Donald Trump

[Jules Troy]

Start a tech company Bob, make the next iPhone/super computer/warp drive and then talk...

[Brant Gaede]

2 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

I like Trump for the purpose I selected him.  He will wreck the current political system.  

I prefer my capitalists  to be very high tech.  Donny Schlock does not qualify.

Why do you think he'll do any such thing? Do you think he doesn't like power? Do you think the deep-state bureaucracy isn't rushing to embrace him in its standard control-the-President ways? What he's smashed is the elite media and academic community and perhaps the Democrat Party controlled by same.

It's such a relief that Hillary is done cooked that it's not easy to understand the America-in-the-world insanity will basically continue except, maybe, in eastern Europe. Why destroy Russia? Let it do it to itself.

Trump has shown a capacity to grow and expand to fit his evolving situation. I admit my concerns about my superman President-to-be may prove wonderfully wrong and he'll turn into a real great man for the ages, unlike the likes of a Julius Caesar. As long as most people--who have had the standard US history upbringing--think Abraham Lincoln was one of our two greatest Presidents instead of one of the two worst--the other being Woodrow Wilson--America will continue to step all over the world except for Tibet. That might be a good thing x the body count and x the very possible fact of its physical destruction which could happen soon.

--Brant

we are surrounded by cultural, political, economic and military insanity tolerable now until we find out differently through consequences

generally the world will continue to improve for its 6-7 billion people

[BaalChatzaf]

9 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Why do you think he'll do any such thing? Do you think he doesn't like power? Do you think the deep-state bureaucracy isn't rushing to embrace him in its standard control-the-President ways? What he's smashed is the elite media and academic community and perhaps the Democrat Party controlled by same.

It's such a relief that Hillary is done cooked that it's not easy to understand the America-in-the-world insanity will basically continue except, maybe, in eastern Europe. Why destroy Russia? Let it do it to itself.

Trump has shown a capacity to grow and expand to fit his evolving situation. I admit my concerns about my superman President-to-be may prove wonderfully wrong and he'll turn into a real great man for the ages, unlike the likes of a Julius Caesar. As long as most people--who have had the standard US history upbringing--think Abraham Lincoln was one of our two greatest Presidents instead of one of the two worst--the other being Woodrow Wilson--America will continue to step all over the world except for Tibet. That might be a good thing x the body count and x the very possible fact of its physical destruction which could happen soon.

--Brant

we are surrounded by cultural, political, economic and military insanity tolerable now until we find out differently through consequences

generally the world will continue to improve for its 6-7 billion people

Donny Schlock will encourage the political parties to self destruct (I hope).  

[Peter]

The Vice President elect goes for a night on Broadway. The boos at Hamilton were bad enough, but then Mr. Pence had to stand there while guarded by the Secret Service as the actor in the role of top asshole reads some drivel to him that put the VP’s life in danger. It was similar to yelling “FIRE!” in a theatre. It was inciting a riot. I think they should lose their privilege to be actors at that theatre. If New York’s mayor can dictate like he and the last creep did, then Mayor Diblasio should shut them down.

In the meantime all Patriotic Americans should picket the show, and certainly no decent person should go to see it. Demand your money back.

Peter   

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 hour ago, Peter said:

The Vice President elect goes for a night on Broadway. The boos at Hamilton were bad enough, but then Mr. Pence had to stand there while guarded by the Secret Service as the actor in the role of top asshole reads some drivel to him...

Peter,

I wrote this elsewhere:

What's worse, by speaking of how they hope the VP will notice that all people deserve rights and justice, they presume the VP is not aware of it and is only interested in being a tyrant--a racist one at that. The insult is the presumption that the VP and Trump administration are dirty rotten scoundrels who need to be instructed on how to be good. 

But wait! There's more!

There's a boneheaded part for free and you don't even have to pay extra for shipping and handling. It's boneheaded to presume that their request would make a difference if their presumption were true. Why would a racist tyrant listen to a bunch of actors about policy? Only a bonehead or fool would think he would.

And I don't believe these people are that stupid. So what were they getting at?

