Trump Tower Meeting, Immigrants and Free Money

That Meeting in Trump Tower - A Believable Scenario

After writing the following article, as a result of reading Bill Browder's book mentioned below, I found that the the information relating to the Magnitsky legislation, the Russian government's opposition to it and the Trump Tower meeting in 2016 was no secret to the media in this country.  It has not, however, received very much publicity.

In the many articles in the press and in the TV commentaries dealing with the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower between people involved in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and a group of Russians, some of whom may have had government connections, it has been claimed that the prime purpose of the meeting was the providing of information damaging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign by the Russians.  

This was initially denied, the Russians claiming the meeting was merely about the adoption of Russian children by Americans, seemingly a much more innocuous subject.  What has been rarely touched upon was what the Russians may have expected in return for their "dirt" on Hillary Clinton.

But getting back to the Russian's "adoption" explanation for the meeting, this contained an element of truth, closely related to a major human rights issue on which the United States had taken an anti-Russian position.  If a possible Trump administration would indicate its opposition to this position, the quid pro quoi would be the information defaming Clinton and other support for the Trump candidacy using whatever resources the Russians might offer.  But this had to be hidden in the background.  Hence, the already existing adoption story comes into play.

Even though today’s Russia is far from Stalin’s dictatorship, there is still a great deal of disrespect for the rights of its citizens, coercive use of police power and most of all, an unbelievable level of corruption and dishonesty in its government.  Bill Browder, in his 2015 book, “Red Notice,” chronicles his career as a hedge fund entrepreneur, whose funds were chiefly invested in Russian enterprises, once that country’s communism adopted capitalistic practices.

 

Encountering unbelievable corruption and thievery in Russia, Browder attempted to fight back within the Russian legal system, but with little success. 

One of his Russian lawyers, Sergei Magnitsky, after uncovering many of these evils, was arrested, probably tortured and eventually died, or was murdered, in prison.  Browder crusaded to revenge Magnitsky’s death and eventually succeeded in getting human rights legislation passed by the United States Congress which denied visas to, and imposed sanctions upon, an extended list of corrupt police officials, government functionaries and jurists who had contributed to Magnitsky’s death.  This was precedent-setting and it apparently struck the Russians, at the highest levels, where it hurt. The clear impliction is that Vladimir Putin was enraged when the United States passed this legislation.  Why?  It set a precedent for visa denial and sanctions as a tool in dealing with Russia and some Russian nationals.

Reacting to this American legislation, Putin,   after several unsuccessful attempts to minimalize and counter it, decided to terminate a successful program whereby American families adopted Russian orphans, often with physical problems.  Putin, claiming the charges against Magnitsky’s tormentors were totally unjustified, tried to use the carrot consisting of the possible reversal of the adoption program’s termination as leverage to get the United States to reverse its human rights legislation regarding those who had contributed to Magnitsky’s death. That tactic did not work. Meanwhile, other countries, and even the European Parliament, were following the United States’ lead in passing such legislation, much to the embarrassment of Putin and the encouragement of human rights activists within Russia.

We do not know if a question was asked at that June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower about whether a possible Trump Administration would consider reversing the Magnitsky human rights legislation.  If they would, might the Russians be able to provide enough support to put Donald Trump in the White House?    But this kind of quid pro quo would be extremely dangerous.  This is the kind of connection Robert Mueller’s investigation is seeking. So I believe they avoided bringing it to the table (although it might have been discussed elsewhere).

That’s where the somewhat less unsavory story of the resumption of the adoption program in exchange for the eventual reversal of the Magnitsky legislation comes in.  That could have been intended to be their cover story, sweeping away any connection with the 2016 election on the part of the Russians.  At this point, this is no more than conjecture on my part, but it is, at least to me a believable scenario.

Yes, the adoption of Russian children by Americans was certainly a part of the agenda of that Trump Tower meeting in June of 2016 as the Russians claimed.   But the real thrust was more likely to have been Putin’s desire for the ultimate repeal of the United States' Magnitsky human rights legislation. 

Would letting Americans resume their adoption of Russian orphans and helping the Republicans elect Donald Trump be enough to bring about what Putin wanted, a repeal of the Magnitsky human rights legislation by a Republican Congress?  I suspect this had a higher priority for the Russians than getting Donald Trump elected.  Like everyone else, they didn’t think he would win, and any admiration between Trump and Putin is purely one-sided, regardless of what Trump believes.

