Will Trump be Re-elected?

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Will Trump be Re-elected?

Trump is more effective than people are willing to admit [ala Scott Adams] and will be re-elected.
24
37%
Hillary will run again in 2020, and thus Trump will beat her again.
3
5%
Trump will cause the GOP to lose one or both houses of congress in the mid-term elections.
6
9%
The Dems in congress will be so insufferable, Trumps wins by a small margin despite them.
15
23%
Trump will choose not to run for re-election, since he never really wanted the job anyway.
7
11%
Trump is a disaster and will lose by a landslide.
5
8%
Trump will not only lose, but will lose to a candidate so far to the left that people will wish he'd stayed.
3
5%
Other, please elaborate.
2
3%
 
Total votes: 65
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by moda0306 » Thu Apr 25, 2019 4:38 pm

MangoMan wrote:
Thu Apr 25, 2019 2:34 pm
moda0306 wrote:
Thu Apr 25, 2019 1:21 pm
MangoMan wrote:
Thu Apr 25, 2019 1:00 pm
I can't speak for others here, but I have no problem with Conservatives or Liberals, my qualm is with Leftists which are the ever growing wing of the Democratic Party. And you sure can do something about that: vote the nutjobs out.

I have always been a centrist. Socially liberal and fiscally conservative. But the conservatives are no longer fiscally conservative and the social fabric here has moved so far left, there is nowhere to hide. I tend to lean a little more to the right these days only because they seem to be a bit less crazy.
I hope you don't take offense, but I think you have an incorrect view of yourself. Sure we've moved left on some issues, but right now taxes on businesses, corporations and capital gains are INSANELY low historically for the last century, and unions are INSANELY weak, as are median real wages. We've been able to export "capital interest farms" to "COMMUNIST" countries like China for plutocrats to harvest at minimal tax/tariff rates. Ideas like Universal Healthcare were pushed (and popular) as early as the mid-1940's, yet I hear you decry any involvement by the government in healthcare.

What issue would you consider yourself most liberal on? And would you flesh that out a bit?

You seem to have "a problem" with anything that isn't at least "center-right." I mean there was NOBODY here (on the PP forum) defending Hillary Clinton (a center-left corporatist dem), but I have a sneaking suspicion if I'd pushed a pro-Hillary stance you would have had some lively debate directed at me... am I incorrect in that assumption? Were you as supportive of Hillary as say a Marco Rubio candidacy? Who was your ideal candidate on the Republican primary stage?
Hahaha, no offense taken. The women in my life always tell me I'm wrong about everything so why shouldn't you ? O0

Taxes on business: Compared to what? We had one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world until recently, plus stockholders get taxed on the dividends and capital gains, too.

Unions: Don't get me started. Since I am not a socialist, I don't see why unionized workers, particularly ones that work for the taxpayers, should have better benefits than everyone else and wages that are out of line with their training and education. We can debate this forever, but you will never change my view on this.

The government has proven time and again that anything it gets involved with ends up being an inefficient, expensive clusterf*ck. What makes you think health care would be any different? They've already done irreparable damage without even having full control.

I am not as right wing as you think, but since you are pretty far to the left, I probably seem that way to you. I am pro-choice, pro-separation of church and state, and pro-LGBTQ right up until the pronoun nonsense and feminization of men / masculinization of women insanity.
pug,

If you have that sort of ill-will towards unions, you're very economically conservative, as that would be a conservative opinion to take in 1879, much less 2019.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by Ad Orientem » Thu Apr 25, 2019 5:28 pm

Xan wrote:
Thu Apr 25, 2019 3:53 pm
Looks like Tsar Alexander II.
Yep. With a stroke of the imperial pen he did what it took our democracy four years of bloody fratricidal war to accomplish.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by Kriegsspiel » Thu Apr 25, 2019 7:11 pm

moda0306 wrote:
Thu Apr 25, 2019 11:15 am
"Support" can be a misleading term. It's not "moral support." It's not selling weapons or allowing the sale of weapons. It's literal military support...

