Erdogan, Obama's best Middle East friend, meets Trump. (See 1 and 1a below.)+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
My friend, John Fund, believes Pelosi is an albatross. (See 2 below.)
And:
Stacy Abrams definitely would be. (See 2a below.)
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Had California allowed Trump to build it ... (See 3 below.)
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The local paper finally posted the results of Chatham County schools regarding the state test exam results. As I noted several weeks ago, Savannah Classical Academy came through with flying colors but, lamentably, SCA is no longer the school it once was. Ben Payne is gone, The Hillsdale Curriculum is no more, applications have plummeted and discipline is sinking.
But those dumb test scores are up so all is not lost. Education has taken a hit but then education is not everything. Better we serve everyone else but the children.
Stay tuned, more to come.
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One of the problems with masters of the universe technology behemoths is they got too big for their britches and that opened the door for a Virginia Senator (not the one who married Liz Taylor), with an ax to grind and a personal agenda. Sen Warner now is proposing legislation, to slay the evil them's so as to protect us mortals .
Under the guise of their intruding on our freedom, which they are, and acting in an intimidating and biased manner, which they are, Sen. Warner has concluded it is time to step on the necks of the likes of those who created Google, Facebook etc. That the giants from Silicon Valley need a smack down is probably an overdue fact but crippling innovation in the process is likely to be Warner's unhealthy dividend.
As multiples of these stocks decline the impact on the over-all market cannot be ignored. (See 4 below.)
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Dick
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1) Trump could have saved Erdogan from himself. He kicked him instead.
Turkey’s worsening crisis is due to Erdogan’s megalomania, not Trump’s bullying, but Turks won't see it that way
Most people only became aware of the dire situation of the Turkish lira (TRY) late last week, when the “collapse” and “crisis” made headlines in the general media and came to totally dominate the financial media.
That’s understandable from a news point of view, because what happened to the TRY on Thursday and, most especially, its spectacular implosion on Friday – when it moved from a (record-low) close on Thursday of 5.55 to the dollar to 6.62, before closing at 6.51 – was truly extraordinary.
Add to that the cack-handed contribution of the European Central Bank to the rapidly-worsening crisis – the ECB helpfully highlighted the fact that several major European banks have significant exposure to Turkish debt – and it’s pretty obvious why markets around the world went into a funk.
More ‘helpful’ still was the tweet from POTUS that he was doubling the recent tariffs levied by the US on Turkish steel and aluminium exports. This was understood by the general media to be the cause of the intensified slump, thanks in no small part to Trump’s inane comment that relations between the US and Turkey were “very bad.”
However, the Turkish crisis did not start on Friday, or Thursday, or last week at all. It has been underway, and getting steadily worse, for some time – visibly for months, but in fact for much longer. Thus Trump did not cause it and his tariffs are not even a major factor, although – like most Trump moves – they carry considerable symbolic weight.
The collapse of the Turkish lira and the impending collapse of the Turkish banking system – and hence the threat of a general economic collapse – have been in the cards for a long time. Indeed they have actually been underway for some time, as the chart below shows. It is from a Bloomberg article from late May – before the recent election in Turkey – and relates to the steady slide in the TRY during May, which took it from 4.1 to the dollar on May Day to 4.8 three weeks later.
Indeed, any search for “Turkish lira” covering this year will be littered with “slump”, crisis”, “crash”, “crunch” and the rest of the relevant journalistic jargon, for July, June, May, April, in other words, long before the recent drama.
The same search will provide ample analysis of the factors behind this developing disaster – and Trump and his sanctions are not near the top of the list, if indeed they merit a mention at all. Rather, two key factors stand out.
One is that the Turkish economy, despite its enormous progress in the first decade of AKP/ Erdogan rule (from 2003), still has a major Achilles heel – its continued reliance on foreign funding. Put another way, Turkey suffers from a chronic deficit on its current account, which requires it to borrow from foreigners to keep moving ahead.
The second factor is not economic but political: the gradual ascent of Erdogan from the leadership clique of the AKP to ever-greater dominance in the party and country – accompanied by his steady descent into megalomania. His most recent electoral victory, which effectively made him president for life and gave him total control over the executive, as well as the legislative, branch of government was followed by the appointment of his son-in-law as finance minister and his elimination of the independence of the central bank.
As illustrated by the above chart, as well as considerable additional data all readily available, the events of last week are simply a rapid acceleration of an existing downward spiral. It is precisely for that reason that Trump’s move and his tweet are so stupid and counter-productive, even by his abysmal standards.
