Donald trump. what is your take on him?

[tands]

As yet another American, DaveP, let me just say that imo you're welcome to say anything about us you want, regardless of what country you come from or are in currently.

Don't censor yourself on our account. I'm sure you have the good sense not to, but I feel someone should object to the suggestion.

 

[dmp]

People criticize the government for putting it's finger on the scales of the free market.
Even before Jan20, Trump's power to move markets from his bully pulpit is significant.
The President has broad executive authority to affect the economy. We will see where this goes.  The investing markets are very aware of Trump's temperament and coming power.
But a President picking winners and losers based on how they kowtow to his demands does not seem like it will be a good thing. 

Full article:
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-01-10/invest-and-profit-with-the-potus-indexes

PS: I find arguing about the future difficult.

I find arguing the easy part - predicting (correctly) is difficult.

 

[JohnRoberts]

People criticize the government for putting it's finger on the scales of the free market.
Even before Jan20, Trump's power to move markets from his bully pulpit is significant.
The President has broad executive authority to affect the economy. We will see where this goes.  The investing markets are very aware of Trump's temperament and coming power.

Aware and often wrong.

Market reaction to Trump was generally unexpected (I am up a bunch in a few banks and a couple other stocks I bought in Nov..., down in others.. or normal for me). I raised cash before the election so put some back to work, still sitting on some dry powder. My small gold position, I added to is still down.  (Dollar is getting stronger, may be time soon to buy some Hypex amps that are priced in Euros  8) ).

[/edit- speaking of markets and investment strategies, apparently George Soros lost a cool $1B in the market shorting the Trump rally. He may ultimately be right about some of his bets but not for now. He closed out his losing positions at the end of last year. Don't worry about him he still has tens of $B.  /edit]

But a President picking winners and losers based on how they kowtow to his demands does not seem like it will be a good thing. 

government has been picking winners and losers every time they inject themselves into the private economy.

Full article:
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-01-10/invest-and-profit-with-the-potus-indexes

I find arguing the easy part - predicting (correctly) is difficult.

Indeed... it appears Russia agreed with my speculation that Hillary would win. More evidence that I cannot predict the future (nor could they.)

I am opposed to Trump man-handling private companies via twitter, but for the record he still isn't president yet. Many of his top advisors are not marching in lock step with his campaign policy pronouncements ( a good thing IMO). The congressional hearings are political kabuki since the republicans have the votes, but we can learn more about the appointments, who are easy to stereotype, but generally a lot smarter than the average politician.

I am curious, no apprehensive, about where the money will come from for many of his promises. I do not like the border tax discussion (tariff?), nor any flirtation with VAT. The congress has been working on tax policy improvements for years, so I look forward to hearing Ryan's plans.

I really hope the democrats participate in the re-write of the ACA to help craft something that is better for "all" americans. 

JR

PS: for some amusing political news the KS senate is in a bind because they do not have one senator who is also a lawyer to defend them if the state is sued... They may need to repeal that statute to use a senator and hire a real lawyer.  8)

 

[mattiasNYC]

As yet another American, DaveP, let me just say that imo you're welcome to say anything about us you want, regardless of what country you come from or are in currently.

Don't censor yourself on our account. I'm sure you have the good sense not to, but I feel someone should object to the suggestion.

I didn't tell him to censor himself, I offered my opinion that his was presumptuous. That's all.

 

[mattiasNYC]

That would be an enormous red line for me and I would leave the country if I could.

Right, and so that is an example of an answer. You, Dave, draw the line somewhere and I was curious as to how you determine where that line is drawn.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/trump-says-he-would-certainly-implement-muslim-database-n466716

Ok, so where's the difference then? About a million times if you only said "Jews" instead of "Muslims" people would get super-upset. Imagine if Trump had used the exact same wording except for switching the two; you think Political Correctness regarding Islamophobia is bad? Imagine what would have happened if that had been the case....

My advice to give him the benefit of the doubt is not given because I am a conservative (arguable).  It is because I am practical and pragmatic and I see his room for maneuver as being very restricted.  It is also because I derive no pleasure from seeing people like yourself  getting distressed at the prospect of his Presidency, when you can do nothing about it now.

I am in the same position over Brexit, I did not vote for it, but I have to accept the result or there will be chaos if the division in society continues.

