2020 Election Commentary

[VisionStorm]

I'm glad the $600 bonus is coming my way.  We can all bet our sweet asses we're not getting the $2000+.

You were never gonna get $2k originally anyway, and they got rid of the pork, which was an even bigger issue, and replaced it with better stuff that's actually necessary, such as looking into Section 230. Also an investigation into voter fraud. My main concern is that they might get rid of Section 230 rather than actually reform it, which would be a bad thing for the internet, since Section 230 is necessary, it just lacks a provision to remove Section 230 protections from companies that act as a publisher.

You can thank Naci Pelosi for this whole mess, as covered in the video I posted in my prior post. 

[Elfdart]

The federal debt is north of $25 trillion, and that doesn't include future commitments. The fiscal gap, which includes those commitments calculated over an infinite time horizon, was over $200 trillion the last time the CBO reported it.

Oh NOES! If you add up all your future electric bills til the end of time as one lump sum and ignore the fact that you will (I hope) draw a few paychecks between now and the end of the world, it looks like an insurmountable bill to keep the lights on. Oh wait...

There's no feasible way to pay that off any time in the near future. The only real option is to cut the government spending in half and keep it that level, keep taxes at current levels, and hope growth continues for about 50 to 100 years. At that point, it might be doable.

You can take a large chunk out of it by assessing a $5/5% (whichever is higher) fee on every stock, commodity or bond transaction. In 2008 there were over 400 billion stock transactions in the USA. At $5 a pop, that's over $2 trillion from stock trades alone. If they use half of that every year and avoid wars for the next 20 years, it could be paid off entirely -or at least reduced enough so that interest on the debt would only cost a small fraction of what it does now.

So no, Chicken Little, the sky isn't falling.

[Elfdart]

I'm glad the $600 bonus is coming my way.  We can all bet our sweet asses we're not getting the $2000+.

You were never gonna get $2k originally anyway,

It took Bernie and Hawley's desperate threats just to get $600. Even though the $2000 is very popular, Pelosi threw up the bullshit arbitrary condition that it would have to pass by unanimous request, knowing full well that at least one Teabagger in Congress would object and scuttle it. For the life of me I don't get why people think of Pelosi as some sort of Lefty. It's obvious that her idol is Judge Smails from Caddyshack because her motto to the base of the Democratic Party has always been "YOU'LL GET NOTHING AND LIKE IT!"

and they got rid of the pork, which was an even bigger issue, and replaced it with better stuff that's actually necessary, such as looking into Section 230. Also an investigation into voter fraud. My main concern is that they might get rid of Section 230 rather than actually reform it, which would be a bad thing for the internet, since Section 230 is necessary, it just lacks a provision to remove Section 230 protections from companies that act as a publisher.

So you think it's good that the small chance of getting $2000 to everyone was scrapped so another investigation can turn up the same results that Trump's hand-picked panel found last time? You're a chump.

[Ghostmaker]

I'm glad the $600 bonus is coming my way.  We can all bet our sweet asses we're not getting the $2000+.

You were never gonna get $2k originally anyway, and they got rid of the pork, which was an even bigger issue, and replaced it with better stuff that's actually necessary, such as looking into Section 230. Also an investigation into voter fraud. My main concern is that they might get rid of Section 230 rather than actually reform it, which would be a bad thing for the internet, since Section 230 is necessary, it just lacks a provision to remove Section 230 protections from companies that act as a publisher.

You can thank Naci Pelosi for this whole mess, as covered in the video I posted in my prior post. 

I'm not hugely keen on the attention 230 is getting, as my worry is that it'll be used to suppress online speech if it's altered or deleted. I understand Trump's frustration -- Big Tech has happily gotten in bed with the Democrats and did the thing with their forked tongue to help them -- but I'm not sure this is the way to fix it.

