Printable View
Seems about right to me Surviva.
But, I don't think the hardest part is how he duped people. He basically promised them the things they want, like all politicians.
It's also worth remembering he ran against what was arguably the worst candidate running the worst campaign in presidential history, who was in fact so bad no-one even went to her rallies, and he still lost the popular vote.
Trump is the president people said they wanted. Then when Trump came along, those same people hated him because the media convinced them to hate him as well as convinced them that they came to that opinion on their own.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
He is not being selected to be the Secretary of Energy or even the Secretary of Commerce. If he were, this would be the old argument of helping the GDP versus preserving the environment. For how different our opinions are, this is besides the point.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
We're talking about the Secretary of State, the lead diplomat for this country and the main advisor for the president on issues of foreign relations. For all the hoops we have to jump through just to say he's qualified, we have to do all that just to get to, "This is the man for the job to build a robust foreign policy that will be centered entirely around maximizing the acquisition of oil and distribution to America." Wait, what the fuck what?! If you'd said that this was the goal of the Republican party a decade ago, you would be seen as a tinfoil hat nutjob. Now this is the defense that apologists are bending over backwards to get to (because that's how unsavory the simpler alternative answer is)? My god.
I grant that he's a successful man with a hard job, but that doesn't count as a qualification. That's a skill. I'm a professional poker player whose career earnings and highest level of success reached vet me out as someone who has a unique ability to take a complex and interconnected game tree and have an understanding of how decisions on one branch affect all the others and building strategies around that. This skill would probably come in handy at a lot of jobs. In fact, it comes in handy in writing novels (where keeping up with all the moving parts of subplots and characters, etc in the editing process wrinkles the brains of my peers much more than it wrinkles mine). This does not make me qualified to handle the US's foreign policy.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
This is semantics, but it's very important semantics. I fucking hate it when my New Yorker arrives and there's a feature on the history of conflict in some middle eastern country because it is confounding as fuck and impossible to keep straight and is a torturous slog through an unending piece that does nothing but continually remind me how whatever perceived intelligence I have in the realm of game theory does not help me as so much be an informed voter, much less a foreign diplomat. Of course Tillerson's probably smarter than I am and as CEO of a global company undoubtedly has at least some of the names more straight in his head than I do, and I'm obviously not going to make any stolid logical arguments on the grounds of my personal anecdotes, but I'm just illustrating how important qualifications with a capital Q that actual falls under the dictionary definition of "qualifications" is.
This is like having George Clooney do your heart surgery. Maybe rising to the ranks of being an A-list actor is more rigorous than your run-of-the-mill med school, and he knows plenty of medical jargon from years and years of playing a doctor, but these are not things you put under Qualifications on a resume.
Okay, that's the brunt of what I want to cover, and all the other stuff I have to say is going to serve as a distraction/rebuttal fodder for you, so I'll keep them separate.
Trump will be the lead diplomat for America.
Tillerson has a very high level of meaningful relationships with major foreign players. Higher than the last several SecStates.
I have more substantive negative to say about Trump than you do. We just never get to it because being confronted by dumb galvanizes me to defend him against dumb.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
Ok, let's hear it.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
His welfare reforms will be slim to non-existent. He may do some reorganizing of healthcare and education, but what we need instead are big cuts.
He is very unlikely to cut any bureaucracies. Very few of the bureaucracies we have right now are worth keeping. We need major cuts. He will probably just temporarily slow down the rate of growth in them at best.
His tax cuts, if he does them, will be revenue neutral to their contemporary level of spending. Bad news.
Those tax cuts are likely to be window dressing at best. He is unlikely to eliminate any taxes, which is what's most needed.
The country will do very well for 8 years, but I voted against him and for a guy who would make things great for 30 and on. The difference is that Trump will do a good job while Trump is in office, but he is unlikely to make the systemic changes that are needed to correct the long term course.
His proposed regulation cut policy looks like it's more surface than substance. Maybe some bad regulations will get cut, but he'll probably just slow the growth of them at best.
There are only a handful of issues on which he is actually right. He just happens to be a helluva lot more right than anything the Democrats offered and most of what the Republicans offered.
RE: Getting people who aren't politicians:
First thing's first, there are all sorts of ways to go outside of the political realm while still getting people who have foreign policy and/or diplomacy experience. There are academics, though that's obviously going in the exact opposite of Trump's stated preference for practitioners who get things done. There's a shit ton of people who work with foreign relations for a living who aren't elected/appointed officials. Yes, many of them either work directly for the US or their main client is the federal government so maybe their sullied by working in bureaucracies, but any concerns over corruption and conflicting loyalties are solved by the fact that they got their job by going to school, writing a resume, and showing up for an interview just like you and me.
There are people who work in the intelligence agencies (again, you can stay away from elected/appointed officials if so inclined). I'm sure the list goes on-and-on-and-on before you get down to "CEO of an oil company."
Second thing's second, it's not sufficient to say that politicians are bad. I agree there are things that suck about politicians, and those things should be weeded out of government, but you seem to have an unfettered disdain for them.
Like even your #3 point seems to be weird back-handed shot at anyone who's achieved anything in any field other than business. Hillary Clinton and John Kerry are certainly seen as the pinnacles of success for poli-sci and law schools.
Anyway, it's helpful to cite reasons why you hate politicians, vilify them for those reasons then we can decide what needs to be done to be improved upon that. This has been the logical flaw with the whole "established politicians are corrupt and unproductive, so vote for me" mantra from the beginning.
If your issue with politicians is media manipulation, then every thing about the Breitbart/Project Veritas/Steve Bannon situation should be highly alarming. If your issue with them is corruption, earmarks, cronyism, etc, then this left-field appointment of someone whose only qualification is that he has hundreds of billions of dollars tied up in foreign fields, pipelines, etc should be concerning to you.
If your issue with politicians is that they don't get things done, then, well that's a whole other can of worms and this is where probably our philosophical differences arise.
Businessmen and corporations are efficient at meeting their ends and politicians are inefficient and ineffective at meeting their ends, but the ends they are striving for are different. Businesses are efficient at making money; governments are inefficient at enacting the will of the people. I have no doubt this guy will be good at lining his pockets. In fact, that's my fear. It's the other thing that's really hard.
At the risk of sounding like an apologist for politicians, a lot of their struggles are inherent to the office. This is obviously the common excuse made for Obama to where no matter how much he hears out the concerns of the other side and includes their revisions into policy, if 40% of one of the houses of Congress decides to obstruct everything you do, you're not going to get anything done. I wish I had any other example than that one to use because I'm sure you saw this one coming, haha, but it really is the perfect example.
