News Vérité

Calvin Coolidge became the nation’s 30th president in 1923 upon the death of Warren G. Harding. He served until 1929, having been elected once on his own but refusing to run again in 1928. He was known as Silent Cal, though that is not an entirely accurate description. Coolidge mastered the use of the radio to bring his message to the American public, and his message was one of laissez-faire capitalism. Ronald Reagan, our 40th chief executive, loved Silent Cal, who set the stage for Reagan’s tax cuts with his own round of right-sizing both the federal budget and the nation’s tax burden. Unfortunately, Coolidge has been blamed for the Great Depression, which ensued seven months after he left office. Those accusing him of causing it cite his refusal to regulate Wall Street. The causes, of course, run deeper than that. There was also a depression in 1920 equally as drastic as the Great One, but no one interfered with interest rates and social programs, and the economic turmoil subsided quickly through natural forces. My point: After being lambasted daily by Donald Trump’s incessant banter — most of it just made-up “facts” to suit his domestic and international programs —

In an earlier post, I wrote about President Trump’s two-part strategy for deflecting blame for his failures. One part is to create criminals, either by calling them names (“stupid,” he likes a lot) or actually going after them with federal charges. The other part is to create what I call camouflage, or you might call a smokescreen, or just utter bullshit. I mean, Trump uses these two strategies every time he answers reporters’ questions, sometimes even criminalizing the questioner by calling him or her stupid. I was particularly struck yesterday by the president’s use of these two strategies to the extreme when questioned about why the DC Reflecting Pool had turned green with algae after he had the entire pool drained and resurfaced. First, he said five people had been arrested for causing the problem by using a knife to cut a slit in the pool’s surface about 300 feet in length. He didn’t say when they did this, presumably before the pool was refilled, which begs the question: Why wasn’t it fixed when found? He said another five suspects were still on the loose. “I can’t help it if somebody goes in with a knife and starts hacking it

Other than his business empire and his presidencies, Donald Trump is probably best known for his TV show, “The Apprentice,” and his book, “Art of the Deal.” The latter is still used to describe Trump’s approach to matters in the political and military world since he walked down the stairs at Trump Tower in 2015. The art of the deal, as described in his ghost-written book of the same name, consists of five tactics: Think Big, Use Your Leverage, Protect the Downside, Maximize the Options, and Fight Back. When it comes to Donald 47, he is certainly thinking big by using tariffs to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. and by bombing the hell out of Iran to create a new Middle East. (The latter may be to protect and advance his and his son-in-law’s business interests in the region, but I’ll leave that discussion for another day). Forget tariffs for the moment. They appear to have failed in their goal, but Iran is a more serious matter that also seems to have failed in its goal, as defined by President Trump several different times in several different ways. Now, however, the Iran issue all comes down to opening the

Whenever I call my bank, or basically any institution bigger than Mom&Pop, AI answers the phone. He/she/it/they then grills me endlessly before connecting me to a representative, which generally involves a 20- to 30-minute wait. That got me thinking: If AI is taking over for workers (who would otherwise answer the phone and do a zillion other chores), why not treat AI mechanisms in the workplace as any other employee and tax them? I’m not a tax guy, so I’m not sure how this plan would work, but let’s look at how Social Security taxes work. Both employer and employee pay 6.2 percent of the employee’s income, capped currently at $184,500 in annual compensation, into something called the Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI) trust fund. Could you tax the annual compensatory value of every AI device in your workplace at the same level as what you’d have to pay an employee to do the same work? Worth a look-see. Hey, you tax lovers, don’t stop there. You could also hit AI with a federal income tax. In that way, you could work on solving two deficits at the same time. Just a thought, but why not tax human