OT: The next President of the United States: ★★★ Donald Trump ★★★

[TheSuzerain]

The sustainability of it rests entirely on investors - often foreign governments - continuing to asses the underlying value of treasuries positively. It is not under our control at all. As soon as they start to back away significantly, we are royally ****.

or we start paying them back in full at the point when they demand it

Huh? What do you mean by "paying them back in full?" I may be mistaken but as far as I understand nearly all the debt is in the form of treasury certificates and I don't believe the U.S. has ever missed a coupon payment on those, ever. So we're already "paying them back in full". If we stop doing so, new treasury sales will slow drastically if not stop.

it would require significant short-term sacrifice, but it wouldn't threaten to take down the economy like it did in greece (which had/has a much higher debt and deficit load)

I'm far from a bond expert but I'm of the understanding that we rely on issuing new treasuries for something like 1/3 of our federal budget at the moment. It's not automatic that we can sell those to real investors who have real purchasing power to trade (as opposed to monetizing the debt). In other words, if China and others including domestic institutional investors decide that treasuries suck (cause they do), and simply don't buy them next year, we're screwed for an enormous chunk of our federal expenditures, including what we use to pay the coupons on already issued treasuries, which would greatly exacerbate the problem.

Am I missing something?

Your error is in thinking that "treasuries suck"

[League Circles]

It is totally sustainable actually. We could probably expand the deficit a bit and still be completely fine.

yep. it will likely be decades before we even get to legitimate discussion about debt sustainability. of course, debt as a general proposition is a bad thing

Not really. It serves a definite purpose.

You are aware that investing borrowed money only works out if you increase productivity? I think that is far from a given in the world in 2016. Even if it were a given, IMO we should value R and R over increased output by a mile.

When a business borrows money at say 2% and yields say 10% on that money by investing it in themselves, another business, etc, then sure the borrowing was wise. If they borrow money at 2% and lose say 5% on what they did with the money, the fact that they borrowed it significantly exacerbates the problem.

I reject the presumption of REAL (read purchasing power) growth (as opposed to bs growth like "look at the gdp" which relies on expanding fake credit and monetizing the debt) in the economy, short or long term. Not only is a baseless assumption, but IMO it's not even desirable. As a nation and perhaps as a world, we would be much better off producing less value and "resting" more. Second, indefinite economic expansion must, all things being equal, harm the environment more than economic stagnation or contraction. And its a physical impossibility to undo harm to the environment (3rd law of thermodynamics), so I'd rather do damage more slowly than put ourselves in a position where we RELY on indefinite growth. When you don't run a deficit, you are infinitely more flexible.

[League Circles]

or we start paying them back in full at the point when they demand it

Huh? What do you mean by "paying them back in full?" I may be mistaken but as far as I understand nearly all the debt is in the form of treasury certificates and I don't believe the U.S. has ever missed a coupon payment on those, ever. So we're already "paying them back in full". If we stop doing so, new treasury sales will slow drastically if not stop.

it would require significant short-term sacrifice, but it wouldn't threaten to take down the economy like it did in greece (which had/has a much higher debt and deficit load)

I'm far from a bond expert but I'm of the understanding that we rely on issuing new treasuries for something like 1/3 of our federal budget at the moment. It's not automatic that we can sell those to real investors who have real purchasing power to trade (as opposed to monetizing the debt). In other words, if China and others including domestic institutional investors decide that treasuries suck (cause they do), and simply don't buy them next year, we're screwed for an enormous chunk of our federal expenditures, including what we use to pay the coupons on already issued treasuries, which would greatly exacerbate the problem.

Am I missing something?

Your error is in thinking that "treasuries suck"

Oh. You like them? You buy them regularly?

If so would you like to open a new savings account with me?

[dice]

Sadly, I fully expect her to commit election fraud and win. Democrats have already been caught registering dead people to vote with the intent of voting for her in Virginia so it's just a matter of time. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/he-fought-in-world-war-ii-he-died-in-2014-and-he-just-registered-to-vote-in-va/2016/09/29/5e0bffee-8670-11e6-ac72-a29979381495_story.html She also has the entirety of the media in her pocket, not to mention the FBI so we'll all be up to our neck in the fetid, **** that is a Hillary Clinton presidency before long. Hope you can swim.

wow.

