US Politics: Free Trade, Freer Trade, and Nuclear War

[GAROVORKIN]

2 minutes ago, LongRider said:

 

His philosophy  being walk loudly and carry two big sticks.

[OldGimletEye]

Yes, Ted Nugent is both a coward and a punk, who ain't gonna do shit, except crap his pants.

Almost, makes me want to take a little road trip to Michigan, to pull Nugent's punk card.

What a sorry ass conservative clown.

http://www.newsweek.com/nugent-democrats-coyotes-shot-876408

Quote

Musician and NRA board member Ted Nugent likened Democrats, members of the media and others to “rabid coyotes” on Friday and suggested people should not wait to “get” their guns and “shoot” them on sight.

 

[James Arryn]

2 hours ago, GAROVORKIN said:

His philosophy  being walk loudly and carry two big sticks.

Apparently the JCS is already being asked to draw up a list of immediate strike targets in Syria. 

https://mobile.twitter.com/i24NEWS_EN/status/983009887591567360?s=19

[OldGimletEye]

3 hours ago, GAROVORKIN said:

His philosophy  being walk loudly and carry two big sticks.

Nah. His philosophy is have a big mouth, and then pass the stick to somebody else to carry.

He's like Ted Nugent that way.

Just another conservative who is - big on the words, small on the courage.

[Altherion]

5 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

S - I = NX

And that's really all I got I say about that. You're flailing around, grasping for straws here.

Not really. In your language, I am saying that there exist cs, ci and cn such that given your statement above, it is also true that

cn * ( cs*S - ci*I ) = NX

where 0 < cs < 1, ci > 1 and cn > 1.

5 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

Well sure they are communist and I don't expect the communist party to lose power anytime soon. But, they stopped being conventional communist a awhile back. Remember Beijing has about as many billionaires or more than New York. And with communist like that, who needs capitalist? But, anyway, China may not do capitalism the way the US does it and they may keep a large number of enterprises owned or partly owned by the state. Still they would probably will find it in their interest to let the efficient firms survive under trade, while letting the inefficient ones go by the wayside. And I'm not sure how this threatens the grip of the Chinese communist party. And anyway, besides potential efficiency gains, China seems pretty committed to developing trade agreements with other countries. So it doesn't look like it is going the protectionist route in the long term.

They may have as many billionaires, but those billionaires don't have as much influence and the party goes to considerable lengths to keep it that way. Similarly, their trade agreements do not give up any power that they have at home -- they're not protectionist in the 18th century manner, but they don't create situations analogous to the American Midwest.

5 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

But recognizing that distributional effects can happen isn't the same thing as saying a country lost on the whole. And that seemingly is the thrust of Trump's trade message.

In this case, our country did, on the whole, lose -- these effects greatly amplified the divisions in our society resulting, for example, in the election of Trump. And yes, Trump's trade policy is not particularly helpful, but he's hardly the worst possible outcome -- imagine if we had a populist who managed to corral corporate and intelligence community support. Or we can go down the Nugent route...

6 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

For those of us who don’t like to throw dice or like to at least mitigate it’s downside risk, would prefer to concentrate on policies that might work. And the codeterimination system might work. And such an idea certainly isn’t going to be advocated by the Republican Party or a Republican President anytime soon. And I don’t expect corporate leaders to be fond of the idea. Of course, I really don’t give shit if corporate leaders like it or not or their opinions about it, anymore than I give a damn about Bernie Marcus's opinions about tax cuts. And I don’t expect them to passively accept it. They will have to be forced to accept it. And they will be forced to accept it if there is enough political pressure on them to accept it. Of course, that type of political pressure doesn’t just come about overnight. It takes time. And if you think it’s a good idea, you just gotta keep pushing it, until it becomes politically popular enough. And right now, it would seem the idea is overall rather popular, at least based on what the article says.

When was the last time corporate leaders were forced to accept anything that they haven't yet managed to twist to their own benefit? But sure, go on and fight -- I doubt you'll get anything worthwhile out of it, either overnight or over decades.

[OldGimletEye]

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

Not really. In your language, I am saying that there exist cs, ci and cn such that given your statement above, it is also true that

cn * ( cs*S - ci*I ) = NX

where 0 < cs < 1, ci > 1 and cn > 1.

Do you know what I meant by the expression I wrote? I wasn't just writing gibberish for no reason. If China has higher consumption, it saves less, it exports less. And you can't get around that with whatever handwaving you were trying to do.
 

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

They may have as many billionaires, but those billionaires don't have as much influence and the party goes to considerable lengths to keep it that way. Similarly, their trade agreements do not give up any power that they have at home -- they're not protectionist in the 18th century manner, but they don't create situations analogous to the American Midwest.

And yet, it seems China is trying to be a player in the international arena. That really doesn't jive with them having protectionist policies in the future, nor does rebalancing their economy to have more consumption and exporting less of their savings.

