Why don’t Europeans import more of our cars?

DDE (famous initials) says “Even the EU won’t take our cars…..”. That got me thinking because I am certain that DDE doesn’t mean that the EU bans our cars much like we do Chinese EVs (we impose a 100% tariff and ban their hardware and software). Governments can assess tariffs on cars but private companies import them. So the question arises whether the EU places punitive tariffs on US cars to keep them out of the country. The answer is no. “The European Union charges a 10% tariff on cars imported from the United States. But 85% of cars assembled in the United States and sold in Europe are exempted because they contain European parts. The United States charges a 27.5% tariff on cars imported from Europe.” This US tariff may go down to 15% provided the Europeans agree to lower some tariffs on selected US goods. So we charge a much higher tariff on European cars than the Europeans charge on ours. Is that what Trump meant when he said that we were being cheated by the EU?

Thus, the BMWs assembled in South Carolina and shipped to Europe are not subject to tariffs by the EU. Last year 225,000 BMWs were exported to Europe. Volkswagen and Mercedes also export vehicles from the US to Europe.

Perhaps what DDE means is that cars and trucks other than those made for export are banned from the EU. But that is not the case either since the EU doesn’t restrict the import although some individual countries might for specific vehicles. For example, the cybertruck is banned from import into many European countries. In the UK it is banned due to its weight and size (my F-250 is also too big), its sharp edges, the rigidity of the truck in case of a crash and other reasons. For these reasons and others the cybertruck is viewed as a safety hazard in much of Europe and will be so until its design is changed. Also the cybertruck is so heavy that many European countries require a truck license to drive it if it is imported.

What about other vehicles? One of the perhaps dated guiding principles of automaking was that the factories be close to the market to reflect tastes and reduce transportation costs. Tesla makes cars for the European market in Berlin, Germany rather than importing them from Fremont, California. Once Ford and GM had factories in Europe. GM made Opels and Vauxhalls and owned Saab. It lost $20 billion and sold its European operations to Peugeot-Citroen. Ford has factories in Germany, Romania, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Belgium, and Spain. Ford once owned Jaguar, Aston Martin and Land Rover. But Ford is losing money. It is closing its plants in Spain and laying off workers at other plants. The company has announced that it is moving from passenger vehicles toward concentrating on EVs and commercial vehicles. Yet in the UK, a Ford is the best selling car. It is the Puma. Built in the UK for the UK. But Ford has stopped making the Fiesta, Mondeo and its MPVs.

So what do DDE and Trump mean by saying “Europeans don’t take our cars” when clearly they do – with exceptions. First, our tastes in vehicles and economic circumstances differ. European vehicles more economical than ours. Our cars are on average larger and heavier with poorer gas milage. European gas prices are much higher. We pay about the same per gallon as they do per liter and there are 3.8 liters to a gallon. Their streets are much more narrow than ours meaning smaller vehicles as well. When I was living in Germany, I remember the biggest car I saw was a Camaro winding its way through the narrow streets of Konstanz. Just like the “Smart” car did not appeal to most Americans, neither would an Expedition SUV to most Europeans. The top sellers in Europe are the Dacia Sandero and the Renault Clio, both rather small cars. The best selling vehicle in America is the Ford F-150. The Europeans even consider the Toyota Camry a “big” sedan. It sold 345,310 vehicles in 2024 in the US but only 6,137 in Europe. And this was with no restrictions on its import.

Our markets are different as are our tastes. That’s why our cars and trucks are not imported into Europe. It is not the EU government that is restricting the cars but the private importers because they won’t be able to sell them. Mind you, I am not saying that governments don’t play a role in reducing importing American cars and trucks. European safety and fuel economy regulations are much stricter than those in the US with US fuel regulations getting ever laxer under Trump meaning bigger American vehicles and fewer EVs.

But the bottom line is that the Europeans do not buy our cars but not because they prohibited from doing so. They have smaller wallets (along with the smaller streets), higher gas prices and different tastes.
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Some more random thoughts #67

More on the “firing” of Lisa Cook

Trump said “you’re fired!” Cook essentially said “go pound sand – you can’t fire me you big bully!.” The drama unfolds. When Trump fired the two democrat members of the NCUA board, he did not give a reason. They were not fired “for cause”. They were fired “because” – because they were democrats. The FBI showed up at NCUA headquarters and escorted them from their offices leaving the remaining (republican) board member to conduct agency business as a quorum of one. The two ousted board members sued and were reinstated by the courts. That was anticipated because NCUA’s board is legally similar to that of the Fed’s. Their members can only be fired “for cause” or impeached by the senate. As to Lisa Cook, Trump insists he can fire her “for cause” but Cook says it is “because” and that she is not going anywhere. Will Trump have the FBI invade the Fed’s headquarters to escort Dr Cook out? I think the odds are positive but low. What is interesting is that the president didn’t ask his chief minion in the senate Bernie Moreno to institute charges of impeachment. With majorities in the house and the senate maybe he could dislodge Dr Cook that way. I also have cautioned Fed governor Philip Jefferson to watch his back. You know that the president has his people digging for stuff on Jefferson and we all know that a determined prosecutor can find something to indict on regardless of the odds of a conviction.

