The Commentariat -- September 4, 2017

... Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Labor Then & Now. Neil Irwin of the New York Times: "... corporations across America have flocked to a new management theory: Focus on core competence and outsource the rest. The approach has made companies more nimble and more productive, and delivered huge profits for shareholders. It has also fueled inequality and helps explain why many working-class Americans are struggling even in an ostensibly healthy economy.... Major companies have ... chosen to bifurcate their work force, contracting out much of the labor that goes into their products to other companies, which compete by lowering costs.... Across a range of job functions, industries and countries, the shift to a contracting economy has put downward pressure on compensation." ...

... Larry Summers has gone populist in a Washington Post op-ed and urges governmental entities "to balance the power between workers and employers." ...

For too long, American workers were forgotten by their government -- and I mean totally forgotten. My administration has offered a new vision. The well-being of the American citizen and worker will be placed second to none. -- Donald Trump, in a weekly address earlier this year ...

... Helaine Olen of the Nation: "The rollback of labor rights and protections since Trump took office is staggering. It puts worker safety at risk and guarantees that many workers will earn less, but that's not all. Measures to help victims of discrimination receive redress are on the scrap heap. Unions are running scared. 'It's a death by a thousand cuts,' explains Heidi Shierholz, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute."

... Juan Cole finds some good news for U.S. workers: green energy jobs. Mrs. McC: I'm pretty sure this isn't what Trump has in mind. ...

... Steven Greenhouse in a New York Times op-ed: "... this Labor Day, his first while in office, it remains unclear whether Mr. Trump's initiatives have done much to help workers, whether blue-collar or any other collar. It is clear, however, that he has taken several steps that will hurt workers, most notably his decisions to delay, weaken or erase Obama-era workplace regulations.... Many of Mr. Trump's moves to help workers have come with a serious downside.... Mr. Trump repeatedly derided the levels of job creation under President Barack Obama, vowing to increase them by eliminating 'job-killing regulations.' But the pace of job creation under Mr. Trump -- 170,000 a month -- is slightly less than during Mr. Obama's last six months in office."

NEW. David Sanger & Choe Sang-Hun of the New York Times: "North Korea's detonation of a sixth nuclear bomb on Sunday prompted the Trump administration to warn that even the threat to use such a weapon against the United States and its allies 'will be met with a massive military response.' The test -- and President Trump's response -- immediately raised new questions about the president's North Korea strategy and opened a new rift with a major American ally, South Korea, which Mr. Trump criticized for its 'talk of appeasement' with the North." ...

... Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "The crisis with North Korea escalated Sunday as President Trump reviewed military options and suggested sweeping new economic sanctions in response to the crossing of a dangerous threshold by the isolated nation in detonating its most powerful nuclear weapon ever.... Asked as he left morning services at St. John's Church whether he was planning to attack North Korea, Trump told reporters, 'We'll see.' Trump sought to assign responsibility for the unfolding crisis to North Korea's neighbors in the Asia-Pacific region, firing off a series of tweets that signaled rifts in U.S. economic and security partnerships that for years have helped isolate and contain North Korea. It fell to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to offer reassurances to the world that 'the commitments among the allies are ironclad.'... Trump also said on Twitter that he was considering cutting off trade with any nation doing business with North Korea. China is by far the country's largest trading partner, but it also is the largest U.S. trading partner in terms of goods imported and exported. Such a move ... would be nearly impossible to pull off without devastating the U.S. and global economies.... Trump convened a Sunday afternoon White House meeting of his national security team, also attended by Vice President Pence. Mattis said that at the president's request they reviewed every military option and that Trump concluded the United States is prepared to defend itself and its allies.... Mattis [said, 'We are not looking for the total annihilation of a country, namely North Korea, but ... we have many options to do so.'" ...

