Trump’s accomplishments—according to Trump

The White House listed the 12 categories and highlighted achievements for each. A summary is below:

Jobs and the economy

• Passage of the tax reform bill providing $5.5 billion in cuts and repealing the Obamacare mandate.
• Increase of the GDP above 3 percent.
• Creation of 1.7 million new jobs, cutting unemployment to 4.1 percent.
• Saw the Dow Jones reach record highs.

Killing job-stifling regulations

• Signed an Executive Order demanding that two regulations be killed for every new one creates. He beat that big and cut 16 rules and regulations for every one created, saving $8.1 billion.
• Signed 15 congressional regulatory cuts.
• Withdrew from the Obama-era Paris Climate Agreement, ending the threat of environmental regulations.

Fair trade

• Made good on his campaign promise to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
• Opened up the North American Free Trade Agreement for talks to better the deal for the U.S.
• Worked to bring companies back to the U.S., and companies like Toyota, Mazda, Broadcom Limited, and Foxconn announced plans to open U.S. plants.

Boosting U.S. energy dominance

• Expanded energy infrastructure projects like the Keystone XL Pipeline snubbed by Obama.
• Ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to kill Obama’s Clean Power Plan.
• EPA is reconsidering Obama rules on methane emissions.

Protecting the U.S. homeland

• Laid out new principles for reforming immigration and announced plan to end "chain migration," which lets one legal immigrant to bring in dozens of family members.
• Made progress to build the border wall with Mexico.
• Ended the Obama-era “catch and release” of illegal immigrants.
• Boosted the arrests of illegals inside the U.S.
• Started the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program.

Helping veterans

• Signed the Veterans Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act to allow senior officials in the Department of Veterans Affairs to fire failing employees and establish safeguards to protect whistleblowers.
  
• Signed the Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act. 
• Signed the Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act, to provide support. 
• Signed the VA Choice and Quality Employment Act of 2017 to authorize $2.1 billion in additional funds for the Veterans Choice Program. 

Restoring confidence in and respect for America

• Trump won the release of Americans held abroad, often using his personal relationships with world leaders.
• Made good on a campaign promise to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel

List from Washington Examiner

International trade--how it helps the global population

What's the cause of international trade and American jobs going off shore? We know our corporate tax rate is the highest in the world.  List of Countries by Corporate Tax Rate  I hope the new president can start there--bring down the taxes to make the United States more competitive.  If Mr. Trump can bring that down, will jobs return; or is it unions, environmental regulations, and the work ethic of Americans who have been told only college educated people should vote or have rights? What about all the products made or grown in the U.S. which are then shipped out and assembled in Vietnam or Bangladesh?  What about the people employed in countries that depend on American based companies? There is a Levi factory in Ouanaminthe, Haiti that is critical for many families.  There would be more if Haiti itself wouldn't be so corrupt in its trade arrangements. I care about American workers, but I also care about the very poor and unemployed in Haiti. It's a very low wage by our standards, but it helps stabilize those developing nations, and perhaps slows the flow of immigrants looking for economic opportunity.

One of the pleasures of volunteering at the pregnancy center is - - folding baby clothes. Sometimes I launder them if a new batch has arrive.  I’ve even ironed them (who in the world would dress a young child in linen with lace and appliqués--probably grandma?). Each new baby's parents who are clients are given a huge shopping bag full of baby items from size zero to about 12 months, onesies, diapers, underwear, seasonal outfits, coat and hat, footwear, sleepers, blankets, towels, with a toy, book and Bible. I love the little Buckeye shirts in size 3 months.  (Parenting classes and mentors are also available, but we can't put them into shopping bags.) Clothing that isn't given as layette gifts because of wear, or they are beyond the age range, are put in "free" boxes for the moms to look through and select.   Some are holiday wear like Halloween, Christmas or Easter that may have been worn only once.

 Here’s what I found last week--in one hour of sorting (by size, season, sex, type) and remember these are donated (used) so I have no idea what year or decade they were made.

 

I‘m assuming anything made in China is the oldest, because many American/global firms have moved to cheaper labor, first to other Asian countries, then Africa and South America. Carter's reports it sells more than 10 products for every child born in the U.S.! It just doesn't tell you, except on the label, where those products are made. The only clue on a company web page, may be a disclaimer like this at Garanimals, if anything is said at all: " Before any of our products can be sold in North America, the materials, paints, sealants and all components that comprise them are tested rigorously by independent testing facilities to ensure their safety."