See, you just actually said that you do have a choice other than "to accept the result", it's just that you think the alternative results in "chaos". But the "division" you speak of I don't quite understand. Registering one group of people based on religion for example, or on race or ethnicity; would division cease to exist if people just "accepted it"? Of course not. The division is inherent in the proposed policy, not the reaction to it. These objections aren't just coming out of nowhere....

The united states is certainly divided as you say, but you have a choice,

Again, that's exactly what I was getting at which you implied wasn't the case. Don't tell people that "they have to" accept things and "have to give the benefit of doubt" when in fact they don't. It's exactly what authoritarians will tell the people: Don't get too rowdy, you have to accept this.

you can make that division worse or you can try to find something positive in the situation in pursuit of unity, because disunity makes losers of you all.  I think that Hillary would have taken the world back to the darkest days of the cold war and that would have benefited no-one except the arms industries.  Giving the Russians some respect will be a lot cheaper and make a safer world,  there is still IS to deal with and North Korea, Trump will need all the help he can get to deal with these issues.

DaveP

Let's see how much safer the world will be if he opens an embassy in Jerusalem.

 

[dmp]

Aware and often wrong.

I expect a lot of volatility in the next few months.
Particularly protectionist policies (which I believe the President can implement without Congress) and stimulus likely to spur inflation are contenders to spook investors.

Market reaction to Trump was generally unexpected

It is interesting that people put faith in the markets when they are often so wrong about future predictions, such as the election.  I accepted a long time ago that I couldn't predict future market moves at all. It was helpful to me to realize that much of the short term movement is based on 3rd party thinking (what do I think about how other people value this asset) not 1st party thinking (what is the value of this asset). Basically gambling (if an individual were to try to do it). Last year I saw a study that identified market moves happening before key information was released - i.e. there are enough people trading on inside info to move markets,  so this makes it all the worse to try to play the market for an individual investor. 

My small gold position, I added to is still down.  (Dollar is getting stronger,

I expect gold will actually do really well with inflation looming on the horizon and the dollar running out of steam. The dollar is currently very strong after several years of gains. I'm not sure it will keep this up - and I'm not sure if this is fundamental to the dollar or more telling on the weakness of other country's currencies. Theoretically, the doubling of the money supply over the last few years should weaken the dollar? Or maybe it won't, since the dollar is just measured against other currencies and they might all have their own issues?

The bitcoin I bought a year and a half ago has done really well, but is in a decline currently because China is clamping down on it. (I didn't buy it as an investment - I was hoping to use it instead of paypal, which didn't pan out).

I am opposed to Trump man-handling private companies via twitter,

Wow, we agree on something again.

Government has been picking winners and losers every time they inject themselves into the private economy.

I favor structural changes by Government for the greater societal good based on science and fact using regulations and tax policy - like the great improvements in energy and pollution that have happened over the last 30 years . I'm not sure how to implement regulations or tax policy to force companies to keep employment in America that doesn't have an overall negative end result. Especially when automation is much more devastating. 

 

[DaveP]

Ok, so where's the difference then? About a million times if you only said "Jews" instead of "Muslims" people would get super-upset. Imagine if Trump had used the exact same wording except for switching the two; you think Political Correctness regarding Islamophobia is bad? Imagine what would have happened if that had been the case..

I think that the comparison to Nazi Germany is a poor one, a better comparison would be to the internment of the Japanese after Pearl Harbour.  The Jewish persecution was the first example of ethnic cleansing.  The internment of the Japanese was because of fear of sabotage and spying.  A Muslim database would be a response to a pseudo war/terror situation.  I am only disagreeing about the comparison, I'm not justifying either action.

See, you just actually said that you do have a choice other than "to accept the result", it's just that you think the alternative results in "chaos". But the "division" you speak of I don't quite understand

I will explain because the Brexit example is almost identical to the US situation.

You don't like the country's choice of President, I don't like leaving the EU.
I have decided to accept the result (it is democracy after all) because a divided country cannot move on or heal itself, I have decided to put my objections aside for the greater good.  I'm not trying to be noble, it just seems more sensible to give it a try rather than continuing in acrimony.

As for Brexit, I cannot predict whether it will end in disaster or success, it could go either way,  I would have preferred not to have taken the risk, but more people did than did not.  There is an obvious comparison between the choice of Americans to take a risk with Trump, and like Brexit, it could go either way.

