"the Mooch"

J-Rod10 said:
If Cohen had anything of worth to offer, Mueller wouldn't have handed him off to NYC to investigate.

Maybe Mueller wants to head off the possibility of a pardon.
 
irk miller said:
Most of that 4.1% (9.3%) came from the export rush as farmers hurried to get their crops out before the tariffs. Most economists don't think the 4.1% is sustainable. Also, 7% came from corporations spending their tax cut which supposedly isn't sustainable either. I'm no economist, but that seems to be the majority of chatter in the news.

4.1% is likely not sustainable.

Plenty of economists agree that 3%+ is, however. Which is roughly double what it has been since 2014 until recently.

Good write up on it.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/07/27/trump-goal-of-3-percent-economic-growth-is-achievable-and-sustainable.html

There is zero reason to believe business spending tax cuts isn't sustainable, as business tax cuts don't sunset. We've got them for good, at least until the Dem's gain control again and raise taxes.

Consumer spending is likely to increase. Unemployment is low, more jobs than people to fill them will lead to higher wages to poach workers, which leads to more spending.

Be interesting to see what gets worked out with the EU and China. They need us more than we need them. We send 5% of our product to China, they send us 20% of theirs. Europe, we could, and would crush them if they are foolish enough to continue on the path they were on until a few days ago. If we end up with mostly free trade, it'll be huge for us. The only thing of note coming to the US from the EU is cars. We tariff their cars, it'll crush them. They know this, and that is why they were so eager to come to the table a couple days ago.
 
J-Rod10 said:
Unemployment is low, more jobs than people to fill them will lead to higher wages to poach workers, which leads to more spending.

Been hearing an interesting take on unemployment- mostly because baby boomers are retiring and it will get even better as more retire.
 
irk miller said:
Been hearing an interesting take on unemployment- mostly because baby boomers are retiring and it will get even better as more retire.
A good many are at that age now, and more and more each year. That'll open up high wage, high skill jobs. My concern, we lack the skilled workers to fill them back.
 
Speaking of tax cuts... looks like the deficit is going to balloon at much faster rates than those predicted by those pushing the tax cuts.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/25/business/trump-corporate-tax-cut-deficit.html
 
carnivorous chicken said:
Speaking of tax cuts... looks like the deficit is going to balloon at much faster rates than those predicted by those pushing the tax cuts.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/25/business/trump-corporate-tax-cut-deficit.html
That's a spending problem. Not a tax problem.
 
By definition it’s both a spending and a revenue problem.

Deficit spending is the amount by which spending exceeds revenue over a particular period of time, also called simply deficit, or budget deficit; the opposite of budget surplus. The term may be applied to the budget of a government, private company, or individual.

Quartely growth at times was over 5% with Obama. I’m not sure why everybody is so pumped when we see Trump in the low 4’s. Especially considering that corporate taxes are now the lowest in the industrial world. We should be out pacing Obama if tax rates are so good for business.
 
Sav0r said:
By definition it’s both a spending and a revenue problem.

Quartely growth at times was over 5% with Obama. I’m not sure why everybody is so pumped when we see Trump in the low 4’s. Especially considering that corporate taxes are now the lowest in the industrial world. We should be out pacing Obama if tax rates are so good for business.
One time. While his annual never reached the 3% they're predicting now. So, Obama had 4 quarters north of 4%, and not a one at 3% annually. So, in the long game, we are outpacing Obama.
 
They are predicting we will out pace it, so we will see. It will be interesting how this helps revenue.
 
Sav0r said:
They are predicting we will out pace it, so we will see. It will be interesting how this helps revenue.

I read some of these articles pertaining to the economy, and they say "conservative economist," or "liberal economist."

There should be no political affiliation on predicting the economy. Numbers are numbers. It's hard to know what to believe, what not to. More or less just see how it ends up when it's over.
 
J-Rod10 said:
That's a spending problem. Not a tax problem.

This doesn't make much sense, as pointed out.

But I guess economic indicators is one way of many to measure this presidency, and if growth can be maintained maybe that will temper a presidential legacy that so far will be remembered for embracing racism and xenophobia, pulling children away from mothers and putting them in cages, alienating America's enemies, embracing dictators, encouraging violence against minorities, sanctioning presidential payoffs to porn stars, etc., etc. There are long term consequences to all of these issues and since a quarter of economic growth is just one measurement it's pretty hard to forget the others...
 
J-Rod10 said:
I read some of these articles pertaining to the economy, and they say "conservative economist," or "liberal economist."

There should be no political affiliation on predicting the economy. Numbers are numbers. It's hard to know what to believe, what not to. More or less just see how it ends up when it's over.

Economics is a social science. Despite social scientists' desire to claim "scientific neutrality" it's a myth.
 
carnivorous chicken said:
This doesn't make much sense, as pointed out.

But I guess economic indicators is one way of many to measure this presidency, and if growth can be maintained maybe that will temper a presidential legacy that so far will be remembered for embracing racism and xenophobia, pulling children away from mothers and putting them in cages, alienating America's enemies, embracing dictators, encouraging violence against minorities, sanctioning presidential payoffs to porn stars, etc., etc. There are long term consequences to all of these issues and since a quarter of economic growth is just one measurement it's pretty hard to forget the others...
Ah, putting kids in cages. Granted it wasn't an issue when other administrations did it, and a good many pictures circulated were from the Obama Administration. Oddly enough the most prominent picture used, wasn't even separated from her family. Time really struck gold with that one. Here's an idea. If you don't like the enforcement of laws on the books, get with your representatives, and let them know you would like the laws changed.

