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  1. #751
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    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    overall i think he would push more in the direction than most others for some conservative issues (maybe obamacare is one, but honestly trump likes subsidies and regulatory power, so he might not be that reformative here), while entrenching some non-conservative positions that everybody will claim they didn't see coming from what should be an obvious populist leftist.

    trump has much more in common with european socialist leftism than people think. it's mostly because anti-immigration has become a right-wing issue of recent (even though it traditionally isn't). trump loves his authoritarianism, special interest favors, and sjw tactics. sometimes i wonder if you really do support him or if you're just trolling, given that those are three things you have either explicitly or implicitly condemned to some degree.
    +1 for authoritarianism
    +1 for special interest favors

    He's obviously not using SJW tactics though. He's really the antithesis of everything SJW-related both irl and in campaigning.
  2. #752
    he doesn't use every sjw tactic in the book, but he likes playing the victim and vilifying his opposition in obscene fashion whenever he can.
  3. #753
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    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    he doesn't use every sjw tactic in the book, but he likes playing the victim and vilifying his opposition in obscene fashion whenever he can.
    It's not really playing the victim when you really are the victim. It's like a boy who cries wolf situation en masse where so many people have "played the victim" without actually being a victim that it's a knee-jerk reaction to look down on anyone who actually is a victim.

    Also he's supposed to vilify the opposition; this is American politics. I haven't seen him vilify the opposition in any way that wasn't true so far.

    Also, he's now winning in Iowa, and his lead there is increasing by the hour.
  4. #754
    the scenarios where trump plays victim are typically when he is not a victim. his responses are self-serving fabrications. his response to the ny values thing perfectly illustrates this. his version of victimhood as well as vilification of the opposition have a special twinge of self-serving hypocrisy greater than is typical of others. every thing he has said this cycle, virtually without exception, is contradictory to things he said many years ago or just a couple years ago or even just a few days ago.

    given how dominant he is in the media, he should be expected to beat everybody in every poll by at least double digits. this correlation does tend to break down when elections come around, but i dont know to what extent. i won't bother linking it since nobody will read it, but word is that his iowa ground game is garbage. cruz's is outstanding. we may find iowa to be a test of some running theories about what makes for votes.

    i wonder if attack ads will hit trump at any point before iowa. very few have been run so far, and the one time trump was falling (while carson was rising) was when some attack ads were actually running. they will damage him greatly. ive a theory that we won't see that many attack ads on him for iowa though, since everybody else will want to attack cruz and the rubio/bush thing, and cruz may be planning on winning iowa purely on ground game. i could see this coinciding with tremendous output of attack ads by cruz on trump in new hampshire.

    if cruz could win iowa via ground game and then pummel trump and rubio with ads in new hampshire while also pushing ground there, he'd finish trump. ofc that's an if.
  5. #755
    earlier i said a trump presidency would not be revolutionary; i stick to that. but what would be revolutionary is a trump gop nomination. the reason for this is that trump is very antagonistic to just about every conservative value you can think of and highly favorable to every left liberal value you can think of. the only reason he has popularity is it just so happens that angry authoritarians who try to think about politics as little as possible have recently transitioned into the republican party, so it's in there that trump resonates.

    anyways, a trump nomination would show that conservatism is dead since it would be the populist "conservative" party supporters nominating a left liberal. trump would be more effective at growing the power of the state than clinton or sanders. when you look at what he actually believes about the role of governments and economics, he's in bernie sanders territory for most things.

    it's not a coincidence that a large proportion of people who support trump list sanders as their #2 (and vise versa).