I'm calling this a misguided publicity stunt. The show might get a good short-term boost in audience and free publicity by freeloading off the mainstream press interest in insulting the VP, but I think the coming boycott by offended Trump supporters will send the show the way of Macy's. 

I wouldn't be surprised to see Brandon Dixon replaced before too long.

There's nothing to add to it until I learn more.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

It's all theater--bullshit theater is still theater.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

Alexander Hamilton was the Original One Percenter.  The historical and causal connection between the (real) Hamilton and Pence  is  ironic.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

It ain't over.

Substantial new leaks about the Clinton crime family can be expected after the inauguration of President Trump.

— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) November 20, 2016

It looks like the hacking community is pissed at the Clintons...

Michael

[Mikee]

Trump's Infrastructure Investment Plan Evokes Ayn Rand

From the WSJ.  I haven't had a chance to look at it yet (I'm at work).  Hope it's a good one.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

6 minutes ago, Mikee said:

Trump's Infrastructure Investment Plan Evokes Ayn Rand

From the WSJ.  I haven't had a chance to look at it yet (I'm at work).  Hope it's a good one.

Mike,

It's kind of a nothing-burger.

It's a short video--it says back in the day, Ayn Rand said infrastructure should be privately funded. But people never did that because there are problems. (Murblch murblch murblch on a few details.) Now Trump has a plan similar to what she was talking about. But there are problems and "some experts" say it won't work. (Murblch murblch murblch on a few details.)

The End

 

At least they put the idea out there.

Michael

[Mikee]

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

It's kind of a nothing-burger.

 

I hadn't heard of the promoting private investors to invest in infrastructure in return for 82% tax free profits. 

An aside, new technology will make it very easy to make any road into a toll road, your use could easily by charged by the mile without toll booths.  Roads and bridges could pay for themselves with little overhead and by private ownership.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 hour ago, Mikee said:

I hadn't heard of the promoting private investors to invest in infrastructure in return for 82% tax free profits. 

An aside, new technology will make it very easy to make any road into a toll road, your use could easily by charged by the mile without toll booths.  Roads and bridges could pay for themselves with little overhead and by private ownership.

Mike,

Trump's proposals are wonderful.

I misunderstood and looked at it through the lens of attacking-defending Rand. I thought the article writer would either attack or defend Rand based on the headline.

Sorry.

Old default habit from years of online bickering in O-Land.

I like your perspective better. There's work to be done.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Not much to add here.

Everything's rolling just as I expected since the beginning. I didn't know if Trump would win back then, but in my mind at the time, if he won, this is what I expected.

It's great seeing all this turn real. It's almost like an anticlimax...

 

Michael

[turkeyfoot]

On 11/18/2016 at 11:21 AM, Peter said:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2016/11/22/exclusive-interview-how-jared-kushner-won-trump-the-white-house/#1381cded2f50

 

The man behind The Man. )

 

"I called some of my friends from Silicon Valley, some of the best digital marketers in the world, and asked how you scale this stuff,” Kushner says. “They gave me their subcontractors.”

At first Kushner dabbled, engaging in what amounted to a beta test using Trump merchandise. “I called somebody who works for one of the technology companies that I work with, and I had them give me a tutorial on how to use Facebook micro-targeting,” Kushner says. Synched with Trump’s blunt, simple messaging, it worked. The Trump campaign went from selling $8,000 worth of hats and other items a day to $80,000, generating revenue, expanding the number of human billboards–and proving a concept."

 

"Kushner structured the operation with a focus on maximizing the return for every dollar spent. “We played Moneyball, asking ourselves which states will get the best ROI for the electoral vote,” Kushner says. “I asked, How can we get Trump’s message to that consumer for the least amount of cost?” FEC filings through mid-October indicate the Trump campaign spent roughly half as much as the Clinton campaign did."

 

“Jared understood the online world in a way the traditional media folks didn’t. He managed to assemble a presidential campaign on a shoestring using new technology and won. That’s a big deal,” says Schmidt, the Google billionaire. “Remember all those articles about how they had no money, no people, organizational structure? Well, they won, and Jared ran it.”

