Another analysis video from the not-so-failing NYTimes. Recently, the online subscription increased from $25/month to $30.
Category: Politics, Religion & Money
ICE is a Terrorist Organization
I want this fucking bastard Trump out of office and out of our lives. He is going to keep putting more boots on the ground, and filling those boots with aggressive lunkheads, until there is enough civil unrest that he feels justified in declaring martial law and calling off the midterm elections.
All is Lost
A corrupt president with criminal immunity to everything but impeachment, as granted by the Supreme Court. ICE thugs in Minneapolis and an unwarranted attack on Jerome Powell that threatens the integrity of the Federal Reserve Bank. Not to mention Venezuela, Greenland, Ukraine and Gaza. With whatever is in the Epstein files yet to be revealed. Under the circumstances, this is the movie for me.
A Guy Who Can Draw, on the Politics of a Guy Who Couldn’t Draw
Artist Bill Sienkiewicz, who began his career drawing comic books, talks about his interaction with Scott Adams.
Private Money, Reckless Capitalism
I wrote this a while ago, before Warren Buffett retired, and lost track of it. Now it’s late, but I think still timely.
I asked Google AI this question:
“why don’t investment banks follow Warren Buffett’s advice?”
This is the summary of what it said:
“Investment banks do not follow Warren Buffett’s advice primarily because their business models and objectives, such as a focus on short-term performance and high-volume transactions, are fundamentally different from Buffett’s long-term, value-investing strategy at Berkshire Hathaway.”
So, I guess short-term investing is reckless and long-term investment is conservative? Trump wants interest rates to return to zero. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent calls for less banking regulation.
Treasury Secretary Bessent calls for looser regulations for the U.S. financial system
Will we be able to get through another financial crisis without “capitalizing the gains, and socializing the losses?”
I disagree with a lot of what fund manager and author Rucshir Sharma says in that installment of Wall St. Week. He makes the argument that everything would be great if we stuck to Adam Smith’s original vision. Ideologues of every persuasion, including Supreme Court justices, are mistaken in their adherence to whatever it is they consider “originalism” to be.
In that same video, Bloomberg’s John Authers says that, “Capitalism and Democracy have a symbiotic relationship.” Not always, as seen in China. It’s possible, if not likely, that China is already practicing Capitalism 4.0.
Authers also says the capital markets indicated the big shifts in modern Capitalism. I’d say that Wall Street isn’t a barometer of trouble, it causes the trouble.
My retirement money is in IRA CDs. I have no investments, as such, other than a modest holding in private shares at my former place of employment. That investment would be worth vastly more today if not for the HITECH Act, which was part of ARRA in 2009.
HITECH was a prime example of Industrial Policy. That’s when a government decides to intervene in a particular industry.
Trump’s brand of industrial policy is, of course, transactional, as seen in his recent deal with Nvidia. Recently on Marketplace, Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, had this comment about what is becoming, under Trump, state capitalism.
Letter From Minnesota
This is from one of my nieces. She’s an M.D. in Minneapolis. It was written by a physician colleague she has known for fifteen years.
Friends outside MN, you need to know what is happening here. Everyone knows that ICE shot and killed a woman here on Wednesday. But that’s not the only thing that’s going on:
– ICE agents are cruising areas with immigrant-owned businesses, and kidnapping patrons and employees alike. Yesterday they abducted two US citizen employees at a suburban Target, one who was begging them to allow him to go get his passport to show them.
– ICE is going door to door in immigrant-heavy neighborhoods, asking residents where their immigrant neighbors live. Read that again. If it sounds like something out of your high school history textbook, that’s because it is.
– ICE is targeting schools and school buses. They pepper sprayed teenagers and abducted two school staff members at the high school up the street from me on Weds. Police are literally escorting school buses to ensure children can get to school and home safely. The Minneapolis Public Schools have moved to virtual learning for the next 4 weeks because it’s unsafe for children or teachers to physically come to school.
– They are targeting hospitals and clinics. Patients are scared and are canceling their appointments or just not showing up. Kids are missing their checkups and vaccines, folks aren’t getting their cancer care, etc.
– They are smashing windows in cars and homes.
– ICE is increasingly picking up Native Americans—again, targeting folks based on skin color alone.
– They are arresting and beating legal observers. A friend of a friend had her arm broken yesterday. Folks are showing up at local hospitals, brought in in ICE custody, with severe injuries that are absolutely inconsistent with mechanism of injury reported by ICE. (Think: patient appears to have been beaten unconscious, while ICE agent says he slipped and fell.)
I can’t emphasize enough that these ICE agents do not have warrants. There are 2,000+ agents here and they are simply hunting for anyone that’s not white. It doesn’t matter if you’re a citizen or a green card holder, they will kidnap you first and ask questions later.
But the community is fighting back.
– Protests are happening every day.
– Community groups have been leading know-your-rights sessions for months, often to packed venues.
– Whistles are being distributed by the thousands, carried on keychains and worn on coat zippers, always at the ready to be blown in warning if ICE is spotted.
– Drivers are following ICE vehicles, blaring their horns in warning.
– Businesses are locking their doors even while open to keep employees and customers safe. As I type this, I’m standing guard at the locked door of our neighborhood burrito joint while I wait for my takeout order, so the employees can focus on their jobs. The place is packed with neighbors supporting this small business.
– Anti-ICE signs are posted everywhere. The community is making it crystal clear that ICE is not welcome here.
– Parents and neighbors are standing guard outside schools, organizing carpools, and escorting kids to and from school on foot.
– Parents of kids in Spanish-immersion daycare (there are a LOT of these daycares here!) are keeping their kids home so the teachers don’t have to take the risk of coming to work.
– Churches and community groups are holding fundraisers to buy and deliver groceries to families who don’t feel safe leaving home.
– Mutual aid money is going out to folks who can’t make rent because they can’t work or because a breadwinner was abducted, or who need a warm place to stay after their home’s windows were smashed.
THAT is what is happening here. This fight is ongoing and it’s horrifying to watch. But we are not backing down. To my friends in other cities and states, don’t think for a minute that this won’t happen in your town. It will. Be ready. Learn from us, as we have learned from Portland and Chicago and New York. Fight back. Don’t let us get to the last line of Martin Niemöller’s poem.