Presidential election, 2016

[Kinser79]

(11-13-2016, 09:06 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(11-13-2016, 04:58 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: For some it seems to me that they are locked into their world view and are unwilling to even attempt to look at any issue from more than one angle.

Really?  Ya think?  

Yes I do think. It also includes you to some extent. However, unlike many here you recognize values lock where it exists.

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(11-13-2016, 04:58 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: I will say however that the notion of what is and is not progress is relative.

Do you mean subjective?  That some will think one thing important, others another?  If so, sure.  It seems you do not care if a capitalist class that controls the means of production is collecting extreme amounts of wealth and power to the point that you are now in denial that this class even exists.  I disagree.  Marx described the problem very well, even if his solutions didn't account for human nature.

Whether it is relative or subjective is a matter of semantics. Semantics I'm not willing to argue over.

As to a capitalist class, it not only exists but it also controls the means of production and yes it does accumulate wealth. That is what capitalists do. Marx did describe the problems of his day very well but those material conditions are no longer present. Even so, human nature being what it is, the best possible system is one in which every man has the liberty to exploit whatever opportunity may come his way. That system does not exist in this country largely thanks to the "New Deal" and an abundance of governmental regulation. That system is of course capitalism. Which is the worse economic system possible, besides all the others that have been tried.

Of course if you believe in history traveling on a more or less cylical nature, then you can plainly see that the solutions to the last 4T cause the next 4T.

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(11-13-2016, 04:58 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: I too favor human rights and democracy.  Equality however is a pipe dream.  Different people have different needs, different desires, and different abilities.  Everyone's outcomes will be different.  Let us suppose I give two men 100,000 dollars.  One of these men is very frugal but is lazy, the other is less risk averse but is willing work hard to grow his investment in say a food truck.  The former may be able through pinching pennies and spending wisely to live fairly comfortably off that money for several years but at the end of it he still is broke.  The other may take a very big risk in buying the truck, buying food and driving it from place to place making meals and selling them at a modest profit.  Should the economy do poorly or he has a bad product he will end up broke, but should he have a good product and the economy not do exceptionally poorly he would be able to even save money.  Thus we see from this small example that equality does not exist.  At most you can have equality before the law--wherein the laws apply equally to all, but that is as far as human equality is acheivable.

Because of my arguments concerning equality a more even distribution of income is neither wanted nor necessary.  Rather instead, I would desire a more even distribution of opportunity.  It is my view that wherein it is possible to expand opportunities for everyone to pursue their own goals, at their own pace under their own power.

Have you ever been a member of the working class, or sympathized with their needs?  I assure you, quite a lot of people need and want a more even distribution of wealth.

I am a member of the working class now. I do not, however, think redistributing wealth through governmental action is prudent. We've tried that and it simply doesn't work--perhaps we should try a different approach and allow those with skill and talent to exploit what opportunities come their way to the best of their ability. The rough and tumble of the market can make the poor rich and the rich poor.

Quote:This isn't to say that the janitor is going to have equal pay to the engineer any time soon, or that the dedicated competent workers shouldn't have opportunity to advance ahead of those less so.  Still, in different eras, there are different ways of getting ahead, different forms of inequality that some perceive of as unreasonable.  Being the eldest son of the King was a good thing in the old days.  Being a slave was a bad thing.  These days, having enough funds to invest, enough to be a member of the capitalist elite class, should be the next inequality to be examined.  No, I'm not looking for a revolution, but borrow and spend trickle down gives the capitalist elite ruling class an excessive advantage.

Borrow and spend economics (AKA Reaganomics) is a dead end as is tax and spend. Now what I'm about to say here is probably going to rile up playdude but I expect that. The problem with borrow and spend, and tax and spend, fall under two different categories, first the fact that the amount of capital in a given society at a given time is finite. That doesn't mean that the amount of capital cannot increase or decrease over time--it can and does. Second, the ultimate source of that capital, the capital used for borrow and spend or tax and spend political machinations ultimately comes from the savings of the society at large.

In the case of borrowing and taxing the state is taking capital that could be put to work elsewhere and using it it for whatever. I will grant that not all spending is equal. A tax cut for the extremely wealthy (and I mean on their take home income, low corporate and capital gains taxes push money into investment and re-investment given a higher personal income tax rate) is a poor way to spend that capital. The same would be true of a tax cut for the poor. Or welfare. Or subsidies for insurance.

Spending that same capital on public infrastructure, either new construction or refurbishing existing infrastructure, while not glamorous has a rate of return much much higher than a mere tax cut or a welfare check.

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(11-13-2016, 04:58 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

Bob Butler Wrote: In any given S&H crisis, I anticipate a conservative faction attempting to uphold the old values, and with it the political and economic systems that grant the elite ruling class political power and wealth.  The progressive faction will have cultural and economic reasons to overturn the old.  Generally, by the time the 4T rolls around, problems with the old ways of doing things are blatant and obvious.  Often the progressive faction is lead by a new group of elites who wish to diminish or take over from the old elites.

