[johnu]

y66, on 2019-August-30, 14:59, said:

From Mark Glongoff at Bloomberg:

Quote

Overall, of course, Corporate America has been OK with what Trump has done for it so far, even if he occasionally tweets mean things at it. He’s cut corporate taxes and regulations, and most CEOs agree with him that China should play fairer on trade, notes Mohamed El-Erian. But his methods are starting to worry them, Mohamed writes. Most notably, Trump’s unilateral, unpredictable trade warring is hurting global economic growth and raising uncertainty, which is bad for business (and not just “Excuses!”). Working with allies to confront China and having some clear goals could help. Finally doing something about infrastructure and worker training would go a long way, too.

Of course it is nice that corporate leaders are taking a second look at the Manchurian President. In terms of election voting numbers, their numbers are pretty insignificant. There may be some effect from dark money PACs and advertising, but the election spending in 2020 will almost certainly eclipse 2016 so I doubt a few more adds here or there will make much difference when all media will be swamped with election ads.

The bigger question is where are corporate America workers trending?

[kenberg]

barmar, on 2019-August-30, 09:10, said:

Some might also wonder if we really want a president with such fallible memory. Well, I personally give it a pass, as I wouldn't be able to write an autobiography to save my life. I marvel every time Ken recounts some story from his life, I can remember practically nothing from decades ago. My most vivid memory from childhood is stepping on a big piece of glass in our backyard, but my mother says it never happened -- I suppose it was a bad dream that has stuck with me. If I want to know what years I worked for a particular employer, I have to go to my LinkedIn page. I can only remember the names of maybe a half dozen of my friends from my grade school years.

OTOH, I remember what the first computer program I wrote did, even though it was over 40 years ago. It was a BASIC program that printed the Enterprise insignia from Star Trek on a Teletype. And that memory just brought to mind the name of the high school classmate who showed me how to write programs.

It helps to be an only child, no one around to contradict me. It also helps that I lived in the same house until I moved out when I was 20. A while back I was at the 80th birthday party of a kid I took a several day bike trip with whe we were 13, we could look back.

If Biden screwed up one memory, I could live with that. Nut I think it is more. He was vice president for 8 years. That does something to a guy. Maybe I'll expand later, but basically I think we need someone else.

[cherdano]

barmar, on 2019-August-30, 08:58, said:

Memory is a funny thing.

A lie is a deliberate falsification. This sounds like he just jumbled up a bunch of episodes involving the military in his mind. Was this a prepared speech or extemporaneous remarks?

Compared to the BS we get on a daily basis from Trump, this pales in comparison. Even if the precise details are wrong, the spirit seems to reflect his character, and isn't that what we're trying to assess?

Bad memory would be a more credible explanation if Biden didn't have, well, uhm, Biden's history.

Quote

More than once, advisers had gently reminded Mr. Biden of the problem with this formulation: He had not actually marched during the civil rights movement. And more than once, Mr. Biden assured them he understood — and kept telling the story anyway.

That's about his campaign in...1987. https://www.nytimes....l-campaign.html

[johnu]

GOP voters overwhelmingly want Pence on 2020 ticket with Trump

Quote

The Hill-HarrisX poll found that 69 percent of registered Republican voters want Pence to share a ticket with Trump in next year's election.

Believe it or not, I am not a registered Republican but I still want Pence on the 2020 ticket.

The right fringe VP of Bootlicking has no appeal for moderates, and why not take air from potential Republican candidates in 2024 who actually have a chance of winning the Republican nomination.

[Chas_P]

Happy Labor Day guys. Enjoy the weekend....Heck, enjoy next week too...and the week after that...and the week after that. Just enjoy living in the greatest country on Earth.

[hrothgar]

Chas_P, on 2019-August-30, 18:21, said:

Happy Labor Day guys. Enjoy the weekend....Heck, enjoy next week too...and the week after that...and the week after that. Just enjoy living in the greatest country on Earth.

Eat ***** and die, Chas...

[Chas_P]

hrothgar, on 2019-August-30, 18:37, said:

Eat ***** and die, Chas...

A truly erudite response! Apparently you are not happy living in the greatest country on Earth. I wish you a speedy recovery. Seek help soon.

Your friend.

Chas.

[hrothgar]

Chas_P, on 2019-August-30, 18:56, said:

Your friend.

Chas.

As usual, the difference between you and I is that I actually tell the truth...

[Chas_P]

hrothgar, on 2019-August-30, 18:58, said:

As usual, the difference between you and I is that I actually tell the truth...

Not really. I made a simple post wishing you guys, who obviously see the world differently, a happy holiday weekend. Go hiking. Go whip up a big pot of monkfish soup. Look for something to make you happy. If, OTOH, behaving as an arrogant, self-centered prick is the only thing that makes you happy you need professional help. I wish you well.

Your friend,

Chas.

[johnu]

Chas_Troll, on 2019-August-30, 19:23, said:

...

No integrity, no dignity, no self control.

[johnu]

President Trump Tweets Sensitive Surveillance Image of Iran

Quote

President Trump has tweeted what experts say is almost certainly an image from a classified satellite or drone, showing the aftermath of an accident at an Iranian space facility.

