Rebane's Ruminations

Scattershots – 17mar25

George Rebane

Happy St Pat’s day to all even if you’re not Irish!

Wrong answer to an interview puzzle.  The website Medium regularly publishes math puzzles that it lifts from entrance tests for various university STEM programs and some supposedly given to applicants during their interviews.  Here is a treasure hunt problem that requires some noodling about the given solution that unfortunately is wrong.  Can you figure out why the presented solution will not work, and provide an alternative that has a chance of working or show why no feasible solution exists?

RR reader (scenes 810am in the 8mar25 Sandbox) gives us a timely reminder.  “The US Left appears to be fueled by good-boy points, mobs built on top of upvotes and praise from within the group. I wonder if a Nazi operated that way? Probably. Scrabbling for acceptance is a strange thing. The whole point of shouting with signs is group solidarity, not convincing others.” (emphasis mine)  It is, of course, hopeless to tell anyone on the Left that their “shouting with signs” will convince anyone else save the talking head idiots on CNN, MSNBC, et al.

What are we doing??!

George Rebane

This longtime Trump supporter and sometime critic is one confused puppy; today I have little to no understanding of what the Trump administration is doing in managing our economy, and what kind of foreign policy goals it is pursuing re Ukraine and China.  So this is a lament in which I bitch and moan for the record.

By the behavior of the markets, it’s clear that I’m not alone among the confused and bewildered.  I have tried to get a handle on what’s going on by doing a lot of reading about the advice that sages ranging from Bastiat to Friedman might provide us on everything from tariffs to DOGE.

An illuminating piece on tariffs comes from the Mises Institute recounting Bastiat’s counsel in ‘The Hidden Costs of Tariffs: A Lesson from Bastiat’s Seen and Unseen’.  In there the seen is that “Tariffs are often portrayed as a simple solution to protect domestic industries and create jobs. Politicians, like Trump, have used them as a political tool, promising immediate benefits through reduced competition and increased domestic production. However, this narrative overlooks the fundamental economic lesson articulated by Frédéric Bastiat in his principle of the seen and the unseen.”  (Bastiat’s famous essay ‘That Which is Seen, and What is Not Seen’, more here)

The reality of the unseen is a sobering list of the long-term damage to the economy –

• Higher Costs for Consumers and Businesses:Tariffs act as a tax on consumers, who are forced to pay higher prices for imported goods or their domestic substitutes. What remains unseen is the cumulative effect on household budgets and reduced spending in other areas of the economy. Businesses that rely on imported materials or components face higher input costs, making them less competitive domestically and internationally.
• Disrupted Supply Chains:Modern production processes, especially in industries like automotive and manufacturing, involve complex cross-border supply chains. A single car, for example, may cross the US-Canada border multiple times during its production. When tariffs are applied at each crossing, the costs escalate quickly, making final products more expensive and less competitive. The unseen effect is the cascading disruption of entire industries that depend on smooth, tariff-free supply chains.
• Retaliation and Trade Wars: Tariffs rarely exist in isolation. When one country imposes tariffs, trading partners often retaliate, leading to a downward spiral of reduced trade. Canada experienced this firsthand during the Smoot-Hawley era of the 1930s, when global retaliation to US tariffs contributed to a 60 percent decline in world trade. The unseen damage includes lost export opportunities, reduced foreign investment, and weakened trade relationships.
• Reduced Productivity and Innovation:Protectionist policies shield domestic industries from competition, reducing the incentive to innovate or improve efficiency. Over time, this leads to stagnation and declining productivity. What remains unseen is the opportunity cost: the lost growth that could have been achieved through free competition and exposure to global markets.

• Long-Term Structural Damage: As tariffs distort market incentives, resources are allocated inefficiently. Industries that may not be competitive without protection receive an artificial boost, while more efficient sectors suffer from reduced investment. The unseen consequence is long-term structural weakness, making the economy more vulnerable to external shocks.

