GOP Debate February 6th

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ivwshane

ivwshane

Lifer
May 15, 2000
32,229
14,924
136
HamburgerBoy said:
fwiw, based on the context Trump's comment on the USA being the highest taxed country in the world was implying a corporate tax rate (which is apparently still not quite true; didn't know Japan's was higher).
Click to expand...

Is that using the marginal rate or the effective rate?
 
HamburgerBoy

HamburgerBoy

Lifer
Apr 12, 2004
27,112
318
126
Jaskalas said:
You need a lesson in the vicious cycle, and the obvious sign that has now twice preceded economic ruin. The more of our life blood they take, the less liquidity the consumers have to keep the economy running.

My Boomer parents tell of what they could purchase in the past. It absolutely pales in comparison to what standard jobs provide today. Robert Reich explained this succinctly in "Inequality For All".

Your only answer is to attempt to deny it, but the truth is out there.
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Purchasing what? Americans have access to all sorts of fancy and cheap gadgets that they didn't before. Housing is much more expensive, but population growth is exponential. You can't necessarily blame the 1% stealing all the money just because certain things are more expensive.

Just because workers are more productive doesn't necessarily mean they should be better compensated. E.g., a technology is invented that allows Bob to make 100 widgets an hour rather than 1 an hour by hand. Is he proportionately entitled to a much higher wage, even though he bears none of the R&D or tech-manufacturing costs? Is he even though his increased productivity may put no additional strain on his life?
 
HamburgerBoy

HamburgerBoy

Lifer
Apr 12, 2004
27,112
318
126
ivwshane said:
Is that using the marginal rate or the effective rate?
Click to expand...

Fair point, that would only be the top rate which most companies don't pay. In any case, I believe effective corporate tax rates are higher in the USA than in many otherwise-tax-heavy European countries, which incentivizes American companies to do work their tax avoiding magic.
 
nickqt

nickqt

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2015
7,544
7,688
136
HamburgerBoy said:
Purchasing what? Americans have access to all sorts of fancy and cheap gadgets that they didn't before. Housing is much more expensive, but population growth is exponential. You can't necessarily blame the 1% stealing all the money just because certain things are more expensive.

Just because workers are more productive doesn't necessarily mean they should be better compensated. E.g., a technology is invented that allows Bob to make 100 widgets an hour rather than 1 an hour by hand. Is he proportionately entitled to a much higher wage, even though he bears none of the R&D or tech-manufacturing costs? Is he even though his increased productivity may put no additional strain on his life?
Click to expand...
And that's when you reach the point in your civilization where the vast majority of people are disconnected from the wealth the civilization produces. Bob is still there, pushing the buttons and making his employer, Stanley Sprockets lots and lots of money. Do you just tell Bob to love it or leave it?

You can, but then, go figure, populists like Trump and Sanders become popular. In essence, FDR was an aristocrat who realized that if you let that disconnect continue for too long, well, fascism or communism, pick your poison. The US got to pretty much skip those two failed experiments. And voila, between the stimulus of the New Deal and the stimulus of WWII, middle class prosperity for close to 50 years.

Here is something you may or may not have seen before (link below), but I find it an interesting way to look at the future. With 7 billion humans today, and more to come, eventually technology and automation will make it virtually impossible for their to be work for every single human.

Then what?

Take a look.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2011/12/four-futures/
 
HamburgerBoy

HamburgerBoy

Lifer
Apr 12, 2004
27,112
318
126
nickqt said:
And that's when you reach the point in your civilization where the vast majority of people are disconnected from the wealth the civilization produces. Bob is still there, pushing the buttons and making his employer, Stanley Sprockets lots and lots of money. Do you just tell Bob to love it or leave it?

You can, but then, go figure, populists like Trump and Sanders become popular. In essence, FDR was an aristocrat who realized that if you let that disconnect continue for too long, well, fascism or communism, pick your poison. The US got to pretty much skip those two failed experiments. And voila, between the stimulus of the New Deal and the stimulus of WWII, middle class prosperity for close to 50 years.

