Election predictions

Clinton

9 (69.2%)

Trump

4 (30.8%)

Hung college

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 13

[Alan Klein]

Don't count on it Alan, watch the first interview with the president elect tonight. Some parts got pre-shown in Europe and from what I've seen he seems to have a lot of praise for Clinton and Obama. Go figure 

I posted the following  couple of days ago.  Being nice to people is Trump normally despite his caustic comments during the campaign.

"...Another thing I noticed years ago about him.  He always complemented people (for the most part), even his enemies and competitors.  As near as I could figure out he didn't like burning bridges.  You may need that person in the future.  Plus you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.  All the cursing, vile words etc during the campaign were to create his brand and get people to notice him and vote for him.  But through the nasty way he often projected himself, many people understood that he was for them and they gave him their vote.

Now that the election is over, you already see the complements to Obama, Hillary, Bill and others.  He will negotiate and smooth talk the Democrats in Congress to get things done.  He'll balance that with toughness, something needed if you're a CEO or President.   People are going to be very surprised when they see his true personality and will grow to like him very much like Reagan.  He's going to be a very effective President for America.  ..."

[Rob C]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaWt6Vu0evs

Rob

[ChrisMax]

Just signed onto LL and this thread caught my attention.  Trump lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes the most in US history!  So the national polls were right.  As one who has done business with Trump (one of the contractors he tried to stiff but failed) make no mistake he views himself as a Roman Emperor and hates people who cross him.  He has absolutely zero knowledge about foreign policy and very little of domestic concerns.  He is out for one thing, money!  He is at heart a racist and has a racist as his main adviser.  The tragedy about to befall the USA is revealed in his picks for the presidential cabinet.  Every department run by an individual who hates it.  He has already asked for lists of people that are working on climate change and environmental concerns in the EPA and Energy Departments.  There is going to be a very deliberate purge in the civil service sector akin to what the Nazis did when they took power in Germany.  2017 is starting as a very bleak year for the majority of people that didn't vote for Trump seeing rollbacks in women's rights, the environment, energy, education, healthcare, minority rights, gun control, and many other issues.       

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

^^^

Oh, no!?

Whey has the media been hiding those horrible truths from us all this time!?

[Rob C]

^^^

Oh, no!?

Whey has the media been hiding those horrible truths from us all this time!?

The public isn't ready for them? It's like accident or war reports: bowdlerization. All one gets are broken toys, fluttering flags and lone bugle-calls...

Perhaps it will be ever so.

But hey, where a country can steal and settle in its neighbours lands, and then declare itself hurt when the power that has allowed it to do so from inception feels embarrassed enough (at long last) if not strongly enough to call a spade a spade, mind you, but strongly enough to object by not doing something, then you have to wonder at the reality of anything. T-Max starts to appear about as threatening as Batman's Robin.

More dangerous, though, as we found with Brexit, are the hordes, millions of 'believers' who finally find another excuse for their own failures just as they had feared they'd have to confront themselves at last. Rabble-rousing is a dangerous sport; all it takes is one guy with a plan.

;-)

Rob

[RSL]

Rob, we don't often disagree, but this time disagree we must. If a neighbor attacks you, clearly stating its intention to wipe you off the face of the earth, and you fight back and push the invaders beyond their late borders and into lands historically yours, that's not called stealing your neighbors' lands. It's called victory. Plenty of similar boundary adjustments took place after WW I and WW II. Were those adjustments stealing?

With regard to Brexit, I see it as the same kind of fighting -- in this case against a central agency making rules well beyond their legitimate writ, and without the blessings of the people the bureaucrats saw as their subjects. It's the beginning of the end for the EU and the Euro. If the European Commission had stayed within the bounds of sovereignty ceded by the nations they'd have been all right. But they had to go beyond that into niggling concerns and restrictions far outside their legitimate authority. Britain isn't the only country fed up with the results. The end may not be near but we've already passed the beginning of the end.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

The public isn't ready for them?...

