#METOO, NASHVILLE EDITION: Megan Barry’s lover Sgt Rob Forrest paid $53K more than other bodyguards combined. To be fair, he was providing more services.
The nice thing is, when you’re a female Democrat you can have an affair like this — at taxpayer expense — and a female columnist in the New York Times will womansplain how you’re the real victim here.
IT’S THE SPENDING, STUPID: Here Is Goldman’s Chart Showing Why The US Is Headed For “Banana Republic” Status.
Earlier today we discussed a report by Goldman Sachs which, when summarized, suggested that unless something significant changes in the coming years, the current US fiscal policy will lead to a debt catastrophe. In an unprecedented warning, the bank which spawned Trump’s chief economic advisor Gary Cohn, ironically the architect behind Trump’s fiscal strategy, warned that “the continued growth of public debt raises eventual sustainability questions if left unchecked.”
It is worth highlighting that for Goldman to warn that the US fiscal and debt trajectory is unsustainable is quite unprecedented, especially since it is the bank’s former President and COO who has put the US on that path.
And while we urge readers to get acquainted with Goldman’s list of concerns, all of which are very troubling, there is one specific chart which lays out clearly why the US is now headed for “banana republic” status amid developed economies when it comes to US debt sustainability, or in this case lack thereof.
That chart is below, and it shows total projected US Federal Debt on one axis, and US interest expense as a % of GDP on the other. The result is the red dot in the top right.
This year, doing nothing more than paying the interest on the already-accumulated debt will consume nearly every dollar of revenue generated by corporate taxes, excise taxes, and tariffs. And we’re not many years away from the vig growing larger than the defense budget.
And this spending spree is absent an economic downturn or a shooting war with a near-peer adversary.
POINTS AND FIGURES: There Is Gold In The Crumbs.
Spending time with my wife’s family, I heard some stories about those crumbs.
They had an aunt who had never been married. There were seven grandchildren associated with this aunt. When this aunt passed away, she left $7000 apiece to each of the grandchildren. That’s just crumbs isn’t it? Only a pittance, 7G.
What’s interesting is the stories. One family member funded an IRA with it. She has money to retire. Two others used it as the down payment on a house. They rolled that investment into bigger houses and places for their families.
Those crumbs add up.
Even a small infusion of capital, intelligently deployed, can make a huge difference.
WHO NEEDS DISCIPLINE? Did the Progressive ‘Broward County Solution’ Cost 17 Student Lives? “Broward County used to lead the state of Florida in sending students to the state’s juvenile justice system. County leaders responded with a perfectly progressive solution: ‘lower arrests by not making arrests.’ . . . One particular motivation behind programs like Broward County’s was the pressure from multiple sources to reduce the statistical disparity between black and Hispanic student arrests on one hand and white and Asian student arrests on the other.”
Plus: “By virtue of his name alone, Nikolas de Jesús Cruz, the adopted son of Lynda and Roger Cruz, became a statistical Hispanic. As such, authorities at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland had every reason not to report his troubling and likely criminal behavior to the police.”
CHANGE: Most Americans now support GOP tax law.
More money in your pocket will do that — money that the Democrats either voted against, derided as “crumbs,” or both.
SO THIS PIECE RAISES A QUESTION: Convinced of a Hillary victory, they thought nobody would ever know.
But if they thought Hillary was sure to win, why bother spying on Trump? A sinister reason: To prosecute him — for something, anything they could discover — after he lost, so as to properly cow Hillary’s opposition. That might be true, but on the other hand, LBJ spied on Goldwater when his win was assured, and Nixon did the same vs. McGovern. Why would unthreatened incumbents spy on opponents they expect to lose? Maybe they do it for the same reason a dog licks himself: Because he can.
Flashback: “Hypothesis: The spying-on-Trump thing is worse than we even imagine, and once it was clear Hillary had lost and it would inevitably come out, the Trump/Russia collusion talking point was created as a distraction.”
