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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
What’s funny is how many lies are packed into this statement.
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On January 04 2018 03:01 TheTenthDoc wrote:
It's not like Trump announced a blanket change in military policy over Twitter to get his other policy goals accomplished and was only overruled by the people under him.
Oh wait, that happened...
It sounds like you’re fine on other topics, but when it’s time to let “rocket man” slide ... wait we can’t do it. Why doesn’t Trump stop calling him that! Make him stop!!
It’s seriously like saying since words convey messages, we need a unified response that doesn’t take into account differences between trolling, policy proclamations, crowd size or tax cut exaggerations, and feuds. I think the last twenty four hours of posts here signify that y’all reserve the right to lump them all together or treat certain ones differently according to your personal mood or day of the week.
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Yet he he credits his advice after he left the job.
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That's actually a pretty good line TBH.
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Sarah Sanders is going to show up at the presser drunk.
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I guess we know why he brought up Crooked Hillary again.
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Norway28923 Posts
ok the bannon vs trump feud looks promising
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On January 04 2018 02:20 mozoku wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2018 17:00 IgnE wrote:On January 03 2018 16:01 mozoku wrote:On January 02 2018 21:01 Ciaus_Dronu wrote:+ Show Spoiler +@mozoku: This is kinda "the sky is blue" of American politics, but I'll humor you. It's very well known that the middle class itself has suffered since around the 1980's, at least in terms of income. That's everywhere, and every damn newspaper and research center has something on it. Here's the Centre on Budget and Policy Priorities' nice little graphic: ![[image loading]](https://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/styles/downsample150to92/public/atoms/files/10-24-17pov.png?itok=wAexWmRm) Attributing policy to economic change is not trivial, but it is important to note that Reagan came into power right at the splitting point: just after 1980. Once of the first major events of his presidency was his handling of a massive strike. And by handling, I mean he told the workers to go **** themselves. This very strong anti-labour action sent a strong message - unions and organised workers no longer had any real bargaining power as of then. Democracynow analysis of the Patco strikeNYTimes op-ed on Patco StrikeWhile both pieces have a very different view of Reagan's personal ideals, there's no disagreement in the effect of Reagan's decisions regarding unions. It would not be at all surprising to see income disparity after middle and working class people lost their negotiating power, and that is exactly what happened. The myriad of tax cuts and opposition to programs like proper healthcare haven't helped at all, but effectively giving all power to decide wages and salaries to those who already have economic power, is IMO far and away the biggest action the Republican establishment has taken to screw the middle class over. It's important to note that a lot of the problem is what the government hasn't done. Companies already have legal teams, money and time. They don't need their interests to be quite as carefully looked after. Corporate welfare is a sick joke. However their average worker most certainly does not have these things, so in order to maintain a semblance of balance, to have the interests of the middle class protected, government needs to pro-actively support them. They need to ensure unions have some bite and to spend on programs like healthcare. This is why progressives, by and large, don't have very good opinions of libertarian viewpoints. It's why they outright despise the Republican party, because their deliberate refusal to give workers any negotiating power, and their deliberate obstructionism with regards to healthcare and social spending, is as good as telling the average citizen to get ****ed and accept slave wages when their employer decides they want to have a bit more money. Apologies for late reply. Busy work day. You're making the exact mistake that I thought you would, and mistakenly attributing to the government that which is actually the result of technology-driven economic shifts. First mistake: the middle class isn't simply deteriorating away into poverty. It's bifurcating into winners and losers, which is the expected outcome of the shift to the knowledge economy and globalization. The driver of inequality, therefore, isn't government policy but economic shifts. Unions are part of this story, as it's a global trend. While globalization has certainly hurt American laborers and benefited higher earners, it's also brought raised the living standards of untold millions, if not billions, in the developing world. You can make a valid argument that the US should be prioritizing its domestic workers ahead of foreigners, but liberals and leftists who believe the US government is out to screw the middle class almost invariably despise the nationalist/protectionist view so that isn't your ticket either. Next mistake: blaming the US tax code. Granted the tax code just changed, but the previous tax regime had been the most progressive tax code among developed countries. However, the progressive tax revenue hasn't been redistributed to the middle- and lower- classes. I suspect that has to do with the fact that America subsidizes a large share of the world's defense--seeing as most of the developed world spends about a than a third of as much on defense as the US (as a share of GDP, which is already somewhat biased against the US). [1] [2]There's one reason you listed that I haven't yet touched: social programs. The two that I commonly hear about are education and healthcare. US