Is Trump Nuts?
POSTED BY: THGRRI
UPDATED: Tuesday, September 1, 2026 23:49
VIEWED: 120217
PAGE 27 of 100
We've gone over this before. I am often unemployed because I do not submit well to authority.
Money is freedom. When you don't have access to money, the next best thing is not owing any money to anybody else. I may not have much to my name outside of my home, but I am free to do almost anything I want to do, like not work for nearly 2 years. This is a freedom that I do not have if I have debt.
There is NO escaping the IRS if they set their sights on you. As you yourself mentioned on this forum just a few days ago, tax fraud is how they brought down Al Capone himself when all else failed.
I'm not choosing to be truthful on my taxes because I'm an obedient sheep. I am truthful on my taxes because most of the time I don't have to pay very much, and when I did make money I knew all the ways to shield as much as legally possible.
It all boils down to a matter of ROI. What do I have to gain by lying on my taxes here? Absolutely nothing.
What do I have to lose? $695 in personal freedom, which for me these days equates to roughly two months of freedom.
It's a no brainer.
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Quote:Every time I read the title Is Trump Nuts?, the first thing that pops into my head is - do I care? And the answer always is - No. Not until such time as it looks like he's driving the car into WWIII. And the fact that people are running around trying to whip everyone into a frenzy just makes me tired. We've been there, and done that, many, many, many, many, many times over. I at least have learned to view the propaganda pushers with a large degree of indifference. And just because they've managed to goad people into an unthinking frenzy doesn't mean I need to join them.
Is Trump Nuts?
Originally posted by G:
"I coined the slogan "We Suck!"© many years ago."
G is an avowed Putin-loving, pro-Russian, anti-American troll.
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Quote:Here is a small part of an article that points out a fact that Trump can take political advantage of. The worse he makes this one fact, the better for himself being reelected, but the worse for you.
Originally posted by 1kiki:
And the fact that people are running around trying to whip everyone into a frenzy just makes me tired. We've been there, and done that, many, many, many, many, many times over.
Out of all rich countries in the world, the USA has the worst distribution of wealth.
A majority of Americans have little or no wealth. Half of all American adults have wealth less than $44,977. If the wealth was spread equally, all American adults would have $344,692 each.
The wealth that there is, is mostly owned by people at the top. The top is Trump, a multi-billionaire, he has bragged. The author of the article also wrote: I grew up in a middle-class family, the first to go to college full-time and the first to earn a Ph.D. The economic policies of the last 40 years have reduced the middle class's security, and this blog is a small contribution to reversing that.
U.S. Has Worst Wealth Inequality of Any Rich Nation, and It's Not Even Close
www.middleclasspoliticaleconomist.com/2017/03/us-has-worst-wealth-ineq
uality-of-any.html
Let's move now to the inequality data, where I'll present median wealth per adult, mean wealth per adult, and the mean-to-median ratio, a significant indicator of inequality. These data will be sorted by that ratio. The “mean” is the average across all adults. The “median” identifies the single luckiest adult’s wealth that is exactly in the middle of the sample for that country: half of all adults’ wealth is higher, half is lower.
1. United States $ 44,977 $344,692 7.66
2. Denmark $ 52,279 $259,816 4.97
3. Germany $ 42,833 $185,175 4.32
4. Austria $ 52,519 $206,002 3.92
5. Israel $ 54,384 $176,263 3.24
6. Kuwait $ 40,803 $119,038 2.92
7. Finland $ 52,427 $146,733 2.80
8. Canada $ 96,664 $270,179 2.80
9. Taiwan $ 63,134 $172,847 2.74
10. Singapore $101,386 $276,885 2.73
11. United Kingdom $107,865 $288,808 2.68
12. Ireland $ 80,668 $214,589 2.66
13. Luxembourg $125,452 $316,466 2.52
14. Korea $ 64,686 $159,914 2.47
15. France $ 99,923 $244,365 2.45
16. United Arab Emirates $ 62,332 $151,098 2.42
17. Norway $135,012 $312,339 2.31
18. Australia $162,815 $375,573 2.31
19. Switzerland $244,002 $561,854 2.30
20. Netherlands $ 81,118 $184,378 2.27
21. New Zealand $135,755 $298,930 2.20
22. Iceland $188,088 $408,595 2.17
23. Qatar $ 74,820 $161,666 2.16
24. Malta $ 54,562 $116,185 2.13
25. Spain $ 56,500 $116,320 2.06
26. Greece $ 53,266 $103,569 1.94
27. Italy $104,105 $202,288 1.94
28. Japan $120,493 $230,946 1.92
29. Belgium $154,815 $270,613 1.75
Source: Author's calculations from Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook 2016, Table 3-1
www.credit-suisse.com/us/en/about-us/research/research-institute/globa
l-wealth-report.html
As you can see, the U.S. inequality ratio is more than 50% higher than #2 Denmark and fully three times as high as the median country on the list, France. As the title says, this is not even close.
