The Crash Of 2020 Has A Silver Lining

Looks like the long-overdue Crash of 2020 is finally here, with the novel coronavirus panic being the catalyst that finally popped the truly massive stock market bubble--scratch that, BOIL--that was several years in the making.  And there does not appear to be a firm bottom in sight yet.  And shhhh!--don't even talk about the even bigger derivatives bubble yet.  In other words, this can get real ugly real fast!

(And not even the FERAL Reserve can delay the inevitable for much longer, it seems.)

But as bad as it gets, better that it should happen several months before the 2020 presidential election rather than after.  A big crash and/or recession before the election would virtually guarantee Trump's defeat, and by extension (hopefully) Bernie's victory.  And so would finally mark the end of America's 40 year failed experiment with neoliberalism, that was started by Reagan and self-destructed by Trump.  Bookended by two unlikely "dark horse" yet celebrity candidates, Reagan and Trump, that both cut their teeth in Hollywood before entering politics late in life, and who both said they would "Make America Great Again" (right!), this will be the end of an era--or more accurately, the end of an ERROR on January 20, 2021.  Then we can finally pick up where we left off in 1980 when Carter almost won re-election but for the Reagan campaign's October Surprise dirty tricks (a conspiracy theory that actually turned out to be true, by the way).  Yes, you read that correctly.

And thus, America's long, dark night of the soul will finally be over.  Not just the past four years, but the past 40 as well.  That is, of course, only if enough Americans actually get off their butts and VOTE--not just in the general election, but also in the primaries as well.  The basket of deplorables will sure as hell vote regardless, so all progressives and even the fence-sitters need to get out and vote as well.

Trump Has Been Impeached

Well, it's now official.  As of today, December 18, 2019, Donald Trump is now the third president in US history to be impeached by the House of Representatives. The two articles of impeachment are 1) abuse of power (for abusing his authority to pressure and bully the Ukraine government to investigate Joe Biden and his son to get political dirt on him, thus attempting to get foreign interference in an election), and 2) obstruction of Congress (for blatantly ordering his underlings to ignore Congressional subpoenas relating to the aforementioned matter).  It seemed like nothing he did would stick to him, no matter how horrible and outrageous, thus enjoying a level of privilege that very few even dream of, and thus he got even cockier and did this, finally getting himself impeached now.

Trump will then be tried by the Senate in January to decide his fate.  And while the Republican-dominated Senate does not likely have enough defectors to have the votes to actually remove him from office, things can always change and stranger things have happened before.  And regardless of what the Senate decides, the fact remains that Trump now has an indelible stain on him for all time.  In the history books as well as his obituary, impeachment will forever be one of the first things mentioned and recalled about him.  Really sucks to be him now!

And even if he "wins" in the Senate, his days are still numbered regardless  Come the 2020 election, it is now exceedingly unlikely that he could possibly win with such a stain.  Especially if we get a recession before the election.  And once he is finally out of office either way, and no longer a sitting president, he will then be vulnerable to criminal charges for his too-numerous-to-mention misdeeds (for which secret and sealed indictiments most likely already exist) at both federal and state levels.  Ruh roh.

Looks like you should have done a Nixon and pre-emptively resigned when you had the chance, Donald.  Now it's too late for you to save face, regardless of what happens next.  Sad!

The Donald Is Circling The Drain

It really does NOT look good for the Donald these days.  A formal impeachment inquiry has now been officially launched against him, and it looks like he will be impeached any day now.  This time, it is because Trump allegedly tried to pressure a foreign government, the Ukraine, to give him political dirt on Joe Biden's son.  That, and so many other things in Trump's laundry list of scandals are now coming back to haunt him.  And that is a VERY long list indeed!

With dirty tricks like that, he makes even Tricky Dick Nixon look like an angel by comparison!

Of course, the House can only charge him with such "high crimes and misdemeanors", and it is up to the Senate to actually try him and vote on whether or not he should be removed, which requires a two-thirds majority to do so.  But even if they don't have the votes to remove him before the 2020 election, it is just a little over a year away, and him having this sort of a dark and ominous cloud hanging over him would certainly NOT help him win re-election at all.

And now with his stupid trade war really starting to bite hard and wreak havoc with both the national and global economy, and his latest foray into the asinine War on Vaping, he is pissing off more and more of his erstwhile supporters, making it even more likely that he will be creamed in 2020 either way.

The jig is up, Donald.  Now go do us all a favor and RESIGN, yesterday.  Don't let the door hit you on the way out.  Or as you like to say, "YOU'RE FIRED!"

UPDATE:  It looks like Trump threw Pence under the bus as well.  So we may very well get a two-for-one impeachment special as a result.  Plus, if Trump eventually does a Nixon and pre-emptively resigns in hopes of Pence pardoning him, he will surely be out of luck now.  Hey, that's karma!

