Trump II

[kers]

i know this thread is about mr Trump, but i think voters did not choose so much mr Trump but they voted against the way the nation is lead the last decades. ( and we see the same happening in Europe)

As i see it;

There has been a world wide shift in the capitalistic economy that came up with the use of computers.

At the moment there is a real economy - people producing products and earn money with producing and selling these products,
and a financial economy where money makes more money.
They should be working together, the financial system supporting the real economy- but have grown apart.
It is now easier to make money with money than to actually invest in the real economy.

The financial economy has been booming until the financial crises of 2007. This way of earning money benefitted mostly the people that have money.  At Wallstreet the computer runs the trade in millisecond reacting on the tiniest change of value. The fastest connection you have the more money you make. With more money comes a better connection and more power.

The crisis of 2007 was able to bring even system banks down, banks that were too big to fail- It appeared they lend out far too much money and took too much risk making the financial system unstable.
The government could only come to rescue to print more money to refill the buffers of the banks and at the same time keep the interest low in order to keep the economy going.
At the moment we still talk about 80 billion a month that is printed in Europe and in the same order the FED is doing that in the US.
The problem is that all that money does not directly benefit the real economy. Instead, with that money the FED buys financial products and the financial business knows how to make profit of it. The idea is that in the end the money will drip into the real economy in the form of cheap loans from the banks. But only little does a the moment.
What has happened is that big investors have found out that they can earn more money without much effort at Wallstreet than when they invest in the real economy.  A new bubble is created. States themselves have a big interest not to radically change this financial system for they are themselves big players. Even more now they have put so much money into the system to rescue it.

Even companies as Google and Apple; innovators as they are-  know nothing to do with their immense capital.
Meaning they rather have it at the bank, instead of investing it in the real economy.
In the 1950’s Roosevelt put money in the real economy making the USA flourish. All citizens were helped with this investment.


Now, the real economy suffers, especially the poor real economy.
I think those people - left behind - have voted for Trump and they are right to be angry, but i don’t think Trump will change this financial system for the benefit of those people that voted for him. His current actions seems to indicate he will make it easier for the financial market to create new bubbles.

Obama had the right timing with the crisis to make a change, but he failed to do so. I think Bernie Sanders might have been the best president now that could make this necessary change happen.

[scyth]

They all got that trick from some Germans, remember Rotterdam and London in the early 1940's? And I'm sure there are earlier examples that might spring to mind as well.

absolutely not comparable in terms of how many civilians eradicated in one day ...

[pegelli]

absolutely not comparable in terms of how many civilians eradicated in one day ...

As time moves on the number of civilian casualties vs. combat casualties in military conflicts is trending sharply up, so the trick and intent is the same, only the effect is different.

[Rob C]

and that was taken from American and British playbooks - leveling Dresden and nuking couple of towns in Japan  ... give the credit where it belongs to

If you are old enough - which I doubt - you may remember what was happening in London most nights during WW2. I saw a lot of the results of that. What you see is not what you read about or watch in the movies.

Had those two towns in Japan not been nuked, that bloody war would have cost even more lives than it did. Perhaps you believe that Japan would just have stopped, or that the US would have done so. Sorry, unless the nose is bloodied enough wars don't stop.

This may be misplaced innocence on my part, but perhaps Mr Putin is the only one who realises that putting a dictator out of the seat of power doesn't seem to do anything much other than to encourage the vacuum that spawns absolute madness, such as we have seen across the Middle East already. Had Iraq and Libya been left to fix themselves, there wouldn't be the effin' refugee and terrorist crisis that's ripping up Europe right now, and I'm sure that the little matter of Brexit would never have arisen.

I suppose we will never learn or understand that democracy is a solution that plays reasonably in some parts of the world, but certainly not universally. It's just one more 'way'.

Rob C

[Alan Goldhammer]

This may be misplaced innocence on my part, but perhaps Mr Putin is the only one who realises that putting a dictator out of the seat of power doesn't seem to do anything much other than to encourage the vacuum that spawns absolute madness, such as we have seen across the Middle East already. Had Iraq and Libya been left to fix themselves, there wouldn't be the effin' refugee and terrorist crisis that's ripping up Europe right now, and I'm sure that the little matter of Brexit would never have arisen.

