I don't know what this has to do with anything I've said. I was just pointing out how ridiculous it is to compare feminists to the KKK. There are lot's of organizations and ideologies that I disagree with that I do not equate to the KKK or other groups primarily known for murder.
Not normally no. I am not sure what happened. My best guess is that I misread something while in a hurry.
The OP described this type of exception as being "implausible"
No, he gave an observation that could explain why people don't like some movies.
Those 2 things are not mutually exclusive
His last sentence highlights his entire point; "The SJW culture is trying to tell us that men and women are equal and Hollywood is trying to confirm through film.
I actually don't disagree with this statement in general, just it's specific application to super hero movies.
. He observed something in reality and uses that to explain why some movies just miss the mark. He didn't make any implication about an exception to a generality implicitly or explicitly.
I am not suggesting that he made an exception. I'm criticizing the implication that he *didn't* seem to acknowledge the plausibility of an exceptional case in a movie filled with exceptional cases.
He is using reality to explain why modern movies seem more like propaganda (pushing an agenda at an expense).
Like I said before, I don;t disagree that this is done in general, I just find this accusation to be misplaced in super hero movies where so many rules of realism are already violated.
Dismissing that whole line of logic as "look misogynist" is as retarded as a flat earther dismissing a solar eclipse.
I am not dismissing this line of logic as simply "look misogynist", and I don't think it is fair to do that. I am trying to explain as best as I can why I think this line of reasoning could be reasonable in general but misogynist in this specific application.
Let me see if I can better explain what I am trying to convey with an analogy.
Example 1: A white cop arrests a black man for jaywalking. The black man says the white cop is racist. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. The cop says "I'm not racist, I'm just arresting a person for breaking the law". I think it is fair to give the cop the benefit of the doubt.
Example 2: 100 people are jaywalking in front of a white cop, but the cop only arrests the single black person that jaywalks. The cops provides the same explanation "I'm not racist, I'm just arresting a person for breaking the law". It's still the case that we don't know if the cop is racist, but now I am less inclined to give the cop the benefit of the doubt.
Yes arresting black people for committing crimes is not racist. And it is completely fair to point that out. I am saying that this defense is not sufficient for example 2.
I'm not saying that mark-t is a misogynist. I'm saying that he ignored all the other violations of realism in super hero movies, and the only one that bother him is the one about female super heroes being as physically strong as male super heroes.
I accept that there are other explanations for this selective outrage (i.e. the desire to counter SJW agenda, etc), but there is also reason to be suspicious of misogyny.
Just like the cop who arrests only the 1 black person for jaywalking, may have a legitimate (non-racism) reason for that, but it clearly has the appearance of racism, and I don't think it is an unreasonable allegation.
The implication was that women in general are not as physically strong, [therefore it is implausible that exceptional women could exist].
That can not be an implication (something that was implied), because it was explicitly stated.
What? Women, in general, are not as physically strong. There is nothing implied about the plausibility of the exception. I don't understand why you would make that kind of leap in logic.
I didn;t make a logical leap. The OP described this type of exception as being "implausible"
Are you forbidden from making general statements of a group because an individual may not be described by that generality?
I am sure I did not in any way indicate that any kind of speech should be forbidden. Criticism is not the same as censorship.
think you missed the point of my comment.
I don't think I missed the point of your comment. I just focused on helping you to understand how es330td's comment could be interpreted as misogynist. Mark-t didn't go to any effort to explain why he thought it was mysoginist, and I agree it was pretty dismissive, but I could see how *I* thought it could be misogynist.
I think there is an interesting conversation to be had about "mental disconnect between the visual of a woman physically dominating men". I don't know why it is there but I have rolled my eyes a number of times watching something where it becomes overly obvious. Barbie fighting Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't something I find visually appealing. It's can be too jarring when the extremes are juxtaposed together. The plot can explain it but I will still roll my eyes. Why? I don't know. But thinking that it could be because of a generality in reality is not misogynistic.