Look, I despise Hillary Clinton. I do. I despise Trump even more, but.... this is outrageous.

Hillary doesn't have to commit election fraud to win. Trump does. This race has been over for weeks. That is the reality. All Hillary has to do is not F it up now. There is no way. Not a chance in hell Trump can win. This will be a landslide for the Dems. Likely be the largest margin in some time.

election fraud - pretty much impossible on any sort of meaningful scale. nobody has the power to pull that off in a presidential election. and the **** republicans have pulled in terms of suppressing the democratic vote dwarfs anything democrats have done

the only two guys in recent memory with a legit claim to be upset about how the election was run? al gore and john kerry. so it's delusional to suggest that hillary clinton somehow has the secret ability to perpetuate mass electoral fraud. not to mention obama wouldn't have beat her in 2008

as for trump having no chance...wishful thinking. the betting markets have her between 85-90% to win, which is great for her (particularly as she was down to 69% heading into the first debate - what a collapse by trump in a mere 2 weeks!), but hardly an indication of victory:

http://predictwise.com/politics/2016-president-winner

and the website of guy with maybe the most respected predictive ability in this area is less certain:

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/?ex_cid=rrpromo

incidentally, my favorite chart on that site is about halfway down the linked page. the one that looks like a human colon. fortunately, at this stage the pepto seems to be mostly working. trump's got a long climb ahead of him. and any campaign activist who wants to be in the position to have the greatest impact they can should head to colorado at the moment. hopefully your contributions will not be needed

[dice]

The sustainability of it rests entirely on investors - often foreign governments - continuing to asses the underlying value of treasuries positively. It is not under our control at all. As soon as they start to back away significantly, we are royally ****.

or we start paying them back in full at the point when they demand it

Huh? What do you mean by "paying them back in full?" I may be mistaken but as far as I understand nearly all the debt is in the form of treasury certificates and I don't believe the U.S. has ever missed a coupon payment on those, ever. So we're already "paying them back in full". If we stop doing so, new treasury sales will slow drastically if not stop.

we're paying INTEREST on the debt. fulfilling our minimum responsibilities. what i'm talking about is the worst case scenario - china simultaneously turning off the spigot and cashing in their chips. i don't know to what extent they are permitted to do the latter. but my point was that even in that worst case scenario we could, for example, levy various short-term taxes designated specifically to pay our debt obligations. it would suck for a whole lotta people, but it wouldn't threaten the collapse of our economy

[TheStig]

It will be a rout. Trump won't even get to 200 electoral votes. Clinton had a double digit lead in the only real polls. That was before the debate last night and Trump didn't do enough to close that gap much at all.

I don't get Trump. He put on a show for his voters who were already voting for him. Anyone who was college educated or in Hilary's camp didn't view that positively.

Instead of coming out and debating the topics and throwing in some zingers, he turned it into the Jerry Springer show.

i don't think he's "all in" on actually having to do much of the thankless work that comes with being leader of the free world. the joke is that he would win the election and then step down, handing the reigns to mike pence

He's not stepping down but Pence would effectively run the country.

It reminds me of the report of when he offered Kasich VP. He told Kasich that he would run all matters foreign and domestic. Trump would just make America Great.

[dice]

I think Trump "won" in the sense that he placed a tourniquet on his campaign after the disastrous last 48 hours. Trump did a pretty good job staying on the attack and Hillary never really had any knockout moments.

That said... when Trump mentioned that he was going to do whatever he could to investigate/jail Clinton if he wins... well, yikes. That may end up being the story of the night right there. We'll see how that plays.

When trump mentioned that he wants to investigate Hilary many ppl and media called him Hitler and a dictator. That's ridiculous, so Hilary getting away with the email scandal is ok? They didn't do anything to her because of who she is. Trump simply stated that he will put a private investigator to look into her case, he can't put her to jail if she's innocent(which I doubt she is).

hillary didn't "get away" with anything. only a distinct minority of legal experts think that what she did was illegal. unwise? hell yes. skirting federal regulations? yup. illegal? very unlikely

and please, for the love of god, don't bring up benghazi. or, as many impressionable right-wingers refer to it, "benghazi!"

