America - The Official Thread

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Who is Tulsi Gabbard? I have no idea who she is and never heard of her before, but NBC says we're playing for her now...

Well... since they say so, I guess we have to...
 
kembro
22 Trillion debt, found your National Emergency Don. Keeps rather quiet on that one. Easier to whip up racial hatred.
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The debt is insoluble and will be the death of us, except for two and only two possible solutions:
1) Economic growth
2) Devaluation of the dollar.

Miraculously, Trump has economic growth working for him at the moment. A recent Rasmussen poll give him 52% approval rating.
 
Rage Racer
Who is Tulsi Gabbard? I have no idea who she is and never heard of her before, but NBC says we're playing for her now...

Well... since they say so, I guess we have to...
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In terms of Democrats, you could do a whole lot worse than Gabbard. As an Iraq war veteran, she is a realist and her instinct is to avoid war by thinking and talking first. To a lot of Americans, including politicians, every problem from hemorrhoids to erectile dysfunction is due to Russians under the bed.
 
Rage Racer
Who is Tulsi Gabbard? I have no idea who she is and never heard of her before, but NBC says we're playing for her now...

Well... since they say so, I guess we have to...
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That Article was completely Dubunked by jimmy Dore who showed that the Soo called experts was a company that got banned from Twitter for Russia Smearing accounts:

MSM in America is complete trash when it comes to political matters they have lost nearly all credibility.
 
Dotini
The debt is insoluble and will be the death of us, except for two and only two possible solutions:
1) Economic growth
2) Devaluation of the dollar.

Miraculously, Trump has economic growth working for him at the moment. A recent Rasmussen poll give him 52% approval rating.
Click to expand...
Devaluation of the Dollar is a massive risk of losing World Reserve Currency Status though, do that and you risk hyperinflation.
 
mustafur
Devaluation of the Dollar is a massive risk of losing World Reserve Currency Status though, do that and you risk hyperinflation.
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Exactly. And it's the death sentence for everyone on a fixed income. So it's grow or die. There is no try.
 
Danoff
What you missed was the point.
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What's your point? You said that they must not have made any profits, while they made record profits, all the while paying their workers potentially less.

If your point is "taxable" profit. Well it's taxed already, isn't it? Amazon's just taking advantage of a broken system that's set-up in their favor.
 
Dotini
Exactly. And it's the death sentence for everyone on a fixed income. So it's grow or die. There is no try.
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That would still require massive cuts to government spending though which would probably have a big negative effect on the economy.
 
samurai8juice
What's your point? You said that they must not have made any profits,
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They must have "posted" no profits, was my original quote - meaning reported... to the IRS... no taxable profits. So for example if I route 100% of my income pre-tax, I post no income to the IRS. If I report some income, and then deduct it all, I'm reporting no taxable income. The difference is immaterial to my point.

Which is...

They're behaving exactly as you'd expect based on our corporate tax code. They're moving money out (to employees, which was linked in one of your articles), and into their business. Whatever they reported they knew they could deduct. That's how you'd expect businesses to operate when you tell them that they'll have to pay a big fraction if they want to build up cash reserves.

Also, moving their money into their company and their employees is good for a lot of reasons. So who cares?

Edit:

Here, this is a better article: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/t...-bezos-is-better-at-avoiding-taxes-2018-04-04
 
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This is a genuine question I have and not an attempt at trolling or stirring.

Why do so many people in the former Confederate States use that flag as their heritage or pride or whatever? By which I mean the battle flag of the North Virginian army.

I know that that design was incorporated into the third and final CSA flag but that flag was adopted in March 1865, pretty much as the Confederacy was over and it wasn't as though that was "the" flag, it was just in the upper left canton.

158px-Flag_of_the_Confederate_States_of_America_%281865%29.svg.png


Why is the original stars and bars flag not anywhere near as revered?

255px-Flag_of_the_Confederate_States_of_America_%281861%E2%80%931863%29.svg.png
 
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Liquid
This is a genuine question I have and not an attempt at trolling or stirring.

Why do so many people in the former Confederate States use that flag as their heritage or pride or whatever? By which I mean the battle flag of the North Virginian army.
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Lee's forces were the primary force of the Eastern front and their battle flag was the one that remained after the war. That Battle Flag (different from the 'national' flags you pictured) came into wider use across forces because the new Confederate flag, deliberately designed to keep the look-and-feel of the American flag, was too easy to confuse with that flag on the battlefield. In heritage terms they're both important facts in how that particular flag came to be so symbolic. If you're from one of the 11 states (or Kentucky and Missouri) then there's a flag on that banner which represents your state in the Civil War.

The same design was used in rectangular form as the Confederacy's second (and most prevalent) "Jack", or Navy flag.
 
huskeR32
I didn't know that economic growth was measured by public opinion.
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Yeah, little things like peace and prosperity are reflected in some public opinion polls. Important stuff like your favorite rap artist or ice cream flavor are measured in others.
 
