2016 US Election thread: the begininning

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

34 minutes ago, Fez said:

Unless she gets indicted/arrested or it comes out that some sort of covert action was compromised or something like that, I just don't think it will matter much. The issue has been talked about for so long that I think most of the public is just tired of hearing about it and have made up their minds about whether it matters to them.

And if one of those things comes to pass, well, that's why O'Malley is still in the race.

Well I agree about O'Malley.

It would be a complete disaster if she is indicted/arrested. And it wouldn't need to get that far to cause serious damage to any Democrats' chances of winning the WH.

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

4 minutes ago, BloodRider said:

Its a false dichotomy.  One does not necessarily have to ignore economic realities to make an argument for basic humanity in economic systems.  But it sure is nice when they dovetail.  Anyway, Econ is not Physics.  It is possible to set policy that "breaks" the laws of Economics, and breaks it in such a way that the system has better outcomes with fewer externalities.

What's more is that this whole thing came out of a specific refutation of Altherion's economically incorrect assertions.  It was not necessarily a positive argument for immigration policy "as is."

It's not a false dichotomy! It's not even really a dichotomy! I'm not even really arguing with anyone and I honestly do not even understand what you are trying to argue with me about. 

[BloodRider]

1 minute ago, NestorMakhnosLovechild said:

It's not a false dichotomy! It's not even really a dichotomy! I'm not even really arguing with anyone and I honestly do not even understand what you are trying to argue with me about. 

I strongly disagree with your perception that Liberals are tackling the econ issues at the expense of the social issues - or vie-versa for that matter.  It is often possible to address both.  Specifically in the case of Immigration, people who know a hell of a lot more than me tell me it is possible to do both.

Now just because both priorities don't get mentioned every time this subject comes up does not mean that any one side is neglecting a certain set of priorities.  Especially here given that the context that economic issues came up in.  To Whit, the assertion that immigration is economically bad.  It seems logical to respond to that with "No, it is actually pretty good"; since its all like true and stuff.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

It looks like there is next to no chance Trump changes his mind. It will be interedting to see how this affects the Republican debate's ratings.

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

3 minutes ago, BloodRider said:

I strongly disagree with your perception that Liberals are tackling the econ issues at the expense of the social issues - or vie-versa for that matter.  It is often possible to address both.  Specifically in the case of Immigration, people who know a hell of a lot more than me tell me it is possible to do both.

Now just because both priorities don't get mentioned every time this subject comes up does not mean that any one side is neglecting a certain set of priorities.  Especially here given that the context that economic issues came up in.  To Whit, the assertion that immigration is economically bad.  It seems logical to respond to that with "No, it is actually pretty good"; since its all like true and stuff.

I'm not accusing anyone of "neglecting" their priorities. I am making an observation and an argument about how liberals should respond to the framing of these kinds of discussions. I think it's a mistake to accept the framing of these conservative economic argument against illegal immigration because the framing ignores the most salient moral arguments for legalization and the framing often relies on facts that, if the liberal had their druthers, would not actually continue to be facts (like illegal immigrants being a net benefit to certain government programs because they can be forced to contribute without any possibility of being able to draw from them down the road). 

Take a chill pill and relax. Nestor Knows Better. 

[The Anti-Targ]

So what is it between Fox and Trump. Has Fox always been anti-Trump or is it just since he started shitting on Fox's golden children like Cruz? I mean weren't they all behind Trump and cheering him on when he was an Obama birther?

[Kalbear]

I'm pretty sure it was simply Megyn Kelly not being super kind to him in that first debate and calling him on his completely ludicrous shit. He's not got a beef with Fox specifically, as far as I know, or at least not one that makes him boycott anything. 

[Martell Spy]

Quote

So what is it between Fox and Trump. Has Fox always been anti-Trump or is it just since he started shitting on Fox's golden children like Cruz? I mean weren't they all behind Trump and cheering him on when he was an Obama birther?

