playing the BIG boards. options included. making the profits with this volitality !
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used car prices going up ? that would be an exercise in stupidity !
with used car inventory totally overstocked,...
Around the world, finished vehicle inventories are creeping up. So is the current trajectory of the industry sustainable ?
https://automotivelogistics.media/intelligence/rising-inventory-stock-lots
~~~~~~~~
it would make more sense to focus on getting rid of the used cars.
i understand that many multiple brand dealers (Chev, Ford, Chry, Dodge,etc) have had to build lots to store their overstocked used car inventory. they are paying for that service and the more those used cars sit there accumulating charges it takes away from the profits. so they need to focus on selling these used vehicles.
most of the overstock is coming from individuals that turned in their car lease and didn't purchase it.
Glut of off-lease SUVs may slow new-vehicle sales
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2018/02/13/leases-used-cars/110392084/
like this is surprise,...Trump's Latest Trade Deal Will Hurt Car Buyers
by Rick Newman
Aug 31, 2018
Get ready for a Trump bump in car prices.
As U.S. negotiators close in on a new trade deal with Mexico and Canada, they appear committed to new rules on car production that will require costlier components, which in turn would raise prices. Further provisions would allow for new tariffs on some imported cars that could boost sticker prices by thousands of dollars.
The new rules would require more American-made content in cars imported from Canada and Mexico, in exchange for allowing those products to enter the U.S. duty-free. Another measure would raise the portion of a car that must be built by workers earning relatively high wages. Cars coming from Mexico and Canada that don’t meet those requirements will be subject to a 2.5% tariff, while cars imported from other countries could face tariffs as high as 25%.
The protectionist measures are meant to safeguard U.S. manufacturing jobs. But they come at a cost to consumers. “At the least, the new rules will raise the price of autos for U.S. consumers,” writes Chad Bown of the Petersen Institute for International Economics. “The North American auto sector could suffer an even worse blow if the Trump administration imposes new tariffs or quantitative limits on autos and parts not covered by the new deal.”
Of the 17.3 million cars sold in the United States last year, about 8.6 million were produced in the U.S. That leaves 8.7 million imports. Of the imports, Canada and Mexico each account for about 1.9 million. Popular models made in Mexico include the Ford Fusion, GMC Terrain, Jeep Compass, Honda HR-V and Volkswagen Jetta. Canada produces the Chrysler Pacifica, Ford Edge, Chevy Equinox, Cadillac XTS and Lexus RX450h, among others.
The new version of the Toyota RAV4, made in Canada, could cost more on account of President Trump.
The new rules would raise the required amount of North American content in a tariff-free car from 62.5% to 75%. Another rule would require at least 70% of the steel, glass and aluminum in a car to come from North American sources. And a wage provision would raise the automaker’s portion of assembly-line workers earning at least $16 per hour from 30% now to 40% for cars, and 45% for SUVs.
It’s not yet clear how much the new rules would add to the cost of imported cars, because we don’t know how automakers would react to the changes. If complying with the new rules would add more than 2.5% to the cost, then it would make sense to simply pay the 2.5% tariff rather than spending more than that to eliminate the tariff. If manufacturers passed all of that onto consumers in the form of higher prices, the starting sticker price of a Toyota RAV4, for example, would jump from $24,660 to $25,277.
Price hikes could be considerably steeper on some models. In addition to the new trade deal with Canada and Mexico, Trump is considering tariffs of 25% on all other imported cars. That amounts to roughly 3.8 million vehicles including many Audi, BMW and Mercedes models built in Europe, Toyota Priuses built in Japan, Hyundais built in Korea, Buicks built in China, and others. With a 25% tariff, the starting price of an Audi A4 would soar from $36,975 to $46,219.
Trump’s 25% tariff on select imports would cause major disruption in the industry. The Center for Automotive Research estimates that a 25% tariff on auto imports, excluding Canada and Mexico, would raise the cost of all imported vehicles by an average of $3,980 and the price of all vehicles, including those built in the United States, by $2,450. The reason all prices would rise is that forcing up the price of some imports allows competitors to raise prices as well, even if they don’t have to pay the tariff.
The Audi A4, made in Germany, could end up subject to a new 25% tariff.
Higher prices normally dent sales, and the Center for Automotive Research predicts that a 25% tariff on non-North American imports would reduce sales of all new cars by about 1.2 million units per year. That would kill 197,000 American jobs, which is obviously the opposite of what Trump says he is trying to accomplish.
Protectionist tariffs don’t necessarily protect jobs because government bureaucrats imposing new rules can’t predict how companies will react. “Some companies may rework their supply chains to meet the new rules,” says Bown. “But perversely, a second possibility is that Trump’s new regulations will be so costly that companies decide to source even less content from North America. To keep car prices at levels consumers are willing to pay, some automakers may buy parts from Asia or Europe, where they are cheaper.”
Automakers also have to keep the cost of U.S. production under control if they want to export those vehicles to other countries, where they have to compete with other exports not subject to Trump-style government-imposed price hikes. Carmakers build about 2.4 million vehicles in the United States for export each year, and those vehicles need to be price-competitive in foreign markets. BMW, for instance, exports SUVs from its factory in South Carolina to China, and if the cost of producing in the U.S. gets too high, they could relocate that production elsewhere.
The new trade provisions with Canada and Mexico still aren’t final. Once the three countries fully agree, Congress has to approve any changes, and that isn’t likely until late this year, at the earliest. If Democrats gain control of the House of Representatives in the November midterm elections, as seems possible, Congress may never approve of the controversial Trump trade maneuver. For consumers, the breakdown lane may not be a bad place to be.
