Planet Rugby Forum

Santa wrote:Becuase the logic is if you don't share their view you are not decent so your construction fails. It is entirely circular but there you are.

hermes-trismegistus wrote:

Ted. wrote:

hermes-trismegistus wrote:

Ali's Choice wrote:

hermes-trismegistus wrote:On the economy, what he has to show is trajectory and jobs coming back. I think he's a strong chance on both counts.

Interesting that the USA's recovery will be so much quicker than elsewhere. Here in Australia economists are predicting that job losses will peak in the first half of 2021.

I'd be wary of economists' predictions at this moment in time. The situation western economies are facing is utterly without precedent. We have no previous on which to base our projections. My instincts is that if there's credit available, a lot can happen very quickly, depending on how elastic the regulatory environment etc is.

I'm no economist, but I think Covid and interest rates, plus printing money, might have more of a say economically than they currently are. It's probable that that won't play out before the election though.

Maybe a slip and an ungainly tumble down a ramp or Air Force One's steps will do the trick.

Yes. All of these are distinct possibilities. The cash printing in particular stands out. But, as I tried to explain in previous posts there are grounds to suppose it could be managed. And it's certainly the case that the US won't be alone on this score.

hermes-trismegistus wrote:

Santa wrote:Becuase the logic is if you don't share their view you are not decent so your construction fails. It is entirely circular but there you are.

Fundamentally, it's a moralising world-view with all the hallmarks of something religious. Which is kind of ironic.

Santa wrote:

hermes-trismegistus wrote:

Santa wrote:Becuase the logic is if you don't share their view you are not decent so your construction fails. It is entirely circular but there you are.

Fundamentally, it's a moralising world-view with all the hallmarks of something religious. Which is kind of ironic.

It's a funny one. There isn't a shred of self doubt or any thought that they might be wrong on anything. There's a genuine inability to imagine a different view.

hermes-trismegistus wrote:

Santa wrote:

hermes-trismegistus wrote:

Santa wrote:Becuase the logic is if you don't share their view you are not decent so your construction fails. It is entirely circular but there you are.

Fundamentally, it's a moralising world-view with all the hallmarks of something religious. Which is kind of ironic.

It's a funny one. There isn't a shred of self doubt or any thought that they might be wrong on anything. There's a genuine inability to imagine a different view.

I can accept the epistemological arrogance relatively easily. I'm guilty myself all the time. It's the outright vilification of other voters that I find so profoundly mean-minded and unpleasant. Vicious even. The more this stuff becomes the norm, the worse things will get.

But only three or four countries (plus the EU) are potentially capable of managing that approach.

bimboman wrote:

But only three or four countries (plus the EU) are potentially capable of managing that approach.

h

There’s more than 4 countries printing money.

hermes-trismegistus wrote: So just to be clear, you're content to have a world view where every individual who votes for Trump is a piece of shit, yes?

hermes-trismegistus wrote:

Anonymous. wrote:

hermes-trismegistus wrote:

piquant wrote:

hermes-trismegistus wrote:There are plenty of people out there who have solid empirical grounds in their own lives and the lives of their family to feel Trump's doing fine. The whys and wherefores of how he's managing it don't matter as much.

We're not saying we're not aware millions of people will vote for Trump, only that anyone who does is a piece of shit because why and how should matter. If you ignore what Trump is because of a blinkered self centred view that's not an adequate defence, that's a furtherance of the problem

'A piece of shit'. And you think you're on the side of reason and selflessness. Jesus Christ.

Voting for a racist, narcissistic, habitually lying sex offender who has failed with many of his campaign pledges is not a good look to be fair

So just to be clear, you're content to have a world view where every individual who votes for Trump is a piece of shit, yes?

piquant wrote:Damn straight. Even if you happened to agree with Trump and his very weird policy agenda, and even if you're happy with that fluctuating to meet the present needs of Trump rather than having a coherent set of underlying values you should still want someone this stupid, this insecure, this incurious, this lazy, this racist, this corrupt out of office

Anonymous. wrote:

hermes-trismegistus wrote: So just to be clear, you're content to have a world view where every individual who votes for Trump is a piece of shit, yes?

