patrick.net

ThreeBays says

You're not bothered by his record of telling falsehoods over 70% of the time? How can you trust he would do what he says and do it right?

Compared to Hillary?

You're not bothered by her ties to Saudi Arabia including Huma, her support for exporting US jobs and importing cheaper workers to undercut US wages, her secret email server, the ridiculously biased corporate mainstream press in her favor, the bizarre spectacle of a terrified elite abandoning the pretense of two parties (ie, support for Hillary by top Republicans), her underhanded disposal of Bernie?

I honestly think Trump is the lesser evil by far. We need someone, anyone, who is not part of the corrupt and ossifying elite that thought they had perfected control of the public via the press.

rando says

We need someone, anyone, who is not part of the corrupt and ossifying elite that thought they could just tell the public who to vote for, again.

That is what has been happening until Trump came along and broke the glass ceiling. The elites always chose who could run for President, giving the citizen the choice of a few.
No more politics as usual. The citizen decided Trump could run.

rando says

her support for exporting US jobs and importing cheaper workers to undercut US wages

This is such total BS politics. Exporting of US manufacturing, the existence of help centers in India, outsourcing on a global scale has been going on for at least thirty years. TPP isn't very much about that. Trump talks that issue to get the vote of frustrated working class people. It's not because he's going to do anything about it. Hell, it's practically over now anyway. Jobs can come back here if we lead the way in robotics - or at least keep up, with robotics implementation in manufacturing.

Investing in training and education is the only thing that's going to help our workers and make us competitive.

marcus says

Investing in training and education is the only thing that's going to help our workers and make us competitive.

Wrong.

I bring to your attention three good articles about free trade:

http://www.ianwelsh.net/ricardos-caveat/
http://www.ianwelsh.net/free-trade-is-elties-betraying-their-own-populations/
http://www.ianwelsh.net/trumponomics-how-the-trump-economic-plan-will-wor/

FP says

I bring to your attention three good articles about free trade:

Okay. I read the third one of your opinion pieces. Scary stuff. Two comments

1) I don't believe tariffs are wise right now. If they could work, it would only be after a massive global recession (and war?).

2) What reason do we have to believe that Trump actually cares about improving our economy for workers ? Rather than just wanting their vote. He's a guy that often chooses not to pay people that work for him, and he's manufactures things in other countries and used Chinese steel in his buildings.

A quote from the third link:

Trump is running as the fascist version of FDR: He’s the class traitor. He’s a billionaire who knows how the game is played, knows it is crooked, and is going to betray his own kind to work for the American people.

(i say bullshit - but who wants this ?)

He will be popular. Once his economic plan works, he will be even more popular. He will be idolized by those who support him. The people who hate him most will be deported, powerless, or crawling on their belly for his approval (most of the media).

Remember, FDR improved the US economy.

But Hitler and Mussolini, they really improved Germany and Italy’s economies.

This, my friends, is why I kept warning that current elites were setting the conditions for the rise of a man on horseback, from fascism or the far left.

rando says

who is not part of the corrupt and ossifying elite that thought they had perfected control of the public via the press.

Ever since 9/11 people, even otherwise smart people believe ridiculous conspiracy theories.

TRump openly talks about how he will control the press. We're talking an entirely different level of control. He wants to be like Putin.

Are you crazy ?

marcus says

Okay. I read the third one of your opinion pieces.

Ah, you should start with the first. The first two are more important.

marcus says

What reason do we have to believe that Trump actually cares about improving our economy for workers

I don't think he cares. But the first thing in solving a problem is recognizing what the problem is. His rhetoric helps at least in this regard.

marcus says

TRump openly talks about how he will control the press. We're talking an entirely different level of control. He wants to be like Putin.

Links please.

jazz music says

BUT I agree with with FP in his criticism of marcus' POV that marcus is wrong

I'll agree that I shouldn't have said that training and education is the only thing. But I'll stand by the idea that it's better than protectionism. Have we heard good debates about what the pros and cons of protectionism through tarrifs would be ?

I don't think so. Have we heard a debate about which industries we would even want tariffs implemented on ?

FP pointed us to some opinion pieces about how awesome it will be to have a fascist dictator. Was that his argument ? Why can't these policies be debated ?

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21695855-americas-economy-benefits-hugely-trade-its-costs-have-been-amplified-policy

In any case, cheap imports were a windfall for American consumers. Excluding food and energy, prices of goods have fallen almost every year since NAFTA. Clothes now cost the same as they did in 1986; furnishing a house is as cheap as it was 35 years ago. More trade brought more choice, too. Robert Lawrence and Lawrence Edwards, two economists, estimate that trade with China alone put $250 a year into the pocket of every American by 2008. The gains from cheap stuff flowed disproportionately to the less well-off, because the poor spend more of their incomes on goods than the rich.

