[POLL] United States Presidential Elections 2016

[TRGTspecialist]

And to be honest the .2% majority popular win by Clinton is a non-argument. She slight brought in more votes in States with less electoral power...or California and New York explain that disparity.

Whilst I agree that the candidates fighting for EC votes not the popular vote* - so an election based just on fighting for popular vote may look different - the two are generally well correlated. I've read that once all the votes are in Clinton's national lead will probably be about 1%, which is not insignificant - it obviously won't change the outcome but it is indicative of how narrow Trump's win really was. Both Republicans and Democrats will do well not to forget that looking to 2020.

*that said, when I think that the Republican candidate has only won the popular vote once in the past seven elections, my mind still instinctively goes "whaaaat?". Remarkable statistic at face value.

and we didn't see a larger turn out in this election

I think I also read turnout will probably be higher in 2012, I'll see if I can find a figure for that.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

(The term "fascist" is also grossly overused in the Italian language - while actual fascists often go overlooked. You'd think that having experienced a fascist regime for twenty years would've created in our collective memory a good understanding of what actual fascism looks like, but nooo)

There's a stanza in WH Auden's "September 1, 1939" about Thucydides and his exile; it's about how we're doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over because for whatever reason, we refuse to learn from them. Ironically enough, you could retitle the poem "November 8, 2016" and it would still make perfect sense:

"I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street,
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low, dishonest decade."

 

[LMSCorvetteGT2]

Whilst I agree that the candidates fighting for EC votes not the popular vote* - so an election based just on fighting for popular vote may look different - the two are generally well correlated. I've read that once all the votes are in Clinton's national lead will probably be about 1%, which is not insignificant - it obviously won't change the outcome but it is indicative of how narrow Trump's win really was. Both Republicans and Democrats will do well not to forget that looking to 2020.

In what sense? Once again you have to understand that she won plenty of states with large dense populations which is why the popular vote is a skewed figure. And why I gave a couple of states with such dense populations putting her over the top while district wise she lost hard. Which is why the EC swung in his favor greatly and surprisingly. That 1% she may come out with is the equivalent of the number needed in that petition. Yet again they don't get to override the EC majority based on not liking a bully. Just as people wouldn't get to if Hillary won.

*that said, when I think that the Republican candidate has only won the popular vote once in the past seven elections, my mind still instinctively goes "whaaaat?". Remarkable statistic at face value.

I guess, it to me shows the importance of having a criteria that isn't only popular vote based

 

[samurai8juice]

Outsourcing allows for economic specialisation.

Do you know why Japanese consumer electronics have dominated the market for years? It's because the Japanese recognised that they had limited mineral wealth or arable land, and so built their economy around the production of consumer electronics. They used what resources they had - their labour force in particular - and focused their efforts on developing expertise in the area.

Now, for an emerging economy, trying to compete with the Japanese is a very bad idea. The Japanese have a massive head-start and closing that gap would mean spending massive amounts of resources with no promise or guarantee that you will ever be able to catch up. The idea of manufacturing your own consumer electronics might sound nice, but at the end of the day, consumers will buy the product that they feel is best, which is probably going to be the Japanese product. You can slap a tarriff on them to encourage consumers to buy the product, and you may get some success, buy you're still wasting resources on what is essentially a vanity project.

A better use of your resources would be to identify the areas that you're strong in, and build the economy around that. Japan has an excellent manufacturing sector, but they don't have any mineral resources - so the obvious solution is to provide the Japanese with what they need while they make what you need. That opens the door to a trade partnership where you can start consolidating your economy by getting access to knowledge and expertise.

The problem with Trump's protectionist stance is that he is assuming that America already has all of the highly-skilled workers that he needs to sustain and expand the economy within America, and that corporations are moving jobs offshore to protect their bottom line. It's a form of economic isolation and completely impractical because it willing gives up on the opportunity to access knowledge and expertise while limiting the economy to the second-best alternative. If he goes ahead with it, Trump will likely wind up with an economy focused on propping up individual sectors that, over the long term, will most probably see the entire economy go into stagflation.

