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Trump Clinton Demographics

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DWill

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Re: Trump Clinton Demographics

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Robert Tulip wrote:
DB Roy wrote: He also railed against the new Air Force One planes saying they are too expensive and just one costs $4 billion when, in fact, the funding under the current contract in limited to $170 million.
Sorry DB, your comment here is rather distorted. Trump did not make any factual error as far as I could tell from http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-t ... SKBN13V1S5
Here is Politifact's ruling on the accuracy of Trump's charge. Beyond the matter of respect for fact and its complexity, is the larger matter of a presidency conducted through tweet assaults. These should end immediately, DB Roy is right about that.

What the tweet leaves out

Clearly, $4 billion is a lot of money. But it’s important to keep some context in mind.

First, it’s not clear that Boeing is behind any spiraling of costs; the demands of the project are dictated by the federal government.

In addition, while Boeing is serving as the lead contractor on the project, much of the project’s costs are going for electronics and other items that Boeing itself does not produce. If costs on such items are going to go down, Boeing can’t do that directly. To cut such costs, "it is up to Boeing to jawbone their subcontractors," Pike said.

Boeing offered some spin of its own in the statement it released after Trump’s tweet.

In the statement, Boeing said: "We are currently under contract for $170 million to help determine the capabilities of these complex military aircraft that serves the unique requirements of the president of the United States. We look forward to working with the US Air Force on subsequent phases of the program allowing us to deliver the best planes for the president at the best value for the American taxpayer."

By citing only the $170 million allocated to date, the company is ignoring the overwhelming majority of dollars for the project that the company expects to be paid in future years.

Second, it’s important to note that the nearly $4 billion figure for the project as a whole is scheduled to be paid out over 12 years, not all at once. And in the context of the entire defense budget, that makes it a pretty small slice.

The most recent presidential budget proposal shows defense spending between 2015 and 2026 equaling $8.132 trillion. So the Air Force One project amounts to four-one-hundredths of 1 percent of all defense spending over that 12-year time frame.

It’s also a modest project within Boeing’s ledger of business. In 2015, Boeing had $96 billion in revenues. If one assumes the same revenues for all 12 years of the Air Force One project, then the project will account for three-tenths of 1 percent of the company’s overall revenues. Even looking just at the company’s defense, space and security revenues, the Air Force One project would represent about 1 percent.

Finally, Trump’s contention that spending is "out of control" is more open to debate. While the program is expensive, it’s so new that it hasn’t busted through budgetary targets yet. "There have been no overruns," Aboulafia said. "This has always been the plan."

Our ruling

Trump tweeted, "Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!"

The company is actually building two planes, not one. As for the price tag, Trump has more of a point. The project’s current cost is $3.73 billion, which is within shouting distance of Trump’s "more than $4 billion." That’s a projection over 12 years. Also, that figure is an amount that could rise as time goes on.

However, Trump glosses over some important context. National-security requirements, not Boeing, have been the primary driver of high costs. Experts say the costs are broadly in line considering the high-tech and security requirements of a presidential plane.

The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details, so we rate it Half True.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... ce-one-bo/
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Re: Trump Clinton Demographics

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Robert wrote:Trump's pivot, unlike the weak Obama/Clinton attitude of loud talk and small stick, shows a principled strategic vision of Taiwan as a bridgehead to liberalise China.
Trump doesn't have that many neurons. His pivot wasn't a pivot. He was simply acting the role of doing something other than what a politician is expected to do. He's breaking rules for posterity sake, for the polls. Reading anything more into it gives him far too much credit.
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Re: Trump Clinton Demographics

