The immediate future for the Biden Presidency.

We have a new President. Trump can kick and scream all he wants, and he has  reasons to do so, but he has lost this election. He can look in the mirror and see the reason. One friendly analyst opined that he lost the election because of his poor performance in the first debate. He obviously didn't come prepared for a debate and Joe Biden did. He proved himself to be a poor debater. Any high school student on the debate team would have done better. I think it was more than that. The Biden campaign was able to pin a lot of the fault for the deaths and spread of the corona virus on him. They charged him repeatedly with poor handling of it. And, it seemed to stick. He was not able to shake that image. His continual public denial of the seriousness of the virus got him into trouble and kept him there, even though he knew it was serious and is on record as knowing it.

That there is voter fraud is a given. I'm sure there has never been a election where that didn't happen. There were political machines in the big cities in the not to distant past, especially New York and Chicago that are legendary. They were all Democratic machines, designed to make sure that not only did the party prevail, but to make sure the right person was the candidate. FDR was associated with Tammini Hall in his early career and JFK probably owes his election to the Chicago mafia. Almost all the big cities on the east and west coast are controlled by Democrats. They set up the polling places, decide the rules for the election and end up being in charge of the counting. It has been alleged, by a guest on Fox, that 160,000 ballots showed up mysteriously one night when everybody in the counting room has gone home. It was up to the representative for the Democratic Secretary of State whether they would be counted. Of course they don't see anything wrong that 100% of the ballots are for Biden. There is no way to trace any thing like that after the ballots are separated from the envelops. After all the ballots themselves are anonymous. Proving fraud is darn near impossible. And, they see nothing wrong with banning Republican Party observers into the hall where the votes are being counted, in spite of the law that allowed for that. 

 So what does the near term future look like for President Biden and the Democratic Party?

First of all Biden will come into office with top people in the government not trying to get him removed before he is even sworn in. He will not face a large hostile civil service. There will be no calls for impeachment. He will not face top officials in the FBI doing everything they can to find criminal activities concerning him and his top people. They will not try to trap his people in a lie so they can prosecute for perjury. He will not be at war with the media. They love him. He will get favorable press for everything he does and doesn't do. In short he will enter a very friendly environment to start his term as opposed to the situation Trump found himself in.

Maybe the division within his own party might very well be his biggest problem. The house seems to be dominated by the far left and they are on a straight line to a socialist  agenda. All kinds of ideas are spouting from their mouths. De-fund the police to the point of eliminating them altogether, open the borders and let anyone in, forgive all student loans, provide a free public education all the way through university, institute strict environmental laws including the total elimination of fossil fuels and free medical care for every one, even illegals, among others.  How they are going to pay for all of that is not addressed. Somehow taxing the rich seems to be the pat answer for some. But, they are not the whole party, just the most vocal.

On the plus side, Biden is deemed a negotiator. He seems to be well liked by people on both sides of the isle. He is well versed in the politics of Washington, having been involved in it for most of his life. He will probably be successful in getting some of his agenda through, in spite of the left leaning House and a Republican Senate.

He is not likely to say things off the cuff that will get him in trouble. He's been around too long to make the dumb statements that Trump was so prone to make. The openness to the President that the press enjoyed under Trump is something he will not do. Trumps hourly tweets kept the media busy and gave lots of things for them to discuss. The press will get what the Biden team wants them to get, when they want them to get it, and it will be carefully vetted and scripted. They will have to work to find something to write about. Most of the press will just publish the press releases. If they follow Obama's lead there will be very few press conferences and only carefully staged interviews with friendly moderators.

A split government might be the best thing for Biden. It will give him the excuse he needs to fight off the left wing of his party who are going to be ferocious in the pursuit of getting their agenda into law. If he gets a Democratic Senate due to the run off races in Georgia, then the left will pressure him unmercifully. Woe if something happens to Biden and Harris becomes President. Then you will see a real war between parties.