We Endorse Andrew Yang 2020 (With Reservations)

As we have noted in the previous post about upcoming Democratic 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang, based on his stance on the issues, the TSAP hereby endorses him as our honorary candidate, albeit with the following reservations:

1. First and foremost, the TSAP beleives that the Universal Basic Income (UBI) Guarantee for all should either be the same for all ages, or at least half the adult amount for unemancipated young people under 18.  And people 18 and over should get the full amount, period, without any conditions, and seniors over 65 should be free to choose between UBI or Social Security, but not both. Yang's proposal differs from that in that only people aged 18-64 will get it, and if you haven't graduated high school, you won't get it until age 20.  That is ageist, classist, ableist, and paternalistic, and thus will not eliminate poverty for everyone, defeating the program's purpose.
2. Dovetailing with reservation #1 above, Yang's desire and ideas to help poor people and especially single parents (which the TSAP fully agrees with) kinda clashes with his age restrictions on the UBI.  Many younger mothers (and fathers) along with their children will thus remain locked into poverty until age 20 unless Yang removes that age restriction from the UBI.  And the effects of early childhood poverty can linger long after they are no longer poor.
3. For the American Exchange Program he proposes, the TSAP has quite a bit of skepticism, both logistically as well as in terms of equity.  And the idea of tying it to the UBI for recent high school graduates kinda defeats the purpose of UBI.
4. Nuclear power--the TSAP no longer supports expanding it any further.
5. The nuclear family--Yang does seem to idealize it a little too much at times, though still far less so than Republicans do.
6. His whole plank about the ubiquitous "kids and smartphones" issue, though more enlightened and nuanced than most proposals out there, does still seem to reek of ageism and paternalism a bit.
7. He does not appear to be calling for free college for all like we do, but rather "controlling the costs".  The TSAP believes that, while a step in the right direction, it still misses the mark.
8. He wants to "modernize" military spending, but says nothing about cutting it.  The TSAP says, why not both?  We need to cut our ridiculously bloated military spending yesterday, by at least half--and we will still have the strongest fighting force in the world, by far.
9. He wants to reduce the student loan debt burden, but not have a complete jubilee like the TSAP recommends.
10. And of course, not a single word about the FERAL Reserve and its usury-and-debt-based funny money that is the root of so many of our problems.  Which is understandable, since the banksters would like have him meet the same fate as JFK and Lincoln if he actually stood up to them and tackled this head-on while in office.

That said, the above reservations aside, we will nonetheless wholeheartedly endorse him for President of the United States.  Just about everything else on his platform we fully and enthusiastically support.  Given all the things he gets right, he will be a major asset to our nation and world.

An Honorary TSAP Candidate, Andrew Yang 2020

Imagine if you were to indefinitely receive $1000 per month, with no strings attached.  That is a whopping $12,000 per year.  Not enough to live large on by itself, but most Americans can certainly use the help these days.  And the only catch?  It would be funded by a certain type of business tax of 10% on most goods and services, that would predictably be passed onto the consumer and thus result in an overall 10% increase in prices.  Clearly, most if not nearly all people would come out way ahead.  Would you take it?

If the answer is yes, then Andrew Yang is your man.  The 43 year old entrepreneur plans to run for President of the United States in 2020, and is promising something than Hillary, Trump, and even Bernie did not--a Universal Basic Income (UBI) Guarantee for all, which the TSAP has also advocated.  And the tax he is proposing is a value-added tax (VAT) that most other countries have, similar to a sales tax but collected a bit differently and built into the price of the affected goods and services.  He believes that robotics and automation will eventually take so many jobs that our collective hand will be forced to come up with a UBI, and his VAT idea for a funding source would theoretically be the best way to capture the gains that businesses make from robotics and automation (and thus internalize the externalities that the resulting losses impose on society).  

Granted, the TSAP proposal is a bit different than his in two ways . First, we do not consider a VAT to be our preferred funding source (though we do not oppose it), as we prefer either the Universal Exchange Tax (UET), progressive income taxes, land value and severance taxes on natural resources, carbon taxes, luxury taxes, money creation, or some combination of these.  Secondly, our proposal would have it for all ages, not just 18-64 like he wants, and under our proposal those old enough to receive Social Security can choose either the UBI or Social Security, whichever is higher (but not both).  And those under 18 would receive at least half the adult amount if not the full amount, with it going to the parent(s) or guardian(s) by default (or to the young person directly, if emancipated earlier than 18).  But otherwise, Yang's bold-yet-modest proposal is right up our alley.  It is high enough to eliminate absolute poverty completely and give workers much more bargaining power, while still being low enough for society to afford as well as low enough to alleviate the largely overblown fear of disincentivizing work (since it is highly unlikely that anyone can live comfortably on only $12,000 per year for very long).  And since there are no means tests or discrimination, and it is strictly individualized, that also means that there are no perverse incentives, welfare traps, or gaming the system either.  And it would be like a giant, permanent B-12 shot for our currently secularly stagnating economy.  It's a win-win-win situation for everyone but the oligarchs, in other words. 

Thus, the TSAP hereby considers Andrew Yang as an honorary candidate for 2020.  We are not sure how he stands on other issues--though we do know he's a Democrat--but unless his stance on other issues proves us wrong, we will nonetheless wholeheartedly endorse him in the meantime.

UPDATE:  Looks like his stance on other issues is also generally within the bounds of what the TSAP supports as well, including (but not limited to) single-payer healthcare for all.  Thus, we hereby endorse him as our honorary presidential candidate for 2020 unless he does an about-face and proves us wrong.