US Politics- Stay Gold, Pony Boy

[DireWolfSpirit]

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, by 2013 (before the Affordable Care Act kicked in) the number of uninsured Americans had reached 41 million people. Just wanted to mention that because an earlier post had mentioned the level reaching 28 million people, it was actually much more severe than that figure even.

[OldGimletEye]

More on The Border Tax Adjustment:

https://www.ft.com/content/5ce71130-16eb-3b26-857a-530013d98baa

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The direct effects of a border tax adjustment to the US corporate tax regime would be likely to raise American inflation, cut imports, boost exports and raise tax revenue, possibly by over $1.2 trillion over a decade. However, it would also raise the dollar’s exchange rate, which could offset or cancel out some of these other effects.

 

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Although complicated, the basic principle is that goods purchased outside the US (ie imports) would no longer count as “costs” to an American corporation, so they would not reduce taxable profits. Meanwhile, exports sales would no longer count as “revenue”, so taxable profits would be reduced dollar-for-dollar by a firm’s export receipts, provided that exporting firms also have some domestic revenues.

 

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See this extremely clear analysis of the topic from Reuven S. Avi-Yonah and Kimberly A. Clausing at the Michigan Law School and Reed College respectively.

The paper linked here would seem to be an interesting reference on this matter.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

On 1/14/2017 at 8:17 PM, Commodore said:

John Lewis has been a partisan hack for decades, willing to smear any and every Republican as racist. He compared John McCain to George Wallace.

The fact that some Democrats beat up Lewis a long time ago does not mean present day Republicans have to accept his demagoguery. 

This is hilarious for all the wrong reasons. 

On 1/14/2017 at 9:16 PM, Dr. Pepper said:

You're like only two posts away from trying to argue that Hitler was a messiah.
 

You're basically a cartoon villain these days. 

What, are you saying that a guy who admits that he hates and fears 1.6 billion people might not be the best person? 

[Jaxom 1974]

12 hours ago, Yukle said:

Only four days left! Time travellers were supposed to come back to prevent this moment ever happening!

I'm working under the assumption that Kirk is still trying to work through that he has to let Edith Keeler actually die, all the while trying to get a few more hours with her while he can...

[snake]

How bad is getting?  Real bad.  People are now lamenting about the good ol days of the Third Reich!! 

https://twitter.com/emmettrensin/status/820857793930555392/photo/1

 

You literally cannot make this shit up.

 

 

[LongRider]

4 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

I'm working under the assumption that Kirk is still trying to work through that he has to let Edith Keeler actually die, all the while trying to get a few more hours with her while he can...

Scotty only needed 20 minutes (!) and Kirk let him run out of time.  

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

17 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

Yes. 

But first. It seems to me that you didn't bother to distinguish between the various insurance markets. That was done either because of ignorance or to be misleading. I don't know which.

Overall, there has not been rampant premium inflation. But, that seems what you want everyone to believe.

Now, yes, there have been some steep premium rises on the individual markets. But it is important to qualify that with 1) many of those people receive subsidies which helps to offset the premium rises, 2) the premiums have still generally come under their original baseline projections.

Now there is a segment of people, on the individual market, that are too well off to receive subsidies, but are pretty much middle class or whatever and are having a difficult time with the premium increases. That indeed is a problem that needs to be fixed.

OGE,

Are companies raising individual premiums because they know the government will subsidize and thereby using this as a way to maximize profits the way "for Profit" colleges have?  If so how does that not make the subsidies problematic incentives for these health insurance companies?

[mormont]

7 minutes ago, snake said:

How bad is getting?  Real bad.  People are now lamenting about the good ol days of the Third Reich!! 

https://twitter.com/emmettrensin/status/820857793930555392/photo/1

You literally cannot make this shit up.

Well, you can, because he did. That's what you do with jokes: you make them up.

Wait, did you think that was serious?

[Mexal]

8 minutes ago, snake said:

How bad is getting?  Real bad.  People are now lamenting about the good ol days of the Third Reich!! 

https://twitter.com/emmettrensin/status/820857793930555392/photo/1

You literally cannot make this shit up.

Yea, that's pretty terrible. It would be nice though if you'd feel a little bit worse about the fact that the guy who will be President in 4 days said the Intelligence Community is like Nazi Germany rather than a TV editor for Variety. One has ultimate power, the other has none. But hey, pick and choose who you want to chastise. That always works out well.

