The tRump administration likes to brag about how many jobs they have add. The most jobs ever! Without including 2020 because 2020 has been an aberration, during the first three years of tRump’s administration 6.519 million jobs were added. During the last three years of the Obama administration 8.069 million jobs were added.
President Trump says that he deserves four more years because he oversaw “the greatest economy in the history of our country.”
Under Obama from 2014 to 2016, real gross domestic product — the broadest measure of economic activity — grew at an average annual rate of 2.5%. In Trump’s first three years, 2017 to 2019, real GDP expanded by an annual average of 2.6%, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
In December 2017 , Trump had talked about GDP rocketing to “4, 5, and maybe even 6% or higher.” But despite his big corporate tax cut, GDP growth didn’t come close to reaching the average yearly gains of 4% in the 1990s and twice that in the early 1950s.
tRump claims that Americans have a lot more money in their pockets because of his tax cuts.
The median income is about $56K and the tax cuts allowed them to keep about $860 a year or about $72.50 a month. In other word the median income family of 4 can enjoy the haute cuisine of McDonald’s twice a month. whoop-de-doo
The top 1% (greater than $639,000) saved about $49,950 in taxes or $4,162.50 a month. In other words a top 1% family of 4 can enjoy the haute cuisine of McDonald’s twice a day every day!
In the past few days we have had two examples of tRump’s adroit administrative and planning skills. Especially when it comes to tRumps ability in hiring the best.
Earlier this week, a striking thing happened at the Supreme Court: A justice inserted several errors into the record.
The mistakes came as the Court was making last-minute decisions about the precise time span of an election that has been taking place for weeks.
The errors were products, as The New York Times put it, of “the court’s fast pace in handling recent challenges to voting rules.” ✁
How will votes be processed? How will they be, right out in the open, suppressed? When will they stop being counted? And when will this election, technically, end?
News organizations will help answer that last question.
That is in part because, as the New York Times columnist Ben Smith wrote in August, “the American media plays a bizarrely outsize role in American elections, occupying the place of most countries’ national election commissions.”
As local election boards process ballots and report the results, news outlets—TV news outlets, in particular—will make projections.
They will make announcements. And they will be contending with a mess of complications that include, this year, an incumbent president who has made no secret of his desire to sow chaos and confusion.
The responsibility held by media organizations, in this context, will be immense: They will need to not only inform their viewers, but also orient them.
And explain vote-tabulation processes to people who may not be familiar with them. And debunk—or strategically ignore—any misinformation that is churned out into the mix.
They will also, crucially, need to do something that tends not to come naturally, to human beings in general and to the humans of the press: They will need to accept uncertainty.
The Trump administration has a dirty little secret: It’s not just planning to increase taxes on most Americans. The increase has already been signed, sealed and delivered, buried in the pages of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
President Trump and his congressional allies hoodwinked us. The law they passed initially lowered taxes for most Americans, but it built in automatic, stepped tax increases every two years that begin in 2021 and that by 2027 would affect nearly everyone but people at the top of the economic hierarchy.
All taxpayer income groups with incomes of $75,000 and under — that’s about 65 percent of taxpayers — will face a higher tax rate in 2027 than in 2019.
For most, in fact, it’s a delayed tax increase dressed up as a tax cut. How many times have you heard Trump and his allies mention that?
They surmised — correctly, so far — that if they waited to add the tax increases until after the 2020 election, few of the people most affected were likely to remember who was responsible.
“Put an end to unnecessary occupational licensing requirements,” Biden’s campaign website promises, though you have to scroll through a lot of blather about evil corporations and saintly unions to find it.
“While licensing is important in some occupations to protect consumers, in many occupations licensing does nothing but thwart economic opportunity.
If licensed workers choose to move to new states for higher-paying jobs, they often have to get certified all over again."
Biden isn’t a newcomer to occupational licensing reform, either; it’s a theme he’s maintained through the years and during the course of his presidential campaign.
“Why should someone who braids hair have to get 600 hours of training? It makes no sense,” he told a union audience in Pittsburgh
Extra credit to the guy for making the case to organized labor, which isn’t generally enthusiastic about reducing barriers to entry for workers.
