writing a paper atm so I don't have time to respont to scissors and $layer yet but I found this post ripe for fodder

First of all, we have no verifiable way to know that Donald Trump is a billionaire. Second of all, it's a lot easier to make it despite many bad business decisions when your daddy is covering for you at every point in your adult life:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/03/03/trumps-false-claim-he-built-his-empire-with-a-small-loan-from-his-father/?postshare=6111474938786594&tid=ss_tw

Of course, this doesn't really tell us anything about his policies, just his business acumen, which I don't really give a shit about. It's the pro-Trump crowd, however, that is trying to make it into a positive for him, with no evidence that it would be a solid predictor of his ability to do an entirely different job. I mean, he's spent his entire life with no obligation to do anything to benefit any person other than himself and his immediate family, and is running for public office where he's supposed to fight for the people, it's not really equivalent.

I'm gonna put these two points together because I don't think either has really been satisfactorily addressed thus far. In a vacuum, you are both absolutely right. But by choosing such astronomical figures (10-1, 20-1) to explain how much cheaper manufacturing is in China, for instance, you're invalidating your own argument. Businesses are profit-driven machines that operate based upon incentives. No matter how much tariffs, for instance, affect the cost of outsourcing manufacturing to China, they will continue to do so unless the tariffs are so unbelievably astronomical that they can offset that literal 10-1, 20-1 difference that you are talking about. This is impossible, and even attempting it will just piss off the Chinese while bringing insignificant jobs back to the US.

I am opposed to pure free trade as well, though for mostly pretty different reasons, but the U.S. is losing out in a free market because it is competing with 2nd and 3rd world countries with wages so much lower than the median here that labor will be astronomically cheaper no matter what we do. In light of that, why not focus more on keeping quality of life good for the unemployed and underemployed, raising the minimum wage for those stuck in entry-level jobs, and focus on college and vocational education so that, while the manufacturing sector will never recover (both due to outsourcing and automation), Americans can continue to succeed in other areas?

I pointed out already that this would have basically no effect, and that Donald Trump is living in a fantasy land. But don't take my word for it, here is a letter signed by many economists explaining that Donald Trump is living in a fantasy land:
http://www.npr.org/2016/11/01/500264332/economists-warn-trump-promotes-magical-thinking-and-conspiracy-theories
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/EconomistLetter11012016.pdf

For those who find my posts to be a tldr, read that letter, it is worth your time

So there is are 300 economists writing a letter saying hillarys bad and 370 saying trump is bad... They are both bad, I simply believe hillary's is worse.

the 300 economists saying hillary's plan is bad are simply conservatives who want completely open markets and low taxes/regulations. they disagree with her ideologically, simple as that.

the ones saying trump's is bad are not just liberal economists criticizing tax policy of a conservative. they are going against his continual approach of apocalyptic rabble-rousing against statistics and government departments, tea-party style, with no basis in reality. he says things that are just objectively wrong. if it were john kasich or something, you would not the same type of critique, it would mirror the anti-hillary statement a lot more. the fact of the matter is, trump either has 0 idea what he's talking back or deliberately dumbs down his rhetoric for his base to the point of complete nonsense.

also the 300 economists against hillary's plan are wrong, but that's a completely different story.

Cherry picking pretty hard there my dude, people who criticize hillary are just conservatives (all economists are conservative) who don't like her because. The big difference between the two letters seems to be that trump is disliked because they feel he is misleading the people. The people against hillary's don't like it because they believe the actual polices are bad.

that's almost exactly what I said, other than that trump is being criticized for misleading people AND having bad policies

and not all economists are conservative by any stretch, just those brought up in the freshwater u-chicago school of lunacy where all actors are perfectly rational and if markets are left completely alone everyone wins and everything is fair

I mean everything we observe with the study of economics points to the fact that a free market is the only system that works and gives the largest number of people the greatest amount of happiness and freedom. I know your a young university student getting a worthless degree and you really like the idea of free education because hey the job your gonna get from it isn't gonna make you too much money. Minimum wage sounds great cuz you might have to work at mcdonalds because nobody's hiring. Despite the fact that minimum wage has been found to hurt low skilled young workers more than anyone else.

lol

would you like to live in communist russia? china, venezula, north korea? nazi germany? to be a socialist or communist nation you directly give up your freedoms, you don't always lose as much as in say nazi germany but you always lose your ability to choose your economic position, you don't get to work really hard and get really rich becuase your smart and talented and what not.