Many parts of this list are already becoming apparent with the impact of reduced productivity and innovation, and long-term structural damage yet to be determined.  My concern is that today no Trump acolyte has yet to publicly recognize these unseen factors nor have they given reasons why they will not come to pass and do the described damage.  Their answer is simply ‘don’t worry, be happy, nothing bad will happen’, ‘don’t bet against Trump’.

On the other end of the spectrum are the massive government reforms promised by DOGE.  For some puzzling reason Trump does not repeatedly make it clear that Elon Musk has only the commission to search out islands (continents?) of government waste and fraud, and then recommend remedies.  The authority to evaluate and execute DOGE recommendations lies only with the president and, in certain cases, Congress.  If this is not continually made clear to the American public, then the outpouring of Democrat lies about the operation of DOGE will carry the day.  (more perspectives here)

And now some thoughts on the Ukraine/Russia peace talks.  I am chagrinned, nay, dumbfounded that our diplomats led by Trump and Rubio still believe that Putin’s strategy and behavior are dependent on whether Trump continues to avoid saying bad things about Russia.  Nothing could be further from the truth – both sides recognize Trump’s bullshit as being mainly for consumption by the marginally read public.

Putin’s objective is clear.  He wants to continue recovering territories formerly held by the USSR and the czars.  Russia’s domestic wealth has always come from its conquered lands.  And he needs a disarrayed EU with a toothless NATO to guarantee the effectiveness and security of his planned military forays.  The whole thing begins with a weakened Ukraine pruned of its Crimea and Donbas regions.  No progress on any peace talks will be made until Russian forces are able to recapture its Kursk region now barely held by Ukrainians.

No one cares what kind of nice words America says in the interval about Putin and Russia.  Since the Bolshevik revolution Russia has only negotiated after making some significant and very visible gains militarily.  In the meantime, as today, it just demonstrates a complete lack of interest in making any progress toward a resolution – in this case a ‘temporary peace’.

And all this is doubly so when we consider that Putin’s physical survival depends on his being able to project and deliver strongarm results both in the field and at the negotiating table.  It is on the basis of communicating our ability to weaken him publicly that any progress will be made toward ending the war in Ukraine without capitulating the future of that country.  That is the only realpolitik that Putin understands and plays by.

Sandbox – 8mar25

[‘Making English Our National Language Is One Step Toward A More Unified Country’ is a true statement, and long overdue.  I grew up in a bilingual environment, speaking only Estonian at home with my parents.  But we all recognized the importance of speaking English as one of the main bonds unifying us as Americans with everyone else in the country.  gjr]

Pissing Match Continues

George Rebane

Today marked another malignant milestone in the US/Ukraine relationship.  President Trump aborted his much-publicized meeting with President Zelensky, and told him to come back when he’s ready to make peace in the three-year Russo-Ukraine war.  The intended objective of the meeting was for both presidents to sign an agreement that would serve as the framework for a more detailed treaty between US and Ukraine spelling out how we would mine their rare earth minerals and share the profits therefrom.

The trouble started when Trump said again that he has a good relationship with Putin and believes that the thug would honor any subsequent peace agreement to end the war.  Trump also needlessly pointed out that Zelensky has no hand to play in these negotiations and will observe the proceedings like a potted plant.  In his turn Zelensky had the temerity to once more caution Trump that Putin has violated every agreement he has signed, many with Ukraine.

The bottom line that should be clear after all these decades in dealing with communists, Marxists, and dictators that none of them have or have ever had a ‘good relationship’ with ANYONE.  They have all ended with their naïve counterparties getting screwed in the end, which usually has arrived sooner than later.  For Trump to trumpet his ‘good relationship’ with Vladimir illustrates our president’s naivete in going into these negotiations with Russia, and gives rise to peals of laughter inside the Kremlin’s walls.  And Zelensky got shown the door today for just bringing up this cautionary piece of history that awkwardly shone a light on Trump’s kindergarten view of his good relations with Putin, Xi, and the ugly fat kid.

If all this geo-political stumbling turns out to be a brilliant opening round to a resolution that stops the fighting, gets us the minerals, and secures the peace (with the US threatening to use its club on anyone who messes with ongoing American investments and mine operations), then I will have egg on my face and gladly admit to my own naivete about how Trump executes the art of the deal.

