Sound The TRUMPets! A Thread for Presidential Pondering 2016-2020(?)

[drogulus]

     The Fed May Be About to Make a Mistake

     The mistake in full is the view of inflation which treats it as on the verge of acceleration when all it's doing is going up. A cautious person would see inflation spikes and deflation troughs and conclude that they are different, that something like a drunkards walk is operating. On the deflation side the drunk goes over the curb into the gutter and may stay there for years. It would take an active measure (from Officer Keynes ) to get him going. On the other side is the inflation wall. The drunk hits it and bounces off because active measures aren't needed for price frictions to reverse the course. It is observed to happen.  Aristotle would understand. He thought objects would come to rest if they were not pushed.

[zamyrabyrd]

71dB, Without copying over your long post, which anyone can read by just scrolling up, I just have a few questions for you. If America is SO bad, why are so many trying to get in? Just taking the southern border as an example, why do Mexicans, Central Americans, Hondurans and Venezuelans are risking their lives to cross dangerous deserts, brave criminal gangs, slip through barbed wire fences, hide in trucks, etc. WHY???

If America is so dysfunctional, why even after some serious drains on the economy like an unneeded war in 2002, the housing crisis, and several natural disasters, WHY is it still the top economic power in the world? You keep going on about medical insurance but I do remember when it was MUCH cheaper and more accessble under private plans, when the possibility of choice in the free market kept the premiums low. The US is too large and sprawling to have an efficient universal health care. It might work in smaller countries, however but even that is debatable, depending how long you have to wait for operations and the like.

You wrote: "The US is intellectually bankcrupt." No, I don't think so and neither do many others.

"An empire facing total collapse if radical actions aren't taken fast. Democracy must be restored removing money in the politics. Military budget should be halfed and the saved money directed to social programs and education."

Going backwards, the MAIN problem in education is the overreach of the Federal and State governments, stfiling bureaucracy (Michelle Obama's lunch programs ended up 50% or more in the trash) and exorbitant salaries and frivolous reserach projects (that have been cut down very much recently).

You think the military should use 30+ year old planes. The number of helicopter crashes in Okinawa is embarrassing but political correctness by the Obama administration hamstrung the forces to concentrate on what they should be doing, not sensitivity training and related trash. The equipment of the army and navy has to be updated but Trump did cap some of the outrageous prices that Boeing was charging in the past.

What YOU don't understand is America's strength being precisely the individual initiative rooted in the free market, not only of goods but of ideas.  You would turn the US into a banana republic by all the centralized power you seem to think that America should have. That is NOT the reason for those coming over seeking green cards, especially from countries where they had enough of centralization and everything is in chaos as in Venezuela.

[SimonNZ]

You think the military should use 30+ year old planes. The number of helicopter crashes in Okinawa is embarrassing but political correctness by the Obama administration hamstrung the forces to concentrate on what they should be doing, not sensitivity training and related trash. The equipment of the army and navy has to be updated but Trump did cap some of the outrageous prices that Boeing was charging in the past.

Actually its pretty clear from his public utterances that he knows nothing of any aspect of aviation - especially costs and requirements. And the military have no idea where his savings figures come from.

[lisa needs braces]

Before the 2016 election I was pretty ignorant about the US politics. I thought the Republicans are bad and the Democrats are good. I thought Obama was a good president and Hillary was a good candidate. I believed Hillary will win the election easily. Of course I was totally wrong, totally ignorant without any understanding of politics in the US. I looked at it the same way I look politics in my own country Finland.

Then Trump won to the shock of pretty much every European. How was that even possible? I got interested to dig deeper into the secrets of american politics. Why do people call Hillary a criminal and a bad candidate? I started to learn that the US politics is INSANELY corrupted, something I never expected from a first world "democracy", especially a country called the leader of the free World, the country of freedom and democracy!

I learned not only are Republicans bad, but so are most Democrats! Only a handful of left wing politicians are good. Media is all bought to do corporate propaganda from Republican, Democratic or bipartisan perspective. It's not that Americans don't want medicare for all. It's that the goverment doesn't want to give them that, because they serve only the top 1 % and that's where the money comes and corrupts the system with horrendous results.

On top of this corruption Trump is the president. It didn't take me for long to understand why he won. Despite of being completely incompetent and also a criminal, impeachment doesn't look reality. The situation is absurb. You see something like this in banana republics, but we are talking about the supreme superpower in the World.

For the first year or so Trump's presidency has been interesting to follow for all the covfefe tweets, but lately I have become more and more fed up with all this lunacy. Lack of medicare for all is bad for Americans themselves only, but Trump's presidency causes so much damage to the whole World (climate change, trade war, boom bust cycle, escalation of wars, support of dictatorships etc.)

