Speculating on how Reagan would have resolved the N Korean matter.
Peace comes through strength not weakness. Obama did not understand this and still doe not.
What I also find so sad is that Europe wants America , through NATO, to protect them but when it comes to America being threatened not a peep of support from Europe.(See 1 below.)
And
This link sent to me by a friend and fellow memo reader: http://a.msn.com/01/en-us/
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A very dear friend of mine and a fellow memo reader sent an e mail to a friend in D.C. lamenting about the Wasserman Schultz matter and this is what he got back by way of a response:
"C----,
I've no doubt that IF the American people knew 10% of what actually goes on in D.C. among the political power brokers, there would be a second revolution!
This is why they all oppose Trump so vehemently... he is the closest we've come to pulling back the curtain PLUS, he has the power, money and connections to threaten getting it done.
I HOPE he has GREAT body guards and TRUSTED Secret Service teams!!!
I put NOTHING past the criminal cock roaches that have run this country (into the ground) for so long."
I wrote in a previous memo I doubt even a dedicated trump can drain the swamp. It is beyond any mortal.
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Is China using N Korea to test Trump? (See 2 below.)
It causes me nothing to maintain a very hawkish view but every time I hear someone attacking Trump for his bellicosity I wonder why their attacks are not directed at China and N Korea.
There is no reason for us to invade N Korea. We could simply radiate the entire nation and, in the process, eliminate their entire military and leadership. Yes, this would be a terrible thing but it would end any treat from N Korea and would send a clear message to Iran as well.
If you feed bullies they only grow stronger and more threatening and the nourishment bullies like best is a consistent display of weakness.
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There are always multi ways one can look at markets.
Today, should one want to focus on N Korea, in the belief there will be a confrontation, buy gold and run for the hills with most of your other stocks.
On the other hand ,if you wish to ignore N Korea and focus on modest economic improvement world wide, then stay in the market with crossed fingers and take advantage of any reaction in stocks with good growth prospects and strong balance sheets and some yield.
From a long term investment viewpoint, I remain impressed with the health care sector, a few stocks that would benefit from any infrastructure build which have been decimated lately and selective technology stocks.
But, like I always say, after almost 50 years of investing, I have learned nothing.
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Something to think about and I am not posting to take anything away from other boxing greats. Most get their information from what they read and this is why the mass media is important and why they have failed our nation all the while believing they have been serving our nation. (See 3 below.)
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1)How Ronald Reagan would have dealt with North Korea
By Jake Novak
The continuing nuclear threats from North Korea are now starting to raise fears of a real and bloody conflict with a rogue regime. But there's an historically proven way to resolve the worst of this threat without firing a shot.
Here's how: North Korea and its one key backer, China, essentially want the same thing. That would be a reduced U.S. presence in East Asia and in their nations' affairs. This is something they've wanted for years.
While North Korea's missile tests and threats understandably grab the headlines, China has also made several moves in recent years in hopes of scaring off or at least diminishing America's longstanding military footprint in the region. And every time the U.S. goes to Beijing and asks for its cooperation to tamp down North Korea's missile firing threats, it's one less time that the Trump team is pounding the Chinese on currency manipulation, protectionism, and its own adventurism in the South China Sea.
In essence, China is and has been using North Korea like a burly bouncer at a dance club it currently shares with Japan and South Korea. That doesn't mean it completely approves of every single move Kim Jong Un and company execute out of Pyongyang. But there is general agreement from across the political spectrum that Beijing has been using North Korea for decades in hopes of advancing its regional goals.
Despite the complexity of the problem, the solution for the U.S. is remarkably simple. If North Korea and China are acting in a dangerous and unlawful way to get the U.S. to somehow stand down in Asia, the proper response isn't to launch an attack, but to simply show up even more.
We can look to the final years of the Cold War as a model for success.
It's important to use those Cold War lessons because the false choice we're hearing today on the North Korean threat is eerily similar to what we were told during the U.S. conflict with the Soviet Union. That would be the insistence that the only two choices are war or major concessions to the aggressors.
That wasn't true then, and it isn't true now because the Cold War was eventually won by the U.S. and the West without launching a major attack in its final 10 years. And the way the U.S. won it then was by following President Ronald Reagan's clear and unwavering policy of showing up.