Biden carries forward his concern about occupational licensing reform from his time as vice president under Barack Obama.
Voicing worries about declining labor mobility and disappearing job prospects, the Obama administration produced an in-depth report on the problems posed by requiring people to seek government permission to work in their chosen fields.
The Economist endorses Joe Biden, says Donald Trump “must be soundly rejected” (newsweek.com)
The op-ed describes Biden as “a good man who would restore steadiness and civility to the White House. He would thus begin the long, difficult task of putting a fractured country back together again.”
The Venn diagram of people who may be swayed by the Economist and people who will vote for Trump probably looks like 2 non-intersecting circles.
It’s such an easy decision to make when the other candidate is truly the most despicable man on the planet.
mi_sbs about 4 years ago
The voting may end, but I fear the election will continue for quiet a while after.
Wilde Bill about 4 years ago
Two more days and then (I fear) four more years.
braindead Premium Member about 4 years ago
Kieth Olbermann at his best:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HZqN2gm-Ug
.
Nothing that a Trump Disciple would/should ever watch. About 11 minutes.
KenseidenXL about 4 years ago
…until the REAL war begins….
nosirrom about 4 years ago
It’s the economy, stupid!
The tRump administration likes to brag about how many jobs they have add. The most jobs ever! Without including 2020 because 2020 has been an aberration, during the first three years of tRump’s administration 6.519 million jobs were added. During the last three years of the Obama administration 8.069 million jobs were added.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2020/02/07/obamas-last-three-years-of-job-growth-all-beat-trumps-best-year/?sh=2a52a506ba61
nosirrom about 4 years ago
President Trump says that he deserves four more years because he oversaw “the greatest economy in the history of our country.”
Under Obama from 2014 to 2016, real gross domestic product — the broadest measure of economic activity — grew at an average annual rate of 2.5%. In Trump’s first three years, 2017 to 2019, real GDP expanded by an annual average of 2.6%, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
In December 2017 , Trump had talked about GDP rocketing to “4, 5, and maybe even 6% or higher.” But despite his big corporate tax cut, GDP growth didn’t come close to reaching the average yearly gains of 4% in the 1990s and twice that in the early 1950s.
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-10-27/trump-vs-obama-who-really-did-better-on-the-economy
nosirrom about 4 years ago
tRump claims that Americans have a lot more money in their pockets because of his tax cuts.
The median income is about $56K and the tax cuts allowed them to keep about $860 a year or about $72.50 a month. In other word the median income family of 4 can enjoy the haute cuisine of McDonald’s twice a month. whoop-de-doo
The top 1% (greater than $639,000) saved about $49,950 in taxes or $4,162.50 a month. In other words a top 1% family of 4 can enjoy the haute cuisine of McDonald’s twice a day every day!
https://www.npr.org/2017/12/19/571754894/charts-see-how-much-of-gop-tax-cuts-will-go-to-the-middle-class
https://americansfortaxfairness.org/promise-will-middle-class-tax-cut/
nosirrom about 4 years ago
In the past few days we have had two examples of tRump’s adroit administrative and planning skills. Especially when it comes to tRumps ability in hiring the best.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-rally-omaha/
https://www.mediaite.com/election-2020/not-again-trump-rally-in-pa-ends-in-chaos-with-attendees-left-in-cold-for-almost-2-hours-waiting-for-busses/
Silly Season about 4 years ago
Earlier this week, a striking thing happened at the Supreme Court: A justice inserted several errors into the record.
The mistakes came as the Court was making last-minute decisions about the precise time span of an election that has been taking place for weeks.
The errors were products, as The New York Times put it, of “the court’s fast pace in handling recent challenges to voting rules.” ✁
How will votes be processed? How will they be, right out in the open, suppressed? When will they stop being counted? And when will this election, technically, end?
News organizations will help answer that last question.
That is in part because, as the New York Times columnist Ben Smith wrote in August, “the American media plays a bizarrely outsize role in American elections, occupying the place of most countries’ national election commissions.”
As local election boards process ballots and report the results, news outlets—TV news outlets, in particular—will make projections.