Outsourcing works when you structure your economy to focus on the areas that you are strongest in and use outsourcing to complement this.

I guess thats a good explanation.

But Japan's struggling economy since 1990 can easily show the inefficiencies and failures of outsourcing.

-----

But, the point that your missing is that Outsourcing's goal is not to 'specialize' and 'strengthen', it's goal is to gain a competitive advantage by taking advantage of cheaper labor in other countries. Japan's competitive advantage isn't that it produces a lot of tech goods, its competitive advantage is its cheap abundant labor that leads to a mass production of tech goods.

 

[Biggles]

It's revealing that the stock market is up sharply in the days since the election, after plunging precipitously (at least the futures market) immediately after the results became known. I interpret this as the smart money quickly concluding that:

a) Trump isn't likely to actually pursue any of the anti free trade/pro working class policies that were a center-piece of his election run.

b) The practical result of the election is a Republican majority in the House & Senate which is going to mean lower taxes for the wealthy & corporations. Trickle-down is back with a vengeance & ...

the partying for the 1%ers is back ON!

 

[samurai8juice]

It's revealing that the stock market is up sharply in the days since the election, after plunging precipitously (at least the futures market) immediately after the results became known. I interpret this as the smart money quickly concluding that;

a) Trump isn't likely to actually pursue any of the anti free trade/pro working class policies that were a center-piece of his election run.

b) The practical result of the election is a Republican majority in the House & Senate which is going to mean lower taxes for the wealthy & corporations. Trickle-down is back with a vengeance & ...

the partying for the 1%ers is back ON!

I think it's all fake speculation. A 3-8% drop is on the way, when Wall Street gets its senses back (if it even has senses).

 

[ClydeYellow]

Japan's competitive advantage isn't that it produces a lot of tech goods, its competitive advantage is its cheap abundant labor that leads to a mass production of tech goods.

Arguably, Japan's competitive advantage is - or should I say, has been - the implementation of advanced (at the time) cost- and time-saving procedures which essentially allowed to reduce the overall cost of work with investment smaller than required by the adoption of automation. The workers in Japan have never been as abdunant or cheap as in, say, China - but they are a lot more productive. Few well-paid but effective workers are as cheap as many poorly-trained ones.

That's how Japan saw a competitive advantage on the global market and a significant increase in the median income at the same time.

(And the reason for Japan's economic malaise is more likely to be found, I believe, by a) their advantage being reduced by the dreaded Law of Diminishing Returns and/or other countries adopting their same methods and organization philosophies and b) by a rapidly aging population. Factor in the effects of the Japanese economy overheating in the 70s and 80s due to the aforementioned increase in income - the so-called "lost decade" - and you don't get a pretty picture. But of course, bear in mind that Economy is not my primary field of study, so I may be very wrong in my analysis here)

 

[killerjimbag]

Here watch the video. He sums it up pretty much.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/oreilly-goes-off-on-anti-trump-protesters-they-want-our-system-destroyed/

 

[prisonermonkeys]

But Japan's struggling economy since 1990 can easily show the inefficiencies and failures of outsourcing.

True, but I am just trying to present a simple model of how outsourcing can be beneficial. Economics is a complex and many-headed beast; as one of my economics lecturers was so fond of saying, you could all the economists in the world end-to-end and still never come to a conclusion.

the point that your missing is that Outsourcing's goal is not to 'specialize' and 'strengthen', it's goal is to gain a competitive advantage by taking advantage of cheaper labor in other countries

Most of the time, that's what it's used for. But that's not its only use - when applied properly, you can get a lot out of it. Economics is the art of meeting conflicting and competing needs with limited resources, and a key part of that is to get the maximum utility out of each individual resource - to use them as effectively and as efficiently as possible.

