US elections 2016 - "Go ahead, throw your vote away"

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

41 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

What about our irrationality? We are religious and many people think we are irrational. Can we be convinced to eschew religion and God by their rational arguments? In my case no, since I see my faith as being rational.

I also see my faith as rational if not empirical.

[Martell Spy]

 

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If Vox is to be believed it's more that he's facing a potential primary challenge. So the same reason everyone else gave up their dignity. 

This is pathetic.

 

 

 

My general impression of Cruz was that he has no dignity to begin with.

[Martell Spy]

Dean Baquet Doesn’t Think Donald Trump Is the Media’s Fault

The New York Times executive editor on the challenges of covering the candidate and how the paper decided to call him a liar.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2016/09/new_york_times_executive_editor_dean_baquet_on_donald_trump_and_the_future.html

[ThinkerX]

Yet more worry for Team Clinton?  I have serious doubts, as does this scheme's creator.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-is-headed-for-a-win-says-professor-who-has-predicted-30-years-of-presidential-outcomes-correctly/ar-BBwx9WT?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=msnclassic

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Rather, he uses a system of true/false statements he calls the "Keys to the White House" to determine his predicted winner.

And this year, he says, Donald Trump is the favorite to win.

The keys, which are explained in depth in Lichtman’s book “Predicting the Next President: The Keys to the White House 2016” are:

 

1. Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.
2. Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.
3. Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
4. Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.
5. Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
6. Long-term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
7. Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.
8. Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
9. Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
10. Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
11. Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
12. Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
13. Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.

I

 

 

[IamMe90]

4 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

What about our irrationality? We are religious and many people think we are irrational. Can we be convinced to eschew religion and God by their rational arguments? In my case no, since I see my faith as being rational.

The concept of  religious "faith" is inherently irrational. I won't necessarily say the same about religion itself. However, I do think that this is an interesting way for a lot of people to introspect and maybe realize that judging other people for their own irrationality vis a vis their core beliefs can be a double-edged sword. 

[James Arryn]

Altherion-

 

My point was not that bigotry has been around a long time/longer than political correctness, but that bigotry as political currency has been around longer. In other words, there's no need (beyond artifice) to justify bigotry gaining political force as a reaction to inverted bigotry/apolitical correctness when it sells just fine as it is. Now, no one is the bad guy in their own movie, so few people regard themselves as bigots. Which is why bigotry has always been accompanied by some rhetorical prop, whether it's the Bible or pseudo-science or w/e, there's always something more to say than just 'they are inferior, full stop'. 

 

With th regards to that old 'intolerance of intolerance is intolerance' schtick, I'm a bit surprised you went there. I'd rather not run down the well worn paths of sui generis rebuttal, and I'd just point to Umberto Eco's thoughts on the subject as a more patient address of that rhetoric. Speaking of whom, you might find Eco's commentary on Ur-fascism to be very interesting, as long before Trump was a thing he listed the criteria for fascist movements;

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/

You will note that his list ticks pretty much every box, including the belief in existential external and internal threats/appeal to nativism, the belief in the conspiracy of an empowered elite which has co-opted the political process, a frustrated middle class feeling economic crisis and political humiliation, a belief that society has become depraved/corrupted by modernism/liberal extremism (often but not only illustrated specific to an acceptance of sexual abnormality), a distrust of intellectualism and a belief that essential truths about traditional values are no longer being allowed to be spoken because they run contrary to modern/liberal thinking. 

 

[Altherion]

31 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

With th regards to that old 'intolerance of intolerance is intolerance' schtick, I'm a bit surprised you went there. I'd rather not run down the well worn paths of sui generis rebuttal, and I'd just point to Umberto Eco's thoughts on the subject as a more patient address of that rhetoric.

