Serious Donald Trump's Presidency 9 Months In

[Chou Toshio]

Your points are fair enough PDC. My perception is definitely affected by these mechanisms as well— and what I see as an increase in conversations and energizing around these topics may just me being trapped in a partly self-created bubble of people dedicated to ideas, principles, free speech. I have no data.

But I don’t think Trump supporters, actual conservatives, moderate liberals, progressives— I don’t think there is a group that genuinely wants ideas to be quashed, for echo chambers to strengthen, for the infrastructure of the internet to inherently tribalize us— or those that do are just the most malicious parts of those groups, who are not caring about their proposed ideals, but instead about power consolidation and personal enrichment.

I’m not saying those oligarch-seeking elements of the center right and center left don’t exist or deny the power they possess, and of course there are white nationals and left extremists who want to fuel tribalism (though I bet these groups are tiny), but I think with enough awareness and enough incentive in the market for supplying substance, things could go in the right direction.


Let me put it this way— there is a lot higher chance for Bernie Sanders (or a similar candidate) to win at some point because Hillary lost.

I would argue that the awareness of problems with the DNC and energy to fix them is completely unlike where it was under Obama. While Bernie-crats face an uphill battle, the fact that these conflicts are happening at all is a good thing.

 

[Magii]

Honestly, it just feels like our government is going downhill from here.

And honestly, idk if any other candidates could’ve done better. The Democratic Party is done with the clintons. My parents are conservative, but have met Nancy Palosi. I wasn’t there and they won’t talk about it, but I honestly don’t know or like the directon that the US is going in. Also, a lot of bull fell on his presidency, a lot like Obama’a not all is his fault, just some/most...

 

[kilometerman]

I'm disappointed by the failure to fulfill campaign promises (still waiting on that education reform and border wall) but I'm pretty sure that no politician has ever been able to do that.

The economy is doing well but a significant part of that is from an Obama-era trend. The DJIA is at an all-time high and it doesn't seem like it's going to be slowing down. The New York Times says that "hopes for action on tax policy, infrastructure spending and deregulation helped propel the market higher after Mr. Trump’s victory in November." The new GOP tax plan is going to cut taxes all around the board as well.

Sources

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive...conomy/the-economy-under-president-trump.html
http://time.com/money/5007726/republican-tax-plan-affects-you/

 

[ChrystalFalchion]

Why do you want there to be a border wall? It'll cost an absolute fortune to build and run, and it won't even work.

Immigrant: Oh no, what am I going to do now?
Trafficker: No problem, just get on this plane. Or in this boat. Or on this train. Here's a temporary Visa - when you get to America, just keep your head down and obey the law and you'll be fine.

 

[dice]

people still ascribe importance to the stock market and use it as the arbiter of the economy? do we just completely recognize the massive pay gap and just not care abt poor ppl?

 

[kilometerman]

Why do you want there to be a border wall? It'll cost an absolute fortune to build and run, and it won't even work.

Immigrant: Oh no, what am I going to do now?
Trafficker: No problem, just get on this plane. Or in this boat. Or on this train. Here's a temporary Visa - when you get to America, just keep your head down and obey the law and you'll be fine.

Well that's some good speculation but when you look at the numbers there's a clear relationship between border walls and security--Israel constructed a wall on its border with Egypt that cut illegal immigrants by 99% (https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/media/...-and-applicable-lessons-for-the-united-states). And it was my understanding that Trump is pushing for increases in anti-illegal-immigration as well, meaning that it won't be as easy as just using a plane.

people still ascribe importance to the stock market and use it as the arbiter of the economy? do we just completely recognize the massive pay gap and just not care abt poor ppl?

I'm sorry, do you have a better means of measuring how good the economy is? One that is backed by actual economists?

Tell me, what's wrong with a pay gap if the upper class hasn't literally stolen from the lower class? Why do you care more about equality than prosperity in general? Would you rather be in a country where 10% of the population is in poverty while the rest isn't, or in some communist country where 100% of the population is in poverty?

And I can't tell whether the "caring about poor people" thing is directed at me or not but regardless I'm going to ignore it because it's ridiculous and a pretty scummy way of trying to paint your adversary in a bad light.

 

[Shrug]

Tell me, what's wrong with a pay gap if the upper class hasn't literally stolen from the lower class?

the premise of nearly every pay gap is the upper class literally stealing from the lower class.