Trump now says that he may nominate Cook’s replacement soon. Well that woulld be interesting wouldn’t it?

Elon hates me. 

Obviously I have done something to tick off Elon Musk. I may be the only person on the planet who cannot create either an X account or a Grok account. Every time I try regardless of email accounts (I have several) or device (iphone, ipad, macbook or imac) I get the “Oops something went wrong. Try another time.” Ok Elon, so I thought the regulatory credits were a boondoggle. So I said that the cybertruck was weird and needed pimping. So I said the whole EV thing would be on life support were it not for all the subsidies. So I said that Tesla had a look that only a mother could love. So I said that Tesla owners were a cult. So I questioned the safety of the vehicles in a crash. So I asked that with the lithium batteries was it safe to take a Tesla through a car wash. So I said the whole DOGE thing was not necessary because of better alternatives. Did you get upset because I said the open door to the South African Boers was a bad look? So I said that you didn’t know how to build cars with all the recalls and defects. So I questioned why you would allow your young son to pick his nose on camera in the White House. Are any of these the reasons why I am banned from X? Well since my father drilled into us that we should never apologize (only pledge to do better next time) I am not sorry for anything that I have said about you. However, I do admire your genius and ability to do stuff. So is that enough to get me on X?

Nope.

Bye Bye erstwhile democrats (flip floppers)

Despite their media dominance democrats lost 2.1 million registered voters between 2020 and 2024. Republicans gained 2.4 million. I think that all the embracing of the wrong side of issues is driving voters to leave the democrat party and that the republicans are the only place for them to go. If all these folk came over to the republicans with this president imagine all the shift if the republicans had a president that embraced free trade, entrepreneurship, free markets, capitalism and government with a small “g”. But the electorate is fickle having flipped from Bush to Clinton to Bush 2 to Obama to Trump to Biden and back to Trump.

Hi Intel, I’m from the government and am here to help you

What does the government do well? Precious little and running a chip company is not one of them. As a matter of fact, running any company is beyond the competence of the federal government. I presume that the stake in Intel is in exchange for the “grants” awarded by the CHIPS legislation. Intel reminds me of IBM, getting fat, happy and complacent and letting upstarts clean their clock. What is the government getting for its stake? A voice in management? That would be a joke. Is the government’s stake just to bolster the company with no strings? Not likely. But if the government has a $37 trillion debt burden what’s another little old $10 billion?

I thought Trump was taking a whack job to federal employees. Isn’t he going to have to greatly expand those who deal with tariffs? Accountants, border officials, and everyone else involved in counting importing goods, assigning the right tariff for each country and each imported good and all the other stuff involved need to be added to the federal payroll. His former Commerce secretary said “there undoubtedly would be a need to hire more customs people, because if you’re having dozens and dozens of more products, and those products have hundreds of thousands of elements to them and 40 or 50 or 100 jurisdictions from which they’re coming, you’re going to need more customs people.” Do tell? Well that will at least keep the jobs numbers high

The Cracker-less Barrel-less logo

Confession: I am no fan of Cracker Barrel. We are not restaurant patrons and only stop at them when we are on the road. We stopped once at a Cracker Barrel for breakfast and left when I found out they did not serve omelets. A breakfast menu without omelets? Guess they think we want waffles and beer. Say it ain’t so.

Why did Cracker Barrel change its logo.? Taking out both the barrel and Uncle Herschel makes the new denuded logo look bare and just plain weird. Out goes the barrel and dare I say out goes the cracker too? Forty-three percent of Cracker Barrel’s customers are over 55 while only 22% are under 34. In contrast Applebee’s (my least favorite restaurant) 80% are under 55. But Cracker Barrel’s sales are flat and the demographics don’t look good with older customers dining out less and younger customers not quite buying into the country thing. Cracker Barrel’s stock has dropped by 70% over the past 5 years. It ousted the CEO and hired one from Taco Bell (another least favorite “restaurant”) to change its image and attract a younger clientele. So Uncle Herschel in his bibb overalls had to go (did you know that bibb overalls originated at Bibb Mills in Macon, Ga – near Gray?) and the interiors had to change from that cluttered country look to something more modern chic. Will it work? I doubt it The older clientele will be turned off and the younger ones won’t come. The younger folk like Starbucks (not exactly a restaurant), Chick-fil-A (not exactly a restaurant) and First Watch (must be the avocado toast). Well good luck morphing into something that you are not Cracker Barrel. But then the new nude logo says that you are no longer “Cracker Barrel”. Seriously how about Cracker-less Barrel-less?

I’ve got an idea: didn’t Hooters go bankrupt? How about a merger of Cracker Barrel and Hooters? Wouldn’t that lower the age of the average Cracker Barrel customer? We could put a Hooters girl in bibb overalls on the logo with a chicken wing instead of Uncle Herschel and the barrel. Cracker Barrel’s CEO came from Taco Bell and aren’t in some locations Taco Bell share a building with KFC? So why not Cracker Barrer and Hooters? Just saying.

