What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Tonitrus]

Well, if not for Uncle Sugar bailing them out, they'd either be gone or owned by the French.

And therefore what?  I can see you going two ways with this.  Either that the shareholders and fat cat management have a moral obligation to keep jobs in the US, even if it loses them money, or that the workers shouldn't expect to get bailed out again by "moral suasion" and economy wrecking tariffs. My guess is you were thinking of the first.  Keep in mind that the bailout consisted of Tio Azucar injecting a wad of cash in exchange for a huge equity position, which he subsequently sold off to investors, who are not necessarily the same investors who got bailed out previously.

This is what I love about Languish.  I don't even need to come up with my own positions/arguments.  Others make them for me. 

[garbon]

Sicko.

[Admiral Yi]

This is what I love about Languish.  I don't even need to come up with my own positions/arguments.  Others make them for me. 

I thought that was what you were suggesting.  If you were just stating the obvious, I withdraw my comment.

[Tonitrus]

I'll expand my thoughts a bit more. 

If I were running a company that effectively was "saved" by the government, would I feel some kind of moral obligation?  Sure, a little, if it didn't contradict good business sense (a very fungible benchmark, sure).

Is GM's position legit?  That the layoffs are a prudent move to stay ahead of future downturns, avoiding any repeat of what nearly killed them off before.  Maybe, sounds plausible.

But it'll be interesting to see what CEO/executive compensation packages look like over the next several months.

Also interesting, is GM noticeably cutting back it's passenger car production/sales in the US...something I believe Ford has already done as well.  But I think that is mostly admitting defeat to Japanese automakers' domination of that chunk of the auto market.

[Syt]

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/27/politics/washington-post-trump-gut/index.html

Washington Post: Trump says his 'gut' can tell him more than 'anybody else's brain can ever tell me'

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump blamed the General Motors plant closures and recent stock market dips on the Federal Reserve and the man he picked to lead it, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

"I'm doing deals and I'm not being accommodated by the Fed," Trump told the Post in an interview. "They're making a mistake because I have a gut and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else's brain can ever tell me."

GM announced Monday that it will shut production at five plants in North America and reduce its salaried workforce by 15%, including a quarter of the company's executives.

The President told the Post that he is "not even a little bit happy" with Jerome Powell, the man he picked to head the Federal Reserve.

Trump has long expressed frustration with Powell. Leading up to the November midterm elections, Trump repeatedly bashed him and called the Fed "crazy" and "loco" over recent interest-rate increases. Since July, Trump's repeated scrutiny of Powell has gradually escalated with new veiled threats that he might consider firing his Fed chairman.

In the wide-ranging interview with the Post, Trump also dismissed the US government report released last week that delivered a dire warning about climate change and its devastating impacts.

Trump told the Post "I don't see" climate change as man-made, despite the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community that climate change is caused by human activity.

"One of the problems that a lot of people like myself, we have very high levels of intelligence, but we're not necessarily such believers," Trump told the Post. "You look at our air and our water, and it's right now at a record clean."

The government report said the US economy could lose hundreds of billions of dollars -- or, in the worst-case scenario, more than 10% of its gross domestic product -- by the end of the century.

Trump also threatened to cancel his scheduled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin later this week after Russian ships opened fire on and seized three Ukrainian vessels near Crimea. The President is expected to meet with the foreign leader at a G20 meeting in Argentina, and is scheduled to discuss security and regional issues, Trump's national security adviser, John Bolton, said Tuesday during the White House briefing.

Trump said he was waiting for the "full report" from his national security team, according to the Post, and said the report "will be very determinative."

"Maybe I won't have the meeting. Maybe I won't even have the meeting. ... I don't like that aggression. I don't want that aggression at all," Trump told the Post.

Determinative

[mongers]

He's getting worse, isn't he?


What next, standing in the rose garden and crowning himself King of Earth?

[The Minsky Moment]

Also interesting, is GM noticeably cutting back it's passenger car production/sales in the US...something I believe Ford has already done as well.  But I think that is mostly admitting defeat to Japanese automakers' domination of that chunk of the auto market.