DaveP

 

[JohnRoberts]

I expect a lot of volatility in the next few months.

VIX has been unusually low, which is  a bad sign that everybody is on the same side of the boat.... I expect some correction or retracement  (probably soon like right after the inauguration ) but I'm long term bullish from here.

Particularly protectionist policies (which I believe the President can implement without Congress) and stimulus likely to spur inflation are contenders to spook investors.

There are many things that can spook markets. A spike in inflation (like could be caused by a border tax) could cause the fed to raise interest rates sooner than expected. While the market has been overly sensitive to interest rates, low single digit rates are still historically low, but it's the perception more than the reality in short term market moves, longer term reality wins.

It is interesting that people put faith in the markets when they are often so wrong about future predictions, such as the election.

Markets were wrong on brexit and the recent election but that is unusual, markets (where people bet with their own money) are generally more accurate than self appointed prognosticators.  Bond markets are generally smarter than stocks,

  I accepted a long time ago that I couldn't predict future market moves at all. It was helpful to me to realize that much of the short term movement is based on 3rd party thinking (what do I think about how other people value this asset) not 1st party thinking (what is the value of this asset). Basically gambling (if an individual were to try to do it). Last year I saw a study that identified market moves happening before key information was released - i.e. there are enough people trading on inside info to move markets,  so this makes it all the worse to try to play the market for an individual investor. 

I have been ranting for years about high speed trading front running trades, and leveraging small trading inefficiencies. Some exchanges have added speed bumps to reduce their advantage.

I routinely read in the newspapers about insider trading prosecutions. If joe wingnut makes a killing on XYZ stock with no previous record of risky trading, he will show up and be investigated. There was recently a case where (russians? or chinese) were hacking law firm servers to get inside information on mergers and take overs.

Congress needs to be prohibited from trading in any industry they pass laws about (just about all of them). They routinely get inside information and there was a law passed in 2012 but they claim immunity from that. Ugly, sleazy profiteering from secret inside information.

I expect gold will actually do really well with inflation looming on the horizon and the dollar running out of steam. The dollar is currently very strong after several years of gains. I'm not sure it will keep this up - and I'm not sure if this is fundamental to the dollar or more telling on the weakness of other country's currencies. Theoretically, the doubling of the money supply over the last few years should weaken the dollar? Or maybe it won't, since the dollar is just measured against other currencies and they might all have their own issues?

Dollar is strong and raising interest rates should make it stronger.  That said the world economies seem less coupled than they were a few years back. The chinese yaun is weakening, and Chinese are using bitcoin to get money out of the country.  I plan to use my gold to buy ammo come the revolution.

The bitcoin I bought a year and a half ago has done really well, but is in a decline currently because China is clamping down on it. (I didn't buy it as an investment - I was hoping to use it instead of paypal, which didn't pan out).
Wow, we agree on something again.

8)

I favor structural changes by Government for the greater societal good based on science and fact using regulations and tax policy - like the great improvements in energy and pollution that have happened over the last 30 years .

if we could only agree on all of the science. 

  BTW a new possible bubble. Contractors have been using no-doc loans to make solar and energy efficiency improvements to homes. Then these loans get bundled and resold just like the mortgages that were bundled and blew up in 2007.  I don't think this is as big/dangerous as those became, but they need to clamp down on possible abuses from the demand created for these bundled no-doc loans (another distortion from too low interest rates for too long causing people to chase yield anywhere they can find it).  I bet there are more economic distortions just waiting for the tide to go out (rising interest rates) and reveal who doesn't have swim trunks on. 

I'm not sure how to implement regulations or tax policy to force companies to keep employment in America that doesn't have an overall negative end result. Especially when automation is much more devastating.

agreed...  The elephant in the room is that old line jobs are gone forever... time to train up for the coming century, but there are still shortages in welding, plumbing, and old school work, that isn't cool anymore.

JR

 

[dmp]

I really hope the democrats participate in the re-write of the ACA to help craft something that is better for "all" americans.

I'm doubtful that the Republican ideas I've heard floating around will 'fix' the problem. Allowing health insurance to sell across states, HSAs, high deductible plans... serious cost reductions?  Eliminating the mandate will trigger a death spiral as costs adjust to healthy people canceling coverage. The real problem is that covering everyone with a high level of quality care at a reasonable price is not immediately possible. Over the long term, structural changes might bring down the cost of providing health services but the public doesn't have the patience for that (the ACA had things to do this like increase preventive care, stop ER use for regular health needs, etc).