    btw, conservatives hate trump. serious hate. i had no idea how much until i started reading some conservative publications. good lord do they loathe him. this election will show us just how much electoral power conservatives have in the primaries. we'll see if they still have reagan-esque power and can rally behind one very strong and anti-establishment candidate in cruz just like was with reagan. they for sure would if trump wasn't in the race, but it's hard to say to what degree the gop electorate has shifted from conservative to left liberal authoritarianism these days.
  6. #756
    sobering perspective on trump by an economist and libertarian:

    http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=31435
  7. #757
    on the spectrum the west has been operating under for a a few centuries now (classical-liberal market-capitalist individualism britain/america vs left-liberal socialist fascist state-stoicism italy/russia/france), trump is the latter by a lot.
  8. #758
    ive applied some more thought to it. even if trump wins both iowa and new hampshire, cruz could still be the hidden favorite to win the nomination. cruz's camp knows this too. the reason is that if cruz can finish second behind trump, after the first few states, it will knock everybody else out, and a large majority of their supporters will back cruz instead of trump. so far, trump has had a ceiling in all hypothetical heads up nomination polls of middling-low forties.

    what we could be looking at here is trump having a base of support that will never leave him at somewhere between 20-40, while cruz has a base of evangelicals between 20-30 that he can get in every state. after the field dwindles, trump's base is highly unlikely to expand much, while anybody running against him would expand theirs, excluding kasich and maybe christie.
  9. #759
    i found some pro-trump sites for the purpose of trying to understand what goes through the minds of those who like him. three main things have jumped out: (1) they consistently mis-identify conservatism as republicanism, just like how the left mis-identifies trump support as conservatism. (2) they have no coherent ideology other than nationalism wielded by a strongman. (3) they take pride in how little they understand/care about/pay attention to politics. you'd think they would take this as a sign that their opinions are foolish, but no, they're mad that politics is even a thing in the first place. they view obama as a king and think the solution is a different king.
  10. #760
    spoon soon to de-endorse trump im sure

  11. #761
    spoonitnow's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    spoon soon to de-endorse trump im sure

    lol no
  12. #762
    0% chance.
  13. #763
    spoonitnow's Avatar
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    I swear that you keep reaching and reaching for reasons to try to convince yourself that Trump is going to lose, and it's just not there.
  14. #764
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    I want trump to lose.

    But there is no question that he understands the game, and is playing the game, far better than any other candidate. I respect that.

    Part of that game is endorsements. Now, everyone HATES palin...but for some reason she is popular to an absurd degree with a subset of ppl. Now, they're trump's ppl. I bet he gets more endorsements, and continues to do well.

    Tho its certainly a Trump v cruz v maybe rubio fight right now. The rest are legit wasting their time and money.
  15. #765
    Quote Originally Posted by spoonitnow View Post
    I swear that you keep reaching and reaching for reasons to try to convince yourself that Trump is going to lose, and it's just not there.
    you have presented exactly zero counters to any evaluation ive made on the strengths, weaknesses, and meanings of the data and logic. there are mountains of reasons why trump winning the nomination would be strange (a minority of his support comes from republicans for fuck's sake) and you're telling me im wrong because my statements don't agree with the ten second chatter.
    Last edited by wufwugy; 01-23-2016 at 01:39 AM.
  16. #766
    i mean look at this. how in the shitting shit is this guy going to win the republican nomination when his support is made up of ~29% republicans and 43% democrats? is the wisdom now that the republican party isn't even republican anymore? if trump wins this nomination with these kinds of numbers, it basically means that the republican base isn't even the base (a paradox).

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/31/up...crat.html?_r=0

    scroll down for the charts.


    the dude has more in common with lena dunham than he does with the people who support him. he's probably going to do well in the primary fight, but at the end of the day, there are way too many asterisks and the most likely scenario is that he won't be the nominee.
  17. #767
    Quote Originally Posted by JKDS View Post
    But there is no question that he understands the game, and is playing the game, far better than any other candidate. I respect that.
    I disagree. Trump's strategy is his doom. You know why he gets his ass kicked in head to head polls against Cruz or Rubio? Because everybody who isn't already on Trump's wagon fucking hates his guts because he has done nothing but lie and belittle everybody else. When Carson drops out, do you think his supporters will go to Trump? Fat fucking chance. When Bush goes, are his supporters becoming Trumpkins? No fucking way. If Rubio or Cruz go, their supporters will go to the other.