"The Americans are providing targeting intelligence and refueling Saudi warplanes involved in bombing rebel positions."
I saw that. I would be willing to bet money that the US military guys in the targeting cell are not sitting there telling the Saudis "See this, that's a wedding ceremony with a bunch of happy people. We want you guys to go bomb that. When you're done, there is a large force of children playing soccer over here..." But whatever you think, when you're dropping bombs from aircraft, and when the enemy is in populated areas, there will be collateral. But as I've said before, I don't like the idea of drone strikes based on intelligence sources, I suspect they're the cause of a lot of civilian casualties. I think there should be a person on the ground calling it in.
https://merip.org/2018/02/trumps-drone-surge/
In one respect, President Trump has no doubt kept his word. Trump promised during the campaign to “bomb the shit” out of ISIS and it appears to be one of the few promises he has kept. Trump inherited from Obama an escalating war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, but both conventional bombing and drone strikes have significantly increased under Trump as a result of his new ISIS battle plan, whose strategy Defense Secretary James Mattis defines as “annihilation tactics.” According to Newsweek, the United States under Trump has dropped a record number of bombs on the Middle East, roughly 10 percent more than under his predecessors. Trump also loosened rules of engagement that protect civilians and, unsurprisingly, civilian casualties from the US-led war against ISIS will, at this pace, double under Trump.
Seems pretty successful, I think the last ISIS stronghold recently surrendered. Was it worth it? I dunno.

I checked out the reference for the claim that Trump loosened the ROE that protect civilians. It may be the case (it was Daily Beast implying they were quoting Trump directly) that he requested “changes to any United States rules of engagement and other United States policy restrictions that exceed the requirements of international law regarding the use of force against ISIS.”

This was probably because ISIS was digging in around and travelling with civilian human-shields so that we would kill civilians when dropping ordinance. This has become a common tactic over the last several decades (and is one of the reasons, along with increased use of aerial bombing, that 4GW will involve more civilian deaths than one would expect given our level of "technological sophistication"). This is what COL Murray was referring to later in the article, and the whole thing makes this point. Even if their guys all get killed, they can win a psyop battle by emphasizing how many civilians were killed too.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-ram ... hadow-wars
moda0306 wrote:
Thu Apr 25, 2019 11:26 am
Did you also notice that your assertion that Saudi's were simply using American-manufactured bombs was incorrect?
No. But I wasn't asserting that, I was referring to the Horton article where HE was asserting that because a US bomb was dropped on a school bus, the US was guilty of war crimes. At least that's what I remember it saying, I can't find it on his site anymore.
As far as the jurisdictional and legalese aspects of war-crime prosecution, I've got to dig into my sources for that. I've heard folks like Chomsky, Greenwald, Horton and a few others go into the actual various layers of legal precedent and procedural machinations of war crime prosecution, but they're not at my fingertips and it's been a while. It's also a bit difficult to suss out actual accusations of war crimes vs digging into the legal machinations of how they would/could/should be prosecuted.
You keep saying various Presidents are or have been committing war crimes by virtue of their policies instead of by doing specific things. So by extension, the military is committing war crimes when it does normal military things to execute the policies. There are some things everyone would agree are heinous: My Lai, Mahmudiya, Serbian soldiers killing civilians with sledgehammers. But if a soldier manning a howitzer kills civilians when he fires on coordinates he gets on a radio, or a pilot providing close air support, it's not a war crime, that's what happens in modern warfare. But it's hard to figure out what aspect from them you think are war crimes. For instance, I went through the NPR article about AFRICOM and clicked through a couple links from it and I still can't tell what you are referring to from them. Might be an Overton Window issue.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by Kriegsspiel » Fri Apr 26, 2019 4:55 pm

MangoMan wrote:
Thu Apr 25, 2019 7:24 pm
Kriegsspiel wrote:
Thu Apr 25, 2019 7:11 pm

This was probably because ISIS was digging in around and travelling with civilian human-shields so that we would kill civilians when dropping ordinance. This has become a common tactic over the last several decades (and is one of the reasons, along with increased use of aerial bombing, that 4GW will involve more civilian deaths than one would expect given our level of "technological sophistication"). This is what COL Murray was referring to later in the article, and the whole thing makes this point. Even if their guys all get killed, they can win a psyop battle by emphasizing how many civilians were killed too.
Kriegs, you seem to be pretty well informed on this stuff, so can you clarify: Is that more common in general or only with Islamists? If the latter, do you think Israel is getting a bad rap for the way they are trying to deal with this?
Well, I'm no expert. But speculating, it's going to be more common, one of the downsides of urbanization and weapons' technological advancement.

