Political Roundtable Part XXIV

[pancakes3]

Watch on YouTube

[pancakes3]

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/evolution-is-still-true-but/

[pancakes3]

and also bc we can't have anything nice, a trump-related article

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-xi-trade-war-deal-white-house-correction-on-kudlow-tariff-delay-2018-12

this is not a partisan critique. this is entirely trump-specific. the man's administration is a hot mess. the incompetence is most worrisome. the international embarrassment is secondary.

[Pointgod]

I honestly didn’t want to deal with daoneandonly’s nonsense but here’s the full context of AOC’s comments.

"This is not just about a clean new deal. This is about a new deal for the United States of America," the incoming congresswoman said. "Because in every moment when our country has reached the depths of darkness, in every moment when we were at the brink, at the cusp of an abyss and we did not know if we would be capable of saving ourselves, we have. We've done it. We've dug deep and we've done what we thought was impossible."

"We went to the moon. We electrified the nation," she added. "We established civil rights. We enfranchised the country. We digged deep and we did it. We did it when no one else thought that we could. That's what we did when so many of us won an election this year."

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-puts-progressive-democrats-election-victories-on-par-with-moon-landing-civil-rights-movement

I even linked the right wing rag the Washingtonexaminer. You have to stretch pretty far to say she compared her election to the civil rights movement. Just shows you how utterly pathetic most right wing websites are and how guillable their readers are.

Here’s her even explaining her speech and dunking on the Huckabee family for good measure.

Read on Twitter

I know inspirational speeches are a foreign concept to Republicans since your speeches amount to “Brown people are coming to kill you.” But anyone who implies critical thinking can see this for what it is.

It’s hard to have a conversation when I have to constantly fact check and correct right wing posters. But daoneandonly doesn’t care, notice he brought up AOC because he doesn’t want to say what it would take for him to stop supporting Trump. And predictably he’ll continue to employ whataboutism and make misleading posts. But if I call him a moron for purposely missing the point, Papa Popper is going to give me the tisk tisk and channel his best Rodney King but only mildly pushes back on the Trump cult.

[gtn130]

daoneandonly concern trolling about the civil rights movement perfectly crystallizes why right wingers should just be ignored.

[doclinkin]

Maybe you never stood in a free cheese line at church? Maybe you never got the free lunch in school?

I did.

It was embarrassing. So much so that I would purposefully "time the line" every day to go last. And then sometime not eat altogether when some straggler would show up last in line behind me.

Now what if that kids parents are also choosing not to work? Just so that child can suffer the embarrassment of that free carton of milk everyday?

...

I could also make a strong argument that the child that grows up with a free lunch from his classmates would not be as well adapted as a child that grows up with parents that showed him or her how to pay for their own costs of living.

lastly, I would be willing to bet my last dollar that The 5 children that get free stuff from their classmates may not compete as hard against those other kids Both academically and in sports which would lesson their quaulity of life both during school and after school. You are teaching dependence. You are teaching victimhood.

i got free lunch as a kid. I've started a couple businesses awhile working a full time job and also serving as an unpaid elected Union leader. And for me the primary stigma about eating the school lunch was that really only the tater tots and milk were tasty and everything else was memorably terrible.

I also substitute-taught at various schools after college, including a school that was a pilot program for the Free Lunch for All concept (a program to destigmatize the free lunch program and reduce the headaches of administration for it). They received a grant for healthier lunches and that school was the best behaved school of any in that impoverished inner city school system. Test scores went up, attendance was better. The program was so successful they started a Free Breakfast program, with similar results. Bob Marley said "A hungry man is an angry man". Triple that for a hungry kid.

I don't think you have kids STD but if you did I expect you don't want your six year old to fight to compete with other six year olds to qualify for milk and nutrition. If that's your philosophy there's probably a reason we hear about a series of HAWT girlfriends and former girlfriends, as opposed to bragging about I dunno your brilliant kids who are attending prestigious universities. The wife of a purported multi millionaire will not stand for him to send his kids to school with nothing and ask them to fight it out for lunch. I sincerely doubt you would tell your minions to get a job in first grade so they can afford milk. You would do what any other parent would do: send them to school with a lunch box full of good nutrition so they can learn.

You know: the point of public education. The reason why there was a national Free Lunch for ALL program that followed the success of these sorts of pilot programs. Everywhere it has been tried it has been successful in improving education. It just costs money. But if we have a public school system it should implement every means at its disposal to efficiently and effectively teach kids. I man, duh.

