Economic, taxes, and tariffs discussion

[nullnor]

i think this is something everyone already knows.. i don't think people vote for issues anymore as much as voting for identity. as we get farther down the road and strategies, intentional or not, evolve and start having a predefined meaning. for example, liberals raise taxes.. etc..

this article caught my eye. it might be an answer or or it might not. 'How Identity, Not Issues, Explains the Partisan Divide' https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...rtisan-divide/

If Americans slide into seeing all policy debates as battles between Us vs. Them, we stop selecting policies based on their actual content. Ironically, this would lead to choosing policies that don’t match our personal values

[cardboardbox]

Not sure where this discussion fits, but this entire thread about the F-35 is worth a read. What a gigantic waste of money:

https://twitter.com/MikeRoach3/statu...12921071329281

No idea if he's wrong on 1 point or all of it but I wouldnt completely believe a random socialist on twitter.

[cardboardbox]

Until you decide to lead with how much a waste of money the F-35 is, until you are out at rallies and marches against this spending, until you attack every single politician who has ever voted to fun this money pit, please and kindly refrain from talking about how necessary it is to trim the budget of things like feeding old people some meals, which by the way, data shows keeps them out of expensive nursing homes and out of emergency care. Please stop holding up Reagan era, racially charged images of "welfare queens" living off the hard work of good honest folk. Getting angry over giving pennies to the poor and hungry and sick while not saying enough about giving a much bigger chunk of your paychecks to things like the F-35.

And yes, I am aware Democrat politicians turn a blind eye to MIC overspending too, and we should be holding all politicians accountable for doing that. But at least Dems don't spend so much time attacking welfare spending while also being complicit in this complete waste of tax payer money.

should we keep using the old aircraft designs forever? Mrs Box used to play Civilization with me and she would always try to fight my tanks with her elephants. :|

[B-Fly]

should we keep using the old aircraft designs forever? Mrs Box used to play Civilization with me and she would always try to fight my tanks with her elephants. :|

Whose military innovations are we trying to keep up with, exactly?

[cardboardbox]

Whose military innovations are we trying to keep up with, exactly?

How safe would you feel if we fell behind in military technology? I'd rather keep ahead of everyone.

[B-Fly]

How safe would you feel if we fell behind in military technology? I'd rather keep ahead of everyone.

We're not remotely at risk of falling behind anybody in military spending or military technology. I'd much rather spend a lot less money in an area where there's so little evidence of need, when our country has so many areas where the need for expanded capacity is so great (such as employees to effectively process and adjudicate immigration and asylum cases, or domestic infrastructure).

[cardboardbox]

We're not remotely at risk of falling behind anybody in military spending or military technology. I'd much rather spend a lot less money in an area where there's so little evidence of need, when our country has so many areas where the need for expanded capacity is so great (such as employees to effectively process and adjudicate immigration and asylum cases, or domestic infrastructure).

Sure, I'd like to spend less money also, who wouldnt? Then we can either have more tax cuts or pay down the debt.

But if we continued to fly f-15's, f-16's, f-18's, and a-10's for another 25 years, are you sure those platform's wouldnt be so outdated that someone could pass us?

[nullnor]

can an elephant take on a tank? it actually sounds more even than you'd think?

[Sour Masher]

should we keep using the old aircraft designs forever? Mrs Box used to play Civilization with me and she would always try to fight my tanks with her elephants. :|

We spend money all wrong on military spending. We waste more there than anywhere else, and it does less good. We have not sufficiently adapted to 21st century warfare. We are getting hacked and beat in the new ways countries are waging war. I'm not saying we should not spend to stay cutting edge on conventional warfare, but we way overspend in that area in very, very wasteful, pork-filled ways that doesn't actually keep us cutting-edge. And I think we actually don't focus enough resources on cyber-warfare, nano tech, intelligence ops, and the like.

If you are willing to go down the rabbit hole on this, look up more on the F-35. It isn't just liberal noise. It is a big example of the waste and corruption of the MIC in this country. It isn't like Civilization, the game, because in that game, if you devote resources to advance, you will advance. In the game we are playing here, we are actually still using the old tech, because it is still better than the new tech we are supposedly developing, but really just wasting hundreds of billions on.

I suppose, if you wanted to make an absurd argument, you could say, we need a military budget bigger than the next seven countries combined, because we are so utterly inept, corrupt and wasteful in our military spending that if we don't overspend the next seven countries combined, we might somehow fall behind them? I'd respond to that argument by saying we should be spending smarter, not more.