The US is intellectually bankcrupt. An empire facing total collapse if radical actions aren't taken fast. Democracy must be restored removing money in the politics. Military budget should be halfed and the saved money directed to social programs and education. Media should stop advanging corporate propaganda. The richest country in the World should stop acting like a poor Banana republic with third world problems like lead in the tap water, tape worms, lack of healthcare and overall poverty.

I'm so fed up by now. So fed up with all the bigoted fake news snowflake safe space crap that has NOTHING to do with a developped civilized society. A monkey cage in a zoo contains more intellect than Trump's "made great again" America. Even Kyle Kulinski's excellent Youtube commentaries make me shudder by now. I feel like starting to ignore American politics again and coming "back" when Trump is out, how many years that will take I don't know... ...maybe there's a blue progressive wave?

Obama didn't give Americans medicare for all. Instead he gave them a right wing think tank bs system that ranks the worst among the developped countries. He also increased 2 wars into 7 wars. Obama's presidency was a mixed bag at best. However, Trump has taken the presidency to record breaking lows. An amazing achievement by itself.

Indeed. Our health system essentially remained the same (tied to our jobs) and still horrible, i.e, large deductibles (for example, pay $1000 before any benefits kick in for the year) are still common which quite obviously discourages using insurance for who don't earn much. At the end of the day moving the U.S healthcare system in a socialized direction will undoubtedly have to mean that doctors will earn less (like they do in Canada) and yet the whole medicine community is another constituency that is very protective of their high pay and likes things just as they are.

[drogulus]

     Why Middle-class Families Can No Longer Afford America

     It has nothing to do with the degree of market freedom, it does have to do with whether all resources are deployed. Both the Robin Hoods and Reverse Robin Hoods are wrong. They both think the other team's is getting too much of a scarce dollar quantity, whereas it's the resources that are the limits and they aren't being stressed. There's room for investment where it's needed, in infrastructure, military, education, health care and income support because we do all of this now and there's still room to grow.

     Even operating at less than peak efficiency there will be more room to grow in the future. The dollars are not the limit, the limit is what resources the dollars are for. There is no reason to run out of social security dollars if the stuff of social security can be bought by the check. That applies to health care dollars, bomb dollars, bridge dollars, paycheck dollars and enough waste, fraud and abuse dollars to make everyone happy.

[drogulus]

Obama didn't give Americans medicare for all. Instead he gave them a right wing think tank bs system that ranks the worst among the developped countries. He also increased 2 wars into 7 wars. Obama's presidency was a mixed bag at best. However, Trump has taken the presidency to record breaking lows. An amazing achievement by itself.

     Obama did far more than you think on health care. He got the country on a path it has had a hard time reversing, even with nihilists and ultracynics in power. Obama established for the first time that it should be public policy that Americans have health insurance and that it include essential features. Before Obamacare the premise was that the health care lottery itself could discriminate who deserved health care with the possibility that it could somehow not be deserved. IOW if you needed it badly you were a "taker" and that meant you didn't deserve it.

     The attempt to make people undeserving for the purpose of denying insurance has run into trouble. Further, the obvious flaws in OCare have lead some to the outrageous conclusion that they should be fixed. Trump has attempted in all kinds of ways to run out of dollars for resources that are plentiful. He would. I note though that some Dems have discovered for the first time that dollar run outs are hoaxy fantasies. I didn't expect that.

[Marc]

I remember quite a few presidents by now, and at NO time was there such visceral, vile takedowns of the person who got the office, even when it was deserved like Lyndon Johnson who was a nasty piece of work.

It could be there is no real civil public discourse anymore, just mudslinging. Well, I am still not used to it, coming from a different time and education.

I wasn't referring to Trump, I was referring to Trump voters getting generalized.

To me, Trump is a crook with extremely bad manners. He belongs in prison instead of the White House. Have fun enjoying and praising him, though, with your exquisite education.

[drogulus]

Indeed. Our health system essentially remained the same (tied to our jobs) and still horrible, i.e, large deductibles (for example, pay $1000 before any benefits kick in for the year) are still common which quite obviously discourages using insurance for who don't earn much. At the end of the day moving the U.S healthcare system in a socialized direction will undoubtedly have to mean that doctors will earn less (like they do in Canada) and yet the whole medicine community is another constituency that is very protective of their high pay and likes things just as they are.

     Yes, and Obama made it far more of a problem that requires a solution and that is a huge advance. Miliions of people got insured that weren't insured before, and most are still insured after everything Trump tried to do. I don't know if this "once in, never out" was foreseen by the Kenyan Socialist, but I am giving him credit.

[zamyrabyrd]

At the end of the day moving the U.S healthcare system in a socialized direction will undoubtedly have to mean that doctors will earn less (like they do in Canada) and yet the whole medicine community is another constituency that is very protective of their high pay and likes things just as they are.