And a 'dog eat dog kid eat kid, to the victor go the spoils', system for education is really not the society we live in. Maybe in Sparta? But it wouldn't make kids who are better able to program your robots or invent more efficient battery technology for better passive solar tech, or make martian soil fertile or whatever.

But maybe so: its Ironic to your argument, but the children of immigrants who come here from dog-eat-dog circumstances overseas are the ones I saw who most valued education for their kids. On the flip side those kids were fed well by their parents, never sent to school hungry.

[doclinkin]

How exactly was the tax cut at the expense of the middle class to help the wealthy? I'm middle class, as I'm sure most ppl on here are as well, and I have more money now thanks to those cuts, so no, not at our expense.

And your use of the word handout in that comment is truly one to remember. There's only one political party associated with the word handout, and it's not the current Republican party you claim exists, or the former.

The tax cut was at the expense of the working guy if the deficit means our social security system is bankrupted. At some point we have to pay our bills. The top % of wealth earners tend to hoard and not spend their wealth, not even investing in businesses the way middle class folk do. That middle percentage of workers tend to drive the success of our country by starting new business and building houses and buying property and hiring workers. The tax cuts over the life of the deal will disproportionately be given to the moneyed elite.

Democrats are labelled as giving handouts but you know better than that: when we talk about pork in the budget it is rarely about social service programs for impoverished moms and mentally ill folk and free backpacks to poor kids or whatever. The BIG money tends to be tax carve outs and give backs to corporations and stadiums for sports teams owned by billionaires or special interest money to satisfy lobbyists and donors. Corporate handouts. Big Business Welfare. Check out the recent Amazon deal moving to Virginia.

I wish we had tax fairness for the middle class and the working guy. But we don't. That $200 is significant to you. And feels like enough to buy your allegiance for now. But Trump gave himself and his billionaire buddies a fat fat fat sweetheart honey of a deal. Make no mistake about it. He bought your vote some, but your kids will be paying for it while his descendants are busy building their armored fortress cities and private farms and leasing rockets to their moonbase retreats or whatever while you and eat artificial krill and rent air from their Oxygen factories.

[stilldropin20]

Maybe you never stood in a free cheese line at church? Maybe you never got the free lunch in school?

I did.

It was embarrassing. So much so that I would purposefully "time the line" every day to go last. And then sometime not eat altogether when some straggler would show up last in line behind me.

Now what if that kids parents are also choosing not to work? Just so that child can suffer the embarrassment of that free carton of milk everyday?

...

I could also make a strong argument that the child that grows up with a free lunch from his classmates would not be as well adapted as a child that grows up with parents that showed him or her how to pay for their own costs of living.

lastly, I would be willing to bet my last dollar that The 5 children that get free stuff from their classmates may not compete as hard against those other kids Both academically and in sports which would lesson their quaulity of life both during school and after school. You are teaching dependence. You are teaching victimhood.

i got free lunch as a kid. I've started a couple businesses awhile working a full time job and also serving as an unpaid elected Union leader. And for me the primary stigma about eating the school lunch was that really only the tater tots and milk were tasty and everything else was memorably terrible.

I also substitute-taught at various schools after college, including a school that was a pilot program for the Free Lunch for All concept (a program to destigmatize the free lunch program and reduce the headaches of administration for it). They received a grant for healthier lunches and that school was the best behaved school of any in that impoverished inner city school system. Test scores went up, attendance was better. The program was so successful they started a Free Breakfast program, with similar results. Bob Marley said "A hungry man is an angry man". Triple that for a hungry kid.

I don't think you have kids STD but if you did I expect you don't want your six year old to fight to compete with other six year olds to qualify for milk and nutrition. If that's your philosophy there's probably a reason we hear about a series of HAWT girlfriends and former girlfriends, as opposed to bragging about I dunno your brilliant kids who are attending prestigious universities. The wife of a purported multi millionaire will not stand for him to send his kids to school with nothing and ask them to fight it out for lunch. I sincerely doubt you would tell your minions to get a job in first grade so they can afford milk. You would do what any other parent would do: send them to school with a lunch box full of good nutrition so they can learn.

You know: the point of public education. The reason why there was a national Free Lunch for ALL program that followed the success of these sorts of pilot programs. Everywhere it has been tried it has been successful in improving education. It just costs money. But if we have a public school system it should implement every means at its disposal to efficiently and effectively teach kids. I man, duh.

