More White House contradictions. This time, the EU

[Skroe]

Russia is already doing that though. If left to their own devices, they won't make it another century. That's why they're trying so aggressively to sneak in plays and try to force themselves back into the global economy and being a global power. They're just not selling anything people really want. This isn't going to get better either. And the further they decline, the more likely they are to do something dumb out of desperation.

Russia is basically a wounded dog being backed further into the corner by further modernization and globalization of the rest of the world. The EU and/or NATO crumbling is their only really chance at regaining true relevance by asserting what power they have left.

A century? Ha! Most Western think tanks are looking at the indicators and give them a decade or two at best.

The jig is basically up the second Vladmir Putin dies. And we have far fewer days with him ahead of us than behind us. The second he gets sick, the inner circle will start to devour each other.

[Torto]

Pretty sure the only thing Trump has surpassed Obama in so far is spending more on himself and his family in these two months than Obama did in a year.

Lucky Trump isn't pulling a presidential salary and is working for free then.

You confuse "seeing cracks in the chintzy gilding" as "willing to fail." How much turnover has their been in the Trump Whitehouse? Is that "to be expected" when staffers are jumping ship? Are you just going to write off the judicial branch giving Trump the finger as "par the course?"

You guys sound like someone dying on the side of the road and laughing as the ambulance rushing to save you gets a flat tyre. By focusing on the trivial, the media are desperately trying to give the impression of instability and mayhem. And you guys can't get enough of it, as this forum alone shows. Rather than give the guy a chance, you have all written off this presidential term already. And you couldn't be happier.

I don't understand how you can possibly gauge Trump's presence thus far in the white house as being positive.

Markets are buoyant since he won the election. There are positive signs everywhere if you choose to see them, which you won't. Frankly, I couldn't care less if Melania burnt down the white house while cooking toast. As long as Trump leads a global economic recovery the rest of the drivel you lot obsess over is meaningless trivia.

I'm curious to see how Trumpettes are even going to quantify "making America great again." Like, what is the actual metric?

Because I don't think there is one. I think it's something they want to feel.

Each individual will have their own personal benchmark. Of course, some people will set the bar to unrealistic levels and then bitch about what a total failure Trump was.

[Masark]

You guys sound like someone dying on the side of the road and laughing as the ambulance rushing to save you gets a flat tyre. By focusing on the trivial, the media are desperately trying to give the impression of instability and mayhem. And you guys can't get enough of it, as this forum alone shows. Rather than give the guy a chance, you have all written off this presidential term already. And you couldn't be happier.

Markets are buoyant since he won the election. There are positive signs everywhere if you choose to see them, which you won't. Frankly, I couldn't care less if Melania burnt down the white house while cooking toast. As long as Trump leads a global economic recovery the rest of the drivel you lot obsess over is meaningless trivia.

1. We don't need to "give him a chance" to know the probable results of his policies, because we are capable of looking at history and thinking.

2. Which says far more about the markets than it does about Trump.

3. Trump's policies will not drive any kind of "global economic recovery". They will at best drive a bubble, that will crash and leave another mess for the adults to clean up, and will do vast environmental and social harm in the process.

Each individual will have their own personal benchmark. Of course, some people will set the bar to unrealistic levels and then bitch about what a total failure Trump was.

Yes, we set our bar to "basic competence", which is an absurdly unrealistic level for Trump, or most Republicans for that matter, to achieve.

[Skroe]

And that would be disastrous. If nuclear Russia fractures into petty states NATO (and not just US, this would be a project requiring all of us) would have to occupy Russia and disarm it or we would risk every fanatic in the globe getting his hands on nuclear weapons and even then every remaining military scientist or engineer in Russia would get snatched by the Chinese. It is a worst case scenario of catastrophic proportions. We should want Russia stable; a minor regional power that exports those resources to the rest of us is the best case scenario. Imo the only good option for the rest of us would be to find a new Yeltsin and do whatever we can to get him in power.

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Anyway the EU is not going to collapse. If all else fails, Merkel or whoever succeeds her will keep the North in check, side with the concerns of France and the South and open the spigot. Change the inflation commitment of the ECB, slowly reverse austerity in France, Spain and Italy and people would go back to voting for the status quo and deny they ever voted for Le Pen. Finland or Denmark might go berserk but a couple of trade concessions and the clear fact that they still need the one market for their economies to function will shush them.

It's not the first time these concerns have arisen. The scenario you describe was precisely the concern in the 1990s, which led to the very nuclear security agreements the Russians have reneged on the past few years.

