“MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski declares that it is the media’s job to control what the American people think”

Mika-joe-scarborough

"In a stunning display of how the media views its job, MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski declared Wednesday morning that it was the job of the establishment press to decide what the American people think.

While discussing President Trump’s push to destroy the corporate press, Brzezinski openly worried that if the economy goes on a downward spiral the American people may blame the press and further believe the new president over them.

“It could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, he could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control exactly what people think,” Brzezinski boldly claimed. “And that, that is our job.”"  intellihub

————————-

Yes.  I heard her say it.  She is not very smart, great legs but not very smart.  Lightnin' Joe Scarborough cringes from some of the things she says and audibly urges her not to say some things, but …

Sadly, the ambience in which she exists (Manhattan and the Hamptons) constantly reassures her of the righteousness of her globalist leftist views and the inevitability of their triumph in Man's ascent toward godhood.  In other words she believes that she is a messenger of … what exactly I know not.  Well, yes I do but I want you to form your own opinion. 

In this instance her belief that the media is a means of control in the best Orwellian fashion was made clear.  You can often discern the true feelings of parents by the impulsive utterances of their young.  Mika is IMO the child of the bi-coastal elitist left.  pl  

https://www.intellihub.com/msnbcs-mika-brzezinski-declares-that-its-the-medias-job-to-control-what-the-american-people-think/

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98 Responses to “MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski declares that it is the media’s job to control what the American people think”

  1. Hood Canal Gardner says:

    Ok,I’ll start it with apples and appletrees. The lady has a father. That’s enough. Punt

  2. turcopolier says:

    HCG
    She doesn’t agree with him on much of anything. pl

  3. Jack says:

    Sir
    The bi-coastal & urban elites along with their corporate media have had such a good time for decades that they completely believed their own BS and more importantly their influence on the Deplorables.
    Trump comes along as the antithesis to their dogma of the urbane and suave PC double talker, and upends them despite their all out efforts. They are now doubling down and their hysteria is clearly showing as we see here with Mika.
    Bannon, the man they love to hate and are gunning for the most, was rather candid at CPAC.
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4254040/Steve-Bannon-makes-rare-public-appearance-mock-media.html
    “If you remember, the campaign was “the most chaotic,” you know, by the media’s description, “most chaotic, most disorganized, most unprofessional, had no earthly idea what they were doing”,’ Bannon recalled.
    ‘And then you saw them all crying and weeping that night, on the 8th [of November].”

  4. ann says:

    I don’t have this TV channel so I have to ask, is that picture a promo for their “news” program. If so, it a bit sexist to my eyes. And discredits anything she might think.

  5. Eric Newhill says:

    Sir,
    Merely a snob with the usual contempt for the inferior little people.
    I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of progressives fall into this category, even if – perhaps especially if – they aren’t actually wealthy elites. They think that by adopting the attitudes and perspectives of the snobs they can vicariously “class up”. That the universities are full of similar thinking reinforces the thought that doing so will make one appear a Brahman.
    But Mika is a true spoiled snob looking down her nose at the great unwashed. I was raised with such people and I know what it is.

  6. raven says:

    Yea, did you see all those “coastal elites” at Cotton’s town hall? Damn cheese eatin hippies.

  7. raven says:

    And, of course, you skipped this from the linked article
    “Today I said it’s the media’s job to keep President Trump from making up his own facts, NOT that it’s our job to control what people think.”

  8. Valissa says:

    I highly recommend watching the Bannon-Priebus show for yourselves. The body language, facial expressions, the comradery, etc, are most educational in context with the words. For news articles they just capture a few sentences, often our of context, sometimes ya just gotta see it for yourself.
    I was already pretty sure I liked Bannon (a big part of that is how much the media hates him and the related propaganda), but seeing him being interviewed confirmed my intuition that he could well end up being very good for the US. From what I can see/intuit so far… this mischievious Machiavellian could be very instrumental in strategizing how to make needed adjustments to the Borg.. That benefit Americans.
    LIVE: Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus Interview at CPAC 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkUPWb_TKS0 (26 min)

  9. BillWade says:

    I watched the election results on CNN for only one reason, to watch Wolf Blitzer cringe (is that even his given name?). There are real news items ongoing throughout the world, riots in France and Sweden, intrigue in North Korea, ISIS on the run – why can’t I see that instead of propaganda?

  10. hemeantwell says:

    “IMO the child of the bi-coastal elitist left”
    Elitist, yes. Left? Although, according to Wikipedia, she criticized the DNC for their treatment of Sanders, the role of the media she prescribes doesn’t correspond to Sanders’ approach to political mobilization. Her career, a long march through the networks, indicates thorough socialization to a managerial, anti-democratic approach to politics and a distrust of any movement that threatens to escape MSM control. She would have turned on Sanders if he had been successful.

  11. MRW says:

    Sadly, the ambience in which she exists (Manhattan and the Hamptons) constantly reassures her of the righteousness of her globalist leftist views and the inevitability of their triumph in Man’s ascent toward godhood.
    No truer words.
    [On a completely different note, I’m watching Pence talk at CPAC right now. HE’S CAMPAIGNING. Remarkable.]

  12. Fred says:

    Col.,
    She’s another Puritan of the new religion of the new Millenium.

  13. MRW says:

    I heard they were an item. A James Carville/Mary Matalin situation?

  14. MRW says:

    You can often discern the true feelings of parents by the impulsive utterances of their young.
    Another truism. People bitch about bullying of children, Where do you think they got it?

  15. MRW says:

    she believes that she is a messenger of
    problem is the messenger has to have some insight, some ability to assess, some perspicacity.
    when the messenger can’t self-evaluate his/her talent in that regard, we’re all in deep trouble.
    And therein lies the unrecognized self-delusion.