Rob - As an amateur student of history, I agree with the comment about Iraq and Libya.  The problem is that very few in power have the patience to wait for things to take their course which might involve several decades waiting for the rotten infrastructure to crack and finally crumble.  Look at how long it took for the false communism that was Russia to fold and the Mao driven China fell in about half that time.  Obviously, we don't want to revisit conflicts such as the 30 years war that laid waste to huge swathes of Central Europe or either of the 20th Century's world conflicts.  Most authoritarian regimes tend to be fragile and borne from the power of one or two individuals .  Once they are gone, things tend to revert back to the mean.  Of course in the case of Russia which has never known democracy, the mean may not appeal to you or me.  We my never realize Fukuyama's "End of History" but even he is not sanguine about it any longer.

[Schewe]

The following site goes into great detail and presents a convincing case.

https://www.catholics4trump.com/the-true-story-donald-trump-did-not-mock-a-reporters-disability/

So, Catholics for Trump is a credible news source? Sorry...that site is only a tiny bit to the left of Breightbart.com. Heck, even Ann Coulter sited that site as proof for an article on Breitbart Ann Coulter: Media Invented Lie About Trump Mocking Disabled Reporter (course, she was using this as a promo for her new book In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome! so it's not like she didn't have an agenda :~)

Of course, the Washington Post debunks her debunking Ann Coulter says she can prove Donald Trump never mocked a reporter’s disability. (She can’t.)

So, who to believe? I believe my own eyes...even if Trump can weasel out of specifically mocking Serge Kovaleski's disability, he can't get past the fact he was intentionally insensitive and lied about his encounter with Serge Kovaleski over the years. But Ann Coulter's defense "that Trump was not making fun of Kovaleski's specific symptoms — he has arthrogryposis, which visibly limits flexibility in his arms — but rather "was doing a standard retard, waving his arms and sounding stupid." As if that made it okay.".

Uh, ok...he wasn't making fun of the reporter's disability, he was making fun of "a standard retard, waving his arms and sounding stupid".

And that's somehow better?

Sorry Ray...any way you cut it, what Trump did was disrespectful...which is not a habit you want in a US President, right?

But even if we give him a pass on that one, what about the other 38 items on that list? Gonna give him a pass on those too (just because the list came from the "left" doesn't mean they are false).

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

.... do you actually believe that there were 3 million illegal votes in CA for HRC and 3000 in NH for HRC, and zero, respectively, for DJT in those same locations.

Did I say so?

[James Clark]

Did I say so?

Not explicitly, but you seem to be defending the accusation as reasonable.

[Schewe]

Jeff, peddling the left-wing nuts list of straw-man arguments (forward progressives!? - are there backward ones? - hmmm...come to think if it...) isn't going to strengthen your case.

Well, the items on that list are not really in dispute, right? Not a list I would be proud of...

But it's not just the far left that has serious concerns about The Donald, even the Wall Street Journal has some concerns Wall Street Journal Rips Donald Trump: ‘Behave’ Like You Want to Be President. (I would link to the actual article and not an article about the article but I don't subscribe to the WSJ-and yes it was about candidate Trump not President Trump but from what I can see, same difference).

Even the WSJ is having problems dealing with the issue of reporting on Trump: Conflict Over Trump Forces Out an Opinion Editor at The Wall Street Journal The departure follows weeks of reports of tension on the paper's news side about how to cover Trump.

In any event, people outside of the USA are getting really alarmed...see this article from Independent.co.uk. This is kinda scary: Donald Trump using Adolf Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' playbook, says world expert on Nazi leader President's 'views come out of a playbook written in German' says author — 'the playbook is Mein Kampf'

Hum, sorry, don't know if the Independent.co.uk is left, right or out to lunch, but the very fact that this is being discussed is disquieting to me.

And this from another UK newspaper The Guardian titled: Al Franken repeats senators' concern that Trump is 'not right mentally'. Yeah, ok...this is just a left wing former SNL writer and comedian who just happens to be a friggin' sitting US Senator, but he talking about is ‘A few’ Republicans in the Senate are worried about Trump, according to Franken: ‘I’ve heard great concern about the president’s temperament’.

So, Slobodan...is this a "good thing"? Is this just the left having hissy fits? Do you think Trump is doing a good job? Are you happy he's engaging in Twitter Diplomacy? Is there anything that the Donald is doing wrong?

