US Presidential Candidates

Daryl wrote:Back to cultural differences. When a businessman in Australia has gone bankrupt, it is a newspaper scandal if he goes into business again, and monumental if he goes bankrupt again. We see it as immoral wasting other people's money and not paying people money owed.
Someone like Trump having had four bankruptcies (technical or not) would never get elected here. I'm not sure but remember reading somewhere that a bankrupt can't legally hold office.

Indeed, different cultures. Starting a business and failing, even in bankruptcy isn't nearly as large a social stigma as you describe. Doing so several times before finding success is a sign of determination. Figure out what went wrong, fix it and try again.The banks and lenders that backed him/her could make their own decisions. Heck, banks can take care of themselves. Why the F should a social stigma be associated with their losing a well considered bet? There are other vendors involved, but the same sentiment applies, offering credit is by definition risky. Don't offer more credit than you can lose or factor your receivables.

Annachie wrote:
BTW, it's not a jab a Trump. It's a jab and idiots who think he's such a good business man.
He's not. He's a good con man.


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I'll let Biochem's post address the bankruptcies.

Repeated failure is not a stigma to most Americans. How many failures did Edison suffer before he got the right filament for the lightbulb? Thousands, Iirc, yet he only stopped when he found one that worked. Pharmasutical compounds have an average of an 8% success rate....that's a failure rate of 92%. Restaurants fail far more often than they succeed, the same with most small businesses. Trying and failing only to get off your ass and try again is a characteristic most Americans admire. Timex had a slogan, takes a lickin' but keeps on tickin. It resonated for quite some time with the US consumer for many reasons, including an ability to rise up after misfortune.

My position on Trump - one of my least preferred candidates in the republican primary (they had so many good one and had to pick one of the worst!) but far far better than Hilary in the binary general election. I actually like and prefer Pence to Trump. I think he would be a far better president and therefore I am in favor of Trump delegating as much as he can to Pence.

How Trump's cabinet(+) picks seem to be looking so far. They seem to be grouped into a few baskets.

National Security

Trump seems to feel that this should be handled by the military and Pence.

Pence gets daily briefings, Trump gets weekly with Pence to let Trump know if there is anything urgent that Trump needs to know about.

Defense - General
Homeland Security - General
National Security Advisor - General
Deputy national security advisor - civilian expert
CIA - Washington insider

Dealmakers

People whom Trump believes have exhibited significant skill in economic related negotiations. Generally businessmen. Trumps says that they will now put their skills to work for the American people. In particular his priority is to renegotiate all the lousy trade treaties the career politicians put in place.

State - businessman
Treasure - businessman
Commerce - businessman
Small business administration - businessman
Deputy commerce - businessman
national economic council - businessman

Hitmen

People hired to undo everything Obama has done. Most of these have been Republican priorities for a long time. Obama habitually ignored congress and re-interpreted rules on his own authority. Trump plans to undo a lot of this. Generally these departments have been accused of significant overreach of their regulatory authority. Generally that is true. Democrats felt the ends justified the means when Obama was president. Now many of them are regretting that stance.

Education - common core/charter schools
Attorney General - illegal immigration
Health and Human services- obamacare
environmental protection agency - job killing overreach on behalf of the greens
energy - ditto
interior - ditto

People hired to work with insiders and get things done

chief of staff - republican insider
housing and urban development - the nice guy
UN ambassador - republican insider
transportation - republican insider/"bribe" to senate leader
white house council - republican insider
republican national committee - republican insider

A short but pretty good analysis. Ditto on the vote analysis!

biochem wrote:My position on Trump - one of my least preferred candidates in the republican primary (they had so many good one and had to pick one of the worst!) but far far better than Hilary in the binary general election. I actually like and prefer Pence to Trump. I think he would be a far better president and therefore I am in favor of Trump delegating as much as he can to Pence.

How Trump's cabinet(+) picks seem to be looking so far. They seem to be grouped into a few baskets.

National Security

Trump seems to feel that this should be handled by the military and Pence.

Pence gets daily briefings, Trump gets weekly with Pence to let Trump know if there is anything urgent that Trump needs to know about.

Defense - General
Homeland Security - General
National Security Advisor - General
Deputy national security advisor - civilian expert
CIA - Washington insider

Dealmakers

People whom Trump believes have exhibited significant skill in economic related negotiations. Generally businessmen. Trumps says that they will now put their skills to work for the American people. In particular his priority is to renegotiate all the lousy trade treaties the career politicians put in place.

State - businessman
Treasure - businessman
Commerce - businessman
Small business administration - businessman
Deputy commerce - businessman
national economic council - businessman

Hitmen

People hired to undo everything Obama has done. Most of these have been Republican priorities for a long time. Obama habitually ignored congress and re-interpreted rules on his own authority. Trump plans to undo a lot of this. Generally these departments have been accused of significant overreach of their regulatory authority. Generally that is true. Democrats felt the ends justified the means when Obama was president. Now many of them are regretting that stance.

