Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

1) This is not how tariffs work. Foreign countries aren't "paying" the USA money. American taxpayers are.

2) The trade deficit with China has gotten larger since Trump imposed tariffs.

[Hannibal]

Hack -- thanks for the link and I appreciate the data. The study is rather disingenuous though because it classifies Social Security and Medicare as welfare. I don't entirely disagree with those classifications and you could start me on a rant about them if you wanted to. In this context though it doesn't really fit, because they are programs that you pay into and then receive out of at retirement age. And with SS, your payout is relative to your pay-ins. Since our current demographic trends are only about 50 years old, our retirement programs have not seen the effects of Hart-Cellar yet. But they will. Our white population is older and our non-white population is younger. If you think that Boomers' retirement is in bad shape, then wait until you see what it looks like when Amnesty 2.0 recipients hit 65. They technically won't be eligible for much Social Security but I guarantee you there will be a push to give them a payout anyways. It will be funded by means testing of Social Security and wealth confiscation from IRAs/401k programs. You can bet your life on this.

WRT immigration I think a lot of about future liabilities. The US already has trillions in unfunded liabilities and the trend in the country is to continue to add more programs that create unfunded liabilities. People are earn minimum wage and who do not have the skills or education to earn much more than that in their working lives will always be a huge net burden to these programs over time. Socialized medicine for the underclasses has to be funded by big earners. The country only has so many big earners to pay for ever-expanding entitlements.

[hack]

No nuclear war with North Korea, the economy is great, gas prices are down, jobs, people are getting off food stamps and Welfare. And best of all Obama's Legacy is being wiped out completely.

I don't see why gas prices are a proxy for POTUS performance, but take it off your list anyways. See link. But you can still give him credit for not starting a war with North Korea, for which he joins a very short list of presidents who have done the same: only single one of them back to WWII. Of course Trump is the only one in the group who actually thought it was good policy to meet the North Korean leader for talks, so that still makes him a special boy.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Number of news outlets reporting that Michael Cohen is in court this morning to plead guilty to NEW charges (perjury before Congress) brought against him by Robert Mueller and not the SDNY. Also reporting that he's given dozens of hours in interviews to Mueller's team.

[Kapture1]

Yeah, they better add new charges since the two that he pled to that supposedly implicated Trump weren't actual crimes lol

[Kapture1]

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[hack]

Hack -- thanks for the link and I appreciate the data. The study is rather disingenuous though because it classifies Social Security and Medicare as welfare. I don't entirely disagree with those classifications and you could start me on a rant about them if you wanted to. In this context though it doesn't really fit, because they are programs that you pay into and then receive out of at retirement age. And with SS, your payout is relative to your pay-ins. Since our current demographic trends are only about 50 years old, our retirement programs have not seen the effects of Hart-Cellar yet. But they will. Our white population is older and our non-white population is younger. If you think that Boomers' retirement is in bad shape, then wait until you see what it looks like when Amnesty 2.0 recipients hit 65. They technically won't be eligible for much Social Security but I guarantee you there will be a push to give them a payout anyways. It will be funded by means testing of Social Security and wealth confiscation from IRAs/401k programs. You can bet your life on this.

WRT immigration I think a lot of about future liabilities. The US already has trillions in unfunded liabilities and the trend in the country is to continue to add more programs that create unfunded liabilities. People are earn minimum wage and who do not have the skills or education to earn much more than that in their working lives will always be a huge net burden to these programs over time. Socialized medicine for the underclasses has to be funded by big earners. The country only has so many big earners to pay for ever-expanding entitlements.

Fair enough. You and I aren't going to agree on this, of course, but I hope we can at least agree that there's a lot of ways to crunch these numbers to get them to say what you want them to.

I agree that the balance sheet isn't sustainable, but clearly cutting spending isn't changing that trend. I think sustainability comes from tax sanity, which includes a whole lot of redistribution and fealty to the global trend of taxation at the source of real economic activity instead of allowing profits to be shifted to tax havens. Take that money and pour it into educational opportunities for existing Americans, and that would go a long way toward reducing the reliance on immigrants to fill higher-value positions. That would only go so far, IMO. If you're a free-markets guy you understand the need for competition. If you believe in competition, you surely cannot believe in the ability to have a competitive economy without a competitive job market. If you want to do that without inviting in talented immigrants, then you'd better invest even more in education at home. Which is still a less-robust system for attracting and retaining talented people. The future is one in which most countries will be below the fertility rate, so there's going to be competition for mobile and talented people. Should do that AND be open to immigrants if you want to have a future-proof economy. The US has an opportunity to skim the cream off the top, but you have to get immigration policy right. Which includes giving ethnic minorities the opportunity to exist and thrive in peace and without harrassment.

