Nov 8, 2016 - The lesser of two evils?
- Thread starter TX Redman
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beast of the east
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If Bill Clinton can shake the multiple sexual assaults, affairs and a sexual relationship with a 21 year old intern, then Trump can overcome the assault orchestrated and manipulated by left wing operatives.
You call Trump a racist, but can you name a single racist comment against African Amercians? If he he racist against latinos, then why did 32% of Latinos vote for him? Believe it or not, there are Latinos who are against unfettered immigration, and want latinos to wait in line like every other immigrant from other countries?
If Trump is Anti-women, why then does Trump have many female executives in the Trump orgniazation and pays them on an equal scale to men. In Hillary's own campaign organization, women earned less than men. If Trump had the record of sexual assaults that Clinton has, he'd be in jail.
You are a smart guy, but I fear you are letting partisan politics cloud your vision. I'm not a Trump supporter. but I will be if he does 1/2 the thyings he has promised, which include rebuilding our inner cities by providing opportunities for African Americans and lowering unemployment rates in that community, bringing jobs back to America, and restoring us as the ONLY superpower in the world. I think he is a political neophyte as Obama was and is, but he doesn't hate America, which Obama does, and Trump is by all means an America first President. I expect there will be many bumps and bruises for a neophyte politician but I think the left wing media is being ignored by all except the left, and while they will never give him credit for a single accomplishment, try as they might, they won't derail his successes.
I think Trump can actually change the left. He'd have to tone down some of his bombastic shit though. I dont care about changing the way radical liberal part of the left. I want to change the reasonable well thought out Johnnyfans and the Fuscia's of the left. I wouldnt expect them to change overnight but if Trump toned down some of his nonsense and worked on issues with the left even if they dont agree on a lot of his stuff but I think he could change 15-20% of democrats from oppose everything to let's see if we can work with him on these issues because maybe he isnt as crazy as we think then I think you just accompished a lot.
That in turn would marginalize the democrats in congress and the senate who try to oppose him on everything. But Trump needs to explain positions better. He doesnt have to be the orator that Obama was and doesnt need a Yuge vocabulary. He just needs to explain things reasonably so that people can understand what he is saying clearly
And at the same time Trump needs to pull away some of these repub's from the far right too and back toward the middle but I think if he doesnt screw this up that he can do it.
Ok then how about this ... he still plays the masterful face of the Tea Party and does what he does normally but (since I am an economist) generates 3.8% gdp growth in 2017 (we have to go back to 2004 when it hit that figure under Bush the Younger , generates 1 million private sector jobs (Reagan averaged 2 million per annum but it rose over time), lowers inflation by a few percentage points, and increases median incomes by some fractional of the horror it went down to. Would that win the left center over? or there are other social and political indicators of interest that would be more convincing?
Oh Beast! We're further apart than I thought. In any event, here are retorts......
There is a YUGE difference between Bill Clinton's affair (which was pathetic and indefensible) and Trump's statements. I am honestly tired of reiterating the specific comments, we all know them and (agree or not) they offended many groups. At some point, the Obama and Clinton comparisons are going to be about as useful as the Norm Roberts and Steve Lavin metrics.
I don't believe I have ever called Trump a racist on this board (I know I have in "real life"), but I actually don't think he is thoughtful enough. To me Trump is an opportunist. He is for or against whatever suits him best at any given moment. This, in and of itself, does not make him unique. Regarding your question about African Americans. I do not know of any racist comments against that specific race. It is a race that largely feels no connection with him, but not one that can point to any comments that I am aware of. As far as Latinos, we know he has made offensive comments. Yes, one-third of latinos voted for him and support unfettered immigration, but I don't find that so surprising. This would equates to a 68% disapproval rating.
I do not think Trump is "Anti-Women", in fact I believe he likes them very much
The perception, based on his own comments, is that he objectifies and claims to enjoy an ability to sexually abuse women. The "locker room talk" defense seemingly saved his base but galvanized his opposition.My suggestion now is that, for maximum efficacy, Trump shut up, rely on political professionals, work with the congress, and start taking advantage of a favorable position. As much as I despise him, the country cannot continue in this sate of disarray. He needs to be a leader and stop creating and contributing to the circus.
