A trade war with China would do no such thing. In fact it would almost certainly result in increased unemployment and significantly increased prices on a wide variety of goods.
Not necessarily. Your scenario is only if it becomes a full-out trade war. Trump can play chicken to scare them to make changes. Because they depend on exports far more than we do, a game of trade chicken is riskier to them.
In this game, we are driving a Ryder truck and they a pick-up truck. It is indeed scary if there is an actual collision, but scarier for them. Assuming they weigh the risks rationally, they'll take a look at their pick-up, then our Ryder, and make a deal instead.
Let's give it a try rather than live with the status quo. The cards are on our side. It's an area where Trump's brashness may work to our favor.
If a trade war occurs with China, consumer prices will significantly inflate.
China has much more to lose in a trade-war than the USA does. Their economy is tightly bound to exports. China knows this and is bluffing.
I didn't vote for Trump, but I hope he pushes this issue, and encourages China to shift more to a consumer driven economy rather than an export economy. They won't do it without pressure, and Trump's bullheadedness may be just the recipe.
China will make a lot of noise and initial threats, but after a while they'll have to change or risk an economic hit.
Factory workers have protested and rioted in recent downturns. Thus, a downturn big enough could bring serious challenges to leadership. Tienanmen Square was merely a preview of what could happen.
The leaders are worried they'll be overthrown, Kadafi-style, if the population gets angry enough. Thus, they don't really want an actual trade-war, and that's why they are using threats and bluffs early on to try to prevent one. They saw how Kadafi got Shish-kebabed by his countrymen and know they could be next.
The thing is, they don't have to depend on exports. Grow a consumer base. It works. But exports have worked so well that Chinese leaders don't want to risk change. If Trump puts enough pressure on them, they may change to avert the even worse option: Shish-kebabing.
with accusations of "racist, misogynist, nazi, hitler", etc to anyone who dared to disagree with them? Logical debate was not permitted.
Trump says offensive things and doesn't apologize or even try to clarify the brashness most of the time. Do you really need examples? I find him a Class-A Jerk in that regard, closely approaching Nazi-ism. (I hope his deeds turn out better than his statements.)
They are always demanding more and more power be given to the federal government, not caring about the abuses of power it results in
Letting big corporations and the rich run and control everything also results in abuses of power. Somebody or something runs the show regardless, and that gives them power. Humans being humans, shit happens.
I see the rich buying the laws they want so that they get even richer and buy even more laws, ruining democracy.
Perhaps those in power have a longer record to complain about and spin up. It's hard to complain about somebody who sat on their ass, other than the fact they sat on their ass.
If you do 1000 things, roughly 50 of them will be outright legitimate poor judgement because humans make mistakes, and roughly 300 more will be "spin-able" using half-truths to make them seem like legitimate news of ill-doings to those who don't bother digging deeper.
I do agree the Clintons brought some of this on themselves by riding too close to the edge of legality. In the world of Big-Eye politics, you have to go out of your way to avoid even looking bad, because small transgressions will be hyped up by the other side.
For example, various high-ranking people have come to the Clintons after donating to their foundation and saying things like, "I gave X dollars to your foundation. I'd like to see progress on issue Y. Can you help?"
A typical Clinton response was, "Sure, we'll see what we can do."
That's just politeness 101. You don't blow people off. "I'll see what I can do" is non-committal, yet shows you are not ignoring them.
But under Big-Eye politics, they probably should have said, "As policy we can't change our position or focus based on donations." It's a little rough on the donor, who just spent their money on charity, but necessary to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest. The Clintons were in a tricky spot, but who said politics was easy.
(I "quoted" too many words in my prior "statements". Sorry about "that".)
it would be unconscionable to pretend like the anti-Hillary meme's weren't on point
When I looked into the details behind such given by online participants, most were false or spun half-truths. They used clever wording to mislead the reader, the kind of tricks slimy marketers use. Many could be traced back to far-right-leaning propaganda sites. The trolls just redecorated them to disguise them from plagiarism or repetition-prevention bots.
But let's not get into a political fact war. Both sides make and spread propaganda. T's supporters just did it more and better this time.
(Also, GOP got lucky and wasn't hacked.)
Bernie was the one to win, and everyone who isn't a gullible goldfish-like chimpling knew it.
In hindsight, yes. Similar to my prior point, traditionally a non-centrist has slimmer odds in a general election, but the rules have changed. Now we know. Live and learn.
Why did the GOP (allegedly) out-propaganda the Democrats?
It's not realistic to police that much material before a heated election, being it's a periodic event. You don't want excess staff sitting between elections. That's not economical for Facebook et al.
There were probably more "intense" Trump supporters than intense H supports, and that's why the Trump trolls won. H did not "inspire" the way Trump did. Her supporters were more anti-Trump than pro-H and thus were not motivated to troll hard.