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Robert Tulip wrote:Nothing to do with left and right I am lately noticing that some arguments from the progressive side of politics seem to exhibit an increasingly surreal detachment from reality. I don’t mean to be rude, but I think this detachment in the annals of political correctness is perceived by many Trump voters, and is why many were so pleased to see the back of Hillary Clinton. It seems obvious to me, to explore the latest foreign foray, that attitudes towards Taiwan are linked to people’s position on the political spectrum. Sympathy for Taiwan correlates with political conservatism. The fact that Taiwan is Trump’s first international dustup since the election, due to him adopting a position urged on him by conservatives, shows that political contact with Taiwan has something to do with left and right.
I didn't say anything about Trump. I said the "One China" policy is neither left nor right. It is an extremely delicate balancing act that takes very little to topple it and Trump has almost certainly toppled it. Can he repair it? No. Can someone in his administration? Maybe. Trump has no diplomacy or sense of decency so he cannot repair what he has done. We have to hope China isn't taking him seriously but he must SHUT UP!!!!!!! The Taiwanese govt was also stupid for calling Trump. An important part of the One-China Policy was that China would agree not to wipe Taiwan off the map if the U.S. never mentioned them or spoke to them publicly. We could sell them military hardware behind the scenes because it made them feel secure and this didn't worry China because no matter how much Taiwan has, China can flatten Taiwan anytime it wants to. Thanks to Trump, it now may want to. You clearly do not understand how extremely essential the One-China Policy is to the stability of Asia. Trump certainly doesn't. This was not a carefully choreographed political move on the part of his administration, it was just him shooting off his big stupid mouth because he clearly doesn't know what he's getting himself, the U.S. and Asia into. Clearly, his meeting with Shinzo Abe last month didn't do any good. Abe may have even caused this unintentionally. He may have warned Trump, "Remember now, don't talk to Taiwan" and Trump thought, "Fuck you, I'm the president. I'll talk to anyone I want." I can guarantee that the Japanese govt is furious right now thinking, "What is this fucking idiot trying to do???"
Far better to imagine a future that better meets everyone’s needs, in a One China that respects modern values of democracy and liberty.
Well, you're not going to get it!! Why bother?? Maybe you should lay out a plan here for all to read about how to make China and Taiwan play nice and share their toys.
Again, that is nothing but a distorted caricature. China’s politics has not advanced in line with its economy, and the USA can help China out by encouraging reform towards the values and principles that made America great.
They don't want or need our help. They are or soon will the largest economy in the world:

Since it initiated market reforms in 1978, the Asian giant has achieved economic growth averaging 10% annually (though it’s slowed recently) and, in the process, lifted almost half of its 1.3 billion population out of poverty and become the undisputed second-largest economy on Earth. China is estimated to pull ahead of the U.S. steadily in the following years, taking over the lead position as the world’s largest economy; in fact, in its October 2012 World Economic Outlook report, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected that China’s gross domestic product (GDP) would outpace that of the U.S. as early as 2017. Using another measure known as purchasing power parity (PPP), it already has. Specifically, China’s GDP (based on 2005 PPP) is forecast by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) at $15.26 trillion for 2016, exceeding the forecasted U.S. GDP of $15.24 trillion for the very first time.

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/in ... nomies.asp

They don't need us to tell them how to become great. And withdrawing from the TPP is suicide in that respect.
That is a win-win in the interests of both the US and China.

It's a non-starter.
like by kowtowing to the glorious Emperor of the Middle Kingdom?
Image

When you're in their house, that's what you do. With TPP in tatters, Asia is their house. They will become the undisputed masters.
’Upsetting the apple cart’ means restoring principles to politics after the Obama weak years.
Trump has no principles. Amazing that I even have to mention it.

That is a false dichotomy between recognition and war. It is Nervous Nellie language to say that we have to give in to a bully.

By that logic, Trump shouldn't have been elected.
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Re: Trump Clinton Demographics

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Re: Trump Clinton Demographics

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The only thing consistent about Trump--it's plain just from listening to him over the past year--is that he says what is needed in the short term in order to gain a victory. The same also comes out in more detail in the book I'm reading about his career. He is very tactical in his business dealings, although impulsive at times as well. I think it's possible that his Taiwan initiative was indeed planned in the same manner as a business deal, playing sides against each other. The great difference is that if Trump's business schemes go south, it's mainly he who suffers. When he is acting globally as president, everyone will suffer if his manipulations fail. His Sec. of State will have a heck of a job putting the brakes on him.
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Re: Trump Clinton Demographics

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Robert Tulip wrote:Older conservative suburban and small town white middle income men gave the election to Trump.

their lead role in delivering prosperity and stability for the USA enabled their views to prove decisive in this election.


I'm not convinced. The export sector of the U.S. is dependent on people with advanced degrees, who went strongly for Clinton. It tends to be located in the big cities, especially on the coasts.

Looks to me like the value-creators like progressive politics, while the left-behinds moan about international trade.

My uncle, who got his Ph.D. in the early 60s, said "This was an election between the past and the future, and the past won."

Narrowly, I would add.
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Re: Trump Clinton Demographics

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DB Roy wrote: Since it initiated market reforms in 1978, the Asian giant has achieved economic growth averaging 10% annually (though it’s slowed recently) and, in the process, lifted almost half of its 1.3 billion population out of poverty and become the undisputed second-largest economy on Earth. China is estimated to pull ahead of the U.S. steadily in the following years, taking over the lead position as the world’s largest economy; in fact, in its October 2012 World Economic Outlook report, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected that China’s gross domestic product (GDP) would outpace that of the U.S. as early as 2017.

