Tag Archives: Richard Nixon

Trade Tariffs Will Not Make America Great Again, by Bill Bonner

Posted on March 6, 2018 | 2 comments

Here’s Bill Bonner’s take on the recently announced tariffs. From Bonner at bonnerandpartners.com:

GUALFIN, ARGENTINA – The big news last week was Trump’s hasty decision to impose tariffs on aluminum and steel.

We were happy to see it.

We were looking for an example – undeniable, indisputable, and in-your-face, jackass – to illustrate how government actually works.

“The Donald” has just provided it.

Undisguised Dumbkins

It can be hard work digging in the rocky, ungrateful soil of public policy… scraping off the honey-dirt of wishful thinking, delusion, and fraud… to uncover the corruption and stupidity of what lies beneath them.

So we would like to thank Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and the president’s trade advisor, Peter Navarro, for their contributions.

They have put the claptrap right on the surface. Rarely do we get to see public officials who are such undisguised dumbkins with so little guile… and such unvarnished crackpot theories.

They have made it easy for us. Thanks again.

Here in Argentina, trade barriers have been a fact of life for a long time. A couple of years ago, we were unable to get tires for our tractor.

Argentina’s tire-making cronies were protected by tariffs. If you wanted to buy a tire, you had to pay for the locally made, inferior tire.

Unless, of course, they didn’t make the model you needed. Then, you were just out of luck.

Same thing for electronics.

Apparently, ex-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner had some business buddies down in the south who made electronic components.

So imports of laptops, computers, smartphones, and other paraphernalia were restricted, ostensibly to give the nascent native manufacturers a chance to grow up and compete with Apple, Samsung, and Panasonic.

When you came into the country, you had to show exactly what iPhones, iPads, and portable computers you were carrying. Woe to you if you didn’t still have them when you left.

Diminishing Wealth

But that’s the sort of thing you expect in a “sh*thole” country – the naked use of government to transfer money from the ordinary person to the well-connected elite.

A modern, civilized country is usually more sophisticated about it.

Its economists realize that trade barriers lower output, ultimately diminishing the wealth available to a predatory elite.

Better to allow free trade to fatten the pig, they reason, before carving the ham.

In the event before us, Mr. Ross brought a group of steel and aluminum industry executives to the White House at 11 a.m. on Thursday.

These cronies bitched and moaned, no doubt, about how the Canadians were playing unfair… or how the Mexicans had lower costs… or how the Europeans made better metals.

Donald J. Trump, a fighter, grabbed a microphone. The sun had scarcely reached its zenith before he had set off a trade war, claiming it was easy to win one. Then he added, comically, on Twitter:

We must protect our country and our workers. Our steel industry is in bad shape. IF YOU DON’T HAVE STEEL, YOU DON’T HAVE A COUNTRY!

Never addressed was the real issue: How come Americans buy more things from overseas than they sell?

If he had bothered to look more carefully, Trump would have noticed that it has nothing to do with trade deals or the lack of trade barriers.

To continue reading: Trade Tariffs Will Not Make America Great Again

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Posted in Business, Debt, Economics, Economy, Government, History, Trade

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He Said That? 1/4/18

Posted on January 4, 2018 | Leave a comment

From Richard Nixon (1913–1994), 37th President of the United States:

The man of thought who will not act is ineffective; the man of action who will not think is dangerous.

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Treason: Presidential Candidates Successfully Conspired with Foreign Leaders to Thwart Official American Policy and Drag Out War, by George Washington

Posted on December 23, 2017 | 2 comments

It has long been alleged that Richard Nixon stifled a Johnson administration Vietnam peace initiative to give himself an edge in the close 1968 election. Bit by bit, confirmation is emerging. From George Washington at zerohedge.com:

Long-time rumors about presidential candidate Nixon conspiring to delay the ending of the Vietnam War were recently confirmed.

