Trump as tragicomedy

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moda0306
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by moda0306 » Sat Sep 01, 2018 8:47 am

MangoMan wrote:
Fri Aug 31, 2018 6:14 pm
Moda, there has been a ton of this progress going on since Trump took office. If you can get past the tweets, blustering and the media's constant attacks on him, there have been some HUGE things going on.
Not to be a broken record, but I find most pro-trump sources to be ridiculous partisan garbage, so could you give me some sources to follow you've found reliable?
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by moda0306 » Sat Sep 01, 2018 9:37 am

MangoMan wrote:
Sat Sep 01, 2018 9:20 am
moda0306 wrote:
Sat Sep 01, 2018 8:47 am
MangoMan wrote:
Fri Aug 31, 2018 6:14 pm
Moda, there has been a ton of this progress going on since Trump took office. If you can get past the tweets, blustering and the media's constant attacks on him, there have been some HUGE things going on.
Not to be a broken record, but I find most pro-trump sources to be ridiculous partisan garbage, so could you give me some sources to follow you've found reliable?
The basic problem is that you dislike him so much that you can't see past it to the accomplishments. If you can ignore the abrasive personality (which I agree is difficult), here are just a few off the top of my head:

Unemployment, particularly for African Americans

- This is largely cyclical and outside of any president's hands in the short term imo. I didn't give obama a ton of credit for 7 years of lowering unemployment after the financial crisis. I certainly don't give Trump much for another year and a half of it absent some thorough evidence.

the Economy

Too vague. Need more specific markers. Or actual policy changes like the one I praised in that previous post.

the stock market

See comment above about unemployment.

consumer confidence

Terrible measure imo. Usually a harbinger for bad things.

near destruction of ISIS

I'd be open to an analysis on this, but my main go-to on foreign policy these days is the very anti-war Scott Horton, and I haven't heard anything impressive as it pertains to isis. Their time was bound to be limited.

better NAFTA

Open to evidence on this. Need actual evidence though not just a broad claim. Problem is most folks don't know jack about international trade so Trumpers are now learning on the fly as they try to give him credit on a complex topic they knew nothing about before his admin came to power.

trade policies with China

See NAFTA comment above.

progress on North Korea

I'll give small credit here but I have huge doubts whether flapping between threats of nuclear wa and heaping ridiculous praise are part of a cogent policy. Scott Horton who I mentioned above seems to like some of it though so I'm reserving judgment. Once again, N Korea is a complex topic so watching most Trumpers try to feign expertise on the topic leaves me annoyed. Waiting for a cogent Chomsky-esque Analysis that doesn't wreak of pro-Trump partisan drivel.

defunding of UN

Mostly ok with this.

defunding of European defense

Same.

defunding of the Palestinians

I think our funding of the Israeli apartheid state is far worse than anything we've ever done to help Palestinians out. His continued pandering to Israel is one of the reasons I think he's just another wolf-in-rapist-antiestablishment-maverick's-clothing.

I'd recommend a podcast on the Israel/Palestine conflict. Martyrmade by Darryl Cooper. "Fear and Loathing in New Jarusalem." Absolutely gut-wrenching stuff. He is pretty balanced, but I came away shocked at how little I knew about the topic.

Do you disagree that any of this has happened, or that is not MAGA?
See responses above. Sorry for lack of color I'm doing this from my phone.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by moda0306 » Sat Sep 01, 2018 9:52 am

I'd consider one of Trump's accomplishments for the class he served and belongs to to be "tax reform." It hardly simplified the code (in fact complicated it significantly in the realm of pass through income) and massively expanded the deficit, but it DID significantly lower the amount business owners and corporations pay in.

https://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/ ... n-gap-2020

Remember when during a massive recession we hit a trillion dollar deficit and "conservatives" were freaking out? Well now we are beyond Keynesianism... where we are running huge deficits even when things are good.

Now I'm not much of a deficit hawk, but we should use deficits to expand well-being for the average citizen. Not corporations that are the main beneficiaries of our massively expensive permanent-war surveillance state.

I find the deafening silence on this simultaneously predictable and astounding. All the inflation and interest rate hawks of the 2009-2014 timeframe were proven astoundingly wrong, but I did see Schiff at least staying consistent and denouncing "Trump's boom" the other day. Never thought I'd respect that guy again! :)
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by moda0306 » Sat Sep 01, 2018 9:59 am

MangoMan wrote:
Sat Sep 01, 2018 9:46 am
I give up.