Here is something you may or may not have seen before (link below), but I find it an interesting way to look at the future. With 7 billion humans today, and more to come, eventually technology and automation will make it virtually impossible for their to be work for every single human.

Then what?

Take a look.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2011/12/four-futures/
Click to expand...

It already is impossible for there to be work for every single human. Do you see a billion Africans all getting paid a "livable wage"? Or the hundreds of millions living in slums or third-world towns in India? Part of WWII's "stimulus" (going into the 50s and 60s) involved starving and/or murdering over a hundred million people world wide btw, but hey, Rosie got to rivet and John got fed to shoot krauts and japs, so who cares?
 
nickqt

nickqt

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2015
7,544
7,688
136
HamburgerBoy said:
It already is impossible for there to be work for every single human. Do you see a billion Africans all getting paid a "livable wage"? Or the hundreds of millions living in slums or third-world towns in India? Part of WWII's "stimulus" (going into the 50s and 60s) involved starving and/or murdering over a hundred million people world wide btw, but hey, Rosie got to rivet and John got fed to shoot krauts and japs, so who cares?
Click to expand...

I care.
 
Phokus

Phokus

Lifer
Nov 20, 1999
22,995
776
126
HamburgerBoy said:
It already is impossible for there to be work for every single human. Do you see a billion Africans all getting paid a "livable wage"? Or the hundreds of millions living in slums or third-world towns in India? Part of WWII's "stimulus" (going into the 50s and 60s) involved starving and/or murdering over a hundred million people world wide btw, but hey, Rosie got to rivet and John got fed to shoot krauts and japs, so who cares?
Click to expand...

The solution will be a basic income once the AI/robotics revolutions comes around.
 
HamburgerBoy

HamburgerBoy

Lifer
Apr 12, 2004
27,112
318
126
nickqt said:
I care.
Click to expand...

No, clearly you don't care about the world's welfare if you think famines and genocides everywhere else on the globe justify a brief period of unsustainable prosperity among the 1950s American middle class. Let the Chinese, the Bengali, and the Slavs eat cake.
 
mysticjbyrd

mysticjbyrd

Golden Member
Oct 6, 2015
1,363
3
0
HamburgerBoy said:
No, clearly you don't care about the world's welfare if you think famines and genocides everywhere else on the globe justify a brief period of unsustainable prosperity among the 1950s American middle class. Let the Chinese, the Bengali, and the Slavs eat cake.
Click to expand...
It wasn't just the 1950s... It's still unsustainable! We would need 4 planet earths, if everyone lived like Americans.
 
HamburgerBoy

HamburgerBoy

Lifer
Apr 12, 2004
27,112
318
126
One more funny Rubio flub :awe:

2j1kchc.jpg
 
Indus

Indus

Diamond Member
May 11, 2002
9,947
6,535
136
Blackjack200 said:
How can you vote for Hillary? She'll say anything to get elected!

Rubio, on the other hand, will say it four times.
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Rubio had his Sarah Palin moment on national TV.

Which magazines did you read for national strategy? Oh all of them.
 
Fanatical Meat

Fanatical Meat

Lifer
Feb 4, 2009
34,579
15,794
136
I didn't watch, were they really trying to drum up fear over an EMP attack?
Do they really want us to believe that:
Iran or NK is capable of having a hydrogen bomb and missle that will deliver it to a pretty specific point
That somehow this missle wouldn't be observed

What fool would blatantly launch & detonate a bomb over the US. What would it achieve other than accepting there will be a massive retaliation that would likely include some kind of nuclear response?
 
S

stockwiz

Senior member
Sep 8, 2013
403
15
81
Jaskalas said:
Can you pump gas and support a family?
No. You cannot simply work any job and "make it" these days. The baby boomers did. The difference is the concentration of wealth into the hands of Wall Street and their systematic transfer of that money into offshore holdings.