There are lots of movies and things about movies I don't find appealing. It's ok to find anything you want to be unappealing. It's even ok to be a misogynist. This is America. I don't want to see a movie with a 90lbs human girl beating the shit out of a 250lbs MMA fighter either. I like realism in movies more than most people. I just find it very suspicious that in a movie with hundreds of unrealisitic things, the one thing that bothers someone is that a super hero woman could be as physically strong as a super hero man. I think there is something deeper happening there.
For example, I enjoyed that in the Expanse Roberta Bobbie W. Draper a Martian Marine Gunnery Sergeant had some meat on her bones and she wasn't a stick with tits. It could have been explained by technology or some other plot device, like any comic book movie, but I was still pleasantly surprised and found my self enjoying her character more when her figure wasn't so contradictory to the situation. I would have still enjoyed the show had she been shown as a stick but a lot of small things make a good movie great.
I loved the expanse. I loved how realistic it was (for a sci fi show). I loved how the ships spent so much energy accelerationg and deccelerating. I loved how the non-earthers where disabled from growing up with a lack of gravity. I loved the weird accents people had that sounded blends of lots of different current accents. I loved how they had to produce gravity by centripetal force, or mag boots, rather than just turning on the artificial gravity machine. I loved how it made our solar system feel bigger than the universe of most other sci fi shows. I even loved how there were still mormons trying to find their own planets.
And yes, I appreciated how Draper was a little chunkier in selling the fact that she can kick some ass.
Every movie/show has a realism threshold beyond which the audience is expected to suspend their disbelief. It's a spectrum with documentaries on one extreme, and cartoons and super hero movies on the other, and the expanse somewhere in between.
I just explained how it is not the same, which you either just ignored or didn't understand. I used the right to vote as a singular concrete example of something that did not *only* benefit women. It doesn't mean it is the only victory won by feminists, and it doesn't mean that everything every feminist does is progress.
Feminists have fought for women's equality. That's not to say that everything every feminist has fought for in the name of feminism has been helpful in advancing equality, but that's not a fair benchmark. There were no widespread lynchings of men by feminists, or efforts of jury nullification for convicting murderers of men by feminist jurors.
Nobody in the KKK has fought for equality in the name of the KKK, in fact it's the opposite.
These ideologies could not be more obviously different in quality and quantity to all but the dumbest most brainwashed people in society.
There is a difference between "pro white people" and "being good for white people". I don't think anything the KKK did was good for white people in general. They killed black people. That doesn't help white people in general. They managed to keep some terrible white people out of jail. But that doesn't benefit all white people, in fact it is also very harmful to white people to have horrible white people in society.
Feminists are "pro women". They have actually have done good things for women in general, and for humanity in general. Women are better off if women can vote. And I would argue men are also better off if women can vote, in the sense that everyone is better off in a free and fair society.
Also, if your only criteria for comparing a group to the KKK is that they help one group at the expense of another, then the NFL is like the KKK because they want tax money to build their stadiums. Farmers are like the KKK because they want exclusive water rights. Almost every single political lobby is like the KKK because they benefit one group at the expense of everyone else. What a fucking dumb way to look at the world.
I'm not going to speak for anyone else, but it's not the simple stating of a fact that is misogynist. But it was not just a stated fact. There was also an implication.
The implication was that women in general are not as physically strong, [therefore it is implausible that exceptional women could exist]. Which maybe would not be so weird except that exceptional men (and women) are already accepted as reality in this universe. Which is apparently fine as long as the rules of exceptional men and women perfectly correlate to how the average man and average woman compare.
I'm not even saying it's misogynist to wonder why a superhero with more apparent muscle mass is not stronger than one with less, but it's pretty weird to be so fixated on that in regards to men and women, to the exclusion of everything else.
So you are watching a movie where people in costumes are flying and throwing cars at eachother with fire coming out out their eyes and hair, and your brain is telling you "something isn't right" because the cars the women are throwing are the same size as the cars that the men are throwing?
The entire premise of these movies that that shit is not going to be like how it is normally. Maybe these sorts of movies are not for you.
Feminists *have* done a lot for women. Women once could not vote. Maybe you don't like today's brand of feminist, but I really don't see why you would compare feminists to an organization who's famous for murdering black people for being black.
I think a good argument can be made that modern feminists have gone too far. But you know what else is too far? Equating them to the KKK. Are you really trying to combat hysterical overreaction, with even more hysterical overreaction?