The issue with political correctness is not that intolerance of intolerance is intolerance -- this is technically correct, but it is not interesting. The issue is that according to political correctness, intolerance towards certain people is acceptable whereas towards others is not. Discrimination against some groups (on the basis of, say, race) is acceptable while against others it is a grievous offense. Violation of certain laws by certain people is acceptable whereas for the majority of both laws and people, it is not. The whole thing is an incoherent pile of hypocrisy. It nominally has some principles, but shamelessly violates them when they lead to results inconvenient to contemporary elites.

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You will note that his list ticks pretty much every box, including the belief in existential external and internal threats/appeal to nativism, the belief in the conspiracy of an empowered elite which has co-opted the political process, a frustrated middle class feeling economic crisis and political humiliation, a belief that society has become depraved/corrupted by modernism/liberal extremism (often but not only illustrated specific to an acceptance of sexual abnormality), a distrust of intellectualism and a belief that essential truths about traditional values are no longer being allowed to be spoken because they run contrary to modern/liberal thinking.

You are oversimplifying and most of the things that you list are simply properties of the system. For example, the "empowered elite which has co-opted the political process" is not a conspiracy, it is a fact that one would need to be blind to miss. Ditto the frustrated middle class. The distrust of intellectualism is highly unfortunate, but deserved (the price of the media pretending to be objective while broadcasting lies and half-truths for decades). Very little of this has anything to do with Trump; at most he speaks of these things. For some of them, he clearly runs in the opposite direction (e.g. it would not be plausible to describe a man who was married three times and cheated on at least one of his wives as somebody fighting for traditional values).

[Happy Ent]

5 minutes ago, Altherion said:

 The whole thing is an incoherent pile of hypocrisy.

I found the following book helpful. It explains why they mindset surrounding identity politics, political correctness, etc. is not incoherent at all, but instead describes it as a (successful and entirely coherent) culmination of centuries of Western thought, from Rousseau to Rorty. Very informative and well written; I learned a lot:

Hicks: Explaining Postmodernism, Ockham’s Razor 2011.

(Quick read, too!)

[Tijgy]

8 hours ago, Shryke said:

Geez, I wonder why the Russians are trying to help Trump win the election:

Oh right.

Yeah, this would also be nice for some European companies, because the Russia also decided to ban  European export to their country as a countermeasure. This ruined for example completely our pear industry (luckily the Indians decided they also liked to eat our pears so that might be solved a little - Go Belgian Pears!).

http://www.flanderstoday.eu/business/flemish-farmers-hit-hard-russian-sanctions

The whole anti-Russian standpoint of some Americans is IMO sometimes scarier than Vlady himself (for someone living in an European country). And it is hypocritical, because at the same time there is no problem with being good friends with Erdogan  (or even because the own American foreign policies). 

 

[Shryke]

8 hours ago, Altherion said:

The issue with political correctness is not that intolerance of intolerance is intolerance -- this is technically correct, but it is not interesting. The issue is that according to political correctness, intolerance towards certain people is acceptable whereas towards others is not. Discrimination against some groups (on the basis of, say, race) is acceptable while against others it is a grievous offense. Violation of certain laws by certain people is acceptable whereas for the majority of both laws and people, it is not. The whole thing is an incoherent pile of hypocrisy. It nominally has some principles, but shamelessly violates them when they lead to results inconvenient to contemporary elites.

I am intolerant of Nazis, therefore I am a bigot. You are truly advancing a coherent position here and not just desperately trying to justify your continued support of a thin-skinned know-nothing authoritarian bigot. Yes.

[mormont]

8 hours ago, Altherion said:

The issue with political correctness is not that intolerance of intolerance is intolerance -- this is technically correct, but it is not interesting. The issue is that according to political correctness, intolerance towards certain people is acceptable whereas towards others is not. Discrimination against some groups (on the basis of, say, race) is acceptable while against others it is a grievous offense.

Baloney.

The issue is that some people interpret the word 'intolerance' differently, wrongly, so that they can make the spurious claim above, in order to have an intellectually respectable excuse to reject 'political correctness' and support the existing unfair power structures while feeling good about it.