This is pretty good summary of the challenge with health reform, from an article today in the WSJ. I post this because it is such a concise & accurate description of the challenge. The key point comes at the end - the sickest people cost the most.
So 3 options:  1. force insurance companies to distribute out the cost (Obamacare), 2. subsidize  with tax revenue, 3. drop them. My view of Republicans (admittedly low) is they will be fine dropping the sickest if they can figure out a way to deflect blowback & maintain power. This maybe why they want Democratic participation.

"The 2010 health law, also known as Obamacare, forced insurers to sell coverage to anyone, at the same price, regardless of their risk of incurring big claims. That provision was popular. Not so were rules requiring nearly everyone to have insurance, and higher premiums for healthy people to subsidize the costs of the sick.
If policyholders don’t pick up the tab, who will? Letting insurers refuse to sell to individuals with what the industry calls a “pre-existing condition”—in essence, forcing some of the sick to pay for themselves—is something both parties appear to have ruled out. Insurers could charge those patients more or taxpayers could pick up the extra costs, two ideas that are politically fraught.
The problem hits people who don’t have access to coverage through an employer or government program such as Medicare. For Congress, addressing the cost of covering sick people who buy their own plans “is the absolute key challenge they have to deal with,” says health-care economist Gerard Anderson, who says he generally supports the health act. Whether it is the government or healthy insurance-buyers that pay that tab, “somebody has to subsidize their cost for them to afford health insurance.”
A small number of high-cost patients have long generated a large proportion of health spending. The 10% of people with the highest costs accounted for about two-thirds of health spending, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health-care research nonprofit, when it quantified the phenomenon in 2013"

 

[JohnRoberts]

I'm doubtful that the Republican ideas I've heard floating around will 'fix' the problem. Allowing health insurance to sell across states, HSAs, high deductible plans... serious cost reductions?  Eliminating the mandate will trigger a death spiral as costs adjust to healthy people canceling coverage. The real problem is that covering everyone with a high level of quality care at a reasonable price is not immediately possible. Over the long term, structural changes might bring down the cost of providing health services but the public doesn't have the patience for that (the ACA had things to do this like increase preventive care, stop ER use for regular health needs, etc).

This is pretty good summary of the challenge with health reform, from an article today in the WSJ. I post this because it is such a concise & accurate description of the challenge. The key point comes at the end - the sickest people cost the most.
So 3 options:  1. force insurance companies to distribute out the cost (Obamacare), 2. subsidize  with tax revenue, 3. drop them. My view of Republicans (admittedly low) is they will be fine dropping the sickest if they can figure out a way to deflect blowback & maintain power. This maybe why they want Democratic participation.

"The 2010 health law, also known as Obamacare, forced insurers to sell coverage to anyone, at the same price, regardless of their risk of incurring big claims. That provision was popular. Not so were rules requiring nearly everyone to have insurance, and higher premiums for healthy people to subsidize the costs of the sick.
If policyholders don’t pick up the tab, who will? Letting insurers refuse to sell to individuals with what the industry calls a “pre-existing condition”—in essence, forcing some of the sick to pay for themselves—is something both parties appear to have ruled out. Insurers could charge those patients more or taxpayers could pick up the extra costs, two ideas that are politically fraught.
The problem hits people who don’t have access to coverage through an employer or government program such as Medicare. For Congress, addressing the cost of covering sick people who buy their own plans “is the absolute key challenge they have to deal with,” says health-care economist Gerard Anderson, who says he generally supports the health act. Whether it is the government or healthy insurance-buyers that pay that tab, “somebody has to subsidize their cost for them to afford health insurance.”
A small number of high-cost patients have long generated a large proportion of health spending. The 10% of people with the highest costs accounted for about two-thirds of health spending, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health-care research nonprofit, when it quantified the phenomenon in 2013"

I prefer to wait until we have something a little more concrete to argue about. Save the unflattering generalities about each other until then.

I never said this would be simple. EOL (end of life) care can be very expensive. Likewise allowing people to wait until sick to enter insurance pools is exactly like buying car insurance only after you wreck your car, that just isn't practical.