Showing up in the 1981-91 era meant increasing NATO's missile defense and offensive missile presence along the borders with Eastern Europe and even into outer space, boosting the size and scope of the U.S. Air Force and Navy, and not agreeing to back down until a very tangible concession on Soviet nuclear arms was in hand.
President Reagan's domestic political opponents and pro-Soviet propaganda outfits attacked this strategy in full force. The prevailing message was that the Reagan policies of building up our forces, even if no attacks took place, put the world too much at risk for a nuclear confrontation. The media became flooded with nuclear doomsday warnings and dramatizations, hitting their zenith with the 1983 TV movie "The Day After" that posted record high ratings.
Even President Reagan himself said the program left him "greatly depressed."
But depressed or not, Reagan stayed the course. And thanks to unwavering support from Great Britain's then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the Soviet Union realized it could not simply scare the U.S. out of defending Western Europe and could not scare Western Europe into urging the U.S. to stand down.
Despite numerous depictions of Reagan and the U.S. in general as being eager for war, the Pentagon knew there was no good option for any direct attack on the Soviet Union. Showing strength , not using it, was the goal. And after only a decade of the U.S. executing that policy, a nearly 50-year-long Cold War ended when the U.S.S.R. ceased to exist in 1991.
There are many parallels to the Cold War scenario in our current situation, but the key similarities are that China and North Korea want to get the large American military presence out of a particular region, the U.S. has a potential Thatcher-like ally in Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his administration, and there's also at least very good potential that an increased U.S. military presence in the region will convince everyone that this North Korean missile gambit has backfired badly.
Of course, there are still great risks involved. Unlike Japan, South Korea is decidedly not playing the staunch ally role right now. It doesn't always appear resolute in the face of the threats from Pyongyang for a number of understandable reasons. As its neighboring country, it stands to be the biggest loser if Kim Jong Un decides to lash out or retaliate to perceived U.S. aggression. And don't forget that millions of South Koreans still have families above the 38th Parallel, making them less eager for any kind of military attack on North Korea.
There is no way to completely eliminate risk when dealing with a nuclear armed dictator like Kim Jong Un. That's why the "option" of a straight attack on the regime isn't a good one. Yet diplomacy and sanctions alone won't necessarily reduce the threat.
North Korea is surely a bigger problem now than it was in 1994 when the Clinton Administration made the deal it thought would stop it from becoming a nuclear power. That doesn't mean diplomacy isn't an option, but the U.S. has to do something else first.
And that thing is to once again show increased strength. The U.S. must continue to show up in East Asia with our huge naval and air bases and the 37,500 troops we have stationed in South Korea alone.
It must at least prepare to increase that presence with more naval ships, more anti-missile batteries like the THAAD system, and more fighter and bomber jets stationed in the area. Our allies in the region need to get behind this plan too. Once that new presence is established, the American, Japanese, and South Korean negotiating position will be a lot better than it is now.
China and North Korea must be shown that their goals cannot be achieved via military aggression. The only way to do that is not just to refuse to give them what they want, but also refuse to accept the notion that the only result of standing up to these regimes is war.
Commentary by Jake Novak, CNBC.com senior columnist. Follow him on Twitter @jakejakeny.
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2) Is China Using North Korea To Test Trump?
China figures strongly into the current North Korea crisis, but exactly how is a matter of dispute. President Trump seems to believe that China is the key to resolving the matter of North Korea’s nuclear weapons, but it is far from certain that China’s interests in the region align with our own.
Beyond the fact that Trump was overtly hostile and, at times, insulting to China during the presidential campaign, China is in the midst of a long campaign to expand its power in Asia and beyond. Chinese island-building in the South China Sea is common knowledge. Less known is how Chinese influence is growing in the Middle East, Africa and even the Americas.
As Chinese military and economic influence grows around the world, the inescapable conclusion is that China has dreams of replacing the US as the world’s dominant superpower. That being the case, it would be in China’s interest to make the US look bad in the confrontation with North Korea. If China can use North Korea to hasten the American decline in Asia, which began with the 1953 stalemate in Korea and continued with Vietnam and the Trump Administration’s decision to withdraw from the Trans Pacific Partnership, it would probably not hesitate to do so.
