Trump Leads Hillary

[Bible_Belt]

Good food has never been cheaper in my lifetime.

You don't know what good food is, my friend, until you hang out with farmers. When you've had real food, you will realize that hardly anything in your grocery store is the real thing.

 

[Bible_Belt]

After 2008, there was an influx of people trying to be farmer's market vendors. Those people didn't leave their old jobs because they wanted to, and they weren't trying to be a broke farmer just for fun. They are able-bodied adults who would be working if there were jobs to be had.

 

[dasein]

You don't know what good food is, my friend, until you hang out with farmers. When you've had real food, you will realize that hardly anything in your grocery store is the real thing.

I grew up in a family growing 10-15 different vegetables a year in a one acre garden, and though I don't do that now, I do microgarden inside. I know what good food is, and I agree that you have to be careful in the grocery store, but let's not have a "good food" pissing contest.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

If a country is kept from doing business overseas from Trump, is this really capitalism?

If a company is kept from doing business overseas, that would be bankruptcy. Or robots, which is more likely. Either way, forcing companies to move from China to U.S. will not do squat for people who are unemployed now, unless they are willing to work full time for sub minimum wage and no benefits.

You can't move labor at $4 an hour with no benefit to U.S. to $10 with benefits. Economically impossible.

Trump WILL NOT be able to undo NAFTA.

The genie is out and gone.

 

[BeExcellent]

The graph @taiyuu_otoko provided is interesting. It is known that economic policy decisions take time (years) to fully come to fruition. If you take a look at that graph it will tell you some interesting things.

The steepest upswing in the graph occurs in the Reagan years. This is Reganomics in action. The prosperity that resulted from Reagan's economic and foreign policies were maintained through the George Bush 41 years, and through the Clinton years (thank you Newt Gingrich as well as the "Welfare to Work" program).

In 2000 you begin to see the graph slip again. Clinton's policies were coming into full effect despite the 1996 Congress and Welfare to Work and an actual balancing of the Federal Budget during his administration. Bush 43, who was Republican but who was NOT fiscally conservative, paused the slide until late into his tenure, but the slide that started coming out of the Clinton years was continuing. Once Obama got elected notice how the graph plummets. Bush policies, which began running deficits again after Gringrich and the Clinton Admin had balanced the budget, started the slide but the Obama years have accelerated it immensely.

People who get handouts vote to keep getting handouts. People who depend on voters who get handouts to get elected care more about keeping power vis a vis keeping the voters voting for them, welfare of the country be dammed (pun intended).

This is the key difference between Hillary and Trump.

Hillary wants the majority to be people who get handouts and people who feel sorry for the people who get handouts. These people will vote for her. She could care less about the US, she cares about her own power.

Trump is already a billionaire who doesn't need the lousy job. He has plenty of power and influence and frankly being President is going to be a PITA for him from a business standpoint since things have to go in a blind trust and etc. etc. Trump actually wants to see opportunity back in America. He is an excellent leader & executive but a lousy politician because politicians have to pander in order to get elected.

Hillary will suck at leading but is a good politician and an exceptional panderer (she simply has too much dirty laundry to hide all her lies and faults since she is SO established politically.)

As far as getting the US back on track it is very simple. Slash corporate tax rates. Jobs are created by companies who factor two enormous things into decision making. Those two things are political stability and economic viability. Right now the US is politically stable (one of the most stable in the world) but economically hostile to employers and serious capital investment. So companies go elsewhere in the world to benefit from economic advantages despite political risk (China, India, Russia, etc.)

Small businesses that can't go elsewhere get crushed under the onerous tax burden.

For the US to compete the US has got to become economically viable again and not economically hostile. If corporate tax rates were seriously reduced and the US became economically enticing from a policy standpoint and capital investment climate, you would see capital and jobs flowing back into the US to take advantage of the inherent political stability in combination with economic viability so fast that there would not be enough workforce to keep up with demand. This was the essence of Reaganomics or "trickle-down economics" in the 1980s.

If Trump gets elected he is going to try and get some Reaganesque policies through. He gets my vote for that reason alone although I think he is the best person for the job in many ways. But Hillary will not go down without a fight and the dead in Chicago will probably each vote at least thrice.

 

[Dhoulmagus]

The graph @taiyuu_otoko provided is interesting. It is known that economic policy decisions take time (years) to fully come to fruition. If you take a look at that graph it will tell you some interesting things.

