***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[RustyShackleford]

Seriously

It is next level disgusting that DWalk uses the unfair treatment of minorities by the criminal justice system to defend a racist like Roy Moore, and someone like Kavanaugh that will be dedicated to rolling back civil rights laws in the Supreme Court.

He nows doing this will piss off minorities in here. That is why he probably keeps doing it.

 

[KHUFU]

I think that it is important to note the corporate american mindset here, how people are conditioned to think and behave once they consider a white collar position in society. They know that recruiters look for buzzwords, code terms, in order to see a qualified candidate, or what is considered a team player. There is no doubt that in the realm of corporate america, conservative leaning firms in law, and on Wall street, pay more, and then have connections very deep into the american system. People who are motivated through such means, no matter their race, will discuss and then see things in the manner that Dwalk does, even if disingenuous.

Personally, this is why I no longer work on Wall Street, as I was a part of that system that attempts to brainwash people of conscious with the promised windfall of cash. That system does not want you to be altruistic, nor empathetic. That is considered a form of weakness, and then a liability to the bottom line of any company. They want you to go and get that money, and then not feeling bad about getting it. So one must cover guilt and shame with material items as the reward. When that is not enough, addiction will then ensue.

There is a pattern, and it never breaks until they are faced with what their egos have done. Hubris.

 

[dwalk31]

Seriously

It is next level disgusting that DWalk uses the unfair treatment of minorities by the criminal justice system to defend a racist like Roy Moore, and someone like Kavanaugh that will be dedicated to rolling back civil rights laws in the Supreme Court.

He nows doing this will piss off minorities in here. That is why he probably keeps doing it.

I am a minority in here. And I am not doing what you are saying. I am not defending any of these people personally. I defended the notions of fair play associated with due process. Even during the Roy Moore election I stated that there are several legitimate reasons, unrelated to the pedophilia accusations, to not vote for him. You conveniently ignore that reality.

If there is a position that Kavanaugh has taken that you want to discuss, then do so. But this broad brush about what will happen in the future, as it relates to civil rights, is hardly something that can be discussed in good faith.

 

[RustyShackleford]

I am a minority in here. And I am not doing what you are saying. I am not defending any of these people personally. I defended the notions of fair play associated with due process. Even during the Roy Moore election I stated that there are several legitimate reasons, unrelated to the pedophilia accusations, to not vote for him. You conveniently ignore that reality.

If there is a position that Kavanaugh has taken that you want to discuss, then do so. But this broad brush about what will happen in the future, as it relates to civil rights, is hardly something that can be discussed in good faith.

Keep acting exactly like you have. Don't change

Because if you think that you have some higher moral justification for trolling, you will get yourself banned.

 

[noskey]

Decreased taxes and the unemployment rate

How are these two items translating to progress in the economy? Like what tangible evidence are you looking at to say theres been progress in the economy? Progress from where?

 

[deleted]

This is all nonsense

Someone who allegedly cares so deeply and is so passionate about the preservation of due process would be able to offer a lot more than a feeble meme like "they can do better" when one of his ideological peers seeks to undermine it

But that has never happened

We've seen more outrage directed toward Kavanaugh namecalling than we have EVER seen directed toward something like Trump's family separation policy or the demonization of asylum seekers

 

[blastercombo]

Boarder camps “look like summer camps honestly”.


Don’t forget

 

[dwalk31]

How are these two items translating to progress in the economy? Like what tangible evidence are you looking at to say theres been progress in the economy? Progress from where?

More people being employed and people paying less in taxes is progress in my opinion. I am not sure how that is not tangible evidence of progress. It seems better for less people to be unemployed and pay less in taxes in my opinion. Progress from paying more in taxes and being unemployed. I realize this seems circular but I don't really know how else to break down why I think it is progress.

