Politics 2016

[Hurlshort]

Another brick in the wall: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-the-law-already-allows-donald-trump-to-build-the-wall/article/2609082?platform=hootsuite

 

"Secretary Jeh Johnson told the Senate that 1,300 miles of the border, or 66.5 percent, have no fencing at all; 299.8 miles, or 15.3 percent, have vehicle fence; 316.6 miles, or 16.2 percent, have pedestrian fence, and 36.3 miles, or 2 percent, have double-layer fencing. Johnson also said there is no work being done on any additional fencing."

 

Establishment lies notwithstanding, there are only 36.3 miles of secure fencing on the border currently.

 

The main argument against the wall is that it is a stupid waste of money. Will it stop drug traffickers? Criminals? People who overstay visas?  

[Volourn]

Stop them completely? Likely not? Slow them down, lower the number, make it more harder? Most likely. Will it be worth it monetarily? Nobody knows.

 

As for the kidney thing.. pay me  a billion dollars then you can have mine.

[Wrath of Dagon]

 

Another brick in the wall: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-the-law-already-allows-donald-trump-to-build-the-wall/article/2609082?platform=hootsuite

 

"Secretary Jeh Johnson told the Senate that 1,300 miles of the border, or 66.5 percent, have no fencing at all; 299.8 miles, or 15.3 percent, have vehicle fence; 316.6 miles, or 16.2 percent, have pedestrian fence, and 36.3 miles, or 2 percent, have double-layer fencing. Johnson also said there is no work being done on any additional fencing."

 

Establishment lies notwithstanding, there are only 36.3 miles of secure fencing on the border currently.

 

The main argument against the wall is that it is a stupid waste of money. Will it stop drug traffickers? Criminals? People who overstay visas?

 

It'll certainly stop deported criminals from coming back. It will prevent drugs being driven through by truckloads, although obviously you'll never stop all drug smuggling. You don't stop enforcing the law because there'll still be crime anyway; the price of drugs will go up drastically. Supposedly 60% of illegals come through the border, so you take care of that part of it. The other 40% you have to actually track which visas have not exited, which amazingly they don't even do right now. Then you go look for those people immediately. If a particular country has a problem of too many overstays, you reduce or eliminate their visas until it becomes a manageable problem. Edit: ICE has admitted they don't look for visa overstays at all right now, so why would anyone be deterred from doing that? Edited December 9, 2016 by Wrath of Dagon

[HoonDing]

"President-elect Donald Trump is weighing naming as Food and Drug Administration commissioner a staunch libertarian who has called for eliminating the agency’s mandate to determine whether new medicines are effective before approving them for sale.

“Let people start using them, at their own risk,” the candidate, Jim O’Neill, said in a 2014 speech to a biotech group."

 

I've this drug here called Thalidomide, give it a try.

[Hurlshort]

 

 

Another brick in the wall: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-the-law-already-allows-donald-trump-to-build-the-wall/article/2609082?platform=hootsuite

 

"Secretary Jeh Johnson told the Senate that 1,300 miles of the border, or 66.5 percent, have no fencing at all; 299.8 miles, or 15.3 percent, have vehicle fence; 316.6 miles, or 16.2 percent, have pedestrian fence, and 36.3 miles, or 2 percent, have double-layer fencing. Johnson also said there is no work being done on any additional fencing."

 

Establishment lies notwithstanding, there are only 36.3 miles of secure fencing on the border currently.

 

The main argument against the wall is that it is a stupid waste of money. Will it stop drug traffickers? Criminals? People who overstay visas?

 

It'll certainly stop deported criminals from coming back. It will prevent drugs being driven through by truckloads, although obviously you'll never stop all drug smuggling. You don't stop enforcing the law because there'll still be crime anyway; the price of drugs will go up drastically. Supposedly 60% of illegals come through the border, so you take care of that part of it. The other 40% you have to actually track which visas have not exited, which amazingly they don't even do right now. Then you go look for those people immediately. If a particular country has a problem of too many overstays, you reduce or eliminate their visas until it becomes a manageable problem. Edit: ICE has admitted they don't look for visa overstays at all right now, so why would anyone be deterred from doing that?

 

 

That all sounds incredibly expensive, and does nothing to address the actual demand for drugs and illegal immigrant labor. Keep throwing money at the supply while ignoring the demand.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Easier to stop it at the border than fight it inside the country. You could go all draconian against the employers, but I don't think it'll be accepted. Drug demand you can't do anything about period, you'd have to start over with humanity.