And a 'dog eat dog kid eat kid, to the victor go the spoils', system for education is really not the society we live in. Maybe in Sparta? But it wouldn't make kids who are better able to program your robots or invent more efficient battery technology for better passive solar tech, or make martian soil fertile or whatever.

But maybe so: its Ironic to your argument, but the children of immigrants who come here from dog-eat-dog circumstances overseas are the ones I saw who most valued education for their kids. On the flip side those kids were fed well by their parents, never sent to school hungry.

i'm just going to ramble here a bit:

for starters, 3 different posters put words in my mouth and assumed i said put "6 year olds" to work when all i said was "children." Children or minors to me are up to 17-18 years old.

when i was in high school you could do a work/study program and start working your sophomore year at 15 years old.

but i think i'll just ramble from here on out....I will say this as i ramble...i really do have a doctorate degree. and a masters. a quadripple major and double minor and over 185 undergrad hours. I'm a fellow and a diplomat (these are "big deals" in my world. And for me...school is mostly a waste of time. I truly and honestly mean that. All that time i spent in school...i use about 3% or less of that education. and i only need about 3% of it to function well as an oral surgeon. My counter part in japan only studies about 1/20th the material i have covered and they do pretty decent dentistry and dental surgery over there.

--in 20 years or less (if the dental community allows them) machines and computers will perform dental procedures and do so far better than out best dentist perform it today. Doubt they allow them as we are self governed and control the research that allows FDA approval of such procedures...so it likely wont happen. But it could. heck it could happen in 10 years or less if they let them...

--so how can that be? how can a machine come in and do just as good or better a job? I'll tell you why...cuz at the end of the day I am really just 3 things:

1. A salesman,
2. A manager of a business.
3. A tooth, gingiva, and bone mechanic.

--thats all i am. And I'm the guy that puts your facial structures back together when you get mangles in a car accident or shot in the face. So if that's all I am, what does that say about the rest of us? And if i'm only using 2-3% (at most) of what i studied then what about that guy or gal in sales? or pouring concrete? Or waiting tables? Or keeping records? or filing taxes? Or even managing a mutual fund? Huh? here's what t says to me...they are all over qualified!!!

--so i just cant really follow along here on this narrative about the "poor kids in school" . ohhhhh the pwecious wittle babies...and dhere pwecious wittle edumacation...awwww" . Sorry...i dont follow. I dont agree. I think its a big waste of time. I think kids could and should be in the work force at 12-13 years old. I mean that...unless they are some supernova einstein level rocket scientist (and we can literally test for that) there is not need for an education beyond 12-13 years old. We can cover all of that lame dogma in 12 years...then put them to work. A bus should come pick them up at 630 am and drop them at a labor camp once they turn 13. and they should work there until they are 18. 8 hours per day! for 5 years!!<--thats what i think.

--if they want to read shakespeare? or worse comic books? read at night! Play an instrument? play a sport? do so after 3pm!!

--this way...they will have a real work ethic! they better understand what the human body is capable.

--you know what i did from 2009-2013? I would put 7-8 hours of construction in before my shifts at the hospital running my construction crews. there i was Dr._______ picking up 80lbs bags of shingles up a ladder to show the guys how to do it faster. Same with 80 lbs pounds of concrete when we would pour new slabs. Have any of you ever carried a single piece of drywall 4x12 up a flight of 14 steps? I doubt it. Try carrying 300!! I did it. as a 39-42 year old doctor. just to push myself. And push my crew. and of you ever hung a kitchen? I can hang a 25 piece set of cabs in 4 hours by myself. and tie them together. With crown mold!

---you think i ever took a single class on how to install cabinets? let me assure i didn't!! I watched my finish carpenter do it once 25 years ago and have since hung over 15 kitchens myself. That labor used to be $3K and is now only $500 so i sub it out but used to do it myself.

--I could go on...ive roughed in plumbing on over 30 homes. You think i ever took a single class on how to do it? I mean once single second? Nope!

--so what's the deal? How can i do all this crap...and frankly so much more...I'm a better writer than 99% of the people on here. I better at telling a story...better at captivating an audience...etc etc...why??? How???? am i some wiz kid? huh? Am i? cuz i'm pretty sure i'm not. In grade school, while i mostly got A's n B's and some C's, I did about 10% of the homework and I studied for about 10% of my tests. it was all busy work and memory I did very little of either.