 

[dwalk31]

This is all nonsense

Someone who allegedly cares so deeply and is so passionate about the preservation of due process would be able to offer a lot more than a feeble meme like "they can do better" when one of his ideological peers seeks to undermine it

But that has never happened

We've seen more outrage directed toward Kavanaugh namecalling than we have EVER seen directed toward something like Trump's family separation policy or the demonization of asylum seekers

If I thought that all of the statements and actions by Trump and other Republicans were acceptable, then I would not state that they can do better or say better things when they are wrong. But I am not attached to all the words and actions of any politician, despite many in here wanting to marry me to every action and word uttered by Trump.

 

[aepps20]

If I thought that all of the statements and actions by Trump and other Republicans were acceptable, then I would not state that they can do better or say better things when they are wrong. But I am not attached to all the words and actions of any politician, despite many in here wanting to marry me to every action and word uttered by Trump.

Way to hit them with #CIVILITY

 

[noskey]

More people being employed and people paying less in taxes is progress in my opinion. I am not sure how that is not tangible evidence of progress. It seems better for less people to be unemployed and pay less in taxes in my opinion. Progress from paying more in taxes and being unemployed. I realize this seems circular but I don't really know how else to break down why I think it is progress.

RustyShackleford get in here with some libtard #conjecture and #innuendo about the economy pls. Has the economy as a whole improved, for everybody including the marginally employed, or are we seeing an "improved economy" via stock market gains based on corporate profits? How's the real wage growth looking for the past 2 years? Is that data available? I'm not sure if I'm asking for the right thing here. biggie62 hows the tax rates looking for people this go around? I know you deal with large clients rather than the general public, but are you in touch with how the tax cuts are causing the coffers to boom?

Looking for #civility, but #smashmouthreality works too.

 

[hand2handking]

deplorable

 

[RIP sleazyy]

dwalk got y'all again

deplorable

This was funny

"Venezuela, Facebook, and Twitter"

 

[stuntman mike]

 

[Belgium]

More people being employed and people paying less in taxes is progress in my opinion. I am not sure how that is not tangible evidence of progress. It seems better for less people to be unemployed and pay less in taxes in my opinion. Progress from paying more in taxes and being unemployed. I realize this seems circular but I don't really know how else to break down why I think it is progress.

Would it not be impossible or best inadequate to define progress (or any conclusion really) based on a simplified statement of fact, which is "unemployment declined, people pay less in taxes"?
In other words, doesn't an informed conclusion demand a broader examination of that simplified argument? Such as the inclusion of other factors, none of which you seemed to take into account.
This post has nothing to do with agreeing or disagreeing with your conclusion, my point is your post should not contain a conclusion in the first place.

I don't think it would be fair to draw a conclusion one way or the other based on such singular and narrow-minded thinking.

Let me illustrate an example to irrefutably prove my point.
In May 2012, the governor of Kansas signed HB 2117, which was a sweeping tax cut plan.
I think it would be fair to say that because of this law, Kansas residents were paying less in taxes.

Now let's look at unemployment.
Remember Governor Brownback's signed the tax cut bill in May 2012.

Source: Department of Labor
First we start with the Kansas unemployment rates in 2011.
We see that 2011 ends with an unemployment rate of 6.3% in December 2011. A decrease of 0.5% between January and December 2011.

In 2012, we see see that the unemployment percentage remained faily stagnant for most of 2012, with a sudden fairly significant decline after July. July had actually seen an increase from the previous month. The year ends with an unemployment rate of 5.4%. The latter half of 2012 resulted in a decrease of 0.7% between January and December 2012.

In fact in 2013, we see a gradual declining of the unemployment rate, down to 4.9% by the end of the year. That's 0.5% less than December 2012.
The unemployment rate remained stagnant or increased up until August, and then decreased back to another improvement from the last year.

In 2014, unemployment goes down to 4.8% in the first month but then remains mostly stagnant up until August. The following months however end with a significant decrease, with an unemployment rate of 4.2% in December. That's a 0.7% improvement upon December 2013.

It would be fair to say that in this examination, unemployment went down, and people are having to pay less taxes due to Governor Brownback's tax cuts.
This example thus meets the criteria you laid out to draw the conclusion of progress.
After all, the unemployment rate went down and people were paying less taxes.
Note that this example in no way tries to argue that something like a lowering unemployment rate etc. isn't a good thing.