[revo]

Dopey Donald first unleashed his tariffs in January on washing machines. Since then, the laundry equipment price index (the inflation of prices within this sector), as tracked by the Labor Department's CPI, has surged 17% over the last three months (to May 31), the largest surge ever in this particular sector (previous high, 5% in Jan 2017) -- as compared to 0.2% for the rest of the index. Household appliances also surged in price 15.7%.

#thanksdonald

[chancellor]

Do you really think that the economy is going to stay where it is, or even possibility improve? Because I can see no evidence that it will, companies are pulling back, what was once the middle class has less and less spendable cash, and the farm and rust belts look like they'll suffer more under the tariffs...please, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't like to see the majority of the population suffer.

I don't either. We're just looking at the same data and reaching different conclusions. Official unemployment is hanging around 4.0%, but the U6 index has decreased below 8% - a figure not seen for over 17 years. So that means many more long-term unemployed have re-entered the workplace, which IMO, is very good for the economy. I don't see a lot of improvement, but that's primarily because a 4% unemployment and a sub-8% U6 is at or near full-employment from everything I've read.

While I'm not a big fan of a tariff war, I'm not sure it will have as negative of an impact as you're saying. Will it slow down the economy? Possibly, but growth of 3-4% might just be preferable to a growth rate of 4+% due to inflationary pressures.

[cardboardbox]

I suppose, if you wanted to make an absurd argument, you could say, we need a military budget bigger than the next seven countries combined, because we are so utterly inept, corrupt and wasteful in <strike>our military</strike> all our government spending that if we don't overspend the next seven countries combined, we might somehow fall behind them? I'd respond to that argument by saying we should be spending smarter, not more.

So much truth to your statement above. Unfortunately our government is too stupid to spend smarter.

[chancellor]

Not sure where this discussion fits, but this entire thread about the F-35 is worth a read. What a gigantic waste of money:

https://twitter.com/MikeRoach3/statu...12921071329281

Interesting post, but there's some clear errors in the article.

1. The F-35 was NOT designed as a WVR (Within Visible Range) fighter. It's designed as a BRVS (Beyond Range of Visual Sight) fighter.
2. Not all F-35s are designed as VTOL jets, as the author stated. Those are F-35Bs. F-35As and the Israeli F-35s do not have this feature.
3. VR helmets are a must in BRVS warfare. Heck, tank crews use VR helmets today. That's stuff that was designed years ago for the military. It's hardly a bell and whistle. Tom Clancy wrote about that stuff like 20 years ago.
4. The author is correct that in training exercises a F-16 defeated a F-35. What he's left out is the F-35 had over a 15:1 kill ratio against F-16 or similar type jets in UK and Israeli tests.

OTOH, credit where it's due, his points about the vertical takeoff and landing version (the F-35B, specifically) have much truth. It's a compromised design that has achieved none of the key target parameters on g force capability, speed, maneuvering, or fuel efficiency. I suspect the Marines would have been better off with an upgraded Harrier design or similar, saving tens of billions. That said, both the Bush and Obama administrations own this giant gaffe, and not the present Trump administration.

[Sour Masher]

So much truth to your statement above. Unfortunately our government is too stupid to spend smarter.

There is waste across the board, but our nation is not spending over 7 times what the other 7 biggest economies in the world spend on social welfare programs. Yet that seems to be where Republicans focus on for government waste. Defense spending--separate from veterans spending, I should clarify, because we should be treating our vets even better than we do--is the biggest boondoggle in our budget. It is time we stop treating it as a sacred cow and shouting down anyone who calls for a leaner, less wasteful defense budget a traitor who hates soldiers, apple pie, and baseball.

[DMT]

There is waste across the board, but our nation is not spending over 7 times what the other 7 biggest economies in the world spend on social welfare programs. Yet that seems to be where Republicans focus on for government waste. Defense spending--separate from veterans spending, I should clarify, because we should be treating our vets even better than we do--is the biggest boondoggle in our budget. It is time we stop treating it as a sacred cow and shouting down anyone who calls for a leaner, less wasteful defense budget a traitor who hates soldiers, apple pie, and baseball.

Fat chance, that would undermine the fairytale of "American Exceptionalism" that both parties are devoted to.