The Federal Reserve didn't cause that debt. In fact, profits from the Fed (including fees charged to banks) provide roughly 1% of the federal budget. https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2023/nov/fed-remittances-treasury-explaining-deferred-asset
To answer your question seriously: it's being smart.
Republicans have long misunderstood how to win elections. Trump is grasping (perhaps even unintentionally) how Democrats win consistently: elections are not about ideas, but patronage.
It's sad, but this is how mass enfranchisement in a democracy works. If you want votes, you don't persuade people that your ideas are better than the other candidate. You promise to give your voters money or jobs from the public treasury.
Bribing someone to vote a certain way is against the law. Then again Trump has consistently said that breaking the law and getting away with it is proof he's smart. Also can you tell me when Democrats have made an offer like this to win votes?
So ... now that the generals have been given their marching orders ... now there's a saying that needs qualifying ... the headless army is totally under the control of his orangeness and his princes of pith, so any hope of a civil uprising to save democracy will be severely reigned in.
It needs a king hit De sport of despoiling a despot from a depository maybe Not just for the sake of the United States of America, but for goodness and the rest of the world.
$5000 buys less gas for those Redneck four by four owners than you think, but they will still tick his box.
Not sure if I would qualify if a high I.Q. rating was needed to vote, but I do think making it a requisite a good idea.
I honestly don't understand why everybody is so upset about these checks. We're all old enough here to have received a W Bush check in 2008.
What's so different between promising people check as opposed to tax breaks?
The only difference I see is that these checks would go to regular people instead of to rich people, who usually get tax breaks. I guess that offends the rich people who control me media?
The checks Bush sent out didn't come with strings attached. Trump is offering a bribe to people to get them to vote a certain way, and he's doing it with taxpayer money. A case could be made that these are like tax breaks but those have to be approved by Congress. The checks Trump is promising should be approved by Congress too but he has no interest in abiding by the Constitution.
Tax breaks and other incentives are supposed to serve the public good. Trump is offering a bribe that serves no other purpose than distracting from his failures.
You don't actually think the promise of $5k checks is real, do you? I assumed anyone smart enough to be here would realise that pulling a trillion dollars of inflation out of his butt, sorry, I mean adding it to the national debt, would just further crater the country. Do you want that?
Potentially Trump could devalue the dollar to the point where the numbers add up, but that would destroy trust in the dollar as a stable international trade and investment currency. Torpedo that and America sinks under its own debt mountain.
Tellingly, destroying the dollar isn't something American Oligarchs want, so it won't happen. There'll be no payment, just more debt for future American families to pay off or collapse under.
Trump is offering a bribe to people to get them to vote a certain way
This is how politicians get elected. They promise things that they will do when they get elected. They don't always do them, and then they don't get re-elected.
Trump promised his rich buddies giant tax breaks, they helped him get elected, and they got them. How is this different?
The only thing is that regular people would get them. Which they won't.
You don't actually think the promise of $5k checks is real, do you?
The promise is real. It's on video. But nobody will get those checks because in the US, regular people don't get tax breaks. Only the rich do.
Potentially Trump could devalue the dollar to the point where the numbers add up
Don't worry. He's already doing that (compared to the euro).
that would destroy trust in the dollar as a stable international trade and investment currency
Vance has said that would be fine. https://www.reddit.com/r/Destiny/comments/1voycjc/jd_vance_wants_to_end_the_us_dollars_position_as/
Now Vance is an soulless empty windbag. But he's also VP, so it matters what he says.
destroying the dollar isn't something American Oligarchs want, so it won't happen
Probably not. But to maintain that status in a crisis, you need friends. And those are in short supply.
The UK played that game with the EU in the 90s and lost. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday
I could see sending $5000 to the folks that lost SNAP and Medicare benefits but I have to wonder....what is a millionaire going to do with a check for $5000?
To Anton we are saying the same thing but with different words. This administration is not reinventing the wheel. Huey Long (I think) promised direct economic relief. The Germans promised economic recovery. We should remember how that went.
No, isn't the point that the people who are controlling tr+mp by suggesting to him "great ideas" that he then thinks are his own ... - are using AI, and AI has data-mined this story? And the problem isn't offering people money, it's offering people a one-off payment to vote for him.. with no clarity for where that money would come from (probably from increasing the taxes of the people who have the least). Yes, people normally vote for the party that will make them more comfortable - either financially (lower taxes, higher state pension), or in terms of other benefits (better schools, better healthcare) - but that is a long term committment, typically to benefit one group of people more than another.... but isn't that the point of democracy? to give the minority a voice, but also to help the majority?
I am reading the book "Charlatans: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Hucksters Bamboozle the Media, the Markets, and the Masses" by Moisés Naím and Quico Toro. In Ch. 1, they give the definition of a charlatan. It fits the current president to a T!
He's been enabled to be a king. Why wouldn't he do this and why would he care?
ReplyDeleteWhy do you care ?
Delete.....It's not like the national debt is 40 trillion.....
Delete.....maybe we need more Federal Reserve Bank control ?? maybe we could even pass a real budget???
DeleteThe Federal Reserve didn't cause that debt. In fact, profits from the Fed (including fees charged to banks) provide roughly 1% of the federal budget. https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2023/nov/fed-remittances-treasury-explaining-deferred-asset
DeleteFor more 'coincidence', watch the 2012 History Channel's "The Men Who Built America", narrated in part by DJ Trump. Great role models!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip.