Not sure. Johnnyfan and Fuscia would be able to answer that better than me. Employment though is going to depend on what type of jobs are being created. A bunch of restaurant jobs wont do the trick. Continued uptick in construction and manufacturing jobs will certainly appeal to mid west and southern democrats while that's not going to influence NY and Cali democrats as much in my opinion
My guess is to win over democrats they are going to have to find reasonable ground with him on other issues. For example this immigration 7 country thing. People like Johnnyfan arent even that opposed to it. BUT Trump screwed it up so bad in the beginning he got everyone pissed. I wrote on this thread a week or 2 ago I was speaking to someone who is a republican and a lawyer and he said the executive order was very poorly done and that they should just redo it. If he freaking knew this as just a regular attorney ( albeit wealthy big shot one ) then how the F didnt the people advising Trump know this might not be bullet proof.
Instead of controlling the narative the narrative controlled him on this. He could have handled it much better and also appealed to reasonable democrats who are concerned about security. Especially ones that live in NY
Great question. First, simultaneously obtaining all of those hypotheticals is relatively unachievable. A president could do a lot worse and still be a undeniable success. That said, I do understand the grandeur is exactly what makes the question so interesting.
So, hypothetically, I would have to embrace any policies that result in such high prosperity and would absolutely advocate for their continuance. I am never going to respect Trump the person and I will never cast a vote for him. That said, given your scenario, I would be insisting any candidate that I do support pledge to continue the conservative policies that proved to be successful. That's my honest answer.
So, if I represent the left-middle, you need to separate yourself from Trump to attract me. If he, and especially his antics, are not attached to the message, I am more of a listener.
It's always possible the the left will fracture under the weight of the discontents of its various aggrieved factions: for example, it will be interesting to see what happens when the first Muslim confectioner refuses to bake a cake for a gay wedding and instead beheads the grooms; or when the [strike]illegal alien[/strike] undocumented slave labor force demands a $15 hour minimum wage equivalent to that received by the unskilled baristas whose organic vegetables they pick.
Short of that - or perhaps a robot uprising - the descent into European style socialism is inevitable. In the first place socialism is easy, if you're not a serf in the rice paddy: the government takes cares of the individual and everything that goes wrong with the individual is the result of some social or genetic force that is correctable by the government. In the second place the left occupies academia, the media, and the arts and has for three or four generations inculcated young minds in post modernism and moral equivalence. And in the third place humanity is devolving towards the mean: towards greater social, racial and economic homogeneity and away from individuality and exceptionalism. You keep referencing 1984, which sure I see parallels: news speak, two minutes of hate, thought crimes, historical revisionism. But for the left I think that's merely a means to an end, the end being a Brave New World.
Great answer. First again i believe hes still just the face and his "chief economist" presumably Bannon previously of Solomon Brothers. His economic philosophy is partly reflected in the attached article and partly borrowed from Reaganomics, which gets demonized still although if i show you the performance, youd say its unfair to compare to Reagan to Obama although what Reagan inherited I argue was worst than Obama in unemployment and inflation terms (stagflation).
Overall the idea is to work on both demand and supply sides simultaneously. Trump should unleash his stimulus soon, which initially exacerbates fed debt but kicks off employment in construction and that in itself has a number of multiplier effects (direct employment and revenue, indirect employment etc in industries that supply construction, and induced effects when new const workers buy in the economy). I presume you know the supply side (smart regulations that lower the costs of production and need not be env damaging).
Have a read at your leisure.
[attachment]eirv23n36-19960906_016-free_trade_is_an_aberration_not.pdf[/attachment]
Sad but true. The minutia of my happy go lucky days are a very fient memory because of one further parallel to 1984 termed thought crime, and not to be dramatic am a dead man walking. Nevertheless, i think theres a smidgen of hope down the horizon in November 2018 ... it could represent and my apologies for saying this the implosion of "resist" who are too obsessed with countering DJT at micro, short term scale and come election time will be shocked by the results again ... Im calling it now, any bets???
Thanks.....I will read the article. In the past, I have read articles describing both the success and failure of supply side economics. Not being an economist, I won't pretend to be an authority. My guess is that there is a natural ebb and flow to capitalism. What works like a charm at one point in time, may not be right at another point in time. And, like diet, too much of anything (even the good stuff) is not healthy.
That is largely correct thats why the demand being added is key when economy heads to being overheated pushing inflation up so cost rise, production slows but admittedly the discipline is more art than science.
A nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen on a BBC led discussion show in India some 12 years ago, was asked by an audience member and i summarize here asking "well we have such great economist like you so why do we have such a bad evonomy?" To which he answered "well you might as well ask me well we have such great historians but why do we have such awful history ... " ill leave it at that
EZ-UZI, thank you for your list. I think it raises real issues and would like to try to address it one by one, in the order where I have the best sense of my own position on the answers.