Trump's vision of America is one where the manufacturing sector returns to the heights that it once attained. The first question that has to be asked is whether that is the best use of the resources at his disposal, or if there is another way. American manufacturing has fallen behind the rest of the world and it hasn't really transitioned to a tertiary economy. If you look at other economies, they're being restructured around the provision of services, and some of them are already heading towards a quarternary economy. Some manufacturing will always remain, but you have to pick your battles.

Trump should probably focus on developing the next phase of the economy, rather than trying to resurrect the last one. Clinging on to a zombie economy will only create stagflation, and nobody wins then. That means looking ahead to the next generation, and maybe some education reform to make tertiary education more accessible. In the meantime, the current generation of workers in the manufacturing sector should retrain, and America has two major resources: its size, and its population. America is a vast country, with an enormous network of infrastructure in the form of road and rail. That will not only need to be maintained, but upgraded to cope with future demand. Those are projects that need to be put into action years in advance, and one of the key things about American cities is that they are very well-planned - all of those projects will be in the works somewhere. Likewise upgrading telecommunication networks to cope with future demand.

 

[Johnnypenso]

If i think something that i want to share, i'm able to write it, i don't need you to try (and fail) to do it.
Piketty's point is that the man's capability to create value is below average.

Sorry, translation error. "You think" or "You'd think" is an expression on this side of the pond, used when you think something should have happened but didn't, should be but isn't...etc. As in, "you'd think everyone would believe Canadians are the best hockey country in the world, but not everyone does". It doesn't literally mean the you think that way. Sorry.

That's not the point - the point is, if Trump wasn't born a billionaire and didn't have all the safety nets in this world, right now he'd likely be scrubbing McToilets for a living. For most real-world enterpreneurs, failing as hard as Trump did to properly assess the risks of a venture, or to deliver even a fraction of the promised ROI just ONCE means financial death. And that's from a man who wrote (well, claims to have written) a book about the Art of the Deal and generally presents trading like it's some sort of mystical art, and claims that his business experience makes him qualified to lead the most powerful country in the world while in reality he's just a sham who declares bankruptcy everytime he gets in hot water.
Well, let's just say that if he will apply his experience to trading to leading the country, I expect America to get rid of its debt by defaulting.

In short: guy who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and took real estate developing as a hobby. Was pretty successful as long as he kept to housing projects in NY, then he got this delusion of grandeur and bombed in the casino, resort and airline business pretty badly during the 90s. Reinvented himself as a business guru and TV personality (The Apprentice was his show); put his name into countless branding operations, some successful, some laughably not.
In the meanwhile, he guest-starred in Home Alone 2 and at Wrestlemania XXIII.
Definitely not a Rockfeller type of guy, although he may think otherwise - John D. pretty much created the oil industry and put the trust in antitrust, and had a net worth in the region of 300 bln dollars adjusted for inflaction, Trump is considered a wacko by financial institutions and his peers and he'll sue you if you say he's worth less than 3 bln.
He's more of a Berlusconi kind of guy: an inflated balloon who's rich through no merit of his own, lost tons of money in failed development projects and decided to get into politics without any serious idea on how to run a country or how he wants to just to avoid falling out of grace (or in Berlusconi's case, go to jail - but that's another story for another days).

Real estate is a risky business as is starting any business. It's not quite the same as putting your money in mutual funds and watching it grow. Bankruptcy puts him in some pretty elite company though, including 3 Presidents:

Henry Ford
H.J. Heinz
Walt Disney
Milton Hershey
William Durant
Ulysses S. Grant
Stan Lee
Abe Lincoln
William McKinley

 

[Darla Starch]

Newsweek were clearly a bit too eager to get that early edition scoop on a Clinton presidency... it is perhaps not unexpected or unusual to publish a magazine with a possible outcome that doesn't transpire, but it is a bit embarrassing that some 125,000 copies actually got distributed...

