90 Miles From Tyranny

Thursday, May 31, 2018

The Mojo of Trumponomics

T.S. Eliot famously wrote that April is the cruelest month, but when it comes to America’s fiscal picture, nothing could be further from the truth about this past April. The latest government numbers confirm that last month was a blockbuster for growth, federal revenues, and deficit reduction.

One of the key principles of Trumponomics is that faster economic growth can help solve a multitude of other social and economic problems, from poverty to inner-city decline to lowering the national debt.

We’re not quite at a sustained elevated growth rate of 3 percent yet, but the latest economy snapshot tells us we are knocking on the door. The growth rate over the last four quarters came in at 2.9 percent, which was higher than any of the eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency.

Halfway through this current quarter, which began on April 1, the Atlanta Federal Reserve estimates growth at 4 percent. If that persists through the end of June, we will have reached an average growth rate of 3 percent under President Donald Trump.

Not bad, given that nearly every liberal critic trashed the president’s campaign forecast of 3 percent to 4 percent growth as an impossible dream.

Economists such as Larry Summers, Obama’s first chief economist, gloomily declared that we were mired in a new era of “secular stagnation” and that 3 percent growth was unachievable. Paul Krugman of The New York Times said it was more likely we would see flying cars than 3 percent to 4 percent growth.

Now for the even better news. We are already starting to see a fiscal dividend from Trump’s tax, energy, and pro-business policies. The Congressional Budget Office reports that tax revenues in April—by far the biggest month of the year for tax collections because of the April 15 filing deadline—totaled $515 billion, which was a robust 13 percent rise in receipts over last year.

MoneyWeek reports that the $218 billion monthly surplus (revenues over expenditures) this April was the largest ever, with the previous record being $180 billion in 2001. (April is always the one surplus month.)

Here’s the simple lesson: more growth, more tax revenue.

But there’s another lesson, and it is about how wrong the bean counters in Congress were who said this tax bill would “cost” the Treasury $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion in lost revenues over the next decade.

If the higher growth rate that Trump has already accomplished remains in place, then the impact will be well over $3 trillion of more revenue and thus lower debt levels over the decade. Putting people to work is the best way to...

The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #273 Part Deaux!

You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?

It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,

from the beautiful to the repugnant,

from the mysterious to the familiar.

If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,

you could be inspired, you could be appalled.

This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.

You have been warned.

Chicago may be a sanctuary city, but the special status didn’t stop U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from removing 13 dozen illegal immigrants from the metropolitan area over a six-day campaign before Memorial Day.

ICE agents descended on 37 communities in the area to arrest 156 illegal immigrants, nearly half of them criminals with prior convictions. Those arrested included gun-toting thugs, violent gang members, sex traffickers, car thieves, drug dealers, wife beaters, drunken drivers, drug mules, drug abusers, and rapists, ICE reports.

“Fourteen of those arrested were immigration fugitives who have final orders of removal. Thirty-six others illegally re-entered the United States after having been previously deported, which is a felony,” according to a recent ICE news release. “The remaining 106 arrests were at-large aliens who are illegally present in the United States.”

ICE officials gave several examples of the type of bad hombres they’re removing from the streets.

There was “a 42-year-old illegal alien from Mexico and a self-admitted Sureno 13 gang member” who was arrested near his Chicago home.

The man “was twice convicted of willful infliction of corporal injury,” according to ICE.

“He was removed by an immigration judge, and ICE officers later deported him,” the ICE release reads. “He later illegally re-entered the United States, and was convicted and sentenced to 12 years in prison for unlawfully...

Just as it was reported that the summit between the United States and North Korea was back on and that Kim Young Chol, the Vice Chairman of North Korea was on his way to New York to meet with officials in preparation for the June 12 summit, the CIA leaked an intelligence assessment concluding that “North Korea does not intend to give up its nuclear weapons any time soon.” The timing of this leak is striking, as it seems to be an effort to undermine negotiations between the two nations and comes just days after ranking members of the Democratic Party and Republican hardliners attacked President Donald Trump over his efforts to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The identity of the reporter who helped break the story also raises serious questions about whether or not a faction within the CIA deliberately attempted to undermine diplomatic efforts to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula. According to NBC News, the report was leaked to none other than NBC national security reporter Ken Dilanian, known as “The CIA’s Mop-Up Man.”

