The Donald-thread

[Svartalf]

mmmh, if that's possible I'll volunteer to go live on Mars.

[Tero]

Corrupt Obama retires babysitter
http://thebostontribune.com/first-grand ... t-pension/

[Tero]

Newsday:
Paul Singer, founder of the hedge fund Elliott Management Corp., has said he may not vote for any of this year's presidential candidates.

At the 2016 Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado, Singer said he disagrees with Trump's anti-trade policies and believes they could spell doom for the worldwide economy. "I think if he actually stuck to those policies and gets elected president, it's close to a guarantee of a global depression," Singer said.

[Forty Two]

Interesting, given that he is espousing the Democrat position on trade -- fairness and level playing field, with tariffs to compensate when countries have ridiculously low wages and zero regulation on working conditions... The reason Republicans hate him is because he opposes the things Republicans liked -- no tarrifs, Free Trade Agrements -- etc - and those are things that Democrats generally opposed over the decades, because they were considered unfair to American union workers and American workers in general, and unfair exploitation of foreign workers....

[Brian Peacock]

Newsday:
Paul Singer, founder of the hedge fund Elliott Management Corp., has said he may not vote for any of this year's presidential candidates.

At the 2016 Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado, Singer said he disagrees with Trump's anti-trade policies and believes they could spell doom for the worldwide economy. "I think if he actually stuck to those policies and gets elected president, it's close to a guarantee of a global depression," Singer said.

I don't know about that. So much of the world's trade deals are basically a stitch-up by the corporate sector it's hardly surprising to hear them ramping up the bleating if they feel they might end up losing a bit of control. I mean, The Economist front page last week...


...speaks to the essential 'them-and-us-ness' with which those who confuse internationalism with free trade, and globalisation with untrammelled corporate power, see the rest of us. As one commentator put it, the headline has a decidedly pungent whiff of the drawbridge being hastily pulled up. It might as well read: "Why can’t we get the 99% we deserve?"

So I think Trump has a bit of point here, as do the Brexiteers, the problem being is that they are massively over-invested in the rhetoric of moral outrage and almost totally divested of any rational arguments or alternatives - and as I've said before, simply saying you'll withdraw a nation from trade agreements isn't a rational alternative, it's a counter-productive, self-destructive knee-jerk that presumes that everything will remain essentially the same, just better somehow.

[Forty Two]

Trump hasn't said that he's just going to withdraw from trade agreements - he is going to bring the parties to the table and renegotiate.

He's been, actually, quite reasonable in his approach. He's suggested what he thinks would be fairer, but he has never suggested he is inflexible. He has said he will work with the Chinese to stop the cheating on the trade deals and set up a better system.

From the standpoint of the US, we cannot sustain the balance of trade that we have now forever, and if something is not done soon to start changing the course of the ship, we won't be able to miss the iceberg down the line. It takes many years to effect significant economic change in an 18 trillion dollar economy.

I urge folks, seriously, rather than just listen to the snippets on the news -- read his positions on his website, and read transcripts of what he says in speeches. Read on paper, there is a different feel. If you can try to divorce the perception of the man from the words, I'm not saying it will convince you or change your mind -- but, at least understand that Trump actually has ideas and plans, and is not what has been characterized by Hillary and CNN.

[Tero]

Trump hasn't said that he's just going to withdraw from trade agreements - he is going to bring the parties to the table and renegotiate.

There is nothing to negotiate. These are not deals where there is Trump type "leverage". Trade deals merely protect areas of business that you want to keep running in your country, such as agriculture. We are paying silly amounts to little countries for several food crops. Sugar cane etc.

[Forty Two]

Trump hasn't said that he's just going to withdraw from trade agreements - he is going to bring the parties to the table and renegotiate.

There is nothing to negotiate. These are not deals where there is Trump type "leverage". Trade deals merely protect areas of business that you want to keep running in your country, such as agriculture. We are paying silly amounts to little countries for several food crops. Sugar cane etc.

Well, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what free trade agreements and other trade deals entail. NAFTA, for example, eliminates almost all tariffs on goods imported from Mexico. It doesn't have to be that way.

And, by definition, trade deals are contracts between state parties. They are voluntary agreements that can have whatever terms the parties want them to have. The notion that countries don't negotiate these deals is patently absurd. Countries negotiate hard on trade deals, use leverage, use pressure, use threats -- whatever they can use to get a deal.

[Tero]

"We'll buy your American tanks full price if you buy all our pineapple." Right.

We had this before. Trump has no Nafta magic. Nothing. All talk. No insurance plan. Nothing.

[Forty Two]

"We'll buy your American tanks full price if you buy all our pineapple." Right.

We had this before. Trump has no Nafta magic. Nothing. All talk. No insurance plan. Nothing.

This kind of objection is ludicrous. Fine, you don't like the guy, but he doesn't claim to have "magic." But, he has precisely as much of a plan on these issues as Hillary has.

