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U.S. Politics: Gar Nicht Trump's Traumschiff!


Tywin Manderly

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20 hours ago, DMC said:

Moreover, if his bump in Iowa is all due to FB money/unbelievable influence they should be selling commercially if it's that effective, why hasn't he moved much in the national polls?  Just microtargeting Iowans on FB?  Ok, I suppose that's possible, but seems a pretty stupid strategy.  But the much more likely explanation is he's built a solid infrastructure there and knows how to appeal to the Iowa Caucus Democratic electorate as a mayor from South Bend.  Midwesterners got their own language, it's why Obama was elected.  

I feel like getting tagged with "annointed by Zuckerberg" is likely to do more harm than good for a candidate.

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23 hours ago, Liffguard said:

He seems like a committee-generated tickbox candidate. He's gay, so he's a minority, but still a white man, so not too much of a minority. He went to an Ivy league school, so he's smart, but he's from the small town midwest, so he's a real American. He's a multi-lingual Rhodes scholar, so he's an intellectual, but he was also in the military, so he's a real man of action. He's not anyone with any particularly noteworthy reason to be president, he's just an alignment of attributes.

Also, ever since I read this quote from him, I've been giving him the side-eye:

It doesn't seem to have occurred to him that the people in the foreign country had an equally vested interest in not being shot with assault weapons.

He’s aware. He’s opposed to the war. He served because he thinks the military is important and he wanted to understand what he was criticizing, and because he thought he might have to serve at some point anyways, and wanted as much say in where/how he served as possible, and no, not in the ‘coast guard’ kinda way.
 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/29/how-pete-buttigieg-went-war-protester-packing-my-bags-afghanistan/?arc404=true

 

I’ve been very disappointed with his tracking towards the Center, and no longer see him as the candidate I prefer, but since he went after Warren effectively, there have been a slew of half-baked, lazy and in many cases uniformed criticisms of him. He’s very, very credible in person, extremely articulate and plausible. That used to be a strength for me when I wanted him to win, now I see it as a bit more of a mixed bag, but I think people dangerously underrate him without imo taking any time to actually understand him. He IS kinda the reductionist’s dream candidate as you suggest here, but if so it doesn’t come across as insincere...not saying he is sincere because, as I say, he’s very effective in person, so he’d probably put on a good act if that’s what he’s trying to do...and he almost always seems to have put a lot of thought into w/e he’s arguing for or against. 

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  20 hours ago, DMC said:
Quote

Moreover, if his bump in Iowa is all due to FB money/unbelievable influence they should be selling commercially if it's that effective, why hasn't he moved much in the national polls?  Just microtargeting Iowans on FB?  Ok, I suppose that's possible, but seems a pretty stupid strategy.  But the much more likely explanation is he's built a solid infrastructure there and knows how to appeal to the Iowa Caucus Democratic electorate as a mayor from South Bend.  Midwesterners got their own language, it's why Obama was elected. 

Because where he's built it, it's very, very, very white.

Warren speaks that language at least as effectively, and she speaks it to the women, rural or urban, too. Pete doesn't.

 

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16 minutes ago, Zorral said:
  20 hours ago, DMC said:

Because where he's built it, it's very, very, very white.

Warren speaks that language at least as effectively, and she speaks it to the women, rural or urban, too. Pete doesn't.

 

 She doesn’t speak it as effectively. I like her positions more, she’s much closer to my ideology and has much more experience...in short I’d much prefer her as President...but as a speaker she’s very hit and miss, and he’s remarkably consistent. If it weren’t for his being gay, I’d see him as much more electable than her for the big ticket. That said, he is gay, and I also previously thought Harris rivalled Biden as the ‘safest’ choice, so I clearly don’t have a good gauge on this kind of thing. For more evidence of that, it has become my standard habit when watching Presidential debates to think of who I thought won, then reverse it, for an accurate prediction of how America will review it. 
 

Edit: just woke up, sorry, brain not kicked in yet. I realize I kinda narrowly interpreted ‘speaks that language’ as just being literally speaks in person as opposed to campaign messaging, and there I’d say she’s much more effective, especially regarding ‘urban’.

