2016 US Election


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None. I stand by my position that it's a rhetorical trick - he wants to make people think he agrees with their positions and biases, when he's actually doing nothing of the sort.


thejeff wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:

I think what Trump* is talking about is stuff like this.

LINK 1

LINK 2

Reading these and you can see why our grandparents' (or parents') generation did just fine with one-income households. Middle Class was achievable with a high school diploma and showing up to work at General Motors 40 hours a week.

*Trump is a total con and doesn't have a coherent thought in his head but I do think this type of thing is what he means when he says, "Make America great again".

Except of course that Trump isn't for bringing back high marginal taxation and strong unions.

He may be referencing that, but he and his voter base would be horrified at what built that Middle Class.

And the rest of us are horrified at what we suspect too many of his base would like about those days.

Edit: As I think we discussed earlier in this thread, I'd like to ask Trump when he thinks America was great. What period would he like to go back to?

Won't argue with that. I'm not a Trump supporter.

Figure 7 in LINK 2 is the scary one to me.

Nobody "earns" that kind of money. Nobody works that hard or that smart compared to the average hourly worker.

All you have to do is look at the list of Fortune 500 companies from 1980 and compare it to today's list. How many companies have been ran into the ground by CEOs without a clue?
<cough>Ron Johnson... Marissa Ann Mayer</cough>

Sovereign Court

thejeff wrote:
Guy Humual wrote:
I'm not sure the racist faction is what won Trump the election necessarily, I mean I accept that it was a factor, but I think low education voters combined with Trump's celebrity is likely what was the larger impact. Early on, with 17 candidates, most people wouldn't know enough about everyone on that list to make an informed decision. People knew Trump's name and that's likely why he did so well.

Forget an informed decision. If you'd heard anything about Trump's campaign - beyond knowing him from his celebrity status - you knew he was building a Wall to keep Mexicans out and you knew he wanted to ban Muslims. If you'd been paying attention a little longer you might have known he was one of the longest, loudest birthers.

Then remember we're talking primary voters. People not paying any attention largely don't vote in the primaries.

Trump changes his mind so often that even someone researching his quotes might find that by the time they've voted he may well have done a 180 on that original position. I don't think Trump ever got anywhere near 50% of the vote in any of those early primaries, name recognition may well have gotten him the 30% he needed to win some of those early contests. The folks researching the candidate that best suited their beliefs were likely the ones spiting the vote.


Quark Blast wrote:

I think what Trump* is talking about is stuff like this.

LINK 1

LINK 2

Reading these and you can see why our grandparents' (or parents') generation did just fine with one-income households.

I'm missing a step.

Wage "stagnation" means exactly that, wages are stagnating, not moving, remaining the same. Real wages, adjusted for inflation, have not shifted in fifty years, so I should be making exactly as much on my one income today as my grandfather did in 1966, yes?

So why do I need two jobs today when he could get away with one?

Something else changed beyond simply not-making-any-more-money. It goes deeper than just wage stagnation.


Orfamay Quest wrote:
Guy Humual wrote:
When there's 17 candidates you only need a fringe faction of the party to take a lead,
Very true, but the RNC also didn't account for the fact that this "fringe faction" was, in fact, a much larger and less controllable bloc than they had bargained for. And that's something they should have known, given the fact that the Tea Party has been systematically destroying the Republican political apparatus since long before 2016. If you don't believe, me, drop by Eric Cantor's congressional office, or John Boehner's.

Not precisely true. Iowa had 12 candidates at the time of the caucus.

Cruz: 27.6% (8 delegates)
Trump: 24.3% (7 delegates)
Rubio: 23.1% (7 delegates)
Carson: 9.3% (3 delegates)
Paul: 4.5% (1 delegate)
Bush: 2.8% (1 delegate)
Fiorina: 1.9% (1 delegate)
Kasich: 1.9% (1 delegate)
Huckabee: 1.8% (1 delegate)
Christie: 1.8%
Santorum: 1%
Gilmore: 0%

The bottom 9 candidates combined would have gotten 25% of the vote, putting them just ahead of 2nd place Trump, but only barely. But if you keep it at even a 5 or 6 person race, the % of left over votes to distribute is small enough that you'd have to combine them all onto one candidate to cause a shift in the results.

In New Hampshire, where there were 30 candidates on the ballot, you have a bigger showing in the 4-8 spots, but you also see a much bigger lead of the front runner, Trump (35% of the votes with a 20 point lead on 2nd). Trump still beats any two candidates combined and only 2-4 have a chance if they completely absorb the voters of two other candidates. The bottom 21 candidates got 215 votes or less each, with a combined total of 1165 votes. Trump beat Kasich by 55,000 votes.

