a really grand or profound point or conclusion to this reminiscing about my youth, other than to wish and hope and pray for the next American president to once again lead and motivate our civilized partners, and even some of our less civilized partners (Russia), in an effort to confront and combat the evils we view on the tube and on our computers each day. If not America, then who ? WHAT THE HECK !
In my quest to determine whether Donald Trump is the guy who will restore our nation’s greatness, or whether he is a maniacal megalomaniac, I’ve started examining some of his “short on the details” proposals. Today I want to talk about the exciting topic of international trade and tariffs, specifically Trump’s insistence on Mexican payment for the 1000 mile Trump wall via imposition of a 35% tariff on automobiles assembled in Mexican maquiladoras and shipped to the USA. I happen to be the proud owner of such a vehicle (2014 VW Jetta assembled in Puebla), and I did not have such a tariff impact my ultimate retail purchase price. And if the price had been 35% higher because of a Trump-like tariff, I would have shifted to other alternatives. First though, before examining Trump’s proposal, let’s figure out why in the world we buy cars assembled in Mexico. Isn’t that like buying semiconductors made in Birdsboro ? Fifteen years ago, I watched a U.S. company attempting to teach monkeys to sort retail coupons at their processing factory in Ciudad Juarez !
Well, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), signed by Bill Clinton in 1993, certainly had the effect of stimulating trade among the three nations, but opened the door to allowing manufacturers to seek the lowest labor costs to produce their products. Coupled with constant and oppressive wage and work rule pressures from manufacturing labor unions (UAW, URW, AFL-CIO), why wouldn’t American manufacturers choose to hire Mexican workers at $1 an hour ? My readers know how I dislike quoting Bernie Sanders, but on the campaign trail Bernie accurately notes the 800,000 manufacturing jobs lost since NAFTA’s origin.
So, Trump’s solution is to impose, by executive order, a 35% tariff on fully assembled autos returning to the USA, because there is no way the Congress will gut NAFTA in this way. What are the probable consequences ? First, U.S. buyers would move to cheaper alternatives, and this could also be expanded to other capital goods made in Mexico. Second, in response, the maquiladoras churning out the vehicles would lose economic viability and would shut, thus imposing an economic burden on Mexico and increasing the pressures for its citizens to “migrate” northward. Thirdly, and most importantly, the manufacturing of these vehicles would not return to the USA, but would be shifted to other low labor cost regions of the world. Is Trump going to impose tariffs everywhere, thus setting off inflationary punishment on the voters who just elected him ? If you don’t solve the base problem, artificially high labor costs, there is no permanent free market solution to the problem of lost manufacturing jobs. No one gets this. Trump doesn’t get this.
The solution became evident this past week as I drove through the Bible belt. There I witnessed tens of thousands of American jobs at American Kia and Hyundai factories in Alabama and Georgia and South Carolina. Hit the root of the issue by encouraging (with tax incentives) the manufacture of more cars in solid union-free factories in right-to-work states. WHAT THE HECK !
Who says that America has lost her sparkle, her edge , her ability to excel and dominate ? In one field of endeavor, ice hockey, we will this year have come full circle in dominating a sport once characterized in Quebec and Montreal as their sport “pas de rivaux” (with no rivals). For the first time in professional ice hockey history, it appears that no Canadian team will even make the NHL playoffs. And in hockey, almost half the teams make the playoffs ! As I gaze out my window on this blustery Winter day watching all the children shooting pucks on our frozen ponds (actually, for all my readers in Birdsboro, Tampa doesn’t have any frozen ponds), I cannot help but well up in tears at how we Americans have hijacked the national sport of our Northern neighbors. WHAT THE HECK !