Being a spending issue, it makes plenty of sense. I assume you live within your means. If you don't have money for something, you don't buy it. A person, corporation, or country is no different. You either live within your means, or take on debt until you go bust. Government overspending isn't a new concept that came along under Trump.

As far as paying off porn stars. Again, I don't particularly care. As far as what has been made public, it hasn't occurred during his administration, it wasn't done with tax money. I don't particularly care for Trump as a person. As the President, I hope the economy continues to trend upward. I hope the country breaks 3% GDP this year, next year, and the year after that. I hope we either crush Europe and China in tariffs, or they do what is right, and enter into fair trade agreements. We've sort of been getting railed for decades on that front. Individuals lack the ability to understand that a bit of rockiness in the short term, in exchange for better deals in the long term isn't the end of the world, as a country. At the same time, I can understand their viewpoint. Nobody wants to take less, for any amount of time, and it very well could be the end of their world.

On another note, we got back the remains of quite a few of our soldiers killed in Korea yesterday, and NK is demolishing another nuclear site, and precisely zero missiles have been launched over Japan or Guam this year. But yeah, cozy-ing up to dictators. Humorous that the left has somehow figured out a way to demonize the prospect of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula entirely.
 
You don't think that stopping catch and release, the default action of the prior administration, and implementing separation of children from their parents increased significantly after Trump's administration implemented its new policy? Sure, it happened before occasionally, but nowhere near on the recent level. Here's an idea: think about separating children from their parents as against international human rights norms -- most people do -- and against the 8th amendment's cruel and unusual punishment clause and roundly condemn it in all cases, in all countries, anywhere, anytime. Time was making a visual representation as a criticism of Trump's policy -- you don't actually think that people were meant to believe that Trump was standing a few feet away from the kid, do you?

Nobody is saying Trump's policies are the end of the world. But if you think the US has been getting screwed over by the rest of the world I would invite you to take a step back and think of two things. First, international trade is not a zero-sum game. Mutual benefit is possible, and generally occurs. Second, compare the US to the entire world in a very general economic sense. The US is doing pretty well in most regards. This notion that the US is getting screwed over doesn't make much sense, and doesn't take into account intangibles such as soft power.

Great for getting US soldiers remains returned. If you know much about the history of relations between the US and North Korea, you'd know that there hasn't been much of a shift in relations or in N Korea's actions. Most analysts agree that a non-binding agreement doesn't mean anything, and the simple fact of meeting with Kim Jong Un increased his standing. North Korea has decades of negotiating and stalling and apparently reducing their capabilities only to have other operations appear later. I too hope something positive comes out of it, but so far I am unimpressed, as are most people.

But there are plenty of other dictators we could talk about. Putin? Duterte?

Again, thinking about the administration as a whole, one has to accept a ton of pretty terrible things to be able to say "yeah, but the economy is doing well" -- racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia. I'll keep bringing them up, others I guess will continue to ignore them.
 
Just out of curiosity, do we need to rail against local governments for Americans who are separated from their children when they get taken to jail too, or do we just complain about it when it has to do with immigration laws?

The it happened, but not as much bit is a wee bit played out.

Both sides have fumbled on immigration. For some reason, we can't get Congress to do anything about it. Then again, why would they? That's a major campaign platform they'd lose.

Yes, we are doing well. So, in your opinion, that means we should allow our trading partners to take advantage of us in trade deals, because we're doing alright?
 
Re: "the Mooch"

J-Rod10 said:
Just out of curiosity, do we need to rail against local governments for Americans who are separated from their children when they get taken to jail too, or do we just complain about it when it has to do with immigration laws?

The it happened, but not as much bit is a wee bit played out.

Both sides have fumbled on immigration. For some reason, we can't get Congress to do anything about it. Then again, why would they? That's a major campaign platform they'd lose.

Yes, we are doing well. So, in your opinion, that means we should allow our trading partners to take advantage of us in trade deals, because we're doing alright?
Try having 5% of your population be imported middle eastern or thereabouts, mainly islamic males. Then try to be positive about migration
 
J-Rod10 said:
Just out of curiosity, do we need to rail against local governments for Americans who are separated from their children when they get taken to jail too, or do we just complain about it when it has to do with immigration laws?

The it happened, but not as much bit is a wee bit played out.

Both sides have fumbled on immigration. For some reason, we can't get Congress to do anything about it. Then again, why would they? That's a major campaign platform they'd lose.

I mean we don't separate children from families for misdemeanor offenses, so your hypothetical is false from the get go.
 
Sav0r said:
I mean we don't separate children from families for misdemeanor offenses, so your hypothetical is false from the get go.
Except it isn't. And, we absolutely do. If you get arrested for, say, misdemeanor drug possession, or DUI, and taken to jail, if you have no family to take your kids, the state takes your kids. It happens all the time.
 
Immigrants aren’t committing drug offenses or DUI’s. They are walking over the border and in most cases are doing so in the hope of a better life. So it’s a false equivalence.
 
Not in the eyes of the law, it isn't. A Class A misdemeanor is a Class A misdemeanor, regardless of what the offense was that falls under that classification (I have no idea what class illegal border crossing falls under).

It's not a false equivalence. The law, is the law, until it gets changed. First it was parents don't get separated from their kids for a misdemeanor, now it's that's a different misdemeanor. Fact is, parents here get separated from their children every day for misdemeanor offenses. But, now we're supposed to be outraged because it's illegal immigrants.
 
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