I don't think the depth of field is what caused Trump to win. Trump just really appealed to Republican voters during the primary.


Irontruth wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:
Guy Humual wrote:
When there's 17 candidates you only need a fringe faction of the party to take a lead,
Very true, but the RNC also didn't account for the fact that this "fringe faction" was, in fact, a much larger and less controllable bloc than they had bargained for. And that's something they should have known, given the fact that the Tea Party has been systematically destroying the Republican political apparatus since long before 2016. If you don't believe, me, drop by Eric Cantor's congressional office, or John Boehner's.

Not precisely true. Iowa had 12 candidates at the time of the caucus.

Cruz: 27.6% (8 delegates)
Trump: 24.3% (7 delegates)

I don't think the depth of field is what caused Trump to win. Trump just really appealed to Republican voters during the primary.

Actually, this supports my point. More than half of the voters explicitly supported protest candidates -- Cruz (who is basically the voice of the Tea Party) or Trump -- in other words, "the fringe faction." In other words, the fringe faction was an actual majority of the voters, and it was not supporting any of the establishment candidates like it was supposed to.


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Is It Ethical To Vote For Evil

An ethicist takes on the "Trump & Clinton are both evil" issue


Orfamay Quest wrote:
Irontruth wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:
Guy Humual wrote:
When there's 17 candidates you only need a fringe faction of the party to take a lead,
Very true, but the RNC also didn't account for the fact that this "fringe faction" was, in fact, a much larger and less controllable bloc than they had bargained for. And that's something they should have known, given the fact that the Tea Party has been systematically destroying the Republican political apparatus since long before 2016. If you don't believe, me, drop by Eric Cantor's congressional office, or John Boehner's.

Not precisely true. Iowa had 12 candidates at the time of the caucus.

Cruz: 27.6% (8 delegates)
Trump: 24.3% (7 delegates)

I don't think the depth of field is what caused Trump to win. Trump just really appealed to Republican voters during the primary.

Actually, this supports my point. More than half of the voters explicitly supported protest candidates -- Cruz (who is basically the voice of the Tea Party) or Trump -- in other words, "the fringe faction." In other words, the fringe faction was an actual majority of the voters, and it was not supporting any of the establishment candidates like it was supposed to.

Let's see, by those criteria I'd say at least Trump, Cruz, Carson and Paul were "fringe". That's assuming you don't count Rubio, who got his start in Florida backed by the Tea Party against an establishment candidate in the primary.

Strictly speaking, Jeb Bush was supposed to be the establishment candidate and he got essentially no support anywhere.

Sovereign Court

Irontruth wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:
Guy Humual wrote:
When there's 17 candidates you only need a fringe faction of the party to take a lead,
Very true, but the RNC also didn't account for the fact that this "fringe faction" was, in fact, a much larger and less controllable bloc than they had bargained for. And that's something they should have known, given the fact that the Tea Party has been systematically destroying the Republican political apparatus since long before 2016. If you don't believe, me, drop by Eric Cantor's congressional office, or John Boehner's.

Not precisely true. Iowa had 12 candidates at the time of the caucus.

Cruz: 27.6% (8 delegates)
Trump: 24.3% (7 delegates)
Rubio: 23.1% (7 delegates)
Carson: 9.3% (3 delegates)
Paul: 4.5% (1 delegate)
Bush: 2.8% (1 delegate)
Fiorina: 1.9% (1 delegate)
Kasich: 1.9% (1 delegate)
Huckabee: 1.8% (1 delegate)
Christie: 1.8%
Santorum: 1%
Gilmore: 0%

The bottom 9 candidates combined would have gotten 25% of the vote, putting them just ahead of 2nd place Trump, but only barely. But if you keep it at even a 5 or 6 person race, the % of left over votes to distribute is small enough that you'd have to combine them all onto one candidate to cause a shift in the results.

In New Hampshire, where there were 30 candidates on the ballot, you have a bigger showing in the 4-8 spots, but you also see a much bigger lead of the front runner, Trump (35% of the votes with a 20 point lead on 2nd). Trump still beats any two candidates combined and only 2-4 have a chance if they completely absorb the voters of two other candidates. The bottom 21 candidates got 215 votes or less each, with a combined total of 1165 votes. Trump beat Kasich by 55,000 votes.

I don't think the depth of field is what caused Trump to win. Trump just really appealed to Republican voters during the primary.

