Friends, Democrats are outraged (yawn!) because President Trump has fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, because she released a set of new jobs numbers that he regards as inaccurate and defamatory to him and his administration. Are his charges valid? That I couldn't say. I tend to trust government statistics. Can the books be cooked, to a certain extent? Sure, but it's hard to make a recession look like a boom, or vice versa, so there's only so much that you can accomplish with such chicanery, and I'm not sure why you'd try it when we're a year and a half from the next election... Bottom line: Trump's politicization of economic statistics will make even fewer people trust "the numbers", and there aren't many people trusting anything or anyone as it is. It's a race to the bottom, or so it seems to me.
Speaking of cynicism, Republicans in Texas are getting closer and closer to passing a reapportionment of their Congressional districts designed to favor their fellow Republicans. The GOP could secure five additional seats in the House in 2026, which would make Democrats furious and would tempt blue states to retaliate in kind. Texas Democrats are boycotting the state legislature to try to deny Republicans a quorum, and as a result those Dems could be fined or even arrested. This could get mighty ugly! The question is: could it work as a stratagem to maintain GOP control of the House of Representatives??? Only time will tell.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz601p6jv8vo
China and India aren't liking the idea of paying massive "secondary tariffs" that would be designed to punish them for buying Russian oil. On the other hand, they aren't willing to stop buying that oil either, meaning that the U.S. and China and India are basically engaged in a global game of chicken. Would the U.S. really risk a massive trade war with China AND India, in order to increase financial pressure on Putin's regime? China and India seem to regard these threats as a bluff, and, I must say, I suspect that Trump doesn't mean what he says in this case either. I think he may be engaged in a last ditch effort to bring Ukraine and Russia to the bargaining table. If that effort fails, then I'm not sure what he'll do, but cutting off trade with China and India doesn't seem very likely, and wouldn't be terribly smart.
Since I would never lower myself to the point of reading the benighted Washington Post, I'm not sure how much the paper has changed since Jeff Bezos decided it would celebrate American freedom and capitalism, but I'm reassured by the fact that some lefties are jumping ship!
Finally, this week's Newsmakers show is definitely worth a listen. It features more than the usual amount of historical analysis, which you'll enjoy to no end!
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