Trump Domestic Policy - Budgets, etc

[Moiraine]

24 minutes ago, RedDenver said:

People know that there are more Millennials than Baby Boomers, right?

 

 

What's your point? I'm not sure if that's correct, since the official age range for millennials is smaller, but it's not that relevant if there are more. There should be a lot more young people alive than old people. Baby boomers are in their 50's, 60's, and 70's. Older people have a higher chance of dying.

The fact of the matter is, the baby boomers will have a much higher population alive while in their 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s+ than any other generation before them, and the birth rate has declined, which means we have less people to support them.

 

 

A population that can easily support its elderly should have a much higher population on the bottom, and not have a big wide part in the middle for the old people. I.e., the population pyramid should be shaped like a pyramid. The way it is means there are a lot of people who are costing a lot when it comes to health care, social security, etc. We need to adapt to it better than we are to weather the storm.
 

Edited April 3, 2018 by Moiraine

[BigRedBuster]

 

[RedDenver]

21 hours ago, Clifford Franklin said:

 

My point is that there are still a lot of workers  compared to retirees.

 

In fact, even if we do nothing, there will still be enough money to pay out 75% of benefits by 2035. And then the population stabilizes, meaning we can pay out 75% basically forever (and benefits are adjusted for inflation and cost of living).

 

So we're not going to run out even if we do nothing. However, we can easily meet benefits (and even increase them) with minor changes. One easy fix is to remove the $118k cap on the taxes.

 

Edit: This was supposed to quote Moiraine, but I'm on my phone and can't fix it.

Edited April 3, 2018 by RedDenver

[Moiraine]

1 hour ago, RedDenver said:

My point is that there are still a lot of workers  compared to retirees.

 

In fact, even if we do nothing, there will still be enough money to pay out 75% of benefits by 2035. And then the population stabilizes, meaning we can pay out 75% basically forever (and benefits are adjusted for inflation and cost of living).

 

So we're not going to run out even if we do nothing. However, we can easily meet benefits (and even increase them) with minor changes. One easy fix is to remove the $118k cap on the taxes.

 

 

I think everyone knew the first sentence. I think health care is probably a much bigger problem than social security.

Anyhow, the cap is the solution that is so simple, and doesn't affect many people. If they don't want to completely eliminate it, they could at the very least raise it with inflation to mitigate a little bit of it.

Edited April 3, 2018 by Moiraine

[Landlord]

On 3/28/2018 at 12:40 PM, Moiraine said:

 

 

Definitely. My hometown was full of insurance companies on main street before 2000. Maybe Trump thinks Walmart is a small town store.

 

Trump just has a grudge against Amazon. I think he's jealous because Bezos has way more $ than he has.

 

In all honesty, the internet might not be good for small businesses in general. I know it has helped some but take music as an example. There used to be dozens of stores that sold music. Now there are a very small # of big businesses that sell all the music. The small shops can't afford to buy the rights to sell mp3s (or whatever format songs are sold in now).

 

In other retail categories, small shops can't provide a catalog near the size of an online retailer and in order to be competitive online they would need to have a big stock of items somewhere. It's just not a good environment for small stores anymore. It happened already with Walmart but the internet made things harder.

 

 

 

But bands are also small businesses, and multitudes more of them are able to actually make a living doing music vocationally because of the internet.

[Moiraine]

5 minutes ago, Landlord said:

But bands are also small businesses, and multitudes more of them are able to actually make a living doing music vocationally because of the internet.

 

 

That's a good point. It wasn't possible to get your stuff out there before the internet unless a major label picked you up or you toured a lot. Maybe not the best example. A better example is just that it's been bad for small brick and mortar businesses.

[Moiraine]

I went and actually looked at my 401(k) which, again, is new. (< 2 months old), and the rate of return is -5.65%. lol. I'm guessing I've lost more on my 401(k) than I've saved from the tax plan.

[Landlord]

4 hours ago, Moiraine said:

That's a good point. It wasn't possible to get your stuff out there before the internet unless a major label picked you up or you toured a lot. Maybe not the best example. A better example is just that it's been bad for small brick and mortar businesses.

 

 

That's true, and that's a reality that's not going away. It'd be better for all of us to resign brick and mortar type of business to the places that can do it the most efficiently for themselves and for us, while we start thinking of new ways to organize our cities and our neighborhoods and our buildings. We've already revolutionized the way we buy/sell, in ways that have been incredibly beneficial to people (eBay and craigslist cut out the pawn shop middleman selling goods from person to person, Etsy cut out the need for capital and an office in order to make your own small business), and urban planning is due for a corresponding revolution.

 

[deedsker]

8 hours ago, Landlord said:

 

 

That's true, and that's a reality that's not going away. It'd be better for all of us to resign brick and mortar type of business to the places that can do it the most efficiently for themselves and for us, while we start thinking of new ways to organize our cities and our neighborhoods and our buildings. We've already revolutionized the way we buy/sell, in ways that have been incredibly beneficial to people (eBay and craigslist cut out the pawn shop middleman selling goods from person to person, Etsy cut out the need for capital and an office in order to make your own small business), and urban planning is due for a corresponding revolution.

 

OMG, yes! When you don't need to get into a vehicle of some sort to satisfy your commercial needs, you are able to make cities more walkable and compact. Also, more green space potential.

[BigRedBuster]

 

[BigRedBuster]

This idiot has no clue what a disruption to these people's lives this would cause.  All so that he can foster even more the myth that these horrible immigrants are flooding across the border, raping our women, killing people and eating our young.....so that he can put his name on a wall and get re-elected.

 

Hopefully this ruins many of the military votes he got last time.

 

 

Edited April 5, 2018 by BigRedBuster

[BigRedBuster]

Oh isn’t it lovely???

 

 

[Danny Bateman]

Trump, earlier today: There is no trade war with China.

 

Trump, later in the day: Let's slap $100B more worth of tariffs on China.

 

It is kind of funny to watch the toadies go on TV and try to convince everyone everything is fine. Remind anyone of Kevin Bacon?

 

 

[BigRedBuster]

 

[BigRedBuster]