[snake]

Just now, mormont said:

Well, you can, because he did. That's what you do with jokes: you make them up.

Wait, did you think that was serious?

Yes I did.  lol

With the hysteria surrounding Trump and how Putin controls the world I thought that Steinberg tweet was real.

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

OGE,

Are companies raising individual premiums because they know the government will subsidize and thereby using this as a way to maximize profits the way "for Profit" colleges have?  If so how does that not make the subsidies problematic incentives for these health insurance companies?

`Scot,

1) Part of the reason premiums have risen is because a lot of these insurers, simply under priced their premiums.

2) Another reason is because the Republican Party took out the risk corridor provision causing some insurers to leave the market.

3) You assume that no cost control provisions were not put into place by the ACA. That is not true. How effective those provisions will be remains to be seen. We shall find out when the output gap starts to close.

4) Also by giving people access to insurance may not affect the actual demand for medical services all that much. People that now have insurance may opt for cheaper preventive medical care, rather than going to the emergency room when their situation becomes critical and they have no other choice.

[snake]

2 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Yea, that's pretty terrible. It would be nice though if you'd feel a little bit worse about the fact that the guy who will be President in 4 days said the Intelligence Community is like Nazi Germany rather than a TV editor for Variety. One has ultimate power, the other has none. But hey, pick and choose who you want to chastise. That always works out well.

In all honesty I don't really care about the US IC.  All the terrible things they've done to others it's nice to see 'em get shit on a little.

 

[Mexal]

4 minutes ago, snake said:

In all honesty I don't really care about the US IC.  All the terrible things they've done to others it's nice to see 'em get shit on a little.

That's a pretty myopic view. What about everything they've done to keep us safe that you know nothing about? You do realize that none of their successes but all of their failures end up in the public realm right? And that doesn't even touch on the veracity of Trump's claim which from everything we know, is bullshit.

People who work in IC work extremely hard, doing incredibly stressful work in dangerous areas for government pay to keep people like us safe. They do it with the expectation that no one will ever know about it. Feel free to shit on them if you want; I don't think it's a good look.

[TheKitttenGuard]

3 minutes ago, snake said:

In all honesty I don't really care about the US IC.  All the terrible things they've done to others it's nice to see 'em get shit on a little.

 

Trump in the end will really like the parts that do the terrible shit.

The concern will be the side that just intelligence will be destroy in favor of personally and privately loyal.

I do not expect someone not in the U.S to care.  Yes the CIA done terrible actions.  Yet what you dislike will most likely be continued and the citizens in the U.S will an agency whose loyalty is to one person and not the country contradictions and all.

[TheKitttenGuard]

The real of joke of Trump's Nazis tweet is that what occurred is more associated with Communist Russia.

[maarsen]

12 hours ago, Commodore said:

getting spun up about Russian conspiracies or John Lewis or Trump's latest Twitter beef is flooding the media zone with distractions

meanwhile Trump/congress are going to move at breakneck speed the moment he is inaugurated to start implementing their agenda

 

I can't wait to see Trump run madly off in all directions.

[snake]

15 minutes ago, Mexal said:

That's a pretty myopic view. What about everything they've done to keep us safe that you know nothing about? You do realize that none of their successes but all of their failures end up in the public realm right? And that doesn't even touch on the veracity of Trump's claim which from everything we know, is bullshit.

People who work in IC work extremely hard, doing incredibly stressful work in dangerous areas for government pay to keep people like us safe. They do it with the expectation that no one will ever know about it. Feel free to shit on them if you want; I don't think it's a good look.

I don't think it looks overly bad.  I realize they do some good work in protecting the US and almost all of its citizens.  But the amount of death, destruction and terror that they have produced in my lifetime gives me little to no sympathy for the IC as a whole. 

 

11 minutes ago, TheKitttenGuard said:

Trump in the end will really like the parts that do the terrible shit.

The concern will be the side that just intelligence will be destroy in favor of personally and privately loyal.

I do not expect someone not in the U.S to care.  Yes the CIA done terrible actions.  Yet what you dislike will most likely be continued and the citizens in the U.S will an agency whose loyalty is to one person and not the country contradictions and all.