  16. VietnamVet says:

    Colonel,
    This is a upper class thing that the media likes to keep hidden. In today’s global capitalism the top 20% are doing okay. For the 0.1% and the five media owners, life is spectacular. Everyone else was thrown under the bus. No way is Mika Brzezinski a leftist. All cosmopolitans like her ignore the despair of the little people even as they drum up cons that makes them feel righteous like micro-loans, charter schools or the right to protect them with never ending wars. The poor in the USA have gone from having no money to being an average of $15,000 in debt.
    My worry is that Donald Trump who acknowledged the existence of Deplorables to become President will in the end be neutered because the only way to provide the jobs they demand is by fiscal government spending. This can be financed by closing offshore tax havens and progressive taxation. Republicans are dead set against this. Donald Trump’s one trillion dollar Private Public Partnerships (i.e. corporate financed and built toll roads) are just another scheme to get hold of the constant stream of public money to securitize. The President’s basic conundrum, if he realizes it or not, is that the middle class in the West is collapsing and there is less wealth left to loot. The con is about to come to an end. Instead of his wall, the billions of dollars would be better spent making North American into a unified state; taxing Carlos Slim’s wealth and providing jobs, farms, health care and education for all. That is leftist. Also, Steve Bannon’s fourth turning could be avoided.

  17. Bandolero says:

    pl
    I disagree. I think her legs are not great. For me they look like quite ordinary, nothing special. That she “is not very smart” – I agree, though.

  18. Degringolade says:

    Sir:
    In the grand scheme of things, Mika’s legs, while firmly in the “pretty damn good” ranks, just do not come up to the status of “great”.
    She is a nothing but a pretty bonehead with a famous daddy. If I was young I would chase her, but now I am just too damn old and she is kinda “bleh”.
    I apologize in advance to those I may have offended. Please, always remember, I was an enlisted man, we are known for our lack of polish.

  19. kooshy says:

    Colonel, this mono costal guyI agrees, especially on the legs on the legs , never noticed the legs before this picture you posted, you can get paid well working for Shutterstock.

  20. optimax says:

    Trump is broadcasting the fact that many of the protests at various Republican Town Hall meetings are organized by a central planning commission. {my words}. The following poorly written article supports that claim. Michael Moore, who disappeared from SST after PL politely insulted him by telling MM he wasn’t welcome in PL’s neighborhood, runs a website with a calendar of protest events the disgruntled can seek release from their psychic tensions through group therapy. Another group lists protests on Facebook. I don’t subscribe and am blocked from reading it. But the Facebook site is run by Organizing for Action, somehow connected with Obama–he may have started it. Its acronym is OFA, which sounds like ofay, the ultimate insult a slave could call his white slave master–guess he was too dumb to understand pig latin.
    https://www.intellihub.com/michael-moore-launches-resistance-website-promoting-daily-anti-trump-actions/
    https://www.resistancecalendar.org/

  21. Jack says:

    All
    I think the French presidential election is going to be very interesting. We can be certain that the French establishment across the political spectrum and their MSM will be going all out to defeat Marine Le Pen. Every thing will be thrown at defeating her.
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-23/le-pen-says-french-foreign-policy-must-be-decided-in-paris
    Why?
    Because she makes statements like these:
    “To assure the freedom of the French, there is no price too high too pay,” Le Pen said. “The foreign policy of France will be decided in Paris, and no alliance, no ally, can speak in her place.”
    “The European Union is not the solution, it’s the problem.”
    “On the U.S., she said she was hopeful President Donald Trump would reverse what she described as interventionist policies of President Barack Obama. She listed support for rebels in Libya and Syria as “mistakes” that have undermined world peace.”

  22. Jack says:

    All
    I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of reporting on CPAC. Here’s one from the British left but very establishment Guardian.
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/23/steve-bannon-cpac-donald-trump-media-campaign-pledges
    Bannon: “Every day is going to be a fight. That is the promise of Donald Trump … All the people who’ve came in and said you’ve got to moderate. Every day in the Oval Office he tells Reince and I: ‘I committed this to the American people, I promised this when I ran, and I’m going to deliver on this.’”
    The crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) erupted in cheers and applause, with some delegates standing and punching the air.
    If this is the true sentiment in the Oval Office it will be a fascinating next few months.

  23. turcopolier says:

    raven
    Yes, I know she regrets the damaging words. So what? pl

  24. TonyL says:

    Col,
    Perhaps a freudian slip and she really thinks so. But I’d doubt anybody cares about what she said. Young people do not watch CNN. And older people know better.

  25. Eric Newhill says:

    Fred,
    Yes, I think so. They are a strange bunch these new millennium types. The old ivy league, blue blazer, khaki pants, country club puritan snobs at least had ingredients, somewhere in their cultural background not so far back as to be totally diluted, of good bloodlines, military officer and captain of industry experience, Protestant ethics and Emily Post. Also, the Ivy League education actually meant something back when they attended. These people were puritans too, to be sure, but they more or less backed it up.
    The new money usurpers lack such background. They don’t care if there are too many syllables in one’s last name or if it ends in a vowel. As long as you supports the ego identity they’ve built up they’ll support yours. The currency of this ego is a sense of superiority based on assimilation of half baked social science and economic theory gobbeldy guk and, because they are usurpers, naturally, “inclusiveness”. It’s all about class and these people have created a new upper class, but it’s hollow at the core. These people are libertines and proud of it. They are only puritanical about adherence to the mantra. It’s more of a cult than a true class. Lower class is anyone who disagrees with aforementioned gobbeldy guk. How much lower is an algorithm dependent on the extent and nature of the disagreement.
    This is the product of the 60s cultural revolution combined with the decay of the original upper class, which suffered from one or two too many generations of trust fund slugs too far removed from the originators.