If you accept your voting for for a racist, narcissistic, habitually lying sex offender who has failed with many of his campaign pledges I'd love to know why.

piquant wrote:

hermes-trismegistus wrote:So just to be clear, you're content to have a world view where every individual who votes for Trump is a piece of shit, yes?

Damn straight. Even if you happened to agree with Trump and his very weird policy agenda, and even if you're happy with that fluctuating to meet the present needs of Trump rather than having a coherent set of underlying values you should still want someone this stupid, this insecure, this incurious, this lazy, this racist, this corrupt out of office

hermes-trismegistus wrote:

ticketlessinseattle wrote:

hermes-trismegistus wrote:

ticketlessinseattle wrote: run a budget deficit of a trillion a year pre covid and tear apart regulations that are there to run an effective society and how do you not expect people to have more cash in their pocket in the short term ; you would assume most people would realise this and then you throw in what a nasty shitstick Trump is and think Americans won't vote for him but I guess for many the extra $$$ in the last pay cheque means more than we realise

Normally, like you, I'd be against this. But when you're the world's de facto reserve currency - with no competitor in sight - there's an argument to be made that this is a debt that can be managed.

So what was Paul Ryan's beef ? All these supposed fiscal Conservative Republicans have just been clueless kill joys all along, put it all on the credit card and ppppaaaaarrrttyyyyy ! Trump's economic policy of just bankrupting whatever he's in charge of is in fact fundamentally sound economic policy ?

Newsflash. Since Covid almost every advanced western economy that's in charge of its own currency is proposing to do the exact same via borrowings/printings on an unprecedented scale. If you think this is something unique to Trump, you'd have to be living under a rock. Personally I think it's a risk. It's very close to the MMT that Silver used to advocate. Having said that, there's an increasing number of bright people around the place who believe it might just be do-able. Groucho of this parish being one. Hardly a dimwit. Hence my saying 'there's an argument to be made'. You can disagree with it, of course. But it's there nonetheless and is becoming increasingly credible.

ticketlessinseattle wrote:

hermes-trismegistus wrote:

ticketlessinseattle wrote:

hermes-trismegistus wrote:

ticketlessinseattle wrote: run a budget deficit of a trillion a year pre covid and tear apart regulations that are there to run an effective society and how do you not expect people to have more cash in their pocket in the short term ; you would assume most people would realise this and then you throw in what a nasty shitstick Trump is and think Americans won't vote for him but I guess for many the extra $$$ in the last pay cheque means more than we realise

Normally, like you, I'd be against this. But when you're the world's de facto reserve currency - with no competitor in sight - there's an argument to be made that this is a debt that can be managed.

So what was Paul Ryan's beef ? All these supposed fiscal Conservative Republicans have just been clueless kill joys all along, put it all on the credit card and ppppaaaaarrrttyyyyy ! Trump's economic policy of just bankrupting whatever he's in charge of is in fact fundamentally sound economic policy ?

Newsflash. Since Covid almost every advanced western economy that's in charge of its own currency is proposing to do the exact same via borrowings/printings on an unprecedented scale. If you think this is something unique to Trump, you'd have to be living under a rock. Personally I think it's a risk. It's very close to the MMT that Silver used to advocate. Having said that, there's an increasing number of bright people around the place who believe it might just be do-able. Groucho of this parish being one. Hardly a dimwit. Hence my saying 'there's an argument to be made'. You can disagree with it, of course. But it's there nonetheless and is becoming increasingly credible.

Newsflash, the $1 trillion pre covid budget deficit was ehh before covid

hermes-trismegistus wrote:

Anonymous. wrote:

hermes-trismegistus wrote: So just to be clear, you're content to have a world view where every individual who votes for Trump is a piece of shit, yes?

If you accept your voting for for a racist, narcissistic, habitually lying sex offender who has failed with many of his campaign pledges I'd love to know why.

I keep trying to explain this. But it seems to be almost impossible to get through. One last time.

On all the things you mention: Lots. Of. People. Disagree. If not in principle, in the degree. As a result, they will understand their voting options differently to how you do.