Rob, I think your sarcasm alert thingy ran out of batteries? 

[Rob C]

Rob, I think your sarcasm alert thingy ran out of batteries? 

Could be worse: I could run out of 'em!

;-)

Rob

[RSL]

Okay, I wasn't reading carefully enough. Oops. Even though I screwed up I think I stated the case pretty well.

[Rob C]

Rob, we don't often disagree, but this time disagree we must. If a neighbor attacks you, clearly stating its intention to wipe you off the face of the earth, and you fight back and push the invaders beyond their late borders and into lands historically yours, that's not called stealing your neighbors' lands. It's called victory. Plenty of similar boundary adjustments took place after WW I and WW II. Were those adjustments stealing?

With regard to Brexit, I see it as the same kind of fighting -- in this case against a central agency making rules well beyond their legitimate writ, and without the blessings of the people the bureaucrats saw as their subjects. It's the beginning of the end for the EU and the Euro. If the European Commission had stayed within the bounds of sovereignty ceded by the nations they'd have been all right. But they had to go beyond that into niggling concerns and restrictions far outside their legitimate authority. Britain isn't the only country fed up with the results. The end may not be near but we've already passed the beginning of the end.

Trouble with that kind of history, Russ, is that it depends for validity on where you choose to draw the datum line - or rather, where it's convenient to draw it. You could equally, and truthfully, say that America was stolen by armed force from the native Indians, and be correct. I'm sure most of their survivors think likewise.

As for Palestine: I'm equally sure that the folks living there pre-1948 would have been happy for the status quo to continue.

The rest of the world agrees that those pesky settlements do not belong where they are, only the US feels obliged, usually, to think otherwise, and it's not dificult to see where that pressure comes from, and why it mostly succeeds. Money talks, as ever and everywhere. As does military muscle, so I guess the 6-Day War showed that.

WW1 and WW2 had little to do with wars of religion, whereas that's the basis, if not the entirety, of the Middle Eastern problem. As for Europe, it always had shifting edges within itself, and I guess that 'victory' when it involves taking fresh territory, is indeed theft, definition based on datum line, again. It's own Wars of Religion are, I hope, long past; the latest versions were played out on the island of Ireland not so long ago - and still burble away underneath, but whether either side really cared a hoot about the God they purported to be fighting about is another thing altogether. Bigotry always needs an object upon which to project its slant; often it's found in football. However, a new version may be about to be sprung, but this time, not Christian against Christian.

The Euro and 'Europe' may or may not come tumbling down any time soon - everything does, in the end, but for the present, Britain had a pretty cool deal; it had its own currency and distinctly different agreements on many things, including freedom of travel across borders. Throwing away something that worked well and brought a lot of commercial joy was crazy. I have to stick with my belief that Brexit had nothing to do with economics and everything to do with jingoism and racism. As I've mentioned before, anyone given to thinking about local race 'problems', would have grasped that the problem had arrived in Britain decades earlier, well before any European Union influence came into being. I also suppose that when the folks in the US talk about race 'problems' they do not reserve that emotion for Hispanic/Latinos alone... As with Britain, the US is carrying the result of its actions and European ones a long, long time ago. If there's a moral, it might be leave folks in peace where they are, and do your own hard work. Do we listen? Does China? Territorial ambitions never cease, unfortunately, and neither does colonization, wherever the possibilities present themselves. Today, it's called developing the infrastructure for someone. The reality is exploitation of mineral wealth, and the building of influence blocks abroad.

I may be right and could as easily be wrong, but either way this is my last comment on this matter. I like and respect you too much to throw that away fighting over largely lost causes!

;-)

Rob

[N80]

Trouble with that kind of history, Russ, is that it depends for validity on where you choose to draw the datum line - or rather, where it's convenient to draw it. You could equally, and truthfully, say that America was stolen by armed force from the native Indians, and be correct. I'm sure most of their survivors think likewise.