I won't belabor the discussion further. If you don't think the things I listed are good for the country, well, you are entitled to your opinion.

The one comment I will make, without getting into an Israel/Palestine discussion, is that anybody who hates our guts should not be expecting money from us. I don't buy drinks for people who think I'm an a$$hole. Neither should the US.
You give up? You posted zero sources and just stated simple propositions. Did I strain your ability to assemble an argument or gather facts??

Did you give president Obama credit for lowering unemployment or consistent and significant stock market growth?

Did you ever bemoan certain details about NAFTA, NATO, or Chinese trade before you needed to reference them to make Trump look good?

The anti-intellectualism of the right is stronger than ever and I'm not going to just sit around and pretend your opinions and facts are all aligned. Trump could be doing amazing work, and you still would be failing at presenting facts to support it. You need to do more than three-word blurbs to present a cogent argument.

Post a deductive argument with data and conclusions that flow logically from the premises and I'll be open to any ideas that are presented well. I don't engage in hero worship or the opposite, so I'm willing to give credit to otherwise slimeballish rapists for something of limited scope if the facts support it. Hence my giving him tentative credit with regards to the freight costs for American vs other suppliers.

But you don't get to just spit out garbage and not get called out on it being incomplete or inconsistent or inadequately sourced (if at all).
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by moda0306 » Sat Sep 01, 2018 10:14 am

It is interesting looking back on how many GD sources I (and others (Gumby that machine!!)) had to look up in the past to get around the crappy economic arguments of the Austrian crew. So much MMT, MR, historical deficit, interest rate, unemployment rate, GDP growth analysis. Where recessions accompanied other events, different types of monetary systems and why certains currencies collapsed. The number of sources we had to find to discuss these topics intelligently was nuts compared what I'm asked to accept today... Before giving up.

If you were someone who was parroting deficit/inflation hawkery back in 2009-2014, please acknowledge how wrong you were and do a fraction of the research I did to prove me that you are right today when discussing topics you discovered yesterday... when all you can do is point a three word blurb and utter "MAGA!" to prove your point, you just might be wrong.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by boglerdude » Sat Sep 01, 2018 10:25 pm

We'll see how attitudes change when the shrinking money supply causes a recession

Also, one of the better subreddits - https://old.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by moda0306 » Sun Sep 02, 2018 11:58 am

MangoMan wrote:
Sat Sep 01, 2018 12:24 pm
moda0306 wrote:
Sat Sep 01, 2018 9:59 am
MangoMan wrote:
Sat Sep 01, 2018 9:46 am
I give up.

I won't belabor the discussion further. If you don't think the things I listed are good for the country, well, you are entitled to your opinion.

The one comment I will make, without getting into an Israel/Palestine discussion, is that anybody who hates our guts should not be expecting money from us. I don't buy drinks for people who think I'm an a$$hole. Neither should the US.
You give up? You posted zero sources and just stated simple propositions. Did I strain your ability to assemble an argument or gather facts??
I give up bc you hand waive basically every point. I consider those statements to be common knowledge/fact, so providing a 'source' is not really relevant.

Did you give president Obama credit for lowering unemployment or consistent and significant stock market growth?
Huh? Are we talking about the same Obama?

Did you ever bemoan certain details about NAFTA, NATO, or Chinese trade before you needed to reference them to make Trump look good?
No, but that doesn't make it any less true.

The anti-intellectualism of the right is stronger than ever and I'm not going to just sit around and pretend your opinions and facts are all aligned. Trump could be doing amazing work, and you still would be failing at presenting facts to support it. You need to do more than three-word blurbs to present a cogent argument.
I don't consider myself a Republican. Do you think we as a country are better or worse off than when Obama left office?

Post a deductive argument with data and conclusions that flow logically from the premises and I'll be open to any ideas that are presented well. I don't engage in hero worship or the opposite, so I'm willing to give credit to otherwise slimeballish rapists for something of limited scope if the facts support it. Hence my giving him tentative credit with regards to the freight costs for American vs other suppliers.
I don't worship Trump. I don't even particularly like him. But he was elected president and I accept him, even as I accepted Obama who I liked even less, and Bush II who I liked even less than that. But most importantly, I give him credit where credit is due.