--High school even less. I graduated in the bottom 10% of my high school class even though i got almost straight A's my first 2 years. I did take all college AP course because i knew i wanted to "be something." But i never tried to learn a thing.

---my senior year alone i missed 172 days of school. No bull crap. I literally never showed up.

--i've never read a single comic book. Only Parts of the bible. And almost never read my assignments. Almost never did the homework. When i did show up to class, i'd copy off of the kid next to me or quickly get some crap down on paper and turn it in.

--i read (2 whole books) cover to cover before i graduated high school. "dracula go home" --i think it was 75 pages and i was really proud of myself that day for actually finishing a book! and when i was younger i used to get my rocks off on solving all of the encyclopedia brown books so i finished a few of them. thats it.

--so i barely read a damn thing. i barely did homework...I barely showed up. i was always unprepared for class. seldem even brought a pencil and paper. I was the kid that was always borrowing these things from the girl sitting next to me.

--now i did work out like a freak. Even though I'm only 5'11" barefoot, i could dunk a basketball in 8th grade and I ran a 4.4 40 my junoir and senior year at 185 lbs and a 30 inch waste.

--that's me in a nutshell. I barely scraped by high school in terms of passing grades But i did take AP courses and every now and then a professor challenged me...i found them interesting enough...i would put forth the effort and ace their course...usually an advanced course...like AP calculus i took as a sophomore. I aced that class. didn't miss a question all year long. there were a couple of other professors that could encourage me to study. but i could count them on 1 hand, maybe 2. the rest of high school i would literally never show up. I'd take a few "make up exams here and there and get by with a C and virtually not try at all.

--so why did i waste my time!!?? What did i learn? To socialize? To shmooze? perhaps. maybe? And maybe i would have learned those skills anyway. Anywhere.

--and i'm not alone. Grade school and high school in this country is an effing joke! I find that most kids barely try. its a mental masturbation session of memorization for most of us. In fact 99% of learning is memorization. Even the intuitive stuff. cognitive recognition stuff. and even PBL things that we've been doing over the past 30 years. All of it can be memorized. Physics can be memorized. Problem solving can be organized and memorized for those that lack intuition.

--but i digress...back on point...grade school and high school is borderline useless...its really just a big expensive baby sitting office. It's just something you have to get through. Its just another hoop. another hurdle. most of those kids are never going to directly use anything that they learn in order to make money. they're not. Sorry to break it to you. but they are not. I mean, i'm sitting here in this politics thread literally wasting my time. 95% of dont even understand the implications of everything i just wrote. very few of the posters here really understand this gigantic circle jerk of this thing we call "life." If ya understood it better, you'd laugh more often at the stuff i write.

--so i'm not really moved by anyone's argument here over subsidized milk in the classroom. because I literally believe that the grade school, high school and generic college level class room stuff is 90% a waste of time for 95% of the kids who are nothing more than on their journey to the middle. its romper room. its play time. its a waste of time. it's nothing more than a self ejaculating socialization hour as we fool ourselves into this idea that we are gaining useful life skills. No we are not! Learning how to change out a toilet would be useful! learning how to fix a clogged drain would be useful! Learning how to code for a website would be useful! learning how to buy, prepare, and eat healthy meals would be helpful! Getting your body to do physical work would be useful!

--Those kids would be better served learning a trade. mastering a trade. earning money. building wealth. buying rental income property or eventually a small business once they master a trade...and doing so while they are young. Once you turn 45-50, you will be out of energy. You wont have the energy to blindly chug away for small rewards. the rewards will need to get much bigger to get you out of bed and few people learn how to chase large rewards.

--But grade school and high school does NONE of that...so what we really find is that moms and dads across america are actually re-living their own grade and high school experiences through their children (instead of preparing their children for the future). Some dorky loser and was afraid of his own shadow in high school buys his son a mustang and raises his kid to think he is king of the world and hopes his kid will believe it long enough to nail the prom queen and talk himself into a chasing down decent paying "fun" career that he is "passionate" about. it's all a lie. generation after generation of poor folks falling for the same lies over and over...all of them hoping their kids "make it big." And they have no idea how to get their...how to actually make it...that there really are easy and predictable paths to real success (however you define that for yourself) and for the most part, success is tied to financial security and comfort.