If you park your unit out in the open somewhere, they're all going to be dead or wounded in short order (1). If you put them in a city (combined with psyop and propaganda), your enemy either won't bomb you because they don't want to destroy their own citizens/economy (it's like you're calling their bluff on how tenacious/legit they are), or they do, and take the psyop hit. Russia executed a pretty much flawless operation when they inserted their Little Green Men into Crimea. Do you remember when that happened? The news stories that were coming out were all over the place, nobody knew what the fuck was going on. The US in Afghanistan and Iraq sets up combat outposts (COPs) in villages and even in buildings on a block with civilian buildings, because that's where the people are. But the hope isn't that enemy fire will miss and hit civilians, because we can't claim that as a PR victory, whereas an ISIS squad who are firing from a building with kids in it could. So what I'm trying to say is that it doesn't matter if you have "good" or "bad" intentions, you're going to be around citizens more the way wars are fought now.

Israelis don't have the inclination to self-flagellate themselves if they kill civilians, because they all get that they're in a existential fight. The Palestinians have been engaged with the Israelis for generations, so they know what the deal is. But they still keep at it knowing they're gonna get smoked (2). So when they try to get the Israelis to kill civilians, they're targeting the US and Europeans, not the Israeli populace. That's only at a bird's eye view, since I'm sure there have been times when the Israelis deserve to get some flack. Anyways, that's what I think.

1. https://zik.ua/en/news/2014/07/11/19_uk ... nky_505245
2. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/worl ... bassy.html
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by Kbg » Sat Apr 27, 2019 10:08 am

ROE is something you impose on yourself to control “the application” of weapons. International law governing warfare is surprisingly lenient and very few reporters report on it accurately.

At a very simple level, the target needs to have a military purpose and the collateral damage should be “proportional” to the military advantage gained. A “protected” target loses it protected status when being used for a military purpose. The classic WW2 example was every time a unit got close to or rolled into a town with a church steeple it was the first thing to get taken out by a tank round due to their use as observation or sniper posts. In our current conflict, family or hostages getting killed riding with a “target” convoy does not equal a war crime. Actually, in the case of hostages, the war crime is on the terrorist as international law prohibits hostage taking and if there is a military target with them then it comes down to “proportionality.”

Obviously, what is proportional is a matter that can be debated.

In the current conflict, military and civilian lawyers are pretty much everywhere in the approval process.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by jhogue » Wed May 08, 2019 8:37 am

POCAHONTAS STRIKES BACK!!!

In a move that her ancestors at Little Big Horn would have appreciated, Senator (and Presidential candidate) Elizabeth Warren called for the impeachment of President Donald Trump on the floor of the United States Senate yesterday.

The Donald has already claimed that he would "love to run against her."
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/pol ... 456355002/

With 21 candidates for the Democratic nomination already declared (and more lurking in the wings!) isn't this the most entertaining Presidential campaign in our lifetimes?
“Groucho Marx wrote:
A stock trader asked him, "Groucho, where do you put all your money?" Groucho was said to have replied, "In Treasury bonds", and the trader said, "You can't make much money on those." Groucho said, "You can if you have enough of them!"
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by Ad Orientem » Wed May 08, 2019 8:46 am

“Groucho Marx wrote:
A stock trader asked him, "Groucho, where do you put all your money?" Groucho was said to have replied, "In Treasury bonds", and the trader said, "You can't make much money on those." Groucho said, "You can if you have enough of them!"
That's a great tag line. Groucho actually got wiped out in the crash of '29 after speculating heavily in the market including buying on margin. It took him a long time to recover financially and like so many people who lived through the depression, he was ever after the most conservative investor with a near neurotic phobia of debt.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by jacksonM » Wed May 08, 2019 11:34 am

Possibly the biggest threat to Trump's re-election shaping up on the horizon?

