Inaugaration Day!

[Tommy Vercetti]

The global community is thinking this right now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_516ml5ImGU

Edited January 20, 2017 by Tommy Vercetti

[AzVice]

i didn't post after the election, don't get me started now

[Daytona74]

vor 28 Minuten schrieb Tommy Vercetti:

The global community is thinking this right now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_516ml5ImGU

 

Are you sure it's not this?

 

[Sonny-Burnett]

4 hours ago, Daytona74 said:

There are people who see a revival of Keynesian ideas of government spending, usually founded on the notion that supply side neoclassical economics have run us into the quagmire of global financial crisis that we see today.

In the end, what is never completely untrue is that if you foster private business and make it easy for private companies to earn money, there is a possibility that those companies can then afford to pay their employees better and that that will improve the wealth of everybody. Including that of the government, which will receive a higher amount of (income) tax and thus will have more money to spend on public services.

The ugly side of supply side economics, however, has been the enormous concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich, while the average working person, without whom none of the profits of the rich would have been possible, continue to get the short end of the stick. I don't have the exact figures on hand at the moment, but I believe I have read that top executives of major U.S. corporations now earn 400 times the annual income of an average middle class white collar employee. This relation has risen more than tenfold since the 1970s. At the same time, work productivity, especially since the Digital Revolution, has increased hugely. While the income of the average person has almost stagnated in real terms. And then you've got all the problems of global sourcing which make incomes of average working people in developed countries even more uncertain.

I'm not against supply side economic politics. You can't ignore that private business is where the majority of people get their monthly paychecks from. But you also have to find ways of making sure that the wealth they generate doesn't all disappear into the coffers of the rich. Keynesian politics have historically very often led to giant national budget deficits and wasteful spending. But unbridled capitalism in the form of uncompromisingly favoring the supply side has also not been a good approach.

I'm not convinced that Trump will consider any of this. But we'll see.

Interesting how people with varied backgrounds have different perspectives. Yours is economics, while mine is Corporate Finance with degrees in Accounting and an MBA, and many years working in both Fortune 50 companies (2) as well as holding the CFO role in several mid-tier multinational technology businesses. I hear that a lot, namely that supply side economics somehow is the root of our financial crisis or worse, that it has largely benefitted the wealthy and not middle America. However, on the latter I strongly disagree as the stats do not support that contention Have you ever read The End of Prosperity by Laffer, an economist from the Reagan era? In there he states: “We call this period, 1982-2007, the twenty-five year boom – the greatest period of wealth creation in the history of the planet.  In 1980, the net worth – assets minus liabilities – of all U.S.households and business…was $25 trillion in today’s dollars.  By 2007, …net worth was just shy of $57 trillion.  Adjusting for inflation, more wealth was created in America in the twenty-five year boom than in the previous two hundred years.” 

Further, Economist Henry Nau added in the Wall Street Journal, “the U.S. grew by more than 3% per year [in real terms] from 1980 to 2007, and created more than 50 million new jobs, massively expanding a middle class of working women, African-Americans and legal as well as illegal immigrants.  Per capita income increased by 65%, and household income went up substantially in all income categories.”  So the middle class most certainly DID benefit from Supply Side. and note the other classes that also benefitted. It is simply a myth that Supply Side, also known as Trickle Down, only benefits the wealthy.

Similarly, Steve Forbes wrote in Forbes magazine in 2008: “Between the early 1980s and 2007 we lived in an economic Golden Age.  Never before have so many people advanced so far economically in so short a period of time as they have during the last 25 years.  Until the credit crisis, 70 million people a year [worldwide] were joining the middle class.  The U.S. kicked off this long boom with the economic reforms of Ronald Reagan, particularly his enormous income tax cuts.  We burst from the economic stagnation of the 1970s into a dynamic, innovative, high tech-oriented economy.  Even in recent years the much maligned U.S. did well. Between year-end 2002 and year-end 2007 U.S. growth exceeded the entire size of China’s economy.” In other words, the growth in the U.S. economy from 2002 to 2007 was the equivalent of adding the entire economy of China to the U.S. economy.

