US President 2016 - the Great Horse Race

[RavenSky]

So Ben Carson doesn't agree with "no religious test" for office?

 

[arkirk]

What amazes me is that people take the time to watch this bunch of loonies run for president of our country. The Repuglican debate was one of competing vile ideologies and nothing these showed anything of promise to those who have little in this country. Trump led the way with his insults, followed by Carly Fiorina with her rant against Planned Parenthood. There was nothing of value offered the public by this collection of over sponsored half wits.

IMHO none of these people belong in front of the American people on our televisions. I only watched a little bit of it because it was so absolutely ridiculous.

 

[blastula]

Ben Carson - Muslims can't be President because Islam is anti-American.

Unlike Christianity and Judaism which was apparently pro-women voting, minority rights, and all for the first Amendment.

Doesn't he know Obama is president right now?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Ben Carson - Muslims can't be President because Islam is anti-American.

Unlike Christianity and Judaism which was apparently pro-women voting, minority rights, and all for the first Amendment.

Doesn't he know Obama is president right now?

I think most of the GOP has blocked that out of their memory.

 

[SimpleDon]

As entertaining as it is, I worry. No one is addressing the issue of debt. Being 72 myself, I don't give a damn, really. I don't worry for myself, but for our collective grandchildren. Which generation will it hit? Gen2K -- those born in a year beginning with 2? The Genteen? The new20s? Who will pay when the debts come due.

We are not just leaving our children debt, we are leaving them a combination of debt and savings, both liabilities and assets.

If the balance between assets and liabilities were even there would be no problems at all. But it would mean that attempt by the government to pay off the debt would be matched by a decrease in private savings. Savings are a benefit to the economy, they provide a buffer for misfortunate, they provide for a more comfortable life, paying for children’s education and a more secure retirement, for example.

The debts and the savings aren't in balance when you just look at the US because a sizable portion of our debt is held by foreign governments. This debt is due to our large trade deficit. In one way this is a plus, countries are willing to provide us with products for pieces of paper. But it comes at a price, it is debt that is not balanced by savings held by Americans. If any of our debt is as you characterized it as debt passed down to our children this is it.

You would think that this fact would result in constant cries to reduce our trade deficit. But it hasn't. Why? Because nearly half of the country votes to suppress the wages of the poor and the middle class in order to intentionally boost the incomes of the rich. A large trade deficit helps to do this because it exposes the wages in the US to competition with much lower wages off shore.

Free money for the banks continues for a while. I worry.

The government didn't provide free money to the banks. The government bought their illiquid toxic mortgage backed securities and deposited money in the banks just as you would, the money was still the government's but it could have been loaned out. The government did these two things in spite of the moral hazard that they created because the country and the economy needs a stable banking sector.

The only other way that it could have been done would have been to let the banks go bankrupt and have the government take them over. There is no other reason than ideology that this choice that had been the norm previously wasn't used. See the previous deregulation derangement financial crisis, Reagan's savings and loan crisis.

I note that war increases the velocity of money. It is injected into the real economy, this, in turn, increases demand and a war-boom is born. The arms dealers, bankers and military (Eisenhower's Military-Industrial Complex) all profit. Greatly. A forgotten issue. I worry.

I don't remember who it was, a famous economist said that the concept of the velocity of money is proof that economists in general don't understand what money is. The velocity of money is the concept that the consumers prefer to spend sometimes and prefer to save at other times. Or prefer to go into debt sometimes and prefer to pay down debt at other times, effectively the same as savings vs. spending.

War doesn't so much increase the velocity of money, i.e. consumers desire to spend, as it causes the amount of money to increase because of the government deficit spending. In World War II we used higher taxes, rationing and war bond sales to soak up the extra money so that it didn't cause too much inflation. As well as wage and price controls.

The costs of war in the battlefield country is primarily the costs of logistics. In Vietnam we had to have a half million troops to put fifty thousand in the field fighting. The 450,000 sent a large part of their wages back to the US. In Iraq we effectively off-shored and privatized the logistics using low wage foreign workers instead of US military personnel. It dampened the impact on demand in the US because the money didn't return to the US as it had in previous wars.

Also in the Middle Eastern Wars, incredibly, we didn't have to increase production of war materials very much because of the huge amounts of equipment and munitions that we had stockpiled through years in the corporate welfare portion of the defense budget.