It's not quite as easy as adding up the votes on an extended score board, with fewer candidates people vote differently, similarly with less choices it's not possible to give the votes to someone else. It may well be that Trump would gain all those votes if their were only 5 candidates, I don't think that's the case, but it's entirely possible. I mean I agree with your point, it's very hard to speculate, and of course there's no guarantee that someone else would have been the beneficiary of all those extra votes had there been less choice, but when you have 12 to 30 candidates, there's really no way anyone is going to take the time to research them all, and so name recognition is essential.

Sovereign Court

Orfamay Quest wrote:
More than half of the voters explicitly supported protest candidates -- Cruz (who is basically the voice of the Tea Party) or Trump -- in other words, "the fringe faction." In other words, the fringe faction was an actual majority of the voters, and it was not supporting any of the establishment candidates like it was supposed to.

I don't think this is just a republican phenomenon ether, there's a massive faction that's upset with the establishment, never mind party affiliation. Trump has gained success by playing the anti-establishment card and it's probably one of his better strategies against Hillary, however Trump really isn't anti-establishment, and his crazy positions have made people wanting change reconsider how much change they really want.


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High marginal tax rates, strong unions, and the rest of the world either developing or bombed back to pre industry. THATS what made america great.

we need to find a way forward, like europe has. Quality of life is undoubtedly better there. We're not a first world nation anymore and its not because we didn't stick with the past it's because we did.


BigNorseWolf wrote:
High marginal tax rates, strong unions, and the rest of the world either developing or bombed back to pre industry. THATS what made america great.

Well, I'm sure Trump has plans for dealing with the last of those....


thejeff wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:
Irontruth wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:
Guy Humual wrote:
When there's 17 candidates you only need a fringe faction of the party to take a lead,
Very true, but the RNC also didn't account for the fact that this "fringe faction" was, in fact, a much larger and less controllable bloc than they had bargained for. And that's something they should have known, given the fact that the Tea Party has been systematically destroying the Republican political apparatus since long before 2016. If you don't believe, me, drop by Eric Cantor's congressional office, or John Boehner's.

Not precisely true. Iowa had 12 candidates at the time of the caucus.

Cruz: 27.6% (8 delegates)
Trump: 24.3% (7 delegates)

I don't think the depth of field is what caused Trump to win. Trump just really appealed to Republican voters during the primary.

Actually, this supports my point. More than half of the voters explicitly supported protest candidates -- Cruz (who is basically the voice of the Tea Party) or Trump -- in other words, "the fringe faction." In other words, the fringe faction was an actual majority of the voters, and it was not supporting any of the establishment candidates like it was supposed to.

Let's see, by those criteria I'd say at least Trump, Cruz, Carson and Paul were "fringe". That's assuming you don't count Rubio, who got his start in Florida backed by the Tea Party against an establishment candidate in the primary.

Strictly speaking, Jeb Bush was supposed to be the establishment candidate and he got essentially no support anywhere.

.... which even more strongly supports my thesis. Anyone else remember the "coronation" of Jeb Bush?


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GreyWolfLord wrote:
Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
I still have people who believe that Clinton is no different than Trump, because they believe that she'll back out of any promises she made to the Sanders crowd, they pretty much see her and Trump as two sides of the same coin.
I'm probably one of those. I think Clinton is perhaps even MORE dishonest then Trump...BUT....

If it hasn't been mentioned yet, those concerned with candidate honesty -- or the honesty of any popular figure -- should check out PolitiFact.com. PolitiFact fact-checks all kinds of claims made by politicians and pundits, and includes sources with their judgments in case you want to look into things yourself. Not only that, they have honesty scorecards for many public figures, where you can see how many true v. false claims that figure has made. It's pretty damn convenient.

While Hillary's scorecard doesn't quite compare with Bernie's, she's had a whole lot more scrutiny than he has. We voters should absolutely be holding our politicians accountable for their beliefs and claims, and pulling them toward honesty rather than convenient lies and half-truths. But there are degrees of honesty, and Hillary comes out miles ahead of Drumpf. Frankly, it's the difference between a somewhat-more-honest-than-average politician and a compulsive liar.

And lest anyone think that PolitiFact is part of some insidious 'liberal media' that Drumpf and many conservatives like to winge about, PolitiFact nailed Hillary to the wall for her email claims, and the scorecards for Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are not flattering at all.

We're incredibly lucky here in the USA to have a say in who governs us, and it kills me that so many people seem to buy into the sh!t-flinging, say "Well they're all liars and crooks," and then throw up their hands.


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I linked to them earlier, comparing Clinton and Trump. XD

I think one of our problems is another link - the one that notes that popular opinion has basically no impact whatsoever on what legislation actually passes. We may have a say in who governs us, but that's where it stops - the desires of the governed are functionally meaningless (there's about a flat 30% chance of a bill being passed whether there's 10% support or 90% among the population, and no curve in-between), especially when compared to lobbying from business and economic interests (about 18% if they disapprove and up to 45% if they approve, I think it was).