[dice]

Those are the kinds of people Hillary meant by "deplorables." Might not be half of Trump's supporters, which would probably mean about 15% of the electorate (since he's polling at about 40% and since some of those who say they'll vote for him don't like HIM but just see him as the better option). Then again, that might be about right.

if you crunch the polling numbers on various issues (birtherism, etc), it's well over half

[League Circles]

or we start paying them back in full at the point when they demand it

Huh? What do you mean by "paying them back in full?" I may be mistaken but as far as I understand nearly all the debt is in the form of treasury certificates and I don't believe the U.S. has ever missed a coupon payment on those, ever. So we're already "paying them back in full". If we stop doing so, new treasury sales will slow drastically if not stop.

we're paying INTEREST on the debt. fulfilling our minimum responsibilities. what i'm talking about is the worst case scenario - china simultaneously turning off the spigot and cashing in their chips. i don't know to what extent they are permitted to do the latter. but my point was that even in that worst case scenario we could, for example, levy various short-term taxes designated specifically to pay our debt obligations. it would suck for a whole lotta people, but it wouldn't threaten the collapse of our economy

I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure you have an incorrect perception of how things are. There is no minimim or maximum range of responsibilities. Debt securities are issued. They can be anywhere from like 30 days to 30 years IIRC. I'm not sure what the mix is. The way a treasury works is that the treasury pays the coupon (the "interest") every 6 months (for a 30 year T bond for example). Then at the end they pay off the principal. It's not the same thing as a loan. We pay back principal every day on whatever treasury securities expire that day. Currently, the way we have money to pay both the coupons and the face value maturity amount (both of which we pay every day), as well as a ton of federal program spending, is by selling lots and lots of new bonds and using the proceeds. They're mot like credit cards or lines of credit that are open ended. Every debt security sold has fixed terms that as far as I know have never had to be viokated by the US. But our ability to pay the daily coupons and maturities is based on the (IMO unwise) assumption that tomorrow (and then again the next day, and the next year, etc) we can simply sell more. We do not control that.

[dice]

Donald's capitalism will lead to more wealth concentration but HRC's commie socialist stuff reminds me of Venezuelan economics.

seriously? and what basis do you have to suggest that? her suggestion that we have the government control the means of production? didn't happen

bernie sanders became a significant thorn in hillary's side precisely because that's NOT what she is. far from it

and "commie socialist" is the laziest of terms. communism is the extreme version of socialism. few nations have ever been communist. and those that haven't? every single one, socialist to some degree

[dice]

Huh? What do you mean by "paying them back in full?" I may be mistaken but as far as I understand nearly all the debt is in the form of treasury certificates and I don't believe the U.S. has ever missed a coupon payment on those, ever. So we're already "paying them back in full". If we stop doing so, new treasury sales will slow drastically if not stop.

we're paying INTEREST on the debt. fulfilling our minimum responsibilities. what i'm talking about is the worst case scenario - china simultaneously turning off the spigot and cashing in their chips. i don't know to what extent they are permitted to do the latter. but my point was that even in that worst case scenario we could, for example, levy various short-term taxes designated specifically to pay our debt obligations. it would suck for a whole lotta people, but it wouldn't threaten the collapse of our economy

I may be wrong

quite possible in this case!

[dice]

If Trump wants to counter Hillary's allegations that he's sexist why does he never bring up her ties to Saudi Arabia? Seems like a no-brainer.

the federal government is intertwined with saudi arabia. he'd basically be saying that she has been associated with our government

[League Circles]

we're paying INTEREST on the debt. fulfilling our minimum responsibilities. what i'm talking about is the worst case scenario - china simultaneously turning off the spigot and cashing in their chips. i don't know to what extent they are permitted to do the latter. but my point was that even in that worst case scenario we could, for example, levy various short-term taxes designated specifically to pay our debt obligations. it would suck for a whole lotta people, but it wouldn't threaten the collapse of our economy

I may be wrong

quite possible in this case!