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Geoff,

As a complement to that article, here is an interview with Brad Parscale (who came on board because of Kushner).

Michael

[merjet]

On 11/21/2016 at 10:41 AM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

It's kind of a nothing-burger.

I second that. 

By the way, here is the link to the WSJ article that contains the video with Ayn Rand. Online subscribers can read the whole article at the link. Others who want to do so will need to find another way, e.g. a library. 

Trump’s infrastructure plan strikes me another less than half-baked idea from the pied piper Donald Trump. This document has  more detail about the proposal. In my view it has a big enough hole to drive a fleet of Abrams tanks through it. Whence the revenues for the hypothetical private investor (PI)?

The article says, “For infrastructure construction to be financeable privately, it needs a revenue stream from which to pay operating costs, the interest and principal on the debt, and the dividends on the equity.” Again, whence the revenues for the hypothetical PI? The article offers no answer I can see. 

The article assumes that for every $1,000 of an infrastructure project the PI will make an equity investment of $167 and it will borrow $833. If borrowed at 4.5% for 20 years like the article says, the debt service will be $37.5 each year for interest plus $833 in 20 years.  In addition there are all the construction costs for labor and materials, which I will assume is $1,000 to keep it simple. So aggregate cost, simply speaking, is $1,000 + 20*$37.5 + $833 = $2,583. 

The only “revenue” in the proposal for PI is the 82% tax credit, which amounts to a mere $137 (=0.82*$167).  But this could be realized only if PI has taxes due as the result of other operations. Regarded as an isolated business, the revenue would be $0! That’s unless Trump plans for more handouts to crony capitalists.

I leave it to those under the spell of the pied piper to tell me whence the revenues in excess of $2,583 to cover the $2,583 of costs identified above plus whatever the target profit is. (A 9% dividend on the $167 equity implies a target profit of $300, i.e, 0.09*$167*20.) Does the pied piper plan for the US Treasury to give PI $833? Or does he plan to siphon off gasoline and diesel tax revenues, toll revenues, heavy vehicle use fees that truckers pay, etc. that the federal and state governments receive now and have for decades? Are there going to be lots of new tolls on many roads and bridges that have none now and those go to PI?

The idiom "PI in the sky" seems fitting. 

 

 

[merjet]

The ‘Hamilton’ cast had a much different reaction when Hillary Clinton came to visit

[Brant Gaede]

The President proposes and Congress disposes.

Illery and Bill outta go back and get a second shot of adulation. Or they could all have a cry out/cry in.

--Brant

back to reality

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

16 hours ago, merjet said:

Trump’s infrastructure plan strikes me another less than half-baked idea from the pied piper Donald Trump.

Merlin,

Well that's obviously because Donald Trump doesn't know anything about money.

Not a damn thing...

Right?

 

(scratching head... I wonder if he knows the difference between making money and getting money, between creating wealth and taking wealth from others, between dynamic and zero sum calculations...  )

Michael

[merjet]

31 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Merlin,

Well that's obviously because Donald Trump doesn't know anything about money.

Not a damn thing...

Right?

Ah, Mr. Snarky arrives, still under the spell of the pied piper. Note his response to my questions: "Blank out!"

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 hour ago, merjet said:

Note his response to my questions: "Blank out!"

Merlin,

Actually I did answer it.

You just didn't see the answer.

But... but... but... (you may say)

I didn't address your calculations.

The fact is, I don't feel like going into boring calculations based on a false premise for a problem that is incorrectly identified.

It's like those climate change people who demand you analyze their data proving that the climate will do this or that when they haven't taken into account all the other stuff that changes in the climate that affects their conclusions. Then they complain you didn't answer their questions after they got mind-numbingly detailed.

Who wants to do all those calculations over an issue that means nothing because it left out a huge chuck of relevant reality?

Ditto for your speculations.

btw - If you don't like snarky, what do you call the Pied Piper stuff?  

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here's a quick calculation for the reader.

I am going to build an infrastructure widget for $100.

