but the smart money
says that they have no idea
what they are doing

Adapted from the article, Trump’s tax cuts and Musk’s Doge show they have no idea about US debt by Jeffrey Frankel.

Mr. Frankel is professor of capital formation and growth at Harvard University and he is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

He writes:

During Trump’s first term in office, he added $8tn to the national debt – all previous presidents combined had accumulated $20tn – despite having promised to run budget surpluses so large that they would eliminate the national debt within two terms.

In the campaign, he vowed to cut taxes for seemingly every group that caught his fancy. According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget’s central estimate, Trump’s tax proposals imply $10tn in forgone revenue over the next 10 years. Add to that an extra $1tn in interest accrued on the national debt, and the losses far exceed the $3tn in added revenue that would come from the sky-high tariffs Trump has pledged to introduce. This will require the federal government to sell a lot of bonds – a practice that will keep their price low and interest rates high.

Oh well, so the Emperor has no clothes.

When has anyone noticed before?

When has anyone cared?

Mr. Frankel closes with the line: Supporters often say that a businessman like Trump or Musk will know how to put America’s fiscal house in order. But the smart money says they have no idea what they are doing.

I am reminded of something Harry Truman was supposed to have said.

President Truman said, some claim, that he did not fire General Douglas MacArthur for being a dumb son-of-a-bitch.

He didn’t, Truman said, because that isn’t against the law for Generals.

kakistocracy …
government run by the worst
and least qualified

From Wikipedia:
A kakistocracy is a government run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens. The word was coined as early as the seventeenth century. Peter Bowler has noted in his book that there is no word for the government run by the best citizens, and that the aristarchy may be the right term, but still, it could conceivably be a kakistocracy disguised as an aristocracy

The term is generally used by critics of a country’s government. It has been variously used in the past to describe the Russian government under Boris Yeltsin and later Vladimir Putin, the government of Egypt under Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, governments in sub-Saharan Africa, the government of the Philippines under Rodrigo Duterte, and several United States presidential administrations. The term saw increased usage during the presidency of Donald Trump, going viral when MSNBC host Joy Reid and former CIA Director John Brennan used it to insult Trump in 2017 and 2018 respectively. The word was used by commentators in numerous newspapers, political publications, and books to describe the Trump administration.

I am reminded of how David Halberstam wrote the definitive book on the Kennedy Administration with the title, The Best and the Brightest.

Mr. Halberstam said that at one time he meant the title to be ironic, as if it should have a question mark, IE The Best and the Brightest?

Over time, as more and more Presidential Administrations piled up, the question mark, in retrospect, came off.

Maybe one day, like Gothic or Impressionism, Kakistocracy will take on a meaning almost unimaginable today.

Of course, that thought is predicated on the idea the following Presidential Administrations will … be worse.

We may be living in the golden age.

if you’re not tired,
please do not write to tell me
… was rhetorical

Are you feeling tired? I’m going to take an educated guess that the answer is yes. I think I know maybe one person who isn’t tired. One of the most devastating moments of motherhood for me has been recovering from the trauma of a year of sleep deprivation only to discover that I am still tired, and I probably will be for the next 25 years, by which point I’ll be tired because I’ll be old.

From the article, Are you tired all the time? Me too – but I think I’ve worked out why by Moya Sarner. in the Guardian on 11/18/2024.

It wasn’t so much the article that caught my eye as was the footnote.

The footnote that read: If you are not tired, please do not write to me to tell me this. It was a rhetorical question and I’m envious enough already. I know you well rested, perky people are out there; please just enjoy not being tired and eat your spirulina.

And I had to look up spirulina.

Spirulina is a type of blue-green algae that is rich in protein, vitamins, minerals, carotenoids, and antioxidants that can help protect cells from damage.

Not sure why if I am not sleepy, I should be eating spirulina but there you are.

any nation
so conceived, so dedicated,
can it long endure?

It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion

that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain;

that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom;

and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

I never felt these words to be so much more a warning than words of encouragement.

Was it all false?

Was it always a hypocrisy?

The slave owners who wrote out that all men were created equal?

People always have been the foolish victims of deception and self-deception in politics, and they always will be until they have learnt to seek out the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises.

At least that is what that feller Lenin said.

Today is the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address.

It was on November 19, 1863 that Mr. Lincoln said those words in closing to his remarks dedicating a cemetary.

He opened his remarks saying,

… our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

So conceived and so dedicated …

When I was a kid I read those words not as SO FROM THE FACT but as SO MUCH …

Those words used to matter.

Liberty and created equal.

We shall see, once again, if they can long endure.

succumbed criminal pride
vanquished by the free peoples
it tried to enslave

On November 11, 1918, an armistice was signed to end the fighting known as then, the Great War and now as the humble, World War 1.

According to one travel website, To avoid humiliating the German delegation, Marshal Foch sought an out-of-the-way location near Paris. For this reason, the Rethondes Clearing in the Compiègne Forest was chosen. The World War I Armistice was signed on 11 November 1918 by the Allies and the German plenipotentiaries.

The allied commander in chief, Marshall Ferdinand Foch had his personal rail car moved to a rail siding in the Compiegne forest and in this rail car, the armistice was signed.

The forest clearing or Clairière de l’Armistice (“Glade of the Armistice”, or “Armistice Clearing”) became a memorial and large monument went up with the legend:

Here on the eleventh of November 1918 succumbed the criminal pride of the German Reich. Vanquished by the free peoples which it tried to enslave.

In June of 1940, France was over run by German armies and France gave up.

Adolf Hitler had no thoughts about avoiding humiliation and ordered that the French surrender at the same place in the same rail car which would be brought out from the museum where it was on display.

Hitler would sit in the same chair used by Marshall Foch.

History records that a car arrived with the representatives of France who were visibly shaken to find where they had been brought.

They had not been told where the surrender would take place.

William Shirer was on the scene for CBS Radio and he later wrote:

“Through my glasses I saw the Führer stop, glance at the [Alsace-Lorraine] monument. … Then he read the inscription on the great granite block in the center of the clearing: Here on the eleventh of November 1918 succumbed the criminal pride of the German empire … vanquished by the free peoples which it tried to enslave.” I look for the expression on Hitler’s face. I am but fifty yards from him and see him through my glasses as though he were directly in front of me. I have seen that face many times at the great moments of his life. But today! It is afire with scorn, anger, hate, revenge, triumph. He steps off the monument and contrives to make even this gesture a masterpiece of contempt. He glances back at it contemptuous, angry. … Suddenly, as though his face were not giving quite complete expression to his feelings, he throws his whole body into harmony with his mood. He swiftly snaps his hands on his hips, arches his shoulders, plants his feet wide apart. It is a magnificent gesture of defiance, of burning contempt.

All the memorials in the Clairière de l’Armistice were later destroyed by the Germans the Rail Car itself was brought to Berlin.

Five years later Hitler was dead.

Many years later the Clairière de l’Armistice was restored.

History still records that it was on this spot that is was Here on the eleventh of November 1918 succumbed the criminal pride of the German Reich. Vanquished by the free peoples which it tried to enslave.