https://thewashingtonstandard.com/i-dar ... rformance/
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by Ad Orientem » Wed May 08, 2019 12:00 pm

jacksonM wrote:
Wed May 08, 2019 11:34 am
Possibly the biggest threat to Trump's re-election shaping up on the horizon?

https://thewashingtonstandard.com/i-dar ... rformance/
Some of that list is just noise. The ordinary ups and downs of business. Brick and mortal retail is in trouble, has been since before the not so great depression we just experienced, and that is not going to change. But some of it should be cause for concern. The level of debt at every level of society is staggering and when that reaches a tipping point, the broader economy will suffer. Unemployment statistics are a bit like the inflation figures. They should be taken only with a very large grain of salt. That said, for the moment the economy is doing well. Conceding special case exceptions, for the most part if you want a job you can get one. It may not be your dream job. But I can't go anywhere w/o seeing "Help Wanted" signs. But yeah. We are going into year nine or ten depending on how you date the economic recovery, of the longest economic expansion that the US has accurate records for.

How long can this go on?
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by jacksonM » Wed May 08, 2019 2:17 pm

Ad Orientem wrote:
Wed May 08, 2019 12:00 pm
jacksonM wrote:
Wed May 08, 2019 11:34 am
Possibly the biggest threat to Trump's re-election shaping up on the horizon?

https://thewashingtonstandard.com/i-dar ... rformance/
Some of that list is just noise. The ordinary ups and downs of business. Brick and mortal retail is in trouble, has been since before the not so great depression we just experienced, and that is not going to change. But some of it should be cause for concern. The level of debt at every level of society is staggering and when that reaches a tipping point, the broader economy will suffer. Unemployment statistics are a bit like the inflation figures. They should be taken only with a very large grain of salt. That said, for the moment the economy is doing well. Conceding special case exceptions, for the most part if you want a job you can get one. It may not be your dream job. But I can't go anywhere w/o seeing "Help Wanted" signs. But yeah. We are going into year nine or ten depending on how you date the economic recovery, of the longest economic expansion that the US has accurate records for.

How long can this go on?
The underlined part is what I find baffling about the claim that "nearly 102 million Americans do not have a job right now". Who are these Americans and why don't they have jobs? And how can this claim and the claim that unemployment is at an all time low both be true?

Since very little is being done on the front of Trump's signature campaign promise, i.e. stopping illegal immigration, I don't see much hope of him being re-elected if the economy turns south.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by jacksonM » Wed May 08, 2019 2:54 pm

MangoMan wrote:
Wed May 08, 2019 2:39 pm
jacksonM wrote:
Wed May 08, 2019 2:17 pm
Ad Orientem wrote:
Wed May 08, 2019 12:00 pm


Some of that list is just noise. The ordinary ups and downs of business. Brick and mortal retail is in trouble, has been since before the not so great depression we just experienced, and that is not going to change. But some of it should be cause for concern. The level of debt at every level of society is staggering and when that reaches a tipping point, the broader economy will suffer. Unemployment statistics are a bit like the inflation figures. They should be taken only with a very large grain of salt. That said, for the moment the economy is doing well. Conceding special case exceptions, for the most part if you want a job you can get one. It may not be your dream job. But I can't go anywhere w/o seeing "Help Wanted" signs. But yeah. We are going into year nine or ten depending on how you date the economic recovery, of the longest economic expansion that the US has accurate records for.

How long can this go on?
The underlined part is what I find baffling about the claim that "nearly 102 million Americans do not have a job right now". Who are these Americans and why don't they have jobs? And how can this claim and the claim that unemployment is at an all time low both be true?
It's the AOC "unwilling to work" crowd. I was in New Orleans recently and as we walked around the French Quarter there were panhandlers everywhere, often literally in front of stores/restaurants with help wanted signs in the window.
That's probably some of them but the 102 million figure might also include people like me. I got laid off from my job almost 3 years ago and never returned to work. I was 67 years old at the time and decided to retire.

If that's the case it's a misleading statistic.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by Xan » Wed May 08, 2019 3:21 pm

Sure it includes you. It's "people who don't have a job". It includes children, retirees, housewives, you name it.

