Saturday, April 7, 2018

Are We in a Trade War?

President Trump sent two of his minions out yesterday to lie about this question. Kudlow:
We are not in a trade war. What this is is an attempt to right some of the wrongs with respect to China.
Our Treasury Secretary said essentially the same thing:
Our objective is still not to be in a trade war with [China] … I'm cautiously optimistic that we will be able to work this out.".
We could go back to 2002 and how the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 was sold to people like Senator John Kerry and Senator Hillary Clinton. The Bush-Cheney White House sold this as a means to encourage Iraq to comply with certain UN resolutions and not necessarily a prelude to war. Of course the White House was lying as we knew by March 2003. Of course Bush-Cheney lied about a lot of things with respect to Iraq back then including its forecast that an invasion would be quick, low cost, and very effective in establishing a Western democracy in Iraq. How did that work out exactly? Kudlow helped the White House cheerlead for this invasion arguing it would lead to so much Iraqi oil production that oil prices would fall to $12 a day. How did that work out again? We should have listened to Anthony Zinni:
Former Centcom Chief General Anthony Zinni Calls Iraq War a Blunder
He was saying invading Iraq would be a blunder even back in 2002. Of course Trump says we will win the trade with China. On Trump’s absurd claim, perhaps we should listen to Luke Skywalker :
This Is Not Going To Go! The Way You Think

3 comments:

ProGrowthLiberal said...

Kudlow announces a “trade coalition of the willing!

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/kudlow-doesnt-have-much-to-show-for-promised-trade-coalition-of-the-willing

Gee – is The Onion writing their copy?

Anonymous said...

https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/13/opinion/stocks-and-bombs.html

September 13, 2002

Stocks and Bombs
By PAUL KRUGMAN

''This stock-market situation -- what are the military options?'' That was the caption of a New Yorker cartoon last month. But these days reality has a way of outrunning satire; way back in June the CNBC pundit Larry Kudlow published a column in The Washington Times with the headline ''Taking Back the Market -- by Force.'' In it he argued for an invasion of Iraq to boost the Dow....

Anne

Anonymous said...

When time permits put the posts together carefully. They are important, but not well presented in this disjointed way, and you may even decide to on additional posts.

Anne