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/trumps-latest-trade-deal-will-hurt-car-buyers-185429094.html
what you are describing is how most of us really are.
very appreciative, very thankful, very respectful and very grateful givers.
maybe some other event other than a loved one's passing will inspire this magnanimous nature we possess to stand tall.
i think you are right on that PegnVA. Don/Con is already using his influence to incite a violent response to whatever he does not like.
that's Trumps definition of fake news. anything that nails him to the cross and displays his true nature and he doesn't like ,..it's fake news.
what his dumb ass followers don't get is,...he made the whole thing up to cover the real truth. so the followers are the joke and the punchline !
it's so odd that these followers can't clearly see that what they are doing is no different than what and who Jim Jones was,..or a Charles Manson,...or an Adolf Hitler,...or a Jimmy Swaggart,...or the old Iranian leaders who rev up the young ones to fight their war.
this is EXACTLY what Trump is doing. he's revving them up to do his/Trump's/Putin's bidding. his followers just think its their idea. but he planted it while in his candidacy.
for some reason, only known them, these followers choose to think that what they are doing is their bidding,...but when one is in that type of manipulation one doesn't even know they a manipulation.
Trump is a master at reading a crowd and manipulating it,..making it appear like it is them that want him when it's the opposite actually.
if Trump can't sell his stick' then he has no one. and a narcissist without an audience is Trumps definition of hell !
my two cents,...it's a combination of Trumps words insinuating IF they loose the elections the market will tank...and,...
IF the Fed continues it's plan to hike interest rates 1 or 2 more times,...that combination might scare investors and they will clock out till the smoke clears.
we all know that market needs a correction,...whats keeping it afloat is company stock buyback. but thats not enough to keep this strength in momentum. so,...it's some other factors that i surely don't see.
and you ?
incredible ! wow !! excellent find. thats a keeper so i can email it my Don/Con voter friends. 8^)
here's the first part of Mencken statement you posted;
The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.
The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
amen to that !
conix: The big problem is you can't talk reason with Republicans. Case in point YOU.
National Enquirer Had Decades of Trump Dirt. He Wanted to Buy It All.
By Jim Rutenberg and Maggie Haberman
Aug. 30, 2018
nytimes.com
Federal investigators have provided ample evidence that President Trump was involved in deals to pay two women to keep them from speaking publicly before the 2016 election about affairs that they said they had with him.
But it turns out that Mr. Trump wanted to go even further.
He and his lawyer at the time, Michael D. Cohen, devised a plan to buy up all the dirt on Mr. Trump that the National Enquirer and its parent company had collected on him, dating back to the 1980s, according to several of Mr. Trump’s associates.
The existence of the plan, which was never finalized, has not been reported before. But it was strongly hinted at in a recording that Mr. Cohen’s lawyer released last month of a conversation about payoffs that Mr. Cohen had with Mr. Trump.
“It’s all the stuff — all the stuff, because you never know,” Mr. Cohen said on the recording.
The move by Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen indicated just how concerned they were about all the information amassed by the company, American Media, and its chairman, David Pecker, a loyal Trump ally of two decades who has cooperated with investigators.
It is not clear yet whether the proposed plan to purchase all the information from American Media has attracted the interest of federal prosecutors in New York, who last week obtained a guilty plea from Mr. Cohen over a $130,000 payment to the adult film actress Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels, and a $150,000 payment to a Playboy model, Karen McDougal.
But the prosecutors have provided at least partial immunity to Mr. Pecker, who is a key witness in their inquiry into payments made on behalf of Mr. Trump during the 2016 campaign.
The people who knew about the discussions would speak about them only on condition of anonymity, given that they are now the potential subject of a federal investigation that did not end with Mr. Cohen’s plea.
Lawyers for Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen declined to comment for this article as did American Media.
It is not known how much of the material on Mr. Trump is still in American Media’s possession or whether American Media destroyed any of it after the campaign. Prosecutors have not said whether they have obtained any of the material beyond that which pertains to Ms. McDougal and Ms. Clifford and the discussions about their arrangements.
For the better part of two decades, Mr. Pecker had ordered his staff at American Media to protect Mr. Trump from troublesome stories, in some cases by buying up stories about him and filing it away.
In 2016, he kept his staff from going back through the old Trump tip and story files that dated to before Mr. Pecker became company chairman in 1999, several former staff members said in interviews with The New York Times.
That meant that American Media, the nation’s largest gossip publisher, did not play a role during the election year in vetting a presidential candidacy — Mr. Trump’s — made for the tabloids.
Mr. Pecker also worked with Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen to buy and bury Ms. McDougal’s story of an affair with Mr. Trump, a practice known as “catch and kill.” Mr. Cohen admitted as much in making his guilty last week.
In August 2016, American Media acquired the rights to Ms. McDougal’s story in return for $150,000 and commitments to use its magazines to promote her career as a fitness specialist. But American Media never published her allegations about a relationship with Mr. Trump.
Shortly after American Media completed the arrangement with Ms. McDougal at Mr. Trump’s behest, a troubling question began to nag at Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen, according to several people who knew about the discussions at the time: What would happen to America Media’s sensitive Trump files if Mr. Pecker were to leave the company?
Mr. Cohen, those people said, was hearing rumors that Mr. Pecker might leave American Media for Time magazine — a title Mr. Pecker is known to have dreams of running.
There was perennial talk about American Media’s business troubles. And Mr. Trump appeared to take a world-wearier view of the wisdom of leaving his sensitive personal secrets in someone else’s hands:
“Maybe he gets hit by a truck,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Pecker in a conversation with Mr. Cohen, musing about an unfortunate mishap befalling his good friend.