... Glenn Thrush & Mark Landler of the New York Times: "While the world agonized over the huge nuclear test in North Korea this weekend, President Trump aimed his most pointed rhetorical fire not at the renegade regime in Pyongyang, but at America's closest partner in confronting the crisis: South Korea. In taking to Twitter to accuse Seoul of 'appeasement,' Mr. Trump was venting his frustration at a new liberal South Korean government he sees as both soft on North Korea's atomic program and resistant to his demand for an overhaul of trade practices that he views as cheating American workers and companies. For Mr. Trump, the crisis lays bare how his trade agenda -- the bedrock of his economic populist campaign in 2016 -- is increasingly at odds with the security agenda he has pursued as president. It is largely a problem of Mr. Trump's own making. Unlike several of his predecessors, who were able to press countries on trade issues while cooperating with them on security, Mr. Trump has explicitly linked the two, painting himself into a corner.... Mr. Trump's threat to halt trade [with any country doing business with North Korea] went much further, suggesting a move that would dramatically intensify the potential for conflict with China, which accounts for roughly 85 percent of all trade with the North." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Yeah But. The important thing is that trashing trade agreements energizes Trump's base. In effect, Trump is outsourcing international relations to Joe-Bob from Podunk. ...

... Amy Sorkin of the New Yorker: North Korea's nuclear test took place at around midnight Saturday ET. "But it only took until 7:30 A.M. for Trump to make an extremely dangerous and volatile situation worse.... He had some blame to dole out. 'North Korea is a rogue nation which has become a great threat and embarrassment to China, which is trying to help but with little success,' he tweeted.... And then: 'South Korea is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing!' What is that 'one thing'? War, missiles, tweets, Trumpism? 'Fire and fury like the world has never seen'...? ... Matters with North Korea, never good, have deteriorated during his Presidency. What has changed is not the South's 'appeasement' but his heedless will toward escalation." ...

... Amy Zegart of the Atlantic: "America's North Korea policy is failing. It's been failing for years, across several presidents. But the risk of conflict has grown dramatically in this administration -- in part because Trump has gotten himself into a public threat war with the world's most unpredictable and uncontrollable bully, and Trump's go-to play is to threaten that man more. Trump is committing deterrence malpractice -- in four ways. The first is making threats so obviously hollow that many of his own advisers don't believe or support them.... Trump's second form of deterrence malpractice is that he conflates power with influence.... Sheer power is often not enough: The most powerful side in a contest of threats frequently doesn't win.... Trump's third type of deterrence malpractice: He talks too much. Effective deterrence is about signaling -- often without words -- that you really do mean what you say.... President Trump is committing deterrence malpractice in a fourth way -- by dividing the nation rather than uniting it, playing to our worst hatreds and his strongest base rather than bringing the country together in support of broader objectives that serve the national interest."

Donald Trump is anti-woman, anti-Hispanic, anti-black, anti-anything that would bring the country together. The only thing he is for is himself. Those in Republican leadership who have enabled his behavior by standing silent or making excuses for him deserve the reckoning that will eventually come for the GOP. It makes me terrifically sad to be honest -- sad for the party of ideas that I supported for over 30 years -- even more sad for the country and the fact that we can no longer have a credible and important debate about issues that will lead to problem solving. I am a conservative. But I can't and won't be a Republican as long as Donald Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. -- Sally Bradshaw, a co-author of the 2012-2013 Republican party "autopsy" report -- which urged the party to reach out to Hispanics & other minorities -- writing in response to a BuzzFeed inquiry about DACA ...

... Maggie Haberman & Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: "President Trump is strongly considering a plan that would end the Obama-era program that shields young undocumented immigrants from deportation, but only after giving Congress six months to come up with a potential replacement for the popular initiative, according to three administration officials briefed on the discussions. Officials working on the plan stressed that Mr. Trump could still change his mind, and some key details had not yet been resolved. Among them: whether beneficiaries of the program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, would be allowed to renew their protected status during the six-month period." ...

... Eliana Johnson of Politico: "... Donald Trump has decided to end the Obama-era program that grants work permits to undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children, according to two sources familiar with his thinking. Senior White House aides huddled Sunday afternoon to discuss the rollout of a decision likely to ignite a political firestorm -- and fulfill one of the president's core campaign promises.... In a nod to reservations held by many lawmakers, the White House plans to delay the enforcement of the president's decision for six months, giving Congress a window to act, according to one White House official.... White House aides caution that -- as with everything in the Trump White House -- nothing is set in stone until an official announcement has been made. Trump is expected to formally make that announcement on Tuesday, and the White House informed House Speaker Paul Ryan of the president's decision on Sunday morning...." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Assuming the reporting is correct, once again Trump has put his own needs to appease his bigot base over the needs of, in this case, innocent young people.

