Trump's Card

[WOM]

...people will still be watching badly made TV Movies on the History Channel.

Or pulling in the suckers, year after year, to watch guys dig a pit on Oak Island. Or, once again, find Hitler in South America.

[WOM]

Day drunk just implies that it's normal (more normal) to wait until after work to start drinking.

Sort of cuz it is, no?

[WOM]

Erin Burnett on CNN concluded her interview by telling Nunberg that she could smell alcohol on his breath. Really not cool. Lots of people drink during the day, most of Washington I assume, lots of people are functional alcoholics, lots of people smoke weed and work real jobs, lots of people are on meds, and they should all be judged by what they say and do without trying to read "drugs" into it.

Lots of people drink during the day? Um...okay. But when it's an aide to a sitting President spouting off about defying a grand jury subpoena, you don't think it's maybe relevant to raise something that could be influencing his judgement / behavior? I mean, you show up smelling of booze to court or to a job interview, shit like that gets noted. Even mentioned, maybe.

[sw2borshch]

My organisation certainly used to have a culture of a couple of pints at dinnertime, with Friday afternoon in the pub but it's pretty much over now. Certainly I used to have 2-3 pints on a Friday dinnertime then go back to work up until a few years ago.

[ursus arctos]

It is striking just how much that bit of work culture changed during my career, but it certainly hasn't disappeared

[ursus arctos]

Some theories on what Nunberg was doing

Former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg had a surreal day Monday. After deciding he wouldn't cooperate with a grand jury subpoena from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's Russia investigation, he went on a media blitz to, well, air some things. And each interview seemed intent upon out-shocking the last.

By the end, he had suggested that President Trump may have worked with the Russians, dared Mueller to throw him in jail, repeatedly inquired as to what journalists thought his fate might be, and said he thought Trump knew about that Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer. Nunberg did no fewer than three separate interviews with CNN, two with MSNBC and several others.

So what on earth was all that about? Below are some ideas. (And it bears noting that not all of these are mutually exclusive.)

[Ginger Yellow]

There was a rash of articles this time last year about how insurance was the last of the big city industries that still did the boozy lunch thing as a norm. Financial journalism seems to have mostly knocked it off a few years after I started. But when I first joined, two hour three-to-four pint lunches on a Monday were typical (Monday happened to be our quiet day).

[Tubby Isaacs]

Big 6 accountancy was pretty easy going and tolerant of hangovers, but nobody really did lunchtime drinking.

[San Bernardhinault]

And I've just read that he told the AP last night he's "going to end up cooperating with them." You can sort of see why Trump was his guy.

Thinking of "He'll change his mind" stuff, I assume we've all seen this bonkers little video clip of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross talking about the steel tariffs?



"Trump always sticks with his decisions, except when he doesn't. So I believe this. Unless it changes. It's 25% today and I think it'll stay this way. If Trump changes his mind it'll change so it's not set in stone." Chuck Todd actually couldn't stop himself laughing.

[hobbes]

We still often do 2 or 3 beers on a Friday lunchtime before heading back to the office.
(And then spending the rest of the dafternoon surfing t'internet before naffing off at 16:30.)
But then my company do a Friday drinks trolley every couple of weeks, so it's not like it's frowned upon.

[San Bernardhinault]

Some theories on what Nunberg was doing

I was wondering whether he was flying a kite to see if someone more serious might get away with ignoring a subpoena.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Seeing Wilbur Ross and Peter Navarro write about trade is amusing, let alone seeing them talk about it.

Here is the key unequal tax treatment issue: While the US operates primarily on an
income tax system, all of America’s major trading partners depend heavily on a “value added
tax” or VAT system. Under current rules, the WTO allows America’s trading
partners to effectively create backdoor tariffs to block American exports and backdoor
subsidies to penetrate US markets. Here’s how this exploitation works:
VAT rates are typically between 15% and 25%. For example, the VAT rate is 25% in
Denmark, 19% in Germany, 17% in China and 16% in Mexico.

Under WTO rules, any foreign company that manufactures domestically and exports
goods to America (or elsewhere) receives a rebate on the VAT it has paid. This turns the
VAT into an implicit export subsidy.

At the same time, the VAT is imposed on all goods that are imported and consumed
domestically so that a product exported by the US to a VAT country is subject to the
VAT. This turns the VAT into an implicit tariff on US exporters over and above the US
corporate income taxes they must pay.

Thus, under the WTO system, American corporations suffer a “triple whammy”: foreign
exports into the US market get VAT relief, US exports into foreign markets must pay the
VAT, and US exporters get no relief on any US income taxes paid.

