Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Kapture1]

Amusing. Sarah Sanders boats about a Quinnipiac Poll that says 66% think the economy is good. Hooray Trump!

https://twitter.com/PressSec/status/951287091379560450

But uh-oh...the same exact poll also found the below. It also said Obama deserves more credit for the economy than Trump (by a 49-40% margin) and gave Trump a 36% job approval rating.

But hey! Cherry-picking rocks! Hooray conservative values!

wonder what the numbers would be if the Democrat media (read NBC, ABC, CNN) wasn't wall to wall Trump Russia hysteria. For a whole year and what is there to show for it?

It's more likely to blow up in the Dems faces than for there to ever be evidence of Trump Russia collusion.

[Kapture1]

[CGVT]

.

[Kapture1]

gonna try for three chickens on one page. kinda like three strikes in a row is a Turkey, three triggers can be called a Chicken

[Kapture1]

[SeattleLionsFan]

That is good for them. More here:

https://thinkprogress.org/truth-walmart-bonuses-5966fe4245b0/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

[Jeff Buchanan]

Re the Walmart hourly pay raise pronouncement:

There are a lot of things, in general, that I like about DJT's Presidency so far. The problem for me is that the devil is in the details. The administration is notorious for spreading half truths and an occasional outright lie. This approach fails to adequately inform the public and I dislike it.

Walmart raising it's minimum wage to $11/h and paying bonuses is great. That it is a solely ascribable corporate action due to tax reform is questionable. It's a great marketing tool though. Corporate profits, esp. Walmart's are up ......

It's known that Walmart corporate has had a boiling feud for years with it's employees about pay. It goes back several years and Walmart has made a strong effort to polish it's own apple in that regard. $11 bucks an hour? Pfffft. One reliable source says they could easily afford $18. I could make an argument as strong as the the one Kapture posts above that this action has little to do with tax reform and more to do with apple polishing and keeping employees happy.

http://fortune.com/2013/11/12/why-wal-mart-can-afford-to-give-its-workers-a-50-raise/

I've addressed this once in a link up thread but here it is again.

The S&P 500-stock index has risen more than 23 percent since Election Day last year. Along with a rising real estate market, that's helped to push the nation's total household wealth to $96.9 trillion. ...... only about half the people in the country own stocks either directly or through retirement accounts.

"You could argue that there's a trickle-down effect," said KPMG's Hunter, "but actual evidence of that meaningfully changing people's lives over the long term seems to be de minimis."

https://www.npr.org/2017/12/08/569451704/fact-check-president-trumps-record-on-jobs-and-stocks

I've benefited from the stock market rise in the short term. Will it last? History says it won't and there will be a correction. Moreover, While DJT would like to ascribe the rise in the markets to his policies, plenty of experts will tell you, well, partly:

http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/11/investing/trump-obama-bull-market-stocks/index.html

There are other articles than this one providing better and more complete insight into the stock market gains and the reasons behind them. There are so many in fact, that I don't want to link them all. It's up to those of you who frequent this forum to keep informed..... and that's assuming you want to hear both sides.

I have benefited from the rise in the stock market but I'm much less inclined to give all the credit toTrump and aggravated by his constant tweeting about it that tends to give him all the credit when that is just not accurate. I will not benefit at all from tax reform because I'm retired but I make it a point to look skeptically at everything that comes out of the White House regarding these two issues and more so than any presidency in the past.

I claim allegiance to neither the left or the right as its proponents of ether side in this forum seem to describe their own political views through their posts. But one thing is certain for me: I don't trust DJT. I'd recommend everyone have a healthy skepticism about pronouncements such as this and simply take the time to obtain a balanced look at all of them.

[Da Geezer]

That is good for them. More here:

https://thinkprogress.org/truth-walm...mpression=true

Absolute nonsense from an alt-left site

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/think-progress/

The facts are that over 2,000,000 people, as of today, received bonuses or increases in pay directly related to the Trump tax cut. 133 companies have done something to "return" the tax windfall to working folks. WMT is giving $ 2,000 to 34,000 employees in N. America. The electric utility in Massachusetts has lowered their rates, they say, owing directly to the tax cuts.

