Just how Crazy is Donald Trump!

**fixthecopier** · 02-14-2018

Originally Posted by theengel

You can't really see it that way. I don't mean to insult, but there's no way in hell you really think this. It's impossible to be that dim. Have you looked into the government there at all?

Yes, I am clearly aware of why the country collapsed. I never compared their government with ours. Quit jumping to conclusions. I was using their poverty as an example. It is the same in other places considered third world. Poverty creates crime, period. Intelligent people understand that as jobs disappear and can't be replaced, the people must be fed.

Gross misperceptions about who receives public benefits and for what purposes are leading the nation toward debates that distract from the real problems facing middle-class and low-income Americans. Most public benefits spending is for participants, largely senior citizens, who have paid for the services via a lifetime of work. This is far different from the picture painted by many conservatives of public benefits being for lazy poor people who do not want to work. These misperceptions put all public benefits programs at risk, including those that reach the middle class. They also derail benefits programs that specifically target people living in poverty and help them to join the middle class.

The Facts About Americans Who Receive Public Benefits - Center for American Progress

7 Lies About Welfare That Many People Believe Are Fact | Groundswell

**bsm2** · 02-14-2018

Six Facts on Donald Trump’s Use of Chinese Steel

Donald Trump used Chinese steel and aluminum. The United States has a long history of producing high-quality steel and aluminum, but Trump chose Chinese manufacturers in at least two of his recent construction projects. The Trump International Hotel Las Vegas and the Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago both used tons of Chinese metals.

The origin of the steel used was obscured. The origin of the steel used to build the Trump hotel in Las Vegas was hidden through a tangle of “various corporate entities, including holding companies registered in the British Virgin Islands," a popular location for offshore entities who place a premium on, ahem, discretion.

Trump spent at least $350 million on Chinese aluminum. Newsweek estimated Trump used 207,000 feet of Chinese aluminum for the Trump hotel in Chicago. Conservative estimates based on pound per foot means at least $350 million in sales went to a subsidiary of a Chinese aluminum manufacturer. This, when the American aluminum industry is collapsing. In the past two years, “more than half of the country’s aluminum smelters in states like Ohio, West Virginia and Texas have closed as a result of being undercut on price by competition from overseas.”

Chinese aluminum companies used predatory pricing. Trump purchased the aluminum used in the Trump hotel in Chicago “curtain walls” through entities that sold the aluminum products “below the cost of production or the amount charged in China.” This means American aluminum companies couldn’t possibly compete with foreign companies “willing to take losses on the sales of their building materials in hopes of driving companies in the United States out of business.” Patriotic.

Trump’s use of Chinese steel and aluminum is at the expense of America's workers. Trump doesn’t operate a publicly traded company, and he has no fiduciary obligation to shareholders. His decisions are all about higher profits for himself and his family at the expense of American producers and their employees.

Trump pays his Chinese partners. Or at least there aren’t any reports of Chinese steel or aluminum companies suing to be paid. Unlike in the United States, where workers have time and time again had to sue Trump in order to receive a partial payment for completed jobs.

**theengel** · 02-14-2018

U.S. runs January budget surplus of $49 billion, Treasury says - MarketWatch

**bsm2** · 02-14-2018

Trump’s budget proposal hurts the Rust Belt factory towns that voted for him

The White House wants to cut spending to help struggling US manufacturers.

In the budget plan released Monday, the Trump White House proposed slashing more than $300 million in spending on some of the few federal programs meant to boost manufacturing in distressed communities — the same industrial towns in decline that turned out heavily for Trump. The White House had proposed the same thing last year, though Congress kept most of the funding in place for 2018.

Rust Belt states could lose millions in economic development grants

**theengel** · 02-14-2018

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**bsm2** · 02-14-2018

Trump’s Longtime Lawyer Says He Paid Stormy Daniels Out of His Own Pocket

Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, said on Tuesday that he had paid $130,000 out of his own pocket to a pornographic-film actress who had once claimed to have had an affair with Mr. Trump.