A byproduct of his election is his ability to put people in key positions to stop any investigation in the mess involving his son. The Senate will have to be careful as not to confirm some one who has an agenda to open up that can of worms surrounding the allegations against Trump that have been going on for 4 years by the Dems. There are people who would love to do that.

At this time it looks like the Republicans will still control the Senate. That will put a stopper on a lot of the left wing fancies. Joe's promise of a large increase in taxes will not fly. Of course he can propose them and then blame the Republicans when they don't get passed. After all, according to him, he will only tax the rich and the greedy corporations.

The Senate will also put a stop to extreme left wing appointments to the cabinet and the Judiciary. 

The Majority leader of the Senate will set the Republican agenda for the next four years. With a Republican President he took a back seat. Now the Majority Leader will step up as the top Republican in the government. The Senate has a lot of power. More so than the house. Treaties, cabinet and judicial appointments run through the Senate. 

Biden actually comes in at a good time for him. A vaccine for the virus is on the way and will be probably available to the public sometime in the first or second quarter of next year. When that happens, that will unleash the economy and there will be a dramatic upturn. In addition, medication for those infected are being developed with a lot of success. Restaurants, sporting events, bars and all kinds of businesses will open and start doing business again. It will take a few years to fully recover, but it will happen on Biden's watch.  And, just as God made little green apples the Democrats will take credit for the recovery. The only thing that will stop it, is for the left wing to get their agenda through and kill the recovery or, Biden repeals all the regulatory reductions that Trump put into place or both.

The one thing that will likely be on the table and successfully negotiated will be the subject of medical coverage. I think that the Republicans would be more than willing to come to a agreement with Biden on medical coverage if the he can get the Democratic house to go along. Which is questionable. They want government controlled universal health care. Can Biden control the Speaker.

The Dems will have to do some really stupid things to not have a good chance at their party winning another term in as President. They can be riding the wave of the benefits put in by Trump that resulted in a world class economy, a face up to China, Russia and Iran, bringing jobs back home, making America an oil exporting nation instead of buyer and negotiating more favorable trade deals for the United States among other things. All Biden has to do is, do nothing. But, if the Dems are stupid enough to select one of the radical left as their candidate in 2024 then all bets are off.

Although the second term will likely not be Biden. His age will probably limit him to one term. The favorite candidate for the office for the next election is always the current VP. Of course four years is a long time and other Dems may very well rise to the forefront. Who the Republicans choose is up for grabs. The betting would be for a woman, but I'm not so sure that either Harris or whoever the Republicans pick is a lock. Many a candidate has come out of the woodwork before. We'll see.

   

Trump vs Biden

 I watched the Presidential debates almost all the way through. It was really hard to do. But, here are a few observations I have on that debate.

First, it is clear to me that Biden came prepared for that debate and the  President didn't. I think Trump believed his own hype and thought he could crush Biden by over powering him and making him mad. He thought that he could cause Biden to commit a couple of major mistakes. But, Biden didn't play along. He came in prepared with rehearsed sound bits that would could be played on CNN and the other media to his favor. No matter what the question, he had a small speech ready for airing, largely ignoring the question if it didn't suit him, and there were quite a few of those. Once, when asked a question he didn't want to answer, he launched into a speech on everybody should get out and vote. A sound bit that will play well in the media.

Trump didn't win a single undecided voters approval by his tactics. I have no doubt about that. He acted the part of a bully, constantly interrupting Biden. He was playing to his base, but I don't think that will get him elected. It was clear that even Fox news, generally friendlier to the President than the general media, was critical of his tactics. Of course, CNN, MSNBC and the larger media are having a field day.

It has been said that Trump is a great debater. That is far from the truth.  In fact he is a  poor debater, He had many opportunities to site his record on the economy, his strongest position, but wasted those opportunities by his usual personal attacks on Biden. The facts and figures were on his side, but he really didn't methodically go through the list. 