In any case, this is another derail so let's leave it at that and get back to the election, shall we?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I'm intolerant of Nazi's.  But my intolerance takes the form of disputing their assertions not telling them they may not make assertions.

[Altherion]

44 minutes ago, mormont said:

Baloney.

The issue is that some people interpret the word 'intolerance' differently, wrongly, so that they can make the spurious claim above, in order to have an intellectually respectable excuse to reject 'political correctness' and support the existing unfair power structures while feeling good about it.

In any case, this is another derail so let's leave it at that and get back to the election, shall we?

Then why the snipe about me linking to the dictionary? Somebody may be interpreting words differently and wrongly, but it's not the people arguing against political correctness.

Anyway, you're right, this is getting rather far afield. I think this thread has been mostly about Trump's views so far so let's look at the latest news about Clinton. And you know what that means -- more stuff about the emails! It turns out that the FBI granted immunity not just to one, but to at least five of Clinton's minions ranging from her top aid to technicians. You'd think that they at least got them to testify in exchange for this, but at least two of them invoked the Fifth Amendment so apparently not. It makes it rather difficult to investigate a case when nearly everyone involved has been given immunity and now they have no incentive to talk to you anymore.

Also, we should be getting a fraction of the remaining emails shortly before the election. Of course, it is entirely possible that we'll get the full set before that (for example, courtesy of our London embassy friend).

The media is so weird about this election. Coverage of Trump is almost universally negative, but at least it is varied. Clinton gets coverage about the emails and... not much else. I mean, they do say things like Clinton postponed her visit to Charlotte (after being told the obvious: there's currently enough chaos there without her), but nothing interesting.

[mormont]

Well, other than the emails, there's nothing much else to criticise Clinton for.

Literally any discussion of Clinton on any other point - policies, suitability for office, etc. - winds up looking like a puff piece because she's so far ahead of Trump. And the media dislike that, because they're so paranoid about accusations of bias.

[Castel]

14 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

 

 

 

My general impression of Cruz was that he has no dignity to begin with.

My impression was that he's willing to be utterly hated and unpopular to achieve his goals so I thought he'd stick to his guns.

 

 

[Altherion]

58 minutes ago, mormont said:

Well, other than the emails, there's nothing much else to criticise Clinton for.

Literally any discussion of Clinton on any other point - policies, suitability for office, etc. - winds up looking like a puff piece because she's so far ahead of Trump. And the media dislike that, because they're so paranoid about accusations of bias.

I think it's more that her policies are at best minor variations on Democrat themes that almost everyone has heard a thousand times over the years. Very little that she brings to the table is new (and most of that is borrowed from Sanders). You could make a puff piece out of it or you could bring the usual criticisms (which everyone has also heard before) to bear upon it, but either way, it will be boring.

14 minutes ago, Castel said:

My impression was that he's willing to be utterly hated and unpopular to achieve his goals so I thought he'd stick to his guns.

At some point, being utterly unpopular begins to interfere with his goals. He must have judged this to be that point.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

2 minutes ago, Altherion said:

At some point, being utterly unpopular begins to interfere with his goals. He must have judged this to be that point.

 Eh, I don't think he's that self-conscious. I think unpopular is pretty much at the core of his being.

[Boris the Blade]

 

1 hour ago, mormont said:

Well, other than the emails, there's nothing much else to criticise Clinton for.

Literally any discussion of Clinton on any other point - policies, suitability for office, etc. - winds up looking like a puff piece because she's so far ahead of Trump. And the media dislike that, because they're so paranoid about accusations of bias.

And even the emails are hard to criticize when you have knowledge of republican members in similar high security clearance positions using private emails and have been on the record with Clinton about using one as well. Every scandal involving Clinton is something that has been done by the right, just not investigated like it was involving her. Benghazi, you have 13 embassies under Bush attacked yet no investigations. Private email usage, no FBI investigation. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

 Nice endorsement for Hillary from New York Times Editorial Board...