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/01/fox-statement-taunting-trump-was-all-roger-ailes.html

It sounds like Ailes is driving this current fracas. And many of the execs aren't happy about it. Trump may be counting on intervention from Murdach, but it hasn't happened yet.

 

[Inigima]

2 hours ago, NestorMakhnosLovechild said:

It's called trying to have a discussion. You know - raise the level of discourse and stuff. I know sometimes it's hard to process a post that isn't primarily concerned with either overtly insulting your political opponents or scoring debate points. But give it a try sometime - you might like it! 

Alanis Morissette, eat your heart out.

[DanteGabriel]

Trump ostensibly pulled out of tonight's debate to hold a benefit for wounded veterans, and totally not because Megyn Kelly might read some of his vile misogynistic quotes back at him. Trouble is, his spokesman couldn't name any veterans organizations that would benefit. Shortly after the embarrassing interview ended, one veterans' group let a reporter know that they'd just gotten a call from the Trump campaign.

But it's nice that Trump wants to help wounded vets. Quite a reversal from the decades he spent trying to get wounded veterans kicked off of their vendor stations on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, which had been granted to them in 1894.

[Bonesy]

Megyn Kelly is a freaking chainsaw tonight.

Maybe Trump did the right thing (for his campaign) by sitting this one out.

[Altherion]

4 hours ago, Suttree said:

I'm not sure why this topic brings out so much false information but as has been clearly shown, just about every single thing Altherion(and Trump) are claiming is simply not true.

Putting together some numbers and assumptions (as every one of the things linked so far does) does not show anything nor demonstrate anything to be false. The fact of the matter is that this is an immensely complicated problem and to say anything quantitative about it would require a small army of adepts working on it as well as significant computational resources. Nobody who has the money to make that sort of thing happen is interested in doing it so instead, people write papers with a long list of simplifying assumptions each of which may or may not be valid. The results they get are not a description of the world -- they change based on which assumptions are used. The more honest and thorough of the people conducting the studies admit this and try to state the assumptions explicitly; the rest leave it for the reader to figure them out from the description of the methodology.

Most politicians and people making arguments for policy take the results in the studies at face value without mentioning the assumptions (as people in this thread have been doing). Most people to whom these arguments are being made lack the time, the inclination and/or the expertise to go through the studies and spot the assumptions. In the past, people might have believed them simply because it is a study coming from a university, but it looks like fewer and fewer people do that as wages stagnate and even decline.

In my opinion, it is more honest to stick to qualitative statements as Trump has mostly done (albeit with somewhat more rudeness and xenophobia than necessary). That the illegal immigrants create a shadow economy is not disputed. That they are partly responsible for the stagnation of wages and for unemployment is more debatable, but it's much more plausible than any other assumption -- the law of supply and demand is both simple and robust.

 

3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I'm pretty sure it was simply Megyn Kelly not being super kind to him in that first debate and calling him on his completely ludicrous shit. He's not got a beef with Fox specifically, as far as I know, or at least not one that makes him boycott anything. 

Interestingly enough, that appears to be a one-way quarrel as Kelly herself is relatively cordial when asked about him:

Quote

In an interview with TIME just hours before Trump bailed from Thursday’s Fox News debate, Kelly even found some nice words to say about the celebrity real estate developer. “He doesn’t care about that P.C. culture,” she said. “It’s a breath of fresh air.”

 

[Shryke]

5 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I'm pretty sure it was simply Megyn Kelly not being super kind to him in that first debate and calling him on his completely ludicrous shit. He's not got a beef with Fox specifically, as far as I know, or at least not one that makes him boycott anything. 

He's argued with Fox News before. It's just previously they caved.

[Shryke]

Anyway, some more stuff on Sanders' health care plan in line with what was being discussed in the previous thread:

http://www.vox.com/2016/1/28/10858644/bernie-sanders-kenneth-thorpe-single-payer

Quote

 

Bernie Sanders's health care plan is underfunded by almost $1.1 trillion a year, a new analysis by Emory University health care expert Kenneth Thorpe finds.

