Re: 10-Nov-16 World View -- Donald Trump: The honeymoon calm before the storm Is this the Apocalypse?
Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2016 5:39 pm
Now, a couple of predictions about the Trump presidency.
Partly for the shock/reversal value, he'll pardon both Clintons as pretty much his first official actions. This accomplishes several things - first it makes anyone trying to defend them or reject the pardon as nonsense look small. It makes him appear the bigger man, magnanimous in victory. It takes all the wind out of the Republican OLD GUARD sails, they've focussed on the Clintons for so long they'll be lost for a time and won't know what to do, while he seizes the reins. It prevents Clinton from demanding a trial and facing her accusers - which nobody in the GOP actually wants to happen, given her "accusers" are all in Congress and would have to face cross examination. And it's great showmanship, and he does love a show. That's all win/win/win and no downside.
He can order TVA to convert from natural gas back to coal again. They converted due to the fact that most of their older generation stations are now quite a distance from coal supplies that can be economically mined, so there'll be a lot of track laying and trains running back and forth. The electric bills across the South can expect a big rise just from that.
https://www.pandj.com/project/paradise- ... gas-plant/
Going to be expensive to scrap all that work just as it's finishing up.
Russia and the US, as the number one and number two oil producers, will undoubtedly create a Texas Railroad Commission type intercountry group to set prices and production quotas for oil, as the TRC has done for a very long time now. This will stabilize prices at a higher level, which will make the industry happy. Prices will probably be set at about 64$ per bbl of West Texas Intermediate crude as the target. Five dollars higher and you start more production in Canada - which you don't want in a time of excess production already. That will raise prices at the gas pump to about 2.80 per gallon and then it will sit there. OPEC will become irrelevant. Europe will be very unhappy.
If he gets that tax on Chinese goods, he'd better phase it in over several years. A 45% tax on everything coming from China will essentially double the price of nearly everything at WalMart apart from grocery items. Cell phones would double in price as well, as would nearly every computer related good. If the phase in goes slowly, over several years, that will give time for factories in the US to be built. However, this will not create blue collar jobs, apart from initial construction, as any factory built now will want cheap power, a few dozen software and mechanical engineers and about 10,000 robots. The only blue collar workers will be on contract to clean the place - unless they buy a robot industrial vacuum cleaner.
Then, there's trucking/driving jobs. There are several million of those in the USA, and most of them will go away with the advent of autonomous vehicle piloting software/hardware. The carnage there will not be pretty over the next decade or so. And Trump will be expected to do something about it.
Partly for the shock/reversal value, he'll pardon both Clintons as pretty much his first official actions. This accomplishes several things - first it makes anyone trying to defend them or reject the pardon as nonsense look small. It makes him appear the bigger man, magnanimous in victory. It takes all the wind out of the Republican OLD GUARD sails, they've focussed on the Clintons for so long they'll be lost for a time and won't know what to do, while he seizes the reins. It prevents Clinton from demanding a trial and facing her accusers - which nobody in the GOP actually wants to happen, given her "accusers" are all in Congress and would have to face cross examination. And it's great showmanship, and he does love a show. That's all win/win/win and no downside.
He can order TVA to convert from natural gas back to coal again. They converted due to the fact that most of their older generation stations are now quite a distance from coal supplies that can be economically mined, so there'll be a lot of track laying and trains running back and forth. The electric bills across the South can expect a big rise just from that.
https://www.pandj.com/project/paradise- ... gas-plant/
Going to be expensive to scrap all that work just as it's finishing up.
Russia and the US, as the number one and number two oil producers, will undoubtedly create a Texas Railroad Commission type intercountry group to set prices and production quotas for oil, as the TRC has done for a very long time now. This will stabilize prices at a higher level, which will make the industry happy. Prices will probably be set at about 64$ per bbl of West Texas Intermediate crude as the target. Five dollars higher and you start more production in Canada - which you don't want in a time of excess production already. That will raise prices at the gas pump to about 2.80 per gallon and then it will sit there. OPEC will become irrelevant. Europe will be very unhappy.
If he gets that tax on Chinese goods, he'd better phase it in over several years. A 45% tax on everything coming from China will essentially double the price of nearly everything at WalMart apart from grocery items. Cell phones would double in price as well, as would nearly every computer related good. If the phase in goes slowly, over several years, that will give time for factories in the US to be built. However, this will not create blue collar jobs, apart from initial construction, as any factory built now will want cheap power, a few dozen software and mechanical engineers and about 10,000 robots. The only blue collar workers will be on contract to clean the place - unless they buy a robot industrial vacuum cleaner.
Then, there's trucking/driving jobs. There are several million of those in the USA, and most of them will go away with the advent of autonomous vehicle piloting software/hardware. The carnage there will not be pretty over the next decade or so. And Trump will be expected to do something about it.