Trump Triumphs

[Jattdogg]

She needs to just ride off into the sunset. Take it like a woman and move on.

 

Like her or hate her, you lost  honey. Spend time with your family and enjoy £800 cigars 

[Guest MattP]

Trump confirmed as President after electoral college vote, more delegates refused to vote for Clinton than him.

 

Despite not even running, Colin Powell ended up coming third after receiving three electoral college votes Which sums up the whole farce.

 

I'm just glad Trump finally accepted the result, he would have looked silly if he didn't.

[leicsmac]

Wow.

 

Yeah, just having the power to bring civilisation to a violent end twice over isn't enough. Has to be more!

 

Seriously, the worst thing about this is the disgusting excuse for a political philosophy known as "realpolitik" (because better my country having the cool bombs than that one over THERE!) that makes people agree with him and will lead only to total disaster in the future.

[Guest MattP]

Hardly a surprise given Russia is now a major player again in the World.

 

You can push some of the blame on the Democrats for this though, I watched the Obama/Romney debates again a couple of months back, it was hilarious hearing Obama mock Romney for saying Russia could be any sort of serious threat anymore - "Hey, the 1980's called! It's wants it's foreign policy back" - And how the crowd laughed and laughed, not laughing now are they?

 

Now they are being accused of being so powerful they can hack a US election, just how wrong could they get it?

[leicsmac]

48 minutes ago, MattP said:

Hardly a surprise given Russia is now a major player again in the World.

 

You can push some of the blame on the Democrats for this though, I watched the Obama/Romney debates again a couple of months back, it was hilarious hearing Obama mock Romney for saying Russia could be any sort of serious threat anymore - "Hey, the 1980's called! It's wants it's foreign policy back" - And how the crowd laughed and laughed, not laughing now are they?

 

Now they are being accused of being so powerful they can hack a US election, just how wrong could they get it?

I can't speak for a lot of others on that side of the fence, but personally I think the whole Russia hacking thing is a load of bollocks anyway. It's certainly not the reason Trump won. He won because he tapped into a lot of disaffected people and Hillary simply wasnt an edifying enough candidate.

 

Russia certainly pose a regional threat through conventional forces and a wider one with their own arsenal of specialist weapons, but they're rational actors - they're not about to set something really big off the chain.

Honestly though, even if they did, what is the point in having more nukes in more places now than the US has already? They have enough to break the ABM system around Moscow and to eliminate every single other population centre, silo and base there already, I mean..surely at some point it skips logic and just becomes a dick size contest, right? There simply is no need for more.

 

Other than, as I said, for the ridiculous posturing in the name of realpolitik that such a gesture would allow.

[leicsmac]

And the run of solidly freedom-inhibiting-for-anyone-who-isn't-a-white-guy picks for various important posts continues.

First Bannon, and now Mick Pompeo for CIA director.

 

Views include advocating torture, denying abortion even in cases of rape or incest, and wanting Edward Snowden dead.

 

How edifying.

[MPH]

with regards to Russia you know what they say ' Keep your friends close and your enemies closer..."

 

 

 

 

 

I also wonder if Trump is going to need some kind of 'ally' ( and i use that lightly with regards to Russia) to combat the threat of China. I think trump probably sees China as a bigger threat and wants to drive a bit of a wedge between any mutual respect they have developed...

 

 

Now on the world scale its going to be a very 'interesting'  few years as we seem to have a complete reversal of foreign policy..

[davieG]

Russian President Vladimir Putin says Russia is "stronger than any potential aggressor" because it has modernised its nuclear missiles and other forces.

He also said the US withdrawal in 2001 from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty had "created the conditions for a new nuclear arms race". The US-Soviet ABM Treaty was signed in 1972.

On the victory of US President-elect Donald Trump, Mr Putin said "nobody believed he would win, apart from us".

Mr Trump has strongly praised Mr Putin.

The Russian leader covered many topics in his big annual press conference, lasting more than four hours.

He described as "nothing special" Mr Trump's latest call for the US to "greatly strengthen and expand" its nuclear forces. Mr Trump had spoken of that during the election campaign, he noted.

Trump and Putin 'will try to mend ties'

When asked if he would run again in Russia's 2018 presidential election, Mr Putin was non-committal. "I will look at what's going on in the country, in the world," he said.

'Arms race'

"It's no secret we've worked hard to improve our missile forces," Mr Putin said.

Since the US pulled out of the ABM Treaty, he said, "we have had to modernise our offensive systems". But he also acknowledged that the US military was the strongest in the world.

"If anyone is unleashing an arms race it's not us," he said. "We will never spend resources on an arms race that we can't afford."

