So Trump Took a Call from a Woman, Big Deal

 

President Elect Trump has been being roasted for taking a phone call from a woman, a Chinese woman, an important Chinese Woman, an Important Chinese woman who happens to be Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. The Mainland Chinese (some still refer to them as Red China, imagine that) Dictator’s underlings Foreign Minister Wang Yi and another Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang went on the record demanding that President elect Trump recommit to the One-China Policy. Wow, are they overly-sensitive or just really insecure and jumpy? He exchanged congratulations with another recently elected President of a nation which the United States forsook in exchange for their one-billion-three-hundred-eighty-one-million give-or-take a few million potential customers and inexpensive workers over the paltry twenty-three-and-a-half-million potential customers and more expensive workers. Red China (see above, we’re troglodytes and use old terms) need not worry, their place as the main supplier for WalMart is secure. Some people really get bent out of shape jealous if you talk to their rival suspecting you don’t love them anymore. Don’t worry Red China, or with their new capitalism is it now Pink China, America never really loved you in the first place, it just made economic sense to pretend America threw our friends in Taiwan overboard. Wait until America sends them more arms and you really go bat-crazy on us for selling arms to one of your claimed provinces. What, you don’t want your provinces armed or just this province? Get serious and maybe America will as well.

 

Let’s get honest here. If you asked the man on the street in any major city which nation the United States recognizes and has relations with and made them choose between Taiwan (and you explained that was also called Formosa and was often called free China) or Mainland China (and informed them it was also Communist China and previously called Red China) the total would overwhelmingly choose Taiwan. That is who the American people desire as their friend, until they would find out things in WalMart would have their prices rise, then they would pick Red China, oops, sorry, Mainland China. The Americans know who their real friends are and who assists North Korea with their nuclear program and thus assist Iran with their nuclear program. They are not the ignorant rubes you have been told they are; they just are mostly hard working and need to worry more about feeding their families, clothing their families and keeping a roof over the heads of their families and do not really have tons of time to keep up on foreign affairs. Anyway, if they know any history, then they know that should a war break out, then one really decides who they side with and who is required to put down the infinitely worst enemy which may or may not require siding with a lesser current enemy. When that war is over, we can go back to disliking whomever we choose and this applies to all nations. Israel would even side with Saudi Arabia and Egypt against Iran and there is nobody we can think of at the moment which would have us ally with Iran, they count as worst enemy. Not to worry, that was not exactly a secret.

 

Back to Mainland China and getting serious. The United States remade their bed in the Far East all the way back in 1979 and tossed Taiwan to the seven winds of fate and allied officially with Mainland China in order to actually recognize them in the Security Council of the United Nations and allow for formal trade relations and a billion other things; they are called potential customers and the makings of a very large military force if necessary, also called the Chinese people. Still, every decade or so the United States takes a risk and modernizes the Taiwanese military with a large weapons deal and Mainland China goes ballistic and whoever is the President grovels for a while promising that he will never allow such a deal again. That President keeps his word but that word does not apply to the following Presidents. We suspect that there will probably be one of these explosions should Donald Trump be reelected as such deals are most often executed during second terms so as to minimize the damage to reelection chances. It looks bad when your opponent can label you a treaty breaker and unreliable and all those nasty things and actually have proof in the form of Mainland China. Then again, Donald Trump has not exactly been a by the book kind of guy though many of his cabinet picks have been from the right wing conservative branch of the Republican Party, that might be a twig that far out on the right wing when you get to Retired Marine General James “Mad Dog” Mattis for your Secretary of Defense, a choice we heartily love and approve.

 

The flap over the phone call was very similar in the mainstream media as it was to the choice of General James “Mad Dog” Mattis for your Secretary of Defense. Retired Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn as National Security Advisor will likely continue to ruffle the feathers of the snowflakes reporting for NPR and the self-proclaimed objective media. I mean two former military men, what is Trump planning for, a war, an invasion, against whom? Well, the far left would be our guess as it appears they are gearing up for the long war, may it last twenty years as that is what is required to restore from the damage done since the assuming of the Presidency by Lyndon Baines Johnson after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Reagan checked the damage temporarily but with a Republican Congress, if the leadership can get their acts together, Trump can make real gains in restoring sanity and deregulating small businesses which get caught in the regulations battle the government claims to be using to check the “Big Guys.” The aims of these regulations almost always are skirted by the “Big Guys” and squarely smack the small businessman when he tries to progress and build his business. For far too long the government has actually been in the business of making sure the wealthy remain wealthy with no taxes or levies against wealth but with tons of taxes and other fees and regulations to prevent anybody else becoming wealthy and challenging the existing moneyed interests. Sure there are exceptions, but that is the problem, there are exceptions and it is not the normal flow for the little guy to make it big. We can hope Trump is different but that remains to be seen.