healthcare is a mess, but there's been highly publicized efforts from both sides to reform the system in the past decade. The system will likely look completely different in another 10 years. The suggested education policies I've seen that focus on expanding college access are moronic, as I've explained in an earlier post. -------------- Despite all of the crying about lobbyists, campaign funding, Trump's profiting off the presidency, etc., there isn't much actual evidence that all of this has amounted to policies that have destroyed the middle class to line the pockets of the rich. The reality is that the shift in income in favor the upper and upper-middle class are economy and technology-driven, and that the government can't simply wave a magic wand to fix the problem. Health care seems like the lowest hanging fruit, and unsurprisingly it's been the biggest political issue of the past two presidencies. ah well, the way you tell it, the shrinking of the middle class is just the result of the market, which itself is just a consequence of human nature. government policies don't matter, so why do we get so worked up about who to vote for? I never said government policies don't matter--you can look at East/West Germany, or North/South Korea for definitive proof on that. However, within the scope of plausibly reasonable governments for developed countries, the variance of their policy choices has a relatively small effect compared to the effect of global technological and economic shifts. It's like a sailboat in the wind. The captain of the boat has control over the direction of the ship, but its speed greatly shaped by which way the wind is blowing. If you choose to sail directly upwind, you end up like North Korea. Most developed countries are already sailing mostly downwind. The reason we get worked up over whom to vote for is because government policies are the factor that we have by far the most direct control of. When people feel like things aren't going well, they complain about the ship's direction because it's obviously ineffective to complain about the wind (and the boat's leadership factions both can and do overstate the the impact of the boat's direction in their bid for captaincy). Show nested quote +On January 03 2018 18:29 Ciaus_Dronu wrote:On January 03 2018 16:01 mozoku wrote:On January 02 2018 21:01 Ciaus_Dronu wrote:+ Show Spoiler +@mozoku: This is kinda "the sky is blue" of American politics, but I'll humor you. It's very well known that the middle class itself has suffered since around the 1980's, at least in terms of income. That's everywhere, and every damn newspaper and research center has something on it. Here's the Centre on Budget and Policy Priorities' nice little graphic: Attributing policy to economic change is not trivial, but it is important to note that Reagan came into power right at the splitting point: just after 1980. Once of the first major events of his presidency was his handling of a massive strike. And by handling, I mean he told the workers to go **** themselves. This very strong anti-labour action sent a strong message - unions and organised workers no longer had any real bargaining power as of then. Democracynow analysis of the Patco strikeNYTimes op-ed on Patco StrikeWhile both pieces have a very different view of Reagan's personal ideals, there's no disagreement in the effect of Reagan's decisions regarding unions. It would not be at all surprising to see income disparity after middle and working class people lost their negotiating power, and that is exactly what happened. The myriad of tax cuts and opposition to programs like proper healthcare haven't helped at all, but effectively giving all power to decide wages and salaries to those who already have economic power, is IMO far and away the biggest action the Republican establishment has taken to screw the middle class over. It's important to note that a lot of the problem is what the government hasn't done. Companies already have legal teams, money and time. They don't need their interests to be quite as carefully looked after. Corporate welfare is a sick joke. However their average worker most certainly does not have these things, so in order to maintain a semblance of balance, to have the interests of the middle class protected, government needs to pro-actively support them. They need to ensure unions have some bite and to spend on programs like healthcare. This is why progressives, by and large, don't have very good opinions of libertarian viewpoints. It's why they outright despise the Republican party, because their deliberate refusal to give workers any negotiating power, and their deliberate obstructionism with regards to healthcare and social spending, is as good as telling the average citizen to get ****ed and accept slave wages when their employer decides they want to have a bit more money. Apologies for late reply. Busy work day. You're making the exact mistake that I thought you would, and mistakenly attributing to the government that which is actually the result of technology-driven economic shifts. First mistake: the middle class isn't simply deteriorating away into poverty. It's bifurcating into winners and losers, which is the expected outcome of the shift to the knowledge economy and globalization. The driver of inequality, therefore, isn't government policy but economic shifts. Unions are part of this story, as it's a global trend. While globalization has certainly hurt American laborers and benefited higher earners, it's also brought raised the living standards of untold millions, if not billions, in the developing world. You can make a valid argument that the US should be prioritizing its domestic workers ahead of foreigners, but liberals and leftists who believe the US government is out to screw the middle class almost invariably despise the nationalist/protectionist view so that isn't your ticket either. Next mistake: blaming the US tax code. Granted the tax code just changed, but the previous tax regime had been the most progressive tax code among developed countries. However, the progressive tax revenue hasn't been redistributed to the middle- and lower- classes. I suspect