CNBC has the article and video Chinese billionaire Jack Ma says the US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure.

“The world needs new leadership, but the new leadership is about working together,” Ma said. “As a business person, I want the world to share the prosperity together.”

he says ironically as he amasses billions for himself. Well, I suppose I have defeated my purpose by starting with that quote and the snide remark. Actually he had some excellent things to say in this short video.

Ma says blaming China for any economic issues in the U.S. is misguided. If America is looking to blame anyone, Ma said, it should blame itself.

“It’s not that other countries steal jobs from you guys,” Ma said. “It’s your strategy. Distribute the money and things in a proper way.”

It took me a few readings to understand what he was trying to say. It is our strategy that is causing us job loss, not the stealing of jobs by other countries. If we had distributed money and things in a proper way, we wouldn’t find ourselves in the fix that we are in.

YouTube has the video Stephanie Kelton Destroys Peter Schiff’s Economic Myths On Sam Seder Show.

This may be the most important interview you will ever see. Stephanie Kelton should run for President. If you are at all confused by economics, taxes, deficits, and all the rest, this is the clearest and the simplest explanation I have ever heard of this topic.

I am a big fan of MMT of which Stephanie Kelton is a major proponent. Nevertheless, she even clears up some questions about it that I had.

See my previous post Bill Black: Obama Loved Austerity and the New Democrats Remain Addicted to It for an appreciation of the harm that ignorance of economics causes for our country. Bill Black is a colleague of Stephanie Kelton.

Naked Capitalism has the article Finance and Growth: The Direction of Causality.

Our findings also have an implication for the presumption after the start of the Great Recession that resuming credit flows was essential for economic recovery. In the Eurozone, where the recovery has lagged, efforts to create a greater supply of credit have been an important policy focus. Recapitalisation of banks, in particular, has been seen as crucial to the recovery of both the banking system and the economy. But where in the past the financial sector served a primarily wealth-preserving function, and where substantial wealth has now been destroyed, pushing more credit in the hope that this will generate growth could be counterproductive. This attempt to push more credit into the economy would be particularly harmful if growth potential is low. The risk is that zombie banks will be propped up, and the costs of cleaning them up and closing them down will only increase over time.

True conclusions, but a slightly misdirected search for the cause.

It seems to me that the key variable is the transfer of wealth from the bottom tiers of wealth holders to the upper tiers. All this analysis of credit to gdp ratio, and advanced economies versus developing economies, and pre 1990 versus post 1990, all point to the the possibility that transfer of wealth is the issue. Measuring the growth of the financial sector as this article does, we see scatter plots with dots all over the place. That means that there are huge exceptions to the rules being gleaned. As an electrical engineer, I would call this a large noise to signal ratio. If we plotted all of the growth data against the axis of wealth disparity we would get smaller noise and larger signal. Then we could talk about large signal to noise ratios, and fewer and smaller exceptions to the rules.

Consortium News has published A Demand for Russian ‘Hacking’ Proof,

More than 20 U.S. intelligence, military and diplomatic veterans are calling on President Obama to release the evidence backing up allegations that Russia aided the Trump campaign – or admit that the proof is lacking.
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Alleged Russian interference has been labeled “an act of war” and Mr. Trump a “traitor.” But the “intelligence” served up to support those charges does not pass the smell test. Your press conference on Wednesday will give you a chance to respond more persuasively to NBC’s Peter Alexander’s challenge at the last one (on Dec. 16) “to show the proof [and], as they say, put your money where your mouth is and declassify some of the intelligence. …”

Obama doesn’t have to reveal sources and methods. All he has to do is respond to this non-clasified report by civilian computer security experts. as indicated in my previous post US Govt Data Shows “Russia” Used Outdated Ukrainian PHP Malware.

The Observer has the article Democrats Split Between Wealthy Donors vs. Sanders Progressives.

