CobraCommander wrote:Ok you are a pragmatist - we have that in common at least.
The difference between us as i can see is that you think Trump and Bannons plans will help the middle class. I actually think some of his plans will hurt the same people that are supporting him.
I dont necessarily want to help the middle class or the poor class in the "typical" way where this group get a $1500 tax break. Thats not real help. that doesn't really change your life. What I want is REAL avenues open, WIDE OPEN, to move from poor to the middle class. and move from middle class to upper class.
That's why I went through the trouble to outline income levels in chicago where "one's lifestyle actually feels different." Lifestyles dont change based on a $1500 tax break, imo. Whether you take home 20k per year or 21K per year. you feel almost no change whatsoever. You wont feel real change until that 20K starts to hit 32-35K and feel the full effect of it around 40K. And at 40K you wont feel much different and your lifestyle wont change until you get in the 55K-60K range and fully feel the effect of that around 70K. and the people making 70K wont start to feel a real difference in lifestyle until around 100-110K and then feel the full effect of it around 120K.
So discussing things like a 1500 tax break are a joke to me. a waste of time. what I want to see is real avenues open to go from 15K to 40K. and from people makeing 40K to get to 70K. 70 to 120. and 120 to 200. i want upward mobility to be a real thing.
I personally have earned in every single bracket I outlined in my post. and have spent multiple years in those various brackets. So I fully understand what it feels like to earn 15k. as well as 450K and much more tbh. Making more money is certainly better than making less. and making 15-25K is borderline misery. It's painful. So when I look across america and I see 45-55 years old earning 25-35K and they live in expensive cities like chicago, I'm wondering how they keep it together? I'm wondering how we dont have "postal" events daily. and a $1500 tax break isn't the answer.
What those people need is real opportunity. These are blue collar jobs, obviously. sometimes office, sometimes construction labor. sometimes cleaning/maintenance. So when we allow 2 million people across the border each day to do a 40K job for 20K. That's a problem for me. and let me assure this is real. I'm a dentist but I am also a real estate developer. and I have contractors, electricians that own their companies but pay their undocumented employees $150 per day. and it usually costs about 400-500 to pay an electrician per day. wage. not the business. the business charges much more. and it happens in plumbing, rough and finish carpentry, esp drywall mudders n tapers, n landscapers. So people like me end up making better margins on developments and redevelopments. And home owners end up paying less as well. and frankly this applies to buying TV's and electronics from overseas, etc. Our goods are cheaper. but the costs are the diminishing middle class in that the avenues to go from 20K to 50K are closing. and to go from 50K to 120K are closing. This goes for "super" markets as well that have taken over for all the mom and pop convenience stores on every corner in america. and most importantly, the ability to go from working class to upper class. this is the backbone of the american dream. Individuals that earn $120-200K to jump to 800K and up. working class to wealthy. and that is mostly a small business avenue. where a mom and pop shop can grow up to become a large small business.
Imo, the way to keep all of those actual avenues of individual growth open are:
1. first and foremost by keeping the economy flush with cash. aka the money supply flush. the credit markets wide open. This help middle class people become upper class. this is how mom and pop shops will expand. credit. credit at low interests rates is huge.
2. employment rates. right now we are at a 17 year low. 4.1%. The department of labor basically considers anything at the rate and lower as 100% employment. everyone that wants to work right now can get a job. also huge. because this allows a $15 per hour employee to negotiate for a $22 per hour rate. and allows part timers to get more hours. So small business have to compete for the better talent. My dental office has done so well this year compared to the previous 8 years that my $18 per hour "labor" employees received raises to $21-22 per hour. and their hours went from about 28 per week to 40 per week. and we hired 3 new lower end labor employees to do tasks like cleaning/sterilization. I mean, these girls are happy. they actually made a huge leap in earning from around $27-28K per year to $45K per year. and 3 of them made that jump! Thats a big jump!!! i could not be happier for them. i remember a time when i made a similar jump in wages. and it felt real good.
