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Post Election Thread: Democracy Dies In Darkness And You Can Help


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1 minute ago, Walter_Sobchak said:

People complaining that Willie Nelson has endorsed the Democrat in the Texas Senate race must have ignored Willie's entire career.  

 

Yeah. I was a bit puzzled when I saw that clickbait headline a day or so ago since Willie has never been exactly shy about being a Democrat, and a fairly liberal one at that. 

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On ‎9‎/‎15‎/‎2018 at 4:39 PM, Sturgeon said:

An internet fight-to-the-death with the Admin only ends one way lol

 

:D

 

You love me really!  ;)

 

Plus, if you will let Brits on your forum, you gotta account for our sense of humour.....But in all honesty the US just doesn't do socialism in any meaningful sense (what you guys think of as 'left wing' is pretty much 'centre-right' from a European perspective, slightly less so in the UK since the Blairite infestation of our left), so asking you for a definition of it is kind of like asking a Kalahari Bushman to define the advantages of Windows 10 over rival operating systems (no offence). 

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7 hours ago, Walter_Sobchak said:

Assuming Woodward's book is correct, and given his record I suspect it is, this is not surprising and also very scary.

 

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/406085-trumps-plan-to-help-eliminate-federal-debt-was-to-print-money

 

I love how people have the attention span of a goldfish in America, particularly the media, and the Left.

 

Because it's not like THIS happened.

 

https://www.businessinsider.com/obama-mint-trillion-dollar-coin-scariest-night-debt-ceiling-2017-1

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2013/01/19/the-treasury-has-already-minted-two-trillion-dollar-coins/#ac897e069940

 

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/a-platinum-coin-as-big-as-the-ritz

 

 

You read that right. The Obama Administration actively considered, and are on record as such, minting a Trillion Dollar Coin in order to run the federal government for that fiscal period. It was a blatant and unconstitutional attempt to have the Executive Branch usurp the purses strings of the Legislative Branch.

 

And NO ONE batted an eye at the proposal. Other than racist, white cis-gendered Conservatives who were too busy clinging to their guns and bibles. Hell, you had leftist columnists and "intellectuals" like Paul Krugman advocating the Trillion Dollar Coin. 

 

So in true Alex Jones-esque logic, minting a Platinum coin to pay off the US debt GOOD.

 

Printing paper money. BAD.

 

Seriously. Does the Left and the media have no institutional memory?

 

As for the Woodward book, it has already been established that he is a humorless git with zero understanding of basic human interactions or the nuance of how normal people speak to each other in a professional or informal setting.

 

What was the context of the conversation Trump supposedly had with his economic adviser? In what setting? What was said before and after? Who was present? Was the president - gasp - joking when he delivered the line about printing money?

 

“We should just go borrow a lot of money, hold it, and then sell it to make money,” Trump reportedly said in response.

 

Because that - in the real world - is what someone making an obvious joke in a meeting sounds like. 

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40 minutes ago, Donward said:

 

I love how people have the attention span of a goldfish in America, particularly the media, and the Left.

 

Because it's not like THIS happened.

 

 

Apples and Oranges.  The Trillion Dollar coin idea you mention was a gimmick response to the debt ceiling crisis and it was not taken seriously.  Watch the video you linked, Obama is very dismissive of the idea.  

 

As to the references to the Woodward book, you can read it for yourself here.   Trump was not discussing the debt ceiling.  He was talking about the US government printing money to reduce debt, a concept everyone knows is a recipe for inflation.  


 

Spoiler

 

