For all you "Fiscal Conservatives" out there: http://liberalsociety.com/top-econo...-americas-most-successful-year-since-the-90s/ And the original article that summary is referencing: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/16/o...st&contentPlacement=10&pgtype=collection&_r=0
Not to make too much light of America's situation, but no matter how bad you Americans think you have it, you still don't have this as your President. Also, whomever you elect as President has a maximum of 8 years only to fuck everything up. Zuma has turned South Africa into an international joke. Mbeki might have been drunk and useless, but he is still not as outright stupid as Zuma. Zuma didn't attend HIGH SCHOOL yet RUNS A COUNTRY.
I knew it was going to be Krugman before even clicking the link. The guy is a partisan hack who advocated for multiple economic stimuli that didnt work and subsequently lost all credibility except for the liberal editorial circle-jerk community. He cherry picks sources and disavows anything that he doesnt like, regardless of data. Even in this article he touts a rise in household income but slides in that its still at a loss of rate. He deserves as much reverence as Glenn Beck.
Honestly, if it takes to an implosion to make people realize they need to stop bitching about every triviality and start acting like adults again it would be damn near worth it. Everyone says this election is terrible because of the candidates, but they're just a symptom of the disease. The fear mongering and hatred is off the charts. Call me a doomsday preacher, but I really do believe it's destroying this country. Behind all the rage there'e this ill conceived belief that America is too great to fail and that we'll always be a superpower, but history has shown us that it isn't true. Most superpowers don't have the longevity of Rome, they last a few generations at best. If the whole thing craters in 30 years we'll be the rule, not the exception. I wish Trump wasn't such a jackass because he does have some good ideas that have been dismissed by the mainstream media, and are poorly understood by the average voter. The only reason he's still in this race, albeit barely, is because his platform is much better than CNN and NYT wants to admit. The wall he wants to build is the biggest issue for me. Not because it's worthless, if he wants to throw away a few billion dollars on some fucktarded pet project that's still cheaper than Obama and Bush. It's the way he wants to pay for it. If he was elected he may very well get Mexico to pay for the wall, you'd just have to be an awful person to do it.
I agree with you that the decline of our hegemony is probable, it's certainly not going to happen anytime soon. Our own natural resources, borders, allies, economy, and military will secure us for another generation or so. However, the rage, fear-mongering and hatred is nothing new. We have had people saying "if so and so gets elected, the world will end" and it hasn't happened. Truth be told, if Trump wins, it'll be an embarrassment for a little while, make the expanded powers Bush and Obama got seem like a horrific mistake, and will inevitably lead to his impeachment. Not the Earth-shattering, Apocalypse-bringing event portended. He does have some valid points, just like anyone would. Dude, this is the issue with the two party system: some of us are liberal on some things and conservative on others. However, somehow we have allowed it to degrade to the point that "liberal" is a derogative in some circles and "conservative" is another. Whether they are a villain or a hero is just a matter of perspective. I love Reddit for stuff like this: "Some examples of Republican hypocrisy: If we win the presidency, our Supreme Court nominees should be confirmed. When you win the presidency, we will block you at every turn. If Trump wins, the election is legitimate and the people have SPOKEN. If Hillary wins, it must be RIGGED. Donald Trump is accused of forcing himself on over ten women. STICK TO THE ISSUES. Bill Clinton accused of misconduct by four women. His wife should be disqualified from office and imprisoned. Hillary Clinton has not directly mentioned any of Trump's accusers. She needs to stop distracting from real issues. Trump has a press conference with four of Bill Clinton's accusers, gives them front row seats to the debate, and mentions them during debate. Great job taking the gloves off, president Trump. Bill Clinton cheats on his wife. Impeach him. Trump proudly brags about sexual assault (has 5 kids with 3 wives and has cheated on his wives). Elect him. Hillary oversaw the Department of State while four people died in an embassy attack. JAIL HER. Two Republicans were in office while over 200 people died in embassy attacks. No problem. Immigrants don't pay taxes. Round them up and kick them out. Trump doesn't pay taxes. He's a business genius. Independent fact checkers found Trump is