Trump to win?

[BK]

Re: Trump to win?

Our choice Egotist Politicians who start out as broke egotist and steal from the public coffers over a lifetime.

Or egotist who have built a business, employed people, and hopefully paid some taxes.

#1 requirement to be a politician is to be an egotist. You have to be driven to be the center of attention when ever you enter a room and be willing to do anything to maintain the focus!

[touchring]

Re: Trump to win?

Yes I've heard that.

Just what we need. Another billionaire egotist wanting to boost his brand.

Donald Trump is really smart. Whether he wins or loses this election, he still wins with all the free publicity.

[vt]

Re: Trump to win?

The Republicans are starting to get desperate as Trump continues to rack up big wins. How do they stop him?

The only way to beat Trump is to make the race a two man contest. The best choice from the standpoint of the the polls is Rubio. How does Rubio become the only alternate? He tells Cruz that if he drops out then Rubio will nominate Cruz for the Supreme court.

This would make the battle for the 33 Senate seats this fall critical. This would be a nightmare for the Democrats if they had to contend with a Republican President and Congress and Cruz on the court for another 30 years.

The pressure on the Fed and on Obama to spend to get the economy going would be enormous if Rubio can stop Trump. Rubio can win the general election, Trump can't.

[vt]

Re: Trump to win?

Bloomberg polls poorly:

http://news.yahoo.com/ap-gfk-poll-vo...QDBHNlYwNzcg--

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Trump to win?

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...160224?page=13

[sadsack]

Re: Trump to win?

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...160224?page=13

Brilliant!

Moreover, there's evidence that human polling undercounts Trump's votes, as people support him in larger numbers when they don't have to admit their leanings to a live human being. Like autoerotic asphyxiation, supporting Donald Trump is an activity many people prefer to enjoy in a private setting, like in a shower or a voting booth.

[GRG55]

Re: Trump to win?

Christie Endorses Trump For President, Calling Him 'Best Choice'

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie endorsed billionaire Donald Trump today, throwing his support behind the other brash-talking candidate from the New York area and calling him the only man in the race qualified to be president...

[gnk]

Re: Trump to win?

Do Politicians, the Media, and in general, the elites suffer the threat of being outsourced, or replaced by cheap illegal immigrant labor, or risk losing their job to a factory move to a cheaper country? Obviously no, and their policies reflect the reality they live in.

I think Noonan has figured it out:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-an...ted-1456448550

[GRG55]

Re: Trump to win?

Do Politicians, the Media, and in general, the elites suffer the threat of being outsourced, or replaced by cheap illegal immigrant labor, or risk losing their job to a factory move to a cheaper country? Obviously no, and their policies reflect the reality they live in.

I think Noonan has figured it out:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-an...ted-1456448550

Time to buy a live aboard sailboat and move to Greece.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Trump to win?

Do Politicians, the Media, and in general, the elites suffer the threat of being outsourced, or replaced by cheap illegal immigrant labor, or risk losing their job to a factory move to a cheaper country? Obviously no, and their policies reflect the reality they live in.

I think Noonan has figured it out:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-an...ted-1456448550

Peggy doesn't get it either. She has taken a step. But she's still in la-la land. One of the well protected herself.

Her call for charter schools makes it obvious. Ever see a wealthy white suburb with charter schools? Me neither. Nobody ever demands them. They are imposed by the Walton Foundation and the Gates Foundation and the Arnold Foundation, along with the local politicians they buy off, on the poorer and darker segments of urban America.

Did nobody else notice how a few years ago, Corey Booker showed up on Oprah with Zuckerberg and announced a half-billion dollar infusion into Newark schools? Did nobody see what happened?

Newark schools became the most privatized, most charterized, best funded schools in the nation. All of the local teachers were fired; their unions decimated. They brought in legions of kids from Ivy League schools to slum (err...teach) for $20,000/year in Americorps with no benefits instead. They built grand new buildings and layers and layers and layers of testing and administration--the best data money could buy. And they did it all with no input from the plebians.

What was the result? The schools failed worse than ever. Local teachers, who had some of the only middle class jobs and leadership positions in the community took off for greener pastures and wealthier towns when they were laid off. Local parents ended up having to send kids to schools that were no longer in walking distance or on bus routes (the protected assume everybody has cars and flex scheduling at the office). Booker snuck out and got himself a Senate seat with Wall Street cash before the local pitchforks got him (also turns out that he probably fabricated the whole saving someone from a fire incident). Zuckerberg pledged never to try a stunt like that again and now only does local philanthropy. Ras Baraka took the city over in a landslide (democrat from a democrat) on a platform of undoing everything Booker had done.

And yet she's crying wolf that the unprotected really deserve their privatized, top-down, billionaire-imposed charter schools that they don't want and which they never asked for.

Doesn't she understand that part of the big appeal of the two main 'outsider' candidates on either side is that one can't be bought and the other won't be bought?

