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

[all swedes are racist]

5 minutes ago, mormont said:

You will.

You'll see a complete collapse of the economy.

That ok; we'll all be too busy dying from poisoned water and air to be that bothered

[Kalbear]

5 minutes ago, mormont said:

You will.

You'll see a complete collapse of the economy.

This is, of course, what @Bold Barry Whitebeard desires, because he like @Altherion wants to punish the elites and the power holders and make the world anew, and they both believe that this is the only possible way to do so. 

[lokisnow]

Insourcing of factory jobs is directly correlated to the price of oil. Until opec declared war on the United States a few years ago the price of oil had driven a modest wave of insourcing of factory jobs as the cost of transportation was greater than the cost of US labor. 

So blame OPEC, for stopping a positive insourcing trend. 

[Bold Barry Whitebeard]

 

4 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Its kind of hard to create jobs when there is a lot of demand side slack, that is persistent.

There is demand, it's just being met by imports instead of locally manufactured goods.

4 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

What do you mean by "artifically keeping...". If the FED were to tighten what do you think would happen? Deflation maybe? That wouldn't be good. And no it isn't trying to inspire "artificial confidence". It's keep rates low to encourage nominal spending.

Maybe, but it's still necessary.  You want to break the ZLB don't you?  The answer is not by flooding the economy with government dollars, but by just breaking it and letting the economy reset to normal levels on its own.  Government investment is just kicking the can down the road another decade, and setting up a bigger disaster when that day arrives.

Because at the zero lower bound cash and bonds become perfect substitutes. Monetary policy loses its traction at the ZLB. That is why fiscal spending becomes necessary. That or maybe you raise inflation expectations.

See above.  Also, as an aside, I've never understood why people rush to buy bonds when the government's bond rating is lowered.

Tell us about the bubble bursting after WW2. Tell us about the bubble bursting after Volcker eased up on the FED funds rate during the 1980s.

Fortunately, after WWII there was plenty of cash stockpiled by returning servicemembers coupled with the easing of wartime rationing which led to a suburban explosion.  If the government wants to have a similar effect, they need to create a new economic sector and not simply create temporary labor jobs. 

 

10 minutes ago, White Walker Texas Ranger said:

There's already a lot of manufacturing in this country. Manufacturing outputs been going up for more than a decade (typing on my phone, but I'll try to find a cite if you want later), but manufacturing jobs haven't.

it just how things work now. Manufacturing jobs are good, but their mostly about programming CNC mills and process optimization than about riveting a bolt or running a lathe.

That's the existing model, where outsourcing and automation increase productivity while eating away at jobs.  Trump would overturn the apple cart be eliminating outsourcing.

7 minutes ago, mormont said:

You will.

You'll see a complete collapse of the economy.

Not a complete collapse, but it would be pretty devastating.  But the US would come out on the other side with stronger median incomes and less wealth inequality.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Mexal said:

She needs to do it in the first 15 minutes or it won't matter. Starting fast is important when the only thing that matters is optics.

Agreed.

If I were her, I'd open the debate by listing out several very complex foreign affairs issues, and then conclude my opening statement by saying "I know these issues well because I've been working on them for the last 15 years while Donald Trump cited his handling of the Miss Universe pageant as his foreign experience credentials."

Or something to that effect. She needs to prime the audience from the beginning that Trump doesn't know anything and has no experience. 

[Bold Barry Whitebeard]

4 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Again, the issue is not that the production has been outsourced overseas. It is that the production has been outsourced to automation. People just aren't working on factory lines like they were in the 50s. Those jobs aren't coming back; they simply don't exist any more. 

This is both inaccurate and meaningless. Again, when the stock had its largest drop in 3 decades and markets  crashed all around, we had the biggest overall inequality in the US history. As stock market prices have recovered some, we're actually having more equality. There is simply no correlation here. 

Furthermore, you're assuming that inequality is expressed by how much money is concentrated at the 1%, which isn't the case. The magnitude of a few billionaires isn't going to matter. It's overall wealth. And when 99% of the populace loses far more than the billionaires do, overall inequality increases. 

 

to suggest that automation is solely responsible for the loss of manufacturing jobs is absurd.

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/12/11/outsourcing-to-china-cost-us-32-million-jobs-since-2001

http://www.statisticbrain.com/outsourcing-statistics-by-country/

Even the Huffington Post is getting in on the action.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-e-scott/fast-track-to-lost-jobs-a_b_7042270.html

 

So if you're not worried about wealth concentrated at the top 1%, what level do you draw the line at?  Top 10%?  Top 25%?  Top 50%?

[Red Hermit]

13 minutes ago, Bold Barry Whitebeard said:

Not a complete collapse, but it would be pretty devastating.  But the US would come out on the other side with stronger median incomes and less wealth inequality.

You think congress would go along with this?  It would be suicide.

[Bold Barry Whitebeard]

Just now, Red Hermit said:

You think congress would go along with this?  It would be suicide.