Mr. Cohen captured that conversation on a recording that his adviser released roughly a month before his guilty plea, which included two counts of campaign finance violations relating to the payments to Ms. Clifford and Ms. McDougal. The recording was given to CNN after Mr. Trump’s main lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, acknowledged its existence to The New York Times.
When The Times first reported that the recording had been discovered by the F.B.I., people close to Mr. Cohen and Mr. Trump initially described it in the narrow context of Ms. McDougal’s deal.
But Mr. Cohen, in fact, indicates in the audio that he and Mr. Trump are speaking about an arrangement involving far more.
“I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info, regarding our friend David,” Mr. Cohen says in reference to Mr. Pecker.
The plan got far enough along that Mr. Cohen relays in the recorded conversation that he had discussed paying for all the information from American Media with the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg.
“I’ve spoken to Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up,” he says, adding about Mr. Pecker, “We’ll have to pay him something.”
In the end, the deal never came together.
When Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty, prosecutors said in court documents that Mr. Cohen and American Media did enter into a deal in which Mr. Cohen agreed to pay the company $125,000 for the rights to Ms. McDougal’s story.
After the deal was signed but before Mr. Cohen paid, prosecutors said, American Media backed out of the arrangement and warned Mr. Cohen to shred the paperwork (he did not).
Prosecutors said there had been discussions between Mr. Pecker and Mr. Cohen in which Mr. Cohen said American Media would be reimbursed for the payment to Ms. McDougal.
The notoriously frugal Mr. Trump balked at doing so, causing Mr. Pecker anxiety about explaining the payout to his board, according to a person briefed on the discussions. It was unclear whether Mr. Trump ever provided a reimbursement.
Mr. Weisselberg ultimately provided information about Mr. Cohen under a deal that protected him from self-incrimination. As prosecutors continue in their investigation, Mr. Weisselberg could serve them as a particularly helpful guide through the Trump Organization’s operations.
Mr. Pecker, whose company is expected to be of continued interest in the investigation, has a similar arrangement with prosecutors. Potentially as worrisome for Mr. Trump and his advisers, Mr. Pecker could be a particularly knowing guide through any other potentially illegal efforts made to protect Mr. Trump’s candidacy from his own less savory exploits.
“The only thing better than a single piece of evidence is multiple pieces of evidence,” said Jeff Tsai, a lawyer now in private practice who, as a Justice Department public integrity section lawyer, had served on the team that prosecuted Senator John Edwards on campaign finance charges in 2012.
He added, “Look to whom the government is reportedly giving immunity to. Those individuals are the ones who would have knowledge about what, if anything, the campaign at the highest, or lowest, or any level in between had on this issue.”
People with knowledge of American Media’s operations, who would speak only on condition of anonymity, described the files on Mr. Trump as mostly older National Enquirer stories about Mr. Trump’s marital woes and lawsuits; related story notes and lists of sensitive sources; some tips about alleged affairs; and minutia, like allegations of unscrupulous golfing.
As the Associated Press reported last week, some of the information was kept in a safe devoted to particularly sensitive material.
Many of the older National Enquirer stories are often not accessible through Google or databases like Nexis.
Several former American Media staff members said that at the very least, the material the company had on Mr. Trump would have put its flagship, The Enquirer, in a prime position to dominate on coverage of Mr. Trump’s scandalous past.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/nyregion/trump-cohen-national-enquirer-american-media-recording.html
more trump pond scum garbage,...DeSantis,....Florida's GOP gubernatorial nominee says a vote for his black opponent would 'monkey this up'
By Caroline Kenny, CNN
August 30, 2018
Washington (CNN)
Fresh off his victory in the Florida Republican gubernatorial primary, Rep. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday that voters would "monkey this up" if they elected his African-American Democratic opponent, Andrew Gillum, to be governor, immediately drawing accusations of racism.
The remark provides a controversial beginning to what will be a closely watched general election campaign for the Florida governorship, which pits DeSantis, who has closely aligned himself with President Donald Trump, against Gillum, a progressive backed by independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
Calling Gillum "an articulate spokesman" for the far left, DeSantis said during an interview on Fox News when asked about his opponent, "The last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases and bankrupting the state."
Gillum would become the state's first black governor if he were to win in November.
"Well, I'll try to be articulate, Chris," Gillum told Chris Cuomo on CNN's "Cuomo Prime Time," "and simply say that that kind of vitriol -- and he's apparently given up the whistle, they've gone to the bullhorn with these kinds of tactics -- but they're not going to work."
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/29/politics/ron-desantis-andrew-gillum-attack/index.html
==============
Andrew Gillum’s Surprise Win in Florida Is a Huge Deal
Tim Murphy
Aug. 28, 2018 9:22 PM
The liberal Democrat would also be the state’s first-ever black governor.
Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum is one step closer to being the first African American governor in Florida history. Although the Democrat, a favorite of progressives, trailed by double digits for much of the race and never led a single poll, he rode a late surge to edge out Rep. Gwen Graham in Tuesday’s primary.
Gillum will face Trump-loving Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis in what is shaping up to be one of this fall’s marquee races. Only two African Americans have ever won a gubernatorial election, but Gillum, along with fellow Democrats Stacey Abrams of Georgia and Ben Jealous of Maryland, have a chance this year to change that.