 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/opinion/sunday/hillary-clinton-for-president.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur

 

Really enjoyed this bit...

 

But this endorsement would also be an empty exercise if it merely affirmed the choice of Clinton supporters. We’re aiming instead to persuade those of you who are hesitating to vote for Mrs. Clinton — because you are reluctant to vote for a Democrat, or for another Clinton, or for a candidate who might appear, on the surface, not to offer change from an establishment that seems indifferent and a political system that seems broken.

Running down the other guy won’t suffice to make that argument. The best case for Hillary Clinton cannot be, and is not, that she isn’t Donald Trump.

The best case is, instead, about the challenges this country faces, and Mrs. Clinton’s capacity to rise to them.

[OldGimletEye]

I just read this and went high and to the right:

Why Harvard Professor Niall Fergunson Can Go Pound Sand

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With Clinton you get more of the same: more spending (approximately $1.5 trillion over the next decade)—a large proportion of it on infrastructure

And with us at the Zero Lower Bound and with interest rates at historically low levels, why wouldn’t we want more infrastructure spending right now? It’s really something we should have done years ago.

But, nope, some people wanted to act like this was the late 1970’s. You know, it was pretty silly of people like you Niall, to pretend, that that the problem was that were up against supply side constraints, when in reality what we were up against was massive demand side constraints.

If what idiots like you were saying were even remotely true we would have seen high inflation with low real growth. But that isn’t what happened. The FED massively expanded the monetary base and has had trouble hitting it’s inflation target. Sorry,but that really isn’t indicative of their being any kind of supply side constraints.

Nobody right now, with a brain, thinks were up against some kind of supply constraint. In fact, people with a frickin brain are really discussing whether we ought to do money financed stimulus as opposed to traditional bond financed stimulus. That's what the dicussion is, and not some supply side hookum.

Get out of the 1970s. Nobody wears leisure suits anymore. Nobody uses 8 tracks anymore.

Also, Niall, just a few years back you, yes you, were out making some pretty big predictions about inflation and bond yields and none of them happened. If anybody had takin your advice, they should have gone out and started shorting US Treasuries. But, hey would have lost their ass. Whatever model you were working in was wrong. Yet, you want us to take your predictions seriously? Thanks, but I’ll take a pass.

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paid for by higher taxes on richer households,

And so what? Is that going to lead to lower economic growth? Where in the fuck is the evidence for that? You wouldn’t be citing the “Bush Boom” would you? Tell us about that? You know if your argument here is that voting for Trump will lead to better economic growth, this really isn’t a good piece of evidence. Maybe it’s appropriate in “my ode to Ayn Rand”, but isn’t very persuasive where discussions about economic growth are concerned.

Or is it, “well but, but see this how Ronny did it!!!” No, let me tell you how Ronny actually did it. Well actually he didn’t do it. Paul Volcker did it. It was Volcker raising and then lowering the Federal Funds rates that explains the early 1980s recession and subsequent recoveries. I hate to piss on your parade but you know there certainly is the historical evidence for monetary policy is certainly more persuasive than some kind of wacko supply side nonsense.

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plus more regulation, especially of banks

And we wouldn’t need more regulation because:

1. Banks did such a bang up job pricing financial assets correctly?

2. There was no fraud or lying going on? The buyers of MBS really understood the risk they were carrying?

3. Bank Runs aren’t a thing?

Also, I think the OLA, the Orderly Liquidation Authority, is a good idea. It's a regulation though, GASP!!!! Because without it, you simply don’t have a credible plan to deal with the next financial crises. You’re either stuck with 1) Bankruptcy or 2) pure bailouts. And no politician is really going to let the country go right down the shitter by forcing every bank into bankruptcy. Not going to happen. The banks know it. In the language of game theory I’d say the nash equilibrium solution here is bailouts because any threat of forcing banks into bankruptcy, during the next financial crises, isn’t crediable. So really, go pound sand Niall and and do the same Hensarling.

