U.S. Presidential Election Day Megathread [Official]

[Tijuana]

Very easy fix

go back to promising the white working class things you have 101% chance of never being able to achieve....treat them like children who believe every word you say because the fantasy is better then hard cold facts.


They will never bring back those jobs unless people are willing to have their pay and benefits decreased, environmental regulations abolished and taxes shifted to the worker vs the company.

what will end up happening is all the gains we made in wage growth will slowly disappear as the trade war starts, tariff here tariff there...cost of those cheap goods start to creep up at a much faster rate then wages and inflation and bam no jobs return.

So crazy that people who voted for trump think we just import things and you can just put a tariff on it and bam...equality again. They forget about the 200 billion a month we export.

You think the owners of corporations pay corporate taxes instead of the consumer? OMG that is just ADORABLE! THEY ARE SO FUCKING CUTE AT THIS AGE!

[alexw]

I have no doubt that some people think any number of things and have written articles about them.

My point is that what Brownback did is so stupid, even people who agree with him politically didn't think this would work. Milton Freidman would have shot him in the face, checked to make sure he was dead, then shot him again.

A pity you are not willing to read....... I thought you might be willing to be open to new insights beyond what you believe. But apparently not.

[Snorkles]

This whole anti-establishment stuff is a load of bullshit both in the US and the UK with Brexit.

Plenty of outsiders to pick from in every election and no one really votes for them. Suddenly everyone backs two right wing demagogues who denigrate minorities and women and we're supposed to believe its all because people don't like the establishment?

That both Trump and Farage are part of what is traditionally seen as the establishment just makes the whole thing laughable.

Silver lining though, Farage seems to have given up on the UK (Thank fuck) and will hopefully spend the rest of his career wedged firmly up that Tango faced moron's arse.

[Draco-Onis]

Honestly we should stop with these polls and start using the media time to actually look at what the candidates are saying. What policies do they bring? Can they be realised? If not why?

Journalism died a long time ago, the only semblance of journalism I saw in this campaign was Chris Wallace at the debate. The majority of the media was too busy chasing ratings to care about anything else.

[Belize]

It is, if you consider what would happen if Clinton would have her way.

God, and you guys think Clinton supporters are fearmongering

Yeah, blah blah vlah WW3 blah blah blah Hillary is literally a witch... whatever. Tinfoil ahoy.

[Revik]

This was pointed out, literally the ENTIRE election, that his primary area of support was anti-PC people, who felt they were not allowed to say certain things anymore. Now we act surprised when we find out people who were not allowed to say things, voted for a person who we were told we were not allowed to say we were voting for. (the we is figurative; didn't vote for him personally)

I agree with this. The PC crowd are really just bullies IMO. I live in California and while I didn't like Trump if I even suggested that I wasn't voting for Hillary I know attitudes towards me would change and not for the better. I wouldn't say I was scared to voice my opinion but I didn't mention anything because I didn't want to complicate things at work.

[Draco-Onis]

God, and you guys think Clinton supporters are fearmongering

Yeah, blah blah vlah WW3 blah blah blah Hillary is literally a witch... whatever. Tinfoil ahoy.

After 8 years of Obama is a kenyan, muslim, terrorist, nazy gay socialist who will take away your guns,the right has no ground to stand on when it comes to fear mongering.

[Synadrasa]

This whole anti-establishment stuff is a load of bullshit both in the US and the UK with Brexit.

Plenty of outsiders to pick from in every election and no one really votes for them. Suddenly everyone backs two right wing demagogues who denigrate minorities and women and we're supposed to believe its all because people don't like the establishment?

That both Trump and Farage are part of what is traditionally seen as the establishment just makes the whole thing laughable.

Silver lining though, Farage seems to have given up on the UK (Thank fuck) and will hopefully spend the rest of his career wedged firmly up that Tango faced moron's arse.

Americans are smart enough to filter through the immense amount of bullshit the media and liberals have spewwed. Donald Trump is a racist because he wants to build a wall really?

[Krille]

Journalism died a long time ago, the only semblance of journalism I saw in this campaign was Chris Wallace at the debate. The majority of the media was too busy chasing ratings to care about anything else.

The internet is to blame. It pushed the big news corporations into chasing clicks which in turn mean they only write about sensationalist stuff good/bad. That or it's "how to lose 20 kilos in just two weeks". It's a shame really, when i was younger i always wanted to become a journalist.

