“They seem to be Paul Ryan’s priorities, and also just the standard GOP corporatist stuff,” Coulter said.
.. “What made Donald Trump stand apart from the crowd and apart from the crowd from every presidential candidate for 20 years was immigration, trade, infrastructure, building a wall.
.. getting mandated coverage doesn’t mean insurance companies won’t cover it. It means Ann won’t be required to pay for 15 services more like 50 services that I have no interest in
Pat Buchanon: When Will the GOP Defend Economic Patriotism?
Last year, China ran up the largest trade surplus in history, at our expense, $365 billion. We exported $116 billion in goods to China. China exported $482 billion worth of goods to us.
.. Total trade deficits with China in the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama era? $4 trillion. Total U.S. trade deficit in 2015—$736 billion, 4 percent of our GDP.
.. What might a U.S. national-interest-based trade policy look like? Controlling the largest market on earth, we might impose on foreign producers a cover charge, an admissions fee, a tariff, to get into our market.
.. Example: Impose a 20 percent tariff on foreign cars entering the USA. This might raise the cost of a Lexus or Mercedes produced and assembled abroad from $50,000 to $60,000. However, if Lexus or Mercedes buys or makes all their parts in the USA and assembles all their cars here, no tariff.
Russians’ Anxiety Swells as Oil Prices Collapse
Food prices rose 20 percent last year, according to official statistics, but often Russians say their grocery tab is up by a third or more, thanks in part to sanctions Moscow slapped on Western food imports in retaliation for sanctions the West imposed over Ukraine.
.. Russia has around $360 billion in foreign currency reserves and some $120 billion in two rainy day funds, down from just under $160 billion a year ago. At current spending rates, however, the two funds are expected to last only 18 months. It might also sell significant stakes in state-run companies like the oil giant Rosneft or Sberbank, and it will not increase military spending.
.. Russian involvement in wars in Ukraine and Syria has swelled the general whirlpool of anxiety, with the possibility of a global war discussed on state-run television. Some analysts accuse the Kremlin of deliberately seeking overseas adventures to distract people from domestic economic woes.
.. “The Russian people got what they wanted, a czar ruling the country,” he said of Mr. Putin. “What we need is an effective manager, but what we got is the Olympics, soccer and war.”
Spying by N.S.A. Ally Entangled U.S. Law Firm
In justifying the agency’s sweeping powers, the Obama administration often emphasizes the N.S.A.’s role in fighting terrorism and cyberattacks, but disclosures in recent months from the documents leaked by Mr. Snowden show the agency routinely spies on trade negotiations, communications of economic officials in other countries and even foreign corporations.
American intelligence officials do not deny that they collect economic information from overseas, but argue that they do not engage in industrial espionage by sharing that information with American businesses. China, for example, is often accused of stealing business secrets from Western corporations and passing them to Chinese corporations.
.. The Australians have obtained nearly 1.8 million encrypted master keys, which are used to protect private communications, from the Telkomsel mobile telephone network in Indonesia, and developed a way to decrypt almost all of them, according to a 2013 N.S.A. document.