Given what you know now of Kansas, would you still conclude the above as "progress", knowing what you know now of HB 2117's impact?
The answer is no, you wouldn't, because this time you'd have taken into account the factor of the mechanism behind the tax cuts. In Kansas' case, the result of those tax cuts was an absolute catatrophe to the state and its residents.

 

[biggie62]

RustyShackleford get in here with some libtard #conjecture and #innuendo about the economy pls. Has the economy as a whole improved, for everybody including the marginally employed, or are we seeing an "improved economy" via stock market gains based on corporate profits? How's the real wage growth looking for the past 2 years? Is that data available? I'm not sure if I'm asking for the right thing here. biggie62 hows the tax rates looking for people this go around? I know you deal with large clients rather than the general public, but are you in touch with how the tax cuts are causing the coffers to boom?

Looking for #civility, but #smashmouthreality works too.

So in terms of wages, there’s an argument that wages are going up as a whole and data will show that wages how grown somewhat, though not at the rate predicted by the right’s economists when this tax package was drawn out. Here’s the problem, the people seeing these wage growths are professionals in client services and the like where a bachelors in business or higher is needed or a similar like profession. Most of us can jump jobs every 2 years for 20-30% bumps the way things are going. Talent is short, the H1B1 fiasco is helping people like me in that regard. Again yes they are rising but it’s not for the people that need to see their wages grow as much as the bottom 40%. Now in terms of the blue collar worker and the non educated, their wages might go slightly up but probably at half or even 1/4 of the rate of mine. But their jobs are also more at risk to be lost in the next 3-5 years than mine is. The tax package has been a windfall for the professionals, not so much for the folks in the non-professional field. Some companies like banks have pushed their average wages up for their retail branches but they’ve also cut a lot of the overhead so they are still net net ahead.

Now in terms of taxes, corporations are laughing all the way to the bank. Sure tax reform brought some extra complexities but that’s just more loopholes and tax planning strategies for people like me and the like to develop in the next few years. We also tend to push the envelope to a degree to see how much we can get away with, especially when the tax guidance is grey and no decision has been made via court cases and such. The majority of the tax savings have been to the top 5%, especially those who live in red states with low or no income tax and moderate property taxes. I would say that group has almost 80% of the savings they they don’t need it in reality as a majority of their earnings were already via capital gains which was taxed at a much lower rate, 15-20% plus the ACÁ surcharge. So they’ve enjoyed it because they can just pocket more money. They really aren’t spending more like they predicted because many rich are moving their funds into fixed income or sticking to cash as the market and housing look a bit overvalued. But hey that’s just from what I’ve heard from coworkers.

I personally have not seen my clients spend all that much on extra purchases of fixed assets or anything of that sort with the immediate expensing(this is how amazon got away with paying 0 income tax which is not a tax loophole just a rule). However what I am seeing is more and more consolidations. Most of my clients are still purchasing other companies at a staggering pace and plan to continue to do so as organic growth is not seen as something that makes sense because it doesn’t pay off as easily. While if you purchase another bank you get a few branches, new deposits, and can for the entire operations and executive team of the acquired firm. Net net a huge gain with little risk or at least less if you try to organically grow and try to take someone else’s business.

Now because of this i can’t see how taxes will go up because spending is down, tax rates are down so say on an entity that has 200 million in taxable income, they see an immediate savings of 28 million on their tax bill but their revenue only grew about 3-6% at best with many companies seeing revenues being flat now that Qs are slowly coming out. I don’t know how many years of the gain you would need to see to get that 28 million back and whatever lost revenue you stack each year until it’s net zero and then need to get back that revenue lost. I mean I would argue that our business taxes were a bit high, but it shouldn’t be this low. Also, the money repatriated from foreign sources have been a shade of what they predicted so that’s been a complete farce as of now.

This is my two cents. I can get into more but at tired right now nor do I want to go into technicalities.

 

[blastercombo]

Wages are “going up” because 4-5 millionaires getting paid more > millions in the real world. “Numbers don’t lie” is a myth. You can work them anyway you want. Here I can make one up, right now trump is 100% the best US president in office (on this day only at 7:47pm)

 

[-Red-]

I don't.

