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Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#268976: Jan 28th 2019 at 10:44:19 AM

They're probably hoping the Taliban keeps groups like Isis from taking control again given how they hate each other,the peace deal is probably to effect of "Look we'll stop killing you if you keep Isis in check for us,that way we won't have to keep coming back here" the trouble with pitting two groups against each other is that they'll join together as a worse case or one completely wipes out the other and your left with the bigger and stronger victor

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
HailMuffins Since: May, 2016 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
#268977: Jan 28th 2019 at 10:52:19 AM

[up]Didn't the US do something like that during the Cold War?

In fact, wasn't that the whole reason t 9/11 eventually happened? Or am I misremembering my History classes?

TechPriest90 Servant of the Omnissiah from Collegia Titanica, Mars, Sol System Since: Sep, 2015 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
Servant of the Omnissiah
#268978: Jan 28th 2019 at 11:09:41 AM

[up] Yes. Clearly, the US Government has learned nothing. Or is unwilling to absorb the lesson because it's politically unpalatable.

I hold the secrets of the machine.
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#268979: Jan 28th 2019 at 11:14:54 AM

The government shutdown cost the economy $11 billion, including a permanent $3 billion loss, Congressional Budget Office says – Overall, the CBO projected economic growth will slow this year to 2.3 percent, compared with the 3.1 percent rate last year, as the benefits of the new tax law begin to fade.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/28/government-shutdown-cost-the-economy-11-billion-cbo.html

Wall Street freaks out about 2020 – Many of the nation’s top bankers want Trump gone, but they’re growing anxious about some Democratic presidential contenders.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/28/wall-street-2020-economy-taxes-1118065

Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#268980: Jan 28th 2019 at 11:17:12 AM

Just be glad the option of wiping both groups out at once (I'm sure you know what this implies) was never on the table,because I know other superpowers in history wouldn't have shown the same restraint

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#268981: Jan 28th 2019 at 11:17:58 AM

And the sunk cost fallacy rears its ugly head.

I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
HailMuffins Since: May, 2016 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
#268982: Jan 28th 2019 at 11:30:22 AM

[up][up][up]So, is it reasonable of me to give Warren and Sanders a few pluses just because bankers seem to hate them?

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#268983: Jan 28th 2019 at 11:40:15 AM

[up] Maybe.

It's "fun", for certain definitions of the term, to note that the cost of the shutdown was more than twice what Trump wanted for his wall.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#268984: Jan 28th 2019 at 11:40:24 AM

Warran sure,Burnie doesn't know what he's talking about most of the time but it's easy to think he does

as side note someone on Reddit posted this well thought out opposition to her reforms I'm terrible at writing summaries,but the gist of it is that it's unconstitutional and would mean business owners would lose huge stakes in their business due to the tax,essentially with the example like Amazon the wealth is tied up with how much of the company he owns

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#268985: Jan 28th 2019 at 11:43:26 AM

"Unconstitutional" is a favorite argument of conservatives but fails the smell test. After all, people argued that income taxes were unconstitutional and, well...

As for losing stakes in business, I assume we're referring to the wealth tax. I'm not happy with the idea but taxing income alone isn't going to fix wealth inequality, since it doesn't touch the already accumulated wealth of the very rich. Estate taxes are great way to target that, FYI, but historically they've been very easy to dodge.

Don't get too fired up about the rhetoric. It's hard to imagine that there's a huge count of "business owners" with more than $10 million at stake who would be affected by this tax, and the simple way of clearing out that obligation is for them to divest their stock: sell it off to pay the tax. Indeed, they kind of have themselves to blame since ownership stakes in various forms have been a notorious and popular income tax dodge, since it only has to be reported as income when it's sold, not when it's given.

If it hurts the ability of billionaires to retain individual controlling interests in the companies they founded then, well, I can handle that tragedy with great equanimity.

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 28th 2019 at 2:45:51 PM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#268986: Jan 28th 2019 at 11:44:25 AM

Oh... no.... it might be like the 1950s where there were plenty of obscenely wealthy people and not OBSCENELY wealthy people... I must play my tiny violin... remember, individual rights only apply to billionaires, not workers...

PhysicalStamina i'm tired, my friend (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Coming soon to theaters
i'm tired, my friend
#268987: Jan 28th 2019 at 11:48:12 AM

...did you write "obscenely" twice by mistake?

Edited by PhysicalStamina on Jan 28th 2019 at 11:48:22 AM

i'm tired, my friend
KarkatTheDalek Not as angry as the name would suggest. from Somwhere in Time/Space Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
#268988: Jan 28th 2019 at 11:51:10 AM

I think that’s the joke - the actual change is minuscule.

Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Jan 28th 2019 at 2:51:26 PM

Oh God! Natural light!
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#268989: Jan 28th 2019 at 11:56:50 AM

Once you've got your first hundred million in the bank, you don't need to worry about affording anything ever again. Every new dollar you get has much less utility to you than to someone else, which is why we justify high marginal tax rates in the first place.

This is, of course, anathema to everyone who read Atlas Shrugged and took it seriously, or who played BioShock and thought Andrew Ryan was the hero.