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3 hours ago, Maithanet said:

And yet at the same time, last Saturday's LA governor's race showed Edwards winning nearly 90% of the vote in Orleans parrish.  A margin of +80 in the second largest county in a competitive election is virtually unheard of.  I understand that the idea that "demographics is destiny" is foolish thinking for Democrats.  You need to actually change people's minds and convince them to come out and vote.  But virtually all population growth in America is happening in the cities and suburbs.  If Democrats increase their 2016 margins (both % and total votes) in those big counties where lots of people live, is it realistic that Trump could increase his margins in rural areas by enough to counterbalance that?  Obviously I don't know, but it is kind of hard for me to believe.

Yeah the Orleans margin stood out to me as well Saturday night, so I just took a look at the percentage the Dem candidate won over the past 25 years (see here for all election results):

  • 2019:  114,812 out of 127,853 - 89.8%
  • 2015:  81,902 out of 94,650 - 86.5%
  • 2011:  No runoff - Bobby Jindal won the jungle primary with 67.8% of the vote.  There were multiple Dem candidates, and I'm too lazy sum up their percentages, but the overall turnout in Orleans was only 49,987
  • 2007:  No runoff - Jindal won by with 53%, but the turnout in Orleans was considerably higher - 75,882
  • 2003:  92,746 out of 135,751 - 68.3%
  • 1999:  No runoff - Mike Foster won with 62% of the vote, Orleans turnout was 117,057
  • 1995:  117,346 out of 163,793 - 71.6%

In terms of the margins, it's actually not much higher than 2015, but MUCH higher than pre-Katrina numbers.  OTOH, turnout was unsurprisingly much higher pre-Katrina.  The Dems' gain of 3.3% from 2015 to 2019 seems clearly generated by an increase in turnout of over 30,000 votes.  Is some of that due to population growth?  Presumably, sure, but I think a prior assumption that it also reflects increased enthusiasm on behalf of Dem voters is very reasonable.

So, the key in urban areas is to maintain/encourage minority enthusiasm.  But let's not forget that the big pickups in 2018 came from the shift in the suburban vote, driven in large part with Trump's deep unpopularity among women - including soccer moms.  Obviously, ideally you do both and hopefully the Dems can walk an chew gum at the same time - plus the third prong, which is mitigating the increased 3rd party vote from 2016.  In that regard, though, I do agree that focusing on minority turnout is more important.  According to the 2018 exit polls, both 2016 3rd party voters and 2016 non-voters accounted for 8% of the 2018 electorate.  3rd party voters went Democrat 54-41.  Good, but non-voters went Dem 70-28.  Doesn't take a statistician to see which one is more important to replicate from 2018.

4 hours ago, Paladin of Ice said:

So if for each billion dollars that qualifies that works out to... $20 million in taxes. 1/50th the amount that FNR wants for them to give away with no guaranteed ROI.

Nice post, but just to pour it on, let's remember that fundraising has diminishing returns, and pretty quickly.  According to open secrets, Hillary out-raised Trump around $770 million to $450 million, or by about 70% of Trump's haul.  So basically, after the first billion, the rest of the money would be pretty much entirely wasted.

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14 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Because where he's built it, it's very, very, very white.

Oh, no argument here that Buttigieg's horrid black support is a huge problem for him, and actually calls into question whether he really deserves to be seen in the "top-tier" with the other three - no matter how much he leads Iowa.

 

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4 hours ago, argonak said:

Same play he's been pulling with his tax returns for years.   Why change a winning horse?

This is Trump we are talking about.  He is egotistical enough and delusional enough to where he might just disregard sane advice and agree.

 

 

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8 hours ago, Paladin of Ice said:

Fucking LOL!

Lets take a moment to do some basic math and civics here kids. Warren's proposed wealth tax, if she can a) get chosen as the Democratic candidate, b) get elected president, c) win the Senate along the way, d) get a 50+ Democratic Senators on board with her tax, e) nuke the filibuster, (because, at least under current conditions, there’s no way that Democrats are getting a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, and no way Republicans will let any tax increase go into effect without filibustering it to death) and f) do all this without the proposal being seriously watered down, the amount that Warren has proposed for the wealth tax is 2% for fortunes over $50 million.