The conventional political wisdom is to run a bland centrist to capture the undecided vote. However, a bland centrist does not inspire, and therefore produces less trolls to flood The Webtubes with propaganda.
Once again, the Internet changes the rules.
(I'm not saying the propaganda was necessarily placed or coordinated by high-level officials, it's probably mostly amateurs, i.e. trolls.)
At least in this country, many people's social self worth is tied to work and career. It's not easy nor quick to change an ingrained cultural narrative.
There were still fields that needed to be plowed and planted, since livestock that needed to be tended, still village and town economies to service, still armies to be raised and trained.
If there are half the people then you need half the farm land, half the cows, half the houses, etc. There may be an adjustment period, sure, to shuffle stuff around, but eventually it would settle. I suppose you still need a big military because it was a dangerous time.
The centrist North and East won't vote to go along with it, because without CA, there wouldn't be enough left-leaning votes to prevent GOP presidents, and the remaining USA would turn right-wing.
In short, we'd be sticking the poor suckers with Tea Party types. They'd thus join the battle to prevent CALEXIT, and maybe try to secede themselves if the battle fails.
That's seems counter-intuitive. Dead people mean fewer consumers and thus need less product. Maybe the kings discovered they could export the excess for a profit and wanted to keep it going by inventing labor shortage excuses. Kind of like H1B-related "shortages": a "shortage" of minions that can be tricked into working their tail off for my profit.
As far as Japan, I wonder if there is a strong statistical correlation between birth rate and employment in nations. You have to make sure related co-factors are removed.
The current system favors small states because it gives each voter in them more relative power. It was set up that way on purpose by the founders so populous states wouldn't "mob" small ones.
Such states are not going to give up that advantage easily.
But an alternative solution is to assign weights to each voter that correspond to what they would be under EC. A citizen in Rhode Island may get say 3.2 units of votes, while somebody in California may get say 0.6 units.
It's still lopsided, but at least it's better granularity than EC such that states' results are not all-or-nothing. It is lopsidedness done right.
Slashdot Mirror
Not necessarily. Your scenario is only if it becomes a full-out trade war. Trump can play chicken to scare them to make changes. Because they depend on exports far more than we do, a game of trade chicken is riskier to them.
In this game, we are driving a Ryder truck and they a pick-up truck. It is indeed scary if there is an actual collision, but scarier for them. Assuming they weigh the risks rationally, they'll take a look at their pick-up, then our Ryder, and make a deal instead.
Let's give it a try rather than live with the status quo. The cards are on our side. It's an area where Trump's brashness may work to our favor.
China has much more to lose in a trade-war than the USA does. Their economy is tightly bound to exports. China knows this and is bluffing.
I didn't vote for Trump, but I hope he pushes this issue, and encourages China to shift more to a consumer driven economy rather than an export economy. They won't do it without pressure, and Trump's bullheadedness may be just the recipe.
China will make a lot of noise and initial threats, but after a while they'll have to change or risk an economic hit.
Factory workers have protested and rioted in recent downturns. Thus, a downturn big enough could bring serious challenges to leadership. Tienanmen Square was merely a preview of what could happen.
The leaders are worried they'll be overthrown, Kadafi-style, if the population gets angry enough. Thus, they don't really want an actual trade-war, and that's why they are using threats and bluffs early on to try to prevent one. They saw how Kadafi got Shish-kebabed by his countrymen and know they could be next.
The thing is, they don't have to depend on exports. Grow a consumer base. It works. But exports have worked so well that Chinese leaders don't want to risk change. If Trump puts enough pressure on them, they may change to avert the even worse option: Shish-kebabing.
You left out Hillary's infamous emails, and the Benghazi-related (or not related if you go by GOP) Youtube protest video.
Just pack the jury with Fox News watchers, and you'd get off.
I bet somebody knew where it was but didn't bother saying anything, until Trump was elected.
He is, Putin's
Obama: "A pardon? Oh, I thought you said 'drone'. My sincere apologies for this terrible terrible accident."
Lincoln made a fatal mistake. He should be removed from Mt. Rushmore.
Trump says offensive things and doesn't apologize or even try to clarify the brashness most of the time. Do you really need examples? I find him a Class-A Jerk in that regard, closely approaching Nazi-ism. (I hope his deeds turn out better than his statements.)
Letting big corporations and the rich run and control everything also results in abuses of power. Somebody or something runs the show regardless, and that gives them power. Humans being humans, shit happens.
I see the rich buying the laws they want so that they get even richer and buy even more laws, ruining democracy.
Trump may not be a small-government person anyhow. He's a RINO; the GOP may be in for a surprise.
