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Trumps Big Idea of How to fix the US Debt

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SP33Demon said:
Trump is going to raid the Fed, look at his tax plan. He's a modern day Robin Hood, and quite frankly it's time for the gov to bail us out. Wages are shit and Trump will help fix that by introducing competitive nominal tax cuts to businesses so they stop fleeing the country for cheaper (and more biz friendly) pastures. Not to mention he'll put an end to illegals undercutting the poor's wage growth as well.
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So this Trump is a fix all?

Can you use him like lube too?
 
Genx87 said:
Come on. So while negotiations drag on for months the economy burns? Even you cant think Trump could negotiate anything within a time frame to save the economy.
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Hell, the stock market just about chokes, just talking about raising prime rate to 1/4 of a percent. Just talking about such nonsense if he gets in office would create a world wide panic.
 
Fanatical Meat said:
Agreed the obvious path forward is some spending cuts and some new taxes. Why everyone doesn't understand this is beyond me.
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HOW DOES I LOOSE WEIGHT?

Eat less?

THAT DOESN'T WORK

Did you actually try?

WHY WOULD I TRY IF IT DOESNT WORK

/facepalm


On this subject, here's what (Krugman) has to say about it.
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Krug's view is basically the same as The Donald, but from a different angle. Borrow unlimited amounts of money then hyperinflate it away. Fuck the bondholders. Of course, the bond holders happen to be pension funds and retired people, but fuck them. As Doug Casey would say, being paid back in worthless currency units is the punishment you get for lending money to the government.

100% of my investments are in stocks and real estate, so I really don't care either way. Go ahead and cause inflation. Inflation tends to show up in assets more than it shows up in consumables, so high inflation would likely make me wealthy at the expense of everyone else, exactly as Keynes described.
 
Fanatical Meat said:
Agreed the obvious path forward is some spending cuts and some new taxes. Why everyone doesn't understand this is beyond me.
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Agreed. Tax cuts, while nice, mostly spur growth in the nations that manufacture our consumer goods. I'd prefer a scheme that focuses on cutting the deficit. Maybe not spending cuts though so much as just slow-downs in rate of growth.
 
werepossum said:
Agreed. Tax cuts, while nice, mostly spur growth in the nations that manufacture our consumer goods. I'd prefer a scheme that focuses on cutting the deficit. Maybe not spending cuts though so much as just slow-downs in rate of growth.
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Oh yes, anything, anything but a tax increase. This is why this never works with you conservatives. Cut, cut, cut, but pay the piper, f no!
 
werepossum said:
Agreed. Tax cuts, while nice, mostly spur growth in the nations that manufacture our consumer goods. I'd prefer a scheme that focuses on cutting the deficit. Maybe not spending cuts though so much as just slow-downs in rate of growth.
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Some governments also encourage industry by giving them money for specific projects instead of just giving them money for no reason. A generic tax cut would fall into the category of blindly throwing money at the problem and hoping something happens.

I'm big on investing in Canada right now due to the cheap exchange rate, so I'm following a lot of stuff going on up there, specifically in Alberta because that's where the crisis is. Look for a crisis and you'll find investment opportunities. Michael Moore would describe this as vulture capitalism. Anyway, one company that I'm digging into is called Capital Power (CPX.TO). This is an interesting company because they primarily make money by burning coal. According to the company, a law was passed in Alberta to completely get rid of coal by 2030. This presents a bit of a problem because it means accelerated depreciation of assets. Instead of the government completely screwing the company and souring investment relations for decades to come, the government is going to buy the coal assets from the power company and retire them. In addition to that, the government is regulating the amount of power generation coming online. As a wind power facility comes online, power production from coal is decreased. This ensures stable prices in the energy market so the power company maintains profitability during this transition.

That is the proper way to help industry.
1) Create clearly stated goals for infrastructure upgrades.
2) Provide adequate compensation to private industry for these upgrades.
3) Work with industry to ensure a smooth transition.