 

Edit: Hey, look, turns out the first thing to do in combating the drug epidemic is getting rid of Obola:

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/08/heroin-deaths-surpass-gun-homicides-for-the-first-time-cdc-data-show/?utm_campaign=buffer&utm_content=buffer20dff&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_term=.575bb5bdbc4f

Edited December 9, 2016 by Wrath of Dagon

[Hurlshort]

We are in our 4th decade of waging war against drugs from the supply side. Do you feel it has been effective?

 

Going draconian against employers is still attacking the supply instead of the demand.

[Elerond]

Walls don't stop people coming in the country. If you want stop people crossing illegally your borders it would be much better investment to hire more border patrols, because even with walls you need people to patrol those borders in order to prevent people coming over/under/from the side the wall. 

 

With eight billion dollars that Trump estimates his wall to cost you could hire about 2-3  additional people to patrol per mile of that border (somewhere between 4000-6000 people) for next 50 years. Which I would estimate to prevent more illegals than any wall alone can and it would even create more permanent jobs than building and maintaining said wall, which would mean that it would also be economically more solid option.  On negative side it would not give USA bigger wall than China has and it would not allow criminals and volunteers to be sent to guard the wall like they do in GoT.

[Meshugger]

What's with all this talk about unfeasables, return of investments and security policies? Here we have a construction which will be the greatest wonder since the Wall of China which will serve as testament of greatness, glory and strength of the human spirit and you choose to not to take part in this history in the making?

 

Back to the cubicle with your linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, min/max solutions and calculate the price/cost probalities of your bosses' transactions and investments, the lot of you.

[Wrath of Dagon]

We are in our 4th decade of waging war against drugs from the supply side. Do you feel it has been effective?

 

Going draconian against employers is still attacking the supply instead of the demand.

We have not effectively waged war against the supply side, open border is the prime example. I've nothing against acting on the demand side, in fact we need good policies in general which will also incidentally impact drug use. This is one of those intractable problems like ants, you try to control it even though you'll never eradicate it.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by employers being part of the supply, not demand. Who do you think demands and hires the cheap labor?

 

 

Walls don't stop people coming in the country. If you want stop people crossing illegally your borders it would be much better investment to hire more border patrols, because even with walls you need people to patrol those borders in order to prevent people coming over/under/from the side the wall.

We have a huge border patrol already, right now they're ineffective because they're not allowed to do their job and because they couldn't patrol an open border if you increase them 10 fold. They don't even clear cut the dense vegetation on the border, how do you effectively patrol that? Of course even with the fence you still need patrols, and cameras and sensors and static balloons doing surveillance, but it makes it actually practical for the government to control the border, instead of the drug gangs.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/12/09/other-terror-threat-isis-wants-to-destroy-us-this-group-already-is.html I won't vouch for all his facts, but I think he's essentially right.

[Pidesco]

Apparently Trump will continue as the star of Celebrity Apprentice. Surreal if you ask me but what do the Americans think of this?

[Agiel]

Dont people already sell eggs/sperm? Im asking here. Its a win/win situation. You dont need two of anything to survive so one person makes some good coin and the other gets a lifesaving organ that would (probably) otherwise be binned.

As someone who has the organ donor dot on his driver's license and plans on giving his corpse over for the benefit of medical students and the advancement of science, playing Devil's advocate here, but I suppose for a lot of people redundancy is a nice thing to have.

Edited December 9, 2016 by Agiel

[Volourn]

No, he isn't. Ahnold. He is continuing to an Executive Producer which is often a meaningless title. he likely is still one because he is one of the original creators so it is likely more a 'give credit to' title than actual participation.

 

Also, he can do what he wants on his free time so even if he was continuing as the 'star' of the show biggie. He could show him firing a bunch of dumbnutz in Washington. :D

Edited December 9, 2016 by Volourn

[Hurlshort]

I think we should have the White House rigged like the Big Brother house with cameras everywhere.  Transparency, people.  

[HoonDing]

Mexican government and the cartels are joined at the hip. It's a country more corrupt than Russia. Even if the wall is built, ppl will be so desperate to get out of that ****hole that they'll probably built catapults to get over.

Edited December 9, 2016 by HoonDing

[Agiel]

From Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst whom many have been reaching out to over Trump's Twitter attacks on Boeing. This time, emphases courtesy of Aboulafia:

 

 

Dear Fellow Election Hangover Sufferers,

Defense programs and requirements are complicated. What capabilities and technologies do the nation’s armed forces need? What can the US afford? What metrics are best to assess program effectiveness, contractor performance, and economic viability? These questions need careful consideration: study groups, expert discussions, white papers, and oversight.

Or you can Tweet about them, in 140 characters or less. Our president elect seems to prefer this approach. The Presidential Aircraft Replacement program, the Air Force’s long-awaited acquisition of heavily modified Boeing 747-8s to serve as Air Force One planes, was the recent subject of a signature Donald Trump tweet. Linking to a tweet is silly, so I’ll just summarize Trump’s point in 43 characters: “Kill New Air Force One It Costs Too Much.”