I have studied several other country's approaches for socialized medicine and there are pros and cons to each.

President elect trump has taken an opening shot to negotiate drug prices. While this is not very free trade and price fixing rarely works (or it hasn't in the past). An elephant in the room is that most other countries negotiate drug prices for these same drugs with these drug companies, so why should we be the patsy? I wouldn't mind a rule that stops short of price fixing, but how about legislation that says drug companies can't sell drugs to other countries for less then they sell the same drugs to us for.

One world price, the same  for everybody seems fair... set the world price so they make a profit and stop all the wheeling and dealing. Of course this is easier said than done, and I don't expect foreign governments to embrace my idea of fair.  :

JR

 

[tands]

Single payer/ Medicare for All is the only moral and practical solution in the long run.  Everybody gotta die someday. The whole point of Obamacare was to subsidise the health insurance creeps and pharma and try to stave off single payer. Obama the friendly sellout, again.

Guess it didn't work, holmes.

"U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday said pharmaceutical companies are “getting away with murder” in what they charge the government for medicines, and promised that would change.

After his remarks, the Ishares Nasdaq Biotech ETF dropped 4 percent at its session low and was on track for its largest daily percentage drop since late June. Trump has blasted other industries for charging the government too much, particularly defense companies Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co, but has made only a few public statements about drug pricing since being elected.

After his promise during a news conference, the ARCA pharmaceutical index fell 2 percent as Pfizer Inc gave up 2.6 percent and Johnson & Johnson fell 1 percent. Biotech Gilead Sciences Inc fell 2.3 percent.

The drug industry has been on edge for two years about the potential for more government pressure on pricing after sharp increases in the costs of some life-saving drugs drew scrutiny in the press and among lawmakers. The government is investigating Medicaid and Medicare overspending on Mylan NV’s allergy treatment EpiPen, for instance.

Trump’s campaign platform included allowing the Medicare healthcare program to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies, which the law currently prohibits, and he has also discussed making it easier to import drugs at cheaper prices.

“We are going to start bidding. We are going to save billions of dollars over time,” Trump said."

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/01/trump-says-pharmaceutical-companies-getting-away-with-murder/

 

[tands]

The Jewish persecution was the first example of ethnic cleansing. 

Ah, well, no. Ethnic cleansing has been going on since that monkey picked up that bone in 2001. Turkey commited genocide of the Armenians in 1915. Tutsis ethnically cleansed Hutus a while ago. It's probably going on right now.

"The Armenian Genocide, also known as the Armenian Holocaust,was the Ottoman government's systematic extermination of 1.5 million Armenians, mostly Ottoman citizens within the Ottoman Empire and its successor state, the Republic of Turkey. The starting date is conventionally held to be 24 April 1915, the day that Ottoman authorities rounded up, arrested, and deported 235 to 270 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders from Constantinople to Ankara, the majority of whom were eventually murdered. The genocide was carried out during and after World War I and implemented in two phases: the wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and subjection of army conscripts to forced labour, followed by the deportation of women, children, the elderly, and the infirm on death marches leading to the Syrian desert. Driven forward by military escorts, the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to periodic robbery, rape, and massacre. Other indigenous and Christian ethnic groups such as the Assyrians and the Ottoman Greeks were similarly targeted for extermination by the Ottoman government in the Assyrian genocide and the Greek genocide, and their treatment is considered by some historians to be part of the same genocidal policy.  Most Armenian diaspora communities around the world came into being as a direct result of the genocide.

Raphael Lemkin was explicitly moved by the Armenian annihilation to define systematic and premeditated exterminations within legal parameters and to coin the word genocide in 1943. The Armenian Genocide is acknowledged to have been one of the first modern genocides, because scholars point to the organized manner in which the killings were carried out in order to eliminate the Armenians, and it is the second most-studied case of genocide after the Holocaust."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide

"Rwandan genocide denial is the assertion that the Rwandan genocide did not occur in the manner or to the extent described by scholarship. The Rwandan genocide is widely acknowledged by genocide scholars to have been one of the biggest modern genocides, as many sources point to the sheer scale of the death toll as evidence for a systematic, organized plan to eliminate the victims.

