OT: Mo' Money Mo' Money Mo' Money

Only idiots think trump is in the white house for anyone other than himself and his ego. The whole thing was and still is a joke to him. He's probably still laughing at the american people behind closed doors 2 years later. Thats all im going to say.

I will add i think most politicians are in it for themselves but trump is the worst.

you may be right.
(i barely voted for the donald.)

Papi - this article exemplifies the current absurdity of the Presidency and the fact that so many of his "supporters" see nothing wrong is not a good harbinger for our country.

Yet the Clinton Foundation tracks in billions from foreign entities under the disguise of charity work. NO TAXES PAID. But huge salaries and perks to the Clinton clan. WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE????

^typical. Lol




THERE IS NO CLINTON IN THE WHITE HOUSE!!!

DUMBASS!

Too bad we didn't think of it sooner to have a president who makes money on hotels and clothing lines rather than "speaking fees" and "charitable donations" in exchange for stuff like diverting our Uranium reserves to dodgy foreign powers.

The Clintons raked it in post the presidency pretty-much only b/c Bill was president - and Obama is said to me raking it in at the moment and why he may be keeping a low political profile

I don't care either way. Every president is pretty much the same. the parties arent the problem, the system is

He may sound like a crass narcissist and he may be unlikable personally, but so far his administration has done more good for this country in a year and a half than all of the previous 8 years.

^ you're such a white-guy

Moi?

Fact - Trump is 47,000% better than Hillary Clinton
Fact - Trump isn't a homo like Obama
Fact - All you old faggot hippy liberals are dying off, and us younger capitalist conservatives are going to run this country for the next 50 years.
Fact - no way ruth bader ginsburg lives to be 90, so Trump will get another appointment supreme court pick before the end of his second term
Fact - your hatred for Trump and my facts are making you explode with anger and gayness
Fact - suck a cock fags!

If you think about it he didn't have much choice. His name is one of the most famous business brands in the world and he allegedly owns billions of dollars worth of real estate. So selling the Trump brand and liquidating his real estate portfolio would be really difficult and would probably take years - perhaps more than 4 years. Plus a blind trust isn't really a viable option for illiquid assets (which also happen to be famous landmarks). So what can he do?

Besides, we've had presidents tainted by corruption in the past, and the world didn't come to an end. Ulysses Grant, Warren Harding, and Bill Clinton all come to mind.

Anyway, yes, he has personal qualities that make him unusual as a president. But policy matters more to me... and his policies are really nothing new. It's a typical mix of the same-old-same-old postwar mishmash. Policy-wise, the only thing that's even remotely unique about Trump is his stance on trade and international cooperation, which is closer to what you would expect from a pre-WW2 Republican.

Talk about fake news. In their recent financial disclosure.......China’s government reportedly..........

If the Trump’s goal was to maximize his income, he would do what Jeff Bezos, George Soros, and dozens of other lefties do. Buy off politicians and maximize their investments. Instead Trump turned the management over to Eric and Don Jr, who have no role in government.

You can put stocks in a blind trust, but that doesn’t work with real estate.

I suspect many would actually be Libertarian, if they'd go through the issues matchup process.

This time around, the elephant was a closer match than the donkey.

Donald Trump knows his supporters are a bunch of chumps.
The arc of history is long, it zigs and zags over the short term, but have no fear stand up for what’s right, that arc is always for progress despite setbacks that occur from time to time.

Pyroxl said "I suspect many would actually be Libertarian, if they'd go through the issues matchup process."

I suspect you're very wrong about this.

Anthony Kennedy was the fifth vote that allowed the EPA to regulate green house gas ( something no legislation mentioned ). There is so much talk about what another conservative might do to Roe v Wade. We may see the powers of the EPA cut in half. Add another 1% to GDP growth !

^I suspect Mark94 would have us go back to the days of the robber barons. The time of the Carnegie’s, the Melons, and their ilk, it wasn’t a good time for working people in America, the Trump backlash will be harsh, and I guarantee history will censure this presidency.

@mark94,

As I've said before, not all "conservative" judges are exactly the same. If Trump nominates another judge like Gorsuch then yes, we can expect the court to continue to fight the Executive Branch agencies. But not if he nominates someone similar to Antonin Scalia, who often deferred to the other branches of government. Read this for context:

http://reason.com/blog/2015/07/29/ted-cr…

@Pyroxl said "I suspect many would actually be Libertarian, if they'd go through the issues match up process."

@Burlington: "I suspect you're very wrong about this."
================


You know, @Burlington, I've worked on government and commercial contracts and government contracts are always full of waste. It's best to let the free-market sort things out when you can. So there may some small amount of Libertarian blood in my system.

OTOH, replacing a brilliant fed chair with a basket of commodities seems downright nutty.

But I have a more personal question: we're probably going back to the days where health insurance companies will be allowed to charge more -- or deny insurance --based on pre-existing conditions. What would you do if you personally found yourself out of work with cancer or heart disease, unable to get health insurance? Getting sick is the single biggest cause of bankruptcy? Wouldn't you rather have a society where sick and healthy people pay into the same system? Or is dropping dead just another part of your Libertarian purity?