  26. MRW says:

    scratch
    My worry is that Donald Trump who acknowledged the existence of Deplorables to become President will in the end be neutered because the only way to provide the jobs they demand is by fiscal government spending.
    You’re absolutely correct about how that is what produces jobs. No businessman worth his salt creates jobs when they are no sales to justify it. And there are no sales unless people have income. And people don’t have income unless they have jobs. Businesses are not “job creators.” The federal government is. Unless the federal government spends—it’s actually “buying—there will be no jobs.
    As long as it’s federal government fiscal spending, why should you be worried?
    I tired of pointing out here that the US creates the dollar (something Trump acknowledged in an interview last May). How do you think they got out of the Great Depression after they ditched the gold standard domestically, or how Eisenhower built the interstate highway system, or Kennedy paid for the space program? You think it was federal taxes—people didn’t have the income to pay taxes during the Great Depression—or did the govt borrow counterfeit US dollars from some other country, like idiot business pundits claim we are doing borrowing from China?
    The federal government creates (“Prints”) brand new USD every day. Yesterday, Feb 22nd*, they created (issued) $394,705 million. Or $394.7 billion. Yesterday.
    And they spent (redeemed) $394,140 million, or $394.1 billion.
    Those USD are called treasury securities–because they are created by the US Treasury AFTER authorization by Congress now and over the past decades–and have a different yield depending on whether they are bills (1 yr maturity), notes (2-10 yr maturity), or bonds (10-30 yr maturity).**
    A physical dollar, that piece of paper in your wallet, is just a treasury security without a maturity. In other words, your holding them produces zero interest.
    What you should be worried about is why people continue to vote in congressmen who DO NOT UNDERSTAND HOW FEDERAL ACCOUNTING WORKS. Ignorance is the cause. Why Obama’s recovery didn’t work. He thought the country was broke, said we were broke, and that the federal government had to “tighten its belt” (Paul Ryan was just as bad, still is.) But they created $29 trillion to help out the banks, didn’t they. . . .
    ————————
    * see for yourself. Yesterday’s treasury checkbook statement came out at 4 PM today, as it does everyday at 4 PM. look at pg 2 of 2: Table III. I’m not making this shit up. Look for yourself.
    https://www.fms.treas.gov/fmsweb/viewDTSFiles?dir=w&fname=17022200.pdf
    ** reason why everyone around the world wants them. The US federal government pays interest to whomever is holding them. Safer and better than gold, no matter what that ridiculous William Devane gold commercial claims. Safer than putting your money in a commercial bank, which can go under, and will only pay $250,000 insurance per account if it does…as many retirees found out in 2008 to their great detriment.

  27. MRW says:

    I meant children bullying other children.

  28. Jack says:

    Thank you Valissa.
    Yes, the body language was very locker room. Lot of physical contact. It’s like these guys have been in the trenches and come out the other side alive.
    Bannon is clearly the guy bringing the “intellectual” element and Priebus is making the trains run on time. I think its got to be clear from this interview that it really is the Trump show. He is the “Decider ” to quote Dubya.
    Whatever it is these guys look like they are gonna shake up the apple cart a bit.

  29. Swamp Yankee says:

    Colonel,
    I was a working-class scholarship kid at Mika’s alma mater, though more than a decade after her time. It’s absolutely remarkable how familiar the content and dynamics of these conversations where she periodically, and accidentally, lifts up the ruling class curtain, are from my time there. Not just the content, but the way these conversations take place — the lack of rigor or clarity or honest language, the basic interest more in gossip and posturing than facts or other kinds of real evidence, the outer-directed politics that is based on falling into a narrow band of acceptable behavior — where a politician like Sanders who actually believes in something is treated like some kind of bizarre living fossil (they have the same view of, as Vietnam Vet says, of 80-90% of their countrymen). They don’t understand convictions.
    It’s like being back there again. I would always make myself unwelcome in these conversations by asking too many questions.
    I mostly left those people alone to their idiocy, read good books, met nice people, got out into the mountains and rivers every chance I got. But the pressures and incentives were much in the other direction. What I see now is that it was the mind-set of the ruling class in a phase of active formation.
    For what it’s worth, I also agree with Vietnam Vet and HeMeantWell — I think she is liberal, but not left. And definitely feather-brained elite rich kid. She really gave the game away here.
    Thanks to all the members of the Committee.

  30. LeaNder says:

    raen:
    Maybe since she doesn’t show aware of an old news standard: objectivity? Instead of falling back on her confrontational/opinion standard? … I agree Pat once again was a bit provocative.
    In the early post 9/11 universe I read a very, very good article on the topic, Objectivity, I wish I could still find it. Difficult issue. At least from my perspective.
    facts are sacred, comment is free ???
    To what extend were politicians ever fact based, to what extend can they still be? Nowadays. They should all be extra careful, he seems to be a natural on Marketing and PR.

  31. LeaNder says:

    campaigning for what?

  32. turcopolier says:

    LeaNder
    It is my job to be provocative. I am a gadfly. I take raven to be a person of the left who supports people of Mika’s class from reflex rather than reason. pl

  33. Muzaffar Ali says:

    Col
    Mika B. has been reading Adolf Hitler:
    “How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don’t think.”

  34. LeaNder says:

    we are known for our lack of polish.
    I put that differently concerning Pat once. But I guess I had that and shortness in mind. A once enlisted man, surely realizes the importance. 😉

  35. LeaNder says:

    Hmm, MM?, I missed his appearance and thus disappearance from this blog. When was that?
    But the Facebook site is run by Organizing for Action, somehow connected with Obama–he may have started it.
    Be careful with that assumption. Or do you have evidence? Beyond his election statements? There is a lot of expertise as there are a lot of jobs offers available in the field of social engineering. New technical developments create new markets.