[Joey2k]

You can take a large chunk out of it by assessing a $5/5% (whichever is higher) fee on every stock, commodity or bond transaction. In 2008 there were over 400 billion stock transactions in the USA. At $5 a pop, that's over $2 trillion from stock trades alone. If they use half of that every year and avoid wars for the next 20 years, it could be paid off entirely -or at least reduced enough so that interest on the debt would only cost a small fraction of what it does now.

So no, Chicken Little, the sky isn't falling.

Great idea. Let's implement a policy that will have a chilling effect on investment and eat into people's retirement.

[Ratman_tf]

You can take a large chunk out of it by assessing a $5/5% (whichever is higher) fee on every stock, commodity or bond transaction. In 2008 there were over 400 billion stock transactions in the USA. At $5 a pop, that's over $2 trillion from stock trades alone. If they use half of that every year and avoid wars for the next 20 years, it could be paid off entirely -or at least reduced enough so that interest on the debt would only cost a small fraction of what it does now.

So no, Chicken Little, the sky isn't falling.

Great idea. Let's implement a policy that will have a chilling effect on investment and eat into people's retirement.

"Eat the rich!"

"Oh shit, what happened to the economy?"

[Elfdart]

You can take a large chunk out of it by assessing a $5/5% (whichever is higher) fee on every stock, commodity or bond transaction. In 2008 there were over 400 billion stock transactions in the USA. At $5 a pop, that's over $2 trillion from stock trades alone. If they use half of that every year and avoid wars for the next 20 years, it could be paid off entirely -or at least reduced enough so that interest on the debt would only cost a small fraction of what it does now.

So no, Chicken Little, the sky isn't falling.

Great idea. Let's implement a policy that will have a chilling effect on investment and eat into people's retirement.

Drama queen much? Five percent would be less than the sales taxes paid in 38 of the 50 states by everyone who buys other goods and services. Feel free to show the "chilling effect" sales taxes have had on retail sales. Oh, and if you're really concerned about retirement, you'd back a bill that sets up something like the FDIC, only for pensions since pension theft is a real threat to retirement.

[jhkim]

The federal debt is north of $25 trillion, and that doesn't include future commitments. The fiscal gap, which includes those commitments calculated over an infinite time horizon, was over $200 trillion the last time the CBO reported it.

There's no feasible way to pay that off any time in the near future. The only real option is to cut the government spending in half and keep it that level, keep taxes at current levels, and hope growth continues for about 50 to 100 years. At that point, it might be doable.

What pisses me off about Republicans is that they frequently claim this as a principle, but they only *increase* spending and *increase* the deficit - even during economic upturns. Spending and deficit increase more under Republican administrations. The common strategy of Reagan, Bush Sr, Bush Jr, and Trump is that supposedly by cutting taxes, then growth will pay for their increased spending -- but that never actually materializes. Instead, the deficit and debt just keep getting larger under Republican control.


Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikepatton/2020/08/14/national-debt-to-surpass-78-trillion-by-2028-what-it-means-for-americans/

But somehow, Republicans continue to claim that Democrats are the problem spenders. This isn't to say that Democrats are much better - it is a bipartisan problem, but the Republican rhetoric is that somehow they're better for the economy -- when their track record is worse.

In general, it seems to me our debt-to-GDP ratio is roughly in the same range as many other first-world countries. We're #10 in the world, and #4 in the G20. So it's high, but we have less than Japan, Italy, and Singapore - and roughly on par with France. (ref) And we have tons of assets, so it's not like we couldn't pay in an emergency. Our borrowing seems more like getting a HELOC on a house than credit card debt - especially given the low interest rate the government pays.

I agree it should be paid down, the question is how. I don't have an exact recipe -- but I don't agree with repeating the same strategies used over and over by Republicans that got us into this state.

The government is very poor at countercyclical spending. They spend heavily in economic downturns, and keep spending heavily in economic upturns. Even by Keynesian standards, the government has been doing a bad job.