So you guys teach your kids shakespeare. Maybe he'll wax poetic and get laid at the renaissance fair someday. or maybe your kid will pick up on the fact that shakespeare was a master psychologist who really understood human nature very well. and maybe you let them gorge on marvel comics. and play in the sand box. Meanwhile, My kids will be hanging kitchen cabinets with me at 7am...and then i'll drag them to rock concerts until late at night. We'll wake up the next morning and Install new subfloors and new bath tile. Just to show them how easy it is. You guys put your kids in trumpet lesson and clarinet lessons. maybe 1 out of 100,000 will become a rockstar!! Or Maybe it will just get him or her laid on open mic night. and good for him or her...hope it was worth 7 years in band lessons! ...my kid will be learning how to manage and buy the venue your kid might perform at someday...if he is the 1-100,000 that makes it "big!"

-and my kid will get through high school and college just as your kids do...heck i might even home school them just to keep them out of the left's indocrination into mental laziness and physical apathy. and then someday...my will become a dentist...they will!....or they wont inherit a single penny. simple as that. and they may never practice a single day of dentistry in their life...and just own a bunch of dental practices so long as they get that degree.

--and yes i have this all mapped out. no different than everything else i began to map out 35 years ago. And you're a damn fool if you dont have the same things mapped out for your own children...and if that maps doesn't include teaching your children to compete and to out work the person sitting next to them then i dont know what to tell you. I've been laying it all down in this thread for 2 years. This is what you are up against.

[queridiculo]

One of my favorite headlines of 2018 applies here.

Stream of consciousness leads to diarrhea of the mouth

[closg00]

If you appreciate irony, no brown illegals involved here
https://apple.news/Aih6KnWxGSq6qtUl6WaOtQQ

[Pointgod]

If you appreciate irony, no brown illegals involved here
https://apple.news/Aih6KnWxGSq6qtUl6WaOtQQ

And notice our right wing friends on this site predictably remain silent on this topic. They won’t even address it but be assured that give it a couple of weeks and they’ll be ranting about illegal voting or saying some stupidity that anyone can vote for others if they know their name and address. I’m sure these guys are here in good faith.

[popper]

If you appreciate irony, no brown illegals involved here
https://apple.news/Aih6KnWxGSq6qtUl6WaOtQQ

And notice our right wing friends on this site predictably remain silent on this topic. They won’t even address it but be assured that give it a couple of weeks and they’ll be ranting about illegal voting or saying some stupidity that anyone can vote for others if they know their name and address. I’m sure these guys are here in good faith.

If right wing is the same as conservative in your mind then I’m happy to address this issue or any other for that matter. I’m glad they’re investigating and, if as it seems, there’s a violation of law, those responsible should be prosecuted. Pretty easy call for this “right winger”.

[Wizardspride]

Basically, He's witness tampering.

Read on Twitter

?s=19

[JWizmentality]

All you conservatives love to talk about for the past two years is voter fraud...especially good ole nate. Then NC happens and it's nothing to see here. What gives?

[popper]

All you conservatives love to talk about for the past two years is voter fraud...especially good ole nate. Then NC happens and it's nothing to see here. What gives?

I’m probably the most active conservative participant on this thread JW and in 9 years of posting I don’t ever remember commenting on or bringing up the subject of voter fraud (except for response to pointgod invitation two frames above). My memory is not as good as it used to be so feel free to correct me if you find otherwise.

[JWizmentality]

All you conservatives love to talk about for the past two years is voter fraud...especially good ole nate. Then NC happens and it's nothing to see here. What gives?

I’m probably the most active conservative participant on this thread JW and in 9 years of posting I don’t ever remember commenting on or bringing up the subject of voter fraud (except for response to pointgod invitation two frames above). My memory is not as good as it used to be so feel free to correct me if you find otherwise.

You are mistaken. Note I said past two years. nate and STD have been all too happy to peddle their voter fraud nonsense since Trump took office.

[dckingsfan]

How exactly was the tax cut at the expense of the middle class to help the wealthy? I'm middle class, as I'm sure most ppl on here are as well, and I have more money now thanks to those cuts, so no, not at our expense.

And your use of the word handout in that comment is truly one to remember. There's only one political party associated with the word handout, and it's not the current Republican party you claim exists, or the former.

The tax cut was at the expense of the working guy if the deficit means our social security system is bankrupted. At some point we have to pay our bills. The top % of wealth earners tend to hoard and not spend their wealth, not even investing in businesses the way middle class folk do. That middle percentage of workers tend to drive the success of our country by starting new business and building houses and buying property and hiring workers. The tax cuts over the life of the deal will disproportionately be given to the moneyed elite.

