Did you every hear the expression “a mile wide and an inch deep?” This describes President Trump's policies to a T. There’s always some truth to what he says:

• The odious Iranian government hates the U.S. and wishes us harm
• Nicholas Maduro is an evil, drug-dealing son-of-a-bitch
• Cubans are better off without the Castro's in charge
• Illegal immigrants have broken the law
• As have Minneapolis and other "sanctuary cities"
• Rich people generate wealth for everyone
• The federal government is bloated
• We are getting ripped off by foreign countries
• Et cetera

These are all great one-line sound bites for the beautiful people on Fox News, but they only skim the surface. When you look deeper, there are pesky details that make Trump's easy fixes seem delerious, dumb, and dangerous. For example...

• The odious Iranian government hates the U.S. and wishes us harm
  
  • There are 92,000,000 (92 million) people in Iran.
  • If they really wanted the IRGC gone, they would be gone.
  • Most Iranians believe that the 1979 Revolution freed them from the oppression of the Shah’s monarchy and the foreign influence of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.
  • Other than kicking Hussein out of Kuwait, what do we have to show for the $6 trillion spent and 10,000 American lives lost in the Middle Eastern wars since World War Two?
  • BTW, $6 trillion is about what we spend in six years on all welfare and other anti-poverty programs.
• Nicholas Maduro is an evil, drug-dealing, son-of-a-bitch
  • There are 30,000,000 (30 million) people in Venezuela.
  • If they had really wanted Nicholas Maduro gone, he would be gone.
  • Since when did we kill people on the high seas because we "think" they are doing something wrong?  Wouldn't we call this piracy if someone else did it?
  • Isn't America still practicing Gunboat Diplomacy in its attacks on Panama, Grenada, Iraq, Lybia, Venezuela, and Iran?
  • The Venezuelans didn’t ask for, nor did they need Trump’s help to put a sane government in place.
• Cubans are better off without the pro-Castro, Marxist regime
  • Same for the 10,000,000 (10 million) Cubans...
  • Most of whom believe that Castro did a lot for the desperately poor of Cuba…ask them!
  • And BTW, no one in Cuba wants to return to the Batista dictatorship.
• Illegal immigrants have broken the law
  • Of course “illegal” immigrants have broken the law, but they are not here for Red Sox games and hot dogs.
  • They come here to work...
  • And you know what, we need them.
  • Our economy is dependent on immigrants as every worker in American cannot earn a minimum wage of $30 an hour (as proposed) without the economy going broke...
  • Or turning into Europe where very few people have their own home, own more than one car (if they own one at all), or have much chance of breaking out of their "class."
  • Immigration law should have been reformed decades ago to embrace immigration as a win-win opportunity...
  • Blame congress for this not happening.
• Minneapolis and other "sanctuary cities" are defying federal law
  • Yes, sanctuary cities like Minneapolis are defying federal law...
  • But cities like Minneapolis, New York, and Chicago would be way too expensive for anyone but billionaires if there were no low-wage workers.
  • And the myth that immigrants are taking jobs from Americans is just that...fake -- there are not enough Americans willing to work for $5 or $10 an hour to displace even a small fraction of our immigrant workers.
  • And while we're at it let's face the myth that the American work ethic is still "work hard and succeed"...
  • It's not. Today, many of us (literally many many millions of us) feel entitled to things we have not earned. 
• Rich people generate wealth for everyone and deserve a tax break occasionally
  • Absolutely, rich people do disproportionately promote economic growth, which generates wealth,
  • And they do deserve a tax break occasionally,
  • But making it sound like the “Big Beautiful Bill” helps ordinary people is nonsense;
  • Worse, it undermines the government’s credibility.
  • Ordinary people are not stupid; tell them the truth, that sometimes you need to give "earners" a reward.
• The federal government is bloated and needs to be trimmed
  • Sure, but could anyone but Trump find a more ridiculous way to do this than to let a mad genius like Elon Musk loose on the bureaucracy... literally with a chain saw?
  • As we are discovering, while the federal government does things inefficiently, it does things that we need.
  • And, it's a lot easier to fire people who know how to do things than it is to get their expertise back.
  • Why couldn't we have had a sane cut-back process?
• We are getting ripped off in our trade with foreign countries, who have also taken our indutries
  
