The Many Faces of US Politics...

[Kickham csc]

Alt right is bullshit. It's about maintaining a white majority
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/21/alt-right-conference-richard-spencer-white-nationalists

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum expressed alarm on Monday over "hateful speech" at a white nationalist meeting over the weekend, and a restaurant apologized for hosting the group after a woman tweeted a picture of herself making a Nazi salute.    The National Policy Institute, a think tank that is part of the alt-right movement that includes neo-Nazis, white supremacists and anti-Semites, held a gathering at the federally owned Ronald Reagan Building on Saturday.
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/u-s-election-2016/1.754493

The GOP is the immigration party. It drives wages down and means higher corporate profits. See Eamonn's chart.

It's going to be Bannon vs the GOP.
There is no way to please the poor voters, the rich funders and the Nazis at the same time.

The coalition will tear itself apart.

And the swing voters who voted for Trump might be happy,  if it tears the whole rotten machine down with it forcing America to hit a reset button and reset its priorities

So what are these desired, rethought out priorities?

Washington has forgot about developing policies for the out of work / working class/ outsourced jobs. No matter what colour, race or religion you are, America is a fantastic country to live in if you have sufficient money to live, and it is probably one of the worst if you are struggling financially. People don't need benefits, they need jobs.

To that end, America needs a job creation policy that will focus on all career salary points. The compliant at the moment is that the global trade arrangements favor the outsourcing of the lower paid jobs, with trends now showing middle salaried jobs going out, and tax revenues being relocated to low tax countries. Something needs to done to address it.  Create the infrastructure jobs, lower corporate tax, even if it is only for companies with substantial business in the states (motivate companies to invest in the states, not move operations out of it)

Need to fix immigration. From my experience 99% of immigrants that come into the states either legal or not, are work hungry people, and want to get paid for a good days work. You will never see them beg. There is something wrong with a system that doesn't address this, i.e. there is a need for immigration, come up with a system to govern it effectively. Not doing this leaves the immigrants at risk of being exploited, and places a burden on the healthcare system and puts non documented communities against local communities

Education is broken. For example, the cost of college is getting out of control. If your poor, you have support, if your rich.. no problems, working and middle class, big financial drain. The fact that high school quality is related to local tax income levels needs to be addressed (Charter schools, cross school education programs)

Healthcare.. Fix the parts of Obamacare that needs fixing and move on. I believe the Republicans. would settle for the majority of Obamacare, except the name. Don't not be surprised if Trump , tidies it up, rebrands it, and sells it as a rep success.

Police.... Stop treating them as tax collectors. Stop setting policies / strategies putting the cops against communities. Sort out the f**king gun issue

Guns.... some control, just a little... this will help the police satiation as stated above

Energy... develop (or at least communicate) a technology roadmap, showing the current status to the green future. Create tax incentives for green technologies to locate in traditional fossil fuel areas, will help with those pesky switch voters
that's all for now

[seafoid]

Gay marriage is not a serious concession unless  you are gay. It doesn't cost anything. Paul Singer is one of the Scrooge McDucks running the show and he was very anti gay marriage until he found out his son was never going to find a woman. He put a lot of money behind gay marriage. But he won't yield on economic Policy. Because that is serious.

Porn is the same. Let people at it. It doesn't matter as long as you can f**k them economically.

Healthcare is nearly 20% of GDP. It is out of control. Americans pay twice as much as Irish people and have lower life expectancy. There is rent seeking every where. You cannot have competition in a health system because nobody cares about the costs.  Costs are increasing at 5% a year.

In Trump areas certain people don't even have healthcare. And of those who do work many jobs are not full time and don't come with benefits or else they are fulltime and there are no payrises because the company pays the health insurance increase and there is nothing left for the worker.

The US has a number of chronic crises coming together simultaneously and neither party will address them.

[J70]

Alt right is bullshit. It's about maintaining a white majority
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/21/alt-right-conference-richard-spencer-white-nationalists

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum expressed alarm on Monday over "hateful speech" at a white nationalist meeting over the weekend, and a restaurant apologized for hosting the group after a woman tweeted a picture of herself making a Nazi salute.    The National Policy Institute, a think tank that is part of the alt-right movement that includes neo-Nazis, white supremacists and anti-Semites, held a gathering at the federally owned Ronald Reagan Building on Saturday.
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/u-s-election-2016/1.754493

The GOP is the immigration party. It drives wages down and means higher corporate profits. See Eamonn's chart.