Seeing his adversary on the ropes, Trump could have made a helpful move, or even just a positive gesture, conditional on doing what Trump wanted (releasing the American pastor jailed by Turkey). But, being the slobbish bully that he is, he preferred to kick Erdogan as hard as he could.
The result, entirely predictable, is that Trump has given Erdogan an alibi – “the Americans are screwing us” – which may yet enable him to get himself off the hook for this disaster. Even if the crisis does result in Erdogan’s downfall, the Turkish public will believe that it was a foreign plot that brought him down – and a large number of non-Erdogan supporters will rally behind his successor out of patriotic sentiment.
Worse still, from an American perspective, the process already underway whereby Turkey is distancing itself from/ being pushed away by (choose your version) the West and into the waiting bear-hug of Putin’s Russia, will be given additional impetus. This will be the case even, perhaps especially, if Erdogan is forced to quit.
Meanwhile, if the Turkish crisis does spill over into Europe and the wider Middle East via the banking system and other financial channels, Trump will be blamed. The gathering backlash against the use and abuse of American financial power over the rest of the world – including supposed American allies – will gather steam.
The ability of the main political and economic powers to work together in the face of a crisis, which is eroding steadily, has just taken another hefty hit.
1a) Turkey's crisis could widen, and its options are running out
The financial crisis a decade ago struck at the very heart of the global economy – the strategically important banks in the United States and Europe. But it took time to arrive. The “big one” of 2008 followed a series of mini-crises elsewhere in the world.
Over a 15-year period, problems in the emerging markets worked their way to the heart of the international system. Mexico, Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea, Brazil, Russia and Argentina were all warning signs that unchaining global finance would eventually prove costly to the rich developed countries as well. Unfortunately, the warning signs were ignored.
That’s why Turkey matters. The recovery from the recession 10 years ago has been patchy. Trade tensions have been rising. Reform of the financial system has been incomplete. For the time being, Turkey looks like a localised crisis with no significant spillover effects. It has the potential to be more serious than that
For a start, it is a relatively big country, with a population of 80 million and an economy four times as big as neighbouring Greece. Turkey’s geopolitical significance extends beyond the fact that it straddles Europe and Asia. As a member of Nato, it has traditionally been seen as part of the west’s defence against Russian expansionism. It is also currently the home to 3 million Syrian refugees, many of whom would like to be living in the European Union.
What’s more, its problems – while acute – are not unique. Many emerging market economies borrowed heavily in dollars when American interest rates were at rock-bottom levels. The result was credit-driven growth, which starts to look fragile when – as now – the Federal Reserve is raising interest ratesand the dollar is strengthening.
Turkey, though, is in a class of its own. An economic and financial crisis that has been brewing all year has finally come to a head. Inflation has hit 15% and will inevitably be pushed higher because the lira is in free fall, dropping 14% on Friday alone. As Capital Economics have noted, when the rouble fell by a similar amount in 2014, the Russian central bank responded by raising interest rates by 6.5 percentage points and announced measures to support the banking system.
Russia had learnt lessons from its previous crisis, not least the need for ample foreign currency reserves to help defend the exchange rate. Turkey does not have deep pockets and has a president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has decided that the conventional response to a plunging currency – higher interest rates – is not for him.
Erdoğan is one of the world’s current crop of self-styled strongmen leaders but has the misfortune to come up against someone who is a lot stronger than he is. Relations between Turkey and the US are not good. The White House is unhappy that Erdoğan has put in an order with Vladimir Putin to buy Russian rather than American missiles. When Donald Trump announced economic sanctions against Iran last week, Erdoğan pointedly refused to take part. And, so far, Turkey has refused to release an American pastor, Andrew Brunson, held on disputed terrorism charges.
Trump chose his moment well. On Friday, when Turkey was in chaos, he announced that he was doubling tariffs on imported steel and aluminium, vital to the Turkish economy. Talk about kicking someone when they are down.
Erdoğan has insisted that he will not be browbeaten into submission but has few realistic options. To be sure, Turkey can seek to put pressure on Trump by saying that it will quit Nato and forge closer ties with Russia. Erdoğan could warn the EU that it will face a new inflow of migrants unless it intervenes on his behalf.
But what the financial markets are looking for are not diplomatic moves that demonstrate Turkey’s geopolitical importance but rather economic measures to prevent a potentially ruinous tsunami of selling over the coming days. In that respect, failure to tackle the signs of trouble earlier will now prove costly.