As to Keynesian economics, that is a practice dating from the 1930s and has never achieved what Supply Side has. Look at the Carter economy with runaway inflation and interest rates . And worse... look at the Obama economy, a warmed over version of Keynesian economics, which is arguably the worst Post-Recession recovery since the Great Depression, averaging around 1% GDP growth his entire term and less than 2% his last 6 years. Many economists suggested 3% is the baseline needed to support our government and spending, and indeed the prior 40 year (pre-Obama) average GDP growth rate averaged better than 3%. Reagan achieved nearly 5% after the '82 Recession and Clinton achieved 4%. So abysmal GDP growth rates, 70-90 Million unemployed working age Americans due to the lowest labor participation rates since 1978, home ownership & median income down, while poverty rates and welfare is up are the hallmarks of the Obama economy. And even Obama's $900 Billion so-called "stimulus", a Keynesian hallmark, failed to make any significant impact to unemployment.

Another interesting twist on the Obama economy as that many fail to recognize that his weak economy was actually aided by fiscal and monetary policies that included: the Fed keeping interest rates artificially low and through its practice of QE, and higher government spending to GDP ratio of 22.8% vs historical averages, and record levels of debt and deficit spending to further prop up the economy. Yet even with these advantages, his economy is on life support.  Keynesian economics does not work, especially when it is coupled with small-business job killing Regulations and they have made it nearly impossible to sustain growth in that sector. And as many suggest, small business is the engine of our economy.

 

 

[Daytona74]

@Sonny-Burnett:

In short, economics tries to take a much more all-encompassing view of economic activity. You do have a good number of business administration classes as well which teach you the view point of private enterprise and commercial companies. But stripped down to its essentials, economic science in the academic sense sees businesses as one of three different economic subjects or units, those being private households, (commercial) enterprises and the state/government. And a great deal of economics is about the analysis of growth and the distribution of that growth, as well as more generally monetary flows between the three.

But anyway, we did have a strong 25-year growth period from the early 80s onward. And pretty much worldwide, after severe recessions in most Western industrial countries in the 1970s, which could themselves be interpreted as the tail end of a 25-year post-WWII growth cycle. And the 1980-2007 growth period was fueled by unprecedented technological advancements as well as for example the emergence of former developing countries as new economic powers, and the breakdown of the Iron Curtain and subsequently the adopting of global market economy principles by formerly Communist countries. The problem is that quite arguably, we are still at the end of one of those long term growth cycles. We have recovered from the Financial Crisis, but as you said, just barely in terms of post-recession growth.

So now we're faced with the problem that we've created all these gigantic economic resources and production assets and that all these need to earn income for those who own them. And that is exacerbated by the fact that following the Financial Crisis, markets were drowned in liquidity, which has the exact same problem of struggling to earn interest. And the zero or even negative interest policies of central banks worldwide add fuel to the fire in that it means national economies, which can only grow by so much each year regardless of how much money you throw at them, have even more hungry mouths to feed. Not to mention that much of that liquidity is never passed on as loans or equity to businesses, where it would be invested in real assets, but is used for huge-risk, but in the end zero-sum dangerous financial speculation on Wall Street (my argument has long been that central banks should put a five to seven percent interest on money that is used purely for financial speculation, and at the moment, maybe around 0.5 to 1.5 percent interest on central bank money that is actually invested in or loaned to businesses). So now we've got those who own a country's private economic assets and who are sitting on huge production capacities that are seeing dwindling return on investment, and we've got liquidity that barely earns those who have it any money. Unless they cut corners.