No insurance plan? What the fuck? That didn't stop folks from supporting the Obamacare plan when it was voted on in Congress before it was made public and before Congress even had a chance to read the fucking thing. Back then, the Democrats - a la Nancy Pelosi - said explicitly, you have to pass the bill so we can find out what's in the bill. Now you need to have a plan laid out for you line by line? He does have a plan, outlined on his website, which is just as detailed as anything Hillary has laid out.

[Tero]

And yet, it was a plan. Trump and the insurance companies have the same plan. Let us not sell insurance to people who are
1 sick
Or 2 over 50

[Forty Two]

And yet, it was a plan.

Sure, but you didn't know that before it was passed, and you didn't care, did you? You just assumed they had one. The people selling it didn't even know what it was.

Trump and the insurance companies have the same plan.

No, regarding the insurance companies, they were all in favor of Obamacare. Obamacare was their plan. Don't pretend to care whether insurance companies want a particular plan. You didn't care in 2010, did you? Your guys supported something, and you said "do'kay! must be good cuz duh good guyz say it'll be, duh, good!" Doesn't matter how big of a wasteful clusterfuck it becomes, you and the rest of the folks who bought the bullshit hook, line and sinker are too invested in supporting it. Now it's all about "the intent was there, but we just need to fix it so it works better..." nonsense.

Let us not sell insurance to people who are
1 sick
Or 2 over 50

There are 33 million uninsured people now. We spent a trillion dollars, and jacked up insurance rates through the roof, screwed with everyone's plans (in contravention to the lie that you'll be able to keep your plan), and you're going to talk about "selling insurance?" Your guys created a cluster-fuck that drags the IRS into the enforcement mix over insurance, and this is your good idea to help people?

Let's force them to buy insurance, and when they don't we'll have the IRS fuck them up the ass dry. Those that can't afford it, like before the law was passed, can get assistance to buy the policies, but since the prices have tripled, even with assistance the cost of the policies is much higher than it was before the Obamacare came into effect. Anyone who doesn't qualify for a subsidy gets to pay full prices -- family policies between $1200 and $1500 per month not uncommon, with higher deductibles and worse coverage than before.

Obamacare did jack fucking squat besides (a) increase the number of people on Medicaid, and (b) get rid of the preexisting condition issue, both of which could have easily been done without the rest of this bullshit, and there would still be 33 million uninsured today, just like there is now with this exchange and mandate nonsense.

And, the main reason this is the case is exactly what I was saying before the law went into effect. Most of the "uninsured" at the time were making more money than would allow them to get a significant subsidy. So, calling it a mandate and raising the cost by a factor of 200 to 300 percent doesn't make it any easier on them to get insurance, so they still don't. They just pay the fucking IRS penalty. As soon as there is a Republican president, the Democrats in Congress are going to - mark my words - run to the drawing board to add an amendment to raise the IRS penalty astronomically, so that everyone gets a good fucking at tax time and blames it on the then current administration.

Any supporter of Obamacare can take their bullshit and shove it right up their ass.

[Tero]

You let the health insurance monopoly run up their charges. Nothing Obama could help. Eventually health care providers will deny service to Medicare patients.

Other countries have solved this. Time to move on. The 1970s are gone forever. Back when you died of most cancers. MRI had not been quite invented on commercial scale.

[Forty Two]

You let the health insurance monopoly run up their charges. Nothing Obama could help.

Horseshit. He promised his plan would make insurance more affordable and reduce the amount of money the nation spends on healthcare. He failed on both counts. Don't fucking push this shit about "nothing Obama could help" - if that's the case, why the fuck did they give this the hard-sell to pass it, promising the Moon to everyone? They knew about the health insurance industry (which, incidentally, was not a monopoly, by any reasonable definition of that term) when they passed this bill. They were the smartest people in the room, especially Obama, who was going to fix this, and lower the cost of premiums, get everyone covered, and reduce the cost of health care. One of the specific selling points was that the US pays too much per capita, and Obamacare was going to fix that.

Now it's "oh, the problem was too big even for us good-intentioned smart guys to fix?" How the fuck can anyone say that nonsense with a straight face?

Eventually health care providers will deny service to Medicare patients.

Given Obamacare, I wouldn't be surprised. But, what does that have to do with how fucked up Obamacare is?

Other countries have solved this. Time to move on. The 1970s are gone forever. Back when you died of most cancers. MRI had not been quite invented on commercial scale.

That's not a defense of Obamacare. If you'd admit that Obamacare is a piece of shit, and say we need to do something else, fine. But, that is something you won't do, since it is precisely what Trump is saying.

MRI? The MRI was far more accessible to Americans in 2010 than anywhere else in the world. Waiting lists in Canada -- need one in the US with doctor referral on a Monday, you'd be in by mid-week. Same now, probably here.

[Tero]

Actually, Obamacare is not a piece of shit. It gave some basic rules. There were were no rules before. I put this in the healthcare topic.
http://fortune.com/2014/10/20/health-insurance-future/