When the records show that your opinions genuinely don't matter, it's hard to feel like you're actually represented no matter how much you like the person you voted for.


Rednal wrote:

I linked to them earlier, comparing Clinton and Trump. XD

I think one of our problems is another link - the one that notes that popular opinion has basically no impact whatsoever on what legislation actually passes. We may have a say in who governs us, but that's where it stops - the desires of the governed are functionally meaningless (there's about a flat 30% chance of a bill being passed whether there's 10% support or 90% among the population, and no curve in-between), especially when compared to lobbying from business and economic interests (about 18% if they disapprove and up to 45% if they approve, I think it was).

When the records show that your opinions genuinely don't matter, it's hard to feel like you're actually represented no matter how much you like the person you voted for.

Video on the problem


Orfamay Quest wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:

I think what Trump* is talking about is stuff like this.

LINK 1

LINK 2

Reading these and you can see why our grandparents' (or parents') generation did just fine with one-income households.

I'm missing a step.

Wage "stagnation" means exactly that, wages are stagnating, not moving, remaining the same. Real wages, adjusted for inflation, have not shifted in fifty years, so I should be making exactly as much on my one income today as my grandfather did in 1966, yes?

So why do I need two jobs today when he could get away with one?

Something else changed beyond simply not-making-any-more-money. It goes deeper than just wage stagnation.

From what I understand, that's all it really takes.

For example...Let's say you make 80K in today's wages. So that's around 30K in 1967.

A loaf of bread cost you $2 now, vs. 25 cents in 1960. Somehwhat similar an close in regards to what you could buy.

However, you could get a house for 5K in that 1967 period. That same house in California today costs 500K. For housing that's a 100X rise in cost. Instead of spending 1/6 to 1/3 of your total income on a house, you might not even be able to afford that house right off the bat once you got a good job. Instead you'd have to save for a massive downpayment, and after that 100K downpayement, you'd still owe a major payement each month.

OR, perhaps you got a house at today's costs in a better (cheaper) area than California (though in 1967 costs were basically more equal, today I admit CA is far more expensive than KS). Let's say instead you got a house in 1967 in Kansas for around $5000. You expect that You can spend around a $1000 for a downpayment after saving for a few months, and at 20% interest (yes, interest rates were far higher back than) You'd have a house payment of $100 to $200 a month (equivalent of around 800 to 1600 a month today).

HOWEVER, though you might be able to match that for a housepayment today, that same house will cost you around 100K -150K. The house has gone up 20X what it used to be in what you could afford. However your wages have only gone up around 2.5 times what it used to be.

AKA, though accounting for inflation your wages have have stayed around the same amount, your actual purchasing power has gone down.

Hence, though food has only increased somewhat, housing, a major factor of costs for most people, has risen far faster than inflation.

In the same light, other items, for example, automobiles, have also risen faster than the rates of inflation accounting for wages and other areas.

That's what I think the articles were trying to point out in regards to why stagnant wages are not a good thing for the middle class compared to everything else.

A LOT of that is greed. A LOT Of that is globalization. For example, in Europe (where similar problems occur), you have a worker making 20K in 1967. Wages went up and if they had stayed the course of how much the cost rose they would be making 130K today. However, due to globalization, lower wage workers do very similar jobs in other nations. They get paid an average of 20K today in wages. Taking an average, that person is lucky if they get 75K in wages instead, and more likely are making 60K to 65K...in line with inflation.

Which is why some will say, while globalization is good for the world, it can be terrible for local middle class and others and why Germany and others wanted more control (as in the EU) over regional economics, and more control locally in taxes and international trade.

So, in regards to inflation, you income has stayed the same. Unfortunately, in relation to many other things, your purchasing power has gone down.


...And that's one of the many reasons why I hope 3D printing makes houses genuinely affordable. XD Especially given the other problem with homebuying... (Which I can elaborate on if anyone's interested)


GreyWolfLord wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:

I think what Trump* is talking about is stuff like this.

LINK 1

LINK 2

Reading these and you can see why our grandparents' (or parents') generation did just fine with one-income households.

I'm missing a step.

Wage "stagnation" means exactly that, wages are stagnating, not moving, remaining the same. Real wages, adjusted for inflation, have not shifted in fifty years, so I should be making exactly as much on my one income today as my grandfather did in 1966, yes?

So why do I need two jobs today when he could get away with one?

Something else changed beyond simply not-making-any-more-money. It goes deeper than just wage stagnation.

