DRMPHD

I was in Prague this past fall. The Czechs are still not happy that Patton's troops were ordered to stop advancing because there was an agreement among the major powers to let Russia occupy Czechoslovakia. It appears that but-for this order, Patton could have (and would have) easily occupied the territory and spared the citizens of Czechoslovakia decades of brutal misery at the hands of the communists.

Go back and take more economics classes. Do you ever wonder why imports are subtracted from the GDP formula? The answer is because you are trying to measure DOMESTIC production and if you don't subtract them, you can't do that. Further, import sales are captured in other parts of the GDP formula (consumption spending and investment spending), so not subtracting them leads to double counting. Yes, there was a surge in imports. People either bought them for consumption (causing an increase in consumption spending) or for investment purposes--buying equipment or machinery for example (causing an increase in investment spending). If you don't subtract imports, you do not measure domestic spending. Relying on the surge in imports to argue that GDP is actually better than it looks is simply incorrect.

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You can argue whether or not that hurts the individual consumer, but it unquestionably helps the industries that employ American workers.

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This is simply not true. It may help some industries, but it hurts others. Think of all the companies that use steel in manufacturing their products. Raising steel prices via tariffs raises their costs, lowers their profitability and production and reduces employment in those businesses.

If Trump wants to use tariffs as a short term bargaining strategy, fine. But let's not fool ourselves. Tariffs will raise prices, reduce efficiency and increase unemployment if maintained for an extended time period.

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Ukraine needs to hold an election

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You do know that the Ukrainian constitution does not allow elections during a war in which martial law has been declared. Unlike Putin's Russia, it appears Ukrainians respect their constitution as even the "opposition" parties that Trump officials allegedly talked to have rejected elections during wartime LINK Ukraine's Opposition Leaders Reject Wartime Elections

Or, maybe they can do a deal with China. China would do the deal and they have more influence over Russia. That may mean Trump has less leverage than he thought. We will see.

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Canada is one big Massachusetts. No thanks.

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+1

If Francis doesn't press Joey to get his soul right before its too late on the killing of babies and the mutilation of children, he is more of a failure of a pope than I thought

That would likely be deemed collusion by the colleges and a violation of antitrust laws. The NFL gets around that because players are employees of the teams and unionized, which allows for collective bargaining between the teams and the players over things like salary caps. Barring unionizing college athletes, the colleges would not have the same exemption from the antitrust laws.

I thought the same thing. This is something more than just a disgruntled customer. Killer had to know the victims schedule. Went to a nearby Starbucks and apparently was only waiting for a matter of minutes before the victim walked out of his hotel at 6:45 AM. That’s not some guy just waiting around until the victim happens to walk out. That’s somebody who knew the victim would walk out at that time.

Tylenol is not an NSAID!