Someone who isn't a politician isn't going to come in and just magically get shit done. If anything, the higher you get into a corporation, the less sharp they need to be with political savvy. Middle to high-middle management is probably where you'd find the best corollary of accountable people who have to get shit done to keep the lights running and achieve strategic objectives but have to do so with limited and/or non-direct power.
But I digress ...
I'm getting kinda tired of typing, haha. My last point had to do with government being inefficient due to bureaucracy and oversight, but I'm not so sure people complain about these as much in the diplomatic and especially the intelligence spheres (which are the most clandestine agencies with the most tenuous oversight).
1) It has long been the wet-dream of the Joe Schmoes to get a politician who cuts through the bullshit and political correctness and just says what's on their mind and has no special interests, etc. The most common trope is a comedian (eg: Colbert's bid for nomination, that Robin Williams movie "Man of the Year," Lewis Black, etc). Even within the political spheres, both sides have their favorite no-frills folk (Bernie Sanders was this year's flavor for the left). I really didn't think what we'd been asking for one of the most notoriously self-interested billionaires to be that person, but I guess it's a "hero we deserve, not the hero we asked for" sort of thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
2) The public distaste for Trump is independent of bias. There is no politician I feel more comfortable using personal attacks (he's an asshole, he's egotistical, etc) against because I'm so confident that these things transcend political affiliation. He has literally been America's quintessential asshole business egotists for 30 years, well before he was on The Apprentice, much less entered the political sphere. My dad met him in person in the 90s and wanted to spit on his face (for what very very little it's worth, my dad was a registered republican).
The idea that the liberal media invented the idea that he's an asshole is so retconned that it frustrates me more than relatively tame political narratives should. There's a generation of voters just before us who missed the boat on his days when he was building up the AC empire and he'd cameo as himself on after-school specials and whose opinion of him as a person is wholly wrapped up in his political persona, but most voting-age people knew who Trump was and already had an opinion of him as a person before he ever put an R in front of his name.
Granted, that generation probably significantly overlaps with /pol/ ...
#1 is a great point. #2, I certainly wouldn't agree with anybody who says the media convinced everybody he's an asshole when he's really not. He's definitely a jerk a noticeable proportion of the time (I think it's a perk). The misleading from the media I'm getting at is how he can only do wrong, that's he's more or less an evil person, and that he hates anybody who is non-white non-straight non-male.Quote:
Originally Posted by surviva316
I want to make sure that you saw one of my main points: CEO of ExxonMobil is arguably greater preparation for the complexities of the State Department than what Clinton or Kerry had. It isn't just that Tillerson is successful and knows oil that I think the pick may be smart. Finding somebody who knows how to successfully manage multi-tiered, multi-faceted, complex organizations is a great idea. Some of these people are already in government (they ain't senators though), but the rest are at high levels in the corporate world.Quote:
Originally Posted by surviva316
Your point that struggles are inherent to the office is very good. This is a main reason why I predict the Trump years will be good but not necessarily after that. We have to lessen the power of these inherently flawed institutions. Trump won't do that.
I want to add that all those things, I would also at times argue for why Trump may not be making the wrong decision by not doing what I think he should. Here's an example.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
I want the president to take a battle axe to the bureaucracy. I want eradication of many departments and a welfare/regulatory system that is a mouse to the behemoth it is today. But is that feasible? Probably not. Also, if the goal is to have as successful a presidency as possible by making peoples' lives during the time of that presidency as good as possible, it wouldn't be by slashing government. The benefits of my ideas don't all come at once; they pay dividends for decades and even centuries if maintained. But they hurt at first.
I see why Trump doesn't want to cut entitlements. I don't agree with it philosophically, but if I was advising him, I would possibly advise him to not focus on cutting entitlements. He can make his presidency more successful in the short run by not doing certain things even though the country will not be as well off in the long run.
I'm kinda late to the party, but I'll vent my two cents anyway, as I'm growing increasingly tilted with the post-election media narrative.
First, the outrage of "fake news" is especially infuriating. NBC doctored George Zimmerman's 911 call. "Hands up don't shoot" never even happened. Brian Williams imagined a story just to make himself look badass. Susan Rice went on television five different times to blame the tragedy in Libya on a YouTube video. And just recently, the Washington Post is claiming that the CIA has identified the perpetrators of hacking, and their motives. Yet, the CIA previously said the exact opposite to Congress, and has not updated their briefing since.
And these same media and political elites are now telling us citizens to watch out for "Fake News". Get the fuck out of town!
Speaking of hacking, as I said, the CIA is not corroborating what the Washington Post is publishing based on one anonymous source. Maybe the Russians did it. So what if they did? The US has meddled in more than a few foreign elections over the years. It really shouldn't be shocking to learn that an unfriendly nation is interested in diminishing US power. World power is a zero sum game. If Russia wants more, then the US must have less. It's our job to defend ourselves.
By all accounts we were able to keep the interlopers out of the voting machines and rendered them unable to influence vote counts or any other aspects of the mechanics of our election. By all accounts, the only affect the hackers had, was to influence public opinion with the contents of the emails.
But the Russians.....or whoever.....are not responsible for the content of the emails.
The DNC really did conspire to side-line Bernie. Clinton really did engage in 'pay-to-play' and 'quid pro quo' corruptions while at the State Department. Hillary staffers really did have unethical relationships with Journalists. All that stuff really happened.
For months before the election, we were bombarded with stories of Trumps sexual indiscretions. Every pass he ever made, every inappropriate comment he ever uttered, every romantic encounter that was intended to be kept private was aired in prime time. And now those same media outlets are pouting about how Hillary would have won if only her offenses were kept secret
So if the public voted with the benefit of more, accurate, information, that's a good thing. I certainly don't support any kind of hacking, or any foreign effort to influence our political system. But I'm also not against people having more information.
Finally, I would like to encourage everyone here to help make America great Again by doing the following:
Any time you encounter someone who suggests that Hillary winning the popular vote matters, I want you to sit them down and force that person to eat a pine cone as punishment for uttering idiotic and naive garbage.
If our two party system were satisfying to even a majority of voters, there would be absolutely no reason for campaigns or elections. Every body would just register as one party or the other, and the Census Bureau can just keep score. Easy game. In reality, there are populations at each pole of the political spectrum, but the vast majority of people are in the middle. And politicians have a year and a half to try and pull as many middle-folk onto their side as possible.
At the beginning of that process, the contenders dusted off the Constitution and brushed up on the "rules". They say electoral votes matter, popular votes don't. Not gonna debate if that's the right system or not (it is). That's just the way things are, and have been for a long time. Everybody knew the rules going in. Win the Electoral College, you get to be president. Fin.
