First presidential debate - September 26: Trump vs Hillary

[Kellhound]

Hell, just make it real simple.

Sally is selling brownies at a school fair. She knows she can sell about 50 brownies per fair. She's made more than that, in the past, but never sold any more than 50.

Sally's parents give her an extra $30,000 to spend on materials to make thousands of brownies. Does this mean she'll be able to sell thousands? No, she'll sell 50. She MIGHT sell more, if she drops her prices accordingly, but now she's making way less per brownie, to boot, and potentially losing money on the transaction. And she's still going to hit a cap at some point.

Overly simplistic, it assumes the increased spending on material will not amount to an increase in demand for brownies when that is not known.

[Stommped]

Hell, just make it real simple.

Sally is selling brownies at a school fair. She knows she can sell about 50 brownies per fair. She's made more than that, in the past, but never sold any more than 50.

Sally's parents give her an extra $30,000 to spend on materials to make thousands of brownies. Does this mean she'll be able to sell thousands? No, she'll sell 50. She MIGHT sell more, if she drops her prices accordingly, but now she's making way less per brownie, to boot, and potentially losing money on the transaction. And she's still going to hit a cap at some point.

I mean it's a terrible example. If we assume the fair has more than 50 people she can make loads more money. She can make cookies, healthy shit, whatever to appeal to more people than just people who like brownies.

[alexw]

Depends if those 10 units of production are being bought by the 1% and if more funds would increase the demand from those buyers.

The top 1% spend only a tiny fraction of their incomes. Think of how much of their yearly income a multi-millionaire or billionaire spends. So the answer is generally no, it doesn't increase demand, and if it does its by a tiny amount. If you want more jobs its waayyyy better to give tax cuts to the poor and middle class. This is what all the academic studies on this issue have shown.

[Deleted]

People keep saying that America thinks trump won. Is there a link to polls on this? That scares the shit out of me.

[LilSaihah]

Overly simplistic, it assumes the increased spending on material will not amount to an increase in demand for brownies when that is not known.

Not really, Sally knows the demand is usually around 50. Making more brownies will not magically make more people appear at the school fair

Unless they're fucking amazing brownies and people come to the fair just to get them, I guess

[Endus]

Are you suggesting supply and demand are 1 to 1 in America?

It's an oversimplification to demonstrate the underlying point.

There's a triumvirate that's in balance. Demand, driven by consumption power, production, and affordability. If you don't change affordability (which ties directly to profit margins), then the only way increasing production can increase consumption is if you weren't already meeting the market demand. So the demand was there, without the additional investment required, so the investment didn't actually do anything.

And if you ARE meeting that demand before, then boosting production leaves you a bunch of unsellable product. Which means you can monkey with affordability to unload it, by dropping your price point, which doesn't actually make you significantly more money in most cases, because your profit margins shrink as well. Selling 30 pairs of sneakers for $50, when it costs you $10 a pair to manufacture, is "better" than selling 200 pairs of the same sneakers at $15/pair.

If, however, you boost demand directly, by ensuring consumers have more money to spend, that demand encourages greater production to meet that demand, naturally. You create actual long-term jobs, because demand has been increased, and without having to drop price points to encourage more buyers, so the business owner makes more money, too. You end up selling those 200 pairs of sneakers for $50 each.

[mvaliz]

Sitting New Jersey Governor and voted most-slappable-stooge, Chris Christie, was just on MSNBC and just said "If Trump doesn't attend the next two debates, he will still win."

While I don't like to gossipcraft... it sure sounds like a setup to me! ^_^

[Stommped]

Yeah reality denial. As expected.

Here's a question for you. Demand is 10 units of output. Production is 10 units of output. Trump cuts the taxes of the top 1% by 10%. How many new jobs are created?

As for France it proves that Endus is right not wrong (not surprising that you are don't know this given your total lack of understanding of economics). France is being forced to put in place demand shrinking policies by Germany. That shrinkage of demand has caused unemployment to rise.

Your point about France is entirely inaccurate. They tried exactly what you're proposing and it failed. You can't spin it any other way than that.

[alexw]

I mean it's a terrible example. If we assume the fair has more than 50 people she can make loads more money. She can make cookies, healthy shit, whatever to appeal to more people than just people who like brownies.

Again no. Those consumers only have so much money. If they buy her brownies or cookies, then they will have less to spend on what other people sell. So any rise in employment brought about by Sally employing people is met by an equal fall in employment by sally's competitors.