John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Since taking office, Trump has repeatedly taken actions that have little crossover appeal to Democrats or independents but that are strongly backed by Trump voters -- including efforts to ban people from a group of majority Muslim countries from entering the United States and withdrawing from the Paris climate accord.... [He] pardoned a tough-on-immigration Arizona sheriff accused of racial profiling. He threatened a government shutdown if Congress won't deliver border wall funding. He banned transgender people from serving in the military. And he is openly contemplating ending a program that shields from deportation young undocumented immigrants who consider the United States home.... In recent weeks, Trump has continued his practice of holding campaign-style rallies in states he won, creating an echo chamber of support with his most loyal backers.... Recent polling has underscored the narrow band of support Trump enjoys for some of the policies he is advocating. Collectively, [these moves ] have helped cement an image of a president, seven months into his term, who is playing only to his political base." ...

... Kevin Liptak of CNN publishes the text of President Obama's Inauguration Day letter to Donald Trump. "Written out longhand on White House stationery and slipped into the top drawer of the Resolute Desk, the 275-word letter captures an outgoing president eager to instill in Trump the vast responsibilities and uncertain parameters of the job. Obama, when writing the letter, didn't disclose the content even to his closest aides. Since then, however, Trump has shown the letter to visitors in the Oval Office or his private White House residence.... [In the letter, Obama offered] a warning against eroding the tenets of democracy in the name of political gain. 'We are just temporary occupants of this office,' Obama wrote. 'That makes us guardians of those democratic institutions and traditions -- like rule of law, separation of powers, equal protection and civil liberties -- that our forebears fought and bled for. Regardless of the push and pull of daily politics, it's up to us to leave those instruments of our democracy at least as strong as we found them,' he said. That passage ... appears prescient. Trump has been accused of flouting rule of law in his broadsides against federal judges and his own attorney general. His verbal assaults on Congress have led to charges that he's disregarding the constitutionally enshrined separate but equal branches of government.... Since reading the letter for the first time, Trump hasn't spoken or seen Obama. Instead he's frequently criticized the former president, rolled back significant elements of Obama's agenda, and privately obsessed about comparisons between himself and the man he replaced."

Annals of Journalism, Ctd. There are heroic reporters on the ground in Texas. And there are whiney Trumpies. ...

... The Nasiest, Lyingest, Most Petty, Ignorant President Ever. Adam Peck of ThinkProgress: "On Wednesday, CNN reporter Drew Griffin and his camera crew were conducting a live interview from Beaumont, Texas.... While on camera, a truck plowed into a flooded drainage ditch ... and began floating away. Grabbing a rope, Griffin rushed to help the man before his truck disappeared under water. 'I want to thank these guys for saving my life,' said Jerry Sumrall, the driver. On Saturday, Donald Trump essentially called the very same media a bunch of cowards. Like all of Donald Trump's childish insults, it was unprompted and apropos of absolutely nothing.... 'I hear the Coast Guard saved 11,000 people,' he said during a press conference on Saturday during his second trip to the Houston area. 'By going into winds that the media would not go into. They will not go into those winds,' he added, smirking.... From the moment Harvey made landfall in Texas last week through today, reporters have been on the ground risking life and limb to bring information to millions of Americans in the path of the storm, and tens of millions more watching from afar. And reporters are going to places around Houston that even Donald Trump's own administration officials have yet to tread." ...

... The Nasiest, Lyingest, Most Petty, Ignorant Administration Ever. Benjamin Hart of New York: "On Saturday, the Associated Press reported that several Houston-area Superfund sites had been severely flooded in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, 'with the risk that waters were stirring dangerous sediment.' [Story linked in yesterdays' Commentariat.]... On Sunday, the EPA responded by attacking one of the reporters who wrote the story, while not disputing any of the facts involved. [The] EPA statement [was] written in the jarringly caustic and grammatically sloppy style that characterizes so many Trump administration communiques[.]" ...

