SUMMARY: Nearly nine months since the Taliban took over Afghanistan, the economy is in freefall and about half the country is nearing acute food insecurity. But even with this widespread suffering, the Taliban on Sunday ordered all women be completely covered - head to toe - when leaving their homes, requiring them again to don the burqa that was a telltale of their first rule. Jane Ferguson reports.
SUMMARY: The World Health Organization is expected to release a report on its investigation into the origins of the novel coronavirus in the coming days. Among the many theories is the unproven belief that it was passed on from bats — leading to much public fear of the mammals. But the growing threat to bats could mean bad news for us too. Special correspondent Catherine Rampell reports.
SUMMARY: The Gulf of Maine is known for lobsters, which form the foundation of an industry critical to the state’s economy. Due to climate change, the waters off southern New England have become too warm for the temperature-sensitive crustaceans, leaving Maine as the “sweet spot” for fishing them. But the Gulf’s own rising temperatures mean the lobster boom may not last forever. Miles O’Brien reports.
SUMMARY:President Trump set into motion on Friday a 25 percent fee on more than 800 Chinese imported goods and China hit back with tariffs of its own on products like soybeans, pork and corn, which target areas that voted heavily for Trump. Amna Nawaz talks with David Honig of Indiana University McKinney Law School, and Yasheng Huang of MIT's Sloan School of Management.
SUMMARY: The trade war between the world’s two largest economies officially began Friday as tariffs on $34 billion of Chinese goods went into effect. Calling it the “biggest trade war in economic history,” Chinese officials had said China would raise similar tariffs on U.S. imports including pork, soybeans and automobiles. Ana Swanson of The New York Times joins Hari Sreenivasan for more.
SUMMARY: Most rural Indian parents dream of an education and job in the city for their children, rather than a life spent farming. But with a growing migration to cities, there is concern India might not be able to produce enough food to feed its people. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports on one group’s effort to restore rural land and communities, in part one of a two-part look.
SUMMARY: About two-thirds of India's 1.3 billion people live on small subsistence farms, struggling to eke out a living. Many farmers have felt left behind as crops have failed or diminished due to disease, degraded soil, and drought. Not thousands are returning to traditional seeds that went out fashion decades ago -- an approach that's gaining attention. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports.
SUMMARY: What kind of future should a struggling rural town choose? In the town of Green River [Utah], population 950, a nonprofit called Epicenter aims to use art and architecture to bring new energy, life and economic development. Jeffrey Brown reports.
SUMMARY: While much of the U.S. economy is on the rebound, New Mexico remains in the dumps since the recession hit a decade ago. Part of the problem may be a statewide brain drain, educated young people taking their careers -- and expertise -- elsewhere. Economics correspondent Paul Solman reports on New Mexico's mission to bring back its young, energetic entrepreneurs.
Answer, Puerto Rico is not the 'state next door' but its entire infrastructure was wiped out.
Excerpt
SUMMARY:Four months after Hurricane Maria, about 450,000 of 1.5 million electricity customers in Puerto Rico still have no service. Blackouts regularly occur for hours at a time, even in San Juan. Special correspondent Monica Villamizar reports on the emergency efforts to restore power, and how some have taken matters into their own hands as outdated technology, and suspected corruption, stand in the way.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including racially charged remarks reportedly made by President Trump about immigrants, the continuing fallout from a tell-all White House book, whether the President deserves credit for new economic numbers and more.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): The first year of the Trump presidency has been marked by moments of controversy and remarks that regularly drew some sharp criticism.
This week brings perhaps one of the most striking examples yet, and again spotlights Mr. Trump’s views on race.
That brings us to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That’s syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Welcome, gentlemen.
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: Judy.
Judy Woodruff: So, it’s a tough subject, Mark. We have been talking about it for much of this program, interviewed the ambassador from Haiti earlier.
What’s your takeaway from what happened in that meeting yesterday with the President and the members of the Senate?