And that's why the middle class is eroding worldwide. Gainful employment as a means for the common person of participating in the wealth that a country's economy creates gets trimmed down by reducing wages and salaries, by turning formerly steady jobs with fixed incomes into anything from recurring temp jobs to single-project contracts. Not because companies are evil, but because the income that companies create isn't enough to pay off owners/shareholders and humble employees fairly at the same time. And job market "reforms" in pretty much every market economy on the planet in the last 10 years are usually nothing more than the further erosion of  worker's rights, of job security and additional benefits. All this diminshes the possibilities of workers and employees for wealth participation. It may not paint a complete picture if you say top executives earn 400 times what regular employees make. But it also shows the divide that is taking place in the distribution of wealth. And those who were able to move up and become members of their country's economic middle class in the last 25 to 30 years are now increasingly faced with worries about how much longer they can keep up their standard of living.

If Trump wants to keep his promise and return power - and jobs that pay fair and decent money - to the people, then that's going to be one heck of a huge job to accomplish.

Edited January 21, 2017 by Daytona74

[Sonny-Burnett]

7 hours ago, Stinger390X said:

With respect...I think you misunderstood my comment.

I was a teacher for 20 years and am now retired. I have seen the decline in education and the re-vamping of it (finally) here in Ontario where I was a teacher.

In America during the Kennedy years and the space race , the U.S was second in the world. It is now not even in the G-20 but rather 28th in the world for education. This, sadly, is because of poor funding and unequal education for all. This "BUSINESS SCENCE" of the new administration is leaning towards those who can pay can get a good education, and in a secular society education must be a common factor for all it's populous. Running education like a business will only cause the decline of smart people in the U.S. meaning only the rich will get educated.

I have seen first hand how in Texas they are teaching creationism in secularly funded PUBLIC schools? This confuses me? Creating a multi-tiered school system and good education for rich and then the poor get the leftovers, is no way to run a national school system. (School and Society lecture 101 from my University days back in the early 80's)

Mr. Trump has to realize all things can not be run like a corporation. I have been listening to NPR over the last few days and they have been reporting on the nominees for cabinet and I can't seem to agree with one of them. Trump has picked some bizarre candidates who may be good business people, but poor politicians when it comes to looking out for the common folk. I have heard the interviews of these candidates and they are not very savvy and evade direct questioning of Congressmen? Are they hiding a secret agenda?

I say again, Trump was elected to weed out corruption on the hill but it seems he is lining it with "bean counters" with little or no experience or concept of reality. I certainly hope they can do a good job IF they do eventually get in.  Sadly the U.S. seems to equate everything with the almighty dollar instead of the best for society. This is obvious of your health system as the rest of the "modern world" has universal health care for it's citizens. Sadly the U.S. seems to run it like an insurance scam and that is a shame. Hopefully someday they will realize what Canada, Australia, all of Europe and numerous other countries of the G-20 and beyond already know.

There is no perfect society in the world, however there are ones that you can live free and in comfort and without fear of government intervention into privacy. Someday that utopia will be available for all, but we as humans have a long way to go.........................

Thanks for your follow-on and for your interesting insights. I fear you also may have misunderstood me as well as I wasn't intending to suggest US schools be run as a business, but rather I thought I was addressing your comment about Trump appointees not draining the swamp.  In any case I suspect the subject of improving the US educational system has as many solutions as there are opinions out there. I am not an educator, however I have been reading about other more successful school programs such as the example I gave about Switzerland. So I will offer my opinion and leave it at that:  US schools are subject to a powerful Teachers Union, which supports standardized teaching methodology and testing (e.g. Common Core), does not empower individual teachers to modify curriculum as they see fit and for more advanced students. Segregation of more advanced students is not encouraged under this program of standardization so more capable students are not challenged. The Unions support tenure, and some argue not only does that not encourage performance based teaching but that it protects poor teachers from termination. I suggest teachers be given 3 year contracts that can be renewed based on performance.    Professional development of teachers has been described as stale and outdated, and needs updating.  As to your comment about funding. the US secondary spending per pupil is the fifth highest, yet students rank much worse in educational performance compared to other countries. I don't believe spending is nearly as critical as the other things I mentioned, but I am sure my list is incomplete. So my defense of the Trump education appointee revolved around her support for a radically changed approach that does away with standardization. and federal government intervention. That the Teachers Union is so violently opposed to her is another sign that I like. Remember the old adage, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help'. In the case of education I don't think so.