I don’t tweet, but I do like economy of words. I’ll try to forecast the next four years for the defense industry in exactly the same number of characters: “Much Cash But Much Risk Of Pain And Shame” Okay, I left off the period at the end, but I got 43 characters. Here are more characters, and words: The Air Force One tweet reflects a fundamental contradiction in Trump’s objectives: he promises a big increase in spending (particularly defense spending), but he also promises reform and discipline. Those goals are tough to reconcile.

First, Trump’s vow to “rebuild” the military promises very good things for defense. Annual investment (procurement and research) accounts, now around $180 billion, are headed north of $200 billion. This will likely start with supplemental funding added next year to the FY 2017 budget, the final Obama request. Budget Control Act limits and Sequestration are now dead. Since Trump was elected, defense stocks are up by high single digit and even double digit percentages, nicely outperforming the broader market.

Meanwhile, Trump also wants a heavy infrastructure spending program, and enormous tax cuts. That’s deficit spending in hyperdrive. Is it sustainable? Is it good for the economy? I don’t know. But for the next few years (probably four) defense contractors will be awash in money.

But here’s the problem. As a populist, Trump promised “reform” and to “clean up that mess in Washington” and to “drain the swamp.” And of course, a “return to fiscal sanity.” None of this meshes with a huge defense budget increase, higher defense equity prices, and tax breaks for investors who benefit from those increases. As AEI’s Mackenzie Eaglen told the Washington Post, “the major defense contractors are part of the establishment he’s railing against.”

The way out of this conundrum is simple. Trump needs to occasionally make a public example of the companies who are benefiting from his plan. This explains Trump’s Air Force One drive-by shaming. Here are a few guidelines over how this process will play out:

Logic Doesn’t Matter. If a contractor is shamed, there may be little point in fighting back. Air Force One, for example, hasn’t seen any cost increases. The program is just starting. The budget, and cost figures, are set by Air Force requirements, not by corporate greed. Much of the budget isn’t going to Boeing. Assuming the project comes to $4 billion (the current budget plan is around $3 billion), just 20% of that will go to the 747-8 aircraft themselves. The rest will go to onboard anti-missile systems and electronic warfare systems, encrypted and secure communications, EMP hardening, etc. Many of these systems come from other contractors. They are also inherently quite expensive.

Transitioning from shaming to concrete action will be very hard. The day after his Tweet, Trump claimed he was merely starting a price negotiation. Exactly how does one re-negotiate capabilities here? “Do we really need the very best electronic countermeasures on the president’s plane? And how much electromagnetic pulse hardening do we REALLY need for the avionics?” Trump may find negotiating defenses contracts is harder than negotiating casino construction.

On to F-35. Or not. Going after a relatively marginal program that costs $3 billion over ten years is one thing; will Trump go after bigger targets? Consider the F-35, which Trump has previously criticized. As a $10+ billion per year program with a history of overruns and delays, it’s the most obvious target. On the other hand, for the Marines and Air Force, which Trump wants to “rebuild,” it’s the only game in town. Lockheed Martin and its partners may have a difficult four years ahead.

Will any of this work? And Will It Damage The Industry? Defense contractors know that resources are now plentiful, and again they hold the upper hand when they're (often) the only game in town (as with the F-35). This remains an industry with exceedingly high entry barriers, and Trump isn’t exactly likely to open borders for international competitors. On the other hand, defense is basically a monopsony. That makes the industry more vulnerable to rule by Twitter fiat than any other industry. Others can quietly open plants overseas and simply not invest more in the US until Trump leaves office. That Air Force One tweet had an immediate and direct effect on Boeing’s stock price; we may be in for some wild equities mood swings.

Is this part of a much broader emerging pattern of Big Government? Trump’s Air Force One tweet came right after some equally heavy-handed intervention in UTC/Carrier’s planned factory move to Mexico, and a loudly-proclaimed “success” in keeping a Ford plant in the US too. The tweet also may be retaliation for Boeing’s pro-free trade position, which is directly counter to Trump’s agenda. All of this speaks to a fondness for big government interference in private company decisions, and a shift away from market capitalism. Trump may be a Republican, but he may govern less like Ronald Reagan and more like Juan Perón.

So fasten your seat belts…it will be an interesting four years. And while we’re waiting for it to really start, November Aircraft Binder updates include the MRJ, Legacy/Phenom, T-50/KT-1, NH90, and King Air reports. Please note: we’re still running a bit late with these due to a new publication system; my apologies for that. And I hope you had a great month.

