President Donald Trump's Final Days...

[laberbacke]

Originally Posted by Brian249x

Some of us pee-ons know exactly what "trickle down economics" means.

Vladimir Putin calls this the "hookers and hotel rooms" economics.

Originally Posted by IC Hunt

I will be quite happy if this Reagan theory is proven to be BS: tax cuts for rich create economic growth and trickle down to the poor.

This "theory" has been disproven both theoretically and practically in numerous countries around the globe - Reagan himself had to raise taxes because his tax cuts exploded the deficit.


When the 12 years of Reagan/Bush-onomics were over, the US national debt had almost doubled from 35% to 65% of GDP.

Originally Posted by IC Hunt

ISo what have Trump's debts and deficits given us????? They have given him and his climate denying two faces a lot!

Much like the Bush tax cuts (without whom Barack Obama would have managed to balance the budget), the Trump tax cuts are a gift that will keep on giving for decades after he has left office.


The federal deficit for the current fiscal year - the first full year where the Trump tax cuts are in effect - is projected to be as large as the last three fiscal years under President Obama combined.



These already enormous deficits will increase even more dramatically once the economy will cool off, which is bound to happen in the next two to four years (this is already the second largest boom in history).



Put simply, the next Democratic President will inherit a giant shitpile from Trump and the Republicans - such a shitpile that it makes the one Obama inherited from W. Bush look like Filet Mignon in comparison. He will not be able to do any of the things he promised (green new deal, medicare for all, cheaper university education etc.), because there will be no money left for it.


The Republicans' ultimate goal here - the one they've been pursuing since the 1950ies - is the dismantling of the New Deal: Getting rid of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security - and privatize everything (including the military) until the government is scaled back to nothing more than a 19th century nightwatch state.

[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by LadyLuck

No, it does not. Fires happen. It's part of nature. Most of my reading this week in the wake of the Malibu fires indicates that one thing that forestry experts agree on is that the type of management people are calling for has little effect on the frequency or location of wildfires. It might offset one aspect but exacerbates another. You end up breaking even.

No, they do not. See item 1. People blame the Sierra Club, too. Those folks are just as wrong.

You are correct that development has encroached too closely to wooded areas. That's human error.

What part of the Forestry Service's budget was cut by $2.6 billion over the past 2 years do you not understand?

My grandfather was a logger. I heard from him and from my father over the last 60+ years how the Indians managed California's forest to both use and limit the damage of naturally occurring wildfires. Forestry experts have been coming round to that wisdom, but has it not been adopted by government bureaucrats and Eastern politicians.

That being said, the population of California has increased more than 373% in my lifetime. Many people have settled in the American Southwest, an area that is mostly arid and semi-arid not realizing that rainfall had been relatively abundant for several centuries. Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, and California cannot support populations this size without adaptation to these realities.

[movieman88]

For the record I have no stance on Climate change. However...

Originally Posted by laberbacke

Now, personally I've come to the conclusion that climate change denial should be punishable by law - just like denial of the Holocaust is here in Germany and a number of other countries.

What about the millions of different nuanced layers of skeptics out there?
Some agree climate is changing but it's not man made.
Some agree climate is changing and regardless if it's man made its too late to do anything to stop it.
Some agree but are skeptical or critical of the solutions offered?
Some agree but believe the solutions will cause millions of deaths.
What about some who aren't deniers but are rightfully critical of some of the alarmist claims made that turned out to be false (polar bears would be extinct several years ago, Mt kilimanjaro would never see snow again)
What about some who believe the data has been intentionally warped to find a certain end point out of desperation by individual scientist because they believed in this cause so much or because their grants & funding depended on it?
Your basically denying humanity the right to give scientist any kind of policing. Who is going to stop them from becoming currupt or bias?

Where is the exact f==king point that you start throwing people in cages to be beaten, raped & possibly murdered for having a different opinion then your precious hive mind? Or are they ALL going in your thought crime gulags?
What are you going to do once they are in jail and still publishing their papers or talking to the press. Are you going to deny them the right to speak to the outside world for the rest of their natural lives? Will they even able to contact their lawyer from inside the jail?

You want to fine them money or force them to contribute to charities or something, fine but there is no universe were it can be morally rationalized to send them to a place to be physically brutalized day in and day & in immediate risk of being murdered over f##king opinionated words. Verbal or written.

[IC Hunt]

Originally Posted by movieman88

For the record I have no stance on Climate change. However...


What about the millions of different nuanced layers of skeptics out there?
Some agree climate is changing but it's not man made.
Some agree climate is changing and regardless if it's man made its too late to do anything to stop it.
Some agree but are skeptical or critical of the solutions offered?
Some agree but believe the solutions will cause millions of deaths.

People can't breath in China (deaths), people can't breath around the world (deaths) because of pollution. People are dying right now because of pollution (greenhouse gases). What is the downside of reducing carbon emissions, pollution? Why don't people want to move forward with less dependency on fossil fuels? What is the Republican's deal?

Carter put solar panels on the White House in the 70s, Reagan took them down (even if they were more symbolic, so was Reagan taking them down). If it is too late it's because Republicans keep sabotaging Democrats efforts to do something before it was too late; 40 years. But I don't think it is ever to late to minimize climate change anyway.

The real question is why don't Republicans want change? Republicans are quite happy with tax breaks for shale oil exploration but not alternative energy? Why do Republicans want to live in the past?

It will be too late as long as "it's too late" continues to be an excuse for not doing anything!

[ball7]

The 42 most eye-popping line from Trump's latest FOX interview
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/19/p...iew/index.html

[steamjon]

If Trump had been President 10 years ago. He would had found Osama by tweeting to him!

[ball7]

Originally Posted by steamjon

If Trump had been President 10 years ago. He would had found Osama by tweeting to him!

They would have been friends on facebook.

[IC Hunt]

Get your umbrella's out cause here comes a shit-storm of hypocrisy: Ivanka Trump uses her personal e-mail for government business.

You just can't make this up! Well this will be fun to watch Trump try and dance around this one.

[steamjon]

Originally Posted by IC Hunt

Get your umbrella's out cause here comes a shit-storm of hypocrisy: Ivanka Trump uses her personal e-mail for government business.

You just can't make this up! Well this will be fun to watch Trump try and dance around this one.

Lock her up

[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by movieman88

For the record I have no stance on Climate change. However...

For the record, I came to the conclusion that human beings were recklessly degrading their environment and had been since the dawn of civilization in the early 1970s. I also came to the conclusion that we were in denial as a species about this and would do nothing to change until it was too late to save ourselves. Nothing in the ensuing 45 years or so has done anything to change my opinion except the Al Gore movie lead me to believe for awhile that we might be able to alter that trajectory. However, the deniers and periodic reports of degradation quickly disabused me of that notion.

While some dire prophecies remain unfulfilled, every new periodic report shows that earlier projections underestimated the extent of change. I have yet to see a report that consolidates all the various ominous strands of which I am aware. Yet, folks are still in denial even as Big Oil admits we are in trouble and that they lied to the public about what their data showed for over 30 years. So, if you have any evidence to counter my 45 year old assessment that we would follow all the other doomed species into extinction, I would love to hear it.