Trump made tariff decision in a fit of anger: NBC News

Is that like thieves always think they are being robbed and cheaters always think their spouse is stepping out on them?

My first real revelation about "the media" was in the early '80s when I was a Marine helicopter pilot. We'd have an accident/incident where I'd know the details but in the newspaper (no Internet in those days) at least half the facts would be wrong. It's not that they were "lying" but that they were ignorant. It was a reporter, probably about my age then too, doing his best to write an article about something he barely understood such as "why helicopters fly". This wasn't just once either. It happened almost every time. It didn't take long for me to start thinking "If they screwed this up, then how much of what I read about business and politics is screwed up?"

It's not that they are lying, it's that they are stupid. Hanlon's Razor applies:

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."






​

 

Yep, and that's why his inner circle keeps getting smaller.
These news stories seem to almost always turn out to be true, while Trump's denials - not so much.

 

Agreed it's most probably true. However, as I told your friend, Trump is still the President and Hillary is not, so it's all good.

This tariff idea is a bad idea. If Trump doesn't find a face-saving way to reverse himself, Congress with embarrass him with a reversal. Trade wars are not good.

 

My my. The EU that has higher tariffs on imported steel is threatening retaliation on their steel they import to the US. Our steel companies can reopen and provide steel. So awful!

 

Ha! We'll both wait. Trump has been trying to get China's help with North Korea, so ...

 

Trump is apoplectic every day as his incompetence causes national and international chaos.

 

Hannity makes crap to support his distorted opinions.

 

I think you are brain tied

Williams was caught telling unauthorized lies about himself

NBC is careful to blame their lies on jnnamed sources

 

Fake news.
Trump made this a promise throughout his campaign.
Someone wasn't listening.

 

No, I give China more credit for being intelligent along with their fortune can stand what Trump calls for. China has only one way to fight Trump. Slash prices further. China does not have to live according to Keynes.

I get a kick how the reasoning changes vis a vis Obama vs Trump. Supposedly it's the republicans fault Obama did not close Gitmo. As president, he could have moved them to any Federal facility. It is called an Executive order.

 

Did you ever stop to think that not only are you not helping yourself, and not helping me, nor helping the forum, why keep this up?

Daily rants about Trump are easy to do. To work to help him takes character. What can you do to make america great again? We had hope and change. We hoped and what changed? Trump will fix it.

 

How the hades could the White house leak this severely? I don't believe what the MSM says. They had Kelly booted out months back. They have announced so many departures that never happened who takes the MSM serious? Can't Trump have his own staff? I think his staff is not leaking. I think the Fake MSM makes this stuff up. Most of the media has Hicks already kicked out. She will be doing her job for some months to come.

 

To save us both the embarrassment, I showed your text in the small size it deserves. Hoover was trying to keep this nation alive. Trump is trying to save our Steel and our Aluminum industries and that makes 2 industries. Smoot Hawley applied to some 900 of them. That packs punch. One more thing, this nation is not tariff free as it appears Democrats want us to think. We have many many tariffs.

More from one that studied the depression in depth
http://www.amityshlaes.com/articles/2002/2002-08-19.php


AmityShlaes.com
The Engineer Who Tinkered Too Much
August 19, 2002
Once upon a time, the stock market crashed. Bad times loomed. The US president, a Republican, was eager to disprove the stereotype of Republican politicians as "leave it alone liquidationists". He tried to respond in a prompt and humane fashion.

He called big business to an emergency summit. He led Congress in passing a number of desperate measures to shore up the domestic sector. And then, for good measure, he bashed speculators like crazy, changed the rules that governed Wall Street and went around lecturing anyone who would listen on the importance of corporate responsibility.

That president was not George W. Bush. It was Herbert Hoover. Today, Hoover is routinely cited as the leader whose errors helped bring on the Great Depression. His mistake, it is said, was failing to recognise that only government can rescue the economy when the trouble is truly serious. But the reasoning is faulty, for Hoover was hardly the laisser faire purist he has been labelled.

His nickname in his day was "the great engineer", not merely because he had studied engineering, but also because he loved to tinker and intervene, especially in emergencies. Before his presidency, Hoover had orchestrated the rescue of starving Belgium, as well as the relief programme for the US south after the great flood of the Mississippi River. Despite such practice, there is evidence that Hoover's interventions after 1929 were disasters. Murray Rothbard, the late economist, even argued that they turned slump to depression.

Hoover's story is a reminder that benevolent action can sometimes be more destructive than inaction when it comes to a fragile economy. The story is especially important for Republicans, who tend to tell themselves, as Hoover did, that economic crises warrant a suspension of free market principles.

Take the Hoover administration's farm policy. Like President Bush's recent farm legislation, it aimed to improve the financial lot of farmers through subsidies. Hoover sought to help farmers get a better price for their wheat: through the Federal Farm Board the administration made loans to farmers who withheld produce from the market, the aim being to drive prices upward. Days after the stock market crash, it lent $150m (about $1.5bn, or £1bn, at current prices) to farmers.

Rothbard notes that the subsidy actually led farmers to expand their acreage, thus aggravating the original surplus problem. What is more, the policy lost farmers market share, as foreign competitors not bound by US agreements could sell their wheat more cheaply. In other words, Hoover's agricultural policy helped to ensure that farms would not be competitive, and so contributed to the overall inefficiency of a flailing economy.