But whatever. I can see it's a lost cause. You carry on as before, living in a universe where half the US voting population are beneath your contempt. A much better world it is too, I'm sure.

Santa wrote:

piquant wrote:Damn straight. Even if you happened to agree with Trump and his very weird policy agenda, and even if you're happy with that fluctuating to meet the present needs of Trump rather than having a coherent set of underlying values you should still want someone this stupid, this insecure, this incurious, this lazy, this racist, this corrupt out of office

That's one approach. Another approach, and a valid one, is to vote for the policy agenda oh agree with rather than the person.

Anonymous. wrote:

hermes-trismegistus wrote:

Anonymous. wrote:

hermes-trismegistus wrote: So just to be clear, you're content to have a world view where every individual who votes for Trump is a piece of shit, yes?

If you accept your voting for for a racist, narcissistic, habitually lying sex offender who has failed with many of his campaign pledges I'd love to know why.

I keep trying to explain this. But it seems to be almost impossible to get through. One last time.

On all the things you mention: Lots. Of. People. Disagree. If not in principle, in the degree. As a result, they will understand their voting options differently to how you do.

But whatever. I can see it's a lost cause. You carry on as before, living in a universe where half the US voting population are beneath your contempt. A much better world it is too, I'm sure.

It's not half. I would guess a lot of them will just be voting for the republican candidate and quite a few have virtually no interest in politics and couldn't really tell you much about what Trump has done or said anyway. I did qualify it by saying "If you accept" but yes you are below my contempt if you knowingly will vote for a president who amongst many other things tells elected black American members of congress to go back to where they came from.

ticketlessinseattle wrote:Hermes, it goes back to my original simple point but but anyway enough enough rabbit holes for one Saturday evening !

hermes-trismegistus wrote:

ticketlessinseattle wrote:Hermes, it goes back to my original simple point but but anyway enough enough rabbit holes for one Saturday evening !

No worries, TIS. Have a good weekend.

towny wrote:

hermes-trismegistus wrote:

ticketlessinseattle wrote:Hermes, it goes back to my original simple point but but anyway enough enough rabbit holes for one Saturday evening !

No worries, TIS. Have a good weekend.

You convinced me. Now I think of it, I bet all those European fascists weren’t so bad either. After all, maybe there were rational reasons why they’d support nazis - good people having different opinions, right? Not related to intolerance or racism either - For example, I bet the wholesalers of gas did terribly well.

/godwin

bimboman wrote:

towny wrote:

hermes-trismegistus wrote:

ticketlessinseattle wrote:Hermes, it goes back to my original simple point but but anyway enough enough rabbit holes for one Saturday evening !

No worries, TIS. Have a good weekend.

You convinced me. Now I think of it, I bet all those European fascists weren’t so bad either. After all, maybe there were rational reasons why they’d support nazis - good people having different opinions, right? Not related to intolerance or racism either - For example, I bet the wholesalers of gas did terribly well.

/godwin

That’s a very thick read, well done.

towny wrote:

hermes-trismegistus wrote:

ticketlessinseattle wrote:Hermes, it goes back to my original simple point but but anyway enough enough rabbit holes for one Saturday evening !

No worries, TIS. Have a good weekend.

You convinced me. Now I think of it, I bet all those European fascists weren’t so bad either. After all, maybe there were rational reasons why they’d support nazis - good people having different opinions, right? Not related to intolerance or racism either - For example, I bet the wholesalers of gas did terribly well.

/godwin

towny wrote:Woe to the fascists....

hermes-trismegistus wrote:

towny wrote:Woe to the fascists....

Look, I'm a simple soul. I believe a better world is one where people are given the benefit of the doubt right up to the point they do something criminal. The alternative is a world where we all second guess each other and ascribe the worst possible motives. To me, that's a recipe for a powder keg and an almighty explosion down the line.

hermes-trismegistus wrote:Look, it's not my fault if you're not up to speed with what Biden's proposing. He made it clear in April that he plans to put in place tax rises amounting to almost 4 trillion over the next ten years. You can dress it up anyway you like - a levy on the rich and corporations, as he himself does. But for a lot of people the bottom line is that he's comfortable with a massive bump in taxation. Many will feel - with good reason - that this a) will inevitably have consequences for both investment and economic activity, and b) is a good indication of the kind of policies he'll favour later on in office.

