The New American Politics thread

[Nobama]

Originally Posted by Iggy City

Trump's platform is whatever the crowd cheers for on his speech nights.

Sure it is.

[Mr.Coffee]

Didn't the U.S. Just raise interest rates based upon the strength of their economy? I don't think their economy is trending downwards at the moment.

[Looch City]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

Didn't the U.S. Just raise interest rates based upon the strength of their economy? I don't think their economy is trending downwards at the moment.

That's the crazy thing!

America's economy is doing perfectly well. Us Canadians would love to have that right now...But Obama. He has ruined the once great country.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by Nobama

If the USA continues to lose its manufacturing sector it will be game over. Trump is the only candidate talking about this. Seems important to me.

Your second paragraph confuses me. I think this is what the liberal media does to spin the bs from the important issues.

Well, game over lol. You think Americans are gonna start working 16 hour days to make $10 a day? No? Then what is there to talk about? Global economy is the global economy, labour is cheaper elsewhere and as such will be exploited. He's also not offering any solutions at all other than "#### China and India and Japan and Micronesia and anyone I can name". So what's his plan to bring jobs back? Say it a bunch of times and hope it comes true, the Beetlejuice Effect essentially? Or is he gonna go with an economic isolation policy that will cost even more jobs?

My second point is most Trump supporters would bolt tomorrow if he said "I'm not building a wall, its not realistically possible. I can't ban Muslims either. Sorry". Do they maybe care about manufacturing jobs? I guess, but their primary concern is getting rid of Mexicans and Muslims. Or as they like to call it "Make America Great Again".

[2Stonedbirds]

Originally Posted by Iggy City

That's the crazy thing!

America's economy is doing perfectly well. Us Canadians would love to have that right now...But Obama. He has ruined the once great country.

When the national debt holds each taxpayer hostage to the tune of 160,000$ per head, I would wager the only thing keeping it afloat is the assurance that your average joe lunch pail is going to get up in the morning and go to work. US spending is out of control, hell they just borrowed nearly another 2 trillion last week to pump more money into the military.

They have to get their spending under wraps and come up with a real plan to solve their debt issue.

Or they could say "eff you China et all" and pump another loan into the military to get ready for the fallout...

Raising the debt limit doesn't mean you have fixed jack all.

[jammies]

All the economic geniuses of the neo-classical school wanted free trade and globalization. Well, now we have a world where you can get a $300 TV at Walmart to put in your trailer, and you can don your $10 sweatpants and watch 400 channels of nothing on that TV. For a few decades, anyway, until the wealth has been sucked out of North America and all that's left is a skim of high-tech, finance and resource extraction companies paying high wages and a vast undermass of the underemployed and the unemployed wondering how stagnation turned into permanent depression.

Idiots like Trump are the cause of this - the barely competent executives who agitated for a "free market" that inefficiently transfers wealth from the poor to the rich, which of course is infinitely better and more moral than the inefficient transfers in the other direction that so obsess these opponents of "socialism". How ironic it is that Trump, a rich boy who has mismanaged his inherited wealth for decades, can be seen as any kind of legitimate source of economic sanity by even the least aware of voters, but marketing and the gullibility of the electorate Trump reality every time.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Nobama

And Obama or Hitlery have these "skills"?

Considering they have been engaged in the diplomatic mission for many years, yes they have those skills. Even someone with no understanding of how diplomacy works should be able to figure that out.

The biggest problem effecting all of us right now is international trade. The US has huge trade deficits with almost every country. It's killing the North American economy. They don't need a "diplomatic PC politician". They need someone to straighten out this financial mess they are in and bring manufacturing and jobs back to North America.

Is this the new moving of the goalposts? Is this the new strategy the conservatives are going to be clinging to now? You would think that you could at least do your homework and see if this latest dittohead nonsense was true?

According to the historical balance of trade the United States has been running a consistent deficit for almost 40 years.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/unit...lance-of-trade

This started under Carter but was amplified under Reagan and H.W. Bush. Clinton erased that for a very short period of time, then went into a trade deficit situation as well. Where things really went all to hell was under the second Bush. He drove the country into a deficit spending spiral that topped out at a record $67.823B. Obama came into office and almost immediately erased $40B of trade deficit. The trade deficit is back up, but that is directly related to the fact that we import much of our energy and consumer goods. Most of our manufacturing capacity of consumer goods is off-shore where businesses can take advantage of cheap labor and keep Americans in a lifestyle they are accustomed to. Also, most of our exports are big ticket items that are the first things to be cut back on when times get tough. So a trade deficit is not surprising, nor is it unexpected.