Denial of the Rwandan genocide is a crime in Rwanda."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide_denial

 

[hodad]

I think that the comparison to Nazi Germany is a poor one, a better comparison would be to the internment of the Japanese after Pearl Harbour.   
DaveP

And wouldn't it have been better if people had spoken up against the internment of the Japanese?  And somewhere upthread, you noted a point where you'd feel compelled to think about leaving the country you live in:  wouldn't it be better to do something, to speak up, to demonstrate, to try to stop things before they got to that point?

Trump and his "idea men" (ie, Bannon) have not been terribly secretive about their plans, and if you pay attention you realize they have some very ugly ideas about how to approach the "problems" they face.  The time to speak up is not the future when some red line is crossed, and the war is already lost;  the time to fight is now, before this nation is utterly destroyed (which it could well be before these characters are done.)

I'm not trying to be alarmist, but I don't think you can look at any of it--from the campaign promises to the cabinet appointments to the presence of Steve Bannon to the approach to the press and the Twitter fixation, to the bizarre Russia love and all (not even counting the prostitute stuff) that could be behind it--and not be extremely worried. 

 

[tands]

Yah, the problem though is that the people calling for unity are mostly the same people who f**ked Bernie out of the nomination, the neoliberal third way sh*ts and their dupes.

" And this takes us back to the fault lines in the current race, that that we have a national politics now that has for 20 years at least, longer, given us two choices. And one of them is a party that’s committed to Wall Street and to neoliberalism and is deeply and earnestly committed to a notion of diversity and multiculturalism, and a party that’s committed to Wall Street and neoliberalism, and is deeply opposed to multiculturalism and diversity.

So, if we have to choose between those two, obviously for most of us who are committed to the ideals of justice and equality, the one that’s committed to multiculturalism and diversity is less bad than the one that’s opposed to them. But the deeper problem is that they’re both actively committed to maintaining and intensifying economic inequality, and as I and my friend and colleague Walter Benn Michaels have pointed out tirelessly over the last decade or so, that that ideal of a 'just society' is one in which one percent of the population can control ninety percent of the stuff, but it would be 'just' if twelve percent of the one percent were black, fourteen percent Latino, and half of them were women, and whatever percentage were gay, and what that means, then, is that most Black people, and most Latinos, and most white people, and most Asian Americans would would be stuck holding like the end of the stick with the stuff on it that I assume I can’t call by its right name."

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/06/adolph-reed-identity-politics-exposing-class-division-in-democrats.html

 

[Gold]

The problem is that Obamcare is the Republican plan. It's the Heritage Foundation/Romneycare plan. Obama expected Republicans to get on board and help originally, which never happened. The Republicans don't have any other ideas.

 

[tands]

Neither did Obama.

“I didn’t campaign on the public option.”

I guess it depends on the meaning of the word “campaign.” Because the public option was clearly part of the President’s health care plan. He signed on to the HCAN principles during the campaign. His white paper on health care included a public option. The set of principles, including a public option, are on the Obama campaign website. Plenty of media reports noted that the Obama plan had a public option. Obama talked up the public option in this candidate questionnaire on the website of The Washington Post:"

https://shadowproof.com/2009/12/22/obama-i-didnt-campaign-on-public-option/

 

[Gold]

You just pointed to another Obama idea.  Single payer. He would have prefered single payer but knew it was a non starter so he went with what had been proven to work in MA and theoretically had Republican support. The public option isn't the ACA. I'm not sure what your point is.

 

[tands]

'Another Obama Idea, Single Payer'

I like that, that's pretty funny.

Did you follow the debate at all?

"After a full year of debate and dozens of excuses, the Democratic leadership now stands naked in their opposition to the public option. President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid all claimed they that wanted one. They are the three most powerful people in Washington and have huge margins in both chambers. It is ridiculous to believe that the public option could not have become law if the leadership really wanted it. Yet, for months, people were lied to so the Democratic leadership could maintain the insane myth that the public option’s death was not their fault, but the fault of some insurmountable obstacle. What this mythic “insurmountable obstacle” actually was has shifted so many times it is hard to keep track.

Broad bipartisanship

First there was the excuse that health care reform must be bipartisan, and that you simply can’t do something so big without broad bipartisan support. We were told the public option must go to get a number Republican votes. That proves clearly wrong.[Obamacare passed by recociliation with no republican votes]

Olympia Snowe

When hope of broad bipartisanship faded, we were told that the public option must go because Olympia Snowe did not want it–and Snowe was the linchpin to everything. Now that reform has passed without Snowe, this, too is revealed to be a myth.

