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What has Trump done right so far?

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Re: What has Trump done right so far?
Post by CRC   » Sat Apr 01, 2017 10:31 am

CRC
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gcomeau wrote:
You are writing as if you think I wasn't already familiar with the analysis of any of those groups.


Just taking you at your word where you dismissed my reference to them because of the political leanings, not because of what they wrote.


gcomeau wrote:But there are analyses which make the best attempt. And there are analyses which have *no interest* in objectivity. The CBO is the former. Your cited think tank is the latter.


Not necessarily. CBO has a predetermined process and procedure that is considered 'non-partisan' and that does not translate to 'objective'. There is a big difference.


gcomeau wrote:
In a multi Trillion dollar budget.

Minor. Revision.

One which does not alter the conclusion that is the point of contention. That the stimulus *worked*.


Depends on how you define 'worked'. I prefer to look at it from a 'cost effective' POV - which should be all of us taxpayer's POV. Spending $1 to achieve a dime's worth of stimulous is not my idea of cost effectiveness.

And a billion here, a billion there, which is $10k a year for 100,000 families, is not an insignificant chunk of change.

gcomeau wrote:
Oh FFS.

The technical definition of the end of a recession is the first quarter GDP growth switches from negative to positive. So yes technically the recession ended June 2009.

But you are saying that as if the problem was over then. That there was no more economic emergency to address. What were the economic conditions in June 2009?

Unemployment was at almost 10%, the financial markets were in disarray, the housing market had been *gutted*, GDP was massively depressed.

End of technical recession does not mean end of problem. FFS 7 years later unemployment was at half that, GDP had been growing for years, the housing and financial market was stabilized..... and Republicans were STILL claiming the economy was a disaster. So compare that to 7 years ago and try telling me it was all fine back then because "the recession ended".


The end of the recession is like the last of the fire that burned your house down being extinguished. That doesn't end your problem, there's still all that fire damage to deal with. You still have to rebuild your damn house and replace all your lost stuff. And that doesn't come free.

That. Takes. Spending.



If someone came along and told you you were being ridiculously irresponsible spending money to put a roof back over your family's head and replace their burned up clothes and etc etc because "what are you doing? The fire isn't burning any more! There's no serious problem you need to be spending all this money on!" how would you react to that???



Here we go again. Changing the rules. Conflating anecdotes. The definition of the end of a recession is that the GDP, which you state was massively depressed, is now growing again rather than contracting.

Your analogy of spending money to fix the house is completely BS. Let me interpret it the way it should be seen. Your house burns down, you take the insurance money, you borrow 10x more money, then you start giving the money away to friends and family, you eat out at very expensive restaurants, you travel a lot, you hire business associates to design a new house, you pay them up front (they don't deliver), after all the money is gone, you end up pitching a tent and complaining about it...

gcomeau wrote:
You have to be kidding me.

Look, I'm a huge fan of manned missions to Mars, but there were other rather clearly higher priorities at the time.


I would never kid you. You're being squishy again. "Clearly higher priorities..". So let's test your social conscience - who in the world would you allow to DIE while you funded a manned mission to Mars. Be specific as you think about that and while you think about that, realize what anyone could say about your heartless, selfishness in allowing that person to DIE while you send money elsewhere. Think about the red light on the camera, the microphone in your face, the poor starving or dead child/whale/seal/elephant/man/woman video playing in split screen while you answer the question how this technological problem spending is more important than this person/animal/thing dead or dying.

My point is simple. No amount of spending will ever solve all 'higher priority' issues. By turning inward over the past 20-25 years and not looking 25- 50 years ahead we are internalizing rather than pushing the ball forward. This will have grave consequences for the future of the human race as we are still limited to one fragile planet only...

To some people there will always be 'higher priorities' than major technological government sponsored projects.

gcomeau wrote:
Yeah, their words and actions say otherwise

They don't act like they accept it. They act like tax cuts are God's magic economy medicine and spending is of the Devil every time it's time to give a speech to their base.