Lastly, why do attractive women like Jasmine Crockett and Kristi Noem wear all that eye makeup and hair extenders?

 Control at the Fed and other thoughts

Is Powell losing control of the Fed?

Breaking news: Trump says that he has fired Fed governor Lisa Cook. However, Cook says that she is not going anywhere. “President Trump purported to fire me ‘for cause’ when no cause exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so,” said Cook in a statement late Monday. “I will not resign.”If she continues to resist, it will make an interesting case in finding out what constitutes “for cause.” Her attorney says that the president’s action “is flawed and his demands lack any proper process, basis or legal authority. We will take whatever actions are needed to prevent his attempted illegal action.” We will see if Trump tries to prevent her from physically staying at the Fed by sending in the FBI to evict her from her office. That would be messy to say the least. I suspect that Cook will get an injunction to prevent her removal until adjudicated by the courts. Of course, Trump wants to replace Cook. With a term becoming vacant in January and with the possible departure of Powell after his term as chairman expires, the president would have nominated four of the seven governors. He has rather loudly said that he will only nominate those who will vote to lower rates (a rather dumb thing to say). I guess he means under the economic environment of the past few months – ignoring the uptick in inflation.

Regardless of what happens with Dr Cook, I think that Powell is losing control of the Fed. Previously only the Fed chairman served as spokesman. Alan Greenspan ran a very tight ship. When interviewed the governors talked a lot but said nothing. Seldom if ever was a reserve bank president quoted. Things loosened up a bit under other subsequent chairmen but not like this. All of a sudden, Governors Waller and Bowman have been vocal about wanting to lower rates. Mind you there voted to hold the Fed funds rate steady until Trump kept browbeating and threatening Powell. Both would like to be named chairman replacing Powell when his term expires in May so they are now kowtowing to please Trump. The reserve bank presidents are all of a sudden chiming in. I saw an article where four of the ones on the Open market Committee were interviewed about rates. Only the New York Fed president – who ironically is the most important one – was not quoted. One said that rising prices would cause her to keep rates the same while the other said that the slowing labor market might cause her to consider a lowering of rates. But it is still significant that more and more members of the Fed’s hierarchy are feeling free to talk to the press. Once that would have signaled a loss of control by the Fed chairman but lately it seems that I am the only one who sees it. Is it because today’s reporters are too lazy to research history?

Gone under the radar are the reserve bank presidents. Trump has just been yelling and screaming at the Board of Governors but the reserve bank presidents play an important role also. The presidents are selected by the board of directors of the reserve banks and approved by the Fed Board for a five year term. All the terms for all the presidents expire at the end of February in years ending with a 1 or a 6 making 2026 very important. I don’t know of a president who did not have his term renewed by the governors but it might be possible if Trump or his successor could control the governors. For instance, the presidents of Atlanta and San Francisco are both liberals and likely would not have their terms renewed by a Trump-leaning Board of Governors. Mind you, the Atlanta Fed president is a friend and a co-author of mine that I have known for 20+ years but his political views run counter to those in the MAGAverse.

The Feds raid John Bolton’s home

The FBI raided John Bolton’s home ostensively looking for classified documents. FBI director Patel tweeted “No one is above the law.” Well they got practice raiding Mar-a-Lago when Biden’s FBI raided Trump’s home for classified documents while Biden kept his safely secured in his garage in Delaware. Maybe Trump can get the garage raided now that he is president, just for a little payback. Recall that once Bolton and Trump were buds. Bolton was Trump’s national security advisor during reign number one. Bolton is a loud and forceful hawk often branded as a neocon. But I think that term is too mild for him. He is ab advocate of regime change and military action if not intervention in a slew of countries that are hostile to US interests.

Bolton and Trump had a major falling out and parting of the ways. Bolton wrote a book that was called “scathing.” The book, “The Room Where It Happened,” portrayed Trump as grossly ill-informed about foreign policy and said he “saw conspiracies behind rocks, and remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House, let alone the huge federal government. Naturally, Trump then called Bolton a crazy war-monger who would have led the country into World War Six. Bolton was one of the former officials who had his security clearance revoked and was on FBI director’s Patel’s list of members of the executive branch deep state. No wonder he was raided as a signal to all those who vocally object to Trump and this administration. Patel tweeted “No one is above the law.” To paraphrase Bill Clinton, “I guess that depends on how you define ‘law’”.

Send the Chinese students home?

Did you see Mike Gallagher’s piece “Send Harvard’s Chinese Students Home”? https://www.wsj.com/opinion/send-harvards-chinese-students-home-national-security-risk-research-2e43313d

In it Gallagher states that it makes little sense for Harvard to be educating the next generation of our Chinese enemies. He wants Chinese students not to be educated at Harvard and other universities. Gallagher is afraid that the Chinese students will steal our secrets and use them against us. It is probably with no sense of irony that he then quotes Meta’s chief of AI, Alexandr Wang, who “has argued that the rate of AI progress may be such that you need to prevent all of our secrets from going over to our adversaries and you need to lock down the labs.” Doesn’t Gallagher know that Wang’s parents are Chinese immigrants who were physicists at the National Labs in Los Alamos? In fact, Gallagher even says “Expand the Biden-era law banning Chinese citizens from national labs like Los Alamos.” Oops.