In a purple state carried by Trump, Gillum ran an unabashedly liberal campaign, calling for Medicare-for-all and a $15 minimum wage, while touting his legal fight against gun lobbyists. He won the campaign in the final weeks with messages like this:
How Trump's hardline trade strategy could blow up
axios.com
Aug 30, 2018
President Trump's hard-ball, America-First negotiating tactics may produce a new agreement on NAFTA as early as Friday, but history suggests he could be creating bad blood against the U.S. for years or longer.
The bottom line:
Hard-ball is a negotiating tactic with usually limited results — you win applause at home, but at the receiving end, no one is laughing. "Playing a game in which the other side looks like a loser makes potential partners less likely to subject themselves to the same fate," said Richard Fontaine, president of the Center for a New American Security.
Fontaine added: "It’s also unnecessary: Trade is the quintessential win-win activity — transactions only take place, after all, if both sides believe they will gain."
What they're saying:
Over the centuries, arm-twisting and coerced deals have often come back to haunt the bully involved, experts say.
Beijing treats the 19th century Opium Wars, in which Britain and France forced China to open to trade under humiliating terms, as though they were yesterday.
Hitler arose after the crushing terms ending World War I: "[T]he mother of all unequal treaties was the Treaty of Versailles, and we know what happened to that," said Gary Hufbauer, of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
"British and French agreements' with their colonies were generally rejected soon after independence."
The big picture:
On Monday, Trump announced an apparent coup, saying he had pried Mexico away from Canada and reached a handshake agreement on a new NAFTA formulation comprised almost totally of concessions by Mexico. Until then, Canadian and Mexican leaders had insisted that no deal with Trump was possible unless it was trilateral.
Then Trump gave Canada an ultimatum: Sign the agreement by Friday, with whatever tweaks it could muster with the White House, or Trump would complete the deal with Mexico and without Canada. Oh, and, after that, he would levy tariffs on Canadian-made cars.
Canadian foreign minister Chrystia Freeland cut short a European trip yesterday and flew into Washington, DC. In remarks this afternoon, both Freeland and Trump suggested a deal was possible.
If a deal is struck and gets its necessary legislative approvals in the three capitals, that would be Trump's second coup in a week.
The reshaping of the deal would provide Trump with hefty bragging rights going into the November midterms, given his frequent vows during the 2016 campaign to redo or kill NAFTA.
Next, though he may not act until after the midterms, Trump is likely to tighten the screws on China.
A new trade agreement with Beijing could take a lot longer — last week, experts told Axios that the U.S.-China trade war could last a year or beyond.
Unlike Canada and Mexico, China is not a trade small fry, and leader Xi Jinping has the advantage of a hold on North Korea, with which Trump desperately wants an agreement on nuclear arms.
Xi "doesn’t want a fight," Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, tells Axios. "They were offering to increase purchases of U.S. goods before. They’re almost certain to put more on the table going forward."
Yet the betting remains that China will be a tough nut to crack.
"There are already repercussions from Trump's aggressive negotiating stance," Douglas Irwin, an economic historian at Dartmouth University, tells Axios.
"Almost no other country wants to negotiate a trade agreement with the United States because they know the administration will make impossible demands, or demands that end up restricting trade."
https://www.axios.com/trump-trade-war-tariffs-china-canada-mexico-nafta-9c7d1f60-6793-455b-9f0b-121d74fdbc99.html
this is one very sick and psychologically unstable individual.
wow, is all that can be said.
Quote:
And I suppose you are happy about that. Well thank Obama for the sequester that screwed over our military. Thank goodness Trump got elected to rebuild our military.
wow.
just wow.
oh,...he is an absolute asshole. i have friends who have been around him. totally deluded individual they say. one friend said "Scary". another said, "charming, but basically full of himself". sounds like a perfect match for Orange Hair.
lets face it,..any candidate that aligns with our imbecile potus's rhetoric and actually adds to it is a certifiable asshole.
i wonder if DeSantis would mind Orange Hair walking up and grabbing his wifes privates ?
DeSantis seems to gloss over that. yet he portrays his christian principles. yea,...Convenient Christianity. only practice what you want, not what you preach.
another fake trump person willing to carry out his bullshit
what an absolute irresponsible piece of garbage Don/Con is !!!
who would say something like that ?
someone in fear.
he can't FIRE enough people so he uses fear and crisis and inciting violence.
he is sooooo insecure and running in fear of the Mueller investigation and the fear that Manafort will flip.
basically what the asshole is stating is IF we don't win you supporters of mine have my approval to create violence and mayhem.
how different is that from Charles Manson ? it's not !
what Manson did is exactly what Don/Con is doing,...create a little group of admirers,...fill them with your rhetoric of hate and payback,...lie, lie, lie to make it all appear real,...
amazing the stupidity that is out there.
i just had another friend who voted for Trump that while over dinner he said,..
"Well I think I made a mistake voting for him. He's not doing anything that is really of substance. I thought when he said he would drain the swamp he would, but it appears he lied."
i inquired back to him, "Are you saying you are admitting that Trump is a liar about his progress and actions and promises he made to voters?"
My friend reluctantly said. "Yes."
the main and salient point that really affected these four was the stripping away the children from their parents.
it appears this really displayed to my friends/voters of trump what type of man trump really is based on his actions and not words.
in fact one friend even stated that when she listened to trumps words they were inspirational,..but when she viewed his actions they were opposite of his words. as she said, "I can no longer be in denial about a mistake."
that makes 4 friends of mine who were trump voters now seeing who this imbecile really is.
there is hope 8^)
could not have said it better,...so thanks for stating that !!
Trump is out of touch with reality every day.