Thorpe isn't some right-wing critic skeptical of all single-payer proposals. Indeed, in 2006 he laid out a single-payer proposal for Vermont after being hired by the legislature, and was retained by progressive Vermont lawmakers again in 2014 as the state seriously considered single-payer, authoring a memo laying out alternative ways to expand coverage. A 2005 report he wrote estimated that a single-payer system would save $1.1 trillion in health spending from 2006 to 2015.

But he nonetheless concludes that single-payer at a national level would be significantly more expensive than the Sanders campaign believes, and would require workers to pay an additional 20 percent of their compensation in taxes. He also argues it would leave 71 percent of households with private insurance worse off once you take both tax increases and reduced health care expenditures into account.

Sanders's camp is, naturally, skeptical. Sanders's policy director Warren Gunnels told me Thorpe's analysis is a "total hatchet job." The disagreement ultimately comes down to a question of how optimistic you are about single-payer's ability to reduce health care spending.

Sanders's plan is very optimistic, assuming huge reductions in per-person health care spending that bring the US much closer to existing countries with single-payer like Canada (which spends nearly 48 percent less per person) or Australia (more than 56 percent less). "If you look at every other country that has adopted a universal single-payer health care system, their costs per capita are far lower than they are in the United States," Gunnels told me.

Thorpe is less rosy. He assumes the US can reduce the cost of prescription drugs by a fifth, that it can pay providers much less than private insurers currently do, that it can significantly slow down how fast health care spending grows, and that it can gain some substantial savings from simpler administration. But that still isn't enough to make the plan affordable without a massive tax increase.

 

 

Personally, this is my favourite point:

Quote

Sanders assumes $324 billion more per year in prescription drug savings than Thorpe does. Thorpe argues that this is wildly implausible. "In 2014 private health plans paid a TOTAL of $132 billion on prescription drugs and nationally we spent $305 billion," he writes in an email. "With their savings drug spending nationally would be negative." (Emphasis mine.) The Sanders camp revised the number down to $241 billion when I pointed this out.

[Martell Spy]

This guy is certainly an expert, however the problem is he has a clear bias, given his ties to Clinton and the health industry. I'm a Clinton voter, but this does nothing to convince me.

I do believe single payer could work well, if given the chance. I just don't believe the radical change needed is going to happen given our current politics. Many people would rather just keep the private insurance they have, even if they pay more for it and get less. They don't want the disruption, and aren't convinced it'll be better. Democrats would be foolish to fight this battle directly. They should focus on improving the ACA.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sanders-health-plan-cost_us_56a8ff99e4b0f6b7d5447ee8

 

Quote

According to analysis from Emory University professor Kenneth Thorpe, a former Clinton administration advisor who has also done paid work for health industry clients

 

[Crazydog7]

This might actually require its own thread but can someone please explain Trump's appeal to me?  I mean this isn't reality TV (but to be fair maybe it is) since when is being a loudmouth douche some manner of presidential qualification? 

[Shryke]

11 minutes ago, Crazydog7 said:

This might actually require its own thread but can someone please explain Trump's appeal to me?  I mean this isn't reality TV (but to be fair maybe it is) since when is being a loudmouth douche some manner of presidential qualification? 

At it's simplest he's openly advocating things alot of people feel by blaming the malaise they feel with their current social and economic condition on an easy scapegoat. This taps into to a strong current within american society and especially within the GOP.

[Shryke]

59 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

This guy is certainly an expert, however the problem is he has a clear bias, given his ties to Clinton and the health industry. I'm a Clinton voter, but this does nothing to convince me.

I do believe single payer could work well, if given the chance. I just don't believe the radical change needed is going to happen given our current politics. Many people would rather just keep the private insurance they have, even if they pay more for it and get less. They don't want the disruption, and aren't convinced it'll be better. Democrats would be foolish to fight this battle directly. They should focus on improving the ACA.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sanders-health-plan-cost_us_56a8ff99e4b0f6b7d5447ee8

 

 

Can you find fault with his analysis? Sanders own state of Vermont hired the guy based on his expertise. And as with the point I listed specifically, he's not wrong on many parts of the proposal.