    Trump is the ultimate "un-pandered" candidate, meaning that his support comes from the voters that nobody else has pandered to yet (racially charged nationalists who cheer rah rah rah at the sound of "They're (Mexicans) rapists", "blood coming out from her whatever", and "I like people who weren't captured"). But it is his embrace of this crowd that has alienated him to everybody else. That "everybody else" is the size of a group of people he needs in order to win.

    So, yeah, his strategy has been abysmal. He's not a genius. His ability to win depends on the hypothesis that there are just enough people who hear his bigoted inanity and say "that's my guy". A whole lot of losers have polled as high as him at this point in the cycles and have lost horribly.

    Part of that game is endorsements. Now, everyone HATES palin...but for some reason she is popular to an absurd degree with a subset of ppl. Now, they're trump's ppl. I bet he gets more endorsements, and continues to do well.
    Her endorsement isn't garbage, but she is not viewed highly by that many conservatives anymore. Her support aligns with those who already support Trump (*cough* reality celebrity *cough*). The kinds of endorsements Cruz has gotten (like Van Der Plaats) is more important. In fact Cruz is the only person who so far has gotten game-shifting endorsements. I wouldn't be surprised if Cruz gets Mark Levin's endorsement (possibly the most coveted endorsement for any Republican). He's Levin's preferred candidate and Levin is livid at a campaign (signs point to it being Trump's) for trying to intimidate him.



    Look at it this way, I'm voting in the GOP primary, and a month ago I was open to the idea of holding my nose and voting for Trump in the general if he were to get the nomination. But today, I can't stand him. He's a self-serving hypocritical lying cheating narcissist. For a while I thought that maybe he was just overtly abrasive yet had some decent ideals behind it all, but nope, the guy has since fully revealed himself to have zero principles.

    >50% of those who will vote in this primary will end up feeling the same way about Lena Trumpan as I do.
    Last edited by wufwugy; 01-23-2016 at 02:29 AM.
  18. #768
    spoonitnow's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    He's a self-serving hypocritical lying cheating narcissist.
    So he's a politician?
  19. #769
    there are plenty of politicians who are not, yet they have difficulty changing the system partly due to the view from some voters that politics is nothing but a corrupt monolith.

    there's a deep irony in that trump embodies what his supporters say they dislike, while there are others in the race that embody what his supporters say they like yet they do not support them.
  20. #770
  21. #771
    spoonitnow's Avatar
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    And Trump's lead continues to grow in Iowa and the rest of the United States.
  22. #772
    we're going to find out who wins the nomination based on who between cruz and rubio get the majority of the fallout vote from carson and bush. im giving trump a 15% chance to win based on a small possibility that he doesn't gain just the tiny amount that he should be expected to gain and the not as small chance that cruz and rubio both stay in the race for a while. many of the later states are northeast and may actually give trump a majority heads up, but if it's down to trump vs cruz or trump vs rubio immediately after the sec primary results, trump should lose.

    i dont think i see rubio winning the cruz vs rubio fight because at least 40% of the fallout vote will go to cruz and he'll still remain ahead of rubio in a 3-way race. but rubio could play spoiler and get trump elected if he stays in too long. i suspect that he could know that and drop out in time though, possibly on the secret condition that he's cruz's vp.
  23. #773
    Quote Originally Posted by spoonitnow View Post
    And Trump's lead continues to grow in Iowa and the rest of the United States.
    his lead hasn't grown, it has remained constant.