Hope and Change has done nothing.

Some would disagree with you.
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=^dji+interactive#{%22range%22:%2210y%22, %22allowChartStacking%22:true}
The stock market and Wall Street has done very well under Hope and Change. Sadly that hasn’t trickled down to main street, but that is just more proof that trickledown economics are an abject failure.

Originally Posted by Quincy Egg

The first thing Obama did when he got in office was fill his Cabinet with Wall Street executives. Isn't it a bit odd that we are in a global recession and commodities are in a complete meltdown but the stock market is doing A-OK?

Coincidence.

Did those goalposts just take another wild shift in position? I thought the standard canard was to let the market fix all the problems in the nation? Now that is wrong?

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

If the USA continues to lose its manufacturing sector it will be game over. Trump is the only candidate talking about this. Seems important to me.

Why? Explain why a trade deficit matters. I’m looking forward to being educated on this. This isn’t a deficit spending thing, where we are racking up huge interest payments. This is something altogether different, and there is no hard and fast position on trade deficits and their long term effects. Since we have been running a trade deficit for almost 40 years, I think we have enough data to make call, yet economists and academics can’t come to an agreement. So please, explain why this is now a hot button issue?

Your second paragraph confuses me. I think this is what the liberal media does to spin the bs from the important issues.

I’m not surprised you’re confused. When you shift the goalposts as often as you do it makes it very difficult to remain on point. Maybe stop shifting the goalposts and start defending a point to its conclusion.

To the Donald Trump is an economic savior angle, can we get serious for a minute. Donald Trump has no idea how to run a business or build anything. He’s all smoke and mirrors and is nothing but a marketer.

Donald Trump made his money in the 70’s being a slum lord, leveraging FHA-backed housing projects to line his pockets. He was a real estate speculator out of college who was lucky to fall into his father’s business after his father’s passing. During the 80’s Trump used the accumulated wealth in his father’s company and got more aggressive in his real estate speculation. He purchased the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, and then tried to build other casino hotels like that around the country. He did this mostly on the back of junk bonds, which sent his company into Chapter 11 protection for the first time. Instead of re-organizing and getting out of debt he used 2nd and 3rd mortgages on his real estate holdings to try and leverage his way back into the black.

What probably saved Trump from being a pauper today is the fact that he had to surrender 50% of ownership in his Taj Mahal holdings to secure lower interest payments, so he could afford to stay afloat. When Trumps partners took the Trump Hotels and Casinos public in the mid 90’s that allowed Trump to dump a majority of his stock to gain a nice $290M nest egg. Trumps next stroke of luck was managing to be in the right place at the right time to snag the Manhattan Trust Building when the US government threatened to seize it as an asset of Ferdinand Marcos. Trump got that for a song, he’ll tell you he paid a million dollars, and that building would become Trump Tower. This building has an estimated worth of several hundred million today.

Where Trump really excels is using his brand to build pseudo-value. He purchased a chunk of the Grand Hyatt building and refurbished up to “his standards,” which went over very well. Hard to believe that opulence would go over big in New York? Being Donald Trump he sold his share back to the Hyatt group and took the money and ran. This is who the real Donald Trump is and the character we see today is all a marketing ploy. He talks a big game, but he only knows enough to buy low, improve the property, and sell as fast as you can. Donald Trump is in essence a real estate flipper.

Trump is not a serious candidate and he will be out of the race quick enough, when the convention comes down to Rubio and Cruz. He will leave with a massive amount of money donated to his superPAC for his troubles of flying high cover for the other conservative nut bars in the race. The Republicans know they cannot allow someone endorsed by the KKK and White Nationalists to be the banner carrier for their party. If that happens this election will be like when the Democrats passed the 1964 Civil Right Act, and the Republican party will lose an entire generation or two of voters. This is where conservatives need to get their heads screwed on straight. They may appeal to the old white racists in the country, but those voting block is dying out, and quickly. The Republican party could make themselves unelectable for decades if they continue down this path. But in the big picture, that is a good thing.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by 2Stonedbirds

When the national debt holds each taxpayer hostage to the tune of 160,000$ per head, I would wager the only thing keeping it afloat is the assurance that your average joe lunch pail is going to get up in the morning and go to work. US spending is out of control, hell they just borrowed nearly another 2 trillion last week to pump more money into the military.