Using another measure known as purchasing power parity (PPP), it already has. Specifically, China’s GDP (based on 2005 PPP) is forecast by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) at $15.26 trillion for 2016, exceeding the forecasted U.S. GDP of $15.24 trillion for the very first time.


http://www.investopedia.com/articles/in ... nomies.asp
Purchasing power parity is a more accurate comparison. Using exchange rates to compare different countries tends to put more weight on production of tradeables and less on local services, subsistence agriculture and other non-traded goods and services. It systematically underestimates standards of living in developing countries. China has become the largest economy.
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Re: Trump Clinton Demographics

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Robert Tulip wrote:Politics is a dialectic between wealth creation and wealth distribution, between liberty and equality, between right and left. My view is that this dialectic is best managed from the centre-right, as the locus of experience, order, stability, security and strategy.
The comparison between Reagan's economic and foreign policy team, or GHWBush's team, by contrast with GWBush, shows that the right is actually wandering off into irrelevance. The kind of competence that Baker and Shultz displayed, for example, was nowhere near in evidence in the Bush II terms. Paulsen and Rice were able to keep up with their staff, but not to make the tough calls that would cause policy to work.

The GOP has been taken over by Fox News/Tea Party mentality. Anything they do right is likely to be by accident.
Robert Tulip wrote:Allowing centre-left liberals to acquire state power gives too much oxygen to delinquent views about the central role of government which I characterise as neo-communist. There is much to admire among white men, who have been primarily responsible for constructing modern civilization by creating wealth.
The Affordable Care Act successfully put those with pre-existing conditions back into the system, rather than leaving their bills to the category of "bad debt." It held down costs below projections. Trump will not be able to improve on it.

People who see the world through "anti-communist" colored glasses have systematically resisted accuracy in science, as documented in "Merchants of Doubt." It's just another kind of paranoia.

The real kicker will be abortion. If Trump follows through on his intention to get Roe v. Wade reversed, and the abortion discussion is re-opened rather than bouncing around in echo chambers as it has been, the right will remember that their position is in fact highly unpopular. They only succeed with it when the undecided voters feel that their rights are successfully protected by Roe, and leave the issue to politicized evangelicals and traditionalist Catholics.
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Re: Trump Clinton Demographics