At the same time, trade created new markets for American firms. In 1993 America sold nearly $10 billion-worth of cars and parts to Mexico, at today’s prices. By 2013 that had risen to $70 billion. Many American firms have become tightly integrated across the southern border, with low-skilled work done in Mexico and more complex tasks done at home. Exports to China grew by almost 200% between 2005 and 2014, with agriculture and the aerospace and car industries leading the charge. Some workers have benefited from rising exports, because firms that export pay more; one estimate puts the export wage-premium at 18%. Outsourcing low-wage assembly has also increased the productivity of America’s high-skilled workers. For example, Apple’s ability to assemble its iPhones cheaply in China has made the work of its American designers much more lucrative.

The gain and the pain

Trade, though, has an acute image problem. Its benefits are hard to perceive directly, spread as they are across large constituencies: consumers, exporters, and workers who may not realise just how much of what they make is shipped overseas. In contrast, its costs are highly concentrated. Cheap imports have been lethal for many American manufacturers, particularly in the midwestern rustbelt and in the South.

But by 2008 Mr Krugman had changed his mind, warning that the sheer volume of trade with China and other poor countries was probably increasing inequality. In 2013 an updated estimate of his model showed that trade with poor countries depressed unskilled workers’ wages by 10% in 2011, up from 2.7% in 1979, according to Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute, a think-tank. In that time, trade accounted for one-third of the rise in the college premium.

For other economists, the impact of trade on jobs was a growing concern. The sharp decline in American manufacturing employment began in 2000, just as Chinese imports took off (see chart). Yet on the extreme assumption that every dollar spent on imports replaced a dollar spent employing an American, Mr Lawrence calculates that between 2000 and 2007 Chinese imports caused, at most, 188,000 of 484,000 annual manufacturing-job losses. A recent, more detailed, estimate by Daron Acemoglu, David Autor and others chalks up about 1m of 5.5m manufacturing jobs lost between 1999 and 2011 to Chinese competition (with similar-sized job losses in other industries).
This implies that many other factors are in play. Technological change is probably the prime culprit for shrinking manufacturing employment. Productivity increases in the industry have been staggering. For instance, since 1994 carmaking’s contribution to GDP—to which outsourced production by American firms does not contribute—has fallen by about 10%. But there are 30% fewer carmaking jobs. This had led to the false impression that America’s car industry has outsourced most of its work. Such are the advances in manufacturing technology that if China disappeared tomorrow, far fewer jobs would return to America’s shores than left them.

But another recent achievement of trade economists has been to show that trade-induced job losses, while relatively small, are particularly painful: more so than those caused by technology. Until recently, most economists assumed that displaced workers could find new work relatively easily. After all, in June 2007, on the eve of the financial crisis, unemployment was 4.6%—lower than it was before the recession of the early 1990s. Between 2000 and 2007 Americans left 5m jobs a month and started 5.1m new ones. A million or so jobs lost to trade with China over more than a decade seems tiny by comparison.

But many workers displaced by Chinese imports did not simply find another job. Mr Autor and his colleagues have shown that, at local level, employment falls at least one-for-one with jobs lost to trade, and that displaced workers are unlikely to move to seek new work. The lowest-skilled who do find new jobs tend to move to similar, and thus similarly vulnerable, employment. One reason for this immobility could be that the economy is now an unwelcoming place for jobseekers without a university degree. The housing collapse of the late 2000s, which left many Americans trapped in negative equity, may have made things worse. This new strain of research has lent support to the claim of Dani Rodrik, a globalisation sceptic, that “If you are of low skill, have little education, and are not very mobile, international trade has been bad news for you pretty much throughout your entire life.”

The losers from trade became reliant on the government. One supposed safety-net was “trade-adjustment assistance” (TAA), a programme dating from 1962 and beefed up after the signing of NAFTA. If the Department of Labour accepts a petition for TAA, workers get an extension to their unemployment-insurance payments. For most of the 2000s, the extension lasted six months. In addition, beneficiaries can enroll in training programmes; if they do, they receive more payments while they train. Workers over 50 also get a kind of wage insurance which pays up to $12,000 over two years to compensate them for starting a new job on lower pay.

He said he was going to make it easier to sue the press if they run stories with absolutely no basis.

On the other hand, Obama called for Curators on the Internet, a place people could go to get "Verified" (meaning Government narrative approved) Stories, and longed for the days of "Just 3 Networks" the other day. I guarantee you only Corporate News like ABC and CNN (inc. NPR which is now 90% Corporate Grant funded) will be on the Curating Committee.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/obama-decries-wild-west-media-landscape-214642552.html

It's amazing how many things considered conspiracy theoriy lies - Rumors of the NSA reading everybody's emails, that there really is no WMD in Iraq, that Pakistani High Officials knew all along where OBL was - turn out to be true later on (at which point the PR teams fire up the "Everybody knew that, this is Old News/Open Secret" excuse)

These (above) are the Pros and cons or at least a thoughtful discussion and perspective on them. I say we should be forward looking about 21st century jobs, and moving in the direction of a different system that allows for stable rather than growing populations and focus on technology and how our economy will function when productivity of the typical worker is not measured only in the direct impact on profits. Because many making functions will eventually be way more automated.