From what I understand, that's all it really takes.

For example...Let's say you make 80K in today's wages. So that's around 30K in 1967.

A loaf of bread cost you $2 now, vs. 25 cents in 1960. Somehwhat similar an close in regards to what you could buy.

However, you could get a house for 5K in that 1967 period. That same house in California today costs 500K. For housing that's a 100X rise in cost..

Except that the people who make inflation indices know about that stuff, which is why there's a standardized "basket" of goods and services that make up the CPI. Shelter, transportation services, energy, utlilities, they're all accounted for as part of inflation, and by extension, controlled for in "real dollars." Even college tuition and cigarettes are in the basket.

Sure, the index doesn't perfectly track the underlying data,... but it would be absolutely useless if it were systematically underreporting inflation as you suggest.

I have my own answer, which was alluded to above -- with the death of the labor movement, most of the unionized high-paying blue collar jobs lost ground to the low-paying white collar jobs that nevertheless required more education. Where pipefitters and assembly workers used to be at the 60th percentile of wages, now they're closer to the 40th (or something) and the jobs that used to be at the 40th percentile have moved to the 60th percentile. But that's just a hunch, and I don't have any numbers to back that up. I'm pretty sure, though, that the inflation statistics should be taken seriously, which in turn means that "stagnation" means "stagnation."


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Re: Trump says the media is out to get him.

Hahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahaha.


Rednal wrote:
...And that's one of the many reasons why I hope 3D printing makes houses genuinely affordable. XD Especially given the other problem with homebuying... (Which I can elaborate on if anyone's interested)

I don't know if I'd agree, but I am curious.


I would submit that people today need to work more than our grandparents for a perceived level of prosperity is because we expect to have a lot of things they did not. I think back to what my Grandfather didn't buy when he was my age.

He had no internet service to buy. He had no computer. He had a black and white TV with two channels, and his car was atrociously bad by modern standards. He had no cell phone service to buy, although he did have a land line. His house was tiny and had terrible insulation. He heated it with coal. He didn't have air conditioning. He could not afford plane tickets or foreign travel. When his brother got sick and went to the hospital with abdominal pain, he didn't need to buy an MRI scan (since those didn't exist). But since the doctors didn't know what was wrong with him, he died during exploratory surgery.

Honestly, I don't find the basket of goods the CPI uses overly comparable across large time periods. It is supposed to be representative of what people spend their money on, but what we have now is just better. It is not really that surprising that it is often more expensive.

I wouldn't trade a poverty line lifestyle from today for a middle class lifestyle from the 1940's or 1950's, and I definitely wouldn't trade the lifestyle I have now for a millionaire's from the same time. Everything is just a lot, lot better now than it was then. And that is a good thing.


@GreyWolfLord: A big part of it has to do with how homes get bought in the first place. When banks make loans, what they're usually doing is creating money to give to the borrower (as explained in this publication by the Bank of England). They're not lending out existing deposits, or in many cases getting it from the Government - they make a note in the ledgers and it appears. Poof. Now, obviously, there are limits on this - competition, federal monetary policy, etc. But that's how most money gets made in a modern economy.

Basically, banks often aren't losing much of anything by making a loan. When that loan is repaid, however, they collect the money and ultimately profit by doing so. It's a sort of three-part figure - the bank profits by collecting the repaid loan, the construction company (and related individuals, including the Government via taxation) profit by getting the initial payment for the house, and the homeowner gets to have a physical structure to live in... that the bank can take away from them if they fail to repay their debt in a timely manner. That is, if they don't get enough "something" in return for the "nothing" they lost by making the loan.

Housing prices have risen so much that they're a huge part of most people's expenses, and I feel the system is a bit... predatory, given how it's set up to punish people who go through rough times. That's why I'm hoping housing drops down in price to the point most people can afford it far more easily, and I think 3D printing may be an effective way of doing that once the technology is refined.


GreyWolfLord wrote:


However, you could get a house for 5K in that 1967 period. That same house in California today costs 500K. For housing that's a 100X rise in cost. Instead of spending 1/6 to 1/3 of your total income on a house, you might not even be able to afford that house right off the bat once you got a good job. Instead you'd have to save for a massive downpayment, and after that 100K downpayement, you'd still owe a major payement each month.

OR, perhaps you got a house at today's costs in a better (cheaper) area than California (though in 1967 costs were basically more equal, today I admit CA is far more expensive than KS). Let's say instead you got a house in 1967 in Kansas for around $5000. You expect that You can spend around a $1000 for a downpayment after saving for a few months, and at 20% interest (yes, interest rates...