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DB Roy wrote: the "One China" policy is neither left nor right.
Hello again DB, and thanks for your thoughts on this Trump Clinton Demographics thread, including now the marked contrast of views on China. I don’t agree with your opinion that the ‘One China’ policy is neither left nor right. I would rather say that deference to Communist China involves left wing big government opinions, whereas the right wing voters who support Donald Trump would prefer that America be more assertive in its relations to China. Further, I have noticed that some people see their own opinions as just sensible and non-partisan, but that becomes a useful rhetorical debating tactic where others can just be castigated as irrational and outside the bounds of sense. Trump is now putting the One China policy on the negotiating table, asking what China will give up if it wants to do a deal over Taiwan. That looks to me a far more self-respecting statement of American values than the previous policy of left wing deference.
DB Roy wrote: It is an extremely delicate balancing act that takes very little to topple it and Trump has almost certainly toppled it.
Rather than delicate, it is hypocritical and nonsensical, with the USA ‘acknowledging’ the One China policy but neglecting to clarify what it means by that. China values stability over conflict, but its Stalinist traditions inherited from Mao Tse Tung mean that it will always push at swinging doors, and if those behind the doors don’t push back the Chinese will walk right through. Trump is starting to say some of these doors should be latched, and if the Chinese want to walk in they need some agreements.
DB Roy wrote:Can he repair it? No. Can someone in his administration? Maybe.
That is very wishful thinking that somehow Trump did not act with full consciousness and intent and will not have power in his administration. By linking the Taiwan question to issues such as North Korea nuclear proliferation and Chinese military aggression in the South China Sea, Trump is ending the timid policy of giving the communists whatever they ask for.
DB Roy wrote: Trump has no diplomacy or sense of decency so he cannot repair what he has done. We have to hope China isn't taking him seriously but he must SHUT UP!!!!!!!
You are a scream DB. Diplomacy does not mean rolling over for a tummy tickle, but involves prosecution of national interests. What people should take into account here is that the political party in charge in China was responsible for killing more people than any other organisation in the history of the world, including those nasty outfits in Germany and Russia. But unlike Germany and Russia, the tyrant party is still in power. Yes the CCP has changed its spots since the transformation by Deng Xiao Ping, but the old Leninist principle of democratic centralism (read authoritarian tyranny) remains its bedrock. Thinking to the future, the USA should have a plan to help China become democratic. That means looking at Taiwan as a model.
DB Roy wrote: The Taiwanese govt was also stupid for calling Trump. An important part of the One-China Policy was that China would agree not to wipe Taiwan off the map if the U.S. never mentioned them or spoke to them publicly. We could sell them military hardware behind the scenes because it made them feel secure and this didn't worry China because no matter how much Taiwan has, China can flatten Taiwan anytime it wants to.
Great policy. We agree not to inflict genocide if you do whatever we want. Not particularly principled or dignified there.
DB Roy wrote: Thanks to Trump, it now may want to.
I can’t believe you are presenting this hostage blackmail as a necessary condition for stability and security. You are saying that China is holding a gun to the head of Taiwan, and telling the free world not to move or the kid gets it. And that is fine by you.
DB Roy wrote: You clearly do not understand how extremely essential the One-China Policy is to the stability of Asia.
This policy has been a successful transitional agreement as China has moved out of its paranoid secretive communist tyranny towards becoming a free market economy engaging with the world on the basis of respect and equality. But that transition has only ever been a holding pattern, not a sustainable strategy, since it rests upon the fig leaf covering the fact that the world trades with Taiwan as a major independent power. By opening a dialogue, Trump is helping the Chinese people to start asking how they can get the political freedom that everywhere else in the free world accepts as a normal part of economic freedom. Holding the lid on that powderkeg, as the chicoms want, is not a recipe for durable stability.
DB Roy wrote: Trump certainly doesn't. This was not a carefully choreographed political move on the part of his administration, it was just him shooting off his big stupid mouth because he clearly doesn't know what he's getting himself, the U.S. and Asia into.
You don’t seem to understand how right wing people think. Taiwan is an old friend, since before the ‘who lost China?’ debate in the early cold war. The fact that the USA has deferred to this ambiguous policy in order to keep in the good books with the party of Mao sticks in the craw. There is absolutely no reason to think that open respect for Taiwan will produce conflict. China has over-reached itself in recent years, getting too cocky due to its economic success. But they still have a long way to go to catch up with the west. That is the goal, and Taiwan is a bargaining chip which is negotiable. America wants to bring Taiwan back in from the freezer, and that is a good and principled and honourable thing.
DB Roy wrote: Clearly, his meeting with Shinzo Abe last month didn't do any good. Abe may have even caused this unintentionally. He may have warned Trump, "Remember now, don't talk to Taiwan" and Trump thought, "Fuck you, I'm the president. I'll talk to anyone I want." I can guarantee that the Japanese govt is furious right now thinking, "What is this fucking idiot trying to do???"
You have such a fertile imagination DB! Such an undignified piece of bullying of the USA by Japan on behalf of China would not happen. Japan is an ally of the USA, and of Taiwan in practical terms. I suspect the Japanese will welcome this new western assertiveness, after the gutless and spineless display by Europe in its failure to control its borders.
DB Roy wrote: Maybe you should lay out a plan here for all to read about how to make China and Taiwan play nice and share their toys.
China and Taiwan share core values of stability and prosperity. The question is what path can best guarantee those goals. To say Taiwan is just like an unexploded hand grenade, an unresolvable legacy issue from 1949, puts a false powder keg under world peace. Yes, China has used Taiwan as a propaganda tool, but the reality is that Taiwan is now the best model that the people of China can look to for their next step in their evolution to modernity. As China gradually dismantles the sclerotic communist scaffolding that is still in place around its economy, Taiwan stands ready as a partner to show how a government can steer and regulate the market without controlling it. It may be that moving the capital city of China to Taipei would be a bridge too far, but there are other options, such as Shanghai and Hong Kong, which are more amenable to the needed democratic transition than imperial Peking.
DB Roy wrote: They don't want or need our help. They are or soon will the largest economy in the world:
Again, the USA became great by applying its core principles from the Declaration of Independence, the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These principles are foreign to the undemocratic autocracy of China, but can be applied to achieve political reform in China as it seeks dialogue with other states.
DB Roy wrote: Trump has no principles. Amazing that I even have to mention it.
Now now, sneering contempt is not a good basis for dialogue. The fact that you do not share Trump’s principles does not mean you can say they do not exist.
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Re: Trump Clinton Demographics

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China under Mao did horrible things, and politically it remains oppressive. Unfortunately, though, relativism applies here. How can the Chinese possibly trust and work with a country that attempted to eradicate its native population and subjugated an entire race until modern times? It may not feel right, but there is not an alternative to a certain degree of realpolitik.
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