Tax cuts take power away from the politicians (who parcel it out for votes) and give it back to the tax payers - the people who earned it in the first place. Economic power to the people. What can possibly be wrong with that?

gcomeau wrote:
Oh bullshit.

The most free and most powerful the middle class in this nation has EVER been was during the huge middle class expansion of the 50s and 60s.

Tax rates dwarfed what they are now.

When we talk about tax cuts from the GOP we are pretty much ALWAYS talking about tax cuts for the rich to make sure they can accumulate ever increasing amounts of wealth and power. So sure, THOSE people get more power given to them. But not most people, most people get screwed.



Oh such an eloquent rebuttal - throwing the BS flag. Here we go again - tax cuts for the rich - please. The rich, for the most part, earn their money - there are exceptions of course. The politicians take that money, borrow more, and give it away to buy votes.

No most people get free money. Take a very close look at the CBO report of 2013. THEN look at a couple of 'op-ed' type reviews of that report and you will see how the 'snapshot' of 'total wealth' is VERY misleading once you take into account government programs.


gcomeau wrote:

Yes it does!

Because see, the nature of the bargaining matters. And what did the Republicans demand as their bargaining position? That more of the stimulus was in the form of tax cuts, the *least* effective form of stimulus.


But the most democratic wouldn't you agree? Once again, giving people back a portion of what they earned has to take priority over frivolous spending - or income redistribution.

gcomeau wrote: See previous response to this nonsensical statement.Recession ending does not mean emergency ending.


Hmmm. So hindsight is not 20/20? The fact that it ended does not mean what it is supposed to mean? So basic facts that all can agree with do not conflict with 'facts' necessary to continue the debate? So the end of a recession does not mean the end of an emergency when viewed retrospectively. Interesting argument.

But this entire thread is now so far off base from the original premise.
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Re: What has Trump done right so far?
Post by Tenshinai   » Sat Apr 01, 2017 6:38 pm

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Tax cuts take power away from the politicians (who parcel it out for votes) and give it back to the tax payers - the people who earned it in the first place. Economic power to the people. What can possibly be wrong with that?


That it´s complete and utter bullshit?

Let´s make it simple:
“I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.” – Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

Because that´s effectively the point.

Only idiots actually believe that a society can work if noone cooperates. And to make cooperation happen, you need to do it one way or another, and USUALLY, the simplest way to do that is to get someone elected and make sure they have the tax revenues to fix the things everyone wants as much as possible.

Remove that and you are literally begging for either anarchy or rule by force. As in dictature or control either by the people who can pay others to shoot whoever they dont like, or those who are psycho enough to do it for themselves anyway.


Here we go again - tax cuts for the rich - please. The rich, for the most part, earn their money


:lol:

I have met and known many people in my 40+ years, and one thing i can say with absolute certainty is that there is absolutely zero correlation between how much people work or how advanced or difficult or complex their jobs are and what they earn from it.

2 of the 3 highest income people i´ve known, they run on very lazy 20-30 hour work weeks, and for that they get a yearly wage that is counted in millions, yes i´m using dollars to ease the internationality of the comparison.
They made most of their money from being "board of directors" pro´s, positions where they actually didn´t need to do almost anything except pop up once every 3 month for a full board meeting.

Meanwhile, i have a cousin who works as an ambulance nurse, a very difficult and technically demanding and stressful job where he sometimes does 12+ hour shifts if things happen at the wrong time, or i could mention my more distant relative who died as a firefighter because he chose to get other people out safely, a very dangerous, lethal even, job, and both of them has/had something like 1% of the income of the two lazy asses mentioned above...


Hell, just to be blatant about it, a janitor at a hospital has a MUCH more important, responsbile and dangerous job than those directors, because if the janitor doesn´t do their job, people will die, or possibly the janitor dies, or worse, causes a potentially lethal pandemic.


