Do you like or hate Donald Trump, and why?
Blowin the fact you can say Trump is honest, well I think there is nothing else to be said from me....next you will tell me how great Abbott and Dutton are , and how powerful the rabid right are becoming!
I’m not saying he’s honest about everything, just that he’s honest with his intentions to put the USA first , which is admirable.
Not sure about you version of American WW2 history Blowin.
Prior to Pearl Harbour America was arms-length but was selling goods to the UK or lending them war equipment. Pearl Harbour changed all that and America then poured vast amounts money, men and equipment into defeating extreme nationalism. Self interest.
While on WW2 Trump's father was meant to have done some dodgy deals during the war and amassed a fortune doing so, any details on that?
Trump put America first with his tax cuts to the mega wealthy, how's that working for the rust belt, for the desperate who voted for him?
Isn’t that what I said regards WW2 ?
Unemployment is down , wages are up.
That’s how it’s going for the workers of America. You think that’s a bad thing ? You’d rather they were worse off so that you could say that you were right ?
Must we revisit the issue of the staggering levels of American debt and how Trump's tax cuts will all but make it impossible to have that debt repaid without measures that will cause untold hardship on "his people"? Assuming of course you are not one of the few that still believe in the neo-liberal trickle down voodoo economics lie.
Trumpstown
Factotum
Drinking the Swelleft Koolaid makes you wrong about everything.....it also makes you a master of unintended irony, and of giving up free runs in debate.
But this is not all fun and games....like drowned asylum seekers and Muslim rape gangs the Left's naive good intentions are absolutely fatal.
....yes, The Left..... Democrats made Jim Jones and then made his memory vanish
"Willie Brown, later speaker of the California assembly and mayor of San Francisco, compared Jim Jones to Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. Dianne Feinstein joined the rest of the San Francisco board of supervisors in honoring Jones “in recognition of his guidance and inspiration” in furthering “humanitarian programs.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/how-san-franciscos-dem...
Guysmiley
Must we revisit the demolition of your 'Tax cuts for the rich depletes revenue' lie?.
Are you sleepwalking....backwards?.....Trump's economic policy has benefited the rust belt and workers.....and it was Obama who told them there was nothing he could do for them as he sold them down the river while wracking up the greatest debt in history.
If we substituted 'Obama' for every time you say 'Trump', you would start being accurate.
Guysmiley
Yay!, I'm going to give you a point....yes, going to war because you have been subjected to a devastating attack does technically constitute 'self interest'.
....but then, I suppose portraying self defence survival as a mercenary act is objectionable ....so I'm taking that point back.
Blob,
Must we revisit the debt statistics of all American presidents dating back to Reagan and how it was Republican business tax cuts since that time that has seen American turned into a economic basket case?
If we must go there Blob please explain to the world how the debt will ever be repaid with the significantly diminished tax base assuming everything goes right or pear shaped for the US economy? Or are you the one that still believes in the trickle down lie?
Sharkman
Just peruse today's.....any days, Breitbart headlines to understand how the extreme rhetoric of the mainstream left is 'hollowing out the political centre'.
The coverage you don't see on SBS.
It will only take you about two minutes.....and then you are free to defend your denial of the obvious all you like.
Dont be scared....you don't have to agree with Breitbart's editorial position to gain an understanding of how so many view the Left as way more extreme than Trump.
Blob, you know he's draining the swamp, using his tremendous real estate and construction skills, and re-imagining and re-building and MAKING GREAT in His glorious name.
TRUMPSTOWN!
MTTGA!
Yes'm.
Get with the times, brothers and sisters!
Drink the Diet-Coke!
Guysmiley
...but we are in agreement on the dangers of long term orientation to debt.
Where we disagree is on whether tax cuts always reduce revenue....and increase debt.
They don't.
....and on whether Trump deserves the unhinged criticism he gets compared to the ultimate big spender....Obama.
Trump has been manipulated on the budget bills by the 'business as usual' politicians on both sides.
We will see if he can address debt going foreword while juggling so many counterbalancing political balls.
Since you care so much, what credit do you give Abbott for being the only recent PM with a stomach for debt reduction....and the way it was used by the Left to unseat him?.