[Schewe]

For a bit of levity (cause ya gotta admit Trump stuff is sometimes funny–even on SNL) I post the following from Chuck Lorre Productions.  Chuck Lorre is a  is an American television writer, producer and composer. He has created a number of successful sitcoms such as Grace Under Fire, Cybill, Dharma & Greg, Two and a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory, Mike & Molly, and Mom. And yes, he's a left wing Hollywood elitist).

He puts up what he calls Vanity Cards in the ending credits to his shows...his most recent was, well,  funny, (at least to me)

>>

CHUCK LORRE PRODUCTIONS, #551

For Immediate Release   January 20, 2017
EXECUTIVE ORDER

VERACITY PRINCIPLES,
DETERMINING FACT FROM FICTION

By the power vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. It shall be the policy of my administration that, in any given circumstance, the truth is what I say it is, or need it to be.

Section 2. Any statement, photograph or report that does not align with Section 1 shall be deemed "fake news."

Section 3. Contradiction of Section 1 or Section 2 shall be punishable by mean tweet.

Section 4. Handwriting analysis of my signature (see below) is fake news.

                                                               

>>

1st Aired: 9 Feb 2017

[Rand47]

So, who to believe? I believe my own eyes...

Yeah, Jeff is 100% correct on this one.  I've watched that clip a zillion times and Donald Trump's gestures can in no way be written off to "general agitation" or anything of the sort.  He's doing the typical "spaz imitation" that all us schoolboys engaged in when we were young, dumb, and insensitive by nature.  The issue is, most of us grew up.  Attempting to defend Trump on this one (and many others like it) only make people who support what Trump is doing look stupid, in denial, or some kissing-cousin of that.  Doesn't help much in the "cogent argument" department, I'd say.

One thing I'm curious about is whether the left would be as up in arms if, say, Rubio had been elected and was doing much the same things as Trump is attempting to do, but with a more PC face on it?  What say you all?  Would you have just said, "Aw shucks, we lost, we'll win next time." ??  If the travel restrictions had been better explained, and shown clearly as temporary, with review boards already in place to sift the legitimate exceptions so as to not cause undue hardship for those who have been vetted and were just "out of the country" when the restriction was put in place - would you be OK with that, or still claim it as merely "anti-Islam" with no other merit at all? I'm honestly curious.  And how about border security?  If Rubio had significantly tightened up the borders, extending walls where feasible, etc. and not talking about "criminals, rapists, etc." but as a legitimate need for national security, would he still be a racist, or just someone who disagrees with you about what is necessary for national security on our borders?

This thread seems monolithically tilted by those of the more "progressive" bent, as though it is only the right that has an agenda?  Isn't that a tad disingenuous?

Rand

[Alan Klein]

Interesting article about election fraud in Chicago in 1960 where then Mayor Daley was believed to have once marched his legions of the dead from the cemetery into the voting booths to get Democrat John F. Kennedy the majority in the electoral college and win Illinois by less than 8000 votes which helped him beat Republican Nixon in the presidential election.  Nixon was urged by many to contest the election in Illinois and Texas (Democrat at that time). (like Hillary and Stein did in 2016 in three other states).  But he thought that would create a constitutional crises.  (Shades of 2000 Bush vs. Gore). And anyway, it would make him appear a sore loser and he intended to run again.  Of course there were claims the Republicans were loading up the vote for themselves at the same time in other Illinois counties.  One election wonk stated, "The Democrats rigged the election--fair and square." 

My guess there are probably rigged votes from both parties still and both would rather forget the whole thing that Trump raised.  It would embarrass too many people on both sides.   The thing is though it doesn't take that many fraudulent votes to tilt a close election like 1960 or in 2000.  While 3,000,000 nationally may be inflated, a few thousand could be significant.  There are also local elections for Mayor, County, etc where fraudulent votes of only a few hundred could effect the election.   We just got rid of a county executive where I live (he retired) who held the position for over 25 years and retired with a huge pension.  I'm not saying he was a crook.  But i wonder who's been counting the votes all these years?
http://www.salon.com/2016/02/14/election_fraud_chicago_style_illinois_decades_old_notoriety_for_election_corruption_is_legendary/
Another article.
https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20161019/downtown/vote-rigged-elections-history-fraud-stolen-trump

[scyth]

If you are old enough - which I doubt - you may remember what was happening in London most nights during WW2.