So the candidates had months and months to strategize and campaign in a way that best allowed them to win the contest, with the rules as they are written. Trump saw vulnerability in Wisconsin. He put together an effort at the end of the campaign with Walker, and Ryan, and he pulled out a win. Trump won the state, but actually lost in Milwaukee. Hillary won that precinct, but by a margin that was 27,000 votes less than Obama won it in 2012. Overall, Hillary lost the state of Wisconsin by 27,000 votes. She actually never went to Wisconsin during the campaign. Turnout suffered, and she lost the state by a thin margin. The Russian's didn't do that. It was political malpractice!!!
By having a better strategy in Wisconsin, Trump turned the state, and others, and won the electoral college. That was the goal.
Now pay attention, cause this is where the "popular vote" fallacy comes apart....
If the Constitution were crafted differently, and the terms of winning were different, then wouldn't you assume that both candidates would approach the campaign with a different strategy? In other words, if the Constitution simply called for the winner of the popular vote to be President, then don't you think that Trump would have spent a little more time in New York, LA, San Francisco, Chicago, and Boston?
The point here is, that if the criteria for winning were different, then obviously the months-long campaign strategy of both candidates would have been drastically different as well. From there, its only logical to assume that the vote count would have also come out differently. It is absolutely preposterous to think that we would have the exact same popular vote results had the rules of the contest been different.
In order for the "Hillary won the popular vote" argument to hold water....you have to assume that every single person who voted had their mind made up 15 months ago. You also have to assume that everyone who didn't vote, also had their mind made up not to vote 15 months ago. In order to claim a "popular vote" victory for Hillary, you would have to assume that campaigning is worthless, and that the vote counts and turnout figures would be precisely the same if the campaign were conducted under a different set of rules. And that has got to be the most intellectually lazy premise ever invoked.
I am stunned at how many seemingly smart, educated people are claiming a 2.8 million vote margin of victory for Hillary.
Make them eat pine cones.
A+Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
You can't win a game you're not playing. They played the EC game, not the PV game.
On a happier note, it looks like Trump is going to name Kim Guilfoyle as his Press Secretary.
All the women on Fox News are turbo-babes, but Kimberly has been my #1 crush for a looooong time.
What no Hurricane Katrina?!?!?!!?
I don't even know Guilfoyle. Any specific BTFO from her?
I'm partial to Kayleigh McEnany
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl_6LkgeLiE
Help me out dude, what does "BTFO" mean?
blown the fuck out.
it's the way r/the_donald and /pol/ say "owned" these days.
Evidence of possible major fraud in Detroit (heavy Dem). Y'all were saying?
TIL about Assange's hard hints that Seth Rich leaked DNC emails. Who's Seth Rich? You know, the guy who died by "robbery" without the robber taking anything.
The banana republicans
I like that one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi_2GcNpMOs
He would have some credibility if he didn't make so many things up.
The good thing about Trump is that he's saying things the way they are, that he's battling with career politicians (in both parties), with the corporate media, and promises a halt to cultural marxism, the power tool used to keep the populace unaware and compliant. If you've read wikileaks you'll now how corrupt the washington insiders are, they don't care about any of the things they ralk about, it's all political powergames. Trump always said he'd only run when it was most needed, and now it was more needed than ever. Plus it's more entertaining this way!Quote:
Originally Posted by surviva316
gotta say when i saw jv posted in here, i knew it was gonna be on the right track. the jvp delivered!
I was always wondering if u'd be pro-Trump wuf, i thought u would be but also remembered you shared Vox which just unreadably liberal. Good to hear in either case.
I'm always improving.Quote:
Originally Posted by jackvance
I would love for you to elaborate on this.Quote:
Originally Posted by jackvance
This statement has nothing whatsoever to do with Trump. It's not sufficient to just say, "Politicians tend to do bad stuff," to conclude that Trump will do good stuff. I've been repeating this point over and over and over again in this thread, and while that might have seemed like a vague, theoretical, piquionne logical observation to make, it should be a harder reality now that Trump is (among other things) appointing donors to his campaign at record rates.Quote:
Originally Posted by jackvance
On the contrary, there's ample evidence he's been doing bad stuff all along and continues to do it, all the while claiming to be a champion in fighting corruption.Quote:
Originally Posted by surviva316
Just look at the mess his so-called charity is in.
Quote:
Trump's charity has admitted it violated IRS regulations barring it from using its money or assets to benefit him, his family, his companies or substantial contributors to the foundation.
The admissions by the Donald J. Trump Foundation were in a 2015 tax filing made public after a presidential election in which it was revealed that Trump has used the charity to settle lawsuits, make a $25,000 political contribution and purchase items, such as a painting of himself, that was displayed at one of his properties.
Show me.Quote:
Originally Posted by surviva316
I don't have an opinion on the charity. There's typically a remarkable amount of noise in that stuff.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
When we're talking about "fighting corruption", instead of doing what the standard politician does -- pick mostly political insiders -- he's picking mostly outsiders.
There's nothing unclear about it. A charity isn't meant to make you wealthier or pay your bills. That's pretty much the opposite of the definition of the word 'charity'.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Just because an insider is corrupt doesn't mean an outsider isn't. The trick here is that he's hiring people with no experience so it looks all drainy-swampy when in fact he's already proven that he himself is as corrupt as they come. There's no reason apart from his rhetoric (which has in the past been shown to be mostly lies) to believe he's at all concerned about how honest the people he is hiring are.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Any opinions from the Trumpites on him skipping all those intelligence briefings? Isn't that kind of an important thing to keep on top of for a future president?
And what about his fake university? Does that sound like something a man concerned with honesty and integrity would do?
This is an example of the noise I previously mentioned. The charity thing is very likely not so cut and dried as you think.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
Trump is only skipping the redundant briefings. He only wants to be briefed when something changes. This is good.
I would like to see credible stories on this. So far, all I have seen is sourced from the same old liars, so I haven't wasted my time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
Being under investigation for fraud seems pretty simple to me. Most charities aren't. Explain how that and his fake university are 'noise'.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
How do you know that he's only skipping the redundant ones? Is that what he said?Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Yep. That's the beginning and the end of it. He doesn't want to be briefed when that brief is "nothing has changed." The media turned it into something it's not, as usual.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
Well he settled a lawsuit for fraud for 25m. Most universities don't get accused of being fraudulent. Also there's a lot of statements from people if you care to look them up.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Where and when did he say that?Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
So anything negative about him is made up or distorted by the media, and not the truth. How convenient for him and his supporters.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
The reporting on it is mostly noise. I'm interested in reading non-noise reporting. When it comes to Trump, it has gone far beyond the point of normal noisy reporting, so many of us have turned off the noise-makers altogether. I've seen them lie about him way too much for me to give them any credibility on anything else.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
What have they lied about, and who is telling you they are lying?Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
In an interview. There's video. I don't have it bookmarked.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
It could all be true. But I don't waste my time on those who have demonstrated that their agenda to destroy Trump takes primacy over their agenda to tell the truth. If you have good sources on this stuff, I'm open to it. My only dog in the fight is the truth.Quote:
So anything negative about him is made up or distorted by the media, and not the truth. How convenient for him and his supporters.
