The Trump Presidency VII

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Molinaro said:
It is 100% pure nonsense. One of my jobs was as a load broker. That is to say, I bought and sold freight shipments across the Canada - US border, in both directions. Part of my responsibilities was to ensure the freight cleared customs so that the trucks would not be delayed at the border.

One of the required documents is a commercial invoice. This is not an invoice that a customer would receive. This is an invoice that only the customs clearance broker would see. It does not list the purchase price of products. It lists the sellers cost per item shipped. And it also includes a field for each item indicating "Country of Origin".

That field is not filled with Canada or USA, because that is where it is crossing from. This field is filled with the country where the item was made. You cannot hide the fact that an item originated in China just because you ship it to Canada first, and then drive it over the border.
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Minoosh said:
I love it when people on this board actually know something about how trade is conducted. It's fun to learn about logistics, shipping and supply chains. My idea of fun, anyway.
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Sniff! What am I, chopped liver?

I mentioned this days ago. (And I'm retired from forty-seven years in international shipping/logistics, working for - at different times - two of the largest customs brokers in the USA.)

He's an ignorant yutz. US Customs law provides that the goods are of the origin of the country whose goods/labor provide the highest value as percentage of the price.

Fairly, he should probably know this from trying to manipulate the origins on his Chinese ties, shirts, cufflinks, etc... You can ship goods to Canada and Mexico, as long as you then perform the lion's portion of the value (not physical size or weight) in those countries, and those goods qualify as Country of Origin: Canada(Mexico). With NAFTA countries getting only a slight break over WTO countries, it was not worth it in the past. It may be if the tariffs hold, but since he announced today that they're including Mexico in the steel/aluminum target countries, what's to prevent them from then penalizing Mexican electronics, components, garments, etc...
 
Foolmewunz said:
Sniff! What am I, chopped liver?
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I meant you too, of course!

Every year The Economist puts out a book of figures. Top importers, top exporters. The U.S. is a net importer of just about everything except cereal crops (and a lot of that probably goes into animal feed so we can eat meat every day). If we import steel I have a particular interest in commodities and how they are processed into goods. But I end up with questions. China is the largest producer of cotton and also the largest consumer, but I don't know if a country is "consuming" cotton if it is manufacturing clothing for export.

All this stuff crisscrosses the globe and ends up where it needs to be so there are enough SpongeBob SquarePants backpacks for American first-graders, but not too many or they'll end up at the Dollar Store, and what is with Dollar Stores anyway? They have brands I've never heard of before. And why is Luxembourg rated 5th in the world for per capita oil consumption?

Frustratingly I can't find any production/consumption figures for steel.


Foolmewunz said:
With NAFTA countries getting only a slight break over WTO countries, it was not worth it in the past. It may be if the tariffs hold, but since he announced today that they're including Mexico in the steel/aluminum target countries, what's to prevent them from then penalizing Mexican electronics, components, garments, etc...
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As far as I can tell, nothing would prevent Trump from doing that. That's fine, as long as people understand that Trump is lying to them at every step in the process.
 
As opposed to honoring folks for being "very rich, very famous" or bowing to "the troops" as übermensch, there was a tiny but memorable moment in which US culture celebrated a different understanding of personal integrity and worth, one that is now millions of light years away from today's bully culture. Sad.

Thanks, GOP, for the trouser drop and ensuing pratfall before Lord Trump.
 
Conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza said Friday that President Donald Trump told him the 2014 conviction for which he was pardoned a day earlier was “fishy” and that he had “been screwed.”

Trump announced Thursday that he had pardoned D’Souza, who pleaded guilty in 2014 to using straw donors to make political contributions to Republican Wendy Long’s 2012 New York Senate campaign. D’Souza avoided jail time but paid a fine and served eight months in a San Diego halfway house.

D’Souza said he was not expecting it when Trump called him earlier this week.

“The president said, ‘Dinesh, you’ve been a great voice for freedom.’ And he said that, ‘I got to tell you, man-to-man, you’ve been screwed.’ He goes, ‘I’ve been looking at the case. I knew from the beginning that it was fishy,’” D’Souza told Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” on Friday morning. “But he said upon reviewing it he felt a great injustice had been done and that using his power he was going to rectify it, sort of clear the slate.

“And he said he just wanted me to be out there to be a bigger voice than ever defending the principles that I believe in,” D’Souza continued.
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https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/01/dinesh-dsouza-trump-pardon-reaction-616317

I can only hope that Trump uses the powers of pardoning far more liberally from now on.
 
