US Presidential Candidates

Part of the reason is that few voters know what he really stands for. They know his positions on a few hot button issues. They like his aggressive manner and very direct approach. Yet, he has changed positions rather dramatically and has expressed no remorse for contributing to the corruption of our elected officials. That is he has donated with the firm expectation that his specific concerns will be addressed.

So what will President Trump be like? The answer is like Obama before he won, unknown until it happens. People had a tendency color in the blank spots just as they are doing with Trump.

What I suspect is that Trump sees himself as a JFK Democrat. His stance on illegal immigration is his attempt to improve the lot of the working and lower middle class in the US. The people that support him the most are those people that Reagan tapped into. Trump is no Reagan, but both Reagan and Trump appeal to the same group of folks the Democrat part has forgotten about. Those working class folks whose jobs have left the country and whose inner city neighborhoods have been turned into third world countries. These areas have remain Democrat strongholds despite their ever deteriorating condition.

While I suspect all this, I have no clue if I am correct or just whistling in the dark.

Biochem, your points about second and third choice performance suggests that Trump voters won't be libertarians, conservatives or establishment republicans. No, they will be that part of the Tea Party that feels more comfortable supporting the Democrat Party but understand that party has moved away from what they consider important; those practical issues like jobs, the economy, national security and the future fiscal viability of the nation.

biochem wrote:

dscott8 wrote:Trump only has a high profile because he's not as boring as the other candidates. All the malcontented yay-hoos are cheering him on, and the media loves him because he creates "buzz". His chance of actually getting the Republican nomination approximates my chance of spending the weekend in a hot tub with the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. If he somehow does get nominated, or manages to bankrupt himself as a third-party candidate, we of the true "Silent Majority" -- the people with common sense -- will ensure that his egotistical ass never sits down in the Oval Office.

He's doing rather poorly in the second (+) choice polls i.e. if your candidate drops out who would be your second, third etc choice. The votes of normal Republicans are very divided right now with 17 candidates. But as the race progresses with actual primaries and people start dropping out.... Right now the average Republican voter supports about 7 candidates, so if their 1st choice drops out they will happily support their 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th or 7th choice.

Imaginos1892 wrote:The distinction is not between "private" and "government" jobs, it's between productive and non-productive. Productive work creates value by making things that are worth more than they cost; the difference is called "profit".

And things like this are why the right sucks at government and so many Republicans are under the crazy delusion that Donald Trump would make a good president.


Profit is the measure of job productivity for private companies because that's what private companies are for. Making profits.


Governments are NOT for making profits. they're for creating the stable and productive societies within which, among other things, those companies can successfully operate. The measure of productivity of government jobs is not profit, it's how well they achieve the goal of producing and maintaining that society.

Not all private jobs are productive, but almost no government jobs are. Government drones filling out government forms do not create value. Police, courts and military forces do not create value either. They are essential services, but they remain a burden that must be paid for by productive work performed in the larger economy.

The fact that in the exact same statement you can call government services "essential" AND "not of value" is astonishing. How do you keep your brain working under that level of cognitive dissonance?

As Spacekiwi already provided plenty of examples of the enormous value produced by the government I won't bother piling on further...

You're still not getting the point. I never said the police are "not of value". I said they do not create value, and they don't.

A farmer creates value by growing and harvesting wheat that is worth more than the seed, fertilizer, weed killer, bug killer, tractor fuel and labor required to produce it. A mill creates value by grinding the wheat into flour. A bakery creates value by combining the flour and other ingredients into a loaf of bread.

Transporting that loaf of bread to your local grocery store does not create value; it adds cost. Most people are willing to pay that added cost to avoid the expense and inconvenience of traveling to the bakery to buy bread, the dairy to buy milk, and the chicken farm to buy eggs. The grocery store provides a service, at a cost, by collecting disparate but related items in one place. It does not create value; the loaf of bread remains exactly as the bakery made it.

There is a limit to the cost that can be added to a value item like a loaf of bread before it exceeds the value and customers are unwilling to pay it.

The total value of an economy is the sum of the value items it produces - the material goods only. Services do not create value; no matter how desirable or essential they are, they only add cost. The idea of a "service economy" unsupported by material production is a delusion. There is a limit to the additional cost that economy can bear, which if exceeded will lead to stagnation, depression, and eventual collapse.

What value items does a government produce? Hardly any at all. Governments provide services, some of which are valuable. These are paid for with taxes, which raise the cost of everything. Take the police. Although they provide a valuable service, they do not create value themselves. They make it easier for other people to create value. The military does not create value items; indeed they tend to destroy them. (Hopefully those belonging to the enemy) Defending the nation is an essential service, but it does not create value.

There is a limit to the amount of government taxation any economy can support, and we are way past that limit. Our economy is strangled by high taxes and over-regulation, government debt is approaching an apocalypse, and the leftists' solution is more government!
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Failure must always be an option, and there must be a cost for failure. If people are not allowed to fail, they will never succeed.

