Politics Thread - Ka-tet of 19

[Volourn]

"I'd kick out Sanders too, just look at her. She's more at home at a "all you can eat"."

 

Look at that. A fatphobic joke.  Watch out for lefties. They'll get you for that.

[Guard Dog]

I wonder, and work with me here, if one of her "supporters" were to "lay hands on" one of the admin officials, could she be held liable? Somethingsomething "inciting"?

Oh I think the murder of a public official is just about guaranteed at this point. Too many people actually think a difference of political opinion makes someone "evil". And Trump, Waters, Schumer, and many others are egging them on. 

Edited June 25, 2018 by Guard Dog

[Elerond]

Year old article, but it seems to be even more revelant now considering looming global trade war

 

Deficits In Trade And Deficits In Understanding

 

 

 

Donald Trump has asserted the need to cut the $500 billion U.S. trade deficit, yet support for his proposal is based on misconceptions about what this deficit means. During the 1970s, importing more than you exported was problematic, as was the breakup of the Beatles. Today, neither matters.

 

To see why the current trade deficit is benign, we need to understand the relationship between trade and the dollar’s value. Greenbacks are like any commodity in that the more people want to possess them, the higher their price. People acquire dollars primarily for two reasons: buying American goods and investing within the United States.

 

Let’s momentarily ignore the investment-based demand and focus on the trade-derived need for dollars. If the United States is importing more than it exports, then American consumers are exchanging dollars for foreign currencies to buy foreign goods more than foreigners are doing the reverse, meaning that foreigners are accumulating lots of dollars that they’re not using to buy American goods.

 

The glut of dollars circulating among people who don’t need them will push down the value of the dollar, just like the value of Christmas trees declines after December 25th. A falling dollar makes U.S. exports cheaper, and foreign imports into the United States become more expensive. Cheaper U.S. exports will entice foreigners to buy more American products—including manufactured goods—while more expensive foreign imports will make Americans buy less foreign products, reversing the original trade deficit. So a deficit changes the value of the dollar, which in turn brings the deficit back into balance.

 

The Netherlands offers a further illustration of the link between the exchange rate, trade balance, and manufacturing jobs. The discovery of a gas reserve in 1959 led to a large trade surplus, creating upwards pressure on the Dutch Guilder (just as a trade deficit creates downward pressure on a currency). As its currency appreciated, the Netherlands’ manufacturing exports became less competitive, and during the period between 1970-1977, unemployment increased from 1.1% to 5.1%, and private sector investment shrunk. Therefore, the surprise surplus caused manufacturing unemployment, just as a surprise deficit can in principle boost manufacturing exports. This conventional and well-studied phenomenon is known as Dutch Disease.

 

Artificially devaluing a currency is a historically-deployed tactic for boosting manufacturing and the trade balance, which many accuse China of exploiting. However, the U.S. deficit, with numerous non-manipulators such as Germany and Russia, confirms that the imbalance is not the result of foul play.

 

The automatic trade-dollar adjustment becomes a problem when the United States is operating a fixed exchange rate, as it did under the postwar Bretton Woods system. The government guaranteed a fixed price for the dollar that didn’t balance the trade account: America was importing a lot more than it was exporting.

 

Foreigners became unwilling to accumulate dollars that they had no intention of using at the prevailing price, and were feverishly exchanging them for gold at the price the U.S. government was guaranteeing. The precipitous decline in U.S. gold reserves forced President Nixon to abandon dollar-gold convertibility in 1971. This is why policymakers used to be such trade deficit hawks—trade imbalances threatened America’s ability to maintain its international obligations.

 

And therein lies the first major difference between the 1960s and today: The dollar is fully flexible, with markets determining the exchange rate, rendering trade imbalances self-correcting.

 

So why has America been recording a large, persistent trade deficit, and why isn’t the dollar devaluing? It’s due to the second major difference: The investment-based demand for foreign currencies—which we momentarily set aside—has ballooned. People no longer exchange currencies just to buy foreign goods.

