US Politics Thread 2016-2020

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

It doesn't need to be fair. What are you some type of socialist?

:

No, but I am annoyed by hypocrisy and double standards.

Originally Posted by August

Well Budda we'll see who he's really pissed off the most come november 2020. The way it's looking now with the Dems lockstep march to insanity he'll continue pissing them off for another 4 years after that.
Support open borders and free healthcare for illegal aliens? Madness.

Yeah, unless the US has shifted more that I think, that's what's coming.

[JU_88]

I'm quite bewildered by the more far left Democrat rhetoric as well. (no borders, no ICE, free health care for non citizens)
They don't seem to realize that's actually a pretty niche market they are selling to. But if you are stuck in a social media bubble you might well be lead to think its popular opinion, when its statistically not.
And the other issue is 'trump derangement', it turns out policy based on 'just do the polar opposite of whatever bad orange man wants' doesn't make you sound reasonable, realistic or sane.
Who knew? .....well not them obviously.

Politicians need to be technocrats first and ideologues second. That's like' How to politician in democracy 101"

[Buddahaid]

I'm not a fan of anybody the Dems are espousing. I might get on board with Kamala Harris but I just can't vote for Trump as the best of the worst even though he would appear to be heading for another term.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

I'm not a fan of anybody the Dems are espousing. I might get on board with Kamala Harris but I just can't vote for Trump as the best of the worst even though he would appear to be heading for another term.

I couldn't vote for Trumpo in the last election BUT with the insanity coming from the left growing to epic proportions, and with Trump getting 3% of the things he has promised done, I am beginning to think I will vote for him next year. He's going to get reelected, baring some major faux pas. I know quite a few people like me who did not vote for him in 2016 who are telling me they will enthusiastically support him over the likes of Harris, Biden and Warren.

[Skybird]

I can understand your motivation there, Neal. It reminds me a bit of myself. Over here, we have the Pegida movement which is even worse right extremist than a currently splitting 40% wing in the AFD, and there is the AFD itself. I have not much sympathies and absolutely zero loyalty for them all, parties and leading personnel alike, I strongly dislike them personally (the leaders of all these groups are awful personalities, some underhanded, others incredibly childish and infantile, and all of them unbelievably rightous and narcissistic), still I refuse to demonstrate or talk against them, because of the leftists' and progressives' calamities. The enemy of my ebemy is not necessarily my friend, but still is my enemy's enemy, and so I passively tolerate them, without sympathy, and due to pure opportunism.



Because the mainstream parties and their leaders, the mainstream opinion makers and influencer behemoths of media and movements, have left people like me no other choice. I refuse to chose between what they now call "Dunkeldeutschland", and the claimed "light" in form of the socialists/progressives/politically correct/special interest lobbyists. To me, they are all the same awful breed.



These are the times of a big darkening, it seems. People like me, and probably you, are not allowed any reasonable choices anymore. How to continue with your life without beign totally pissed by people and the mess they do around you...? I attack Trump a lot, and leave no good hair on him, and still I can understand your consideration. I would not go as far as to vote for him, but I understand it all too well. Its not just America - its in all the Western world now, it seems. And especially extreme in Germany. I do not recongise this country anymore form my expectations for a future I held after I finished school almost 35 years ago. And my parents say the same.



I read a newspaper article today, Russia preparing itself for local regional wars across Europe. Their concern in this is not so much to invade themselves deep into Europe - but to be able to keep the European turmoils away from their own country. I can understand them all to well, too. Occasionally there was to read in newspapers that the Pentagon also holds the expectation of growing hostility in Europe again, including the realistic possibility of wars again. There are so many conflictz-heavy themes, from water over ideology and religon to ressources, mass migration, ethnic land taking, confölicts between old and young, redistriubution crusades, it is apparently impossble not to make any step anymore without breaking some mine's trapwire. The West is a pressure cooker now, and temperature already is high, the progressives do their best to defend their grip of the regulator switch to make sure it stays at maximum, and it is quite clear where this madness necessarily must lead to. I believe in the inevitable causal link between cause and effect.


My personal chpoice in all this? I withjdrew from most of public life, work, contributing to society for free like I once did for many years, and all that. I created myself a hidden, small refugium, avoid the people for the most, and enjoy it as long as it will still last. And when its over and the world blows up one day, so may it be: delivery as ordered.