eldanielfire wrote:I knwo, becaus eit's not factored into their models.

paddyor wrote:

hermes-trismegistus wrote:Look, it's not my fault if you're not up to speed with what Biden's proposing. He made it clear in April that he plans to put in place tax rises amounting to almost 4 trillion over the next ten years. You can dress it up anyway you like - a levy on the rich and corporations, as he himself does. But for a lot of people the bottom line is that he's comfortable with a massive bump in taxation. Many will feel - with good reason - that this a) will inevitably have consequences for both investment and economic activity, and b) is a good indication of the kind of policies he'll favour later on in office.

Pretty sure +70% of the Us is in favour of higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations so yeah all you have to do is dress it up that way.

hermes-trismegistus wrote:

paddyor wrote:

hermes-trismegistus wrote:Look, it's not my fault if you're not up to speed with what Biden's proposing. He made it clear in April that he plans to put in place tax rises amounting to almost 4 trillion over the next ten years. You can dress it up anyway you like - a levy on the rich and corporations, as he himself does. But for a lot of people the bottom line is that he's comfortable with a massive bump in taxation. Many will feel - with good reason - that this a) will inevitably have consequences for both investment and economic activity, and b) is a good indication of the kind of policies he'll favour later on in office.

Pretty sure +70% of the Us is in favour of higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations so yeah all you have to do is dress it up that way.

Maybe 70% of people do. In which case, he'll win in a landslide.

But let's not pretend he's not talking about big tax hikes, as some people tried to insinuate earlier in the thread.

paddyor wrote:

eldanielfire wrote:I knwo, becaus eit's not factored into their models.

You think they've never heard of Keynes?

towny wrote:

hermes-trismegistus wrote:

towny wrote:Woe to the fascists....

Look, I'm a simple soul. I believe a better world is one where people are given the benefit of the doubt right up to the point they do something criminal. The alternative is a world where we all second guess each other and ascribe the worst possible motives. To me, that's a recipe for a powder keg and an almighty explosion down the line.

Perhaps you’re right? History has taught us that fascists that aren’t crushed end up causing big issues down the line. Maybe it is best to bring on the stink now and get it over with.

CrazyIslander wrote:Any comments on Trump commuting Roger Stone sentence?

Stone Walks Free in One of the Greatest Scandals in American History
The amazing thing about the saga is how much of it happened in the full light of day.

Roger Stone’s best trick was always his upper-class-twit wardrobe. He seemed such a farcical character, such a Klaxon-alarm-from-a-mile-away goofball—who could take him seriously?

Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen: They had tradecraft. They didn’t troll people on Instagram or blab to reporters. They behaved in the way you would expect of people betraying their country: conscious of the magnitude of their acts, determined to avoid the limelight.

Stone could not have been more different. He clowned, he cavorted, he demanded limelight—which made it in some ways impossible to imagine that he could have done anything seriously amiss. Bank robbers don’t go on Twitter to announce, “Hey, I’m going to rob a bank, sorry, not sorry.” Or so you’d expect.

Yet Stone is the central figure in the greatest scandals in U.S. history. Ames, Hanssen, the Rosenbergs, Alger Hiss—none of them worked with a foreign intelligence service to help a candidate for president of the United States. Stone did. And now he will receive a commutation of his sentence from the president he served.

The amazing thing about the Trump-Stone story is how much of it happened in the full light of day. A (very) partial timeline:

On August 4, 2016, Stone told listeners to a paid conference call that Julian Assange would continue to release information “that is going to roil this race.”

On August 8, he told a Republican group that he had been in contact with Assange, and more drops were coming.

On August 14, Stone began Twitter direct messaging with the Russian unit that hacked the emails, and then soon after posted the messages on his website, Stone Cold Truth.

On August 21, he tweeted: “Trust me, it will soon [be] Podesta’s time in the barrel,” evidently referencing the then-forthcoming cache of emails phished by Russian intelligence from John Podesta, the chair of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

On October 2, a Sunday, he tweeted that the next WikiLeaks dump would come on Wednesday.