 

International financial markets are extraordinarily integrated, as capitalists invest globally to seek higher returns and safer portfolios. Australians still want dollars to buy F-18 fighters—but also Treasury bills and Microsoft shares. In 1970, global foreign direct investment (FDI) was $10 billion, equal to 3% of global merchandise exports. In 2007, FDI has grown three hundredfold to $3 trillion, or 22% of global merchandise exports.

 

Consequently, the dollar no longer corrects trade imbalances. Some of the $500 billion deficit reenters the United States as foreign investment in the U.S. economy, while some of the rest is retained by foreign central banks in case of a rainy day.

 

America’s trade deficit represents foreigners letting Americans buy more goods than they sell, in exchange for the right to invest in America more than Americans invest abroad—that’s a sign of a thriving economy. In contrast, a struggling economy combined with a trade deficit would send the dollar tumbling, balancing the flow of capital and goods.

 

The dollar’s fortitude despite the trade deficit, therefore, confirms that the United States is a good investment—and that policymakers need not worry about Americans importing more than they export.

 

Nixon once complained to the American public about the “all-out war on the American dollar” waged by speculators. In 2017, there is no campaign against the American dollar, there is no fixed exchange rate, the U.S. economy is thriving, and Ringo Starr has reached out to Paul McCartney about a reunion tour.

 

 

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2017/05/24/deficits-in-trade-and-deficits-in-understanding/#5c957d6316d5

Edited June 26, 2018 by Elerond

[Volourn]

"Oh I think the murder of a public official is just about guaranteed at this point. Too many people actually think a difference of political opinion makes someone "evil". And Trump, Waters, Schumer, and many others are egging them on. "

 

Didn't some Republican senators/politicians get shot awhile back.. and didn't  a number of lefties (not all) say they deserved it because they were pro gun?

[Vitalis]

 

 

I bet Red Hen are commies

The restaurant owner Stephanie Wilkinson, before she kicked out Sarah Huckabee Sanders, had let her staff take a vote on whether or not to serve Sanders. So the restaurant owner was very democratic for a commie.

I wonder, if Sanders were black and doing the same job would she still have been kicked out? Would everyone be OK with that?

Well, if bakers can deny service to the gays with support from Conservatives i don't really see why this is an issue.

 

...

 

I'll see myself out.

[Gromnir]

If I owned a restaurant and the Devil himself walked in and sat down I'd take his drink order and tell him the specials.As long as he had cash or a credit card. But IMO the owner of the Red Hen is free to serve or decline to serve anyone she wants for any reason at all.

 

 

 

right to refuse service to anyone sounds swell and all, but it kinda sucks for minorities (racial or otherwise) who suffer economic and political discrimination.  in a town full o' bigots, it could very well be good business to open discriminate 'gainst blacks or muslims... or libertarians. thank goodness for the civil rights act o' 1964 and 1968, the eeoa, various anti-discriminatory banking acts, and a whole host o' other civil rights era legislation which recognized market forces were as often as not perpetuating social evils.  what the resolution o' the civil war failed to address in spite o' nightmarish loss o' life, the People finally corrected.  the Court bungled the job many times.  Presidents failed to create change.  is a quixotic message o' hope and/or cynicism for us that while Congress has been incompetent for most o' the history o' our nation, there is brief moments in time when they genuine represent The People and the good o' the nation... even if it did take a century following the last shots o' the civil war to get our collective act together.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Volourn]

"Well, if bakers can deny service to the gays"

 

He didn't refuse service to 'the gays'. He had no problem baking them a cake. he baked many cakes for many gays previous to and afterwards. Baking a cake for gay people wa snot his issue.

[Guard Dog]

Gromnir I assume you will not accept the idea that the better angels of our nature might just prevail. That most people might be decent to their fellow humans without Big Brother threatening them. But if you won't accept that then you can expect folks to act in their best economic interests. In the age of Yelp, social media, and public shaming. A coffee shop that refused to serve minorities would find itself world famous real quick and not in a good way. One last thought. The majority of people alive today were not around when McCrory's refused to serve minorities a their lunch counter. And most find it hard to imagine that it even happened. Just a thought.