In a dictatorship they vote, but there is only a choice of one name; in the US there are two names. I worry.

I don't understand.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

So Ben Carson doesn't agree with "no religious test" for office?

It's obvious to me Carson doesn't have a single Muslim acquaintance.

 

[SimpleDon]

Banks are there to make money. By hoarding it, they're not making money, so why would they do that?

Of course, the banks don't hoard the money. They have to wait for credit worthy businesses and individuals to want loans before they can make loan. I know that I sound like a broken record but you have to have demand in the economy for people to need loans. We have a demand lead economy that we are trying to understand and control with obsolete supply side economics from the 19th century.

 

[SimpleDon]

To start a New America ...

There was a time when oaths were taken seriously. A pledge of sacred honor. An oath violated is a permanent stain upon my self esteem. A shameful weight upon my soul. An oath to protect and defend the Constitution meant that legislators themselves would not propose any legislation that might possibly be unconstitutional. Discussions among all might dismiss a bill as unconstitutional on its face. The original role of the supreme court was not to judge the legislature. No "checks and balances." Instead three pillars: judicial, legislative, executive. A legislature recognizing political reality: Ordinary folk, ordinary taxpayers provide the bulk of the revenue; they will be the House. The Senate is for the politicians. Rich folk with political connections representing the political interest of their state, appointed by the governor or state legislature. The senate will oversee negotiations of treaties with other governments since they are politicians used to negotiation with other states. (We've messed that up with direct election of senators. Oops.) Revenue shall come from excise and duties. (Excise tax is sales tax. We messed that up too.) A non-partisan presidential election. Electors shall decide. They, in turn, will be elected in each state. The president is the one that gets the most electoral votes, the vice president the second-most. Since the vice president becomes president of the senate -- presiding over the senate -- in the chair banging the gavel, the vice presidency is a powerful check on the president. (Oops.)

... go back to the beginning.

Independent States with different laws and customs. Each an experiment to be copied by other states if successful. Some where polygamy is allowed, some where the state stays out of the marriage business and local custom prevails, and some that allow only heterosexual marriage.
Some that make charity state-controlled and others leave it to the known generosity of most people.
Some that make education state-controlled and others that leave it to the individual families to educate their own children.
Some will insist that all citizens over 12 be trained in gun safety, shooting skills and basic martial arts while others will allow gun-free-zone local ordinances in their state.
Some will allow open carry, some will not.
Local control by local laws.
Voting with the feet -- that grass sometimes really is greener. And failed policies affect just one state at a time.

It seems like your oath to protect and to defend the Constitution depends on a notable lack of understanding of the Constitution. Starting with a misunderstanding of the power of the judiciary over the laws that Congress passes and over the laws that States pass granted to the federal judiciary by the 14th and the 15th amendments. I suggest that you re-read Article IlI, the 14th and the 15th amendments.

Your love of the Constitution seems to extend to wanting it to be the Articles of Confederation, the failed blueprint for government that was so bad that it only lasted 10 years before they started to write a new one. A form of government that was a failure in the 18th century certainly wouldn't fare very well today.

I am not very impressed with reactionaries like you. The desire to rollback the clock to a time that you just know was a better time is because the view backwards is usually as myopic as yours.

We live in the best of times right now. Science and technology improve our lives everyday. We still have the world's most innovative and productive industries and companies. We are closer to an equitable, democratic society as we ever have been.

As in anything dealing with the real world we have gotten where we are by taking two steps forward and one backward. And we sometimes have had to give up individual freedoms to the fears hyped up by those afraid of change and those like you that want to march backwards, reference the Patriot Act or crime running rampant in the streets or the current homophobia and xenophobia or the war against drugs, women, the middle class, religion, etc. We will get better and work through these. We will eventually overcome the new found rights like money is free speech or the decisions like that one half of the second amendment is meaningless, rhetorical fluff.

 

[SimpleDon]

A poll released yesterday indicated that even if Trump lost support, approximately half of his base would be willing to enter a space capsule to the Moon with Trump to start a new America.

Someone has stated that the reason why so many like Trump is because they're sick and tired of politicians.
Makes some sense. He's also saying what many Americans want to hear.

We get the politicians that we ask for and that we deserve.

 

[SimpleDon]

Wasn't there a movement at one point to have all the conservative Christians move to South Carolina in order to set up a Christian Disneyland or something by having the numbers to change all the State laws to reflect Biblical principles? Whatever happened with that?

