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[smjjames]

Ah. The Puppet Trump has said, in an interview with Wall Street Journal that he is willing to lift sanctions against Russia. Not sure if he only means the sanctions instated for the hacking, or also the sanction for Crimea.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-sets-a-bar-for-russia-and-china-1484360380

sorry for the paywalled article.

Non paywalled article for convenience: http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/13/politics/donald-trump-russia-sanctions-taiwan/index.html

Sounds like his whole transactional view of doing diplomacy, though the carrot-and-stick is certainly a tool employed in diplomacy.

Since nobodys mentioned it in here yet, the Senate intel committee is investigating into possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. Politico article.

Also, Mike Flynn (Trumps National Security adviser) has been in contact with the Russian ambassador. Which one Senator calls "really suspicious".

Looks like the shit is starting to hit the fan and Trump is starting to slide into scandal before he even officially becomes POTUS, which has got to be a record.

And of course Trump attacks civil rights icon John Lewis after he said "I don't think Trump is a legit President", obviously and understandably, Trump has to defend himself here, but still, it's in the usual Trumpian overboardness.

[Reelya]

Looks like the shit is starting to hit the fan and Trump is starting to slide into scandal before he even officially becomes POTUS, which has got to be a record.

shit is starting to hit the fan

It was sort of inevitable give the trajectory. But it's beyond "shit hits the fan" now:

"Woah! look at that huge pile of shit! Man that's a lot of shit"

"Yeah, goddamn stuff stinks too. Hey is the shit moving? WTF!?"

"Do you hear that whirring sound?"

"Yeah, hang on looks like there's something under the shit"

"Oh god it's a fan, and it's on. how did that even get under there?"

"Well I guess the shit hit the fan, but due to sheer volume and speed it wasn't able to deflect it so it just sort of piled up in a fan-shaped pile of shit."

[smjjames]

True, it's been a constant lowish level of 'shit hitting the fan', but the rate is increasing and the dial is going up.

also lol @ your post.

[Reelya]

Yeah, there was that thing a while ago about Trump and the military's concept of the OODA (observe, orient, decide, act) loop. Trump is like an informational blitzkrieg: by the time you've radioed to headquarters about his latest maneuvers and received your new orders, he's already attacking the next objective.

Basically from one week to the next there's almost perfect randomness in what the narrative will be . There's almost no point in trying to discern exactly what policies are going to actually be enacted under Trump. "Republican-type stuff" is about the best anyone's come up with. But I doubt it's going to be so straightforward. This is completely alien territory where old rules and assumptions don't apply.

I mean when was the last time a president elect slagged off an entire industry and caused stocks to plummet 3-4% overnight? We're starting to see the real dangers of a social media president who just twitters random crazy shit now. Is Trump going to twitter random crap while he's POTUS too, causing all sorts of mini-crises.

EDIT: I have a hunch here about what Trump's actually economic policy is:

- Cause inflation, drop value of US dollar, bring back cheap labor (because minimum wage is now effectively less). That's probably why Trump is angry that the Yuan is pegged to the US dollar. You'd only be angry about that if you wish the US dollar to be lower vs the Yuan.

Trump will achieve this through higher deficit spending. Once inflation kicks up, other people and companies start offloading dollars too which speeds up the process, making it relatively cheaper for the government at that point. The other benefit is that debts decrease when inflation is high. e.g. if I owe you $1 billion dollars, but inflation is 10%, next year I effectively only owe you $900 million in real asset terms. So if you can get inflation high enough that there's a runaway process, then the national debt more or less evaporates (but there's a very fine line between that and imploding your economy).

[Iceblaster]

But that'd ruin any chance of there being a reelection. And he seems the person to want a reelection. Wouldn't effectively causing a second great depression(or just another recession) just make his approval ratings tank even further?

[Sprin]

-snip-

THE FUCK MATE!?

you have got to be joking.

[Vilanat]

More focused research suggests that only 1% of worldwide Muslims actually support ISIS.

https://www.quora.com/How-many-Muslims-support-Daesh-Why

Have you got a source for that statement?

[Reelya]

But that'd ruin any chance of there being a reelection. And he seems the person to want a reelection. Wouldn't effectively causing a second great depression(or just another recession) just make his approval ratings tank even further?

No, because driving money into the economy causes a boom, at first. It would last at least long enough to get Trump re-elected. But if sustained, it leads to stagflation at best.

The problem comes later. e.g. if a guy works 40 hours and you cut his taxes, he can afford to buy more stuff. This works great in the short term, but it causes a kick in inflation. For a very simple reason. Say everyone works 40 hours a week and produces "40x" units of product. Now, each person in the economy also consumes their share of production: which is also "40x" units. Now, because of the tax cuts, everyone has more money, which causes more units to be sold in the short-term, but in the long term, each person is still producing 40x units of produce and consuming 40x units of produce, they're just spending more money on it.

So now money is worth less because there's more money chasing the same goods. But that's good news for debtors (their debt is less in real terms) such as the fed., bad news for creditors (same reason) such as China. It's also good news for companies, since they can pay you the same dollars as before, but because of the lower tax rate, you get "more" in your pocket (but it buys the same), but the total amount spent on you by the company is less in real terms.

[BFEL]

-snip-

THE FUCK MATE!?

you have got to be joking.