DeleteTo answer your question seriously: it's being smart.
ReplyDeleteRepublicans have long misunderstood how to win elections. Trump is grasping (perhaps even unintentionally) how Democrats win consistently: elections are not about ideas, but patronage.
It's sad, but this is how mass enfranchisement in a democracy works. If you want votes, you don't persuade people that your ideas are better than the other candidate. You promise to give your voters money or jobs from the public treasury.
https://x.com/bog_beef/status/1989076156151415158
Bribing someone to vote a certain way is against the law. Then again Trump has consistently said that breaking the law and getting away with it is proof he's smart.
DeleteAlso can you tell me when Democrats have made an offer like this to win votes?
I just finished reading this, seems to be appropriate.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrichardson/posts/1622873665874526?ref=embed_post
So ... now that the generals have been given their marching orders ... now there's a saying that needs qualifying ... the headless army is totally under the control of his orangeness and his princes of pith, so any hope of a civil uprising to save democracy will be severely reigned in.
ReplyDeleteIt needs a king hit
De sport of despoiling a despot from a depository maybe
Not just for the sake of the United States of America, but for goodness and the rest of the world.
$5000 buys less gas for those Redneck four by four owners than you think, but they will still tick his box.
Not sure if I would qualify if a high I.Q. rating was needed to vote, but I do think making it a requisite a good idea.
I honestly don't understand why everybody is so upset about these checks. We're all old enough here to have received a W Bush check in 2008.
ReplyDeleteWhat's so different between promising people check as opposed to tax breaks?
The only difference I see is that these checks would go to regular people instead of to rich people, who usually get tax breaks. I guess that offends the rich people who control me media?
The checks Bush sent out didn't come with strings attached. Trump is offering a bribe to people to get them to vote a certain way, and he's doing it with taxpayer money.
DeleteA case could be made that these are like tax breaks but those have to be approved by Congress. The checks Trump is promising should be approved by Congress too but he has no interest in abiding by the Constitution.
Tax breaks and other incentives are supposed to serve the public good. Trump is offering a bribe that serves no other purpose than distracting from his failures.
DeleteYou don't actually think the promise of $5k checks is real, do you? I assumed anyone smart enough to be here would realise that pulling a trillion dollars of inflation out of his butt, sorry, I mean adding it to the national debt, would just further crater the country. Do you want that?
DeletePotentially Trump could devalue the dollar to the point where the numbers add up, but that would destroy trust in the dollar as a stable international trade and investment currency. Torpedo that and America sinks under its own debt mountain.
Tellingly, destroying the dollar isn't something American Oligarchs want, so it won't happen. There'll be no payment, just more debt for future American families to pay off or collapse under.
Trump is offering a bribe to people to get them to vote a certain way
DeleteThis is how politicians get elected. They promise things that they will do when they get elected. They don't always do them, and then they don't get re-elected.
Trump promised his rich buddies giant tax breaks, they helped him get elected, and they got them. How is this different?
The only thing is that regular people would get them. Which they won't.
You don't actually think the promise of $5k checks is real, do you?
The promise is real. It's on video. But nobody will get those checks because in the US, regular people don't get tax breaks. Only the rich do.
Potentially Trump could devalue the dollar to the point where the numbers add up
Don't worry. He's already doing that (compared to the euro).
that would destroy trust in the dollar as a stable international trade and investment currency
Vance has said that would be fine.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Destiny/comments/1voycjc/jd_vance_wants_to_end_the_us_dollars_position_as/
Now Vance is an soulless empty windbag. But he's also VP, so it matters what he says.
destroying the dollar isn't something American Oligarchs want, so it won't happen
Probably not. But to maintain that status in a crisis, you need friends. And those are in short supply.
The UK played that game with the EU in the 90s and lost.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday
I could see sending $5000 to the folks that lost SNAP and Medicare benefits but I have to wonder....what is a millionaire going to do with a check for $5000?
ReplyDeleteSame thing they do with all their other money, lock it away in an investment never to get involved in the actual economy ever again.
DeleteOr buy another Prada handbag.
DeletePeople are missing the point of Stan's image. History repeats itself.
ReplyDeleteNo, the point is that historical nonsense is basically an instruction manual for Trump.
DeleteTo Anton we are saying the same thing but with different words. This administration is not reinventing the wheel.
DeleteHuey Long (I think) promised direct economic relief. The Germans promised economic recovery. We should remember how that went.
No, isn't the point that the people who are controlling tr+mp by suggesting to him "great ideas" that he then thinks are his own ... - are using AI, and AI has data-mined this story?
ReplyDeleteAnd the problem isn't offering people money, it's offering people a one-off payment to vote for him.. with no clarity for where that money would come from (probably from increasing the taxes of the people who have the least). Yes, people normally vote for the party that will make them more comfortable - either financially (lower taxes, higher state pension), or in terms of other benefits (better schools, better healthcare) - but that is a long term committment, typically to benefit one group of people more than another.... but isn't that the point of democracy? to give the minority a voice, but also to help the majority?
https://lithub.com/donald-trump-all-american-know-nothing-nativist/
ReplyDeleteI am reading the book "Charlatans: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Hucksters Bamboozle the Media, the Markets, and the Masses" by Moisés Naím and Quico Toro. In Ch. 1, they give the definition of a charlatan. It fits the current president to a T!
ReplyDeleteF*** djt!
ReplyDeletebobbie