Google is even better than Microsoft at being Microsoft. Microsoft came to dominance in a time where there were no dominant software players. They were pioneers in using their dominance to push out competitors to the detriment of consumers. Somehow they managed to completely fail and allow google to dethrone them in several key areas. While Google has not succeeded in their attempt to dominate every market, I don't think there are any examples of them ceding their existing dominance in any large markets.
I've listened to Scott Adams. I think he's giving Trump way too much credit. Scott Adams makes Trump to be some kind of strategic genius where everything he does no matter how quirky it seems leads to the exact outcome that he wanted. I think this point of view had a lot of support a year ago, when people were still in a state of shock and didn;t have an overwhelming amount of evidence to the contrary.
Here is my theory of Trump's success. He has a few tricks that worked for him in the past, that he just keeps using regardless of whether they are working for him now. He is not smart enough to figure out a new strategy. What he has now is barely a strategy. It's more just instinctual.
1. Inherit lots of money from your dad
2. Deny everything bad said about you
3. Attack people who say bad things about you
4. Never admit you were wrong about anything
5. Tell everyone how smart and rich you are all the time, and some people will believe you.
Sure there are probably some gems of wisdom in his book that he didn't write, nor did he even probably read, because he doesn't read.
Is Trump a good negotiator? It depends on the situation. When he's negotiating for himself, he knows what he wants. He wants money. It's simple. He is completely amoral which is a huge advantage in the pursuit of money.
What about when Trump is negotiating on behalf of our country? He has no fucking idea what the country wants or needs. He knows that he still wants money. He knows that he doesn't like to look stupid. So what he does is ask for a bunch of shit that he thinks makes him look smart and like he's fighting for America but really just benefit himself financially. And that's the best case scenario. He is actually not a good negotiator, so there is actually a pretty good chance that nobody gets what they want.
His power with congress does not come from his negotiating ability. It comes from the fact that he's fractured the republican party, and he is sitting on the biggest life boat (which is also sinking). Republicans can't really oppose him or they will get primaried. They might also lose reelection by embracing him, but at least there is still a chance they can win. At some point the math is going to shift to where the trump lifeboat is underwater and nobody is trying to get on it anymore.
Trump is absolutely highlighting how fake Republican congressmen are. Ok (I already knew that). What does that get us? 40 more Democrats apparently.
He has congress in the palm of his hand (for the past 2 years and for another month). He is just too stupid to get what he wants. He thinks he can get everything by namecalling and praising people, except it's totally haphazard. He doesn't know who is loyal and who isn't. He is the least loyal person there is. He is a terrible businessman. He is a terrible negotiator. He is a pretty aweful politician. He is a very lucky person. He was very lucky to have been born rich. He was very lucky to have lost the popular vote to the 2nd least popular presidential candidate in history and squeaking an electoral college victory. He is lucky he is president right now because he would be indicted right now otherwise.
A) My point with the executive orders was not to say that I think Trump will ultimately succeed with getting what he wants (i.e. punishing GM), but rather that he will succeed in inconveniencing lots of people and costing the government lots of money in lawsuits. This is bad for everyone except maybe Trump because he just wants everything to work like a reality show. Maybe the "muslim ban" was spin, but it was spin that the President created. It's what he called it. He could have easily gotten the musilm ban enacted the first time if he didn't keep shooting himself in the foot by calling it a muslim ban, and then calling it something else but saying "But it is still the same thing as the muslim ban". I don't think he cared about the policy at all. I think he just wanted to be able to say he enacted a muslim ban regardless of what it actually did.
It's true the president asks congress for lots of things he doesn't ultimately get, but it's not because of congress's lack of willingness to do what he wants them to do.It is because the things he asks for don't make any sense, or they already exist, or he changes his mind and asks for the opposite immediately after (i.e. he's stupid and he doesn;t know what he wants). He's like a spoiled baby with adults willing to spoil him without limit if only he were smart enough to know what to ask for.