That is, the correct shift would have been to the left, not to a fascist dictator. Hillary is not a shift to the left, but the success of Bernie should open the door and hopefully Hillary can help things swing a little in that direction. Not having the wrong SCOTUS justices will be key.

marcus says

FP pointed us to some opinion pieces about how awesome it will be to have a fascist dictator.

What?? I'm speechless.

rando says

marcus says

TRump openly talks about how he will control the press. We're talking an entirely different level of control. He wants to be like Putin.

Links please.

You haven't been paying attention if you didn't see what he did to the Washinton post, excluding them from his rallies. He criticizes press for quoting the insane stuff he says. And calls that negative coverage.

He says he wants to make it easier to sue the media. He has a long reputation of going after people that say bad things about him. What will he do when he has a lot of power ?

He compliments Putin, and people right here oin this forum agree with TRump that Putin is a better leader than Obama. If you say that, then you must be okay with extremely authoritarian strong man tactics.

http://www.alternet.org/books/new-old-authoritarianism-donald-trump

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2016/09/07/donald-trump-wielded-an-authoritarian-press-ban-against-various-media-outlets-for-more-than-a-year/?utm_term=.e0a6feaf13db

http://www.pressherald.com/2016/10/11/lepage-reaffirms-support-for-trump-despite-lewd-comments-criticizes-collins/

http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/10/10/charles-krauthammer-donald-trump-s-threats-go-after-press-if-elected-shows-his-authoritarian/213723

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/9/7/1566804/-Trump-s-Authoritarian-Risk-on-a-Scale-of-1-10-Poll-and-Discussion-of-Media-Responsibility

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/05/heres-how-trumps-authoritarianism-would-work.html

http://www.humanosphere.org/human-rights/2016/06/82969/

https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2016/04/19/trump-appeals-to-the-authoritarian-within-vanderbilt-researcher/

Careful what you wish for Patrick.

Ironman says

jazz music says

I wish I knew more

We wish you did too, but since this is a free speech forum, you get to post what ever delusional thoughts are running through your head between drinks.

Wonder what he is drinking tonight. My guess, it's a 12 pack of Miller Lite, purchased from 7-11 at twice the price, even though there is a Walmart next to him.

FP says

I bring to your attention three good articles about free trade:

http://www.ianwelsh.net/ricardos-caveat/

http://www.ianwelsh.net/free-trade-is-elties-betraying-their-own-populations/

http://www.ianwelsh.net/trumponomics-how-the-trump-economic-plan-will-wor/

I'm a super strong believer in free trade, as long as it's free and fair. Sadly, it's tilted in favor of China.
Now they use our money for an arms race that we cannot afford.

marcus says

He compliments Putin, and people right here oin this forum agree with TRump that Putin is a better leader than Obama.

I do not know what exactly you consider a compliment. I know that the other US politicians have been trying to demonize Putin and have lied shamelessly in doing it.

Putin is intelligent, erudite, skillful, and his foreign policy has been more moderate and reasonable than that of Obama and Hillary. I have no opinion about his domestic politics. The situation there is complicated. Democracy cannot be installed overnight and there are times when it may not the the best option. Furthermore, no country has perfect democracy. The US for example, is closer to an oligarchy. Putin is popular in Russia.

ThreeBays says

Where's your Trump list?

It's everywhere, all the time on the CorpMedia.

ThreeBays says

No I'm not as bothered by Hillary's presidency as I am by Trump's, not even close.

And why would you be? The lives of brown people aren't worth much after all.

ThreeBays says

What does that even mean? You're not exactly helping your case.

It is sarcasm amigo. The candidate who you support is a warmonger. She has been instrumental or has championed policies that that have killed or impoverished many people. That have wrecked whole countries for many generations to come, have created a huge refugee crisis and conditions for the emergence of a powerful terrorist organization. That have resulted in the rape and sexual enslavement of thousands of women. But you are not bothered of course. It's happening far away and to brown people. They don't talk about it on TV or NPR, so it can't be that bad, can it?

I don't support anyone in this election (anymore). I am bothered by the potential presidency of either of them. I am bothered by the blatant partiality of the media; I've never seen annoying like this. I am also bothered by the blindness, naiveté, and stupidity of people who consider themselves liberal or even progressive, which is what usually prompts me to comment about the elections here

marcus says

rando says

marcus says

TRump openly talks about how he will control the press. We're talking an entirely different level of control. He wants to be like Putin.

Links please.

Still do not see him talking about controlling the press. Maybe you can find some quotes.