  36. TV says:

    I think that Mika – like much of her socioeconomic ilk – is vaguely leftist, because it’s what their friends and acqauintances are.
    What she (and they) really are is entitled and insulated.
    Royalists at heart, but leavened by their lefty social milieu.
    Perfect candidates for the first round of firing squads.

  37. jonst says:

    Either you missed the Col’s point (or I did), or you are indicating something really bizarre and offensive going on. (irony alert)

  38. jonst says:

    My strong impression was, for all the joking around, and false familiarity, Bannon knew he was in room that contained a lot of his ‘enemies’, and some of his opponents. And if that was his feeling, I think he was correct.

  39. jonst says:

    (deep sigh)….

  40. turcopolier says:

    ann
    I don’t have a problem with women who are both intensely sexual and intellectual. My issue with Mika is that I think she is a dummy. pl

  41. Fred says:

    Eric,
    The new millennials have their new history from the PC department where there is nothing of redemptive value in America’s foundation. To use a metaphor, they are proud to call themselves Toby not knowing they are really Kunta Kinte. They didn’t lose any toes however, eunuchs don’t get made that way.

  42. turcopolier says:

    LeaNder
    I had to look in the archive to remember who MM was. He liked to kvetch about the details of city life here in Alexandria, bus routes, etc. He (or it) expressed opposition to my wife’s successful political campaign to keep developers and the subway system from building rental apartment buildings on one of the few remaining pieces of open space in the city. Aarrghh! pl

  43. FREEDOM OF THE PRESS to do what?
    FREEDOM OF THE PRESS to do what?
    Check out Columbia U. Professor Foner on a history of FREEDOM in U.S.!

  44. Morongobill says:

    Maybe Zbiggi was channeling his thoughts through his daughter.

  45. optimax says:

    Leander
    There is a link to OFA at the bottom of the Obama website, in fact, it runs his website and morphed from Organizing for America started during his 2008 election campaign. Its purpose today is to push for a continuation of Obama’s political agenda.
    https://barackobama.com/
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizing_for_Action
    Next time please google it yourself if you think something I write is an alternative fact.

  46. Valissa says:

    Bannon is transitioning from outsider to insider. That can’t be easy for him. Now that he is an insider there are many conservatives that will suck up to him, but he will never really be “one of them.”
    “Bannon joked that he had graduated from the ranks of the “uninvited” — the title of an alternative conference that he led as the executive chairman of Breitbart News, which featured speakers who had been left off the CPAC agenda” http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/02/23/cpac-bannon-priebus-address-cpac/
    That interview format was perfect for showing them in a positive light. Much better than both Priebus and Bannon giving their own speeches.

  47. Fred says:

    Raven,
    Yep, like Hilary Tom Cotton won a majority of the votes in the election that sent him to the Senate:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_Arkansas,_2014
    Where were all those Arkansans when he won? Oh, voting for him. Mark Pryor was a 2 term incumbant who got his a&& handed to him.
    Nominee Tom Cotton Mark Pryor
    Party Republican Democratic
    Popular vote 478,819 334,174
    Percentage 56.5% 39.4%

  48. Fred says:

    MRW,
    “No businessman worth his salt creates jobs when they are no sales to justify it.”
    What was the demand for iphones before they were sold? How about that non-bailed out auto company, Ford? What were Henry’s sales before he built the first model A?

  49. Eric Newhill says:

    Agreed, Fred. The half baked social science and economic theory gobbeldy guk is quite anti-American. I think this is at least partly b/c being cynical and spiteful toward America is a way to alleviate any sense of responsibility toward the country. And b/c mediocre people like to thoughtlessly repeat stuff.

  50. Jack says:

    Fred
    Exactly. Innovation and entrepreneurial capitalism create demand where there was none. What was the demand for light bulbs before Edison invented them? Zero. The theory that unless demand for a specific product exists no businessman will build is ass backwards. Entrepreneurial capitalism drives innovation. And the less government intervention the more of it. Where government spending is helpful is to foster very long range research.
    But don’t let common sense and actual economic history impinge on MRW’s magical theory that the fountain of economic prosperity is federal government spending to infinity. Of course we are treated to the same cut & paste each time with links to some obscure treasury accounting artifact as proof the government can create trillions ex nihilo and life’s all good. The same kooky theories the MMT guys pitch as gospel truth.

  51. Jack says:

    “..did the govt borrow counterfeit US dollars from some other country, like idiot business pundits claim we are doing borrowing from China?”
    Shows you’re the one that doesn’t get it. Demonstrating lack of understanding of current account and capital account. These business pundits who say the US Treasury is borrowing from Chinese investors are not idiots. You are the one who is proving your ignorance. Anyone with common sense knows Chinese companies receive USD when the sell goods to US businesses. They can then invest those dollars in US Treasuries or buy the Waldorf Astoria or Apple stock. They can also give those dollars to the PBOC and get yuan. The PBOC can give those dollars to Jamie Dimon or Janet Yellen or Goldman Sachs and get some GBP. This is how international trade finance works simplisticly .
    Keep at your federal accounting boogeyman!!!

  52. different clue says:

    Jack,
    One seriously hopes that Mr. Bannon steadily reads these posts and threads his own self as part of his un-mediated and un-staff-filtered info input and multiple thought-pattern alternatives for speculative consideration.

  53. different clue says:

    VietnamVet,
    A Unified State? Les Provincestates Unidos de MexAmeriCanada?

  54. different clue says:

    Fred,
    What the car companies got was more a cramdown than a bailout. (The banks got a pure bailout). And CEO Mulvaney of Ford testified in Congress very strongly in favor of the rescue-cramdown for GM and Chrysler because he was afraid that letting them go into roach motel liquidation would crash all their suppliers, who were a lot of Ford’s suppliers . . . and would throw so many home-owers into immediate foreclosure house-loss bankruptcy as to stop present car payments and future car buying on the part of millions. The North America boss of Honda testified in favor of rescue-cramdown for the same reasons, I believe.
    That all just comes back to mind whenever I read that GM/Chrysler were “bailed out”.