On the subject of the Trump appointees and their Senate hearings, I always take these hearings with a big grain of salt as it is mostly political theater and grandstanding by both sides. The Dems are engaged in unending character assassination rather than challenging credentials, and the Reps spend most of their time extolling the virtues of the candidates. I prefer to do my own research outside of this Kabuki theater. Universal Health care..sorry I am not a fan. If it is so great then why are so many citizens of the UK flying here for treatment? Ridiculously long waiting times to see a doctor (months) and not always the highest standard of care. I also read some time ago that the situation in the UK was so dire that they may need some assistance from the Red Cross to handle patient overload. Why would we want this?

Edited January 21, 2017 by Sonny-Burnett

[Sonny-Burnett]

@Daytona74, Sorry but  I'm not following where you are going with this commentary or what you are suggesting as a course of action for the new administration. And I have no problem with the job creators making exponentially more than the workers, as they are not the innovators and job creators. Without these people there are no new manufacturing or technology jobs, no investments in capital required for startups, no access to leveraged financing to fund growth, acquisitions or startups, and so on.  You argued that Supply Side economics did not benefit the Middle Class and I gave you several examples from 3rd party sources proving otherwise. We need a return to these policies as quickly as possible, and a repeal of much of the Obama Regulatory actions taken against businesses. Government needs to get out of the way of businesses so we can return to adding jobs, and wealth, to the middle class.

Edited January 21, 2017 by Sonny-Burnett

[Daytona74]

Maybe I was wandering off a bit with my last post. Also, it's way past midnight and early morning here in Germany...

But I didn't say I was against supply side economics. They can be a very good thing in actually making the common people participate in wealth creation. And they have been in the past. But in the last couple of years, I don't think we've seen workers and employees earn their fair share. Granted, times have been tough. But major corporations usually still manage to keep their shareholders happy. If you know what I mean

I also agree that a company's owners or executives should earn considerably more money than employees. Because very often, they bear both the full financial risk of their decisions and are responsible for steering their business into directions that reward that risk and enable that company to gain good profits. On the other hand, I struggle to think that the work of an executive of a major corporation should be worth 400 times more than that of a regular employee. And why that should be the case today unlike in the 1970s.

But It's also not socialism to me to ask if workers and employees are being paid what they deserve and what the company can afford to pay them. And that's arguably where the rubber meets the road when talking about the overall effect of supply side economics.

Edited January 21, 2017 by Daytona74

[S0NNY]

Trump will go down in history as the most unfairly hated president who achieved most than all of them all talk-no walk before him combined. My hopes are with Trump. I wish him all the best. May God be with him and forgive his personal trespasses , none of us are ideal, but there is no better person with charisma and will for president right now as Trump.  

[Sonny-Burnett]

@Daytona74, lol, yes it is VERY late (or early depending on your perspective) there. I don't think I could think coherently much less write coherently if I stayed up that late, so hat's off to you. Oh ok, I thought earlier you had said that Supply Side really only benefitted the wealthy.  If not then we largely agree I suppose.  The last few years, or even 8 years, was a complete rebuke of Supply Side and return to the policies of old as I suspect Obama was a disciple of the evils of capitalism and that he likely equates capitalism with Supply Side. Remember when he infamously, and incredibly, said "You didn't build that" to business owners, making it clear he believed in a much larger role of government not only in business growth but in our day to day lives. Government from cradle to grave, in the eyes of the left here. I absolutely abhor that thought.

I'm also a believer in competition, and we have seen a decline in this country in competition as more and more businesses failed under crushing government regulations and taxation, and a large number that continue to expatriate. To me , a return of competition through tax reform and regulatory reform will happen as more businesses come back into the market. As more businesses compete for scarce human resources, wages will naturally rise for labor and the middle class will see a rise in real median household income. RMHI has declined by around $3700 per family under Obama. To me its simply about deregulating, tax reform, and a return to a competitive marketplace.