Your housing costs are off, they were more expensive. Median price in 1960 was $11,900. Hawaii, New Jersey, DC and New York were the most expensive markets ($20k for Hawaii, $15k in NY). The cheapest markets were in the $7k range.

By 1970, the median housing price had risen to $23,600.

Accounting for inflation, the median price (1960) would be $97,000 in 2016 dollars. The median house price in Los Angeles is $480,000 right now. That does represent a 500% increase in real dollar price. But as others have noted, homes come with better insulation, more efficient heating and cooling, more plumbing and typically are much bigger by square footage.

My guess would be that if we broke down the price by square footage, we'd still see an increase, but it'd be a smaller disparity.

Something to consider in home prices also is the structure of home loans. In the 40's and 50's, 10 and 15 year loans were common and 20 year loans would be very rare. Banks didn't want to speculate that far out on loans. As the Great Depression became a more and more distant memory, loan lengths increased. Currently, 20 year loans are still rare, but 30 year loans are the norm, with some even issuing 40 year loans. Switching from a 10 year to 30 year structure dramatically increases how much house you can buy with the same monthly mortgage payment, you're just paying it off for longer.

Sovereign Court

Wouldn't some of those homes be the same ones that were selling back in the 60s?


Possibly. Where I grew up at least, the general trend has been to either put in additions to structures from that time period (which is what my parents did; took the house from 2000 to 3500 square feet) or just buy the houses and knock them down to get the plot of land for something larger and more modern. Hurricane Sandy helped expedite this by destroying a lot of the older homes in the area, forcing rebuilds.


Rednal wrote:
@GreyWolfLord: A big part of it has to do with how homes get bought in the first place. When banks make loans, what they're usually doing is creating money to give to the borrower...

Oh, God, not this nonsense again. They're not creating money at all; they're creating credit, which is offset by the debit against their reserves because they need to put the money back.

.... as you can see when someone actually defaults on a loan. Banks lose actual money when that happens, because they need to repay the depositors whose money they lent out, whether or not the loan is actually repaid.

I'm surprised that this nonsense persists, especially so recently after the 2008 crisis where banks lost their shirts precisely because the credit they offered wasn't as valuable as the debt they had to pay off.

Basically, if banks can create money, you can do the same thing, too, with an ordinary VISA card. Just buy something (on credit), and sell it fast enough and at a high enough price that you can pay your balance off before the bank starts charging you interest (and make sure you get one of those 2% cash back cards, so the bank will actually pay you to use the card.


I'd like to note that my link specifically said that they don't multiply money. XD That such a thing was, in fact, a myth - and not what's going on there.


Orfamay Quest wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:

I think what Trump* is talking about is stuff like this.

LINK 1

LINK 2

Reading these and you can see why our grandparents' (or parents') generation did just fine with one-income households.

I'm missing a step.

Wage "stagnation" means exactly that, wages are stagnating, not moving, remaining the same. Real wages, adjusted for inflation, have not shifted in fifty years, so I should be making exactly as much on my one income today as my grandfather did in 1966, yes?

So why do I need two jobs today when he could get away with one?

Something else changed beyond simply not-making-any-more-money. It goes deeper than just wage stagnation.

What GreyWolfLord said and one larger point. In particular this from my previous post:

"Middle Class was achievable with a high school diploma and showing up to work at General Motors 40 hours a week."

That is no longer in reach for today's high school graduates.

In addition, while those jobs still exist (meaning a middle class blue-collar wage needing only high school diploma and OTJ training), they are at a fraction of their former prevalence; 1/8 at best.

To get a solidly middle class one-income career for a family of "4.5" people these days you need at least two years of college, more likely four. And now that university administrators outnumber teaching faculty, the cost of a college degree has gone beyond reason*. And taking out loans to pay for college sets a person back several years before they've even started on working a career path.

*Talk to Bernie if you don't believe me


Guy Humual wrote:
Wouldn't some of those homes be the same ones that were selling back in the 60s?

That's what I based the California prices on. The house that I currently have there sold for a little over 500K.

The owners bought it in 1967 for $5000.

Same house, same yard, price is a major pain.


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Rednal wrote:
The fact that Clinton often comes across as a corporate sort of candidate doesn't really help - for example, she seems to get paid an awful lot of money for short speeches whose content isn't disclosed.

Which would not be a problem if she was a Republican...or a man.

Sovereign Court

Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
Rednal wrote:
The fact that Clinton often comes across as a corporate sort of candidate doesn't really help - for example, she seems to get paid an awful lot of money for short speeches whose content isn't disclosed.
Which would not be a problem if she was a Republican...or a man.