Erdoğan’s answer to the financial crisis – that his followers should do their patriotic duty and exchange rapidly appreciating US dollars for ever-more worthless Turkish lira – is laughable. Indeed, it will merely add to the belief in the world’s financial markets that Turkey is being led by a man who has lost touch with reality.
It is clear what needs to happen. Turkey has to tackle the three causes of its current predicament: an overheating economy; Erdoğan’s attempts since his re-election in June to prevent the central bank from taking the necessary action to deal with rising prices; and the stand-off with the US.
For Erdoğan, that means eating a huge plateful of humble pie. He is going to have to surrender to Trump over Brunson, because he is damaging the economy by continuing with a fight he cannot win. And he will need to accept that tough and unpopular measures are now inevitable to prevent a total collapse in the currency leading to hyper-inflation.
Interest rates are already at 17.75%, but with inflation poised to go to 20% over the coming months, are nowhere near high enough to put a floor under the lira.
Judging by his actions so far, Erdoğan’s next move will be to impose capital controls. However, as Paul Greer of Fidelity International notes, Turkey is a relatively open economy and requires a large amount of finance from overseas. Capital controls would not work on their own and would need to be supplemented by a rescue package from the International Monetary Fund.
It’s either that, though, or a display of shock and awe from the central bank. Turkey is running out of options and running out of time. And that should be a concern for all of us.
The Guardian is editorially independent, meaning we set our own agenda. Our journalism is free from commercial bias and not influenced by billionaire owners, politicians or shareholders. No one edits our Editor. No one steers our opinion. This is important because it enables us to give a voice to the voiceless, challenge the powerful and hold them to account. It’s what makes us different to so many others in the media, at a time when factual, honest reporting is critical.
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2) Nancy Pelosi Is Damaging Democrats’ Takeover Chances
Will her party reach out to swing voters by persuading her to step aside?
Will Democrats pull an “October Surprise” this year and announce that the highly polarizing Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco won’t be their candidate for House speaker after all? Growing up in the Bay Area, I saw Pelosi’s iron will and stubbornness up close for decades. The possibility of her stepping back seems remote. But she’s also the shrewd tactician who always tells moderate Democrats they can publicly spurn her because the imperative is “Just win, baby.” If the race for House control is close in October, many Democrats hope she’ll step back to deprive the GOP of a campaign issue.
Some Democrats are willing to publicly acknowledge that the highly liberal Pelosi alienates independents and moderates. “People pretend that it isn’t a problem, but it’s a problem that exists,” Representative Brian Higgins (D., N.Y.) told the Washington Post last week. He said frustrated colleagues told him that Republicans’ anti-Pelosi ads cost Democrats the House special election in Ohio, where they trailed by only 1,500 votes. One third of the national ads run by Republicans in that race mentioned Pelosi, and she became a real issue when Democrat Danny O’Connor, after first saying that Democrats need “new leadership,” finally admitted he would vote for her as speaker over a Republican if Democrats put her forward: “I would support whoever the Democratic party put forward.” This comment dominated local coverage of the House race for the week leading up to the special election.
Higgins says that challengers in other competitive districts are getting the same treatment when it comes to Pelosi: “They are stuck with that question, and they do not deal with it well. You equivocate, and it jams you up, and it costs you votes.”
Pelosi is toxic enough that NBC News reported on Friday that she might have trouble winning the necessary 218 votes for speaker even if Democrats become a majority of the House:
At least 42 of the party’s nominees for House seats have declared they will not back Pelosi, and nine incumbent Democratic lawmakers are on the record opposing her, bringing the total to 51. An additional 34 Democratic nominees are neither for nor against Pelosi, who has led her party in the House since 2003.
Donna Edwards, a former Democratic congresswoman of Maryland, supported Pelosi while she was in the House, but said on Meet the Press today that if Democrats win back the House in November, the current nervousness of their candidates about Pelosi doesn’t mean they’ll abandon her if she runs for speaker:
Nancy Pelosi is the best vote counter ever. And she’s not going to run for speaker unless she believes that she can get the votes to do it. . . . But you know what, I think she may deserve it. I mean, she’s already raised almost $90 million for Democrats across the country. She knows that, you know, she can be a lightning rod. And you know what she says? She says, “Just win, baby.” Because she knows that when they come in, they’re going to have to make the decision, she’s the one who brought them there.
The attacks on Pelosi will only intensify as Election Day approaches, and her current poll numbers are already remarkably low. A new American Barometer poll found that only 27 percent of voters wanted her to stay as Democratic leader. Nearly half of Democrats thought it was time for a fresh start. So did 79 percent of independents.
