"Debate" Observations

I thought the debate was pretty boring. We've heard and seen this all before.

Trump let Clinton get away with saying that tax cuts caused the Great Recession. It was housing policy, including her hubby's (and Andrew Cuomo's).

Trump forswore the first use of nuclear weapons while vowing to take nothing off the table, including the first use of nuclear weapons.

The pundits think Trump made a strong showing in the first segment of the "debate." That's when he was going on about how trade "steals" manufacturing jobs from Americans. If you must identify the "thieves," they are robots.

Clinton let Trump get away with lying about a fictitious job-drain via NAFTA. Jobs increased and exports to Mexico and Canada are at historic highs. As noted above, robots "stole" most of the jobs.

Trump thinks it's unfair that the US government doesn't use a VAT (value-added tax) to raise the price of Mexican imports while Mexico does so with American imports. In other words, he's asking, why can't America mistreat its consumers the way Mexico mistreats its consumers?

If Trump were more savvy I'd say he secretly supports TPP: it protects American IP (bad in my view), zeroes out tariffs on American manufactured and agricultural goods (good), and targets China (bad). For Trump, what's not to love?

One candidate last night promised to work with high-tech companies to stop ISIS from radicalizing people over the Internet. It was Clinton.

Possibly to be continued...