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@Rembrandt said in US Politics:
@Baron-Silas-Greenback said in US Politics:
@antipodean said in US Politics:
@Rembrandt said in US Politics:
@antipodean His track record in getting the US economy booming. He has plenty of flaws but he at least seems to understand business.
I disagree. Ignoring his own personal well documented issues, what exactly has he done to get the economy booming? Or to put it another way, what policy changes demonstrate a marked departure from that of his predecessors other than setting new records for public sector profligacy, and what impact did those have on the economy?
Cutting of regulations, tariffs, strong arm tactics to get industry back into the US...
That and which in turn gives business confidence. I don't see such confidence if the election goes to an dementia patient or an elderly communist.
So the tariffs he imposed? The additional federal debt after he said he'd reduce it? Any manufacturing that is being on-shored is doing so because of the cost benefits of reduced logistics to market and automation. Record levels of bankruptcies in shale oil producers following his plan to eliminate the Climate Action Plan and pursue America First Energy? How's trade for the farmers over the course of his presidency? How many jobs created in coal?
This isn't a partisan issue for me, but to pretend Trump is some sort of economic mastermind is ludicrous.
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@antipodean So do you think Biden or Bernie are likely to inspire more business confidence?
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@Rembrandt said in US Politics:
@antipodean So do you think Biden or Bernie are likely to inspire more business confidence?
None of them inspire me with any confidence. The only thing that's assured is Biden will continue with the Democrat policies I suspect more Clinton than Obama in effect.
Sanders would be interesting but ultimately futile - how's he going to get his vision past Congress when even his own party is against him?
Quite frankly the US Constitution should've mandated anyone over retirement age couldn't be President either.
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@antipodean said in US Politics:
@Rembrandt said in US Politics:
@Baron-Silas-Greenback said in US Politics:
@antipodean said in US Politics:
@Rembrandt said in US Politics:
@antipodean His track record in getting the US economy booming. He has plenty of flaws but he at least seems to understand business.
I disagree. Ignoring his own personal well documented issues, what exactly has he done to get the economy booming? Or to put it another way, what policy changes demonstrate a marked departure from that of his predecessors other than setting new records for public sector profligacy, and what impact did those have on the economy?
Cutting of regulations, tariffs, strong arm tactics to get industry back into the US...
That and which in turn gives business confidence. I don't see such confidence if the election goes to an dementia patient or an elderly communist.
So the tariffs he imposed? The additional federal debt after he said he'd reduce it? Any manufacturing that is being on-shored is doing so because of the cost benefits of reduced logistics to market and automation. Record levels of bankruptcies in shale oil producers following his plan to eliminate the Climate Action Plan and pursue America First Energy? How's trade for the farmers over the course of his presidency? How many jobs created in coal?
This isn't a partisan issue for me, but to pretend Trump is some sort of economic mastermind is ludicrous.
I dont think he is an economic mastermind, so you can store away that strawman.
I think he has done a really good job, eliminating costly regulations, pressuring industry to produce in the US and many potehr things.
I am not much interested in your narrow focussed gotchas' . The 'Trump entire economic success is false because turnip farmers in south Dakota are struggling' argument does not interest me. The bif indicators were all tracking in great directions, you seem to think it is a fluke, or legacy of Obama, I think that is ludicrous. -
Not sure if anybody else remembers when Bob Mueller and the DOJ was going to prosecute Russians for interfering in the 2016 election.... very quietly, prosecutors today dropped the charges and the judge just dismissed the case. Rachel Maddow and Don Lemon were losing their minds about this a year ago. I suspect it won’t receive even a minor mention now.
Justice Dept. Moves to Drop Charges Against Russian Firms Filed by Mueller
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department moved on Monday to drop charges against two Russian shell companies accused of financing schemes to interfere in the 2016 election, saying that they were exploiting the case to gain access to delicate information that Russia could weaponize.
The companies, Concord Management and Concord Consulting, were charged in 2018 in an indictment secured by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, along with 13 Russians and another company, the Internet Research Agency. Prosecutors said they operated a sophisticated scheme to use social media to spread disinformation, exploit American social divisions and try to subvert the 2016 election.
Unlike the others under indictment, Concord fought the charges in court. But instead of trying to defend itself, Concord seized on the case to obtain confidential information from prosecutors, then mount a campaign of information warfare, a senior Justice Department official said. [...]
“Weaponized” information. Sure. I reckon they didn’t have SFA, Concord is making clowns of them, and they’re trying to save face.
It’s been said by others, but bears repeating, with the half-a-billion Michael Bloomberg spent he should have hired these Rooskies. They got Trump elected on a $100K budget, of which over half was spent after the election.
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@Baron-Silas-Greenback said in US Politics:
The bif indicators were all tracking in great directions, you seem to think it is a fluke, or legacy of Obama, I think that is ludicrous.