that has to do with the fact that America subsidizes a large share of the world's defense--seeing as most of the developed world spends about a than a third of as much on defense as the US (as a share of GDP, which is already somewhat biased against the US). [1] [2]There's one reason you listed that I haven't yet touched: social programs. The two that I commonly hear about are education and healthcare. US healthcare is a mess, but there's been highly publicized efforts from both sides to reform the system in the past decade. The system will likely look completely different in another 10 years. The suggested education policies I've seen that focus on expanding college access are moronic, as I've explained in an earlier post. -------------- Despite all of the crying about lobbyists, campaign funding, Trump's profiting off the presidency, etc., there isn't much actual evidence that all of this has amounted to policies that have destroyed the middle class to line the pockets of the rich. The reality is that the shift in income in favor the upper and upper-middle class are economy and technology-driven, and that the government can't simply wave a magic wand to fix the problem. Health care seems like the lowest hanging fruit, and unsurprisingly it's been the biggest political issue of the past two presidencies. Okay, so you insist that, for example, outright destroying the wage negotiating power of much of the middle class, whose wages have since stagnated, was not at all responsible for the observed trend, and that the aforementioned is purely market forces. I'm not exactly convinced, you understand. A bifurcation isn't much different than destruction if 10-20% go up and the whole rest go down. Government can't wave a magic wand, they can however do more than say "oh well guess nature intended for you to be poor". The weird wealth distribution in the US is absolutely not the norm for a country with so much wealth. To blame it all on market forces and whatever completely misses a massive potential role of government. A role that many other countries, to varying degrees, seem to get. This weird deregulation, anti-union, anti-social spending idea the Republican party has (and that the democrats have often allowed them to get away with, although the Fox situation is also anomalous) cannot be left blameless. Especially, again, considering that the US has worse income inequality than pretty much any other developed country. Arguing that there is no cause-effect relationship between policy that destroys middle class bargaining power, and the stagnation of middle class earnings which really kicks off there after, is going to need to be a bit more convincing than this. As a note, we've now shifted far from debating the original contention that "the sole goal of the US government is destroy the middle class and preserve the ruling class." Simply asserting "better policies will fix the problem" is useless. What are they? I've asked four times now and have been given zero (arguably one in healthcare, which is in the process of being addressed) reasonable proposals. If you can't name any sound and significant policy changes with remotely certain benefits, how is it the US government's fault for not implementing them?
but you are saying that government policies are only minor course adjustments to the winds of the market, and that "the market" is a force of nature that can either be resisted (to citizens' detriment) or allowed to take its course (to citizens' benefit). you've made it all very easy. more governance is usually bad (resisting the wind) and less governance is usually better. so now we see how youve arrived at your initial position, that bad government policies cannot be responsible for the shrinking middle class: government policies can only ever take us where the market winds blow, or, in trying to resist the winds, make things worse.
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On January 04 2018 03:29 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On January 04 2018 03:01 TheTenthDoc wrote:
It's not like Trump announced a blanket change in military policy over Twitter to get his other policy goals accomplished and was only overruled by the people under him.
Oh wait, that happened... It sounds like you’re fine on other topics, but when it’s time to let “rocket man” slide ... wait we can’t do it. Why doesn’t Trump stop calling him that! Make him stop!! It’s seriously like saying since words convey messages, we need a unified response that doesn’t take into account differences between trolling, policy proclamations, crowd size or tax cut exaggerations, and feuds. I think the last twenty four hours of posts here signify that y’all reserve the right to lump them all together or treat certain ones differently according to your personal mood or day of the week.
No it's a simple philosophy. He is a 70 something year old man actimg like an elementary school student with childish nicknames and schoolyard taunts and aside from it just being pathetic in general it comes from the,leader of the country so now you have a bunch of adults trying to sensibly work things while you have this child stomping his feet and demanding everyone pay attention to him and tell him how great he is and ignore all those other people.
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I like that Trump immediately validates the book by making an official response to some of its quotes.
That fucking 4d chess.
edit: already ordered my copy. oh yeah.
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On January 04 2018 03:53 Leporello wrote:
I like that Trump immediately validates the book by making an official response to some of its quotes.
That fucking 4d chess.
What do you mean by "validate"?
edit:glad to see their marketing campaign is working already lol.
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On January 04 2018 03:49 Adreme wrote:Show nested quote +On January 04 2018 03:29 Danglars wrote:On January 04 2018 03:01 TheTenthDoc wrote:
It's not like Trump announced a blanket change in military policy over Twitter to get his other policy goals accomplished and was only overruled by the people under him.
