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U.S. Politics: Blame it on Canada!


Fragile Bird

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16 hours ago, Kalbear said:

According to whom? No reasonable polls I've seen.

Not every repub will be enthused to vote against Clinton either. Mostly because there is not a lot of enthusiasm for the repub candidates.

You should talk to more Republicans. The hatred for HRC and BHO is fairly equal.

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3 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I'm funny about limits on contributions but disclosures, I'm all about that.  Disclose away.

The GOP used to feel the same way, and, like cap and trade, that position suddenly and inexplicably became too liberal.

An interesting look at the was the GOP actors seem unable or unwilling to coalesce around a candidate. I confess I thought that, by now, Rubio would be more ascendant than he is, and that Trump would be a distant memory. Maybe Trump has distorted the race so that party elders are reluctant to dip a toe in the water while The Donald is still swimming around, I don't know.

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According to whom? No reasonable polls I've seen.

Not every repub will be enthused to vote against Clinton either. Mostly because there is not a lot of enthusiasm for the repub candidates.

You should talk to more Republicans. The hatred for HRC and BHO is fairly equal.

That ain't a poll.

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Pro-tip: If you do post poll results that don't say what Kal wants them to say, that ain't a relevant poll.

Pro tip: saying "I talked with some people" is never going to be a relevant poll no matter what my view is. Are you just running around the board and disagreeing with me without reading the conversation? I asked for a poll that indicated Obama and Clinton are equally hated by repubs and got the response "talk to some repubs" - and you go ad hom because of that?

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I've been thinking a lot about Sanders vs Clinton and it's hard to shake the feeling that Clinton would be way more effective at implementing her agenda. I just wish her agenda were more ambitiously liberal.

Ordos, thanks for parachuting into our thread full of people who talk politics constantly to inform us that you've decided now is when we should have bothered.

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Back to the topic of oil, for a moment.  I would point out that most of the oil producing nations around the world have Sovereign funds, where they have stashed away profits from their oil industries.  The money is invested in stocks and bonds.  All of these countries have budgets, with money flowing out to pay for social services, education, infrastructure etc, everything you need to run a country.  In recent years all the money in their budgets came from oil royalties or sales and the excess went into the Sovereign funds.

While the Saudis, or OPEC, may originally have lowered prices to shake out high-cost oil producers in North America, they also did it punish Russia, which relies heavily on oil revenues.  American oil producers might have been upset as the price of oil started falling last year, but I think the US government was keeping quiet on the topic but purring like a happy cat in the corner.  But, as was mentioned on the previous page, whatever their motivations were then, they've lost control of oil prices since.  The slowdown in China is having the biggest impact.

In the meantime, it goes without saying that you make a lot more money at $120 a barrel or even $70 a barrel than you do at $27 a barrel.  You don't make enough money to pay for your country's budget, so in some countries you ramp up oil production, even if you are practically giving it away.  And the countries with healthy Sovereign funds start selling their stocks, because you need the money.  The financial press has reported that billions of dollars of company shares are being sold every day by Sovereign funds.  The stock market has been strongly correlated with the price of oil in this market correction, and won't recover until the price of oil recovers.  In the meantime, many of the players in the Middle East still don't care - for one thing, this means Iraq will be selling off it's oil in storage at the lowest prices, and they don't like Iraq.

The US is basically at full employment right now.  Full employment happens at the end of a cycle, and eventually the country will head towards a recession, but it's not going to happen any time soon with low interest rates, low inflation and low energy costs.  IMO anyway.

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20 minutes ago, Inigima said:

I've been thinking a lot about Sanders vs Clinton and it's hard to shake the feeling that Clinton would be way more effective at implementing her agenda. I just wish her agenda were more ambitiously liberal.

We can only hope that Hillary will be as effective at crossing the aisle to enlist Republicans in support of her legislative agenda as Bill was. If it wasn't for that famous Clinton skill at corralling Republican support we might have missed out on welfare reform dumping single mothers of young children back into the workforce, the Defense of Marriage Act, NAFTA and the reaffirmation of sentencing disparities for powder vs. crack cocaine! 

I mean, Bernie Sanders is so ineffective he couldn't even successfully oppose all of those things WITH a Clinton in the white house! 

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So, a thought came across my mind on why everyone wants trump and sanders, I feel like my generation in particular, (millennials) seem to believe lying shouldn't be a standard in politics. Just a thought, it doesn't explain trump, and sanders isn't perfect, but the truth seems to lie with-in the fact that anti-lying seems to be what is pushing these two.

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3 minutes ago, Marcus Agrippa said:

So, a thought came across my mind on why everyone wants trump and sanders, I feel like my generation in particular, (millennials) seem to believe lying shouldn't be a standard in politics. Just a thought, it doesn't explain trump, and sanders isn't perfect, but the truth seems to lie with-in the fact that anti-lying seems to be what is pushing these two.

If people gravitate towards Trump because they dislike lying, then they are more stupid than a sack of Sarah Palins.

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1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

You should talk to more Republicans. The hatred for HRC and BHO is fairly equal.

 

That ain't a poll.

How many polls would you like?

Because both Obama and HRC poll terribly bad with Republicans right now, and Obama polled better with Republicans in 07-08 before the election than Hillary does now with Republicans.

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16 minutes ago, Inigima said:

I've been thinking a lot about Sanders vs Clinton and it's hard to shake the feeling that Clinton would be way more effective at implementing her agenda. I just wish her agenda were more ambitiously liberal.

 

I don't see any reason to think any of Clinton's progressive legislative proposals will be any less dead on arrival than Obama's have been since Republicans took control of the House. I worry that, if Clinton is effective, it will be in ways that I'm not at all supportive of. My great fear is that, like Obama, she'll pursue a "Grand Bargain" that makes cuts to entitlement programs in exchange for slightly more progressive taxation, but, unlike Obama, she'll succeed. On foreign policy I have no doubt she'll be able to implement her agenda, and I outright dread that eventuality- she is far too hawkish for me. There is very little stopping Presidents from conducting foreign policy and using the military how they please, unless Congress asserts itself, which it seem incapable of doing. If you agree with her in these areas you should vote for her, of course. But if you agree with Sanders in principle I think with Clinton you're not getting any effectiveness that you should want.

As for Sanders' agenda, while I think the legislative side will be dead on arrival, I wouldn't underestimate what he may be able accomplish simply by using regulatory authority already granted to executive agencies. He'll also control foreign policy where his lifelong record suggests he'll be the least interventionist President we've had since before WWII. He can't roll back past trade agreements easily, but he can renegotiate or block the next one.

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49 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

How many polls would you like?

Because both Obama and HRC poll terribly bad with Republicans right now, and Obama polled better with Republicans in 07-08 before the election than Hillary does now with Republicans.

Does it matter how Clinton or any other Democrat polls with Republicans? Come November, most of those Republicans are voting for Cruz or Rubio or whomever, so who cares what they think?

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9 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

Does it matter how Clinton or any other Democrat polls with Republicans? Come November, most of those Republicans are voting for Cruz or Rubio or whomever, so who cares what they think?

You missed the point. I'm talking about Republican enthusiasm to campaign against Clinton. Just look at how angry the rehtoric on the right is.

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7 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

You missed the point. I'm talking about Republican enthusiasm to campaign against Clinton. Just look at how angry the rehtoric on the right is.

Right-wing anger is like gravity; it's a constant but I don't even notice it any more.

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