The Manchurian President commits treason once again by voluntarily leaking secret classified information. Technically POTUS can declassify any top secret information he wants to. That doesn't make it any less of a treasonous act.

Who needs enemies like Russia and North Korea when you already have the Manchurian President.

[johnu]

Consumers are now worried about trade

Quote

One-in-three consumers is worried about tariffs, according to the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index.

These concerns led the August index to log its largest monthly drop since December 2012. The data also undercut consensus forecasts, which came in at 89.8 points, and not the expected 92.1 points.

Why don't consumers have more confidence in the Bankruptcy King in Chief? Didn't he say that Mexico would pay for the tariffs and that China would build the wall around Greenland?

[y66]

From Jesse Drucker and Eric Lipton at NYT:

Quote

How @realDonaldTrump's signature initiative to help poor communities is fueling a once-in-a-generation bonanza for the wealthiest Americans — including Trump's family and advisers.

Quote

President Trump has portrayed America’s cities as wastelands, ravaged by crime and homelessness, infested by rats.

But the Trump administration’s signature plan to lift them — a multibillion-dollar tax break that is supposed to help low-income areas — has fueled a wave of developments financed by and built for the wealthiest Americans.

Among the early beneficiaries of the tax incentive are billionaire financiers like Leon Cooperman and business magnates like Sidney Kohl — and Mr. Trump’s family members and advisers.

Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey; Richard LeFrak, a New York real estate titan who is close to the president; Anthony Scaramucci, a former White House aide who recently had a falling out with Mr. Trump; and the family of Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, all are looking to profit from what is shaping up to be a once-in-a-generation bonanza for elite investors.

The stated goal of the tax benefit — tucked into the Republicans’ 2017 tax-cut legislation — was to coax investors to pump cash into poor neighborhoods, known as opportunity zones, leading to new housing, businesses and jobs.

The initiative allows people to sell stocks or other investments and delay capital gains taxes for years — as long as they plow the proceeds into projects in federally certified opportunity zones. Any profits from those projects can avoid federal taxes altogether.

“Opportunity zones, hottest thing going, providing massive new incentives for investment and job creation in distressed communities,” Mr. Trump declared at a recent rally in Cincinnati.

Instead, billions of untaxed investment profits are beginning to pour into high-end apartment buildings and hotels, storage facilities that employ only a handful of workers, and student housing in bustling college towns, among other projects.

Many of the projects that will enjoy special tax status were underway long before the opportunity-zone provision was enacted. Financial institutions are boasting about the tax savings that await those who invest in real estate in affluent neighborhoods.

Mr. Scaramucci’s development in New Orleans offers a portrait of how the tax break works. His investment company, SkyBridge Capital, is using the so-called opportunity zone initiative to help build a hotel, outfitted with an opulent restaurant and a rooftop pool, in the city’s trendy Warehouse District.

The tax benefit also is helping finance the construction of a 46-story, glass-wrapped apartment tower — amenities include a yoga lawn and a pool surrounded by cabanas and daybeds — in a Houston neighborhood already brimming with new projects aimed at the wealthy.

And in Miami’s hot Design District, where commercial real estate prices have nearly tripled in the last decade, the tax break is set to be used for a ritzy new office tower with a landscaped roof terrace.

Some proponents of opportunity zones note that money is already flowing into downtrodden communities like Birmingham, Ala., and Erie, Pa. They argue that more funds will follow.

“The early wave, that’s not what you judge,” said John Lettieri, president of the Economic Innovation Group, an organization that lobbied for the establishment of opportunity zones.

But leaders of groups that work in cities and rural areas to combat poverty say they are disappointed with how it is playing out so far.

“Capital is going to flow to the lowest-risk, highest-return environment,” said Aaron T. Seybert, the social investment officer at the Kresge Foundation, a community-development group in Troy, Mich., that supported the opportunity-zone effort.

“Perhaps 95 percent of this is doing no good for people we care about.”

[barmar]

y66, on 2019-August-31, 06:56, said:

From Jesse Drucker and Eric Lipton at NYT:

The sad thing is that there's a precedent for how to do this right.

There's long been a tax credit for low income housing, and for several decades I've invested in limited partnerships that invested in this area, so I could take the tax credit. Unfortunately, the last one I invested in is coming to an end, and I don't think these are available any more because the rules have changed.

The point is that these have to invest in properties that actually provide a certain amount of low income housing, not just investing in properties in a run-down neighborhood. The latter doesn't help the poor residents if they can't afford to use those services. Gentrification pushes out the people who can't afford it, it doesn't raise them up.

Of course, Trump doesn't actually care about them, he just pay lip service to them (i.e. he lies through his teeth).

[y66]

From Jeff Ernsthausen and Justin Elliott at ProPublica on the subject of Opportunity Zones:

Quote

Under a six-lane span of freeway leading into downtown Baltimore sit what may be the most valuable parking spaces in America.