... Mark Hand of ThinkProgress: "It is very rare, if not unprecedented, for a federal agency to specifically target an individual reporter in a press release." According to the EPA's own earlier statements, its staffers did not visit the sites but took pictures of them from the air; the AP reporters went by boat. Yet the EPA complained that the AP reported its story "from the comfort of Washington" because one of the reporters on the byline was working from D.C. In addition, the statement relied on a misleading Breitbart report to criticize the same reporter, Michael Biesecker, for an unrelated, much earlier report that cited a meeting between EPA administrator Scott Pruitt & Dow Chemical's CEO. Biesecker relied on the EPA's own schedule in his reporting of the meeting. "But in a correction, the AP noted that a spokesperson for the EPA told AP that the meeting ... was canceled...." The EPA described the AP report on the Superfund sites as "yellow journalism." ...

... RUI. MEANWHILE, Ty Cobb, Trump's top personal attorney for the Russia case, berated reporter Natasha Bertrand of Business Insider for a report she wrote Saturday. Cobb called her report on Trump's draft memo on the Comey firing "exaggerated and/or fictionalized." "Are you on drugs?" Cobb asked Bertrand. "Have you read anything else on this???" Mrs. McC: Trump reflexively attacks the media almost daily, but this might be the first time anyone in his realm has suggested a journalist was Reporting Under the Influence.

Timothy Cama of the Hill: "President Trump's pick to be the U.S. Department of Agricultures (USDA) chief scientist is on track to face one of the rougher confirmation battles of the administration. Democrats are girding for an all-out battle against Sam Clovis's nomination to be USDA's under secretary for research, education and economics, a position that would see him overseeing billions of dollars in research spending and serving as a cross-departmental science czar.... Clovis has been criticized for lacking scientific credentials, and he disagrees with the scientific consensus on climate change. Further complicating Clovis's confirmation process, CNN uncovered a number of objectionable statements he has made on topics like race and politics. Clovis ... once wrote that former President Obama was being 'given a pass because he is Black,' called former Attorney General Eric Holder a 'racist black,' declared that homosexuality is a choice, and called progressives both 'race traitors' and 'race traders,' CNN reported.... Clovis's opponents argue that the 2008 law that designated the 'chief scientist' position requires the candidate to be a scientist, so Clovis is statutorily disqualified."

Paul Krugman: "Where Houston has long been famous for its virtual absence of regulations on building, greater San Francisco is famous for its NIMBYism -- that is, the power of 'not in my backyard' sentiment to prevent new housing construction.... This is one policy area where 'both sides get it wrong' -- a claim I usually despise -- turns out to be right. NIMBYism is bad for working families and the U.S. economy as a whole, strangling growth precisely where workers are most productive. But unrestricted development imposes large costs in the form of traffic congestion, pollution, and, as we've just seen, vulnerability to disaster."

Beyond the Beltway

Mae C., at the end of yesterday's Comments thread, provides a plausible explanation -- and refutes some of Mrs. McCrabbie's theories -- for why Salt Lake City cops were so eager to suck the blood of a comatose traffic accident victim: "About that nurse. The [fatal] speeding car crash was instigated by Utah cops and was against department policy. The blood draw was an effort by the cops to muddy any possible effort by the unconscious victim to sue the Utah cops. The phlebotomist was assigned to police blood draw department and had to know of Scotus decision of one year ago that so impacted his department. They did not attempt to get a warrant because they knew no judge would grant one. Source is Josh Marshall's twitter thread."

News Lede

Washington Post: "It's looking more likely that Hurricane Irma will affect the U.S. coast -- potentially making a direct landfall -- starting Friday. The powerful storm strengthened to a Category 4 on Monday with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph."

Comments

[MAG]

Paul Krugman NYTimes has thoughts on the failure of urban development, expensive living, and the evils of NIMBYism.

As to his views on how things will play out in Houston...

Oh, and if you trust the current administration to handle Harvey’s aftermath right, I’ve got a degree from Trump University you might want to buy. "getting urban development right"

He cites and compares various U.S. cities on several factors. Blaming a lack of planning goes so far. Houston's sprawl grew like Topsy. It has been industry and product (petroleum) driven. Is San Francisco blameless with its restrictions. Maybe. Maybe not. Why build more high rises there to accommodate more people (lower rents to follow? Not likely)...furthermore considering the fault line upon which most of that city lies, maybe the solution is more inland focus. In comparison rents in Manhattan are lower (not by so much) than San Francisco, but hey...still out of reach for most long distant commuters.