Of course we have to be careful and suspicious. But such a ban is a bit much. I have always wondered how Chinese students can come here and study and then return to the oppression that is China. I know some will point to the relative freedom and luxury living of the Chinese elite but there is always the image of Jack Ma to show the limits of that freedom. Yet could having that million or so students from China lead to an undermining of communist party control and eventually make China free? Let’s hope.

Gallagher says “Blindly embracing academic cooperation with a geopolitical rival is absurd. Nobody suggests we should train Iranian nuclear physicists or Russian ballistics engineers.” I don’t know about Russian ballistics engineers but once Iranian students were a fixture on our college campuses. I bet that we did train some of their nuclear physicists. Anyway, if they don’t come here, the Chinese will go elsewhere. To me this is an indictment of higher education in China. It is a statement that although US primary and secondary education suck, our research universities remain the best in the world. Ironically, in large part it is due to the foreign (dare I say Chinese) graduate students who aid in research. Again the number of American born students in STEM graduate programs is woefully low. Gallagher should realize that if we close our borders we will lose our edge in scientific research. Of course, Trump is accomplishing that already with the cutting off of research funds to higher education. Granted some of the projects approved under Biden were ridiculous but Trump is literally throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Thanks to DDE for bringing this us. I am not going to expound on the benefits of free trade even if it is unilateral because it has been done before from Adam Smith to David Ricardo (the father of comparative advantage) to the sainted Milton Friedman and thinkers lime Pierre Lemieux and most reently Don Boudreaux.

I forgot to mention that Donald Trump has given us an empirical test of unilateral free trade. All of the announced deals feature a US tariff of 15 percent on imported goods with our trading partners assessing a zero tariff on American goods. Let’s see how this turns out.

As to the Chinese theft of property rights (and their hacking) I have long advocated that we should impose severe penalties on them for doing so and sanctions on US firms that allow the Chinese to demand intelletual property as a condition for doing business. Didn’t Tesla tell them to pound sand when the Chinese demanded access to Teslas’s technoloty when they wanted to build a plant in China?

I have posted before on digital sales taxes being imposed on our tech firms by Canada, Britain and the EU.

As to “even the EU won’t take our cars” I will blog on that a bit later as well as the case of agriculture.

Again thanks DDE. I hope this helps and again I welcome all points of view because they help me with mine.

Milton Friedman on unilateral trade

https://fee.org/articles/in-1970-milton-friedman-called-for-unilateral-free-trade-rather-than-retaliation-we-still-haven-t-learned-that-simple-lesson/

Pierre Lemieux on unilateral trade

Free Trade Agreements v Unilateral Free Trade

Here is what my old friend Don Boudreaux has to say about Chinese dumping.

More On Alleged Chinese Dumping

My rant – not quite the impact of a presidential one

First I want to say that I support (somewhat) what President Trump has done to close the open border, purge DEI and CRT, scuttle the green new deal and stop the Biden Administration’s attacks on the country’s foundations. I support the deportation of criminals – although I rather lock them away in our prisons. I wholeheartedly support the purging of antisemitism from our educational institutions even if I do not favor some of his methods. I support the deportation of those here on student visas who break the law and who pursue antisemitic activities. I like Trump’s deregulatory bent but I do not like that he is anti-market and his tariffs are anti-small business. I like his ending the funding of PBS, NPR and especially Planned Parenthood. I like his purging of wokeness from the government – even if just for his short time in office. I wish he voiced greater support for alternatives to our government schools and moved to decertify the teachers’ unions. I am glad he is again pursing energy independence. He doesn’t like windmills which is a good thing. I wish he had a more aggressive nuclear agenda. Approve more pipelines. End the silliness with the Canadians and utilize to the fullest their energy sources. Open up the vast Alaskan territories. I am overjoyed that he terminated the CAFÉ fleet milage nonsense and terminated the silly regulatory credits that were helping prop up the EV-only makers. I am glad that he is striving to end the trans agenda in our schools. Yes, he has done much that is positive. But he has done much that is negative as well.

I hope that within my lifetime there will be a president that will strive to make America truly great again. We are an immigrant nation and most of our immigrant ancestors came to America seeking a better future. My African ancestors were the exception: captured, caged, shackled and forced into slavery, they had little choice. But the American dream turned their freed descendants into success stories that would make them proud. Regardless of what the well-heeled naysayers bemoan, America radiates exceptionalism. The relative lack of trade barriers has enriched the country. The freedoms enshrined in our country by the brilliance of the Founding Fathers have allowed us to prosper. 

I have a close friend who always says that republicans have a winning message but they are awful at messaging. That entrepreneurship, opportunity and capitalism not only preached but demonstrated would resonate with Americans not tribalism, xenophobia, state capitalism (American socialism), trade barriers, increasing deficits, industrial policies and all that we have seen from the last two administrations. 

