The Conservative Cave

Ocelot II (132,958 posts)

How did everything get so *stupid*?

It isn't just that everything is bad, it's that it's industrial-strength, weapons-grade stupid on top of being spectacularly bad. We've never had this stupid kind of bad before. Bush I, for example, was a bad president. Iraq was a disaster. You could reasonably argue that invading Iraq was stupid on top of being bad, but Bush (Cheney and Rumsfeld, actually) had articulable, if wrong, reasons for doing it. It wasn't a random thing that they decided to do because they were getting bored and just felt like doing some war fighting, or maybe they wanted to distract from some other scandal. Their reasons were based on a destructive neocon theory of nation-building, a desire to control the middle east and extract its oil, eliminate an inconvenient leader, and find someone to blame for 9/11 that wasn't the Saudi allies. Bad reasons, but reasons. What have we got now? A senile, half-mad "leader" who starts a war that's not a war for no particular reason at all, except maybe the Epstein files and a fit of misplaced imperialism (Venezuela was a cake-walk, after all, right?), without stopping to think about geography. Six months later and there's no plausible exit strategy and it's looking more like Iraq and Vietnam combined, only dumber. So what does he do next? Start a completely stupid, pointless, destructive trade war with Canada, and for the frosting on the cow pie, performatively renaming a lake, also without thinking about geography, just to be a dick, and maybe because Carney told him to suck his balls. It's stupid and it gets stupider every single damn day. When does the stupid stop, or does it?

https://democraticunderground.com/100221475302

Where did you get this 13% number? Maybe you got it from a creditable source. I kind of doubt it as you never seem to back up your fantasies with any source. Until you can offer sources for your stories they remain just STUPID

The WashPost, being typical Prog-Faithful are playing word games. "No criminal record" means tried and convicted. The phrase excludes those awaiting trial; it excludes those that Lib/Progs DAs declined to prosecute; it excludes those whose crimes were revealed by their arrest. Among the latter would be working: under the table; for an employer who does not check eligibility; stealing someone's identity to get necessary documents.

The latter case is particularly damaging, as it screws up some unsuspecting innocent's tax and Social Security status.

Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent a heavily footnoted nastygram that is accessible online here. Secretary Bessent responded in a letter that is accessible via X here. Secretary Bessent’s letter has been covered in the press — here in the New York Post, here at CNBC, and here at Bloomberg.

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I am in receipt of your August 13 letter, which unfortunately reveals that you know even less about foreign exchange markets than you do about banking. Terrifyingly, the opening paragraph is wrong about where the money came, what the transaction was, and whether there was even a borrower. What is equally shocking, but not surprising: not a single member of your media mob has a rudimentary-enough level of financial market literacy to spot your remedial error.

Treasury exchanged existing Exchange Stabilization Fund foreign-currency assets for yen. No new congressional appropriation was involved, and no credit was extended to Japan. Japan owes Treasury nothing. There is therefore no risk that Japan will fail to repay a debt that does not exist.

You state that it is “not clear” how preventing disorder in Japan benefits the United States. As your letter notes, Japan is a major holder of U.S. Treasuries. It is also a critical trading partner and a treaty ally. Disorderly yen markets can trigger forced unwinds, which could destabilize global markets and ultimately raise borrowing costs for American families and businesses. For a fuller explanation, I recommend any entry-level course in international finance for you and your staff, or I can give you a tutorial on Foreign Exchange for Dummies.