First presidential debate - September 26: Trump vs Hillary

[mvaliz]

Did not ask Hillary anything about Bill's history of sexual harassment and her defense of his behavior.

OK...aside from the fact that Bill Clinton isn't running for President and has nothing to do with this...

Donald Dump knows DAMN WELL that he, of all people, cannot comment on Bill Clinton's prior infidelity as he sets himself up to be opened to questioning of to the two wives he already cheated on (assuming Millania hasn't been cheated on already, of course.). And Hillary can easily invoke "I made a vow at my wedding to stay with him for better or worse. Did you stick to your vows?"

[Breccia]

Okay, I'm out. There's going to be some interesting morning news I'm sure. I'll leave this 30-second summary of the debate before I go.

[Hooked]

Just watched the debate. Hillary Clinton's retort was a truly beautiful statement about why NATO matters.

NATO countries need to pay their fair share. No one said they didn't matter, just that they need to stop taking advantage of us.

[LilSaihah]

Okay I'm watchin this just now, found an upload on youtube. what's a good drinking game

[Floopa]

Okay I'm watchin this just now, found an upload on youtube. what's a good drinking game

everytime media show bias towards hillary take a shot

drunk immediately xd

[LilSaihah]

everytime media show bias towards hillary take a shot

drunk immediately xd

okay first rule for drinking games
if i am going to die its not a good one

[Kellhound]

Why would increased supply create demand? Do you buy products because they are there or because you want/need them? Your want or need creates demand, not them sitting on the shelfs.

You are creating demand for your suppliers' material.....

[Hooked]

everytime media show bias towards hillary take a shot

drunk immediately xd

That's all the globalist owned media, they are all on Hillary's side.

[Kellhound]

Why would increased production, increase demand?

Increased cash flow through the entire system.

- - - Updated - - -

It comes from existing sales. If your demand exceeds your production, you spend your earnings to match demand and recoup them. A business owner has to make a choice, to expand and meet demand or to remain small, but guarantee sales.

So you are expecting an already existing capitol surplus to drive demand?

[DeadmanWalking]

everytime media show bias towards hillary take a shot

drunk immediately xd

Your guy came to a presidential debate totally unprepared and you are worried about the biased media? You can't wing debates, maybe he should fix that and then you can complain.

[melodramocracy]

everytime media show bias towards hillary take a shot

drunk immediately xd

Realize that media is responsible for Trump being in this position in the first place.

Alcohol poisoning.

Onto the debate. I was a bit surprised, Trump did get some good shots in, but negated all of it and then some by simply putting his foot in his mouth when it came down to discussing actual ideas of his own. I suspect that the "because it's smart business" line when commenting on why he might not pay federal income taxes is going to prove fairly unpopular (think Romney's 47% statement).

The next one ought to be a doozey.

[Kellhound]

NATO countries need to pay their fair share. No one said they didn't matter, just that they need to stop taking advantage of us.

Even if every NATO country spent 3% of GDP on defense, they would still "take advantage of us" because we are the ones large enough to have all the fancy expensive support units.

[chrisberb]

methinks he's confusing a presidential campaign for a Focus group test group...? o_O

He's probably talking about how Fox News always brings in Frank Luntz and gives people buttons that they press whenever they get a hardon listening to one of the candidates talk. They usually the claim the audience is a mix of supporters of both sides....yeaaaa

[Kellhound]

Realize that media is responsible for Trump being in this position in the first place.

Alcohol poisoning.

Onto the debate. I was a bit surprised, Trump did get some good shots in, but negated all of it and then some by simply putting his foot in his mouth when it came down to discussing actual ideas of his own. I suspect that the "because it's smart business" line when commenting on why he might not pay federal income taxes is going to prove fairly unpopular (think Romney's 47% statement).

The next one ought to be a doozey.

Of course they are, Clinton would have a tough time beating a decent GOP candidate.

[Hooked]

Realize that media is responsible for Trump being in this position in the first place.

Alcohol poisoning.

Onto the debate. I was a bit surprised, Trump did get some good shots in, but negated all of it and then some by simply putting his foot in his mouth when it came down to discussing actual ideas of his own. I suspect that the "because it's smart business" line when commenting on why he might not pay federal income taxes is going to prove fairly unpopular (think Romney's 47% statement).

The next one ought to be a doozey.

No, Trump excited the base, the news media normally likes to go with the surge. Look at how the media promoted Obama, in my opinion he is the worst president in the history of what was once the united states of america.

[Kellhound]

No, Trump excited the base, the news media normally likes to go with the surge. Look at how the media promoted Obama, in my opinion he is the worst president in the history of what was once the united states of america.

The base he "excited" would vote for Satan if he was going against Clinton.

[Asotcha]

Due to trumps foolery she could shoot a baby in the face and still get elected.

Months ago my sister said that Hillary could kill someone between now and election day and shed still get her vote. After seeing Trump collapse on himself like a dying star that cements it for me as well Lol

[Skroe]

NATO countries need to pay their fair share. No one said they didn't matter, just that they need to stop taking advantage of us.