The steepest upswing in the graph occurs in the Reagan years. This is Reganomics in action. The prosperity that resulted from Reagan's economic and foreign policies were maintained through the George Bush 41 years, and through the Clinton years (thank you Newt Gingrich as well as the "Welfare to Work" program).

In 2000 you begin to see the graph slip again. Clinton's policies were coming into full effect despite the 1996 Congress and Welfare to Work and an actual balancing of the Federal Budget during his administration. Bush 43, who was Republican but who was NOT fiscally conservative, paused the slide until late into his tenure, but the slide that started coming out of the Clinton years was continuing. Once Obama got elected notice how the graph plummets. Bush policies, which began running deficits again after Gringrich and the Clinton Admin had balanced the budget, started the slide but the Obama years have accelerated it immensely.

People who get handouts vote to keep getting handouts. People who depend on voters who get handouts to get elected care more about keeping power vis a vis keeping the voters voting for them, welfare of the country be dammed (pun intended).

This is the key difference between Hillary and Trump.

Hillary wants the majority to be people who get handouts and people who feel sorry for the people who get handouts. These people will vote for her. She could care less about the US, she cares about her own power.

Trump is already a billionaire who doesn't need the lousy job. He has plenty of power and influence and frankly being President is going to be a PITA for him from a business standpoint since things have to go in a blind trust and etc. etc. Trump actually wants to see opportunity back in America. He is an excellent leader & executive but a lousy politician because politicians have to pander in order to get elected.

Hillary will suck at leading but is a good politician and an exceptional panderer (she simply has too much dirty laundry to hide all her lies and faults since she is SO established politically.)

As far as getting the US back on track it is very simple. Slash corporate tax rates. Jobs are created by companies who factor two enormous things into decision making. Those two things are political stability and economic viability. Right now the US is politically stable (one of the most stable in the world) but economically hostile to employers and serious capital investment. So companies go elsewhere in the world to benefit from economic advantages despite political risk (China, India, Russia, etc.)

Small businesses that can't go elsewhere get crushed under the onerous tax burden.

For the US to compete the US has got to become economically viable again and not economically hostile. If corporate tax rates were seriously reduced and the US became economically enticing from a policy standpoint and capital investment climate, you would see capital and jobs flowing back into the US to take advantage of the inherent political stability in combination with economic viability so fast that there would not be enough workforce to keep up with demand. This was the essence of Reaganomics or "trickle-down economics" in the 1980s.

If Trump gets elected he is going to try and get some Reaganesque policies through. He gets my vote for that reason alone although I think he is the best person for the job in many ways. But Hillary will not go down without a fight and the dead in Chicago will probably each vote at least thrice.

In US history, US business presidents seem to be worst and most corrupt. I'm not saying Trump will, but this has been a noticeable trend. If you are against a company choosing to do business overseas then you aren't supporter of capitalism. There are companies that choose to manufacture in the USA because they don't want to deal with 5 month lead times and 30% of their inventory being **** when it arrives. Companies like Nike benefit from overseas because they can accept the costs and burden of offshoring. At the end of the day, these "jobs" yall keep jerking off to don't add that much value to the product and don't deserve to be paid 15 a hour. In addition, people aren't going to pay a much higher price for NIKE shoes.Either way, these jobs are going to be the first ones slashed anyway, so Americans need to get over the past and move on.

 

[Tenacity]

T.O. is completely right, the notion that Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump is/was going to bring jobs back and eliminate globalization is just flat out ridiculous lol.

I honestly at this point don't know who I'm going to vote for. I might vote 3rd party. The reality is that the next 10 - 20 years is about to look VERY bad. We have structural issues that no President is going to solve.

Also, as I've mentioned I'm a Moderate...but for the life of me I have never been a supporter of the "cut taxes/trickle down" economics shyt. I have ALWAYS thought that was a completely STUPID policy. The reason it "appeared to work" during Reagan's years was due to the Industrial Age still kicking and going strong....it really had nothing to do with the cut taxes for everybody (including the Rich) and that will trickle down to everybody else.

All that shyt does is balloon the debt and deficit, while we end up cutting taxes (reducing government revenue) for a source of people that don't need it (the Rich/the higher class) instead of creating more domestic programs, college/student loan related cost savings, and other programs for the lower class, working class, and middle class which will see IMMEDIATE returns in the economy.

It's why I'm not a Democrat nor a Republican. Democrats believe in this stupid notion that government is the answer for every damn thing and want to increase taxes through the roof.....which I find STUPID. Then Republicans believe that government is the "cause" of every damn thing and want to decrease taxes to damn near nothing.....which I find STUPID.