The other explanation is it's entirely the fault of the government. By printing money to keep interest rates low, or to inject liquidity during economic downturns, they're keeping companies in business when they should be failing, and creating a false optimism that leads to a surge in investments without any corresponding increase in demand. This excess capacity and deadwood eventually has to be cleared out, leading to another economic downturn. The cyclical boom-bust cycle is caused by government intervention.

I agree about spending. We should spend more in stimulus and aid during economic downturns, and less in economic upturns. As for the problem of the government -- the question is, this presumes that there is a natural default government behavior that avoids boom-bust. Looking in history and across the world, countries like Switzerland, Germany, and Sweden are rated as the most economically stable. However, their policies don't correspond to libertarian ideals. They have plenty of government intervention, plus things like universal healthcare and other social programs.

[VisionStorm]

and they got rid of the pork, which was an even bigger issue, and replaced it with better stuff that's actually necessary, such as looking into Section 230. Also an investigation into voter fraud. My main concern is that they might get rid of Section 230 rather than actually reform it, which would be a bad thing for the internet, since Section 230 is necessary, it just lacks a provision to remove Section 230 protections from companies that act as a publisher.

So you think it's good that the small chance of getting $2000 to everyone was scrapped so another investigation can turn up the same results that Trump's hand-picked panel found last time? You're a chump.

The investigation is probably never going to happen, but it would be nice to actually have one, as opposed to the side that benefits from one yelling that there's fire and the one that doesn't refusing to investigate, then pretending that nothing was ever found when they didn't even look.

The federal debt is north of $25 trillion, and that doesn't include future commitments. The fiscal gap, which includes those commitments calculated over an infinite time horizon, was over $200 trillion the last time the CBO reported it.

There's no feasible way to pay that off any time in the near future. The only real option is to cut the government spending in half and keep it that level, keep taxes at current levels, and hope growth continues for about 50 to 100 years. At that point, it might be doable.

What pisses me off about Republicans is that they frequently claim this as a principle, but they only *increase* spending and *increase* the deficit - even during economic upturns. Spending and deficit increase more under Republican administrations. The common strategy of Reagan, Bush Sr, Bush Jr, and Trump is that supposedly by cutting taxes, then growth will pay for their increased spending -- but that never actually materializes. Instead, the deficit and debt just keep getting larger under Republican control.


Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikepatton/2020/08/14/national-debt-to-surpass-78-trillion-by-2028-what-it-means-for-americans/

But somehow, Republicans continue to claim that Democrats are the problem spenders. This isn't to say that Democrats are much better - it is a bipartisan problem, but the Republican rhetoric is that somehow they're better for the economy -- when their track record is worse.

In general, it seems to me our debt-to-GDP ratio is roughly in the same range as many other first-world countries. We're #10 in the world, and #4 in the G20. So it's high, but we have less than Japan, Italy, and Singapore - and roughly on par with France. (ref) And we have tons of assets, so it's not like we couldn't pay in an emergency. Our borrowing seems more like getting a HELOC on a house than credit card debt - especially given the low interest rate the government pays.

I agree it should be paid down, the question is how. I don't have an exact recipe -- but I don't agree with repeating the same strategies used over and over by Republicans that got us into this state.

The government is very poor at countercyclical spending. They spend heavily in economic downturns, and keep spending heavily in economic upturns. Even by Keynesian standards, the government has been doing a bad job.

The other explanation is it's entirely the fault of the government. By printing money to keep interest rates low, or to inject liquidity during economic downturns, they're keeping companies in business when they should be failing, and creating a false optimism that leads to a surge in investments without any corresponding increase in demand. This excess capacity and deadwood eventually has to be cleared out, leading to another economic downturn. The cyclical boom-bust cycle is caused by government intervention.

I agree about spending. We should spend more in stimulus and aid during economic downturns, and less in economic upturns. As for the problem of the government -- the question is, this presumes that there is a natural default government behavior that avoids boom-bust. Looking in history and across the world, countries like Switzerland, Germany, and Sweden are rated as the most economically stable. However, their policies don't correspond to libertarian ideals. They have plenty of government intervention, plus things like universal healthcare and other social programs.