I would quibble with your assertion that transportation does not create value. Take a traditional hand made quilt. It is worth a certain dollar amount locally. It is worth much more to collectors in New York city. Transporting the quilt generates more value for the maker as it become much rarer in New York.

One thing too many people forget is that value isn't created when a thing is produced but when it is sold. Prior to the sale the product is only an expense and contributed effort. Value is defined as a price someone is willing to pay for a product. It does not reside soley in the product itself.

Many years ago I worked in a government operated job centre. We were a national organisation that served the entire country, had existed for 50 years, and held a significant proportion of the market. Otherwise there were newspaper ads, word of mouth, and some specialist private agencies that dealt in specific skilled areas.

A new conservative government outsourced the function, by closing us down and paying a range of fees to new private agencies for placing people in jobs.
The net cost to the national economy has been calculated to be two and a half times what our operating costs were. This is due to duplication, inefficiencies from small scale local operations, fraud, and massive profits to some agencies. An ironic twist is that the wife of a progressive politician made a $200M+ fortune out of owning one of these agencies, then supported her husband in toppling that conservative government to become the next PM.

After that long winded introduction I would contend that the government agency did contribute significantly to national production, increasing efficiency from better HR functionality. Individual businesses now have to provide or pay for their recruitment, the cost of which is added to their pricing.

So it is possible for government agencies to be a financial asset for their country.

There is a small distinction, Daryl. Your job center creates nothing. It is an operating expense. Taking your story at face value, your job center was the less expensive option. Even so without the need for private jobs, your job center has nothing to do and produces nothing.

It might be the least efficient expense option for needed functions, but it makes nothing nor provides any service to an end user.

Daryl wrote:Many years ago I worked in a government operated job centre. We were a national organisation that served the entire country, had existed for 50 years, and held a significant proportion of the market. Otherwise there were newspaper ads, word of mouth, and some specialist private agencies that dealt in specific skilled areas.

A new conservative government outsourced the function, by closing us down and paying a range of fees to new private agencies for placing people in jobs.
The net cost to the national economy has been calculated to be two and a half times what our operating costs were. This is due to duplication, inefficiencies from small scale local operations, fraud, and massive profits to some agencies. An ironic twist is that the wife of a progressive politician made a $200M+ fortune out of owning one of these agencies, then supported her husband in toppling that conservative government to become the next PM.

After that long winded introduction I would contend that the government agency did contribute significantly to national production, increasing efficiency from better HR functionality. Individual businesses now have to provide or pay for their recruitment, the cost of which is added to their pricing.

So it is possible for government agencies to be a financial asset for their country.

I would argue that value is created when the item is produced, and realized when it is sold.

Without bread, milk, eggs and other products, the grocery store's service is useless. Without the grocery store, the bread still has value.

Buying and selling the same item multiple times does not create value either.
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Hard work and sacrifice pays off at some indefinite time in the future. Laziness pays off today.

Bread at my local grocery store is more valuable to me than bread at a large commercial bakery on the other side of town. I'd gladly pay $2 a loaf rather than drive over town and pay $1. Thus the delivery system and the retail shop do add real value to the goods. Plus it is better for the nation to have one truck deliver hundreds of loaves, rather than a hundred cars cross town to pick up a loaf each.

Regarding the job centre, I'd argue that the $2 loaf would only cost $1.90 if the baker could get his staff recruited for nothing, paying 10 cents extra tax but saving 20 cents off overheads attributed to a bigger HR department. Or continue to charge $2 but put 10 cents a loaf back into profits.

Daryl wrote:Bread at my local grocery store is more valuable to me than bread at a large commercial bakery on the other side of town. I'd gladly pay $2 a loaf rather than drive over town and pay $1. Thus the delivery system and the retail shop do add real value to the goods. Plus it is better for the nation to have one truck deliver hundreds of loaves, rather than a hundred cars cross town to pick up a loaf each.

Regarding the job centre, I'd argue that the $2 loaf would only cost $1.90 if the baker could get his staff recruited for nothing, paying 10 cents extra tax but saving 20 cents off overheads attributed to a bigger HR department. Or continue to charge $2 but put 10 cents a loaf back into profits.

Or not have an HR department at all if regulations allow that. The local grocer only needs an HR department if compliance to employment regulations is complex. From that perspective regulators impose requirements that the job center can meet more efficiently than other other service providers. I don't think the imposed requirements are added value so much as increased overhead.

That still assumes the product holds some set value absent a buyer. It does not. Wheat is worth more to a miller than a baker and more to both than a cattle rancher though all three value wheat. So products hold intrinsic utility but that utility is valued differently by different buyers.

Production imbues a product or process with utility. A buyer defines its value based on the importance of that utility to the buyer.

Imaginos1892 wrote:I would argue that value is created when the item is produced, and realized when it is sold.

Without bread, milk, eggs and other products, the grocery store's service is useless. Without the grocery store, the bread still has value.

Buying and selling the same item multiple times does not create value either.
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Hard work and sacrifice pays off at some indefinite time in the future. Laziness pays off today.