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New Study Explains Why Trump's 'Sad' Tweets Are So Effective (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: During his campaign and presidency, Donald Trump has used Twitter to circumvent traditional media broadcasters and speak directly to the masses. He is particularly known for one specific tweet construction: he sets up a situation that he feels should inspire anger or outrage, then punctuates it with "Sad!" New research from New York University suggests a reason why this style is so effective: a tweet containing moral and emotional language spreads farther among people with similar political persuasion. The study offered up "duty" as an example of a purely moral word, "fear" as a purely emotional one, and "hate" as word that combined the two categories. The research found that the use of purely moral or purely emotional language had a limited impact on the spread of a tweet, but the "presence of moral-emotional words in messages increased their diffusion by a factor of 20% for each additional word." The impact of this language cut both ways. Tweets with moral-emotional words spread further among those with a similar political outlook, and they spread less with those who held opposing views, according to the research published in the journal PNAS. The study looked at 563,312 tweets on the topics of gun control, same-sex marriage, and climate change, and rated their impact by the number of retweets each one received.
As democracy is perfected, the office of the president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people.
On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House
will be occupied by a downright fool and a complete narcissistic moron.
~H.L. Mencken
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Under Obamacare my premiums have gone through the roof. Two years ago, if I would have been able to afford it, my premiums would have been $257/month with a $3500 deductible. That is basically $6600/yr. On top of that my medications would have cost me another $500/month over and above the copays and what the insurance would cover. That is $12,600/yr on less than $25,000/yr income. I'm disabled if you want to know the reason for the low income.
This year, if I had actually puchased a plan my monthly payment would have been $450/month, with a $6000/yr deductible. Add to that the costs of my medications over and above the copays and insurance coverage of $600/month and it comes to a right tidy percentage of our yearly income. Our yearly costs would have been a minimum of $18,600. That doesn't cost any possible hospitalization costs or what I have to pay for specialists visits which have a copay of $100/visit. I'm supposed to buy that on a total income of less than $30000/yr. In fact, the government will fine me for not having spent 62% of our total income on health insurance premiums, deductibles, and copays.
Let's look at single payer insurance. California has 39 million residents. They figured single payer costs of $400 billion/yr. That is twice California's current total yearly revenue.
Let's just say Caliifornia has 40 milllion residents to make a nice round number. And let's figure that the US has 320 million citizens. One is over estimated slightly and the other under estimated slightly. That makes the California population 1/8 of the US population. That means that a conservative estimate of single payer insurance costs for the entire us to $3.2 trillion dollars. That's approximately 75% of current total federal government spending.
Since the federal government already borrows $4 out of ever $10 it spends just where do you see the money to pay for a single payer system coming from? And just how sustainable are the federal government's current spending habits, let alone with a 75% increase in federal spending?
Also, do you understand that the current published federal debt of around $20 trillion is peanuts compared to what it owes in unfunded liabilities such as pension plans, future payments for current entitlement programs, etc...? In 2010 our unfunded liabilities were around $120-$140 trillion. Meaning if the feds had cut spending enough to begin paying that down at $1 trillion/yr it would have taken us well over a century to pay our debts? Our current unfunded liabilities have been estimated in the $200 trillion range. In other words paying them off with a federal budget that is $1 trillion in the black ever year would take us two centuries to pay the debt.
The US is flat out bankrupt.
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
Nothing to debate - he's a serial liar:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trumps-lies.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top-stories&_r=0&utm_source=TractionNext&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Worm-Subscribe-270617
That's good value - $2 per person per year!
I think you meant £120 billion, not million.
Why aren't you taking advantage of the subsidy? You're earning under 200% of the federal poverty level for a household of two, so you should qualify for a subsidy equal to whatever it takes to reduce the second cheapest silver plan to 6.3% of your income. (Yes, there is still the matter of deductibles and copayments, but at least the premiums would be much more reasonable at around $150/month.)
Better still, in some states you should qualify for Medicaid on the basis of being disabled. I take it your state is not one of those?