Ford exited the US passenger car market completely, except for Mustang.
Total US vehicle sales are down 2 yrs running and most of what is sold is SUVs and pickups
China is a much bigger consumer market now, at least by unit sales.

[The Minsky Moment]

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/27/politics/washington-post-trump-gut/index.html

Target Rate = Neutral Rate + 0.5 × (GDPe − GDPt) + 0.5 × (Ie − It) - k(TrumpGut)

[The Minsky Moment]

The funny aspect of Trump's Fed comment is that he doesn't get that the Fed is actually taking him at his word.  The Fed is assuming that we are "winning" and will continue to "win" and the economic prospects are rosy.  That's why they are raising rates. The more Trump talks up his own game, the more he validates the rate increases.

[Syt]

Donald J. Trump‏
Verified account
@realDonaldTrump

The reason that the small truck business in the U.S. is such a go to favorite is that, for many years, Tariffs of 25% have been put on small trucks coming into our country. It is called the "chicken tax." If we did that with cars coming in, many more cars would be built here.....

.....and G.M. would not be closing their plants in Ohio, Michigan & Maryland. Get smart Congress. Also, the countries that send us cars have taken advantage of the U.S. for decades. The President has great power on this issue - Because of the G.M. event, it is being studied now!

[Syt]

Tweet & context:

Donald J. Trump
‏Verified account
@realDonaldTrump

Steel Dynamics announced that it will build a brand new 3 million ton steel mill in the Southwest that will create 600 good-paying U.S. JOBS. Steel JOBS are coming back to America, just like I predicted. Congratulations to Steel Dynamics!

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3412519-steel-stocks-red-steel-dynamics-new-project-add-u-s-supply

Steel stocks in the red as Steel Dynamics' new project to add to U.S. supply

https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/11/27/why-steel-dynamics-stock-dropped-9-today.aspx

What happened
Shares of steel mini-mill operator Steel Dynamics (NASDAQ:STLD) suffered a steep sell-off on Tuesday, closing the day down 8.9%. Perversely, it seems investors have decided to punish the company for investing in its future.

Last night, Steel Dynamics announced that it will spend between $1.7 billion and $1.8 billion to build "a new state-of-the-art, electric-arc-furnace (EAF) flat roll steel mill in the United States." The new mill will give Steel Dynamics "approximately 3.0 million tons" of additional steel production capacity, including the ability to produce 450,000 more tons of galvanized steel, and to paint another 250,000 tons. The new mill's product offerings will include "various flat roll steel products, including hot roll, cold roll, galvanized, Galvalume and painted steel, primarily serving the energy, automotive, construction, and appliance sectors."

So what
Construction isn't expected to begin until 2020, and the full $1.7 billion or $1.8 billion won't be spent before operations commence "in the second half of 2021." However, investors aren't waiting around to punish Steel Dynamics for investing in a steel market subject to apparently arbitrary price and demand swings at the whim of a president's trade war.

Now what
As much as I hate to say it, I can't really blame investors for their reaction. 2020-21 is right around the time the next U.S. presidential election could upend the system of steel tariffs that's currently making it a bit more attractive to make domestic steel investments such as the one Steel Dynamics just announced. What's more, there's a risk those tariffs could vanish even sooner, re-flooding U.S. metals markets with a torrent of cheap Chinese steel, should President Trump strike the right trade deal with China before his term expires.

It's sad to say, but in times of uncertainty like these, it doesn't always pay to invest in the future.

[jimmy olsen]

Well, that will certainly help whoever the Dems nominate

https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1067917087979507712

Which in turn will allow Dems to run it again in 2020 when there's a [checks notes] presidential election on the ballot. Galaxy brain stuff right here

Absolutely incredible series of ratfucking:
- Labor gets Michigan minimum wage increase referendum on the ballot
- GOP legislature passes minimum wage increase, taking the referendum off the ballot
- GOP legislature undoes much of the minimum wage law in the lame duck

[Syt]

Long read:

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article220097825.html

The main summary is at the start:

How a future Trump Cabinet member gave a serial sex abuser the deal of a lifetime

[...]

