Today's Belle

Russia signed on to the Budapest Agreement in the early 90s, promising to assure Ukraine's security.

Russia signed on to Article 147 of the Geneva Conventions - the part that makes it a war crime to attack civilians and civilian infrastructure. 

I'll Take The W

The Math Don't Math

Trump:

"Medicare - Medicaid - none of that stuff is going to be touched."

The CBO file

Ready For A Showdown?

Random-ish thoughts:

• We have to tax the rich now, so we don't have to eat them later
• Double the Social Security cap, and the system is good for generations. Remove it, and the surplus takes care of practically everything seniors will ever need
• Tell Elon to keep his grubby mitts off my stuff
• Republicans aren't trying to eliminate waste fraud and abuse - they're trying to install it. If you're impressed with the way the Russian military is working, you're gonna love privatized schools and Social Security

IF WE TAX THE RICH NOW

WE WON'T HAVE TO EAT THEM LATER

Not Just Sittin' There

Trump is likely to get a rude surprise if he tries to move against the EU.

Today's Belle

Guest Contribution: “The Trade War Has Cost 175,000 Manufacturing Jobs and Counting”

Today, we are pleased to present a guest contribution written by Lydia Cox (Harvard University) and Kadee Russ (University of California, Davis), both formerly on the staff of the Council of Economic Advisers.

A study released in December by Aaron Flaaen and Justin Pierce, two highly respected experts in trade and labor markets, was widely covered in the press. “Trump Tariffs led to job losses, higher prices for businesses,” was the most succinct and comprehensive among the article titles.

Some of the coverage noted the statistic in Footnote 10 on page 19 of the Flaaen and Pierce study: By mid-2019, manufacturing employment ended up 1.4 percent lower than would have been the case without the tariffs levied in 2018-2019, likely due to a combination of increased costs of production and retaliatory tariffs. Yet it was hard to find in the articles an articulation of how many jobs this represents in level terms.

Exactly how many jobs is 1.4 percent of pre-trade-war manufacturing employment? Take 1.4 percent of 12.5 million, the number of manufacturing jobs at the end of January 2017, the month before the trade war began. The answer is 175,000 manufacturing jobs missing by mid-2019. Flaaen and Pierce’s study suggests that increased costs for imported inputs account for about two thirds of the total reduction in manufacturing employment. Retaliatory tariffs account for the remaining third.

In fact, more than 175,000 jobs disappeared: this figure nets out the roughly 40,000 jobs that may have been added or protected in industries benefitting from tariff protection. Furthermore, the estimate captures the decline in manufacturing employment only through mid-2019, but the tariffs have remained in place for a year since that time, likely leading to additional losses.

Digging a little deeper, we see evidence in Figure B5a that within this number, about 75,000 of these missing manufacturing jobs (about 0.6 percent of manufacturing employment, once we weight by the average cost share of steel) are associated with the Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum that went into effect in March 2018. A potential positive impact on employment from import protection is much smaller and not significantly different from zero. The steel and aluminum tariffs plausibly may have led to an increase of 1,000 jobs in these industries and kept a few thousand more from disappearing. See our Econofact memo for more on this.

Flaaen and Pierce’s study design filters out effects of macroeconomic conditions like variation in the value of the dollar and changes in economic growth overseas. By doing so it can plausibly be seen as a conservative estimate if the escalating tariff war led to the dollar strengthening against some currencies or dampened global growth, as downward revisions in growth forecasts by the IMF and OECD have suggested. Moreover, the estimate of 175,000 missing manufacturing jobs does not include adverse effects on employment that may have occurred due to the way that trade policy uncertainty dampened investment and industrial production during that period across many countries, according to macroeconomists Dario Caldara, Matteo Iacoviello, Patrick Molligo, Andrea Prestipino, and Andrea Raffo.

In addition to job losses, tariffs create a burden on households in the form of higher prices on goods and the inconvenience of having to substitute away from goods targeted by tariffs. Estimates assess the costs of the trade war from January 2018 to June 2019 at about $800 per household. Considering the macroeconomic effects of the trade policy uncertainty more than doubles this figure. The study by Caldara, Iacoviello, Molligo, Prestipino, and Raffo captures the overall impact of the trade war during that period, including trade policy uncertainty and attendant effects on national output through its adverse impact on investment and industrial production. They estimate that the trade war caused the U.S. economy be 1 percent smaller in 2020 than it would have been without the tariffs, equating to an average cost of $1700 per household. See this Econofact memo for a comparison and discussion of overall costs of the trade war, or more on the macroeconomic impacts of unilateralism here.