Education - common core/charter schools
Attorney General - illegal immigration
Health and Human services- obamacare
environmental protection agency - job killing overreach on behalf of the greens
energy - ditto
interior - ditto

People hired to work with insiders and get things done

chief of staff - republican insider
housing and urban development - the nice guy
UN ambassador - republican insider
transportation - republican insider/"bribe" to senate leader
white house council - republican insider
republican national committee - republican insider

PeterZ wrote:

gcomeau wrote:That would be great. You are of course not talking about in person voter fraud I hope... the ONLY kind of voter fraud Republicans ever pass laws against or talk about despite it being effectively non existent as a thin cover for deliberate voter disenfranchisement efforts?

https://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus ... raud.0.png

....

The idea that there were over 2.5 MILLION fraudulent votes cast in this election is absurd in the extreme.

The article highlights irregularities in the precincts that have a discrepancy of upwards of 50 in person voters, but the sealed packet for that precinct holds 306 ballots. 60% of Detroit's precincts had such discrepancies. That is either serious election fraud or serious negligence. No way that sort of widespread problems will occur unless there are systemic problems. Not just in who votes but how the ballots are kept and tabulated. That's either voter fraud or criminal negligence in training the election staff.

Your assertion that election fraud is rare has just received a gut punch.

I said *in person* voter fraud (which this wouldn't be if it proves out as fraud and not something else). The kind of voter fraud Republicans dedicate the vast vast majority of their time scare mongering about to justify their obsession with things like voter ID laws which everyone knows don't have a damn thing to do with fraud prevention but rather with vote prevention.


Whether someone brought a drivers license to their polling place in Detroit wouldn't have a damn thing to do with that you just cited up there.

Gcomeau, you focus on voter fraud. I have said election fraud is more of a problem. That appears to be the case in Detroit.

PeterZ wrote:

Daryl wrote:A less engaged US is not the problem. A commander in chief who always expects to get his own way is a problem, as are similar people in China for whom losing face is very important.
I'm not sure that some appreciate the cultural differences. I used to be involved in serious international contract negotiations. A US executive caught out in a blatant lie or con would just shrug and suggest we move on to the next stage, an Asian executive would be shamed and withdraw or resign. It is vital to the Chinese leadership that they be seen to be right.

One doesn't grow rich negotiating for real estate, building internationally and managing those international properties without picking up some knowledge of foreign cultures. That doesn't mean he will be a smooth operator, only that his rough edges won't start WWIII. Besides, he simply cannot be worse than what has transpired in the past 8 years.

He didn't "grow rich" doing any of the above. He retarded the growth of his wealth to a severe degree.

If he had just taken his inherited money and put it in an index fund and left it alone he would be worth THREE TIMES what he claims he is worth... and what he claims he is worth everyone knows is significantly more than he is *actually* worth.


But instead he has frittered away his money on failed business venture after failed business venture after failed business venture. And *this* is the guy people think will be some kind of economic savant at fixing the US economy.

PeterZ wrote:Gcomeau, you focus on voter fraud. I have said election fraud is more of a problem. That appears to be the case in Detroit.

And *I* said it would be great if that was investigated... but the only kind of fraud Republicans ever want to talk about is the kind that doesn't happen and we all know why...

People are at this very moment trying to get those votes looked into in Michigan, and guess who's fighting against it tooth and nail trying to block it in the courts?

gcomeau wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Gcomeau, you focus on voter fraud. I have said election fraud is more of a problem. That appears to be the case in Detroit.

And *I* said it would be great if that was investigated... but the only kind of fraud Republicans ever want to talk about is the kind that doesn't happen and we all know why...

People are at this very moment trying to get those votes looked into in Michigan, and guess who's fighting against it tooth and nail trying to block it in the courts?

Well, then be glad a quasi republican is President. He is much more likely to investigate election fraud than either a Dem or straight up Repub.

PeterZ wrote:

gcomeau wrote:And *I* said it would be great if that was investigated... but the only kind of fraud Republicans ever want to talk about is the kind that doesn't happen and we all know why...

People are at this very moment trying to get those votes looked into in Michigan, and guess who's fighting against it tooth and nail trying to block it in the courts?

Well, then be glad a quasi republican is President. He is much more likely to investigate election fraud than either a Dem or straight up Repub.

Perhaps I was unclear. Trump and the GOP both have been fighting any analysis of the Michigan vote in the courts.


http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20161 ... Wisc_.html

The recounts are the only reason we even know about the discrepancies you are talking about here. They Do Not Want anyone looking into the vote integrity.