When Wednesday came and went with no dump, Stone tweeted, “Libs thinking Assange will stand down are wishful thinking. Payload coming #Lockthemup.” Stone reaffirmed his prediction on Thursday. The dump came Friday, October 7.

Stone was simultaneously in communication with the Trump campaign and the candidate Donald Trump. The former Trump deputy campaign chair Rick Gates testified at Stone’s trial in November 2019 that he witnessed Trump take a call from Stone after the first WikiLeaks release in July. Less than a minute after the call ended, Trump told Gates that another release would follow later in the campaign.

Read: A brief history of Roger Stone

Trump declared in writing to the Mueller investigation that he did not recall discussing WikiLeaks with Stone. On page 77 of Volume II of the report, Mueller expressed disbelief in Trump’s sworn evidence: “Witnesses said that Trump was aware that Roger Stone was pursuing information about hacked documents from WikiLeaks at a time when public reports stated that Russian intelligence officials were behind the hacks, and that Trump privately sought information about future WikiLeaks releases.” On page 17 of Volume II, the report cites the former Trump attorney Michael Cohen as one of those witnesses, along with Gates.

It is not illegal for a U.S. citizen to act or attempt to act as a go-between between a presidential campaign and a foreign intelligence agency, and Stone was not charged with any crime in conjunction with his Trump-WikiLeaks communications. But it’s a different story for the campaign itself. At a minimum, the Trump campaign was vulnerable to charges of violating election laws against receiving things of value from non-U.S. persons. Conceivably, the campaign could have found itself at risk as some kind of accessory to the Russian hacks—hacking being a very serious crime indeed. So it was crucial to the Trump campaign that Stone keep silent and not implicate Trump in any way.

Which is what Stone did. Stone was accused of—and convicted of—lying to Congress about his role in the WikiLeaks matter. Since Stone himself would have been in no legal jeopardy had he told the truth, the strong inference is that he lied to protect somebody else. Just today, this very day, Stone told the journalist Howard Fineman why he lied and whom he was protecting. “He knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him. It would have eased my situation considerably. But I didn’t.” You read that, and you blink. As the prominent Trump critic George Conway tweeted: “I mean, even Tony Soprano would have used only a pay phone or burner phone to say something like this.” Stone said it on the record to one of the best-known reporters in Washington. In so many words, he seemed to imply: I could have hurt the president if I’d rolled over on him. I kept my mouth shut. He owes me.

hermes-trismegistus wrote:

piquant wrote:

hermes-trismegistus wrote:So just to be clear, you're content to have a world view where every individual who votes for Trump is a piece of shit, yes?

Damn straight. Even if you happened to agree with Trump and his very weird policy agenda, and even if you're happy with that fluctuating to meet the present needs of Trump rather than having a coherent set of underlying values you should still want someone this stupid, this insecure, this incurious, this lazy, this racist, this corrupt out of office

Has it occured to you that a 'coherent set of underlying values' that denigrates half the voting population as pieces of shit, isn't a set of values at all? At least, not a set of values that any moral human being would ever be proud of.

Rinkals wrote:

CrazyIslander wrote:Any comments on Trump commuting Roger Stone sentence?

I think it's been established that it's well within Trump's gift to pardon who he likes and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

There are obviously limits to the Presidential Pardon, but within those limits Trump has free reign. (the miss-spelling of rein is deliberate).

piquant wrote:

hermes-trismegistus wrote:

piquant wrote:

hermes-trismegistus wrote:So just to be clear, you're content to have a world view where every individual who votes for Trump is a piece of shit, yes?

Damn straight. Even if you happened to agree with Trump and his very weird policy agenda, and even if you're happy with that fluctuating to meet the present needs of Trump rather than having a coherent set of underlying values you should still want someone this stupid, this insecure, this incurious, this lazy, this racist, this corrupt out of office

Has it occured to you that a 'coherent set of underlying values' that denigrates half the voting population as pieces of shit, isn't a set of values at all? At least, not a set of values that any moral human being would ever be proud of.

No. Partly because I do tend to assume people are arses, myself included, and partly there's no way Trump gets half the voting population