Besides, the core appeal for Trump is not coming from poor, urban communities. It's coming predominantly from white, middle class, Protestant men and women. These are the people who have always been most threatened by immigration. And they aren't clamoring for charter schools. They're clamoring to regain control of their democracy, which they feel has been wrested away by a neoliberal consensus that threw them overboard and stopped listening decades ago.

I mean, if she really bothered to talk to her shoe-shine boy, or whoever was the muse behind that article, she might have found that what's pissing everyone off is obvious:

- Housing's unaffordable.
- Fines, fines, and more fines keep popping up everywhere.
- Healthcare's unaffordable.
- Education's unaffordable.
- Good, steady work is scarce and wages are low.
- The 'unprotected' are overly criminalized and regulated over petty things; the 'protected' are above the law and completely unregulated.
- Nothing is being done about these things politically.

Until very recently, I would have added "Commodity prices are through the roof." But that seems to have subsided for now.

And the right/left aren't in complete agreement on how to address these things.

Hell, if you ask me, the right/center-right and left/center-left aren't even in complete agreement on whether to address these things. The center-left and the center-right would prefer not to address any of those things at all, if it were up to them.

Because that's what 'center' and 'moderate' have come to mean among the cherry-swilling media elite:

- Center means doing nothing to address housing affordability.
- Moderate means doing nothing to address the proliferation of petty fines.
- Center means doing nothing to address healthcare affordability.
- Moderate means doing nothing to address education affordability.
- Center means more trade deals, more outsourcing, more immigration, more H1-Bs, and a generally ever increasing and cheap supply of labor.
- Moderate means more tolls, fines, petty regulation, and desperate pleas not to demonize the crooks at the top or the crooks who buy them off.
- Center means ignoring all these problems for decades and being shocked when/if people get pissed about it.

In the face of all this, ranting about converting more public schools to for-profit charter schools is about as tone deaf as 'let them eat cake.'

[jk]

Re: Trump to win?

i agree in that i thought that the reference to charter schools was beside the point. otoh, i didn't think advocating for private schools was her main point.

[Woodsman]

Re: Trump to win?

Peggy doesn't get it either.

Nobody gets it, DC. Not even folks here at iTulip.

Look at the kerfuffle over Sander's economic plan. The biggest critics are on the left, for chrissakes. Paul Krugman and several other prominent economists attack Sanders' economic plan for being overly optimistic in predicting it would result in a 5.3 percent rate of economic growth, calling it “voodoo economics” and bad math even though the estimate is based on standard economic impact assumptions used by the Council of Economic Advisors.

And now iTulipers finally have a major party candidate talking about TECI and output gaps and there's bupkus about it. We've been talking about the need for infrastructure spending along the lines EJ detailed in Post-catastrophe Economy for what, eight years now? And now that there's a competitive candidate with a plan on the scale and ambition of Reaganomics that has a real chance of pulling us back on track, you'd think there'd at least be a little interest (or even disagreement)?

So I suppose I can guess why iTulipers would rather not talk about how Sanders' plan and EJ's proposals line up so well. But why do you think so-called lefties like Krugman and now the Roemers would attack Bernie's plan so ferociously?

[vt]

Re: Trump to win?

Unfortunately neither the Tea Party nor Bernie's plan makes economic sense.

TECI certainly does, but with the public-private partnerships EJ spoke of.

I helped save a low income credit union in the early 70's so I know a little bit about how to really help the poor.

We know the Republicans don't know what to do, but bloated, bureaucratic, unconnected government doesn't either.

Where is someone with vision?

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Trump to win?

James K. Galbraith...

What you have done, is to light a fire under Paul Krugman, who is now using his high perch to airily dismiss the Friedman paper as “nonsense.” Paul is an immensely powerful figure, and many people
rely on him for careful assessments. It seems clear that he has made no such assessment in this case.

Instead, Paul relies on you to impugn an economist with far less reach, whose work is far more careful, in point of fact, than your casual dismissal of it. He and you also imply that Professor Friedman did his
work for an unprofessional motive.

But let me point out, in case you missed it, that Professor Friedman
is a political supporter of Secretary Clinton. His motives are, on the face of it, not political.

For the record, in case you're curious, I'm not tied to Professor Friedman in any way. But the powerful – such as Paul and yourselves – should be careful where you step.

Let's turn, finally, to the serious question. What does the Friedman paper really show? The answer is quite simple, and the exercise is – while not perfect – almost entirely ordinary.

What the Friedman paper shows, is that under conventional assumptions, the projected impact of Senator Sanders' proposals stems from their scale and ambition. When you dare to do big things, big
results should be expected. The Sanders program is big, and when you run it through a standard model, you get a big result.

That, by the way, is the lesson of the Reagan era – like it or not. It is a lesson that, among today's political leaders, only Senator Sanders has learned.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Trump to win?

del