We need 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th party options!!

 

[Von]

You can't fight the wave.

US is greater and better than ever.

However everyone IS/ARE.... that's why USA ain't 50% of everything. Yet all is going greener/upper/better....overall

There is however massive withdrawals effects from all the changes.

USA companies are already leaving China to comeback in Texas or SouthEast Asia.

It's cheaper there.

Anyway funny, how they both scream to make USA great again, to give power to Mid-eastUSA, no-more wallstreet puppet etc.

Yet they both are elites from NewYork. In the end, NYC will rule again.

Reagan bankrupt the USA cause he didn't believe in a central government (bush continued)

Clinton believed in a stronger wellfare state with deregulated banks (they started 2008)

I believe Trump or Clinton will be more the the same. However Trump will make my popcorn stock rise.

Yes, I would vote Trump

 

[Mike32ct]

T.O. is completely right, the notion that Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump is/was going to bring jobs back and eliminate globalization is just flat out ridiculous lol.

I honestly at this point don't know who I'm going to vote for. I might vote 3rd party. The reality is that the next 10 - 20 years is about to look VERY bad. We have structural issues that no President is going to solve.

Also, as I've mentioned I'm a Moderate...but for the life of me I have never been a supporter of the "cut taxes/trickle down" economics shyt. I have ALWAYS thought that was a completely STUPID policy. The reason it "appeared to work" during Reagan's years was due to the Industrial Age still kicking and going strong....it really had nothing to do with the cut taxes for everybody (including the Rich) and that will trickle down to everybody else.

All that shyt does is balloon the debt and deficit, while we end up cutting taxes (reducing government revenue) for a source of people that don't need it (the Rich/the higher class) instead of creating more domestic programs, college/student loan related cost savings, and other programs for the lower class, working class, and middle class which will see IMMEDIATE returns in the economy.

It's why I'm not a Democrat nor a Republican. Democrats believe in this stupid notion that government is the answer for every damn thing and want to increase taxes through the roof.....which I find STUPID. Then Republicans believe that government is the "cause" of every damn thing and want to decrease taxes to damn near nothing.....which I find STUPID.

We need 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th party options!!

Insufficient tax revenues are very much a RESULT of globalization. I wonder how many billions in lost state, local and federal tax revenues are a result of manufacturing going overseas. Plus removal of tariffs is significant federal revenue lost as well. In other words, free trade deals screw the government as well as the workers.

Shifting gears a bit, I keep thinking about the "Tight Labor Market" of the late 90s. It wasn't unheard of for a college grad to have like five job offers, and an experienced professional could pretty much name his own price job wise. I'm sure that the elites vowed "never again" to a tight labor market where the workers had so much power/leverage.

So after the bubble burst, companies did massive layoffs and cuts with little to no plans to re-hire in the future. They sought to have future labor markets flooded with H1-Bs and kept telling prospective students that certain fields were still "hot" even when they weren't to keep wages down by oversupply of labor.

So what we are seeing today and for the foreseeable future is "payback" from the elites because of workers having too much power and making too much money (in the elites' eyes)in the late 90s (and other prior economic boom periods).

 

[Dhoulmagus]

T.O. is completely right, the notion that Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump is/was going to bring jobs back and eliminate globalization is just flat out ridiculous lol.

I honestly at this point don't know who I'm going to vote for. I might vote 3rd party. The reality is that the next 10 - 20 years is about to look VERY bad. We have structural issues that no President is going to solve.

Also, as I've mentioned I'm a Moderate...but for the life of me I have never been a supporter of the "cut taxes/trickle down" economics shyt. I have ALWAYS thought that was a completely STUPID policy. The reason it "appeared to work" during Reagan's years was due to the Industrial Age still kicking and going strong....it really had nothing to do with the cut taxes for everybody (including the Rich) and that will trickle down to everybody else.

All that shyt does is balloon the debt and deficit, while we end up cutting taxes (reducing government revenue) for a source of people that don't need it (the Rich/the higher class) instead of creating more domestic programs, college/student loan related cost savings, and other programs for the lower class, working class, and middle class which will see IMMEDIATE returns in the economy.

It's why I'm not a Democrat nor a Republican. Democrats believe in this stupid notion that government is the answer for every damn thing and want to increase taxes through the roof.....which I find STUPID. Then Republicans believe that government is the "cause" of every damn thing and want to decrease taxes to damn near nothing.....which I find STUPID.

We need 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th party options!!