Yes there are rich people that actually earn their money for real, but they are a tiny minority out of the whole.

And you have bought the rich kids propaganda hook, line and sinker if you actually believe that rubbish.
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Re: What has Trump done right so far?
Post by Daryl   » Sun Apr 02, 2017 1:59 am

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Well off topic, but there are only so many good things to be attributed to Trump. One surprising one is that the manufacture and sale of assault rifles has dropped dramatically. This is apparently because those that way inclined were worried that Obama might stop them buying their tenth people killer, so were stocking up.
On the subject of who earns their money, a life time of working at all levels in many industries, tells me that it is complex. You get workers and posers across all levels and fields. Certainly it is incorrect to say that a CEO on $10M a year earns it compared to a doctor on $100k a year.
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Re: What has Trump done right so far?
Post by biochem   » Tue Apr 04, 2017 12:09 am

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The CBOs track record had been lousy. I'd like to junk it and start over. I propose to replace the current CBO with 10 seperate study groups located around the country (none within 300 miles of DC). Each group will use a different set of economic models, some conservative some liberal. Each individual group will be required to have an equal number of conservative vs liberal staffers. This will give the predictions a range. Over time some groups will be more correct than others and their predictions will be given added weight.
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Re: What has Trump done right so far?
Post by CRC   » Tue Apr 04, 2017 1:08 pm

CRC
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Tenshinai wrote: That it´s complete and utter bullshit?

Let´s make it simple:
“I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.” – Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

Because that´s effectively the point.

Only idiots actually believe that a society can work if noone cooperates. And to make cooperation happen, you need to do it one way or another, and USUALLY, the simplest way to do that is to get someone elected and make sure they have the tax revenues to fix the things everyone wants as much as possible.

Remove that and you are literally begging for either anarchy or rule by force. As in dictature or control either by the people who can pay others to shoot whoever they dont like, or those who are psycho enough to do it for themselves anyway.


Spoken like a true taxaholic. Notice I did not say eliminate taxes - for that would cause anarchy, but removing tax revenue would reduce politician's power and given the current structure of where our taxes go and how easily people are bought off with 'entitlements', and the amount of funding spent on such buy offs.

So far history has shown that increased concentration of power in a political class does result in dictatorships. And that increase in power is directly related to the power to tax and to spend.

Tenshinai wrote:

I have met and known many people in my 40+ years, and one thing i can say with absolute certainty is that there is absolutely zero correlation between how much people work or how advanced or difficult or complex their jobs are and what they earn from it.


I have no doubt you can say that with absolute certainty. So sad.

In my lifetime I have worked, met, worked for, worked with and rubbed shoulders with hundreds of people from blue collar to white collar to multi-millionaires. I can state with absolute certainty - having three 'whoa is me', 'life's not fair', 'give me what I think I'm worth, not what I am worth', drags on society in my immediate family, that hard work is a pre-requisite for almost all financial advancement - but with no guarantees.

But I also know that whiners get no where except in the political class...


Tenshinai wrote:
2 of the 3 highest income people i´ve known, they run on very lazy 20-30 hour work weeks, and for that they get a yearly wage that is counted in millions, yes i´m using dollars to ease the internationality of the comparison.
They made most of their money from being "board of directors" pro´s, positions where they actually didn´t need to do almost anything except pop up once every 3 month for a full board meeting.

Meanwhile, i have a cousin who works as an ambulance nurse, a very difficult and technically demanding and stressful job where he sometimes does 12+ hour shifts if things happen at the wrong time, or i could mention my more distant relative who died as a firefighter because he chose to get other people out safely, a very dangerous, lethal even, job, and both of them has/had something like 1% of the income of the two lazy asses mentioned above...


Hell, just to be blatant about it, a janitor at a hospital has a MUCH more important, responsbile and dangerous job than those directors, because if the janitor doesn´t do their job, people will die, or possibly the janitor dies, or worse, causes a potentially lethal pandemic.