likely the least truthful candidate in the history of modern politics. He tells it like it is. Hillary is statistically more truthful than most politicians according to fact checkers. She is the most untrustworthy, lying liar who has ever run for political office. The Clinton Foundation only spent 87% of their donations helping people (average amount is 75%). CROOKED. Trump's foundation paid off his debts, bought paintings of him, and made political donations to avoid investigations for a fake university while giving less than 5% of funds to charity (and he got shut down by NY State). So savvy...put him in the White House. Trump made 4 billion dollars in 40 years, when an index fund started at the same time with the same "small loans" he received would be worth $12 billion today... without a trail of bankruptcies, thousands of lawsuits and burned small business owners. He's a real business whiz. Hillary took a loss of $700k. She's a criminal. Trump is the first candidate in the modern era to not release his tax returns, and he took a almost billion-dollar loss in one year. Genius. Hillary releases 40 years of taxes. Corrupt. Trump denies saying things (on the record) he actually said (on the record). He's just telling it like it is. "
Yeah, I don't think a downfall is going to happen as a result of this election, but I also don't believe it's inevitable. The debt, throwing money at bad military strategy, demagoguery instead of dialogue - all fixable problems. It's that I doubt anyone really wants fix them. This election has been different. We haven't seen this since the Vietnam era. Bush was stupid. Obama was a communist. Trump is an all consuming inferno, and Hillary is either inept or doesn't give a shit about the law. Either way, she's been one of the most reliable policy makers for large interest groups looking to buy. The nomination selections speak volumes. Trump - We don't care if you're an asshole or unqualified, as long as you don't apologize to the liberals. Hillary - We don't give a shit what you stand for, as long as you tell us what we want to hear. I'm a liberal 80-90% time, but this house is made of glass. Lulz? Do you think the talk of rigging in the democratic primaries was all just firing at wall? DNC e-mails, wretched establishment reporting, having busloads of voters cast for Hillary a dozen times. I know people want to say I'm just a 'Bernie Bro' or what have you, but yeah, that shit actually happened. You can't rig the general election like you can the primaries (the republicans tried against Trump, just didn't work) but the media has certainly not been fair to Trump. You might not like him, but the spin narratives, misrepresentation of platforms, and constant quote mining has been dishonest to say the least. He brought it up as an obvious defense tactic. The anti-Trumpers have talked about this non-stop. I have heard fuck all about the issues from the left in the last two weeks. The right does want to make it about the issues, because there's no way to make a sex scandal with 9 accusers look good. If we're talking hypocrisy in this election... did you mean irony? Hillary is going to keep the loopholes open. She doesn't give a fuck about closing them because of her donors and if flipping this on the immigrant issue makes you feel better about voting for her that's profoundly sad. The whole Benghazi thing has been unnecessary. No argument here. You're not wrong about Trump, and the charity promotions companies run often don't contribute what they claim, but the Clinton Foundation really is worse. Money from several foreign governments. Defending central American dictators on foreign policy that were condemned by the rest of the world. Withholding information about middle eastern governments funding ISIS. Taking money from the governments funding radical groups we're at war with? The shit she's done is borderline sociopathic. Hilarious. Just $4 billion. And only on business. And if I had X money in year 1970 I'd be rich too. I've heard this talking point 50 times and I still can't believe it's for real. As for Hillary, you do realize how she made most of her money, right? RIGHT? I wouldn't be terribly surprised if Trump committed fraud, but again, if we're talking about hypocrisy and you still believe Hillary, maybe you still think Enron was telling the truth on their financial statements. Trump admitted he cut every corner he could and releasing tax statements for the media to pick apart would just be stupid. That's why Romney only released 2 years worth. Hillary has often been caught lying on record, which doesn't count against her arbitrary record the media has contrived because...stop Trump? Trump has lied, but also been 'caught' lying when he wasn't on several occasions as well. Hillary has the convenience of the spin doctors in her corner. Maybe those lies bother you less. Personally, I'm more worried about the lies she hasn't admitted.
