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Exxon Chief Expected to be Pick for Secretary of State
@ Lewis - I'm too old to be learning a new language.
Geez - Been selling off energy heavy PRNEX as the price has risen this year. Based on this development that might have been a mistake. I'll hang on to the remainder (1) forever or (2) as long as this gang is in power.
From everything I can see, I think the bet is on energy service rather than anything that depends upon energy price. It appears the admin will be vigorously developing as much native energy as humanly possible. That should increase supply thereby resulting in cheaper oil and gas.
Thanks rono. Hope you're right. (You usually are). My HO is different. Mr. Putin needs higher oil prices to keep his floundering economy afloat. And the apparent Sec. State has close ties. That said, the run up this year has been huge. Buying these stocks or funds now is a gamble. Can't recommend that.
I've no particular familiarity with Mr. Tillerson. Presumably one doesn't reach the chair of the world's largest publicly-traded energy company without formidable skill-set.
As it relates to oil, my colleague's father came up with an interesting suggestion for the new Administration:
Trump should announce a tapering (eventually a moratorium) on oil imports from outside of the Americas. Perhaps Oz could be included too as 'OK'd' for imports.
The natural effect would be an increase in WTI $, and likely a collapse in Brent pricing. Capital investment & employment in the energy sector throughout the Americas would ensue. Our energy-dependent friends (Europe, Japan) would be boosted by lowered energy costs. Energy-producers up to no good (Russia, Iran, Saudis, et al) would be weakened.
" The IEA report projects that U.S. domestic oil supplies, dominated by fracking, will begin to decline by 2020. "As tight oil output in the United States levels off, and non-OPEC supply falls back in the 2020s," the report says, "the Middle East becomes the major source of supply growth."
Earlier this year the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) also forecast a plateau in U.S. oil production after 2020.
The basis for these forecasts are estimates of shale oil reserves. A 2013 Energy Department report on technically recoverable shale oil—the amount that's recoverable without regard to cost—puts U.S. potential at 58 billion barrels. That's equivalent to a little more than eight years of U.S. consumption at the current rate of almost 19 million barrels a day."
LB has the IEA made earlier prediction about when domestic oil supplies will decline? Have we already passed those dates? Has technology pushed out those dates before?
Further, the suggestion (again, I emphasize, not mine, but my colleague's dad), did not limit only to a "fortress America", but to the entire western hemishere. That would include Canada, Mexico Venezuela & Brasil.
But go on, keep up with the "No we can't!" and "It can't be done" perspective. I'm certain NASA would have succeeded marvelously with that kind of attitude.
@Edmond Mostly the "no we can't line" seems to come from people in the incoming administration who want to assure that fossil fuels are the only acceptable solution to our energy problems. Trump has promised to cancel the Clean Power Plan and to "cancel billions in climate change spending." And "Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela?"--aren't they on your protectionist "no trade" list? If not, why shouldn't they be as their low wages are just as bad as the rest of the emerging world you seek to shut out? By the way, what exactly do you think will happen to your mutual funds if the U.S. enters a trade war as the extreme protectionist policies you are prescribing for China, Russia and Mexico will certainly spark? But first, please say something about Solyndra, and why we should drill baby drill and cut all tax rebates to green energy and how anthropogenic climate change--note the word "anthropogenic"--is really a hoax. While we're celebrating the shale-gas revolution solving our problems, please address this:
"Until 2008 not a single earthquake had ever been recorded by the U.S. Geological Survey from the Dallas–Fort Worth (DFW) area, where Wallace has lived for more than 20 years. Since then, close to 200 have shaken the cities and their immediate suburbs. Statewide, Texas is experiencing a sixfold increase in earthquakes over historical levels. Oklahoma has seen a 160-fold spike in quakes, some of which have sent people to hospitals and damaged buildings and highways. In 2014 the state's earthquake rate surpassed California's.