 

[BLINGAS]

Why do you care more about equality than prosperity in general?

Tell us when more than 0.1% of people are prospering.

 

[kilometerman]

the premise of nearly every pay gap is the upper class literally stealing from the lower class.

Elaborate. That's a huge claim you're making.

 

[dice]

the stock market is only an indicator of what people with capital have to say. of course under a trump presidency the wealth is accruing in the upper class' hand-- the wealth divide is increasing due to decreased regulations. it is an indicator of a small amount of people; literally only .0001% of the population have a huge stake and influence in the market.

besides your dissmive tangent abt ~communism~, my politics stand for the well-being of all folks, not just a classist, bourgeois analysis. injustices and increased exploitation under capitalism, primitive accumulation, international abuses, etc. aren't accounted for under capitalism or the stock markets.

 

[ManOfMany]

We really need to stop with these vague and general statements about the economy as if they are a concrete measure of prosperity. As dice said, the stock market's trends are only relevant to a minuscule segment of the population. While analyzing the GDP is much better, it still fails to come anywhere close to being meaningful for average standard of living. The average American is fooled into thinking that the 2% "economic growth" somehow benefits them personally and their communities will be better off when most of that just amounts to large corporations producing more output and getting richer, not necessarily employing more people. Even unemployment rates, while very useful, fail to tell the whole story because often the employed people are working 60+ hours a week with below living wages.

I'm no economist, but it's easy for me to see that current popular ways of measuring the economy are far from good enough in this country that we can throw a blanket on everything and say that the economy's fine. Look at the income gap between the top 1% and bottom 99%; that is the biggest economic issue in our country and it is larger than almost all "developed countries." Look at median household income. Look at the amount of people below the poverty line. And for measurements of standard of living, move on from just looking at money too - look at education rates, life expectancy, drug abuse, working hours, etc.

note: I don't think that people who prescribe a lot of importance to measures of economic growth like GDP and the stock market "hate poor people". They are still useful tools, but it's very misleading when people imply that it means as much as it does.

 

[DTC]

As for the idea of this thread, I think we'll have a lot more to talk about in the first quarter of next year once people have done their taxes.

I meant to respond to this earlier. Senate Republicans have made it so the individual tax cuts will be there early on, but they become less and less big as time goes on (and a lot of people have their taxes increased after a few years). They're doing this so it looks good early on and by the time the bill starts to have very negative effects, the Democrats are in charge. Not to mention the cuts to Medicaid / potentially Social Security or Medicare that will have to happen to actually pay for the tax cuts.

It may look good early on, but this tax bill gives wayyyy too much to richer americans (which ends up hurting poorer americans), which is really strange considering income inequality is the worst it's been in like 80+ years.

Edit:

Infographic:

 

[Ortheore]

kilometerman when people complain about a pay gap, it's not the existence of said gap that they're complaining about but the magnitude instead. The issue with enormous pay gaps is that if you're not a beneficiary of said pay gap, it's likely that you won't get anywhere near as many opportunities to move into a position where that is different (e.g. the crippling costs of uni in the us are a huge barrier of entry for people that aren't wealthy). Furthermore, if a greater portion of wealth is accumulating in the hands of multibillionaires who frankly don't really have much use for it, that's inevitably coming at the expense of other things that benefit people with lower pay (e.g. publicly funded schools), further impacting their wellbeing. Obviously there's some degree of compromise to be had, but the situation we're in atm is approaching historical levels of inequality, which is why people are right to get agitated over said gap

Broadly speaking the stock market is a terrible economic indicator. GDP is good, but it is somewhat simplistic in that it measures only how much stuff is produced without accounting for how it's distributed. I guess there's really no one size fits all approach, but looking at things like GINI coefficients and measuring things like income growth and share of wealth for the bottom X% of the economy

 

[Oddish is the best]

The stock market is only cruising off the Obama economy anyways. Once the GOP tax "plan" get put through I expect to see slowdown and even larger economic inequality.

 

[Shrug]

tfw the tax plan comes thru

 

[hyw]

In my opinion, kilometerman and dice are in more agreement than disagreement.