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

In this case, our country did, on the whole, lose -- these effects greatly amplified the divisions in our society resulting, for example, in the election of Trump. And yes, Trump's trade policy is not particularly helpful, but he's hardly the worst possible outcome -- imagine if we had a populist who managed to corral corporate and intelligence community support. Or we can go down the Nugent route...

I don't disagree that the China trade had some negative effects. But, Trump hardly has any idea of the real mechanisms behind that. Nor does he have any idea how to fix them. His policies are horrible, make inequality worse, and don't take into account what will likely happened in the future. And of course on top of the horrible economic policy, you get all the white nationalist bullshit on top of that. And by the way, stirring that shit up, makes it harder to get better economic policy, besides being just ethically wrong, which by itself, is enough to not vote for his sorry ass.

Maybe you could get worse than Trump, but then you're really scrapping he bottom of the barrel.

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

When was the last time corporate leaders were forced to accept anything that they haven't yet managed to twist to their own benefit? But sure, go on and fight -- I doubt you'll get anything worthwhile out of it, either overnight or over decades.

By all means, keep rollin' the dice at the craps table. Anything could happen!  You might even get rich. But, I doubt it.

[LongRider]

Quoted for truth.  Trump is an idiot on trade.

49 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

I don't disagree that the China trade had some negative effects. But, Trump hardly has any idea of the real mechanisms behind that. Nor does he have any idea how to fix them. His policies are horrible, make inequality worse, and don't take into account what will likely happened in the future. And of course on top of the horrible economic policy, you get all the white nationalist bullshit on top of that. And by the way, stirring that shit up, makes it harder to get better economic policy, besides being just ethically wrong, which by itself, is enough to not vote for his sorry ass.

 

[James Arryn]

17 minutes ago, LongRider said:

Quoted for truth.  Trump is an idiot on trade.

 

But...he’s wealthy. Isn’t that the US version of anointed?

[OldGimletEye]

1 hour ago, James Arryn said:

But...he’s wealthy. Isn’t that the US version of anointed?

Yeah, well, I do think in the US there is a strong cultural bias or feeling that government should “be run like a business” and if you get an alleged successful businessman, the economic manna will fall from heaven. Unfortunately, there are plenty of examples of business people doing or saying nonsense, so that premise doesn’t hold much water. Unlike Trump, Herbert Hoover was actually a successful businessman, that was largely self made, but was largely helpless during the Great Depression. His successor who did most of his work in public service, while not getting everything right, got some big stuff right. And then of course there are people like Carly Fiorina bleating out nonsense, etc. etc.

And Trump can’t even claim to be even as competent as Hoover or Fiorina. He’s basically some guy that sat on his ass and collected royalties, for very bad vodka and very bad courses in real estate. Of course, unfortunately some people probably bought into the idea the Orange one was some competent business guy that was going to right everything by running the US "like a business".

[Zorral]

Republican midterm strategy -- impeachment.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/08/us/politics/trump-impeachment-midterms.html?

In the meantime Trump Tower had a big fire.  One tenant died.  There were no sprinklers.  As orangeade has said on the record previously, "Sprinkler systems cost too much."  So he doesn't use them.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/07/us/trump-tower-fire/index.html

http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-tower-fire-no-sprinklers-2018-4

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/04/08/fatal-trump-tower-fire-no-sprinkler-system-apartments/497058002/

[Altherion]

1 hour ago, OldGimletEye said:

Do you know what I meant by the expression I wrote? I wasn't just writing gibberish for no reason. If China has higher consumption, it saves less, it exports less. And you can't get around that with whatever handwaving you were trying to do.

Yes, I know what you mean. You are missing the fact that there's an overall scale to that equation and it is time dependent. If China has higher consumption and saves less, it can still export the same (or even more) in absolute terms as long as it produces more. Your equation is in the context of a nation's GDP and China's GDP is not constant in time (in fact, it's growing quite a bit faster than that of the US and has been doing so for a long time).

1 hour ago, OldGimletEye said:

And yet, it seems China is trying to be a player in the international arena. That really doesn't jive with them having protectionist policies in the future, nor does rebalancing their economy to have more consumption and exporting less of their savings.

You can be a player in the international arena even if you're a purely communist country (the Soviet Union did it for a long time). China can easily aim for some mix of the roles once played by the USSR and the US.

1 hour ago, OldGimletEye said:

Maybe you could get worse than Trump, but then you're really scrapping he bottom of the barrel.

By all means, keep rollin' the dice at the craps table. Anything could happen!  You might even get rich. But, I doubt it.

You not only can get worse than Trump, you almost certainly will if the current socioeconomic environment does not radically change. And I'm not rolling dice because I enjoy gambling, I'm doing it because I don't see any better options. Also, the number of rolls is far from unlimited; I'd be surprised if we get more than three or so.

[LongRider]

55 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

But...he’s wealthy. Isn’t that the US version of anointed?