If he's not pleased with the current situation he creates his own little Lying world.
i'm in your court Peg. we need new ideas and new individuals bringing them forward.
if we want to change a system we have to change the participants.
Donald Trump’s Trade Deal with Mexico is a FARCE – and a lesson for Brexit
by John Rentoul
The Independent
August 28, 2018
There is nothing on President Trump’s desk in the Oval office apart from two phones, and he cannot even make them work. At his televised announcement of a trade deal with Mexico yesterday, a flunky had to intervene to press the right buttons so that Trump could talk to “Enrique”, the president of Mexico, on speakerphone.
It was symbolic of the shambles that is Donald Trump’s trade policy. He was elected on a promise to renegotiate Nafta, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the deal between the US, Mexico and Canada signed by Bill Clinton 25 years ago. This week’s deal means that he has renegotiated part of it, the US-Mexico part, and has forced Chrystia Freeland, the Canadian foreign minister, to scramble to Washington to try to finalise the Canadian part.
But when Trump told his supporters he would renegotiate Nafta, they did not think he meant he would negotiate a similar deal and call it something else. Yesterday the US president said: “I like to call this deal the United States-Mexico trade agreement; I think it’s an elegant name.” Mainly because it is not “Nafta”.
Being Trump, he was quite open about what he was up to. “I think Nafta has a lot of bad connotations for the United States, because it was a ripoff.” At least, that was what he and the Republican Tea Party tendency told the voters it was, despite all the evidence that it had been good for the US economy.
What is interesting is that all candidates running against incumbents in America condemn free trade and demand protection for American jobs, only to realise once in office that free trade is the best way to defend American jobs. Clinton was against Nafta before he was for it, and now Trump is running away from his campaign rhetoric too.
Yes, he has imposed punitive tariffs on Mexican and Canadian steel and aluminium, but Mexico’s retaliation (putting tariffs on food imports from the US) has hurt a lot of farmers, some of them part of Trump’s voting base. This has forced the Trump administration to rush to design a compensation scheme, which those affected are already complaining is not enough.
Trump also said he wanted a “sunset clause” on his I Can’t Believe It’s Not Nafta agreement after five years, but now he has agreed the new deal will last for at least 16 years. In a way, this is reassuring: Trump turns out to be a bendable politician like the rest, rather than a uniquely destructive force.
The whole farce is like a Brexit morality tale: populist politicians tell the people their problems are caused by unfair trade relations with their next-door neighbours, and then have to spend the next few years trying to replicate those very same trade deals.
The parallels between the Nafta negotiations and Brexit are uncanny. One problem with Nafta, from Trump’s point of view, was that its disputes resolution procedures were unfair to the US and infringed its right to decide its own laws. The new Definitely Not Nafta deal keeps those procedures with minor tweaks.
Both sets of talks are up against tight deadlines, which means that many of the difficult questions have been shelved for later while the existing arrangements are allowed to roll over.
The reason Trump has gone ahead with Mexico and without Canada is because talks with the Canadians have stalled for two months after the row over steel tariffs, while Trump has to send the Mexico deal to Congress by Friday this week to have a chance of getting it done by the time Enrique Pena Nieto’s six-year term as Mexican president ends in November.
Meanwhile, the free trade that underpins the prosperity of Americans, Mexicans, Canadians – and Europeans – stumbles on, despite the attempts of populist politicians to wreck it.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-trade-deal-mexico-115449765.html
you are so ego tripping on your self that it's literally comical.
i read your words and broke out laughing !!!!
the illusion of illusion has you in it's grasp. the ego.
the sad thing is,...you most likely believe what you say.
NEWS FLASH,...you need to approach and heal your own darkness before you attempt to assist anyone else.
additionally,...who are you to decide that in your evaluation that "the whole board" in fact doesn't already do "nice things" ???
are you psychic and can determine just by an individuals post that they need your assistance ?
and what is your assistance offering ? do you have a degree in psychotherapy ? a degree in ministerial services ?,...a degree in life coaching ?,...a degree in social services ?,..a degree in human resources ?
what are your qualifications to "ensure it happens"?
why would i trust YOU ?
let me guess,...because you have the love of god in your heart and you speak to jesus on a daily basis and he has instructed you to assist this particular forum out of its darkness.
if you do in fact follow jesus (which i doubt) he said something like "Those without sin throw the first stone."
so here's a suggestion,...
1- how about you admitting what your shit is to the forum and how you are planning to clear it up,...
2- you handle your shit and it will amaze you that once you handle your shit everyone else's shit is now tolerable.,..
3- once you heal your shit it will discern that what you thought and judged to be someone's shit was just your ego perspective that is inaccurate...
========
I will say this to the whole board ... You want to do nice things for everyone ... So does Fuagf, destertdrifter, arizona, and quite a number of other people.
It will happen ... And my wife and I will work with all of you to ensure it happens.
fuagf,..sorry, i should have made that point clearer. i'm totally ok with pickiness,...it keeps communications clear.
yes,..i do not include Warren in the 'batch of criminals sitting in congress'.
i like many of Warrens ideas.
she presents herself as someone who is attempting to do the job she was elected to do. works for me.
thanks, what a great laugh. i like your humor style.
f' off ! you are a piece of human garbage,...continue with your own personal intellectual masturbation circle jerk.
you are now on IGNORE.
NASA's terrifying visualization of atmospheric aerosols
by Steve Dent
Engadget.com
Mon, Aug 27, 2018
Heatwaves, hurricanes and other extreme weather might be the "face of climate change," but it's not the only sign. A grim new visualization from NASA shows another problem caused indirectly by global warming: airborne particles and droplets. These "aerosols," shown on a single day on August 23rd, come from dust, volcanic ash and other sources. They're particularly brutal this year because of fires in California, British Columbia and the southern part of Africa.
