The Real timschochet

You make a fine sycophant (for Joffrey or Trump.)

I’ve heard this line my entire life and it’s never made any sense to me. The aims, purposes, methods of government have nothing to do with private business. If you want to argue that government should be run more efficiently that one thing. But you can’t run it like a business because it’s entirely different.

And I am making two points in contradiction to you: 1. Both Trump and Biden’s spending during 2020 and 2021 were absolutely necessary or else we would have been financially far worse off. 2. Although this spending did contribute to inflation it wasn’t really a significant factor since inflation was world-wide. If we had spent nothing, or twice as much, the overall amount of inflation would have been little affected. The roots were global, the solution is global.

Biden stumbling a little but this is still his best speech by far since the State of the Union. Hopefully it bodes good things for Monday.

Sorry not Medicare- prescription drugs.

Kamala and Biden right now giving a speech, appear to have achieved a breakthrough on Medicare payments- waiting to get the details. Biden sounds coherent and absolutely fine. Though I knew that already.

Yes. @Engorgeous George is exaggerating the problem here IMO.

OK my solution. 1. Continue as we are except try to be thoughtful about it- no major cuts that will kill the economy. No more big tax cuts. 2. invest heavily in nuclear energy, particularly nuclear fusion. Whatever it takes. 3. Free trade. No more tariffs. It’s the only way to grow the economy. We need to grow grow grow. 4 More legal immigrants. Welcome them in as we did at the start of the 20th century. Check them for disease and criminal records but otherwise let them in NO LiMITATIONS. I suspect some of these ideas won’t be popular….

I’ve noticed it my entire life. You cannot cut your way out of government debt either.

Finally a good idea

Hunter is a marvelous lyricist one of the best ever. But remember that DeTocqueville was ultimately an optimist about this nation- as I am. He believed things would eventually always turn out all right.

Regarding my last post: can we really blame Donald Trump and Kamala Harris for promising the voters that they won’t cut anything and will increase spending? If they don’t promise this they will lose. We are the ones causing this all to happen.

There are numerous problems with this as I’m sure you realize. But the first and most important one is this: whichever political party dares to propose something like this, much less enact it, will be tossed out on their asses in the next election.

Well first off, you picking one issue (money to Ukraine) is a good example of what I described- conservatives using the debt crisis to argue against spending they disapprove of. If you were to argue against ALL spending, or include spending that you do approve of, I’d give you more credit (though it wouldn’t change the insignificance of your point.) Second, Ukraine is a particularly bad example to use in this discussion since it involves government spending in our own military-industrial complex- we purchase the weapons from here and send them there. It actually may increase our revenue long term. While there may be very legitimate reasons to oppose our aid to Ukraine, the annual deficit is not one of them. Finally raising taxes may not be a good or pleasant idea but it would reduce the deficit (if uncoupled by equal or more spending which is almost always the case.)

I started a new thread on the national debt so that the discussion wouldn’t take over this one.

It wouldn’t surprise me. As a general rule I am opposed to rent controls and price controls. But during Covid I personally witnessed commercial landlords taking advantage of small business misery which I regarded not only as awful but also stupid for the long term interests of those landlords as well. So I am not opposed to regulations if they are carefully thought out.

No you don’t. The truth is that nobody has ever cared about the deficit. Republicans pretended to care but only as a means to attack spending they didn’t particularly like. Democrats are more honest: they never pretended (although as I wrote earlier Democrats have generally been more fiscally responsible than Republicans but not because they give a crap about it.)

If it had to be done, what is your explanation for Trump’s current proposals which will increase the deficit way more than he did the last time around?

The 4% number will be reduced to less than 1% when the election is held.

You’re all over the place and apparently unwilling to face the contradiction in your position. Inflation was far better under Trump than it was now. Trump greatly increased the annual deficit and debt, which demonstrates your theory that government spending is directly related to inflation is false. And you still won’t answer the question of why you support Trump’s new proposals to vastly increase the deficit when you are (correctly) concerned with the long term ramifications of doing so.

No, because inflation is world wide, was caused by Covid, and internal American spending has made little difference. That said I agree our deficit and overall debt is a long term ticking time bomb which neither political party is willing to address. But my observation is that despite their rhetoric on the subject, Republicans have been significantly worse than Democrats on this issue (mainly because Democrats are willing to raise taxes) and that Trump’s current plans will raise the deficit far more than any Democrat or anyone who has come before him. Would you agree with any of this?

Putting aside everything else, if you believe this please explain how you can support Donald Trump and the current GOP agenda which involves increasing government deficit spending far more than anything the Democrats have proposed.

Here you go @HellToupee.

Hysterical? No. And it’s not on selective countries, as I continue to point out. It’s on ALL countries. Trump confirmed this again yesterday.

I have no idea if it will alleviate inflation. But I do know that your assertion “the government caused the problem” is lazy, extremely simplistic, and almost certainly wrong, and this makes me skeptical of your other assertions.