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[Doomblade187]

He would need the House, too.

https://www.npr.org/2020/07/30/897111969/trump-floats-delaying-the-election-it-would-require-a-change-in-law

[Starver]

I think he deleted that Tweet. I was browsing his latest meanderings and the pro/anti replies beneath and came back out to the top level to find only had his "That got (mainstream media) talking, right?", In amongst his other whitterings, but not the original.


Sometimes I wish I had a Twitter account myself (I'd reply to things like this with something like this, if nobody else does already) but I already take too much notice of that rubbish.

[Lord Shonus]

Get enough Rethuglicans to do it, and it might happen.  Very contentious, but still possible. (Considering how they totally tanked the impeachment by not listening to any evidence except what they wanted to, and made no effort whatsoever to do it right, I am not hopeful for the future.)

Pretty much everyone from McConnell on down basically told him to fuck off.

[MrRoboto75]

From what I've heard, the constitution says that even if the election is delayed, Trump's term still ends either way at the usual time.  Until the election's actually done the speaker of the house becomes prez.

Either way I don't think actually delaying the election is Trump's real goal.  He's using any way he can to sow the idea that the elections will be illegitimate should he lose, to his base.  As I've said, he ultimately wants to stay in office, by force.

[delphonso]

Yeah, the election has already been invalidated for whoever wins. Delaying it wouldn't do anything to change that.

[martinuzz]

EDIT: In other news, unless a miracle happens, coming friday, 30 million Americans will no longer be able to withdraw cash from the ATM, or pay their rent, or buy groceries. Coming friday, the payments for those that lost their income due to the corona virus end.  Millions of Americans are panicking.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53534435

Don't be so sensationalist.  It isn't that they aren't able to withdraw from ATMs; it's that their accounts will be empty.
 This is bad, but not as bad as making it sound like someone has removed the ability for people to bank.

I'm of divided mind here: on one hand I wish we would be doing more as a society to help people out. On the other hand, for crying out loud everyone knew the benefits were scheduled to run out, so why continue with the blind hope that they would continue indefinitely?

Also - yeah I agree $150 a week is not enough for rent for a single person, but it should be more than enough for food.  If you can't do groceries on $50/week per person I don't know how to help.  But if you are 19 and getting $600 a month for nothing, and can't find roommates, I'm really not sure how to help you other than give you some short term funds and advice to help you transition to a workable situation.

I'm not being sensationalist, I'm just quote/translating my Volkskrant newspaper.
Also, what's the practical difference between not being able to withdraw money from an ATM and not being able to withdraw money from an ATM?

[Reelya]

McTraveller, i don't agree that it was 'sensationalist'.

martinuzz just said "no longer be able to withdraw cash from the ATM" and you responded that this is "sensationalist" because they'd still *technically* be able to withdraw money, except that there will be no money to withdraw. Like, the fact that the ATMs will still technically be working is the important thing, rather than the fact that 30 million Americans won't be able to make rent. But, at least that thing about the ATMs not working was wrong, right?

Sorry, but martinuzz just said that they wouldn't be able to withdraw cash from the ATM, he didn't say why, so you can't say "well, actually" on that, because martinuzz was right. martinuzz never said the ATMs would malfunction or the bank accounts would close he just said they'd "no longer be able to withdraw cash from the ATM", which is a true statement, and is arguably the more important thing here. The withdrawing money from the ATM statement is in fact just imagery describing the practical effects on people.

If this goes ahead it'll be a historic meeting of Economy and Cliff.

[martinuzz]

Indeed Reelya, thank you.

It'll probably be a historic meeting between desparate disgruntled disenfranchised hungry evicted people with guns and rich twat home owners with guns.
Guess who are the majority.

[Reelya]

However don't forget this is America mind you and they still pay people with paper cheques. Trump's name appeared on the relief cheques, which heavily implies they're literally mailing bits of paper around for this. So the ATM thing was wrong, martinuzz. They won't have the cheques to deposit in the first place.

And only in America would they force people into banks en masse during a pandemic to cash paper cheques. It is actually surprising the number of Americans who lack bank accounts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbanked#The_unbanked_in_the_United_States

For example, in Atlanta, Georgia, the capital of the state 40% of people don't have a fucking bank account. Let that sink in.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The US isn't as paperless as some places, but the default here is electronic deposit. That's how I and most people got the stimulus check. (not relief check haha, americans don't need relief we're the greatest country in the world, relief is for africa god bless america nuke the commies)

I keep a check book around just in case, but even boomers are mostly paperless in my experience. It's the very poor and the very old who are insistent on using checks, the joke being a 99 year old holding up the grocery store line for half an hour painstakingly writing out a check for a single gallon of milk.

[Lord Shonus]

"Unable to withdraw money from the ATM" implies some sort of banking collapse - not that people have no money, but that they're going to lose it because the institution holding it will fold. The more clear way to phrase this is "Will no longer have money to make ends meet."


@Reelya
Pay by paper check is extremely limited nowadays - most companies require direct deposit or a paycard. Very few people got a physical check for the stimulus - only those who had no banking information on file.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Don't count the banking collapse out yet, we could still have a sovereign default! Technically your bank deposits up to $250,000 are insured, and that's only a measure going all the way back to the actual fucking Great Depression, but who knows? Nothing means anything in Trumpworld!

[Reelya]

It's unlikely to happen, because the US has a sovereign currency. Inflation is also not a real big concern these days, just the opposite. There's also the fact that if they cause inflation, well the national debt is calculated in US dollars so the real value of the national debt goes down if you inflate the currency. There's no situation where they run out of money and can't pay out bank accounts, if they really want to. And the last thing they want to do is to create any situation where you can't trust bank accounts. They'll inflate the currency to the moon if needed before that happens. The Fed has literally infinite ability to provide funds to banks if needed and they'll take over banks to ensure deposits if all else fails.

This is also why the Republican debt hawks are wrong, or being deliberately obtuse. A balanced budget isn't one with no deficit, it's actually one where the inflation-adjusted debt doesn't increase. So, if inflation was 2%, then you're doing ok if the deficit is < 2% of the outstanding debt. That means in the long run debt is decreasing in real-value terms. If debt was $20 trillion and inflation 2% then a $400 billion deficit is actually the break-even point on that.

If they have no deficit they'd probably crash the entire economy. That's not worth it when inflation deals with long-term debt for you without having to destroy everything in the short term. The way they're pulling the wool over your eyes here is they're deliberately conflating real value with adjusted value. If the gold standard existed*, then the balanced budget argument would make sense: if you have a deficit then the actual value of the debt is increasing each year. However, there is no gold standard and the value of a dollar next year is less than the value of a dollar this year, so to work out whether you're getting richer or poorer, or more in debt vs less in debt, you do need to factor inflation in. Which they definitely know but are hoping you don't know.

* And don't even get started on that "bring back the gold standard" bullshit. The argument for returning to the gold standard is like saying that because your car has steering issues, you nail the accelerator pedal in place so that it's only got one setting.

[delphonso]

Note, the "signed" checks were only sent to those who couldn't recieve their thing electronically. Those people are also likely to be disconnected to a majority of news, and are probably swayed by seeing a name on their check.

[Ziusudra]

Letters were sent to everyone that got that money. https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/heres-the-letter-you-paid-for-trump-to-send-to-everyone-getting-a-stimulus-check/