  • What...! Than how come we're so rich?
  • Is a tariff a good solution to this "problem?" (A tariff is a "tax" paid by an importer [us!] to import goods.)
  • It only works when the foreign-cost-of-the-good + the tariff > the domestic-cost-of-the-good. (Why would a conmsumer want to pay more? ...patriotism?) With Amercan production costs so high, it is rarely the case that this difference in cost is small...it's usually enormous.
  • Any college student who has taken an economic survey course can tell you the most fundamental rule of a viable economy is...buy from the least-cost producer, not the highest-cost one (usually us)!
  • America is rich and the people who work here will not accept wages that allow us to build a $1,000 refrigerator, a $20,000 car, a low-cost compouter chip, or an iPhone.
  • Instead, our economic salvation lies in creativity and innovation, which we excel at because we allow people the freedom to try things, fail, and try again.
  • And please, Donald Trump, stop showing us charts of the trade imbalance we have with India, Bangladesh, Uganda, and other economic "giants." We have a trade imbalance with most of the world because we are rich and these countries are too poor to buy our stuff.
• Et cetera

Trump's inch-deep approach isn't new. In fact, it explains how an entire population of sophisticated people can appear to suddenly go insane -- reference Germany in the 1930s, China in the 1960s, and Russia in the 1990s. Tell people enough contraversial stuff to get them charged up, leave out the pesky details, convince them that they can bully or shoot their way out of their problems, and these folks are well on their way to Crazytown.

And this journey is subtle – it’s hard to see that your values, your common sense, and your acceptance of "crazy" has changed. It's also gradual – when you are on the journey to Crazytown, it’s hard to remember when things were better.

What some evidence of this...ask yourself if you remember how it was about a year ago ...when we didn’t have federal troops in American cities? ...when we were not debating whether it was okay for federal agents to shoot protesters? ...when we were not toppling dictators for people who didn’t ask us to topple their leaders? ...when we were not in an oil-war in the Middle East? ...when the federal government was not run by lunatics trying hard to appear normal?

Yeah, those were the days. Next stop: Crazytown.

Why did Republicans elect Donald Trump? Why did Democrats and independents abandon Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton? Surely, these things didn't happen because Trump was so much more qualified or experienced, and they certainly didn't happen because he was more likeable. Then why, why did voters put him, an arrogant, self-aggrandizing bigot, with delusions of grandeur, and an unhidden distain for American law and traditions into office?

My theory is that after 25 years of government failure and incompetence, people had simply had enough. Trump was their statement, an expression of their frustration and anger. By electing the very worst possible choice, they were sending  the message that they are fed up with the nonsense in Washington.

Don't think it's been nonsense...? Were you happy with:

• The do-nothing congresses of the last decade?
• The shutdowns and other contortions and contrivances used to avoid legislative compromise?
• Federal actions on abortion, gender ID, sexual preference, religious freedom, energy, climate control, diversity, equal rights, regulation… (just to name a few)
• Duke Cunningham, Bob Menendez, Dollar-Bill Jefferson, Charlie Rangel, Jerry Lewis, and, of course, the epitome of sleaze, George Santos?
• Stuffing the Supreme Court with blatantly biased, marginally qualified judges?
• The complete abandonment of immigration laws and sane asylum policies?
• The one-sided implementation of Obamacare?
• The rise of ISIS, the abandonment of the Kurds, the Syrian migration?
• Sanctuary cities that basically spit in the face of federal immigration law? …Which by the way, has needed congressional reform for decades.
• The annual [over]spending by the feds of $1 trillion to $2,000,000,000,000... mostly for government-run “insurance” programs like Social Security and Medicare because the premiums for these were spent on other stuff?

• Spending almost a trillion dollars a year on the military (40% of what the entire world spends) to maintain pax-Americana… absolving most other developed countries of their responsibility to defend themselves?
• And how about that federal deficit which has grown from $6 trillion to $36,000,000,000,000... which in fact is a $100,000 loan taken by our government in the name of every American man, woman, and child... which we will need to pay back when people, mostly foreigners, stop buying government paper!
• Not to mention the Second Gulf war, in which maybe a million people died, and for which we still have no rational explanation, or Afghanistan, that killed or wounded almost 30,000 Americans and went on for 20 years for reasons that are still unclear.
• And lots more

Sure, spin-doctors, politicians, and the fast-talking media have turned these into easily forgotten bumps-in-the-road, but honestly, can they really be called anything but abject failures? Would we tolerate this kind of performance or lack thereof in any other public institution. Would you, for example, buy an insurance policy if the insurance company was using your premiums for social welfare programs and counting on future premiums to pay future claims? Would you keep your money in a bank that displayed such nincompoopery with their borrowing, debt, and deficit? Would you allow your son or daughter to risk their lives in a foreign war that no one can explain or adequately defend?