Unemployment has followed the same trend line for a decade. GDP has hovered around 2% for a while.
The trend line of the Dow Jones has been consistent for a long time apart from a pause around the last presidential election (I'd be weary of reading too much into a share market though)I don't see a big change in these indicators? As for the credit? I don't think Presidents are as important as partisans make them out to be (positive and negative)
Obama fans in the last couple of years of his Presidency were taking victory laps about the share market and unemployment rate. Republicans were complaining about the budget deficit.
Trump fans have been making the same argument about the share market and unemployment... but unfortunately fuckall people have been complaining about the fiscal policy (because both parties want to spend a crazy amount of money)The low unemployment rate has hidden a few things IMO. First of all unemployment counts the number of people searching for work.. not the people who drop out of the system. Remember there is a cap on how much unemployment benefit you can collect in the US. Also some unemployed get hidden on other benefits.
My concern is that the workforce participation rate has been strangely low in the USThe 'diseases of despair' deaths (suicide, opiates, alcoholism) don't seem to match the unemployment trend line. Maybe there is another reason for that.. Personally I'm not convinced the unemployment rate means the same thing they did a generation ago.
It's a lot more murky than a binary good/bad rating.
The deregulation has been good. Then's been some good reforms on executive power that Paul has squeezed in too.
The tax cuts were well designed, they were the basic plan that Republicans have been pushing for years... however they should have come with a matching spending cut IMO (yes, yes I'm sure someone will mention the Laffer curve)One thing that I'm sure you'll agree on is that it's a real fuckup to allow the deficit to increase to a trillion dollars
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@Duluth I'd like that post twice if I could.
Given the trend line post the GFC, I'm not sure how US employment data can be used to show either Obama or Trump as notably better than the other for employment growth. The growth trend is broadly the same for both going back to 2011. On the whole, both administrations have been good for US employment growth.
(To preempt: I'd blame Obama for the GFC-impact on employment numbers at the beginning of his term as much as I'd blame Trump for the performance of the Dow Jones in the last little while - i.e. not at all.)
The US labour market participation rate is curiously and stubbornly low.
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Regardless of your opinions of him, the odds on Trump's re-election have to be getting longer. He's still the favourite but it's a lot closer than it was a month ago.
The playbook for first-term Presidents getting the shaft looks very similar to this - they hum along OK and then get hit by an event that's beyond their control, and are perceived to respond poorly to it (a very simplistic analysis, of course, but you get my drift).
HW Bush had the recession, and Carter had the Iran hostage crisis. Coronavirus looms as the equivalent for Trump, and the big question is can he keep the disease in check and the economy alive.
The complete shambles that is the US medical system certainly doesn't seem to be helping him, but I can't say I know too much about the specifics of the situation over there.
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@Rembrandt said in US Politics:
@Crucial said in US Politics:
Thankfully creating a war as diversion doesn't look to be an option at the moment.
Hope Erdogan gets that memo, lots of unstability currently.
Instability yes. And bound to get more.
Not saying nothing will happen just that it is unlikely to be instigated by the US. -
A Biden presidency would be freaking hilarious.
I wonder if Trump would run again in 2024? -
@Baron-Silas-Greenback said in US Politics:
A Biden presidency would be freaking hilarious.
I wonder if Trump would run again in 2024?I can't see US citizens voting in a dementia patient, even during or after a disaster.
The most reasonable course of action would be thus:
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@barbarian said in US Politics:
HW Bush had the recession, and Carter had the Iran hostage crisis. Coronavirus looms as the equivalent for Trump, and the big question is can he keep the disease in check and the economy alive.
McCain by all polls had Obama covered before the GFC too.
I think this one is a bit different. My inclination is that it will play more like a war than an economic meltdown - but who knows.
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@Duluth said in US Politics:
The low unemployment rate has hidden a few things IMO. First of all unemployment counts the number of people searching for work.. not the people who drop out of the system. Remember there is a cap on how much unemployment benefit you can collect in the US. Also some unemployed get hidden on other benefits.
My concern is that the workforce participation rate has been strangely low in the USThe 'diseases of despair' deaths (suicide, opiates, alcoholism) don't seem to match the unemployment trend line. Maybe there is another reason for that.. Personally I'm not convinced the unemployment rate means the same thing they did a generation ago.
It's a lot more murky than a binary good/bad rating.
Agree 100%. Also underemployment is obviously a major issue and zero hours contracts excacerbate it further.
When you get any metric like which is so widely used and has political cut through the natural urge is going to be to game it. Same thing with the budget - after the bushfires but before coronavirus there were multiple articles outlining the loopholes the coalition could use to present a budget surplus on paper while ramping up capital spending in response.
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Interesting.
Trump's approval rating is going up.
44% to 49%
(Gallup is not a pro-Republican poll)However, as the article notes, the poll was conducted March 13–22, and opinions could change significantly given how quickly the COVID-19 crisis is developing.
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