I wish I could but the roadblocks to make it happen seem too much to overcome in enough time. If it was a maker put out there 10-15 in the future it would be one thing, but for it to the plan for 2021 seems like a bad play.

-There is no model for it. No other country is as generous with the benefits as people like Sanders are suggesting.

-There is no strong public for it. Supporters like to cite polling showing support but more detailed polling shows that once people are told how it is actually gonna work, support plummets.

-There is still no way to pay for it in a way the public will tolerate. Bernie gave suggestions on how it could be paid for but I don't think they were serious proposals, I read Matthew Bruenig proposal and hand waves somes big issues to make his numbers work. He basically leaves the looming social security funding issues unaddressed and makes the big assumptions about the macroeconomy corporating in a way that doesn't cause employers to pay on their increased taxes on to workers.

-There is no plan in place to deal with the short term unemployment it will cause. This might be a smaller issue but I wish advocates would atleast address this. A nationalization plus bailout plan might be enough.

We need to shrink the political influence insurance companies a massive amount, but I still think private insurance companies will have to play a part in our system. Either as administrators and selling low margin gap plans.

I know you don't support it. I'm still kind of trying to figure out why

The Mercatus Institute, a libertarian think tank, wrote a paper on Bernie's plan and concluded that it would save $2 trillion in total healthcare expenditures over the course of a decade (which they tried to obfuscate). The plan as it is written, which you say is too generous with its benefits and that would cover the 28 million or so people who don't have any coverage right now. We could pay for this with our current levels of health care expenditures. Your boy Paul Krugman recently wrote that "a simple, single-payer system would probably have lower overall costs than a hybrid system that preserves some forms of private coverage." I don't understand your economics argument here.

As to the other issues you say Breunig or other advocates of Medicare for All are ignoring, I don't understand how they make it untenable nor how they're directly related. I mean, you could introduce a thousand somewhat related issues and/or hypothetical scenarios into any policy proposal. M4A isn't based on some Trumpian tax cut logic of 4% GDP growth for a decade or whatever. At least that I've read about (you may have some insights here?). M4A isn't going to fix Social Security funding issues. Okay. I mean, neither will any other policy that isn't designed to tackle that issue directly. I fail to see how that's a persuasive argument against M4A.

Saying there's no strong public support for it seems like the most pessimistic possible take on the policy. I mean, 56% of all voters favor it. It also has the strongest positive reaction among all universal health care coverage terms among the public (barely, but still). Of course these numbers increase or decrease depending on what elements of the policy are emphasized. What policy would that not be true for? While there's certainly room to drum up additional public support and that is certainly crucial work, to frame this as having "no strong public" support seems inaccurate.

 

[IATT]

marry me to every action and word uttered by Trump.

Candace, that you?

Must have been hard defending yourself, against a recording of yourself

 

[biggie62]

I know you don't support it. I'm still kind of trying to figure out why

The Mercatus Institute, a libertarian think tank, wrote a paper on Bernie's plan and concluded that it would save $2 trillion in total healthcare expenditures over the course of a decade (which they tried to obfuscate). The plan as it is written, which you say is too generous with its benefits and that would cover the 28 million or so people who don't have any coverage right now. We could pay for this with our current levels of health care expenditures. Your boy Paul Krugman recently wrote that "a simple, single-payer system would probably have lower overall costs than a hybrid system that preserves some forms of private coverage." I don't understand your economics argument here.

As to the other issues you say Breunig or other advocates of Medicare for All are ignoring, I don't understand how they make it untenable nor how they're directly related. I mean, you could introduce a thousand somewhat related issues and/or hypothetical scenarios into any policy proposal. M4A isn't based on some Trumpian tax cut logic of 4% GDP growth for a decade or whatever. At least that I've read about (you may have some insights here?). M4A isn't going to fix Social Security funding issues. Okay. I mean, neither will any other policy that isn't designed to tackle that issue directly. I fail to see how that's a persuasive argument against M4A.