You mean the media made up those things that he admitted that basically amounted to fraud?Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Where do you find out about Trump's activities now?Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
It's more like what haven't they lied about.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
I've seen tweets changed by CNN to make him say something different than he did. They were to make it look like he said something racist or sexist. That's where most of the lying is. They've taken somebody for whom there is more evidence that he is pro-woman than there was of Obama when he ran and that there was of Clinton, and they turned him into the world's biggest sexist.
As far as I know, fraud hasn't been found. The media still reports it as if it has.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
Some pro-Trump and some anti-Trump sites. But zero pro-Democrat sludge. Their credibility is six feet under.Quote:
Where do you find out about Trump's activities now?
Which sites in particular? Just curious.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
pro-Trump: r/the_donald, and breitbart. Anti-Trump: theresurgent, redstate, therightscoop, dailywire, nationalreview, conservativereview. Some of the latter are only mostly anti-Trump these days and I don't always check them. I'm also not a big breitbart fan. r/the_donald is where it's at. It's rigorously only pro-Trump, so you can only get the pro-Trump view on it. It's a healthy view to know about.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
One thing about r/the_donald: it is one of the only major current event aggregators that didn't censor some very big events. The terrorist attack in the gay nightclub in Florida, for example. The day that happened, there was mass blackout. It was being actively censored by some and not reported by others. r/the_donald was the only site I knew about that was actually providing updated information. The networks weren't and the more popular sites weren't.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uvGcABln40
He's put together an amazing
Full thing, plus a lot of mnuchin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRICqp5V-ts
Quote:
Originally Posted by CoccoBill
^Really guys? Really??Quote:
Originally Posted by surviva316
You really think that Trump just decided to become president (like its easy to do), so that he could "pet his ego", and further his own business interests? He is 70+ years old and can look back on his life and say....
"By any measure, I am the most successful businessman mankind has ever produced"
But you think the he just woke up one day and said...
"I've got more money than I, or my family, could every spend in ten lifetimes. But ya know...if I was president, I could make a little bit more. Yeah...I'll be exploiting an entire government, yeah....my family and I will face unrelenting public scrutiny for years, yeah...I'll be considered a vile selfish traitor for generations to come, yeah...I'll be destroying public confidence in a government and election system that has led the free world for centuries.......but none of that matters. I absolutely must die with more money than Mark Cuban!"
@surviva....you think that's the only logical conclusion....based on Occam's razor??
This kind of illogical, inflammatory, and accusatory rhetoric is toxic to public discourse. Your entire argument hinges upon your KNOWING, for sure, the exact sentiments in Donald Trump's brain. And your best evidence...is Occam's razor.
Aren't you embarrassed, to be presenting these ideas as part of substantive, intelligent debate??
The tragic irony in all of this....it's people like you and bill who actually got Trump elected.
Intelligent people got totally sick of this kind of garbage polluting public discussions. Whoever is not totally on your side is gets lambasted as a racist, misogynist, nationalist pig. Whoever votes for Trump must be an idiot, because only an idiot would be duped by someone who is so obviously only out for himself. Occam says so.
Here's a life tip. Don't use Occam's razor as evidence in a debate. You look retarded.
You can make up any narrative you want, and then put Occam's stamp on it because it's plausible. In fact, it doesn't even have to be plausible, it just has to be simple enough for anyone to follow.
Aliens made trump president because silk ties are a priceless commodity on their home planet
Since you can't disprove that....it's obviously true, right?
Hate to rebut so many words with just one word, but: Yes. I don't know what sounds so far-fetched about someone going through a lot of trouble to consolidate and expand their money and power. As dry and caustic as your tone is in regards to this, it is raison d'etre of a significant number of people, both through history and contemporarily. I doubt Trump himself would dispute that a lot of his life has been dedicated toward acquiring more money and expanding his brand.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
I don't think he cares much about exploiting the government to make more money. This is the guy who proudly said not paying taxes makes him smart (not that I disagree with him not paying taxes if he were carrying over a loss, but it's relevant to this point regardless), who has exploited many other small businesses' services, involved in pump and dump schemes, etc.
Invoking these things might make me sound like some libtard buying into HuffPo clickbait headlines or something, but there was a time like 18 months ago when you could say that Trump is a money and ego-motivated solipsistic billionaire and no one would think twice about it, much less accuse you of being politically biased and divisive.
My post had nothing at all to do with knowing anything for sure. I said it's getting easier and easier to support one particular narrative and harder and harder to support other ones.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
It's entirely possible some other possibility is true; I hope to god that they are. I'm just increasingly losing hope in other common explanations.
I wasn't using Occam's Razor as evidence. You're getting all upset about people talking down to and talking past other people, yet you're using the least generous interpretation of my point possible.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
I don't at all think "the only logical conclusion" is that Trump's motivations are like Brain's from Pinky and the Brain. I'm saying as much as that--on its surface--sounds like a melodramatic and far-fetched theory, it's increasingly becoming the least far-fetched theory.
[Emphasis added]Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
The sections you quoted both exclusively had to do with Trump. They had nothing at all to do with Republicans, Trump supporters, or whoever else you think is being oppressed here other than Trump himself. Neither section had even the faintest implications whatsoever of accusing anyone of being racist, misogynist, or nationalist pigs.
You could say that there is a potential implication of his supporters being idiots, but I think you have to have a pretty severe victim complex if you can't read a criticism of a political figure without immediately taking it as an implicit attack on all of his supporters.
Again, I didn't use Occam's Razor as evidence in a debate. But thanks for taking a post that had to do with Trump and Trump alone, misinterpreting the argument, twisting it into an attack on all Trump voters, then using that to generalize and denegrate all Trump detractors, then capping it off by calling me a retard. It really leads-by-example what political discussion should really look like.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
"Simple" doesn't mean that it has the lowest word count possible. Obviously "Trump is ghey, tehe" isn't some bullet proof statement just because it's only four words.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
In your example, in order to support that narrative, you'd have to demonstrate that aliens exist, have made contact with humans, have tapped specifically into Trump, that they wear ties on their planet, that their planet has a materials-based market where silk specifically is a high enough valued commodity that they are worthy of using whatever fuel it takes to ... yadda yadda yadda. It's not at all simple.
