MARCH 2018


MICROECONOMICS.

I want to compare the style of two articles about Trump's economy from two top of the line Journalists who work for "The Australian".

Both articles are from the early (first?) edition of March 10-11 issue.
  • Judith Sloane authored "Trump's only trade certainty is he loses and so do we."
  • Terry McCrann authored "Not for Trump the tired ways of business as usual."
The headings already indicate the tone of the author.  What I noticed was the language used within the articles.
  • Judith used derogatory language that judged Trump's actions. Words used were "loopy", "ludicrous", "bizarre", loopy", "howler", "weird".
  • Terry used extreme words that criticized Trump alarmists as providing "Armageddon", "foaming hysteria", "mindless stupidity" "right thinking idiot".
Most of those words were at the start of the respective articles.  So one could be fairly confident that someone who thought Trump was OK would not get very far into Judith's descriptions of Trump as "loopy" etc.  Contrariwise, someone who thought Trump was dreadful would probably not get far into Terry's writing after his description of Trumpophiles as suffering "foaming hysteria".

As for the value of the articles? Free traders since Ricardo have advocated the removal of trade barriers.  Those theories were derived for roughly comparable economies. Reading both authors I can not see that either makes a watertight case.

But I do hear that the US economy is employing more workers, and that Trump is becoming more popular.


SPY.

The Russians (read Putin) are accused of attempting to kill ex-spies in the UK with a nerve agent that is "only made in Russia".

There is one hole in the story. The UK has refused to provide a sample of the nerve agent.

I can think of one very good reason that they would refuse. Suppose that nerve agent was not made in Russia.  A smart intelligence service does not leave evidence of possible wrongdoing lying around. In public. Where they might be accused of incompetence. Or worse.

Where some future technology might be able to establish.  Where it was manufactured....

I have known and been friends with Russians.   I knew a journalist who was besties with a Russian embassy person who admitted to anyone who asked "I am a Russian Spy".  (That was back in the 1960's).  His spy work?  Reading the newspapers and doing assessments of Australia and reporting back his assessment of Australian business & politics.  Not paying traitors & obtaining atomic secrets or superior Australian technology.

The current Russian ambassador was asked on air yesterday.. "Why would the UK & USA make up this story about poisoning?"

He declined to answer.  He said "you would have to ask them."

Here is my speculation. For what it's worth...

Firstly, Trump, like me, was quite positive about Putin.

Then (after the election) the Hillary forces needed a scapegoat.  A Trump-Putin conspiracy was the first choice.  (Second Choice is Cambridge Analytica, who are now getting the blame for Brexit. Watch that space...)

The US press attacked Russia unrelentingly. Trump dumped on Putin.  What else could he do?  Putin became a "baddie" and US Russia relations took a dive.

Now Theresa. She was under attack at home.  She needed a boost.  External threats are always a great diverter.  Leaving aside whodunnit, Russian ex-spy Sergei and Daughter being poisoned was a godsend.  And Donald?  Solidarity with the UK forever! 

Talk about "Fake News!!!".

All I can do is apologise to any Russian.

And be glad that the world is split into many states that are not always co-operating.

Vive independence movements everywhere (Iraq, Turkey, Iran, (Kurds) Spain,(Catalan) China (Formosa)  .....) Eu (Brexit, Scotland, maybe Poland?)

 
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