  55. VietnamVet says:

    MRW
    The weirdest manifestation of our strange times is money. Twelve trillion of digital dollars were generated by the FED to buy corporate securities in the USA and now two trillion Euros by the ECB but there has been no inflation in the price of gadgets. Flat Screen TVs have crashed but the costs of education and health care are skyrocketing. Eighty Percent of Americans are in debt. I admit my confirmation bias and wish for an understandable explanation. Money is the expression of the confidence in the institution that “prints” it and the resources, human intellect and work supporting it. Yet, the ruling classes from India to Sweden are intent on demonetarization. The elite hate inflation and are flushing government down the drain except for the parts that transfers wealth from the middle class to their coffers. Supranational corporate rule and chaos are spreading across the world forcing the little people who are no longer served by government to revert to their ethnic tribal religious roots. All of this hasn’t undermined the worth of the US dollar. Yet, the fear of inflation prevents fiscal spending on infrastructure which will increase demand and jobs and make the economy more efficient and would preserve the Union.

  56. VietnamVet says:

    DC
    Yes. A name that unites English, French and Spanish North America.
    A North American Political Union that serves the best interests of all its people would prevent the inevitable ethnic splitting apart of the USA into neo-feudal wealthy corporate city states like Singapore or the City of London surrounded by impoverished No Man’s Lands.

  57. ked says:

    “Entrepreneurial capitalism drives innovation.”
    Have you observed SV in recent years?
    The waste of capital in pursuit of the Next Big Crappy App &/or some Visionary Biz Model has been a double bummer of tremendous scale in waste, unless you’re a vulture capitalist.
    Soaking up capital, inflating value, chasing unicorns, popping the bubble… rinse & repeat, faster & faster. Add to that; $$$ NOT spent on actual RDTE&D for items of tangible and lasting value… or even just useful in the real world. That’s “capitalism” today… uncreative self-destruction.

  58. MRW says:

    President.

  59. MRW says:

    Yeah, you’re right. They created demand with staggering products that introduced capabilities not seen before and succeeded. They invested in the economy, basically. But the products wouldn’t sell if the customers had no dough….ie: jobs.
    That’s why smart ole’ Henry Ford paid his workers $5.00/ day (twice what any one else was earning) so that they could afford to buy what they produced AND to retain a labor force that found the new conveyor-belt style of manufacturing to be exhausting work. (Training is a real cost when workers quit and hold up production on the line.) He used this to make cars as ubiquitous as widgets, which weren’t at the time, not luxury items that would have only a few thousand sales per year.
    Now, being able to buy what you produce wouldn’t apply to Boeing employees, who can’t buy 737s, or yacht builders, or high-end jewelers.
    Furthermore, you’re talking about MICROeconomic conditions. I am talking about MACROeconomic conditions, how the federal government manages the nation’s economic condition as a whole. One example: MICRO: save your pennies, and stay out of debt. The standard virtue of frugality and not spending beyond your means. Being responsible for yourself individually, a commendable Christian value.
    However, on a MACRO level if everybody did that, what goes by the opaque label of demand leakage, there would be no spending on goods and services in the real economy and it’s highly deflationary, which is what happened after 2008 when everyone pulled back to ‘deleverage’, i.e: get themselves out of debt. people weren’t spending. Under those conditions, the federal government needs to step in to increase spending to jumpstart the economy, not introduce austerity. The federal government is the only entity that can act countercyclically, as it’s known, under those conditions. When the economy is in the tank, you decrease taxes and increase federal spending. The opposite applies when the economy is running red hot.
    Proof? Businesses have been sitting on over $2 trillion in cash since 2009 (probably more now, it was $2 trillion two/three years ago) waiting for the economy to pick up so that they have a business reason to invest in plant and materials. Businesses only account for around 12-16% of total spending in the country. Households account for 70%.

  60. MRW says:

    But don’t let common sense and actual economic history impinge on MRW’s magical theory that the fountain of economic prosperity is federal government spending to infinity.
    To infinity? Where did I write that? See my explanation to Fred of the difference between micro and macro responses in the real economy. You’re mixing apples and oranges.
    People who manage macro—who manage the general economy from the federal government’s fiscal POV—have to be concerned about inflation, which happens when there are too many bucks swirling around the economy and not enough goods (or services) being produced to purchase with that money (demand-pull) like after WWII…OR…when there is pressure on the supply side and the price of oil and other commodities go through the roof (cost-push), like the 1970s oil crisis.
    In other words, it’s a managed FISCAL situation. But we’ve let the Fed run the show for the past three decades: monetary policy. It’s Congress that has to start doing it’s goddam job because only Congress can appropriate.
    some obscure treasury accounting artifact??? You serious?
    It’s the US Treasury’s daily checkbook. The Bureau of Fiscal Service is the federal government’s accounting department, dummkopf. https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/fsabout/fs_history.htm

  61. MRW says:

    “Anyone with common sense knows Chinese companies receive USD when the sell goods to US businesses. They can then invest those dollars in US Treasuries or buy the Waldorf Astoria or Apple stock. “
    Absolutely correct.
    They can also give those dollars to the PBOC and get yuan.
    No they can’t. It is against the law for US dollars to leave the US banking system. Period. They can go on the open market and exchange their dollars for yuan–just like you or I can–and wire THAT home. Whoever they exchange USD for Yuan with is in the USA and those USD stay within the US banking system.
    When Walmart or BestBuy pay for goods to any Chinese company, those payments under our present payment system are wired to China’s checking account at the Fed. Those are Federal Reserve rules.