And yes the tax credits or mostly a giveaway to rich people. It was a bad idea to create in the first place. And yes they are phasing out on their own anyway (which is a good thing). But Trump has said he wants to end them. What does that mean? Nobody knows, not even Trump. I would be a large sum of money he had no idea what the existing policy even is or that it is already going to expire on it's own when he made his remarks. All I am saying is that I think it's bad to end them prematurely (as opposed to just letting them expire and not renewing them).
And yes, ending them prematurely will actually help GM and Tesla the most. All the more reason not to end them prematurely, and just let them expire on their own
A) The president can issue executive orders. Republicans used to think executive orders were bad and unconstitutional, but now they are legal, and necessary undo Obama's legacy of unconstitutionality. Even if courts rule against the executive order, they can maybe just keep making amendments until the courts are satisfied (e.g. like with the muslim ban). Trump doesn't necessarily need to change the law to prevent the federal government from issuing reimbursements through the IRS. I believe the courts will ultimately sort it out, but that may take years for people to receive the reimbursements and be very costly to the government (i.e. taxpayers)
B) The president can ask the republican controlled congress to do just about anything and they will probably listen to him if he can manage to make his request somewhat coherent.
C) They have already attempted to change this law (i.e. end subsidies prematurely) when the last federal budget was passed. Some of the revisions contained clauses to remove these subsidies, but the revision that ultimately passed incidentally did not contain that clause.
Lots of bad things happen all the time. We have no choice but to deal with them. I am advocating not having an erratic child as president as a way to deal with this particular problem.
I am not calling letting a program end when it was designed to end a broken promise. I am calling Trumps childish call to end GM subsidies because they made him look bad a broken promise. I'm pretty sure he didn't even know they were ending on their own anyway because he knows so little. I am just saying in general ending these subsidies prematurely (rather than just letting them end on their own) is a broken promise, regardless of who is in the whitehouse or whether they even understand what they are saying.
You'll note that I tout the predefined lifespan of the subsidies as a reason not to end them (i.e. prematurely). That wouldn't make sense if I was advocating keeping them going indefinitely. Especially when I said they should not have been created in the first place.
I'm not calling "letting them end" a "broken promise". I am advocating for just letting them end. Donald Trump is the one calling for ending them prematurely, because GM made him look bad. Although who even knows what he is asking for. He doesn't know enough to have an informed opinion, or even know what his own position is.
The Leaf is made by Nissan. GM makes the Chevy Volt and Bolt. These are a lot cheaper than anything Tesla makes, and they are selling as many electric cars as Tesla is (i.e. Both Tesla and GM are near the end of their tax subsidy eligibility which expires when a company sells 200,000 electric cars)
I agree we should not have had these subsidies in the first place. But now that they have been promised by the government, this promise should not be broken. These subsidies already have a defined lifespan (for example GM who apparently triggered Trump's desire to end the subsidies, is already almost at the end of it's subsidy).
Breaking these promises damages faith in the government and leads to economic inefficiencies as car manufacturers and customers need to change their long term plans to account for the whims of an impulsive, irrational, selfish, childish, and vindictive president.
Everything that is more expensive than something else would be racist.
Toyota is racist because communities of color are less able to afford Toyota cars than Kia cars, and therefore they are excluded from Toyota cars. Why are so many people intent on stripping the word "racism" from any significant meaning?
There are individual stocks that have lost that much. AMD stock went form $40 to $3 in 3 years. Now it's back up to $20. I just refer to that stock because it is one of a few that I have traded in. But I'm sure there are even more extreme examples.
Furthermore, I don't know that it needs to recover. It was obviously way too high when it was $20K. It's probably still too high now. That was a correction that had to happen. If it "recovered" back to $20K, that would probably just be another bubble.
I almost bought some bitcoin when it was $130. If I had, I would have still made $38,700 after this crash. Whether a s5tock needs to "recover" is a function of when you bought it.
Bitcoin is less stable than the most stable fiat currencies and more stable than the least stable fiat currencies. It doesn't seem so much more volatile than other assets that lose and recover (e.g. gold, stocks, etc).
Slashdot Mirror
Why not just keep computing digits of pi as the song plays rather than stopping at a billion digits?
I don't know what this has to do with anything I've said. I was just pointing out how ridiculous it is to compare feminists to the KKK. There are lot's of organizations and ideologies that I disagree with that I do not equate to the KKK or other groups primarily known for murder.