NASA notes that the aerosols shown are "not a direct representation of satellite data." To create the map, scientists married data from the Goddard Earth Observing System Forward Processing (GEOS FP) model with other satellite data and images. Black carbon particles are shown in red, sea spray salt aerosol lofted by storms are blue, while dust is shown in purple.
Researchers integrated "fire radiative power" data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer sensors onboard the Aqua and Terra satellites. They also superimposed night light data from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP satellite showing towns and cities. The colors and lights mix to form a swirl-like image that's at once dazzling and alarming.
Richard Zussman
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@richardzussman
The sun rise took place in Prince George an hour ago and it is still pitch black because of the smoke. #BCWildfire
9:49 AM - Aug 17, 2018
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NASA notes that "some of the events that appear in the visualization were causing pretty serious problems on the ground." Namely, tropical cyclones Soulik and Cimaron were about to hit South Korea and Japan, while Hawaii braced for floods and rains caused by Hurricane Lane (that eventually petered out into a tropical storm, thankfully). The smoke came largely from California and Canada's British Columbia. At the peak of the BC fires, the air quality index in Prince George was literally off the charts, and it looked like nighttime when it was actually morning (above).
Scientists say that hurricanes, cyclones, extreme heat and wildfires are all exacerbated by global warming. So far this year, 118 all-time heat records have fallen across the globe, and forest fires have devastated not just North America but Greece and other regions. All of that creates a self-perpetuating cycle, as warmer Arctic temperatures release CO2 from permafrost, glaciers and lakes, while aerosols from forest fires enhance the greenhouse effect, boosting temperatures.
https://www.engadget.com/2018/08/27/nasa-visualization-aerosols-the-big-picture/?yptr=yahoo
By Steve Dent
@stevetdent
Steve should have known that civil engineering was not for him when he spent most of his time at university monkeying with his 8086 clone PC. Although he graduated, a lifelong obsession of wanting the Solitaire win animation to go faster had begun. Always seeking a gadget fix, he dabbles in photography, video, 3D animation and is a licensed private pilot. He followed l'amour de sa vie from Vancouver, BC, to France and now lives in Paris.
how intellectual. maybe your mental masturbation impresses you.
you just proved my point,...YOU POSSESS NO HEART !
what you stated is obvious, meaning every body goes that natural route.
but the fact that you had to go there screams out,... you feel defeated. you might deny that, but the story is there for all to read.
when an individual, YOU, needs to use that type of comment,...
it's extremely obvious that you are in territory that you are not comfortable with,..hence your immature little man reply towards McCain's passing.
what you stated is obvious, but the fact that you had to go there displays how easily and callously you are willing to go to the lower basement of jabs to make your point.
like most repubs you've lost heart. a cold and fearful individual whose ego has him in its clutches. just like your little man potus,...what a punk you are.
sad and pathetic.
PegnVA....fantastic piece !!! it is so accurate it's not comical. but it is because it nails Trump to a tee !!!
thanks for sharing it.
Trump Accuses Google of Suppressing Positive News About His Presidency
By Vivian Salama
Aug. 28, 2018
WASHINGTON
(and todays word is PARANOID. rotflmao)
In tweets, the president says this is a “very serious situation” that will be addressed.
President Trump on Tuesday accused Alphabet Inc.’s Google search platform of elevating critical news stories about his presidency at the expense of friendly conservative voices, declaring that it is a “very serious situation” that will be addressed.
On Twitter, the president wrote in a pair of early morning tweets that a search in Google for “Trump News” yielded only “the viewing/reporting of Fake [News] Media.”
,...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-accuses-google-of-suppressing-positive-news-about-his-presidency-1535459748?mod=pls_whats_news_us_business_f
ah,...yo donnie bouy,...maybe it's accurate that there is NO POSITIVE news about your IMBECILE presidency. imagine that !
migo,..i hear what you are suggesting. you are being very graceful towards a man who has known for years his church is corrupt with sexual abuse and harboring criminals and has done nothing to thwart it.
the pope not standing up and exposing this corruption occurs for only a few reasons; 1- he, francis, has his own sexual abuse issue that he has not championed hence he doesn't know how to go after this, 2- the pope is also a pedophile and is part of the abuse, 3- he has more love the the CC than he does for God, 4- all of the above, 5- other
i have no idea of his willingness to sit on his hands. his cardinals and bishops and priests are under his direction. he is the head of the church. this is his battle. he knew of the CC sexual abuse corruption before he came in. francis wasn't blind-sided by this,...he knew and he knows.
i appreciate your words (temper your harsh evaluation of someone who also has to fight his own Board of directors (cardinals)
,...but i have no respect for a person, francis, who knows his lack of actions have protected this corruption at least since March 2013 when he was installed as pope. this pope, based on his lack of actions to cease this is pond scum to me. i have no use for religion anyway and this type of activity proves that religion is garbage.
(to be clear,...i see a belief/love in God (or the Universe or whatever the individual considers a higher spiritual nature) a conscious awareness of one's spiritual connection with all creation. the individual experiences and feels the connection. religion is like a news show to me,...with someone else instructing what i should believe
peace to you,..make it an awesome day migo.
faugf,...i totally support Warrens proposals and plans. totally !