    cruz has narrowed the gap very slightly is all. rubio has narrowed into 3rd more significantly. trump has ceiling'd, the only growth in poll results across the same pollsters have come from cruz and rubio. this was predictable given the numbers of respondents who are willing to vote for trump in the first place and the fact that the supporters of every other candidate hate his guts.
  24. #774
    this would drastically change if trump showed enough hu strength. then, the only chance he could lose would be by way of a conservative shy tory effect. id put trump at >70% under the circumstance of strong hu results.
  25. #775
    actually it does appear that trump has gained some iowa ground and cruz lost a little after trump major endorsed increasing ethanol subsidies and cruz stood his ground in denying cronyism. this should have collapsed trump's support outside of ethanol farmers, but ofc it wouldn't since people love doing the wrong thing.
  26. #776
    gonna be amazing when he underperforms his polls by 10% due terrible ground game and everybody sees trump is little other than a medium-talent manager and peak-talent narcissist.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/14/us...oach.html?_r=0
  27. #777
    spoonitnow's Avatar
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    / is what growth looks like

    \ is what cruz looks like

    dealwithit.gif
  28. #778
    do you think that president trump won't do what he says he'll do?
  29. #779
    spoonitnow's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    do you think that president trump won't do what he says he'll do?
    Even if the Mexicans won't pay for the Great Wall of Trump, we can still pay for it with the oil we get from ISIS and have plenty left over.
  30. #780
    40% chance trump and hillary planned this.

    if he wins the nomination, 40% chance that in the final week before the election he says "we should shoot all muslims and mexicans on sight" and then after he loses the election he's seen at a democrat party.
  31. #781
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    You're up to 90210%.
  32. #782
    politics can be both trivial entertainment and a vehicle to make lives better.
  33. #783
    a500lbgorilla's Avatar
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    himself fucker.
    lol what did Cruz do?

    <a href=http://i.imgur.com/kWiMIMW.png target=_blank>http://i.imgur.com/kWiMIMW.png</a>
  34. #784
    538's polls-plus forecast is probably more accurate. i think it underestimates cruz's win probability as well. it doesn't account for caucus realities. history shows that the evangelical candidate can expect up to like 20% jump in actual results above the polls.
  35. #785
    if trump wins, we should be seriously looking at a theory that the media picks the nominees (and the president). the conservative base hates him, yet half the conservative media (mainly rush) are deflecting their own principles in supporting the most conservative candidate possible and giving trump a pass because of ratings. the national media is doing the same thing. a trump nomination would be the best possible thing for the media elite, and they know it.

    and the people who support trump? i would say they're being duped and used except its their own damn responsibility to act like they have >70 iq.
  36. #786
    cruz's iowa strategy mirrors what has worked in the past. it's not just the ground game, but in not going negative. iowa caucus-goers historically punish the hell out of candidates who haven't stuck to the ground and who have gone off message of their own quality policies and who have spent too much time on the attack. this probably has to do with the fact that the caucus includes rallies of people discussing their own selections. this weights heavily towards the devoted with a strong message. i wouldnt be surprised to see a meltdown of trump support at the caucus along these lines, as his supporters will not have much ammunition for their candidate and will end up learning more about other candidates than from the entire time leading up to feb 1.
  37. #787
    that said, it really could be that the ball was dropped already on the effective way to attack trump and he'll cruise to victory. too many candidates, too focused on beating out other candidates, none able to focus energies on the leftist running way with their nomination.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/op...f=opinion&_r=0
  38. #788
    spoonitnow's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla View Post
    lol what did Cruz do?

