Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[THE_WIZARD_]

shaddup

[iam416]

If the lithmus test for a policy was whether it was in place in 1987 or not, I'd be fine with that. As far as I can tell that would nix at least the following policies advocated by not a socialist Bernie Sanders: single payer, free college, universal childcare, breaking up "huge financial institutions" (i.e., beyond Sherman Act), funding a youth jobs program, passing an Amendment re campaign finance, vast reworking of police departments including quotas, automatic voter registration when folks turn 18, social security expansion, billionaire surtax, income tax rates well above Reagan's 28% for the top bracket, and I could go on but I can't read any more of his nonsense.

Anyway, I can live with the 1987 test. But, that means nixing a lot of free trade stuff, but I guess we're sort of there anyway.

[Hannibal]

If the Ds can nominate someone that's tolerable I'll probably vote for them in 2020. So, I'm not PARTY!!! I may be PARTY!!! if the Rs were normal conservative Rs these days. But the protectionist shit I just can't abide.

That's a weird thing to get hung up on.

[crashcourse]

glad to see there is sudden death in chess

so you don't have to answer questions to the press but you do

you pick and choose who you want to answer questions again not required but polite to pick from a variety of reporters

what does accost think he is accomplishing

we kick people out of bars, football games, places of public gathering for inappropriate behavior and ban them from coming back for not falling the rules

why is acosta different

[THE_WIZARD_]

Nothing more exciting than sudden death chess...and dodgeball...

[hack]

I'm all for sudden-death format for White House press conferences. Very little comes out of those anyways, and that's the case even when you had someone up there that wasn't a complete liar. I have attended one presidential press conference in my life, and it was probably the least stimulating way to spend that day. I'm all for sending the interns to ask rehearsed questions and take dictation.

I'm for Rollback to Reagan too. No matter all the little details -- union power up, this down, that sideways etc etc -- to me the bottom line is that there'd be billions in capital redirected back to the real economy and away from financial engineering.

[hack]

That's a weird thing to get hung up on.

Agreed. Buried beneath all the bluster there's an important discussion to be had there. Protectionism can and should be a good thing, if pursued intelligently. This also speaks to the earlier discussion on tax incentives. We thought we were getting a global economy based on comparative advantage, but, in the end, that's only happened on labour costs, and all of the rest of it is the rise of tax shelters and the beggar-thy-neighbor tax policies.

[Hannibal]

I'm not a fan of it but if it's a small concession that has to be made in order for an other wise right-of-center candidate to win then I'll gladly take it. It's pennies on the dollar compared to the trillions that it will take to sustain the US as an international feeding trough.

And I'm at least somewhat open to the fact that the free market in its current state is failing to provide a viable path to family and career for someone who is moderately skilled and not college educated. The solution has evolved into sending everyone to college so that nobody will be a laborer and that's turning out to be a disaster.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I can abide with most of trump's policy initiatives or what I think are his policy initiatives. Despite the fears of protectionism, I think DJT knows how to play hardball in a global market place that has disadvantaged the US in a number of areas, intellectual property is one among others more complex. I think his policy v. the Mullah's in Iran is the correct one although there are better ways to squeeze the leadership there than devastate the Iranian people. His NK gamut is decent and has provided some openings if not leverage with the Chicoms.

I also agree with Hack that what Trump is doing with the US economy is not sustainable. I've said this before. We have fiscal policy coming out of the WH that is counterproductive to monetary policy issuing from the Fed.

The place that I cannot abide the gridlock within the current Congress and by extension, the Executive, though is in the area of immigration and social programs. Sure, we should protect our boarders but not the way the "orange menace" is approaching it. All of his rhetoric is, IMO, a means of avoiding the tough issues that need to be addressed in the law and the enforcement of it. His grandstanding with the wall, barbed wire and the deployment of troops to the boarder is disgusting if you ask me. We'd be well served by a president leading Congress in the area of legeslative immigration reform. he is doing none of this that I am aware of.

There is no way that the myriad social programs in their current form are sustainable. I agree with Hannibal here. If the fraud, waste and abuse that permeates them and allows the numbers of usurpers getting benefits from them is not cleaned up, it will sink us. I think the best way to do that is from the state level and we are a long way from shit-canning the burdensome federal management entities and the attendant bureaucracy that needs to go away ..... in that conservative notion, I am fully invested.