It's going to be Bannon vs the GOP.
There is no way to please the poor voters, the rich funders and the Nazis at the same time.

The coalition will tear itself apart.

And the swing voters who voted for Trump might be happy,  if it tears the whole rotten machine down with it forcing America to hit a reset button and reset its priorities

So what are these desired, rethought out priorities?

Washington has forgot about developing policies for the out of work / working class/ outsourced jobs. No matter what colour, race or religion you are, America is a fantastic country to live in if you have sufficient money to live, and it is probably one of the worst if you are struggling financially. People don't need benefits, they need jobs.

To that end, America needs a job creation policy that will focus on all career salary points. The compliant at the moment is that the global trade arrangements favor the outsourcing of the lower paid jobs, with trends now showing middle salaried jobs going out, and tax revenues being relocated to low tax countries. Something needs to done to address it.  Create the infrastructure jobs, lower corporate tax, even if it is only for companies with substantial business in the states (motivate companies to invest in the states, not move operations out of it)

Need to fix immigration. From my experience 99% of immigrants that come into the states either legal or not, are work hungry people, and want to get paid for a good days work. You will never see them beg. There is something wrong with a system that doesn't address this, i.e. there is a need for immigration, come up with a system to govern it effectively. Not doing this leaves the immigrants at risk of being exploited, and places a burden on the healthcare system and puts non documented communities against local communities

Education is broken. For example, the cost of college is getting out of control. If your poor, you have support, if your rich.. no problems, working and middle class, big financial drain. The fact that high school quality is related to local tax income levels needs to be addressed (Charter schools, cross school education programs)

Healthcare.. Fix the parts of Obamacare that needs fixing and move on. I believe the Republicans. would settle for the majority of Obamacare, except the name. Don't not be surprised if Trump , tidies it up, rebrands it, and sells it as a rep success.

Police.... Stop treating them as tax collectors. Stop setting policies / strategies putting the cops against communities. Sort out the f**king gun issue

Guns.... some control, just a little... this will help the police satiation as stated above

Energy... develop (or at least communicate) a technology roadmap, showing the current status to the green future. Create tax incentives for green technologies to locate in traditional fossil fuel areas, will help with those pesky switch voters
that's all for now

You think the people who voted for Trump want all or even a significant chunk of all that?

(I agree with you BTW!)

[J70]

Gay marriage is not a serious concession unless  you are gay. It doesn't cost anything. Paul Singer is one of the Scrooge McDucks running the show and he was very anti gay marriage until he found out his son was never going to find a woman. He put a lot of money behind gay marriage. But he won't yield on economic Policy. Because that is serious.

If it is such a trivial issue, why have the GOP exploited it so much as a wedge issue over the past 10-15 years?

Granted, society, as a whole, is moving past it, but that doesn't mean the religious base of the GOP is. Just wait until the Scalia replacement hearings begin and how a potential Justice's views might offer an opportunity to send the issue back to the states.

Porn is the same. Let people at it. It doesn't matter as long as you can f**k them economically.

Yes, but it hasn't really been much of a campaign issue at any stage.

Seemingly even the GOP base likes to watch a bit of filth now and again!

Healthcare is nearly 20% of GDP. It is out of control. Americans pay twice as much as Irish people and have lower life expectancy. There is rent seeking every where. You cannot have competition in a health system because nobody cares about the costs.  Costs are increasing at 5% a year.

In Trump areas certain people don't even have healthcare. And of those who do work many jobs are not full time and don't come with benefits or else they are fulltime and there are no payrises because the company pays the health insurance increase and there is nothing left for the worker.

The US has a number of chronic crises coming together simultaneously and neither party will address them.

Obamacare tried to address the insurance side of it for the lower income people (subsidies, Medicaid) and those who don't get it through work. Unfortunately, too many people and politicians don't want to be a part of fixing it, partly for partisan, political reasons.