Moreover, it's worth recalling that when the USSR collapsed, Ukraine, as the USSR's military and industrial heartland, was left with the third largest nuclear arsenal on Earth and gave them away in exchange for an agreement that Russia has completely violated. What's the chance the Russian Federation's successor states will part with their nuclear weapons as easy as Ukraine did? Not good.


Brooks, Stratfor and Heritage have all basically described what you're saying though and foresee it, to one degree or another, as the US's chief geopolitical challenge over the next decade and a half. We Westerners are watching an empire die in near real time. Similarly the fall of the Roman Empire was punctuated by decade long plateaus and reorganizations. The End of Russian Empire, no matter it's form (Tsardom, Soviet or Federation is of similar historic magnitude.

Yes it is going to be bad. Really, really bad. And yes, the Chinese will capitalize on it and become an even bigger threat in the aftermath. But even with a decade of windfall oil profits, a singular strongman in Putin could not arrest the decline.

There is no saving "Russia" as we know it. We'll all wake up one day in a couple of decades to see the news of some warlord launching a drone strike on the Duma. We need to make sure that as they fall, they don't take the European Project, the most important human political achievement since the American Revolution, down with it.

[Netherblood]

Lucky Trump isn't pulling a presidential salary and is working for free then.

US President salary is 400k $ a year. Trump spend around 10million in a month already on travel and is also spending a lot on secret service staying in NYC to guard his wife.

[Skroe]

US President salary is 400k $ a year. Trump spend around 10million in a month already on travel and is also spending a lot on secret service staying in NYC to guard his wife.

And on that note, there is nothing noble about declining it. It is an old idea. Even George Washington was faced with that question!
http://www.politico.com/magazine/sto...hington-214458

In his first broadcast interview as president-elect, Donald Trump pledged that he will accept as little of the presidential salary as he can get away with. “I think I have to by law take $1, so I’ll take $1 a year,” he told CBS’ Lesley Stahl. “$400,000 you’re giving up,” she responded, as if this were some sort of public-spirited sacrifice.

It is anything but a sacrifice. The precedent of insisting that the president accept a salary—not in his interest, but in the public interest—is as old as the first Congress, even older. The American Framers considered payment of the presidential salary an important duty under the Constitution, and the principle that moved them then matters just as much as it ever did: It confirms that the president serves the public, and not the other way around. If the Founders’ reasons were good enough to persuade George Washington, our first independently wealthy president, they should be good enough for Donald Trump.

[Ishayu]

There is no contradiction. Trump knows, as everyone knows, that the EU is not fit for purpose and will probably collapse or reform heavily. That doesn't mean he has to be hostile to its leaders while it still exists, however.

This is just a president that understands that everything will be fine and we'll work it out over here, and he doesn't have to meddle. He can just comment the situation, and then do nothing.

[Torto]

US President salary is 400k $ a year. Trump spend around 10million in a month already on travel and is also spending a lot on secret service staying in NYC to guard his wife.

Yes and Obama blew $96 million on travel expenses. Apparently moving a president around isn't cheap. Queue outrage....

[Kaleredar]

Lucky Trump isn't pulling a presidential salary and is working for free then.

It's money he's costing the government.

You guys sound like someone dying on the side of the road and laughing as the ambulance rushing to save you gets a flat tyre. By focusing on the trivial, the media are desperately trying to give the impression of instability and mayhem. And you guys can't get enough of it, as this forum alone shows. Rather than give the guy a chance, you have all written off this presidential term already. And you couldn't be happier.

I'm pretty sure any "chance" he's had so far has been eaten up by his recent fiascos.

Markets are buoyant since he won the election. There are positive signs everywhere if you choose to see them, which you won't. Frankly, I couldn't care less if Melania burnt down the white house while cooking toast. As long as Trump leads a global economic recovery the rest of the drivel you lot obsess over is meaningless trivia.

So what are the portents of this "glorious recovery?" that Trump has supposedly ushered in? Markets have been "buoyant" since Obama's administration.

I'm wondering how long of a dearth of "nothing happening" can pass before the Trumpettes realize he was just in it for himself.

Each individual will have their own personal benchmark. Of course, some people will set the bar to unrealistic levels and then bitch about what a total failure Trump was.

Well you seem to have pegged yours on "global economic golden age"

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Yes and Obama blew $96 million on travel expenses. Apparently moving a president around isn't cheap. Queue outrage....