Jared Kushner invited Gary Cohn, the president of Goldman Sachs, to come talk to his father-in-law on November 30 about the economy. A meeting was arranged for Cohn at Trump Tower. Cohn was a legendary risk taker at the premier investment banking firm. He had an ego and sureness to match Trump’s. He was advised that Trump routinely kept meetings to 10 minutes.
In Trump’s office were Bannon, Priebus, Kushner and Steve Mnuchin, also a former Goldman banker and hedge fund manager who had been Trump’s chief fundraiser during the last six months of the campaign. Mnuchin had been rewarded with the cabinet post of treasury secretary though the appointment had not yet been announced.
The American economy overall is in okay shape, Cohn told Trump, but it was ready to experience a growth explosion if certain actions were taken. To achieve this, the economy needed tax reform and the removal of the shackles of overregulation.
Cohn knew this was what Trump wanted to hear. Then the New York City Democrat told the president-elect something he did not want to hear. We’re a trade-based economy, he said. Free, fair and open trade was essential. Trump had campaigned against international trade deals.
Second, the United States is an immigration center to the world. “We’ve got to continue to have open borders,” Cohn said. The employment picture was so favorable that the United States would run out of workers soon. So immigration had to continue. “We have many jobs in this country that Americans won’t do.”
Next, Cohn repeated what everyone was saying: Interest rates were going to go up over the foreseeable future.
I agree, Trump said. “We should just go borrow a lot of money right now, hold it, and then sell it and make money.”
Cohn was astounded at Trump’s lack of basic understanding. He tried to explain. If you as the federal government borrow money through issuing bonds, you are increasing the U.S. deficit.
What do you mean? Trump asked. Just run the presses—print money.
You don’t get to do it that way, Cohn said. We have huge deficits and they matter. The government doesn’t keep a balance sheet like that. “If you want to do something that would be smart—and you actually do control this—I would add a 50-year and a 100-year bond from the U.S. Treasury.”
With interest rates going down in recent years, Treasury had brought the duration of bonds down to 10 years as much as possible. That was the right thing to do, Cohn said. With rates increasing, the insurance companies and the pensions will lend the government money for 50 years or 100 years. And you could probably do it at 3¾ percent. That would be really cheap money over the next 50 to 100 years.
“Wow!” Trump said. “That’s a great idea.” He turned to Mnuchin. “Can we do that?”
“Oh, sure,” the designated treasury secretary said. “We can absolutely do that.”
“Do you agree with him?” Trump asked.
“Yeah, I agree with him,” Mnuchin said.
“You’ve been working for me six months,” Trump said. “Why the hell have you never talked to me about this? Why’s he the first person to ever tell me that?”
There was nothing in the world that was then yielding 3¾ percent risk-free, Cohn said. There would be a run on these bonds and plenty of buyers. The 50-year corporate bond was selling all over the place. Investors wanted high, risk-free yield.

Turning to the Federal Reserve, Cohn noted that the U.S. had had an effective zero interest rate for years. There was only one way to go, interest rates would go up, for two reasons. The economy was getting much stronger and higher rates would tamp down inflation.

“So if I’m running the Fed, I’m going to raise rates,” he said.

Trump knew that presidents liked low rates to help the economy. He said, “Well, I’m not going to choose you to run the Fed ever.”

“That’s fine,” Cohn said. “It’s the worst job in America.”

Turning to taxes, Cohn said, “The 35 percent corporate tax rate has been great for my business for the last decade. We’ve been inverting companies to 10 percent tax jurisdictions and they pay us enormous fees.” He was speaking as a Goldman president. An inversion refers to relocating a corporation’s legal home to a low-tax country such as Ireland or Bermuda in the form of a new parent company while retaining operations and management as a subsidiary in the higher-tax country.

Goldman had facilitated dozens of companies’ moves abroad. The company’s leaders and boards had a responsibility to shareholders to maximize profits and moving, inverting, dramatically raised earnings. Nearly all the drugmakers and insurance companies had moved.

Cohn bragged, “Where else can I take a company doing X in business that does X tomorrow and has 20 percent more earnings just by changing their corporate headquarters?”

Arguing against Goldman’s self-interest, Cohn added, “We can’t allow that to happen. We’ve got to get our corporate tax in line with the average, which is about 21, 22 percent.”

Though there had been some restrictions imposed by Congress, there were ways to skirt the new laws. “We can’t allow companies to just keep inverting out of the United States. It’s just bad. It’s wrong for business. It’s wrong for jobs. I’m talking against my business. We made a ton of money.”

Trump returned to printing money. “We’ll just borrow,” he said, enamored with the idea of heading the federal government, which had the best credit rating in the world, so they could borrow at the lowest interest rate.

Cohn didn’t mention a report that had come out during the campaign which said the Trump Organization’s business credit score was a 19 out of 100, below the national average by 30 points, and that it could have difficulty borrowing money.

You just can’t print money, Cohn said.

“Why not? Why not?”

Congress had a debt ceiling which set a cap on how much money the federal government could borrow, and it was legally binding. It was clear that Trump did not understand the way the U.S. government debt cycle balance sheet worked.

Inflation would probably be steady. Automation was coming, Cohn said—artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics. We’ll manage the labor supply more efficiently now than we ever did in the history of mankind. So look, you’re in the most precarious time in terms of job losses. We now can create labor with machines.

“If you’re here eight years, you’re going to deal with the automation of the automobile and truck. About 25 percent of the U.S. population makes a living driving something. Think about that.”

“What are you talking about?” Trump asked.

With the self-driving, autonomous vehicle, millions of people are going to have to reenter the workforce in different jobs. That would be a big change and possible large disruption.

“I want you to come to work for me,” Trump said.

“Doing what?”

Trump mentioned deputy secretary of defense.