Mark Shields: Judy, first of all, revealing, and revealing at several levels.
I have no doubt the President said it. There were six Republicans in the room. Lindsey Graham has confirmed it basically to two other Republicans, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Tim Scott, his colleague from South Carolina.
Everybody else has gone mute on the subject, showing moral cowardice, when addressing this. Even Mitch McConnell, the voluble Senate majority leader, is mute. And so it’s really sort of tragic.
It’s one thing, Judy, when Donald Trump uses Pocahontas to attack or taunt one senator, Elizabeth Warren. This, quite frankly, is beyond that. I mean, this is racial. It’s racist. It is.
And for Paul Ryan to call it unhelpful or unfortunate, this shows the moral cowardice of the Republicans in response to it. I mean, this is a man who thrives on being divisive, insists on being divisive.
We now have the lowest unemployment rate in 17 years, good economic news, as you reported earlier in the show, and yet he remains mired in the mid-30s, where a great majority of people do not think he’s honest, do not think he’s level-headed. And it’s a tragedy for country, for the relations, and most of all an indictment, a serious indictment, of this presidency.
Judy Woodruff: How are you reading, David, what happened, what he said?
David Brooks, New York Times: Yes, well, I think it’s pretty clearly racist.
It fits into a pattern that we have seen since the beginning of his career, maybe through his father’s career, frankly. There’s been a consistency, pattern of harsh judgment against black and brown people. And so he’s at it again.
And I guess I’m reminded first just the way it’s rotting the Republican Party. This is the one thing Republicans — they can tolerate a lot of things in Donald Trump, but the white identity politics, the racial politics, that’s just a cancer. And that’s the one thing they can’t tolerate, but they are — seem to be tolerating.
My other thought is, we have been with this guy so long, we forget what, like, a normal, admirable political leader or human being looks like. And so a normal, admirable human being is curious about the world, and is sort of interested in different cultures. El Salvador, Haiti, Nigeria, they’re interesting. Has compassion for people from around the world.
It’s hard to live in this country and not have admiration and compassion for the immigrants who come here from Africa, from El Salvador, from Haiti, and like the ambassador we just saw. That story — you meet that story every week.
And so to not have any of that normal human compassion or curiosity go through the guy’s head is part of the deeper character flaw here that we have apparently learned to tolerate.
Judy Woodruff: So, David says it’s rotting the Republican Party, Mark. What — is it doing damage to the country?
Mark Shields: Yes, it is, Judy.
Whoever the next President is — I assume that President will be elected in 2020 — faces a formidable task of repairing relations, of repairing the United States’ reputation, of just healing wounds both at home and abroad.
Just to add one point to what David made — and I agree with it — before I became a leading pundit and David’s colleague here…
(LAUGHTER)
Mark Shields: … I used to do political campaigns.
I worked for Senator J. William Fulbright, former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in his last campaign in 1974 in Arkansas. He was a man who was not falsely modest. He’d been president of the University of Arkansas at the age of 34, a Rhodes Scholar, and the Fulbright scholarship program was his creation.
And in talking one night about Presidents with whom he had served, not under, whom he had served — with whom he had served, six, and he said, of John Kennedy, he said, “Whenever I went to the White House when John Kennedy was President, I was proud as an American that he was my President.”
I cannot believe that anybody, irrespective of how partisan they are, how devoted they are to the Republican side, could say that they feel proud that Donald Trump is the President, or their President, or our President.
I think it does damage to the country, does damage to the office, and it does damage to the national spirit.
David Brooks: Yes.
And for the Republicans, (A) for all the evangelical leaders, the treatment of the refugee, and the poor, the outsider, that’s not — the Bible is not ambiguous about that. And Donald Trump is certainly against that spirit.
[B] For the party, there’s a more specific problem, which is they have become a pretty anti-immigrant party. And there are decent, normal human beings and admirable people like Senator Tom Cotton who wants to sharply cut immigration. And they think they can divide their views on immigration, which are purely policy views, from the white identity, racial undertones that Donald Trump has now permanently — or not permanently — but has taken into this party.
