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On February 28 2025 00:23 JimmyJRaynor wrote: trump does this a lot. in negotiating with him you must know what is really going on as opposed to the noise coming out of his mouth. that is why i explained what is behind the tariffs. the signal to noise ratio of his messaging has been low for decades.
I actually can't believe you're giving this nice a treatment and think this guy is actually lucid and smart. He's mumbling, doesn't use any detail. You can call that a low S-R ratio, something that needs to be deciphered 'only by the smartest of people that know how to decode his messages' (why play that game honestly) or you could also say he's losing his marbles. I like to stick to the latter. Have fun putting your faith in a dementing 80+ year old.
Also, and this is like a biological inevitability, people lose their frontal cortex inhibitor activity when they become older as their tissues degrade, so they legit become more abbrasive/rude without them being able to help themselves. This signals significant neuronal atrophy.
He is slowly declining. However, his signal to noise ratio has been low since he was hosting Wrestlemania 4 in 1988.
I've posted this before. This is an episode of "The Agenda" with Steven Paikin. It covers Trump's tactics in great detail. I agree with essentials of what Drezner and Stein are saying. I do not agree with all of their details.
when Trump declines the team around him will take over as they did with Reagan and Biden.
On February 28 2025 00:23 JimmyJRaynor wrote: trump does this a lot. in negotiating with him you must know what is really going on as opposed to the noise coming out of his mouth. that is why i explained what is behind the tariffs. the signal to noise ratio of his messaging has been low for decades.
I actually can't believe you're giving this nice a treatment and think this guy is actually lucid and smart. He's mumbling, doesn't use any detail. You can call that a low S-R ratio, something that needs to be deciphered 'only by the smartest of people that know how to decode his messages' (why play that game honestly) or you could also say he's losing his marbles. I like to stick to the latter. Have fun putting your faith in a dementing 80+ year old.
Also, and this is like a biological inevitability, people lose their frontal cortex inhibitor activity when they become older as their tissues degrade, so they legit become more abbrasive/rude without them being able to help themselves. This signals significant neuronal atrophy.
It’s just cope, the guy who appears to be an incompetent, bullying moron can’t actually be that. It’s a sophisticated negotiating style!
I'm sorry, Trump is not coming after us because of Fidel Castro and Pierre Trudeau. I know you have the same rolodex of politicians and SCTV clips you like to rotate through but this is just Jimmy's world. And do we really owe America anything for not going into Iraq??? Forget that noise. The best of friends are not enablers of your worst ideas but the one who calls your actions dumb when they are dumb. Good friends do that anyways.
And in a free market, it is perfectly rational to trade extensively with America. Even during the height of mercantilism, the massive tariff walls could not stop the trade between Canada and America. It just switched to massive amounts of smuggling across the border... because we are natural trading partners.
America was the one cajoling us into free trade agreements.
It's hardly our fault that after begging for us to join in free trade with them, America switched from free market capitalism to electing a mercantilist moron who thinks trade deficits are subsidies paid by America.
Trump's budget proposal is even worse than I thought. Wharton analysis expects it to increase the deficit by FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS. How does the "cut government waste to reduce debt" crowd reconcile with this plan?
On February 28 2025 02:59 decafchicken wrote: Trump's budget proposal is even worse than I thought. Wharton analysis expects it to increase the deficit by FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS. How does the "cut government waste to reduce debt" crowd reconcile with this plan?
On a conventional basis in 2026, the first 80 percent of the income distribution receives about 29 percent of the total value of the proposed tax cuts while the top 10 percent of the income distribution receives about 56 percent of the value.
Table 5 and the table 6a + 6b afterwards are also amazing. While most people actually lose lifetime money (especially if the tax cuts become permanent apparently, i don't quite understand that?), it mostly pays off for rich, old people.
On February 28 2025 02:59 decafchicken wrote: Trump's budget proposal is even worse than I thought. Wharton analysis expects it to increase the deficit by FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS. How does the "cut government waste to reduce debt" crowd reconcile with this plan?
On a conventional basis in 2026, the first 80 percent of the income distribution receives about 29 percent of the total value of the proposed tax cuts while the top 10 percent of the income distribution receives about 56 percent of the value.
Table 5 and the table 6a + 6b afterwards are also amazing. While most people actually lose lifetime money (especially if the tax cuts become permanent apparently, i don't quite understand that?), it mostly pays off for rich, old people.