“Democrats are split on whether to keep Nancy Pelosi as leader, and independents and most voter groups want someone else to step up,” said Dritan Nesho, the CEO of HarrisX, the survey taker. “The findings suggest a yearning for change.”
Every election season, speculation rises about whether there will be an “October surprise” that will upend the contest. In 2016, we had two: the reopening of the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private server and emails, and the infamous Access Hollywood tape that was supposed to sink Donald Trump but didn’t.
Repu
Democrats privately scoff that Pelosi’s departure could be this year’s surprise. Instead, they are focusing on the recent accusations from disgruntled former White House staffer Omarosa Manigault-Newman, who also was a guest on today’s Meet the Press. Omarosa predicted that a tape of Trump using the “N-word” against African Americans would surface shortly before the election: “I know it exists, and what I regret is that these people are probably trying to leverage it as this October surprise.” I have no idea whether such a tape exists, but I rate Omarosa’s overall credibility on a par with that of fabulists.
A “Bye, Nancy” pass to appeal to swing voters strikes me as at least as likely if not more so as an October surprise. Republicans haven’t been buoyed by the strong economy as much as they thought they would be. They will probably fall back on warning voters about what a return to power by increasingly liberal Democrats would mean: efforts to scale back border controls and even abolish ICE, higher taxes and more regulation, and a focus on impeaching President Trump. Despite her best efforts to downplay such issues, Nancy Pelosi is easily identified with this left-wing agenda.
Democrats know that such last-minute attacks have worked before. In previous elections, such as 1996 and 2012, their late-summer optimism turned to November ashes under withering Republican attack ads that warned what a return to Democratic control would mean.
2a) The Democrats in the state of Georgia are playing identity politics. They are supporting a black female candidate, so that she could be the first black Governor in the Southern State of Georgia.
2a) The Democrats in the state of Georgia are playing identity politics. They are supporting a black female candidate, so that she could be the first black Governor in the Southern State of Georgia.
This is called identity politics because they’re not interested in the policies that Stacy Abrams represents.
Her policies should be soundly rejected by common sense Georgians. Socialism does not represent the values of our state.
Abrams is being heavily financed by the far left, the Hollywood elites, East coast liberals, and George Soros.
She is unfit and here are just a few reasons why:
1. She plans to roll back the 5 billion tax cut implemented by the Republicans, wants to maintain Obamcare, and brags about her "F" rating by the NRA.
2. 71 % of her campaign funding is from out of state.
3. Stacy refuses to pay her taxes, but wants to raise yours. She loaned her campaign $50,000. even though she owes the IRS $54,000.
4. Abram's non profit, New Georgia Project was investigated for fraud by state government. Her non profit submitted forged voter applications to the secretary of state's office.
5. She is heavily support by Hillary Clinton and Socialist Bernie Sanders.
Stacy would be a disaster for Georgia's business friendly economy.
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3) EDITORIAL: High-speed rail in California has become a slow-motion train wreck
High-speed rail in California has turned into a slow-motion train wreck. At least it provides a case study in how inaccurate — or untruthful — government experts are when it comes to predicting the cost of new programs.
In 2008, California voters approved a $10 billion bond to start building a bullet train from San Francisco to Los Angeles. In the supposedly neutral description of the proposal, a legislative analyst determined the route, along with spurs to San Diego and Sacramento, would cost $45 billion. Proponents promised that speeds of up to 220 mph would allow riders to go from “Los Angeles to San Francisco in about 2½ hours for about $50 a person.” They also said California could pay the bond back “without raising taxes.”
Surprise! Ten years later, none of that has happened. The cost of the bullet train has grown from $45 billion to $64 billion to $78 billion. The latest estimate puts the final price at $100 billion, with a completion date of 2033.
To save money, the rail authority has resorted to reducing speeds. Instead of building 30 miles of elevated track south of San Francisco, it now wants to put track on land owned by Union-Pacific. For that section of track, train speed would drop to 110 mph. Overall, almost one-third of the route now faces speed restrictions. A train with only one or two stops would now travel between San Francisco and Los Angeles in 3.5 hours. Most trains would take more than 4 hours.
As ride times have gotten slower, ticket prices have soared. The rail agency has projected prices at $83, $105 and now $186. Southwest currently has midweek September flights from L.A. to San Francisco for $48 a ticket. The flight is just one hour and 25 minutes. The train is on track to demand passengers pay higher prices for a slower trip.