. . . we are careening towards a retirement crisis as Baby Boomers like myself find their income drop off a cliff in retirement. As I reported in 2013, 49% (!) of all private sector workers have no retirement plan at all, not even a crappy 401(k). 31% have only a 401(k), which shifts all the investment risk on to the individual, rather than pooling that risk as Social Security does. And many people had to borrow against their 401(k) during the Great Recession, including 1/3 of people in their forties. The overall savings shortfall is $6.6 trillion! If Republican leaders finally get their wish to gut Social Security, prepare to see levels of elder poverty unlike anything in generations. It will not be pretty.
www.theatlas.com/charts/H1
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This didn't just pop up in the last few months Second.
In the last 8 years alone the re-distribution of wealth via social programs have exploded and the amount of American families that have been put under the federal poverty line has seen massive increases.
This was already starting back with GWB and his massive debts for the wars. (The two biggest things I was vocal against him for, the third being the Patriot Act).
To be fair though, a lot of this lies on Clinton for opening the WTO to china and really getting the ball rolling with globalism. It was temporarily great for our economy and made Bill look really good though.
I agree with pretty much everything you just posted, and that it is a major problem. I just think it's silly to be trying to put any of that on Trump just yet. 16+ years of this crap isn't going to be eclipsed by 3 more months of it except by the most ardent Trump haters looking for anything to post negatively about him. Even more comical to me is that it's coming from somebody in the 1% who's financial advice to me yesterday was to lie on my taxes.
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Quote:What I'm about to do is not nice, but it is all true and has been going on for more than 8 years. Even Trump should understand it, and especially his Labor Secretary, but neither do. Or maybe they don't want to?
Originally posted by 6STRINGJOKER:
This didn't just pop up in the last few months Second.
In the last 8 years alone the re-distribution of wealth via social programs have exploded and the amount of American families that have been put under the federal poverty line has seen massive increases.
This was already starting back with GWB and his massive debts for the wars. (The two biggest things I was vocal against him for, the third being the Patriot Act).
To be fair though, a lot of this lies on Clinton for opening the WTO to china and really getting the ball rolling with globalism. It was temporarily great for our economy and made Bill look really good though.
I agree with pretty much everything you just posted, and that it is a major problem. I just think it's silly to be trying to put any of that on Trump just yet. 16+ years of this crap isn't going to be eclipsed by 3 more months of it except by the most ardent Trump haters looking for anything to post negatively about him. Even more comical to me is that it's coming from somebody in the 1% who's financial advice to me yesterday was to lie on my taxes.
Economists think automation is already responsible for a lot of the job decline. A study by Ball University in 2015 estimated that if US industry were producing in 2010 at the same level of productivity as it did in 2000, the US would have needed 20.9 million manufacturing workers; instead it had only 12.1 million (pdf, p. 4).
http://projects.cberdata.org/reports/MfgReality.pdf
That is 8.8 million jobs lost to increased efficiency, not to foreigners.