The rise in quakes coincides with an increase in drilling activity. Wallace's house, for instance, sits above the Barnett Shale Formation, a layer of hard black rock that holds the U.S.'s second-largest deposit of natural gas. Between 1998 and 2002 companies started drilling this deposit using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which involves pumping millions of gallons of water, plus sand and chemicals, into the ground at high pressure to crack the rock and release the gas. As the gas comes up the well so does the fracking fluid, along with volumes of brine so salty it is hazardous. The fluids are pumped back down a different hole drilled far below the shale into porous rock for permanent disposal. As more and more fluid is injected into these wastewater wells, pressure can start to build up on deep geologic faults. Eventually one can slip, causing an earthquake.
Researchers at the USGS and other institutions have tied earthquake surges in eight states, including Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio, Kansas and Arkansas, to oil and gas operations. Some state regulators have been slow to accept scientists' findings. Residents have become increasingly angry, and environmental groups have sued. “This is a public safety issue, and there's been a lot of denial and ignoring of the problem,” says Wallace, who has joined neighbors to push for the shutdown of nearby wastewater wells. https://scientificamerican.com/article/drilling-for-earthquakes/
I'm keen on the U.S. being energy independent just so long as the fracking facilities are near your home and not mine.
LB: I'm keen on the U.S. being energy independent just so long as the fracking facilities are near your home and not mine.
Reply: Sounds like we are in agreement, since I live in Big D. I guess you are a NIMBY-type -- but burn fossil fuels nevertheless, huh? I think the hemispheric energy plan has merit --- anything to take funds away from the bad actors in the Persian Gulf. Depriving Vlad of extra funds proably wouldn't be a bad idea either.
As for Venezuela, Brasil & Mexico. Each case is different. Venezuala is the kind of socialistic state Obama would have loved to turn the US into -- with himself as the titular ruler. One more 'fail' for the community organizer. Certainly, nothing would compel any of them to sell to the US -- other than the profit-motive. I'm all for importing raw materials from (most places). But the value-added jobs for goods/services sold in the US should predominantly go to legal residents/citizens.
By the by, most of the earthquakes in the Dallas suburb of Irving (where there have been quite a few mild quakes, which only began recently) are strangely centered in all directions around a geographich center -- that center happens to be where the old Dallas Cowboys stadium once was. The stadium was demolished several years ago, which is when the Irving quakes started. Strictly anecdotally, it would seem that perhaps the demolish explosions may have fractured something underground. Perhaps we should ban NFL games.
@Edmond "Venezuala is the kind of socialistic state Obama would have loved to turn the US into -- with himself as the titular ruler." Sorry, but that is a purely delusional statement: https://youtube.com/watch?v=HFLuOBsNMZA
LB: "And "Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela?"--aren't they on your protectionist "no trade" list?"
REPLY: I think this comment deserves some attention. First, I'm not advocating "no trade". I don't know any one who is. I'm for fair-trade -- and yes, "fair trade" is subjective. But then so is "free trade". The current trade regime is subject to any number of rules/regs and regulatory bodies, some of them supra-national (WTO). Suffice it to say, I believe the trade deals negotiated by US Administrations going back AT LEAST to Bush 41 have been a big LOSE for the American Middle Class. They have been a big win for the Chi-coms, and the American 1% ers/owners of capital. Our trade relationship with the PRC specifically is of especial concern. Our politicians have always been more interested in getting ANY trade deal done, even if its a bad deal. --- Our trading partners understand that dynamic, and press for every advantage against us, and have succeed marvelously, to our detriment.
I'd like to have good deals, but if a good deal is not possible, then yes, I'd favor no deal. No deal is better for American workers than bad deals.
If we disagree about that, then we disagree about that.
Importing raw materials, which then get processed into higher-value goods domestically, is exactly what I favor. That is how living-standards go up. The 19th century empires did exactly that. They imported raw materials from their colonies, so that citizens of the mother-country could be employed in manufacturing and build better lives. In the current trading regime, the US in effect has become an economic colony of the Chinese. They produce "stuff", and we borrow to pay them for it. Their employment, living-standards goes up; ours stagnates -- and would drop except for the massive borrowing the govt does to prop up incomes here. Wealth is transfered from the Middle Class & future generations (via borrowing) to the Chi-coms.