Don't disagree, but Trump's debt in that graph includes the first stimulus check...AFTER the lockdowns that Democrats demanded. So it's hardly all Trump's fault. Both parties are complete garbage, though, and they've been sending us down to ruin for DECADES. The only solution at this point involves guillotines.

[rawma]

The United States is not incapable of paying off its debts. Indeed, the current interest rates it pays are below the rate of inflation. The countercyclical spending of the federal government is what keeps a Great Recession from becoming a second Great Depression.

I would say the problem in 2008 was lenders misleading borrowers to give bad loans and passing off those bad subprime loans to unsuspecting investors. But home mortgages are not themselves bad.

Whut?... What manner of insanity is this?... Currently, the US is not capable of paying off its debts. Doing so would bankrupt the federal government and would create an inflationary spiral so bad, it would make the stock market crash of 1927, and the economic depression that followed look like a picnic.

The federal debt is north of $25 trillion, and that doesn't include future commitments. The fiscal gap, which includes those commitments calculated over an infinite time horizon, was over $200 trillion the last time the CBO reported it.

There's no feasible way to pay that off any time in the near future. The only real option is to cut the government spending in half and keep it that level, keep taxes at current levels, and hope growth continues for about 50 to 100 years. At that point, it might be doable.

Others have commented well on this already, but I have two cents to spare as well.

The example of World War II debt shows how debt above national GDP can be dealt with, and of course I didn't say "in the near future". Nor is there a binary choice between "extreme austerity" and "print 25 trillion dollars"; both would be terrible ideas, with continuing the current system much less harmful than either and in any case likely to continue. The best course of action is to abandon the Republican fantasy of supply-side economics and return to the equivalent of taxation levels that existed before Reagan, augmented with more modern ideas as appropriate. The Republicans have incorrectly predicted prosperity from their tax cuts and doom from any tax increases, and they have steadfastly been wrong.

But aside from the practicalities of what level of taxation are both sufficient and possible, there is the question of the interest rates the United States can currently borrow at. The argument for the kind of austerity Pat suggests is that investors will lose confidence if the government does not impose tremendous suffering in favor of paying its debt; countries that went the austerity route recovered more slowly from the Great Recession than from the Great Depression. But the United States continues to get very favorable interest rates; who would lend it money so cheaply if it were incapable of paying off its debt? The suggestion of such a massive market failure must surely require explanation with very substantial proof. Countries with debt in their own currency are always in a much better situation, because they have leverage against their creditors, even when they don't use it by printing more money; that's been a problem for some members of the European Union.

[jhkim]

The investigation is probably never going to happen, but it would be nice to actually have one, as opposed to the side that benefits from one yelling that there's fire and the one that doesn't refusing to investigate, then pretending that nothing was ever found when they didn't even look.

There have been a lot of investigations by official state investigators. They've done a ton of checking - like questioning poll workers and postal workers, reviewing security footage, etc. But since their investigations haven't turned up anything substantial, Trump supporters dismiss them as being part of the conspiracy. What largely hasn't happened is assigning special prosecutors or new laws to appoint different investigators.

What pisses me off about Republicans is that they frequently claim this as a principle, but they only *increase* spending and *increase* the deficit - even during economic upturns. Spending and deficit increase more under Republican administrations. The common strategy of Reagan, Bush Sr, Bush Jr, and Trump is that supposedly by cutting taxes, then growth will pay for their increased spending -- but that never actually materializes. Instead, the deficit and debt just keep getting larger under Republican control.

Don't disagree, but Trump's debt in that graph includes the first stimulus check...AFTER the lockdowns that Democrats demanded. So it's hardly all Trump's fault. Both parties are complete garbage, though, and they've been sending us down to ruin for DECADES. The only solution at this point involves guillotines.