But you don't get to just spit out garbage and not get called out on it being incomplete or inconsistent or inadequately sourced (if at all).
Did someone pee in your coffee this morning? That's not very kind language. I didn't attack you, I simply have a different opinion of reality. Again, I don't think sources to my 'blurbs' are necessary, considering that the are common knowledge/fact. I'll still buy you a beer if you come to Chicago, though.
I don't have much time right now to dive into these things with you, but to the point of whether Obama had significant and consistent stock market growth and lowering unemployment...

https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000

http://www.moneychimp.com/features/market_cagr.htm

Like I said, I don't give him a lot of credit for that, and him allowing fraudulent banks to get bailed out with limited consequence still grinds my gears, but the facts are the facts here. Trump is just continuing what Obama did for 8 years. Maybe he can go for another 8! I don't know... but I won't give him much more or less credit than Obama on that. I even say to my lib friends that I think Clinton is probably more to blame for Bush for the 2008 crash (deregulating banks).
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by boglerdude » Sun Sep 02, 2018 11:23 pm

Greenspan under Bush ignored the FBI warnings about mortgage fraud. Plus the war. Money-printing smash n'grab

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2 ... s-flourish
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by stuper1 » Thu Sep 06, 2018 1:07 pm

Here's a very interesting point I came across. It wasn't too long ago that the New York Times was publishing stories claiming that Trump was "paranoid" that people inside his administration were working against him.

This week the Times publishes an anonymous piece called "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration".

You can be sure the Times won't be issuing a correction saying that they were wrong to call him paranoid when it turns out he was right.

These people are such a joke, acting righteous about being a lying scumbag who won't stand up to be counted for his so-called principles. If he had any principles he would resign his fat paying job and campaign for a supposedly better candidate to replace Trump in 2020.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by dualstow » Thu Sep 06, 2018 3:18 pm

You are absolutely right, and Trump was absolutely right.
Crazy world.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by Kriegsspiel » Thu Sep 06, 2018 5:50 pm

All's fair in love and war and LITERALLY OMG HITLER
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by ochotona » Thu Sep 06, 2018 9:15 pm

I think that op ed is probably a fake, but OMG it's really farking with POTUS' head, which was the intent. He's easily toyed with.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by dualstow » Fri Sep 07, 2018 6:32 am

ochotona wrote:
Thu Sep 06, 2018 9:15 pm
I think that op ed is probably a fake, but OMG it's really farking with POTUS' head, which was the intent. He's easily toyed with.
It could be real, and if that’s the case— well, I wouldn’t want people doing this to the next president.
RIP Marcello Gandini
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by Kriegsspiel » Fri Sep 07, 2018 7:27 am

I think dualstow (and I agree with him here) is invoking Taleb's Silver Rule in the context of national politics: don't do things to others that you wouldn't want them to do to you.

Or maybe, don't set precedents that you don't want to be usable in the future. Something like that.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by ochotona » Fri Sep 07, 2018 7:32 am

MangoMan wrote:
Fri Sep 07, 2018 7:14 am
dualstow wrote:
Fri Sep 07, 2018 6:32 am
ochotona wrote:
Thu Sep 06, 2018 9:15 pm
I think that op ed is probably a fake, but OMG it's really farking with POTUS' head, which was the intent. He's easily toyed with.
It could be real, and if that’s the case— well, I wouldn’t want people doing this to the next president.
Are you saying you are okay with people doing that to Trump?
If it's a known fake then shame on the media - but it's just so much damn fun to watch the running around and bloviating, who can resist? It's like cat videos... Can't resist! Entertainer In Chief
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by dualstow » Fri Sep 07, 2018 8:19 am

Kriegsspiel wrote:
Fri Sep 07, 2018 7:27 am
I think dualstow (and I agree with him here) is invoking Taleb's Silver Rule in the context of national politics: don't do things to others that you wouldn't want them to do to you.

Or maybe, don't set precedents that you don't want to be usable in the future. Something like that.
Bingo. Precedent is the key word.
RIP Marcello Gandini
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by stuper1 » Fri Sep 07, 2018 10:30 am

I support some of the same policies as Trump, such as the absolutely incredible idea that the American president should actually put the interests of the American people first, as opposed to people from other countries.

As a bonus, I said to anybody who would listen long before the election that I hoped Trump would win because it would be much more entertaining if he did.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by moda0306 » Fri Sep 07, 2018 12:55 pm

Both the authoritarian war-monger clown in office and the perma-war surveilance staters trying to secretly oppose him (not to mention the lapdog establishment media) are enemies of both liberty and democracy (whichever one might prefer) and should be ridiculed into unemployed irrellevence.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by Kriegsspiel » Fri Sep 07, 2018 2:39 pm

Is he mongering a war now?