To keep the math nice and easy, we’ll use round numbers. So if for each billion dollars that qualifies that works out to... $20 million in taxes. 1/50th the amount that FNR wants for them to give away with no guaranteed ROI.

 I guess it just makes sense though that a hypothetical billionaire worth about 5 billion would prefer to give away 20% of his wealth to this defeat Warren and Sanders fund instead of being taxed for 2%; after all, he wants to hold onto his money, right?! :lmao:Surely their collective action will defeat the evils of socialism! :rofl:

(By the way, if anyone is wondering how many billionaires would be taxed as much in 1 year as FNR says that they should give away in one year to this fund, the answer, at least according to a Wikipedia list that has the wealth of US billionaires is: 12.)

Now surely FNR has slippery slope arguments inspired by the great profit* Ayn Rand about how the dirty takers and looters of the world with their grasping, pawing hands will inevitably use this as a means to strangle these great Galtian men and women of the world and doom all mankind. After all, 2% today could climb to (shudder) 3% in another 50 years!

Thanks for the laughs FNR, and for being such a perfect representation of the level of thought I’ve come to expect from so-called fiscal conservatives and libertarians.

* not a typo.

We might be looking at different tax proposals then. I would have no problem with the 2% scenario you present. However, the proposals I have seen were calling for billionaires to lose 80-90% of their wealth, even when those capital gains have not been realised yet (meaning based on the value of share capital increases over time, even though those shares have not been sold and the associated income generated).

These are very different proposals to the measly 2% you are suggesting.

 

EDIT

I suspect you have not presented the proposal in its entirety. If this is 2% per year, rather than a once off wealth tax, and if it is retrospectively applied for some arbitrary period going back a decade or two, it has a much higher impact than “$20m dollars per billion” as you portrayed it.

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8 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

We might be looking at different tax proposals then. I would have no problem with the 2% scenario you present. However, the proposals I have seen were calling for billionaires to lose 80-90% of their wealth, even when those capital gains have not been realised yet (meaning based on the value of share capital increases over time, even though those shares have not been sold and the associated income generated).

These are very different proposals to the measly 2% you are suggesting.

Google is your friend - Warren's Ultra-Millionaire Tax:

Quote

That’s why we need a tax on wealth. The Ultra-Millionaire Tax taxes the wealth of the richest Americans. It applies only to households with a net worth of $50 million or more—roughly the wealthiest 75,000 households, or the top 0.1%. Households would pay an annual 2% tax on every dollar of net worth above $50 million and a 3% tax on every dollar of net worth above $1 billion. Because wealth is so concentrated, Saez and Zucman project that this small tax on roughly 75,000 households will bring in $2.75 trillion in revenue over a ten-year period.

What you're referring to sounds a lot like a recent WSJ op-ed that claimed Warren's overall tax proposals could lead to rates of over 100%:

Quote

Tax rates higher than 100 percent could result from the combination of several tax hikes the Massachusetts senator has called for on the ultra-wealthy, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal. That includes increasing the top income-tax rate to 39.6 percent from 37 percent; imposing a new 14.8 percent on Social Security; slapping a 6 percent tax on individuals worth more than $1 billion and requiring investors to pay capital-gains taxes at the same rates as other incomes.

Emphasis mine.  As you can see, I linked to a Fox Business article rather than the op-ed because I don't have a subscription to WSJ.  So I haven't read the article and keep speak to its veracity - but considering it apparently already is inaccurate in that summary - claiming Warren "slaps a 6 percent tax" on billionaires, I'm not optimistic.

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8 minutes ago, DMC said:

Google is your friend - Warren's Ultra-Millionaire Tax:

What you're referring to sounds a lot like a recent WSJ op-ed that claimed Warren's overall tax proposals could lead to rates of over 100%:

Emphasis mine.  As you can see, I linked to a Fox Business article rather than the op-ed because I don't have a subscription to WSJ.  So I haven't read the article and keep speak to its veracity - but considering it apparently already is inaccurate in that summary - claiming Warren "slaps a 6 percent tax" on billionaires, I'm not optimistic.