With the addendum that Obama burned through that money in 8 years. Trump is currently on track to spend that much in 8 months.

[Isadora]

Lucky Trump isn't pulling a presidential salary and is working for free then.

You must be trolling right? So him not taking the salary of 400k dollar a year is obviously a glorious thing, but spending as much on vacations in 1 month as Obama did in a whole year is no big deal? You see why I think you might miss the big picture here?

You guys sound like someone dying on the side of the road and laughing as the ambulance rushing to save you gets a flat tyre. By focusing on the trivial, the media are desperately trying to give the impression of instability and mayhem. And you guys can't get enough of it, as this forum alone shows. Rather than give the guy a chance, you have all written off this presidential term already. And you couldn't be happier.

Some of us desperately wanted to give him a chance. And then he didn't put his businesses in a blind trust. And then he made Bannon Chief Strategist. And then he put out an immigration ban that was at least borderline racist. And then he attacked the checks and balances that are failsafe systems to stop a democracy from becoming a dictatorship. And then attacked some media outlets as "enemies of the american people", mirroring words that have been spoken by genocidal freaks 80 years ago. And then he missed 6 out 7 security briefings. And then he repeated debunked Fox News informations about a country he clearly has no clue about. And then kept denying climate change.

Do I really need to go on? How long do you think one should "give someone a chance" before they realize they're being totally fucked over?

Markets are buoyant since he won the election. There are positive signs everywhere if you choose to see them, which you won't. Frankly, I couldn't care less if Melania burnt down the white house while cooking toast. As long as Trump leads a global economic recovery the rest of the drivel you lot obsess over is meaningless trivia.

Oh yes, the precious markets! Even if you'd give him that, that's just a narrowminded view. I don't give to shits about the markets if it means I lose my voting rights, if it means my gay neighbour is being labeled a second class citizen, if it means the river I get my water from is being polluted by coal refuse. At least my bank account looks 0,000003 % better, while the country doesn't have proper health insurance while everybody who doesn't own a fortune 500 company is getting sicker and my rights are getting taken away. It's all good!

Each individual will have their own personal benchmark. Of course, some people will set the bar to unrealistic levels and then bitch about what a total failure Trump was.

Oh, you mean as unrealistically high as "I will put a better healthcare system in place that costs less, but I can't show you yet how"? Or "Oh, I will build a wall that doesn't cost nearly as much as everybody else says, because hey, I'm obviously an expert as this things"? Or "Oh, btw., Mexico says they don't pay for a wall we Americans build, but believe me, they will"? Or "Hey, I'm telling my experts to target an economic growth of 3 to 3,5 %, even though even the most optimistic, drug addicted financial figureheads tripping balls on 5 different drugs wouldn't go as high as 2,8 %"?

Why are people like you refusing so desperately to see all the obvious signs that you elected a total fucking idiot? You keep telling others that we only see the negative points, but the fact is: No, we fucking don't, there's just so much negative that it's pretty hard to find anything positive to look forward to.

[Torto]

One figure is over 8 years. One figure is over 1 month. Do you math?

Why yes, yes i do. 96 million > 10 million. Let's come back in 8 years time and see if Trump has caught up.

[Deleted]

Yes and Obama blew $96 million on travel expenses. Apparently moving a president around isn't cheap. Queue outrage....

In 8 years.... Now lets see what would happen if Trump would make it that long....

1 month 10 million.
1 year is 12 months is 120 million.
8 years of 120 million is... $960.000.000,-

Somehow i do not think your maths skills are existing.

[Ravenblade]

It is clear that under the new govt. the US is becoming an enemy of the EU and may work together with Russia on its downfall through strengthening the powers that might bring it down from within. It is important to remember the times when Europe did well and when it didn't. The Holy Roman Empire knew the concept of Landfrieden and that's what the EU provided so far. I am rather in favour of stringent reforms of the EU rather than doing away with it. I am surprised that people are willing to experiment with ultranationalism again when it hasn't been known as the greatest maker of diplomatic friends in the past. For what? Because of borders? It's been rather my conviction that the EU primarily lacked cooperation of across its member nations and a determined securing of outer borders than it lacked borders. What good are borders when you have corrupt border officials anyway?

[Cybran]

The EU dying benefits no one except Russia who could then chip back away at the smaller countries to expand their power. The EU and NATO are serving as the only block against outside aggression.

It would benefit every country's domestic production and job creation. They will be allowed to stop cheap German exports and stimulate growth without the Euro and Austerity.