Despite the Democratic Party’s failures, mainstream Democrats are calling for blind loyalty under the false pretense of unity. “The party can’t win if it’s not inclusive, and the way to be inclusive is not to re-litigate the old battle. And there’s obviously some attempt to do that” corporate lobbyist and Clinton super delegate Howard Dean said in a recent interview. This misdiagnosis of the Democratic Party’s essential problem illuminates why it is in such a dire state.

This call for blind loyalty is what finally drove me out of the Democratic Party. I am just not the type to knuckle under. It should be an interesting race to see which party, The Green Party or the Democratic Party, is more successful in addressing the issues that ordinary US Americans face in their daily lives. It is not a matter of being Progressive, Neo-liberal, Conservative, or Libertarian. What matters is whether or not you can address and solve the problems that the bottom economic 90% of this country and the world face in their daily lives. If you don’t even address these issues, they just don’t have the time to even consider you, let alone vote for you. That’s a pretty big constituency to ignore.

Apparently I have never put this on this blog. This is the kind of priceless information that I use this blog to store.

I remember the first half of this, and it is the essential part. I don’t remember having seen the second part.

I had expected the second half to be about letting the loose end hang in front of the roll. I was disappointed.

Naked Capitalism has the article Bill Black: Obama Loved Austerity and the New Democrats Remain Addicted to It which you can also find on New Economic Perspectives as The New Democrats’ Addiction to Austerity Will Not Die.

People tell me that they cannot understand economics. So here is the essential lesson that you have to know boiled down to three paragraphs. If you cannot understand this, please let’s discuss it. This is essential to understand. If you can’t get it, you cannot understand how our Federal Government is supposed to operate. If you can’t understand that, how can you decide whom to vote for?

In a serious contraction, particularly one following a credit-driven bubble, consumers are worried about losing their jobs. They begin to repay their debts and reducing consumption. This is perfectly rational from their perspective. CEOs react to the fall in consumer demand in an equally rational manner – they reduce output and spending on investments. Banks are likely to constrain credit and try to build capital. This too is rational. The result is that there is inadequate demand and unemployment and business failures rise. At the very time that demand is most inadequate and the need for spending on consumption and investment would be most helpful to the economic recovery, consumers and CEOs are likely to do the opposite. Economists call this “the paradox of thrift.”

There is one entity that is an ideal position to do the opposite – to increase demand in response to a recession or depression. This entity is not credit-constrained by bankers. The entity is a government with a sovereign currency that borrows only in that currency and allows that currency to freely float. The U.S. is such a nation. It is critical that our federal government provide fiscal stimulus, in addition to the automatic stabilizers, to counter the recession or depression.

Obama’s metaphor is exactly the opposite of economic literacy. If “families across the country are tightening their belts” then it is particularly essential that the federal government do the opposite – not “the same” – to counter the effects of the sharp fall in effective demand.

Bill Black is just telling us what economists have known since 1930s and 1940s, and was taught in college economics courses in the 1960s. It is so very unfortunate that propagandists like Milton Freidman have succeeded in making even economists unlearn the truth they used to know.

Media ite has the post Bernie Sanders Has The Right Message—But The Wrong Strategy.

But the problem is who Sanders is allowing to piggyback off his powerful, consistent message. Schumer embodies everything that’s wrong, not only with the Democratic Party, but American politics in general. He’s a politician that, over the years, has invested more in his own personal perseverance [preservation] of power than in helping the average, working class person he’s entrusted in to represent.
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But if Sanders isn’t careful, he’ll repair a corporate-Democratic Party’s badly beaten vehicle for it just as the country predictably turns against President Trump, who by the looks of it, will be delivering one disastrous policy after another.

And without flinching, Schumer and the corporate establishment will open the car door, and toss him and the progressive movement he represents out into the muddy ditch—on their road back to power.

Senator Sanders, as obvious as it is not to drink and drive, it’s as politically obvious: don’t get in the car with Schumer and the oligarchs he represents. Or the ditch most Americans are already stuck in will only get muddier.