Today's Belle

Cutting USAID hammers US farmers and the commodities markets. Is that really a good America First kinda thing?

She's been on fire lately.

Today's Belle

This may be what we have to do - use Trump's favorite tactic against him.

ie: Delay, appeal, delay, appeal, delay, appeal ... repeat as needed.

Today's Belle

From their 2nd site - The Roads With Belle

Trump's ridiculous Gaza gambit.

Today's Belle

Not A Good Start

So there won't be a honeymoon, and prices won't be coming down quickly, and the big-ass omnibus bill is a bit too complicated to get done before summer - if then - and the mass deportations will have wait a while, and at least some of Trump's cabinet picks are going to meet with resistance.

But hey - on the bright side, John Thune says he'll provide a little Congress 101 Tutorial for MAGA's mango-faced ape god so maybe he'll be a little less stupid about what it actually takes to get the whole governance thing done.

Fake Jesus have mercy.

On Sausage-Making

The gang of nine:

1. Roy
2. Massie
3. Norman
4. Biggs
5. Clyde
6. Cloud
7. Gosar
8. Harris
9. Perry

... with Spartz and Ogles in reserve.

And it just so happens that the new rules require 9 votes for a Motion To Vacate.

Johnson probably can't get anything done without throwing large bones to the Tantrum Caucus, so we might see an awful lot of monkey-in-the-middle type negotiations as he tries to get the Democrats to help him - which of course will require throwing large bones to them as well.

Check Your Algorithm

One of the best written pieces I've seen in quite a while.

Today's Belle

Whether you're a politician, or an operative, or a pundit, or a reporter, or a casual observer, the main skill you need to develop is Vote-Counting - the ability to gauge where people are in the process of deciding which way they're most likely to go on any given issue.

Belle and Beau and the gang have been pretty good at it, but they always make it clear that anything can happen between the overhearing of whispers in the cloakroom, and when it's time to go on record and cast your vote in public.

My 2¢:

On the GOP side, this is a continuing fight between congress critters who at least want to make it all look like 'regular order', and the bomb-throwers who are champin' at the bit to create a full-blown constitutional crisis.

Monday, January 6th, is when Congress gets together to certify the electoral votes - and I'm not at all sure that anybody knows what happens if there's no Speaker by then.

Today's Belle

A recap and status report on that foreign stuff

• South Korea - sitting presidents can be arrested and charged with crimes
• Syria & Gaza - yeah, good luck with that Middle East shit
• Panama - here it is, asshole - come and get it
• Greenland - wait, what? Climate Change isn't a hoax?
• Ukraine - Trump's fantasy peace deal is going nowhere

Today's Belle

There's trouble in MAGA paradise.

BTW - notice how MAGA loves to bitch about American kids not being taught the good STEM stuff, while they diligently avoid talking about the problems caused by 45 years of GOP attacks on public schools.

 

It's the same as their constant griping about the loss of the "nuclear family structure" while ignoring the fact that Republicans have stripped everything out of the economic system that made it possible for the average one-income family to survive.

Simple translation: Hey, MAGA, do y'all just never get tired of being played like a cheap banjo?

MAGA civil war breaks out over American "mediocrity" culture

A MAGA-world civil war erupted over Christmas when a social media post on American culture turned into a pitched battle over race, immigration and billionaires versus the working class.

Why it matters:

The fight exposes one of the MAGA movement's deepest contradictions: It came to prominence chiefly via the white, less-educated, working class but is now under the full control of billionaire technologists and industrialists, many of them immigrants.

• It also sets up a tense MAGA vs. DOGE moment that could infect the early stages of President-elect Trump's second presidency.
• While some want to make America great by restricting immigration and promoting the American worker, others want to cut costs and increase efficiency no matter who does the work.

Catch up quick:

The skirmishes started Sunday when Trump named venture capitalist Sriram Krishnan as his adviser on AI policy.

• Krishnan's appointment triggered an anti-Indian backlash on social media, particularly given his past advocacy for lifting caps on green cards.