"Bernie spoke against NAFTA, saying that this fast track agreement with Mexico “will be a disaster for our working people, for our farmers, and for the environment in general.” In 1993, saying that in his view, “NAFTA will accelerate all of these negative economic trends, and will only benefit the ruling elites of the United States, Mexico, and Canada..... Bernie firmly believes that current trade relations with China are detrimental to job growth and wealth equality in the United States. Referring specifically to the 2015 Trans-Pacific Partnership, Bernie has decried trade deals with China as being “designed to protect the interests of the largest multi-national corporations at the expense of workers, consumers, the environment and the foundations of American democracy.”
So what makes you believe today's Republican Congress, which is firmly pro-trade and free markets is going to allow for this to happen? I doubt that Trump and his cabinet, most of whom are billionaires with significant overseas business interests, even want there to be severe tariffs with slave-labor countries despite Trump's claims to the contrary. I also doubt anything much will happen, despite Trump's one populist/socialist idea of government control of trade. Nor do I think anyone in the party, including Trump, really wants it to. Trump's other populist/socialist idea--massive government investment in infrastructure--also probably won't happen. In any case, if either or both do, we will look more like socialist countries like Venezuela, not less.
Boy has this thread gone off topic. @hank, my sense is that Tillerson is a great negotiator who just happened to be in the oil industry when picked. I don't think there will be much if any energy play going on here unless that is the focus of the negotiation.
my sense is that Tillerson is a great negotiator who just happened to be in the oil industry when picked.
I'm inclined to agree - having just fallen off the turnip truck myself.
The right-leaning Generals, the boys from Goldman Sachs, the woman from from a billionaire Michigan family (thanks to Amway) who knows nothing about public schools except she'd like to get rid of them ... these all must be supurb negotiators.
And the nation's labor leaders and scholars, notably lacking among the picks, must be damn poor negotiators.
I should have expected as much. FYI - Here's a few more put-downs you can fling in the direction of anyone who dares criticize Trump in the coming years.
LB: Now you're starting to sound like a socialist: feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-trade
REPLY: So what! So really seem obsessed with labelling people. I think (and thought) Bernie had some sound ideas on trade. There is no particular reason they (or I) should feel the need to disagree with the other, just to be disagreeable.
Both Bernie and Trump appealled to people who I would call "underdogs". By contrast the 12 Republican dwarfs and Hillary were running for those who have ensconsed themselves into a corrupt system. Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan disagreed about a lot of things, but they worked together where they could find common ground. What is your problem here?
And while you seem quite adept at googling other peoples' opinions, have you really thought long and hard about what you want govt to do. The 1% do not really need the govt, do they. Yet they "own" the govt and have owned it for some time. Govt probably should not exist to service the 1%; it should probably exist to serve the rest of us.
hank: I should have expected as much. FYI - Here's a few more put-downs you can fling in the direction of anyone who dares criticize Trump in the coming years.
REPLY: If memory serves, Hillary referred to most of Trump's supporters as "deplorable". Politics ain't softball. Both camps engaged in mudslinging. So what! The campaign is over. Trump won. Move on.
What I don't understand, is that Trump is naming folks to his cabinet who have historically been against the very function of the departments they are now heading.
The education secretary wants to do away with public schools, the EPA chief takes his marching orders from big oil, and the current Energy Secretary, Ernest Moniz, the nuclear physicist, is being replaced by Rick Perry, the former Texas governor who during his own presidential run could not remember the Department of Energy as the third federal department he was promising to close.
It may be sour grapes, but I just can't imagine what the end product will look like if these folks have their way.
press, I don't think your comments are sour grapes at all. -- And are 'spot on' WRT the topic.
You say you don't understand. I don't understand either. But then the strategies, competency and effectiveness of ANY President's cabinet is not able to be evaluated until after they have served some time.