And many people don't give a shit about the ludicrous costs of healthcare because their employer provides it as a benefit in the first place. So there's no pressure to keep the costs down. And its amazing how much they vary by location, which kind of torpedoes the idea that buying insurance across state lines will suddenly solve everything. If you buy a cheap policy in Oklahoma, will it cover costs for an NYC resident in an NYC hospital?

[seafoid]

so strange things happen every day, and seafoid I agree with a number of your points.

78 sowed the seeds, and thatcher in 79 with reagan to follow were the seeds whose bounty we reap today.

Few things I disagree with though, Palley- just in general, his own neo or post keynesian economic theory, doesn't hold up to inspection IMHO. no thought given to the macro-societal and micro-local factors in deriving utility used in models, and along with everyone else the traditional time miss. The single biggest issue with modern economists is the cherry picking of causes that promote the economist's standing in the academic and peer community. You now have the tools to model successfully, but the will to be possibly proved wrong is not there. Kevin Murphy at Booth is an exception and has put his money very successfully where his mouth is.

I would argue that the one way out of the current economic malaise for the US is:

1) a tax overhaul on capital gains, corporate profits, carried interest, profit earned abroad, loophole closing and a complete moratorium on political donations.  Overhaul of Charity, trust and educational for profit qualifications. huge GDP increase.
2) the rules for healthcare provision, education and benefits should be removed completely from the state and imposed and standardized at federal levels. adds to GDP
3) temporarily add to the debt. Impose a complete overhaul of the crumbling US infrastructure from transport, to communications and all else. self funding.
4) a new version of the GI bill, except instead of just military service, a national service for all work relating to above infrastructure projects, all employees FT, healthcare, free education, pension.self funding.
5) The US immigration system is broken, although it actually meets very closely the economic needs of the United States, the legal immigration system does not support it, and that impacts the immigration needs of the economy. adds to GDP

Blue collar jobs, white collar jobs, improved infrastructure, multiplier effect, education improvements, lower benefits costs, increased employment where most impacted. Domestic economy accelerated.

Chances of current politicians voting for this zero.

Some very good ideas there.

There has to be support for demand and particularly payrises. Revenues have been falling for 5 quarters so it is also a Wall St problem. The system has hit a wall.  QE is deflationary.

And that means putting smacht on debt. Because debt v workers is a zero sum game and only payrises can get the economy going again. For everyone.

Corporate earnings are at record highs as a % of GDP yet deflation is the order of the day for workers. That ain't right. 
Debt will have to be taxed. Start off taxing interest and work from there.

In terms of companies we need debt to equity swaps to undo the damage caused by buybacks.

We also need a new economic system. Thatcherism is nonsense cos it cannot deliver economic growth. There is just too much debt.
And it mostly all belongs to a tiny minority.  I was looking st the numbers. $7tn cash, $7tn passive, $12 tn negative yield Basically $26 tn doing nothing.

The UK is in a hole now with no hope of escap ing it because the richest 1% own 50% of everything

In the US campaign finance reform is a must.

In southern States education cannot be funded any longer from property taxes in a chaotic economy that crashes every 10 or 12 years.

All the elements of change are there but the 1% control the money and the politics.

[seafoid]

I wouldn't be too picky about Palley. He said QE wouldn't work and it doesn't. We need new thinking.
And there has to be a political movement to deliver it.

[seafoid]

Trump hasn't had a press conference in 2 weeks
He's bypassing the media

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xX_KaStFT8

[Eamonnca1]

10 trillion debt in eight years, more than every other president combined makes him an absolute nightmare of a president, how is the country going to recover from that?

[Wildweasel74]

g it looks like it was Bush who pushed spending through the roof, to a point it cant be clawed back..!!

[J70]

Dick Cheney told us that Reagan proved that deficits don't matter.

(And then they turned around and kept the costs of the Iraq war off the books).

Its only when Obama came in that the right suddenly discovered their distaste for deficit spending.

I wouldn't fault Bush for the increase in deficit spending in 08 and 09 - it was a historic economic crash that shrunk revenue and threw millions out of work and homes. I just can't stand the hypocrisy.