In 2014, The Intercept reported on Ken Dilanian’s correspondence and relationship with the CIA while Dilanian was a reporter for the Los Angeles Times.

According to The Intercept, “Email exchanges between CIA public affairs officers and Ken Dilanian, now an Associated Press intelligence reporter who previously covered the CIA for the Times, show that Dilanian enjoyed a close collaborative relationship with the agency, explicitly promising positive news coverage and sometimes sending the press office entire story drafts for review prior to publication. In at least one instance, the CIA’s reaction appears to have led to significant changes in the story that was eventually published in the Times.”

According to the Huffington Post, while writing for the Los Angeles Times, Dilanian also reported a CIA claim as fact by stating that “there was no collateral murder in a 2012 drone strike on Al Qaeda leader Abu Yahya al-Libi.” Dilanian’s article was directly disputed in an Amnesty International report.

In the aftermath of the revelations about Dilanian’s ties to the CIA, he was disavowed by the Los Angeles Times. The disclosure of Dilanian’s collaboration with the CIA also led his former employer, David Lauter of the Tribune Washington to believe Dilanian could have violated Tribune news policy. Lauter acknowledged that Tribune policy dictates that reporters “not share copies of stories outside the newsroom.” Lauter further stated that he was “disappointed that the emails indicate that Ken may have violated that rule.”

Dilanian has not shied away from pushing articles written by former CIA officials who continue to perpetuate the “Trump-Russia” collusion narrative without any regard to facts, such as Steven Hall’s Washington Post article titled: “I was in the CIA. We wouldn’t trust a country whose leader did what Trump did.”

Wikileaks has also pointed out Dilanian’s agency connection and his pushing of the “Trump-Russia” collusion narrative, tweeting: “CIA’s ‘mop up man’ Ken Dilanian is the NBC ‘reporter’ used to channel claim about president Putin + US election.”

In the aftermath of recent revelations concerning the CIA’s collaboration with foreign intelligence agencies to spy on Donald Trump’s campaign during the 2016 US Presidential Election the fresh leaks continue to show a pattern of rebellion that has long run rampant in the US intelligence community. While the CIA’s apparent violations of ethical considerations concerning surveillance of candidates running for public office was serious enough, their interference drags the reputation of the agency to a new (and in the case of Korean peace negotiations, more dangerous) low amid their conflict with...

Why individualism and free exchange make people more altruistic and trustworthy

ears ago, an MBA student of mine had immigrated from Albania after growing up under Communism. She shared with her classmates what she observed to be the most unexpected mindset difference between Americans and Albanians.

She got emotional as she explained how in Albania, charity was rare—caring for anyone other than yourself and your family was uncommon. In contrast, she experienced Americans as generous and caring.

My student described how exasperated she felt hearing the claim that capitalism leads to a survival of the fittest mentality. In her experience, it was the opposite; under communism, the mindset was to not care for others.

Today, she has more reasons to be exasperated. Among broad segments of society, the belief that capitalism teaches us to be so self-interested that we become uncaring about the welfare of others seems to be accepted as truth. As FEE editor Dan Sanchez observes, “Some go so far as to demand the abolition of capitalism in favor of socialism in order to fully restore benevolence and the intentional promotion of the public interest in the hearts of humankind.”

In her book, The Fear Factor, neuroscience professor Abigail Marsh observes, “Majorities of respondents polled in the United States and elsewhere believe that people are, as a rule, selfish, preoccupied with their own interest, and untrustworthy—and getting worse.”

However, widespread adoption of a belief does not make that belief true. Capitalism calls forth altruism.
The Nature of Humanity

Marsh demonstrates that “an overwhelming body of scientific data supports the conclusion that human beings are in no way fundamentally selfish or callous.” In all of us there is the capacity for compassion and, at the same time, the capacity for cruelty and aggression.

Perfect human beings are not possible. According to Marsh, the real question is, “When do we express compassion versus cruelty, and why, and to whom?”

Research findings indicate that “the United States is a more generous country than nearly any other nation on earth.” Confirming the observations of...