Do you normally respond to yourself?
Not normally no. I am not sure what happened. My best guess is that I misread something while in a hurry.
The OP described this type of exception as being "implausible"
No, he gave an observation that could explain why people don't like some movies.
Those 2 things are not mutually exclusive
His last sentence highlights his entire point; "The SJW culture is trying to tell us that men and women are equal and Hollywood is trying to confirm through film.
I actually don't disagree with this statement in general, just it's specific application to super hero movies.
. He observed something in reality and uses that to explain why some movies just miss the mark. He didn't make any implication about an exception to a generality implicitly or explicitly.
I am not suggesting that he made an exception. I'm criticizing the implication that he *didn't* seem to acknowledge the plausibility of an exceptional case in a movie filled with exceptional cases.
He is using reality to explain why modern movies seem more like propaganda (pushing an agenda at an expense).
Like I said before, I don;t disagree that this is done in general, I just find this accusation to be misplaced in super hero movies where so many rules of realism are already violated.
Dismissing that whole line of logic as "look misogynist" is as retarded as a flat earther dismissing a solar eclipse.
I am not dismissing this line of logic as simply "look misogynist", and I don't think it is fair to do that. I am trying to explain as best as I can why I think this line of reasoning could be reasonable in general but misogynist in this specific application.
Let me see if I can better explain what I am trying to convey with an analogy.
Example 1: A white cop arrests a black man for jaywalking. The black man says the white cop is racist. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. The cop says "I'm not racist, I'm just arresting a person for breaking the law". I think it is fair to give the cop the benefit of the doubt.
Example 2: 100 people are jaywalking in front of a white cop, but the cop only arrests the single black person that jaywalks. The cops provides the same explanation "I'm not racist, I'm just arresting a person for breaking the law". It's still the case that we don't know if the cop is racist, but now I am less inclined to give the cop the benefit of the doubt.
Yes arresting black people for committing crimes is not racist. And it is completely fair to point that out. I am saying that this defense is not sufficient for example 2.
I'm not saying that mark-t is a misogynist. I'm saying that he ignored all the other violations of realism in super hero movies, and the only one that bother him is the one about female super heroes being as physically strong as male super heroes.
I accept that there are other explanations for this selective outrage (i.e. the desire to counter SJW agenda, etc), but there is also reason to be suspicious of misogyny.
Just like the cop who arrests only the 1 black person for jaywalking, may have a legitimate (non-racism) reason for that, but it clearly has the appearance of racism, and I don't think it is an unreasonable allegation.
Yeah I saw red pill too. Try to have some original thoughts.
Anonymous cowards don't deserve legitimate responses. Sorry they just don't.
The implication was that women in general are not as physically strong, [therefore it is implausible that exceptional women could exist].
That can not be an implication (something that was implied), because it was explicitly stated.
What? Women, in general, are not as physically strong. There is nothing implied about the plausibility of the exception. I don't understand why you would make that kind of leap in logic.
I didn;t make a logical leap. The OP described this type of exception as being "implausible"
Are you forbidden from making general statements of a group because an individual may not be described by that generality?
I am sure I did not in any way indicate that any kind of speech should be forbidden. Criticism is not the same as censorship.
think you missed the point of my comment.
I don't think I missed the point of your comment. I just focused on helping you to understand how es330td's comment could be interpreted as misogynist. Mark-t didn't go to any effort to explain why he thought it was mysoginist, and I agree it was pretty dismissive, but I could see how *I* thought it could be misogynist.
I think there is an interesting conversation to be had about "mental disconnect between the visual of a woman physically dominating men". I don't know why it is there but I have rolled my eyes a number of times watching something where it becomes overly obvious. Barbie fighting Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't something I find visually appealing. It's can be too jarring when the extremes are juxtaposed together. The plot can explain it but I will still roll my eyes. Why? I don't know. But thinking that it could be because of a generality in reality is not misogynistic.