Yes there was, and it was South Carolina, and they didn't get diverted to Guyana. They were inspired by the success (!) of the Free State Project.

Or by the example of all of the libertarians streaming to the anarchist & libertarian paradise of Somalia.

 

[James Brown]

Looks like Scott Walker will be the next to drop out. His campaign is at the "Not paying our bills or staff" stage.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Looks like Scott Walker will be the next to drop out. His campaign is at the "Not paying our bills or staff" stage.

Walker had a decent shot (mindless Koch-bot), but Trump absolutely clobbered him, without actually attacking him. A bunch of small, but "nice" sailboats in the race and the huge Death Star Trump sailboat comes in and stole their air.

Walker's issue would have been appealing to the moderates in the General election, but in the end, he loses out for not winning the far right wing that had made his career.

The Republican Primaries have been surreal and we are still several months from Iowa.

 

[SimpleDon]

Scott Walker has dropped out.

- - - Updated - - -

According to NBC news.

He appeared before groups that supported him, he opened his mouth and put them to sleep.

 

[blastula]

Scott Walker has dropped out.

FUCK@!!%$!!@##2!@!!!!

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Scott Walker has dropped out.

- - - Updated - - -

According to NBC news.

He appeared before groups that supported him, he opened his mouth and put them to sleep.

Can't out poll a big mouth, CEO failure, and an actual outsider with no political experience. Could only out poll Rick Santorum, Lindsey Graham, and Bobby Jindal. Wow!

Going into this, had no idea he'd be gone so quickly. The question is where does the Koch money go?

 

[Elixir]

This thread has been going for almost 6 months now. A quick glance through it should reassure everyone of at least one thing: Nobody knows what's going to happen on either side. It's also a good bet that monitoring Republican attrition will remain fair entertainment for some months. Other than that, though...

My take: All of the occupants of the current Republican Clown Car have gotten so much Trump-slime on them by now that they are all unelectable. Repubs will probably come up with a "fresh face" and push him/her into the ring at such a time that it's too late to dig up all the dirt on him/her. The Democratic field sits back watching it all, and will suffer from broad complacency because nobody in the DNC will believe that any Republican can be elected.
In the end, on election night Bernie beats teh Donald by a few electoral votes, despite carrying over 55% of the popular vote... (Well, that last part is just wishful thinking...)

 

[James Brown]

I wonder if Colin Powell stepped up at the last minute (relatively speaking) before the Republican Primary, if he could snatch the brass ring from Trump?

I know he said repeatedly that he didn't want to run. But then soldiers are accustomed to doing what they feel is their duty, despite initial reservations.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I wonder if Colin Powell stepped up at the last minute (relatively speaking) before the Republican Primary, if he could snatch the brass ring from Trump?

I know he said repeatedly that he didn't want to run. But then soldiers are accustomed to doing what they feel is their duty, despite initial reservations.

Powell didn't want to run for the '00 version of the Party. You think he wants to run for the '16 version of the Party?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

My take: All of the occupants of the current Republican Clown Car have gotten so much Trump-slime on them by now that they are all unelectable.

Technically, most of them were unelectable before Trump entered the ring. He just suffocated their campaigns.

Repubs will probably come up with a "fresh face" and push him/her into the ring at such a time that it's too late to dig up all the dirt on him/her.

Who's left? The entire Republican party is running for the nomination.

The Democratic field sits back watching it all, and will suffer from broad complacency because nobody in the DNC will believe that any Republican can be elected.
In the end, on election night Bernie beats teh Donald by a few electoral votes, despite carrying over 55% of the popular vote... (Well, that last part is just wishful thinking...)

I think it'd be impossible to win 55% of the vote and only win by a handful EC votes.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I wonder if Colin Powell stepped up at the last minute (relatively speaking) before the Republican Primary, if he could snatch the brass ring from Trump?

I know he said repeatedly that he didn't want to run. But then soldiers are accustomed to doing what they feel is their duty, despite initial reservations.

He also said that they'd found chemical weapons in Iraq, so he's also accustomed to lying and we can't predict his actions based on public statements he's made.


The above is in case he decides to run. We need to get started on the character assassination as soon as possible so that if he finds himself standing on the stage beside Hillary Clinton, viewers don't think to themselves "Hey, there's one person up there who isn't a despicable sleazebag" because that sort of thing would be devastating to the Clinton campaign.