Sure, the doctors themselves after investing $100,000+ in their education, having to pay back their debt over decades, indeed, they can be the fall guys for socialized medicine. That will give them a real incentive for quality work. The real costs of medical care are in the bureaucracies and having to pay retainers of expensive lawyers to defend against ambulance chasers and frivolous lawsuits. 

A monolithic health care system has panels to decide whether two year olds with questionable conditions are worth saving based on the cost of their treatment. When there is a choice, families can even send their sons to the Vatican for free as in the case of Charlie Gard, without running afoul of the law.

[SimonNZ]

I was purposely staying out of the war whoops exultation, as I do believe this too will pass.

Let an eminent lawyer explain that paying out hush money to women to shut their upper traps in claims that go back several years is not illegal. True, right before an election, canary singers whether they are justified or not, can be distracting.

I meant to call you out on this before. I'm doing so now.

You know...what with you being a woman and all. (yeah, right)

[Marc]

"The tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into God's Kingdom ahead of you."
(St. Matthew 21:31-32)

[71 dB]

71dB, Without copying over your long post, which anyone can read by just scrolling up, I just have a few questions for you. If America is SO bad, why are so many trying to get in? Just taking the southern border as an example, why do Mexicans, Central Americans, Hondurans and Venezuelans are risking their lives to cross dangerous deserts, brave criminal gangs, slip through barbed wire fences, hide in trucks, etc. WHY???

You know why. Please don't play dumb. I didn't say the US is the worst country in the World. It just doesn't live up to it's full potential. It's telling that you compare your country to places of hidious drug wars instead of other first world countries. Is your bar that low?

If America is so dysfunctional, why even after some serious drains on the economy like an unneeded war in 2002, the housing crisis, and several natural disasters, WHY is it still the top economic power in the world? You keep going on about medical insurance but I do remember when it was MUCH cheaper and more accessble under private plans, when the possibility of choice in the free market kept the premiums low. The US is too large and sprawling to have an efficient universal health care. It might work in smaller countries, however but even that is debatable, depending how long you have to wait for operations and the like.

As far as know even Russia has universal healtcare, so it's really pathetic to say the US could not do it. You went to the moon for christ! The only reason you don't have UHC is corruption that protects the profits of insurance companies and Big Pharma. Other countries face financial crisis too, but are perhaps wiser to not fight unneeded wars or create boom bust cycles.

You wrote: "The US is intellectually bankcrupt." No, I don't think so and neither do many others.

"An empire facing total collapse if radical actions aren't taken fast. Democracy must be restored removing money in the politics. Military budget should be halfed and the saved money directed to social programs and education."

Reading the tweets of your president and knowing how the media keeps talking about Russia collusion and Stormy Daniels all day long instead of talking about important issues while half of the population thinks the economy is doing fine I'd say I am right. Half of Americans are smart and know what's going on, but in your corrupted system that is not enough. So, more American needs to get smarter and the system must become less corrupted. Since about 25 % of Americans are "too far gone", at most 75 % of American can theoretically be smart. The corruption can overcome even such majority. In fact, it's overcomes the majority of 99 % of Americans while serving the top 1 %.

You think the military should use 30+ year old planes. The number of helicopter crashes in Okinawa is embarrassing but political correctness by the Obama administration hamstrung the forces to concentrate on what they should be doing, not sensitivity training and related trash. The equipment of the army and navy has to be updated but Trump did cap some of the outrageous prices that Boeing was charging in the past.

I didn't say you save money on planes particularly. Even halved, the military budget would still be about 350 billion, much bigger than any other country. I think you get a few new planes for 350 billion. End unnecessory wars, cut the amount of military bases around the world to half etc. The current budget is overblown to make the military industry richer (and they donate a lot of money to politicians).

What YOU don't understand is America's strength being precisely the individual initiative rooted in the free market, not only of goods but of ideas.  You would turn the US into a banana republic by all the centralized power you seem to think that America should have. That is NOT the reason for those coming over seeking green cards, especially from countries where they had enough of centralization and everything is in chaos as in Venezuela.

Keep talking about Venezuela as if Canada, Australia, UK, Germany, Sweden or Switzerland didn't exist. You can have the free market where SOME things are "centralized" because it brings better results.

[zamyrabyrd]

"The tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into God's Kingdom ahead of you."
(St. Matthew 21:31-32)

Anything can be taken out of context to seem like its opposite. This reading had to do with accepting John which SOME tax collectors and prostitutes did apparently. The 2nd son paid lip service but did not follow up. This is the meaning of the story.

The Parable of the Two Sons
28 "But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, 'Son, go, work today in my vineyard.' 29 He answered and said, 'I will not,' but afterward he regretted it and went. 30 Then he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and said, 'I go, sir,' but he did not go. 31 Which of the two did the will of his father?"
They said to Him, "The first."
Jesus said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you. 32 For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him; but tax collectors and harlots believed him; and when you saw it, you did not afterward relent and believe him.

