(08-18-2016, 01:16 PM)David Horn Wrote:(08-18-2016, 12:43 PM)playwrite Wrote: You all are way too pessimistic.
The infrastructure necessary for electric driverless vehicles will make Eisenhower's interstate build out look like a piker and thus the 50s/60s economy/bull market rather tame. It's a race but they are already testing Uber driverless cars out in Pittsburg. All that an economic contraction would do is hasten the Congress in reaction to provide the stimulus for the build out.
What you are also missing is that the GOP is effectively destroyed as a national political power. It was Bush, Trump is just the cheery on top of the sunday. Adams ending the dominate Jefferson party, Buchanan ending Jackson's, Hoover ended Lincoln's, Carter ended FDR's and Bush/Trump ended Ray-gun's. That paves the way for eventual recognition and full employment of our monetary system - deficit hawks will be eliminated from the federal government (perhaps taken out and shot for all the harm they have inflicted) and replaced by technocrats that will keep a controlling hand on inflation. There will be much more federal expenditure, but in a public/private partnership manner that will keep the deposed remnants of the GOP at bay.
The economy is going to boom and it will be done under an increasingly Progressive government, including the SCOTUS, that will seal the deal for decades. The hillbillies, like Classic, will eventually come around or at least their kids and grandkids will.
This may be true in the future, even the near future, but it's not true now. We have two parties consisting of illogical coalitions, and the fact that the GOP is hitting the wall first doesn't make the Dems any less at risk. So the Republican Party fractures, and then what? I believe that the successor has to embrace the money, and bid adieu to the rest, preferring that to the exact opposite. If the money stays, they will moderate all the RW nonsense and draw the UMC out of the Democratic Party. If the money leaves, the GOP will become the old Democratic Party of the late 19th century. They'll do better with the money, so that's what I expect.
That leaves the Dems with a coalition of niche special interests that tend to make demands on the party but fail to unite around any issues not their own. In the current environment, the system will only support two major parties. Money can fend for itself. What about the herd-of-cats party?
Eric's got this right for those niches that are not the elites- you add them all up, let them compromise among themselves, and you got Chomsky's "population" sans the financial elites and the hillbillies.
And the financial elites on the Dem side are either for greater taxation on themselves (Warren Buffet), giving most of it away (Bill Gates; and without the Right's religious strings attached), or lobbying hard for Progressive agendas that do little for themselves (George Clooney, George Soros, Hollywood, Silicon Valley).
Together, that is a pretty solid coalition and well-financed.
On the Right, it is fracturing and collapsing. Put a hedge fund manager from the Hampton's in a room with someone like Classic and see who crawls out alive.
Trump is not the only one making the mistake that about 35% of the electorate/population/culture of the Right represents the entire US electorate/population/culture - it just that 35% makes a lot of noise and scares people, and that should be expected from a cornered large dying animal.