To hold the belief that the stock market or GDP indicates anything worth noting at all (be it “how good the economy is,” or “what people with capital have to say,” whatever those words are supposed to mean) tacitly implies that money (or more specifically, currency) in today’s world has some value.

The reality is that that value is backed by nothing but our faith. The same kind of faith that had us believing that residential mortgage-backed securities rated triple-A had no chance of failing. The same kind of faith that had us believing that our reitrement savings and pensions would be there waiting for us when we are no longer able to work. The same kind of faith that had us believing God or Santa exists.

It is not Christianity, Islam, or atheism that is the most widespread religion in the world, it is money. Every human being alive today is enslaved by it. It’s called a bond because it keeps us in bondage. The reality is that the belief that a bar of gold or a bottle of fresh water can be transacted in exchange for currency in equal compensation makes about as much sense as believing that the tooth fairy exists.

Soon enough, the type and amount of leverage in the global economy will grow to a point where we won’t be able to play kabuki theater anymore. All of fiat currency will be valued properly for the first time since the world decided to discard the gold standard in favor of tying their currencies to the United States Dollar: a grand total sum of zero.

When the next crisis arrives, it won’t be just investment banks and insurance companies that collapse; entire countries will go under. It will be ignited when the central bank of Japan drowns the nation of Japan, and the domino effect of nation-destruction will commence. Everyone will learn the hard way that the Federal Reserve is not a branch of the governement, but rather, a private corporation devised to propgate the greatest lie ever upheld in the history of mankind. And man will be forced to back money with items of true value, such as gold, or perhaps fresh water, which we will run out of in the near future.

If we want to talk about privilege, let’s embrace the fact that we have been able to live our lives in an era preceding the reset of everything in our bank accounts and wallets, which is actually just numbers in a computer and toilet paper. And if we want to talk about caring for the middle class, let’s discuss methods for proofing ourselves against the imminent reckoning.

 

[Ivy]

tfw the tax plan comes thru

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42205181

Rev up those guillotines, because it's time to see some heads roll!

 

[Soul Fly]

this bill comes from the same party that literally shut down the country over the debt ceiling

lol

e: also apparently the final 479-page bill was presented to the senators mere hours before the vote with slashed out sections and illegible handwritten modifications all over the bill.

my grade school teacher demanded better. what a joke

 

[faint]

unreal

 

[ChrystalFalchion]

So Hilary was the inferior choice...Why? I don't like the woman but at least she actually has political experience.

 

[WaterBomb]

So Hilary was the inferior choice...Why? I don't like the woman but at least she actually has plot experience.

It's not so much that, it's that they're both awful and she wouldn't have been any better. I wrote in Joe Biden ffs

 

[DTC]

It's not so much that, it's that they're both awful and she wouldn't have been any better. I wrote in Joe Biden ffs

She would have definitely been far more competent than Trump at leading the country, but I fear that electing her would have led to a huge conservative revolution as a result of a terrible midterm cycle. I assume Hillary wouldn't be a popular president because it would have been hard for her to get stuff done with the republican Congress, and people heavily distrusted her.

 

[THE_IRON_...KENYAN?]

Loving the corporate tax cut. Literally the most important thing out of this bill. The deficit can handle the hit, and if its gonna improve the economy like I think it will, maybe the Republicans can earn enough trust and signal enough confidence to do what really needs to be done, which is entitlement reform, and the deficit can be fixed.

As for the individual mandate, well, fuck the individual mandate. Healthcare for all is great, but if you have to pay for it by taking a baseball bat to some of the most productive members of society and make them poorer because of it its absolutely not worth it. There are better ways to provide healthcare for everybody. Deregulate as much as you can, in whatever way you can, like for instance licensing that makes it harder to have more doctors, zoning laws that prevent more hospitals and health establishments from being built, regulations that make it harder to innovate, whatever you can think of, just fucking do it already. I cant imagine the amount of jobs or what the employment level would be if people, not just the rich, had more money to spend and invest if we didnt have this huge sinkhole in our wallets. We'd be the envy of the world.

We need Neoliberalism cranked up to about 11 right now if we want to heal this political divide and get back on track. Nobody is gonna give a fuck what bathroom you want to go into or how many racist jokes you like to make if the economy is so good that 99.9% of people lack material deficiencies.