And that is not possible. If you want to restrict immigration, which is a legitimate point of view — I disagree with it, but it is a legitimate point of view — somebody like Tom Cotton has an extra burden to rise up against what Donald Trump said, to show, hey, restricting immigration is not synonymous with bigotry.
And if he doesn’t do that, then whatever his policy views will always be tainted by the sense that there’s an aroma of bigotry around it.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks joins Judy Woodruff to analyze the week’s news, including the priorities Republicans are putting forward in their tax overhaul bill, Democrat Doug Jones’ Senate upset in Alabama and what it means for Republicans in elections to come.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): And now to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That is syndicated columnist Mark Shields, and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Welcome, gentlemen.
I guess it’s now all over but the shouting, Mark. The Republicans seem to have the votes on this tax bill. What do you make of it?
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: Well, Judy, the legendary late conservative columnist Robert Novak was an old friend and a constant frequent debating said the Republican Party stated seriously and approvingly that the Republican Party is put on earth for one reason, that’s to cut taxes, and I think they’ve lived up to the Novak mandate today. I mean, that’s it. I mean, that’s all it’s about.
I mean, think about this — cut the effective corporate tax rate by 46 percent, to 21 percent from 35. And at the same time, 8.9 million American children who get coverage, medical coverage under the children’s health insurance plan go unfunded since September 30th because they can’t somehow, in their feverish pursuit of lowering the top tax rate from 39.6 percent down to 37 percent so Steve Schwarzman can somehow have an easier Christmas, they can’t find the money. These are working poor families who make too much to qualify for Medicaid and not enough to buy their own health insurance.
It is the caricature of the enforcement of the ugliest stereotype of the Republicans as an uncaring party passing a bill that was written by and for the richest and most powerful.
Judy Woodruff: David?
David Brooks, New York Times: I’ll dial it back a few notches when you get to my position. But, you know, I’m not against corporate tax cuts. You know, Barack Obama once proposed cutting the corporate tax rate to 28 percent. So, we got 21 percent, so seven percentage points lower. That doesn’t strike me as a great moral difference. I think cutting the corporate tax rate as Sweden and all these other countries have done is good for the economy and makes us competitive around the world. It follows an international trend of people doing this.
But to me, you’ve got to surround it with other things to help the people that Mark is talking about. And that’s what the Republicans didn’t do, cutting the marginal rates, bad idea. They didn't even simplify rates.
And so, what strikes me is how irrelevant — I went to work at the Wall Street Journal editorial page in 1986. We’ve been talking about — Republicans have been talking about tax reform ever since that last tax reform. And all these ideas have been floated around. Some of them are — reduce the number of rates, of brackets, make a flat tax.
This bill has nothing to do with any of that work. This bill has nothing to do with all the intellectual work that real economists put in who are Republican, who are conservative, who have a vision of improving incentives. What’s big about this is that the Republican Party has become detached from the Republican economic profession. And so, they pass a bill simply as donor maintenance and it’s about hurting their people and helping our people without really an underlying economic philosophy at all.
So, they took an opportunity to do something pretty good, and they have a few good morsels in there, and they ended up doing something pretty bad that will hurt the worst and without helping growth.
Judy Woodruff: Will they at least help themselves politically, Mark?
Mark Shields: No, they won’t. Judy, I mean, it starts with 45 percent support in the country, and the broadly-held perception that it is written by and for the rich, that it’s a payoff, and they are comforting themselves, Republicans, with somehow the secure knowledge that once it passes and people start to see the benefits of it, that they will feel better about it.
I would remind them of 2010, the Affordable Care Act, not in social policy but political implication, once it passed, Democrats were sure that people would feel a lot better about it. And in 2010, of course, the Democrats suffered a stinging rebuke.