So, while I get the larger point he is making...it's unlikely trying to retrofit our larger urban areas with 'elevator' residences is going to be a cost-effective measure.

[Marie Burns]

@MAG: Here's a comment I made to Krugman's column:

"Houston v. San Francisco presents a picture of upside-downism. Relatively conservative Houston welcomes change -- in the form of rampant real estate development -- while liberal San Francisco -- usually at the forefront of social progress -- is averse to changing the status quo. In the matter of urban development, Houston is liberal & San Francisco is conservative.

"But both cities demonstrate the essence of politics: greed & self-interest. They just happen to be captured by different power elites. The greater good is not a factor in either city's 'vision.'

"Ironically perhaps, the federal government can do something about Houston's problem, but the feds can do little to force San Francisco to move toward a more liberal urban plan. Federal environmental & safety regulations can impose restrictions on Houston's careless development, but the federal government cannot order San Francisco to embrace, for instance, mixed-use development.

"Neither city needs to change its political ideology. Houstonians must honor their conservative values & 'consider the grandchildren,' while San Franciscans must make room for 'the least among us,' as they have been eager to do on so many other policy issues."

Some liberal cities do force development that incorporates more affordable housing. There was a story a while back that one developer's approach to NYC's requirements for lower-cost housing was to design the building with a "poor door" -- a separate entrance to the building with a different street address. Inside, the developer denied the "poors" access to the building's luxury amenities. (Thanks to Bill DeBlasio, the state can now ban such discrimination in some buildings. DeBlasio inserted this language into a New York State rent-regulation bill (that passed into law): “Affordable units shall share the same common entrances and common areas as market rate units.”)

While it's true that San Francisco is built out, it seems to me that the city could, for instance, force condo conversions to include some affordable units, & it could require the same thing for tear-downs & rebuilds. Good (subsidized) public transportation to lower-cost outlying areas also helps. But you're right; these efforts do not actually solve the problem of the high cost of urban housing; they can only mitigate it, usually to a very limited extent. This isn't an American problem; it's an urban problem. Try buying or renting a nice apartment in Paris or London. It isn't just poor people who can't afford to live in cities; housing costs price out middle-class people, too.

[Ken Winkes]

@ Marie, Bea, or the ghost of the CW, should the Krugman comment you forwarded have been a collaboration,

Thanks for passing it on. I'd likely have otherwise missed it, and would be the poorer for it.

We toss around cliches like insightful and thought-provoking far too easily and often, but in this case both apply. You have made me think about something in a new way.

The only thing I'd add on the differing politics of the two cities is some consideration of geography's influence. Hills by their very nature do limit sprawl, while flatland invites it. Outside SF itself, in the Bay Area there's sprawl enough.

Back to thinking about labor's place in Trumpland.

Short summary: Easy to conclude it's not good.

Harder: What to do about it.

[PD Pepe]

Here's an interesting idea re: housing: Building tiny houses for the homeless and others of slender means. this is a video from PBS news.
http://www.pbs.org/video/immense-possibilities-tiny-houses-pt-2/

I have read about other architects who are designing affordable housing in unique ways. The problem though, is always the funding, but cities are going to have to redesign and put on their caps of " Urban planning ahead."

I join Ken in looking at all this a little differently thanks to Marie's (I am prone to stick to one name) Krugman comment.

[Monoloco]

Spare us yet another article about Melania's fashion choices! But NY Magazine has one that may actually merit a read. In "Melania Trump and the Chilling Artifice of Fashion," Rhonda Garelick explains, in vivid detail, "how something as apparently trivial as women’s style reveals a profound truth at the heart of this administration and its relationship to America’s citizens." Garelick's thesis: "This is not just about fashion. It’s about the urgency of recognizing a certain genre of hypnotizing, dehumanizing spell, and snapping ourselves out of it."
https://www.thecut.com/2017/08/melania-trump-hurricane-heels-and-the-artifice-of-fashion.html

[Marie Burns]

@PD Pepe: I agree with you about tiny homes. For urbanites, architects have developed some pretty cool stackable units, too. And if you move out of the city, I saw one that -- for a price -- can go with you. Wow! Minimal packing!