The “government takeover of health care” attack

We were told the public option would result in Republicans attacking the bill as a “government takeover of health care,” yet when the public option was dropped, the socialist nightmare, scaremongering attacks did not dissipate. If anything, they increased.

Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman, and 60 votes

After Snowe refused to play along, we were told that the public option had over 50 votes in the Senate, but it was that damn 60-votes-for-cloture hurdle it could not overcome, so we need to sacrifice it for Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson. Of course, not only was no effort made to strongarm these two into standing with their caucus on what was just a procedural vote, but Obama did not even call Lieberman to politely ask him to please support the public option or early Medicare buy-in.

You can’t use Reconciliation

When some people said we should then use reconciliation for the whole bill, the idea was laughed at. We were told the Byrd rule would gut the most important parts of the bill, like the very important new insurance regulations. Of course, now we are using reconciliation and the new insurance regulations in the reconciliation bill were not removed by the Byrd rule.

We no longer have 50 votes in the Senate

Once they decided to use the reconciliation sidecar, we were told, as if by magic, there were no longer 50 votes in the Senate for the public option.The Senate leadership blamed the House, saying it was now the House that no longer had the votes for a public option (even though they passed it before).


We no longer have the votes in the House.

It is hard to know for a fact because right after the Senate blamed the House, the House leadership turned around and blamed the Senate. Steny Hoyer said they did have the votes and claimed it was the Senate’s fault. He claimed Obama did not ask to put a public option in the reconciliation bill because the Senate did not have the votes.

Reconciliation must pass unchanged so it does not go back to the House

When the reconciliation bill was brought to the Senate floor, where any Democrat could have offered a public option amendment to force an up-or-down vote on the public option, a new excuse was found to stop that. We were told the Senate must pass the reconciliation bill unchanged, so it could go straight to the President’s desk without another vote in the House. We were told leadership would whip against any amendments to make health care reform slightly better. This myth, too, withered in the face of reality.

Changing reconciliation will “KILL THE BILL!”

Because of a successful Republican Byrd rule point of order, the reconciliation bill would be force to go back to the House for another vote anyway. At this point, the excuse for not offering a public option amendment got weird. Senators like Michael Bennet (D-CO) took to saying saying it would “kill the bill,” and tried to falsely equate “the bill”–the reconciliation fix, which is mainly a package of minor tax changes that do not take effect for years–with the comprehensive health insurance reform measure already signed into law.

Occam’s razor

I’m sure there were some other excuses that I have forgotten to mention. The important thing is that, in the end, they did use reconciliation. They also could have added the public option to a reconciliation bill that could have passed with a simple majority , and had it not endanger the bulk of the health care reform provision. In the end, all their excuses fade away or became weird nonsense about some possible later promise and not wanting to risk anything.

It is foolish to believe that a President, Senate Majority Leader, and Speaker of the House with historically large majorities couldn’t get a public option–which roughly 65% of the country supported–if they really wanted one. Clearly, if they all really wanted to include a public option, they could have done it using reconciliation. To accept their many different excuses of powerlessness requires one to completely suspend reality.

Occam’s razor teaches us the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. Here, the simplest explanation is that, months ago, Obama promised to kill the public option as part of a secret deal with the for-profit hospital lobby, and that for months he lied to the American people about supporting the public option while working behind the scenes to stop it.

So, when exactly does that changing the way Washington works thing start again?"

https://shadowproof.com/2010/03/25/the-death-of-the-public-option-after-parade-of-lies-democratic-leadership-now-stands-naked/

 

[Gold]

That is a fantasy. Did you follow the debate at all?

Nothing below contradicts what I said. I still don't understand your point.




"After a full year of debate and dozens of excuses, the Democratic leadership now stands naked in their opposition to the public option. President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid all claimed they that wanted one. They are the three most powerful people in Washington and have huge margins in both chambers. It is ridiculous to believe that the public option could not have become law if the leadership really wanted it. Yet, for months, people were lied to so the Democratic leadership could maintain the insane myth that the public option’s death was not their fault, but the fault of some insurmountable obstacle. What this mythic “insurmountable obstacle” actually was has shifted so many times it is hard to keep track.