[Kickham csc]

Alt right is bullshit. It's about maintaining a white majority
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/21/alt-right-conference-richard-spencer-white-nationalists

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum expressed alarm on Monday over "hateful speech" at a white nationalist meeting over the weekend, and a restaurant apologized for hosting the group after a woman tweeted a picture of herself making a Nazi salute.    The National Policy Institute, a think tank that is part of the alt-right movement that includes neo-Nazis, white supremacists and anti-Semites, held a gathering at the federally owned Ronald Reagan Building on Saturday.
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/u-s-election-2016/1.754493

The GOP is the immigration party. It drives wages down and means higher corporate profits. See Eamonn's chart.

It's going to be Bannon vs the GOP.
There is no way to please the poor voters, the rich funders and the Nazis at the same time.

The coalition will tear itself apart.

And the swing voters who voted for Trump might be happy,  if it tears the whole rotten machine down with it forcing America to hit a reset button and reset its priorities

So what are these desired, rethought out priorities?

Washington has forgot about developing policies for the out of work / working class/ outsourced jobs. No matter what colour, race or religion you are, America is a fantastic country to live in if you have sufficient money to live, and it is probably one of the worst if you are struggling financially. People don't need benefits, they need jobs.

To that end, America needs a job creation policy that will focus on all career salary points. The compliant at the moment is that the global trade arrangements favor the outsourcing of the lower paid jobs, with trends now showing middle salaried jobs going out, and tax revenues being relocated to low tax countries. Something needs to done to address it.  Create the infrastructure jobs, lower corporate tax, even if it is only for companies with substantial business in the states (motivate companies to invest in the states, not move operations out of it)

Need to fix immigration. From my experience 99% of immigrants that come into the states either legal or not, are work hungry people, and want to get paid for a good days work. You will never see them beg. There is something wrong with a system that doesn't address this, i.e. there is a need for immigration, come up with a system to govern it effectively. Not doing this leaves the immigrants at risk of being exploited, and places a burden on the healthcare system and puts non documented communities against local communities

Education is broken. For example, the cost of college is getting out of control. If your poor, you have support, if your rich.. no problems, working and middle class, big financial drain. The fact that high school quality is related to local tax income levels needs to be addressed (Charter schools, cross school education programs)

Healthcare.. Fix the parts of Obamacare that needs fixing and move on. I believe the Republicans. would settle for the majority of Obamacare, except the name. Don't not be surprised if Trump , tidies it up, rebrands it, and sells it as a rep success.

Police.... Stop treating them as tax collectors. Stop setting policies / strategies putting the cops against communities. Sort out the f**king gun issue

Guns.... some control, just a little... this will help the police satiation as stated above

Energy... develop (or at least communicate) a technology roadmap, showing the current status to the green future. Create tax incentives for green technologies to locate in traditional fossil fuel areas, will help with those pesky switch voters
that's all for now

You think the people who voted for Trump want all or even a significant chunk of all that?

(I agree with you BTW!)

The important Trump voters are the swing voters. to that end I would say that;
Jobs - Yes
Education yes
Healthcare yes
immigration - yes
Guns - no
Police - yes
Energy - no / maybe

[Eamonnca1]

Republicans claim to hate big government spending and debt when they're in opposition, but as soon as they get their grubby hands on the purse strings they quickly become the big spenders and borrowers.

[NetNitrate]

Obama was a great president and I think will rightly go down in history as such. I think he'll be mentioned in the same breath as Kennedy and FDR in years to come. A true compassionate leader.

Pity he didn't get a 20 year term. It's sad so many Americans (and Irish apparently) are so naive and weak minded that they can be brainwashed into thinking he was a poor president. Obamination" is the mutterings of a total utter gobshite.

10 trillion debt in eight years, more than every other president combined makes him an absolute nightmare of a president, how is the country going to recover from that?

Obamacare has been a disaster, the rollout sums up this clampetts presidency, a total clusterfuck!

Who has it been a disaster for? My sister in law  was diagnosed with cancer last year. Up until Obamacare she went through life without insurance,  being a self employed, depending on trainee students when she needed dental care. Obamacare was the only thing that enabled her to get insurance and have her cancer treated. Her family are all Republicans that hate Obama. She is alive thanks to her treatment. They still hate Obama. America is a very strange country.