 

 

Reince Priebus is one choice which should be about as milquetoast and scrambled eggs as one can get. He will make the smallest ripples but does know how the Republican machine works, though many might claim the machine malfunctions more than running smoothly. Reince Priebus is one person who could quietly still get what Trump needs going and is far less controversial than say Newt Gingrich who would have been another good choice to get results but at what costs. Stephen Bannon is another choice which the media will blast as being bigoted and troublesome but he is no paleo-conservative and is more the middle of the road conservative with good monitoring for the mood of Congress and world affairs and should be an asset. The claims against Jeff Sessions and the regurgitating of his lynching by a Democrat Congress which also gave us the expression of somebody being Borked after the treatment which culminated on the rejection of Judge Robert Bork for a Supreme Court nomination where innuendo and snide commentary proved enough to slur the good name of a competent and righteous juror who would have been an asset and great Supreme Court Judge and would likely have been nominated to be Chief Justice instead of Roberts had he been on the court. His loss and the lynching of Jeff Sessions will be recorded as stains on the reputation of the members of that Congress who performed their positions in the Senate as more a lynch mob than an approval and validating body.

 

Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and David Patraeus have all been names floated for Secretary of State. David Patraeus should not be a viable choice despite his qualifications and proven work ethic but it is his ethics which failed as he shared classified information with a person not cleared to receive such privilege. That was just as wrong as Hillary Clinton’s transgressions even if to a much lesser degree and he served his time and lost his position and should remain that way at the very least at this time. Perhaps in a second term but not up front. As far as between Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani it comes down to what attitude does Donald Trump prefer to be the face of the United States? He has already made one choice in such a position with Nikki Haley as the United Nations Ambassador where her straight forward style will be refreshing and her professionalism a statement to the world that the United States takes reasoned and solid stances and represents exactly what they claim to be. Rudy Giuliani would be a similar, if not more vocal and sharply stated, style appointee and would make for a great compliment to Nikki Haley with both being out front kind of people and shy wallflowers. Mitt Romney, on the other hand, is a quiet, professional choice who would be a good negotiator though very unlikely to be brash or grating. His style is grace and competence will win the day as long as one remain steadfast and steady on the path and refuses quietly but still forcefully to stand their ground. The main problem with Mitt Romney is he screams Republican political tool and would offend many Trump supporters which is why he will be the media favorite.

 

Other choices, include Steven Mnuchin for Secretary of the Treasury who was chosen from the media film and Wall Street business world. Wilbur Ross for Commerce Secretary comes from a venture investment capitalist background where he rescued failing companies often making them profitable. Such work does not make one popular, especially if you are successful as often one is required to step on more than a few toes and restructure companies releasing sometimes most of a workforce. He will be interesting to monitor. Elaine Chao as Secretary of Transportation will make an excellent choice. Not only a woman but a minority woman with impeccable abilities and great loyalty to those she works with. She was Secretary of Labor under George W. Bush for eight years, making her the only cabinet member to serve his entire term. Mike Pompeo for Director of the CIA is an Army veteran who spent years as a businessman before entering politics, now in Congress, voted as a Tea Party candidate from Kansas, and sits on the House Intelligence Committee which gives him the necessary experience factor. Still to cover are Tom Price as Secretary of Health and Human Services and Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education; both of which have the needed qualifications but are really lesser known Republican Party regulars and should prove efficient in calming any jitters from the Party elites. Will the elites of the Republican Party be mollified? Not likely, but they will have less than they expected to use as pry bars when speaking to the media, and that will be an asset in and of itself. In all too many ways, the detractors of Donald Trump and his performance as President are jumping the gun slightly as he has not taken office or even cleared the Elector College which meets to vote later this month. The actions of some Republican Party elites, many in the media and now Mainland (Red) China are all very similar in that they grab ahold of a single incident, a particular appointee or any other item even as small as a tweet and just sink their teeth in and, like a bulldog, refuse to release and will remain attached in attack mode even if it kills their credibility because they are serving the cause. What cause? Don’t ask us, ask them. They probably believe they are serving some purpose saving the party, nation, free world or even the planet, possibly the solar system; and this drives them right over the edge, we would say beyond the cusp, but whatever edge they are running off, it is not here.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The Coming Consequences with Obamacare

Obamacare, or as the more erudite among us call it, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will take full effect in theory this coming January of 2014. The only saving grace is that Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius is well behind in formulating all of the regulations which are demanded within the thousand plus pages of the legislation. Of course the ever diligent IRS is well on their way to hiring the eventual 16,500 additional agents to enforce the taxation related to the national healthcare system. There is a feeling that something is basically wrong with a healthcare system which requires the government to hire so many additional tax enforcement agents while not having any proposals to hire a single additional doctor. Unfortunately, the lack of hiring of healthcare workers is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg of the irregularities surrounding the differences between promises and the reality of Obamacare.