Thus, tax and spend liberalism featured massive taxes on the ruling elites and produced as comfortable an existence for the working classes as has ever existed.  Reagan's Borrow and spend trickle down redistributed wealth back to the elite ruling robber baron class, and created an anemic economy that has many dissatisfied who are aware of what went on during the tax and spend era.  This would suggest that the New Dealers were true progressives, while the unraveling era Republicans have not been.

By and large I think we mostly agree here.  Where we differ is on seeing who is the actual conservative here and who is just the mouth piece of the Establishment.  Given that the Establishment Politicans cannot stand Trump but seem to love Clinton it should be easy to deduce which is which unless one is stuck on labels.  Personally myself I could care less if someone has an R or a D behind their name.  I kind of view the political parties the same way as I view a dispute of the merits of the Crips over the Bloods.

It is for this reason why I can vote for Sanders in the primary and Trump in the general.  Red vs Blue is meaningless to me, and well anyone who isn't a "extreme partisan".  Or perhaps to put it as my Boyfriend does "I didn't leave the Democrats, the Democrats left me."

I'd rather use the arrow of progress on issues rather than individuals.

Well if you're interested in Issues I suggest you read what Daddy has said about them and compare him to what say John F. Kennedy said about similar issues. Or even compare him to FDR, or Lincoln. I didn't name him the GC out of thin air.

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(11-13-2016, 04:58 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: The wage gap is a myth.

Well, no.  This is one of the places where we live in different realities.  Your politics does blind you, can render you unable to perceive the real world.  I'm not interested in trying to remove your blinders at this point, though.

Yes, it is a myth. Since we agree that we live in a mostly-capitalist society now, and since we agree that it is the class interests of those capitalists to maximize profits, it therefore holds that if said capitalist could get away with paying women 75 or 80 or however many cents on the dollar a man earns then the obvious solution would be fire all then men and hire only women.

Any other explanation simply doesn't stand up to Occam's Razor.

On the other hand, if we hold that men and women are different, and because of those differences they make different choices, then it should be self-evident that any differentials in income between men and women are the result of them making different choices.

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(11-13-2016, 04:58 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

Bob Butler Wrote:Republicans are traditionally the party of the Robber Barons.  While the Democrats have recently sucked deep at the nipple of Citizens United, they still seem less beholden to the elite ruling class than the Republicans.  This is not a question of black and white, though, not at this point.  It is a question of two shades of very dark grey.

So the GOP has traditionally been beholden to a class that no longer exists.  However, if we have a new elite of internet moguls and such then those are overwhelmingly Democratic.  Lincoln described the two parties and how they function in the US as being like two drunken men in a brawl.  eventually they end up through that brawl wearing each other's coat.

Of course the new elite align with the progressive party.  The system is generally rigged to favor the old elite.  The new elite want to make changes such that the new technology can better thrive.

You're making the assumption here that the Democratic Party is the progressive party this time around--the evidence for which is non-existent. Let us suppose that the new elite wants to make changes so that their new technology can thrive--would it not therefore be a conflict of interest then for them to support a presidential candidate who has called for censorship of that new technology. I'm speaking of course of the internet, and HRC openly calling for the shut down of Alex Jones, Breitbart, et al.

I would argue that New Elites are the same as Old Elites, they want control. They don't care if they destroy their own technology in the process of getting that control.

Quote:Still, the internet robber barons use the same methods of manipulating wealth and political power as the other owners of the means of production.  They own stocks, collect dividends, give money to politicians, etc...  They don't need to change the way the game is rigged.  They can use the existing system just fine.  In older times, the robber barons acted to end the special prerogatives of the king and nobles and to end slavery.  In those times the system was rigged in ways that favored the old elites but which were not important to an industrialist.  In the case of the computer robber barons, they see no major need to change the system as the system works just fine for them.

By this line of argument I would contend that the so-called new elites are not a new elite at all but simply a New Money version of the old elite.

<snip partisan 'history' lesson>

Quote:We've got the best government that money can buy.

We do. That is why I'm convinced that those who run on other people's money are bought. Which is why people are so shocked with Daddy's victory. He didn't win the election the way people think elections are won. Ann Colter wrote a book about it. I've listened to the audio book. She explained exactly how and why Trump won the election. And how he was able to do it on time, under budget and with mostly his own money. (He also had a lot of small contributes--of which I was one, and more than a few sales of MAGA swag.)

The take away though is this. Instead of spending millions on ads like HRC did, it was far more effective to use social media, word of mouth, and of course free press coverage. There is no such thing as bad publicity.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-el...SKBN1341JR