Even your absurdist interpretation of what narratives Occam's Razor prefers doesn't lend to a burden-of-proof problem. You're just thrashing at the wind at this point.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
(NOTE: I'm sorry if ending on this statement that you're misapplying logical terms will be taken as me attacking you personally and calling you an idiot, misogynist, and if by extension that means I'm insulting anyone who supports the political figure who happens to be the subject of this discussion, and this will force millions' of voters' hands to vote for a certain political figure, not necessarily because they think he's great but because they're sick of people correcting their misapplication of logical terms ... etc. I'm just trying to correct some usage to keep discussion from getting off base. You are welcome to do the same to me.)
Exposing fraud is wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by CoccoBill
So what was his motivation in business, must also be his motivation in politics? Want fewer words to rebut? Here's just one: Glib. And it's glib to an extreme. It's akin to saying if I try to take your money at the poker table, we can't also be friends. It's possible for someone to be motivated by more than just one thing. And it's possible to call on those different motivations, at different times in your life, to achieve different goals.Quote:
Originally Posted by surviva316
Think about what would happen to you if you tried this same line of thinking in poker. "hey that guy just bet, and it was a bluff. So now every time he bets, I'm gonna call, cause its probably a bluff. Occam says so"
Think about what you're saying here. You are saying that the man is motivated by greed, and doesn't care that he would be undermining democracy and tearing the fabric of society, just to make a few more bucks. That is a serious and vile accusation to be making. You are indicting the man's motivations as purely selfish, and largely evil since you so clearly believe that he has an inhuman and callous disregard for every other citizen in the country.Quote:
Originally Posted by surviva316
And just because you can't categorically disprove that.....you won't even entertain the notion that perhaps he's simply a driven patriot?
LOL, this is the thinking that needs to go. No one is accusing you of being politically biased or divisive. there's plenty of that on both sides. The tax thing is a great example. The guy took deductions that were on the books, lawfully. Zeroing in on the phrasing of "didn't pay taxes", is biased, and divisive.Quote:
Originally Posted by surviva316
But what you're saying (that he's motivated solely by greed), goes beyond biased and divisive. It's incendiary, accusatory, and inflammatory.
And the way you are presenting and supporting your argument....
.... is infantile, glib, and frankly an extremely lazy line of thinking.Quote:
Originally Posted by surviva316
Again...lazy thinking. If it's "entirely possible" that something else is true, then why are you so insistent that yours (and apparently Occam's) conclusion is true? Why is yours "least far fetched theory?"Quote:
Originally Posted by surviva316
You'd be a fool to suggest that blatant personal ambition was not a driving force for the ascension of all 44 of our previous presidents. Why does the narrative change to 'maniacal material greed' now that it's Trump? Occam's razor would say that whoever is giving the narrative must have some extreme bias.
It's possible I was making two points in one post. I agree, your words had to do exclusively with Trump. But even you sniffed out your own implication.Quote:
Originally Posted by surviva316
My separate point was that discourse in a tone similar to the one you and Bill have given in this thread, was a major driving factor in the election of Trump. You can hide behind the literal textual interpretation of your point if you want. I won't dispute it. But you are clearly exhibiting a common and repetitive pattern that has been present throughout the last year and a half of political discussion. And that is to jump to outrageous conclusions based on nothing but unproveable plausibility. Trump didn't disavow david duke fast enough, he must love the KKK. Trump said something nice about Putin, he must be working with Russia. Trump said something mean about those gold star parents...he must hate muslims.
I'm just letting you know, that kind of shit is tiring. I'm not saying you said that stuff. I am saying that your line of "trump just wants to be prez so he can sell more condos" is incredibly similar to all that other garbage. And I'm just letting you know, so that you can start being part of the solution, and not part of the problem.
The coming reestablishment of a healthy relationship between Russia and the West is exciting. The Russian Communist era was dreadful, but it was a blip. Russian civic standards have long pulled from classicism, just like the West. Natural allies. Similar values.
I agree that the hand-wringing over Russia is far far far far overblown across the media. But let's not pretend like they're nice guys who got a bad rap.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
They've done enough bad stuff just in the last half decade (Ukraine, Syria) to still be considered a problem. Calling any relationship we have with them "healthy" is delusional in my opinion.
Russia has a lot of problems in its government. Deeming terrible the actions in Ukraine and Syria by the western media is more about a narrative than sensible analyses. Those actions were about defending its warm water seaports in a way that comes as no surprise. Some is also about defending Christians against Islamism.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
I'm not a fan of defending Russia, but the western media gets it wrong. Russia's actions make a great deal of sense given its geopolitical concerns, and it's far less aggressive in hegemony than the West is.
If Trump's motivations were narcissistic, we would likely see things like expansion of the inaugural balls instead of the contraction apparently underway.
Unless his narcissism is about getting fast to work and fixing problems.
I think any perceived 'warming' of our relationship with Russia is merely a side effect of "keeping your enemies closer", and not evidence of a 'healthy relationship'.
they have a very very different vision for the world than the US does. While some of our economic and geopolitical interests may overlap at times, we are definitely not on the same page.
We'll see. US foreign policy since WW2 has revolved around the goal of defeating Russia. Even after Russia retracted its aggression, US doctrine has still been to defeat the country. NATO and ISIS are tools the US government uses for this purpose.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
I'm not sure what changes should be made. There is still a legitimate argument to defeating Russia since it's in second place when it comes to the superpower competition. I think there is an even better argument to be made for returning to the allying ways of the past, because there are significant enough motives for both US and Russia to do so. Russia wants its holdings to come under less threat from NATO, to defeat Islamic terrorism, and to sell its resources with the West. Deals can be made for it to get these things, deals that benefit the West too.
If we're serious about taking on China (Trump is) and if we're serious about defeating ISIS (Trump is), Russia is an essential ally.
Why do you use words like "defeat"? Are we gonna take Russia over? Are we gonna oust Putin go nation building on the worlds largest land mass? I'm not sure which US doctrine you're reading, or where you saw the words "must defeat Russia"
Sorry wuf, I think you and I land on the same side of most of these arguments but you sound like you've been listening to too much MSNBC on this one.
Russia exists. And that is how it's going to be unless we decide to start lobbing bombs over there and hopefully kill all of their guys before they kill all of our guys. Unless that happens, Russia exists, and that's a reality we have to deal with.
Geopolitical power is a zero sum game. If Russia is to be weakened, then the US must become stronger. When Russia blasts its way into Ukraine, the US should be able to institute economic sanctions that destroy the Ruble. We didn't do that because our own economy wasn't strong enough to work through the lost business with Russia. We looked weak. That's what people mean when they call Obama's foreign policy "feckless"
So the best thing we can do to "combat" Russia (if we really wanna use that word) is to start spewing GDP. The stronger and healthier our economy is, the more power we have globally. If we can't afford to stand up to Russia and China with sanctions, we lose. If our jobs and industries go overseas, then other countries have more money, and we have less. Money is what gives us leverage with the UN. We currently provide more than 20% of their budget. It will be really tough to get what we want if they can get the money somewhere else. And it will be really easy to get the money somewhere else, when we gave all of ours away.