In the interval, Rebane Doctrine calls for us to engineer a regime change in the Kremlin, preferably with Vladimir’s defenestration by one of his oligarchs with whom he has a ‘good relationship’.  Short of that we should light a candle in the National Cathedral for Trump’s hoped for epiphany.

‘What We Know and Don’t About January 6’

George Rebane

The title article is a revealing and long overdue piece of journalism by John Davidson, a senior editor at The Federalist (here).  A House Select Committee was formed to investigate the 6jan21 Capitol “insurrection” by the Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi.  The purpose of the committee as performing an institutional hit job on Donald Trump was clear from the onset.

Davidson writes – “The official report of the House Select Committee, which runs to more than 800 pages, is too deeply biased to give much help. This was foreordained given the hyper-partisan way the Select Committee was formed. Then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s two Republican appointments to the committee—Representatives Jim Jordan and Jim Banks—and instead appointed two virulently anti-Trump Republicans, Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.”

As Davidson points out with readily verifiable facts subsequently made available, the report is an intricate fabric laced with lies about what happened on J6.  And these exposed lies continue to be repeated daily by the Left’s lamestream media.  To a large fraction of Americans what spews from MSNBC to the NYT continues to be the official version of how the Right tried to overthrow the federal government on that fateful day.  Davidson’s piece contains an important sampling of the most egregious lies with which the Democrats still populate the press, airwaves, and internet.  The report, published in the January 2025 issue of the Imprimis, is an important summary for those who want to know and cite the real J6 story to their friends and neighbors about the evils of our virulently anti-American and neo-Marxist Democrats.

Sandbox - 25feb25

["OpenAI announced a partnership with Estonia to roll out ChatGPT Edu in all secondary schools, starting with 10th and 11th graders by September 2025, as part of the country’s AI Leap 2025 initiative to provide free AI tools and teacher training." (more here)  And now for a bit of levity, enjoy this.  gjr]

Is Trump going off the rails?

George Rebane

I am distraught and shaken at the news of what President Trump is planning for ending the war between Ukraine and Russia.  It’s taken a few days for me to gather the gumption to get my thoughts down for the record.  Readers know that as the best of available alternatives I have supported Trump’s candidacies and general policies through three elections.  My support has been interleaved with generous dollops of criticisms, especially when he has shot from the lip and acted like a third-grader throwing a tantrum on the playground.  But now in power, he has really shown a new side of himself in the foreign policy arena – he is acting as if he’s never studied history and knows nothing about how international thugs and dictators (especially of the communist stripe) respond to opposing their atrocities.

Putin is a low-life, rank-and-file KGB agent who struck it rich in Russia’s chaotic aftermath during the collapse of the USSR.  To view him as anything other than a murderous thug and liar is to embark on the wrong course regarding any dealings with him.  To that we must add his newfound embrace of becoming the self-aggrandized heroic figure who will reconstitute the old Communist empire and return Russia to its never-was glory days.

It boggles the mind to discover why Trump set up the meetings with Russia and excluded Ukraine’s president Zelensky from the undertakings.  Last time I looked, the war was between Russia and the Ukraine with America and the allies providing war materiel support on an unreliable schedule that so far has favored Putin.  It is Zelensky who has used every legal means (according to Ukraine’s constitution) to administer the state and conduct a decidedly one-sided war to save his country from a criminal invasion and conquest.

And in response Trump not only excludes Zelensky from the negotiations, but gratuitously attacks him personally for no apparent reason, culminating with the patently absurd lie that Ukraine started the war.  Putin and Lavrov are laughing their collective asses off watching Trump go off the rails.  Any C- student of history knows that Moscow’s thugs are playing for time with all the cards stacked in their favor viz no return of conquered Ukrainian territories and Ukraine permanently banned from NATO.  What in hell is there left for the west to negotiate?

Having successfully expanded Russia’s boundaries through bullshit negotiations with the west, Putin will just wait for the next opportunity to again invade convenient neighbors, be it the Baltics, or the rest of Ukraine, or … .  And, of course, China is watching Trump’s screw-ups with keen interest as it prepares for its next moves on Taiwan.