Broad bipartisanship

First there was the excuse that health care reform must be bipartisan, and that you simply can’t do something so big without broad bipartisan support. We were told the public option must go to get a number Republican votes. That proves clearly wrong.[Obamacare passed with no republican votes]

Olympia Snowe

When hope of broad bipartisanship faded, we were told that the public option must go because Olympia Snowe did not want it–and Snowe was the linchpin to everything. Now that reform has passed without Snowe, this, too is revealed to be a myth.

The “government takeover of health care” attack

We were told the public option would result in Republicans attacking the bill as a “government takeover of health care,” yet when the public option was dropped, the socialist nightmare, scaremongering attacks did not dissipate. If anything, they increased.

Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman, and 60 votes

After Snowe refused to play along, we were told that the public option had over 50 votes in the Senate, but it was that damn 60-votes-for-cloture hurdle it could not overcome, so we need to sacrifice it for Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson. Of course, not only was no effort made to strongarm these two into standing with their caucus on what was just a procedural vote, but Obama did not even call Lieberman to politely ask him to please support the public option or early Medicare buy-in.

You can’t use Reconciliation

When some people said we should then use reconciliation for the whole bill, the idea was laughed at. We were told the Byrd rule would gut the most important parts of the bill, like the very important new insurance regulations. Of course, now we are using reconciliation and the new insurance regulations in the reconciliation bill were not removed by the Byrd rule.

We no longer have 50 votes in the Senate

Once they decided to use the reconciliation sidecar, we were told, as if by magic, there were no longer 50 votes in the Senate for the public option. The Senate leadership blamed the House, saying it was now the House that no longer had the votes for a public option (even though they passed it before).


We no longer have the votes in the House.

It is hard to know for a fact because right after the Senate blamed the House, the House leadership turned around and blamed the Senate. Steny Hoyer said they did have the votes and claimed it was the Senate’s fault. He claimed Obama did not ask to put a public option in the reconciliation bill because the Senate did not have the votes.

Reconciliation must pass unchanged so it does not go back to the House

When the reconciliation bill was brought to the Senate floor, where any Democrat could have offered a public option amendment to force an up-or-down vote on the public option, a new excuse was found to stop that. We were told the Senate must pass the reconciliation bill unchanged, so it could go straight to the President’s desk without another vote in the House. We were told leadership would whip against any amendments to make health care reform slightly better. This myth, too, withered in the face of reality.

Changing reconciliation will “KILL THE BILL!”

Because of a successful Republican Byrd rule point of order, the reconciliation bill would be force to go back to the House for another vote anyway. At this point, the excuse for not offering a public option amendment got weird. Senators like Michael Bennet (D-CO) took to saying saying it would “kill the bill,” and tried to falsely equate “the bill”–the reconciliation fix, which is mainly a package of minor tax changes that do not take effect for years–with the comprehensive health insurance reform measure already signed into law.

Occam’s razor

I’m sure there were some other excuses that I have forgotten to mention. The important thing is that, in the end, they did use reconciliation. They also could have added the public option to a reconciliation bill that could have passed with a simple majority , and had it not endanger the bulk of the health care reform provision. In the end, all their excuses fade away or became weird nonsense about some possible later promise and not wanting to risk anything.

It is foolish to believe that a President, Senate Majority Leader, and Speaker of the House with historically large majorities couldn’t get a public option–which roughly 65% of the country supported–if they really wanted one. Clearly, if they all really wanted to include a public option, they could have done it using reconciliation. To accept their many different excuses of powerlessness requires one to completely suspend reality.

Occam’s razor teaches us the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. Here, the simplest explanation is that, months ago, Obama promised to kill the public option as part of a secret deal with the for-profit hospital lobby, and that for months he lied to the American people about supporting the public option while working behind the scenes to stop it.

So, when exactly does that changing the way Washington works thing start again?"

https://shadowproof.com/2010/03/25/the-death-of-the-public-option-after-parade-of-lies-democratic-leadership-now-stands-naked/
[/quote]

 

[tands]

No, really?

"You just pointed to another Obama idea.  Single payer. He would have prefered single payer but knew it was a non starter so he went with what had been proven to work in MA and theoretically had Republican support. The public option isn't the ACA. I'm not sure what your point is."

There is nothing you wrote here that is even remotely true. It's just what you prefer.

My point is that Obama lied himself into office, and then sold everyone out to the corporations using every available means. Is this even debatable?