And another thing. You now, you just can’t say “regulation” and think you’ve won an argument. Some may be good and some may be bad. Pinpoint the ones you think are bad. I can of one with respect to Dodd-Frank I don’t like, which is the limitation on the Bagehot Rule. Just, saying “regulation” doesn’t fuckin cut it anymore, particularly where highly technical areas of policy are concerned.

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Call it Obama+: the trains go round in circles, the government keeps on growing, but the economy as a whole limps along at 2% a year.

As opposed to what Niall? Bush+. Just tell us how awesome that was.

You know, it’s not like it has been only the United States that has a period of low inflation, been stuck at the Zero Lower Bound, and had low real growth. That has pretty much happened in the entire world, likely because of a worldwide shortage of safe assets. You know so, it’s kind of bullshit to place this all on Obama.

Also, it’s not like there isn’t any econometric or historical evidence that massive financial crises are often followed by periods of low economic growth. But, I guess you were too lazy to walk down to Harvard’s economic department and have chat with Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff. 

And there is a lot of evidence that idiotic austerity policies made things worse, to include even debt/GDP rations. Do you recall, the IMF saying,”oops sorry guys but we might have underestimated the fiscal multiplier.”

The frickin problem here Niall is that idiots like you and David Malpass (a Trump Advisor and an idiot too) would just like us forget about the 1930s, which is more similar to what has happened in the last 8 years than what you think happened in the early 1980s, which was caused, at least in part, by overly tight monetary because of a malfunctioning gold standard. Here in the United States recovery didn’t take off until Roosevelt was basically able to change inflation expectations, which lowered the real rate of interest. But, you would like us to forget about all that.

People like you Niall, sat around saying, “Greece, Greece, will become like Greece”, but evidently you didn’t have much to say about, oh I don’t know, Spain? Which you know was forced into overly tight monetary policy and austerity and just what did they have to show for it? About 25% unemployment. And how did their debt/GPD ratio do? Not very well either because austerity was pretty self defeating there.

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Ironically, the Keynesian economists who support Clinton are on the wrong side, because even the Trump campaign admits his tax cuts would cost $4.4 trillion over the decade. He, not Clinton, is the true candidate of stimulus, as his budgets would only come close to balancing if growth went up to 3.5 percent a year. And on top of all that are Trump’s earlier pledges to restrict immigration, free trade and offshoring, pledges that are especially appealing to those Americans who feel most pessimistic about the future.

Okay, I hate to admit this, but it’s kind of true, when you actually peer into the math of Trump’s proposals. Trump probably thinks his awesome policies will generate something like 15% GDP growth per year (meaning “tax cuts pay for themselves!!!”) but it wont. What it will do, though, oddly enough is generate more safe assets that world badly needs. And oddly enough, it might work, but it will be for demand side reasons and not supply side reasons. But, I’m sure supply side clowns will claim it as a supply side miracle. Just fuckin LOL.

But you know, I’m not just willing to play this game with supply side nitwits like Kudlow and Moore who will claim that such a thing is a victory for their supply side nonsense. We’ve got a situation here where basically you’re saying, Niall,“well golly if you want more stimulus, vote for Trump!”. But, really, why in the fuck should I reward certain people for this when for years they were playing stupid austerity games? I think the solution here is to push Clinton for more infrastructure spending, rather than voting for Trump and giving these supply side austerity idiots the appearance of some kind of vindication. Screw that.

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 On the economy and jobs, however, Trump leads Clinton, 51-to-43 percent.

That's extremely unfortunate because, after hearing Trump's comments it's becoming apparent he has no frickin clue what he is talking about. Sorry, Donald but the economy isn't like your real estate business. It's not like I expect politicians to always be experts on this stuff, but, you know, when their whole schtick is "well I'm a business person and accordingly I know economic policy well" and then they go out and makes some highly weird statements, they deserved to get creamed.