Trump: The Second Year

Personally, at least in regards to the politicians mentioned, I don’t think it has anything to do with them personally as much as the foreign policy they advocated and words they used in rhetoric.

Right or wrong policy choices, hawk or dove, that’s the connection I see. We could debate the wisdom of their policy choices all day, but their foreign policy choices I think were “seen” as tough, along with the stump rhetoric. I don’t think it has anything to do with their personal experience.

Agreed on antitrust. Family farms dying is a shame; I have very fond memories of my grandpa’s family farm that has been in our family for almost 150 years. Fortunately after his passing some years ago we were able to keep it in the farming side of my family.

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This to me is one of the major issues. In order for tax cuts to have a good shot at working you need 2 things:

  1. Time, for them to take effect and to be able to discern that effect over statistical noise and confounding factors

  2. A long period of guaranteed cuts, that will not be walked back by the opposing party. This is probably the more critical for practical impacts.

Companies operate on a 3-5 year plan, and because payroll taxes are the lion’s share of expenses for almost any business you can’t reliably increase wages if it seems likely that either a) the next party is going to drop you off a cliff by reversing the cuts or even raising taxes higher, eliminating the margins you need to compete and stay afloat or b) the stock market/industries you rely on are going to turn down.

Both of these items are in play for businesses right now as the market is overheated. The recent downturn in home prices in SoCal might also signal trouble on the horizon. And there’s nothing a business hates more than uncertainty. People can blame “the rich”, “CEOs”, or “profit above all else” all they want but the truth is you have to be able to plan for the worst in advance.

IMO if we ever got a guaranteed, untouchable cut with a set duration (lay 12+ years), you’d probably see a more pronounced effect on wages. It’s pure conjecture on my part but I certainly wouldn’t raise wages myself if I thought my windfall would be erased in the next business cycle by a recession or the opposing party.

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It didn’t do all that much and in my opinion should have done a lot more to help truly small businesses get on the level with larger ones.

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I don’t think that I’m “youngster” material here lol, but I certainly want to be mobile. I also think student debt plays into this significantly–if you have 70K+ of student loans, do you REALLY want another 200K+ in housing debt?? Signs point to ‘no’ for financially literate millennials.

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And given how we both have fear of a Dem reversal and a fun little trade war fucking with the raw goods and other sectors, it makes perfect sense for these companies to be dumping money in stock buybacks and leaving wages at a standstill.

You can’t bait corporate America into swallowing higher wages when they already know another recession is brewing

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Agree. I’ll add my major pet peeve is when someone–either lawmaker or like Zeppy–starts to go on and on about corporate greed in this context. There are plenty of things to take corporations to task about (info sec of personal items is one, ala Facebook), some of which can also include greed and I’ll be happy to hop on board the accountability train. But you can’t blame them for responding this way when faced with a situation like this IMHO.

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I was reading an article about an uptick in demand from people willing to pay more for locally sourced organic vegetables, grass fed beef, and the like. I think we’ll continue to have a market for smaller operations, hobby farms that sell nicer things. I think that trend will grow. Two Americas. People with money are willing to pay more for handmade things and craftsmanship instead mass produced items and for better quality food. People trying to avoid big factory farms and food from Walmart.

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@anon71262119:

There is a feeling that we are headed toward; (if not already there); a “two-tiered” system for a number of things.

Healthcare is one of the more obvious.

This isn’t a judgement one way or the other; just an observation.

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@ Conservatism.

We have only just started to see the effects of the Trump’s new trade war and tariffs. Yesterday’s headlines were all about the Trump administration plan to give $12 Billion in farm aid to temporarily ease some pain over the trade dispute. People in commodities like soybeans, cotton, wheat and pork are worried about retaliatory tariffs. The reasoning is to give them time to work out better trade agreements. I think it’s a panic mode response to a hamfisted idea on trade. If you’re more of a Milton Friedman Conservative on economics, this is all a move in the wrong direction.

As a more small government person, I don’t want to see a trade war propped up by government bailouts, propping up industries. What we do with regard to manipulating commodity prices for special interests, corporate welfare like the sugar lobby. It’s a royal mess. This is the kind of thing that neither party has been able, or willing to address. They all want to be reelected from states that have their own corporate wins, special perks.

On a positive note for those of us who want to see the administrative state rolled back. I’m pretty happy about seeing some of the regulatory state get smaller. This has been a highlight for me. Maybe one of the only ones so far.

Reason - About 8 minutes.

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For sure. I think we have a growing class problem, and cultural division related to class.