Saying there's no strong public support for it seems like the most pessimistic possible take on the policy. I mean, 56% of all voters favor it. It also has the strongest positive reaction among all universal health care coverage terms among the public (barely, but still). Of course these numbers increase or decrease depending on what elements of the policy are emphasized. What policy would that not be true for? While there's certainly room to drum up additional public support and that is certainly crucial work, to frame this as having "no strong public" support seems inaccurate.

You want to know why Medicare for all we great as it sounds doesn’t work? The lack of revenue to support it. Even if you increased everyone’s taxes by 10% as a new Medicare tax it still would be short in covering costs by about 50% if not more within 2 years.

Yes it would drive costs down heavily there is no disagreement, but there isn’t a surplus available to dig into. It would be hard to sell a 10% tax increase across the board when currently paying insurance reduces your taxes for both the individual and the companies. NY times did a good piec won this about 3 weeks back and have numerous think tanks.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive...re-for-all-bernie-sanders-cost-estimates.html

 

[-Red-]

Since you want to use other people's tweets to defend a ****ty hot take. Here are some others...






So spare me. Even Sanders supporters in here have made the case for Bernie along the lines of him being able to appeal to certain demographics that went for Trump so that gives him an advantage over other Dems. The real problem is the argument is bull****.

So it is completely reasonable to call Sanders supporters far left. Yeah are left of the Dem base, which is left of the Democratic establishment, which is left of the center. This Dems moved right is mostly a talking point. The Dems having been moving left consistently for a while...

https://voteview.com/parties/all

It is just Sanders supporters love to discount social issues when discussing the ideological stance of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Centrist of today are well left of a 90s Dem and the 2000s Bluedog

If we would plot voters on normal distribution, vocal hardcore Sanders supporters would definitely by a couple standard deviations away from the mean. So yeah, far left.

There was no damn "What to Do about Bernie" dinner like you are implying. There is no plot against Bernie's campaign by the Dem leadership that Pete is in on.

I don't really have a problem with the essence of what Buttigieg said. I do think it's a mischaracterization of the majority of Trump's base, who are simply loyal Republican voters and would have voted for whoever the GOP put on the ticket in 2016 and will likely do so again in 2020. But, again, as many as 9.2 million people voted for Obama in 2012 and then Trump in 2016. So are those voters and perhaps other disaffected folks who generally vote Republican not worth reaching out to to offer them an alternative explanation for the world around them and an alternative politics that flows from that new understanding? Does this not represent a strategy to both fight racism, xenophobia, etc. as well as win folks over to a new vision of politics?

As far as moving left on "social issues" over the past few decades, I generally agree that has taken place and that's a good thing, all considered. But what impact has that shift had on the material realities of poor and working-class black folks? Or even black folks writ large? How has this ideological shift to a greater embrace of diversity altered patterns of inequality affecting black and brown folks, LGBTQ people, etc.? Aside from marriage equality (which is essential but, again, doesn't touch material inequality), what do we have to show for this?

 

[Belgium]

Good read, it explains at least in some part the interactions between Jerome Corsi and Mueller's prosecutors.

 

[-Red-]

You want to know why Medicare for all we great as it sounds doesn’t work? The lack of revenue to support it. Even if you increased everyone’s taxes by 10% as a new Medicare tax it still would be short in covering costs by about 50% if not more within 2 years.

Yes it would drive costs down heavily there is no disagreement, but there isn’t a surplus available to dig into. It would be hard to sell a 10% tax increase across the board when currently paying insurance reduces your taxes for both the individual and the companies. NY times did a good piec won this about 3 weeks back and have numerous think tanks.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive...re-for-all-bernie-sanders-cost-estimates.html

Thanks for the link, I hadn't seen that piece.