I suspect -- but of course, am speculating -- Trump may be seeking to streamline some of the operations within sundry depts. Once a govt initiative begins, they seldom seem to ever be "sunset". No doubt EVERY govt initiative supports SOMEBODY, but that is a very low bar to keeping a program in place. ANECDOTE: One of my colleagues has 3 grade-school kids. The school administration has been coercing him to have one of them with MINOR speech impediment enrolled in a "special course". Once the kid is in the program, its bureaucratically very difficult to un-enroll him, even if the speech impediment disappears. My colleague believes this is a way for the school to grab some special Federal money -- and make it an annuity until the kid graduates. I suspect he is correct.
As for the education nominee, I wonder if your characterization is precisely true? -- I understand her positions may not be popular with teacher union leaders. But should the satisfaction of labor unions be the objective of an Education secretary? -- I would think it would be the education of the youth. Public school unions interests may not always coincide with whats best for the kids. Ms. Devos may believe sincerely, the best interest of more kids is served by giving their parents some choice, rather than guaranteeing lifetime jobs to teacher union members. That doesn't mean she is going to 'do away with public schools' -- unless those public schools are doing a DIS-service to their kids by providing a poor education.
Education is supposed to be about the kids, not the teachers' unions. Isn't it?
That does seem to be a fundamental distinction between the current nominees and former cabinet members. Often, incoming members disagree with the way their departments had been run, what objectives were emphasized. But they don't seem to oppose the very reason for their department's existence.
The one Secretary that keeps coming to my mind is James G. Watt. He'd probably fare better under Trump than under Reagan, who finally forced him to resign for his racist, sexist - you name it - comments.
For your entertainment, such as it is, here's Time's list of 10 worst Cabinet members (clickable links).
@msf- James G. Watt! That's the name I was trying to remember in a conversation with my wife yesterday. Yes we've been here before, at least somewhat. But the current cabinet/agency head proposals are Mr. Watt in spades. It's going to be fascinating to see who hollers the most- those that voted for or against Mr. Trump.
press, I don't think your comments are sour grapes at all. -- And are 'spot on' WRT the topic.
You say you don't understand. I don't understand either. But then the strategies, competency and effectiveness of ANY President's cabinet is not able to be evaluated until after they have served some time.
I suspect -- but of course, am speculating -- Trump may be seeking to streamline some of the operations within sundry depts.
Edmond...I fear you are attributing a far greater degree of analytics than is warranted.
Based upon the (lack of) specificity attributed to our President-elect on major issues throughout the campaign, my guess is to look to whomever is providing counsel to Mr. Trump in regards to these nominees. Is it Bannon? Priebus? Pence? The Koch brothers?
At best, Trump is deciding from a short list given to him. By who...is the question.
Press: At best, Trump is deciding from a short list given to him. By who...is the question.
Reply: Probably whoever's opinion he values, based on a lifetime of networking with very successful people. DJT hardly strikes me as having a personality which can be easily be manipulated; quite the opposite, he strikes me as a dominant "alpha male" personality.
Whoever it is that is providing him guidance, it probably won't be Saul Alinsky, Anthony Weiner, or the Jeremiah "God Damn America" Wright or Al "Tawana Brawley" Sharpton...
@Edmond: Discussions such as this one are perilous at best, given the wide range of sensitivities and opinions of various board members. I appreciate them because they help to provide a balance of perspectives and viewpoints which might not otherwise occur to me. Commentary like your last paragraph might be appreciated by the cretins on the WSJ blogs, but contributes nothing valuable, generates reciprocal nastiness, and invites the moderators to delete the thread entirely.
Joe, you may be right --- we may have delicate snowflakes who need to be protected from free speech. Oh, those delicate snowflakes...
(edit: Joe, its interesting to note the number of views this thread has, vs any number of others, which have very few views, and NO replies. Half the threads have no replies, just an OP posting a link...which often generates no apparent interest....)
Back to Press' query: "at best, Trump is deciding from a short list given to him. By who...is the question."
Here is the CNN report on the "who". Fox News too, reported that Tillerson was first recommended to the Trump team by (gasp) former Defense Secy, Bob Gates.