Trump's obvious and significant cognitive decline is a a major concern. The most casual analysis of his recent speeches and press conferences reveals that he is rarely capable of completing a sentence and absolutely incapable of coherent logical speech about anything beyond his own imaginary greatness. As a candidate he was capable of sticking to the simplistic propaganda his minders had provided for him. He has never been capable of mastering the complex issues that confront a President. He is the cantankerous great uncle at the Xmas table who starts one story and finishes another, who expresses one opinion and contradicts himself moments later. Reagan's symptoms did not reach this point until well after he was President.
Factotum
When your intellectual proposition (ridicule) blows up in your face
.....throw more ridicule on the fire.
Clever.
I'm more interested in what a politician is saying than how they say it.
I saw so much intellectual snobbery in the way my middle class, left leaning aquaintennces were horrified by Pauline Hanson's working class common sense....and accent!.
'Please explain...'
Negative reactions to Trump's communication skills are similarly revealing,....and show an irrational denial (snobbery) of his obvious success.
Now he's being sued by two separate groups of children.
"Since you care so much, what credit do you give Abbott for being the only recent PM with a stomach for debt reduction."
What? you are fu(king kidding Abbott went on a spending spree of his own pet projects (ala sponging sponsors) then decided to save money by Zombie budget cuts that no one would look at.
BTW spending accelerated under Abbott FFS.
Abbott was the best example in the entire western world of a complete tosser getting elected then train wreck short time later what a tosser.
Blob,
Its good you reference Abbott.
Abbott worked on the theory that if you told a lie often enough it became fact, well at least in his mind. Please do not do that here when it comes to relaying who is responsible for America's staggering debt. There is ample evidence available from a range of credible and independent sources that clearly shows who were the big spending low taxing American presidents since and including Reagan, all Republican.
On Abbott and debt. If you ignore the fact that he lied to the electorate before becoming PM about what he intended in his first and second budgets you can't ignore the fact that debt greatly increased during his government and has continued to increase under Turnbull and Morrison.
Debt should be reigned in and after 5.5 years in government the reactionaries have no plan apart from their discredited neo-liberalism company tax cuts voodoo. Its ironic don't you think its the "leftist" Shorten that is presenting a credible plan to reduce debt.
Abbott will be lucky to hold his blue ribbon seat next time around. People in Warringah are conservative but they are not ignorant. He has zero credibility for saying climate change was a good thing, and even less for totally ignoring the interests of his electorate over a long period.
All over it Guy. He's going down!
Haha that would be good to see him lose.
And I wonder wtf is that clown doing as a Special Envoy for Aboriginal Affairs...honestly the Coalition really are one clown short of a circus.
Argue with Tony....you just hate him because he rides a longboard.
http://tonyabbott.com.au/2016/02/quadrant-article-the-economic-case-for-...
Meanwhile in the UK the right wing Brexiteers are about to wreck the government.
More of a lover than a hater Blob, and I have nothing against long boarders.
Abbott is more about entertainment value, and his actions have spoken loudly in the past.
As for your link, "QUADRANT ARTICLE: THE ECONOMIC CASE FOR THE ABBOTT GOVERNMENT"
Haha Yea naa I will give it a miss Blob, perhaps you could summarize it for me in 25 words or less?
There is nothing positive that can be said about Abbott or his reactionary colleagues in public life.
One of the most distressing features of right wing politics in the US is the extent to which it has been deliberately created to benefit a tiny class - the obscenely and irresponsibly wealthy. The methods by which it has achieved its goals are so thoroughly reprehensible that most of us could hardly begin to imagine them. It has traded in deceit, hypocrisy and total indifference to the human cost of its policies.
For several generations, usually with money derived from government contracts, they have pushed the idea of small government. Well small in terms of regulations anyway and still smaller on welfare ..... but still big on military and industrial projects to keep the billions rolling. They have subverted academia by funding politically partisan units within universities, they have subverted the judiciary lavishing them with free holidays at the cost of a regular doses of right wing propaganda. They lied about tobacco. They lied about climate change. They lied well pretty much about everything.
