I guess Trump never heard of The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act passed in 1930 that increased import duties in the United States to protect American businesses and farmers but exacerbated the Great Depression making the 1930's miserable for all and the genesis of World War II

 

Trump Brags About His Math Skills and Economic Plans. Experts Say Both Are Shaky.

In a combative interview, the former president hinted at even higher tariffs as an economic magic bullet.

By Alan Rappeport and Ana Swanson

Reporting from Washington

Oct. 15, 2024

In short, we really need some creative, coercive U.S. diplomacy right now to finally put an end to both Israel’s and Iran’s colonial projects, which feed each other. That is the necessary but not sufficient condition for defusing the madness in this region. Israel cannot afford to be in a long-term, large-scale missile war with Iran. It is too small. Iran is too big and the United States is running low on interceptors to protect Israel — should Iran and all its proxies fire on Israel at once. And Iran cannot afford to be in a large-scale missile war with Israel because the United States and its allies have run out of patience with its reckless adventurism that is destabilizing the whole region.

It’s Time for America to Get Real With Iran and Israel

By Thomas L. Friedman

Opinion Columnist

If Boeing could cut jobs wouldn't they have done it by now? I think its $150 stock price is at risk of dropping to 0

 

Boeing Will Cut 17,000 Jobs in Bid to Slash Costs

A new chief executive is restructuring the aerospace manufacturer, which has been losing money for several years while struggling to improve production quality.

Short Tesla because Elon Musk has converted Tesla from an example of Schumpeter's "Creative Destruction" into a highly public case of customer fleeing destruction.

 

Musk Reveals Why He’s Jumping Into Trump’s Arms

This week was supposed to be all about Thursday’s big Tesla unveiling—but Elon Musk jumped (literally) on stage with his new best friend, Donald Trump, prompting all sorts of memes in a week when he may have revealed his real motivation for backing a convicted felon for president. On this episode of Elon, Inc., we preview what people can expect in a Robotaxi with Bloomberg reporter Dana Hull, Bloomberg Businessweek’s Max Chafkin and Bloomberg editor Craig Trudell, and dig into Musk’s rebirth as a Republican megadonor with a special guest—journalist Jacob Silverman, who is working on a book about tech’s move to the right.

Japan's insularity can't exist forever

 

In Japan’s Countryside, Century-Old Firms Learn to Embrace Foreign Workers

Japan’s regional economies are facing severe labor shortages. Their survival depends on their ability to persuade foreign workers to stay.

A thought About on the First Anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack by Dan Ben-David, a Tel Aviv University economist who heads the Shoresh Institution for Socioeconomic Research.

“My mom was a 13-year-old smuggled alone out of Baghdad to Palestine during World War II. My father landed here as an orphan; his father was butchered by his Lithuanian neighbors as the Nazis moved in. Following the war of independence, my parent’s army units joined to create Kibbutz Malkiya on the Lebanese border. (That kibbutz, where they first met and married, became a charred ghost town over the past year.) That’s my family’s history — but change the names, and you basically have the history of Israel 1.0.”

That generation, Ben-David continued, “made sure their children and grandchildren would understand the importance of preserving Israel as our people’s safe haven, built on democracy and the rule of law.” That priority, that story, “was the thread of steel that has bound each generation to our founding one. It creates a situation that makes Israel unique, and not just in comparison with those who want to annihilate us.” 

Look at how “both Ukraine and Russia have had to pass laws to prevent able-bodied men from leaving during war,” he added. “But when Israel is threatened with war, the planes that are full are not with Israelis trying to escape possible hell but with those dropping everything abroad — school, work, vacations — to come home and defend the country, many of whom eventually lose their lives in doing so. You cannot buy that kind of motivation.”

The fact that Israel drafts most 18-year-old men and women, “literally provides the army access to the top of the top of Israel’s human spectrum,” noted Ben-David, and it was that cohort that “just devastated Hezbollah’s leadership and intercepted the most massive ballistic missile attack in history.”

“That steel thread is what has saved us over the decades — and that is exactly what is so dangerous about Netanyahu’s domestic divide-and-conquer strategy that puts his personal interests above all else. Here we are, after the most horrific period in Israel’s history, and Netanyahu keeps snipping away at the thread,” Ben-David wrote. “Aside from encouraging his cultist followers to make state enemies out of hostage families, pilots, physicians and anyone else who dares to criticize the great leader, he has no exit plan for the deepening military crisis, no budget for the deepening economic crisis, no intention of drafting the ultra-Orthodox into an army desperate for manpower to replace all those who we lost. Because all of those might lead his far-right allies to turn against him.”