Yours, ‘Til Air Force One Gets A Secure And Encrypted Twitter Capability,
Richard Aboulafia

 

I should also add that Boeing Defense actually has a knack for delivering on programs either on or below budget, as one wag said back when the JSF competition was in full swing "The aircraft should be designed by Lockheed Martin, but built by Boeing". I suppose if Air Force One meets or goes below it's projected $2.87 billion budget (without any actual effort on Trump's part) he could point to that in his memoirs as him "trimming the fat" (never mind that we'll see record deficits in the process, but oh well).

[redneckdevil]

i agree with the article about how these can happen and have trump make a sacrifice of one of them. All they gotta do is create something then have plans to create same thing but with higher materials. Release the plan first for the higher materials, Trump slams them, and then they release the first one and he accepts that and it shows how much he saving with his decisions.

[Meshugger]

So Trump picked a former Exxon CEO as SoS, a mick to boot. So the agenda is now clear: Get lost AIPAC, there's a new king in town and it is the Celts. They are now running the show and the hibernian directive is now in effect. 

[Tigranes]

Stop them completely? Likely not? Slow them down, lower the number, make it more harder? Most likely. Will it be worth it monetarily? Nobody knows.

 

I love it, this is the logic of a Trump victim in action. Not Trump logic, because Trump logic is a finely crafted piece of manipulation in action, but the kind of logic that screams "someone come and make a chump of me".

 

Will a wall do anything? I guess, right? I mean, people are talking about a wall surely it must do something right? Is it worth building? I dunno, who knows? Nobody knows, right? So why don't we build that wall 'cuz it surely will do something right? Right?

[Malcador]

That sounds like the thinking of every project manager

[licketysplit]

Frau Merkel is now on the fake news bandwagon and blaming Russia for the world's ills. Not creepy at all. 

 

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/741960/russia-angela-merkel-germany-election-cyber-attack-plot-us-official-cia

[Zoraptor]

Funny thing is, "Putin did it" as an argument was a spectacular fail pre-election, why they think it will work now I don't know. Even if they did hack Podesta or the DNC instead of it being Podesta stupidly falling for phishings and Seth Rich it hardly matters, the substance of the leaks was not faked. The stuff that did the damage was stuff that actual democrats wrote, hardly matters whether it was Karl Rove, LoF, zombie Beria or a time traveller from the future trying to stop World War Hillary who leaked it. They lost because Hillary was rubbish, their plan was rubbish and to quote Powell: "hubris". If they'd have picked Bernie it would have been irrelevant.

 

The WP report is also based on 'an anonymous source', again. Everybody seems to be treating it as being an official release though. They'll then be surprised that 'fake news' citing 'anonymous sources' gains traction, for some reason.

[BruceVC]

Frau Merkel is now on the fake news bandwagon and blaming Russia for the world's ills. Not creepy at all. 

 

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/741960/russia-angela-merkel-germany-election-cyber-attack-plot-us-official-cia

Can I ask you a question, do you not believe Putin has numerous reasons to interfere in the elections of various Western countries?

 

His objective is a failure but that doesnt mean they wont interfere

[licketysplit]

 

Frau Merkel is now on the fake news bandwagon and blaming Russia for the world's ills. Not creepy at all. 

 

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/741960/russia-angela-merkel-germany-election-cyber-attack-plot-us-official-cia

Can I ask you a question, do you not believe Putin has numerous reasons to interfere in the elections of various Western countries?

 

His objective is a failure but that doesnt mean they wont interfere

 

He has reason. Given the political climate of the EU, he certainly hasn't been effective.  Not even a little bit. That Merkel would co-opt a U.S media narrative so readily is more disturbing. But then, we know how reliable German media is based on their reporting of last new year's eve.

[213374U]

That Merkel would co-opt a U.S media narrative so readily is more disturbing. But then, we know how reliable German media is based on their reporting of last new year's eve.

 

Mmh. That's not really what she's doing, though. It's more the article being structured in a somewhat misleading way than Merkel denouncing oby's efforts to coup Germany. Her position seems to be a much more cautious "we cannot rule it out", with her main intelligence man outright accusing Russia of trolling and hacking... but carefully limiting his remarks to "potential" dangers during the upcoming election. The APT28 group he references has been around for a few years at least, so nothing really ground-breaking, and the escalation of operations began back in 2014 in the context of the whole Ukraine fiasco. Who woulda thunk it.

 

This is also shortly after professional good-for-nothings at Brussels appeared increasingly concerned that Uncle Joe is winning the propaganda war some 25 years after the Berlin wall fell. Brace for upcoming "anti-disinformation" efforts.

 

Bonus points to the author for describing the EU as a "crumbling bloc", btw. If only...