This is exactly why I did not attend the event in Boston. It seemed to be hosted by the Massachusetts congressional delegation personified by Elizabeth Warren. They are all on the team with Schumer and his ilk.

I wonder if Donald Trump will transfer some of his famous lines from his show The Apprentice to his duties as President.

What brings this thought to mind is Trump’s troubles with the intelligence community as epitomized by the latest from the CIA – Donald Trump slams CIA Director Brennan over plea for ‘appreciation’ of intel community.

Suddenly an historic event popped into my mind. The History Channel has just the article I needed – Truman relieves MacArthur of duties in Korea.

Problems with the flamboyant and egotistical General MacArthur had been brewing for months. In the early days of the war in Korea (which began in June 1950), the general had devised some brilliant strategies and military maneuvers that helped save South Korea from falling to the invading forces of communist North Korea. As U.S. and United Nations forces turned the tide of battle in Korea, MacArthur argued for a policy of pushing into North Korea to completely defeat the communist forces. Truman went along with this plan, but worried that the communist government of the People’s Republic of China might take the invasion as a hostile act and intervene in the conflict. In October 1950, MacArthur met with Truman and assured him that the chances of a Chinese intervention were slim. Then, in November and December 1950, hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops crossed into North Korea and flung themselves against the American lines, driving the U.S. troops back into South Korea. MacArthur then asked for permission to bomb communist China and use Nationalist Chinese forces from Taiwan against the People’s Republic of China. Truman flatly refused these requests and a very public argument began to develop between the two men.

In April 1951, President Truman fired MacArthur and replaced him with Gen. Matthew Ridgeway. On April 11, Truman addressed the nation and explained his actions. He began by defending his overall policy in Korea, declaring, “It is right for us to be in Korea.” He excoriated the “communists in the Kremlin [who] are engaged in a monstrous conspiracy to stamp out freedom all over the world.” Nevertheless, he explained, it “would be wrong—tragically wrong—for us to take the initiative in extending the war… Our aim is to avoid the spread of the conflict.” The president continued, “I believe that we must try to limit the war to Korea for these vital reasons: To make sure that the precious lives of our fighting men are not wasted; to see that the security of our country and the free world is not needlessly jeopardized; and to prevent a third world war.” General MacArthur had been fired “so that there would be no doubt or confusion as to the real purpose and aim of our policy.”

If we don’t watch out we might someday have the Presidency held by the head of the CIA. Oh, wait, we did that already with George H. W. Bush. And we get excited because Vladimir Putin is the President of the Russian Federation. How ironic is that?

The Week has the article The catastrophic fall of the Democratic Party.

So, who’s the culprit? Obama and Pelosi, certainly, but also Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, and everyone else who ignored the frustration of voters for the last six years. Until they replace that leadership with people who can at least acknowledge the reality of those failures, it will be a long time before voters give Democrats another chance to govern at any level.

The Hilbots who refused to listen to those of us who warned that Clinton was unelectable, and who now want to place the blame for the loss on us, certainly deserve a lot of “credit” for the demise of the party. They succeeded in driving me and many others out of the party.

What the Hilbots do not understand is that weakness in a candidate includes being vulnerable to obvious attacks from the opposition. Weakness also includes not knowing what to do when the obvious attacks start to occur. That can be an insurmountable barrier when you have a public political record that people know about independently of what your attackers say. Donald Trump knew what to do when attacked. When Obama ran, he knew what to do when attacked. Even Bernie Sanders knew what to do when attacked. Poor Bernie did not know what to do in the face of vote rigging and voter suppression.

Having closed primaries is a sure way to get candidates that enough members of your party like, but does not consider that the great majority of voters in the general election are not members of your party. If you don’t care enough about the opinion of potential supporters who are not members of your party, do you expect for them to say “Thank you very much for refusing to pay attention to us”?