It's all tied back to the economy. Or more simply: money. Money talks, and bullshit walks. 8 years of obama has left us with stagnant job growth, abysmal workforce participation, stale wages, and disgusting GDP.
I think folks need to wake up and realize that the only reason that Russia appears more aggressive as of late, is because the US has allowed itself to become so much weaker.
"Defeat" means the same as what the US did to Germany and Japan. They have no more military might and they depend on the US. Their geopolitical goals align with the US's.
Let me be more specific than just saying "defeat". US foreign policy doctrine is to eliminate Russia's sphere of influence with regards to how it counters the US's sphere of influence. The foreign policy is to eliminate Russia's influence over Syria and Iran and the old Soviet states in Europe. The US has been winning the battle pretty remarkably. In the game of geopolitics, US and Russia are the top players and they play against each other. The US naturally wants to subdue Russia because of this.
Possibly the main reason why things have gotten too far out of hand is that in order to exert power over Russia, the US has propped up radical Islam, which has resulted in an unintended consequence of Islamic hegemony in European states.
How much tinfoil are you wearing right now?Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Nah, just a healthy dose of /r/thedonald :p
I'd respond to this, but I'm late for the mosque.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Perhaps it might be worth you considering that those kinds of thoughts are shared by a lot of people, I dare say the majority. It's not just a few people saying those things and poisoning the debate. Maybe if you took an objective look at Trump and what he does instead of just what he says you'd understand why he's so unpopular.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Also, just because you don't agree with someone else's point of view doesn't give you the right to go apeshit on them.
Has anyone seen my tin hat? I left it lying around here somewhere.
Oh c'mon bananastand, you can't deny Trump is full of conflicts of interest in this position he got himself in. He really just wanted to become president to sell more condos as you so eloquently put it. And people actually voted for him.
Tell me, how much experience in any, *any* governing position does Trump have? (Or his appointed secretary of state for that matter) Now tell me, how much experience in selling condos does Trump have? (Or selling oil, in the case of his secretary of state or any of the rest of the donors he has appointed in big positions in his cabinet)
Why would you let your children in on meetings with other heads of state, particularly those whose countries you have a bonafide business stake in? How do you not see this?
I wrote an entire answer to your post up there in which you indirectly call poor ol' surviva a retard, but it can't be posted since it has 9 videos proving my points and whatnot.
I'll just leave you with some food for thought:
The secret service had to get two fucking floors (costing a shit ton of money per day, read: taxpayer money) in Trump's Tower (read: Trump's wallet) because Trump did not want to move to DC yet. They pay Trump to protect Trump. It's actually genius, if not completely shameful.
Even my mom fell for that one. People say Trump takes no pay for being president of the US. He is the anointed one, willing to work for free for such a big job. Also, he's a philanthropist.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/cring...payer-expense/
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/1...enities-232216
Never forgetting the conflicts of interest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI-25BU2RRQ
I had a lot more, I will see how to bypass this video restriction thing on here, just to prove a few points.
But my friend, please, don't call people retarded.
Pretty sure your tin hat is a fez now, Ong. Haven't your heard?
I don't get it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CoccoBill
What have the facts got to do with it? This is politics, man.
The question is not whether or not the US is doing what I laid out, but why and how far they intend to go. It has been standard knowledge by geopolitics experts for a long time now.
Tell me what you honestly think about this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
He didn't word it the way it should be worded.Quote:
Originally Posted by CoccoBill
It is VERY likely that the economy would be better off had Obama done nothing out of the ordinary. Even with a significant net negative impact on GDP and employment by him, the economy would grow, which it has.
This recovery has been uniquely bad and the economy is in a markedly weaker position in a comparable business cycle because of it.
Right at this moment, the economy is pretty good. Expectations are growing enough that the Fed is raising interest rates. Curiously (or not so curiously), the Fed decided to raise the rate after the Trump election showed marked improvement in the economic outlook. However, in the broad picture, the economy is weak.
Links or didn't happen.
For what? The history of NATO?
What are the economic markers in a comparable cycle and how are they different now? How does the recovery typically happen in similar recessions? When did this current cycle start?
IOW, you typed words, please provide data to support your words.
Oh, that.
The atypical weakness of this recovery is something economists have been discussing since 2009/2010. One of the key elements is how interest rates typically respond during a recovery of past recessions. Another is the absolute level of interest rates. The Fed funds rate tells the story.
http://i.imgur.com/HBpWGTV.png
Regarding the absolute level of rates: them being so low, low enough that economists call it the "zero lower bound", has never happened before (in the US). That is where short term interest rates are effectively zero. The consequence is a liquidity trap, where conventional monetary policy of capital injections don't decrease interest rates. There are ways around this problem, but they require some unconventional tools, some of which central bankers have used in the last few years, but there is a great reluctance to use them.
Cutting short term rates is the primary tool used by central banks to respond to sluggish growth. An obvious consequence of being at zero is that if recession were to hit again -- which it always eventually does -- central banks would not have their most relied upon tool. Side note: my economics capstone will very likely cover in part the idea that the Federal Reserve caused the financial crisis of 2008 due to not reducing the federal funds rate swiftly enough and with enough magnitude at key points during the 2007-08 recession. Due to the details of how the Fed acted, it lost credibility to sustain its target, which plummeted short term nominal expectations, which turned banks balance sheets from managed into nightmares, resulting in system-wide panic. Fun stuff.
The unconventional policies are powerful, but the economy has little experience with them and economists don't have a fantastic idea of how effective they would be if another recession were to hit now. Given the politics of it, even if it is totally the case that unconventional policies create stimulus by decreasing long term rates or increasing inflation expectations for as long as implemented, central banks can't reasonably be expected to engage the policies. The takeaway point here is that the less ability to decrease short term rates a central bank has, the less likely they are to adequately respond to the kind of recession we just had. We are at .75 a full 8 years after we hit 0 to .25. Employment has increased to approximately full and short term inflation expectations are not that markedly below 2%. The fact that employment and inflation expectations are in a good place yet interest rates are in a bad place shows us that something is weirdly wrong with the economy.
Regarding how interest rates respond to recessions, the graph shows how typical it has been for interest rates to shoot up shortly after a recession ends. In recent decades, this effect diminished yet still existed, and now it's all but vanished. Regardless of what is causing this lack of upward pressure on interest rates during recoveries, it's a sign of systemic weakness of the economy, and it's at its worst ever approximately now.