There are lots of movies and things about movies I don't find appealing. It's ok to find anything you want to be unappealing. It's even ok to be a misogynist. This is America. I don't want to see a movie with a 90lbs human girl beating the shit out of a 250lbs MMA fighter either. I like realism in movies more than most people. I just find it very suspicious that in a movie with hundreds of unrealisitic things, the one thing that bothers someone is that a super hero woman could be as physically strong as a super hero man. I think there is something deeper happening there.
For example, I enjoyed that in the Expanse Roberta Bobbie W. Draper a Martian Marine Gunnery Sergeant had some meat on her bones and she wasn't a stick with tits. It could have been explained by technology or some other plot device, like any comic book movie, but I was still pleasantly surprised and found my self enjoying her character more when her figure wasn't so contradictory to the situation. I would have still enjoyed the show had she been shown as a stick but a lot of small things make a good movie great.
I loved the expanse. I loved how realistic it was (for a sci fi show). I loved how the ships spent so much energy accelerationg and deccelerating. I loved how the non-earthers where disabled from growing up with a lack of gravity. I loved the weird accents people had that sounded blends of lots of different current accents. I loved how they had to produce gravity by centripetal force, or mag boots, rather than just turning on the artificial gravity machine. I loved how it made our solar system feel bigger than the universe of most other sci fi shows. I even loved how there were still mormons trying to find their own planets.
And yes, I appreciated how Draper was a little chunkier in selling the fact that she can kick some ass.
Every movie/show has a realism threshold beyond which the audience is expected to suspend their disbelief. It's a spectrum with documentaries on one extreme, and cartoons and super hero movies on the other, and the expanse somewhere in between.
I just explained how it is not the same, which you either just ignored or didn't understand. I used the right to vote as a singular concrete example of something that did not *only* benefit women. It doesn't mean it is the only victory won by feminists, and it doesn't mean that everything every feminist does is progress.
Feminists have fought for women's equality. That's not to say that everything every feminist has fought for in the name of feminism has been helpful in advancing equality, but that's not a fair benchmark. There were no widespread lynchings of men by feminists, or efforts of jury nullification for convicting murderers of men by feminist jurors.
Nobody in the KKK has fought for equality in the name of the KKK, in fact it's the opposite.
These ideologies could not be more obviously different in quality and quantity to all but the dumbest most brainwashed people in society.
There is a difference between "pro white people" and "being good for white people". I don't think anything the KKK did was good for white people in general. They killed black people. That doesn't help white people in general. They managed to keep some terrible white people out of jail. But that doesn't benefit all white people, in fact it is also very harmful to white people to have horrible white people in society.
Feminists are "pro women". They have actually have done good things for women in general, and for humanity in general. Women are better off if women can vote. And I would argue men are also better off if women can vote, in the sense that everyone is better off in a free and fair society.
Also, if your only criteria for comparing a group to the KKK is that they help one group at the expense of another, then the NFL is like the KKK because they want tax money to build their stadiums. Farmers are like the KKK because they want exclusive water rights. Almost every single political lobby is like the KKK because they benefit one group at the expense of everyone else. What a fucking dumb way to look at the world.
I'm not going to speak for anyone else, but it's not the simple stating of a fact that is misogynist. But it was not just a stated fact. There was also an implication.
The implication was that women in general are not as physically strong, [therefore it is implausible that exceptional women could exist]. Which maybe would not be so weird except that exceptional men (and women) are already accepted as reality in this universe. Which is apparently fine as long as the rules of exceptional men and women perfectly correlate to how the average man and average woman compare.
I'm not even saying it's misogynist to wonder why a superhero with more apparent muscle mass is not stronger than one with less, but it's pretty weird to be so fixated on that in regards to men and women, to the exclusion of everything else.
So you are watching a movie where people in costumes are flying and throwing cars at eachother with fire coming out out their eyes and hair, and your brain is telling you "something isn't right" because the cars the women are throwing are the same size as the cars that the men are throwing?
The entire premise of these movies that that shit is not going to be like how it is normally. Maybe these sorts of movies are not for you.
Feminists *have* done a lot for women. Women once could not vote. Maybe you don't like today's brand of feminist, but I really don't see why you would compare feminists to an organization who's famous for murdering black people for being black.