"I knew from the beginning that it was fishy"

Nothing like an open mind.
 
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/wh...-report-tweet-n879181?cid=public-rss_20180601

"President Trump seemed to hint at a good jobs report before its release Friday, prompting critics to slam him for being indiscreet with confidential information."

Trump is the kind of guy you would never give a clearance to. He's eager to be "in the know", and to let OTHER people know he's in the know. Although the information isn't classified, protocol and rules tend to say that no one announces the jobs report ahead of time.

Sarah Sanders response: "...Trump's Tweet was appropriate because "he didn't put the numbers out."
 
slyjoe said:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/wh...-report-tweet-n879181?cid=public-rss_20180601

"President Trump seemed to hint at a good jobs report before its release Friday, prompting critics to slam him for being indiscreet with confidential information."

Trump is the kind of guy you would never give a clearance to. He's eager to be "in the know", and to let OTHER people know he's in the know. Although the information isn't classified, protocol and rules tend to say that no one announces the jobs report ahead of time.

Sarah Sanders response: "...Trump's Tweet was appropriate because "he didn't put the numbers out."
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You’re equating that with clearance? Lol
 
A friend here of a considerably conservative bent says that Trump's interest in pardons is a variation of the Rovean Playbook. He's not accusing other of being what he is, but is finding others convicted of things he's guilty of or will be guilty of if they ever get to court...

> Arpaio - contempt of court for ignoring orders on racial profiling
> Jack Johnson - moral turpitude and taking nookie across state lines
> Dinesh - illegal fund raising and being a half-wit
> Blago - Influence Peddling!
> Martha Stewart - Insider Trading

In the interest of keeping this thread under five hundred lines, suffice it to say one could offer up a full page on his transgression in all those areas. I asked Ed if he thought he was just trying to downplay the crimes so his variations of the same would seem minor and he responded, "That, plus writing the script for Pence if he does have to resign*."

*Ed's a rabid conservative but agrees that he'll never get impeached with the current Sons of Casper Milquetoast in Congress.
 
Foolmewunz said:
A friend here of a considerably conservative bent says that Trump's interest in pardons is a variation of the Rovean Playbook. He's not accusing other of being what he is, but is finding others convicted of things he's guilty of or will be guilty of if they ever get to court...

> Arpaio - contempt of court for ignoring orders on racial profiling
> Jack Johnson - moral turpitude and taking nookie across state lines
> Dinesh - illegal fund raising and being a half-wit
> Blago - Influence Peddling!
> Martha Stewart - Insider Trading

In the interest of keeping this thread under five hundred lines, suffice it to say one could offer up a full page on his transgression in all those areas. I asked Ed if he thought he was just trying to downplay the crimes so his variations of the same would seem minor and he responded, "That, plus writing the script for Pence if he does have to resign*."

*Ed's a rabid conservative but agrees that he'll never get impeached with the current Sons of Casper Milquetoast in Congress.
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Yes, if there's any kind of logic and reason behind the use of his pardoning powers its almost certainly to push the narrative that politicians and businessmen being "victimized" is common.

It would mean that it would be easier for the likes of Fox News pundits to spin any future pardons of people like Paul Manafort and Micheal Flynn as being just more example of him helping victims of the elite-liberal political establishment. I mean Trump is already falsely pushing the notion that the "witch hunt" is perpetrated by a group of the hated Democrats, ignoring the fact that Mueller is a registered Republican.
 
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Minoosh said:
Every year The Economist puts out a book of figures. Top importers, top exporters. The U.S. is a net importer of just about everything except cereal crops (and a lot of that probably goes into animal feed so we can eat meat every day). If we import steel I have a particular interest in commodities and how they are processed into goods. But I end up with questions. China is the largest producer of cotton and also the largest consumer, but I don't know if a country is "consuming" cotton if it is manufacturing clothing for export.
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The US is a net importer (runs a trade deficit) because Balance of Payments is zero sum. Very short version: Cash flowing into and out of the US needs to balance. So when US companies make profits abroad or capital investment flows into the US it creates a net cash flow into the US that needs to be offset by money spent to import goods and services.

As long as the US is an attractive investment target and it’s companies make profits worldwide it will run a trade deficit. Trying to make this deficit go away is like a giant game of whack-a-mole. If you block one thing something else will just take it’s place.
 
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