You are poor today because of the great looting of America.
Click to expand...


Automation has more to do with it than the strong dollar, concentration of wealth, and outsourcing, but you have a good point. Global trade... what does it cost to pay the chinese to make it and ship it on barges to America versus the cost of manufacturing it here... it's all about the bottom line... earnings per share and bonuses of millions for the CEOs.
 
sportage

sportage

Lifer
Feb 1, 2008
11,493
3,159
136
I know everyone is suppose to hate Obama (commie dictator Obama) and hate both Hillary and Sanders too, but these republican guys on stage? Really? Seriously?

I was first going to ask does anyone really believe any of these guys on stage could do any better?
But actually I should ask does anyone really believe any combination of three up there on stage could do any better than Obama?
What I see are a group of totally clueless republicans that might think they know how things work or how their ideas would work, but heck.... they don't have a clue. None of them.
And John Katich? He sounded like he was sipping from the stupid cup as well.
What happened to him? Is he now taking lessons from Carly?

This debate was like removing the teacher from the school classroom, then handing it over to the dumbest kids in the class.
Presidential candidates? Seriously?
That is what I keep asking myself when watching these republican debates.
Seriously? These guys? seriously?
What am I watching here? Saturday Night Live?
Is this for real?

And then the media says, "well Rubio had a good night, or Christie was impressive.
Good? impressive? Why?
Because none of them cut the cheese or drooled vomit on stage?
What are they measuring "good" and "impressive" against? Special ED?

God...
Sadly we know all too well that much of the electorate are fairly ignorant, detached from reality, and clueless, but to actually vote from this group for president?
That, I really cannot grasp.
This is like grade school kids arguing who is better to run the entire country.
And the debate is by pulling hair, shooting spitballs, and tossing erasers at one another.

And we've had what so far?
Five, ten of these republican debates and never once have any of them addressed the true issues that Americans face and care about?
All they do is promise they will repeal Obamacare with "something" FANTASTIC and TREMENDOUS, whatever that might be because they never say what that would be?

And promise they would bring "all the jobs" back from Mexico, however I think they better talk to Ford Motors, Hewlett Packard, Honeywell, Motorola, and Boeing first about that one because the ONLY way those jobs are ever coming back is if the American factory worker is willing to work an 80 hour work week for $3 an hour.
And that is with absolutely no benefits what-so-ever.

And the military?
Sounds like someone is going to need the draft reinstated.
If we're going to put all those troops back into the middle east, take the oil, hunt down the soup de jour terrorist group of the day, and on top of that take care of the hundreds, thousands of wounded warriors returning no longer able to function in society, well that is going to take a lot more than just big talk out of the ass.

Just amazing...
Such a contrast between the republican debates and the democrat debates, as if no one has noticed....
And the opening flub where they couldn't even get on stage without screwing that up, that should tell it all.
A group of screw ups that can't even walk and chew gum at the same time.
And that flub wasn't some lame excuse over the noise of the crowd or the audio system.
Christie, Cruz, and Bush kind of walked out when they were queued.

I also noticed...
This was the first debate where they had canned audience reaction of sorts.
When the crowd was cheering it wasn't the people sitting behind the moderators doing that cheering. The shots of that audience the people were sitting quietly either motionless, or shaking their heads in disbelief of what they just heard on stage.
Did anyone notice that?

Besides, Donald Trump gave it all away.
Trump said only the paid contributors were given tickets.
And that was obvious when Rubio's group cheered every word out of Rubio's mouth, and the Bush section cheering every word out of Jeb's mouth.
And Donald's crowd I take it could not get tickets?

After about a third of this debate fiasco I had to turn it off and delete it from my DVR.
I just couldn't take anymore of the nonsense.
Even the football players are given helmets to protect their brains from excessive damage.
I just couldn't risk the CTE. ;)
 
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