Since you don't want to expand on your claim or address my thoughts other than to inject a meaningless one liner, I'll expand:

In 2015, we brought in about 3.2 trillion in revenue and used that along with about 0.6 trillion in new debt securities being issued to meet our budget expenditures of about 3.8 trillion. Those expenditures included about 0.23 trillion in debt service, and thus about 0.37 trillion in other federal spending we couldn't afford without issuing the new debt.

So, if tomorrow investors decided they didn't like where this ship was sailing, for any of the many sound reasons, and bought no more treasuries next year, even assuming no change in revenue, we would have federal expenditures drop from approx 3.8 trillion to approx 2.9 trillion. I am estimating the amount of principal we'd pay off as 0.1 trillion could be more or less I don't have energy to search for at the moment.

"Real" current "disposable" expenditures are approx 3.57 trillion (all expenditures minus debt service). Most of the debt service would remain in the incremental next year in such a scenario, and thus our real expenditures (money going to programs and everything other than debt service) would drop from about 3.57 trillion to about 2.9 trillion or so. That's over a 20% drop in federal spending. Also about equal to all military spending. 20% drop in federal spending would be a pretty huge negative impact on people's way of life IMO.

Now, am I wrong? I realize I very well might be, so you dont have to point that out again. Do you have reason to believe I'm wrong? And if so, how? I'd like to know how I am wrong if I am.

[dice]

Hilary was nominated almost solely because of democratic leadership failure and probably to some extent as compensation for favors handed out by her and Bill over decades.

or maybe because she has the best resume of any presidential candidate in recent memory? could that be part of it?

Simply put, among democrats (at least enough of the leadership), it was just "her turn." You're spot on when you say her main accomplishments are just "being" something.

it was "her turn" in 2008 too. and republicans have gone by whose turn it is in putting forth a nominee for decades. until...trump

her main accomplishment is being a major player in securing basic health care for millions of american children, by the way. after being beaten down on health care in her husband's first term, she came back for more and got something done. also...

- negotiated a cease fire in the middle east
- championed women's rights around the globe, including during her husband's administration when those efforts were frowned upon
- copenhagen climate change
- largely responsible for sanctions on iran, including getting chy-na and russia to participate
- normalization of cuban relations
- pay equity act (whether token legislation or not)
- did a HELL of a lot for NY after 9/11, particularly for first responders when republicans didn't want to fully fund their health care (surprise, surprise)

she's worked her ass off. nobody disputes that. she won't be cowed by her opposition. and unlike obama, she knows full well going in how much cooperation she will get from the other side. now, you may think all of that is not enough for a presidential candidate, and that's your prerogative, but it's far from nothing. hopefully her wealth of experience will allow her not to repeat previous mistakes. because in my mind her mistakes overshadow any perceived lack of accomplishment. which brings me to...

my biggest concern with hillary (by a country mile) is whether she would bow to the political pressure to be seen as a strong commander in chief. 'cause we all know what kind of strength the critics will be talking about. and she will of course be scrutinized more as the first female to hold that position

Any serious discussion of her being a nominee early in the process should have been met by comments from sane democratic leadership that amounted to "why on earth should we nominate someone who is so disliked by so many people and who has accomplished so little in so many opportunities?" It shouldn't have even been a discussion

possibility of first female president carries weight (electorally), the fondness of many looking back on the country during her husband's two terms, the experience. she was the obvious, if uninspired, choice to be the nominee. if only elizabeth warren had run

[gardenofsound]

@dice, you just nailed it. Thank you.

[dice]

I may be wrong

quite possible in this case!

Since you don't want to expand on your claim or address my thoughts other than to inject a meaningless one liner

i apologize. i'm tired. i left this part out of the quote:

"but I'm pretty sure you have an incorrect perception of how things are"

as in, i meant to say that it is quite possible that i have an incorrect perception

[dice]

I thought that the 2004 election between Kerry and Bush was just awful. On one side you had a pretty clueless, bull headed president. On the other side, you had a naive gold digger who wanted to put "president" on his resume.

is there any legitimate basis for any of that?

and i wouldn't call bush bull-headed either. more like intellectually uninterested and loyal. he dutifully carried out what his advisors (cheney, etc.) asked him to. clueless? as far as presidents go, yes.