[Elerond]

"Well, if bakers can deny service to the gays"

 

He didn't refuse service to 'the gays'. He had no problem baking them a cake. he baked many cakes for many gays previous to and afterwards. Baking a cake for gay people wa snot his issue.

 

Only specific type of cake (wedding cake), which by chance was type of cake that said gays were ordering from bakery specialiced on wedding cakes. Although Supreme court didn't say that baker had right to deny his services but that Colorado's civil rights commission showed religious hostility towards him and didn't give him fair hearing.

 

There are also couple other cases of denying services in same-sex weddings (florist and photo grapher) which lead some GOP majority states introduce legistative measures to ensure bussiness right to deny people services on moral/religious grounds. Colorado case got publicity because it had potential to lessen states rights to give protection towards discrimation on moral/religious reasons, but supreme court decided not to give out their stance on the subject.

[Keyrock]

From my point of view the Jedi are evil. 

[Orogun01]

From my point of view the Jedi are evil. 

That's cuz you're stupid, Anakin.

[Gromnir]

Gromnir I assume you will not accept the idea that the better angels of our nature might just prevail. 

 

actually we do have faith in human nature.  better angels o' our nature is what finally resulted in the Civil Rights Movement.  our better angels, after much inevitable fail and pointless bloodshed, realize the need for such stuff as the Bill o' Rights and equal employment legislation.  our better angels make the hard choice, the wise choice, and willingly and voluntarily place limits 'pon our selves and our brothers.  abandon such limits in favor o' a blissful hope for a locke state o' nature as 'posed to hobbes?  if you is genuine thinking that after thousands o' years o' the repetitive and predictable narrative o' human nature playing out again and again and again with discrimination and bigotry being common themes in the story human, the savage drama will be altered and rewritten to finally achieve a happy ending thanks to yelp, then...  

 

*shrug*

 

warning: sweary

 

 

oh, and it took more than a generation living under the State imposed limits o' brown v. board and the civil rights acts for us to see youths o' today who largely eschew overt displays o' bigotry as vulgar.  sadly, events such as ferguson and charlottesville being anything other than distant memories should give gd something to think 'bout, no?

Edited June 26, 2018 by Gromnir

[Hurlshort]

\ The majority of people alive today were not around when McCrory's refused to serve minorities a their lunch counter. And most find it hard to imagine that it even happened. Just a thought.

 

I don't think most people find it hard to imagine at all. 

[Gromnir]

ps give us a moment to enjoy the irony o' gd, perhaps the most vocal defender o' the second amendment on this board, indulging in a hand wringing plea for us embrace the goodness o' our fellow man. perhaps gd has had a change o' heart and no longer sees need for firearms to protect himself from his fellow men, the ubiquitous lurking stormtroopers and hooligans who is a constant threat to his personal liberties?  maybe the real threat is grizzlies as 'posed to humans?

 

 

HA! Good Fun!

[BruceVC]

 

\ The majority of people alive today were not around when McCrory's refused to serve minorities a their lunch counter. And most find it hard to imagine that it even happened. Just a thought.

 

I don't think most people find it hard to imagine at all. 

 

Agreed, it is actually very easy to imagine 

[Gfted1]

British Queen approves Brexit law that will end membership of EU.

[Raithe]

Saw someone put this up...

 

 

Trump-supporting friend,

What we’ve got here is, failure to communicate…

I know you think I’m preoccupied with this President; that he is the reason I’m so angry and bitter and frustrated these days—but you’re wrong.

This isn’t about Donald Trump.

It’s never been about him.

 

It wasn’t about him during the campaign or on Election Day.
It wasn’t about him when recordings of him boasting about sexual assaults surfaced.
It wasn’t about him when he said protestors at campaign rallies should be roughed up.
It wasn’t about him when he left refugee families stranded at the airport.
It wasn’t about him when he attacked the Press.
It wasn’t about him when he sabotaged the Affordable Care Act.
It wasn’t about him when he blamed racial violence on “both sides.”

 

And it isn’t about him today: it’s about us.

This is about me and it’s about you.