 

Edited January 21, 2017 by Sonny-Burnett

[airtommy]

Most of the media's analysis of Trump is overanalyzing him, much of it an intentional ploy to incite hate.  Trump isn't complicated, and he certainly isn't devious.  He wants to run our country the way the successful East Asian countries are run.  It's a plainly good idea, one we disastrously abandoned 40-50 years ago, which is why the academic & political elites and their media cohorts are in such a frenzy.

[Vicefan7777]

Back in 1992 when I was trying to decide who to vote for I saw a billionaire businessman named Ross Perot was running on the theme that the US government should be run like a business and his arguments made sense to me.  So the election of Trump will put the theory into practice.  We gave Obama the chance to prove himself without rioting and looting.  Trump is our President now. Let's give him a chance. 

 

[James]

18 hours ago, Vincent Hanna said:

RIP the human race. It was nice knowing you all.

He's actually done a good job so far. Took out all of the global warming lies from the White House website, and has a plan to help the war Veterans, and stop corruption.

Plus, any country leader who calls out CNN for being fake news, is good in my books. He's not afraid to let the truth out. He's the next JFK. 

If Hillary won, the whole world would be living in 1984 (The book, not the year). 

Out of the two, I think Trump is the better choice for the USA. Good on them. And all of the Liberals still having tantrums should get over it.

[Tommy Vercetti]

Give Trump a chance...to f*ck up the planet some more.
Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobile, is secretary of state. The last oil guy in charge of foreign policy was Dick Cheney

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--hMJPUBwMc

[Vincent Hanna]

2 hours ago, James said:

He's actually done a good job so far. Took out all of the global warming lies from the White House website, and has a plan to help the war Veterans, and stop corruption.

Plus, any country leader who calls out CNN for being fake news, is good in my books. He's not afraid to let the truth out. He's the next JFK. 

If Hillary won, the whole world would be living in 1984 (The book, not the year). 

Out of the two, I think Trump is the better choice for the USA. Good on them. And all of the Liberals still having tantrums should get over it.

Hilary would have just been the same old crap that would've been indistinguishable from the Bush and Obama administrations.

Trump on the other hand gives off this police state authoritarian vibe. The USA already has a police brutality problem and now the number of incidents are going to triple under Trump. These republicans in office are going to send us back into the stone age, Anti-abortion, anti-women's rights, anti-gay rights, pro-death penalty..

He may be the best choice for America economy wise but these idiots are going to sacrifice basic human rights that took centuries to fight for, they'll give those up just so they'll be billions of dollars in debt instead of trillions.

[Daytona74]

Trump's administration looks very much like he is hiring frogs to drain the pond. Trump says he wants to return power to the people, but I am not sure how on Earth that will materialize when he's mostly got members of big corporate America as secretaries. Major corporations and their lobbies can be as much a threat to democratic structures as out of touch political elites like the Clintons.

And it's worrying that they're starting to deny global warming again. There isn't a self-respecting natural scientist on this planet who won't tell you that global warming is real. This is not a conspiracy among scientists, it is founded on an overwhelming body of evidence from all over the globe. Everywhere you look, the climate is changing. I thought we were over the anti-science Bush years. But while the Christian Right and George W. Bush had a more general disdain for science, as many in the Christian Right do, it's obvious that any notion of climate change being corroborated by science poses a threat to the profits of industries that are among the sources of the problem.