[omaghjoe]

Alt right is bullshit. It's about maintaining a white majority
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/21/alt-right-conference-richard-spencer-white-nationalists

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum expressed alarm on Monday over "hateful speech" at a white nationalist meeting over the weekend, and a restaurant apologized for hosting the group after a woman tweeted a picture of herself making a Nazi salute.    The National Policy Institute, a think tank that is part of the alt-right movement that includes neo-Nazis, white supremacists and anti-Semites, held a gathering at the federally owned Ronald Reagan Building on Saturday.
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/u-s-election-2016/1.754493

The GOP is the immigration party. It drives wages down and means higher corporate profits. See Eamonn's chart.

It's going to be Bannon vs the GOP.
There is no way to please the poor voters, the rich funders and the Nazis at the same time.

The coalition will tear itself apart.

And the swing voters who voted for Trump might be happy,  if it tears the whole rotten machine down with it forcing America to hit a reset button and reset its priorities

So what are these desired, rethought out priorities?

Washington has forgot about developing policies for the out of work / working class/ outsourced jobs. No matter what colour, race or religion you are, America is a fantastic country to live in if you have sufficient money to live, and it is probably one of the worst if you are struggling financially. People don't need benefits, they need jobs.

To that end, America needs a job creation policy that will focus on all career salary points. The compliant at the moment is that the global trade arrangements favor the outsourcing of the lower paid jobs, with trends now showing middle salaried jobs going out, and tax revenues being relocated to low tax countries. Something needs to done to address it.  Create the infrastructure jobs, lower corporate tax, even if it is only for companies with substantial business in the states (motivate companies to invest in the states, not move operations out of it)

Need to fix immigration. From my experience 99% of immigrants that come into the states either legal or not, are work hungry people, and want to get paid for a good days work. You will never see them beg. There is something wrong with a system that doesn't address this, i.e. there is a need for immigration, come up with a system to govern it effectively. Not doing this leaves the immigrants at risk of being exploited, and places a burden on the healthcare system and puts non documented communities against local communities

Education is broken. For example, the cost of college is getting out of control. If your poor, you have support, if your rich.. no problems, working and middle class, big financial drain. The fact that high school quality is related to local tax income levels needs to be addressed (Charter schools, cross school education programs)

Healthcare.. Fix the parts of Obamacare that needs fixing and move on. I believe the Republicans. would settle for the majority of Obamacare, except the name. Don't not be surprised if Trump , tidies it up, rebrands it, and sells it as a rep success.

Police.... Stop treating them as tax collectors. Stop setting policies / strategies putting the cops against communities. Sort out the f**king gun issue

Guns.... some control, just a little... this will help the police satiation as stated above

Energy... develop (or at least communicate) a technology roadmap, showing the current status to the green future. Create tax incentives for green technologies to locate in traditional fossil fuel areas, will help with those pesky switch voters
that's all for now

Good post Kickham nailed everything  very well. Would slighly disagree with you on energy but wont get into it... On the immigrants I would back that up, most of the homeless and beggars I see here (socal) are white and black, even tho the population is overwhelmingly Mexican you dont see many of them homeless, also very few Oriental homeless despite a large population.
My own opinion is that the California economy could take aright kicking if people begin to be deported en mass, tho I dont beleive we will see this happen on a scale large enough to make an economic difference.
I think we may well see a wall tho, as pointless as it would be

[stew]

Obama was a great president and I think will rightly go down in history as such. I think he'll be mentioned in the same breath as Kennedy and FDR in years to come. A true compassionate leader.

Pity he didn't get a 20 year term. It's sad so many Americans (and Irish apparently) are so naive and weak minded that they can be brainwashed into thinking he was a poor president. Obamination" is the mutterings of a total utter gobshite.

10 trillion debt in eight years, more than every other president combined makes him an absolute nightmare of a president, how is the country going to recover from that?

Obamacare has been a disaster, the rollout sums up this clampetts presidency, a total clusterfuck!

Who has it been a disaster for? My sister in law  was diagnosed with cancer last year. Up until Obamacare she went through life without insurance,  being a self employed, depending on trainee students when she needed dental care. Obamacare was the only thing that enabled her to get insurance and have her cancer treated. Her family are all Republicans that hate Obama. She is alive thanks to her treatment. They still hate Obama. America is a very strange country.

The middle class, I am delighted your sister in law is on the mend, )