A year ago, historian and journalist John A Farrell wrote in the New York Times:

 fA newfound cache of notes left by H. R. Haldeman, [Nixon’s] closest aide, shows that Nixon directed his campaign’s efforts to scuttle the peace talks [President Johnson’s 1968 peace initiative to bring the war in Vietnam to an early conclusion], which he feared could give his opponent, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, an edge in the 1968 election. On Oct. 22, 1968, he ordered Haldeman to “monkey wrench” the initiative.
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We must now weigh apparently criminal behavior that, given the human lives at stake and the decade of carnage that followed in Southeast Asia, may be more reprehensible than anything Nixon did in Watergate.

Nixon had entered the fall campaign with a lead over Humphrey, but the gap was closing that October. Henry A. Kissinger, then an outside Republican adviser, had called, alerting Nixon that a deal was in the works: If Johnson would halt all bombing of North Vietnam, the Soviets pledged to have Hanoi engage in constructive talks to end a war that had already claimed 30,000 American lives.

But Nixon had a pipeline to Saigon, where the South Vietnamese president, Nguyen Van Thieu, feared that Johnson would sell him out. If Thieu would stall the talks, Nixon could portray Johnson’s actions as a cheap political trick. The conduit was Anna Chennault, a Republican doyenne and Nixon fund-raiser, and a member of the pro-nationalist China lobby, with connections across Asia.

“! Keep Anna Chennault working on” South Vietnam, Haldeman scrawled, recording Nixon’s orders. “Any other way to monkey wrench it? Anything RN can do.”

Nixon told Haldeman to have Rose Mary Woods, the candidate’s personal secretary, contact another nationalist Chinese figure — the businessman Louis Kung — and have him press Thieu as well. “Tell him hold firm,” Nixon said.

Here are some screenshots from Haldeman’s notes in Nixon’s presidential library:

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Nixon also sought help from Chiang Kai-shek, the president of Taiwan. [He was considered somewhat of an enemy of the United States; the CIA considered assassinating him.] And he ordered Haldeman to have his vice-presidential candidate, Spiro T. Agnew, threaten the C.I.A. director, Richard Helms. Helms’s hopes of keeping his job under Nixon depended on his pliancy, Agnew was to say. “Tell him we want the truth — or he hasn’t got the job,” Nixon said.

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Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Politics, War

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Hillary and the Ghosts of Watergate, by Charles Hugh Smith

Posted on November 1, 2016 | 1 comment

Her supporters will desert Hillary like rats jumping from a sinking ship (to use a completely original phrase I just made up) if she’s so damaged she can’t deliver. From Charles Hugh Smith at oftwominds.com:

If there is any lesson to be learned from the ghosts of Watergate, it is that the big-money support of a leader who has lost the ability to deliver the goods crumbles very quickly as the endgame unfolds.

The parallels between Hillary Clinton and Richard Nixon are not legal–they are political: specifically, how can a leader crippled by scandal and cover-ups govern?

In even blunter terms: how can a crippled politico deliver the goods to the special interests who bet their cash and political capital on the politico’s ability to deliver favors?

Among the many ghosts of Watergate, one specter especially haunts Hillary:once the special interests and party stalwarts who defended you through every scandal and every cover-up–month after month and year after year, on the promise that you would deliver the goods upon ascending to the presidency–realize you are too damaged to deliver anything of value to anyone, why would they continue supporting you?

Once a politico has to declare “I am not a crook” based on legalese rather than a moral foundation, that politico’s ability to lead has vanished. Hillary and her supporters rely entirely on legalese parsing of wrong-doing rather than on a self-explanatory, basic moral foundation of right and wrong.

Declaring “I am not a crook” because the wrongdoing escapes prosecution is the same as declaring “I am above the law.” If the foundation of one’s ability to lead is a reliance on legal parsing and allies in the Department of Justice squashing investigations while handing out immunity like candy on Halloween, the political capital required to lead no longer exists.