Also, just saw this. I heard this ruckus on NPR and assumed they were young, fat, butch lesbians >:D

But 3 out of 4 ain't bad.*

*assuming that's what the picture is of.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by moda0306 » Fri Sep 07, 2018 3:27 pm

Kriegsspiel wrote:
Fri Sep 07, 2018 2:39 pm
Is he mongering a war now?

Also, just saw this. I heard this ruckus on NPR and assumed they were young, fat, butch lesbians >:D

But 3 out of 4 ain't bad.*

*assuming that's what the picture is of.
Yemen he's helping the U.S. participate in a terrible genocide. Afghanistan. Some in Syria though it appears to have died down a bit for now. Continuing to expand the empire into Africa.

I'll also add the ridiculous retrenchment with Iran, though sanctions aren't outright war.

I'd recommend following "Scott Horton" on anti-war stuff if you want the best version of that argument. He's no lefty (claims to be an ancap but rarely focuses on economics).
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by Kriegsspiel » Fri Sep 07, 2018 4:25 pm

moda0306 wrote:
Fri Sep 07, 2018 3:27 pm
Yemen he's helping the U.S. participate in a terrible genocide. Afghanistan. Some in Syria though it appears to have died down a bit for now. Continuing to expand the empire into Africa.

I'll also add the ridiculous retrenchment with Iran, though sanctions aren't outright war.

I'd recommend following "Scott Horton" on anti-war stuff if you want the best version of that argument. He's no lefty (claims to be an ancap but rarely focuses on economics).
LOL... bro, I go to his site, and the first headline I see is "Bear Witness To American War Crimes". It's an article about a Saudi Arabian airstrike in Yemen. How is it an American war crime? Because the Saudis use American-made bombs ::) . Give me a break. His other stuff might be ok, but didn't you think you should put his best foot forward? In fact, I didn't see anything that indicated Trump has started bombing Yemen.

A cursory search for Trump and Afghanistan turned up an Economist article saying that Trump authorized deploying 3,500 and relaxed restrictions on air support and on what we used to call Military Transition Teams, or MITTs/MIT teams, and a Brookings article that added that he's maintaining a presence there still. Although I don't think that's a good idea, it doesn't really sound like war mongering to me.

"Trump Syria" kinda tells me that he's kept up the bombing, but is only leaving 3,000 military personnel on the ground. One article said
He has ended support for anti-regime rebels. And he talks of recalling US forces assisting pro-western Kurds.

Trump’s objectives in Syria, in so far as he has a defined policy, are twofold. Firstly, to kill or catch remaining terrorists belonging to Islamic State. Secondly, to curb Iran’s influence by forcing the withdrawal of Revolutionary Guards units and Tehran-controlled Shia militias, as demanded by Israel.
Again, doesn't sound like war mongering. Drop links if you've already waded through this shit.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by stuper1 » Fri Sep 07, 2018 4:33 pm

moda0306 wrote:
Fri Sep 07, 2018 12:55 pm
Both the authoritarian war-monger clown in office and the perma-war surveilance staters trying to secretly oppose him (not to mention the lapdog establishment media) are enemies of both liberty and democracy (whichever one might prefer) and should be ridiculed into unemployed irrellevence.
Putting aside his bombastic, buffoonish, bloviating, which of Trump's actions do you describe as authoritarian?
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by dualstow » Fri Sep 07, 2018 5:35 pm

He’s kind of like an unsuccessful authoritarian, a mere wannabe.

The press is”the enemy of the people” but he can’t shut them down, not one outlet. He wants the NYT to name the mystery op-ed writer for the, uh, security of the country. Not going to happen.

Checks & balances at work, so far anyway.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by stuper1 » Fri Sep 07, 2018 8:05 pm

I guess I'm an authoritarian too, because I think that the press is our enemy as well.

In my humble opinion, he's not an authoritarian. He's just not afraid to call them as he sees them.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by dualstow » Fri Sep 07, 2018 8:55 pm

No. I’m not referring to his opinion, but the pressure he applies (even though it’s not really working). His old PressSec, Spicer, did get those inauguration photos doctored, so that’s something. That’s evidence of authoritarian-lite.

Thanks to checks and balances, it may not get any further than that. He can only make his silly requests.
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