I went to buy one off EBay. Cheapest I saw so far was 70 dollars. Didn't.


And as for results, not my cup of tea but will give him a chance.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

I guess thats a good explanation

Also, if you want a great example of specialisation, look at Cuba.

The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and with it, Cuba's economic lifeline. The trade embargo imposed by Washington made it practically impossible for them to work with the rest of the world, so they had to work with what they had. Twenty-five years later, Cuba is widely regarded as a world leader in sustainable agriculture. There are massive problems with the Cuban economy as a whole, but they achieved a niche through specialisation, and if the embargo is completely relaxed, exporting their knowledge has the potential to completely revitalise the Cuban economy.

If Trump has his eye on a future where America produces everything that America needs, it gets dangerously close to autarky. There's only one country in the world that has ever come close to autarky - North Korea.

 

[ClydeYellow]

Real estate is a risky business as is starting any business. It's not quite the same as putting your money in mutual funds and watching it grow. Bankruptcy puts him in some pretty elite company though, including 3 Presidents:

Henry Ford
H.J. Heinz
Walt Disney
Milton Hershey
William Durant
Ulysses S. Grant
Stan Lee
Abe Lincoln
William McKinley

Objection.

Henry Ford, Walt Disney, H.J. Heinz and Milton Hershey all failed on their way to become actually successful enterpreneurs - hell, three of the four enterpreneurs founded companies bearing their name which were involved in my last grocery-getting trip! None of these people went bankrupt six times (and defaulted on their debts I-don't-even-know-how-many). None of these people ran (successfully) for President under a platform that essentially amounts to "hey guys, vote for me because I am such a great businessman and if I made billions for myself think of what I'll do with all your money in my hands!". And none of these people got involved in any ways in projects that look more Ponzi schemes than legitimate business enterprises.
I don't know yet how he'll fare as President, he's a pretty decent showman, but as a business man, 80s-to-noughties Trump is a true plonker which could've made a better use of his money if he'd set them on fire - at least he wouldn't have robbed investors and banking institutions of billions of dollars.

If Trump has his eye on a future where America produces everything that America needs, it gets dangerously close to autarky. There's only one country in the world that has ever come close to autarky - North Korea.

Make it two - Italy had a pretty good run with autarchy during the Mussolini era, especially after we got all the way to Ethiopia to make Bob Marley happen. Well, it was good if you liked your car to run on calcium carbide and your "coffee" to be made of chicory or beets...

 

[Johnnypenso]

Also, if you want a great example of specialisation, look at Cuba.

The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and with it, Cuba's economic lifeline. The trade embargo imposed by Washington made it practically impossible for them to work with the rest of the world, so they had to work with what they had. Twenty-five years later, Cuba is widely regarded as a world leader in sustainable agriculture. There are massive problems with the Cuban economy as a whole, but they achieved a niche through specialisation, and if the embargo is completely relaxed, exporting their knowledge has the potential to completely revitalise the Cuban economy.

If Trump has his eye on a future where America produces everything that America needs, it gets dangerously close to autarky. There's only one country in the world that has ever come close to autarky - North Korea.

What prompted Cuba's explosion in the agricultural sector had less to do with specialization and more to do with the decentralizion and deregulation of the agricultural sector. In other words, putting control and a profit motive into the hands of individual farmers and cooperatives, and out of the hands of commie bureaucrats in Havana. The sustainable agriculture effort was something they had no choice in, it was forced upon them by the embargo. It was individual initiative prompted by a move towards capitalism and away from communism in the agricultural sector that triggered the boom in productivity. Yet another successul story of the conversion to pseudo-capitalism and the power of individual drive and desire.

Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize Winner said,"The times they are a changin'"

https://www.yahoo.com/news/mexico-says-ready-modernize-nafta-trump-181527988.html

Ottawa (AFP) -

Canada and Mexico agreed Thursday to US President-elect Donald Trump's demand to have a fresh look at their tripartite 22-year-old free trade pact, fearing they could be shut out of the US market.

