We are all Slave now.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

It's hard to take you seriously on this point when you keep talking about college protestors and free speech.

That's the point. Ignore those people. Stop allowing them to infect the serious arguments.

Anticipating your next point: Oh yes they are.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

With a 25% tariff on foreign cars, US carmakers would be fools not to raise their prices.

Agreed. He's setting up a super-recession.

Dumbass probably thinks he's giving us a little necessary inflation.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

No. That'll just piss me off.

I will never buy an American car. I drive my cars for 250k miles and throw them away. Save a Suburban, which is a truck too big for me, American cars do not last anywhere near that long.

Dude, buy a Jeep. People keep them on the road for decades. Pieces may wear, but the whole thing is built to be taken apart and reassembled.

[ferrets_bueller]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

The remedy for problems with our democracy is enlightened rich people spending their money wisely. God save us.

Just don't tell the Koch Brothers. They'll want a state, too.


I'm not advocating this, of course. But it has a certain honesty that most recent national campaigns lack.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Agreed. He's setting up a super-recession.

Dumbass probably thinks he's giving us a little necessary inflation.

Yeah, dumbasses. Who could have foreseen them doing what they said they'd do.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Agreed. He's setting up a super-recession.

Dumbass probably thinks he's giving us a little necessary inflation.

So you do think he might piss off his base?

Tyler Cowen says he's setting up to blame the Fed. That seems right. He's going to need someone to blame.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

I'm sure you understand that that split benefits Dems more than the current system if you apply it across the board, correct? Maybe not.

TM

Probably, but I thought the task was to get more representative, not benefit one party over the other.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Probably, but I thought the task was to get more representative, not benefit one party over the other.

Apropos of the Electoral College, it seems like people from California, Texas and New York should be able to agree that it sucks. The issue (in my mind) is not that it favors one party more than the other (suspect that could go either way), it's that it favors a small, essentially random set of swing states to the detriment of the states that predictably go to one party or the other. In the current system, why would a Republican candidate go to Texas? Or a Democrat to Los Angeles or NYC? Move to a popular vote, and that's where they'd go to drive turnout.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

So you do think he might piss off his base?

Tyler Cowen says he's setting up to blame the Fed. That seems right. He's going to need someone to blame.

Higher rates tend to benefit older people whose investments are heavily weighted to fixed income. I think he could actually alienate older voters, a large part of his base, by pushing the Fed to cease raising.

OTOH, higher rates tamp down home prices, which will annoy a lot of boomers looking to cash out and downsize in retirement.

But, then, higher rates haven't seemed to affect home prices much so far...

I think he's dumb enough to try to blame the fed. But even if energy price increases are not his fault,* that's going to get hung around his neck.

The next recession will be awful for his base, and whoever's in office gets blamed by Joe Sixpack. I previously stated his base would forgive lost Chinese infrastructure investment because they wouldn't understand it's a bad thing (they'd largely think it good... "Keep out them Chinese!"). But a recession that results in even further job losses to lower skilled workers? Trump could lose a chunk of his base following that.

Inevitably, however, as the 2020 race takes shape, Trumpkins will be faced with a choice between him and a Democrat who will be presented as liberal and pro-free trade. They'll be forced to pick, and there, any base lost due to an intervening recession is likely to come home to Trumpistan once more.

__________
* Friends who follow oil have called me illiterate for suggesting the oil increase is in any way attributable to Trump's scuttling of the Iran deal, advising that oil is rising exactly as expected at this point in the expansion/recession cycle.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Yeah, dumbasses. Who could have foreseen them doing what they said they'd do.

Are you suggesting it's unwise to assume Trump a liar?

The trouble with Trump is inconsistency. He's a liar on everything, except his campaign promises. This is a very hard person to predict.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Apropos of the Electoral College, it seems like people from California, Texas and New York should be able to agree that it sucks. The issue (in my mind) is not that it favors one party more than the other (suspect that could go either way), it's that it favors a small, essentially random set of swing states to the detriment of the states that predictably go to one party or the other. In the current system, why would a Republican candidate go to Texas? Or a Democrat to Los Angeles or NYC? Move to a popular vote, and that's where they'd go to drive turnout.

Of course, that's why I was telling those people on this board who had said they were considering not voting for either candidate because hil was a lock, that Hillary and President Obama being in Detroit and Philadelphia in NOVEMBER meant the race was tight in those two states.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The serious grievances (police brutality, predatory racist laws, a racists court and justice system, etc.) should be clearly separated from the less-serious complaints (microaggressions, etc.). These things cannot be lumped together because doing so allows the latter to discredit the former. And no - the argument they are all inseparable threads of a cloth or part of a continuum of behavior that must be addressed in aggregate holds no sway.

The latter lead to the former.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

And it doesn't count the structural changes. If we turn someone away when they come to buy our stuff, and they have to guy buy it next door, they're going to start next door the next time they have to buy something.

Mexico and China have been talking quite a bit over the last 18 months. That should scare the crap out of us.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Higher rates tend to benefit older people whose investments are heavily weighted to fixed income. I think he could actually alienate older voters, a large part of his base, by pushing the Fed to cease raising.

OTOH, higher rates tamp down home prices, which will annoy a lot of boomers looking to cash out and downsize in retirement.

But, then, higher rates haven't seemed to affect home prices much so far...

I think he's dumb enough to try to blame the fed. But even if energy price increases are not his fault,* that's going to get hung around his neck.

The next recession will be awful for his base, and whoever's in office gets blamed by Joe Sixpack. I previously stated his base would forgive lost Chinese infrastructure investment because they wouldn't understand it's a bad thing (they'd largely think it good... "Keep out them Chinese!"). But a recession that results in even further job losses to lower skilled workers? Trump could lose a chunk of his base following that.

Inevitably, however, as the 2020 race takes shape, Trumpkins will be faced with a choice between him and a Democrat who will be presented as liberal and pro-free trade. They'll be forced to pick, and there, any base lost due to an intervening recession is likely to come home to Trumpistan once more.

__________
* Friends who follow oil have called me illiterate for suggesting the oil increase is in any way attributable to Trump's scuttling of the Iran deal, advising that oil is rising exactly as expected at this point in the expansion/recession cycle.

You are way overthinking this. He needs someone to blame for bad economic news. Hillary isn't going to work. Obama won't work for much longer. He's not going to blame congressional Republicans, as much as he'd like to. The Fed will have to do (along with Angela Merkel).

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

You are way overthinking this. He needs someone to blame for bad economic news. Hillary isn't going to work. Obama won't work for much longer. He's not going to blame congressional Republicans, as much as he'd like to. The Fed will have to do (along with Angela Merkel).

And China.