  62. MRW says:

    “Yet, the fear of inflation prevents fiscal spending on infrastructure which will increase demand and jobs and make the economy more efficient and would preserve the Union.”
    Could not agree more. And where is inflation right now? Struggling to get above 2%.
    Actually, VietnamVet, it’s also fear of the “National Debt” aka “Net Public Debt Outstanding.” And everyone shows that Debt Clock in Manhattan as proof.
    But the government uses double-entry accounting (actually quadruple-entry accounting, but let’s not get too technical). I’m going to shout now, and it’s not to you: YOU CAN’T HAVE A DEBT ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE LEDGER IN DOUBLE-ENTRY ACCOUNTING WITHOUT AN EQUAL AMOUNT ON THE ASSET SIDE.
    So where is the Asset Clock and who owns those assets?

  63. MRW says:

    Which would mean a common currency. No thank you. We need to preserve our sovereignty.

  64. LG says:

    I’ve only watched this show a few times and that after it was linked on this site. what immediately struck me was her demeanor. I’ve never seen it before in a tv show presenter. let me try to describe it. here is joe, being a normal guy, looking at the camera at all times or at other people in the room when they speak. and here is her highness, who almost always looks down at her notes or something when others speak. it isnt female modesty as that picture you posted testifies. its as if she couldnt be bothered to engage with the others, her own thoughts are more important. and her overall act is one of extreme tiredness with this mess that is politics. as i said this princess act is unique. usually such show presenters use humour or anger or seeming objectivity as their stance. not this ineffable weariness and cynicism..

  65. iowa steve says:

    LG–
    Imho, it’s a schtick, like a comedy duo. Joe rambles on and plays the provocative one, while Mika’s role is to be the mild scold, playing the “why can’t we all be reasonable” mommy tsk tsk card.

  66. Babak Makkinejad says:

    During the Great Depression (Great Recession 1.0), US Federal Government liquefied many bankrupt or near-bankruptcy businesses; I do not recall the figure now but one could have argued that US Federal Government had socialized the US Economy to a very large extent.

  67. Babak Makkinejad says:

    Marshall also liked attractive smart women.

  68. The Porkchop Express says:

    A free press should be adversarial in nature, not subservient to ideology. Elucidating truths, not concealing them in the service of an agenda. Much of the wrangling currently in the press now comes across as if they naturally assume they are an institutionalized 4th branch of government that the public should respect as a co-equal.

  69. Fred says:

    MRW,
    You’re always ready with a dodge and a change of subject.

  70. MRW says:

    VietnamVet,
    I wrote as the tagline in my response to you: “So where is the Asset Clock and who owns those assets?”
    The assets on the left side of the ledger must equal the liabilities (debts) on the right side of the ledger. They have to net to zero as an accounting artifact, or someone is staying late to find out why. This is as true for government as it is for businesses that use double-entry accounting, or small businesses that use Quick Books, which uses double-entry accounting unlike Quicken.
    Except they have different meanings for government than they do for the users of the currency (the govt is the issuer of the currency). “Debt” for the federal government is equity (a part of the right-hand Liabilities column). “Debt” for the users of the currency is real, requires collateral, must be paid back, and demands interest paid.
    The asset side of the federal government ledger is what federal government purchased from the people to provision itself. The right side–now this is ultra tricky to grasp, and explodes any head over 20 because we’ve been lied to for decades–the debt, the thing call the National Debt, is what the people own, the nation’s equity. This “debt” doesn’t have to be paid back, unlike the condition a user of the currency would find himself in. It is also the record of all USD created since 1791 minus the dollars destroyed, which is what happens when USD are paid to the federal government: they are destroyed. [They actually shred them in 136 machines, for a cost of $2 million each, at the 12 regional Federal Reserve banks around the country. They used to burn them but Nixon nixed that: the ink contains toxic chemicals like formaldehyde and cadmium, etc. They would burn the equivalent of the volume of a basketball court up to the height of the top of the goal post every day at every location; it would be more now.]
    Did you know that William R. Cumming, a longtime commenter here, worked for the US Treasury at one time? In a comment to me on the HR McMaster thread, he wrote “The position of the Deputy Secretary in the Treasury is very powerful and often the real COO in the Department. And the next most important job in the Department is the Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy! [who Cumming appeared to work for]” see: http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/02/hr-mcmaster.html#comment-6a00d8341c72e153ef01b8d263aac3970c
    Go read the back-and forth we had for a mere screen’s worth. I mentioned a recent book (2013) by the former Deputy Secretary of the Treasury under Clinton, Frank N Newman. Freedom From National Debt. It’s 87 pages. Took me four months to absorb and understand it. Probably would take Cumming two hours. (Type is large.) Anyway, go look up the blurb about it on Amazon, and read some of the comments.
    We all really need to understand how MACROeconomics (fiscal policy/monetary system) work so we can do to our do-nothing Congressmen what Trump did to Clinton, and fix the things you rightly lament by understanding how things work and demanding that this tremendous disparity gets fixed YESTERDAY for the benefit of ALL the people, the majority of which are the ordinary folk.
    People sneer at Nixon as Tricky Dick and a cheat, crook, etc. But when he lifted the international gold standard and put us on the same fiat that we (the US) had been using domestically for 38 years, which created the middle class, he set us on a path to untold prosperity that we could have if we knew how things worked. Only the transnational banks and some Wall Streeters figured it out then and have been taking advantage of us every since.

  71. LeaNder says:

    I like your alerts to Alexandria’s (et al really, Virginia …) local politics. While I don’t recall this precise post, I would never want to judge the locals, in this case your wife and her supporters.
    For me MM is an entertainer. I could imagine you disliked his production on gun ownership. 😉 But it is ages ago, I watched it. That he was present here, I take with a grain of salt, if you don’t mind.