The Republicans will be on the defensive about this, as well they should be. The corporations that so desperately need this, there is only $2.3 trillion in offshore money they’re sitting on right now, and there is no provision at all, no requirement that they hire a single worker, retrain a single worker, expand a plant or anything of the sort, and it’s going to go right back to the shareholders, the stockholders and buying back stock.
Judy Woodruff: So, are they taking — David, are they taking — are Republicans taking a risk by what they’ve done?
David Brooks: Yes, I think so. I mean, I take the biggest picture. The big issue facing American domestic politics is widening inequality and the collapse of the working class. And so, the Obama administration, given this big problem, decided to spend their entire administration talking about the health insurance markets, which is really related to but tangential. The Republicans have decided to lose their majority on the corporate tax rates which really has nothing to do with the central problem.
So, what’s mystifying to me is that the two last administration’ and political establishment going on 12 years now is ignoring the big problem and tackling other problems. And so, that is going to mean that the inequality and the white working class and every working class that’s collapsing, that issue which drove the Trump election is going to be worse and worse and worse, and it will have effects we can’t predict right now.
Mark Shields: Not to be prickly, but I just point out that Barack Obama confronted the worst economic recession since the Great Depression. I mean, getting out of that was the prime concern. He brought us back from the precipice. I agree with you on the expanding inequality, but it wasn’t comparable in any way of 105 sustained months of job growth and economic growth under Barack Obama that was inherited by Donald Trump and is about to be squandered in this giveaway.
David Brooks: I’ll give you that, getting over the 2008, 2007 recession was big accomplishment early in the administration, but it still remains the fact that once they got over that, they could then turned to these — the Michigans, the Pennsylvanias, the Ohios, and either done infrastructure. They could have done a bunch of things, which are always on the table and everybody says they’re in favor of, and nobody actually does because it doesn’t go — and the Republicans, the donor base. And the Democrats, they have to have a thing about health insurance.
And the insurance markets, they were right to do that. There was just a small thing they did to help people get a lot more people get insured, but it did not — what mystifies me is our inability to even frontally address the main problem of the day.
Mark Shields: You’re right, but I just point out one thing, and that is saving the United States automobile industry, Ohio and Michigan, were not minor accomplishments and they were opposed by the Republicans and the Republican standard bearer.
SUMMARY: President Donald Trump ran on a campaign promise that he would “put America first” by pulling out of multilateral trade agreements. But for many top industries, outsourcing in the global market is essential for business, not to mention vital to Americans’ standard of living. Is it feasible in the 21st century for America to go it alone? Economics correspondent Paul Solman reports.
SUMMARY: Seven years since the financial crisis shook Greece, many young people lack opportunity or hope for the future. Austerity and financial insecurity have pushed the birthrate to all-time lows, and members of the younger generations are leaving Greece for better opportunities elsewhere, leaving experts worried about Greece’s very existence. Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports.
SUMMARY: An agreement between President Trump and Democrats for a three-month extension for the debt ceiling means Congress temporarily ducks a political debate. But the recurring battle will surface again in December. What could happen if we don't raise the debt limit? Lisa Desjardins explains the history of the debt limit and how it works.
SUMMARY: Since it was introduced eight years ago, the digital currency Bitcoin has drawn attention for its rise in value. Like other digital currencies, it uses “blockchain” technology, which helps conduct transactions without using banks or credit card companies as conduits. Hari Sreenivasan spoke with Don Tapscott, co-author of "Blockchain Revolution," about the technology's potential.
SUMMARY: Futurologists have been predicting the automation armageddon -- robots replacing human workers -- for decades. Has the future finally arrived? Economics correspondent Paul Solman visits Silicon Valley to talk with leading tech thinkers and computer scientists about whether humanity is at a tipping point.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week's news, including strong new economic numbers, White House chief-of-staff John Kelly's first week, congressional Republicans starting to push back on the President, special counsel Robert Mueller convening a new grand jury for the Russia probe and more.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Today marks the close of week one on the job for President Trump's new Chief of Staff, a week that kicked off with the firing of a outspoken Communications Director, and ends with word of a new grand jury in the Russia investigation.