"I think it's important that we be open to talking about trade deals," Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau -- a fierce defender of free trade -- said Thursday.
"If the Americans want to talk about NAFTA, I'm more than happy to talk about it," he said.
Mexico's Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz Massieu, meanwhile, said her government was willing to seek to "modernize" NAFTA with Trump's incoming administration and Canada, but not ready to start from scratch.
"We are willing to talk about this with the new government and with Canada as well," Ruiz Massieu told CNN.
"We think it is an opportunity to think if we should modernize it -- not renegotiate it, but to modernize it," she insisted.

 

[Barracuda413]

I vote this thread be locked at page 300

 

[disinfected]

I have no recollection of voting for Gary Johnson at the poll up top, but apparently I did.

 

[Sanji Himura]

Objection.

Henry Ford, Walt Disney, H.J. Heinz and Milton Hershey all failed on their way to become actually successful enterpreneurs - hell, three of the four enterpreneurs founded companies bearing their name which were involved in my last grocery-getting trip! None of these people went bankrupt six times (and defaulted on their debts I-don't-even-know-how-many). None of these people ran (successfully) for President under a platform that essentially amounts to "hey guys, vote for me because I am such a great businessman and if I made billions for myself think of what I'll do with all your money in my hands!". And none of these people got involved in any ways in projects that look more Ponzi schemes than legitimate business enterprises.
I don't know yet how he'll fare as President, he's a pretty decent showman, but as a business man, 80s-to-noughties Trump is a true plonker which could've made a better use of his money if he'd set them on fire - at least he wouldn't have robbed investors and banking institutions of billions of dollars.

Objection overruled.

The overall point was that these men filed bankruptcy at one point in their lives, the when isn't necessarily relevant to the topic at hand. We could bring up that Trump inherited his millions and then filed for bankruptcy, in which case all it proves is that Trump isn't really smart with his money once he has it, he just knows how to get it in the first place.

I vote this thread be locked at page 300

I would be more than happy to lock it there, but sadly, I don't have premium so that I can do it myself. You would have to ask a moderator to get the job done.

 

[LMSCorvetteGT2]

I vote this thread be locked at page 300

This is Sparta?

 

[CodeRedR51]

Gonna miss this guy.

 

[McLaren]

What prompted Cuba's explosion in the agricultural sector had less to do with specialization and more to do with the decentralizion and deregulation of the agricultural sector. In other words, putting control and a profit motive into the hands of individual farmers and cooperatives, and out of the hands of commie bureaucrats in Havana. The sustainable agriculture effort was something they had no choice in, it was forced upon them by the embargo. It was individual initiative prompted by a move towards capitalism and away from communism in the agricultural sector that triggered the boom in productivity. Yet another successul story of the conversion to pseudo-capitalism and the power of individual drive and desire.

Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize Winner said,"The times they are a changin'"

https://www.yahoo.com/news/mexico-says-ready-modernize-nafta-trump-181527988.html

There's been this silent theory that Trump's way of getting Mexico to "pay for the wall" will be by holding NAFTA above their head.

 

[CodeRedR51]

There's been this silent theory that Trump's way of getting Mexico to "pay for the wall" will be by holding NAFTA above their head.

I really don't see anybody building any walls. Such a stupid idea.

 

[TenEightyOne]

I really don't see anybody building any walls. Such a stupid idea.

That's actually a trump sentence. You just need to say "stupid idea" again twice as sentences

 

[McLaren]

Trump hasn't said all Muslims are terrorists, all Hispanics are criminal immigrants and all gay people need to be converted. However, many of his supporters do subscribe to this queerphobic, racist and Islamaphobic beliefs and Trump's victory has created the notion that it is okay to be openly vitriolic to anyone who is different than you.

