Courtesy of Mish.
There was much to like and dislike in President Donald Trump’s Address to a Joint Session of Congress. Click on the link for a complete transcript. Here are the good, bad, and ugly highlights.
Trump: We have undertaken a historic effort to massively reduce job‑crushing regulations, creating a deregulation task force inside of every Government agency; imposing a new rule which mandates that for every 1 new regulation, 2 old regulations must be eliminated.
Mish: Excellent idea
Trump: We have withdrawn the United States from the job-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Mish: That is the right idea for the wrong reason. TTP was anything but a free trade agreement and it was horribly constructed.
Trump: We will stop the drugs from pouring into our country and poisoning our youth.
Mish: The war on drugs is a miserable failure. We should halt it immediately.
Trump: Our obligation is to serve, protect, and defend the citizens of the United States.
Mish: Correct. And waging war in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Vietnam had nothing to do with any of those obligations.
Trump: We cannot allow a beachhead of terrorism to form inside America — we cannot allow our Nation to become a sanctuary for extremists.
Mish: Fair enough. But the best way to stop terrorism is to not start mindless wars. ISIS is a US creation.
Trump: Over 43 million people are now living in poverty, and over 43 million Americans are on food stamps. More than 1 in 5 people in their prime working years are not working. We have the worst financial recovery in 65 years. In the last 8 years, the past Administration has put on more new debt than nearly all other Presidents combined.
Mish: Those are the ugly truths. But Trump never placed the blame where it belongs: On the Fed, on Congressional overspending, on fractional reserve lending, and on the lack of a gold standard.
Trump: We’ve lost more than one-fourth of our manufacturing jobs since NAFTA was approved, and we’ve lost 60,000 factories since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.
Mish: NAFTA had nothing to do with the loss of manufacturing jobs. Seel links below for a detailed explanation.
Trump: Our trade deficit in goods with the world last year was nearly $800 billion dollars.
Mish: Correct. Blame Nixon taking the US off the gold standard, not NAFTA.
