FBI raids homes of 2 of Mayor Adams' top aides, NYPD phones subpoenaed (youtube.com)
Harris made a big pivot to show she wasn't anti-business, promising larger deduction for first-year businesses. Deregulation. Venture capital importance. Government lending to small businesses. Stepped back capital gains policy (now proposing 28% rather than 40% applied to households with net worth over million dollars.
Is it all just tactics? Is there any substance at all behind it?
‘Vince Lombardi democrats’ where winning isn't everythng--it's the only thing.'
Did I mention RFKjr dropped out. The reason was that he was taking voters away from Trump, who he prefers to Harris. So we don't get to vote for RFKjr, who is perhaps the best candidate.
Reportedly in US mass media, Putin endorsed Harris, whatever that means, and this should be checked on alternative news media.
How can a democratic system compete with other systems?
The Trump-Harris debate happened. Most people seem to think Harris won, although my feed (although I didn't train it to do so through inclination) showed only headlines with this message. I have yet to watch the debate, but I saw a few short clips where it showed Harris more or less getting the better, although not in any meaningful or strong way. I don't get why Trump or his people can't take what seems obviously strong lines of messaging and statements against Harris. He's so good at wrestler-style verbal strength, but not at all at actual incisive points even when their material is obvious and not difficult.
Harris still did not say anything. She said she ‘has a plan' but that is all. Still, no one knows anything about her plans.
Gary Cohn on the debate:
Senate probably R, so best Harris could hope for is some compromises or tradeoffs. Rest of world in low-20% corporate tax, OECD low-21-23%, USA is competitive now and won't argue really for 1 or 2%, but once you go over 23% USA becomes non-competitive internationally.
Harris said she wants to give $50k to new small businesses, but Cohn pointed out that if that means tax benefit of $50 there's not many small businesses that have a first year tax liability of $50k. ... Harris wants to ‘give’ $20k to new home buyers, which he (like me) sees as ‘just inflation in the home market.’ ... She wants to enhance the child tax credit, ‘but there’s a lot of details in what that means.' (I agree something should be done (after approved by citizens) to improve child situation in USA, but perhaps impossibly complicated by immigration and non-socialism.
We should use tariffs ‘not as a consumption tax’ but when effective. ‘To the extent that we manufacture a product, like an EV’, Ford and GM invested a lot, employed a lot of people, a fairly priced EV in the $30k-40k, we should not allow a foreign cometitor like China that ‘does not have a cost of capital, does not pay a ... wage [high enough for his requirements], they do not care about the environment. We should not allow a foreign manufacturer to import into this country and undersell American manufacturing. That is where a tariff is effective to make sure they are not dumping those products in this country. On the other hand if we don't manufacture a product and have no plans to manufacture it, and American consumers want to consume it and maybe need it ... that would be a tax on our consumers, and would just cost our economy and be inflationary.' This is very obvious in Latin American countries, where importing is expensive and internal manufacture is (perhaps disincentivized and) decreasing.
Is Gary Cohn too smart and incisive to be a corporate leader (in capitalism)?