Trump says not more than 15% taxes

You had a guy with the IQ of room temperature run the country for two mandates under highly suspicious electoral circumstances. What's the lesson?

a) the presidential election is just a farce used to create an illusion of meaningful choice for the masses (really, I have no other explanation for G. W. Bush, Trump and Hillary)

b) it's pretty bad anyway but it probably won't be as bad as some people think

Its never as bad as people think. News has a way to to make people paranoid.

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Aim_Deep wrote:

Its never as bad as people think. News has a way to to make people paranoid.

The wonders of Hearst-style journalism. Although I'm sure someone else would have thought of that anyway. I suppose we have basic human nature to blame.

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Bars wrote:

You had a guy with the IQ of room temperature run the country for two mandates under highly suspicious electoral circumstances. What's the lesson?

a) the presidential election is just a farce used to create an illusion of meaningful choice for the masses (really, I have no other explanation for G. W. Bush, Trump and Hillary)

b) it's pretty bad anyway but it probably won't be as bad as some people think

I think you're glossing over a couple of key points with that first sentence:

He was fairly well liked for much of his terms - well liked enough to get re-elected for a second without any special electoral circumstances.

Overall, he was a good president that made two huge mistakes, which is different, in ways, than a president that is bad on everything. (Iraq, Katrina response).

The Iraq blunder happened because his last name was Bush, not because of his IQ score. HW was quite smart and I think he would have put us in Iraq as well.

Alternative explanations for Trump and Hillary:

Hillary rode 99% name recognition and a 50 million dollar war chest + network of donors + undemocratic systems like superdelegates and closed primaries to beat a guy who started with 12 dollars and 1% name recognition. And only barely beat him at that. Change those factor just a little bit - say Bernie had run back in 08, say that the Dem establishment wasn't creaming themselves over Hillary and didn't have 600 superdelegate votes, say that every primary was open. Any one of those things and Bernie wins 51-49. Change two or more and he wins comfortably.

Trump: Party elites were the opposite of the Dem side - never organized around a single candidate. They played faction loyalty musical chairs for 2 or 3 months too long (which is an unforgivable eternity in politics) and never bothered to even attack Trump until after Super Tuesday. Their electable candidates numbered approximately 15% of the 15 person pool, and because of the first two sentences, Low Energy Jeb and Little Marco were bullied off the stage with no recourse. At a time when the party should have consolidated around their third electable candidate, Cruz and his supporters went full selfish mode and that was that. They still had time to split the remaining states and throw the election to Kasich on the floor (although that would have come with it's own set of negatives). It still would have been a better outcome than the current Trump down by 8% everywhere situation.

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innervation wrote:

The Iraq blunder happened because his last name was Bush, not because of his IQ score. HW was quite smart and I think he would have put us in Iraq as well.

Well, I think the US has long since stopped being anything remotely close to a democratic country. I think it's run by lobbies with massive financial resources and influence, the military-industrial complex being among the biggest. Your annual military budget is bigger than the rest of the world combined. This money gives enormous power to certain circles. This means you need a military conflict somewhere almost all the time, otherwise it would be a bit difficult to justify all those 600 billion dollars per year or thereabout.

The Cold War made everything simple, your politicians could just point at the Russians and cry wolf and the populace would be sufficiently scared to approve even the most humongous military expenditures. Right now, it's not that easy. You need an actual war. I think Iraq was just one of these wars of necessity. After all, nearly half of the American population thought Saddam was responsible for 9/11. You can't have that without a serious media campaign.

It amazes me that so many people discuss a proposed tax reduction without mentioning the Laffer Curve:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve

But I guess it's okay that a profligate and irresponsible Federal government can just keep hammering its citizens to extract more money it just wastes anyway.