[JU_88]

@Sky, Russia is always doing drills and preparing for worst case scenarios,
during the height of the Syria tensions they actually did Nuclear Drills with citizens.
Russia's preparations are not a blue print of the future though, they just take national & regional security very seriously.

[Skybird]

Hooray and congratulations for the broken record, WH projects a fiscal budget deficit of


1.000.000.000.000 dollar this year.


"Once more into the abyss, dear friends, once more; close the gaps with our ruined savers, no debt shall ever be paid back, nor property remain untouched, in misery and fall we all shall finally be equal! Party hard, dance life away, and be dead before the kitchen cleaning starts!"


MMT. The modern recipe to leave nobody behind while commiting collective suicide.

[Mr Quatro]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Hooray and congratulations for the broken record, WH projects a fiscal budget deficit of


1.000.000.000.000 dollar this year.


"Once more into the abyss, dear friends, once more; close the gaps with our ruined savers, no debt shall ever be paid back, nor property remain untouched, in misery and fall we all shall finally be equal! Party hard, dance life away, and be dead before the kitchen cleaning starts!"


MMT. The modern recipe to leave nobody behind while commiting collective suicide.

The USAF, USN, US Army have a plan to hit the delete key if so given the order, but the reparations would cost more.

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Hooray and congratulations for the broken record, WH projects a fiscal budget deficit of


1.000.000.000.000 dollar this year.

A single trillion dollar deficit out of the 3.6 Trillion they will rake in this year hardly seems worth ripping off Shakespeare.

[Skybird]

Its already now 23% higher a budget deficit than it was for the whole last year.



And this is from 2018.
https://www.crfb.org/press-releases/...s-have-doubled


No nation can sustain such madness for unlimited time. Money system must crash. And then the horror for the ordinary people begins. There is a reaosn why states wage total war on cahs money and prvate gold possession. The hint that one has been there before, holds no solace at all. We the living must fear the disaster to come, not the disaster that lies back in time.



And no share holder and land and house property hgolder should think he is safe. Shares are registered, land property cant be hidden and moved out of reach of the state plunderers. The syndicate of crime that states are, will get us all. By prohibitions, prosecution, and expropriations, or by deleting currency tokens and implementing plundering tax regimes.



Plus the plundering of value due to inflation and negative punishment interests is already there.




https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/o...d-nobody-cares

It's worrisome enough that President Trump has allowed deficits to creep back up to $1 trillion in 2019, according to the White House's own estimates. But what's remarkable is that they've gotten so high during a booming economy, when deficits typically narrow. Despite this fact, both parties are as far as ever from caring about the mounting federal debt.

Globally, debts today are much higher, I think around TWICE as high as they were before 2007 symptom breakout. NOBODY HAS LEARNED ANYTHING FROM THAT. From worse to worse to worse. "Ever again into the abyss, ever again! Learning lessons is for stupids! Ruining everything is fun!"

[Onkel Neal]

Sky, people don't really learn these kind of lessons. That's why it keeps happening.

[Rockstar]

Too us peons a trillion more dollars is certainly a vast almost unimaginable sum of money. But compared to the United States of America its assets, a 20 trillion dollar economy and 3.5 trillion in federal tax revenue. So long as we dont run short and start uncontrollably printing money thereby devaluing the dollar we are, I think, far from trouble. We're not Greece.

When I buy a new car I go in debt, but its not the end of the world so long as I have the means to pay it back.

edit: What If We Paid Off The Debt? The Secret Government Report

October 20, 2011 12:59 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2...ernment-report

... It sounds ridiculous today. But not so long ago, the prospect of a debt-free U.S. was seen as a real possibility with the potential to upset the global financial system. ...

The copy of Life After Debt we obtained reads "PRELIMINARY AND CLOSE HOLD OFFICIAL USE ONLY."
The report was intended to be included in the official "Economic Report of the President" — the final one of the Clinton administration. But in the end, people above Jason Seligman decided it was too speculative, too politically sensitive. So it was never published. The danger that we would pay off our debt by 2012 has clearly passed. There are plenty of Treasury bonds around these days. U.S. debt held by the public is now over $10 trillion.

PDF copy of report:https://media.npr.org/assets/img/201...eAfterDebt.pdf

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

Sky, people don't really learn these kind of lessons. That's why it keeps happening.

