Pot meet Kettle

 "Pulte's focus on Cook's mortgage documentation is just the latest in a series of similar accusations against high-ranking Democrats, such as Sen. Adam Schiff of California and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

He added in a second post, "If you commit mortgage fraud in America, we will come after you, no matter who you are." "

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-removing-federal-reserve-governor-lisa-cook-rcna227138

"Judge Arthur Engoron had ordered Trump to pay the fee for massively inflating the value of the Trump Organization's properties in order to secure favorable loans.

In the lengthy ruling released on Thursday, judges on the New York Supreme Court's Appellate Division stated that while Trump was liable for the fraud, the fine of nearly half a billion dollars was excessive and probably violated constitutional protections against severe punishment.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y09q1zgg8o

England swings like a pendulum do

I read an article about a new report  -

"A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse"  
Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate Report to U.S. Energy Secretary Christopher Wright
July 23, 2025 

This is what I wrote to the author of the article:

--------------------
Whatever happened to fact checking, disclaimers and backing up your claims with footnotes?

The five scientists - the Climate Working Group:

John Christy, Ph.D.

Judith Curry, Ph.D.

Steven Koonin, Ph.D.

Ross McKitrick, Ph.D.

Roy Spencer, Ph.D

Are all either climate change deniers or at the least climate change skeptics.

If I was to clone Michael Mann five times and have "them" write a report, you would dismiss it out of hand - as you should.

Stacking the Group does not make it more accurate.

I do believe there is room for debate but remember this: 

A pendulum is not a mode of transportation.

At best you just end up in the same place.

------------------

Rewriting History 8/8/2025

 Andy Biggs was on Fox talking about the redistricting in Texas.  He said that the only reason Democrats were in positions in Texas was BECAUSE of gerrymandering!  ?%!?

From November 2017:

“Even the way the electoral map is drawn has been an obstacle for Democrats, explained Kronberg.

“There’s currently a redistricting case in front of the United States Supreme Court, and nobody knows how that’s going to play itself out. If they’re forced to actually draw lines that reflect communities of interest, then it’s entirely possible that incrementally we can see the state start to turn purple,” said Kronberg.”

https://www.kvue.com/article/news/politics/demise-of-the-democrats-how-the-party-lost-texas-and-how-it-can-win-it-back/269-487318326

The problem with the Internet is that you can go back and check these things.  How many people watching that will believe the Democrats did something underhanded, when it has been the Republicans all along…  and Ironic it was Reagan who said “Trust, but verify…”.

Tariffs and Prices

Having spent much of my life in parts management and with setting prices for companies, let me give an overview of tariffs and prices:

Basically, I calculated prices by taking the actual price paid for goods, add the hard shipping costs (UPS, Air or Sea and local delivery) and then add Customs and Duties (C&D). This is my “landed” or “dock” cost. The C&D are usually determined by INCO terms.  The INCO terms state if the seller or the buyer is paying what costs of a transaction.  After adding all the above up and taking into account stocking and warehousing costs, I would have a multiplier to come up with my selling price.  The multiplier established the cost of sale, and I had to take into account things like competition, total markup, warehouse and dealer prices and of course my companies procedures.

If a product had an unusual tariff, such as an anti-dumping surcharge, I would have to figure that into my price or look elsewhere for a product without the tariff.

In today’s world we have a very stable supply chain. There may be alternate sources for a product, but they usually come from the same country and it takes months, if not years, to establish a new manufacturing plant.

So what about the new tariffs?  Say we have a product with a cost of 100 dollars ($100.) and a 20% tariff.  So the product would still cost  $100, but I would have a $20 per item cost added in my C&D.  Now this does not mean my cost or my selling price would go up 20%,  but it would have an impact.

What about the supplier paying the tariff?  The only Inco term normally where this happens is DDP.  It would make more sense for the supplier to lower the price of the good.  So maybe the part becomes $90. With a tariff of $18.00. My cost would then be $108, better than $120.  Unless the supplier has a incredible markup in his product, this is not likely to happen.  He still has to pay his expenses and his workers.

What if I eat the tariff?  Well then my company makes less profit and there is less money for raises or research and development.  I am not a tax expert, but a large company might be able to claim these costs against profit.  A small company may not be able to write off these costs.

Now, why has the tariff costs not hit hard yet?  Some companies work on FIFO (First in-first out) and some on LIFO (last in - first out). Some work on weighted averages.  FIFO dampens the effect of increasing costs, weighted averages dampens all fluctuations.  Other things that can cause prices to change are currency fluctuations, shipping costs (remember the fuel surcharges)  amongst others.  Companies using LIFO might have wildly swinging prices, based on the daily cost of materials.  Once you pick and accounting system, you cannot just change at a moments whim.  This would of course affect your profits and of course your taxes so it is discouraged in the Fiscal year.

So if the proposed tariffs stay in effect, you will see prices rise until they stabilize.  This might take 6 months to a year, once new goods make it to market.  The bottom line is that if all that happens is that the companies pay the tariffs, and no business moves to American manufacturers* then the tariff is just an addition tax paid by the consumer.

*For the tariff to lower prices on goods, an American manufacturer would have to be able to produce the product at less than the tariff price.  Right now no manufacture would invest in a new factory, knowing that if the tariff might be removed, they would be right back at the same disadvantage as before.

An Elephant never forgets

The funny thing about the Internet is that it never forgets.

One quick trick is to use Google’s search a specific time period to hone in on the original stories.

Take the accusations of President Obama made by Tulsi Gabbard.