But Rob, then why trot out the example of the "native Americans" since that is just another one of those arbitrary datum lines. Case in point: your reference to "their survivors". Who are they? If they refers to this notion of "the very first to have ever claimed said patch of land", well, it doesn't hold up historically for two glaring reasons. First, there was always someone there before whoever was there next. And the someone who got there next got there for all the reasons we frown upon: They took it. Second, these "Native Americans" despised one another and typically considered other tribes sub-human. The Plains Indians claimed a good 1/3 of the continent for a tiny population of extremely violent and highly mobile warriors who sole point in life was to steal land and horses.

So I agree, its an arbitrary datum line. But the one you pick is no better than the one the U.S Cavalry picked or that "manifest destiny" picked or that post WWII Israel picked.

And the fact remains, the land in contest was taken by Israel from neighbors who attacked them and paid dearly for their treachery.

As for Palestine: I'm equally sure that the folks living there pre-1948 would have been happy for the status quo to continue.

Only if your status quo is another arbitrary datum line. And it is.

The rest of the world agrees that those pesky settlements do not belong where they are

The rest of the world has been awfully wrong before.

[RSL]

I may be right and could as easily be wrong, but either way this is my last comment on this matter. I like and respect you too much to throw that away fighting over largely lost causes!
Rob

Hi Rob, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree. I don't want to get into a heavy argument with an old friend. There's been too much of that already as a result of the recent election. When he learned who the candidates would be, an old and good friend opined that Hillary would be elected quite easily. I replied that Trump would blow her out of the water. We then agreed that it would be best if we stayed away from politics. That seems to work best. I'm not going to change your mind, and you're not going to change mine, and so be it.

[N80]

I did not vote for either one of them. I did not see one of them as the lesser of two evils. I saw each of them as a different but equal evil. A sad time for the U.S..........either way. And even more sadly I think that the two viable candidates that we were left with says something about the people of the United States. I'm not sure what it says exactly, but it I am sure it isn't good.

I also see this nation as being deeply divided. More now than since the 1860s. This time the divide is not nearly as geographical. It is cultural.

[RSL]

I agree, George, that we're a nation as culturally divided as I've ever seen it in the roughly seventy-three years since I graduated from junior high school. But I think the reason we're so divided is that for at least the past fifty years we've been governed by a group of people we now call "the establishment," which gradually has steered us away from the principles upon which the U.S. was founded. Like you, I didn't care for either of the candidates. Both have demonstrated a level of greed and insensitivity I find repulsive. But one also demonstrated a level of incompetence and irresponsibility, especially with respect to national security, that contain potentially the seeds of national catastrophe.

Because the establishment has deliberately debased our currency, over the past fifty years we've seen a cumulative inflation rate of 645 percent. In other words, what cost a dollar in 1966 now goes for $7.45. Inflation is theft by the government; theft from savers who provide the capital essential for economic expansion. We have a national debt that points toward insolvency and we've disarmed ourselves to the point where, for the first time since the end of WW II, we're vulnerable. We still pretend to defend the entire Western world, but without the resources effectively to do so. Within NATO, only a couple countries have ponied up the defense contributions to which they've agreed, and we've ignored those shortfalls. In the meantime, we and the EU are accepting masses of endangered and wretched people who don't understand what it is that allows the countries they're entering to be havens to which they can escape, and who try to reestablish the kinds of societies from which they've flown. I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

I think that with this election we've decided it's time to take a gamble. Continuing with the establishment intact is almost surely national suicide. The establishment needs to be broken up. At this point I'm not sure what comes after it, but if we can steer the country back toward the intent expressed in the Declaration of Independence, and reestablish the Constitution as our governing document, there's at least hope for the future. The Declaration says ". . . whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends (the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness), it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government." I think the nation reached that point on the 7th of the month.