[crashcourse]

You were one of the biggest pushers of that conspiracy.

a DNC staff member was killed about the same time Hillary's emails were either hacked or leaked with the dnc chairman brazillewas fearful of her own life after he was killed

but move along nothing to see here

is pretty shoitty though for the rnc to knowingly use his death as a political weapon if they knew for sure it was Russia that hacked her emails at the time

[Hannibal]

The Mueller investigation will save face by charging a lot of people, the President probably included, for "obstruction" or some other process crime. There will likely also be some laffers like the charges against the Russians who did some trolling of Facebook.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Cohen pleads guilty to lying to Congress.

He testified before Congress that the Trump Org ended negotiations over "The Moscow Project" aka Trump Tower Moscow in January 2016 when in fact negotiations didn't actually end until June 2016. Admitted this morning that he had at least three conversations with Candidate Trump regarding the project during that time. The Trump kids all knew about it too. Cohen was lying when he said the project wasn't discussed much internally. Admitted they were planning for Trump to travel to Moscow personally at one point.

Cohen says he lied to Congress so as not to contradict what Trump was saying publicly.

The charging document is here

https://www.lawfareblog.com/document...-mueller-probe

EDIT: Oh and for clarity's sake, Trump is "Individual-1" in that document

[Kapture1]

The future is one in which most countries will be below the fertility rate, so there's going to be competition for mobile and talented people. Should do that AND be open to immigrants if you want to have a future-proof economy. The US has an opportunity to skim the cream off the top, but you have to get immigration policy right. Which includes giving ethnic minorities the opportunity to exist and thrive in peace and without harrassment.

this was Merkel's argument too, and now Germany is a fucking disaster where nearly ALL migrants are on state assistance and not working lmao. And not the least of their concerns is the disappearing German culture. She is now pumping the breaks but the damage is going to be irreversible.

[Kapture1]

The Mueller investigation will save face by charging a lot of people, the President probably included, for "obstruction" or some other process crime. There will likely also be some laffers like the charges against the Russians who did some trolling of Facebook.

no, the president wont be charged with shit. Mueller is not going to be breaking the longstanding State Department rules of not indicting a sitting president. His politically charged report will be submitted to congress to make the case for impeachment, which if the dems are dumb enough to vote for it, he will never be removed from office.

This started as getting to the bottom of "Trump Russia collusion to STEAL AN ELECTION" and will end with "gee, I think I can get this 72 year old man who believes the moon landing was a hoax to plead to lying, even though when we reminded him of the email from two years ago he sent, he admitted to forgetting and we let him amend his statement."

[Kapture1]

The only side that we know for certain colluded with the Russians to get dirt on their political opponent was the Clinton team. They are not being investigated.

The 0bama administration was unmasking Trump associates and leaking their names to the press. They are not being investigated

The product of that "dirt from Russia" was used to gain a FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign and on Trump himself, Peter Struzk or Andy McCabe aren't being investigated.



The linked article, not by a right wing new source, was when Mike Rogers went to meet with Trump in Trump Tower and didn't tell 0bama during the transition, Nov 17th 2016. The SAME DAY, Trump packs up the transition team and moves to his private golf club in NJ, never to return to Trump Tower again. why did he do that?

Trump has an ace up his sleeve and is waiting for the right time to declassify documents. this is the biggest scandal in US history and no one seems to care. They will be forced to, there will be no sweeping it under the rug.

[crashcourse]

[QUOTE=Dr. Strangelove;n1613824]Cohen pleads guilty to lying to Congress.


This is it!!

3 conversations in 6 months from then candidate trump with his lawyer about construction project they worked years on prior!!

but because he was running for president all conversations should have ceased about future endeavors

THIS IS REALLY IT!!

so we will run with this for awhile --trump and his kids talked about trump towers before he even got the nomination let alone the presidency

now if you can tell me he traded trump towers in return for Michigan and Ohio maybe we got something then

[Kapture1]

Discussing building a building in Russia =/= collusion with Russia to hack political opponents and steal an election.

but as you will see, THIS IS IT! DRUMPF IS DONE FOR SURE! THIS TIME WE GOT HIM!!!! lol