And now we have their ignorant acolytes, too lazy to read any actual history, recycling their toxic philosophies across any social media outlet they can find. At the upper end these are well paid trolls working long hours across a large number sites. At the lower end they are just poorly educated and easily manipulated individuals donating their labour while cutting and pasting their ideas, if not their exact words from some toxic site running on trust fund money. But don't take my word for it. Read the history. Maybe start with "Dark Money" Jane Mayer. It nails the fuckin' arseholes to the wall.
Missing the point guys
Abbott had a go at debt.
Abbot tried to deliver structural reform and debt control but was stymied in the senate and (with some self sabotage) assassinated by a labor friendly media....Eg. Mediscare and a knighthood.
“Had those measures passed through the Senate, our budgetary position would be vastly better, our future I think would be much more secure because we would be living within our means.”
Since austerity is never popular and tax increases don't grow the economy how do the Swelleft economists propose reducing debt?.
Example 2 above - poorly educated, easily manipulated free labour for the manipulators.
Poorly educated or rich private schoolboy
Make up your mind.
How does someone capable of repeated factual errors get to be so superior?
Start me up and I'll be motivated again to dismantle your inadequate mental processes.
Debt....
Although I see the alternatives to Trump as horrible I think grass roots conservatives view crony capitalism with the same distaste as they see big government.
"Will taxing the rich solve all of our national money problems?
Of course not.
The truth is that we are taxed more than enough already.
The following are 14 statistics about taxation in the United States for you all to consider….
#1 The top 1 percent of all income earners already pay 39.5 percent of all federal income taxes.
#2 When you take all forms of federal taxation into account, the top 1 percent of all income earners pay 28.1 percent of all federal taxes.
#3 The top 20 percent of all income earners in the United States pay approximately 86 percent of all federal income taxes.
#4 One recent poll found that 64 percent of Americans are in favor of raising taxes on those that make $250,000 or more a year in order to help balance the federal budget deficit. Another recent poll found that 72 percent of Americans favor raising taxes on those making $250,000 or more a year.
#5 Approximately 45 percent of all U.S. households pay absolutely no income taxes at all.
#6 Overall, U.S. households are now receiving more income from the U.S. government than they are paying to the government in taxes. This is clearly not anywhere close to sustainable.
#7 During 2010, the U.S. government paid out a combined $2.3 trillion in unemployment benefits, Social Security benefits, disability insurance, Medicare benefits, Medicaid benefits, benefits for veterans, education assistance and other direct transfers of cash from the government to individual citizens.
#8 59 percent of all Americans now receive a government payout of one form or another.
#9 The ultra-wealthy keep much of their wealth outside of the United States so that the government cannot tax it. It has been estimated that a third of all the wealth in the world is held in “offshore” banks.
#10 Thanks to new corporate tax cuts in Japan, the United States now has the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world.
#11 Large corporations have become masters at avoiding taxes. Back in the 1950s, corporate taxes accounted for about 30 percent of all federal revenue, but in 2009 corporate taxes accounted for just 6.6 percent.
#12 General Electric has been a great friend to the Obama administration. According to the New York Times, General Electric made a total of 14.2 billion dollars in profits last year. So how much did they pay in taxes to the U.S. Treasury? According to the New York Times, not one penny was paid.
#13 Even though Boeing receives billions in federal subsidies every year and even though it has a bunch of juicy government contracts it did not pay a single penny in federal corporate income taxes from 2008 to 2010.
#14 Exxon-Mobil paid $15 billion in taxes in 2009, but not a single penny went to the U.S. government. Meanwhile, their CEO brought in over 29 million dollars in total compensation that year."
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/tax-the-rich-14-facts-you-may-...
Blowin, Honest keeping USA first , or MAGA?
Would you describe your self as a Nationalist also?
Blowin, "Unemployment down wages up......."
So this was happening under Obama , 8 years of fixing what the Republicans did to the economy.....Trump is risking all of this long term , by taking the short term policy of flooding the economy with trillions of $'s , in tax cuts and infrastructure construction.....lets see what happens when all this QE/Sugar hit spending runs out , how is the Dow doing?
oh blobby's back....."But this is not all fun and games....like drowned asylum seekers and Muslim rape gangs the Left's naive good intentions are absolutely fatal."