I did qualify it by saying IF.  I think it will depend on the mandate Trump gets in the election.  Even if Trump wins overwhelmingly, he probably wouldn't be able to do it in his first term unless the Republicans in Congress were scared enough of his populist masses to give him what he wants.  More likely, he'd have to turn on the Republican Party in 2020 to ensure that Trumpian Republicans are elected.

[mormont]

22 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

This is, of course, what @Bold Barry Whitebeard desires, because he like @Altherion wants to punish the elites and the power holders and make the world anew, and they both believe that this is the only possible way to do so. 

It's somewhat like burning the whole building down because I dislike my upstairs neighbours, then?

[Altherion]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

This has been a big part of the problem all along. If you call Trump out for every lie, misstep and dubious connection in the way that you do Clinton, you'll literally never be done and it will look 'unfair' - but if you don't, it actually is unfair and distorts the race. The media need to worry less about accusations and more about the truth.

That is not how the US media works. In the UK, you have the BBC, but the vast majority of American media is owned by a few giant corporate conglomerates. They have two primary goals which are occasionally at odds with each other. The first is to maximize the amount of profit which requires them to increase the size of their audience. The second is to propagandize the views of their owners. The truth is at best an auxiliary target: if a media outlet lies directly and gets called out for it, it will be considered untrustworthy and lose part of its audience, but indirect deception (citing studies, interviewing politicians, etc.) has always been fair game if it advances any of the primary goals.

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

27 minutes ago, Bold Barry Whitebeard said:

That's the existing model, where outsourcing and automation increase productivity while eating away at jobs.  Trump would overturn the apple cart be eliminating outsourcing.

Again, that might return some jobs (like maybe one American job gained for every 20 Vietnamese jobs lost), at a cost of massive short term disruptions of the world economy. And in the long run, those jobs are going away anyway.

[Kalbear]

19 minutes ago, Bold Barry Whitebeard said:

to suggest that automation is solely responsible for the loss of manufacturing jobs is absurd.

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/12/11/outsourcing-to-china-cost-us-32-million-jobs-since-2001

http://www.statisticbrain.com/outsourcing-statistics-by-country/

Even the Huffington Post is getting in on the action.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-e-scott/fast-track-to-lost-jobs-a_b_7042270.html

A rebuttal: manufacturing jobs are never coming back.

19 minutes ago, Bold Barry Whitebeard said:

 

So if you're not worried about wealth concentrated at the top 1%, what level do you draw the line at?  Top 10%?  Top 25%?  Top 50%?

Who said I'm not? I'm saying that wiping out the wealth of everyone does nothing to affect income inequality, and arguably hurts the bottom 99% far more than the top 1%. I'm also saying that your premise of wiping out the stock market to improve inequality is flawed, and we have evidence indicating this. 

[Kalbear]

11 minutes ago, mormont said:

It's somewhat like burning the whole building down because I dislike my upstairs neighbours, then?

Yep. It's the unfairness morality principle at its core. The basic moral premise which is shared universally - which is that if something is unfair, people are compelled to protest and harm the person who is doing the unfair act regardless of the personal harm it causes you. 

 

 

[Bold Barry Whitebeard]

7 minutes ago, mormont said:

It's somewhat like burning the whole building down because I dislike my upstairs neighbours, then?

Actually, I don't particularly care about punishing the elites, it's just that the elites are largely the ones responsible for putting the country off track, and restoring it is going to go counter to their interests..  But I do think the country and the world need to be made anew.

[Mexal]

The mystery of why people give money to the Trump Foundation when Trump doesn't has been partially solved.

Quote

Donald Trump’s charitable foundation has received approximately $2.3 million from companies that owed money to Trump or one of his businesses but were instructed to pay Trump’s tax-exempt foundation instead, according to people familiar with the transactions.

In cases where he diverted his own income to his foundation, tax experts said, Trump would still likely be required to pay taxes on the income. Trump has refused to release his personal tax returns. His campaign said he paid income tax on one of the donations, but did not respond to questions about the others.

That gift was a $400,000 payment from Comedy Central, which owed Trump an appearance fee for his 2011 “roast.”

Then there were payments totaling nearly $1.9 million from a man in New York City who sells sought-after tickets and one-of-a-kind experiences to wealthy clients.

That man, Richard Ebers, bought goods and services — including tickets — from Trump or his businesses, according to two people familiar with the transactions, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the payments. They said that Ebers was instructed to pay the Donald J. Trump Foundation instead. Ebers did not respond to requests for comment.

 

The gifts begin to answer one of the mysteries surrounding the foundation: Why would other people continue giving to Trump’s charity when Trump himself gave his last recorded donation in 2008?

As we will never see Trump's tax returns, there is no evidence that he has paid income tax on those donations and given it's Trump, it's highly doubtful he did. So shady.

[Bold Barry Whitebeard]

4 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

A rebuttal: manufacturing jobs are never coming back.

Who said I'm not? I'm saying that wiping out the wealth of everyone does nothing to affect income inequality, and arguably hurts the bottom 99% far more than the top 1%. I'm also saying that your premise of wiping out the stock market to improve inequality is flawed, and we have evidence indicating this. 