First off, Hillary is incompetent. I'm not sure I know of one thing in her life that she has actually accomplished other than "being" something. Being first lady, then being senator then being secretary of state. If you look at her record in elected office, its not chock full of accomplishments.

see my last extended post

She isn't some visionary or great orator either. Behind that you have a whole series of scandals and questionable connections that seem to follow here everywhere.

many of which are because the right wing loves to make **** up. she didn't kill vince foster. she did nothing wrong with regard to benghazi. there's zero evidence that she bullied her husband's rape accusers. nor that she or her husband engaged in any illegal activity with regard to whitewater

do we tend to have visionary presidents? or senators even? is being a great orator that important to the job other than politically?

She almost gets beat in the primary by a no name socialist and basically has to use insider connections to win.

false

On a day where wikileaks sends out the start of a number of documents detailing just how much in bed she is with coroporatists (which would get her a blowout loss in a lot of elections)...

except that her opponent would have been as well in a "normal" election

Even the libertarian candidate seems to be a complete boob.

yup

The last time we got a Clinton in the white house working with a corporatist republican congress we got the WTO, Nafta, reversal of Glass Steagall, 3 strikes, etc.

1) bill clinton was not in a primary struggle with the left wing. hillary knows that she has to appeal to that base to win re-election
2) economists say that nafta, while costing some jobs, has been a net positive for the middle class
3) glass-steagall reversal, while quite possibly a bad thing, is not thought to have contributed to the financial meltdown of 2008
4) 3 strikes - awful, but not impactful on a broad scale. i don't know the details of the legislation - whether it was part of a larger compromise, etc.
5) don't know much about WTO

i will note/reiterate that i don't think either kerry or clinton have been good candidates. mediocre

[League Circles]

Hilary was nominated almost solely because of democratic leadership failure and probably to some extent as compensation for favors handed out by her and Bill over decades.

or maybe because she has the best resume of any presidential candidate in recent memory? could that be part of it?

Simply put, among democrats (at least enough of the leadership), it was just "her turn." You're spot on when you say her main accomplishments are just "being" something.

it was "her turn" in 2008 too. and republicans have gone by whose turn it is in putting forth a nominee for decades. until...trump

her main accomplishment is being a major player in securing basic health care for millions of american children, by the way. after being beaten down on health care in her husband's first term, she came back for more and got something done. also...

- negotiated a cease fire in the middle east
- championed women's rights around the globe, including during her husband's administration when those efforts were frowned upon
- copenhagen climate change
- largely responsible for sanctions on iran, including getting chy-na and russia to participate
- normalization of cuban relations
- pay equity act (whether token legislation or not)
- did a HELL of a lot for NY after 9/11, particularly for first responders when republicans didn't want to fully fund their health care (surprise, surprise)

she's worked her ass off. nobody disputes that. she won't be cowed by her opposition. and unlike obama, she knows full well going in how much cooperation she will get from the other side. now, you may think all of that is not enough for a presidential candidate, and that's your prerogative, but it's far from nothing. hopefully her wealth of experience will allow her not to repeat previous mistakes. because in my mind her mistakes overshadow any perceived lack of accomplishment. which brings me to...

my biggest concern with hillary (by a country mile) is whether she would bow to the political pressure to be seen as a strong commander in chief. 'cause we all know what kind of strength the critics will be talking about. and she will of course be scrutinized more as the first female to hold that position

Any serious discussion of her being a nominee early in the process should have been met by comments from sane democratic leadership that amounted to "why on earth should we nominate someone who is so disliked by so many people and who has accomplished so little in so many opportunities?" It shouldn't have even been a discussion

possibility of first female president carries weight (electorally), the fondness of many looking back on the country during her husband's two terms, the experience. she was the obvious, if uninspired, choice to be the nominee. if only elizabeth warren had run

Best resume, perhaps. I was agreeing with coldfish that her biggest accomplishments are "being" things. And yes that makes a strong resume on paper which she does indeed have.

It was her turn in 2008 until everyone realized that obama was way more likable. So her turn was postponed until 2016 which is why no one worth a damn ran against her IMO in the primary. And sure the republicans do turns also. Its embarassing for both parties IMO. It's objectionable.