[Torto]

Some of us desperately wanted to give him a chance. And then he didn't put his businesses in a blind trust. And then he made Bannon Chief Strategist. And then he put out an immigration ban that was at least borderline racist. And then he attacked the checks and balances that are failsafe systems to stop a democracy from becoming a dictatorship. And then attacked some media outlets as "enemies of the american people", mirroring words that have been spoken by genocidal freaks 80 years ago. And then he missed 6 out 7 security briefings. And then he repeated debunked Fox News informations about a country he clearly has no clue about. And then kept denying climate change.

See, you keep lambasting Trump over things you think he might do or things the media says he might do. Has anyone taken away your voting rights yet? If they do I'll be right there marching with you. Trump is not a politician, we are breaking new ground here. Things may get a little unconventional, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Do I really need to go on? How long do you think one should "give someone a chance" before they realize they're being totally fucked over?

How about we give him the 4 years he's entitled to as someone who one an election.

Oh yes, the precious markets! Even if you'd give him that, that's just a narrowminded view. I don't give to shits about the markets if it means I lose my voting rights, if it means my gay neighbour is being labeled a second class citizen, if it means the river I get my water from is being polluted by coal refuse. At least my bank account looks 0,000003 % better, while the country doesn't have proper health insurance while everybody who doesn't own a fortune 500 company is getting sicker and my rights are getting taken away. It's all good!

Oh, you mean as unrealistically high as "I will put a better healthcare system in place that costs less, but I can't show you yet how"? Or "Oh, I will build a wall that doesn't cost nearly as much as everybody else says, because hey, I'm obviously an expert as this things"? Or "Oh, btw., Mexico says they don't pay for a wall we Americans build, but believe me, they will"? Or "Hey, I'm telling my experts to target an economic growth of 3 to 3,5 %, even though even the most optimistic, drug addicted financial figureheads tripping balls on 5 different drugs wouldn't go as high as 2,8 %"?

Why are people like you refusing so desperately to see all the obvious signs that you elected a total fucking idiot? You keep telling others that we only see the negative points, but the fact is: No, we fucking don't, there's just so much negative that it's pretty hard to find anything positive to look forward to.

I'm going to say something that may shock you, so I hope you are sitting down:

Not everyone cares about progressive left wing issues. I care about my bank balance so I can pay my mortgage and send my special needs daughter to school. I don't believe or care about AGW, your gay neighbour or an alt right chief of staff. Obviously there are a lot of people currently in the US just like me because Trump won.

Progressives have just had 8 Obama years of socialist feel good uselessness. Give Trump a chance.

[Isadora]

It would benefit every country's domestic production and job creation. They will be allowed to stop cheap German exports and stimulate growth without the Euro and Austerity.

That is regurgitated bullshit that doesn't become more true the more often you say it.

[Torto]

In 8 years.... Now lets see what would happen if Trump would make it that long....

1 month 10 million.
1 year is 12 months is 120 million.
8 years of 120 million is... $960.000.000,-

Somehow i do not think your maths skills are existing.

Has Trump spent $96 million in travel expenses yet? Crystal ball gaze all you like, but until he has your point is moot. For all we know he may decide to stay home for the next 8 years and go nowhere.

[Crispin]

I'm going to say something that may shock you, so I hope you are sitting down:

Not everyone cares about progressive left wing issues. I care about my bank balance so I can pay my mortgage and send my special needs daughter to school. I don't believe or care about AGW, your gay neighbour or an alt right chief of staff. Obviously there are a lot of people currently in the US just like me because Trump won.

Progressives have just had 8 Obama years of socialist feel good uselessness. Give Trump a chance.

Newsflash, the situation of the people in your country and around you do affect you and your family.

[Isadora]

See, you keep lambasting Trump over things you think he might do or things the media says he might do. Has anyone taken away your voting rights yet? If they do I'll be right there marching with you. Trump is not a politician, we are breaking new ground here. Things may get a little unconventional, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.

What?! He did all of the things I said in that paragraph, every single one. There is no "might". For at least half of them you can't even point at the media, because these are things he did or said on tape or on twitter. Does seriously nothing of those things bother you?

If you have a special needs daughter, I gotta give you some respect for wanting to be able to provide for her. As to why you don't feel it would be better for everybody if the government helped you with that and why you would support a guy who's obviously less interested in programs that would make things easier for you and would rather spend a few millions more on his own vacations and on tax cuts for people who earn at least 1000 % more than you is beyond me.