It's a perfect time for the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That's syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Timescolumnist David Brooks.
Welcome to you both.
MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: Thank you, Judy.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Mark, some good numbers on the economy out today, jobs numbers impressive. President Trump is saying it's all due to him.
Does he deserve this much credit?
MARK SHIELDS:Of course he does — but because we learned from candidate Trump that these numbers are totally bogus, that we live in this big ugly bubble, that unemployment is actually 42 percent at the time of President Obama.
No, Judy, I mean, the economic news is phenomenal. It isn't just good, setting new records in the stock market to 22000. You have got the lowest unemployment rate in 16 years. You have got economic confidence.
Today, Mazda and Toyota announced they're building a $1.3 billion plant in the United States, Amazon 50,000 jobs hiring. And if Donald Trump would get out of the way, if he was silent Cal Coolidge and just let the good news take over, they would say, wow, isn't that something?
But motormouth Don just has to keep changing the subject, intruding, and making unhelpful news himself. So — but, at the same time, I mean, does the President — does a President get credit? David has a very strongly, well-developed thesis that Presidents really don't shape the economy, and except over longer periods than their administrations.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Is that right?
DAVID BROOKS: I agree with Mark's version of …
(CROSSTALK)
(LAUGHTER)
DAVID BROOKS: Yes.
No, I do think that. They can have a very negative effect if they do something terrible, and maybe over the long run, the investments they make in one decade can lead to the gains next. But on a quarter-by-quarter basis, let alone month to month, no, no effect at all.
What puzzles me is, as Mark said, the economy is doing great. This is such a long recovery. And timing wise, we should be like dipping down again, and yet the public spirit is so bad. People have some faith in the economy. They do not think the country is headed in the right direction. You're not getting any spillover in the rest oft way people view the country, the way they view politics.
And I do think the cynicism has just gotten self-perpetuating. And so, no matter what happens in the country, people still somehow are cynical and distrustful about the country.
And so my message to America is cheer up a little.
SUMMARY: July was the second straight month of solid gains for U.S. employers, who added 209,000 jobs, according to the Labor Department. Mark Vitner of Wells Fargo joins Judy Woodruff to discuss what it means for the job market, the stock market and millions of Americans.
SUMMARY:After decades of decline, the city of Utica, New York, is growing again, thanks in part to its reputation as "the town that loves refugees." And their basic reason for loving refugees is simple: An influx of new residents and workers have helped keep its economy afloat. But are there also downsides to an refugee-driven recovery? Economics correspondent Paul Solman reports.
SUMMARY: Dubbed the "Oracle of Omaha," Warren Buffett is an investment rock star. What's his take on the state of the economy? He recently sat down with Judy Woodruff for a wide-ranging, two-part interview on inequality, the Paris Climate Agreement, health care reform, and much more.
SUMMARY: What does billionaire Warren Buffett think of Republican health care bills that would roll back taxes for wealthy Americans like him? Buffett discusses everything from how he's giving away billions in philanthropy to how much sleep he gets to what's on his personal income taxes in the second part of Judy Woodruff's exclusive interview.
SUMMARY: Thousands of investors apply and participate annually in the little-known EB-5 visa program, designed to stimulate the U.S. economy through job creation and capital investment by foreign investors. Economics correspondent Paul Solman reports that recently, one real estate business in particular has put it back in the spotlight; that of the family of Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law.
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
*Anti-First Amendment policies that attempt to turn America into a theocracy by enshrining ANY religious belief as law.
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* Any law or policy that supports discrimination based on religion, ethnicity, race/color, gender, sexual orientation, or any law that does NOT support Equal Treatment under the law.
*Any law or policy that attempts to suppress Freedom of the Press or Free Speech.
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