Ultimately, the President leads by moral suasion. Even the political act of delivering the goods to the special interests that funded your campaign and your wealth must be backed by the moral authority of personal integrity and a morally grounded appeal to the common good.

A politician who has effectively zero personal integrity is only as viable as his/her ability to deliver favors to the few (i.e. special interests) over the objections of the many. A reliance on cold-blooded horse-trading only works if the leader has enough political capital to arm-twist everyone into granting favors to allies and special interests.

But this political capital rests on moral suasion and support earned not by issuing promises but by leading the nation through thorny thickets to solutions that work for the many, not just the few.

Once the ability to lead has been lost, special interests can forget about getting favors. And once they realize their politico is a liability rather than an asset, self-preservation requires abandoning the liability as quickly as possible.

It’s nothing personal, it’s just business. Anyone who thinks Hillary has the personal integrity to build sufficient political capital to lead is delusional. Anyone who believes Hillary has the moral foundation to deliver the goods to the myriad special interests that have funded her campaign and her personal wealth is equally delusional.

Are Goldman Sachs et al. delusional? If there is any lesson to be learned from the ghosts of Watergate, it is that the big-money support of a leader who has lost the ability to deliver the goods crumbles very quickly as the endgame unfolds.

http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2016/10/hillary-and-ghosts-of-watergate.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+google%2FRzFQ+%28oftwominds%29

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Posted in Crime, Government

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He Said That? 7/20/16

Posted on July 20, 2016 | 1 comment

From President Richard Nixon, Address to the Nation Outlining a New Economic Policy: “The Challenge of Peace,” August 15, 1971, “temporarily” suspending the convertibility of dollars for gold:

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The third indispensable element in building the new prosperity is closely related to creating new jobs and halting inflation. We must protect the position of the American dollar as a pillar of monetary stability around the world.

In the past 7 years, there has been an average of one international monetary crisis every year. Now who gains from these crises? Not the workingman; not the investor; not the real producers of wealth. The gainers are the international money speculators. Because they thrive on crises, they help to create them.

In recent weeks, the speculators have been waging an all-out war on the American dollar. The strength of a nation’s currency is based on the strength of that nation’s economy–and the American economy is by far the strongest in the world. Accordingly, I have directed the Secretary of the Treasury to take the action necessary to defend the dollar against the speculators.

I have directed Secretary Connally to suspend temporarily the convertibility of the dollar into gold or other reserve assets, except in amounts and conditions determined to be in the interest of monetary stability and in the best interests of the United States.

Now, what is this action–which is very technical–what does it mean for you?

Let me lay to rest the bugaboo of what is called devaluation.

If you want to buy a foreign car or take a trip abroad, market conditions may cause your dollar to buy slightly less. But if you are among the overwhelming majority of Americans who buy American-made products in America, your dollar will be worth just as much tomorrow as it is today.

The effect of this action, in other words, will be to stabilize the dollar.

Now, this action will not win us any friends among the international money traders. But our primary concern is with the American workers, and with fair competition around the world.

To our friends abroad, including the many responsible members of the international banking community who are dedicated to stability and the flow of trade, I give this assurance: The United States has always been, and will continue to be, a forward-looking and trustworthy trading partner. In full cooperation with the International Monetary Fund and those who trade with us, we will press for the necessary reforms to set up an urgently needed new international monetary system. Stability and equal treatment is in everybody’s best interest. I am determined that the American dollar must never again be a hostage in the hands of international speculators.

Temporary has so far been almost 45 years, and fiat currencies prevail around the world.

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Posted in Money, Morality

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He Said That? 6/20/16

Posted on June 20, 2016 | Leave a comment

From Richard Nixon (1913–1994), 37th President of the United States, Vice President of the United States, U.S. Representative and Senator, Real Peace (1983):

Short of changing human nature, therefore, the only way to achieve a practical, livable peace in a world of competing nations is to take the profit out of war.

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Posted in War

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