  72. turcopolier says:

    LeaNder
    Municipal politics (not state politics) is to Alexandria as watching football on TV is to most Americans. It is part of my environment and I will reflect it. pl

  73. I predicted back in 1992 that either Clinton or Bush would mark the start of a 30 year march to destruction of either or both the Democratic or Republican parties if elected. I leave to others documentation of the validity of that opinion/thesis! And Perot’s 19% of the popular vote a major sign for future examination.
    CPAC of interest to me because TRUMP not conservative but Republicans also not IMO! The great danger for TRUMP is irrelevancy IMO!
    Like President Obama Trump’s use if Presidential Executive Orders a sign of extreme weakness not strength. Why?
    SCOTUS ruled against President Truman in the so-called Steel Seizure cases but each of the 9 Justices stated their position on the record as to the force and effect legally of Executive Orders. Associate Justice Jackson (formerly the AG] is most often cited. The danger discerned by SCOTUS was the issue of implied Presidential power. The two greatest users of course of that power were President’s Jefferson (Louisiana Purchase) and Lincoln (WBW/CW).
    Thus lower Court’s reviewing any Executive Order should cite to Youngtown Sheet & Tube versus Sawyer (Steel Seizure) in their ruling.
    And BTW Clinton lost to the full D.C. Federal Circuit Court’s full panel in trying to prohibit the use of strikebreakers on federal contracts. DoJ decided AGAINST SEEKING CERTORARI!

  74. TO ANSWER MY OWN QUESTION RE: FREEDOM OF THE PRESS!
    PETER ZENGER DURING COLONIAL RULE HELPED LEAD TO press freedom.
    The Press is often wrong and only passage of time theoretically leads to correction. But of what? Hopefully facts but passage of time seldom corrects OPINION. whether ALL OF MSM QUALIFIES AS THE press REMAINS FOR JUDICIAL INQUIRY IMO!
    But what really irks the MSM is so much of the talking heads commentary is opinion not fact and TRUMP threatens that distinction by labeling all opinion.
    MORNING JOE survives on opinion not facts IMO!

  75. A really great comment IMO! One possible reform merging SEC and IRS accounting also IMO!

  76. Interesting! I would argue that under English law, London and England one entity! That what BREXIT really about IMO!

  77. Jack says:

    “No they can’t. It is against the law for US dollars to leave the US banking system. Period.”
    Wrong.
    There’s billions of US dollars as cash all over the world. There’s eurodollars and USD bank deposits in other countries. I have a multi-currency bank account in Singapore where I can park in USD.
    http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/eurodollar.asp
    You pontificate like you’re some expert and call highly respected by their peers folks idiots but some of what you post here on macro financial matters is fundamentally incorrect and misleading.
    Let me give another example:
    You write, “A physical dollar, that piece of paper in your wallet, is just a treasury security”. This is plain wrong. Have you ever looked at a physical dollar bill? You will notice that it is a note of the Federal Reserve NOT a US Treasury security. They are two different entities.

  78. different clue says:

    Jack,
    Are our metal coins still US Treasury Securities? If one can call something as small as a quarter or a dime to be a “security”. The point of the question being . . . are the metal coins strictly U S Treasury? As aGAINST being Federal Reserve?

  79. different clue says:

    VietnamVet,
    hmmm. . . HMMmmm! Now that I know I correctly understand that, I am not sure that I like it.
    I somehow suspect that squashing three already-big countries into one super huge country would be creating the political geographic equivalent of an ultra-heavy super-unstable atomic nucleus. I think if we pushed our three countries into one huge chunk of Mexamericanadium . . . that the huge chunk would go supercritical and fissionize into numerous small countries much ill-will and perhaps even some India-Pakistan-partition style mega massacres of people fleeing to their own side of various lines.

  80. Babak Makkinejad says:

    Qajars currency was based on silver; when the silver prices collapsed due to the out put of silver mines in the New World, the fiscal crisis of the Iranian state was started.
    Unfortunately, the Marco-economic device of printing money and issuing bonds had not yet been invented; had it been available and had it been adopted by the Qajar Treasury, they likely would have still been in power.

  81. MRW says:

    LeaNder, [Sorry, didn’t see this before]
    Yes, good overview, except the opening paragraph uses language that uses the sort of words that will confuse people overall. No one is really lending money to the federal government.:
    “U.S. Treasury securities—such as bills, notes and bonds—are debt obligations of the U.S. government. When you buy a U.S. Treasury security, you are lending money to the federal government for a specified period of time.”
    Let’s put it on the side of the economy where users of the currency live, the microeconomic world:
    When you buy a CD from your bank [what we call here in America a Certificate of Deposit, don’t know about Germany, here it’s the name for a savings instrument that pays a higher yield, or higher interest rate, within a specified time limit], when an average person buys a CD, by the same token as in the italicized paragraph above, you are lending the bank money for a specified period of time.
    These two things are exactly the same. In each instance you are taking your savings and exchanging them for a different kind of asset.
    In the first instance, the treasury security is an IOU from the federal government. In the second instance, the CD is an IOU from your local bank.
    In the first instance, the federal government promises to repay your savings at a later time with interest.
    In the second instance, your local bank promises to repay your savings at a later time with interest.
    Same thing, with one crucial difference:
    In the first instance, the federal government doesn’t have to earn the revenue required to repay you and with interest over the next possible 30 years. It CREATES THE CURRENCY USED IN THE TRANSACTION.
    In the second instance, the local bank has to retain a federally mandate reserve, or % of the deposit, in order to guarantee that you will be repaid with interest, and must have earned enough revenue to pay the interest, when you want your money back. THE BANK MUST EARN THE CURRENCY USED IN THE TRANSACTION.
    This short video [5 min] created by the Bank of England shows how the exact same thing works in England which, too, creates its own currency. Sometimes easier to understand this stuff when you can see it from afar.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziTE32hiWdk
    By comparison, Germany no longer creates it’s own currency. Both its federal government AND its citizens must earn Euros to meet their present obligations. Germany forfeited its sovereignty when it gave up the Deutschmark. Luckily it landed on its feet after the adoption of the Euro; Greece, Spain, and Italy did not, mainly because Germany beat them to market. That all changes if France decides to leave the EU and return to the Franc.