Protectionism was Hoover's second great mistake. Following Republican commitments made at a convention in Kansas City, he signed the Smoot-Hawley tariff act into law, increasing duties to an average of 16 per cent of import prices from 13.8 per cent (as Hoover reckons in his memoirs).

Again, the aim was understandable: Hoover wanted to shelter ailing US companies, and was seeking revenue for federal coffers. Nonetheless, the new tariff deepened economic trouble. Like the Bush administration's (much smaller) action to protect the steel industry, Smoot-Hawley antagonised foreign trading partners. The increase in duties triggered the global trend towards protectionism that deepened the Depression.

Wall Street proved a third playing field for Hoover. He had long opposed what he called "vicious speculation". Like President Bush, he called for changes to the law following the market's crash. Hoover made war on market bears, pushing authorities at stock exchanges to restrict short selling. Hoover's idea was to slow the market's slide. In fact, his new rules on short sales had the opposite effect. As Rothbard notes, they "helped drive stock prices lower than they would have been otherwise, since short sellers' profit-taking is one of the main supports for stock prices during a decline".

Last of all, Hoover bullied industry into sustaining wage rates even as profits and prices fell, the theory being that strong wages would increase purchasing power and so stimulate the economy. Most followers of classical economics found this idea outrageous (Albert Wiggin of the Chase National Bank later blamed Hoover for lengthening the Depression, arguing that "it is not true that high wages make prosperity. Instead, prosperity makes high wages.") Nonetheless, at a White House meeting on November 1929, Henry Ford, Walter Teagle of Standard Oil and other businessmen agreed to the wage regime. Employers who could not afford the rates folded, and unemployment doubled over the next few months.

What of today? George W. Bush's advisers would not push for anything like Hoover's wage plan. Still, the Hoover story is relevant to this White House for at least two reasons. The first is the Republican argument that says: "It's important for this administration to act, or at least give the appearance of action." This may be true politically. But it is not necessarily true economically. Even relatively mild or seemingly necessary steps can prevent the market from clearing itself of inefficiencies, and slow the economy's own natural recovery. The negative consequences of intervention cannot be disregarded.

The second reason is Hoover's grand failure, one so great that he died - despite his monumental humanitarian record - with a reputation as the father of shantytown "Hoovervilles". The lesson is that it is rarely worth giving up one's principles to gain popularity. Mr Bush began his presidency as a pro-growth free marketeer; sustaining that focus will reduce the risk of going down in the books as George Herbert Hoover Bush.

 

How you can tell fake news, you see stuff like this.........

"An official familiar with the president's state of mind said"

"According to two officials"

"the two officials said"

"According to a person with direct knowledge"

"another White House official said"

 

This is rich coming from a Conservative. You wouldn't know character if it bit you in the ass.

 

I don't understand. I was a very long term Democrat.

 

When I delivered the newspaper daily, the quotes were from actual people, not some unnamed official.

They had journalistic rules at that time.

 

I'm sorry... what Congress are you referring to?? The US Congress??? This current US Congress??

Believe it when I see it....

 

Hannity is a COMEDIAN (and a 3rd Rate one, at that).

Nobody (repeat NOBODY), who actually possesses a clue, take Hannity seriously.

Taking Hannity seriously?

The RW is always good for Comic Relief.

 

He boasted for a year about how good he was for the Obama stock market. Now we see how good his policies are for the market, Like the WH, it's in chaos.

 

I stand by my description of Trump's behavior, he does indeed behave like a bull on a China shop. His antics are ok for a TV reality show or to impress his fan base but that is not the way a POTUS needs to get things done for the country.

I do not worry what the Dems or the GOP think! The Dems may be surprised to know that Obama set or raised some tariffs.

I am not against Trump using tariffs as a weapon but he needs some qualified seasoned advise how to deal with the offending countries. I really do not trust him to be able to pull thud off. When I say he is lie a bull in a china shop that is how he handles everything.

 

I did not realize that the Turd Hannity was a comedian! I first ran accross him on radio and at first liked the guy since he talked up a good show. I realized soon that he was all talk, all air in an empty suit.

 

You are being misled by the Media. They do not have reporters stationed inside the private parts of the white house. Do you think the reporters sit inside the Oval office?

I believe what you saw from previous presidents, generally the Democrats, is they sat on their behinds as history moved faster than they did.

Obama was the slowest of all time presidents when it came to making decisions.

I do not wish to seem to be intolerant. I leave that for Democrats. But Trump has not imposed a thing. If he does, it is for the good of American industry. I recall when it was Reagan trying to help American workers from the onslaught of the Japanese. Trump has the larger China to deal with. China will deal in it's best interests. They can afford to dump steel and aluminum here. Do you truly think Tariffs can stop this? I only worry that there is a different solution rather than that tariffs don't work. Hoovers worked. And the world suffered.

 

Hannity is a news junkie and on the air brings in both sides to give their views. Hannity as a personality is accepted by the Democrats as a news source. Rather odd given he brings in guests. They seem to me to speak the languages of both sides. I think Democrats fear Hannity for if not, they would pay him no attention and just keep their mouths shut about the man. I don't waste time on the stupid Rachel Maddow. She can spew her propaganda all day long and I just wink and say to myself, were she important, i would waste time talking of her.

Lesson to the Democrats. You are making Hannity a hero. I don't watch the man but you guys do his advertising.

 

Oh yeah.

He is definitely an ENTERTAINER.

Kind of like a Poor Man's Andrew Dice Clay for the pro-Trump Tinfoil Hat RW Fever Swamp ("I believe everything that Alex Jones tells me") crowd.