Gee, I wonder if Gate's endorsement was unbiased since he, along with other endorsers get a paycheck from Tillerson's company. Trump isn't draining the swamp. He is bringing in his own alligators.
Condoleezza Rice, Robert Gates, Stephen Hadley and James Baker, all of whom have business dealings with the oil giant, played a crucial role in convincing Trump's team to select Tillerson to become America's top diplomat.
"we may have delicate snowflakes who need to be protected from free speech"
@Edmond: You could not be more mistaken if you are suggesting that I'm in favor of throttling anyone's right to free speech. I regard the current tendency to provide college students with "quiet spaces" so as to protect them from hearing anything which might contradict their personal beliefs, or even (horror!) challenge their sociological or political beliefs, to be absurd. The very concept of "political correctness" is infuriating.
In case you haven't noticed, the "number of views" that a topic here on MFO receives is not a shield against what I regard as an increasingly arbitrary "kill" tendency on the part of at least some of the board moderators. I was surprised to note the recent "disappearance" of an interesting and very widely viewed posting, presumably because someone took offense at some of the commentary.
It is in the interest of free speech, at least here on MFO, to maintain the ability to express dissenting and opposing points of view on subjects other than mutual funds. If you were not familiar with this site's predecessor, "FundAlarm", you will not be appreciative of the rather long leash allowed on MFO. On FundAlarm the moderator immediately killed any post which was not specific to mutual funds.
Keeping commentary here free of unnecessarily inflammatory and gratuitous insults seems a reasonable tradeoff to insure maintenance of our rather long leash.
Comments
mobile.nytimes.com/2016/12/10/us/politics/trump-mocking-claim-that-russia-hacked-election-at-odds-with-gop.html
https://theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/11/rex-tillerson-secretary-of-state-trump-russia-putin
Let's practice: Dasvidaniya, American sovereignty.
To put it another way, you say Petro, I say Putin, let's call the whole thing off.
Geez - Been selling off energy heavy PRNEX as the price has risen this year. Based on this development that might have been a mistake. I'll hang on to the remainder (1) forever or (2) as long as this gang is in power.
May I recommend some seasonal music? https://www.amazon.com/Mob-Hits-Christmas/dp/B00004Y6HK/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1481477654&sr=1-1&keywords=mob+hits+christmas
From everything I can see, I think the bet is on energy service rather than anything that depends upon energy price. It appears the admin will be vigorously developing as much native energy as humanly possible. That should increase supply thereby resulting in cheaper oil and gas.
Just my humble opinion.
and so it goes,
peace,
rono
As it relates to oil, my colleague's father came up with an interesting suggestion for the new Administration:
Trump should announce a tapering (eventually a moratorium) on oil imports from outside of the Americas. Perhaps Oz could be included too as 'OK'd' for imports.
The natural effect would be an increase in WTI $, and likely a collapse in Brent pricing. Capital investment & employment in the energy sector throughout the Americas would ensue. Our energy-dependent friends (Europe, Japan) would be boosted by lowered energy costs. Energy-producers up to no good (Russia, Iran, Saudis, et al) would be weakened.
Win-win-win.
news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/12/141219-fracking-oil-supply-price-reserves-profits-environment/
From the article:
" The IEA report projects that U.S. domestic oil supplies, dominated by fracking, will begin to decline by 2020. "As tight oil output in the United States levels off, and non-OPEC supply falls back in the 2020s," the report says, "the Middle East becomes the major source of supply growth."
Earlier this year the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) also forecast a plateau in U.S. oil production after 2020.
The basis for these forecasts are estimates of shale oil reserves. A 2013 Energy Department report on technically recoverable shale oil—the amount that's recoverable without regard to cost—puts U.S. potential at 58 billion barrels. That's equivalent to a little more than eight years of U.S. consumption at the current rate of almost 19 million barrels a day."
Further, the suggestion (again, I emphasize, not mine, but my colleague's dad), did not limit only to a "fortress America", but to the entire western hemishere. That would include Canada, Mexico Venezuela & Brasil.