[Ginger Yellow]

My God that is dumb. Neither American companies nor European companies pay (really, collect) VAT when selling in America. Both American companies and European companies pay (collect) VAT when selling in Europe. There is no tariff inequality from the VAT. There's a really, really torturous way you could argue that the fact that a higher proportion of tax revenue comes from corporate income tax in the US disadvantages them in the sense that they would make less net profit overall, ceteris paribus. But US companies don't pay anything like their nominal income tax rate anyway, and besides, it's entirely up to the US how it wants to balance its revenue generation. It has nothing to do with trade warring.

[anton pulisov]

Wow. Obviously these guys have gone shopping in Paris and done the VAT rebate thing at a European airport and assume that's what BMW are doing as well when selling cars to the US.

[WOM]

We still often do 2 or 3 beers on a Friday lunchtime before heading back to the office.
(And then spending the rest of the dafternoon surfing t'internet before naffing off at 16:30.)
But then my company do a Friday drinks trolley every couple of weeks, so it's not like it's frowned upon.

Our 'clubhouse' has a pair of draft taps and we have a beer client account. Make of that what you will....

[ursus arctos]

This administration has absolutely no shame when it comes to trade. Their official readout of the latest call with Trudeau left out all of his points and repeated the lie that the US has a trade deficit with Canada.

[Ginger Yellow]

Another day another ethics outrage

A letter approving outside employment contracts for John Konkus — signed by an EPA ethics lawyer in August — was released Monday by Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The ethics official noted that Konkus’ outside contracts presented a “financial conflict of interest” and barred him from participating in matters at EPA that would have a “direct and predictable” financial benefit for his clients.

Pruitt named Konkus, a Republican political consultant, to serve as the EPA’s deputy associate administrator for public affairs. His duties have included signing off on hundreds of millions in federal grants.

The letter gave Konkus approval to work for at least two clients. Those names were blacked out by the agency before a copy was provided to Congress, citing a privacy exemption more typically used to protect personnel records and medical files. The letter said Konkus was also expected to take on additional private clients, advising them about “strategy, mail and media production.”

[WOM]

Yes, lots of people self-medicate all the time.

Haha. Yeah...alcohol is medicine.

Nunberg is not and was never an aide to a sitting president. Trump fired him back in 2015.

Sorry. Ex-aide to a now sitting President.

If the suggestion is that he wouldn't have done a series of national TV interviews reaffirming his defiance had he not been drinking, I wouldn't be inclined to buy it.

Shrug. Okay.

He didn't appear nearly drunk enough to have lost all sense of perspective or judgment. If the suggestion is that drinking on the job indicates bad judgment or character, I would say it definitely depends.

How drunk he appeared is neither here nor there. She smelt alcohol on him and asked. If you want to drink before a fairly important tv appearance that MAY include matters of judgment, maybe you've opened yourself up to the question.

[WOM]

No, I understand it's an expression.

I just find it odd that you can 'have a few' before a rather high-stakes tv interview and then think it off-limits to be asked the question. Difference of opinion, that's all.

[anton pulisov]

Apparently 12 Democratic senators are voting with Republicans to weaken the Obama-era Dodd-Frank financial regulations.

They really are fucking useless.

[San Bernardhinault]

Yesterday saw the first poll with a Democrat lead for the Pennsylvania 18th District Special Election that happens one week from today.

The district went for Trump by 19%. Republican outside groups have so far spent $9m on this one, small, rather irrelevant election. And there's now actually a chance that they might lose.

Emerson has Lamb (D) leading Saccone (R) 48-45. As always, single house seats are bastards to get accurate polling on, and all the pollsters are all over the place with their turnout models so that adds even more uncertainty. So you should take all polling with a massive pinch of salt. But the very fact that any poll has ever given a Democratic lead here is absolutely gobsmacking.

[Tubby Isaacs]

https://www.vox.com/explainers/2018/...al-regulations

It looks very amiss not to have got some sort of deal on closing a loophole that failed on a party line vote.

[anton pulisov]

jesus it's even worse after reading that

and they wonder why they lost to donald bloody trump

[Lang Spoon]

Fucking Democrat wanks. I hate them so much. This reminds me of pork barrel TDs of all sides wanting Credit Unions exempted from post Crash Irish financial regulation, cos they are pillars of the community, onerous regulation hurting the little people etc. maybe if Credit Unions in fucking Newbridge and Tipp and the like didn’t start playing the property speculation funding game, there would have been no need to include them.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The Democrat running in PA18 supports Trump's steel tariffs. That's much worse.