Whatever their differences, Biden and Trump are strikingly similar with regard to pursuing an industrial policy. Both are anti-market armed with government directed industrial policy. Biden’s industrial policy favored the climate scare embodied in the green new deal. Subsidies flowed in that direction. Biden wanted to alter the social fabric of the country with his policies on gender, sex, marriage and abortion. Biden made it a point to try to eradicate anything and everything associated with his predecessor, Donald Trump. Biden turned the country into a banana republic with its persecution of Trump and his allies and with his harassment of conservative organizations, Christian organizations and pro-life groups. He opened our borders and created a crisis of major proportions. Yes, people wanting to make their lives and the lives of their children walked across the border but so did thousands of undesirables. This will disrupt our lives for a generation. Most importantly, Biden and his allies in the teachers’ unions set out to destroy our educational system. Gone were the basic building blocks of education. No more fundamentals. Little Johnny may not know how to read, may not know how to add, may not know geography, may not know civics but he knows Critical Race Theory. He knows gender dysphoria. He thinks that there are 72 genders. Little Johnny may be part of the most intellectually lazy generation of our time.

When Donald Trump was re-elected mainly due to the democrats making him a sympathetic figure, it was payback time. Like Biden before him, Trump set out to eradicate anything and everything associated with Biden. Gone are all of the Biden initiatives and in the place of Biden’s state capitalism picking winners and losers we now have Trump’s state capitalism (American socialism) picking different winners and losers. Trump has brought back mercantilism, long dead and discredited. Up go the trade barriers. Our once friendly trading partners are all depicted as evil characters preying on a gullible, weak and helpless America. Now we are falsely depicted as the weakling with no manufacturing, making nothing ourselves and being dependent upon dishonest trading partners who take advantage of us. A trade deficit is now somehow a threat to national security. So in order to make America great again we must severely limit the amount of goods flowing into the country while maximizing the outflow. Mercantilism lives! Yet mercantilism is based on a zero sum world. What one gains is equal to another’s loss. Americans should know better. Look at the wealth that market capitalism has produced. Market capitalism has lifted billions from poverty including my people in America. Find another people that one day wake up and find that they are free, but have pitifully few positions, most have little skills and none have even a last name. Yet today are mostly so well off that their poor would be rich in much of the world. Look at our relatives in the Congo. Look at those in Sudan. Whine all you want about white supremacy but the evidence is that white supremacists are a bunch of incompetent yahoos. Find me a mass of people flourishing under socialism if socialism is superior to capitalism. How many people have they extracted from poverty? China have succeeded somewhat but is still a failure. Only a demagogue would preach that China is a success story and only a delusional person or a fool would believe it. Our economy is 50 percent larger than China with its 1.5 billion people and we receive most of the world’s direct foreign investment. Why isn’t that money flowing to China? Investors aren’t all crazy.

All the while, we will keep spending money like it is a free good. We have so little fiscal integrity that a $9 billion recission in a $7 trillion budget is treated like winning the World Series. Congress has no shame. Trump has been economically reckless and blames others for his failures. The Federal Reserve is a convenient scapegoat but it is really really hard to conduct rational monetary policy in an environment of irrational and irresponsible fiscal policy. Trump wants there to be no adults in the room and force the Fed to bend to his wishes. Trump wants to run roughshod over the Fed like he has run roughshod over us and the world. He has Congress cowering, except for those from Kentucky. He rants and rails at the Fed because they are the only real line of resistance to his ambitions, other than the courts. I find it interesting hearing those who yelled at the Fed for accommodating Biden now yelling at the Fed to accommodate Trump. Do you really want the Fed to cut the Fed funds rate to 1 percent like Trump is demanding? Do you really think that making Americans pay more for goods while foreigners pay less is really a rational policy? Do you think the seemingly haphazard imposing of random tariffs on 193 countries and a few Artic islands is good policy? And why is Russia’s tariff zero? Even the Ukraine has a 10 percent tariff. The bottom line is that Trump wants to keep spending. He wants the Fed to pay his bills. And this is the route to economic prosperity and economic stability? I don’t think so.

Regardless of this mess, at their core we Americans know better. We know that trade is mutually beneficial else it would not take place. We know that most public schools stink so we are forcing the education system to change. We know that most immigration is beneficial so we want a rational system to oversee it. We are all capitalists at heart. We love our freedoms. Few of us want to impose them on others. We know better than any bureaucrat and government what is best for us and our children. We know private property is a main component of economic freedom and we defend it. Despite all the social and economic nonsense that have come out of the previous two administrations we know that we can do so much better. We are Americans and we will overcome.