Oh wait, that happened... It sounds like you’re fine on other topics, but when it’s time to let “rocket man” slide ... wait we can’t do it. Why doesn’t Trump stop calling him that! Make him stop!! It’s seriously like saying since words convey messages, we need a unified response that doesn’t take into account differences between trolling, policy proclamations, crowd size or tax cut exaggerations, and feuds. I think the last twenty four hours of posts here signify that y’all reserve the right to lump them all together or treat certain ones differently according to your personal mood or day of the week. No it's a simple philosophy. He is a 70 something year old man actimg like an elementary school student with childish nicknames and schoolyard taunts and aside from it just being pathetic in general it comes from the,leader of the country so now you have a bunch of adults trying to sensibly work things while you have this child stomping his feet and demanding everyone pay attention to him and tell him how great he is and ignore all those other people.
You’re stuck with him for three more years, so my advice is to make the best of it. One way is to not treat every tweet like some earth shattering policy change that will doom us all. I didn’t expect to find so much resistance to stating the obvious (that he enjoys the backlash and feeds off it), but whatever. Shitposter clarification: this does not mean you have to like what he does and you can still hate on the overall tweeting product.
I give you props for “childish nicknames and schoolyard taunts.” I just got done typing to 2+ people that thought they were indistinguishable/amounted to policy statements and administrative governance. Someone smarter than me should design a 12 step program to not losing your lid on his twitter playground, because admitting you can call a spade a spade is definitely the first or second step in there.
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On January 04 2018 03:55 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On January 04 2018 03:53 Leporello wrote:
I like that Trump immediately validates the book by making an official response to some of its quotes.
That fucking 4d chess. What do you mean by "validate"?
I mean Trump didn't respond to Bannon. He responded to a quote of Bannon's in this book. In very short time. It... seems pretty clear what I mean by validate.
A lot of condemning quotes in this book. Is Trump saying they're all as true as Bannons'? If so: holy shit.
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Reminds me of when "Hubris" was released during the Iraq War (and those same authors are writing a book on Trump-Russia). It's amazing what ends up getting disclosed in hard-cover.
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United States44439 Posts
On January 04 2018 03:55 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On January 04 2018 03:53 Leporello wrote:
I like that Trump immediately validates the book by making an official response to some of its quotes.
That fucking 4d chess. What do you mean by "validate"? edit:glad to see their marketing campaign is working already lol.
By throwing a tantrum over the Bannon book Trump turns it into news and makes everyone wonder what is inside. Trump could just as easily say that he's a very busy man and that he'll have an intern read it at some point and give him the condensed notes.
Trump turned a non story into a story.
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On January 04 2018 03:58 Leporello wrote:Show nested quote +On January 04 2018 03:55 Introvert wrote:On January 04 2018 03:53 Leporello wrote:
I like that Trump immediately validates the book by making an official response to some of its quotes.
That fucking 4d chess. What do you mean by "validate"? I mean Trump didn't respond to Bannon. He responded to a quote of Bannon's in this book. In very short time. It... seems pretty clear what I mean by validate. A lot of condemning quotes in this book. Is Trump saying they're all as true as Bannons'? If so: holy shit.
His response was all about Bannon. I'm confused because in my mind "validate" means something like "confirm as true." Presumably Bannon did in fact say those things to the author.
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On January 04 2018 04:05 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On January 04 2018 03:55 Introvert wrote:On January 04 2018 03:53 Leporello wrote:
I like that Trump immediately validates the book by making an official response to some of its quotes.
That fucking 4d chess. What do you mean by "validate"? edit:glad to see their marketing campaign is working already lol. By throwing a tantrum over the Bannon book Trump turns it into news and makes everyone wonder what is inside. Trump could just as easily say that he's a very busy man and that he'll have an intern read it at some point and give him the condensed notes. Trump turned a non story into a story.
Maybe that is what he meant but that is not how I read his post. Maybe he meant "legitimize"? Even that doesn't really work.
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Norway28923 Posts
I think Bannon describing the meeting as treasonous was a story before Trump responded to it. Predictably turning it into a public feud still massively increases the exposure, but this story wasn't a non-issue for Trump. Trump's response obviously isn't geared towards people who like neither him nor Bannon, it is to make people who like them both only like Trump. Glancing through breitbart commentary section, it kinda seems to be working - that particular internet-segment definitely seems to side with Trump in this. Probably a pretty small fraction of Trump supporters are somewhat swayed into more 'hm okay, maybe it was treasonous' terrain from Bannon's comment, but I don't think any of them are further pushed that way by Trump's response.
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On January 04 2018 03:42 Liquid`Drone wrote:
ok the bannon vs trump feud looks promising
this is pay per view level stuff.
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EPT