    He went up against Trump and got got like every other bitchass they've tried to throw at him. After he toe tag body bags Sanders, it's all going to be over.
  39. #789
    o dat bernie

    http://dailycaller.com/2015/11/03/be...is-taxi-rides/

    Just a couple months ago, Bernie Sanders lambasted Uber as an “unregulated” company with “serious problems,” but financial disclosures by the Democratic presidential candidate reveal that whenever his campaign requires a taxi, they literally always turn to Uber.
    it's almost as if capitalism has flourished because despite ideals people may hold, they typically still make the more economical and fulfilling choices. it would be nice if they could use these experiences to further their understanding of the world instead of just sticking to their harmful ideals.
  40. #790
    spoonitnow's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    o dat bernie

    http://dailycaller.com/2015/11/03/be...is-taxi-rides/



    it's almost as if capitalism has flourished because despite ideals people may hold, they typically still make the more economical and fulfilling choices. it would be nice if they could use these experiences to further their understanding of the world instead of just sticking to their harmful ideals.
    Bernie the retard Socialist Communist shithead Sanders DERP DERP LEMME UBER MY DERP fucking dumbass.
  41. #791
    steve deace explains why the latest round of iowa polls likely do not remotely represent reality.

    http://stevedeace.com/news/pollsters-and-their-fools-paradise/

    tldr: they assume 200% increase in voter turnout than previous highest (2008), yet there are no signs on the ground of that coming to pass. it appears that trump's "surge" is just the pollsters loosening their "likely voter" standards to the degree that they predict this highly unlikely outcome of landslide turnout for trump in the midst of no signs of so on the ground.
    Last edited by wufwugy; 01-24-2016 at 08:35 PM.
  42. #792
    Quote Originally Posted by spoonitnow View Post
    Bernie the retard Socialist Communist shithead Sanders DERP DERP LEMME UBER MY DERP fucking dumbass.
    he's not a retard. he has just not thought things through.
  43. #793
    iowa gop registrations are down too. on logistics alone, it's not possible for all those new voters to come out for trump. day-of registrations take time. trumpkins will be the first of any to use any excuse to not make their monday afternoon-night all about the cold and the stress.

    hey spoon what do you guys prefer to be called: trumpkins, trumpistas, trumpoids, los donaldarios?
  44. #794
    spoonitnow's Avatar
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    I'm busy watching the Royal Rumble.
  45. #795
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    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    o dat bernie

    http://dailycaller.com/2015/11/03/be...is-taxi-rides/



    it's almost as if capitalism has flourished because despite ideals people may hold, they typically still make the more economical and fulfilling choices. it would be nice if they could use these experiences to further their understanding of the world instead of just sticking to their harmful ideals.
    I don't see the problem. It is an unregulated company with serious problems, that doesn't mean it's unusable. They're in the middle of several lawsuits, not including those with taxi companies, and it's largely due to the company's failure to train it's drivers.

    But they're still better than taxis and buses. The risk associated with using uber is also much much smaller when you've got guards, aids, or friends traveling with you...which of course bernie does
    Last edited by JKDS; 01-25-2016 at 12:52 AM.
  46. #796
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    o dat bernie

    http://dailycaller.com/2015/11/03/be...is-taxi-rides/



    it's almost as if capitalism has flourished because despite ideals people may hold, they typically still make the more economical and fulfilling choices. it would be nice if they could use these experiences to further their understanding of the world instead of just sticking to their harmful ideals.
    This says pretty much nothing about Bernie Sanders. His campaign, as a whole, relies on Uber. It is not beyond reasonable doubt to think that Sanders is not aware of every bit of minutiae within his campaign. I'll admit its a great headline, but to actually pretend it's substantive is laughable.
  47. #797
    JKDS's Avatar
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    First, bitch
  48. #798
    spoonitnow's Avatar
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    Oh god, it's an unregulated company, we better swoop in and regulate the fuck out of it so that we can save everyone from their unregulated selves. Typical liberal approach to everything. How about Bernie Sanders regulates deez nuts? Go over to Sweden, the country you're just in fucking love with, and get buttfucked in the ass by a pack of wild jihads and see how that works out for you.
  49. #799
    Quote Originally Posted by JKDS View Post
    I don't see the problem. It is an unregulated company with serious problems, that doesn't mean it's unusable. They're in the middle of several lawsuits, not including those with taxi companies, and it's largely due to the company's failure to train it's drivers.