The best source of Trump’s wrong thinking that I can muster is his proudly claimed expertise as a New York real estate negotiator.  Trump, like most western business people, has grown up in the belief that capitalism under liberal governments provides ideal environments for win-win negotiations and deals.  However, the deep-rooted culture of most of the rest of the world, especially Slavic Russia, is that the fundamental nature of negotiations and resulting deals is a zero-sum game – if he’s winning, I must be losing, and vice versa.

So now Trump is trying to engineer a laudable win-win outcome with Putin and present the results, take it or leave it, to Zelensky.  There is absolutely zero chance of that happening.  Putin’s political AND personal survival depends on his being able to continue reconstituting Mother Russia to at least its czarist days.  If he fails in this endeavor, they may not even hold a state funeral for him.

Oi Weh!

President Elon Musk?!

George Rebane

The Democratic leadership has discovered the evils of political appointees who share a politician’s ideology and worldview.  Since they have no recollection of their own politicians ever having done such a dastardly thing, they consider Trump’s appointment of Musk as his DOGE czar a true “constitutional crisis”.  In response their leaders are gathering ragtags of followers on every street corner on which they can erect a mic and attract a camera with the call for all ignorant Americans to assemble in the streets with torches and pitchforks to … RESIST!

Their own lamestream media lackeys have dutifully fallen in line with their own loud echoes of ‘constitutional crisis’.  No one seems to have picked up on how ludicrous is this charge.  Even the conservative cable news guys have trouble connecting the dots on the howls of the likes of Mad Maxine and Sychophant Schumer trying to get a rise out of the country against Trump, who now enjoys record  approval ratings.  It seems that only a few late-night conservative comics point out the utter nonsense that the Democrats are purveying.

The obvious counter to silence the Dems on this charge that somehow Musk is taking over the presidency is to point out that politicians ALWAYS appoint people with whose views they are compatible to key positions on the staffs and in their administrations.  How the hell did Trump pick all those cabinet members?  Was it dumb luck that they all wound up claiming to fly in tight formation with the boss?  No one howled when the unelected Rubio, Hegseth, Bessent, … got Trump’s nod to sit in his cabinet and wield some serious unelected power.  But all of them, at all times, are careful to point out that they are executing the President’s policies and vision.  (In fact, Musk is designated and works as a Special Government Employee – more here.)

And so it is with his other appointments who don’t require congressional confirmation.  Musk is one of them, and he too is always careful to point out that he and his DOGE team are in the business of identifying government waste, fraud, mismanagement, redundancy, and incompetence – apparently all the things that Democrats promote and benefit from in the operation of our deep administrative state.  Musk tells everyone his job is to identify the problem, its scope, priority, supportive evidence, and possible fix; and then present that to the President.  It is the President who then determines what should be done next, not Musk.

The Democrats, whose actions are always an amalgam of stupidity and evil, continue to lie to their constituents, telling them that it is actually Musk who’s in charge and making the executable decisions.  And, of course, one of the qualifications for an American to be such a  constituent is to always believe the bilge that issues from their Schumers, Pelosis, Clintons, Bookers, Schiffs, … .

My disappointment with the media lies with the conservative side, especially Fox News.  They have yet to detail the hypocrisy and lies when reporting on latest progressive outrage from some street corner or talking heads on MSNBC or CNN or … .  They simply leave the argument hanging instead of clarifying the matter for their audience.

I want to end with the photo showing Trump sitting calmly at his Resolute Desk while Musk stands nearby with his 4-year-old son explaining some recent DOGE initiative to the press assembled in the Oval Office.  The Dems claim this to be a picture showing historical presidential weakness, and confirming that it is Musk who is really in charge.  To the rest of us it is a display of comfortable and confident power.  The President sitting at his desk quite sanguine about letting one of his lieutenants have a moment in the sun while his position in the administration’s leadership hierarchy is confirmed by the top gun, known by the world to always be in charge of all that he surveys – he need not flaunt anything in the manner of weaker leaders.