First - she releases a report - done on September 18, 2020.  First - who was the DNI director at the time?  Oh it was John Radcliffe.  What was he doing at the time? - he was releasing unsubstantiated information to affect the election 

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/10/1/21497176/john-ratcliffe-russia-intelligence-hillary-clinton-donald-trump

Even the NY Post at that time was reporting that Obama knew Clinton was trying to pin something on Trump, but even they had to admit:

“Ratcliffe said the intelligence community was unable to confirm the validity of the claim that Clinton cooked up the scandal. He wrote the information was derived from “Russian intelligence analysis ” that could have been an “exaggeration or fabrication.” Sources told Politico that members of both parties on the Senate Intelligence Committee previously discounted the claim as unsupported by fact.”

So a guy who tries to smear the opposing party, approves a report that smears the other party and it is a surprise why???

https://www.odni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/DIG/DIG-Declassified-HPSCI-Report-Manufactured-Russia-Hoax-July2025.pdf

“Finding #1: The Bulk of ICA Judgments on Russia's Election Operations Were Sound and Employed Proper Analytic Tradecraft

The majority found most ICA judgments on Russia's election activities to be well reasoned, consistent with observed Russian actions, properly documented, and-particularly on the cyber intrusion sections-employed appropriate caveats on sources and identified assumptions. The key ICA judgments that the Majority found

credible are summarized below: 

Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow's longstanding desire to undermine the US liberal democratic order.

Russian intelligence services, acting on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin, launched conventional

and cyber influence operations-notably by leaking politically sensitive emails obtained from computer intrusions during the 2016 election.

Putin's principal motivations in these influence operations were to advance Moscow's longstanding desire to

undermine faith in US democracy, and to weaken from the start what the Russians considered to be an inevitable Clinton presidencу. 

Putin held back leaking some compromising material to use against the expected Clinton Administration after

they took office.

The operations officers at CIA and NSA who produced the raw intelligence cited in the ICA showed great professionalism. CIA Collection Management Officers (CMOs) in particular, did an excellent job of employing detailed context statements that spelled-out evidentiary problems affecting the reliability of raw intelligence.

The drafters of ICA did not accurately cite the most critical context statements (addressed in detail later in this study) but the original raw reports were nonetheless professionally prepared.”

So we can put these facts to bed forever.

The problem was a debate over whether Putin “aspired” to have Trump win.  Well if he did not want Clinton to win, was he expecting a 3rd party victory?  

Sounds like a pretty weak concept to pin your hopes on.  When Trump said “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing, I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press,”… well, he did say that.  As I have said in my blog at that time, I did not expect there to be a smoking gun linking Trump to Putin.  But he was playing a dangerous game in appearing to do just that.

Maybe this is interesting reading 10 years gone:

https://www.politico.eu/article/trump-and-putin-two-liars-separated-at-birth/

What some people forget

The Republicans want to get rid of PBS and impose Tariffs

 They totally forget "Firing Line" 

From Wikipedia: 

"Firing Line is an American public affairs television show. It first ran from 1966 to 1999, with conservative author and columnist William F. Buckley Jr. as host. It was relaunched in 2018 with Margaret Hoover as host. With 1,504 episodes over 33 years under Buckley, Firing Line was the longest-running public affairs show with a single host in television history. The program featured many influential public figures in the United States and won an Emmy Award in 1969."

When they want to Tariff every country, they forget Ronald Reagan:

"As perhaps you've heard, last week I placed new duties on some Japanese products in response to Japan's inability to enforce their trade agreement with us on electronic devices called semiconductors. Now, imposing such tariffs or trade barriers and restrictions of any kind are steps that I am loath to take. And in a moment I'll mention the sound economic reasons for this: that over the long run such trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer. But the Japanese semiconductors were a special case. We had clear evidence that Japanese companies were engaging in unfair trade practices that violated an agreement between Japan and the United States. We expect our trading partners to live up to their agreements. As I've often said: Our commitment to free trade is also a commitment to fair trade.

But you know, in imposing these tariffs we were just trying to deal with a particular problem, not begin a trade war. So, next week I'll be giving Prime Minister Nakasone this same message: We want to continue to work cooperatively on trade problems and want very much to lift these trade restrictions as soon as evidence permits. We want to do this, because we feel both Japan and the United States have an obligation to promote the prosperity and economic development that only free trade can bring."

Tax WHO?

 Here is a case where we might HAVE to tax the rich in order to keep things going.

Back when this country started, we were pretty much self-sufficient. You grew your own food, made your own clothes, built your own house. What you didn’t have, you traded for. Time passes and with science and technology - the two main drivers of civilization - things become specialized.

Now trading became more important than being self-sufficient. This led to the importance of money, credit cards, loans, etc. Home industries like manufacturing were farmed out, and brain power overtook physical work. This led to inequality as hard work could not make up for technological increase in productivity. So even if jobs were to come back to America, they would fall into two possibilities. First would be low paying menial jobs. Second would be high paying technology jobs. As the income shifts from the majority to the minority, the saying often attributed to Al Capone comes to mind. “Why do you rob banks? Because that is where the money is.”

Taxing the average person will become less and less productive as their average salary falls. So their transferred share of the country’s wealth will end up in the pocket of others. These people’s “fair share” will include those they make their money off of. That is why it was proposed that when a machine replaces 5 workers; the machine, or the person who profits from the machine, would owe the tax normally paid by those 5 workers.

Spending is a separate issue and needs to be analyzed differently. However, I do think there is a link. As the majority of people see their relative income shrink, then they demand more services from the government. If that increased spending basically comes out of their own pockets in increased taxes, it does not seem like a really smart move.

This idea was in part from a video I watched - you might enjoy it and find this channel interesting.

How Cheap TVs Made Healthcare Unaffordable!