As long as unemployment (the number of people who want to work but aren't) is low, I think the more people who don't have a job, the better. Doesn't that mean we're prosperous?
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by WiseOne » Thu May 09, 2019 7:18 am

Actually, unemployment is at its lowest in 49 years:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-cr ... 2019-05-03

When you add up the number of people living in the US not eligible or desiring to work, 102 million sounds about right. I'm perfectly fine with my 7 year old niece and 84 year old mother not having jobs.

There's nothing on that list that says anything useful about the economy, except possibly for the one about manufacturing output being down, if it's true. It's all just noise taken out of context. I guess no one really wants to admit that the new tax law may actually have done some good (except to the housing market, which is going through a probably painful adjustment period).
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by moda0306 » Thu May 09, 2019 11:41 am

Xan wrote:
Wed May 08, 2019 3:21 pm
Sure it includes you. It's "people who don't have a job". It includes children, retirees, housewives, you name it.

As long as unemployment (the number of people who want to work but aren't) is low, I think the more people who don't have a job, the better. Doesn't that mean we're prosperous?
This is one way to read the data... which is an interesting flip from the usual read, which is that a reduced workforce participation rate is a sign of a sluggish economy offering bad jobs. And people just quit looking out of despair.

Either way, I'm more about looking at real median wages. This is the foundation that keeps Americans able to save and withstand periods of high unemployment without it destroying their lives. I'd also like to look at the average American's balance sheet, but it's hard to glean out of all the different measures that try to include/dis-include various items.

But I absolutely agree with you that we should have a more flexible view of what consists of a "good economy." I think it would be splendid if as wages grew we worked fewer hours and sacrificed growth for personal freedom and family time. Of course, you would need median wages to rise for that to happen, and for all that our economic growth has given us, real wage gains have been sh!t.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by Kriegsspiel » Thu May 09, 2019 4:18 pm

moda0306 wrote:
Thu May 09, 2019 11:41 am
Xan wrote:
Wed May 08, 2019 3:21 pm
Sure it includes you. It's "people who don't have a job". It includes children, retirees, housewives, you name it.

As long as unemployment (the number of people who want to work but aren't) is low, I think the more people who don't have a job, the better. Doesn't that mean we're prosperous?
This is one way to read the data... which is an interesting flip from the usual read, which is that a reduced workforce participation rate is a sign of a sluggish economy offering bad jobs. And people just quit looking out of despair.
I think you could look at it both ways and get a good grasp of the situation. A lot of the jobs that aren't being filled are the "bad" ones (low paying and physically taxing). I don't think companies are having a hard time hiring people to sit behind a desk, but I could be wrong. So that said, I suspect physical impairments are limiting the jobs some people apply for, and a lot of people can't pass drug tests.

I mean, hasn't the prime working age male employment situation been getting some press recently? How many children and non-working wives are there, really? Marriage is down, fertility is down.

Then again, the fast food places around me seem to be staffed mostly by teenagers outside of school hours. I think it's a good sign that adults aren't taking up those jobs and the teenagers can do them.
Either way, I'm more about looking at real median wages. This is the foundation that keeps Americans able to save and withstand periods of high unemployment without it destroying their lives. I'd also like to look at the average American's balance sheet, but it's hard to glean out of all the different measures that try to include/dis-include various items.

But I absolutely agree with you that we should have a more flexible view of what consists of a "good economy." I think it would be splendid if as wages grew we worked fewer hours and sacrificed growth for personal freedom and family time. Of course, you would need median wages to rise for that to happen, and for all that our economic growth has given us, real wage gains have been sh!t.
Something (somewhat related) that gets me is how many people refuse to leave high COL locations when they aren't earning the high incomes that would justify it. Like, if you are working in one of those bad jobs, especially because you've reached your Peter Principle ceiling, you will vastly improve your life by going and doing it in a low COL location. I'm thinking people like warehouse workers, retail workers, fast food, those kinds of things. You could live a fairly middle class lifestyle working at a fast food joint for 30 hours a week in a large portion of the country.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by moda0306 » Thu May 09, 2019 5:43 pm

Kriegsspiel wrote:
Thu May 09, 2019 4:18 pm
moda0306 wrote:
Thu May 09, 2019 11:41 am
Xan wrote:
Wed May 08, 2019 3:21 pm
Sure it includes you. It's "people who don't have a job". It includes children, retirees, housewives, you name it.