A study of Russia's nuclear forces in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists says that - despite Mr Putin's remarks - a budget crunch is imposing delays on the modernisation effort.

 

Mr Putin dismissed US government allegations about a Russian hand in the hacking of Democratic Party computers during the US presidential election campaign.

"The losing side is looking for people to blame outside. They would do better to look for the problems among themselves."

He noted that the Democrats had lost ground in congressional elections as well. "So that's my work too?" he railed.

"The main thing is the information that these hackers provided... Did they exaggerate anything? No, they revealed true information."

'Many Americans have the same idea'

One journalist told Mr Putin that, according to a survey, 37% of US Republican supporters felt positive about him.

"I don't attribute that finding to myself," Mr Putin responded. "It means that many Americans have the same idea about how the world should be run, how to solve common problems.

"That's a good basis for building relations between our two powerful nations."

'Problems with doping'

When asked about the doping scandal in Russian sport, Mr Putin lambasted the whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov, who used to head the Russian anti-doping laboratory.

 

"Do you know where he worked before that?" President Putin said.

"In Canada! And then what did he do? He came to Russia and... kept bringing in all sorts of filth. I can hardly imagine that no-one ever spotted that he was carrying these banned substances across the borders of Canada or the US."

According to Mr Putin, "he turned this into his personal business - he made people take those substances".

Mr Rodchenkov's revelations prompted an investigation by the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada), which said Russia had operated a state-sponsored doping programme for four years in most Olympic sports.

The scandal led to Russian athletes being banned from athletics and some other events at the Rio Olympics, and from the entire Paralympics.

In May the New York Times interviewed Mr Rodchenko, and he said doping athletes had been part of his job.

Mr Putin admitted that Russia did "have problems with doping" but Russia had "never created the problem of doping", he added.

He said Wada's tests must be "transparent and monitorable". "We need to know who is being tested, what are the substances, the results and what punishment measures are being taken."

"Sport must be cleansed of all politics," he added.

[MPH]

3 minutes ago, davieG said:

Russian President Vladimir Putin says Russia is "stronger than any potential aggressor" because it has modernised its nuclear missiles and other forces.

He also said the US withdrawal in 2001 from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty had "created the conditions for a new nuclear arms race". The US-Soviet ABM Treaty was signed in 1972.

On the victory of US President-elect Donald Trump, Mr Putin said "nobody believed he would win, apart from us".

Mr Trump has strongly praised Mr Putin.

The Russian leader covered many topics in his big annual press conference, lasting more than four hours.

He described as "nothing special" Mr Trump's latest call for the US to "greatly strengthen and expand" its nuclear forces. Mr Trump had spoken of that during the election campaign, he noted.

Trump and Putin 'will try to mend ties'

When asked if he would run again in Russia's 2018 presidential election, Mr Putin was non-committal. "I will look at what's going on in the country, in the world," he said.

'Arms race'

"It's no secret we've worked hard to improve our missile forces," Mr Putin said.

Since the US pulled out of the ABM Treaty, he said, "we have had to modernise our offensive systems". But he also acknowledged that the US military was the strongest in the world.

"If anyone is unleashing an arms race it's not us," he said. "We will never spend resources on an arms race that we can't afford."

A study of Russia's nuclear forces in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists says that - despite Mr Putin's remarks - a budget crunch is imposing delays on the modernisation effort.

 

Mr Putin dismissed US government allegations about a Russian hand in the hacking of Democratic Party computers during the US presidential election campaign.

"The losing side is looking for people to blame outside. They would do better to look for the problems among themselves."

He noted that the Democrats had lost ground in congressional elections as well. "So that's my work too?" he railed.

"The main thing is the information that these hackers provided... Did they exaggerate anything? No, they revealed true information."

'Many Americans have the same idea'

One journalist told Mr Putin that, according to a survey, 37% of US Republican supporters felt positive about him.

"I don't attribute that finding to myself," Mr Putin responded. "It means that many Americans have the same idea about how the world should be run, how to solve common problems.

"That's a good basis for building relations between our two powerful nations."

'Problems with doping'

When asked about the doping scandal in Russian sport, Mr Putin lambasted the whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov, who used to head the Russian anti-doping laboratory.

 

"Do you know where he worked before that?" President Putin said.

"In Canada! And then what did he do? He came to Russia and... kept bringing in all sorts of filth. I can hardly imagine that no-one ever spotted that he was carrying these banned substances across the borders of Canada or the US."

According to Mr Putin, "he turned this into his personal business - he made people take those substances".