Okay...okay... maybe this is a bridge too far. We and our government has survived lots of stupidity. But isn't this primarily because every four years we can eject the nincompoops and replace them with leaders who appear more sensible? This remedy has worked for more than 200 years to keep us reasonably happy and supportive.

Only something went badly wrong a few decades ago – we began to elect people who were worse than those they replaced. To whit, I give you: Bill Clinton, a former Alabama attorney general with a penchant for stupid sex, George W. Bush, who never held a job his father didn’t get for him, Barack Obama, a former community organizer and radical who redefined the word “giveaway,” and Joe Biden, a back-slapping congressman who in 36 years was only able to get a crime bill and a violence-against-women bill passed into law.

Donald Trump fits in perfectly with this group. After all, he did file for bankruptcy SIX times; he has been married thrice; he was or is a womanizer by anyone’s definition; he lost his business partners so much money that eventually only the Russians and the Saudis would work with him; and he rose to popularity on the basis of being a "hardnosed" reality TV star and a persistent Obama-birther. Like I said, a perfect fit.

Compare this bunch, including Trump, to those that came before them: Roosevelt, who led us through the Depression and WW-II; Truman, who ended WWII and defended Korea; Kennedy, who ensured our survival through the Cuban Missile Crisis; Johnson, who gave us the Civil Rights Act and Medicare; Reagan, who ended the Cold War; and and Bush-41, who smacked down Saddam Hussein in Desert Storm when he invaded Kuwait.

It doesn't seem like we're headed in the right direction. Hopefully, we have touched bottom with Trump, and the post-Trump era will reverse the trend. Hopefully.

Of course, no one likes paying taxes, but we all understand that the services and the infrastructure we get from government -- police, firemen, roads, bridges, tunnels, military, social services, education, emergency care -- cost money. Those of us who live in New York City even grasp the idea that living in the greatest city in the world -- where salaries are above average -- costs even more. But how much more...? This article tries to answer this question without a lot of tax complexity, and without worrying about the cost and benefit of insurance programs like social security and Medicare, which are often confused with government benefits. They are not benefits or entitlements, we pay for them separately from our taxes.

To make it easy to understand how much we're paying, let's start with a simple example:

• A retired couple, married, both 80 years old, filing jointly, and living in NYC
• Earning $100,000 in pensions and social security
• Owning a $500,000 home
• With $1,000,000 in IRA savings
• And $500,000 in ordinary savings earning 5% ($25,000) a year in interest

They pay:

Income Tax: $30,300

With $125,000 in income -- $100,000 from pension and social security and $25,000 from interest on their ordinary savings -- our couple pays $13,500 to the feds, $7,250 to NY State, and $9,550 to NY City in income tax.

Sales Tax: $4,450

Our couple do most of their shopping in NY City, spending about $50,000 a year on goods that have an 8.875% sales tax. This doesn't include groceries and clothing and footwear that costs lerss than $110, but it does include almost everything else. To keep things simple, let's assume that this $50,000 includes all ultilities and that the other taxes on these (sales, excise, use, fees, etc.) are included in the 8.875% rate.

Real Estate Tax: $8,750

Because they own a modest home in New York City they are subject to the city's real estate tax of 1.75% of the home's value of $500,000. 

More Income Tax for IRA: $13,700

Once this couple turned 73, the government required them to withdraw about 5% of their IRA savings and pay income tax on the amount. As with past years, their 5% withdrawal of $50,000 resulted in a tax of $13,700. We used an average rate of 27.4% to calculate this, which is a combined rate of the tax applicable for each tax bracket.

Road-Use Tolls of $1,300

They have a car and use it to get around the city, Doing so, however, requires them to pay road-use tolls which we've estimated at about $1,300 a year. This will seem high to people outside NY, but it's not. Most bridges and tunnels, for example, cost about $20 to cross, and since travel between the boroughs almost always requires a bridge or tunnel, it's easy to get to $1,300. Commuters pay much more either in tolls or in taxes on their commuting fare. 

So, let's summarize:

• • $30,300 in income tax
  • $4,450 in sales tax
  • $8,750 in property tax
  • $1,300 in tolls
  • $13,700 in income tax from the RMD

Total Taxes: $58,200

Okay, so the couple in this example is not poor. They have a nice home, decent savings, and a reasonable retirement income, but $58,200 in taxes ... one-third of their modest (for NYC) income of $175,000. Gimme a break! And this is not unusual.