As long as unemployment (the number of people who want to work but aren't) is low, I think the more people who don't have a job, the better. Doesn't that mean we're prosperous?
This is one way to read the data... which is an interesting flip from the usual read, which is that a reduced workforce participation rate is a sign of a sluggish economy offering bad jobs. And people just quit looking out of despair.
I think you could look at it both ways and get a good grasp of the situation. A lot of the jobs that aren't being filled are the "bad" ones (low paying and physically taxing). I don't think companies are having a hard time hiring people to sit behind a desk, but I could be wrong. So that said, I suspect physical impairments are limiting the jobs some people apply for, and a lot of people can't pass drug tests.

I mean, hasn't the prime working age male employment situation been getting some press recently? How many children and non-working wives are there, really? Marriage is down, fertility is down.

Then again, the fast food places around me seem to be staffed mostly by teenagers outside of school hours. I think it's a good sign that adults aren't taking up those jobs and the teenagers can do them.
Either way, I'm more about looking at real median wages. This is the foundation that keeps Americans able to save and withstand periods of high unemployment without it destroying their lives. I'd also like to look at the average American's balance sheet, but it's hard to glean out of all the different measures that try to include/dis-include various items.

But I absolutely agree with you that we should have a more flexible view of what consists of a "good economy." I think it would be splendid if as wages grew we worked fewer hours and sacrificed growth for personal freedom and family time. Of course, you would need median wages to rise for that to happen, and for all that our economic growth has given us, real wage gains have been sh!t.
Something (somewhat related) that gets me is how many people refuse to leave high COL locations when they aren't earning the high incomes that would justify it. Like, if you are working in one of those bad jobs, especially because you've reached your Peter Principle ceiling, you will vastly improve your life by going and doing it in a low COL location. I'm thinking people like warehouse workers, retail workers, fast food, those kinds of things. You could live a fairly middle class lifestyle working at a fast food joint for 30 hours a week in a large portion of the country.
Can you help me with the math on that? 30 x $12 x 50 weeks per year = $18,000. I think I could figure out how to live relatively happily on $18k per year, but I could never live "a middle class lifestyle" I don think, especially if that includes having kids.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by Kriegsspiel » Thu May 09, 2019 5:51 pm

Yes, $18,000. Obviously it depends on your definition of middle class, but you can afford a decent apartment, a car, good food, clothes/furnishings/other durables, and some entertainment on that, which is the way I see lower middle class status. Maybe not with kids, but middle class single is doable on entry-level jobs.

EDIT

These are the numbers I'm thinking of
  • $650-750 rent can get a decent apartment in a city in the midwest, or a house in a less fashionable area
  • $220 for groceries, give or take depending on how much you eat, is plenty
  • $130 for transportation should cover whatever combination of transit/ridesharing, gas, insurance, maintenance
  • $40 is guestimating a premium for health insurance? Not really sure here.
That's $1,040 to cover the basics. $460 left over. If I was just starting out and didn't have a car or any furniture, I would be saving up until I could afford a good used car for $5,000 or so, or about a year of taking the bus. I'd probably also cut out processed and unhealthy food from my grocery shopping and put it towards buying some furniture (small apartments don't need much). Once you get that stuff taken care of, you can split the surplus up between savings and luxuries however you want. You probably have been promoted by this time too, so you'd be earning more.
Last edited by Kriegsspiel on Thu May 09, 2019 6:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by Ad Orientem » Thu May 09, 2019 5:57 pm

In the United States an annual income of $18k is on the low end of working class. That doesn't mean you can't make do on that. A lot depends on where your priorities in life are. My time in the Navy taught me how little I really needed and still remained fairly happy. There is definitely more to life than material things. But I don't know anyone who would call that a middle class income in a developed country.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by Kriegsspiel » Thu May 09, 2019 6:35 pm