His client, Palm Beach multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein, 54, was accused of assembling a large, cult-like network of underage girls — with the help of young female recruiters — to coerce into having sex acts behind the walls of his opulent waterfront mansion as often as three times a day, the Town of Palm Beach police found.

The eccentric hedge fund manager, whose friends included former President Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Prince Andrew, was also suspected of trafficking minor girls, often from overseas, for sex parties at his other homes in Manhattan, New Mexico and the Caribbean, FBI and court records show.

Facing a 53-page federal indictment, Epstein could have ended up in federal prison for the rest of his life.

But on the morning of the breakfast meeting, a deal was struck — an extraordinary plea agreement that would conceal the full extent of Epstein's crimes and the number of people involved.

Not only would Epstein serve just 13 months in the county jail, but the deal — called a non-prosecution agreement — essentially shut down an ongoing FBI probe into whether there were more victims and other powerful people who took part in Epstein's sex crimes, according to a Miami Herald examination of thousands of emails, court documents and FBI records.

The pact required Epstein to plead guilty to two prostitution charges in state court. Epstein and four of his accomplices named in the agreement received immunity from all federal criminal charges. But even more unusual, the deal included wording that granted immunity to "any potential co-conspirators'' who were also involved in Epstein's crimes. These accomplices or participants were not identified in the agreement, leaving it open to interpretation whether it possibly referred to other influential people who were having sex with underage girls at Epstein's various homes or on his plane.

As part of the arrangement, Acosta agreed, despite a federal law to the contrary, that the deal would be kept from the victims. As a result, the non-prosecution agreement was sealed until after it was approved by the judge, thereby averting any chance that the girls — or anyone else — might show up in court and try to derail it.
This is the story of how Epstein, bolstered by unlimited funds and represented by a powerhouse legal team, was able to manipulate the criminal justice system, and how his accusers, still traumatized by their pasts, believe they were betrayed by the very prosecutors who pledged to protect them.

[...]

Article comes with a Timeline:

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article221404845.html

[Syt]

Trump threatens to declassify documents harmful to Democrats if they want to get tough on him.

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/28/politics/new-york-post-trump-threatens-declassify-devastating-dems/index.html

Trump threatens to declassify 'devastating' documents if Democrats 'want to play tough'

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump said that if Democrats "want to play tough" when they control the House of Representatives next year, he will declassify documents that will be "devastating" to them.

"If they want to play tough, I will do it," Trump told the New York Post in an interview Wednesday. "They will see how devastating those pages are."

Democrats are poised to launch a series of investigations after winning a majority in the House in November. Democratic-controlled committees are likely to probe a range of issues including Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Michael Cohen's payments to women who say they've had affairs with Trump (allegations he denies), potential obstruction of justice and Trump's finances.

The President told the Post he wants to save the documents for when he can use them against the Democrats most effectively. "It's much more powerful if I do it then," Trump told the Post, "because if we had done it already, it would already be yesterday's news."

It's not clear what documents he is referring to.

It's an escalation of what Trump told reporters on November 7 after Democrats had retaken control of the House during the midterm elections.

During that post-midterm news conference, Trump said that if Democrats start investigating his administration then he would be moving to "a warlike posture."

When asked by a reporter if he would show Democrats that he could could "play that game and investigate" Democrats, Trump said, "Oh, yeah. Better than them."

While it's uncommon for most presidents to use, or threaten to use, declassification as a political tool, Trump has done so on multiple occasions in 2018.

In September, Trump also threatened to declassify various documents and text messages related to the Russia investigation, but then appeared to back off the unprecedented move.

The President initially directed the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to initiate the "immediate declassification" of selective portions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act application on former Trump foreign policy aide Carter Page, according to a statement from White House press secretary Sarah Sanders. His request broadly included "all FBI reports of interviews" prepared in connection with the FISA applications, which are usually closely guarded by the FBI.

But Trump then sent two tweets stating that the Justice Department inspector general had been asked to review the documents "on an expedited basis." The President added, "In the end I can always declassify if it proves necessary."

[Valmy]

Go right ahead. The Feds shouldn't be protecting political parties anyway. Anyway the idea that Trump is really going to start being petty and vindictive now is a pretty empty threat. That is his only setting.