There are other indicators we could look at, like GDP, and I'll only do so if you want. The short of it is that GDP has been markedly low during the recovery. This means that despite the positive signs, there is still something that makes this economy atypical and weaker. There are a bunch of other indicators that I don't know enough about to discuss, things like unusually poor labor participation rates or unusually high part time employment.
[Emphasis added]Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
No, but it means that it might be. And as other explanations get harder to justify, it becomes the more likely explanation.
I'm not offended when people say that just because I'm a poker player means that me bullshitting is always at least one potential, simple explanation for the things I say--one that could potentially be the most likely explanation for me saying something as other explanations start to fail. W/r/t bluffing, this is actually quite a bit how putting someone on a range operates. If you've seen that I'm capable of bluffing before, and I'm not repping any obvious value hands with a certain line, then there's a good chance I'm bluffing.
We could maybe expand on this analogy and say that you're the guy in a HH who's like, "Oh, just because he's bluffed a few times means he HAS to be bluffing now," and I'm like, "No, I'm saying the fact that he bluffed before means he might be bluffing now, and as per my other posts, I can't think of what value hand he's repping."
Show where I invoked burden-of-proof or stop accusing me of this line of thinking. I can't imagine what you're referencing where I said that you have to disprove a positive assertion in order for it to not be true, and it's really hard for me to respond to it when it's so far outside of my point.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Also, here you say "I won't even entertain the notion that perhaps he's a driven patriot," and further down you base a criticism of me around the fact that I say it's entirely possible that this is his motivation. You're being intellectually dishonest ... and I don't mean that as an off-the-cuff hot-take; I mean that simultaneously using both interpretations of my post at moments where it most benefits you (or even better, is a detriment of me) is bald-faced intellectual dishonesty.
This is the weird thing about Trump's career: he was very recently assumed to just be a solipsistic, power hungry, ego-driven billionaire. Very few people disputed this. This is an AC casino and real estate magnate we're talking about here FFS! Then he entered the political realm, and suddenly throwing personal attacks at him is considered incendiary, accusatory, and inflammatory. Talk about being politically correct and being forbidden from calling a spade a spade.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Let me put it on the public record right now to say that I think Sheldon Adelson is more than capable of exploiting politics to get what he wants. While I'm at it, I'll add the Koch brothers on there. This way if Adelson pursues a career in politics, then no one can accuse me of being toxic for political discussion, and I'm just calling it like I've always seen it.
You missed the point of the tax thing, and it's not worth hashing out and sidetracking the entire conversation. I myself said I agree with carrying forward losses. As a poker player this is probably the one thing I've been most passionately defending. What I was referencing was more nuanced than that, but it doesn't matter; don't want to sidetrack.
For someone who's so concerned about the "tone" (rather than content) of posts, you're very fond of pejorative adjectives.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
And now's maybe a good time to point out that your quote was taken from a purposely concise, quick-shot post as part of a series of posts worth thousands of words. If you're looking for something deep, nuanced, and thoroughly qualified and contextualized, then that isn't the place to get it.
You're responding to a post that's weeks old and is a short one-off that's somewhat oblique to a multitude of thousand-word-long posts on the general subject of Trump's appointments. In that post, I said I was "proposing" an "explanation." The person I was directly addressing replied with a: Yeah, maybe, but I don't think so, we'll see. My non-response to that was supposed to be a sort of: Okay, fair enough, agree to disagree. Especially given the stakes of the conversation at hand, I think that's pretty tame.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Even in this most recent post where I dedicated a lot of words to it, I said over-and-over again that I don't have "evidence" and I don't "know" anything and just think it's a scary-strong possibility (again, given the stakes of the discussion).
You are the only one to hitherto treat my theory as insistent or absolute.
Many people accused Clinton of various less-than-savory motivations, and I've been fine with many of them.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
But there's also an extreme false equivalency here. Not all motivations of "personal ambition" are equally problematic for the office. No modern president has ever had an even remotely comparable level of conflicting interests. And this isn't just my biased perspective. Newt himself has used this unprecedented level of entanglements as a reason for using a more open interpretation of Emoluments Clause. At the risk of broaching conspiracy theories, the very direct influence of foreign powers on the election process (please don't strawman this part of my post) doesn't happen with all presidents.
We've always had to be vigilant against people scratching lobbyists' bellies, adding earmarks for their donors, etcetcetc. We've always had to worry about presidents pushing too hard for their pet-legislation to make their mark on the history books. These are not equivalent concerns as what I proposed.
To clarify my point there, I'm saying you can't possibly criticize a political figure without having at least the potential implication that their supporters are {some bad word} for supporting them. You could say every study that says that Bernie Sanders' economic policies don't add up is an implicit accusation that all of his supporters are star-gazing ideologues who need to move out of their parents' basements and get a job to pay some taxes so they know what it's like in the real world.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
The most generous interpretation of those studies, though, is that they are just studies investigating the viability of economic policy.
As someone who tries my best in internet discussions to maintain a stasis, and keeping things on topic and direct to the points that are made regardless of what barbs may be made along the way, I'll take this as a compliment.Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Okay, here's the sitch: I'm worried that there is a quite good chance that Trump is a purely self-interested person whose main concern in office is to abuse his powers to consolidate as much power, money and influence around his family. In the interest of being constructive and allowing me to be part of the solution and not the problem: How do you suggest I express this in a way that doesn't--in your opinion--belittle his supporters?Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaStand
Maybe you think I'm an asshole for so much as considering this in the first place, but if that's the case, I'd like for you to stop focusing on the tone of my posts and start comforting me by defeating some of the content of my posts.
And while we're on the subject of "being part of the solution," while you're busy squinting between the lines of my post, you have quite directly called me a retard who is making incendiary, accusatory and inflammatory points based on infantile, glib and extremely lazy lines of thinking. Not that I care in the slightest (I don't mind a little name calling and finger pointing so long as it's not ad hominem) but it does make me question how much you care about what you preach, or whether you're just grasping at reasons for why I can't say mean things about Trump on the internet.
Kids always be taking their baggage to the internet. Sad.