Let's take as quick look at ordinary (not poor, not rich) people at the other end of the age spectrum. For this lets use the example of:

• • a young couple in their late 20s, early 30s
  • with combine earnings of $300,000,
  • living in a rented apartment,
  • with no substantial savings.

They pay:

Income Tax: $110,000

Sales Tax and Tolls: $10,000

Total Tax: $120,000

Then there are rich people, who would consider this $120,000 in taxes to be peanuts. Let's take the example of a high-income couple with a luxury apartment in NY City, specifically, they have:

• • a million dollars a year in income,
  • a $5 million apartment (not unusual), and
  • two million in savings.

Their taxes will be about:

Income Tax on earned income: $400,000 (at an average rate of 40%; and marginal rate of 51%)

Income Tax on unearned income (savings): $50,000 (assuming a 5% return at 51%)

Real Estate Tax: $87,500 (on a $5,000,000 property at a 1.75% rate)

Sales Tax: $17,750 (on $200,000 in spending at a 8.875% rate)

Misc. Taxes: $10,000 (Tolls, excise, etc.)

Total Tax: $565,250

Again, it's hard to feel sorry for someone making a million dollars with a five million dollar residence, but consider this, there are places in this country (Florida, Montana) where rich people can live and pay half of this in tax. When politicians suggest that it's okay to tax the rich a little more remember that at some point the financial pain exceeds the benefit.

Most of us don't complain about taxes, they are just part of life, but at 30% or 40% or more for the average "successful" couples (old and young, ordinarty and wealthy), it begins to look and feel more like European socialism than the American economic model.

Just my two-cents or rather my 1.3 cents after tax.

Let’s put aside Trump's personality. Sure, most Americans think he is despicable, crude and vulgar, and that his behavior is unacceptable for an American president, but believe it or not, many presidents have been just as rough. Some of Trump's supporters would even argue that his Neanderthal moments are prima facie evidence that he's not pussyfooting around.

And, let's put aside his often incompetent and outrageously excessive execution of the law and government policy, which he carries out without sophistication, proportionality, sensitivity, consensus, or sense of right or wrong. It's a reality TV show gone wild and using real bullets. But again, some people think shows his true commitment.

Which brings us to his policies.

Trump says he has a mandate to bring common sense back into government, that years of government stagnation have left Americans yearning for straight talk and bold action, that past administrations have tolerated all manner of abuse...

Crime, open borders, amnesty abuse, DEI overreach, useless foreign entanglements, environmental nonsense, absurd giveaways, stifling regulation, medical-industry malpractice, energy-industry repression...

And that a correction, a restoration of balance is long overdue. This argument resonates with many Americans, who believe our goverment has been grossly ineffectual and overly focused on the disadvantaged. But again, let's not argue the merits of this, let's just agree that there's room for debate here.

So what's my issue in supporting Trump if it's not his clownish personality, his roguish execution policy, or his claims that he's restoring balance to government?

It's his arrogant distain for the law when it stands in his way.

The law ... remember, that body of rules that by-our-consent regulate our lives and define right and wrong; that are supported by centuries of precedent; that are administered by a vast court system...? When you think about it, the law documents our values. When a president arrogantly dismisses it, isn't he arrogantly dismissing us? Isn't he replacing our "consensus" with his unilateral dictates, with a might-makes-right rationale for whatever he feels like doing?

This is why I cannot support President Trump.

Every summer from 1990 to 2001, my friends and I vacationed together on a rented sailboat with our sons. These one-week rentals were always "men only," which reduced griping, and "bareboat," where we crewed the boat ourselves. This isn't as crazy as it sounds: our captain William Frank had his Coast Guard certification and an impressive sailing resume; the kids were young and strong; and, after a trip or two, experienced enough to help. More importantly, they were engaged, excited about sailing the boat anywhere we wanted, and stunned by the freedom.

...

There were few rules aboard ship and few of us willing to enforce the one that remained. The boat (never "the ship") was usually a 12-meter (40-foot), monohull, sloop (a sailboat with one hull and one mast) that could do 11 knots (12 mph) in a good wind. It had three or four small cabins, which the men used, and several sleeping berths, benches, and two fo'c'sle (forward) compartments. These compartments were more like glass-topped coffins built into the deck, but the kids loved them. That is, until the nighttime rain forced them out, usually to an empty space on the deck. A good night's sleep was rare for everyone, but there were few complaints. Imagine, teenagers without complaints; griping was simply not part of the shipboard ethos. Anyway, who would they complain to, we were literally all in the same boat.   