So on this first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack, I find myself most preoccupied with the fact that Israel is fighting a multifront war and Israelis still don’t know whether they are fighting to make Israel, A thought About on the First Anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack, safe for a Jewish democracy or safe for the prime minister’s political survival, safe for the ultra-Orthodox to never have to serve in the military and safe for the prime minister to declare to the world he is defending the frontier of freedom in Gaza and Lebanon while sustaining a morally rotten and economically draining settlement engine in the West Bank.

The biggest threat to Israel today is not Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah or the Houthis. A united Israel can beat them all. It is those who are unraveling Israel’s steel thread — with a bad story.

A feel good farming trend along the Mississippi

 

Hidden in Midwestern Cornfields, Tiny Edens Bloom

Farmers in the heartland are restoring swaths of the prairie with government help. The aim is to reduce nutrient runoff from cropland, and help birds and bees.

By Cara Buckley

For this article, Cara Buckley visited prairie strips on farms in Iowa, and concluded that Laura Ingalls would have approved.

“It’s a tactical success, but what is the strategy?” asked Randa Slim of the Middle East Institute. “What is the day-after strategy?” That’s the question that Netanyahu still hasn’t answered. Israelis aren’t manifestly more secure than a year ago, and Lebanese and Palestinians are manifestly less secure. American troops are vulnerable on Middle East bases, and shipping is at risk off Yemen. There is no peace in sight, no offramp in Gaza, Lebanon or the West Bank. It’s as if Biden and Netanyahu are stuck on the set of the existentialist Sartre play “No Exit.” “We have no plans and no benchmarks but death,” despaired the Israeli scholar Ori Goldberg.

 

Biden Sought Peace but Facilitated War

By Nicholas Kristof

Opinion Columnist

If Trump is a classic American confidence man, then mass deportation is his miracle tonic — a magical tincture that treats all ailments and cures all maladies. And like any traveling salesman, Trump is careful not to mention the side effects of this potent treatment. But not only are there side effects; the potion doesn’t treat the disease and may kill the patient.

 

The One Thing Not Named Trump That Trump Cares About

By Jamelle Bouie

Opinion Columnist

I got issues with Elon Musk, but Steve Boyer, 53, the county administrator in Grayson County, Va., just north of the North Carolina border, said that on the Sunday after the hurricane hit, he ordered a Starlink terminal for $290. When it arrived two days later, he set up the satellite internet device on a slab of plywood in downtown Independence, where it provided service to the Sheriff’s Office, the Fire Department and other local emergency organizations. “We started rocking and rolling right away,” he said.

 

The Troubling Quiet of North Carolina’s Cell Service Outages

Service has been restored in some areas after Hurricane Helene, but many people are still unable to communicate by phone, which has hampered relief efforts, worried loved ones and complicated daily life.

Asheville is a tragedy but this headline about the National Center for Environmental Information knock out is priceless

 

Helene Knocked Out a Key Facility for Monitoring the Global Climate

The National Centers for Environmental Information in Asheville, N.C., sweep together data from around the world to help track Earth’s warming.

What a moronic headline! Whose is the fucking expert who anticipated the damage done by Helene to Asheville?

 

How the North Carolina Legislature Left Homes Vulnerable to Helene

Under pressure to control housing costs, Republican lawmakers rejected standards meant to protect against disasters, experts say.

Tesla appears to be struggling because Mr. Musk has alienated many potential buyers with his provocative statements on X, like me buying a Mustang EV which by the way turns out to be terrific, because of his vocal support of former President Donald J. Trump

Tesla Sales Increase, Suggesting Electric Car Demand Is Rebounding

By Jack Ewing and Neal E. Boudette

Oct. 2, 2024

As a regular church goer I don't get how Trump who practices the seven deadly sins of pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth has an Evangelical following

 

Trump’s Volunteers: ‘Beautiful Ladies’ From a Secretive Evangelical Church

Women from an insular North Carolina church — with a history of “blasting” members judged sinners — are helping to stage the former president’s campaign events.

By Robert Draper and Michael Gold

Sept. 30, 2024