IF any congressperson who does not it becomes obvious that they are not working for the Americam people.
they are operating solely for their own self interest by receiving insider information to either purchase stocks or dump stocks.
this congress are a batch of sitting criminals and we the people are the enemy.
if it was put to a public vote,...i'd vote for Warren's plan.
this is from Trumps mouth,...is it fake or is it real ???
it's real,...from Tony Schwartz.
“That’s why I’m so screwed up, because I had a father who pushed me so hard,” Trump acknowledged in 2007, in a brief and rare moment of self-awareness.
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In his first year in office, Trump has lambasted any facts he dislikes as “fake news”, while making nearly 2,000 false or misleading claims of his own – more than five a day. https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/02/politics/donald-trump-lies-fact-checker/index.html
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In a single half-hour interview with the New York Times in late December, he made 24 such claims. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/12/29/in-a-30-minute-interview-president-trump-made-24-false-or-misleading-claims/?utm_term=.af99dd902b1a
This is the very definition of gaslighting – lying until you get people to doubt their own reality – and it is both frightening and disturbing.
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Trump skilfully exploited the fears of supporters who felt powerless and disenfranchised by presenting himself as their angry champion, even though the policies he has since pursued are likely to make their lives worse.
https://www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/2018/jan/18/fear-donald-trump-us-president-art-of-the-deal
Elizabeth Warren Stunned By Greed Of Giant Health Insurer
Published on Sep 14, 2017
absolutely intriguing and informative video on the GREED of Anthem Health
why did i know you were going to say that ?,..because like your asshole potus,..you are bery, bery, bery predictable !
you are sooooooo obvious, with no creativity or aforethought.
In case you missed it "we" did win and Hillary lost. LOL!! I'd say that was a big win for all America, not just myself.
how original,..NOT !
your "I'd say that was a big win for all America",...is your illusion.
oh,..did you catch more of the fake news?,...ger gosh,...it appears the imbecile potus can read two paragraphs that stated what protocol is when a member of Congress passes away.
the WH lowered the flag to half mast in respect for McCain. they brought it back up this morning,...chicken shit Pompeo and Sessions are losers also. the only smart one was Cohn. he saw the writing on the walls and gave the "Sayonara baby" to Don/Con.
Susie... it's called thinking in circles. dizzying for most sane people,..but the Trumpeters love the ride.
when For Real is loosing a debate he has to pull out a trump card (Hillary emails, etc),..to get the feeling that he's winning.
happens every time,...at least he's consistent.
I wrote The Art of the Deal with Trump. He's still a scared child
Tony Schwartz
Thu 5 Jul 2018 16.46 EDT
(Tony Schwartz wrote The Art of the Deal with Donald Trump in 1987)
Trump is angrier and more self-absorbed than when I first knew him. We must not let his culture of fear stop us speaking out.
The Trumpian worldview is narrow, dark and deficit-driven.
“I alone can do it.”
These five extraordinary words kept coming back to me as I reflected on Donald Trump’s first year as president of the US. He made this claim during his speech accepting the Republican nomination in July 2016. At the time, it struck me simply as a delusional expression of his grandiosity. Looking back, I also hear the plaintive wail of a desperate child who believes he is alone in the world with no one to care for him. “I alone can do it” is Trump’s survival response to: “I must do it all alone.”
There are two Trumps.
The one he presents to the world is all bluster, bullying and certainty. The other, which I have long felt haunts his inner world, is the frightened child of a relentlessly critical and bullying father and a distant and disengaged mother who couldn’t or wouldn’t protect him.
“That’s why I’m so screwed up, because I had a father who pushed me so hard,” Trump acknowledged in 2007, in a brief and rare moment of self-awareness.
Trump’s temperament and his habits have hardened with age. He was always cartoonish, but compared with the man for whom I wrote The Art of the Deal 30 years ago, he is significantly angrier today: more reactive, deceitful, distracted, vindictive, impulsive and, above all, self-absorbed – assuming the last is possible.
This is the narrative I’ve been advancing for the past 18 months. With the recent publication of Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury, it turns out that even those closest to Trump recognise his utter lack of fitness to be president, even if they are too cowed and cowardly to do anything about it.
Fear is the hidden through-line in Trump’s life – fear of weakness, of inadequacy, of failure, of criticism and of insignificance. He has spent his life trying to outrun these fears by “winning” – as he puts it – and by redefining reality whenever the facts don’t serve the narrative he seeks to create. It hasn’t worked, but not for lack of effort.
In his first year in office, Trump has lambasted any facts he dislikes as “fake news”, while making nearly 2,000 false or misleading claims of his own – more than five a day. In a single half-hour interview with the New York Times in late December, he made 24 such claims. This is the very definition of gaslighting – lying until you get people to doubt their own reality – and it is both frightening and disturbing. Because the office Trump now occupies makes him the most powerful man on Earth, his fears, and the way he manages them, have necessarily become ours.
The Trumpian world view is narrow, dark and deficit-driven
We fear Trump because he is impulsive, irrational and self-serving, but above all because he seems unconstrained by even the faintest hint of conscience. Trump feels no more shame over his most destructive behaviours than a male lion does killing the cubs of his predecessor when he takes over a pride.
Trump has made fear the dominant emotion of our times. This, I believe, is his primary impact on the body politic after a year in office. He began his campaign by describing immigrant Mexicans as rapists, Muslims as terrorists, and more recently all black and brown people, and entire countries, as inferior. Trump skilfully exploited the fears of supporters who felt powerless and disenfranchised by presenting himself as their angry champion, even though the policies he has since pursued are likely to make their lives worse.