I know it will continue and only get worse.  That's par for the course.  It's worse now than under Bush, worse under Bush than under Clinton, etc, etc.  And I don't expect the IC to be loyal to Trump.  I expect the exact opposite.  I think his Presidency will be one of constant conflict with the IC.

[sToNED_CAT]

9 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

 

And you know what?  Go use that google-thingy and guess what you're going to find out?  There are dozens of reports circulating around Europe about Trump's relationships and dealings with the Russians, and intelligence agencies across Europe are all busy trying to validate the information out there, from the British to the French to the Germans to the Israelis. There apparently is just soooooooooo much shit out there on Trump, reports are saying US allies are now reviewing how they are going to handle the sharing of top secret information, because the reliability of the US is now being called into question.  And the reports also apparently contain all kinds of other stories about Le Grand Orange.

ETA: Oh, and one more thing about all the stories on the internet. Steele and his colleagues started getting so alarmed by what they were finding out about Trump, they carried on their investigations without payment, and brought their report to the FBI months ago.  There was absolutely no interest at the FBI in the report that they could see, so they shared the report, apparently, with British intelligence, US politicians, and even spoke to Mother Jones about what they found.

There's no real shit out there on Trump. If it was it would have been leaked by someone long time ago, I'm talking about real thing not some dossier fairytales without ounce of proof.

And the whole thing about some secret british agent hero somehow finding out all this from russians - that's a complete joke. private persons/organizations don't have that kind of intelligence capability. They can find out some stuff about private organizations like FIFA, or some 3rd world countries without budget for counterespionage, but there's no chance any private entity would be able to spy so easily on so formidable opponent as Russian secret services are.

Quote

The direct effects of a border tax adjustment to the US corporate tax regime would be likely to raise American inflation, cut imports, boost exports and raise tax revenue, possibly by over $1.2 trillion over a decade. However, it would also raise the dollar’s exchange rate, which could offset or cancel out some of these other effects.

I never understood the worry about the effect of strong currency on exports. Weakening your own currency is extremely easy and very profitable for government. Basically money printing without hyperinflation (if done primarily to stabilize exchange rate, not to get a lot of revenue as is the reason for this practice in many 3rd world countries). Strengthening your currency is much more complicated and often very painful process for population.

[Mexal]

8 minutes ago, sToNED_CAT said:

There's no real shit out there on Trump. If it was it would have been leaked by someone long time ago, I'm talking about real thing not some dossier fairytales without ounce of proof.

And the whole thing about some secret british agent hero somehow finding out all this from russians - that's a complete joke. private persons/organizations don't have that kind of intelligence capability. They can find out some stuff about private organizations like FIFA, or some 3rd world countries without budget for counterespionage, but there's no chance any private entity would be able to spy so easily on so formidable opponent as Russian secret services are.

This is bullshit. Private people who spent their career in the intelligence community, who lived in Russia, who worked the Russian desk, do have the contacts and know how to run an investigation. You ignore his career and only focus on the fact he's a private citizen now to make your argument. 

Let me ask you a question. Do you like the fact Trump is lock step with Putin? Do you like the fact they praise each other at every turn? Do you like that Trump uses Russian spokesman as proof to his trustworthiness? Do you like Trump talking shit about NATO (which a Russian spokesman agreed with) and working really hard to upset the balance of power in Europe with our long time allies Germany? Do you like the idea of Russia having sanctions removed and them being able to hack democratic institutions without consequence?

As a conservative, isn't this everything you should hate? Wasn't the main adversary of Rubio/Romney and other traditional Republicans Russia? Wasn't it the Conservatives who fought so hard during the Cold War to stop the Soviet machine? 

What has changed? And if something has changed, what do you see the world order looking like in 5 years?

[Martell Spy]

 

Quote

 

The real of joke of Trump's Nazis tweet is that what occurred is more associated with Communist Russia.

 

 

 

In Communist Russia, the tweets tweet you.

 

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/jonathan-chait-book-obama-214636

‘Wait for the Government to Collapse and Then You’re in Power Again’
Liberal writer Jonathan Chait sees a model for Democrats in the Trump era. His name is Mitch McConnell.

Trump: Was the CIA chief 'the leaker of fake news?'

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/trump-fight-john-brennan-cia-233654