Vince Ginn in National Review has 20 things that will make America great again. Here is the to Econ 101: A Compass for a Lost Country

Econ 101: A Compass for a Lost Country

Trump’s rant

I was going to write on Trump’s thinking that he can take over the electoral process in the states when I read a much better explanation by Jeffrey Belhar, who is turning out to be one of my favorite reads has an article in National Review with the longest Trump rant of all time. Here is some of the article but it is available at

https://www.nationalreview.com/carnival-of-fools/donald-trump-cannot-federalize-election-law-via-executive-order/

Here is the presidential rant:

I’m going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we’re at it, Highly “Inaccurate,” Very Expensive and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES, which cost ten Times more than accurate and sophisticated Watermark Paper, which is faster, and leaves NO DOUBT, at the end of the evening, as to who WON, and who LOST, the Election. We are now the only Country in the World that uses Mail-In Voting. All others gave it up because of the MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD ENCOUNTERED. WE WILL BEGIN THIS EFFORT, WHICH WILL BE STRONGLY OPPOSED BY THE DEMOCRATS BECAUSE THEY CHEAT AT LEVELS NEVER SEEN BEFORE, by signing an EXECUTIVE ORDER to help bring HONESTY to the 2026 Midterm Elections. Remember, the States are merely an “agent” for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do. With their HORRIBLE Radical Left policies, like Open Borders, Men Playing in Women’s Sports, Transgender and “WOKE” for everyone, and so much more, Democrats are virtually Unelectable without using this completely disproven Mail-in SCAM. ELECTIONS CAN NEVER BE HONEST WITH MAIL IN BALLOTS/VOTING, and everybody, IN PARTICULAR THE DEMOCRATS, KNOWS THIS. I, AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, WILL FIGHT LIKE HELL TO BRING HONESTY AND INTEGRITY BACK TO OUR ELECTIONS. THE MAIL-IN BALLOT HOAX, USING VOTING MACHINES THAT ARE A COMPLETE AND TOTAL DISASTER, MUST END, NOW!!! REMEMBER, WITHOUT FAIR AND HONEST ELECTIONS, AND STRONG AND POWERFUL BORDERS, YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE A SEMBLANCE OF A COUNTRY. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!!! DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Belhar continues: “I feel utterly exhausted by all of the shouting. Trump’s punctuation has begun to resemble that of a cut-and-paste ransom note.” (I wish I had said that).

Trump announced that an executive order would indeed be forthcoming, promising “an executive order that’s being written by the best lawyers right now to end mail-in ballots.”

Fools are now arguing about whether mail-in ballots are a good thing or a bad thing. (My position: They are a thing, you cannot wish them away, so deal with them properly) But since I am not a fool, and can read Article I Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution as well as you can, I know that none of these changes can be commanded via executive order. The Constitution spells it out quite clearly: “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the place of chusing Senators.” Under the Constitution, Congress may play a role in setting federal election laws, but the states usually take the lead. The executive branch plays no role in this whatsoever.

(By the way, “chusing” is an actual spelling in the Constitution and is the equivalent of “choosing”.)

Is Lisa Cook really Cooked?

Is there any doubt that Trump has his minions out there searching for any dirt on his enemies or those who don’t kiss his ring? The latest is the case of Lisa Cook who is being investigated for mortgage fraud. Cook’s case like those of Letitia James and Adam Schiff has been referred to the “Justice” Department where Pam (Blondie) Bondi has Trump sycophant Ed Martin leading the investigation of the three. You may recall that Martin was supposed to be US Attorney for the District of Columbia but couldn’t even get enough republican senators to support his nomination. The Five’s Jeanine Pirro now has that job. Martin was gifted the job of DOJ pardon attorney – whatever that is. It seems that his main duty is to pursue Trump’s enemies like Schiff and James.

Cook’s records were unearthed by William Pulte head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Pulte tweets that “Ms. Cook appears to have “falsified bank documents and property records to acquire more favorable loan terms, potentially committing mortgage fraud under criminal statute.” The Wall Street Journal reported that Pulte then went full attack dog by tweeting that “the President has great cause to fire Lisa Cook” and mused that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell might “be complicit with Cook’s alleged fraud.” He reiterated his insinuations that Mr. Powell is covering up Ms. Cook’s alleged fraud in a CNBC interview.” For some of us the attempt to link Powell to Cook strains credulity but is clearly an effort to push both of them off the Fed board.

There are some that have already branded Cook of being guilty of mortgage fraud and should resign from the board. Trump can only fire her for cause and there are some legal experts that question whether this rises to that charge. I am not a lawyers so I won’t speculate. However, I just caution to wait until all the evidence is in. Remember all of you insisting that Cook resign that Donald Trump was indicted and convicted of mortgage fraud by a New York court. The verdict found that Trump and his Trump Organization empire had illegally enriched themselves by defrauding banks as part of a decade-long scheme to secure favorable financing terms for some of his properties. Again I know that many think the charges were “trumped” up but the fact remains that the verdict has not been overturned – but the penalties were reduced. So let’s not prematurely assume either guilt or innocence.

Trump’s folks are salivating at the possibility and are saying that Cook’s resignation is inevitable. Cook says she won’t be bullied. I can’t figure out why her resignation is “inevitable.” If pursued, it will be an interesting case study in whether such an offensive will justify removal “for cause.” Trump clearly cannot fire her. However, she can be impeached by the senate. I wonder why that hasn’t been discussed. Trump’s attack dog in the senate is Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio – Go Bucks!). I am somewhat surprised that Moreno hasn’t started impeachment proceedings against Cook.