Trump has blamed globalization for the loss of American industrial jobs and promised to bring them back by creating incentives for companies to manufacture in the US. Instead, Trump should create incentives for companies to be less efficient. That would create jobs instantaneously. If you ever worked in a factory, you’d know how simple it is to ruin productivity. It takes great care to keep the factory moving smoothly. Stop being careful on the factory floor and start hiring more workers could be Trump’s successful job creation policy.
https://qz.com/941252/trumps-treasury-secretary-steven-mnuchin-says-ro
bots-taking-over-jobs-is-not-even-on-our-radar-screen/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Trump’s landmark Keystone XL pipeline deal will create 35 long-term American jobs
https://qz.com/941441
Taking it a step further, a 2011 report from Cornell University concluded that the Keystone XL pipeline could actually destroy more jobs than it created. That’s because Midwesterners could wind up paying 10 to 20 cents more per gallon of gasoline if the pipeline diverts crude oil from Midwestern refineries down to those in the Gulf of Mexico region. And it probably will, the researchers write, because oil refined on the Gulf can be sold for a higher price to export markets. That will cost the Midwest up to $2-$4 billion in higher crude prices annually, “escalating for several years,” according to information Cornell received from TransCanada. That would “suppress other spending and will therefore cost jobs,” the Cornell researchers write.
www.ilr.cornell.edu/sites/ilr.cornell.edu/files/GLI_keystoneXL_Reportp
df.pdf
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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This afternoon, Paul Ryan and the rest of the House leadership is considering pulling the Trumpcare bill rather than suffering through an embarrassing loss, and Ryan has told President Trump he doesn't have the votes to pass it. Trump still wants a vote, though, so he can take down the names of the No voters and swear eternal vengeance on them.
www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/03/24/bannon-tells-trump-keep-a-sh
it-list-of-republicans-who-opposed-you.html
Trump already declared war on the Freedom Caucus.
www.politico.com/story/2017/03/trump-house-caucus-criticism-236458
“Burn the boats,” Steve Bannon (in his typical, pugnacious style) advised Trump, according to one official involved. Burning one’s boats is a reference to when military commanders in hostile territories order his or her troops to destroy their own ships, so that they have to win or die trying.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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I'd like to have an opinion on automation, but I don't know what to think about it. I will admit that it's far too large an issue for me to wrap my head around.
Even in my very limited lifestyle, a majority of the things I do or don't have to do are thanks to automation. I'm glad that I don't have to raise crops or hunt food or wash my clothes on rocks. Does all that free time make me a better person? Does it make me happier?
PLCs would be a great job for me to get into. I know an intermediate amount about it. If I managed to just get my foot in the door I could probably shine doing it. That would also entail me going to sleep everynight knowing when people get laid off it's because they'd only need one of me for X amount of laborers. I'd also have to realize that it was just a matter of time until I wasn't even needed anymore.
I don't know the answer about this one. I don't know if there is an answer.
That being said, globalization is a real threat at the same time. I lost a great job to it. If they could have given it to robots, they would have. Skilled labor in a 3rd world country is the next best thing.
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Automation increases what a worker can do. If a company has 100 workers, and automating some drudgery in the work place enables the company to do twice as much, only a relatively unimaginative company would selection reducing the staff to 50 as the only viable option.
If you can't think of anything else for your workers to do, you probably shouldn't be in business, and with 300,000 corporations competing in America, pretty soon, you probably won't be.
In classical economic theory, automation drives the creation of technology, which is why I'm posting this on the internet instead of writing out a copy to each of you and sending it in the post, or worse yet, walking to each house in person to deliver them over the next year. We exist because of the typewriter, telegraph, and http which handles the typing, the duplication and the distribution processes for us through automation.
Automation is a cornerstone of the science that makes science fiction. Without it, we'd all still be catching fish with spears because the anti-net making lobby would have prevented us from moving on to hut building, wheel making, etc.
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In a perfect world you'd be right about all that DT, but it's far from perfect.
As automation improves, it becomes a game of adapt or die. Those companies that don't buy the new technology become more expensive to utilize than those that do and go out of business. The companies aren't automating to save money that can be spent elsewhere. They're doing so to stay alive and hopefully increase the stock prices.
It would be foolish to fight this progress for many reasons. Unless you're insane, most people would never go back to doing things the old fashioned way when they already have tools at their disposal. I can live without a lot, but I can't imagine a life without the internet anymore. Or my power tools...
There is two problems, the way I see it. 1) Although automation creates new jobs, it never creates as many as it replaces... at least on a grand scale. 2) There are simply too many people on the planet. Whether voluntarily or involuntary there is going to be a culling of the herd at some point. Not only are we living so out of balance with nature that we couldn't possibly be sustained at the current growth for long, but with automation at the state it currently is, and is progressing, there simply isn't a need for many of us now.
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