• China:  Vitamins Baby, DG Baby, Carter’s, PLC Place, Baby Gear, Osh Kosh, Seseme Street, Strawberry Patch, Fisher Price, First Impressions.
• Hong Kong: No brand on label
• Vietnam: swim trunks (no brand label), Baby Gap, Gymboree, Carter’s
• Thailand: Okie Dokie, Gymboree, Little Lindsey. Carter’s,
• Cambodia: Carter’s, Faded Glory
• Malaysia: Carter’s
• Philippines: Carter’s
• Sri Lanka: Garanimals
• Bangladesh: Circo
• India: Baby Boden, Onesies
• Arab Emirates: Faded Glory
• Portugal: Baby Boden
• El Salvador: Garanimals
• Honduras: Garanimals
• Kenya: Faded Glory

Trans-Pacific Partnership

“There are many important lessons from ObamaCare that we should apply to another huge project that could have a similarly devastating impact on our nation. In November 2009, President Obama announced his intention to have the United States participate in a so-called trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. I say so-called trade agreement because 80 percent of the proposed agreement deals with a great many issues besides trade.”

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/foreign-policy/item/17175-trans-pacific-partnership-tpp-bigger-and-more-dangerous-than-obamacare

Obama Democrats by the numbers

I can't vouch for all of them. I knew about Chris Dodd and Tom Daschle. But that Maxine Waters benefiting from the TARP bank thing had completely slipped past me. But the last one is sure big, isn't it? Why does anyone in today's global economy, who claims to have lived abroad and experienced other cultures, who attended over-priced Ivy League colleges, think you can stop trade only on one end? What were they teaching in the 1980s?

"$1,646,000,000,000 ($1.646 trillion):

the approximate amount of annual United States exports endangered by the "Stimulus" package, which provides a "Buy American" stricture. According to international trade experts, a "US-EU trade war looms", which could result in a worldwide economic depression reminiscent of that touched off by the protectionist Smoot-Hawley Act."

Obviously, the days of the "rich Republicans" are long gone.

Update: If the protectionism has been "softened" in this package, apparently Europe didn't get the news. FT Weekend "Berlin fears repeat of 1930s mistakes," and this from Forbes on the 13th:

ROME, Feb 13 (Reuters) - G7 finance ministers converged on Rome to discuss the economic crisis amid warnings from Germany and Britain on Friday that the world could revert to the dark days of the 1930s if governments resorted to protectionism.

How the election of a black President will help black Africans

The United States of America now has what no other country in the world has, a democratically elected black leader of a free, constitutional republic. Europeans, the descendants of the slavers who purchased black Africans from the Arab Africans to be shipped to the "new world," can claim no African or even mixed race leaders; Africa can claim no free democracies (with the exception of Botswana which seems to be a model which all Africa could look to). Kenya had looked hopeful until Obama's cousin Odinga's followers massacred a few thousand after losing an election.

With his plans to destroy our current sources of energy--coal, gas and oil--his plans to raise taxes on successful small business, his plans to strengthen unions while discouraging business growth, his plans to bring the corrupt ACORN to the top (they are already at the table), his plans to allow millions more to flood our borders to bankrupt our social systems, his plans to shut down opposition in the press and airways, and his plans to reduce the military, the USA will be so weak that there will be nothing left over for the bailouts and food subsidies through various ill-advised and poorly planned NGO and government aid to African dictators and monarchs. Much of our aid simply destroyed African markets, however well intentioned. Other, initiative and ambition. Since none of this has helped Africa in 50-60 years, indeed has kept the former European colonies in a perpetual stage of adolescence, the reduction of American aid (and European, particularly France) to shore up weak leaders and economies in Africa will in the long run help Africa. It's the least he can do for change.

A new generation of consumers

The children of China in school today outnumber the total population of the United States. I think Wal-Mart figured this out many years ago--the Walton family organization (they are 26th today in wealth, Buffet is 1st) is a marketing genius. First they bought the labor there using our know-how and raw-materials, then they marketed there. The people had money from the jobs to spend on the products they were creating. Why not skip the middle step and just market to the Chinese? By-pass all those stupid protestors and regulations trying to keep Wal-Mart jobs out of their communities. You may have noticed in those gut wrenching videos of the earthquake last spring as people scrambled to get out of danger, how extremely well dressed they were and what lovely buildings and parks were being destroyed. That's the new consumer generation American business caters to, not us. We're yesterday's news. How the global financial meltdown, which some are now suggesting belatedly was economic terrorism with help from our own stupid Congress, we'll have to see. The U.S. government caught on to the Walmartization of China, particularly the USDA, and is acting accordingly.

Meanwhile, we're still shipping tofu from Ohio soybeans to China (much bigger market--they actually like tofu). Then we buy their funny contaminating mercury light bulbs made in dirty coal factories and feel self-righteous because Ohio environmentalists believe in Al Gore and want alternative sources of energy not our clean coal. It's called trade.