droid

Well-known member
Myself and Luka have an unspoken covenant. Like Israel and Syria, Gorbachev and Reagan, Balboa and Creed.
 
This is interesting. The Trumpening could be interpreted as being symptomatic of a proposed 80-year cycle that brought about the American Revolution, Civil War, Depression & WWII. Steve Bannon of Breitbart subscribes to this theory, according to this article written by David Kaiser

More than once during our interview, he pointed out that each of the three preceding crises had involved a great war, and those conflicts had increased in scope from the American Revolution through the Civil War to the Second World War. He expected a new and even bigger war as part of the current crisis, and he did not seem at all fazed by the prospect.

I did not agree, and said so. But, knowing that the history of international conflict was my own specialty, he repeatedly pressed me to say we could expect a conflict at least as big as the Second World War in the near or medium term. I refused.

http://time.com/4575780/stephen-bannon-fourth-turning/
 

Leo

Well-known member
image.jpg
 

Attachments

  • 7890471e8c3944f7ec6924f577dc50c8.jpg
    7890471e8c3944f7ec6924f577dc50c8.jpg
    56.9 KB · Views: 7
  • image.jpg
    image.jpg
    98 KB · Views: 6
Last edited:

firefinga

Well-known member
White collar crime finally abolished under Trump?

Just speculating here, though.

A lot people will be learning a new word during the Trump years in White house, let's all spell "Kleptocracy" now, kids!
 
Last edited:

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I feel sorry for anyone who voted for Trump after buying his lines about "fighting corruption". Well, I mean it's their fault too, but unfortunately a lot of people are very gullible and that's a mental deficiency rather than a moral failing. Like those in the UK who believed the "extra £350m a week for the NHS" bollocks pedalled by the Leave campaign.

I suspect what may happen is that corruption in the strict, legal sense declines - not because people stop doing those activities, but simply because they cease to be illegal.
 

sufi

lala
...& Trumpism

http://boingboing.net/2016/12/03/trumpisms-global-playbook-h.html

Doctorow identifies a new "Axis", keeping it succinct & hyperlinked with a distinct note of hysteria

...
The world's super-rich are engaged in what can only be described as secession. As the world's real economy has been eclipsed by the shadow economy of offshore tax-avoidance, as climate has been forced out of the Overton window and the window is slammed shut behind it, it seems like the plan for the future is to fly from mountaintop to mountaintop, high above the rising sea, interbreeding a race of weak-chinned, entitled, murderous idiots who are brought into contact via Harrier jet for scheduled mating visits.

They don't need to prevent climate change or global economic collapse, they merely need to (literally) rise above it. Just as the criminals behind the 2008 collapse cashed out and walked away free and wealthy, just as CEOs can hollow out their companies, collect bonuses, and deploy their golden parachutes before the crash, so too do the trumpists and their courtiers expect to saunter away from the wreck whistling while the rest of us dig through the rubble for canned goods and drink our own urine.
...
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
"Former Senator Bob Dole, acting as a foreign agent for the government of Taiwan, worked behind the scenes over the past six months to establish high-level contact between Taiwanese officials and President-elect Donald J. Trump’s staff, an outreach effort that culminated last week in an unorthodox telephone call between Mr. Trump and Taiwan’s president.

Mr. Dole, a lobbyist with the Washington law firm Alston & Bird, coordinated with Mr. Trump’s campaign and the transition team to set up a series of meetings between Mr. Trump’s advisers and officials in Taiwan, according to disclosure documents filed last week with the Justice Department. Mr. Dole also assisted in successful efforts by Taiwan to include language favorable to it in the Republican Party platform, according to the documents.

Mr. Dole’s firm received $140,000 from May to October for the work, the forms said."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/06/u...e-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
 

Leo

Well-known member
"Former Senator Bob Dole, acting as a foreign agent for the government of Taiwan, worked behind the scenes over the past six months to establish high-level contact between Taiwanese officials and President-elect Donald J. Trump’s staff, an outreach effort that culminated last week in an unorthodox telephone call between Mr. Trump and Taiwan’s president.

Mr. Dole, a lobbyist with the Washington law firm Alston & Bird, coordinated with Mr. Trump’s campaign and the transition team to set up a series of meetings between Mr. Trump’s advisers and officials in Taiwan, according to disclosure documents filed last week with the Justice Department. Mr. Dole also assisted in successful efforts by Taiwan to include language favorable to it in the Republican Party platform, according to the documents.

Mr. Dole’s firm received $140,000 from May to October for the work, the forms said."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/06/u...e-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

c'mon barty, it's just an example of trump "draining the swamp" of lobbyists and special interests groups, yup.
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
http://cdn.equitablegrowth.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/06133550/playfair-11.png

"The diverging trends in the distribution of pre-tax income across France and the United States—two advanced economies subject to the same forces of technological progress and globalization—show that working-class incomes are not bound to stagnate in Western countries. In the United States, the stagnation of bottom 50 percent of incomes and the upsurge in the top 1 percent coincided with drastically reduced progressive taxation, widespread deregulation of industries and services, particularly the financial services industry, weakened unions, and an eroding minimum wage... Policies that could raise the pre-tax incomes of the bottom 50 percent of income earners could include:

Improved education and access to skills, which may require major changes in the system of education finance and admission
Reforms of labor market institutions to boost workers’ bargaining power and including a higher minimum wage
Corporate governance reforms and worker co-determination of the distribution of profits
Steeply progressive taxation that affects the determination of pay and salaries and the pre-tax distribution of income, particularly at the top end"

http://equitablegrowth.org/research...in-the-united-states-a-tale-of-two-countries/
 
Last edited:

vimothy

yurp
In a recent paper, the three authors of this issue brief attempt to create inequality statistics for the United States that overcome the limitations of existing data by creating distributional national accounts.

Awesome idea, wish I had time to read up about this. Also would be great if someone extends it to include a distributional flow-of-funds.
 
Top