Mentioned above is Bill Browder’s book, “Red Notice.” It’s a quick read and in addition to the Magnitsky story, it makes very clear the ruthlessness of the people who rule Russia today.  That should not be lost on those concerned with the question of Russian involvement in the 2016 election here and future relations between the United States and Russia.

Jack Lippman

Face Up to It! YOU are an Immigrant

Unless you are a full-blooded Native American, you come from immigrant stock!

George Washington and all Presidents following him came from immigrant stock! 

That stock is a strong one, “pre-selected” in that it is derived from those who, somewhere in the past, had the brains and guts to leave wherever they were and come here, not to be a parasite on our economy as the ill-informed claim, but to better themselves.  (Of course, those who came here as slaves had no choice in the matter, but only the smartest and the strongest of them survived generations of servitude, creating a "pre-selected stock" possessing qualities as strong as that of  the descendants of immigrants.)

Those desiring to restrict immigration must look into a special kind of mirror that not only reflects their image but that of the earlier generations from which they came, back to the original immigrants from whom they are descendants.

JL

"Basic Income" or Giving Away Money - (Precursor of a Jobless Economy)

Those of you who have been following this blog for a while know that I have repeatedly preached that because of the likely scarcity of jobs in the future, they will have to be “rationed” among us (in this country and in the world!).  I have suggested that a maximum work week of 30 hours and a mandatory retirement age of 50 be instituted in order to create jobs openings for more people.

Lately, the idea that robotics and other automated systems will reduce the number of jobs has been increasingly recognized.  There will only be a minimal number of low level jobs (hotel housekeeping personnel, health care aides, ditch diggers, etc.) as more and more of the mid-level and higher paying positions are replaced by 
machines and computers in the manufacturing, financial and service sectors of the economy. Look how internet shopping has reduced the number of retail jobs while creating a far smaller number of “fulfillment” positions, involved in bringing your online purchase to your front door. And automation, including artificial intelligence, will make millions of other jobs disappear, including the positions of the coders and programmers who create these systems.

All this is occurring in a world where economies are growing along with the wealth they produce.  Unfortunately, with fewer employees receiving paychecks, the means of distributing that wealth “downward” is becoming more and more difficult. Temporary periods of low unemployment, as we are now experiencing, will not change the long range prospect of fewer and fewer employees.

Traditionally, throughout the world, this transfer of wealth has been accomplished by taxes on the wealthy and businesses, and everybody else too, being used to fund government programs such as social security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, disability insurance, food stamp programs, child care programs, public schools, etc.  That is the tradiational way in which wealth has been “redistributed.”

Another idea for dealing with this problem, “wealth redistribution,” which is coming into the foreground is “free money” or “basic income” paid by governments to citizens meeting certain criteria, or even to all citizens, with no strings attached whatsoever.  They can spend the money on beer and lottery tickets if they so choose. In the United States, the IRS ‘earned income tax credit’ goes in the direction of accomplishing this for low income individuals.  Conceivable, the cost of providing such “basic income” might be less than the total cost of the kinds of government programs mentioned above.  But these programs would be removed or significantly reduced, depending on the size of the “basic income” payments.

A recent article in Bloomberg Businessweek discussed this problem in depth, centering on an experimental program in Finland.  READ THE ARTICLE BY CLICKING HERE.  There have been other studies done elsewhere upon which the article also touches.

Giving away money in this manner is nothing new. It has been around for a long, long time!  Quoting from the article, “the idea of basic income crops up when people want to right an economic wrong. It’s there in Thomas More’s 1516 book Utopia, which describes a society that has no crime because it can ‘provide everyone with some means of livelihood so that nobody is under the frightful necessity of becoming … a thief.’ There it is again, in a 1796 pamphlet by American political theorist 

 

Thomas Paine, who argued for the creation of a ‘national fund’ out of which ‘every person, rich or poor’ would receive £15 once he or she turned 21 and £10 every year thereafter. Earth’s resources were supposed to be available to everyone, Paine argued, so people deserved ‘compensation in part for … the system of landed property.”  

Think for a moment of those who make up the fictional crew of StarTrek's Starship Enterprise, and those who built and created that vehicle centuries from now, if there were any such employees, other than robots and computers.  How were they compensated, or was there any need for compensation?  Was the “wealth of the planet” somehow organized so that it was distributed in a manner by which everybody had everything they needed.  (Note that I didn’t say “everything they wanted.”)  Are "basic income" programs the first step in redefining "wealth redistribution" in a world where human labor no longer exists in a jobless economy centuries from now.

JL

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