    But they're still better than taxis and buses. The risk associated with using uber is also much much smaller when you've got guards, aids, or friends traveling with you...which of course bernie does
    It is regulated, just less so than taxis.

    The problem is that here is this less regulated company that works better than the more regulated ones, and the divergence in quality is significantly due to the regulation differences. Bernie's intention isn't to turn the better company into a worse one, but that's what his policies contribute nonetheless.

    This says pretty much nothing about Bernie Sanders. His campaign, as a whole, relies on Uber. It is not beyond reasonable doubt to think that Sanders is not aware of every bit of minutiae within his campaign. I'll admit its a great headline, but to actually pretend it's substantive is laughable.
    Sure it does. The point stands even if Sanders has no idea about it. His campaign selects Uber because it is better. Sanders' policies do not intend to make it worse but still would.

    Regulation is highly destructive to product innovation and consumer interests. This story is important because it is an example of a disruptive company that serves consumers far better than the incumbent old producers have, yet a politician wants to take that away and do to it what would turn it into the same old shitty product that taxis are.
  50. #800
    On top of that, the level quality assurance creation Uber has undergone in just a couple years is substantially higher than anything it could have gotten through government regulation.

    The competitive market solves these problems so easily. What's the other solution? Have unelected, unchecked bureaucracies add to the tens of thousands of unread pages of unvetted regulations already? Because that's what happens. We want to believe that regulatory agencies are directly related to our votes, but they're not.

    Taxis have become like Comcast: formidably entrenched in a mostly monopolistic market due to government policies. Uber is like a new form of internet access that's swooping in and giving all consumers a deal they want far more. Sanders' ideals are to turn Uber into the new Comcast even though he doesn't realize that's what they do.
  51. #801
    btw i hope you guys know i don't intend to attack sanders' character. i believe he is a good person with good intentions. but policy differences are fair. this can be muddied since a lot of the time people equate intentions and outcomes. the history of bad policy is painted with noble intentions.

    trump is the guy whose character (or lack thereof) i'll attack.
  52. #802
    JKDS's Avatar
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    Still don't see why his use of uber is some kind of gaff.
  53. #803
    spoonitnow's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JKDS View Post
    Still don't see why his use of uber is some kind of gaff.
    It's like what would happen if a high-ranking KKK member turned out to have a black wife.
  54. #804
    The point is that Sanders benefits from something that he could not benefit from if his policies had already been enacted. A secondary point I made was how capitalism is so resilient that even though Sanders' camp doesn't agree with the policies that allow something like Uber to emerge and flourish, they don't realize this, and even if they did, their pocketbook decisions do not reflect their philosophies.

    Much of the story of competitive markets has been people holding policy beliefs that would actually make them worse off yet engaging in behavior that subverts those beliefs and makes them better off. So even though a company like Uber couldn't emerge and flourish under the watch of a Sanders policy philosophy, it still does partly due to behaviors by those very same people that undermine the policy philosophy.
    Last edited by wufwugy; 01-25-2016 at 09:24 PM.
  55. #805
    To the point that the issue may be too small beans for somebody in Sanders' position, I disagree. Uber is a big deal in the world of political economics. A few months ago when it was getting lots of press, Jeb Bush came out hard against proposed regulations on Uber, saying all the things consistent with principles of microeconomics. Politicians can know this stuff. It's just not up Sanders' alley since his organized constituency (mainly unions) do not directly benefit from competitive markets and they hold the view that all markets work better when the government monopoly intervenes.

    The unfortunate thing about this belief is that it is as false relative to economics that creationism is to biology. Even the most government-monopoly-friendly economics still only uses it as a tool to subvert other natural monopolies (like ones caused by economies of scale, like, say, Boeing), not as a tool to subvert competitive industries. The political populist position has it backwards in how they want monopolies to intervene into non-monopolies.
  56. #806
    Even then, monopoly-government intervention into economies of scale like Boeing is still contradictory to the fundamental principles of economics. It's just that it's easier to justify it if you wanted to, which is what a lot of Keynesian economists have done, probably because the field of macroeconomics from its very inception never confronted the idea that government itself is a monopoly subjected to the same supply and demand laws as any other market actors.

