Sat July 28, 2018 12:14 am
Either way I think it’s clear that the normal rules don’t apply to this guy electorally.
Sat July 28, 2018 12:42 am
Sat July 28, 2018 11:35 am
elliseamos wrote:Thanks, 4/5 & McP, I was mostly wondering about inflation, int. rates, and jobs. The political stuff seems too early to tell, but then I realize it's practically August and we vote in about 90 days.
Sat July 28, 2018 1:12 pm
Bi_3 wrote:elliseamos wrote:Thanks, 4/5 & McP, I was mostly wondering about inflation, int. rates, and jobs. The political stuff seems too early to tell, but then I realize it's practically August and we vote in about 90 days.
Don't worry, the moment this is revised down the lamestream media will spend hours a day explaining it and how Trump had nothing to do with any positive elements of anything, anytime, anywhere.
Sat July 28, 2018 1:15 pm
elliseamos wrote:Bi_3 wrote:elliseamos wrote:Thanks, 4/5 & McP, I was mostly wondering about inflation, int. rates, and jobs. The political stuff seems too early to tell, but then I realize it's practically August and we vote in about 90 days.
Don't worry, the moment this is revised down the lamestream media will spend hours a day explaining it and how Trump had nothing to do with any positive elements of anything, anytime, anywhere.
Take it to the alternate reality thread.
Sat July 28, 2018 7:50 pm
4/5 wrote:McParadigm wrote:The report itself credits a lot of the change to an international trade binge ahead of tariffs. Next quarter may pay for this one’s bump.All I know is that this is the kind of economic performance that gets politicians re-elected.
I’m skeptical that this will help much. 2002 was a shit economy but a terrorism-centered election. Result: big incumbent party victories. 2014 had even better economic numbers than this, but a public mostly fixated on other things. Result: major incumbent party losses. This is another year where non-economic topics seem likely to be insurmountably noisier and forefront.
Also, historically the economy ranked first on voter’s polled topics. Health care replaced that, and has stayed at the top, for over a year now. Meanwhile, a lot of industries (including farmers) are sweating losses due to tariffs that a GDP figure doesn’t do anything to alleviate.
The Obama administration did a pretty awful job controlling the narrative of the economy for basically the entirety of the his term, so I don’t know how much 2014 applies to this year. A staggering amount of people still seem to think that Trump knows what he’s doing economically when all he did is inherent an economy that had finally recovered.
I’ve read the same speculation about this quarter having outsized numbers as firms tried to get stuff done before the trade war kicks in, but we’ll have to see. Either way I think it’s clear that the normal rules don’t apply to this guy electorally.
Sun July 29, 2018 5:54 pm
Bi_3 wrote:elliseamos wrote:Bi_3 wrote:elliseamos wrote:Thanks, 4/5 & McP, I was mostly wondering about inflation, int. rates, and jobs. The political stuff seems too early to tell, but then I realize it's practically August and we vote in about 90 days.
Don't worry, the moment this is revised down the lamestream media will spend hours a day explaining it and how Trump had nothing to do with any positive elements of anything, anytime, anywhere.
Take it to the alternate reality thread.
I can select the data that confirms my biases with the best of ‘em.
Mon July 30, 2018 1:57 pm
McParadigm wrote:Either way I think it’s clear that the normal rules don’t apply to this guy electorally.
I don’t agree with this, either.
He remains historically popular with his own party, but not because his party can’t be drawn away from him. Instead, the Republican Party has lost 10% of its membership in the last two years. His behavior is so isolating that frustrated conservatives no longer recognize the party that some worked for, for their entire lives.
If America was 100 people, 25 of them would currently be Republicans, of which 24 would view him favorably. Of the other 75 people, only 14 or so would have a favorable opinion. Those 14 would mostly fall under “tepid support.“ Meanwhile, the entire rest of the population has a vastly disproportionate passionate dislike.
His party has suffered in every single special election since he arrived, not always losing but never managing remotely healthy numbers. Republicans in office are retiring in record numbers in part because of the internal polling they have access to. All of this in spite of a solid economy and the fact that the most watched news channel in America has openly turned itself into a propaganda machine specifically for him. Every topic he touches changes the narrative in the opposite direction. Immigration, the ACA, and abortion all have record levels of support right now, apparently resultant purely from his standing against them.
I don’t see any metric by which Donald Trump appears to be anything but a drag on his party, and his own potential for success.
Mon July 30, 2018 2:06 pm
Tue August 28, 2018 9:24 pm
Tue August 28, 2018 9:52 pm
Bi_3 wrote:"Enter Senator Elizabeth Warren and her proposed Accountable Capitalism Act. It is straight out of Atlas Shrugged. She proposes to regulate corporations with gross revenues of $1 billion or more, requiring them to obtain a federal corporate charter as a “United States corporation”. They would be regulated by a bureaucracy under the Office of United States Corporations. These corporations must be operated to “create a general public benefit” and must consider how its profit making activities affect not only their shareholders, but their employees, suppliers, “community and societal factors”, and the local and global environment. At least 40% of its board of directors must be elected by its workers. If they wish to support a political candidate, they must have approval of 75% of the board."