Exactly, the world is doomed regardless. People like the jerk to the ages where the USA was the only country with industrial capability post WW2. Now, everybody isn't just recovering from having their countries destroyed by the effects of WW2.

 

[Bible_Belt]

A small town near me used to have a huge factory that made washing machines. Starting wages were like 4x minimum wage, and a lot of workers were making $25-35 an hour. It was a union job. Then the company got bought out by Whirlpool, who immediately closed the plant and moved all those jobs to Mexico.

That was the moment when, if the government of the US actually worked for the people instead of the corporations, we would have told Whirlpool to shove their Mexican washing machines up their corporate ass by making them illegal to sell in the US. Corporations have fvcked all the middle class out of their good jobs, but then we let them come right back to peddle their cheap Chinese and Mexican crap.

And yes, protectionism will raise prices. But it will create jobs here. And plus, most of the stuff that would go up in price, no one really needs, anyway. No one needs a 60" TV or the latest I-phone. Part of the con game of globalism is convincing the poor masses that they must have the latest tech crap offered at Wal-Mart prices, or the world will end.

 

[Bible_Belt]

I thought this was funny, too:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/27/politics/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-hack-hillary-clinton/
Donald Trump encourages Russia to hack Hillary Clinton

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

However Trump will make my popcorn stock rise.

There is DEFINITELY the popcorn factor. Not to mention that if Trump wins, we can see his hot daughter on TV instead of Cankles.

VS

 

[Dhoulmagus]

A small town near me used to have a huge factory that made washing machines. Starting wages were like 4x minimum wage, and a lot of workers were making $25-35 an hour. It was a union job. Then the company got bought out by Whirlpool, who immediately closed the plant and moved all those jobs to Mexico.

That was the moment when, if the government of the US actually worked for the people instead of the corporations, we would have told Whirlpool to shove their Mexican washing machines up their corporate ass by making them illegal to sell in the US. Corporations have fvcked all the middle class out of their good jobs, but then we let them come right back to peddle their cheap Chinese and Mexican crap.

And yes, protectionism will raise prices. But it will create jobs here. And plus, most of the stuff that would go up in price, no one really needs, anyway. No one needs a 60" TV or the latest I-phone. Part of the con game of globalism is convincing the poor masses that they must have the latest tech crap offered at Wal-Mart prices, or the world will end.

Why not look at the reasons for the company selling itself to Whirpool instead of attacking some fantasy dream? There's plenty of factory jobs in the USA. Again, there's companies that benefit from manufacturing overseas and there's companies that benefit from manufacturing within the USA. Fore example, suddenly preventing Nike from operating overseas will completely screw up their business model and cause them to fail. You sound like some socialist dictator that screws over a country based on some dream he had the previous night lol.

 

[Bible_Belt]

Sure, there's a new car parts factory here that is always hiring...at 50 cents over minimum wage. They built the factory here because the area is so economically depressed that people will work factory jobs for $8.50 an hour. The washer factory started people at $16/hr when minimum wage was $4.

For as long as trade has existed in human history, protectionism was the norm. Globalism is a modern experiment of the past few decades, and we've seen the results - the middle class is gone. Now we just have the super rich, the welfare poor, and the working poor. Soon it will be just the ultra-rich and the welfare masses.

 

[Dhoulmagus]

Sure, there's a new car parts factory here that is always hiring...at 50 cents over minimum wage. They built the factory here because the area is so economically depressed that people will work factory jobs for $8.50 an hour. The washer factory started people at $16/hr when minimum wage was $4.

For as long as trade has existed in human history, protectionism was the norm. Globalism is a modern experiment of the past few decades, and we've seen the results - the middle class is gone. Now we just have the super rich, the welfare poor, and the working poor. Soon it will be just the ultra-rich and the welfare masses.

The factory I work at starts at 12.50 for line jobs. In addition, I worked at my uncles factory making 16 a hour and 22 after overtime salting raw meat during one summer my college year lol. There's jobs that pay well and there's jobs that don't . You just have to know where to look and be an opportunist. I agree and disagree with your last statement though. Yes, I think we will revert back to the haves and have nots after reading Thomas Picketty's book because the world is reverting back to its pre World Wars stage. However, I think it is silly of you to act like we are living in a hellhole of a time period when the biggest worry we have today is making it to 3pm or Chick FIla being closed on a Sunday. Our ancestors went through hell to give us our lives today. Enjoy it while it lasts because we have either peaked or nearing the peak. There isn't enough capacity in this world for everybody to enjoy the middle class lifestyle Americans did post ww2. Technology just advanced too fast for humans. Debt and Credit are the only things that are keeping people on this lifestyle currently.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

Globalism is a modern experiment of the past few decades

I wouldn't exactly call it an experiment. Companies that pay people to make stuff have always tried to get the cheapest labor possible. (just as individual workers are responsible for finding the highest wage possible). It's just that in the past few decades, companies are BIG ENOUGH to find cheap labor across the planet, instead of domestically.

