18 Replies to “Art Of The Deal”

  1. You have a buddy who always employs you when you’re out of a job, always buys anything you’re selling. But you’d never return the favor, in part ’cause you never have the cash.
    Buddy is doing this with cash that he’s borrowed.
    Buddy finally comes to his senses and says, “Wait a damned second! I’m now borrowing money to make minimum payments on my debt?!?!”
    And that’s where we are.

    1. Go even further. Your buddy did this for you because you were down and out; he even spent money to patch up your leaky roof and give you a home security system because you live in a tough neighborhood. And then you didn’t return any of those favors; you actively helped to screw him and demanded more — you never had cash because you spent it on a good time. And then your “buddy” went into debt and is now borrowing cash to pay it off.On top of that you acted like a prick, and he knew about it, but let it slide — until the day he found out you were doing a deal with a thug who wanted to rob him of everything, including his life.

      That’s where we are.
      Remember not to cry too hard about it not being fair.

    2. Geek49203 — 49203 was my ZIP code. I’m a Yank.

      Someone fixed the software on this webpage and I can’t use numbers anymore in my user ID. Kate said she didn’t know why.

  3. Excellent video choice. Hopefully, the US and the rest of the West will clip the claws of the paper panda, an endeavor which will not be that hard to implement, to wit, recognizing the fundamental weaknesses of the authoritarian government of China and summoning the will to attack those weaknesses. An important part of how authoritarian governments stay in power is their control of the flow of information. Since the free flow of information greatly enhances innovations, authoritarian governments cripple their societies’ ability to innovate and so authoritarian societies acquire innovations through conquest, theft, and purchase. Reducing the ability of China to obtain new tech is key and that will require breaking out of the reliance on China for critical components of important supply chains. Along with this, banning Chinese nationals from attending Western universities is essential. Chinese students, trained in the West, become the technicians in China that build and maintain the tech that China acquires. When China can no longer have 200,000-250,000 technicians annually trained in the latest technological developments in the US, largely at US taxpayer expense, its technology base will start to become obsolete and its economic and military power will begin to crumble. Given the pace of innovation in IT in particular, China will cease to be competitive quite quickly. It is insane that the US trains China’s soldiers of technology. I cannot fathom the US ever tolerating a similar thing occuring during the US cold war with the USSR.

    2. It is genuinely insane. All the CCP students should be removed from western colleges and universities.

    3. Speaking of China’s soldiers, they were being trained by Trudeau’s Liberal government in Petawawa some years back.
      In winter conditions. Just in case they have to come to canada.
      To take over.
      In the winter

    4. I vote for every element of your platform. No hesitancy, no worries.

      Every ChiCom student in our University is displacing an American. It should STOP immediately. Re-industrialize America… and Re-educate America. No gender studies crapola. Stop dumbing-down our population and return to the REASON for an educated population … knowledge … true and complete knowledge

  4. OR

    You have a son who doesn’t take advantage of the security and opportunities you have offered him and still lives in the basement at 30 years old. You want to down size and clear up debts but he believes you are disrespecting him and fights your choices.

    That’s where we are.

  5. Great video, Kate. I knew most of this stuff already but had never put the individual pieces together to see the big picture. The people who think that Trump is just ‘winging it’ are in for a really rude awakening….the 70+ countries who have already come to the table to negotiate and the trillions of dollars in new foreign investment promised should be sufficient proof of that.

  6. Trump’s Tariffs are (after 34 years) an attempt to repair a broken agreement:

    By 1946 all nations owed much to the UK & US
    for the military and economic support required to vanquish the common foe.
    That includes the USSR who stabbed the UK in the back (1939)
    and who was never grateful for helping save their neck.

    In 2025 the argument that most of these same nations
    owe a great deal to the US since, for military and economic support,
    cannot be denied and is only despised by those co-opted by the Left (USSR)

    But there is one overlooked factor (not an excuse for the Wests ungracious behaviour);
    … in 1946 the US and the USSR began competing with one another
    for political, cultural, and economic hegemony with all the nations of the world.

    The USSR was concerned over lack of easy expansion for Comintern
    and instead of de-militarizing (which all other nations were eager to do)
    utilized politico-military enforcement of “no freedom from government”
    including privacy, family, work, travel, life and death.

    The US and most nations were concerned over that,
    and countered with the promise of freedom from government
    and cash infusion, until victorious in 1991 with the dissolution of the USSR.

    (The Cold War was the logical and inevitable extension of WWII,
    unnecessarily caused by Soviet recalcitrance)

    Tariffs (which practically all western nations placed against the USA during those long years)
    were accepted, encouraged even, by the US as part of the mutual bargain for post WWII recovery.

    The other side of that mutual bargain was all those nations should merely, but fully, resist communism.
    The US, through 1991, lived up to their side of the bargain.
    The other nations did not.

    1. “the USSR who stabbed the UK in the back (1939) and who was never grateful for helping save their neck.”

      ‘Gratitude is an illness suffered by dogs.’
      Josef Stalin
      quoted in Stalin’s Secret War (1981) by Nikolai Tolstoy

    2. Goodness, you guys seem to be questioning the judgment of Comrade Stalin. Not that I mind, but it’s a great way to attract abuse around here. In fairness, it’s hard to say that Stalin stabbed Britain in the back in 1939. He had never made any specific commitment to Britain over Poland, always made it clear that he would deal with matters there as they occurred, and always maintained a policy of loyal observance of the obligations of the League of Nations – with which he complied when he moved to acknowledge the Curzon Line, achieving a long-standing objective of British foreign policy. Yes, it came as a kick in the teeth in the circumstances, but they were desperate and degraded circumstances, and because of the British, not Stalin.

  7. The trade imbalance is an American self-inflicted wound. With the currency China earns from trading with the US it buys US bonds that the government so eagerly sells to maintain its trillion dollar deficits. China is playing by US rules that the US has encouraged. Keeping profits out of China keeps down incomes and inflation in China. Japan did the same thing 30 years ago. The US whines about currency manipulation but they are the ones facilitating it.

    The US used trade discrimination against one country in the years prior to WWII. They thought they could shift Japan’s behavior with tariffs and boycotts. Japan looked upon this as an act of war which ultimately led to the death of 400,000 Americans. China very likely looks upon the economic attack as a hostile act by a hostile nation. Don’t be surprised if the next aircraft carrier going through the South China Sea is warned and then sunk. And the US will do nothing about it because the risk is too great.

    1. and so, Trump saw that, nearly 40 years ago, and is working to fix it, which is his right, since, as you say, America set it up this way. It doesn’t require him to make a bad situation permanent. Previous administrations are just that.

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