President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

Lost in all of Steve Bannon's evil is that Peter Navarro is to economics what Bannon is to civil liberties. I'll spare you the 4,000 word post (for the 500 word version), but this morning has been interesting. One thing when he spouts nonsense on the campaign trail. Now he is a trade advisor and currency markets notice.

One thing, though. ... this notion that keeps coming up. ... that Europe, China, Japan, etc. manipulate their currency and they are screwing America is dishonest beyond belief. Three rounds of quantitaitive easing by our central bank, which has more than a $4 TRILLION balance sheet to show for it. ... and their overnight lending rate pinned near zero for a decade. Does reality matter anymore?

EVERYONE is in over their heads in debt, including the U.S., and everyone has been taking turns in long-running currency war, to try to export their problems elsewhere. Navarro is a disingenuous prick.

Also, the U.S. trade imbalance is not because others are screwing the U.S. Our savings rate is miniscule. We benefit from being a reserve currency, too! We export dollars to others who want to hold them (as a reserve currency!). ... and in return they send us cheap goods. Take away the reserve currency status and see how much more debt the U.S. can run up.

These bozos are living as big a fantasy -- and are just plain dishonest -- as the past administration and the one before that were. It's just a different fantasy. The problem is that the rest of the world was on board with the old fantasies -- which allowed everyone to keep kicking the can down the road on what is going to be a horrific debt crisis and massive deleveraging that is inevitable. The rest of the world is NOT on board with their being ridiculously scapegoated by someone using nationalistic rhetoric.

These fuckwits are going to precipitate the mess that has been inevitable all long. What is sad for me, is that this was sown long ago. But people will focus on Trump, rather than the genesis of what is going to play out while he is presiding.