In Red State, one article written by someone who calls him/herself “streiff” screams “Cook Is Cooked. Real Estate Fraud Gets a Federal Reserve Governor a Federal Investigation”. The author (streiff) first rehashes charges by vita scrutinizer Christopher Rufo of Cook committing plagiarism and somehow rising to the rank of tenured full professor despite a “thin” vita. Its interesting that those allegations have never been subject to an academic investigation and as an academic, I can guarantee that the academy takes those charges seriously, provided they have merit. Well if “streiff” actually looked at Cook’s vita he/she/it would see that it is anything but thin. In fact, Cook may be the most qualified member of the Fed board.

Then “streiff” (he/she/it) says that if Cook is forced to resign and Powell leaves after his term as chairman ends in May, then “replacing Cook on the Board and Powell as chairman next May would give Trump complete control of U.S. monetary policy, which can then be coordinated with regulatory and trade reforms to boost the U.S. economy.” 

Sorry Mr/Mrs/Ms streiff (he/she/it) but you are wrong. Yes Cook would have to leave but Powell would have to leave the Board as well even though he could remain on the board as a governor. I wonder if Powell will resign once his term as chairman ends. Michael Barr stuck around after he left the post of vice chairman for supervision. The Red State author is assuming that whoever gets nominated to fill Kugler’s seat in January and whoever replaces Powell as chairman will be Trump’s puppets at the Fed. The author (streiff) is also assuming that current Trump appointees Waller and Bowman will also be under Trump’s thumb. However, Waller and Bowman voted with the rest of the Open Market Committee (and Powell) to hold the Fed funds rate steady until the last meeting despite withering criticism from the president. They only changed their votes because they likely wanted Trump to name them to replace Powell. I look for them to revert to independence once Trump names a new chairman. I know the Fed members cherish their independence. I would wager that Trump appointees will do the same.

What would be interesting is if Powell did not resign his board seat when he steps down. That would force Trump to appoint either Waller, Bowman or whoever replaces Kugler as chairman. If I were Powell, that is exactly what I would do and when that person who is already on the Board is confirmed, then I would resign. Take that Trump! By the way, the other Biden appointee is Phil Jefferson an economics professor from Davidson College. Well Dr. Jefferson had better watch out because you can bet that Pulte and Trump’s other attack dogs are trying to dig up dirt on him too.

 

A few thoughts and some humor (I think)

Trump now wants Fed governor Lisa Cook to resign after Housing Finance director Bill Pulte (a new Trump attack dog and Pulte Homes heir) referred Cook to the Justice Department claiming mortgage fraud accusing her of using two different properties as her principal residence in 2021. Can’t these people (Adam Schiff, Letitia James and now Cook) figure out where they live? Trump posted “Cook must resign, now!!!” By the way, Pulte has publicly called for Powell’s resignation for the past few months. I wonder if he wants to be the next Fed chair? Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio – Go Bucks!) also a member of the MAGAverse tweeted “Lisa Cook is cooked and should immediately resign her position at the Federal Reserve. For the benefit of our great Country, I’m hopeful we can get a two for one special and Jay Powell can join her in packing it up.” Moreno probably thinks that Cook is on leave from the hated That Team Up North but she is actually on leave from her faculty position at Michigan State. He term doesn’t end until 2038 but she is likely to return to Michigan State or land some cushy job well before then. I would be stunned if she resigned before Trump leaves office. But Cook is not cooked. The allegations occurred prior to her joining the Fed Board and seeking to remove her for “cause” would fail. But nice try guys. Want to bet if she can be intimidated to vote for lowering the Fed funds rate?

There is a report published in Science that says that people who stopped eating ultraprocessed foods lost twice the weight as those who did not. “When given nutritionally matched diets, participants lost twice as much weight eating minimally processed foods compared to ultra-processed foods.” Ok so what do you do for those of us who never eat “ultra” processed foods. How do we lose weight? I read labels. My cereals do not have corn sugar or salt. My broths are low sodium. I never eat fast food. I do not eat junk. I have eschewed ice cream and candy. The only fried food I eat is an occasional piece of Publix’s chicken. I do all the cooking in my house. Even the few cans I buy do not contain anything I cannot pronounce. How do I lose 20 pounds in a controlled healthy way? I asked my doctor once and she told me that everything she could recommend I was already doing. Thanks doc.

I wrote that Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have a lot in common. Some of my readers pilloried me for having such temerity. Well Bernie thinks Trump’s suggestion that the US having a stake in Intel and other companies is a wonderful idea. Bernie says “If microchip companies make a profit from the generous grants they receive from the federal government, the taxpayers of America have a right to a reasonable return on that investment.” Trump is all in on government intervention in private business. Maybe he should make Bernie Secretary of Commerce rather than Howard Lutnick.

I have a reader who says that Trump is too nuanced for me to understand. A real Machiavelli no doubt.

And now a little humor:

One day while at the bank an old lady asked if I could check her balance – so I pushed her over.

I asked a friend the best way to burn fat. He said “barbeque.”

If you drink two glasses of kale juice a day, it will destroy your belly fat and your desire to live too.

My belly fat was preventing me from seeing my shoes, so I bought a pair that was two sizes bigger.

Democrats want to compromise on immigration by agreeing to put a cap on immigrants. Personally I think that they should be allowed to wear any headgear they choose.