I think a good argument can be made that modern feminists have gone too far. But you know what else is too far? Equating them to the KKK. Are you really trying to combat hysterical overreaction, with even more hysterical overreaction?
Google is even better than Microsoft at being Microsoft. Microsoft came to dominance in a time where there were no dominant software players. They were pioneers in using their dominance to push out competitors to the detriment of consumers. Somehow they managed to completely fail and allow google to dethrone them in several key areas. While Google has not succeeded in their attempt to dominate every market, I don't think there are any examples of them ceding their existing dominance in any large markets.
I've listened to Scott Adams. I think he's giving Trump way too much credit. Scott Adams makes Trump to be some kind of strategic genius where everything he does no matter how quirky it seems leads to the exact outcome that he wanted. I think this point of view had a lot of support a year ago, when people were still in a state of shock and didn;t have an overwhelming amount of evidence to the contrary.
Here is my theory of Trump's success. He has a few tricks that worked for him in the past, that he just keeps using regardless of whether they are working for him now. He is not smart enough to figure out a new strategy. What he has now is barely a strategy. It's more just instinctual.
1. Inherit lots of money from your dad
2. Deny everything bad said about you
3. Attack people who say bad things about you
4. Never admit you were wrong about anything
5. Tell everyone how smart and rich you are all the time, and some people will believe you.
Sure there are probably some gems of wisdom in his book that he didn't write, nor did he even probably read, because he doesn't read.
Is Trump a good negotiator? It depends on the situation. When he's negotiating for himself, he knows what he wants. He wants money. It's simple. He is completely amoral which is a huge advantage in the pursuit of money.
What about when Trump is negotiating on behalf of our country? He has no fucking idea what the country wants or needs. He knows that he still wants money. He knows that he doesn't like to look stupid. So what he does is ask for a bunch of shit that he thinks makes him look smart and like he's fighting for America but really just benefit himself financially. And that's the best case scenario. He is actually not a good negotiator, so there is actually a pretty good chance that nobody gets what they want.
His power with congress does not come from his negotiating ability. It comes from the fact that he's fractured the republican party, and he is sitting on the biggest life boat (which is also sinking). Republicans can't really oppose him or they will get primaried. They might also lose reelection by embracing him, but at least there is still a chance they can win. At some point the math is going to shift to where the trump lifeboat is underwater and nobody is trying to get on it anymore.
Trump is absolutely highlighting how fake Republican congressmen are. Ok (I already knew that). What does that get us? 40 more Democrats apparently.
He has congress in the palm of his hand (for the past 2 years and for another month). He is just too stupid to get what he wants. He thinks he can get everything by namecalling and praising people, except it's totally haphazard. He doesn't know who is loyal and who isn't. He is the least loyal person there is. He is a terrible businessman. He is a terrible negotiator. He is a pretty aweful politician. He is a very lucky person. He was very lucky to have been born rich. He was very lucky to have lost the popular vote to the 2nd least popular presidential candidate in history and squeaking an electoral college victory. He is lucky he is president right now because he would be indicted right now otherwise.
A) My point with the executive orders was not to say that I think Trump will ultimately succeed with getting what he wants (i.e. punishing GM), but rather that he will succeed in inconveniencing lots of people and costing the government lots of money in lawsuits. This is bad for everyone except maybe Trump because he just wants everything to work like a reality show. Maybe the "muslim ban" was spin, but it was spin that the President created. It's what he called it. He could have easily gotten the musilm ban enacted the first time if he didn't keep shooting himself in the foot by calling it a muslim ban, and then calling it something else but saying "But it is still the same thing as the muslim ban". I don't think he cared about the policy at all. I think he just wanted to be able to say he enacted a muslim ban regardless of what it actually did.
It's true the president asks congress for lots of things he doesn't ultimately get, but it's not because of congress's lack of willingness to do what he wants them to do.It is because the things he asks for don't make any sense, or they already exist, or he changes his mind and asks for the opposite immediately after (i.e. he's stupid and he doesn;t know what he wants). He's like a spoiled baby with adults willing to spoil him without limit if only he were smart enough to know what to ask for.