Aside from their aim of overtaking the United States, a secondary goal of the Chinese government could be to test President Trump. There is pattern of Chinese crises shortly after Republican presidents take office. In June 1989, five months after George H. W. Bush became president, violent repression of the Chinese democracy protests at Tiananmen Square led to soured relations between the two countries. In April 2001, three months into the presidency of George W. Bush, a Chinese fighter collided with a US Navy reconnaissance plane. The American plane made an emergency landing on Hainan Island and the crew was detained for 11 days by the Chinese government. Now, soon after President Trump took office, the North Koreans increased their missile testing. While these incidents were presumably not manufactured by China, they may well have used the events to test the mettle of the new occupants of the Oval Office.
What could be the Chinese endgame for the Korean crisis? After President Trump made trade concessions to China last spring for doing approximately nothing to help with the Korean situation, Beijing may believe that they can win additional concessions from the US if the crisis is allowed to get worse.
If President Trump backs down after having made resolving the North Korean issue a priority, the Chinese will win by default. The United States and President Trump will lose face and credibility around the world. With both President Trump and Kim Jong Un trying to outdo the other’s bellicose rhetoric, at the moment China is playing the role of the adult in the room.
If the US actually attacks North Korea, it would present a problem for China. China has a longstanding relationship with its patron government in Pyongyang. Animosity between the Chinese and the Koreans goes back centuries, but for the past 75 years, North Korea has been a loyal client of Communist China.
In 1950, when American and United Nations troops advanced too close to the Chinese border, China intervened with a massive attack that sent allied armies reeling. Those who doubt that China would do the same thing in 2017 need only consider the unofficial nickname of Korea, “a dagger aimed at the heart of China.” China cannot allow the US or its allies to occupy North Korea.
A US attack on North Korea would require a Chinese response and the Chinese have said as much in an editorial in the Chinese Global Times. The paper notes that “Beijing is not able to persuade Washington or Pyongyang to back down at this time,” but that “it needs to make clear… when their actions jeopardize China’s interests, China will respond with a firm hand.”
The editorial says that if North Korea strikes first China will remain neutral. This may be a tacit assurance that the North will not attack without provocation. Then it issues a warning: “If the US and South Korea carry out strikes and try to overthrow the North Korean regime and change the political pattern of the Korean Peninsula, China will prevent them from doing so.”
Regardless of whether China is goading North Korea forward behind the scenes or Kim is acting on his own, the brinksmanship is a most dangerous game that could easily get out of hand and lead to a major conflict. Whatever President Trump does, on the Korean peninsula and elsewhere, the Chinese will undoubtedly be watching.
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3)A very good example of how the media can influence perception!
That is especially true among younger people with no firsthand
knowledge and limited perception to begin with.
With all the hullabaloo about Mohammad Ali, albeit a great fighter,
here is one more silenced truth.
Rocky did not play with his foes, he simply beat the crap out of them!
The Greatest Heavyweight Champ
When's the last time you heard the name Marciano mentioned on any sports show?
If you grew up in the 40’s and 50’s, you listened to most of his
fights on radio since they weren't carried on the limited TV (ABC, NBC
& CBS) of the time and Pay Per View didn’t exist.
His fights with Ezzard Charles were epics. Rocky didn't know about
"Rope a Dope".
His secret trick was to just put his opponent to sleep in the middle
of the ring . . .. 49 wins and no losses.
Since he was white and boxing has been taken over by blacks, he will
never be given his due in this PC socially engineered society of the
last 60 years or so.
Since the Liberal/Progressives control our culture, society, media and
sports, Marciano and his record will be buried forever in sports
history.
He is the only undefeated (49 -0) Heavyweight Champion in the history of boxing.
He was also drafted and served in the army.
Just so you know…A lot of people have this title confused.
The Greatest Boxer of All Time: Didn't die recently...he died 47 years ago.
He didn't have 5 losses, he had 0. . .. None!
He didn't have 37 Knock Outs he had 43 (88%).
He didn't dodge the draft.
He wasn't a race baiter and sure as hell didn't convert to Islam.
He was a local kid named Rocky Marciano, aka The Brockton Blockbuster.
Don't let the mainstream media idolize false prophets. When he was
asked on TV if he could've knocked out Ali in his prime his response
was oh so classical!
"I'd be conceited if I said I could've, but I'd be a liar if I said I couldn't".
Real name: Rocco Francis Marchegiano
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