January 29, 2019

Schultz may just demistify gazillionaires and their self delusions to

the broader public with this campaign. You'd think Trump being elected would have done it to gazillionaires. But this is proving the insane vanity is widespread and across party lines. Actually I don't think they are self delusions. I think the right wing has worked long and hard to convince ceos they aren't lucky as hell. That they are precious instead. Masters. To Ayn Randize them. Why if they saw themselves as ''just lucky as hell' they would still be attached to humanity as a whole.

And then there is this from Maggie Haberman:

https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1090076844970381314?s=20

January 29, 2019

This is what Burton said about other Independant candidates:

From the article:

"SNIP....

In an August 2016 op-ed in The Sacramento Bee, Burton urged voters to be wary of third-party candidates because "a Trump presidency would mean the dismantling of basically every important progressive achievement over the last century, and progressives need to keep that in mind."

"If Stein or Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson eat into Clinton's support even a little, that could matter in a close election," he wrote. "And in the same way I would bet that Ralph Nader -- or at least many of his supporters -- wishes that he didn't help to make George W. Bush our 43rd commander in chief, I suppose Stein supporters would not want to be in the position of explaining to their kids how they helped make Trump president."

....SNIP"

This campaign is a football block to public health care. And stopping climate change, or at least mitigating it.

January 23, 2019

The book 'Enchanted America' goes into how financial anxiety results

in people being way, way more intuitive than rational in their voting (isolated from other factors). Way more so than income level. So people vote way more through emotion and other cognitive shortcuts when suffering from financial anxiety. So they vote against their best interests and thus for republicans. You have to wonder if health care insecurity and college loan repayment insecurity are purposeful on the part of the GOP to make non rich Americans less rational. Maybe that is why Mitch is so happy to let this shutdown continue.

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/E/bo28752049.html

January 18, 2019

So, it's not avocados after all: Fed says student debt prevents young adults from buying homes

https://thinkprogress.org/federal-reserve-student-debt-home-ownership-81dc87219d9f/

ELHAM KHATAMI at Think Progress

"SNIP....

At the same time, average student loan debt among young people has also doubled from about $5,000 in 2005 to $10,000 in 2014. The Fed reported that in the first quarter of 2018, outstanding student debt reached a staggering $1.52 trillion, almost triple the amount from the previous decade.

The Fed said it is likely that more than 20 percent of the overall decrease in homeownership among young people is due to student loan debt. “This represents over 400,000 young individuals who would have owned a home in 2014 had it not been for the rise in debt,” the report stated.

“Our estimates suggest that student loan debt can be a meaningful barrier preventing young adults form owning a home,” the report added, explaining that high student loan debt can lead to a lower credit score, ultimately impacting a person’s ability to qualify for a mortgage. High student loan payments can also adversely affect a person’s ability to save for a down payment on a mortgage.

The Fed report comes as higher education costs continue to increase, with financial aid in the form of grants and tax benefits failing to keep up the pace.

....SNIP"

Applegrove:

People who have financial anxiety vs. just low income vote more intuitively rather than rationally. They vote using feelings and mental shortcuts. People like Trump get elected. Ontario's conservative government has just converted some university grants for the very poorest to loans. They are giving a $500 tax cut to everybody else for 3 years as cover. They seem to want the same voting as the Republicans do in the USA. IMHO

Read the book Enchanted America: How Intuition and Reason Divide Our Politics

January 15, 2019

I just read that. My jaw is still on the floor. Trump is dyslexic and we are

herd averse. Good when your job is as a dyslexic to see things in a wide scope, then the big picture. Regular people might miss those things on the edge of the perspective. Bad when you are Trump who never looks at the big picture but is averse to his own herd and likes the authoritarians instead. And thinks of getting rid of NATO.

January 14, 2019

How much of the corporate tax cut money is going to automation and

that is why they are not helping to increase income and wages? IMHO we know trickle down doesn't work but maybe it works even worse when algorithms and robots replace humans and that is where in the economy corporations are investing. I mean we know some of the tax cut windfall of corporations went to foreign investors in the US. How much is actually being reinvested in the people in the US who work?

January 2, 2019

Okay. So a faction of of the GOP. I give you that. A faction know

they need to have an alternative narrative. We do not know how or who exactly. Corker and Flake were not good enough. Mitt is. He already has a national profile. They need to split to make Trump think the Mitch supports him so he doesn't run away from the Republucans with his base. It is like the Middle East, it is so complicated. I don't think people do OP Eds that issue a challenge without thinking long and hard of the wanted ramifications. Even Kellyanne Conway and her husband have a split strategy. Everyone is doing it seems.

January 2, 2019

You don't think the GOP have plans to keep people from leaving the party

when the **** hits the fan and Trump's lawyers try and fight it? You don't think they are not concerned with that? Of a wing of the party splitting off and becoming independents or democrats as Mitch and others bend to Trump because he controls 37% of the country, his base? That they have done no thinking on this? And it would help Romney if he had his own GOP base going into 2020? So they might forgive him for losing to Obama. I doubt very much this is not the planning.

January 2, 2019

Looks like some GOP have a plan in place to give anti-trump republicans a safe harbour

in Mitt Romney. To stop the bleeding from the party. He will be the disparate republican leader. The other narrative. Good luck with that.

https://twitter.com/Lawrence/status/1080290127467986944?s=20

January 1, 2019

Happy New Year DU! May it be a better year.