Ah, so that's why the Liberals have been openly mocked for calling people who don't agree with them names & what not, even when no one implies any such thing.

Anyone who feels it's okay to be openly vitriolic was that way before Trump won. That's not some characteristic he just instilled in people in under 2 days.

I'm quite sure that many of these people that "have no words" fear the unknown right now. They fear that they may be attacked for speaking anything other than English in public, or holding hands with someone of the same gender, or deported even though they pay taxes, or having their car set on fire because their gender identity doesn't align with their sex, or being assaulted after leaving prayers.

So, instead of waiting to see what happens, they'll just promote the violence themselves.



Along with the video of the man being attacked b/c he voted Trump, perhaps Trump supporters should start living in fear as well?

I'm not saying that destroying property is doing anything to help their case, but there are some very legitimate fears that have resulted from Trump's victory, and especially from the VP-elect who wants Roe v. Wade to be overturned, and has publicly advocated for conversion therapy.

Pro-Life/Pro-Choice has always been a touchy subject. What one touts as fear, someone else could find in agreement with. It's an issue that's never going to satisfy everyone.

As for gay rights, I don't agree with Pence on conversion therapy. But, Hillary wasn't exactly the shining beacon of light for them, either. She didn't support it til' 2013 & the media doesn't like to address that her husband signed the Defense of Marriage Act.

 

[mister dog]

Gonna miss this guy.

Whilst I agree he is a cool cat and has a lot of charisma, that doesn't make him a good president. With regards to internal American politics I don't know much, but when looking at his foreign agenda he basically left the middle East in shambles, and consequently made the world a more dangerous place with all the factions that are getting it on now over there in the wasp nest.

 

[TenEightyOne]

when looking at his foreign agenda he basically left the middle East in shambles, and consequently made the world a more dangerous place with all the factions that are getting it on now over there in the wasp nest.

I'm pretty sure Al Qaueeda didn't do anything during Bush's presidency?

 

[Daniel]

Anyone who feels it's okay to be openly vitriolic was that way before Drumpf won. That's not some characteristic he just instilled in people in under 2 days.

I think I got the wording a bit wrong.

I meant to convey that those who were already xenophobic might be more open to vitriol, probably thinking that half of America agrees with them.

It's conjecture, but I do think there'll be a rise in hate crime similar to what happened after Brexit.

Ah, so that's why the Liberals have been openly mocked for calling people who don't agree with them names & what not, even when no one implies any such thing.

I really doubt liberals name calling Trump supporters is a larger problem than racism, queerphobia, Islamaphobia and xenophobia combined in the US.

 

[Touring Mars]

It would appear that when the American people told Hillary to take a hike she took it literally...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...ton-hike-new-york-after-election-donald-trump

 

[mister dog]

I'm pretty sure Al Qaueeda didn't do anything during Bush's presidency?

How does that relate to the middle East being in shambles after Obama's presidency again? Did I say Al Qaeda didn't do anything beforehand or are you deliberately misquoting me?

 

[TenEightyOne]

How does that relate to the middle East being in shambles after Obama's presidency again? Did I say All Qaeda didn't do anything beforehand or are you deliberately misquoting me?

You made a leading statement that implied that it wasn't "in shambles" before Obama's presidency. Modern anti-Western movements have existed in force in the Middle East since at least the 1950s and you can go back even further than that. Saying that it remains that way after Obama's presidency is quite misleading in the face of the facts.

 

[mister dog]

You made a leading statement that implied that it wasn't "in shambles" before Obama's presidency. Modern anti-Western movements have existed in force in the Middle East since at least the 1950s and you can go back even further than that. Saying that it remains that way after Obama's presidency is quite misleading in the face of the facts.

Nope nowhere do I imply this, that's you twisting my words around. Lybia and Syria where not in shambles before he came to office and pulling out the troops from Iraq gave ISIS a free card to start taking over. 3 situations where Obama was directly or indirectly responsible for.