From our trustworthy journalists at CNN. Large font and all to drive it home. In the speeches she talks about the difference between her public vs private positions. She quotes statements made on the campaign trail and explains that she actually stands in opposition to what she's been telling the electorate. The media is so careless they're just banking on the hope most people don't read the actual leaks. You can't accidentally lie that blatantly. They've been doing this shit since day 1 one of the primaries.
Alternatively, the mainstream media isn't preventing people from hearing these so called good ideas. It is the candidate himself. He can't speak clearly about any substantive issue. His speeches read like fever dreams. Here is one: What the fuck? And, if average voters don't understand his good ideas, how can you say that he is in the race because of his ideas? His supporters after all mostly just average voters. I bet if you asked them why they liked him some might say it's because he is going to defeat ISIS. Yet he has offered no plan. I'm not saying democratic voters are necessarily any better. However, it is inarguable that on the issues Hillary Clinton has done a much better job of at least presenting her ideas (I know you think all her ideas are lies, but you can't deny that she is a more eloquent liar than Trump.) It's funny because there are a lot of conservatives who blame the mainstream media for making Trump happen. They argue that by giving him the most free airtime, it made everyone vote for him. But all they did was report what offensive/dumb shit Trump was saying and doing. The dirty little secret is a lot of people just plain like the dumb/offensive shit he is saying (dumb/offensive to me--great ideas to you/conservatives). That's the reason he won the primaries and that's the reason he still has the support he does. He doubles down on this every chance he gets. Republicans have been begging him to pivot since the convention. He either doesn't want to or is unable to do so. Toning down the rhetoric, sticking to the issues, etc. aren't things made impossible by the mainstream media. They are made impossible by Trump himself. Also, can you do me the kindness of linking to evidence that the DNC bused voters to different places and had them vote several times.
There are a lot of business/finance people on the board: where should someone look for an unbiased analysis of the candidate's overall economic plans and their effect on the economy? Another question: anybody a fan of Evan McMullin? He is doing surprisingly well in Utah. I thought he might catch on more than he did with conservative folks I know in real life.
The candidates' economic plans don't really matter. I'm sure they're both great, but Congress is the body that passes spending bills. Reagan had great economic ideas, but in the end he couldn't get Congress to pass the spending cuts they agreed on. Clinton had worse economic plans, but the Republicans controlled Congress, so we had a surplus. People can revise history all they want, but in the end, Congress spends the money. That is the hidden truth it has taken me 46 years to realize.
Trump can go off like a raving lunatic for sure. In the second debate I understood him just fine, but that might be because I've read through his positions. I don't totally disagree with you on what you're saying, but there's a lot of cherry picking in the media as well. Clinton is more concise, and doesn't ramble on tangents. That said, I still think she's a terrible speaker, but maybe that's just me. To be fair, a lot of the evidence is hearsay so I shouldn't be throwing that one out like it's a definitive fact. However, Democratic commissioner of elections in NYC. As far as I know there wasn't even an investigation, which is a pretty bad sign when the commissioner is stating there is mass fraud. Even worse, the mayor of NYC called for him to step down. There's all sorts of miscounts, and nonsensical rules that permit it as well. Some of the election rules are necessary, but many exist to help the establishment maintain power. Trump got screwed a few times in the republican primaries, and the media tried to spin it as Trump being incompetent when he complained about it. In my opinion, it's the rules that are stupid. The economist is my favorite. Fortune/forbes are somewhat decent, but has a lot of partisan gibberish as well. Of course, when it comes to predicting the economic impact you'll often get an informed opinion, but it's still only an opinion. The models in economic theory are extremely useful, but like any other social science it's not always exact. When it comes to the platform of Jill Stein, you can pretty well trust anyone who says it will be a disaster. This is somewhat true, the house decides what bills get funding, but guys, the president is not a non-person on this. He can't fund bills himself, but he/she is in charge of the federal branch, and as such has a shitload of influence on how that money gets spent. The weight of that influence will depend on what type of bill we're talking about, but for some he has damn near total control so long as he doesn't break the law. Historical precedence asserts repeatedly that the president has greater power in rallying party establishment around legislation than anyone of the party not in federal office. And again, don't forget about the veto. This whole 'president is irrelevant on the issues' story is becoming one of those zombie lies that refuses to die.