But what I take away from that article is simply that there are a variety of variables that could and should be debated that would affect the ultimate costs and benefits of a Medicare for All policy. That obviously makes sense given the nature of the policy, its enormity, and all of the moving parts that it would entail. The range for expected expenditures is a pretty substantial one, to say the least, and the merits of various scenarios deserve discourse. I see nothing wrong with that nor anything in the article that leads me to the conclusion that M4A is untenable or a bad idea. Certainly others may disagree. But even under the "worst case scenario" presented here (the one with the highest estimated costs), I'd still be in favor of it. What's the alternative? How do we get a system that provides good health care coverage for everyone (which is a non-negotiable policy goal for me) for cheaper in terms of total national health care expenditures? If other proposals are cheaper, how and why are they cheaper?

 

[biggie62]

Thanks for the link, I hadn't seen that piece.

But what I take away from that article is simply that there are a variety of variables that could and should be debated that would affect the ultimate costs and benefits of a Medicare for All policy. That obviously makes sense given the nature of the policy, its enormity, and all of the moving parts that it would entail. The range for expected expenditures is a pretty substantial one, to say the least, and the merits of various scenarios deserve discourse. I see nothing wrong with that nor anything in the article that leads me to the conclusion that M4A is untenable or a bad idea. Certainly others may disagree. But even under the "worst case scenario" presented here (the one with the highest estimated costs), I'd still be in favor of it. What's the alternative? How do we get a system that provides good health care coverage for everyone (which is a non-negotiable policy goal for me) for cheaper in terms of total national health care expenditures? If other proposals are cheaper, how and why are they cheaper?

That is an issue that’s beyond my pay grade lol. Medicare for all makes sense. I just don’t see it working economically is my hesitation. Adding a 10% tax would scare most people when you tell them that.

 

[-Red-]

-Sure Obama being a black man helped him in some areas in 2008 but it hurt him in other areas and looking past the 2008 primary it that it probably hurt him a great deal more. The backlash to 2008 was way more than the positive energy that came along with electing the first black president. One lasted one election cycle, the other stretched on for many more.

Also, Obama was a once in a lifetime politician. His blackness was such a positive because he was that good. If he wasn't things would have turned sour real quick.

-I am not saying comparing him to Obama is the insult, I am saying them seeing his whiteness as a bonus of Obama has the insult. So Beto is young, good-looking, affable, articulate, and inspiring, and better yet he is white. So if you don't want to prime swing voters (which are now framed as the most important voters) the about the racial dynamics at play, Beto's whiteness is a plus. So you get all the benefits of Obama without the white backlash.

- Sure they are no one-to-one. But they were both leftist candidates with strong grassroots support. At their core the represented many of the same things and marketed themselves along the along same lines. Jackson used more explicitly inclusive language than Bernie does today. Don't believe me, then maybe this guy will convince you...


White people in the Midwest, a demographic that Bernie and his supporters point out he is very strong with didn't hop on the Jackson bandwagon in the same way. Jackson put more effort into courting these people than Bernie did courting the black vote in 2016. Jackson's beefing with the DNC was framed as more him being unreasonable than. While Bernie's beefing with the DNC is framed as more reasonable, even though it isn't really. And the Dems didn't try to accommodate Jackson in the same way they have Bernie.

Let me be more blunt, if Bernie was black he would not have all the juice he has now. Period

I don't see anything wrong with stating that. I don't think it takes anything away from him.

Do you think the GOP would have been more amenable to working with Obama on policy like health care reform if he was white? How do you think things break differently if he was white? Maybe the Tea Party doesn't take the exact form that it took and the political battles take on a different veneer, but I don't see how the political ideologies or policy priorities on the right would have been much different regardless of who the Dem president was.

If people are saying Beto is Obama, but better because he's white, yeah, that's some bull****. I haven't seen that or haven't read things that way, but I could see such a narrative emerging for some folks.

I don't disagree with you that Bernie wouldn't have the same juice if he was black. I agree with that, especially because his brand of politics is the furthest from the mainstream of anyone in recent memory who was a viable presidential candidate. The Jackson campaign had some parallels and Jesse may have gotten a rawer deal from the DNC and/or his issues given less serious an audience. I read a book on the Jackson campaign, but it was years ago and I don't remember enough nuance. I don't know what we should do with the insight that Bernie is more politically palatable for many due to his whiteness other than acknowledge it, but I agree with you