They have to get their spending under wraps and come up with a real plan to solve their debt issue.

Or they could say "eff you China et all" and pump another loan into the military to get ready for the fallout...

Raising the debt limit doesn't mean you have fixed jack all.

I don't disagree with what you are saying, but why does this matter now? Where was the indignation when Reagan and Bush were slammin' charges on the card? We are getting money with interest rates so low the cost is negligible. Reagan, otoh, borrowed trillions at 15-18% interest. Which is worse?

I have no problem with the government borrowing money, as long as it goes to the common good. This county's infrastructure is a holy mess and needs to be rebuilt. The last thing we need is another tank or aircraft carrier. But that is wher the money will go, because it funnels directly into the pocket of the military industrial complex and the rich #######s who profit from our never ending war machine.

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by Nobama1

And Obama or Hitlery have these "skills"?

Yes they do.
Anyone with a brain that watches Trump make faces and insult people during debates and pretty much all the time, I guess, knows diplomacy isn't his thing.

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

What is Trump's platform anyways? Honestly?

Make America white again.

Originally Posted by Iggy City

Trump's platform is whatever the crowd cheers for on his speech nights.

My favorite was when he figured out if he said the word "bible" the crowd clapped and cheered like seals getting fed herrings. Turns out he's not even sure what the bible is about, but knows his voters are pretty attached to it.

Originally Posted by Nobama1

Honestly, you have no clue

lol

[SportsJunky]

Originally Posted by Nobama

Honestly, you have no clue. I'd tell you to do some research, see how Trump wants to fix trade deficits, bring manufacturing jobs back to the USA, bring back the idea of North American energy independence, deport people that are currently breaking the law in the USA....etc, but you seem to like the world of ignorance you live in so have fun with that.

Isn't this the real crux of it? There is no HOW with Trump. He has grand ideas based in no substance. At some point he is going to get called out on his health care plan or immigration plan or his foreign policy and he won't be able to gloss it over with a simple explanation of "we will have the best plan". The fact that he is leading shows how fed up people are with politicians. He is leading because he appeals to the fed up American voter when, in reality, he is their worst enemy.

[Caged Great]

The only way to bring back manufacturing to the USA is to eliminate the minimum wage.

The reason for an increase in private prisons is that they make work houses in there and pay the prisoners peanuts. That is how they are competitive with China. They get paid nothing. Unless you're willing to work for $1 an hour or less, then manufacturing is gone. Or if you're willing to spend 5-10X the amount for things.

Additionally, robotics are coming soon. From automatic ordering machines in McDonalds to driverless transport trucks, those are all coming whether you increase the wages or not.

The new problem will be the fact that there will be fewer jobs than there are people as corporations hold efficiency at the paramount of their existence. If a robot becomes cheaper to do the job than 10's of thousands of workers, then those people will hit the unemployment line. What will happen to those people, especially when there are no ways to easily replace their jobs?

North America is already close to being energy independent and will be by 2020 at the latest if things do not change from what they are right now. I don't see why that's a concern, it's already been addressed.

Also, immigration, legal or illegal has a net positive effect on the economy. There are some jobs that no matter what you pay, Americans will not do. Farmers have advertised for any American to come and work picking fruit for 3X the minimum wage and their line up for work is exactly zero people. Nobody wants to do it. How do you address that? Guess which jobs the illegal immigrants primarily do....

[Nobama]

Originally Posted by Caged Great

North America is already close to being energy independent and will be by 2020 at the latest if things do not change from what they are right now. I don't see why that's a concern, it's already been addressed

This is one of those things that "could have been". The plan was to become energy independent, as all the candidates promised us in 2008. At our height, perhaps you can say right now, we are 50% energy self sufficient in North America and the other 50% comes from the Middle East. With this recent effort to cripple American and Canadian Oil Companies we have laid down over 60% of the drilling rigs here.

What effect will this have for the next 5 years? How does this effect our trade deficit going forward. And the best question, how has the current administration not done anything to protect the jobs and energy independence that it claimed it would? Hope and Change.