In terms of the implications of global warming, well, the planet itself doesn't care squat. It's been through asteroid impacts and other extinction level events that saw up to 90 percent of all species disappear in a very short time. It's also completely irrelevant for life on this planet if sea levels rise by three or by thirty feet. At the height of the last ice age, some 20,000 years ago, sea levels were 200 feet lower than today, and yet, nature adapted. There were even periods in Earth's history where there was no polar ice at all. But it's us humans that can't  afford climate change. Our entire global civilization depends on parameters of the natural world being more or less constant. Rising sea levels threaten the existence of about one billion people worldwide who live in coastal areas. And that includes tens of millions in the U.S.. While it still doesn't count all the people who are threatened by drought, desertification and other climatic changes that affect agriculture. So if you deny global warming and don't do anything about it, you are putting the lives of all those people at risk, and with them the economic foundations of the countries they live in. And in that sense, global warming isn't just scientific academic drivel, but an actual economic threat. And again, also for the U.S. itself.

Edited January 21, 2017 by Daytona74

[Ferrariman]

As I always say Tony. Religion and politics, bad topics for discussion.  Overall I have to say that I'm proud to see that we, as a forum, have managed to have a very civil discussion about it all!  Can you even imagine this discussion with Rick Bravo and srobak thrown into the mix?! 

So while I'm here I'll add my 2 cents.  I may be wrong but aside from being an alpha hotel at times I say give Trump a chance. I'm no expert when it comes to politics but maybe he'll surprise us. And if not, to me, he's no worse than the do nothing presidents we've had for years. 

[Sonny-Burnett]

32 minutes ago, Ferrariman said:

As I always say Tony. Religion and politics, bad topics for discussion.  Overall I have to say that I'm proud to see that we, as a forum, have managed to have a very civil discussion about it all!  Can you even imagine this discussion with Rick Bravo and srobak thrown into the mix?! 

So while I'm here I'll add my 2 cents.  I may be wrong but aside from being an alpha hotel at times I say give Trump a chance. I'm no expert when it comes to politics but maybe he'll surprise us. And if not, to me, he's no worse than the do nothing presidents we've had for years. 

Couldn't have said it better, F-Man. Give him some time to break through the bureaucracy in Washington, and to cross the aisle in Congress.

I sometimes wish I could have witnessed the exchanges with the 2 people you mentioned. Must have been quite the excitement.

Edited January 21, 2017 by Sonny-Burnett

[Dadrian]

They were arsenists. It's really a shame, too--all the inside info RB had...

[airtommy]

6 hours ago, Vincent Hanna said:

The USA already has a police brutality problem

It's weird that the media want to push this message yet they have trouble finding actual examples and end up foisting hoaxes like Ferguson on us.  Almost like they have a political agenda or something . . .

[Vincent Hanna]

21 minutes ago, airtommy said:

It's weird that the media want to push this message yet they have trouble finding actual examples and end up foisting hoaxes like Ferguson on us.  Almost like they have a political agenda or something . . .

You only have to type police brutality into google and there's literally thousands of cases of cops caught on camera excessively attacking/shooting unarmed men. Not a single police officer last year received jail time for unlawfully killing a civilian, funny that. So What's your political agenda that leads you to refute fact?

Now we got President Trump saying that people lack obedience and discipline, so there'll be even more renegade coppers on the beat. Excellent. Glad i'm not american.

[Dadrian]

I don't know if these lyrics have ever been more true:

 

[airtommy]

34 minutes ago, Vincent Hanna said:

You only have to type police brutality into google and there's literally thousands of cases of cops caught on camera excessively attacking/shooting unarmed men. Not a single police officer last year received jail time for unlawfully killing a civilian, funny that. 

So, the courts agree with me that police brutality isn't a big problem.  Thanks for helping me win this debate.  

 

[Vincent Hanna]

Well yeah... that's the issue. You can use that logic for anything.

Random guy - "There's a rape epidemic in Rio de Janiero"

You - "Well, hardly anyone is reporting these incidents so we must conclude it doesn't happen".

Random guy - "Gee I wonder why?"

[miamijimf]

Hasn't everybody been bombarded with enough partisan politics lately?  I know its an emotional issue for people and many feel compelled to speak their minds.  This is why F-Man has let everyone vent for a while.  I have strong feelings about this election also but this is not the place to express my political opinions.  I hope everyone has gotten it out of their system by now and we can get back to normal.