[lokisnow]

This guy is certainly an expert, however the problem is he has a clear bias, given his ties to Clinton and the health industry. I'm a Clinton voter, but this does nothing to convince me.

I do believe single payer could work well, if given the chance. I just don't believe the radical change needed is going to happen given our current politics. Many people would rather just keep the private insurance they have, even if they pay more for it and get less. They don't want the disruption, and aren't convinced it'll be better. Democrats would be foolish to fight this battle directly. They should focus on improving the ACA.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sanders-health-plan-cost_us_56a8ff99e4b0f6b7d5447ee8

 

According to analysis from Emory University professor Kenneth Thorpe, a former Clinton administration advisor who has also done paid work for health industry clients

 

Ultimately, we can only get single payer if we can convince all the doctors and nurses and hospitals to be paid less, more equivalent to what their counterparts make in Europe. When you solve that political puzzle, then you can worry about how to finance it, and yes, it will be incredibly expensive,especially for the middle class and upper middle class as the expense will be proportional to income with the upper quintile bearing most of the burden. That's fine, it absolutely can work, and is the right thing to do, but the hardest thing to accomplish will be in getting the doctors and nurses to take large pay cuts and accept strict limits on raises afterwards.

And remember, Medicare is only mediocre insurance coverage at best, we could improve demand for single payer by first improving Medicare, but we will have to pay for that improvement.

I think the only way we get it is through the incremental and inevitable approach. Like say you pass legislation that says Medicare enrollment expands one year earlier every year. If we passed that in 2010, people who would turn 59 this year would be enrolling for Medicare, rather than 65. Give it a few decades and we're there, especially if you reach a tipping point as the Medicare enrollment age becomes younger. As the Medicare population steadily grows, doctors get more and more used to taking Medicare levels of compensation, as older people leave the private market for Medicare, costs decline for the private market, as younger people enter the Medicare market average expenses per patient go down. I'd pay for it by like an annual increase in the Medicare tax percent rate of 0.05, paid equally by both employee and employer, so actually an annual increase of 0.1 or a ten year total increase of 1%. That works out to about $2.50 increase per weekly paycheck for a minimum wage job each year, and would raise around 30 billion a year in additional income for Medicare, which ought to cover the new enrollee a each year. If this is insufficient apply the same increase to the Medicare tax on capital gains. I think it's a program for everyone, so everyone should pay, I don't think a brutally redistributive approach would work.

This annual .005 increase would also work for social security and could probably resolve most of the trust fund shortfall of passed through reconciliation and naturally sun setting in ten years. Social security also needs its cap to rise faster than inflation as the affluent who live significantly longer are drawing more from it than expected, this is best solved by say having the cap rise at inflation plus 1% every year rather than just rising with inflation. Yup tax rise that falls only on the upper middle class, not the upper class, but that's because these upper middle class folk do use social security unlike the capital class. So they should contribute more.

http://www.cbpp.org/blog/what-the-growing-longevity-gap-means-for-social-security

[TrackerNeil]

9 hours ago, Bonesy said:

 

Megyn Kelly is a freaking chainsaw tonight.

Maybe Trump did the right thing (for his campaign) by sitting this one out.

I go back and forth. Half of me thinks he's nuts to miss a debate right before Iowa (they say many people don't decide until the last days), but the other half reminds that Trump's led the polls since July and that calling Mexicans rapists and even insulting a vet's war record hasn't changed that, so another debate won't change much. Maybe The Donald is immune to all damage except that which he inflicts upon himself, who knows?

You know, I realized the other day that if a more conventional candidate were doing as well as Trump, I'd already have decided he/she was the likely nominee. That's distressing for a number of reasons.