Rich old people reaping the rewards at the expensive of everyone else? It cant be
And why are Republican voters ok with it? because they are not poor, they are temporarily embarrassed millionaires. Any day now they will be part of the 1% and enjoy that sweet sweet tax reduction.
On February 28 2025 03:28 Gorsameth wrote: And why are Republican voters ok with it? because they are not poor, they are temporarily embarrassed millionaires. Any day now they will be part of the 1% and enjoy that sweet sweet tax reduction.
Honestly I dont even know if they think that hard about it, I think a lot of American politics at this point is "GO RED TEAM GO!"
There is a lot of that, a significant portion of the american public goes to work their miserable grueling jobs and then goes home to drink/pursue a hobby, there really is a huge disconnect to what people understand about what their government is doing and what they actually feel.
On February 27 2025 23:46 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Trump is negotiating with Canada in bad faith. He keeps bringing up Fentanyl as the justification for 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico. The problem with this statement is that almost zero Fentanyl crosses into the USA via the northern border. Even with Mexico this reason is a BS excuse. The reason for 25% tariffs has nothing to do with the Mexico and Canada.
Teehee. Imperialism is so funny. Invade more, Russia. China, annex a couple border countries too because MAGA's in charge and they think it is so droll.
I'm sure you'll be over the border on the first wave, posting selfies in front of dead Canadians to troll the libs.
Annexations are comedy level stuff huh. I suppose you have to retreat to culture war slop when the real threat of your neighbor turned imperial fascist comes to your door. Because in your mind, its more funny to accept illegal annexation by force than to see woke lefties apologize for some sins of the past as an aesthetic. These f***ing libs man, woke shit. You know whats cool? Losing our actual land to a bunch of jarheads and Christo fascist reaks. Gotta own the libs. Im a proud patriot.
On February 25 2025 18:12 KwarK wrote: The ones who deal with it least badly suck least but I strongly reject the idea that any of them know what the fuck they're doing because I've never seen it in my professional career. Waste in the private sector is everywhere.
Well of course, we are very imperfect humans but being profit driven makes a very big waste reduction incentive, the public sector has none.
"Show me incentives and ill show you the outcome" - Charlie Munger
On February 25 2025 18:18 Acrofales wrote: Where does this unshakeable belief in the invisible hand of the market come from? No economist believes that shit anymore. They gave Kahneman a novel prize years ago for his work showing that it's a fun idea but with no basis in reality. And behavioral economics is a mainstay of every undergraduate program in economy. So why the fuck are people still attached to this idea that perfectly informed rational actors are setting the correct price for everything in the free market of capitalism, and if they aren't then it's because they aren't free enough, not because *shudder* they aren't rational nor informed. It's insanity to still believe that shit today.
The "Invisible hand" is a silly concept so that dimwits of the 18th century could understand roughly how a market works, of course people aren't perfectly rational, nor perfectly informed ergo markets aren't perfect but the concepts do apply.
And yes the more free is a market the better it runs, you can argue that regulating it can help other things like lets say environment, but that is another point, but to think it improves the market itself and not externalities is simply not true.
On February 25 2025 18:18 Acrofales wrote: Where does this unshakeable belief in the invisible hand of the market come from? No economist believes that shit anymore. They gave Kahneman a novel prize years ago for his work showing that it's a fun idea but with no basis in reality. And behavioral economics is a mainstay of every undergraduate program in economy. So why the fuck are people still attached to this idea that perfectly informed rational actors are setting the correct price for everything in the free market of capitalism, and if they aren't then it's because they aren't free enough, not because *shudder* they aren't rational nor informed. It's insanity to still believe that shit today.
The "Invisible hand" is a silly concept so that dimwits of the 18th century could understand roughly how a market works, of course people aren't perfectly rational, nor perfectly informed ergo markets aren't perfect but the concepts do apply.
And yes the more free is a market the better it runs, you can argue that regulating it can help other things like lets say environment, but that is another point, but to think it improves the market itself and not externalities is simply not true.
But markets don't stay free on their own. Monopolies can form, and once there is a monopoly, monopoly companies have the power to crush any competition. A free market is not a naturally stable state.
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![[image loading]](https://d.newsweek.com/en/full/2595588/thomas-massie.jpg?w=1200&f=cf1279fdb43bbb98048cf57c4cd7622e)