“First of all, I don’t want to be deputy secretary of anything,” Cohn said.

How about director of national intelligence?

Cohn indicated no. He was not sure what the job did. He later learned it entailed overseeing the CIA and all the other intelligence agencies.

“You trade commodities,” Trump said. “Why don’t you think about being secretary of energy?”

No interest.

Trump tried to convince Cohn to become director of the Office of Management and Budget.

No. Cohn knew it was a horrible job.

“You know what?” Trump said at the end of what had become an hour-long meeting. “I hired the wrong guy for treasury secretary. You should be treasury secretary. You would be the best treasury secretary.”

Mnuchin, right there, didn’t say a thing or show any reaction.

“Come back and tell me what you want,” Trump said. “You’d be great to have on the team. It’d be fantastic.”

Five minutes later while Cohn was still in the building, he saw a television flash breaking news: President-elect Trump has selected Steve Mnuchin as treasury secretary.

“That’s crazy,” Jared said. “Mnuchin just put that out. You freaked him out so badly in the meeting.”

 

 

 

 

 

As to the idea that Trump was just joking, I don't believe the man jokes.  If there is one thing I have learned, it's that Trump means everything he says.  It's just that much of what he says is so outlandish or off the wall that reasonable people assume he must be joking.  He is not.  As far as I can tell, the only time he exhibits a sense of humor is when he is mocking or belittling other people.  

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Those are some Olympic quality mental gymnastics. And this is why we can't have a grown-up discussion with Trump haters.

 

The White House floated the Trillion Dollar Coin as a valid strategy. It was reported on by just about every single news outlet in the US. Sure, they dismissed it but only because cooler and/or more rationale heads prevailed upon the Obama Administration that it was not only a bad policy because of the danger of inflation, but probably un-Constitutional to boot.

 

But yeah. Woodward wrote some fan-fiction which no one believes because Gary Cohn - a Democrat - failed at his job in the White House. FFS.

 

 

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47 minutes ago, Walter_Sobchak said:

I'm guessing quite a few people believe the "fan fiction" of Bob Woodward.  Unlike Trump, he has something called credibility.

Credibility with who?

 

Credibility with people in a profession who stand in a mud puddle while on camera, making believe they're fighting off hurricane force winds?

 

The profession that breathlessly reports on Nikki Haley's curtains and then has to grovel and issue a retraction because the narrative didn't match the carpet?

 

He has credibility in an institution that relies solely on "unnamed sources" for even the most routine of stories and which can't even get the "Who" right when reporting on "Who, What, Where, When, Why"

 

He has credibility in a profession whose trustworthiness with the American public consistently ranks below that of used car salesmen?

 

He has credibility in the DC media/cable news/Sunday talk show crowd which has shown itself to be completely incapable of writing anything factual about the President whether its misreporting on when the Trump campaign having access to Wikileaks emails, or Trump removing the bust of mlk from the White House or even how he feeds a bunch of god damn sacred carp in Japan.

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8 hours ago, Donward said:

Credibility with who?

 

Credibility with people in a profession who stand in a mud puddle while on camera, making believe they're fighting off hurricane force winds?

 

The profession that breathlessly reports on Nikki Haley's curtains and then has to grovel and issue a retraction because the narrative didn't match the carpet?

 

He has credibility in an institution that relies solely on "unnamed sources" for even the most routine of stories and which can't even get the "Who" right when reporting on "Who, What, Where, When, Why"

 

He has credibility in a profession whose trustworthiness with the American public consistently ranks below that of used car salesmen?

 

He has credibility in the DC media/cable news/Sunday talk show crowd which has shown itself to be completely incapable of writing anything factual about the President whether its misreporting on when the Trump campaign having access to Wikileaks emails, or Trump removing the bust of mlk from the White House or even how he feeds a bunch of god damn sacred carp in Japan.

Considering that the book is in its ninth printing and has been out for less than a week, I am guessing quite a few people find him credible.  

 

Anyhow, public trust in journalism is failing, but mostly with conservatives.  https://news.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media-sinks-new-low.aspx

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50 minutes ago, Walter_Sobchak said:

Considering that the book is in its ninth printing and has been out for less than a week, I am guessing quite a few people find him credible.  

 

Yes, well, 20% of the country voted for Hillary which is a pretty big motivation to read something that makes you feel smug lol

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54 minutes ago, Ramlaen said:

Having multiple printings is just as likely a sign of a publisher playing it safe than it is of a book being very popular without any numbers given.

 

The book is one of the best selling in years.  https://ijr.com/2018/09/1123259-book-sales-bob-woodward-fear/.  Like it or not, people are reading it.

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