Biggles
This latest "national emergency" , wall funding move by Trump exposes the reality that "small government/constitutionalist/libertarian" conservatives in the Republican party have been rendered completely irrelevant by Trumpism.
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The whole idea of conservative ideology is basically dead. The GOP has become almost nothing more than a group of disingenuous, politically expedient, base-pandering, anti-intellectual opportunists & trolls. They are Trump, institutionalized. It's the conscious, wanton rejection of reason, respect, and good faith that really disappoints me. I identified myself as more conservative than liberal not that long ago....

The liberals aren't much better, I would say, but at least you get a sense that they attempt to govern in good faith.
 
Biggles
This latest "national emergency" , wall funding move by Trump exposes the reality that "small government/constitutionalist/libertarian" conservatives in the Republican party have been rendered completely irrelevant by Trumpism.
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Eunos_Cosmo
The whole idea of conservative ideology is basically dead. The GOP has become almost nothing more than a group of disingenuous, politically expedient, base-pandering, anti-intellectual opportunists & trolls. They are Trump, institutionalized. It's the conscious, wanton rejection of reason, respect, and good faith that really disappoints me. I identified myself as more conservative than liberal not that long ago....

The liberals aren't much better, I would say, but at least you get a sense that they attempt to govern in good faith.
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It does kindof make you wonder what their platform actually is though doesn't it? I mean it seems wildly unpredictable at this point. Being anti-environmental, anti-immigration, anti-abortion, anti-welfare and anti-trade isn't really a platform or a philosophical basis for a party. It's just... a confusing mess.
 
Danoff
It does kindof make you wonder what their platform actually is though doesn't it? I mean it seems wildly unpredictable at this point. Being anti-environmental, anti-immigration, anti-abortion, anti-welfare and anti-trade isn't really a platform or a philosophical basis for a party. It's just... a confusing mess.
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The most coherent link between all of the GOP positions is effectively "anti-elite" masquerading as actually just "anti-intellectual".

I grew up in semi-rural Texas during GWB's presidency. The levels of toxic-dumbness are pretty wild. The 'thinking-class' (aka anyone educated beyond high school) is viewed with great suspicion. People on the coasts don't really seem to understand how much they are hated by folks in the interior. The vast majority of GOP support is purely fueled by conservative rage and vindictiveness. They don't want a government that helps Americans, they want a government that hurts liberals.

It's certainly a long, long way off from principled conservative leaders from years ago.
 
Danoff
Yea, that's not going to work out well for them. Being "not democrats" is not a strong selling point.
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Unfortunately for the multiple millions of Americans caught in the stupid-crossfire (used as one word, it's crossfire but stupid, German is better at creating such words :lol:) we're stuck with a government mostly controlled by them. Hope for better (smarter) days.
 
Danoff
It does kindof make you wonder what their platform actually is though doesn't it? I mean it seems wildly unpredictable at this point. Being anti-environmental, anti-immigration, anti-abortion, anti-welfare and anti-trade isn't really a platform or a philosophical basis for a party. It's just... a confusing mess.
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No kidding! The reality is:

... just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. They're racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic – Islamophobic – you name it.
— Hillary Clinton.

Unfortunately, that half of Trump supporters appear to be calling the shots right now. We could have had Hilary Clinton - the Angela Merkel of American politics - competent, middle-of-the-road, bureaucratic, predictable, boring. Instead we've got Viktor Orban, with a smidgeon of Duterte & Kim Jong-un thrown in. :ouch:

Eunos_Cosmo
The liberals aren't much better, I would say, but at least you get a sense that they attempt to govern in good faith.
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Don't call them "liberals". So confusing! You're really talking about the Democratic party, no? Will they go Joe Biden ... or AOCish?
 
Dotini
Yeah, little things like peace and prosperity are reflected in some public opinion polls.
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No, they're not. People's blatant biases are all that's reflected.

Polls showed an immediate upswing in questions of economic prosperity after Trump was elected, well before any policy of his could possibly have had any effect whatsoever. People just felt better that their guy was in office, and just started answering every question with "Yep, ____ is better!" It's nonsense.
 
I think to date, the only politician I'll be supporting is Andrew Yang. So far, hes the only one that is showing foresight and not pandering or building off the base agenda that others seems to be looking to run on. Hes running as a dem, but much like Sanders, is more independent than not.
 
huskeR32
No, they're not. People's blatant biases are all that's reflected.

Polls showed an immediate upswing in questions of economic prosperity after Trump was elected, well before any policy of his could possibly have had any effect whatsoever. People just felt better that their guy was in office, and just started answering every question with "Yep, ____ is better!" It's nonsense.
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Perhaps you are all right about polls. Maybe none of them mean anything, except for the ones on Election Day. I don't really care for them either. All I can say positively is that the US economy is currently the envy of the world. Knock on wood. My main gripe is US military boots on the ground in literally dozens of other people's countries around the world, especially in the Mideast and now in Africa. And of course I'm unhappy with Russia and China being on our enemies list. And I expect Trump is being persuaded by his neocons to attack Iran. I have no idea what would justify that.
 

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