Yes, and politicians do their best to prevent them from learning them.

Still, what is currently unfolding and is about coming after us, will get me as well. My lifeplan and security, once tailored to be independent and self-respnisble, maybe collapses due to that: due to other people'S faults and stupidity. And thats why I am worried, and rate this as an attack on my existence. And thats why I see politicians and central bankers and money theorestists not as just an abstract, anonymous threat, but my personal deadly enemy. Its as simpe as that. I am not so unconditionally hostile towards them all for no reason. Atlas Shrugged becomes true. Unfortunately I am not as ingenious as John Galt.

[Rockstar]

This guy first said its not going to replace the U.S. dollar then a few minutes later says it will and on top of that stated a desire that Libra be the only world currency.

[Skybird]

Its easy to conclude that any currency establishing itself as an alternative to rotten, fraudulent state money, is good, and many tick by this logic for sure. But Facenbook's has an own interest and agenda here, and the example of Bitcoins showed that cryptocurrencies are not prone to being abused by organised criminals. Also, states still have the means and tools to enforce any prohibition and intimidate people from using them, since in a digital world all what you do leaves traces and makes you tis prone to announced punishment for using such currencies.



Also, it is an unwelcomed rival to the central banks with their debt loads and FIAT money ideology. For this reason central banks try to make people believe that gold is useless today (while they buy this useless commodity themselves like crazy since some years...). For similiar reasons they will not reach positive conclusions when assessing cryptocurrencies. It threatens the debt-basing financing of states. Their opportunism demands that they condemn it.



People first must understand the need for better money and why the monopole of controlling it must be taken away from the state at any cost, even by force. As long as this understanding is not so widespread that politicians must fear people'S retaliation if they try to claim control of money for themselves, I am a bit sceptical that any attempt of rebellion can be successful. Without understanding, their can be no determination over this issue.



Finally, cryptocurrencies have two flaws. First, they are no good, no commodity, no item, no token, they are as nonsubstantial as digital bank money and paper money, just that bthe state cannot overwatch it as easily as the established FIAT money system. Second, to "mine" - what a misleading euphemism! - this non-existent quantity of abstraction, hilarious ammounts of electricity already get consumed right now. Think of it. This enormous consumption of energy resources to produce - NOTHING. Its like mining for gold, not finding gold, and claiming one found gold. Little kids do like that when playing games in their fantasy.



As an economic Austrian, I am split over the issue. I like the idea of breakign state'S money monopole, yes. But I still prefer a material commodity curreency as a replacement - and politicians needing to fear for their lives if they dare to touch it. I tend to focus more on the interesting technical aspects of the security technology with the name blockchain, but that alone is no money, but just a method, a functionality. Its no money. The principle diea of a magmentic door lock, may be very good (I have one myself, so I know it a bit) - but it is no replacement for actually having a material lock mounted in your door for real.



You can play casino, of course. Quickly get a dose of cryptocurrency, try to barter with it, and turn it with profit into something of material existence that has bartering value on the market. But that you already can do with paper money - both its paper-based and its digital version - as well. You need knowledge that most do not have. And if you order others to do on your behalf, you again need to trust them and are in the v uklnerabkle position from beginning on. I do not like to be in such a disadvantageous position where I depend ont he good will and mercy of some foreign person.



Last but not least, the syndicate - the state - always can decide to raise penalty taxes on any cryptocurrency transaction. Like anonymous owners of gold could be caught this way when they try to legally sell it. In the end, the big threatening problem overshadowing it all, is the state (and its actors) itself.


I see it pragmatic when assessing the value of a money. Does the money allow me to hold somethign of market value in my hands, carry it away, hide it from the plundering state, is it of material existence and in demand for the sake of itself being what it is (has it an "intrinsic" market value therefore when bartering with it) , or is it just promise, claim, hope, abstraction, that can be ordered in its value by the state at will at any time, but leaves me with empty hands and in a state of complete helplessness and vulnerability? The first is good money. The latter is fraud, and in the end a state-driven all-out assault on the basis of our material existence in this civilization and society.


Nothing beasts material commodity money that is borught up by the market and not controllable by the state. Nothing beats that, its just one of the most important inventions in the history of mankind. And if history shows us one thing, then that politicians and governments never, never, never shall be given control over the money. NEVER.