IF IT WEREN’T FOR FAKE NEWS WE’D HARDLY HAVE ANY NEWS AT ALL:
OH: CNN Host Frets Fox News Will Be Critical of Guest Comparing Russia Interference to Pearl Harbor.
CNN host Brian Stelter fretted Sunday that a Fox News host would be critical of his guest’s comparison of Russian meddling efforts in the U.S. election to Pearl Harbor after she made the reference on his program.
The hot topic on “Reliable Sources” Sunday was the handing down of 13 indictments of Russian nationals on Friday for illegal “information warfare” efforts through social media trolling, identity theft and other malfeasances as part of a systematic effort by the Kremlin to interfere in the 2016 election.
President Donald Trump has downplayed and even denied in the past that Russians meddled in the election and has called the notion his campaign colluded with the Kremlin a “hoax.” The White House said the indictments—which did not implicate any Americans—showed there was “no collusion.”
Washington Post columnist Karen Tumulty criticized Trump and his allies for talking about what was not in the indictments rather than address the Russian efforts to interfere in American politics. Trump tweeted Sunday “they are laughing their asses off in Moscow” at the Russia investigation.
“The obvious reaction is to look at the what the indictment says and then to say, ‘How are we going to deal with this? How are we going to address this?'” Tumulty said. “You look at the president’s tweets this morning, and try to imagine if Franklin D. Roosevelt after Pearl Harbor had gotten on the radio and said that Tokyo was laughing at us … That is not what is called upon a president to do right now.”
One was a sneak attack on the heart of our Pacific Fleet, resulting in thousands dead. The other was a low-rent social media buy with no discernible effects.
Surely, this is a comparison that will live in infamy.
FACEBOOK’S VP FOR ADS, ROB GOLDMAN, cites this article on Finland and information war. Three points: (1) So Facebook sold ads to the Russians, and now its argument is that the populace needs to be more critical of Facebook ads; (2) Maybe the article is right or maybe it’s just more government officials — Finnish this time — patting themselves on their backs; and (3) Assuming the article is true, then our ruling class, by deliberately fostering a populace that thinks in emotions, images, and tribalism so as to make it more susceptible to ruling-class propaganda, may have also created a populace that is more susceptible to enemy propaganda. Who could have seen that coming?
Totally unrelated: Democrats this weekend: “Forget what we were saying about the Tide Pod Challenge, high-schoolers should totally be able to vote.”
I’M EXPECTING AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM: Is the Yellowstone supervolcano close to erupting? Scientists detect more than 200 earthquakesin just 10 DAYS after warning that magma below the surface is showing signs of strain.
When I was growing up in St. Louis, we were taught that the New Madrid fault in southeast Missouri was overdue for a Big One — and that was 35 years ago.
FROM TERRY LACY: Jackal and the Fifth Reich.
An abducted princess–a kingdom in peril. Jag, Fancy and the crew of Jackal team up with an ancient Earth order to help a friend, save a kingdom, or die trying.
THEY ASKED HIM TO STOP BUT NEVERTHELESS HE PERSISTED: Farty passenger forces flight to make emergency landing.
THOUGH SOME SAY IT MIGHT BE JUST WIND: NASA finds possible evidence of water on Mars.
YES, BUT ARE PEOPLE WILLING TO BUY TICKETS TO SEE ALIEN MICROBES? Hollywood gets gigantic terrifying aliens all wrong.
SPEAKING OF THE BOOK BUSINESS: B&N’s latest debacle – an update.
IN DEFENSE OF THE FREE MARKET: I wish to make a complaint.
BUT THE LEFT LOVES MURDEROUS REGIMES: Exploit Much? CNN to Hold Town Hall with Florida Shooting Survivors.
AND YET IT’S TRUE: Trump Says Obama Didn’t Stop Russian Meddling, Media Erupts.
WAIT, IS KIM DU TOIT ARGUING FOR MODERATION? SOMEONE CHECK FOR PODS IN THE BASEMENT: Extra Ammo.
InstaPundit is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
