Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
I'm very happy you're investigating with an open mind and asking these great questions.



The economy is significantly weaker at this point in the business cycle than it has been in other recoveries. Even with low unemployment, inflation is still low. Interest rates are still near bottom, and every attempt the Fed makes at raising them lowers growth expectations. If the business cycle were to down slope, which happens every ~10 years or so, the ability for the Fed to respond is far weaker than it has been in memory and even in 2008. The employment gains the economy has made are proportioned more towards part-time work than usual.

Obama's recovery has been a bad one because it has been weaker than typical recoveries. The recovery has happened despite what he's done, not because of it. His fiscal policies have only hurt us, and the growth we've had can be almost entirely summed up by expansive monetary policy and expanded fracking. The Midwest is particularly upset because they see the infrastructure of bad economic policies. Even though they partly misdiagnose the reason why manufacturing has changed, they are not wrong in that government policies have caused a good deal of harm in the area. As a side note, the short on manufacturing is that, yeah, it may be have high output today, but that's because capital is replacing labor. This benefits investors and the world, but hurts the laborers. What has not been done, yet needs to be done, is deregulate labor and industry so that capital is not so attractive relative to labor. That's not necessarily on Obama, though. Unions and voters in those states favor big regulation without realizing it's the primary factor they can affect that changes the quantity demanded of their labor.



If Trump is a crook, we don't know it. He might be, but we just do not know so. With Hillary, we know so. Comey's testimony revealed her criminality. He recommended not prosecuting for what is best described as political purposes. Generals have been prosecuted for much less than what she did. Her husband is also a confirmed sexual predator.



I was one of the many who heard what he said, heard what others said about it, and agreed that he was indeed racist and sexist. But I was wrong. We can examine what he said and find that he was never discussing race nor disparaging women. He never attacked citizens. By contrast, Hillary attacked citizens quite a bit.

I'm not sure what to recommend. It took me about a month of reading Scott Adams to shift from the view that Trump was the most bigoted person to run for president, and I was only open to the idea because I was interested in understanding Trump since I knew I was going to vote Republican or nobody. You've expressed that you do not like Adams, so I'm not sure what specifically I can say. Of those who discuss Trump in a positive light, he is just about the most palatable.

One thing I will say is that as the months roll by, keep this in mind. I think you'll see that Trump doesn't do any of the bigoted stuff he has been accused of.
After some research, I can't disagree on the economy part. I still want to continue to research this but I've seen a lot of blame put on the Dodd-Frank regulations in 2010. However, I do want to acknowledge that much of this is speculative given changing global parameters so comparing business cycles historically feels not quite apples to oranges but maybe green apples to fuji apples? I think you get my point.

Do you have specific Scott Adams posts that point out how Trump is not divisive when it comes to race, anti-Muslim, misogyny, etc? It seems very clear that while Trump hasn't come out and said I hate Muslims or I hate black people (overt racism), the language he uses (e.g.: the Hispanics love me), the desire to build a registry of Muslims, spews subversive hatred and divisiveness. I'm going to stop using racism as a term, and instead use divisive, given that my concerns are larger than race. It is a blatant disregard for many different groups of people spanning religion, gender, and race.