On the virus questions he had many opportunities to site exactly what he actually done and the times he did them and methodically compare that record with Biden's own pronouncements at the same time. When he closed down travel from China. When he ordered the production of masks and ventilators. The steps he has taken to speed the development of a vaccine and the corresponding steps to make sure a supply of vaccine is rapidly available when one or more of the ones under trial now are approved. He has really nothing to be ashamed of on the the things he did, but he didn't hammer that point home. Instead, he attacked Biden. 

In short, I think Biden actually won the debate, even though he didn't do all that well himself. Because of the bar being set so low by Trump himself, all Biden had to do was survive to win. I don't know whether a second debate will swing any voters at this stage. But, Trump had better be better prepared for it.  I don't think he will. He is of the belief that the way he did it in 2016 will work again. Maybe it will. We'll see.

The Legacy of the Coronavirus

      It is evident that the Coronavirus will have a long and devastating effect upon the future after the virus is long gone. 

    Massive government spending to mitigate the effects of the virus upon the people of the United States is leaving a public debt that will influence the tax policies as well as the budgets for years into the future. 
     The public debt before the virus hit was just over 20 trillion dollars and rising, which was bad. It was soaking up something like 7 percent of the budget just to pay the interest. We have just added over 2 trillion to that number in one fell swoop with more to come.  
  

 

The taxpayer and their children and children's children will be paying for this forever. 

      It will change the way we shop and it might well spell the doom of whole lot of brick and mortar retailers, if they do not adapt rapidly and successfully to the realities of the new dynamics. In any event it will cost thousands of jobs in retail that will never return.  Sears, which already on life support, is likely not going to be able survive.  Several other big name stores are questionable. The virus has caused a really rapid change toward online buying, a trend that was happening anyway, but it has just accelerated the process.  

In spite of the government actions, a lot of small businesses will not survive. While the government handouts continue to pay wages of employees of small business, it can't do anything about the actual decline in business.

     The entertainment industry is not only suffering big time now, but will likely be effected for some time into the future. Movie houses are closed as well as sporting events not being held. I have heard talk of playing the beginning of the baseball season in Arizona to empty stadiums, depending on television coverage for revenue, I suppose. I don't know how that would work. It could be that they will end up copying what has happened to boxing. The games may be pay per view. The high salaries of the players as well as all the expenses associated with a major league baseball team have to be paid if they play.

     It is possible the the major studios will have to follow that same format. First run movies will be streamed to the individual homes for a fee. Again I have no idea if that is workable, in an economic sense, considering the cost of a big screen epoch. Of course HBO produced the Game of Thrones, which must have really expensive to produce, for viewing by it's membership. There is no way of knowing if the series would have paid for itself if it had been offered as a pay per view.  HBO did it to enhance their image and attract new customers. As televisions become larger and hopefully the sound systems become better, the move to big screen TV away from movie theaters may be the wave of the future. It probably was going in that direction anyway. The virus just accelerated the process.In fact it already been done with one major release and is apparently very successful.

     Airlines are in real trouble with no one flying.  As a result of that and with the expansion of electronic conferencing, the move away from traveling for business may well be accelerated. It is a lot cheaper and companies may well decide having people in the same room for face to face conferencing isn't all that important. 

     Grocery stores are hurting because so many of their customers are not leaving the house. The alternative is to have the groceries delivered. That is already happening. But, it is expensive. The common way for the delivery companies to make money is for them to charge more for an article  than they have to pay to the grocer. For instance, a case of cokes at Costco costs about $12.40 and the delivery service, Instacart, charges the customer about $14.50. 