And yes the tax credits or mostly a giveaway to rich people. It was a bad idea to create in the first place. And yes they are phasing out on their own anyway (which is a good thing). But Trump has said he wants to end them. What does that mean? Nobody knows, not even Trump. I would be a large sum of money he had no idea what the existing policy even is or that it is already going to expire on it's own when he made his remarks. All I am saying is that I think it's bad to end them prematurely (as opposed to just letting them expire and not renewing them).
And yes, ending them prematurely will actually help GM and Tesla the most. All the more reason not to end them prematurely, and just let them expire on their own
A) The president can issue executive orders. Republicans used to think executive orders were bad and unconstitutional, but now they are legal, and necessary undo Obama's legacy of unconstitutionality. Even if courts rule against the executive order, they can maybe just keep making amendments until the courts are satisfied (e.g. like with the muslim ban). Trump doesn't necessarily need to change the law to prevent the federal government from issuing reimbursements through the IRS. I believe the courts will ultimately sort it out, but that may take years for people to receive the reimbursements and be very costly to the government (i.e. taxpayers)
B) The president can ask the republican controlled congress to do just about anything and they will probably listen to him if he can manage to make his request somewhat coherent.
C) They have already attempted to change this law (i.e. end subsidies prematurely) when the last federal budget was passed. Some of the revisions contained clauses to remove these subsidies, but the revision that ultimately passed incidentally did not contain that clause.
Lots of bad things happen all the time. We have no choice but to deal with them. I am advocating not having an erratic child as president as a way to deal with this particular problem.
I am not calling letting a program end when it was designed to end a broken promise. I am calling Trumps childish call to end GM subsidies because they made him look bad a broken promise. I'm pretty sure he didn't even know they were ending on their own anyway because he knows so little. I am just saying in general ending these subsidies prematurely (rather than just letting them end on their own) is a broken promise, regardless of who is in the whitehouse or whether they even understand what they are saying.
You'll note that I tout the predefined lifespan of the subsidies as a reason not to end them (i.e. prematurely). That wouldn't make sense if I was advocating keeping them going indefinitely. Especially when I said they should not have been created in the first place.
Go learn some facts. GM already hit their limit as of October 2018.
I'm not calling "letting them end" a "broken promise". I am advocating for just letting them end. Donald Trump is the one calling for ending them prematurely, because GM made him look bad. Although who even knows what he is asking for. He doesn't know enough to have an informed opinion, or even know what his own position is.
The Leaf is made by Nissan. GM makes the Chevy Volt and Bolt. These are a lot cheaper than anything Tesla makes, and they are selling as many electric cars as Tesla is (i.e. Both Tesla and GM are near the end of their tax subsidy eligibility which expires when a company sells 200,000 electric cars)
I agree we should not have had these subsidies in the first place. But now that they have been promised by the government, this promise should not be broken. These subsidies already have a defined lifespan (for example GM who apparently triggered Trump's desire to end the subsidies, is already almost at the end of it's subsidy).
Breaking these promises damages faith in the government and leads to economic inefficiencies as car manufacturers and customers need to change their long term plans to account for the whims of an impulsive, irrational, selfish, childish, and vindictive president.
Everything that is more expensive than something else would be racist. Toyota is racist because communities of color are less able to afford Toyota cars than Kia cars, and therefore they are excluded from Toyota cars. Why are so many people intent on stripping the word "racism" from any significant meaning?
There are individual stocks that have lost that much. AMD stock went form $40 to $3 in 3 years. Now it's back up to $20. I just refer to that stock because it is one of a few that I have traded in. But I'm sure there are even more extreme examples.
Furthermore, I don't know that it needs to recover. It was obviously way too high when it was $20K. It's probably still too high now. That was a correction that had to happen. If it "recovered" back to $20K, that would probably just be another bubble.
I almost bought some bitcoin when it was $130. If I had, I would have still made $38,700 after this crash. Whether a s5tock needs to "recover" is a function of when you bought it.
Bitcoin is less stable than the most stable fiat currencies and more stable than the least stable fiat currencies. It doesn't seem so much more volatile than other assets that lose and recover (e.g. gold, stocks, etc).
And FYI there actually are lots of people "investing" by playing lotteries (not "the" lottery). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prize-linked_savings_account