Political Posts

[Gregmal]

The best part is they literally did this whole thing in plain site. A day or two after liberation day, Lutnick was quoted as saying the tariffs would stay in place for, word for word, “weeks or months”…..what did we do? Grovel, grovel, whine, whine….then make claims about lying, not understanding, and all the doom ahead….

 

If you missed it, you missed it because your emotions got the best of you. No one else to blame either. 

[cubsfan]

Has the end of the world been called off?

 

What does Canada do now?

[Xerxes]

 

I don’t know folks, the Qatari 747-8 is a beautiful plane. Tempting offer for sure 

 

From my recollection they also gifted a plane to the president of Turkey at some point in time, when Erdogan couldn’t get his jet build in time. 
 

 

[Xerxes]

54 minutes ago, cubsfan said:

What does Canada do now?

the same thing that the Americans of all political leanings do everyday, all day long. 
 

bitch and complain about everything. 

[changegonnacome]

8 hours ago, james22 said:

Zero point zero.

 

That's the number of voters who'll change their mind because of this transaction.

 

Rage away.

 

Well all I'll say @james22 is that 24hrs ago when the Qatar plane grift story was just an ABC report....debunking it seemed important enough to you to warrant going off to X to let us know it was all just fake news.

 

Now when confirmed by the President himself.... its a nothing burger .

 

Not a psychologist but I believe this is called 'cognitive reframing'.......consciously shifting how you interpret or think about a situation to make it more psychologically tolerable. Seems like its worked out for you.

 

4 hours ago, Gregmal said:

We re all ok with these sleazeleeches enriching themselves via the “public servant” route. Heck, even amassing a collection of mansions is fine. Hell, accumulate generational wealth…why not? But we draw the line at….airplane?

 

Got it.

 

Whataboutism.

 

Got it.

[John Hjorth]

51 minutes ago, Xerxes said:

 

I don’t know folks, the Qatari 747-8 is a beautiful plane. Tempting offer for sure. 

 

And so is also the eventually thereby assumed operational budget ... - not! 

[Xerxes]

Well the real issue is two fold really:

Bribery and security 

 

- is this considered a bribe for  influence. Or is that really a normal way in this day and age. 
 

- prime minister of UK offered a second royal audience and state visit with the monarch, wouldnt that be considered a bribe as well ? Or is that really a normal way in this day and age. 
 

the other issue really is I think the security of US head of state. But nothing that a good retrofit won’t be fix. 
 

 

[Gregmal]

57 minutes ago, changegonnacome said:

Whataboutism.

 

Got it.

Yea, whataboutism is a bs gaslighting no accountability copout.

 

In a nutshell "it doesnt matter what Ive done or condoned, we're only going to talk about what I want to, nothing else should be accounted for"...thats why so many of you guys are the problem. Trump only makes these things so laughably retarded and blatant with his greed and shamelessness. But they were all enabled by people being fine with this stuff and then when called out for their dismissiveness, saying "whataboutism"...and it's like yea, well....what the fuck about it? Now we draw the line?

[RichardGibbons]

21 minutes ago, Gregmal said:

Trump only makes these things so laughably retarded and blatant with his greed and shamelessness. But they were all enabled by people being fine with this stuff and then when called out for their dismissiveness, saying "whataboutism"...and it's like yea, well....what the fuck about it? Now we draw the line?

 

Yes. It's totally fine to draw a line when stuff becomes laughably retarded and blatant. This is the way pretty well all bad things in life are--bad stuff crosses over to unacceptable when it hits a certain limit.

 

You can poke someone hard and likely won't be convicted of a felony. If you punch them, also probably not. If you beat them senseless, you probably will be. If you beat them to death, you almost certainly will be. There are lines being drawn for different magnitudes of the same event.

 

What's more the fact that it's so blatant actually matters to the degree of crime. It normalizes corruption even more, which is problematic.

 

I understand that, based on your argument, you think unlimited bribery is cool. I think most society doesn't believe that, and I think most people recognize why it's problematic.