This has got to be fake news.
Tue August 28, 2018 10:13 pm
Electromatic wrote:Bi_3 wrote:"Enter Senator Elizabeth Warren and her proposed Accountable Capitalism Act. It is straight out of Atlas Shrugged. She proposes to regulate corporations with gross revenues of $1 billion or more, requiring them to obtain a federal corporate charter as a “United States corporation”. They would be regulated by a bureaucracy under the Office of United States Corporations. These corporations must be operated to “create a general public benefit” and must consider how its profit making activities affect not only their shareholders, but their employees, suppliers, “community and societal factors”, and the local and global environment. At least 40% of its board of directors must be elected by its workers. If they wish to support a political candidate, they must have approval of 75% of the board."
This has got to be fake news.
Sounds like she might enjoy business in 1960s China more.
Wed August 29, 2018 12:04 am
Wed August 29, 2018 2:10 pm
Arrangements for employee representation at board level in the 28 EU countries plus Norway can be divided into three groups. There is a group of ten countries where there is no board level representation and a further group of six, where board level representation is limited to state-owned or privatised companies. However, the biggest group of 13 states provides for employees to be represented on the boards of private companies, once they have reached a certain size. These thresholds vary greatly as do other elements of the national arrangements.
Fri August 31, 2018 9:48 pm
Strat wrote:--- wrote:4/5 wrote:According to a Brookings Institute paper, by 2020 50% of the world's population will be middle class. It states that as of December 2016 3.2 billion people were already part of the middle class.
That is incredible.
I know it's somewhat off topic since we're talking about American middle class, but I think it's another great reminder that the biggest beneficiaries of market economies have far and away been the poor. It's much sexier to write headlines about wealth gaps and the alleged concentration of wealth, but sometimes it's good to remember that we are living in a time of unparalleled prosperity in human history.
The constituency of capitalism has always been the poor. "It's a race to the bottom!" say the Bernie Sanders of the world, completely incapable of understanding that that is precisely capitalism's virtue.
can you expand on this for me please?
Sun September 02, 2018 3:21 pm
4/5 wrote:Strat wrote:--- wrote:4/5 wrote:According to a Brookings Institute paper, by 2020 50% of the world's population will be middle class. It states that as of December 2016 3.2 billion people were already part of the middle class.
That is incredible.
I know it's somewhat off topic since we're talking about American middle class, but I think it's another great reminder that the biggest beneficiaries of market economies have far and away been the poor. It's much sexier to write headlines about wealth gaps and the alleged concentration of wealth, but sometimes it's good to remember that we are living in a time of unparalleled prosperity in human history.
The constituency of capitalism has always been the poor. "It's a race to the bottom!" say the Bernie Sanders of the world, completely incapable of understanding that that is precisely capitalism's virtue.
can you expand on this for me please?
I’m doing my few mins on the bike at the end of my workout so I’m going to give you links rn but basically we’re in the midst of the greatest era of global economic growth in human history. In1960 over half of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty, and now we’re on pace to see half the world being in the middle class by 2020. Global poverty is down dramatically since 1980. Over a billion people in East Asia alone have escaped poverty in that time period. The vast majority of this growth is do to the opening of markets and industrialization.
Yes, the super rich also benefit from globalization, technology, and markets. But I’d argue that most of them are going from comfortable or rich to wealthy, which is definitely something. But the poor are going from a Dark Ages standard of living and essentially time traveling to the 20th century. I think we have a tendency to focus on the rich getting richer (which is true) but then draw the incorrect conclusion that the poor are also getting poorer, which is absolutely NOT the case whatsoever.
I couldn’t care less about the rich. They’re going to be good no matter what we do at this point. The reason I believe so strongly in markets is because I believe it’s the path out of poverty.
(Burned 34 calories during this post)
Sun September 02, 2018 5:32 pm
4/5 wrote:Nah, that's modern China.
Wed September 05, 2018 3:34 pm
--- wrote:4/5 wrote:According to a Brookings Institute paper, by 2020 50% of the world's population will be middle class. It states that as of December 2016 3.2 billion people were already part of the middle class.
That is incredible.
I know it's somewhat off topic since we're talking about American middle class, but I think it's another great reminder that the biggest beneficiaries of market economies have far and away been the poor. It's much sexier to write headlines about wealth gaps and the alleged concentration of wealth, but sometimes it's good to remember that we are living in a time of unparalleled prosperity in human history.
The constituency of capitalism has always been the poor. "It's a race to the bottom!" say the Bernie Sanders of the world, completely incapable of understanding that that is precisely capitalism's virtue.
Wed September 05, 2018 4:28 pm
Wed September 05, 2018 5:32 pm
Rob wrote:I do not buy the idea that the farther right/left are gaining momentum in the old centers of capitalism because the system is working well.