Of course, there were more comfortable options for going to sea. For example, we could have rented a glass-enclosed, air-conditioned, gas-guzzling motor-yacht, which our captain referred to as a floating microwave -- 'nuf said about this. We could have also rented a catamaran. The 12-meter cats had two hulls, a galley/lounge between the hulls, and flat forward deck space for sunbathing; it also had two or three times more space than a monohull and was therefore considerably more comfortable for sleeping, eating, and hanging about during a long sail. The problem with the cat was that it was hard and dangerous to heel the boat, that is, to lean it over on its side for speed ... and we wanted speed. Sailing from place to place is a mind-numbingly boring experience, what made it exciting was racing the boat.

With good wind, well-trimmed sails, a courageous helmsman, and a daring captain and crew, the boat could be heeled onto its side, nearly perpendicular, with its rails in the water. This maneuver raised the hull out of the water for maximum speed. It also forced the crew to hang on for dear life as tons of water passed just inches from us at 18 feet per second. Eleven knots is not very fast, but in a sailboat it feels like a rocket ship. It was exhilarating and the source of endless discussion once the boat was secured for the evening. Again, imagine teenagers engaged in animated discussion about anything with adults.

In fact, there were lots of opportunities for teenage engagement -- the pure adventure of having no agenda, the non-trival challenge of sailing, learning new and essential shipboard skills, the novelty of a different beach or anchorage or town or ports.... All of it generated deep and long discussion in which everyone -- adults and kids -- participated. After all, most nights there was nothing else to do but talk to each other. Even the lowly anchor was the source of much discussion and debate -- where it had been placed, whether it had set properly, the nature of the seabed it gripped, what seabed was best for anchoring, would it hold the boat while we slept, how much of a wind could it handle, and so on. It all seems trivial now, but in a pitch-black night on the water, the anchor was our god. 

Our trips took us to windy waters off Capri, Cape Cod, the Bahamas, Grenada, the BVI, St Martin, St. Lucia, Nevis, Antigua, Dominica, Anguilla and more, and to exotic ports like Charlotte Amalie (St. Thomas), Philipsburg (St. Maarten), Castries (St. Lucia), St. John's (Antigua), Fort-de-France (Martinique), and Gaeta (Italy). Each day of the sail, we would race and explore a deserted beach or two, and each evening we would anchor or moor the boat in a different anchorage. If there was a town, restaurant, or bar around, we would all jump into the dingy and motor to shore. (Not many rules regarding minors in remote Caribbean anchorages.) If not, we would cook burgers or local fish on the boat and talk. Again, there were few complaints; it was the wind, the sea, the distance, the weather... that was responsible for our situation, why bother complaining about them?

Not that it was all good. We ran into horrible El Niño weather one year off St. Lucia's Pitons. It whipped up a 60-mph wind one night that nearly smashed our $1.5 million dollar boat, and us, against the inhospitable shore.

Then there was the sail when we ran into a head wind and arrived in an unfamiliar Dominica anchorage in the inky darkness, inching our way forward with inadequate flashlights. Then there was the trip when a new crewman showered unnoticed long enough to consume all our fresh water, and we spent three days in the tropical heat without showering. Still, we survived it all, and the boys were wiser for the experience.

Sadly, William died in 2017.

Still convinced, however, that sailing was a great experience for kids, I took my grandsons on several more trips. We had to cut back a little on the adventure by renting a cat instead of a racer, by hiring a captain instead of William, and by sailing the gentle BVI and Bahamas instead of the wild Grenadines and remote Dominica. It hardly mattered though; we had the same great times. Sometimes on those trips, I imagined that it was my son Mike handling the lines rather than his son Mitch.

I'm less agile now, and I do most of my sailing on cruise ships. Not that I was ever much of a bareboat sailor -- Mike and the other boys and my grandsons were much better than I and a lot more serious about their shipboard duties.

Would I recommend it? Absolutely. Sailing is a terrific hobby, great fun, and inexpensive, contrary to the common misconception that it's a rich man's sport. In fact, it is a relatively inexpensive way to vacation if you're prepared to rough it a bit. Most sailboats rent for less than $1,200 a day, including a captain and provisions. That's $200 per day per person with six people sailing. This is a small fraction of what it would cost for a group of six: to vacation at a Caribbean resort in an ocean-facing room; to visit five or six nearby islands; to swim on deserted beaches; and to dine and drink in private and exotic anchorages. Things will go wrong, of course, like running out of water far from any possibility of resupply, getting stuck on a sand bar, losing your engine, and worse, sometimes much worse, but coping with the unexpected is part of the fun. Try it.