He should stick with his day job.
Perhaps those in power have a longer record to complain about and spin up. It's hard to complain about somebody who sat on their ass, other than the fact they sat on their ass.
If you do 1000 things, roughly 50 of them will be outright legitimate poor judgement because humans make mistakes, and roughly 300 more will be "spin-able" using half-truths to make them seem like legitimate news of ill-doings to those who don't bother digging deeper.
I do agree the Clintons brought some of this on themselves by riding too close to the edge of legality. In the world of Big-Eye politics, you have to go out of your way to avoid even looking bad, because small transgressions will be hyped up by the other side.
For example, various high-ranking people have come to the Clintons after donating to their foundation and saying things like, "I gave X dollars to your foundation. I'd like to see progress on issue Y. Can you help?"
A typical Clinton response was, "Sure, we'll see what we can do."
That's just politeness 101. You don't blow people off. "I'll see what I can do" is non-committal, yet shows you are not ignoring them.
But under Big-Eye politics, they probably should have said, "As policy we can't change our position or focus based on donations." It's a little rough on the donor, who just spent their money on charity, but necessary to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest. The Clintons were in a tricky spot, but who said politics was easy.
(I "quoted" too many words in my prior "statements". Sorry about "that".)
When I looked into the details behind such given by online participants, most were false or spun half-truths. They used clever wording to mislead the reader, the kind of tricks slimy marketers use. Many could be traced back to far-right-leaning propaganda sites. The trolls just redecorated them to disguise them from plagiarism or repetition-prevention bots.
But let's not get into a political fact war. Both sides make and spread propaganda. T's supporters just did it more and better this time.
(Also, GOP got lucky and wasn't hacked.)
In hindsight, yes. Similar to my prior point, traditionally a non-centrist has slimmer odds in a general election, but the rules have changed. Now we know. Live and learn.
Why did the GOP (allegedly) out-propaganda the Democrats?
It's not realistic to police that much material before a heated election, being it's a periodic event. You don't want excess staff sitting between elections. That's not economical for Facebook et al.
There were probably more "intense" Trump supporters than intense H supports, and that's why the Trump trolls won. H did not "inspire" the way Trump did. Her supporters were more anti-Trump than pro-H and thus were not motivated to troll hard.
The conventional political wisdom is to run a bland centrist to capture the undecided vote. However, a bland centrist does not inspire, and therefore produces less trolls to flood The Webtubes with propaganda.
Once again, the Internet changes the rules.
(I'm not saying the propaganda was necessarily placed or coordinated by high-level officials, it's probably mostly amateurs, i.e. trolls.)
Are you making the argument that a pimp is less corrupt than a whore?
At least in this country, many people's social self worth is tied to work and career. It's not easy nor quick to change an ingrained cultural narrative.
I don't need sleep, I have an app do it.
If there are half the people then you need half the farm land, half the cows, half the houses, etc. There may be an adjustment period, sure, to shuffle stuff around, but eventually it would settle. I suppose you still need a big military because it was a dangerous time.
Like what? I've always welcomed TX and Friends to secede.
The centrist North and East won't vote to go along with it, because without CA, there wouldn't be enough left-leaning votes to prevent GOP presidents, and the remaining USA would turn right-wing.
In short, we'd be sticking the poor suckers with Tea Party types. They'd thus join the battle to prevent CALEXIT, and maybe try to secede themselves if the battle fails.
Yip. But politics is usually guided by shorter term concerns, for good or bad
Maybe we'll get lucky and The Donald will stumble into accidental prosperity via a Broken Windows Stimulus.
He'll become the Jar Jar of presidents.
That's seems counter-intuitive. Dead people mean fewer consumers and thus need less product. Maybe the kings discovered they could export the excess for a profit and wanted to keep it going by inventing labor shortage excuses. Kind of like H1B-related "shortages": a "shortage" of minions that can be tricked into working their tail off for my profit.
As far as Japan, I wonder if there is a strong statistical correlation between birth rate and employment in nations. You have to make sure related co-factors are removed.
They can do that currently via "swing states". Florida's results have been affected by as few as 400 people: and we got "Ireq" because of that.
Without cheap labor, they'd probably automate it by now. R&D for such is expensive, but would be worth while for co's if human labor went up.
The current system favors small states because it gives each voter in them more relative power. It was set up that way on purpose by the founders so populous states wouldn't "mob" small ones.
Such states are not going to give up that advantage easily.
But an alternative solution is to assign weights to each voter that correspond to what they would be under EC. A citizen in Rhode Island may get say 3.2 units of votes, while somebody in California may get say 0.6 units.
It's still lopsided, but at least it's better granularity than EC such that states' results are not all-or-nothing. It is lopsidedness done right.