[Gregmal]

28 minutes ago, RichardGibbons said:

What's more the fact that it's so blatant actually matters to the degree of crime. It normalizes corruption even more, which is problematic.

 

I understand that, based on your argument, you think unlimited bribery is cool. I think most society doesn't believe that, and I think most people recognize why it's problematic.

Nah I just think like with most things related to Trump, people are stunted emotionally and short sighted. The longer term consequences of Trumps egregiousness IMO will yield much needed reform. Even if it transitorily results in someone like AOC it’ll be worth it.

 

David Hogg was on Bill Maher the other day. He gets it. Hopefully that’s the new wave of the countries politicians. Current guys are shot. So yea, vote for 5 decade Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi, or Mitch McConnell and scoff Trump…you enabled him.

Edited May 12, 2025 by Gregmal

[changegonnacome]

57 minutes ago, Gregmal said:

Trump only makes these things so laughably retarded and blatant with his greed and shamelessness.

On this we are in total and utter agreement.

 

As @RichardGibbons says….line crossing is a lightning rod for action & reform. Trump, via his shamelessness, is a massive opportunity for change or the opposite an acceleration of decay. See whataboutism if practiced universally is a giant vertical tube down to societal chaos & kleptocracy….if the country is full of whataboutists (on both sides)….its already lost and we’re watching the corpse rot…the only question is how slow or how fast. 

 

 

[james22]

2 hours ago, changegonnacome said:

Not a psychologist but I believe this is called 'cognitive reframing'.......consciously shifting how you interpret or think about a situation to make it more psychologically tolerable.

 

Now try imagining Trump as a transactional businessman who thinks of accepting the offered gift as only an opportunity to taken advantage of, rather than as a criminal enriching himself.

 

(Projection much?)

 

 

[james22]

That's not to deny the poor optics of it or the implied reciprocal debt (unconscious or not), but it can be taken as evidence Trump's a businessman, not a politician (for better or, in this case, worse).

[Blake Hampton]

From Harvard Ph.D. economist Stephen Miran:
 

How is keeping tariffs that are high enough to raise hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue consistent with the president’s promise to lower costs for businesses and consumers?

 

Because I don’t believe that the tariffs are ultimately going to really raise costs. I think that in the short run, volatility is possible, but in the long run, American consumers are flexible about where we import from, and if one country comes to a trade deal with us, by which they open their markets and allow us to export into their economy the way they export into ours, then we can source our production from friendlier countries, instead of countries that rip us off.

 

Source: ‘Don’t Need a Deal’: Top Trump Economic Adviser Is All In on His China Hardball - NYT

 

Edited May 12, 2025 by Blake Hampton

[Blake Hampton]

You know, Robert Kennedy Jr. also went to school at Harvard.

 

Michael Salyor went to MIT.

 

Lol.

[LC]

 

1 minute ago, Blake Hampton said:

American consumers are flexible about where we import from, and if one country comes to a trade deal with us, by which they open their markets and allow us to export into their economy the way they export into ours, then we can source our production from friendlier countries, instead of countries that rip us off.

 

Then how will we raise hundreds of billions of dollars in tax revenue?

[Blake Hampton]

1 minute ago, LC said:

Then how will we raise hundreds of billions of dollars in tax revenue?

 

[John Hjorth]

6 minutes ago, LC said:

Then how will we raise hundreds of billions of dollars in tax revenue?

 

This, exactly this,

 

How will that part of of the US Federal budget for 2026 play out? I've looked at it the last weekend, to no avail, by starting totally basic by reading on Wikipedia, - all to no avail, as an a priori totally ignorant.

 

Charlie [ @dealraker ] also has more than alluded to this subject more than once earlier in this topic.

[mattee2264]

Looks as though tariffs will be 10% for pretty much everyone when the dust clears. 

 

I don't know how much that will raise but probably not enough to fund major tax cuts. Especially not if interest rates head higher as recession fears are off the table which makes financing the existing debt load more expensive. 