So again, a guy like Elon Musk is worth $26bn. He doesn’t have $26bn in cash though. It is all sitting in Tesla and SpaceX shares. So this proposal would require him to sell 3% of $26bn in shares every year - so about a billion a year - to pay tax. Meaning diluting his ownership stake every year.

That’s a ridiculous situation for the country that is the free market capital of the world.

Instead, such a tax should be charged on actually realised capital gains. Meaning when you sell your shares, tax the capital gains realised from the share sale. You shouldn’t be taxed for merely owning capital.

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2 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Instead, such a tax should be charged on actually realised capital gains. Meaning when you sell your shares, tax the capital gains realised from the share sale. You shouldn’t be taxed for merely owning capital.

I'm cool with that, provided that you're also not explicitly rewarded for owning capital either. Right now people can take out massive loans on the basis of their stock value and can use that heavily as leverage. If you can do that, well, it no longer is just capital - it is an asset that you're using. 

Now, if you like, you can also be forced to pay taxes on those loans. That also makes sense.

Or you can be forced to take out loans to pay those taxes - which is what they currently do. As long as they make 2-3% interest a year, that doesn't seem like a problem to me. 

Instead, what we have is the ability to have items that are never taxed, that you can generate wealth and value on without ever being taxed, and can generate income you can live on without paying any tax. That wouldn't be tolerated in any other system in the world. If you had the ability to be paid in stock, which you could use to take out a loan on, you, too, would never ever have any tax. 

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So the impeachment hearings witness schedule has been finalized - David Holmes was added for Thursday this afternoon.  So in about 72 hours, that'll be pretty much it.  I'm very skeptical John Bolton will testify, and even if he does, I'm quite cynical it will be as "game-changing" as many pundits hope.  I simply don't trust Bolton, and definitely don't think he wants that to be his legacy.

Anyway, after that I'm pretty sure there are no more witnesses to call (who are willing to comply, of course).  They'll submit their report to the judiciary, which will then form articles (perhaps drafted within the Intelligence cmte report).  My guess right now is they'll have two articles - one for abuse of power and one for obstruction and/or contempt of Congress (suspect they'll go with the "obstruction" language).  Based on the remaining witnesses, Sondland obviously has a chance to move the needle.  Volker too, to a lesser extent.  Although here's a good Vox piece detailing how the GOP is already planning to through him under the bus

But in general, the early returns on the success of this whole damn thing is not too encouraging.  Impeachment actually has gotten increasingly unpopular since November 2 according to 538 (look at their "impeach and remove" figures, not the overall figures).  Not by much, but a drop of 1.5% - and last week's hearings appear to have done nothing to stem that tide.

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18 minutes ago, DMC said:

But in general, the early returns on the success of this whole damn thing is not too encouraging.  Impeachment actually has gotten increasingly unpopular since November 2 according to 538 (look at their "impeach and remove" figures, not the overall figures).  Not by much, but a drop of 1.5% - and last week's hearings appear to have done nothing to stem that tide.

Conversely, it also doesn't appear to have particularly damned Democrats. Bel Edwards won, Dems won in Kentucky, and it doesn't appear otherwise to have affected much. 

NOTHING MATTERS LOL

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28 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Conversely, it also doesn't appear to have particularly damned Democrats. Bel Edwards won, Dems won in Kentucky, and it doesn't appear otherwise to have affected much. 

NOTHING MATTERS LOL

Not optimistic, but worth thinking about:

 

Twice in the past few weeks Trump has stumped for major republican names - and each lost at the polls, despite having at least the appearance of Trump loyalists.  Maybe, just maybe a few (more) republican senators are starting to wonder if being loyal to Trump is worthwhile.  If trump doesn't benefit them at the polls, and their constituents are unhappy with some of his policies, then why support him?  I put this in the 'maybe' category.

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1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

I'm cool with that, provided that you're also not explicitly rewarded for owning capital either. Right now people can take out massive loans on the basis of their stock value and can use that heavily as leverage. If you can do that, well, it no longer is just capital - it is an asset that you're using. 

Now, if you like, you can also be forced to pay taxes on those loans. That also makes sense.

Or you can be forced to take out loans to pay those taxes - which is what they currently do. As long as they make 2-3% interest a year, that doesn't seem like a problem to me. 