But Sprin! Indefinite suspension of all civil liberties is the only way to be SURE that none of our fine upstanding drones get hacked by Russia and are swayed by those filthy bear-wrestlers!
I MEAN, ITS NOT LIKE THEY'RE HUMAN BEINGS OR ANYTHING. THEY'RE OBVIOUSLY JUST A WHOLE CONTINENTS WORTH OF NON-AMERICAN IDEALS.
WE CAN'T LET AMERICA BE INFLUENCED BY THAT! WE MUST PROPOGATE THE HILLAREICH! FOR GREAT JUSTICE! FOR AMERICA!
[/sarcasm]

[Reelya]

More focused research suggests that only 1% of worldwide Muslims actually support ISIS.

https://www.quora.com/How-many-Muslims-support-Daesh-Why

Have you got a source for that statement?

Well it's apparent if you look at surveys where they separate out "support" from "somewhat positive". If you say do you support ISIS, you get a figure 5-6 times lower than if you say "are you 'somewhat positive' to ISIS" which is the figure they mostly want to tell you about.
http://bridge.georgetown.edu/do-42-million-muslims-really-support-isis/

According to an article by the Clarion Project, more than 8 million people in the Arab world “support” the group, and as many as 42 million express at least “somewhat positive” views.

So in this research they separated out the concept of support from "somewhat positive", "somewhat negative", "totally against" etc. Other studies just ask "are you more favorable to ISIS than not", and lump that all in as "supports ISIS". But from the Clarion research it's clear that almost all people who are "somewhat positive" about ISIS don't actually consider themselves ISIS supporters. And this group includes Christian minorities and Buddhist minorities too. These people clearly support the concept of religious self-determination, so they are favorable to what ISIS stands for in the sense of anti-colonialism and ethnic/religious self-determination (thus why ISIS resonates with non-muslim religious minorities) but won't go so far as to say they support the actions of ISIS. In the same sense that being "somewhat positive" about America doesn't automatically mean you buy into GW Bush's War on Terror or Guantanamo Bay.

[wierd]

@ BFEL

I think I have already quote-blocked the original with my replies to the statements being discussed there. I looks to me like Sergarr has drunk the Stalin-era koolaid, and honestly believes that proper governance requires a government that is totally out of the public's control, and can thus say nonsense things A-la 1984 ministry of truth, and should be trusted implicitly.

Such an ideology denounces the idea that a state can exist solely for its own benefit, at the expense of its citizens/subjects, and thus does not actually serve the interests of those subjects-- nevermind the abundance of recent and historical examples of such states, and their component agencies. In so doing, it reaches a nonsensical conclusion that the machinations of a state's various apparatus are always to the benefit of those subjects, by securing a reliable status quo.  It does not matter if you are a helot, and the spartans routinely murder you for sport and as a right of passage. The spartans are there for your interests! Why, without the spartans, who would protect you from those other city states!? (Dont you WANT to be protected!?)-- et al.

The acid test is to ask who benefits, REALLY, from such things as secret courts and secret laws.  The obvious answer, is the state, and by extension, its component apparati.  To such a state, the public are merely a resource to be utilized and controlled, hence the "need" for domestic psyops and propaganda. 



 

[Sprin]

stuff like that has only failed every single time

[Reelya]

What about PBS? Do they have a TV news service/channel?

In UK and Australia the non-profit BBC and ABC respectively (which are federally funded and have an independent non-partisan / non-profit charter similar to PBS) provide a lot of the good quality news coverage. Since they don't have advertising, they don't get the same sort of self-censorship you hear about with corporate-funded news services (e.g. journalists being threatened to drop stories that might implicate their advertisers).

In Australia, overall all the news services are pretty good. But I put that down partly to the fact they need to compete with the ABC. You have a major competitor known for actually being "fair and balanced" and that constrains how dickish and partisan the others can actually be, before people switch channels in disgust.

In the USA there's no similar competitor. You have corporate news, corporate news, or corporate news to pick from on TV. Or partisan news, semi-partisan news, and really-partisan news to pick on cable.

[smjjames]

But that'd ruin any chance of there being a reelection. And he seems the person to want a reelection. Wouldn't effectively causing a second great depression(or just another recession) just make his approval ratings tank even further?

For someone who (allegedly) cares so much about his approval ratings, he's been doing pretty much the opposite for the general public, so, really, he only cares about his base, but there's gotta be a point where even his base starts abandoning him.

Anyways, China has been rattling (internally, for now) the sabre of war over Tillersons comments during confirmation. It's just been cautious sabre rattling for now, but one has to wonder whether it'll escalate after Trump becomes President, and it seems like it'd escalate quickly as Trump almost never backs down when challenged.

What about PBS? Do they have a TV news service/channel?

In UK and Australia the non-profit BBC and ABC respectively (which are federally funded and have an independent non-partisan / non-profit charter similar to PBS) provide a lot of the good quality news coverage. Since they don't have advertising, they don't get the same sort of self-censorship you hear about with corporate-funded news services (e.g. journalists being threatened to drop stories that might implicate their advertisers).

In Australia, overall all the news services are pretty good. But I put that down partly to the fact they need to compete with the ABC. You have a major competitor known for actually being "fair and balanced" and that constrains how dickish and partisan the others can actually be, before people switch channels in disgust.

In the USA there's no similar competitor. CNN don't have to be good they just have to be marginally better than FOX News, and they'll pick up most of the people who don't like FOX.

PBS has a channel in the US, yes, though it's not solely a news channel.

[Neonivek]

Man China... everyday you keep seeming more and more insane to me... like your controlled by some sort of egomaniacal dictator who has no sense of reality and an over-inflated sense of national pride but without the temperance to understand how it must take place in the real world.