We've actually been over this like sixteen times.

The 2% number is irrelevant without fundamental European continenet wide procurement and efficiency reform.

On procurement, many countries in NATO produce duplicate pieces of equipment and finance them out of their budgets that are overall already smaller because of smaller populations. But a boat is still a boat, and a plane is still a plane no matter who is building it, the US or Europe. Right now the UK and France are both starting independent programs to build a new 6000 ton warship class that they call a "frigate". They will spend approximately half of their budget on these things on R&D and half on production. This is how the winnowing of European defense has happened - modern platforms got more expensive so they replaced 20 of an older model with 10 of a modern model, and variations on that theme. Even in the British Army for example... modern troops cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to train, equip and employ. So the Army has shrunk to below 100,000.

The solution is to stop expecting AND allowing countries with populations of 20 million, 30 million and 60 million to fund programs and have military forces that are independent 1/2 to 2/3rds scale American analogs. Europe's GDP is larger than the US. THe European Union is tremendously wealthy. It spends $300 billion per year on defense, most of it continental defense. But the rendundancy in defense on this issue alone (and there is a second one) blunts it's power.

All of Europe should buy one 6000 ton warship class.
All of Europe should buy one Strike Aircraft to replace the Panavia Tornado.
All of Euripe should fly one class of cargo and tanker aircraft.
All of Europe should use the same small arms, the same communications equipment.
All of Europe should buy the same tank.

So on and so forth.

So why doesn't this just happen? Well to a degree - a limited degree - it does. The Eurofighter is proof of that. But those are the exception, not the rule, and the fact is, France left the Eurofighter program and spun off the Rafale. Why? Well it explains why it hasn't "just happened", because this kind of Consolidation means the effective end of independent German warship building, French tank building and British aircraft building. Instead British defense dollars for new ships will go to French communities while German defense dollars go to British Communities. It won't be equally distributed. it can't be. In the US, states widely vary in the defense dollars they get (and why).

There is zero point in asking Europe to "pay more" without this being rectified, period. We'll get no more hard assets out of it.


The second reason is independent military capacity. Collectively the military forces of Europe are larger than the United States in terms of manpower (but not equippment by a long shot). But the 28 allies have 28 command staffs, 28 navies, 28 planning centers, 28 air forces. The biggest part of NATO - Allied Command for Transformation (ACT) - works overtime standardizing all these. But the fact remains, Europe right now is akin to what would have happened if American Revolutionary war era state militias carried on to the present day. Every country does not need to have it's own Tank divisions, for exampke.

The solution is obvious - talked about in another thread - that the European Union create a unified European military and that NATO transform into the alliance between that organization and the United States rather than the US, Canada and 26 European countries. However that route is deeply politically fraught for Europeans as we've seen, and it is also one of those "globalist" actions that Donald Trump and his legion of losers have spent a great deal of energy denouncing. Latvia should have certain types of units that Spain doesn't have and Germany doesn't have (and they don't spend money or man power on), but together they are a complete and deep fighting force akin to the US Military. What do we have instead? The British Army as a whole with fewer tanks than the US fielded in single battles in the Iraq War and Gulf War. Why? Because with a far smaller tax base to draw from, they have to pay for the full spectrum of what a modern military requires, and the math just doesn't work.

That's how you fix NATO. The money is secondary. Should Europe spend more? Yes. But that's the symptom, not the cause. The cause is a 21st century warship costs a lot more than a 1960s era warship to develop, and then mass produce, so Euripean countries buy fewer of them, while not consolidating their programs, which means they have to buy even fewer in order to move on to the next program.


But then there would be tremendous efficiency if the US got involved as well. The US has a need for a 4500-6000 ton "frigate" since the LCS is a joke. Rather than build it's own, it should just buy European. And then sell Arleigh Burke class Aegis destroyer tech to Europe like we do Japan and South Korea (and we do some European countries too). But that would effect a lot of jobs.

But cut through it all, it comes down to this: we need their friendship... their access, their people. We don't need their stuff. That is why our NATO allies matter. Hell if push came to shove and Russia made a move into Europe, the irony of NATO is that the US would be the one to stall activating Article V, in order to give Russia a way out without escalating the conflict, and to keep Europe out of the fighting.

[Hooked]

Even if every NATO country spent 3% of GDP on defense, they would still "take advantage of us" because we are the ones large enough to have all the fancy expensive support units.

It doesn't matter, they need to pay their fair share on what was agreed upon.

[melodramocracy]

No, Trump excited the base, the news media normally likes to go with the surge.

The news media was fully aware of what a joke this guy was (and still is), and simply ran clickbait non-stop coverage of him (oh my, he's so *different*, isn't he?), vastly disproportionate to other republican candidates, while not actually critiquing much of anything he was saying until recently.

Their bias is a primary reason he's even in the running at this point.