There are 50M or so Americans who will be affected if we go back to the old days of pre-existing conditions. Also, with our unpaid-for tax cut, the GOP will soon be going after Medicare to balance the budget. I wonder how all the aging dudes on TUSCL will like that?

I will say this reasonable people will disagree with what progress looks like, but we have a large number of unreasonable folks here in this country that seem to think they have the right to impose their values on everything. Both the extreme left and the extreme right are fueling the national debate right now, but it will change eventually and in the meantime these petty disputes, will continue to consume us.
My guess is that an event or series of events on the magnitude of 9/11 or a Pearl Harbor attack will occur again, and this country will pull itself together despite the petty bunch of leaders that currently are driving the national debate.

RandomMember said "OTOH, replacing a brilliant fed chair with a basket of commodities seems downright nutty."

I assume the brilliant Fed chair you're referring to is Ben Bernanke, right? So how about the idea of replacing one libertarian Fed Chair with another libertarian Fed Chair? Because that's basically what Bush did in 2006. Read for yourself: http://reason.com/archives/2009/11/17/be…

In fairness, my objection to Bernanke isn't really his philosophy - I would probably agree with him on everything except for whether or not the Fed should exist. My objection is to the institution itself. Would you be comfortable with the Government setting the price of products in the market? Do you like the idea of a centrally planned economy? Because if not, then I'm not sure why you're so comfortable with the Government setting the price of money.

"we're probably going back to the days where health insurance companies will be allowed to charge more"

Not much more. They'll never allow prices to really flow freely. They've merely widened the bands somewhat. I would prefer people to be exposed to the real cost of all their individual needs and wants. That's the only way that we can impose some discipline on this market. But it's not gonna happen.

"or deny insurance --based on pre-existing conditions."

If that happens, it will merely be a temporary negotiating tactic. I'm very skeptical. The pre-existing conditions provision is one of the most popular parts of the ACA. So if they take it away, they would have to replace it with something nearly identical and quickly, or else pay the political price.

I've been saying for years that ObamaCare is merely a stalking horse for single-payer healthcare, because of several characteristics: 1) the Medicaid expansion, 2) the employer mandate, and 3) the steeply progressive nature of the subsidies for people who buy from the exchange. Taken as a whole, it seems almost designed to fail. The market-based components will inevitably be the least popular, while the socialized components will be the most popular.

As it stands, it's just waiting for a left-wing president and a left-wing Congress to come along and turn it into universal socialized medicine. And I believe Donald Trump IS that left-wing president. All he needs is for his old buddy Chuck Schumer to take over the Senate in November. Watch and see. Tell me if I'm wrong in a few years.

"What would you do if you personally found yourself out of work with cancer or heart disease, unable to get health insurance?"

I was out of work in 2014 and I bought health insurance from the Federal exchange. Also, I do have at least one pre-existing condition: I have gout. I've had it since I'm a teenager, but it wasn't diagnosed until I was in my early thirties. Thankfully there's almost no cancer in my family. But, much like Paul Ryan's family, half of the men in my family drop dead from heart attacks. It is what it is.

I would prefer a system in which health insurance only pays for catastrophic events, such as heart attacks and strokes, while forcing me to pay for my own gout treatments in cash. Less insurance, less Medicare, more cash payments. I would also prefer a system that allows generic drug competition very quickly, and allows people to purchase medications without a prescription. The price of paying for my condition would plummet. But we don't live in that world and we never will.

"Or is dropping dead just another part of your Libertarian purity?"

I'm not a purist. I don't even think there is such a thing as a libertarian purist. You're probably thinking of anarchists who believe in no government whatsoever. I wouldn't privatize the military or the courts, for example. I support voter ID laws. I think we should have some basic border security, and we should perform routine background checks for immigrants. I think divorced parents should be forced to pay child support. I think it's perfectly reasonable for the government to set an age of maturity for alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and drug use, and for sex. I even believe the government should force children to be vaccinated. (Ideally, they should amend the constitution to allow for some of these things.)

But in general, I think government should be limited. Considering that's the philosophy upon which America was founded, it doesn't seem so radical to me.

^^

I probably should also mention that I support clean air and clean water laws. Pollution is bad (although I don't think carbon should count as pollution). So add that to the list.

It sounds like what BHF is trying to say is that he's more of a Clinton/Pelosi Democrat than a Kamala/Bernie one.

Before Obamacare, States had subsidized risk pool coverage for those with pre-existing conditions. That was a better solution, IMO, than imposing the same coverage on everyone. Healthy people got low cost, full coverage. Sick people got government subsidized coverage targeted to them.

Obamacare was a huge step backward, not progress.

@ppwh,

LOL. That's funny. Was there anything in particular that you object to?

@mark94,

It was better when state governments ran risk pools... but it was still very bad. And we still had the huge problem of insurance coverage being tied to employment. So taking away the tax deductibility of employer-sponsored coverage would be a better solution, imo.