Yes there are rich people that actually earn their money for real, but they are a tiny minority out of the whole.

And you have bought the rich kids propaganda hook, line and sinker if you actually believe that rubbish.


You need to get out more. You need to study quintile trends more. You also need to formulate your analogies just a tad bit better.

That janitor's job my be 'more important', although I would argue the resident emergency surgeon is far more important, but you can replace him or her with any number of people, while that 7 figure a year surgeon is irreplaceable if you're the one on the table. Which one do you want to operate on you? The janitor or the surgeon?

Your board meeting analogy is probably off as well. Are you aware that most board members are members of multiple boards? So that once every couple of months for one board needs to be multiplied by X, where X is the number of boards they happen to reside on. In addition, do you have any idea what effort they put into getting where they are? (Probably not.) I personally know 3 or 4 board members of fortune 1000 companies. They are never 'off the clock'. They live on airplanes. They only get a couple of sequential days a year away from the rat race - if they are lucky.

I also know many small business owners trying to rake and scrape themselves a future for their children. 100+ hours a week are common. No set pay or salary. They get what they can from the profits.

Now, are there exceptions - of course.

Your firefighter and nurse (EMT?) analogy have the same issues. Even though we have a bastardized capitalist system for labor, it is very hard for some people to understand the imputed 'value' of a person's labor due to the democracy of the dollar voting system rather than the self centered 'that's what I think it should be' POV.
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Re: What has Trump done right so far?
Post by CRC   » Tue Apr 04, 2017 1:18 pm

CRC
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Daryl wrote:Well off topic, but there are only so many good things to be attributed to Trump. One surprising one is that the manufacture and sale of assault rifles has dropped dramatically. This is apparently because those that way inclined were worried that Obama might stop them buying their tenth people killer, so were stocking up.
On the subject of who earns their money, a life time of working at all levels in many industries, tells me that it is complex. You get workers and posers across all levels and fields. Certainly it is incorrect to say that a CEO on $10M a year earns it compared to a doctor on $100k a year.


Considering where the political discourse is headed, I'm not sure the declining sale of 'assault' rifles is a good thing either.

It is perfectly correct to say that a CEO earning $10M a year 'earns it'. In a public corporation, the stockholders vote on CEO compensation. I just finished voting my shares in several corporations and all the ballots included CEO and board compensations. If its a private corporation, then tough beans to you. A private corporation can do whatever it wants with its compensation plans and no one else should ever have a say in it.

Now for the doctor. If the doctor is an employee and doesn't like their compensation, they are free to move on. Just like everyone else. If the doctor is a small business owner, they determine their own compensation.

Now more than likely the $10M CEO is paid IAW other similar CEO's in similar positions and industries with similar responsibilities and probably has additional compensation, via stock options, that are performance based.

The doctor, on the other hand, is paid a 'going rate' based on their experience, area of practice and demand for that particular specialty.

The bottom line is I prefer the 'marketplace', as bastardized as it is, to define compensation, rather than politicians and/or whiners.
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Re: What has Trump done right so far?
Post by CRC   » Tue Apr 04, 2017 1:20 pm

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biochem wrote:The CBOs track record had been lousy. I'd like to junk it and start over. I propose to replace the current CBO with 10 seperate study groups located around the country (none within 300 miles of DC). Each group will use a different set of economic models, some conservative some liberal. Each individual group will be required to have an equal number of conservative vs liberal staffers. This will give the predictions a range. Over time some groups will be more correct than others and their predictions will be given added weight.


I would agree that CBO's track record is pretty dismal. I am astonished at the number of reports and gobbedlygook they put out every year. I would lay off 90% of them and reduce the number of reports to a minimum.