I saw Fauxcohantas saying today that the tax cut was only for the very rich and that she and Chuckie will "substantially modify" it if they take the Senate. They will never willingly allow working Americans (91% of taxpayers) to keep their own money, and that is because they do not represent working people. Their electoral base is the takers.

But, why would Wal-Mart increase its starting pay by 22% to $ 11.00/hr? If you look at the U-6 unemployment rate, you see a dramatic decline. The 4.1% published unemployment rate is just as false under Trump as under Obama. Many welfare recipients don't look for jobs. But Wal-Mart sees what is coming in higher wages across the spectrum because it is beginning to pay to work (owing to the tax cuts and the $ 24,000 standard deduction which affects these lower-earning workers most positively). The sign of a recovery is growing real wages. That and GDP growth are the real measurements of economic health.

"Obama created lots of jobs. I have three of them." Time to do away with the 29 hour work week, because a 29-hour week is not a real job. Getting rid of the individual mandate will get rid of these part-time jobs that Obama was so enamored with.

winning



Jeff: that link to the 52% was appreciated. I just never figured that many people owned stock. Thanks.

[Jeff Buchanan]

........
The facts are that over 2,000,000 people, as of today, received bonuses or increases in pay directly related to the Trump tax cut......

Hmmmm, US population = 323m, 2m getting raises due to tax cuts.

That's an impressive less than 1%.

WMT is giving $ 2,000 to 34,000 employees in N. America.

From what I've read the bonuses are $1k and to get that bonus you need to have worked for Walmart for at least 20y. The average bonus is around $190. Details, man.

[hack]

The facts are that over 2,000,000 people, as of today, received bonuses or increases in pay directly related to the Trump tax cut. 133 companies have done something to "return" the tax windfall to working folks. WMT is giving $ 2,000 to 34,000 employees in N. America. The electric utility in Massachusetts has lowered their rates, they say, owing directly to the tax cuts.


I don't agree with that. The Thinkprogress piece shows it very clearly. 0.09% of the benefits will flow to people who work at those companies. Your assumption is that money that goes to the government in taxes is lost. That's in incorrect assumption. It's a net loss for those people, becuase that 0.09% is worth a lot less to them than a functional government able to pay what it actually costs to provide the services it provides. Your calculation is the same as saying somebody should chop up their front door into firewood and burn it because they will then be able to stay warm until the fire goes out.

Bottom line: we can certainly have a discussion about the efficiency with which the government spends its revenue. That's fair. That would be a cost-benefit analysis about taxes. Right now all we have is a cost analysis in this country, because of a generation of propaganda. We all know, deep down, that every big organization is inefficient whether its public or private. That's why Dilbert was such a hit in our culture. But somehow that knowledge doesn't enter into politics. We don't ever think about the benefits of taxes and that's a faulty analysis. As long as we have this immature and incomplete approach we're never going to do anything but allow the continued flow of income upward. Some people think that's fair, but given the history of America and how it was created, ultimately it is completely unAmerican. The country is becoming what it rebelled against, and ignoring what made it great in the first place. Which, ultimately, is how these long-term cycles tend to work. Four legs good, two legs better.

[Ghengis Jon]

Spineless House Republicans wipe their backsides with the Constitution AGAIN by renewing FISA without reforms or repair.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-surveillance/house-passes-bill-to-renew-nsa-internet-spying-tool-idUSKBN1F01XD

[Ghengis Jon]

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[Kapture1]

That is good for them. More here:

https://thinkprogress.org/truth-walm...mpression=true

Lul

Think progress

[Kapture1]

This is TP's "facts" they use to back up their opinion that the wage hike was no big deal


Walmart also announced it will increase its minimum wage from $10 to $11. While Walmart claimed this announcement was linked to the tax cut, the wage hike was likely necessary for the company to remain competitive — and, in some states, legally compliant.

[Ghengis Jon]

DC city council has decided to rename the street where the Russian Embassy sits for a Putin murder victim.

http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/11/politics/dc-city-council-russian-embassy-boris-nemtsov/index.html