BonzaiDuck
Lifer
- Jun 30, 2004
- 15,880
- 1,550
- 126
The stock market mythical palaver and employment hoopla is nonsense.
If any politicians lie, they all give tacit assent to this myth. Open your macroeconomics textbook: the only ways government policy affects prosperity is through the (Keynesian!) multiplier of domestic spending stimulus, increases in government spending and employment, and manipulation of the money supply ("quantitative easing"). A president can "say things" that affect the stock market in the short term. Trump has unsettled the market several times causing dives in the DOW. His policy of tariffs has done more harm than good, damaging the agricultural sector. Most of what he has "done" is showmanship -- for instance, when he arranged a deal before the election so that Carrier employees could keep their jobs. The promise was that about 1,000 or more would continue working; later, it was shown that this materialized for only half that number, and the remainder had probably made arrangements for Christmas spending under the rosy expectations, just to find that they wouldn't be able to pay their credit card bills after putting presents under the Christmas tree. The "New NAFTA" changes nothing for the status-quo, but only gives him a chance to thump his chest over nothing.
The economy goes through a sine-wave boom and bust cycle. The busts can be worsened by bad government policy, and they can be attenuated with good policy. And since Trump -- who supposedly majored in Economics as an undergraduate -- knows nothing of this and other aspects of the Rational Expectations paradigm, his showmanship attempts are mere shots in the dark.
As for the tax cuts, anyone who says they've prospered under those cuts is either already filthy rich, or they've imagined that chump-change is a money mountain. The cuts have only benefited the very rich. It may be that my own overall tax-rate has fallen three percent, but it's still chump-change. He's kicked 700,000 people off food stamps, to turn around and say that his "prosperity" has reduced the need of 700,000 people for food stamps. Add up the misery he's caused; balance it against the benefits -- and it shows net damage.
But people believe all this mythical nonsense.
I have a theory about the surge in approval to 49%, linked to the impeachment outcome. Most people are confused about judicial outcomes -- even with the political dimension of congress as jury. Look at the way the Trumper surrogates have argued the most absurd nonsense on behalf of Trump: they are behaving as extreme defense attorneys willing to use any subterfuge to get their client off the hook. The parallel of (supposedly "non-political") jury trials demonstrates the bias in the legal system to protect the innocent so that the subjective measure of "reasonable doubt" predictably allows the guilty to go free. But that is not a scientific assessment.
There is plenty of evidence in so many different aspects that would propel further investigation to uncover more facts to surmount the "reasonable doubt" standard, but McConnell's Senate has blocked the inquiry.
So the public, some of whom turned against Trump with the perception that he would be found "guilty", now accepts the bias of "acquittal" to tilt their opinion in the positive direction. Since they think our politics is like an NFL game -- a matter of winning or losing -- the polls reflect their fickle and whimsical herd behavior.
As for the rights of citizen-persons to be "innocent until proven [beyond reasonable doubt] guilty", the President is no mere citizen, and he is not just a "person". He's a Thing, being the Chief Executive. A higher standard should be applied, tilting the usual judicial bias in the other direction.
The man is a National Security risk. At the same time, the Trumpers seem to think that "their" rights would be "violated" with an impeachment proceeding that leads to removal from office. Those are the perceptions of people sticking their ostrich-heads in the sand, refusing to see the facts and the inferences from those facts, because they merely wish to be the "winners" of an election.
But elections should not be Zero-Sum games. And Trump has been playing the Zero-Sum card consistently for the duration.
If any politicians lie, they all give tacit assent to this myth. Open your macroeconomics textbook: the only ways government policy affects prosperity is through the (Keynesian!) multiplier of domestic spending stimulus, increases in government spending and employment, and manipulation of the money supply ("quantitative easing"). A president can "say things" that affect the stock market in the short term. Trump has unsettled the market several times causing dives in the DOW. His policy of tariffs has done more harm than good, damaging the agricultural sector. Most of what he has "done" is showmanship -- for instance, when he arranged a deal before the election so that Carrier employees could keep their jobs. The promise was that about 1,000 or more would continue working; later, it was shown that this materialized for only half that number, and the remainder had probably made arrangements for Christmas spending under the rosy expectations, just to find that they wouldn't be able to pay their credit card bills after putting presents under the Christmas tree. The "New NAFTA" changes nothing for the status-quo, but only gives him a chance to thump his chest over nothing.
The economy goes through a sine-wave boom and bust cycle. The busts can be worsened by bad government policy, and they can be attenuated with good policy. And since Trump -- who supposedly majored in Economics as an undergraduate -- knows nothing of this and other aspects of the Rational Expectations paradigm, his showmanship attempts are mere shots in the dark.
As for the tax cuts, anyone who says they've prospered under those cuts is either already filthy rich, or they've imagined that chump-change is a money mountain. The cuts have only benefited the very rich. It may be that my own overall tax-rate has fallen three percent, but it's still chump-change. He's kicked 700,000 people off food stamps, to turn around and say that his "prosperity" has reduced the need of 700,000 people for food stamps. Add up the misery he's caused; balance it against the benefits -- and it shows net damage.
But people believe all this mythical nonsense.
I have a theory about the surge in approval to 49%, linked to the impeachment outcome. Most people are confused about judicial outcomes -- even with the political dimension of congress as jury. Look at the way the Trumper surrogates have argued the most absurd nonsense on behalf of Trump: they are behaving as extreme defense attorneys willing to use any subterfuge to get their client off the hook. The parallel of (supposedly "non-political") jury trials demonstrates the bias in the legal system to protect the innocent so that the subjective measure of "reasonable doubt" predictably allows the guilty to go free. But that is not a scientific assessment.
There is plenty of evidence in so many different aspects that would propel further investigation to uncover more facts to surmount the "reasonable doubt" standard, but McConnell's Senate has blocked the inquiry.
So the public, some of whom turned against Trump with the perception that he would be found "guilty", now accepts the bias of "acquittal" to tilt their opinion in the positive direction. Since they think our politics is like an NFL game -- a matter of winning or losing -- the polls reflect their fickle and whimsical herd behavior.
As for the rights of citizen-persons to be "innocent until proven [beyond reasonable doubt] guilty", the President is no mere citizen, and he is not just a "person". He's a Thing, being the Chief Executive. A higher standard should be applied, tilting the usual judicial bias in the other direction.
The man is a National Security risk. At the same time, the Trumpers seem to think that "their" rights would be "violated" with an impeachment proceeding that leads to removal from office. Those are the perceptions of people sticking their ostrich-heads in the sand, refusing to see the facts and the inferences from those facts, because they merely wish to be the "winners" of an election.
But elections should not be Zero-Sum games. And Trump has been playing the Zero-Sum card consistently for the duration.

