The wind, the rain and The Donald

September 8, 2017

Scooch over, Harvey and join Sandy, Katrina, Andrew and (here insert your personal past hurricane nemesis) on the long couch.

As the Repubs learned yesterday, there’s no political storm quite like Hurricane Donald. (Here we cue a fabulously appropriate folk song that figures in my novel “Water Music” – “The Wind and Rain” – beautifully realized by the band Crooked Still.)

He blew through Washington D.C., cutting a three-month deal to raise the debt ceiling with Dems Nancy Pelosi and “Chuck Chop” Schumer, the Minority Leaders of their respective Congressional Houses, leaving the repudiated Repubs to wonder in the manner of hurricane survivors, “What the hell just happened?” ...

Can America stay on top in the Chinese century?

May 15, 2017

One of the paradoxes of the Trump campaign and subsequent administration is a promise that may have the opposite effect of the one it intended.

When the president says he wants to “Make America Great Again” he means to return it to a time when manufacturing, mining and other white, male blue-collar jobs were king. The problem with that is that the rest of the world would also have to return to that time. ...

To have – and have not:Wall Street in Trumpland

December 7, 2016

Among President-elect Donald J. Trump’s new best friends is Wall Street. Trump has chosen Goldman Sachsers Steven Mnuchin for secretary of Treasury and Wilbur Ross for Commerce. Remember when Trump was the flip side of Bernie Sanders’ “Wall Street bad” mantra. Uh-huh.

Now some libs are gleeful at what they see as Trumpet’s betrayal of the Rust Belters. But having shared the desperation of the jobless, I find schadenfreude to be a useless emotion.

Besides, are we really surprised? The rich gravitate to the rich the way the beautiful marry the handsome, PhDs congregate and healthy people avoid the sick. (Because they might be contagious, don’t you know.)

Anyhoo, I’m not among those who are too excised – that means you, Sen. Elizabeth Warren – about Wall Streeters in the cabinet. Presidents always appoint people from the Street, because, let’s face it, very few commanders in chiefknow anything about money. That’s why George Washington tapped Alexander Hamilton for first secretary of the Treasury. You need the guy – or gal – who knows, as Hamilton did, that “Power without revenue is a mere bauble.” ...