I don't know about that last part. I'm sure sexism plays into this, the same way race plays into for Obama, but it's a non factor for me and I don't think there are many people in this thread upset with Hillary because she's female.


Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
Rednal wrote:
The fact that Clinton often comes across as a corporate sort of candidate doesn't really help - for example, she seems to get paid an awful lot of money for short speeches whose content isn't disclosed.
Which would not be a problem if she was a Republican...

Well, no, because "We are corporate shills" is pretty much their motto

Quote:
or a man.

That is random and ridiculous.

Liberty's Edge

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As pointed out earlier, Ms Clinton is not paid a lot for her speeches, she's paid less than market rate.


GreyWolfLord wrote:
Guy Humual wrote:
Wouldn't some of those homes be the same ones that were selling back in the 60s?

That's what I based the California prices on. The house that I currently have there sold for a little over 500K.

The owners bought it in 1967 for $5000.

Same house, same yard, price is a major pain.

Thought I should add, it is in the SF area, which has had a meteor rise of prices in the intervening years.

I have other places in the US, such as the location I normally live at that have variations (and such extrapolated for the KS idea). Some I admit I have not looked up their purchase history nor what they are currently really worth (for example, one place I have in the SW US I got for around 135K, but the insurance companies are constantly trying to charge me for a 500K house, which aggravates me to no end, max it is worth, and that is absolute max, is 250K).

What California HAS done for me though, is I don't have to live in a McMansion to be happy. I can get something equivalent to CA for a LOT less other locations, and as I got used to the CA place for a while...I am happy without having to clean such a large place overall (perhaps that's the difference, the other people get maids, while I think that's a waste of money).


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Krensky wrote:
As pointed out earlier, Ms Clinton is not paid a lot for her speeches, she's paid less than market rate.

What's more the mere fact that it's a question when such issues were never raised for anyone else this election cycle points to it being something "different" about her.


Guy Humual wrote:
Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
Rednal wrote:
The fact that Clinton often comes across as a corporate sort of candidate doesn't really help - for example, she seems to get paid an awful lot of money for short speeches whose content isn't disclosed.
Which would not be a problem if she was a Republican...or a man.
I don't know about that last part. I'm sure sexism plays into this, the same way race plays into for Obama, but it's a non factor for me and I don't think there are many people in this thread upset with Hillary because she's female.

Well, It's totally weird in such a way that you can't really measure it, much like Obama's race. I'm absolutely sure there are people who didn't vote for Obama because of his race, but I'm also absolutely sure that they could just say it was his lack of experience, and there's just no way to pole for what's actually held in the chambers of the human heart. I don't think there were a significant number of people who poled as Obama supporters because they didn't want to appear racist and then voted against him in the election. I think Clinton is in the same position; I'm sure there are a lot of people who don't want to see a woman as president, but if poled they can just blame it on her trustworthiness or whatever.

Lena Dunham said before I ever did, but I do find very telling sign of the gender divide in politics is that, during the primary, Clinton was continually required to manage her media image because she had a likability problem, whereas Trump really did assure a debate audience that his penis was of adequate size, and Sanders ranted about financial inequities while waving his arms around. Being inoffensive just wasn't an expectation for either of them the way it was for her.

Edit: Speaking from the opposite side, I had many, many problems with Palin, and I can say with absolute certainty that her being a woman wasn't one of them, so who the hell knows, right?


Were any of the other candidates neoliberals claiming they would rein in the banksters facing a revolt by their party's populist-cum-social democratic wing?

I always thought the Goldman Sachs speeches issue was pretty weaksauce, but still, did it get much traction outside of the Berniecrats? I admit to being largely unaware of what goes on in right-wing discourse.


I keep hearing it mentioned as an equivalent degree of nondisclosure (I disagree strongly) whenever Trump's tax returns are brought up, but that's about it.


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Also, was having fun with the "wage stagnation" links provided by Citizen Blast and poked around some more.

They seem to keep using that phrase which, as Citizen Quest points out, suggests that real wages have stayed the same. All kinds of bits, though, indicate that for us lower orders, real wages have been falling.

Op-ed piece with links worth poking about in I found while googling:

For Most Americans, Wages Aren’t Just Stagnating — They’re Falling


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Comrade Anklebiter wrote:

Were any of the other candidates neoliberals claiming they would rein in the banksters facing a revolt by their party's populist-cum-social democratic wing?

I always thought the Goldman Sachs speeches issue was pretty weaksauce, but still, did it get much traction outside of the Berniecrats? I admit to being largely unaware of what goes on in right-wing discourse.

It's been a reoccurring tangent. Typically it's used to tie her to being an "insider"/"Elite"/"part of the problem" type.