[zamyrabyrd]

I meant to call you out on this before. I'm doing so now.
You know...what with you being a woman and all. (yeah, right)

How about Venus Fly-Traps? Seductive, but once you're in, it's sheer poison.
Actually, some women play that game when already married. I despise them more.
If there is a consensual relationship, with lavish gifts and money passed one assumes, WHY years later, are these Delilahs screaming "rapo"?

[zamyrabyrd]

71 dB, I am not going to cite your whole post as too many of your statements are unfounded. I would not like to implicate myself as I cannot find the relevant statistic quoted by different people that a minority (5%?)actually are responsible in business and in other settings for most of the actual work done. So you can have a majority of also-rans who can benefit from the super-competent, which is probably the case with most of us who benefit from any invention or convenience in our society. SOMEONE is putting in the hours, pumping the fuel or water, making the calculations, building the skyscrapers or airplanes or doing the unpleasant jobs like cleaning sewers of killing amimals for meat.

What I am saying is there is still a core in the US, an infrastructure based on individual initiative that has been pummeled, nearly strangled by taxation and bureaucracy (that Trump has reduced significantly) that still provides the goods that everyone depends on. There is no headier or potent motivator than freedom and there is no ball and chain heavier than having to submit your work to others to decide what to do with it.

In the earliest settlement on the East Coast, Plymouth, socialism was tried but was a disaster. This lesson was not lost on succeeding generations. Rugged independence is carved into the history of the US. It is what keeps it going 400 years later and attracts people to go and live there.

William Bradford, who had become governor of Plymouth in 1621, and was to help rule the colony for thirty years thereafter, eloquently describes the result in his record of the colony:

All this while no supply was heard of.... So they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. At length ... the Governor (with the advice of the chiefest among them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves.... And so assigned to every family a parcel of land ... for that end, only for present use.... This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.

The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato's ... that the taking away of property and bringing community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing.... For this community ... was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For the young men, that were most able and fit for labour and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense. The strong ... had no more in division of victuals and clothes than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice.... Upon ... all being to have alike, and all to do alike, they thought ... one as good as another, and so ... did ... work diminish ... the mutual respects that should be preserved amongst men.... Let none object this is men's corruption ... all men have this corruption in them.... (William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620–47, New York: Knopf, 1952, pp. 120–21.)

https://mises.org/library/what-really-happened-plymouth

[Marc]

Anything can be taken out of context to seem like its opposite. This reading had to do with accepting John which SOME tax collectors and prostitutes did apparently. The 2nd son paid lip service but did not follow up. This is the meaning of the story.

The Parable of the Two Sons
28 "But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, 'Son, go, work today in my vineyard.' 29 He answered and said, 'I will not,' but afterward he regretted it and went. 30 Then he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and said, 'I go, sir,' but he did not go. 31 Which of the two did the will of his father?"
They said to Him, "The first."
Jesus said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you. 32 For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him; but tax collectors and harlots believed him; and when you saw it, you did not afterward relent and believe him.

Thanks for the enlightened explanation.
And thanks that there's no Kingdom of God anyway.

[zamyrabyrd]

Thanks for the enlightened explanation.
And thanks that there's no Kingdom of God anyway.

What the Kingdom means, the easiest way to describe to 1st century people, is the hope of a better place, where there will be true justice and joy for the righteous who got a bad deal in this world.

[Karl Henning]

Because he's a super Class Act:

Trump rejected plans for a White House statement praising heroism, life of McCain

Perhaps his most "presidential tweet" of all, the vile worm.

[zamyrabyrd]

Because he's a super Class Act:

Trump rejected plans for a White House statement praising heroism, life of McCain

Perhaps his most "presidential tweet" of all, the vile worm.

With all due respect, not everyone liked McCain. In fact, there is an organization Vietnam Veterans against McCain. It is probably better not to go into their complaints against him now after the fact. Silence is golden.

[drogulus]

With all due respect, not everyone liked McCain. In fact, there is an organization Vietnam Veterans against McCain. It is probably better not to go into their complaints against him now after the fact. Silence is golden.

    Silence is not golden, its incriminating. If there were true allegations against Kerry and McCain we would know. The idea was to cast doubt on their heroism for ideological reasons. Sen. Bob Smith and Rep. Bob Dornan were behind it, and that said all is clear.

    It has nothing to do with liking McCain, though as someone who liked him very much and opposed him often, I would say that liking him was pretty easy. He mentored Senators from both parties. He was not a narrow person. He was not a placard. And, he was funny. Great people often are. A sense of incongruity is the mark of a superior mind. So what that he was a mediocre student? He was an extraordinary teacher.