Ad Orientem wrote:
Thu May 09, 2019 5:57 pm
In the United States an annual income of $18k is on the low end of working class.
The argument I was trying to make was that you can blur the lines between poor and middle class by how you deploy your money. What I had in mind was something more like an aesthetic issue, not a pure dollars issue, in sense of the 3 Ladders class definitions, as opposed to Pew Research's "middle class income is between 1/3 and double the median."
There is definitely more to life than material things. But I don't know anyone who would call that a middle class income in a developed country.
If they didn't know that the person worked at McDonalds.. If they only knew that our hero had a car and an apartment (maybe he had them over for dinner or game night or something), and he organized a golf outing with the group the second Thursday of the month, went out for beers with the gang every once in a while, was clean and well groomed (being presentable is low cost/high value), was well read (library, baby!), and generally not stressed out about money, why wouldn't they think he was middle class?
You there, Ephialtes. May you live forever.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by dualstow » Thu May 09, 2019 7:53 pm

Kriegsspiel wrote:
Thu May 09, 2019 6:35 pm
Ad Orientem wrote:
Thu May 09, 2019 5:57 pm
In the United States an annual income of $18k is on the low end of working class.
The argument I was trying to make was that you can blur the lines between poor and middle class by how you deploy your money. What I had in mind was something more like an aesthetic issue, not a pure dollars issue, in sense of the 3 Ladders class definitions, as opposed to Pew Research's "middle class income is between 1/3 and double the median."


Is this a good time for me to plug earn dot org? I’m still checking it out, but..four stars in charity navigator.
Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years
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Kriegsspiel
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by Kriegsspiel » Thu May 09, 2019 8:21 pm

Well, they chose to locate their office in San Fransisco, so it doesn't seem like they're concerned with being good stewards of the donations they get as a charity. And they use the word "intersection." They also advocate for some stupid student loan policies too. So I'm voting no. Just link people to ERE or MMM or any of the tons of free content out there.
You there, Ephialtes. May you live forever.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by dualstow » Thu May 09, 2019 8:39 pm

Hmm, I’m definitely not a fan of “intersectional.” Need more research. Thank you.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by boglerdude » Thu May 09, 2019 10:37 pm

> Something that gets me is how many people refuse to leave high COL locations when they aren't earning the high incomes that would justify it.

People dont like change. Gov should do more on this, some say UBI would help with mobility. I think high speed rail would be a better start. If the CA rail gets built, living inland would be more palatable.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by WiseOne » Fri May 10, 2019 7:09 am

Some personal observations from living in a city that's as HCOL as it gets (NY):

- if you're earning minimum wage and working full time, you're most likely a recent immigrant and you don't speak English. You live in a neighborhood where the residents and retail businesses all speak your language (e.g.. Spanish), and you have a tight network of family & friends that are a critical support structure. In that situation, moving away is unfathomable.

- The HCOL city in question provides many services & benefits that augment that minimum wage income, e.g. food stamps and Medicaid, plus free transit if you're low income. Also, no need for a car.

- Most likely you actually work that minimum wage job part time. The rest of the time, you do something else and get paid a lot more under the table. Handyman or mover jobs, housecleaning, dog-walking/cat sitting etc, earns you a LOT more than minimum wage post-tax, probably $20/hour in cash on the low end. There's also the chance of landing a cushy, well paid unionized city job with generous benefits including a pension that you can start drawing on in your mid 40s.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by jhogue » Fri May 10, 2019 8:34 am

US military pensions for those who entered before 1981 allowed service members to retire at half pay after 20 years active service. Retirement pay is protected against inflation by federal law. Retirees also received free health care and GI Bill benefits, access to the post exchange and commissary, and access to the global network of free space-available travel aboard US Air Force transports and charters.

At one time, the US Postal Service and many police and fire departments across the country had similar retirement plans, if not all of the fringe benefits of the military. Obviously, all those retirement plans (for new members) have been phased out and shifted from defined benefit to defined contribution schemes over the last 30-40 years.
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A stock trader asked him, "Groucho, where do you put all your money?" Groucho was said to have replied, "In Treasury bonds", and the trader said, "You can't make much money on those." Groucho said, "You can if you have enough of them!"
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