They will make announcements. And they will be contending with a mess of complications that include, this year, an incumbent president who has made no secret of his desire to sow chaos and confusion.
The responsibility held by media organizations, in this context, will be immense: They will need to not only inform their viewers, but also orient them.
And explain vote-tabulation processes to people who may not be familiar with them. And debunk—or strategically ignore—any misinformation that is churned out into the mix.
They will also, crucially, need to do something that tends not to come naturally, to human beings in general and to the humans of the press: They will need to accept uncertainty.
~
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/10/election-night-beware-false-endings/616942/
Silly Season about 4 years ago
The Trump administration has a dirty little secret: It’s not just planning to increase taxes on most Americans. The increase has already been signed, sealed and delivered, buried in the pages of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
President Trump and his congressional allies hoodwinked us. The law they passed initially lowered taxes for most Americans, but it built in automatic, stepped tax increases every two years that begin in 2021 and that by 2027 would affect nearly everyone but people at the top of the economic hierarchy.
All taxpayer income groups with incomes of $75,000 and under — that’s about 65 percent of taxpayers — will face a higher tax rate in 2027 than in 2019.
For most, in fact, it’s a delayed tax increase dressed up as a tax cut. How many times have you heard Trump and his allies mention that?
They surmised — correctly, so far — that if they waited to add the tax increases until after the 2020 election, few of the people most affected were likely to remember who was responsible.
~
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/31/opinion/republicans-biden-taxes.html
Silly Season about 4 years ago
Dang…
Reason.com said something nice about Biden?
~
“Put an end to unnecessary occupational licensing requirements,” Biden’s campaign website promises, though you have to scroll through a lot of blather about evil corporations and saintly unions to find it.
“While licensing is important in some occupations to protect consumers, in many occupations licensing does nothing but thwart economic opportunity.
If licensed workers choose to move to new states for higher-paying jobs, they often have to get certified all over again."
Biden isn’t a newcomer to occupational licensing reform, either; it’s a theme he’s maintained through the years and during the course of his presidential campaign.
“Why should someone who braids hair have to get 600 hours of training? It makes no sense,” he told a union audience in Pittsburgh
Extra credit to the guy for making the case to organized labor, which isn’t generally enthusiastic about reducing barriers to entry for workers.
Biden carries forward his concern about occupational licensing reform from his time as vice president under Barack Obama.
Voicing worries about declining labor mobility and disappearing job prospects, the Obama administration produced an in-depth report on the problems posed by requiring people to seek government permission to work in their chosen fields.
~
https://reason.com/2020/10/30/occupational-licensing-reform-is-a-biden-policy-we-can-all-favor/
Carl Premium Member about 4 years ago
Optimists. Besides even if it somehow, miraculously ends Tuesday the 2024 campaign starts the next day.
RobinHood about 4 years ago
Yes, there are two paths you can go by
But in the long run
There’s still time to change the road you’re on
And it makes me wonder
Jimmy Page / Robert Plant
William Robbins Premium Member about 4 years ago
Hoping for a landslide repudiation confirmed relatively early Tuesday. The only possible redemption for our standing in the world.
dotbup about 4 years ago
The Economist endorses Joe Biden, says Donald Trump “must be soundly rejected” (newsweek.com)
The op-ed describes Biden as “a good man who would restore steadiness and civility to the White House. He would thus begin the long, difficult task of putting a fractured country back together again.”The Venn diagram of people who may be swayed by the Economist and people who will vote for Trump probably looks like 2 non-intersecting circles.
It’s such an easy decision to make when the other candidate is truly the most despicable man on the planet.
Bradley Walker about 4 years ago
These days comics run in color seven days a week, but Sundays still have more space. This is knot the best use of it.
Hydrohead about 4 years ago
Well actually, it’s at least two and half more months. But could also be four more years.
Tom_Colorado about 4 years ago
And then we’ll be saying, “For more years.”
librarian4hire about 4 years ago
New Randy Rainbow!
“How Will You Vote?”
https://youtu.be/gnca1VxL7eI
Spacetech about 4 years ago
Then the real chaos begins.