[Rob C]

As my comment isn't going to be partisan (fairly pointless, as Brit!), I don't think it conflicts with my wish not to ruffle feathers.

Anyway. Just been watching the 'debate' on France24 (which I believe is available online all over the world), and the discussion was about the change in work/employment dynamics due to robots and the losing of people jobs. The point was made that this is far from something that will affect the blue-collar workforce alone, but will cut swathes across accountancy, medicine and scores of so-called secure professional occupations. Much time was spent talking about where the world seems to be today regarding how it will cope with massive unemployment, whether a form of basic wage, whether one has a job or not, will come to fruition, and whether that will aid incentive to find additional, supplementary work (where?) and also provide a secure, basic cash input to aid freelance work to start where it might have been felt impossible before. The general consensus was that the world hasn't even begun to face that problem and think of solutions for it. I also felt - by the drift of conversation - that nobody had given a thought to an alternative such as this: draw another datum line (I enjoy drawing these!) and declare enough is enough: we have to reintroduce manual manufacturing jobs. To me, it's blindingly obvious: if nobody works, nobody is going to be buying those pretty electric cars the robots will make. Maybe instead of stacking shelves, folks will stack unsold cars instead, and Dire Straits will pen another hit? Were the best recent years not the immediate post-war ones, when everything was about getting production going again, the replacement of lost buildings and industries, the reconstruction of cities and people's shattered lives? Was it just coincidental that the era produced the sexiest cars the common man could own? (In Britain, the common man usually didn't own any kind of car pre-war). We all seemed to be doing fine until too many of those labour-saving machines came into the factories. I don't think we need to redestroy the world to bring back the idea of people making things... I don't think this will be achieved by protectionism, country by country, but by a meeting of minds at the very top, and the realisation that some things are more important than territorial decisions, and require an international realisation of how grave and perhaps irreversible tbe situation will become if it is denied and neglected.

There is not going to be any Utopia where everyone lives in a pretty, state-owned and state-provided apartment, where free buses will take people to the shops - oops! no shops, just Internet connections - and so forth. For a start, people are not all the same: some have initiative, some think that's a dirty, capitalistic word; some can't sit still and always have to be busy doing something whereas others have to be bribed off the sofa. No, I think the only way that society will function and not implode into revolution or perhaps mass, cult suicide deals, is if we bring back real, physical and mental work. Perhaps the most dangerous animal on the planet is a young man with time on his hands and nothing worthwhile to do with them. Where and how will he apply them? Where will his frustrated spirit drive him?

Rob

[RSL]

Rob, I have to tell you that considering the people who own those minds, the idea of a meeting of the minds at the very top scares the s--- out of me. It's the minds at the very top that have brought us to this point; the point where in most of the Western world entrepreneurship is now effectively disallowed.

Taking hands off of the farm and later out of the factory has been going on since the beginning of the industrial revolution. In order to believe that it's time to put hands back to inefficient work you have to believe that the end of invention has arrived. I don't believe that. I think the solution is a revolution of free people that will reduce government in the Western world to its proper place in life so that the Steve Jobses of the future can do their thing.

[N80]

Perhaps the most dangerous animal on the planet is a young man with time on his hands and nothing worthwhile to do with them. Where and how will he apply them? Where will his frustrated spirit drive him?

Rob

Agreed. But its even worse than that in the west  (that is probably wrong) where we have convinced those young men that to do labor of any sort is beneath them. We have removed the dignity of a good day's work and a fair wage. Those few inclined to work in even the most menial jobs expect wages that will pay for a high tech smart phone (every time a new one comes out), monthly cell service, a large TV, monthly cable TV, and a car. One might laugh but the definition of poverty around here is not having cable or satellite TV or a new smart phone. I don't mean to disparage real poverty. We have it for sure, right around the block for most of us. But the bar has been set unrealistically high. And the idea that there is dignity in working hard all your life to improve the lives of your children is totally and completely removed from the American dream. I suspect it is even worse in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal who seem to think Germans work hard solely for the benefit of its lazy EU neighbors.