But go on, keep up with the "No we can't!" and "It can't be done" perspective. I'm certain NASA would have succeeded marvelously with that kind of attitude.
"Until 2008 not a single earthquake had ever been recorded by the U.S. Geological Survey from the Dallas–Fort Worth (DFW) area, where Wallace has lived for more than 20 years. Since then, close to 200 have shaken the cities and their immediate suburbs. Statewide, Texas is experiencing a sixfold increase in earthquakes over historical levels. Oklahoma has seen a 160-fold spike in quakes, some of which have sent people to hospitals and damaged buildings and highways. In 2014 the state's earthquake rate surpassed California's.
The rise in quakes coincides with an increase in drilling activity. Wallace's house, for instance, sits above the Barnett Shale Formation, a layer of hard black rock that holds the U.S.'s second-largest deposit of natural gas. Between 1998 and 2002 companies started drilling this deposit using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which involves pumping millions of gallons of water, plus sand and chemicals, into the ground at high pressure to crack the rock and release the gas. As the gas comes up the well so does the fracking fluid, along with volumes of brine so salty it is hazardous. The fluids are pumped back down a different hole drilled far below the shale into porous rock for permanent disposal. As more and more fluid is injected into these wastewater wells, pressure can start to build up on deep geologic faults. Eventually one can slip, causing an earthquake.
Researchers at the USGS and other institutions have tied earthquake surges in eight states, including Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio, Kansas and Arkansas, to oil and gas operations. Some state regulators have been slow to accept scientists' findings. Residents have become increasingly angry, and environmental groups have sued. “This is a public safety issue, and there's been a lot of denial and ignoring of the problem,” says Wallace, who has joined neighbors to push for the shutdown of nearby wastewater wells.
https://scientificamerican.com/article/drilling-for-earthquakes/
I'm keen on the U.S. being energy independent just so long as the fracking facilities are near your home and not mine.
Reply: Sounds like we are in agreement, since I live in Big D. I guess you are a NIMBY-type -- but burn fossil fuels nevertheless, huh? I think the hemispheric energy plan has merit --- anything to take funds away from the bad actors in the Persian Gulf. Depriving Vlad of extra funds proably wouldn't be a bad idea either.
As for Venezuela, Brasil & Mexico. Each case is different. Venezuala is the kind of socialistic state Obama would have loved to turn the US into -- with himself as the titular ruler. One more 'fail' for the community organizer. Certainly, nothing would compel any of them to sell to the US -- other than the profit-motive. I'm all for importing raw materials from (most places). But the value-added jobs for goods/services sold in the US should predominantly go to legal residents/citizens.
By the by, most of the earthquakes in the Dallas suburb of Irving (where there have been quite a few mild quakes, which only began recently) are strangely centered in all directions around a geographich center -- that center happens to be where the old Dallas Cowboys stadium once was. The stadium was demolished several years ago, which is when the Irving quakes started. Strictly anecdotally, it would seem that perhaps the demolish explosions may have fractured something underground. Perhaps we should ban NFL games.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=HFLuOBsNMZA
REPLY: I think this comment deserves some attention. First, I'm not advocating "no trade". I don't know any one who is. I'm for fair-trade -- and yes, "fair trade" is subjective. But then so is "free trade". The current trade regime is subject to any number of rules/regs and regulatory bodies, some of them supra-national (WTO). Suffice it to say, I believe the trade deals negotiated by US Administrations going back AT LEAST to Bush 41 have been a big LOSE for the American Middle Class. They have been a big win for the Chi-coms, and the American 1% ers/owners of capital. Our trade relationship with the PRC specifically is of especial concern. Our politicians have always been more interested in getting ANY trade deal done, even if its a bad deal. --- Our trading partners understand that dynamic, and press for every advantage against us, and have succeed marvelously, to our detriment.
I'd like to have good deals, but if a good deal is not possible, then yes, I'd favor no deal. No deal is better for American workers than bad deals.