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 28th 2019 at 2:57:42 PM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#268990: Jan 28th 2019 at 12:00:22 PM

billionae tears aside I do think it's valid concern that with something a like a wealth tax that it targets the right wealthy people,with no loop holes to escape through like taking their wealth of country so it can't be taxed

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#268991: Jan 28th 2019 at 12:05:23 PM

That's always been an argument, but it's never held water. First, the wealthy already have trillions in offshore wealth, so it's not like anything would change. Second, a lot of the taxable assets are things they can't easily hide, like stock ownership. Third, the idea that the rich would "take their ball and go home" if taxed a lot completely fails the reality test. We had 90% and higher marginal tax rates in the fifties and we didn't see a massive flight of rich people. There's no reason to think that it would happen today.

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 28th 2019 at 3:09:30 PM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#268992: Jan 28th 2019 at 12:08:54 PM

The problem with a wealth tax is not that it's a confiscation or anything like that.

The problem with a wealth tax is that your dingbat constitution says that direct taxes need to be apportioned to states (Article I, Section 2, Clause 3) and the 16th amendment only exempts income taxes from that rule.

The problem with Wall Street is that the "compromise" almost certainly entails them funding more crazies or Evil Turtle serviles for Congress.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Grafite Since: Apr, 2016 Relationship Status: Less than three
#268993: Jan 28th 2019 at 12:09:06 PM

A wealthy independent centrist businessman... Well, count the rich suburbs who helped win the midterms and held their nose to vote for Hillary out, there's their perfect candidate.

The universe is really pulling strings to make sure one of the most unpopular and worse presidents remains in office for the whole eight years, it seems.

Life is unfair...
HailMuffins Since: May, 2016 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
#268994: Jan 28th 2019 at 12:09:40 PM

[up][up][up]Okay, I didn't read too deep into that story, but didn't something similar happened over in France? They made a wealth tax or something and the rich collectively pissed odd somewhere else?

Not that I am against taxing the rich, quite the opposite, but if it's that easy to just dodge the whole deal altogether and everyone ends up worse, then I fail to see the point.

Edited by HailMuffins on Jan 28th 2019 at 5:12:06 PM

DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#268995: Jan 28th 2019 at 12:23:10 PM

If you combine it with a financial transactions tax, they cant escape so easily, since you can then tax the money as it is transferred overseas.

I will look into the details of Warren's proposal later, but the way to avoid bankrupting anyone is extremely simple... you just make the wealth tax highly progressive, so that the percent goes down the less wealth you have. So Bezos might indeed have to sell off a significant percent of his shares to pay off the tax, in year 1, but not in subsequent years.

I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#268996: Jan 28th 2019 at 12:24:26 PM

This sort of thing is exactly why I'm not quite sold on Warren as POTUS. That and all of the other reasons I mentioned in the past.

Edited by M84 on Jan 29th 2019 at 4:24:46 AM

Disgusted, but not surprised
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#268997: Jan 28th 2019 at 12:28:43 PM

The main problem with the wealth tax, as I see it, is that you keep taxing the same wealth over and over again, unlike income tax where any particular bit of wealth for any particular person is taxed only once.

Also, I have no problem if Warren wants to throw out ideas to see what sticks. That is, after all, what a Presidential primary campaign is supposed to do: act as a sounding board for the candidates and the party as a whole to decide what will make the best platform.

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 28th 2019 at 3:29:36 PM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#268998: Jan 28th 2019 at 12:41:15 PM

Oh God: US and Taliban forces are supposedly working out a peace deal that will finally pull the US out of Afghanistan

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/28/world/asia/taliban-peace-deal-afghanistan.html

This is gonna be what gets Trump re-elected, isn't it?

Can we please not focus purely on how it will effect Trump? If this is good for Afghanistan then it's not a good look to worry about it benefiting Trump.

Also no, the American people probably can't even place Afghanistan on the map. Making peace in Afghanistan isn't going to win Trump any friends, not when he's so... Trump.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#268999: Jan 28th 2019 at 12:49:58 PM

Heck, Trump's most ardent supporters want him to kill Muslims, not make peace with them. There's a very slight risk that a peace deal will make him look "presidential" and get the mainstream media praising him in order to keep their beloved veneer of neutrality, but when set against all the other crazy things he does, I don't see how it'll help more than a tiny bit.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
TechPriest90 Servant of the Omnissiah from Collegia Titanica, Mars, Sol System Since: Sep, 2015 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
Servant of the Omnissiah
#269000: Jan 28th 2019 at 12:51:36 PM

In a way, it's funny how much America today reminds me of the Greek City State Era. The only thing missing is the fractious internal wars.

Aristocrats ruling it over the hoi polloi, the Rich getting away with everything, the Beautiful and Dumb getting away with everything, pointless foreign wars, disdain for anyone who isn't like them - it's almost an exact carbon copy. With the Super Bowl standing in for the Games.

Then again, maybe that's just me.

EDIT: Secondary Question, what's the significance of the upside-down US Flags I keep seeing everywhere these days? I genuinely don't understand it.

Edited by TechPriest90 on Jan 28th 2019 at 3:53:08 PM

I hold the secrets of the machine.

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