You know those little 2/1 or 3/1 single or double mana creatures in M:TG? It's a bit like those at this point, just another little something to pile on with.


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Comrade Anklebiter wrote:

Also, was having fun with the "wage stagnation" links provided by Citizen Blast and poked around some more.

They seem to keep using that phrase which, as Citizen Quest points out, suggests that real wages have stayed the same. All kinds of bits, though, indicate that for us lower orders, real wages have been falling.

Op-ed piece with links worth poking about in I found while googling:

For Most Americans, Wages Aren’t Just Stagnating — They’re Falling

Thank you for that, I hadn't had time to jump on it yet. It's complete BS to say wages are staying the same when in fact buying power has been falling.

Honestly I don't see how anyone can't see this: If your wage stays the same from year to year (or increases at <.5%) and inflation is generally over 1% for each year then you are losing. It's just a slow bleed instead of an artery blow out.


GOP operatives on the prowl for secret Clinton transcripts

Interestingly, they seem to be doing it (to have done it? article's a few months old) to inflame the populist-cum-social democratic wing of the Dems, not their own party because, as Comrade BeeNee put it above "We are corporate shills" is kinda their motto.

EDIT: Gave up on first skim because my computer kept sticking; second read reveals that they hoped Trump could outflank her on the left. Woopsie.


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Comrade Anklebiter wrote:

GOP operatives on the prowl for secret Clinton transcripts

Interestingly, they seem to be doing it (to have done it? article's a few months old) to inflame the populist-cum-social democratic wing of the Dems, not their own party because, as Comrade BeeNee put it above "We are corporate shills" is kinda their motto.

And, even after you don't find anything, you can still fill the news cycle with nonsense about how damning the contents must be, because they're being kept so secret that you can't find anything.


Comrade Anklebiter wrote:

GOP operatives on the prowl for secret Clinton transcripts

Interestingly, they seem to be doing it (to have done it? article's a few months old) to inflame the populist-cum-social democratic wing of the Dems, not their own party because, as Comrade BeeNee put it above "We are corporate shills" is kinda their motto.

Well there have been a couple of times where republicans have ran out information to help a more liberal candidate against one from the Democratic party in order to cause a split in the vote.

It's basically the same strategy as their redistricting plans only more odious in my opinion.


Abraham spalding wrote:


Thank you for that, I hadn't had time to jump on it yet.

[Prole fist bump]

Sovereign Court

Abraham spalding wrote:
Krensky wrote:
As pointed out earlier, Ms Clinton is not paid a lot for her speeches, she's paid less than market rate.
What's more the mere fact that it's a question when such issues were never raised for anyone else this election cycle points to it being something "different" about her.

How much was Bernie payed for his speeches? Or Trump? I bet they were paid more because they're men right?

In all seriousness, if Trump did give speeches to a bunch of Wall Street bankers that would be the least of his problems. Trump University anyone?


Guy Humual wrote:
Abraham spalding wrote:
Krensky wrote:
As pointed out earlier, Ms Clinton is not paid a lot for her speeches, she's paid less than market rate.
What's more the mere fact that it's a question when such issues were never raised for anyone else this election cycle points to it being something "different" about her.

How much was Bernie payed for his speeches? Or Trump? I bet they were paid more because they're men right?

In all seriousness, if Trump did give speeches to a bunch of Wall Street bankers that would be the least of his problems. Trump University anyone?

Bernie was paid $2,000 on average did less than 10 such speaches and donated the proceeds to charity (btw Clinton donated 17M of her proceeds to charity as well).

Donald doesn't speak for less than a million and pockets it.

If you had looked at the links I provided for this you would actually have a clue of what you are talking about and why you look so vapid right now.


I've been meaning to ask - do we know how much she's earned in total from speeches?


Abraham spalding wrote:


Honestly I don't see how anyone can't see this: If your wage stays the same from year to year (or increases at <.5%) and inflation is generally over 1% for each year then you are losing. It's just a slow bleed instead of an artery blow out.

But that's not what people are seeing. The numbers are from the link are showing stagnation in inflation-adjusted dollars; that is to say, your wages are going up about as fast as inflation.

The SSA has hard numbers on this. In particular:

Median wages in 1990 were about $14,500/year.
Median wages in 1985 were about $16,650/year.
Median wages in 2000 were about $20,950/year.
Median wages in 2005 were about $24,000/year.
Median wages in 2010 were about $26,450/year.
Median wages in 2014 were about $29,000/year (which is the most recent numbers my source gives.)

That's not "your wage stays the same from year to year," so we're obviously talking about stagnation in inflation-adjusted dollars, which means your buying power is NOT going down overall.

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