While I technically agree that it's not purely Trump's fault, it's also true that *none* of this is purely the president's fault. The Great Recession and stimulus spending are not Obama's fault, for example. That said, Trump still was spending more and increasing the debt before covid-19. This is from October 2019, for example.

The U.S. spent nearly $1 trillion more in fiscal 2019 than it took in—the highest deficit in seven years that would have been bigger without a rebound in corporate tax revenue.

Government deficits have now increased for four years in a row, the longest stretch of U.S. deficit growth since the early 1980s, a period marked by two recessions and a jobless rate near 11%. The budget gap widened 26% in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, to $984 billion from $779 billion deficit the previous year, the Treasury said, as rising government outlays continued to outpace tax collection.

Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-budget-gap-widened-to-984-billion-in-fiscal-2019-11572026473

Still, I think austerity measures like halving government spending are almost certainly going to hurt the economy. We should keep spending while we are in the covid recession, but prepare to start paying it down after the economy bounces back.

[consolcwby]

"Regardless of what people say about or to me, I WILL NEVER BE SILENCED WITH THE TRUTH IN MY HANDS! The truth will set all free from the bonds of lies. ... it is given freely to all who listen." -Anonymous
While I like to keep things light, lately I have found my self and others having a lack of maturity and vision. A thread was closed because of this. Let's keep things civil and lively!
--------------------
The Left is in Despair, their killing game is almost over:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/12/mathematician-bobby-piton-finds-500000-unique-last-names-pennsylvania-sophisticated-state-actor-able-optimize-desired-outcome/

Bobby Piton, the mathematician who testified at the Arizona voter fraud hearing dropped a bombshell this weekend. Piton revealed this weekend that he examined just over 9 million records in Pennsylvania and has identified 521,879 unique last names. In other words, these people have no parents, siblings, aunts, uncles or cousins who share the same last name (phantom voters). Pennsylvania has 695,430 Fewer People in the top 1000 Last Names. Bobby Piton found that there were fewer people with common surnames such as Smith, Jackson, Johnson. Bobby Piton essentially discovered where those 695,000+ illegal ballots came from in Pennsylvania. President Trump was ahead of Joe Biden by over 700,000 votes on election night in Pennsylvania and within a few days after the election, hundreds of thousands of ballots appeared for Joe Biden. Between 695,000 to 958,000 voters just got up and vanished out of Pennsylvania! Based on Piton's findings, it appears that a centralized actor was calling the shots. Bobby Piton says a sophisticated State Actor was able to optimize a desired outcome for both the state of  Georgia and Pennsylvania.


https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/12/evidence-foreign-influence-2020-election-nevada-secretary-state-caught-sending-voter-data-list-pakistani-firm-linked-isi/

Catherine Engelbrecht is the Founder and President of True The Vote the nation's largest voters' rights group. In November True the Vote wrote the Nevada Secretary of State for the eligible voter list report. When the Secretary of State responded True the Vote was shocked to see that waqas@kavtech.net was cc'ed. True the Vote later wrote the Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers about the date breach. The letter obtained exclusively by Breitbart News that when the email arrived, "I was shocked to see the inclusion of another email address in the CC line." https://v1.nitrocdn.com/PtUefQrfncdsWOjilqcqdvGyQbUvpoWC/assets/static/source/rev-8b632d2/wp-content/uploads/engelbrecht-1-666x479.jpg
https://twitter.com/PatrickByrne/status/1343564483583766530

Whats next?
Amazingly, the Electoral College vote can be challenged under federal law and the United States Constitution. Republican electors in seven contested states cast alternate votes for Donald Trump to keep their legal options open. State legislatures retain their constitutional authority to offer alternative slates of electors. And Congress is the ultimate arbiter of the race since the ballot count can be contested during the joint session on January 6. If Brooks and one Senator object to certain state elector slates, then all bets are off. On January 6, Republicans may control the Senate and have strength in the House, just one Senator could step up and begin to change the course of history!
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/12/23/fitton-hope-for-a-failed-election/
https://electionwiz.com/2020/12/28/mo-brooks-dozens-in-the-house-will-sponsor-objections-to-biden-video/