 

It’s about my grief at the ugliness you feel emboldened to post on social media now, the nastiness you seem newly capable of, the disgusting words you now so easily toss out around the dinner table.

It’s about my disbelief at your sudden tolerance for his infidelity, his cruelty, his intellectual ignorance, his disrespect for the rule of law—things you once claimed you could never abide.

It’s about my incredulity at your surprising resentment for marginalized people; for your inability to muster any compassion for those who are hurting or frightened or threatened.

It’s about my disappointment at your easily manipulated nationalistic fervor; how the God and Guns, America First, Love it or Leave it rhetoric, so easily took root in your heart—how hostile to outsiders and foreigners you’ve become.

It’s about my amazement at your capacity to make your faith so pliable, that you could amen a compulsive liar, a serial adulterer, a fear-mongering bully; a man in nearly every way antithetical to the Jesus you’ve always said was so dear to you.

It’s about my sickness seeing you excuse away his coddling of racists, his public attacks on the FBI, his impulsive firings of Cabinet members, his Tweet rants against individual citizens and American companies.

It’s about my grief seeing you respond to his near-hourly display of recklessness and overreach, with a shrug of your shoulders or a turning away from it all.

It’s about me watching you ignore in him and even celebrate in him, the very things you claimed made Hillary Clinton the ‘greater of two evils’ when you voted: blatant corruption, financial impropriety, pathological lies, lack of morality.

It’s about my sadness at seeing you make a million tiny concessions—and how easy it now is for you to sanction actions, that only two years ago you’d have told me fully disgusted you.

 

Most of all, it’s about me realizing that when all this is over—we are still going to have to deal with all of this. Our fractures are going to outlive this Presidency.

You see, I really don’t give a damn about Donald Trump.

He doesn’t matter to me. He never has.

 

He’s a three-time married, C-level reality TV celebrity, with a long and well-documented resume of sexual misconduct, financial disasters, and moral filth. He’s a professional predator who’s spent his life exploiting people for personal gain. That’s who he was before and who he will be when he leaves office.

Donald Trump, the President will be gone one day, and his disastrous Presidency will be well preserved. History will have documented his every lie, every misdeed, every abuse of power, every treasonous betrayal—and he will be fully revealed as the monster that many of us are fully aware that he is.

That’s not why I am so disgusted and so filled with sadness these days.

 

I don’t care about Donald Trump because I don’t know or live alongside or love or respect Donald Trump.

I know and live alongside and love and respect you—or at least I once did, and I’m going to have to try and do that again.

Our relationship and our family and our church and our neighborhood and our nation are going to be trying to clean up the messes long after this President is gone.

When this is all over, the divides and the fractures and the wounds between us are going to remain.

This is why I’m angry and bitter and frustrated; not because of Donald Trump—but because of me—and because of you.

[Gfted1]

Oy vey.

[Lexx]

For someone who doesn't care about Trump, he / she goes on pretty lengthy about him.

[Malcador]

Seems most of the rant is at the supporters of Trump. Hm, wonder how Living Color is doing these days.

[Raithe]

Not taking it too seriously, but you have to admit, the cracks between Democrats and Republicans do seem to have been growing more exagerated in the last decade or so.

 

Makes me wonder just what the shape of relations will be like in a few terms and where the common ground might be found.

[Gfted1]

Not taking it too seriously, but you have to admit, the cracks between Democrats and Republicans do seem to have been growing more exagerated in the last decade or so.

But Trump has only been in office since 20 Jan 17.

 

Makes me wonder just what the shape of relations will be like in a few terms and where the common ground might be found.

Since this tender flower has cratered into: grief, disbelief, incredulity, disappointment, amazement, sickness, grief (again) and sadness (is sadness different from grief x 2?) over this, then I really don't see much hope for middle ground.

[Malcador]

Well, another 9/11 would probably bring you all together.

[Gfted1]

Did you read that poor tortured post up above? Another 9/11 would push our population into immediate surrender. France would be forced to come up with jokes about our military failures!

[Malcador]

You mean they don't have them after Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq?

Edited June 26, 2018 by Malcador