[ro9ue]

This was pointed out, literally the ENTIRE election, that his primary area of support was anti-PC people, who felt they were not allowed to say certain things anymore. Now we act surprised when we find out people who were not allowed to say things, voted for a person who we were told we were not allowed to say we were voting for. (the we is figurative; didn't vote for him personally)

I think it's completely illogical to assume people got out in numbers like that just so they could say, as you're suggesting, some "off color" things. You're trying to frame this as a fault of the Trump supporters when it's really the left who decided they wanted to take every little thing to an extreme level. If you look at exit polling, most people agreed some of his comments weren't tasteful, but they cared far more about putting food on the table for their children and making sure everyone still had a fair shot at the american dream.

This is totally the lefts fault and all of us on this side of the table need to take responsibility for it. Going forward we can't just stay silent when the extremes in our party call everything sexist, mysogynist, etc when we know it's important for that language to remain for circumstance it's warranted or we run the risk of desensitization.

All you need to do is look no further than the left ad campaigns for Hillary essentially drawing comparisons to some of the darkest fascists relevant to Trump. Commercials that had so many celebrities making this campaign a "crusade against evil". Most centrist people think this is absurd and they are right.

[Tijuana]

A pity you are not willing to read....... I thought you might be willing to be open to new insights beyond what you believe. But apparently not.

You act as if I was unaware that people thought the idea was bad. You act as if I am not one of them. You act as if the article said something new and relevant to me. You act as if I didn't read it. Why? Why do you say these things? Why does it matter to you, that I say I agree or disagree with your article?

[PassingBy]

In the way Trump suggests? No taxes don't. Taxes don't effect overall employment levels. You can get jobs to move between similar wage countries based on taxes. This is why there is often big fights on tax levels within the EU where income levels are roughly comparable as between say Ireland and the UK. But this isn't the case here. The difference on wage levels is too high. Absolutely nothing will get a job that pays $2.50 an hour in Mexico to move to America where the employer has to pay $20.

Also profits do not drive investment. It is demand that does. If demand increases then there is a need for increased output. Companies then look at the marginal cost of hiring extra workers vs making current workers more productive. At that point one of the two is chosen, hiring vs investment. Profits provide the capital to fund investment. However there is a worldwide glut of capital seeking a home, meaning that is there is an absolutely massive surplus of global capital looking for profitable investment opportunities which do not exist. It is this glut of capital that is helping drive various economic bubbles. Such as that in housing markets in London and vancouver, and the shale bubble. Adding to the capital glut won't increase the number of profitable investment opportunities but will increase the number of bubbles.

The capital glut, that causes the bubbles is usually short term.
That is why usually the bubbles are in high liquidity assets. A bubble in currency trade, or real estate, or stock market trade is usually more probable than an industrial production bubble.
It's quite hard to imagine speculative capital to suddenly be interested to invest into creating a production, that yields slow and long investment return, and requires more of your attention than flipping stocks to make money out of money.

In a situation when there is no growing demand, or the demand is actually shrinking tax reduction is one of the ways to increase the competitiveness of a domestic production. Difference in wages has a different impact on different kinds of productions. If we again take the automotive industry as a reference - we have the production of automotive wires, that is almost all low-skill labor, actual people taping together the wires, putting connectors on them etc. 80% of the work is done by hand. And thus the cost of the final product is very labor intensive. And you have the stamping, which is usually done by an automated press line, that is operated by robots. In this case the direct labor costs are a much lesser portion of the final product than in wires.

Not all productions require a lot of cheap unskilled labor. Not all products are very labor intensive. For those products it is possible to compensate the difference in labor costs with some additional benefits like tax reductions, government support, or protective measures like import taxes or import quotas. US in this case is at an advantage, since people are very interested in the access to the US internal market, since the amount of consumers is quite high, the wealth of those consumers is also substantial and it gives the US government more options than smaller or poorer countries have.

I am not saying that it is easy, nor am I saying that you can bring back all the call centers from India or all the textile jobs from Mexico, but it is potentially viable to create some jobs and bring back some other.

Another potential option for at least temporary job increase is govrenment sponsored infrastructure projects.

Of course all of that is a matter of discussion and big calculations, but still there are options.

[alexw]

You think the owners of corporations pay corporate taxes instead of the consumer? OMG that is just ADORABLE! THEY ARE SO FUCKING CUTE AT THIS AGE!