Idk man, coming from a guy who is Chinese and has spent a significant amount of time there, the economic lock that you're claiming is complete bullshit. Sure there's farmers and shit that'll never advance, but that's because the infrastructure in some places is 3rd world level. Even then the education is compulsory for at least 9 years (so younger generations get education), and students literally compete for scholarships to schools based on their academic performance (i.e: you get to work really hard and get rich because you're smart and talented).

Isnt nub_danish like 17? Why is he calling someone a college freshman or w/e?

is that hong kong or the rest of china?

Both. I have family in Beijing and Manchuria, and I've studied abroad in HK.

im saying he just likes the idea of free college becuase he is a college student

from what im reading about china people classified as 'rural' do not have the freedom to choose there position. they're given a area they can work and they can apply to work some in a 'urban' area doing non agricultural work, but thats not really freedom to choose what you want to do if the government decides they want you to stay in the farms you stay. (if you don't work where your designated you can't get a home from your employer, food, or healthcare). So no for these people it's not a matter of there not being infrastructure its them not being able to look for opportunities if the government doesn't approve

Ok let me put it this way. My family is very well educated, with my grandparents being professors at Tsinghua, which is the absolute best university in China. During, and before the Cultural Revolution, they were farmers in Manchuria (not only a relatively rural area, but controlled by the Japanese during WWII. No higher education, and during the CR they were relocated to what were known as Laogai, which were basically prison farms. Can you explain how former low level forced labor workers were able to become highly respected professors at one of the top universities in the world through locked economic/social opportunities?

I'd rather live in a "communist" China than Thailand which is to a large extent libertarian - thanks to its huge corruption and shadow economy.

Did you read what i said i said if farmers or 'rural' people applied then they can move up, but they cannot move up without the governments approval. My original post didn't say you couldn't get rich or accomplish things in communist or socialist countries it said you didn't have the freedom to choose what you do, if your grandparents hadn't been accepted to move then they wouldn't have gotten to go on to do these things.

If you're ever jailed or put into an internment camp for no reason other than fuck you, you're kind of educated so you don't understand the value of labor, by the government - try and apply for a get out of jail card, along with a socioeconomic moveup, tell me how that goes for you. I think I know my family's history a little bit more than you do. The only thing worse than being uneducated is knowing a little bit about something and thinking that they understand it (ala Dunning Kruger effect). Communism isn't some big bad scary ideology, just like how the West isn't some bastion of freedom and justice and prosperity.

Calling current China communist might be one of the most inaccurate comparisons you could make to a theoretical communist state.

Very true. I should stress that my family's situation happened during times when communist was a much more accurate term to label the Chinese gov't (pre Maoism basically)

Anyways, this is getting very far away from the discussion between the big orange phony and the wall street puppet. Should probably go back to talking about how they're both terrible

I never called said it was currently communist I just listed off socialist and communist nations where you can clearly see the loss of freedom under communist or socialist rule.

.

Your view of history is facile. The great depression wasn't just something that happened in John Steinbeck novels. If you think the rise of the Nazis had nothing to do with the results of free markets left alone to do their good work think again.

If you think markets are stable or related to social freedom, or produce any kind of natural justice, you are a fool. The larger and freer the market the greater the instability - markets aren't rational, they don't adjust logically, they aren't politically neutral, they do not contain truth. Everything we observe through the study of economics tells us that.

The rational actor that dominates applied economics is the product of a sick mind, literally, and in any truly scientific subject would have been discredited decades ago because it's a total failure experimentally. After we've shot all the politicians, the economists are next.

Anonymous Release Bone-Chilling video of Huma Abedin every American Needs to See

do you honestly think that one of the top aides to the secretary of state wouldn't have gone through an extremely thorough security clearance and background check prior to being allowed to work in such privileged circles?

or is this a conspiracy that permeates the DoD as well? if saudi money is controlling our own department of defense, then we don't have much of a country anyways and none of this really matters

so you dont like it because you cant get in?

I got a little interesting video about deregulation of price control and letting the free market work it's way around massive inflation, namely what happened in West-Germany post WWII https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0D1RAY5NZ8

you notice how Venezuela a socialist country is in there.
also im already in university elliiot so that doesnt really work

the more time passes the more i think Metal Gear Solid is non-fiction.
Hideo Koijma knew this whole time and was trying to warn us!