There are enough right and left wing think tanks that put out all kinds of information and reports. I'm not sure 10 more government funded groups would improve the situation.
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Re: What has Trump done right so far?
Post by Daryl   » Tue Apr 04, 2017 11:34 pm

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CRC wrote:
Daryl wrote:Well off topic, but there are only so many good things to be attributed to Trump. One surprising one is that the manufacture and sale of assault rifles has dropped dramatically. This is apparently because those that way inclined were worried that Obama might stop them buying their tenth people killer, so were stocking up.
On the subject of who earns their money, a life time of working at all levels in many industries, tells me that it is complex. You get workers and posers across all levels and fields. Certainly it is incorrect to say that a CEO on $10M a year earns it compared to a doctor on $100k a year.


Considering where the political discourse is headed, I'm not sure the declining sale of 'assault' rifles is a good thing either.

It is perfectly correct to say that a CEO earning $10M a year 'earns it'. In a public corporation, the stockholders vote on CEO compensation. I just finished voting my shares in several corporations and all the ballots included CEO and board compensations. If its a private corporation, then tough beans to you. A private corporation can do whatever it wants with its compensation plans and no one else should ever have a say in it.

Now for the doctor. If the doctor is an employee and doesn't like their compensation, they are free to move on. Just like everyone else. If the doctor is a small business owner, they determine their own compensation.

Now more than likely the $10M CEO is paid IAW other similar CEO's in similar positions and industries with similar responsibilities and probably has additional compensation, via stock options, that are performance based.

The doctor, on the other hand, is paid a 'going rate' based on their experience, area of practice and demand for that particular specialty.

The bottom line is I prefer the 'marketplace', as bastardized as it is, to define compensation, rather than politicians and/or whiners.

I'm sure that there will be plenty of assault rifles in the US regardless. For what it is worth I'm a gun owner, but see no need for civilians in suburbia to own assault rifles, and I've shot many, and previously owned a couple.
As to the renumeration, I agree that private corporations have the legal right to pay their CEOs whatever they decide to. I do disagree that most are worth what they are paid, and to the ethics of some people getting millions while others battle to survive. Particularly when some CEOs get big bonuses after having presided over disasters. You'll say I'm a communist but a proposal in the EU a few years back of a 100% income tax on salaries over a couple of millions would have my support, but all developed countries would have to agree. Incidentally it's not sour grapes, because I'm in a good financial position.
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Re: What has Trump done right so far?
Post by dscott8   » Thu Apr 06, 2017 5:29 pm

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To be fair, Trump recently removed Mr. Mistake (Steve Bannon) from the National Security Council and let the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff back in. This happened right after the news of the Syria gas attack, and I suspect he finally realized that the NSC is not supposed to be a political body.
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Re: What has Trump done right so far?
Post by biochem   » Thu Apr 06, 2017 7:08 pm

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CRC wrote:
biochem wrote:The CBOs track record had been lousy. I'd like to junk it and start over. I propose to replace the current CBO with 10 seperate study groups located around the country (none within 300 miles of DC). Each group will use a different set of economic models, some conservative some liberal. Each individual group will be required to have an equal number of conservative vs liberal staffers. This will give the predictions a range. Over time some groups will be more correct than others and their predictions will be given added weight.


I would agree that CBO's track record is pretty dismal. I am astonished at the number of reports and gobbedlygook they put out every year. I would lay off 90% of them and reduce the number of reports to a minimum.

There are enough right and left wing think tanks that put out all kinds of information and reports. I'm not sure 10 more government funded groups would improve the situation.


The problem is that since the CBO is the "official" body, it produces the "official" numbers. Which means that even with their appallingly poor record, their numbers are the ones repeated 1000s of times by the news media. Replacing them with 10 offices staffed with an equal # of conservatives and liberals would at least make the numbers a range. And over time the more accurate office would be emphasized, creating competition with the others driving them to improve. The think tanks are doing a good job but since they aren't "official", their numbers get a fraction of the press the CBO numbers do.
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