I was thinking yesterday about all the publicly held companies. The pressure is to pay employees less, so they can keep stock holders happy. If you own a private company, you can pay your employees what you want. It seems that we’re seeing wages stagnant for a lot of people, not keeping up.

If you’re in the upper middle, you’re able to benefit from stocks and investments. I’m not sure what the answer is. We already have a very progressive tax system, but we seem to have a larger divide between the affluent and people who are barely making ends meet. That’s my perception. I don’t have an answer.

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Thoughtful post as usual. I don’t want to get into a tanget here but in this case I believe a significant % of the problem you refer to wrt: barely making ends meet is a complete lack of saving and budgeting. I’m keenly aware that the lack of fiscal management doesn’t explain everything, nor would waving a magic wand to suddenly make everyone financially savvy fix all poverty or hardship. However, it does play a key role IMO.

We both have more “toys” available to buy and less discipline to save. We spend less of our money on food than almost any generation in the past. But we are deeper in debt, because we buy things constantly. Of course two major reasons are housing and student debt, but even considering those I think the lack of budgeting and saving is a major player. Wages don’t fix that.

I find that, irrespective of investment status, people in better straits behave like money is finite and keep track of it whereas many people in hard places don’t do the same. Again, knowing this doesn’t fix everything.

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Couple that with the availability of credit and you’ve got the makings for a disaster (we’re already right there in my opinion).

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Well, it’s part of the grand bargain in the last 40 years - dramatically lower prices for consumer goods in exchange for wage stagnation. Also, globalization of goods and services meant that “luxuries” hitherto available only to the richest became available to the masses - from affordable air travel to seemingly trivial stuff such as organically raised exotic fruits out of season.

You can’t afford a house but here’s some dragonfruit and organic coffee for you.

Also, there’s a new bar set for life expectations - the spread of internet, and especially mobile internet means that everyone, including inhabitants of “shithole” countries wants the good life that has been set as the achievable standard by the global entertainment industry - a house, a car, latest gadgets…

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Don’t forget the private island, G6, Bently and fountains of Crystal champagne.

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Unions? An actual socialist in the White House?

Because our economy is built upon people spending. I remember Obama saying that if min wage goes up those “folks” will have more to spend, thus strengthening the economy. Look at Christmas; if we suddenly decided that no, enough of the materialism, it’s about peace, love family, etc., what would happen to our economy?

I lived in a city where, if you didn’t own a car, good luck getting certain jobs outside of it. If you said you would take the bus to work it was a disqualifying factor. So to add to that car payment is an insurance payment that is twice as much as what I pay where I live now.

Look at cell phones, is it possible to get along without one? I needed to have one and I had to pay for it. Your home phone, if you have one, will cost you a lot less for a year than a cell phone will for a month.

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Absolutely, 100% agree.

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The flip side is private companies are typically already on the lower end of the pay spectrum. So not only does the market not expect them to pay as much, but without large companies increasing wages smaller companies have no incentive to ‘keep up’ as they typically run on ratios of the big guys.

The ability to save and build success for the future is largely dependent on breaking past the federal poverty line breakpoint. As you scale up from very low wages (12k+) to higher pay, you start to see a direct hit to your public assistance. So the difference between someone making 15k a year and 30k a year with 2 kids in the hood is essentially nothing when it comes to survival.

So how do you break out of that zone? Typically with an education of some kind or a lot of time at a single company (rare these days, even rarer during low unemployment times like today). So you take on debt to accomplish the education, but that also moves the needle up on how much you need to make to see the benefit, as your income based loan payments now scale as well.

So now you’re working for 45 living essentially the same QoL as the 15k guy.

And we’re so befuddled on why nobody wants to be a teacher.

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Agree with what you’ve all said. I’m mostly thinking out loud here.

I’m thinking of working poor people like this.

My husband was talking yesterday about an article on poverty in our county, and an example of a married couple. The wife had been working at Disney as a cook for several years, making $16 per hour. I assume she has health benefits with that job. The husband also worked as a cook but for a chain restaurant, making about $11 per hour.

Housing here is incredibly expensive, and we have some taxes like the recent tax on gasoline that disproportionately hurts poor people who have to commute to work. They can’t afford to live near the coast, where most of the jobs are.

"Using the California Poverty Measure (CPM) – which takes into account not just income but also cost of living and the value of social safety net programs – 19.4 percent of Californians, or 7.4 million people, currently live in poverty. According to the CPM measure, a family of four earning about $31,000 a year or less is below the poverty line.

Using the CPM measure, almost four in 10 Californians (38.2 percent) are living either below the poverty line or just above it."

Edit: I’m short on time right now, so stepping out for a few days. Please don’t think I’m ignoring you if I’m not responding.

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