About the only thing Trump truly has in common with his base is that he feels every bit as aggrieved as they do, despite his endless privilege. No amount of money, fame or power has been enough to win him the respect he so insatiably craves. His anger over this perceived injustice is visceral and authentic. Trump’s unwinding of government programmes such as Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act will fuel yet more fear among the millions of people will lose their health care in the year ahead. The tax plan Trump pushed through most benefits him, his family and his fellow billionaires and provides the least relief to those who need it most. In both cases, the victims of these policies will include millions of his supporters who may find someone else to blame, but whose suffering will inexorably increase.
The fearful divide Trump has exacerbated is not simply between his supporters and his detractors, the rich and the poor, or Democrats and Republicans, but between the best and the worst in each of us.
In the face of fear, it is a physiological fact that our most primitive and selfish instincts emerge. Control of our behaviour shifts from the prefrontal cortex to the emotionally driven amygdala – sometimes referred to as “fear central”. As we move into fight-or-flight mode, we become more self-centred, and our vision narrows to the perceived threat, which in the modern world is less to our survival than to our sense of value and worthiness. We lose the capacity for empathy, rationality, proportionality and attention to the longer-term consequences of our actions.
This is the reactive state Trump has tapped into with his followers and which he has prompted in his opponents. It serves none of us well. Think for a moment about the immense difference between how you feel and behave at your best and your worst. It is when we feel safest and most secure that we think most clearly and expansively. It’s also when we are most inclined to look beyond our self-interest, and to act with compassion, generosity, consideration and forgiveness.
I have never observed any of these qualities in Trump. Over the past year I have frequently been asked whether he has any redeeming qualities. I’ve thought about this as objectively as I can, and the only one I’ve come up with is his relentless drive. But because Trump uses this quality solely in the service of his self-aggrandisement and domination, it scarcely qualifies as a virtue.
So what does resistance to Trump look like? This is a question that has preoccupied me and millions of other Americans this past year. If fear gets sufficiently intense, or persists for long enough, we eventually move into “freeze” – meaning numbness and submission. This is my own greatest fear. As Trump violates one norm after another day after day, the risk is that we lose our sense of outrage and our motivation to speak out.
The challenge we face is to resist our own fear without sacrificing our outrage. That requires widening our perspective beyond Trump’s, and beyond Trump himself. The future is ours to shape, not his.
Dispiriting as I found it to write The Art of the Deal with a man I progressively came to view as a black hole, the experience prompted me to redirect my life in almost complete opposition to the values and world view that he represents. My own path over the past two decades – prompted in reaction to my experience with him – has been to help business leaders become more wholly human, and to humanise workplaces.
Trump’s actions over the past year have already prompted an extraordinary wave of new activism among people in their 20s and 30s, who are now the biggest segment of the US electorate, and represent the next generation of leaders. The 19 women who stepped forward to accuse Trump of sexual assault have helped to galvanise a rapidly growing, worldwide movement to empower women and to call out sexual abuse in the workplace. Thanks in large part to Trump, hundreds of new female candidates are now running for political office.
Trump himself has become the embodiment of the limits of traditional masculinity. “We raise boys,” writes the author Terrence Real, “to live in a world in which they are either winners or losers, grandiose or shame-filled, … perpetrators or victims. Society shows little mercy for men if they fail in the performance of their role. But the price of that performance is an inward sickness.”
Trump represents an extreme version of a sickness from which most men suffer, to some extent. The most powerful stand we can take in opposition to Trump’s values and behaviour is to pursue a higher purpose every day, seek more common ground amid our differences, and find better ways to take care of others and add value wherever we can. As he looks backward, we must look forward.
The Trumpian worldview is narrow, dark and deficit-driven. Each of us shares some of those instincts: the fear of inadequacy is uniquely and universally human. But we are also capable of so much more. My hope and belief is that Trump will no longer be president by this year’s end. My personal commitment is to pay much less attention to him, and more to making a difference to others affected by his policies. Whatever happens, may the worst of Trump inspire the best in us.
We, together, can do it.
https://www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/2018/jan/18/fear-donald-trump-us-president-art-of-the-deal
• Tony Schwartz is the chief executive of The Energy Project. In addition to The Art of the Deal, his bestselling books include The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working and The Power of Full Engagement
a leopard doesn't change his spots. Don/Con is full of bullshit.
so much so that it would take a year long 24/7 enema to clean him out.
the phony is your asshole potus.
i see you are still fighting for your limitations.
you mimic your asshole potus to a tee !
he made you great again ROTFLMAO
all i need to know is Don/Con has his hands on it,...LIES, and another FAILURE will soon be expected.
why ?...(thanks for asking) because Trump is an asshole.
just like the alleged wall being built,..FAIL !
denuking North Korea,...FAIL !
assistance in Puerto Rico after a devastating hurricane,...FAIL ! (paper towels,...wow !)
i could go on and on presenting little dicks FAILURES,...but i have better things to do.
but have a blast educating your self,...since you appear to opt for ignorance.
Trump broke 80 promises in 100 days
https://thinkprogress.org/donald-trumps-100-days-of-broken-promises-a4c116bbb2b4/
Trump Has Now Broken Every One of His Economic Populist Promises
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/05/trump-broken-every-populist-campaign-promise-prescription-drugs-infrastructure.html
Tracking Trump's Campaign Promises
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/trumpometer/
Trump's biggest achievements and failures a year since his election
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-achievements-failures-list-success-us-president-a8042756.html
Here Are the Promises President Trump Kept and Broke in His First Year
http://time.com/5106302/donald-trump-first-year-promises/
Donald Trump, bully. definition of a bully,..a COWARD in disguise !