Guys like Obama and Trump seem to miss the big picture when it comes to making change happen. You can't just tax coal out of business or tax Chinese imports and hope the thing magically solves itself. Throwing money at bullshit companies like Solyndra doesn't work either. How about trying what Canada is doing? Find a big evil coal company and help them turn into a renewable company. This builds investor relations instead of souring them. This reduces political risk. This encourages investment from around the world because investors want to know the government will work with them instead of against them.
 
hal2kilo said:
Oh yes, anything, anything but a tax increase. This is why this never works with you conservatives. Cut, cut, cut, but pay the piper, f no!
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Oh yes, anything, anything but a spending cut. This is why this never works with you liberals. Tax, tax, tax, but cut spending, f no!
 
Doc Savage Fan said:
Oh yes, anything, anything but a spending cut. This is why this never works with you liberals. Tax, tax, tax, but cut spending, f no!
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Beats cutting taxes and continuing to spend which is the record.

But continue on about complaining about debt.
 
Last edited:
hal2kilo said:
Oh yes, anything, anything but a tax increase. This is why this never works with you conservatives. Cut, cut, cut, but pay the piper, f no!
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Um, is that a joke I'm missing? The post to which I specifically agreed was:
Fanatical Meat said:
Agreed the obvious path forward is some spending cuts and some new taxes. Why everyone doesn't understand this is beyond me.
Click to expand...
If that was not a joke, then I have ever faith that you are bright enough to understand . . . um, to find someone who can understand it and explain . . . er . . . to find someone who can understand it and pat you on the head. 😉

Spungo said:
Some governments also encourage industry by giving them money for specific projects instead of just giving them money for no reason. A generic tax cut would fall into the category of blindly throwing money at the problem and hoping something happens.

I'm big on investing in Canada right now due to the cheap exchange rate, so I'm following a lot of stuff going on up there, specifically in Alberta because that's where the crisis is. Look for a crisis and you'll find investment opportunities. Michael Moore would describe this as vulture capitalism. Anyway, one company that I'm digging into is called Capital Power (CPX.TO). This is an interesting company because they primarily make money by burning coal. According to the company, a law was passed in Alberta to completely get rid of coal by 2030. This presents a bit of a problem because it means accelerated depreciation of assets. Instead of the government completely screwing the company and souring investment relations for decades to come, the government is going to buy the coal assets from the power company and retire them. In addition to that, the government is regulating the amount of power generation coming online. As a wind power facility comes online, power production from coal is decreased. This ensures stable prices in the energy market so the power company maintains profitability during this transition.

That is the proper way to help industry.
1) Create clearly stated goals for infrastructure upgrades.
2) Provide adequate compensation to private industry for these upgrades.
3) Work with industry to ensure a smooth transition.

Guys like Obama and Trump seem to miss the big picture when it comes to making change happen. You can't just tax coal out of business or tax Chinese imports and hope the thing magically solves itself. Throwing money at bullshit companies like Solyndra doesn't work either. How about trying what Canada is doing? Find a big evil coal company and help them turn into a renewable company. This builds investor relations instead of souring them. This reduces political risk. This encourages investment from around the world because investors want to know the government will work with them instead of against them.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure there is much difference between buying the coal assets and merely dumping money into Solyndra. Unless the agreement is very carefully constrained, so that the company must create viable green energy production to get the money for the coal, then it seems to me that it's just another form of cronyism. From past results, I'd suggest it's more likely that the company simply shifts from buying rights, mining and selling coal to buying rights and have the government pay it to not mine and sell that coal, much as we paid people to not grow corn. After all, Congresscritters are a much safer investment than green energy production.
 
I hate comparing federal spending to home spending but on a real basic level its the same taxes are income, budgets are budgets and debt is debt.
We all know the obvious answer to a job down turn is to reduce expenses, take on smart debt like a cheap car to get you to work, maybe a small loan to learn new skills and either look for a better job or find a second job.
Why is it so difficult to understand? Threatening to blow up the debt ceiling doesn't help its like not paying your mortgage, what's the plan when the bank repossess your home. Its respectable to be pissed about debt but its silly to refuse to pay for money you've already spent. Deploying troops somewhere silly without a realistic goal is similar to taking a second mortgage to send your kid to Harvard to get a degree to be a librarian (no disrespect intended to Liberians but lets be honest future job prospects are grim) its simply silly priorities.
 
werepossum said:
I'm not sure there is much difference between buying the coal assets and merely dumping money into Solyndra.
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One is a company started in some guy's basement and the other is a company with 60+ years of experience in the business of generating and selling power.
This is why Solyndra died and Capital Power will not.