Look at Trump's campaign. He is getting the job of running for POTUS done at a tiny fraction of the cost of Hillary Clinton. He doesn't spend money he doesn't have to. I can get behind that idea applied to the US Federal Gub'mint, too. =^[.]^=

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Bars wrote:

Well, I think the US has long since stopped being anything remotely close to a democratic country. I think it's run by lobbies with massive financial resources and influence, the military-industrial complex being among the biggest. Your annual military budget is bigger than the rest of the world combined. This money gives enormous power to certain circles. This means you need a military conflict somewhere almost all the time, otherwise it would be a bit difficult to justify all those 600 billion dollars per year or thereabout.

The Cold War made everything simple, your politicians could just point at the Russians and cry wolf and the populace would be sufficiently scared to approve even the most humongous military expenditures. Right now, it's not that easy. You need an actual war. I think Iraq was just one of these wars of necessity. After all, nearly half of the American population thought Saddam was responsible for 9/11. You can't have that without a serious media campaign.

You're not wrong, although you go farther than I would. Democracy is still a thing, the problem is there is little to no difference between the parties anymore when you look at average candidates. Yeah Cruz and Sanders are worlds apart, but what is the difference between Clinton and Kasich? Not that much. And a lot of what you're describing is both parties being corporatists. Getting money out of politics would be a very good start, although that wouldn't solve every evil of the M-I-C overnight.

I think the world is a fucked up enough place that we don't need to be so cynical as to refer to this or that as 'necessary wars'. We haven't needed a military this big in a long long time, and I wouldn't credit the recent conflicts in the recent shit holes they occurred in with keeping American sentiment on board with a big military.

We still have a big military because the political system is clogged up and bogged down - like plaque collecting in the arteries of your heart. Every year the plaque of bureaucracy, lobbying, red tape, pork barrel spending, hundreds more pages of tax code (and tax loopholes) etc etc, it all adds up. It collects and it hardens, and the longer we let it build up, the more resistant it is toward being removed and cleaned out.

If and when America finds themselves outside of the top 5/10 most influential countries in the world 100 or more years from now, historians will probably note the absurdly and obscenely large military spending as one of the primary culprits. The value delivered per dollar just isn't there. They'll also point to the founding father's cautions against entangling alliances and foreign conflict (which go hand-in-hand with the $$), two sides of the same coin really.

If the Republican candidate can convince Republicans that standing down our efforts in Germany, Japan, and NATO are a good idea - think about that! Republicans are saying that's good! Then there is hope for military spending cuts.

When I said 'wars of necessity', I meant they are necessary from the standpoint of the military instustrial lobby. I'm not saying they are actually necessary or good in the larger scheme of things. I completely agree with you it's a vicious circle which has to be broken out of.

The problem is, America is refusing to accept reality. It won't spend the 21st century being the global superpower it was in the 20th. It will still be a great and powerful country, just not the undisputed hegemon. Some might say 'but what about the USSR, the Cold War, etc.' - the USSR never held a candle to the US's economic power and used a huge nuclear arsenal to stay threatening. As soon as USA drops the bloated ego and starts working towards being a good country to live in instead of trying to be the world's super cop, things will get better. Whether or when this is going to happen is another matter.

trump knows the deal: a government which maintains it's own currency which is freely floating against other currencies can never go bancrupt if it indepts itself in it's own currency.
additionally it's not limited in it's spending by having to raise taxes. taxes don't fund anything in america.

or as trump said it: "government running out of money? we print the money!"

as it is, the govnernment spends first and withdraws the money they spent from the public sector by raising taxes. if they lower taxes, more money is left in the public sector if government's spending is constant.

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vio wrote:

trump knows the deal: a government which maintains it's own currency which is freely floating against other currencies can never go bancrupt if it indepts itself in it's own currency.
additionally it's not limited in it's spending by having to raise taxes. taxes don't fund anything in america.

or as trump said it: "government running out of money? we print the money!"

as it is, the govnernment spends first and withdraws the money they spent from the public sector by raising taxes. if they lower taxes, more money is left in the public sector if government's spending is constant.

This. The dollar has no competition so America can basically do whatever the fuck it wants and still get away with it. Trump knows this and will use it. The madman he is, I can imagine him writing off huge amounts of US debt and not giving a shit.