Actually corporate taxes mainly fall on capital (their owners). If they fell on workers or consumers they would not care what level they are set at because they would never pay them. But you can see they care, they really, really care what those levels are.

[deadman1]

This whole anti-establishment stuff is a load of bullshit both in the US and the UK with Brexit.

Plenty of outsiders to pick from in every election and no one really votes for them. Suddenly everyone backs two right wing demagogues who denigrate minorities and women and we're supposed to believe its all because people don't like the establishment?

That both Trump and Farage are part of what is traditionally seen as the establishment just makes the whole thing laughable.

Silver lining though, Farage seems to have given up on the UK (Thank fuck) and will hopefully spend the rest of his career wedged firmly up that Tango faced moron's arse.

People seem to think women didn't vote for these things

[Blur4stuff]

Americans are smart enough to filter through the immense amount of bullshit the media and liberals have spewwed. Donald Trump is a racist because he wants to build a wall really?

i think the racism bit has more to do with him claiming most mexican immigrants were rapists and murderers

[Belize]

After 8 years of Obama is a kenyan, muslim, terrorist, nazy gay socialist who will take away your guns,the right has no ground to stand on when it comes to fear mongering.

Honestly, the complete lack of self awareness is kinda sad tbh.

[minititan]

I agree with this. The PC crowd are really just bullies IMO. I live in California and while I didn't like Trump if I even suggested that I wasn't voting for Hillary I know attitudes towards me would change and not for the better. I wouldn't say I was scared to voice my opinion but I didn't mention anything because I didn't want to complicate things at work.

You Americans are all crazy. We don't have that going on in Australia. Vote for whoever you want. No one is going to hate you for it.

[draykorinee]

I agree with many of the smartest minds that ever existed in that the metric used is not a good indication of intelligence. I won't admit something that is clearly not wrong, and while we're at it, big penis size is also not a good indication of pleasing woman. In fact right around average to a little above is preferred. So, sorry she doesn't enjoy it, if there is a she lol.

Bash intelligence, claim big penis is redeeming. Need I say more...

The penis thing was a joke, unfortunately I'm kind of middling, I guess jokes go way over your head.

- - - Updated - - -

People seem to think "women" didn't vote for these things

Latinos voting for trump just feels like Jews voting for Hitler, and yes I know I godwinned and hyperboled, but come on, the guy linked them with rapists.

[Krille]

You can have fair trade, and innovate where things like coal make global warming worse.

But the market will shape energy in the US, natural gas is cheaper than coal. If Trump kills the federal EPA, each state still has their own EPA, the CA one, for instance, is more strict than the Federal one.

I think people are freaking out, and doing that with little evidence of what Trump will actually do.

I do not like Trump, I voted for Hillary, and before that Bernie in the primaries, but we need to give Trump a chance, doom and gloom before we know what his actual policies will be, are unwarranted.

Imagine being elected president of the most influential country on the planet and it's citizens say this.

[Tijuana]

I think it's completely illogical to assume people got out in numbers like that just so they could say, as you're suggesting, some "off color" things. You're trying to frame this as a fault of the Trump supporters when it's really the left who decided they wanted to take every little thing to an extreme level. If you look at exit polling, most people agreed some of his comments weren't tasteful, but they cared far more about putting food on the table for their children and making sure everyone still had a fair shot at the american dream.

This is totally the lefts fault and all of us on this side of the table need to take responsibility for it. Going forward we can't just stay silent when the extremes in our party call everything sexist, mysogynist, etc when we know it's important for that language to remain for circumstance it's warranted or we run the risk of desensitization.

All you need to do is look no further than the left ad campaigns for Hillary essentially drawing comparisons to some of the darkest fascists relevant to Trump. Commercials that had so many celebrities making this campaign a "crusade against evil". Most centrist people think this is absurd and they are right.

I think you are missing some nuance here. It's not just "off color" things that got rolled up in to the PC crusade. It's a lot of things, and many of them are widely held beliefs. The American Left has been beating this drum of ideas that must be considered truths for quite some time, and not just on issues of race and equality. Sure, the media and their pundits can broadcast that up is down all night long, and on the surface it works. But, don't be all shocked when the public, who clearly disagreed, votes differently.

I think the Trump win is about two things:

1. Fuck you Washington
2. No really, fuck you Washington.