BBO Discussion Forums: Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped? - BBO Discussion Forums

You highlight another difference between us. I am interested in what Trump does, what actions he takes, what policies he puts into place.

You seem to mesmerized by what he says. And while you are reacting to what he says (or tweets), he is changing the landscape underneath your feet.

Now, if you would like to debate about the "proper" functions of government, about how much liberty/freedom is it acceptable to relinquish in order to have government, etc., then I am at you disposal. But if you continue to support the status quo, then we have nothing to talk about.

So much for free speech! The police state arrives on the suppression of posters you don't like or agree with.

barmar, if you do indeed succumb to this pressure, please be sure to include a statement in the rules that govern the situation. Future posters should be forewarned.

Pretty crappy short term memory you got there...

People tried that a week ago.

Three posts in and your line of discussion had collapsed into subjective claims that taxation is immoral and creating strawmen.

You're too ***** stupid to be able to engage in a constructive discussion, hence the need to resort to senseless trolling.

Is ranting all that you are capable of? Pretty boring.

Is ranting all that you are capable of? Pretty boring.

“I can handle things. I’m smart! Not like everybody says, like dumb. I’m smart and I want respect!

I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!

From now on, this thread should be re-named Fredo.

You are right, the 1st Amendment only constrains the government. So I was incorrect to apply it to this forum.

That said, do you personally support the effort to suppress my posting?

Trump was sitting on the floor trying to glue two televisions to one another so that the personalities on them would appear to kiss. This, he felt, would solve the Middle East. Then he ate six hamburgers, which he had sent Reince Priebus, wearing a full face of unflattering powder, to retrieve for him, in case they contained poison.

Who and what Donald Trump is has been known to everyone and anyone who cared to know for years and decades. Before he was president, he was the country’s leading racist conspiracy theorist. Before he was the country’s leading racist conspiracy theorist, he was a celebrity gameshow host. Before he was a celebrity gameshow host, he was the multi-bankrupt least trusted name in real estate. Before he was the multi-bankrupt least trusted name in real estate, he was the protege of Roy Cohn’s repeatedly accused of ties to organized crime. From the start, Donald Trump was a man of many secrets, but no mysteries. Inscribed indelibly on the public record were the reasons for responsible people to do everything in their power to bar him from the presidency.[/size]

The search for meaning in Trumpism reflects the desire of both his supporters and his opponents for the president to be what he is not: profound, larger than life, grandiose. Trump’s self-evident pettiness defies those sensibilities. Recognizing that there is no greater meaning may help us address his challenge. Reflecting on how such a small man ever came to occupy such an important office may inspire us to prevent a repeat performance.

I (personally) find the concept of a government applying "business like" solutions completely horrific

Businesses (typically) have a fiduciary responsibility to engage in profit maximization.
You really don't want an entity with the power of a government trying to maximize its profits.

Businesses are able to discharge their debts through bankruptcy.
Really bad things happen when governments do so. If the US were to do so, the results would be catastrophic.

Businesses and governments (should) have very different time horizons.

(I can go on like this for quite some time. The two types of organizations are very very different)

FWIW, I do agree that Trump is ignoring existing sensibilities.
In doing so, he is doing enormous and lasting damage to the long term reputation of the United States.

Other than "Brown people are inferior" and "Jews are good with money" its pretty damn hard to figure out what kind of "assumptions" Trump bases his policies on.
Mostly he is just twisting in the wind, boasting about stuff that he had little or nothing to do with, and acting like a disgrace on Twitter.

So, when I met Michael Wolff in Reince Priebus’ office, where he was waiting to talk to Steve Bannon, and after I had been told to also speak to him for his book,

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Monday unanimously rejected a proposal by Energy Secretary Rick Perry that would have propped up nuclear and coal power struggling in competitive electricity markets.

The independent five-member commission includes four people appointed by President Trump, three of them Republicans. Its decision is binding.

The coal and nuclear industries have more than a few old power plants, which are struggling badly in the energy marketplace, and which are widely seen as obsolete. Trump administration officials, eager to help their political allies, worked with the industry and its lobbyists on a plan to prop up those plants in ways the market has not. Indeed, the president had run on a platform of rescuing some of these coal plants, and so Trump World had to think of something in order to deliver on the promise.

The result was, well, a little bizarre. As Vox explained a few months ago, Rick Perry unveiled a proposed solution in which utility companies would pay coal and nuclear power plants "for all their costs and all the power they produce, whether those plants are needed or not."

No, seriously, that was the plan. Consumers -- which is to say, us -- would effectively bail out obsolete plants, creating unnatural profits for their owners, even if utility companies had more affordable alternatives, and even if the plants themselves are not economically viable, because the Trump administration would mandate it.

A Republican is in the White House. That means it's time for Republicans to believe that the economy is booming -- and Democrats to get pessimistic about it.

The Huffington Post's Ariel Edwards-Levy has some fun poll results demonstrating exactly how that is happening. Virtually all surveyed Donald Trump voters believe -- incorrectly -- that the economy added more jobs in 2017 than in 2016. A plurality of Hillary Clinton voters believe the opposite. Overall, a plurality of people surveyed believe more jobs were created in 2017 than in 2016. But when given a stronger prompt, the picture changes a bit: When people were asked whether more jobs were created in Barack Obama's last year or in Trump's first year, the numbers flip, with a narrow plurality crediting Obama.

There are several things going on here. One is that people in general probably believe (correctly) that, overall, 2017 was a better year for the economy, and also may have heard (again, correctly) that the official unemployment rate went down, and concluded (incorrectly) that all the economic and employment news, including newly added jobs, must have gotten better as well.

Another thing is that a stronger partisan prompt has no effect on Trump voters in this case because they don't need it. It seems likely that Republicans in 2017 were more likely to listen to good economic news and ignore the bad, and since all in all there was more good than bad, they would up thinking everything was good. From 2010 through 2016, as the mild but steady economic recovery chugged along, those same Republicans almost certainly underrated the economy -- just as Republicans tended to deny that the U.S. had entered into a recession during the first half of 2008, when George W. Bush was president.

That was an impressive feat of cognitive bias, but it's not the worst one I know about. Democrats during Ronald Reagan's presidency somehow convinced themselves that inflation actually rose while that Republican was in the White House. Since Reagan had been elected in large part because of 1970s inflation and few by the end of his term even talked about it, that was a truly impressive feat of partisan cognitive bias.

No, seriously, that was the plan. Consumers -- which is to say, us -- would effectively bail out obsolete plants, creating unnatural profits for their owners, even if utility companies had more affordable alternatives, and even if the plants themselves are not economically viable, because the Trump administration would mandate it.