As for health care I'm not well versed in her role in it, but healthcare is a mess in this country. Sure it's good that more children have access to medical care (I'm assuming that's true in a real sense - I'll take your word for it). But being a big part of a bad system is not a big accomplishment to me just because certain components of the big bad system may be positive (FWIW yes I blame all recent presidents and members of congress also for not getting a better health care system in place over many years, other than perhaps a few who advocated for what I consider better overarching policies).

As for the cease fire, even she has backed away from that as an accomplishment:

https://www.google.com/amp/ijr.com/2016/02/528923-hillary-clinton-removes-hamas-israel-accomplishments-from-biography/amp/?client=ms-android-verizon

As for championing womens rights, meh. Championing things isn't a big accomplishment in my book. Its just saying we want better things. It's obviously a positive thing, but IMO not an indication of presidential prowess.

I'm unaware of what she may have accomplished regarding copenhagen climate change.

I'm not really in favor of sanctions on Iran.

I like normalization of relations with Cuba. If she helped that, great. Kind of a no brainer though. Like bragging that you've never been in jail or that you take care of your kids.

I don't know about the pay equity act but I oppose legislation of employment compensation. I actually think its a laughable concept on many levels.

As for doing a lot for NY after 9/11, if so that's cool, but I expect US Senators to stick to national issues not work towards improving and increasing federal involvement in their districts, so I don't necessarily consider this a positive though I'm ignorant on the details.

Knowins she won't get cooperation from the other side is a negative. It's one shared and ignored by almost all politicians. Which is why almost all of them, including her, suck.

[dice]

It was her turn in 2008 until everyone realized that obama was way more likable. So her turn was postponed until 2016 which is why no one worth a damn ran against her IMO in the primary

???

why did obama run against her then?

i don't give a damn about her likability.

And sure the republicans do turns also. Its embarassing for both parties IMO. It's objectionable.

i can't bring myself to muster much of an objection to parties getting behind candidates who have done a lot for the party and they think are electable

As for health care I'm not well versed in her role in it, but healthcare is a mess in this country.

yep

I blame all recent presidents and members of congress also for not getting a better health care system in place over many years, other than perhaps a few who advocated for what I consider better overarching policies)

you should blame all republicans and "blue dog" democrats. oh, and the existence of the filibuster

As for championing womens rights, meh. Championing things isn't a big accomplishment in my book. Its just saying we want better things. It's obviously a positive thing, but IMO not an indication of presidential prowess.

i think that inspiring people, particularly the downtrodden and under-served (which women are in many places throughout the world) is very much a part of being a good leader

I'm not really in favor of sanctions on Iran.

so what is your deterrent of choice? bombing them?

I like normalization of relations with Cuba. If she helped that, great. Kind of a no brainer though. Like bragging that you've never been in jail or that you take care of your kids.

the federal government apparently hasn't been taking care of their kids for decades then

I don't know about the pay equity act but I oppose legislation of employment compensation. I actually think its a laughable concept on many levels.

largely agree

As for doing a lot for NY after 9/11, if so that's cool, but I expect US Senators to stick to national issues

that's not their job description

Knowins she won't get cooperation from the other side is a negative. It's one shared and ignored by almost all politicians. Which is why almost all of them, including her, suck.

huh? my point is that obama was naive about the degree of cooperation he would get. as a result he didn't get as much done as he probably could have, particularly in his first term. the problem is that one side thinks that government is bad. so they don't mind mucking things up so stuff won't get done

[Axl Rose]

i haven't been all that invested in this charade as politics have never been my bag. however last night i actually sat down and payed attention to the debate and its clear to me that the establishment has employed a fullcourt press to stop Trump.

they DO NOT want this man to be president. i suppose you could look at that as them trying to save the country from disaster or you could look at it as Trump actually being a threat to their already pre-planned agenda that they will achieve through Hillary.

but there is a bias against him, even his own party is selling him out. they are making sure they brainwash ppl into fully detesting Trump and vote for Hillary. the funny thing is they aren't even attempting to hide it. they are literally coaching ppl through this.