  82. MRW says:

    Fred, I’m trying to explain that people use the same language for operations (transactions) that are completely opposite. Same language used for public (govt) and private (citizen) operations, but they mean different things.

  83. MRW says:

    Jack, you write, “Have you ever looked at a physical dollar bill? You will notice that it is a note of the Federal Reserve NOT a US Treasury security. They are two different entities.”
    Ok. Take a dollar out of your wallet right now. Who signed it?
    The Secretary of the Treasury.
    What does it say to the left of that?
    “This note is legal tender for all debts public and private.”
    The dollar bill you’re holding is an IOU to you from the US Treasury. But it doesn’t pay you interest just because you’re holding it, does it?
    If, however, you held a treasury security bill, note, or bond, you’d get interest on it. Still an IOU to you.
    That’s what I mean by it’s a treasury security with zero maturity.
    I responded late to an article LeaNder cited above a few minutes ago, and suggested she watch a Bank of England five-minute video describing the same thing as I’m explaining above, only from the British POV. Britain is a sovereign currency issuer just like we are. it’s called “Money in the modern economy: an introduction – Quarterly Bulletin article.”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziTE32hiWdk

  84. FourthAndLong says:

    Maybe Trump parallels Ivan the Terrible and Mika is representative of the hereditary aristocratic Boyars ?
    Maybe. Maybe not.

  85. FourthAndLong says:

    Is that really Mika in that picture, or did the Colonel sneak one past us ?

  86. MRW says:

    Jack,
    “There’s billions of US dollars as cash all over the world. There’s eurodollars and USD bank deposits in other countries. I have a multi-currency bank account in Singapore where I can park in USD.”
    How did your USD get into your Singapore bank account?
    Did you fly over with a suitcase of cash? Or did you transfer from your account here?

  87. MRW says:

    OK, Jack and Fred,
    I just found this on youtube: Frank Newman, former Deputy Secretary of the US Treasury, explaining what I am explaining here, but much more clearly.
    It’s called Frank Newman: Government Finance. 22 min
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA8I60oR_hA
    watch it

  88. Fred says:

    MRW,
    From selective history to an economics lecture and now english newspeak. Regarding Henry, the good capitalist, explain why Walter Reuther had to do what he did two decades later?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Reuther
    “…the federal government needs to step in to increase spending to jumpstart the economy, not introduce austerity.” How oh how did the economy ever recover from the Panic of 1819, of 1837, 1857, 1893, 1901 1903, 1921…. Boy if only John Maynard Keynes had been born sooner….. but then the policy of the US Federal government is a political decision not one subject to the settled science of economists or of Canadian commenters.
    “Businesses have been sitting on over $2 trillion in cash since 2009 ….”
    Newsflash: Each of the individual corporate entities that in aggregate have this $2 trillion in cash money, “sitting” as you put it, (and apparently earning an annual return of zero) are not controlled by economists or the US federal government.

  89. MRW says:

    Well, Jack, watch this. This guy explains why this is wrong thinking, “You will notice that it is a note of the Federal Reserve NOT a US Treasury security. They are two different entities.”
    Paul McCulley: Sovereign Money. McCulley was Former Chief Economist and Managing Director of PIMCO
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sdhv2WuoYGM
    GREAT LECTURE. Wish I’d seen this before today. Could have saved myself hours responding here.

  90. The Porkchop Express says:

    Salena Zito was one of the few reporters during the campaign to dispassionately report without seemingly little to no bias one way or the other about what was happening around the country with respect to the Trumpster. Her editorial in the NY Post was pretty spot on about the chasm between the press and the population, and how simple things like the reemergence of local press would help ameliorate tensions.
    http://nypost.com/2017/02/23/why-all-your-news-now-comes-with-a-heap-of-condescension/

  91. MRW says:

    Fred, watch the former Deputy Secretary of the US Treasury explain it here:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA8I60oR_hA

  92. Fred says:

    MRW,
    How wonderful, the CEO of a Chinese Bank to explain economics. Why watch him when I can see your macro economic ideas do such good in Venezuela on the nightly news. Meanwhile why the need for unions of which Walter Reuther was one of the most successful advocates? How about recovery from all those other panics, recessions and depressions listed above?

  93. Fred says:

    MRW,
    CEO of Schenzen Bank and former Clinton banker talking about the full employment economy. “Some of the politics is almost religious.” I think that describes you pretty well.

  94. MRW says:

    Fred,
    Newman only went to China in 2008, eight years ago, the first American banker ever tasked with saving a Chinese bank.
    You attempt to diminish Newman’s accomplishments. He was Chairman and CEO of Bankers Trust, Vice Chairman of the Board and Chief Financial Officer of BankAmerica Corporation, among other equally stellar private sector jobs. And if you knew what Banker’s Trust represented at the time he headed it, you wouldn’t be so haughtily dismissive.
    Venezuela’s current problems come from a failure to handle their fiscal responsibilities and infrastructure when they had oil cash galore. For one thing, they didn’t grow food. They imported it. Now they can’t afford it, and the people are starving.
    “all those other panics, recessions and depressions listed above” existed under a different financial regime (gold standard). Comparing now to then is like comparing our interstate highway system to a time when we all drove horses.

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