It is...SO completely ridiculous that that video is considered "evidence" of anything. For one, I have one of those ID cards he was talking about. He makes it sound like you just wander off the street and get handed one. And you use it for things like getting a library card or a bank account or being allowed in government buildings or if you're stopped by the police (or getting free memberships to museums and shit, like I do). I'm not even entirely sure what he thinks they have to do with voting, or fraud in general. It is just blowing my mind how much this campaign is being run on conspiracy theories and rumors. If Trump starts talking about voter fraud in NYC in a speech a few days from now, I would not be at all surprised. "People are saying, folks, you know what they're saying? They're saying they're bussing blacks and the Chinese around New York and having them vote Democrat dozens of times." *Crowd goes wild*
Even if the rules are stupid, it does make him incompetent. It's his job to make sure he plays by those rules. How can you expect him to properly navigate the legislative process or international trade agreements if he can't figure out Republican primary rules? It's possible to complain about the rules while simultaneously following them. The problem is that Project Veritas is run by James O'Keeffe and he has fabricated/selectively edited how many things now? Right off the bat I don't trust this. However, it does seem straightforward, so sure have an investigation. Why doesn't Project Veritas do that? Why not chase all of those leads down and figure out what was going on instead of just throwing this up on youtube? Though I would bet money this dude is just a wacko dude just saying stupid shit. If there were buses of people voting multiple times it wouldn't be too hard to find one of those people I imagine. I clicked through to their full expose on the Democratic Primaries and any substantive issues they have are lost in packaging it like...well, a conspiracy theory video. Why can't they just make a clear-cut easy to process video sans ominous music, menacing phrasing, and lighting like an 80s porno? The biggest problem in all of this is that to the average voter I think any statements or insinuations that the idea that there is massive voter fraud ring true because there has been a serious effort by the GOP to push for voter laws on the basis of fraud which by and large doesn't exist on a serious level. The idea that this election will be rigged through voter fraud is just another one of Trump's conspiracy theories. However, a lot of people will swallow that hole. And how the fuck do you reason with folks who believe conspiracy theories? I don't think it's possible. So where do we go from here? I don't know. Maybe in the future we should just collectively say that political candidates who appear on the Alex Jones show should be laughed out of elections wholesale. In the short-term, GOP election officials should probably be doing everything they can to voice the truth that our elections aren't rigged and are honest. That's hard to do and not in the interest of their party, but it is vital for the country.
His new one outlines some of the shady ground operatives that helped stir up shit at Trump rallies to help further the DNC's narrative. Again, stuff people probably already assumed, maybe unethical but not illegal(not sure about this), both sides do it etc etc, but it is the type of shit that is the reason people are so pissed at our election cycle that helped give rise to Bernie and Trump.
There has already been fall out from that video: Now we'll see if any MSM besides FOX will even mention it. It's pretty damning claims, using trained provocateurs to incite violence. I wonder if this tactic might be considered for polling booths on election day?
So I just discovered 538's polling data. http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/ I was wondering if anyone with statistics experience could find problems with their methods?
So I guess no one else's middle school had lessons about properly vetting sources for their research huh Hey did you guys hear Wikileaks proved Clinton had Scalia killed?