Lying near a development project controlled by Under Armour’s billionaire CEO Kevin Plank, one of Maryland’s richest men, and Goldman Sachs, the little sliver of land will allow Plank and the other investors to claim what could amount to millions in tax breaks for the project, known as Port Covington.

They have President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax overhaul law to thank. The new law has a provision meant to spur investment into underdeveloped areas, called “opportunity zones.” The idea is to grant lucrative tax breaks to encourage new investment in poor areas around the country, carefully selected by each state’s governor.

But Port Covington, an ambitious development geared to millennials to feature offices, a hotel, apartments, and shopping, is not in a census tract that is poor. It’s not a new investment. And the census tract only became eligible to be an opportunity zone thanks to a mapping error.

As the selection process was underway, a deputy chief of staff to Maryland’s governor wrote in an email that “Port Covington does not qualify” as an opportunity zone.

Maryland’s governor chose the area for the program anyway — after his aides met with the lobbyists for Plank, who owns about 40% of the zone.

“This is a classic example of a windfall benefit,” said Robert Stoker, a George Washington University professor who has studied economic development in Baltimore for decades. “A major investment was already planned and now is in a zone where they are going to qualify for all kinds of beneficial tax treatment.”

In selecting Port Covington, the governor had to exclude another Maryland community from the opportunity zone program. In Baltimore, for example, the governor dropped part of a neighborhood that city officials recommended for the program — Brooklyn — with a median family income one-fifth that of Port Covington. Brooklyn sits just across the Patapsco river from Port Covington, in an area that suffers from one of the highest drug and alcohol death rates in Baltimore, which in turn has one of the highest drug fatality rates nationwide.

In a statement, Marc Weller, a developer who is Plank’s partner in the project, defended the opportunity zone designation. “Port Covington being part of an Opportunity Zone will attract more investors, foster more economic growth in a neglected area of the City, and directly benefit all of the surrounding communities for decades to come,” Weller said. Supporters say the Port Covington development could help several nearby struggling south Baltimore neighborhoods.

An official in the administration of Maryland’s Republican governor, Larry Hogan, said, “The success of that project is really going to go a long way to providing benefits for the whole city of Baltimore.” The official added: “The governor is a huge supporter of the development.”

A spokesperson for the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development, which was involved in the selection process, said that “due to the time limits of the federal tax incentive, the state of Maryland did purposefully select census tracts where projects were beginning to increase the odds of attracting additional private sector investment to Maryland’s opportunity zones in the near term.”

So, Maryland chose one site where development was already underway at the expense of an alternative site where the need appears to be greater "due to the time limits of the federal tax incentive". Right. Anyone who thinks this stuff can all be pinned on Trump isn't paying attention.

[barmar]

y66, on 2019-September-01, 17:33, said:

Anyone who thinks this stuff can all be pinned on Trump isn't paying attention.

Trump laid the groundwork, providing all his cronies with opportunities to pull stunts like this.

[johnu]

barmar, on 2019-September-02, 12:18, said:

Trump laid the groundwork, providing all his cronies with opportunities to pull stunts like this.

As has been well documented, the Manchurian President is the Grifter and Con Man in Chief. He is backed by some of the best grifters and con men in the country.

And how do you think that mapping error made its way into the final report?

[y66]

barmar, on 2019-September-02, 12:18, said:

Trump laid the groundwork, providing all his cronies with opportunities to pull stunts like this.

Including his cronies in the U.S. Senate who predate his ascendancy to grifter-in-chief.

[johnu]

Between rounds of golf, the Mulligan in Chief had this to say

Trump Insists His Hurricane Warning Was Right Even After NWS Corrected Him

Quote

Trump had claimed in a tweet on Sunday that Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama “will most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated.”

He made a similar claim about Alabama in televised comments.

The false alarm caused the National Weather Service to issue a correction, albeit without mentioning the president. About 20 minutes after Trump’s warning, the agency tweeted:

@NWSBirmingham
Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane #Dorian will be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east. #alwx

So many states start with "A", Alabama, Arkansas, Alaska, Arizona. Surely one of them was threatened by Hurricane Dorian. These states should change their names so that the Stable Genius in Chief won't get confused.

[johnu]

We've got enough gun control already

Texas Governor Shocked Shooter Got Rifle In State With Spotty Background Checks

Quote

xas Gov. Greg Abbott expressed dismay on Monday that the mass shooter who killed seven people in West Texas had managed to buy an AR-style weapon in Texas even though he had a criminal history and didn’t register for a background check.

Abbott recently signed a host of new laws loosening gun restrictions in Texas, following guidelines provided by the National Rifle Association. And the Republican governor once tweeted that he was “embarrassed” that Texas trailed California in the number of gun purchases.

Quote

The governor did not reveal how that gun was obtained. But Texas does not require background checks in most private sales, which includes some purchases at gun shows, according to the Tribune.

Abbott championed the series of laxer Texas gun laws that went into effect the day after the Odessa attack. They allow people to pack weapons in public places such as schools and churches, as well as in foster homes.

Abbot was shocked, shocked I tell you. Well, that's enough shock for now. Please, no more gun control talk until the next gun massacre when there should be another moratorium on gun control talk out of respect to the victims.