I hail from the country where what was happening in London "most nights during WW2" or even during the worst nights would be considered a very safe place to be back then  ...

Had those two towns in Japan not been nuked, that bloody war would have cost even more lives than it did. Perhaps you believe that Japan would just have stopped, or that the US would have done so. Sorry, unless the nose is bloodied enough wars don't stop.

exactly the point about Aleppo, Grozny, etc

[Alan Klein]

Is that the best you both can do ?
Leaving aside 'intent' on the reporter issue, - here are just a few of the unambiguous ones:

• Attacked the parents of a fallen American hero.
• Belittled POWs and the war record of Sen. John McCain.
• Lied about how much money he raised for veterans.
• Lied about seeing “thousands and thousands” of Muslims celebrating in New Jersey on 9/11.
• Was a leading conspiracy theorist when it came to the racist-driven birther conspiracies against President Obama.
• Dismissed nearly eight years of accusing the president of not being an American with a less than 30 second statement where he didn’t apologize for any of it.

And add to the above another smoking gun : "significant, wilful and repeated violations of the BSA" - aka money laundering -

multiple instances and currency reporting violations
failing to report suspicious transactions,
failing to properly file transaction reports,
failing to keep appropriate records

and it's ongoing
Dirty money: Trump and the Kazakh connection

I could easily go on ..

Edit:
Almost forgot :

• Dismissed the Acting Attorney General for upholding the Constitution ... :~)

If Trump is such a jerk, how come he won?  His adversaries really have to get a grip on.  Using the same insulting arguments against him after he got elected really makes a lot of sense.  "N'yah. N'yah."   Is that your strategy to win in 4 years?

Trump's running circles around you.  He just met with Abe of Japan and re-enforced the same strategic policy we had with them against North Korea and China that we had before.  He dropped the two-China Taiwan policy in keeping with the past.  He's becoming a regular President and is going to use the Republican controlled Congress to pass his economic policies.   "N'yah. N'yah" is not going to do it for you.

[Ray]

Ray - that article has been mentioned elsewhere on this forum. It's from a much-less-than-objective source, and does nothing to counter the obvious fact that Trump did exactly what he is accused doing. The man is an embarrassment to the USA, and you do yourself no favours by making desperate excuses for him.

I admit that I usually tend to focus on the evidence presented rather than automatically accept any view simply because it comes from a so-called reputable source in the opinion of some other group, or dismiss evidence simply because it's presented by a group that certain other people  think is unreliable or not objective. I tend to think for myself.

I'm not trying to make desperate excuses for Trump. I'm not an American citizen, but I found the long, drawn out, election campaign rather amazing as well as entertaining, and the final result of the election even more amazing.

Politics in general seems to me to consist of a lot of bluster, and exaggeration, and misrepresentation of facts. There seems to be a continual power struggle going on, with an emphasis on personal attacks rather than an open discussion on sound and rational policies that will help the country prosper as a whole.

We also have this problem in Australia. When I occasionally view 'Question Time' in Parliament on TV, I'm amazed at the constant bickering and shouting and insulting remarks that are made, with the 'Speaker of the House' constantly having  to warn other members to be quiet or they'll be ejected from the room.

I guess that's the nature of democracy. 

[Alan Goldhammer]

The financial crisis was caused by too much lending and in true American fashion, we totally over reacted after the crash making it harder to get a loan.  Now small businesses who want to expand cant get the capital to do so because of too many regulations, Dodd-Frank being the largest.  On top of that, the shear amount of new regulations put into effect make it impossible for any bank without a large staff to follow law and the lending requirements make it harder for them to make money.

Actually that is not true.  The National Federation of Independent Business, the trade group that represents small firms regularly surveys their membership and access to capital is never a bit issue for them.

You think it is just by happenstance that we have had a net negative growth in the banking sector along with large increases in overall banking fees?

I don't understand this statement.  I own stock in several big money center banks and their growth since the recovery from the great recession has been just fine according to my brokerage account (as well as their financial filings).

This is the real problem, the life blood of growing the economy is being held back.  Not only does this indirectly prevent businesses from growing, but since banks also create money, it is keeping the economy from growing as well. 

  Economy has done better than all other countries save 'maybe' China since 2008.  Sure we would all like 4% growth per year but I don't think that will ever be in the cards unless we really try to overheat things and then inflation will come roaring back.