So now you blame the left for Muslims and refugees , very Christian I can see Jesus drowning the refugees and and blaming Muslims for everything.......your Christian ,"sharing and caring " is just so overwhelming that you actually start sounding like one of the "Rabid right!"
What about that Terrorist attack in Melbourne where an Immigrant was stabbed...c'mon ban all muslims no?
yes blobster .."Dont be scared....you don't have to agree with Breitbart's editorial position to gain an understanding of how so many view the Left as way more extreme than Trump."
Breitbart , or Blackbart , headlines are the problem with the right , seems to be their primary source of facts as they want them......I actually watch a lot of Fox USA news in particular , Hannity , as " keeps your friends close , but keep your enemies closer " he's not as good as Bill O'Reilly !
I use all sorts of cross referencing when forming an opinion , do you actually ever read anything but Black Bart?
blobbyboy ,now you are getting a little carried away
"Negative reactions to Trump's communication skills are similarly revealing,....and show an irrational denial (snobbery) of his obvious success."
He communicates very well with himself and would you say going bankrupt 4 times is success?
Do you think he is a big success as a father and Husband?
Do you think women and other ethnic groups see him as a success
Are you reading about the Trumpenomics , from economists?
I think Blindblob is perhaps are more fitting as a forum name .....especially when you keep bringing up Obama's economic record .....
now Blooby , "Poorly educated or rich private schoolboy
Make up your mind.
How does someone capable of repeated factual errors get to be so superior?
Start me up and I'll be motivated again to dismantle your inadequate mental processes."
I am done this morning as the tears of laughter have nearly shut down my computer....now I see how and hopefully others , that calling yourself and Abbot Christians appeals to you enemy ridden /superior mental process , actually after this statement of your intellectual superiority ....."Might is white , white is right..always!"
Blob says .... "Since austerity is never popular and tax increases don't grow the economy how do the Swelleft economists propose reducing debt?."
Well Blob, how is Trump doing to get the budget back into surplus pursuing current policies?
If Trump succeeds in reintroducing a manufacturing base to the USA that would be an incredible boost for national finances , reduce welfare dependence, increase consumer spending and revitalise the economy in a multitude of ways ....all of which will increase governmental income and could be used to reduce debt.
Now you can answer Blob’s question, Guy.
Sometimes the ignorance is beyond belief. A generation of careful economic analysis just passes them by like it never happened. Economics reduced to arithmetic. Picketty? Never heard of him. By reducing the tax for middle and lower income groups you boost economic growth because those groups spend the majority of their income almost immediately on goods and services. The tax lost by these cuts can be compensated by making wealthy individuals and corporations pay the tax they have been avoiding these last several decades. Money that is not spent on goods and services but on driving up the prices of speculative assets eg housing. The Panama Papers? The Paradise Papers? What? Never heard of them either. The ignorant are always opinionated because things seem are so simple in their minds.
During the 2016 campaign, Trump vowed to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and have the Mexican government pay for it. But since his election, he has changed course, saying instead the money must come from Congress and U.S. taxpayers.
AT least he's honest....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/senate-republicans-to-pl...
Exactly, BB.
Except low income groups pay NO tax whatsoever.
And when I suggested that middle income groups should pay less you went cross eyed with class war envy .
Here’s a list of working definitions of the terms employed by the Swellnet crew :
Low income earner - Unrecognised angel of society. All low income earners should be assumed to be kind hearted individuals who struggle under the yoke of corporate oppression and who all provide essential and under appreciated roles for society such as nursing , care worker etc etc Salt of the Earth people . The fact that they’re entire existence is subsidised by the hard working , the ambitious and the industrious is never to be mentioned.
Welfare dependent- A victim of circumstance. A pawn in the game of life . A trustworthy battler who would if they could. The possibility that a large percentage of welfare recipients are gaming the system is never to be entertained. The fact that the majority of Australians are welfare dependent or are net tax receivers is never to be considered as anything but appropriate.
High income earners - Deceitful, capitalist scum . Raping the generosity of the rest of the nation through income tax avoidance which they are ALL guilty of. To a man, or woman , they game the system through trusts and offshore accounts. The fact that they provide 99 percent of the funding for our society to operate is no reason to halt the ongoing class war , envy defamation that those who’ve read a book on economics will engage in.