    Many within the profession have asked this question (at times doing so became somewhat popular, and the real world results were quite positive), but it's still not standard. Asking the question has become less popular since 2008 and the misdiagnosis that what was actually the government's money monopoly failure and housing regulation policies that incentivized bad lending was instead a free market failure and needed to be healed by the government.
    Last edited by wufwugy; 01-25-2016 at 09:54 PM.
  57. #807
    if donny boy wins iowa after this ad, the end has come

  58. #808
    his delivery on "how stupid are the people of iowa?" is key and peele level awesome.
  59. #809
    spoonitnow's Avatar
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    It'll just boost his poll numbers even higher.
  60. #810
    In response to the Sanders/Uber stuff:

    I still stand by the statement that nothing of import about Sanders can be gleaned from this revelation. I'm not disagreeing (nor agreeing) about the role of regulation in the economy-- I'm saying that Sanders' stance on Uber is not weakened by the fact that everybody (not excluding his staffers) uses ride sharing services now. The headline is meant to put Sanders' integrity into question, and I think upon examination it fails at doing so.

    Again, this is to say nothing on his actual stance, but only pointing out that this is a lame "Gotcha!" headline that lacks substance entirely.
  61. #811
    Quote Originally Posted by boost View Post
    In response to the Sanders/Uber stuff:

    I still stand by the statement that nothing of import about Sanders can be gleaned from this revelation. I'm not disagreeing (nor agreeing) about the role of regulation in the economy-- I'm saying that Sanders' stance on Uber is not weakened by the fact that everybody (not excluding his staffers) uses ride sharing services now. The headline is meant to put Sanders' integrity into question, and I think upon examination it fails at doing so.

    Again, this is to say nothing on his actual stance, but only pointing out that this is a lame "Gotcha!" headline that lacks substance entirely.
    Here's an analogy that shows my perspective: say there's a politician who eats corn (and calls doing so a net good) yet supports policies that, if enacted, would deter the consumers' ability to choose to consume corn. This strikes me as a not fully thought through position.
    Last edited by wufwugy; 01-26-2016 at 06:31 PM.
  62. #812
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    I fell like you're assuming this is some kind or relationship built out of necessity...biting the hand that feeds kind of thing.

    I don't see it that way at all.
  63. #813
    I get the "biting hand that feeds" thing, because in a sense I think it is, but I don't get the "relationship built of necessity" thing. It is possible to get a pass when in a situation "built of necessity" even when it's hypocritical on the surface. This is why I added "and calls doing so a net good". The reason it's possible to get a pass is because governmental policies create environments where any individual who doesn't take advantage of them would suffer more than if his same decision was in an environment that the government hadn't created. Still, that should not have bearing against support for new legislation to overturn the governmental policy and be rid of the perverse incentive in the first place.
  64. #814
    trump's campaign chief saying he's definitely skipping thursday's debate. one can only hope. it would be such a huge mistake and hopefully the other candidates won't even mention his name on stage.
  65. #815
    it makes me wonder if trump's campaign all this time has truly been about kingmaking (plus publicity ofc).

    like, the argument can be made that trump wanted certain issues talked about and wanted to put pressure on other candidates so that the strongest would survive his vicious attacks. it's reasonable, really is. still, even though skipping the debate is emphatically bad strategy, he could still just be wrong and think it's good.
  66. #816
    or it could be that trump knows that he is going to get absolutely SKUNKED at the debate, so it'll be even less of a mistake to skip it altogether. still, the right decision is to do the debate and fix your shit so you don't get skunked.
  67. #817
    http://theresurgent.com/what-a-wimp-...utin-and-isis/

    love it:

    What makes the Trump decision to back out of the debate even more absurd is that Trump is now claiming it has to do with a Fox News press release, not about Kelly herself. Sticks and stones may break his bones, but press releases make him run away like a little girl.
    such delicious irony that a guy touted for being tough tough tough is a weaselly basket of weak apples. el donaldo could use a lesson in the meaning of fortitude of character.
  68. #818
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    Trump's move to skip the last debate right before Iowa is the perfect play. It's a move that plays right into the strategy that he had exhibited from the beginning, and his absence is going to hang over the entire debate and court more attention than he could have ever gotten by showing up. It also shows that he doesn't care because he's so far ahead that it doesn't matter, which also fits into the persona he has used in his campaign.
  69. #819
    if the candidates on stage opt to discuss trump a whole bunch, then yes, it could end up being the right move. but if nobody is that dumb, all it really does is give everybody watching it reason to support one of the candidates on stage instead of trump.

    if im cruz and i get the news that trump is skipping the debate, im fist pumping. plus, if skipping was a good move, we would likely see it happen more often.

    he may be mentioned once or twice, but i cannot imagine the people on stage will be dumb enough to talk about trump. that would just be fucking idiotic.
  70. #820
    granted i give it a 70% chance that this is what's really going on

    http://hotair.com/archives/2016/01/2...kellys-biased/

    a pr stunt. he'll show up at the debate while claiming some dumb victory.

    the problem (for him) is that this doesn't help him at all. the people who are going to support him are already on his wagon. his goal should be to turn them out to vote. pr stunts like this don't do that, in fact they probably make it more likely that some will vote against him.

    the guy has cornered the market on alienating every voter except his marginally-attached-to-politics core.
  71. #821
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    I think it's brilliant. Two days before a debate, while everyone has already worked overtime to prepare for it and try to take his spot away...he's suddenly gone.

    There is zero chance the candidates use this opportunity to ignore trump. They're gonna go wild, attempting to take advantage of his absence. Meanwhule, he'll be doing literal charity work in Iowa and somehow getting children to scream about their love for him.

    I secretly hope it's kingmaking tho
  72. #822
    the thing is that so many voters are truly uninformed. a good 10% will think that trump isn't running anymore just because they don't see him on the stage.

    one of the main things trump supporters like about him is that he blows up the national spotlight. they want a strongman, a guy who stands on stage and calls everybody idiots. a solid 20% of voters cum like fire hose over that shit. if trump is off fundraising instead and if the other candidates don't foolishly make the debate about him, i see no upside.
  73. #823
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    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    the thing is that so many voters are truly uninformed. a good 10% will think that trump isn't running anymore just because they don't see him on the stage.
    Not a chance. The only people who watch debates are people who are at least somewhat informed, and the media has already made sure that they know trump wont be there.

    one of the main things trump supporters like about him is that he blows up the national spotlight. they want a strongman, a guy who stands on stage and calls everybody idiots. a solid 20% of voters cum like fire hose over that shit. if trump is off fundraising instead and if the other candidates don't foolishly make the debate about him, i see no upside.
    What better way to blow up the national spotlight, be a strongman, and call everyone idiots than by straight up "flipping the bird" to fox news? When was the last time a candidate pulled such a stunt, mere DAYS before the election? His ball must be bigger than iowa
  74. #824
    a good deal of people dont keep up to date but do watch debates.

    the reasons why are also largely the reasons why trump is so popular. lots of working parents have very little time to put into political thought and news but still vote. they often only see the loudest thing at the loudest time of day. since that has been trump, a bunch of them probably poll for him while not really knowing much about other candidates. this dynamic is reflected in the strong correlation in the past elections between level of coverage and level of poll support.
  75. #825
    being at the debate also gives a needed air of legitimacy. brushing over that hasn't been tried yet. i would advise against it, but im not always right (not always!)

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