Sadly, there is some truth in that.  

[Martell Spy]

Trump Points Finger at Putin, Obama After Suspected Chemical Attack Kills Dozens in Syria

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/04/trump-points-finger-at-putin-obama-after-suspected-chemical-attack-kills-dozens-in-syria.html?via=homepage_taps_top

Quote

President Donald Trump, meanwhile, took to Twitter to affirm that it was indeed a “mindless CHEMICAL attack” and blamed “President Putin, Russia and Iran … for backing Animal Assad.” He called on Syria to “open area immediately for medical help and verification” before pointing the finger at his predecessor: “If President Obama had crossed his stated Red Line In The Sand, the Syrian disaster would have ended long ago!"

 

[OldGimletEye]

2 hours ago, Altherion said:

Yes, I know what you mean. You are missing the fact that there's an overall scale to that equation and it is time dependent. If China has higher consumption and saves less, it can still export the same (or even more) in absolute terms as long as it produces more. Your equation is in the context of a nation's GDP and China's GDP is not constant in time (in fact, it's growing quite a bit faster than that of the US and has been doing so for a long time).

Its GDP will grow, but it’s composition of consumption to savings will change. That is what matters. Spin anyway you like. You’re simply wrong.

The fact of the matter is that China pursued a high savings strategy, using exports to generate aggregate demand. But in so doing, it’s corporations built up high levels of internal debt, which are owed to the Chinese people. Those financial claims need to be paid off. And with the returns to additional investment falling it just can’t keep it’s current level of savings to consumption.

2 hours ago, Altherion said:

You can be a player in the international arena even if you're a purely communist country (the Soviet Union did it for a long time). China can easily aim for some mix of the roles once played by the USSR and the US.

Then why is China running around looking for free trade agreements? And besides China's economy really doesn't operate like the old Soviet Union, even if it's leaders pay occasional homage to Marx and all that.

2 hours ago, Altherion said:

.You not only can get worse than Trump, you almost certainly will if the current socioeconomic environment does not radically change. And I'm not rolling dice because I enjoy gambling, I'm doing it because I don't see any better options. Also, the number of rolls is far from unlimited; I'd be surprised if we get more than three or so.

You rolled the dice on Trump and made a very bad bet. Socioeconomic conditions will not get better under him. They will just get worse. Rolling the dice and saying "anything could happen" is not very wise.

[Shryke]

Betting on Trump was obviously the stupid move as people continually pointed out.

Like, look at what is actually going on with the Trump admin. Gutting of worker and environmental protections, tax cuts for the rich at the expense of services for the poor and policies that hurt american jobs to enrich the wealthy. And just massive, massive amounts of corruption. And that's just on the domestic economy front.

And all of this was both predictable and predicted.

[Martell Spy]

25 minutes ago, Shryke said:

Betting on Trump was obviously the stupid move as people continually pointed out.

Like, look at what is actually going on with the Trump admin. Gutting of worker and environmental protections, tax cuts for the rich at the expense of services for the poor and policies that hurt american jobs to enrich the wealthy. And just massive, massive amounts of corruption. And that's just on the domestic economy front.

And all of this was both predictable and predicted.

Well, he was a billionaire and there was a campaign plan that promised large tax cuts for the wealthy. It wasn't rocket science to figure out what would happen. The only surprise is the sheer amount of servicing the 1 percent that goes on with the Trump admin. Everywhere you look in the admin there are Koch brothers goons.

And the infrastructure plan was a con. This should not be a surprise either. Anyone that actually bought it is the same type that gets a diploma at Trump University. Or they we're looking for something else other than any sort of lessening of income equality.

[GAROVORKIN]

33 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Well, he was a billionaire and there was a campaign plan that promised large tax cuts for the wealthy. It wasn't rocket science to figure out what would happen. The only surprise is the sheer amount of servicing the 1 percent that goes on with the Trump admin. Everywhere you look in the admin there are Koch brothers goons.

And the infrastructure plan was a con. This should not be a surprise either. Anyone that actually bought it is the same type that gets a diploma at Trump University. Or they we're looking for something else other than any sort of lessening of income equality.

So if toy had your choice, you'd rather be conned by Democratic Politicians? 

[Kalbear]

Just now, GAROVORKIN said:

So if you had a choice , you'd would ratter be conned by Democratic politicians?

I think most people would rather be conned by politicians who have some idea of doing service for the country as a goal, instead of con artists who have never held a public office and have never been accountable to a single fucking thing.

[GAROVORKIN]

12 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I think most people would rather be conned by politicians who have some idea of doing service for the country as a goal, instead of con artists who have never held a public office and have never been accountable to a single fucking thing.

A pig in a poke is still a pig in a poke .  

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

A pig in a poke is still a pig in a poke .  

It really isn't. But hey, you tell me - is there a difference between, say, Trump's con artistry and Obama's?