Military and VA - Needs to be right-sized and appreciated. I do not know much about military policy and strategy so cant offer specific policy prescriptions. However on under-appreciation, the veterans are increasingly homeless with the suicide rate is out of control, the VA is a mess and not many on the left seem to give a shit. They seem to be more worried about some refugee or illegal alien than these men and women. It is a disgrace to me. Another bureaucracy that seriously needs to be rationalized along providing the social and economic services our veterans deserve.
I think that these two issues need to be separated. Military right-sizedness and VA bureaucratic waste and abuse and neglect of patients, don't fit together.
With thirty years working in large hospitals, the VA issue is easier for me and I would address it including a political process to protect all involved and assure non-partisan governance.
The VA cannot and should not maintain enough physical sights to be readily accessible to all eligible veterans. This means that there is an inherent basis for providing vouchers for care from other non-VA practitioners to veterans with inadequate access. We have a cruel history of fraud in the VA in which veterans were represented as having proximal access to services through the use of falsified service waiting lists. People on those lists would be better served using vouchers for care from other non-VA practitioners. There are places in the United States with a paucity of medical services. To the extent that veterans using vouchers for care from other non-VA practitioners and a national health insurance program that enables access and funding for all Americans is in place, there may be a framework for reducing the number of healthcare deserts in the US. Maintaining hospital plant is very expensive. Maintaining it badly is even more expensive. This leads to the governance part of the discussion.
VA facilities vary greatly in their utilization from overuse to underuse. If these facilities were subsumed under local providers, not just clinically which happens now (e.g. Mt. Sinai psychiatry has large involvement in the Bronx VA) but administratively, space utilization and clinically program decision making would move closer to the consumer and away from a Washington controlled bureaucracy. Ultimately it would eliminate the cost of a large parallel bureaucracy and save not just unneeded but counterproductive expenditures. Decisions on moving from a top down service system to a voucher based system have to be established almost like a military base closing commission to provide political protection to the process (as we know in advance that there will be a case involving a patient death that someone resisting system change will attribute to what they are resisting). Community access (including more clinics to go with the reduced number of hospitals) is not the only change needed.
There are challenges faced by our armed forces and by veterans that are beyond the realm of usual clinical practice.
To meet these challenges we need much of the fund savings generated by creating a VA voucher system to go to the creating of a National Institute of Military Medicine and a National Institute of Military Psychiatry. These institutes must tackle the special issues faced by the military, from blast injuries to PTSD. With these institutes we need a national telemedicine network to assure that local practitioners are kept abreast of clinical advances and that clinicians with local cases have access to national level experts working at the frontiers of military and veteran care. I am still mid-debate with myself and others as to whether this voucher system should serve first responders as well as veterans.
There is a whole additional topic here which I will leave unaddressed for the moment, what in the public health model is called tertiary prevention, or rehabilitation. Tony Salerno, former Assistant commissioner of Mental Health in NYS OMH would tell the story (stolen by me many times) of teaching someone to swim in a classroom, and then proposing to walk down to the local pool and throw them in. The point was that new skills or reacquired skills post illness or injury need to be established in the setting where they will be used. There are lots of heartwarming stories of local groups enabling veteran improved quality of life through construction projects and charity drives, but the bottom line is that far to little is done on an official basis by the VA to assure quality of life outcomes and substance abuse disorder co-morbidity is used as an excuse by the VA to disqualify many vets.
Military and VA - Needs to be right-sized and appreciated. I do not know much about military policy and strategy so cant offer specific policy prescriptions. However on under-appreciation, the veterans are increasingly homeless with the suicide rate is out of control, the VA is a mess and not many on the left seem to give a shit. They seem to be more worried about some refugee or illegal alien than these men and women. It is a disgrace to me. Another bureaucracy that seriously needs to be rationalized along providing the social and economic services our veterans deserve.
I think that these two issues need to be separated. Military right-sizedness and VA bureaucratic waste and abuse and neglect of patients, don't fit together.
With thirty years working in large hospitals, the VA issue is easier for me and I would address it including a political process to protect all involved and assure non-partisan governance.
The VA cannot and should not maintain enough physical sights to be readily accessible to all eligible veterans. This means that there is an inherent basis for providing vouchers for care from other non-VA practitioners to veterans with inadequate access. We have a cruel history of fraud in the VA in which veterans were represented as having proximal access to services through the use of falsified service waiting lists. People on those lists would be better served using vouchers for care from other non-VA practitioners. There are places in the United States with a paucity of medical services. To the extent that veterans using vouchers for care from other non-VA practitioners and a national health insurance program that enables access and funding for all Americans is in place, there may be a framework for reducing the number of healthcare deserts in the US. Maintaining hospital plant is very expensive. Maintaining it badly is even more expensive. This leads to the governance part of the discussion.