As it stands in Swellnet land - Paying $500.000 tax instead of $1000000 makes you a bad person.
Whilst being a useless , unmotivated fuck who has never paid a cent in tax , but has received government subsidies and hand outs your entire life is assumed to be a good person.
Sad but true.
In short - All high income earners ( >$100,000/yr ) are Gina Rhinehart / Malcom Turnbullesque rooters with amazing accounting skills and Bahamas bank accounts.
All low income earners are the entertaining homeless busker who’s down on his luck but still retains his heart of gold or a single mum genuinely struggling at 3 jobs to feed her kids who will go on to careers as heart surgeons if given a chance.
Just goes to show you can read as many books by economists as you like and still not understand how economics works.
https://theconversation.com/factcheck-is-50-of-all-income-tax-in-austral...
BB said -
“By reducing the tax for middle and lower income groups you boost economic growth because those groups spend the majority of their income almost immediately on goods and services.”
Unlike slightly wealthy people who’ve worked hard for their money and would rather hoard a massive pile of cash and literally sit on it like Scrooge Mcduck.
For a fella that’s so beholden to quantifiable statistics , BB , you sure do love a bit of unsubstantiated rubbish strewn through your emotion based arguments.
“Money that is not spent on goods and services but on driving up the prices of speculative assets eg housing”
OMFG
The housing Ponzi scheme may be a truly unproductive way for Australia to utilise it’s resources, but to claim that the mass scale construction of houses and apartments is not a spend on goods and services is so wrong that I shouldn’t have to point it out.
Yet you’re on your soapbox claiming that “ the ignorance is beyond belief , a generation of careful economic analysis just passes them by “.
Miner working underground, night shift in 42 degree heat away from family in remote area for 130 hr fortnights paying $80K / year tax is a bad person . Tax avoiding scum with expensive accountants in exotic countries.
Whilst
The fucker that would rather smoke bongs than get a job or work more than 10 hours / week cash in hand washing dishes is a good person.
I know people in both situations and try not to judge , but some on here judge alright and it’s the worker that comes off second best !
Twisted thought processes.
Interesting watching you go through a public conservative conversion, Blowin. Rather than get offended at some of your generalisations, I'll come from a different angle. You constantly talk about national cohesion, the things that should bind us etc, yet what will an ever-increasing spread of (after tax) income do but drive up inequality and further erode any sense of unity we have?
And then of course there's the more insidious effect of inequality: you can have inequality, or you can have democracy, but you can't have both.
So let your archetypal hard workers bring in ever more millions, but don't expect the national unity project to progress, nor an uncompromised political system.
Blowin, read Picketty, or some analysis of his work. Your interpretation of what I said is bizarre. For example, I referred to speculative money driving up house prices. This is not the same as money invested in constructing housing. Similarly your miner would be up for a tax reduction if the truly wealthy individuals and corporations paid their tax. As for low income earners not paying tax, tell that to aged care or child care workers or retail assistants on shit money but still paying more than those who can channel their wealth through trust funds and offshore tax havens. Tell me you have heard of the Panama Papers, please!
Mate , I am in no way even remotely close to being a conservative. I just think the tax system is fucked.
I’m all for tax and contributing to our shared society, that’s why I get freaked out that people can go their entire lives without ever contributing . Shops that are cash only freak me , corporations that pay zero tax yet receive subsidies freak me and crew that just cruise and pay no tax freak me.
I’m all for cruising, don’t get me wrong , but everyone must contribute at some stage. I think there should be a minimum and a maximum tax contribution.
Make it progressive, by all means , but everyone must contribute. To say that low income earners are better off spending the money themselves rather than a small slice of tax as the money goes directly towards goods and services is bullshit. What do you think the government does with the money ? It spends it on goods and services!
But rather than getting a copy of New Idea or a longneck, the money goes towards Health and education or welfare for those who truly need it .
More tax , more evenly spread . More accountability in government spending.
Conservative ? Fuck me....
I am curious if you guys like DonaldTrump, or do you hate him?