There's a blogger I read, (https://ourfiniteworld.com/ Gail Tverberg, an actuary) who points out that the future is just like Bible says. Less and less need for workers, (robots) and cheaper and cheaper commodities as global demand continues to shrink. Rich WILL continue to get richer, middle class will continue to vanish, and poor people will continue to become more dependent on the government.

You might even say that the "middle class" is a FAILED EXPERIMENT of american history, as it was simply not sustainable. There's no magic law of society that says the existence of a middle class is even sustainable. It's certainly not been present in very many societies in the past.

For the VAST MAJORITY of human history, there's been the super rich, and everybody else. You may say we're in the midst of a HUGE REVERSION to the mean of human history.

The existence of the middle class could accurately be described as a one-off, unsustainable side effect of the posts WWII economic condition, where the U.S. was the ONLY MANUFACTURING place on Earth, and basically gave dollars to other countries to use to buy our stuff (creditor financing).

That con ran it's course, and the middle class has been slowly dying ever since the gold standard ended.

A decent and depressing read if you've got a few minutes:

Wage Stagnation in Nine Charts

 

[Dhoulmagus]

I wouldn't exactly call it an experiment. Companies that pay people to make stuff have always tried to get the cheapest labor possible. (just as individual workers are responsible for finding the highest wage possible). It's just that in the past few decades, companies are BIG ENOUGH to find cheap labor across the planet, instead of domestically.

There's a blogger I read, (https://ourfiniteworld.com/ Gail Tverberg, an actuary) who points out that the future is just like Bible says. Less and less need for workers, (robots) and cheaper and cheaper commodities as global demand continues to shrink. Rich WILL continue to get richer, middle class will continue to vanish, and poor people will continue to become more dependent on the government.

You might even say that the "middle class" is a FAILED EXPERIMENT of american history, as it was simply not sustainable. There's no magic law of society that says the existence of a middle class is even sustainable. It's certainly not been present in very many societies in the past.

For the VAST MAJORITY of human history, there's been the super rich, and everybody else. You may say we're in the midst of a HUGE REVERSION to the mean of human history.

The existence of the middle class could accurately be described as a one-off, unsustainable side effect of the posts WWII economic condition, where the U.S. was the ONLY MANUFACTURING place on Earth, and basically gave dollars to other countries to use to buy our stuff (creditor financing).

That con ran it's course, and the middle class has been slowly dying ever since the gold standard ended.

A decent and depressing read if you've got a few minutes:

Wage Stagnation in Nine Charts

Yessss exactly! What do you think the world will be like in 10-20 years?

 

[Bible_Belt]

For the VAST MAJORITY of human history, there's been the super rich, and everybody else.

True, but that's starting history at the advent of agriculture, about 10,000 BC. For the two million or so years before that, we were hunter-gatherers, and money didn't exist. There was likely such a thing as status, but it would have been based upon one's skill at hunting or gathering.

One of the most interesting theories about the biblical Garden of Eden that I have read is that the garden is a metaphor for our early human life as hunter-gatherers. The fall is our transition to agriculture.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

There was likely such a thing as status, but it would have been based upon one's skill at hunting or gathering.

In the book "Chimpanzee Politics," after studying a compound of chimps for several years, they found the not only were chimps aligned in a very regulated social status, but there was a strong correlation between status and wealth (food) and status and sex. High Status males, even in the monkey community, dominate the women and get most of the food. Lower status males (even among chimps) only get the scraps.

And by watching these chimps, they were VERY "Machiavellian" meaning they were always running sly games and cons on each other, and even forming alliances to gain social status (hence the book title).

And since humans split from chimps four million years ago, you can bet that humans have always been gunning for the top of the heap.

I would suggest that high status males ALWAYS get as much as they can, and any time in history there existed a middle class, it was not by design, but by accident, since by GENETIC DESIGN, the elites (high status humans) always get AS MUCH as they can get away with.

So high school graduates in the fifties were able to get good paying factory jobs was certainly not by design. Just a happy accident of history, and they happened to be at the right place at the right time.

That is NOT LIKELY to be repated in the U.S. Ever.