And the financial center is not some abstract separate economy.  If allowed to operate correctly, our economy should be booming.  Yes, one can make an argument that, aside from the IPOs, trading stocks really does no one any good but the investors, investors such as every single person who has a retirement fund in almost the entire world. 

Meaning?  I've been investing in stocks ever since I was a teenager (a long time ago!) and find that the stock market is pretty reflective of the overall economy.

The problem is socialism does not work, and Obama really force fed it to us.

Please describe in detail all or at least some of the socialistic things that Obama force fed us.  Don't tell me it was the Affordable Care Act either as that was something that the Heritage Foundation came up with (I have the original work paper from them in my files as well as a Wall Street Journal op-ed on the topic).  Private sector delivery of health care cannot in any way be described as socialistic.

It's interesting how many people are for socialism but fail to look at the countries (who don't receive massive amounts of aid such as those in the Eastern block whom the USA protects from Russia) where it is actually implemented.  I totally understand the altruistic concept of helping everyone out and creating a big safety net, but in every country socialism is applied, that country eventually collapses. 

  It depends on what you are defining as socialism.  certainly the Scandinavian countries provide a lot of free social welfare for their citizens and they seem to be reasonably stable.  The Netherlands might also fall into this category but they do rely on mandatory private health insurance to care for all citizens.

I was in Cuba recently and the government in 2013 was forced to make it legal for private citizens to open their own restaurants (due to an extremely weak economy).  What a novel concept! 

Cuba was and still is a dictatorship and I don't think you can confuse that with democratic socialism

[Alan Goldhammer]

But it's not just the far left that has serious concerns about The Donald, even the Wall Street Journal has some concerns Wall Street Journal Rips Donald Trump: ‘Behave’ Like You Want to Be President. (I would link to the actual article and not an article about the article but I don't subscribe to the WSJ-and yes it was about candidate Trump not President Trump but from what I can see, same difference).

Both George Will and Kathleen Parker who are conservative nationally syndicated columnists are ripping into Trump every week now.  There is also Jennifer Rubin who is the conservative blogger at the Washington Post and a real Obama critic who is laying into Trump 3-4 times a day.  Maybe Rush Limbaugh and the others on talk radio are still waxing poetic but the main line conservative news columnists are not.

[Alan Goldhammer]

If Trump is such a jerk, how come he won?  His adversaries really have to get a grip on.  Using the same insulting arguments against him after he got elected really makes a lot of sense.  "N'yah. N'yah."   Is that your strategy to win in 4 years?

He ran a very interesting guerilla campaign and one that used the long con.  Now his supporters are surprised that the health care that they received through Obamacare may be taken away.  There has been some very good field reporting of Trump voters in swing states and Appalachia who all are on Obamacare and didn't know that was what it was called.  Some of the counties went for Trump 80-20 and now everyone is worried about losing their health care.  http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2016/12/13/13848794/kentucky-obamacare-trump

[Alan Klein]

He ran a very interesting guerilla campaign and one that used the long con.  Now his supporters are surprised that the health care that they received through Obamacare may be taken away.  There has been some very good field reporting of Trump voters in swing states and Appalachia who all are on Obamacare and didn't know that was what it was called.  Some of the counties went for Trump 80-20 and now everyone is worried about losing their health care.  http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2016/12/13/13848794/kentucky-obamacare-trump

Trump isn't a conservative.  He's a populist.  He said if someone fell ill in front of him, he would not walk over the sick person.  He agrees that pre-existing medical conditions should not prevent you from getting insurance.  Cruz creditably called him a NY Liberal, which he is.  The only thing conservative about him is lowering taxes and calling Christmas, Christmas.  He hasn't said but I suspect he'll let the Fed continue printing if he needs money to support his programs because the deficit is still there.  He believes in non-conservative trade policies effecting foreign countries and American companies.  His immigration policy will stop at throwing illegals who are criminals out of the country as Obama has been doing.  Didn't Trump already say his wall will have a nice big door on it.  Othere than the criminals, he's going to support the illegals who have been living here peaceably and allow them to become full citizens.  He'll get the Latino vote in 2020 because of this and the black vote if he can really help the economy.  Then in his second term, he'll put a Trump sign on the White House, rent out the Lincoln bedroom and move his headquarters permanently to Mar-a-lago. .

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

...democratic socialism

Oxymoron.