If a person from Holland married a Filipino, would their kids be Hollapinos?

ICE arrested a person hiding illegals from who had faked Prague visas. He was cited for caching false Czechs.

What do you call an elderly Hispanic immigrant. A señor citizen.

Why are white prison gangs the scariest? Because they had a fair trial and still ended up in prison.

Do you think Donald Trump would have a different attitude toward migrants if both of his wives weren’t immigrants?

Why do Hispanic illegals never come across the border in threes? Its because of all those no “tres” passing signs.

Where did you get your last name? Well when my great grandfather landed at Ellis Island, he spoke little English and when they asked him his name he said “Amhere.”

Why did the art thief’s van run out of gas as he drove away from the museum? 

Because he had no Monet to buy Degas to make the Van Gogh.

If people evolved from monkeys then why are monkeys still around?

Border patrol apparently does not have a sense of humor. They arrested this guy at the border because when the border patrol said “papers,” the immigrant answered “scissors.”

I don’t understand why Trump closed the borders. Didn’t he say “America first?”

Why is there a “d” in fridge but not in refrigerator?

Who knew what time it was when the first clock was made?

If I could find a country that didn’t take in immigrants, I would move there.

In every relationship there is one person who stacks the dishwasher like a Scandinavian architect and one who stacks it like a racoon on crystal meth.

When asked why don’t I have tattoos. I say “Have you ever seen a bumper sticker on a Ferrari?”

Why do eggs come in flimsy styrofoam cartons and batteries come in a package only a chainsaw can open?

I am fairly certain that the person who put the first r in February also decided how to spell Wednesday.

You know you are old when you spelled a word so wrong that it baffled autocorrect.

Palestinians to South Sudan? A Recipe for Disaster 

It seems like the Israelis are giving serious consideration to taking compete control over Gaza and expelling the Palestinians. Remember Trump had suggested it and I blogged on it as well. Reports are that Libya, South Sudan and Syria have been contacted to take the Palestinians. I presume that these countries would receive significant bribes. I think it is a dumb idea. Why would any country take in a multitude of Palestinians who would in turn start fomenting discord? I know my blog has no influence but it would be better if as I suggested that you distribute them evenly among all the Arab countries except Jordan (which already has three million Palestinians). If the remaining 22 Arab countries took 136,363 Palestinians of the 3 million in Gaza then no country would have an outsized burden. I guess that makes too much sense.

What’s this about sending them to South Sudan? Obviously, the Israelis hate the Palestinians and are trying to condemn them to hell. Are the folks from Gaza subsistence farmers and herders? Is this some type of cruel joke to send them to a country plagued with famine and genocide? Dropping a few million or so people from Gaza into South Sudan is simply asking for trouble. Yet Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel recently visited the South Sudanese capital Juba and spoke with government officials. Hey, maybe she was just driving by and stopped in for tea. I really cannot fathom why South Sudan would take the Palestinians except for large personal bribes being paid to the country’s leading officials. 

So why not add to the misery of both the Gazans and the Sudanese? Both are used to fighting each other for food, so it will be a perfect match. There are thousands of refugees from South Sudan in Uganda, Chad, Malawi and Ethiopia. Maybe the Sudanese government says “well there is now plenty of room for the Palestinians now that three million Sudanese are sheltered elsewhere. These refugees are desperately seeking food after cuts in US aid. The Wall Street Journal reports that “At Uganda’s sprawling Kiryandongo refugee settlement, residents who had fled South Sudan attacked the mud-and-tarpaulin shelters of new arrivals from Sudan, stealing food, killing one and injuring almost 100, according to doctors and witnesses.” “During a four-day rampage last month, hundreds of South Sudanese refugees, armed with machetes and sticks, stormed a large, separate compound housing Sudanese newcomers.” South Sudan is obviously no paradise and a forced settlement of Palestinians would only add to the misery of both peoples.

Trump’s cutting off of African food aid is beyond heartless. It is devastating to many parts of the continent. “In May, the U.N. food agency ended food distribution to one million refugees in Uganda due to funding shortfalls, largely from U.S. cuts. The U.N. Refugee Agency said last week it expects to run out of emergency funds for Uganda next month. At that point it will be able to provide only $5 a month in blankets, sanitary pads, soap and other essentials to each refugee—about a third of what’s required, according to the agency.” “Chad, which hosts some 1.2 million Sudanese refugees, is facing a funding gap of nearly $280 million this year, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency. Refugees in the southern African nation of Malawi have been on half-rations since the month after Trump took office earlier this year and began closing down American aid programs.”

And this is where Israel wants to send those from Gaza? You can’t be serious. Israel probably knows that the majority of the Palestinians will not stay in South Sudan and will migrate elsewhere. But initially, they will increase the burden on relief efforts. Yes, I know there was a great deal of abuse in USAID but the cutting off of funds to those starving Sudanese refugees is beyond cruel. The photo above is of malnourished children in an orphanage in Sudan who are fed boiled leaves because there is little other food. There has got to be a special place in hell for those who would cut off food to these suffering people. 

If not for the accident of one’s birth.