 

[Oddish is the best]

Yes, funding health care for all by taxing the rich is so bad but every other developed country does it so....? Last I checked they're doing fine. Income inequality has grown massively since the 1980's and it's only going to get worse after this tax bill. We'll see if it actually does anything but most economists believe it won't and there won't be enough revenue for the government resulting in more cuts. Look at what happened in Kansas and that's probably going to hit the U.S government at all. To me there's no reason why the poor and middle class should end up paying more in taxes at the end of the decade while the rich pay less. It's blatantly trying to keep the rich richer and the poor and middle class economically more constrained and newsflash, they're already incredibly beleaguered economically.

I incredibly disagree with "if the economy is doing good people aren't going to care about racist jokes or what bathroom you go into". Culture issues are always going to be a part of American politics and its a huge reason why conservatives are able to get the votes they get (especially when the tax plan is unpopular and fucks over their base). LGBT and minorities will continue to fight for laws and justice and in the issue with LGBT, the appointment of conservative justices is actually threatening to our rights and as an LGBT person myself, it concerns me so no a good economy isn't going to distract me from that either. Like other people have said here, the stock market doesn't actually mean the "real" economy is doing well. We've recovered from the recession better then a lot of countries, but it's not perfect in any way at all and the record high stock market is misleading (not to mention how it's nothing Trump created, we'll see after this tax plan what happens over the coming years). I suggest taking a look at this article https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/29/business/republican-tax-cut.html

One of the biggest standouts is this quote, "By 2027, people making $40,000 to $50,000 would pay a combined $5.3 billion more in taxes, while the group earning $1 million or more would get a $5.8 billion cut" how in any way at all does this seem fair honestly? I haven't even mentioned how oil companies can now drill in the arctic wildlife refuge for oil which is abhorrent, not to mention the millions of people who will lose their healthcare of which, ironically a majority are republican. The deficit Republicans so famously criticize Democrats over isn't even an issue for them anymore and they willingly add massively to the deficit as all Republican presidents do and they won't be able to make up the government income.

The biggest thing is tax cuts for the rich historically do not create more jobs and investment. There's no rule saying the wealthy have to create business's and jobs, they could just save it themselves where as an active spending middle and lower class creates significantly more economic activity. By raising the taxes on the exacerbated middle and lower classes over time and cutting government revenue and assist for various programs (not to mention rising healthcare costs) it will in a long term effect have severe negative consequences. Trickle down economics just do not work and it's a shame the vast majority American people are going to have to pay the price again.

 

[THE_IRON_...KENYAN?]

Healthcare outcomes have nothing to do with what system you have and everything to do with what your culture is, and we have one thats more unhealthy than any other developed nation. We are also a more productive economy and healthcare expenditures go up as your economy becomes more productive. We also consume more. The human capital in European countries is also more developed than ours - less poor at the bottom end. I could go on, but to claim that healthcare outcomes and systems are superior because of the system they have is classic correlation vs causation fallacy. Your common sources do not take any of this into account, they just give a cute little graph where France is #2 or some shit and the USA is 14th, and thats all they say. I dont know if France is 2 and the USA is 14th but its something like USA in the teens and then euros somewhere in the top that gets frequently cited all the time. Not to mention the "best" healthcare systems, if we assume for a moment that healthcare systems are positively correlated with outcome like people think they are, are multi payer universal healthcare that is mostly run by private companies which the government regulates and helps pay the cost for then I believe some sort of public option. I dont have the exact details on it but it certainly isnt single payer like everyone wants, and again, I will reiterate that the correlation between government healthcare and outcomes is classic correlation vs causation fallacious thinking. Get rid of the government in all respects and the prices will go down just like they do with everything else.

As for Kansas, well, they went too far, mainly because nobody wants to live in Kansas. If you did the same exact tax plan in California it would be booming. You have to adjust tax policy to location along with the other factors. Not that they shouldnt have lowered the taxes in Kansas, but it was too ambitious, too crazy for its time.

My laptop is running short on batteries so ill keep the rest short. Demand doesnt create long term economic growth, increasing Supply does. Trickle down economics doesnt exist, all economics has supply and demand. You cant just have demand economics or supply economics, it makes no sense. Probably why real economists dont use that term. The rich dont just save, they invest, and if they are hoarding it into offshore accounts, its because the native countries taxes arent friendly enough for them to invest it, loopholes considered.