Cronyism is an important part of modern day capitalism. If you create an environment with extreme political risk, don't act surprised when there is no investment.

If the owners of the electricity companies are forced to take catastrophic losses with no compensation, guess what will happen when the province needs more power. Investors will refuse to be part of it. What happens then? Do they have brownouts all the time? Does the price of electricity shoot to the moon? Does all industry leave the province because they can't operate with such terrible utility service?

Saskatchewan, the province to the right of Alberta, did something similar to this a long time ago and they never recovered from it. Saskatchewan has enormous reserves of natural gas, but it's untapped. It stays in the ground because energy companies were fucked by the government. They would invest tons of money, and then the government would change the rules. Investors are not idiots, so they decide not to invest in that province. Huge province, beautiful climate, beautiful lakes, tons of resources, and the population is a little over 1 million. The province is twice the size of Germany and it has only 1 million people.
 
Spungo said:
One is a company started in some guy's basement and the other is a company with 60+ years of experience in the business of generating and selling power.
This is why Solyndra died and Capital Power will not.

Cronyism is an important part of modern day capitalism. If you create an environment with extreme political risk, don't act surprised when there is no investment.

If the owners of the electricity companies are forced to take catastrophic losses with no compensation, guess what will happen when the province needs more power. Investors will refuse to be part of it. What happens then? Do they have brownouts all the time? Does the price of electricity shoot to the moon? Does all industry leave the province because they can't operate with such terrible utility service?

Saskatchewan, the province to the right of Alberta, did something similar to this a long time ago and they never recovered from it. Saskatchewan has enormous reserves of natural gas, but it's untapped. It stays in the ground because energy companies were fucked by the government. They would invest tons of money, and then the government would change the rules. Investors are not idiots, so they decide not to invest in that province. Huge province, beautiful climate, beautiful lakes, tons of resources, and the population is a little over 1 million. The province is twice the size of Germany and it has only 1 million people.
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Good points. Although the people of Saskatchewan may well prefer it to Alberta.

Solyndra is probably a bad example, since it was vetted during the Bush administration and they determined that Solyndra had a product that would ever be practical or competitive.

JSt0rm said:
simple people like to hear simple solutions. Thats why trump won the gop nom.
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lol As opposed to the very complicated message the Dems sing:

I will take money from other people, people you don't like, and spend it on you, my special little snowflake.
 
Genx87 said:
Of all the blustering and stupid ideas by Trump this is the most scary. The reason is he will have a GOP congress to go along with defaulting on the debt. This is a real issue he can actually accomplish.
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Yep, this more than anything is why I'd never vote Trump. I'm not happy with gradually accumulating debt either, but Trump is the guy that I think could do the most immediate damage.
 
I wonder if Trump knows who holds the majority of US bonds? I wonder if the folks who hold the majority of US bonds will still vote for Trump knowing he intends to screw them?
 
eskimospy said:
Lolwut. It's a simple factual statement. The US didn't do a lot of trade in the mid to late 1940's. If you think it's contrary to Every Fact Ever, feel free to explain why and back it up with data.

I can't help but notice how your response to inconvenient facts is blustering and insults, the exact thing you were complaining about just a bit ago. That's pretty funny.
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FYI,

You can't actually win this argument with facts.

LK will never concede because of how closely he self identifies with Trump. Any criticism of Trump's competence is a criticism of LK, and his inflated ego cannot accept it.

Self proclaimed master of business, finance and negotiation? Check.
The master historian and leading thinker his universe has ever known? Check
Short tempered and thin skinned vulgarian? Check
Over aggressive alpha who results to insults and primitive displays of masculine dominance when threatened? Check
Mostly full of shit and poorly thought out logical arguments and statements? Check.


LegendKiller said:
As opposed to the dear leader? You win!

Eski = this little boy

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=euPiKKMsR8E
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Trump can pull this off because he's funny. You are not. Sad!
 
I don't think most ever agree's with anyone else's plans on fixing debt. Just something I've noticed.
 
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