[puffnstuff]

Isnt the reason the deficit/debt jumped so dramatically in the first year of Obamas first term because the previous administration wasnt accounting correctly for the cost of the war it was fighting?

[Nobama]

Originally Posted by New Era

Why? Explain why a trade deficit matters. I’m looking forward to being educated on this. This isn’t a deficit spending thing, where we are racking up huge interest payments. This is something altogether different, and there is no hard and fast position on trade deficits and their long term effects. Since we have been running a trade deficit for almost 40 years, I think we have enough data to make call, yet economists and academics can’t come to an agreement. So please, explain why this is now a hot button

Real simple. Pretend you own a company. Let's also pretend your payables are 10x more than your receivables. What happens to your company?

Now if your Obama you fix this problem by borrowing. And borrowing. And borrowing. That'll work right?

[Caged Great]

Originally Posted by Nobama

Real simple. Pretend you own a company. Let's also pretend your payables are 10x more than your receivables. What happens to your company?

Now if your Obama you fix this problem by borrowing. And borrowing. And borrowing. That'll work right?

The problem is that certain things that could easily fix the deficit are not being done.

Single payer health care like we have in Canada would reduce the spending on health care in the US by a huge amount. Roll all those savings and that would clear out most of the deficit.

Tax the 1% by cutting certain corporate tax exemptions and other accounting loopholes. Don't have to raise taxes in terms of rates, just charge those rates.

That would eliminate the entire deficit and would likely cut into the debt.

[Caged Great]

Originally Posted by Nobama

This is one of those things that "could have been". The plan was to become energy independent, as all the candidates promised us in 2008. At our height, perhaps you can say right now, we are 50% energy self sufficient in North America and the other 50% comes from the Middle East. With this recent effort to cripple American and Canadian Oil Companies we have laid down over 60% of the drilling rigs here.

What effect will this have for the next 5 years? How does this effect our trade deficit going forward. And the best question, how has the current administration not done anything to protect the jobs and energy independence that it claimed it would? Hope and Change.

Why not invest in creating green sector jobs. It would help with unemployment, would reduce the demand on oil, especially the imports, and would at the very least make the air cleaner if you don't subscribe to the fact that global warming is a thing and address it you do.

[Nobama]

Originally Posted by Caged Great

Why not invest in creating green sector jobs. It would help with unemployment, would reduce the demand on oil, especially the imports, and would at the very least make the air cleaner if you don't subscribe to the fact that global warming is a thing and address it you do.

In theory investing in green energy sounds great. What happens is you end up giving a boat load of public tax dollars to a private company that has little chance of showing any kind of profit for more than a decade.. And that's if all goes well. Meanwhile you have other private companies trying to compete with these lucky chosen companies who are not receiving public funds. It's a complete disaster that's costs the public billions that actually could of gone to more important social services.

The only way to develop green technology is to do it the old fashioned way in a capitalist economy. Public money in private business is terrible.

[DownhillGoat]

Originally Posted by Caged Great

The problem is that certain things that could easily fix the deficit are not being done.

Instituting a federal sales tax, eliminating tax deductions on mortgages...

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Nobama

Real simple. Pretend you own a company. Let's also pretend your payables are 10x more than your receivables. What happens to your company?

If you're someone like Donald Trump you double down and take out second and third mortgages against your assets and hope you catch lightning in a bottle.

Now if your Obama you fix this problem by borrowing. And borrowing. And borrowing. That'll work right?

It has worked for Donald Trump, but it unfortunately won't work for a country. Trump's companies have gone bankrupt more often than any other major US company/corporation. Trump even admits to using bankruptcy law to his favor, which is a pretty low thing. I would hope that a true blue pro-market Evangelical Christian like you would think that is the lowest of lows. I mean, not only were his companies protected from the natural selection the market is supposed to provide, but he did so under false pretenses.

I do like how you're ignored every other point made and continue to cling to this annoying spending issue, like this is something that only Obama has been responsible for. I mean, the top spending presidents in history have long been associated with the Democratic party!



Stop taking what the likes of Rush Limbaugh have to say as gospel and try to develop some understanding of policy and budget development.

[Kavvy]

Thanks Obama!

U.S. jobless claims fall again to near 42-year low

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repor...ticle27936577/

Yes, this is a skewed state, but yes, it still means something.