Democrats are labelled as giving handouts but you know better than that: when we talk about pork in the budget it is rarely about social service programs for impoverished moms and mentally ill folk and free backpacks to poor kids or whatever. The BIG money tends to be tax carve outs and give backs to corporations and stadiums for sports teams owned by billionaires or special interest money to satisfy lobbyists and donors. Corporate handouts. Big Business Welfare. Check out the recent Amazon deal moving to Virginia.

I wish we had tax fairness for the middle class and the working guy. But we don't. That $200 is significant to you. And feels like enough to buy your allegiance for now. But Trump gave himself and his billionaire buddies a fat fat fat sweetheart honey of a deal. Make no mistake about it. He bought your vote some, but your kids will be paying for it while his descendants are busy building their armored fortress cities and private farms and leasing rockets to their moonbase retreats or whatever while you and eat artificial krill and rent air from their Oxygen factories.

Well done doc - $200 at the expense of thousands of dollars in debt isn't a good trade-off.

Although I might disagree with you on a nuance of the bill. It wasn't the corporate tax cut or the repatriation that I had a problem with (although the repatriation could have been better used during a downturn).

It was the personal tax cuts that went way past revenue neutral. And it was the further obfuscation of the tax code that makes it even more impossible for the IRS to enforce for both personal and corporate entities.

It was just a really lousy tax bill all the way around. And this coming from a fiscal conservative.

[dobrojim]

Personally I was particularly troubled by the support of greater benefits for pass through
corporations, like many real estate businesses (IIRC), and the significant number of important
congress-critters that have pass through businesses of this nature. Bob Corker, I'm looking
at you and your change of heart re the tax reform bill.

[stilldropin20]

pass through LLC's are essentially every single small business in the United States.

If you dont like big business(the billionaires like trump, koch, bezos, etc) and big banking (who prop up big business over small business with endless streams of money) then you actually support small business.

If you want small business to win.

Or if you want big business to lose. <--if you want big business to have less power...less money...less influence...then you must prop up small business.

Let's take walsh contruction company. They build your highways and your bridges. Over 80% in the US and almost 100% in illinois. Why? If 100 bridges get built in illinois in any given year why does Walsh contruction get to build 95-100 of them?

I would prefer to see a world when 100 bridges get built, 95 different small business build those bridges. And instead of Walsh gross 20 million per bridge and net $4Million, id rather see 95 different small businesses gross 20 million for 1 bridge and Net 3 million because they might be less efficient. <--and we iused to live in a world more like that...just 30 years ago.

We had an ACE hardware in every neighborhood. A local bread store. A local butcher. etc etc.

Why did it go away??? Why did big business win?

the answer is simple: tax codes. Corporate rates were raised while Carveouts and loop holes were created almost strictly for big business to thrive and small business to die a slow death.

the only small businesses to survive the tax codes of the past 40-50 years have been some restaurants, some doctor offices, some legal offices, some real estate offices, some bars. Everything else has gone full corporate, full chain.


^^^^and thats the biggest reason for the wage gap. mom and pop used to own a diner. or clothing store. or hair cuttery. or barber. mom and pop used to be able ot afford their own real estate, even live above their storefront.

large Corporation could afford to pay more for the real estate due to other loop holes and carve outs, driving the commercial rental rates up, which drove real estate taxes up.

Just so each and everyone of you could end up working for someone else and your opportunity to branch out on your own has been severely limited by the tax codes.

Bottom line: you support global elite or you support small business<--these 2 factions are at war with each other. And the small business world has only recently woken up and realized its all out war.

You children will all end up working for big business and never have the opportunity to own their own thing if this keeps going the way its going. And we are finding that things have not become less expensive, but in fact more expensive. Service is down. quality is down. care is down. And large business dont directly invest in their community like small business do...mom and pop sponsor local teams and outreach programs much more than big business.

You paid for those trumpet lessons for 7 years? Those piano lessons? maybe your child can open up a music school someday if small business can get/keep more competitive tax codes.

[Doug_Blew]

Dow Jones when Obama was in office
01/20/2009 .. 7,949
01/20/2017 .. 19,827
--------------------------------
149% / 8 years = 18.67% Average on initial investment per year over 8 years

Dow Jones under Trump
01/20/2017 .. 19,827 .. In office 1 year 318 days
12/04/2018 .. 25,247
-----------------------------
27.333% / 1.871 years = 14.6% Average on initial investment per year over 1.87 years

Lots of talk about he market under Trump. Still a great number but unfortunately his % is coming down.