Richard Epstein of the conservative Hoover Institution calls for Donald Trump’s resignation:

My fears are that he is too rigid and too uneducated to make the necessary shift to good leadership. By taking foolish and jingoist stances, Trump has done more than any other human being alive today to bring a sensible classical liberal agenda into disrepute. Then there is the matter of his character. The personal moral failings of the President include his vicious tweets, his self-righteous attitude, his shameless self-promotion, his petty resentments, his immoral flirtation with Vladimir Putin, his nonstop denigration of federal judges, his jawboning of American businesses, his predilection for conspiracy theories, his reliance on alternative facts, and his vindictive behavior toward his political opponents.

Hence, I think that there is ample reason to call for Trump’s resignation, even though I know full well that my advice will not be heeded. And this welcome outcome will not happen so long as the attack against him comes solely from progressive Democrats. Sensible Republicans should focus on the threat that he represents to their plan, and recall that the alternative is no longer Hillary Clinton, but Mike Pence. I think that Pence is unlikely to abandon the positive aspects of the Trump agenda, and there is some reason to hope that he will back off Trump’s suicidal positions on trade and immigration, and put a stop to the endless train of uncivil behaviors demeaning the office of the President. Some miracles happen, but a Trump transformation will not be one of them. Unfortunately, his excesses could power a progressive revival. Would that I had the power to say to Trump, “You’re fired!”

Like Dr. Epstein I think there’s no prospect whatever of Mr. Trump’s doing that.

Let’s tally up the box scores. Practically from November 9 Democrats have been calling for Trump to resign as have movement conservatives. There are likely to be many, many more. Trump’s approval rating among all Americans has declined somewhat from its post-inauguration highs but it’s just about the same among voters as it was on election day.

His approval rating will need to decline a lot more before there’s any real likelihood of his resigning.

I think that there is no hope whatever that President Trump will take the advice of Bruce Haynes, offered at RealClearPolitics:

Voters who wanted change turn on their television and see and hear disruption, differences and disorder. They interpret this as Trump taking on what they view as distrusted, mossified institutions such as the media, the bureaucracy and the Congress and they say…. “Change, good.” After all, they expected nothing less than to see Trump at odds with the press, partisans on both sides of the aisle, the media, the prevailing culture and even the courts.

Can this persist forever? No. Activity must eventually yield results. Chaos turns to calm, adolescence ages and impulsiveness matures.

There is one thing Trump can do right now to help calm the waters and prepare to tell what he hopes will be a story of success. It is imperative the president appoint a seasoned communications professional to serve as White House Communications Director. Someone he can trust, who will have the respect of the president. Trump has to give them the authority to establish a communications strategy and the staffing and resources to deliver on the White House’s strategic objectives.

I think he’s far more likely to circle the wagons. Is there more to Trump than sound and fury? Or are chaos, adolescence, and impulsiveness as good as it gets? We’re in the process of finding out.

In the Wall Street Journal Federal Reserve member bank president and FOMC member Neel Kashkari writes:

There’s a straightforward way to help prevent the next financial crisis, fix the too-big-to-fail problem, and still relax regulations on community lenders: increase capital requirements for the largest banks. In November, the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, which I lead, announced a draft proposal to do precisely that. Our plan would increase capital requirements on the biggest banks—those with assets over $250 billion—to at least 23.5%. It would reduce the risk of a taxpayer bailout to less than 10% over the next century.

Alarmingly, there has been recent public discussion of moving in the opposite direction. Several large-bank CEOs have suggested that their capital requirements are already too high and are holding back lending. As this newspaper reported, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan recently asked, “Do we have [to hold] an extra $20 billion in capital? Which doesn’t sound like a lot, but that’s $200 billion in loans we could make.”

It is true that some regulations implemented after the 2008 financial crisis are imposing undue burdens, especially on small banks, without actually making the financial system safer. But the assertion that capital requirements are holding back lending is demonstrably false.

How can I prove it? Simple: Borrowing costs for homeowners and businesses are near record lows. If loans were scarce, borrowers would be competing for them, driving up costs. That isn’t happening. Nor do other indicators suggest a lack of loans. Bank credit has grown 23% over the past three years, about twice as much as nominal gross domestic product. Only 4% of small businesses surveyed by the National Federation of Independent Business report not having their credit needs met.

If capital standards are relaxed, banks will almost certainly use the newly freed money to buy back their stock and increase dividends. The goal for large banks won’t be to increase lending, but to boost their stock prices. Let’s not forget: That’s the job of a bank CEO. It isn’t to protect taxpayers.

So if capital requirements aren’t the problem, why does it feel so hard to get a loan today? I can speak from firsthand experience. Last year my wife and I decided to buy a house. We applied for a loan with a bank where I have been a customer for many years. I assumed that my long record with the bank and our good credit would make it easy. With the required 20% down payment, we were prequalified for a mortgage with a rate of 3.375% fixed for the first 10 years. That was an attractive rate, suggesting capital was not holding back lending.

The prequalification was easy. Then the frustration began. The mortgage banker asked for myriad documents: bank statements, 401(k) statements, brokerage statements, tax returns, W-2s, insurance records and so on. That all seemed reasonable, but as the weeks rolled on, the requests for more documentation kept coming. After a month or so, I couldn’t believe what I was being asked for. Despite having all the records of my on-time monthly rental payments in my checking account, the bank demanded a copy of my lease and to speak with my landlord.

If the president of the Minneapolis Fed gets the third degree when applying for a loan, what should you or I expect? Mr. Kashkari’s story certainly comports with my experience.

In my opinion banking has become thoroughly bureaucratized and is no longer operating on a businesslike basis. They have requirements for the sake of having requirements.

My other complaint about banks is that they’re obviously insecure and don’t even follow their own procedures. I have repeatedly been asked to give personally identifiable information over the telephone. That’s an obvious security risk and I’m confident that it’s not being reported as such. The clerks making the requests are just following standard (insecure) policies and even when they’re made aware that it’s insecure they have no choice but to persist.

I agree with this from an opinion piece by Scott Martelle in the LA Times:

Michael Flynn’s resignation late Monday may have resolved a political problem for President Trump, but it doesn’t address the nagging questions about whether Trump, through his campaign, and then transition team, had improper — and potentially illegal — contacts with Russia. And they need to be answered.

Some Senate Republicans have already called for an investigation into Flynn, something that would be welcome, but is insufficient given the scope of Trump team connections with Russia. The Republican congressional leadership needs to put responsibility to country ahead of party loyalty to the president, and appoint an independent commission or special prosecutor to get to the bottom of it.

If criminal charges are proffered, they are more likely to be violations of the Espionage Act or of the Logan Act than of treason.

Honestly, I doubt that any investigation will convince people who’ve already made up their minds one way or the other. But it’s the way things are done under a rule of law.

Update

The editors of the Washington Post weigh in:

It’s not unusual for an incoming national security adviser to speak with foreign ambassadors, and it’s not entirely clear that what Mr. Flynn said to Russian envoy Sergey Kislyak in late December was improper. But Mr. Flynn clearly misled The Post, Vice President Pence and other senior officials when he said he did not discuss U.S. sanctions against Russia with Mr. Kislyak. He did so in the context of as-yet- unresolved questions about Russia’s interference in the presidential election and other possible contacts between the regime of Vladi­mir Putin and the Trump campaign. The affair underlines the urgency of an impartial investigation into those matters by the Justice Department, Congress or an independent commission and the full disclosure of the results to the public.

Sooner rather than later would be better but I doubt that Congressional Republicans will heed that advice.

AT Engadget Matt Smith explores the possibilities of using Final Fantasy XV as a cookbook:

Food is pretty important in Final Fantasy XV — and it’s not just obvious Cup Noodle product placement either. Meals add to your vitality and strength, increase magical resistances and even offer the chance of more experience points to grow your team. They’re integral to your near-daily camp-outs, when you recover from battles and thumb through all the photos your bros took. Each dish has different benefits, and there are a lot of ways to learn new meals, from eating your way around the restaurants of the world of Eos, to buying cookbooks and even just being “inspired” by poetry and random ingredients (often monster body parts) you pick up along the way.

Recipes included. No chickatrice were injured in the writing of this post.

Anybody who thinks that Japan or China’s selling off its Treasuries will create a problem for the United States, as reported here at Bloomberg, does not understand how the Treasury and Federal Reserve work. It reminds me of nothing so much as that scene in Blazing Saddles in which Cleavon Little escapes by pointing a gun at his own head and holding himself hostage.

Try another explanation of the action. I’m guessing the problem is yield.

It’s really amazing. There seems to be general agreement that we’re stuck in a re-enactors’ version of the 1930s. The disagreement seems to be over who is playing what part.

Let me answer Robert Samuelson’s presumably rhetorical question at RealClearMarkets, “Are we prepared for the next financial crisis?” No, we’re not. He lists four propositions:

1. Another financial crisis is inevitable.
2. Financial crises are not self-correction.
3. Only the federal government has the power and resources to deal with a financial crisis.
4. Paradoxically, Dodd-Frank has crippled government’s ability to defuse future financial crises.

The colossal irony of the financial crisis of 2007 is that we responded to serious problems fomented by misconduct at a handful of very large institutions by refusing to punish any miscreants and further centralizing the banking system.

I think that Voltaire’s wisecrack from Candide about the military, “Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres” (“In this country it’s good to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others”) is just as true for the financial system.

At the American Council on Science and Health Alex Berezow presents a four point plan for U. S. energy policy. His points are:

1. Build Generation IV nuclear power plants.
2. In the meantime, embrace fracking and natural gas.
3. Upgrade energy infrastructure.
4. Invest in solar and fusion research.

which to my eye appears to be eminently reasonable. I’ve supported most of its points for decades. If it’s so darned reasonable why haven’t we already adopted it as a national priority?

I think there are many reasons underpinning out deeply conflicted policy on energy. Some of them include

• the rise of a form of environmental activism referred to as BANANA—Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything
• irrational fears of nuclear power, stoked by the above and its close cousin, NIMBY (“Not In My Backyard”)
• crony capitalism
• the power of Big Coal and Big Oil
• the unsupported belief that we can have a prosperous economy without large-scale, concentrated energy production
• irrational opposition to government projects

just off the top of my head.