I, along with 9 other people, can only chip in $1 each because we don't make much.

That comes to $10. Now we have $90 that still needs to be paid for.

That is the basis of the calculations that the WSJ above uses. And they scream to the high heavens that the plan won't work. And they calculate this and calculate that and pile on all kinds of irrelevant stuff with long convoluted math. And they conclude one can't build any more infrastructure widgets because the math doesn't work.

Now here's what they leave out.

Suppose I and the other 9 people start making a lot more money, a hell of a lot more. We can then chip in $10 each.

That comes to $100.

And guess what? The infrastructure widget's cost is still $100. So we paid for it.

Voila! 

Now let's take this further.

Suppose 90 other people show up and they can chip in $10 each because they all make a hell of a lot of money.

Why, my goodness. That comes to $1,000.

We can make 10 infrastructure widgets if we like and pay for them all. My goodness gracious. What are we going to do with all those extra infrastructure widgets? My goodness, what an embarrassment of riches.

It's a concept called "growing the economy" and anti-Trump people don't like to factor that part in. 

They prefer the old way, as in a Brazilian saying: Add one poor person to another poor person and all you do is double the poverty.

That part they like and calculate the shit out of it.

They never imagine that the contrary is true, also: add one wealthy person to another wealthy person and you double the wealth.

So the trick to increase money is to make more wealthy people, meaning make more wealth. Create wealth. Produce it.

I'm reminded of a lady who wrote some books about this process, fiction and nonfiction...

Michael

[william.scherk]

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I don't feel like going into boring calculations based on a false premise for a problem that is incorrectly identified.

What is this 'false premise' of Merlin's, Michael?

And what is the 'problem' you believe Merlin has incorrectly identified?

It seems to me that Merlin's simple calculations illuminated well the challenges of amassing and expending money on the "problem" Mr Trump has identified. 

So, again, can you clearly identify the 'problem' and the 'false premise'  in regards to the not-yet-fleshed out Infrastructure funding arrangements?

'-- readers may be interested in the scope of the challenge Trump has identified, by consulting the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, which dates from 2013.  Here is a simple graphic that classifies the kinds of infrastructure the ASCE has scoped out:

[BaalChatzaf]

28 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Here's a quick calculation for the reader.

I am going to build an infrastructure widget for $100.

I, along with 9 other people, can only chip in $1 each because we don't make much.

That comes to $10. Now we have $90 that still needs to be paid for.

That is the basis of the calculations that the WSJ above uses. And they scream to the high heavens that the plan won't work. And they calculate this and calculate that and pile on all kinds of irrelevant stuff with long convoluted math. And they conclude one can't build any more infrastructure widgets because the math doesn't work.

Now here's what they leave out.

Suppose I and the other 9 people start making a lot more money, a hell of a lot more. We can then chip in $10 each.

That comes to $100.

And guess what? The infrastructure widget's cost is still $100. So we paid for it.

Voila! 

Now let's take this further.

Suppose 90 other people show up and they can chip in $10 each because they all make a hell of a lot of money.

Why, my goodness. That comes to $1,000.

We can make 10 infrastructure widgets if we like and pay for them all. My goodness gracious. What are we going to do with all those extra infrastructure widgets? My goodness, what an embarrassment of riches.

It's a concept called "growing the economy" and anti-Trump people don't like to factor that part in. 

They prefer the old way, as in a Brazilian saying: Add one poor person to another poor person and all you do is double the poverty.

That part they like and calculate the shit out of it.

They never imagine that the contrary is true, also: add one wealthy person to another wealthy person and you double the wealth.

So the trick to increase money is to make more wealthy people, meaning make more wealth. Create wealth. Produce it.

I'm reminded of a lady who wrote some books about this process, fiction and nonfiction...

Michael

What is the widget that you and your nne partners have  designed?i

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

25 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

What is this 'false premise' of Merlin's, Michael?

William,

Static economy.

This:

53 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

They prefer the old way, as in a Brazilian saying: Add one poor person to another poor person and all you do is double the poverty.

I'm surprised you didn't see it...

Michael