 

Also it is clear that there is no rebalancing of world trade in Trump's favour. 

 

China got the same 10% as everyone else even though they retaliated. And all they had to do to get that was to remove their retaliatory measures and make some vague promises to open up trade and consume more.

 

If anything things are more negative compared to before Liberation Day because it seems the 10% universal tariffs are a floor (for now) and that is still enough to cause some inflation and slow the economy. 

[LC]

Looks like "bought and paid for" Bondi was cashing in 115k per month from Qatar.

And she was the one who authorized their bribe to Stumpy.

 

Hunter was only getting 50k/mo from Ukraine. Again, rookie numbers.

 

I'd wait for the Biden critics to hold true to their principles and apply the same outrage to Trump, but I think old age would get me first.

[Blake Hampton]

"...businesses that are particularly well adapted to an inflationary environment. Such favored business must have two characteristics: (1) an ability to increase prices rather easily (even when product demand is flat and capacity is not fully utilized) without fear of significant loss of either market share or unit volume, and (2) an ability to accommodate large dollar volume increases in business (often produced more by inflation than by real growth) with only minor additional investment of capital. Managers of ordinary ability, focusing solely on acquisition possibilities meeting these tests, have achieved excellent results in recent decades. However, very few enterprises possess both characteristics, and competition to buy those that do has now become fierce to the point of being self-defeating."

 

Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter - 1981

[Spekulatius]

Who preventing a corporate  or federal purchasing manager /  buyer from asking for kickback or a cashier from taken their fair share from a cash register. After all it’s just a “business transaction” . The whistleblower agency has been defunded and the foreign corruption act watered down:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/pausing-foreign-corrupt-practices-act-enforcement-to-further-american-economic-and-national-security/

 

Sounds like it’s free for all with our president leading the charge. Let the golden age of fraud and embezzlement begin.

[DooDiligence]

56 minutes ago, Blake Hampton said:

"...businesses that are particularly well adapted to an inflationary environment. Such favored business must have two characteristics: (1) an ability to increase prices rather easily (even when product demand is flat and capacity is not fully utilized) without fear of significant loss of either market share or unit volume, and (2) an ability to accommodate large dollar volume increases in business (often produced more by inflation than by real growth) with only minor additional investment of capital. Managers of ordinary ability, focusing solely on acquisition possibilities meeting these tests, have achieved excellent results in recent decades. However, very few enterprises possess both characteristics, and competition to buy those that do has now become fierce to the point of being self-defeating."

 

Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter - 1981

 

Nobody listens to that old coot any more. /s

Higher prices are the new discounts.

Grifters are the new altruists.

 

Long live the American scream.

[mattee2264]

The new "Big Beautiful Bill" proposes an increase in the debt ceiling of $4TR. 

 

So I guess that is how we are going to fund the tax cuts. 

 

 

 

 

[changegonnacome]

3 hours ago, LC said:

Then how will we raise hundreds of billions of dollars in tax revenue?

Yep DOGE and all this tariff revenue is a fig leaf for the reality here…..the debt and deficit are going higher over the short, medium and long term of this presidential term….fiscal hawks my ass…its all lip service…..the Republican disease is thinking that supply side economics can bail out fiscal recklessness….we’re about to hear about a growth boom that will magically fix the deficit via increased government revenues same fantasy we heard in 2016…..the Democratic disease is thinking that demand side economics can somehow do the same.  
 

Both are wrong and I guess it’s a fiscal crisis that will see them come together to cut both spending and raising revenue….both are going to have slaughter their sacred cows on the altar of a crisis….but don’t be fooled….Trump has used Elon & DOGE to give a PR impression of fiscal conservatism while in reality he writes massive tax cuts permanently into law that have no hope of ever being revenue neutral and will accelerate the deterioration of the federal public finances....all while him and his family greatly improve their balance sheet (in plain sight this time).

 

 

Edited May 12, 2025 by changegonnacome