That's not quite a rebuttal of the idea that automation is solely responsible for destroying manufacturing job, but I see the point.  It can be managed by government incentives to hire workers and not robots.  (Tax exemptions, funding grants, etc.)

To be honest, I don't really care about wealth inequality, since I think it is a fake issue.  Wealth is not really finite, so the rich getting more doesn't mean that the poor automatically get less (though that sometimes happens).  But rather than using high taxes and government welfare to address that we should be attackign the globalist policies that have allowed the rich to get richer at the expense of the poor.

[OldGimletEye]

38 minutes ago, Bold Barry Whitebeard said:

There is demand, it's just being met by imports instead of locally manufactured goods.

Not exactly. It's true we import a lot (a lot of because the US acts as the world's banker though). But, we still have a huge internal economy. And we have been running trade deficits for years and have never seen interest rates and inflation this low.
 

Quote

Maybe, but it's still necessary.  You want to break the ZLB don't you?  The answer is not by flooding the economy with government dollars, but by just breaking it and letting the economy reset to normal levels on its own.  Government investment is just kicking the can down the road another decade, and setting up a bigger disaster when that day arrives.

So you basically believe in simple Walrasian market clearing and that money doesn't matter? Tell me, how long before the "economy resets to normal levels"? And does that include a  very destructive deflationary cycle? Or perhaps just a very low rate of growth?
You know, it may be a long while before the economy "resets to normal levels" as you imagine. And during that time, the destruction to the economy might be quite severe. Demand side problems can eventually lead to supply side problems as workers lose skills and new investments are not being made.
 

Quote

See above.  Also, as an aside, I've never understood why people rush to buy bonds when the government's bond rating is lowered.

Well I guess the most of the world just disagrees with you. There's a reason why US Treasury yeilds are at about 1.6% right now. There is a huge demand for them worldwide as they are seen as very safe assets. And the worldwide market seems to be signalling they would like to have more.
 

Quote

Fortunately, after WWII there was plenty of cash stockpiled by returning servicemembers coupled with the easing of wartime rationing which led to a suburban explosion.  If the government wants to have a similar effect, they need to create a new economic sector and not simply create temporary labor jobs. 

But wasn't that cash stockpiled from government spending in the first place? So you're saying all that cash, largely came from government debt financing, led to demand for housing in the suburbs, which in fact led to a housing boom, and the country didn't return back to a deflationary enviroment like it had during the Great Depression.

And the point isn't just about "creating temporary labor jobs". The point is to return inflation expectations and interest rates back to normal levels so monetary policy can do its thing, and avoid demand side shortfalls, which can harm both investment and the creation of more permanent jobs.

[Red Hermit]

5 minutes ago, Bold Barry Whitebeard said:

But rather than using high taxes and government welfare to address that we should be attackign the globalist policies that have allowed the rich to get richer at the expense of the poor.

Either way it's a form of redistribution,  I'd say the former is preferable because we'll have better foreign relations so less chance of war and instability.  People just need to get over judging the worth of themselves and others by their job or lack thereof.

[Bold Barry Whitebeard]

1 minute ago, OldGimletEye said:

Not exactly. It's true we import a lot (a lot of because the US acts as the world's banker though). But, we still have a huge internal economy. And we have been running trade deficits for years and have never seen interest rates and inflation this low.
 

So you basically believe in simple Walrasian market clearing and that money doesn't matter? Tell me, how long before the "economy resets to normal levels"? And does that include a  very destructive deflationary cycle? Or perhaps just a very low rate of growth?
You know, it may be a long while before the economy "resets to normal levels" as you imagine. And during that time, the destruction to the economy might be quite severe. Demand side problems can eventually lead to supply side problems as workers lose skills and new investments are not being made.
 

Well I guess the most of the world just disagrees with you. There's a reason why US Treasury yeilds are at about 1.6% right now. There is a huge demand for them worldwide as they are seen as very safe assets. And the worldwide market seems to be signalling they would like to have more.

I'm not denying that demand is high, I just find it curious that when the rating is lowered the market things "Wow I need to get me some of that!"

But wasn't that cash stockpiled from government spending in the first place? So you're saying all that cash, largely came from government debt financing, led to demand for housing in the suburbs, which in fact led to a housing boom, and the country didn't return back to a deflationary enviroment like it had during the Great Depression.

Thanks to WWII, which also created a new economic center.  Starting and winning WWIII would also solve a lot of our current problems.

And the point isn't just about "creating temporary labor jobs". The point is to return inflation expectations and interest rates back to normal levels so monetary policy can do its thing, and avoid demand side shortfalls, which can harm both investment and the creation of more permanent jobs.

I'm not even sure why we're still arguing.  We both want's interest rates back to normal, right?

 

[Bold Barry Whitebeard]

1 minute ago, Red Hermit said:

Either way it's a form of redistribution,  I'd say the former is preferable because we'll have better foreign relations so less chance of war and instability.  People just need to get over judging the worth of themselves and others by their job or lack thereof.

In the short term.  I would argue that in the long term it's unsustainable and will cause greater violence and instability when it finally goes.