If we disagree about that, then we disagree about that.
Importing raw materials, which then get processed into higher-value goods domestically, is exactly what I favor. That is how living-standards go up. The 19th century empires did exactly that. They imported raw materials from their colonies, so that citizens of the mother-country could be employed in manufacturing and build better lives. In the current trading regime, the US in effect has become an economic colony of the Chinese. They produce "stuff", and we borrow to pay them for it. Their employment, living-standards goes up; ours stagnates -- and would drop except for the massive borrowing the govt does to prop up incomes here. Wealth is transfered from the Middle Class & future generations (via borrowing) to the Chi-coms.
From the link:
"Bernie spoke against NAFTA, saying that this fast track agreement with Mexico “will be a disaster for our working people, for our farmers, and for the environment in general.” In 1993, saying that in his view, “NAFTA will accelerate all of these negative economic trends, and will only benefit the ruling elites of the United States, Mexico, and Canada.....
Bernie firmly believes that current trade relations with China are detrimental to job growth and wealth equality in the United States. Referring specifically to the 2015 Trans-Pacific Partnership, Bernie has decried trade deals with China as being “designed to protect the interests of the largest multi-national corporations at the expense of workers, consumers, the environment and the foundations of American democracy.”
So what makes you believe today's Republican Congress, which is firmly pro-trade and free markets is going to allow for this to happen? I doubt that Trump and his cabinet, most of whom are billionaires with significant overseas business interests, even want there to be severe tariffs with slave-labor countries despite Trump's claims to the contrary. I also doubt anything much will happen, despite Trump's one populist/socialist idea of government control of trade. Nor do I think anyone in the party, including Trump, really wants it to. Trump's other populist/socialist idea--massive government investment in infrastructure--also probably won't happen. In any case, if either or both do, we will look more like socialist countries like Venezuela, not less.
The right-leaning Generals, the boys from Goldman Sachs, the woman from from a billionaire Michigan family (thanks to Amway) who knows nothing about public schools except she'd like to get rid of them ... these all must be supurb negotiators.
And the nation's labor leaders and scholars, notably lacking among the picks, must be damn poor negotiators.
sour grapes, whining?
I should have expected as much. FYI - Here's a few more put-downs you can fling in the direction of anyone who dares criticize Trump in the coming years.
The 289 People, Places andThings Donald Trump Has Insulted on Twitter: A Complete List
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/01/28/upshot/donald-trump-twitter-insults.html
REPLY: So what! So really seem obsessed with labelling people.
I think (and thought) Bernie had some sound ideas on trade. There is no particular reason they (or I) should feel the need to disagree with the other, just to be disagreeable.
Both Bernie and Trump appealled to people who I would call "underdogs". By contrast the 12 Republican dwarfs and Hillary were running for those who have ensconsed themselves into a corrupt system. Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan disagreed about a lot of things, but they worked together where they could find common ground. What is your problem here?
And while you seem quite adept at googling other peoples' opinions, have you really thought long and hard about what you want govt to do. The 1% do not really need the govt, do they. Yet they "own" the govt and have owned it for some time. Govt probably should not exist to service the 1%; it should probably exist to serve the rest of us.
That is not Bernie, or Trump. Just lil ole ME.
sour grapes, whining?
hank: I should have expected as much. FYI - Here's a few more put-downs you can fling in the direction of anyone who dares criticize Trump in the coming years.
REPLY: If memory serves, Hillary referred to most of Trump's supporters as "deplorable". Politics ain't softball. Both camps engaged in mudslinging. So what! The campaign is over. Trump won. Move on.
The education secretary wants to do away with public schools, the EPA chief takes his marching orders from big oil, and the current Energy Secretary, Ernest Moniz, the nuclear physicist, is being replaced by Rick Perry, the former Texas governor who during his own presidential run could not remember the Department of Energy as the third federal department he was promising to close.
It may be sour grapes, but I just can't imagine what the end product will look like if these folks have their way.