VA facilities vary greatly in their utilization from overuse to underuse. If these facilities were subsumed under local providers, not just clinically which happens now (e.g. Mt. Sinai psychiatry has large involvement in the Bronx VA) but administratively, space utilization and clinically program decision making would move closer to the consumer and away from a Washington controlled bureaucracy. Ultimately it would eliminate the cost of a large parallel bureaucracy and save not just unneeded but counterproductive expenditures. Decisions on moving from a top down service system to a voucher based system have to be established almost like a military base closing commission to provide political protection to the process (as we know in advance that there will be a case involving a patient death that someone resisting system change will attribute to what they are resisting). Community access (including more clinics to go with the reduced number of hospitals) is not the only change needed.
There are challenges faced by our armed forces and by veterans that are beyond the realm of usual clinical practice.
To meet these challenges we need much of the fund savings generated by creating a VA voucher system to go to the creating of a National Institute of Military Medicine and a National Institute of Military Psychiatry. These institutes must tackle the special issues faced by the military, from blast injuries to PTSD. With these institutes we need a national telemedicine network to assure that local practitioners are kept abreast of clinical advances and that clinicians with local cases have access to national level experts working at the frontiers of military and veteran care. I am still mid-debate with myself and others as to whether this voucher system should serve first responders as well as veterans.
There is a whole additional topic here which I will leave unaddressed for the moment, what in the public health model is called tertiary prevention, or rehabilitation. Tony Salerno, former Assistant commissioner of Mental Health in NYS OMH would tell the story (stolen by me many times) of teaching someone to swim in a classroom, and then proposing to walk down to the local pool and throw them in. The point was that new skills or reacquired skills post illness or injury need to be established in the setting where they will be used. There are lots of heartwarming stories of local groups enabling veteran improved quality of life through construction projects and charity drives, but the bottom line is that far to little is done on an official basis by the VA to assure quality of life outcomes and substance abuse disorder co-morbidity is used as an excuse by the VA to disqualify many vets.
Short of the provision of national security name a service provided by the government to which this statement generally does not apply. Private health care is better than Medicare and Medicaid. Private education is better public education. Down the line, to private garbage collection, which is better than municipal sanitation services. And if you think of one consider how long it took you to think of it and how few and far between. It's like RR said: the nine most terrifying words in the English language are I'm from the government and I'm here to help.
30 new posts on this thread in the last few hours and nary a mention of any one of the 5 Three Stooges? I would have even settled for a few posts about who had the biggest schlong in Hollywood back in the day, Milton Berle or Forest Tucker? Very disappointing.
But is that pandemic. The reason I ask is an earier skirmish with a few Canadian on social media, who were egregiously touting the greatness of Trudeau and Canada in comparison to the leadership of US and the country itself, and that we can't have Trudeau. Being cheekier than usual,, I said You can keep Trudeau, and we will ship you for free Mr. Obama, as they are soul mates ... and Oh btw way your country is not bad for a socialist **** hole"
... the barrage of patriotism I got hit back with while i LMAO ....
I'm fine with unleashing stimulus as far as reconstruction spending but what I don't want to see is the govt just throwing money at pet projects with no return on investment other than expecting to see increase in revenues from higher employment etc.
For example Trump talks a lot about airports in the past. Heck LGA is a mess. But LGA is going to reconstruct without the federal govt help though public-private partnership. So I don't want to see Trump throwing money at other senators and congressman on both sides of the aisle for airports unless we are going to get paid back directly from the investment. So I want a direct revenue stream to eventually pay me back. Let them out an additional fee to whatever there already us on each passenger at the airport for landing and taking off added to the price of the ticket at purchase and have that money flow into an Al Gore Airport Lockbox.( I don't think landing fees were included in the LGA bonds that were issued already though ) Someone wants an airport refurb that's fine but it's going to be secured with a revenue stream.
Highways etc I'm fine with laying money out to fix them or build them but I want the fuel tax raised because the highway trust fund is running deficits already. Time to start running this stuff like a business. If someone wants a hybrid system like a fuel tax and a VMT tax that's fine by me also but to me I see the VMT way as being harder to collect whereas the fuel tax is much easier at point of purchase
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