That’s assuming that the full line gets built, which is far from a sure thing. The rail authority has obtained less than $30 billion in funding, so it’s decided to complete a line between Fresno and Bakersfield. No really. That’s the plan. It wants to show the train is viable and then dare elected officials to reject their requests for more money — and tax hikes.
California’s bullet-train boondoggle provides a concrete example of why taxpayers should dismiss the rosy projections of the Las Vegas monorail backers.
Here’s a simple standard for future high-speed rail pipe dreams. If a private company isn’t willing to put up its own money to construct it, don’t force the beleaguered taxpayers to build it.
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4)
Warner’s Plan to Ruin the Internet
The senator has 20 points. Even Woodrow Wilson didn’t need more than 14.
By Andy Kessler
Virginia Sen. Mark Warner made millions in the murky world of government-issued cellular licensing. He parlayed his riches into a governorship and U.S. Senate seat. Today, from his perch as vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mr. Warner has produced a 20-point plan to take on Facebook , Google and other tech giants with “potentially insuperable competitive advantages over new entrants.” Insuperable! Of course most of his proposals would end up locking the big guys in place while freezing innovation.
No matter. The shallow-analysis pundit class jubilated. Mr. Warner and Democrats could “crack down on Big Tech,” “tame social media,” and “knock Silicon Valley into shape.” Woo-hoo. The cheerleaders’ only complaint is the lack of a 21st proposal: breaking up the tech giants. Still, Mr. Warner wants to show that techland has gotten too big for its breeches and that the center of power radiates from the Hill—not the Valley. But he forgets that there’s one market to rule them all.
Good luck getting through Mr. Warner’s 23-page report. It’s filled with impossible-to-implement mandates (identify bots), silly bromides (addressing the safety and security of at-risk individuals), and dangerous power grabs (updating Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act). If even a handful of these proposals become law, faceless bureaucrats would control the internet instead of energetic entrepreneurs. No one would win under this new internet. And compliance costs would be so massive that no new startups would emerge.
Mr. Warner appears to have a John Kerry-like admiration for the power of European Union regulators. Europe’s stringent General Data Protection Regulation was one of the biggest power grabs in recent history and has lighted a fire under U.S. legislators hoping to emulate it. It would be a huge mistake. GDPR almost assures that no new innovations will come out of Europe.
And the Continent is already feeble—of the top 100 global technology companies, only 13 are in Europe. Bet you can’t name three. Heck, half are local consulting companies that shouldn’t even count. Why set up a company in Europe when the rules are so bent toward excess expense and certain failure? An American GDPR would turn the U.S. into Europe, making America’s technology industry french toast. But that’s one of Mr. Warner’s goals.
Consider the sop to lawyers. One of the magical characteristics of the online world is that anyone can post anything. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act provides immunity to the Facebooks, Googles and Twitter s of the world with one simple sentence: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” This allows platforms to host almost anything, as well as block content based on community standards, without being sued.
Mr. Warner proposes to change all that and “make platforms liable for state-law torts.” Specifically, “a revision to Section 230 could provide the ability for users who have successfully proved that sharing of particular content by another user constitutes a dignitary tort.” I can imagine campaign contribution manna and long lines to file class-action suits in the plaintiff paradise known as the Eastern District of Texas. But no one would ever create an online platform again.
Then there’s the loss of anonymity. About half of Mr. Warner’s proposals could end namelessness on the internet as it’s understood today. Forcing platforms to determine origins of posts, requiring disclosure of political ads, and onerous information fiduciary rules would all create a new internet paradigm. Get ready for universal ID and real identities for all online clicks. User trust for media platforms is fought for and earned over years. Americans don’t want politicians’ blessings to determine trusted content, lest the U.S. end up with the BBC—or worse, Pravda.
Mr. Warner has flexed his congressional muscles and made a point. Now he can go away. China’s industrial policy and Europe’s GDPR are recipes for failure against our relatively unfettered free-market approach. Facebook’s dropping $120 billion within a week of Apple’s hitting $1 trillion in market value show the power of markets to squeeze failure and invigorate innovation.
New ideas come from new insurgents. Google didn’t spin out of CBS. Amazon didn’t simmer inside Sears. iPhones weren’t incubated at IBM . Why handicap ingenuity? Warner-like policies only stagnate innovation while the future happens elsewhere, like China. That’s dangerous.
Mr. Warner’s bashing of technology may seem populist, but unlike hating the phone company—one ringy dingy, two ringy dingy—the posting majority are happy using Facebook and Twitter, warts and all. Politicians beware: You break the internet, you own it.
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