     

The effect of the Coronavirus

       The effect of the Coronavirus

     As the Corona virus spreads and results in the disruption of the supply chain from China, it has becoming alarmingly clear just how dependent on that country the world economy has become. 
     That is very true for the United States.  The shutdown of the manufacture and shipping of the materials that we import from China threatens to impact the manufacturing of this country to a major extent. The wall street gurus recognized this and the results are shown in the decline the the stock market. 
     It turns out the almost every essential thing you buy has a part or all of it manufactured in China. They are into every thing. 
     Cars can't be built because critical parts are manufactured in China. 
    If your television isn't outright made in China, critical parts of it is
     Look around you. Almost everything you see was made wholly of partly in China. Your appliances, the clothes on your back, your lap top or desk top computer, that IPhone (Smart Phone) that you can't live without and everything else are all linked into the China pipeline one way or another.  
    The pharmaceutical products marketed at your local drug store all seem to have all or part of their ingredients manufactured in China. When you go to he drug store to fill your prescription, you will be out of luck. They can't make that medicine you need.
    And, the most disturbing thing is, that critical parts of most of the equipment built for the military is manufactured in China. That includes our most advanced weapon systems.  There is no source for these parts in the United States. If the China pipeline is shut down the military would take a significant blow.  
     You know very well why and how we got into this mess. We kept looking for cheaper prices as consumers and it was cheaper to invest billions and trillions of dollars in to manufacturing facilities in China than to build in the United States. We exported jobs to China as well as technology and was the principle driver behind China's rise into world power in such a short time. In return that blender you bought costs less as does those blue jeans you love so much. Building cost less because steel imported from China costs less than American produced steel. And the story goes on.
     To make matters worse we gave China sweetheart trade deals that levied little of no import taxes on products brought into the United States and at the same time as China levied large and restrictive taxes and restrictions on American products. China can own outright property in the United States without any additional restrictions or costs than those born by the American citizen, but an American can not wholly own property or manufacturing in China. They must have a Chinese party who owns the controlling interest in the facility.
    The outbreak of the Coronavirus and it's potential impact on the supply chain from China has just high lighted the dependence on the stuff we import from that country. Of course, we have a large trade imbalance with China that has been going on for years. With no end in sight. 
    President Trump has tried his best to address some of the these problems, using the only tool he has. A raising of the tariffs imposed on Chinese goods.  Of course the dems screamed bloody murder about that. They always yelled that these problems should be solved through diplomacy. But, several administrations have tried that approach, to no avail.  It seems that no matter what Trump does, the dems are going to scream about it, just because he did it. 
     And, the beat goes on. 
     Sooner of later, the virus will be brought under control and normal shipping and manufacturing in China will return to normal, and everything will go on as before. Nothing will change, and we will be facing the reality that China has emerged as the worlds dominate power. Militarily and economically.
      

The American Stone Age man

     I find it curious that in the whole western hemisphere no single genius arose and developed some breakthrough technology that would start the movement out of the stone age, which was the level of development that Columbus and the European followers found when they landed on the Americas shores in the early 16th century.
     This in spite of the fact that the Western Hemisphere was rich in natural resources, far richer than Europe. Iron, Copper, Coal, Oil, abundant timber and other metals were all here and easily exploited, if one of the indigenous natives had discovered a way to extract the metal from the earth. They had been able to fashion the soft metal, Gold, which did not require much in the way of technology, but no one ever made the leap from the soft metal to copper and then to iron.
     Fertile land was abundant in north America, but the natives, especially those that lived in what is now the USA and Canada,  remained primarily a Hunter/Gatherer society, except, perhaps,  the cliff dwelling people.  They knew how to plant corn and grow some crops but, they never transitioned that knowledge into an agricultural economic civilization. Because of that they had never developed the concept of owning land.
    They never developed the wheel and thus they never had any reason to develop roads. But, they participated in extensive trading over vast distances, all done by foot over trails.
     The early inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere were not stupid as can be attested to the clever ways that they adopted to the land they lived on. 
    At least three great civilizations rose up in this hemisphere, the Aztecs, the Mayans and the Incas. Usually when a lot of people are brought together, ideas begin to flourish, resulting in some new concept. But, that never happened. All these empires came and went without producing any breakthrough technology that might have changed the history of the Americas.
      Why did that happen? Perhaps some scholars doing research for a doctoral thesis has come to some conclusions, but, for me it is just curious.