You say you don't understand. I don't understand either. But then the strategies, competency and effectiveness of ANY President's cabinet is not able to be evaluated until after they have served some time.
I suspect -- but of course, am speculating -- Trump may be seeking to streamline some of the operations within sundry depts. Once a govt initiative begins, they seldom seem to ever be "sunset". No doubt EVERY govt initiative supports SOMEBODY, but that is a very low bar to keeping a program in place. ANECDOTE: One of my colleagues has 3 grade-school kids. The school administration has been coercing him to have one of them with MINOR speech impediment enrolled in a "special course". Once the kid is in the program, its bureaucratically very difficult to un-enroll him, even if the speech impediment disappears. My colleague believes this is a way for the school to grab some special Federal money -- and make it an annuity until the kid graduates. I suspect he is correct.
As for the education nominee, I wonder if your characterization is precisely true? -- I understand her positions may not be popular with teacher union leaders. But should the satisfaction of labor unions be the objective of an Education secretary? -- I would think it would be the education of the youth. Public school unions interests may not always coincide with whats best for the kids. Ms. Devos may believe sincerely, the best interest of more kids is served by giving their parents some choice, rather than guaranteeing lifetime jobs to teacher union members. That doesn't mean she is going to 'do away with public schools' -- unless those public schools are doing a DIS-service to their kids by providing a poor education.
Education is supposed to be about the kids, not the teachers' unions. Isn't it?
The one Secretary that keeps coming to my mind is James G. Watt. He'd probably fare better under Trump than under Reagan, who finally forced him to resign for his racist, sexist - you name it - comments.
For your entertainment, such as it is, here's Time's list of 10 worst Cabinet members (clickable links).
Based upon the (lack of) specificity attributed to our President-elect on major issues throughout the campaign, my guess is to look to whomever is providing counsel to Mr. Trump in regards to these nominees. Is it Bannon? Priebus? Pence? The Koch brothers?
At best, Trump is deciding from a short list given to him. By who...is the question.
Reply: Probably whoever's opinion he values, based on a lifetime of networking with very successful people. DJT hardly strikes me as having a personality which can be easily be manipulated; quite the opposite, he strikes me as a dominant "alpha male" personality.
Whoever it is that is providing him guidance, it probably won't be Saul Alinsky, Anthony Weiner, or the Jeremiah "God Damn America" Wright or Al "Tawana Brawley" Sharpton...
Stern note to follow.
(edit: Joe, its interesting to note the number of views this thread has, vs any number of others, which have very few views, and NO replies. Half the threads have no replies, just an OP posting a link...which often generates no apparent interest....)
Back to Press' query: "at best, Trump is deciding from a short list given to him. By who...is the question."
Here is the CNN report on the "who". Fox News too, reported that Tillerson was first recommended to the Trump team by (gasp) former Defense Secy, Bob Gates.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/13/politics/rex-tillerson-robert-gates-condoleezza-rice/
(warning: the CNN link has annoying audio on it)
@Edmond: You could not be more mistaken if you are suggesting that I'm in favor of throttling anyone's right to free speech. I regard the current tendency to provide college students with "quiet spaces" so as to protect them from hearing anything which might contradict their personal beliefs, or even (horror!) challenge their sociological or political beliefs, to be absurd. The very concept of "political correctness" is infuriating.
In case you haven't noticed, the "number of views" that a topic here on MFO receives is not a shield against what I regard as an increasingly arbitrary "kill" tendency on the part of at least some of the board moderators. I was surprised to note the recent "disappearance" of an interesting and very widely viewed posting, presumably because someone took offense at some of the commentary.
It is in the interest of free speech, at least here on MFO, to maintain the ability to express dissenting and opposing points of view on subjects other than mutual funds. If you were not familiar with this site's predecessor, "FundAlarm", you will not be appreciative of the rather long leash allowed on MFO. On FundAlarm the moderator immediately killed any post which was not specific to mutual funds.
Keeping commentary here free of unnecessarily inflammatory and gratuitous insults seems a reasonable tradeoff to insure maintenance of our rather long leash.