Vivek Ramaswamy escalated the conflict into a full-blown war Thursday morning with a post on X blaming an American culture that "venerated mediocrity over excellence" for the growth in foreign tech workers.

• "A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers," Ramaswamy wrote, calling for a 1950s-style "Sputnik moment" to prioritize "nerdiness over conformity."
• "That's the work we have cut out for us, rather than wallowing in victimhood & just wishing (or legislating) alternative hiring practices into existence," he said.

Between the lines:

Elon Musk's X is the town square for the MAGA movement, and by stepping into that square and firmly criticizing American culture — while praising the immigrant work ethic and parenting model — Ramaswamy threw down a gauntlet.

• Musk spent most of the afternoon trying to defend his DOGE co-leader and explain his argument, framing it as using immigration to supplement, rather than replace, American workers.
• "Maybe this is a helpful clarification: I am referring to bringing in via legal immigration the top ~0.1% of engineering talent as being essential for America to keep winning," Musk wrote.

The problem for many MAGA adherents, though, was accepting the very notion of immigrants telling them America needs more immigration to fill lucrative jobs in America.

• It revived old tensions around the H-1B visa, which is reserved for people who "perform services in a specialty obligation" but practically speaking has become a crucial tool of Silicon Valley's growth.
• In some recent years, as many as 75% of those petitioning for that visa came from India, from where Ramaswamy's parents immigrated.

What they're saying:

"The Woodstock generation managed to build out aerospace, the one before went to the moon, America was doing great. Underlying your post is that we were all living in squalor until being rescued by H-1B's. Then why did everyone want to come here?" right-wing personality Mike Cernovich responded to Ramaswamy on X.

• "There is nothing wrong with American workers or American culture. All you have to do is look at the border and see how many want what we have. We should be investing and prioritizing in Americans, not foreign workers," Nikki Haley, the former GOP presidential candidate and herself a daughter of Indian immigrants, wrote.
• "I want the little guy to matter too. Not everyone has $1 million but they still love their country and want to MAGA and close the border," far-right activist Laura Loomer posted.
• Loomer posted a series of missives throughout the afternoon, calling out Ramaswamy, Musk and anyone else in Trump's orbit who isn't fully committed to closing the borders.

Zoom out:

The fracture was familiar to anyone who's seen a movement expand — early adopters criticizing the latecomers for bringing different ideas.

• "Tech bros who took 8+ years to figure out that President Trump is not the bad guy and is in fact, the solution to America's problems, are really out here pontificating to MAGA patriots who figured it out a decade before them?" conservative streaming host Brenden Dilley posted on X.

The bottom line:

For now the fight is mostly confined to X. But it's sure to raise difficult questions in the coming days about what Trump's administration will mean for immigration, labor and the American worker.

• It will also potentially settle a looming conflict over who has the most influence in Trump 2.0 — his historic base or his new-found techno-libertarian allies.

Bingo For Billionaires

Today's Belle

At this point, who still believes he even has "concepts of a plan"? On anything.

Today's Belle

So Trump loses one in the Senate, and I worry that people will think the guardrails have held, so we can all relax and slip back into our default apathetic haze.

But standing up and torpedoing one nomination does not a rebellion make.

For one thing, Trump turned around and nominated Pam Bondi for USAG. You may remember that Bondi (Florida AG at the time) declined to charge Trump with anything over his "Trump University" flimflam, and it was learned not too much afterward that she had taken a $25,000 "donation" from the Trump Foundation.

So the improvement here is that we've gone from "Dude-What-The-Actual-Fuck?" to "Wow-Really?"

The Senate gets up on its hind legs for a change and strikes the heroic pose, but there's a real possibility that "winning" this one could turn out to be cover for a less egregious-looking capitulation later.

BTW, Matt Gaetz could be right back in the House in January. It's pretty murky, but I keep hearing that having resigned from the 118th Congress, he could be sworn in to the 119th because he won re-election for it.

So, I think we may be in store for a whole new fucked up side show as Gaetz tries to sue his way back into his seat.

Today's Belle

What's to stop him?

If he does what he says he intends to do (admittedly, always a big if), and it stands to trigger the kinda of global shit storm they say it will, who's there to stop him this time?

And if it gets to be as bad as they say it's bound to get, how fast can the Republicans move to finish totally fucking up the elections process so 'we the people' can't do anything about it either?

The explainers from Impartial Points: