Reddit reviews Profiles in Courage (P.S.)

https://www.amazon.com/Profiles-Courage-John-F-Kennedy/dp/0060854936/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1478589413&sr=8-1&keywords=profiles+in+courage

1.) It's a Foxconn factory and will cost Wisconsin state taxpayers up to $3 billion and could employ up to 13,000 workers. Most econimist would agree that incentives like these are generally an awful way to lure jobs.

2.) What evidence is there of him reaching out? Most CEOs have pulled away from him. In fact, after his controversial withdraw from the Paris accord, Musk and Iger pulled out of his advisory councils. Then after his controversial comments on Charlottesville several more CEOs departed his advisory councils, to which he replied:

>For every CEO that drops out of the Manufacturing Council, I have many to take their place. Grandstanders should not have gone on. JOBS!


The councils were then dissolved by Trump. I guess he didn't have "many" CEOs to take their place.

3.) There are many people working on moving America over to renewable energy and this is seen as the safest and most effective way to maintain our energy independence by experts in the field. That said, the US has become not only energy independent, but we did so back in 2012 under Obama. We are now a net exporter of petroleoum products and we are the 3rd largest producer of crude oil.

Trump's talks with Bill Gates were largely over foreign aid, a topic that is important to Gates. Trump threatened to cut foreign aid in his budget plan.

4.) What has Trump done for the Ameri-I-Can program? A search for "Trump" of their website brings up nothing. Plus this is a small NGO that has received no money or support from Trump other than Jim Brown meeting with Trump and liking him.

5.) Nominating a supreme court justice is about all Trump has accomplished, and considering that Congress was controlled by the Republican party at the time, it was an easy thing to accomplish. You say you think he's a good pick. Can you elaborate on why you think this? What do you know about Justice Gorsuch other than he was picked by Trump.

6.) Yes back in February there were reports that PM Abe might pitch a package that would offer 700,000 job to Americans. Nothing has been reported since. Now, unfortunately Japan has to worry about US escalation with North Korea, which doesn't really incentivise Japan to export jobs to America, or maybe it does since we are in affect their standing army. I'll be surprised if anything comes of this "pitch" that has yet to even be pitched. If you can find more recent news on it, I'd love to read it.

7.) Federal response to Hurricane Harvey has been good. I'll give him that, but I wonder if there would have been a repeat of Katrina we're the affected area not his base supporters. He loves playing to his base, and this was a chance to do just that. Also, this along with the SCOTUS nomination are both pretty baseline presidential tasks, not real ground-breaking stuff.

8.) Otto Warmbier is dead, no thanks to Trump. His dad may praise Trump, but the kid might be alive if negotiations went better. I wouldn't call that a win.

9.) I would disagree with your sentiment. Voter turnout in 2016 was fairly stagnate. We'll see what the mid-term elections bring next year, but even if there is an increase in political participation, it is largly dispite Trump, not because of him.

10.) You talk about the media like it's this single cohesive thing. It's not, and yet you give no evidence to your claims about the media. The Paris accord is not wealth redistribution. It's not even a treaty. It was a benchmark of goals agreed upon by the UNFCCC with no way to enforce the goals. It is essentially a goodwill gesture to the rest of the world that the US will do it's part to mitigate climate change. The Trump administration has actively denied climate change, ignoring scientific consensus.

11.) Pulling out of the TPP was not necessarily a good thing. It may have saved a fraction of US job, which isn't all that certain, but it did leave China in the power position to control trade across SE Asia. Trade agreements are an often misunderstood thing. Trump always rails on NAFTA and other trade agreements. Bernie did also, but that's another story. Trade agreements are good. Countries that trade together usually don't go to war, and trade wars (the product of failed trade agreements) can lead to real wars. Trade agreements have a net positive effect for all members of the agreement; it's not a zero-sum game. The problem is that the cost of these agreements is usually concentrated while the benefit is spread out to everyone. Some workers lose their jobs, but the cost of goods goes down for everyone, not to mention we export a standard of living in these agreements that has a lasting impact on the countries we deal with.


It's obvious to me that you don't really take your own advice on getting your news from a spectrum, since you refer to the media as a singular thing. There are plenty of decent media outlets that are doing good work; people just often confuse news with the editorial sections of these organizations. Beyond reading news on the internet, people should be reading books, and scholarly journals if they want to educate themselves on specified topics.

I would recommend that you study any other US Presidential administration before you decide that you like this administration. It's a great way to see how it compares with its predecessors. Maybe just read more in general. Your argumentation is polite, but not very effective.

Profiles in Courage is a great read, a real page-turner. Read how President Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy, and members of JFK's cabinet dealt with the Cuban Missile Crisis. Then try and imagine that Trump and his cabinet were in a similar situation. How do you think they would perform? Compare Tillerson and McNamara, Trump and Kennedy.

I'm a really big fan of "It Worked for Me" by Colin Powell. If you ever want to believe again in the American Dream then his autobiography "My American Journey" is great as well.

Aside from that 'Leading with Honor" is good as well. It has a lot of good messages and a lot of historical information from that time.

"Generating Buy In" is a very good and very short read.

It isn't quite leadership but "Profiles In Courage" by JFK fits the bill in my opinion. It's about lawmakers doing the right thing instead of voting along party lines.

"In the Company of Heroes" by Michael Durant is a good read as well. Learning about his time in captivity was enlightening but I really enjoyed the whole book. I didn't quite understand why he chose that title until I got closer to the end. He used his platform to not only talk about his time there but also about the guys in his unit that died that day. Through that book you can draw out some lessons on how to lead people and some positive traits.

Amazon links:

http://www.amazon.com/Worked-Me-Life-Leadership/dp/0062135139/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1462164926&sr=1-1&keywords=it+worked+for+me

http://www.amazon.com/Leading-Honor-Leadership-Lessons-Hilton/dp/098387932X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1462164899&sr=1-1&keywords=leading+with+honor

http://www.amazon.com/Generating-Buy--Mastering-Language-Leadership/dp/0814409059/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1462164874&sr=1-1&keywords=generating+buy+in

http://www.amazon.com/Profiles-Courage-John-F-Kennedy/dp/0060854936/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1462164840&sr=1-1&keywords=profiles+in+courage

http://www.amazon.com/Company-Heroes-Michael-J-Durant/dp/0451219937