Speaking of free college and the notion of socialism that inspires, I listened to a program yesterday where Hamilton "Tony" James, President and CEO of Blackstone Investments, spoke of a project he is working on to solve the student debt crisis that has arisen from the unfettered and unregulated student loan process that has contributed to the spiraling costs of a college education. Basically, he suggests that instead of borrowing money to pay for college, students contract with an institution to commit a portion of their future incomes to pay for their educations. It leaves students debt free upon graduation and incentivizes university to invest in classroom instruction and teaching that guarantees their graduates will get jobs and provide a life long stream of income to the place they got their degree from. Short on details, the concept makes sense. He's also got a book out on retirement and how to take the pressure off the Social Security System building a retirement system that is funded not by taxation but rather by corporate profits.

I bring this up to demonstrate that there are smart people out there looking at social problems and solutions to them that Congress ought to be looking into. Many moths ago, when we were heavy into discussing health care delivery, I linked to papers proposing various solutions that were economically viable and helped to improve the health care system. None of these ideas involve big government involvement; they do involve government support in encouraging them, funding them and implementing them at the community/private sector level.

[Ghengis Jon]

....a project he is working on to solve the student debt crisis that has arisen from the unfettered and unregulated student loan process that has contributed to the spiraling costs of a college education. Basically, he suggests that instead of borrowing money to pay for college, students contract with an institution to commit a portion of their future incomes to pay for their educations. It leaves students debt free upon graduation and incentivizes university to invest in classroom instruction and teaching that guarantees their graduates will get jobs and provide a life long stream of income to the place they got their degree from....

I would advocate a fixed term of 'royalties' rather than a mandatory life long duration. But I like that idea. A lot. I paid my 'royalty' upfront with service in exchange for the GI Bill. Colleges would continue a revenue stream beyond a fixed term. Most successful graduates continue to donate to their alma mater deep into their careers. I think it would, however, take some serious seed money to fund the start up of such a program.

[Hannibal]

Speaking of free college and the notion of socialism that inspires, I listened to a program yesterday where Hamilton "Tony" James, President and CEO of Blackstone Investments, spoke of a project he is working on to solve the student debt crisis that has arisen from the unfettered and unregulated student loan process that has contributed to the spiraling costs of a college education. Basically, he suggests that instead of borrowing money to pay for college, students contract with an institution to commit a portion of their future incomes to pay for their educations. It leaves students debt free upon graduation and incentivizes university to invest in classroom instruction and teaching that guarantees their graduates will get jobs and provide a life long stream of income to the place they got their degree from. Short on details, the concept makes sense. He's also got a book out on retirement and how to take the pressure off the Social Security System building a retirement system that is funded not by taxation but rather by corporate profit.

Colleges would never agree to this because they would no longer be able to charge you $100,000 for a worthless degree that ends in the word "studies" and the 100 people in The University of Michgan's diversity department would have to go out and find real jobs.

I'm starting to think that the solution might be to let student loans get expunged through bankruptcy. Force lenders to loan money to people who are going to be financially viable in the future. That means no $100,000 loans to major in Tibetan Transgenderism.

[Ghengis Jon]

Chump decrees only Der Sturmer and Aryan Nation Times get to cover his news conferences.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/14/media/trump-response-cnn-lawsuit/index.html

[Kapture1]

Build the fucking wall. Sorry, not sorry.

and if the southern migrants voted republican, you can bet your ass there would already be a wall you could see from outer space.


We can either have generous social spending programs or free unrestricted immigration. You have to pick one, we can not have them both.

[Kapture1]

The White House isn't restricting CNN's access to the White House, so what's the big fucking deal? Acosta is a grandstanding prick that acts like that kid in school shooting spitballs and clowning off. He's not an objective news reporter, he is basically a leftist activist. A protester.

[hack]

Jeff, you didn't understand what I'm saying about sustainability. What Trump is doing is quite clearly not sustainable, but what I mean is that pursuing growth regardless of how widespread the results are shared is not sustainable, and this is something that's been ongoing for decades.

It's also awfully hard to understand your statement about global hardball when the numbers say the exact opposite. Economics has its own version of fancystats, and, far more than in football, these are numbers that can tell us something. Here are some: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/09/chin...in-august.html.