3. In this country, during the entire Obama administration, we had a major issue keeping american "labor" employees employed. we dont have enough cheap labor jobs. so we need immigration control to make sure the supply meets the demand so as to keep their wages to at least a "livable" wage: ($24K)
I dont see a difference in Clinton and Trump when it comes to how they went about getting elected- She colluded with the Democratic leaders to trick people into believing that Bernie couldn’t win..and Trump rolled with the Russians...both were bad.
agree. adding that both colluded with russians and the DNC has already admitted to paying for russian dirt. but this whole thing is a waste of time. and frankly a campaign finance issue. harsher campaign finance restriction. and more disclosures. immediately. regulate social media.
But i think the way Trump is governing is insulting the intelligence of all of the americans especially those that can read. For Trump to lead by saying something like the guy in NYC was evil but the guys in Texas and Vegas is/were mentally ill. Trump and his people know that that type of talk drives a wedge between Muslims Americans and the rest of the americans.
i'm not religious. at all. did go to a catholic HS and did grow up around religion. education freed me of religious dogma as well as living my life as a good person freed me of any guilt requiring any soul cleansing. In terms radical islam though? there is a problem there. We cant ignore it. Muslims will tell you that its a major problem and we cant ignore it. now here's where it gets murky for me. radical muslims are almost preaching what Im preaching. That bankers control the world and usury is the backbone of most of their crimes. Muslims dont believe in paying interest for loans. in that regard, they are on to something, imo.
In terms of evil vs. mentally ill? I see them both as one in the same. both are ill and evil. no different than pedophiles who are also ill AND evil. we profile for pedophiles. we hunt them. we lure them. we entrap them. and we should!! We need to do the same for those other mentally ill people with a propensity for mass violence/shootings bombing, etc. Profile them, hunt them, entrap them, and remove them from society. I'm all for it. sorry not sorry.
The same way he knows that saying there were bad people on both sides when the rest of america thinks Charlottesville was Blacks against Nazis/s....and to not call the guy that killed the protestor a terrorist even tho the killer pleaded allegiance to a anti-american group (Nazis and white nationalist) - one that America went to war with in WW2 is despicable. So I’m not willing to sell my soul and support trump for the possible positive changes trump can make for this hypothetical american middle class. Winning or change at any cost isn’t worth it. People that are supporting Trump are putting the hope of economic improvement above civility or decency. You know thats exactly what the Germans did pre-ww2. The Germans didnt universally hate Jews. The Germans needed something and someone to believe in that would improve their economy and make Germany great again and they were willing to trade the German values for it. Most Germans - even soilders- thought Jews were being deported or detained..they didnt universally know about the genocide....yada yada...i know you know all this. I just wonder how you can balance Trumps race baiting, Muslim, Hispanic and Mexican disrespect, open dishonesty about the news, turning back LBGTQ rights...etc. WOW-
[/quote]
these are good points. I deal with most of this in my previous paragraph but they are fears and CNN, hollywood, and MSNBC has led this push. trump doesn't help. he uses rhetoric that does not help. at the same time, his rhetoric is that of the crazy guy in the room that talks crazy enough to keep people listening. Look if trump wasnt president you and I would not be ahving this conversation. He keeps people interested. he is the dirty old man that is not actually a dirty old man but has been telling dirty old man jokes for 40 years. so he gets away with a level of vitriol that also helps us get away from a "PC culture" that is making it more difficult to govern. for example we need to have a conversation on immigration. and we need to be honest. Fair! but honest! as opposed to worried about losing votes from certain groups so we dont say certain things. trump figured out how to do that. as I've stated, Im half native america and hispanic. and I dont feel slighted at all by trumps vitriol. I have family members, americans also born here, on my hispanic side that have weaker wages over the past 8 years due to weak immigration policy. They now earn much more money since trump got in office as it is more difficult to find cheap labor. A cousin for example installs fences. He is 45 years old and finally buying his first house next year as his earning doubled this year from around 35K to nearly 70K. I know this because I am his realtor. But his mom, my aunt, cant stand trump. because she just wants open borders and listens to the talking points on CNN (via facebook) and doesn't understand the meat and potatoes behind the policies. she just looks at it like you said as race baiting, mean, evil, cruel. yet those "cruel policies" allowed her son, a 100% hispanic american, to double his earnings this year. And I'm not making this stuff up folks. If you have family in labor you know damn well what I'm talking about is the truth and you can see it for yourselves in your own circles.
like i said, its a full rebuild.
more like predictable. in fact, i called it 2 weeks in these very pages. 