Republican Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert and a group of other GOP figures filed a lawsuit Sunday against Vice President Mike Pence in an effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The lawsuit focuses on Pence, who will oversee the upcoming Jan. 6 meeting of Congress to count states' electoral votes and finalize President-elect Joe Biden's victory over President Donald Trump: https://dailycaller.com/2020/12/28/louie-gohmert-republicans-sue-mike-pence-overturn-presidential-election-biden-kelli-ward/

This could mean TREASON:
https://twitter.com/Lrihendry/status/1343550784286371841

[Pat]

The federal debt is north of $25 trillion, and that doesn't include future commitments. The fiscal gap, which includes those commitments calculated over an infinite time horizon, was over $200 trillion the last time the CBO reported it.

Oh NOES! If you add up all your future electric bills til the end of time as one lump sum and ignore the fact that you will (I hope) draw a few paychecks between now and the end of the world, it looks like an insurmountable bill to keep the lights on. Oh wait...

There's no feasible way to pay that off any time in the near future. The only real option is to cut the government spending in half and keep it that level, keep taxes at current levels, and hope growth continues for about 50 to 100 years. At that point, it might be doable.

You can take a large chunk out of it by assessing a $5/5% (whichever is higher) fee on every stock, commodity or bond transaction. In 2008 there were over 400 billion stock transactions in the USA. At $5 a pop, that's over $2 trillion from stock trades alone. If they use half of that every year and avoid wars for the next 20 years, it could be paid off entirely -or at least reduced enough so that interest on the debt would only cost a small fraction of what it does now.

So no, Chicken Little, the sky isn't falling.

If you charge a 5% fee on stock, commodity, or bond transactions there will be fewer transactions. A lot fewer. Not to mention increasing taxes by 50% and hobbling the capital sector will have many other repercussions.

You're making the usual mistake people with a rudimentary understanding of economics make: You're not considering all the implications.

I recommending reading Hazilitt's Economics in One Lesson. That's the "one lesson".

That's also not what infinite horizon accounting means.

[Pat]

What pisses me off about Republicans is that they frequently claim this as a principle, but they only *increase* spending and *increase* the deficit - even during economic upturns. Spending and deficit increase more under Republican administrations. The common strategy of Reagan, Bush Sr, Bush Jr, and Trump is that supposedly by cutting taxes, then growth will pay for their increased spending -- but that never actually materializes. Instead, the deficit and debt just keep getting larger under Republican control.

Both wings of the uniparty are on the catastrophically horrible side of the fiscal spectrum. Your delusion that the Democratics are better is just as risible as the contention at the Republicans are better. They both blow out the deficit.

[Pat]

You can take a large chunk out of it by assessing a $5/5% (whichever is higher) fee on every stock, commodity or bond transaction. In 2008 there were over 400 billion stock transactions in the USA. At $5 a pop, that's over $2 trillion from stock trades alone. If they use half of that every year and avoid wars for the next 20 years, it could be paid off entirely -or at least reduced enough so that interest on the debt would only cost a small fraction of what it does now.

So no, Chicken Little, the sky isn't falling.

Great idea. Let's implement a policy that will have a chilling effect on investment and eat into people's retirement.

Drama queen much? Five percent would be less than the sales taxes paid in 38 of the 50 states by everyone who buys other goods and services. Feel free to show the "chilling effect" sales taxes have had on retail sales. Oh, and if you're really concerned about retirement, you'd back a bill that sets up something like the FDIC, only for pensions since pension theft is a real threat to retirement.

Yet you claimed that 5% would raise $2 trillion/year, which is roughly half the yearly revenue of the entire federal government, from all types of taxes.

You can't have it both ways. If it's an insignificant sales tax, then it won't make a dent in the debt. If it can make a dent in the debt, then it's a 50% increase in all taxes.