Red Mosquito

Stickman wrote:A DOJ Lawyer Was Told Russia Had Trump ‘Over a Barrel’

Strat wrote:

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4/5 wrote:According to a Brookings Institute paper, by 2020 50% of the world's population will be middle class. It states that as of December 2016 3.2 billion people were already part of the middle class.

That is incredible.

I know it's somewhat off topic since we're talking about American middle class, but I think it's another great reminder that the biggest beneficiaries of market economies have far and away been the poor. It's much sexier to write headlines about wealth gaps and the alleged concentration of wealth, but sometimes it's good to remember that we are living in a time of unparalleled prosperity in human history.

The constituency of capitalism has always been the poor. "It's a race to the bottom!" say the Bernie Sanders of the world, completely incapable of understanding that that is precisely capitalism's virtue.

can you expand on this for me please?

4/5 wrote:I'm just going to reply to each within the quote box in a different color.

96583UP wrote:immediate term: no money for infrastructure spending or any public-benefit spending really This should be true, but unfortunately Congress has shown it is perfectly willing to spend a Trillion dollars more than it collects in revenue this year. So this is a matter of spending priorities, not a result of the tax cut.

medium term:

federal government will be insolvent in a few years This isn't any different than Bush and Obama era policies. It's a major problem, but it's not as if this tax cut created the problem. Just another in a long line of policies leading to the same eventual outcome. A massive infrastructure project or public benefit spending in place of the tax cuts would have done the same thing.

won’t be able to raise taxes I don't really follow this one. I might be misunderstanding what you mean, though.

which means will have to cut more from federal budget It should mean that. We'll see if it means that after all.

average americans need federal government spending and programs more than the 1%ers Federal spending has increased this year, though.

when it is belt tightening time again, ratchet will widen the rich poor gap even further This is possibly true. I have no doubt Republicans would like to start limiting TANF and SNAP and Medicaid.

they just raided the treasury. the stimulus to the economy is mostly a one-shot. I agree that there was no justification for the tax cut from a stimulus/expansionary policy standpoint.

Democrats have managed spending and earning gap more responsibly Idk. As far as spending goes, this depends on an individual's values, so I don't think this is right or wrong necessarily.

US govt is basically following the formula that trump’s businesses followed: load ‘em up with debt, abscond with funds, leave the shell in tatters for someone else to clean up Totally agree. Unfortunately, this is just another in a long line of policies that do that very same thing. Some of them are conservative policies, like ramped up military spending and war-making, others are liberal, like old-age security and income supports.

Again, I'm not defending the tax cut but I don't think it is going to have destructive effects that are any different from the destructive effects that would have resulted from an equal government spending increase.

Stickman wrote:A DOJ Lawyer Was Told Russia Had Trump ‘Over a Barrel’

AP wrote:A senior Justice Department lawyer says a former British spy told him at a breakfast meeting two years ago that Russian intelligence believed it had Donald Trump “over a barrel,” according to multiple people familiar with the encounter.

He respected the dignity inherent in every life - a dignity that does not stop at borders and cannot be erased by dictators.

Perhaps above all, John detested the abuse of power. He could not abide bigots and swaggering despots. There was something deep inside him that made him stand up for the little guy – to speak for forgotten people in forgotten places.

Simple Torture wrote:Good job, Jeff!

Simple Torture wrote:Good job, Jeff!