I don't know why you keep denying reality.

[TheRabidDeer]

The head of state is supposed to be a role model for society though, and somebody that avoids paying tax that they probably should isn't necessarily a person that should be running a country.

He is doing what every businessman does. Like he said at the debates tonight, he is following the law and if you believe it should be different you should change the law. There is nothing illegal about what he does, and there is nothing immoral about what he does.

[Stonecloak]

I'm frankly amazed that anyone could trust Hillary. My impression was that the Hillary crew had the mindset of "well, she's a piece of shit, but she's less of a piece of shit than DJT"- at least, that's the impression I get from here.

That is the case, and from the people I've spoken to irl, I get the impression it's vote for Hillary! because she's not Trump. That's not to say she's wrong in what she proposes, but I seriously doubt that if Obama couldn't get it done, whether he wanted to or not, that she could, whether she wants to as well. It's a shot in the dark, a dive into the same cesspool people have been for decades, and I seriously think people are ready for this show to end.

[Endus]

Overly simplistic, it assumes the increased spending on material will not amount to an increase in demand for brownies when that is not known.

Buying more ingredients doesn't create more people who want brownies. That's not how markets work.

If you mean she could spend it on better ingredients, sure, but now you run into the question of whether 50 people will pay more for those brownies, because if they won't, you're losing money.

I mean it's a terrible example. If we assume the fair has more than 50 people she can make loads more money. She can make cookies, healthy shit, whatever to appeal to more people than just people who like brownies.

You're literally changing the example. I clearly stated that she'd tried making more than 50 brownies in the past, and was never able to sell more than 50. You don't get to just change the example, and then pretend you've made a point.

You're making arguments that literally no reasonable economist would support. They don't make sense on any level. Trickle-down economic theory has been tried, and it does not work. Nothing "trickles down".

[Breccia]

He made $600 million in assets. He invests in property. He doesn't have much cash income that you or I consider income from paychecks which we can then go spend on good and services. His net worth is not fluid and spendable money.

That's capital gains, right? Aren't those taxed at 15%?

[Kellhound]

The top 1% spend only a tiny fraction of their incomes. Think of how much of their yearly income a multi-millionaire or billionaire spends. So the answer is generally no, it doesn't increase demand, and if it does its by a tiny amount. If you want more jobs its waayyyy better to give tax cuts to the poor and middle class. This is what all the academic studies on this issue have shown.

I was pointing out the overly simplistic (thus flawed) example you used.

The US is beyond the point of creating sufficient good paying jobs. We need to face that.

[Stommped]

Again no. Those consumers only have so much money. If they buy her brownies or cookies, then they will have less to spend on what other people sell. So any rise in employment brought about by Sally employing people is met by an equal fall in employment by sally's competitors.

I don't know why you keep denying reality.

Then, in this fairy tale world, the increased spending on materials (thereby meaning the brownies should taste incredibly better), she can now charge more for each brownie. The idea that you can't do anything with your money in capitalism is pure insanity.

[Deleted]

He is doing what every businessman does. Like he said at the debates tonight, he is following the law and if you believe it should be different you should change the law. There is nothing illegal about what he does, and there is nothing immoral about what he does.

This is exactly why he shouldn't be president. He is going to want those laws to still exist. He is going to keep abusing them to take advantage of people, cheat them off their money and gain more personal wealth.

Those are not good traits for a president

[TheRabidDeer]

That's capital gains, right? Aren't those taxed at 15%?

Only if he sells his property.

[Breccia]

Sitting New Jersey Governor and voted most-slappable-stooge, Chris Christie, was just on MSNBC and just said "If Trump doesn't attend the next two debates, he will still win."

Bluster. No way does Trump skip them.

[Gamevizier]

Trump was doing good in the first 20 mins, then it was just an hour of watching Hillary baiting Trump into saying some stupid shit and get him to either go back and correct it or just beating him using his own words that he said on the debate and the ones he said earlier in his campaign. I dont trust Clinton either, but she does have experience, and she used it well.

[TheRabidDeer]

This is exactly why he shouldn't be president. He is going to want those laws to still exist. He is going to keep abusing them to take advantage of people, cheat them off their money and gain more personal wealth.

Those are not good traits for a president

I am not saying to vote for trump, I do not support him. But attacking him for not paying taxes is the most ridiculous thing to do. Neither Clinton nor Trump are going to make any progress with taxes and corporate loopholes since they are both on the side of corporations.