Norbert Haupt

“The country, we took it over in 20 trillion you know the last eight years they borrowed more than it did in the whole history of our country. So they borrowed more than $10 trillion. Right? And yet we picked up $5.2 trillion just in the stock market. Possibly picked up the whole thing in terms of the first nine months. In terms of value. So you can say in one sense, we are really increasing values and may be in a sense, we are reducing debt. We are very honored by it and very, very happy by what’s happening in Wall Street.”

— Donald Trump in Hannity Interview

The self-proclaimed king of debt argues that since the stock market rose by $5 trillion, that somehow offsets the national debt.

The stock market enriches corporations and investors. The national debt is carried by the people. You can reduce debt by spending less, or raising taxes, neither of which Trump is suggesting. He is pounding on Obama for increasing the debt, yet his proposed tax cuts are bound to skyrocket the debt.

That’s just not how it works, Mr. President. Trying to dumb America down some more?

And Hannity, thanks for the “tough” question. Definitely dumbing down America.

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The Administration and the GOP are now heading for tax reform. They want to cut taxes. I read that to mean:

1. Lower taxes for the rich and Trump’s cronies
2. Burden the country with more debt to account for those tax cuts
3. Give the middle-class a one-time check of a few hundred dollars that is enough to pay for one trip to Costco – just to make them feel good.

Trump supporters want lower taxes, and they believe their hero that those couple of hundred dollars (IF THAT) is their fair share.

To support this initiative, Trump tells his supporters that the United States has one of the highest tax burdens in the world. That is simply not true whatsoever.

Trump lies.

It takes about 5 seconds to google and see the reality:

[click to enlarge]

This shows that the United States is actually below average.

I am not saying that paying taxes like they do in Belgium or Germany is good. I am just saying that Trump lied to his followers, whom he obviously considers too lazy or stupid to look up the facts for themselves.

Trump wants to cut taxes for billionaires. And the middle-class, the unemployed coal miners, “the milk people,” the Carrier workers that just lost their jobs in Indiana, they are still supporting Trump.

Trump is raiding this country for himself, his clan, and his cronies in the fossil fuel business, and the Russian mob, and the American people are blind to it and somehow think this is good for them.

One day, after 2018, or after 2020, we will all wake up with massively more national debt, less jobs for the lower and middle class, less education for all, and we’ll realize we have been duped. That is if we’re not in some new massive war with a new adversary like Iran or North Korea that he starts just to crank up the military industrial complex.

Trump is Making America Stupid Again.

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Well, you know, we’re going for 15 [percent]. We’re going to see, and we’ll see. But, you know, I don’t want to say anything about negotiation. I mean, we are asking for 15 percent, and we think we’re going to grow tremendously. So I deal with foreign countries, and despite what you may read, I have unbelievable relationships with all of the foreign leaders. They like me. I like them. You know, it’s amazing.

So I’ll call, like, major — major countries, and I’ll be dealing with the prime minister or the president. And I’ll say, how are you doing? Oh, don’t know, don’t know, not well, Mr. President, not well. I said, well, what’s the problem? Oh, GDP 9 percent, not well. And I’m saying to myself, here we are at like 1 percent, dying, and they’re at 9 percent and they’re unhappy. So, you know, and these are like countries, you know, fairly large, like 300 million people. You know, a lot of people say — they say, well, but the United States is large. And then you call places like Malaysia, Indonesia, and you say, you know, how many people do you have? And it’s pretty amazing how many people they have. So China’s going to be at 7 [percent] or 8 percent, and they have a billion-five, right? So we should do really well.

But in order to do that — you know, it’s tax reform, but it’s a big tax cut. But it’s simplification, it’s reform, and it’s a big tax cut, 15 –

— Donald Trump, Wall Street Journal, July 25, 2017 in the Oval Office – Read the full transcript here.

This shows how well Trump understands how economies work. How that man got rich is beyond me. Was it all money laundering, stiffing contractors, and walking away from failing projects?

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Germany’s Deputy Chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel – Photo Credit: Sascha Steinbach/EPA

In an interview with the German papers Bild and The Times, Trump complained that the car trade was “out of balance” with Germany.

“If you go down Fifth Avenue everyone has a Mercedes Benz in front of his house, isn’t that the case?” he said. “How many Chevrolets do you see in Germany? Not very many, maybe none at all … it’s a one-way street.”

— Donald Trump

First of all, I just walked down Fifth Avenue a couple of days ago, and there are no houses, and there are no cars parked in front of houses. It’s midtown Manhattan. But that’s beside the point.

Asked what Trump could do to make sure German customers bought more American cars, the German deputy chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said:

“Build better cars.”

It appears that Trump does not realize or know that BMW is already employing directly and indirectly nearly 70,000 people in the United States. Seriously, Trump really thinks our relationship with Germany is a problem for the United States?

Starting a trade war with Germany does not seem a smart move to me.

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