 

As noted above, the lack of hiring of even a single additional doctor is troubling and only gets worse when you add that there has been no hiring of a single additional physician’s assistant, nurse, healthcare technician, orderly or other hospital worker. Making things far more ominous has been the results of numerous polls of physicians which on average have presented results indicating that anywhere from 35% to a startling 65% of those polled were seriously considering hanging up their stethoscopes rather than practice under the rules stipulated in Obamacare. If even just 10% of physicians hang up their stethoscopes the backlog of patients will be an insurmountable problem within the first year. The real problem is that it has been estimated that there could be as many as 25% increase in caseload added to the healthcare system, and that is one of the more conservative estimates. How the healthcare system will stay astride a measurably significant increase in caseload with a reduction in the available physicians to treat said patients is definitely going to present a serious problem. Either physicians will need to increase the rate at which patients are treated or add hours to each physician’s day or longer their workweek. I would not want to take any bet that physicians would face burnout in short order, simply retire or start to treat patients outside of the restrictions and requirements of Obamacare. The last of these choices would place them on the wrong side of Federal Law in short order and they would likely be closed down if not incarcerated. The government is not known for their sense of humor nor taking kindly to those who wish to operate outside their imposed systems.

 

Another realization which has been admitted by the administration and those who have investigated every letter of the Obamacare legislation is that there really will be panels which will decide who gets what levels of care and whether or not any patient will receive any care on some prorates cost-benefit analysis. The one name for the system that will be utilized has been referred to as the “Complete Lives System” which limits severely any care provided at either end of the age spectrum. Such a system if implemented would have some groups of voters up in arms in a very short time. Senior citizens would be up in arms as soon as they realized that they would not be receiving any medical procedures which carried with them anything beyond a minimal monetary outlay. That would mean no hip replacements, no cancer treatments, no surgeries of any variety, and some highly active and angry set of people who vote regularly, have the time to demonstrate and would engender sympathy from the general public, especially since most of us have parents who will someday be in this category. And the ire of the senior citizens would pale in comparison when parents are informed that their child is not worthy of any expensive procedures as they are not of sufficient age. The younger the child the less expense the care given the Complete Lives System is willing to allocate. Imagine the parents of a child born with what is now a regularly treated hearts defect commonly known as Blue Baby Syndrome. Such surgery on a newborn would fall outside of restriction on infants as they are not considered readily likely to be a cost benefit as their work-life is still a good twenty years away and so many possible complications could prevent their ever becoming a producing member of society. Another category of people who would receive next to no care would be the chronically ill be it a physical illness such as diabetes or a mental disorder as in both instances the person is considered more expensive to care for and a poor investment of medical expenditures. Yes, that’s right, in the Complete Lives System Stephen Hawking would never have become a physicist as he would have been deemed a bad health risk that would not have been likely to produce a positive financial outcome.

 

The worst problem which comes consequential to Obamacare is that it takes approximately 17% of the United States economy and makes it into a government program. Since investigations of numerous government programs has produced a result that the Federal Government must take in five dollars for every three they intend to spend, some of these researchers have found returns far worse where some departments would be fortunate to get one dollar for every five dollars collected. Even using the most optimistic return on tax dollars of three out of five dollars returned, then this will make the 17% of GDP into over one quarter of GDP at slightly over 28% of GDP. Add this significant quantity of the United States economy into the mix of other Federal expenditures and all government would then be responsible for well over half of GDP. Many economists will tell that at such size the government becomes unsustainable. Europe is currently figuring out that they can no longer continue to provide the services at current levels even with their tax rates at levels well above anywhere currently in the United States. Maybe all those who were labeled alarmists or conspiracy theorists were actually giving an accurate accounting of the unavoidable results of Obamacare would lead. All of these problems which will result from Obamacare do not take into consideration the unseen unintended consequences which seem to accompany every governmental effort. The only additional question that remains is which will compel the citizens to rebel first, the poor resulting quality of care under Obamacare or the ever spiraling upward taxes which never seem to prevent huge deficits because of Obamacare. Either way, Obamacare may just turn out to be the largest failure of the Federal Government, quite an accomplishment after the other SNAFUs we have managed to live with thus far.

 

Beyond the Cusp