And this is why we seek to employ machines and not people. To pay an uneducated, untrained and untalented 20 year old male the type of wages that include not only health and disability insurance but the means to have all the required technological gew-gaws, a car and even purchase a home, all the while calling out sick and feeling put upon to complete his day's tasks is FAR more expensive than a high tech robot. The inflation Russ mentioned seals that deal.

Whenever I think about all this, whenever I look at the ingredients going into this global stew the conclusions are always the same: Its going to get worse, then something really really bad is going to happen and when that really really bad thing happens a generation is going to have to learn all over again what the WWII generation had to learn. And there will not be the time or the luxury or the will to worry about the latest iPhone, which gender is allowed in which restroom, or which boutique to buy your dog's treats from. And what's left of that generation will have bestowed upon it the modicum of character it so lacked. But only after they come through the fire, whatever fire that may be.

I live on a tree lined street in small, insignificant southern mill city, a block from a modest university. On this street of about 5 blocks the male of virtually every household served overseas in WWII. Two of them were killed in action. My grandfather was away from his family for nearly four full years. There was no sugar, little meat, little gasoline and no rubber for tires. And there wasn't a lot of whining. This, at a minimum is what it will take for a generation (which one?) to grow up.

Edit: I hope I'm gone before then. Not sure how I would bear up.

[Rob C]

Rob, I have to tell you that considering the people who own those minds, the idea of a meeting of the minds at the very top scares the s--- out of me. It's the minds at the very top that have brought us to this point; the point where in most of the Western world entrepreneurship is now effectively disallowed.

Taking hands off of the farm and later out of the factory has been going on since the beginning of the industrial revolution. In order to believe that it's time to put hands back to inefficient work you have to believe that the end of invention has arrived. I don't believe that. I think the solution is a revolution of free people that will reduce government in the Western world to its proper place in life so that the Steve Jobses of the future can do their thing.

But the problem remains: what do those unemployed and increasingly unemployable people do with their day, and from whence comes the money to keep them alive and peaceful? In an age where even the middle-class pro with a degree is finding it difficult to find a regular job, it doesn't bode well for the future. There are more than a few university leavers who have discovered that their years there were a waste of time if they didn't read maths and sciences. Those disciplines are not within every person's ability or aptitude. Those people without those specific skills may have their degree, but it is no longer a passport, so even relatively bright people can, and do find themselves stacking shelves or handing burgers across a counter. Should good eating return as fashionable, even those Macjobs will vanish.

No, I don't see an end to inventions as having arrived; I see the opposite: no damned need for most of them. I'd be perfectly happy being back in the days before I had a computer or a cellphone, just as long as the rest of life was lived at that speed too. It never felt that I was at any disadvantage; in fact, I think I was a damned sight more happy and I'm as just certain that most reps in this world were too! What a scourge to be constantly badgered by the man back in the office, even as you stand there, enjoying a pee!

;-)

Rob

[Alan Klein]

As more people need jobs, wages will decline and more jobs will be created as it will become affordable to compete with imports.  Of course, we won't be as rich, but that's just the way it is.  We're competing with foreigners who earn less than we're use too. 

[N80]

I saw a special on Cuba where a physician was finally able to purchase a refrigerator. It cost about a year's salary. She lived in conditions that would be considered well below the poverty level in the US. The water in her tiny apartment only worked a few hours a day. She claimed she was happy and content.

And while I consider discontentment an insidious evil and I admire her for finding happiness in her work and current conditions. But not only is discontentment the driving force in the world economy, I suspect if she saw a typical US welfare recipient, unemployed but still enjoying climate controlled government housing, food stamps,  a big TV with cable, running and heated water, a washing machine and a cell phone, she might feel less content. Sad but true.