Instead, what we have is the ability to have items that are never taxed, that you can generate wealth and value on without ever being taxed, and can generate income you can live on without paying any tax. That wouldn't be tolerated in any other system in the world. If you had the ability to be paid in stock, which you could use to take out a loan on, you, too, would never ever have any tax. 

If you borrow money with your house as security, should you pay tax on that borrowed amount? Seems somewhat absurd.

When you sell the house to pay off the debt, then you should be taxed on the capital gains realised.

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46 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Conversely, it also doesn't appear to have particularly damned Democrats. Bel Edwards won, Dems won in Kentucky, and it doesn't appear otherwise to have affected much. 

NOTHING MATTERS LOL

Heh, yeah I agree it certainly hasn't hurt the Dems either.  If anything it's kept Trump mired in bad news cycles for a very long time, which keeps his approval pinned down.  Who knows how much it'd be inching up if the attention was mostly on the Dem primary with the economy continuing to look healthy at the macro level.  BUT, we'll see how it plays once Trump champions his Senate "exoneration" and uses that in the general election.

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This story just keeps cropping up.  This is about the fourth or fifth article on the topic I've seen the past couple of days.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-s-weekend-hospital-visit-draws-a-skeptical-reaction/ar-BBWXog0?ocid=ob-fb-enus-580&fbclid=IwAR2DdSdWsZzlfK5byOS6N9g4zPCt4wMTtCPEVg17wD31KBf9NQ36BwB49WM

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — A lack of notice. Past failures to level with the American people. A tough week for the White House as public impeachment hearings got under way.

 

Add it all up, and President Donald Trump’s unscheduled weekend visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center raised suspicions about his health, despite White House officials’ insistence that the president was merely getting a head start on his annual physical.

For any president, a sudden trip to the hospital would raise questions. But such scrutiny was magnified with a president who has a history of exaggeration and playing loose with the facts, giving skeptics room to run with their own theories.

“The one thing you can be absolutely sure of is this was not routine and he didn't go up there for half his physical,” tweeted Joe Lockhart, a press secretary under President Bill Clinton, who was himself impeached for perjury and obstruction. “What does it mean? It means that we just won't know what the medical issue was.”

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58 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

If you borrow money with your house as security, should you pay tax on that borrowed amount? Seems somewhat absurd.

And yet you do! (at least depending on how you get the loan)

Quote

When you sell the house to pay off the debt, then you should be taxed on the capital gains realised.

But...you don't ever sell off the house to pay off the debt. You just keep...getting...more...debt. This isn't how free market capitalism was supposed to work, at all.

In any case, I think that this solves your problem, right - since you don't want loans taxed, and these Great Captains of Capitalism can simply leverage their massive stock as assets to make loans on, they never have to sell their controlling shares and thus won't lose their vaunted position as Esteemed Head of Shitty Company X. They can be head of that company forever while just taking out loans that they should be able to be fine with, since their wealth continues to accrue, right?

Though I'm curious, FNR - are you paid in stock instead of cash? If not, why not? 

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15 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

And yet you do! (at least depending on how you get the loan)

But...you don't ever sell off the house to pay off the debt. You just keep...getting...more...debt. This isn't how free market capitalism was supposed to work, at all.

In any case, I think that this solves your problem, right - since you don't want loans taxed, and these Great Captains of Capitalism can simply leverage their massive stock as assets to make loans on, they never have to sell their controlling shares and thus won't lose their vaunted position as Esteemed Head of Shitty Company X. They can be head of that company forever while just taking out loans that they should be able to be fine with, since their wealth continues to accrue, right?

Though I'm curious, FNR - are you paid in stock instead of cash? If not, why not? 

The loans have to be paid back at some point. You seem to think it’s free money.

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3 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

The loans have to be paid back at some point. You seem to think it’s free money.

The loans can be paid back by taking out more loans. As long as you get enough of a good interest rate on your investment in your  company - and you're presupposing these billionaires are awesome, so they should, right? - you can easily get back enough value in your stock to easily redo a loan. 

Even at Warren's incredibly horrible, obviously evil 6% tax per annum, that means you simply have to have more than 6% return on your investments. Are you saying that the mighty Bezos and Gates and Musk don't get 6% return? 

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