So the key indicator to show how the economy is doing is the federal funds rate set by the FOMC? You must be trolling, right? The interest rates, as you yourself state in the following paragraph, are artificially kept low to stimulate growth, they are not a direct metric of anything, outside of what the committee thinks is best in their meetings.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Fed's corrective actions or lack thereof have nothing to do with the root cause, which was packaging shitty mortgages and selling them as grade-A financial instruments, all made possible by lack of regulation and oversight.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
I interpret "weirdly wrong" as "absolutely no idea". Interest rates are where they are because the FOMC and the banks set them where they are. But enough about interest rates, unless you can demonstrate they show more than a reflection of the human interpretation of the desired actions to steer the economy.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Now this sentiment about the health of the economy I can relate to, but where is the causality with Obama's policies? I don't think he's been president for the recent decades.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Could you show me the exact spots that show the GDP being markedly low after 2008?Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
http://cdn.tradingeconomics.com/char...31&d2=20161231
http://cdn.tradingeconomics.com/char...31&d2=20161231
From what I understand, lowering labor participation rate is expected because of the aging population, a growing percentage of people on pension. Regarding high part-time employment, yeah thanks Obama.
http://cdn.tradingeconomics.com/char...01&d2=20161231
Look at this graph...
http://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerfo...7&d=1483189180
Ya, I think saying Obama had much of an effect on the economy one way or the other isn't really supported by the data. What happens with Trump will be interesting; I'm sure big business will profit from it but how much of that profit will find it's way down to the working man is another question.
Interest rates are a mix of artificial and natural, so to speak. The Fed can change them however they want by altering the money supply, but rates also change on their own from changes in aggregate demand. The unusually depressed rates in magnitude and length coupled with moderate inflation expectations tell us that aggregate demand is not increasing like it normally does during recoveries.Quote:
Originally Posted by CoccoBill
That caused the Dec-2007 to early 2008 recession. The post-June 2008 recession and financial crisis was a new event where some very unique things happened that point towards the Fed losing credibility. Lending practices and monetary policy are both causes of the financial crisis. Central bank actions can be pointed to more exactly, however.Quote:
Fed's corrective actions or lack thereof have nothing to do with the root cause, which was packaging shitty mortgages and selling them as grade-A financial instruments, all made possible by lack of regulation and oversight.
Every economist I know about agrees with what I laid out here. Rates don't exist in a vacuum. The Fed chooses to not contract money supply because aggregate demand growth is bad. Where economists disagree is on what is causing this.Quote:
I interpret "weirdly wrong" as "absolutely no idea". Interest rates are where they are because the FOMC and the banks set them where they are. But enough about interest rates, unless you can demonstrate they show more than a reflection of the human interpretation of the desired actions to steer the economy.
The growth rate is about half what it normally is outside of recessions.Quote:
Could you show me the exact spots that show the GDP being markedly low after 2008?
Obama could change the growth rate today through his actions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
He's also probably the only person in the country who could credibly do so (outside of Trump). Even though he's only got 20 days left, he could still affect expectations. An incoming president or one who has several years ahead of him can change expectations like nobody's business.
Add Yellen and other central bankers to the list of individuals who can change growth expectations immediately based on statements and actions. There's not much outside of that. Maybe if Harry Reid had a coming to Jesus moment and introduced pro-growth bills, but even then the markets would not be likely to believe him at first.
I had the sudden realization that these discussions might be fruitless as long as we have such a divergence in premises and knowledge regarding key elements, like economics.
An example is that the stock market rise is a very good example of Trump being good for the average person in the economy. I forget that there is a very common populist view that stock behavior represents only the rich. So, when I use the stock market rally as a point in Trump's corner, it is viewed by others as a point against Trump.
Enlighten me with your economic vision and wizardry wufwugy; how does this particular thing benefit the average person in the economy? I was under the impression that anything the stock does benefits (or hampers) the people who hold stocks and those who broker themQuote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Businesses whose stock value goes up can use the money to invest in expansion. That creates jobs. Of course that only helps the average person if those jobs go to average people. A large part of the recent rise in stocks has been in financial institutions like Goldman Sachs (surprise!), who don't hire many 'average' people.
Changes in asset prices affect those who hold them directly and everybody else indirectly. Changes in prices in stock markets like the dow show the expected changes in the price level of assets in a given industry and/or company. A change in the price level of an industry or company affects every employee of that industry or company. While individuals who hold stock in specific companies that have a price rally benefit the most, all others affected by that industry also benefit. An example is in how one of the big rallies from Trump's election was in pharma. This positively affects everybody who works in pharma. It even affects positively those who consume pharma, just in a more diminished (proportional) sense. If we're really getting into macroeconomics, then we can point out how this rally actually positively affects every other person in every field, but because of proportions and lags, it's not easy or useful to quantify.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack Sawyer
A common concern is that in rallies, asset holders gain more than non-holders (the Wall Street vs Main Street meme). The common concern is that this is a problem. But the truth is that this is normal, productive economic function. Think of it like if you live in a neighborhood and own a home. If the value of your home increases, it benefits you the most, but it also benefits everybody else in the neighborhood through various means like putting upward pressure on the prices of their own homes as well as increasing the wealth in the community and thus increasing aggregate demand which increases the consumption of the goods and services produced by others in the community. Can you think of a different way in which benefits from the increase in the price of your home should be distributed?
This is not to say that there isn't inherent weakness to how this works. It's not perfect, but the idea that Wall Street benefits while Main Street does not isn't that reflective of reality. The meme is probably popular because it is easy to see how an individual (like you owning a house) benefits from the asset price increasing, but not so obvious the effects of that asset price increase dispersed in the macroeconomic sense.
If you have any questions, please ask.
It's way more than that. What types of assets does GS hold? People with relation to those assets benefit from the rally. In fact, rallies that positively affect banks like GS don't even have to be about the banks themselves but about the assets, of which banks tend to hold a good deal. For example, if there is a increase in the expected price level of housing values, banks that hold mortgages are likely to rally too even though the lion's share of the benefit is to the home owners themselves.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
Given how diversified banks are, it is very unlikely that a rally (or a fall) in stocks won't include them.
Before we get too carried away with analysing the stock market, we should keep in mind that Trump's only been P.E. for a couple of months. There's still 48 months of his actual presidency to go and so any short-term change in the market is not a guarantee of what will happen in the future.
True. Definitely true.
However, stock prices react very swiftly to credible information that signals permanent changes in expectations. So, even if Trump doomed the stock market at a later date, the rallies impacted by him so far would still be due to expected permanent increases in asset values. If investors also thought that Trump would doom the economy in, say, six years, his election would have yielded marked decline in asset values.
Stock markets are very good at assessing the information they have. They so good in fact they could be described as doing so not too far from perfectly. HOWEVER, they do not get perfect information, so that doesn't mean that a rally means necessarily that the rally is reflective of "reality" (whatever that even means in this context; it's heavily debated), but that it's the best reflection of reality available at the time. Also stock behavior doesn't predict stock behavior. That's the random walk. Also new things can happen at any moment, like the Fed could decide to raise interest rates to 10% and then the economy would crash.
How did the woman on meth gain weight? I call fake.