US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2253

“When you’re in the early phases of the primary season, and you don’t have a lot in the way of foreign policy bona fides, a surefire applause line is to go to the extreme – and in the case of China that’s always a very easy thing to do,” said Jon Huntsman, a former Republican governor of Utah and U.S. ambassador to China under Obama.

No candidate went further than Trump, whose pledge to bring back to the U.S. the roughly 2 million jobs lost to China since 1999 is a centerpiece of his campaign. “Not only now have they taken our jobs … but now they are pulling us down with them,” he said Monday amid a worldwide swoon in stock prices.

But “uncoupling” the U.S. from China as Trump proposes would mean undoing the largest trade relationship in the world: $592 billion in goods and services were exchanged last year. While most of that consists of U.S. imports of Chinese products, China is still the United States’ third-largest export market.

General Motors has sold more cars in China than in the U.S. every year since 2010. Apple’s second-largest market for its iPhones, iPads and computers is China. Said Apple CEO Tim Cook this week, “I get updates on our performance in China every day.”

“It would basically be economic suicide to cut yourself off from the second-largest and fastest-growing economy in the world,” said Nicholas Lardy, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

But the Wisconsin governor didn’t say how he would settle issues between the nations without such face-to-face meetings. Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the non-partisan Center for Strategic and International Studies, called Walker’s idea “the nuclear option” of diplomacy.

“You can’t just close the door and take your toys and go home,” she said. “That’s not the way that effective international policy is made.”

Glaser said the U.S.-China relationship is best managed by meetings between the chief executives of the two nations, due in no small part to the immense power Xi wields in Beijing.

“If we can persuade Xi Jinping to do something, it will happen,” she said. “That’s actually quite different from a democratic country.”

On August 30 2015 04:49 MoltkeWarding wrote:
I'm more concerned about what that kind of speech does to people who seek to imitate it on the path to power and success.

The pulpit effect is a naturally-occurring phenomenon, and so long as political organisation exists, there must exist a breed of individuals who sacrifice the integrity of their own minds to become a vocal filter for that abstraction called the people. The High Priest. By the very nature of his function, he is not permitted to say anything which is not vague enough to satisfy the diversity of his audience. For those of us who hold the sovereign mind to be the chamber of basic human dignity, this is at best a justified abomination, but an abomination nonetheless. Let us recognise it for what it is, and play our roles like good patriots, but without illusions, and without forgetting that our natures demand something higher of ourselves.

On August 30 2015 05:37 Plansix wrote:



Bro, they give speeches to reach people and get their vote. I understand that you might fell these hyper verbose statements are insightful, but they aren't saying as a lot as far as I can tell. Most people here are not interested in breaking down the "abstraction" called "the people". Really, most people here are avoiding phrases like "chamber of basic human dignity" and other such pompous language because we don't want to sound like a kid who fell out of philosophy 101.

On August 30 2015 05:46 MoltkeWarding wrote:Is that so? In my experience, kids who fell out of philosophy 101 do not sound like that at all. They sound like most people on tl.net.

Out of curiosity, where are you from/where were you educated? Your spelling is British. Your punctuation (excluding commas) is American. Your diction is idiosyncratic. And your reading habits suggest you were trained in Continental Europe. I'm baffled.

Liberal revolutionary Bernie Sanders, riding an updraft of insurgent passion in Iowa, has closed to within 7 points of Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential race.

She's the first choice of 37 percent of likely Democratic caucusgoers; he's the pick for 30 percent, according to a new Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll.

But Clinton has lost a third of her supporters since May, a trajectory that if sustained puts her at risk of losing again in Iowa, the initial crucible in the presidential nominating contest.

This is the first time Clinton, the former secretary of state and longtime presumptive front-runner, has dropped below the 50 percent mark in four polls conducted by the Register and Bloomberg Politics this year.

Poll results include Vice President Joe Biden as a choice, although he has not yet decided whether to join the race. Biden captures 14 percent, five months from the first-in-the-nation vote Feb. 1. Even without Biden in the mix, Clinton falls below a majority, at 43 percent.

On August 30 2015 07:55 GreenHorizons wrote:

Source

So yeah, 538 was pretty wrong about the whole "surging" vs "surged" crap.

Despite what the typical pundits say, Sanders support is overwhelmingly support of Sanders and not a dislike of Clinton. This leaves little to no room for Biden to make a legitimate run. It would be a shame to see him ruin his legacy going out on a loss instead of a solid vice presidency.

On August 30 2015 07:59 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:


to be fair all statistics is based on projection based on past history and all the past history said you need to have support from the establishment. so it's just a pretty good example of the problem of induction. speaking honestly of Hilary I keep waiting for her to actually do something, it seems like she's being overly passive.

On August 30 2015 07:10 MoltkeWarding wrote:


There is no special moment in it. I enjoy playing with language, and there is no more, and no less to my orthographic and lexical choices than that.

P.S. On second thought, this is not entirely true. I do change between orthographic standards but I also maintain a default which I use most of the time. Punctuation is consistent with Canadian English, but as this is not an internationally prominent standard, I evolved into the more recognisable British standard spelling over time, which is very similar to the Canadian. The discipline occasionally lapses however, when I am forced to do constant battle with auto-correct and spell-check.

On August 30 2015 07:55 GreenHorizons wrote:

Source

So yeah, 538 was pretty wrong about the whole "surging" vs "surged" crap.

Despite what the typical pundits say, Sanders support is overwhelmingly support of Sanders and not a dislike of Clinton. This leaves little to no room for Biden to make a legitimate run. It would be a shame to see him ruin his legacy going out on a loss instead of a solid vice presidency.

On August 30 2015 08:51 BallinWitStalin wrote:



So, in other words, while posting on internet forums is the equivalent of intellectual masturbation, ol' Moltke here just really likes to take his time, lube it up, and enjoy himself before coming to his conclusions.

You can tell his posting, in particular, is a form of masturbation because he uses language whose full meaning is accessible pretty much only to himself, so the posts are therefor inherently for himself. But hey, at least he's honest about it. Why he enjoys posting among us plebs is beyond me, though. I guess everyone's got their kinks.

On August 30 2015 10:26 MoltkeWarding wrote:


Why would anyone write on a public forum to perfect strangers but for his own pleasure? If that is masturbation, then tu quoque! We have all been caught doing the same nasty thing.

Collective guilt aside, there is a fact which eludes the obscene metaphor. I go outside every day and it is likely that I will only talk to one percent of the people whose paths I cross. You may conclude from my indifference to you as I walked past that I am a self-absorbed hedonist who should have simply stayed home, since society could receive no advantage from my excursion. All the facts point to it. When I passed the old lady, I was listening to my ipod instead of helping her with her groceries. When I passed the Japanese girl, I didn't stop to pose for a photo. You would conclude from this that although I had the right to my existence among you, I did not really belong among you.

And you would be correct. The point of the metaphor is that mass immigration is a mistaken policy, because foreigners by satisfying their own needs first conduct a parallel existence in the country of their residence, but substantially they offer nothing, just like me.

The fact that I am on this forum and raise its GDP does not justify my presence.