Mr Rodchenkov's revelations prompted an investigation by the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada), which said Russia had operated a state-sponsored doping programme for four years in most Olympic sports.

The scandal led to Russian athletes being banned from athletics and some other events at the Rio Olympics, and from the entire Paralympics.

In May the New York Times interviewed Mr Rodchenko, and he said doping athletes had been part of his job.

Mr Putin admitted that Russia did "have problems with doping" but Russia had "never created the problem of doping", he added.

He said Wada's tests must be "transparent and monitorable". "We need to know who is being tested, what are the substances, the results and what punishment measures are being taken."

"Sport must be cleansed of all politics," he added.

 

 

And in response to that trump said:

 

Quote

MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski said on Friday that when asked if his tweet about building up the US's nuclear arsenal would spur other countries to do the same, President-elect Donald Trump replied, "Let it be an arms race."

The comments were apparently made off-air while Brzezinski's "Morning Joe" cohost, Joe Scarborough, was on the phone with Trump's incoming press secretary, Sean Spicer.

"Let it be an arms race — we will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all," Brzezinski said Trump told her.

 

 

[leicsmac]

23 minutes ago, MPH said:

 

 

And in response to that trump said:

 

 

Good grief. The Berlin Wall did come down, Donald.

[Trav Le Bleu]

Combating nuclear proliferation by increasing your nuclear arsenal is rather like combating traffic congestion by buying a fleet of cars.

[Carl the Llama]

10 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

Combating nuclear proliferation by increasing your nuclear arsenal is rather like combating traffic congestion by buying a fleet of cars.

It's like they say: Fighting for peace is like fuching for virginity.

[leicsmac]

17 hours ago, Carl the Llama said:

It's like they say: Fighting for peace is like fuching for virginity.

Amazing the twisted logic some can come up with to justify treating people as things, isn't it?

 

That being said, I can understand a nuclear arsenal between two nations (ONLY) with enough firepower to make things a misery for everyone being logical as a deterrent against things going too far, but anything more than that is just excessive, unnecessary posturing.

[Sharpe's Fox]

Great banter when people in the media go off on one when Trump and Putin expand their nuclear arsenal but vilify Jeremy Corbyn for trying to do the opposite here.

[leicsmac]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38499284

 

Draining the swamp indeed.

 

I thought you had control over the corrupt social conservative nutjobs in your party, Don?

[Guest]

1 minute ago, leicsmac said:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38499284

 

Draining the swamp indeed.

 

I thought you had control over the corrupt social conservative nutjobs in your party, Don?

I think he views the swamp as more of a nature reserve that must be protected these days 

[SMX11]

Trump is really starting to piss me off with the "Make cars in USA or face border tax" crap. I would have though a businessman like him would understand that companies will build their product in the most cost effective place.

 

He should be looking at the reasons why they are leaving/have moved not threatening companies with punitive taxes.
The problem is you don't know if he is being serious or just playing to the mob.

[Jattdogg]

9 minutes ago, SMX11 said:

Trump is really starting to piss me off with the "Make cars in USA or face border tax" crap. I would have though a businessman like him would understand that companies will build their product in the most cost effective place.

 

He should be looking at the reasons why they are leaving/have moved not threatening companies with punitive taxes.
The problem is you don't know if he is being serious or just playing to the mob.

He is gunna make America  great again boss. Americans  will get jobs and have to pay even more to afford a car and be self sufficient yada yada...

 

I laughed when i read him calling out "Toyota". Didnt realise that was an american company.

[SMX11]

7 minutes ago, Jattdogg said:

He is gunna make America  great again boss. Americans  will get jobs and have to pay even more to afford a car and be self sufficient yada yada...

 

I laughed when i read him calling out "Toyota". Didnt realise that was an american company.

He probably thinks Toyota is American haha.

[Sharpe's Fox]

1 hour ago, SMX11 said:

Trump is really starting to piss me off with the "Make cars in USA or face border tax" crap. I would have though a businessman like him would understand that companies will build their product in the most cost effective place.

 

He should be looking at the reasons why they are leaving/have moved not threatening companies with punitive taxes.
The problem is you don't know if he is being serious or just playing to the mob.

That's the point. If you have to pay tariffs on imports it makes it less cost effective to make stuff in another country and bring it in. Combined with Trumps plans to halve business taxes to 15% and you bring manufacturing back, or at least halt the momentum.

 

As for the reasons why they left well Trump came to the conclusion that NAFTA and other free trade agreements which abolish tariffs gave the impetus for manufacturers to take their jobs to Mexico. This is basically what Trump won the election on, protectionist Keynesian economics, not banning muslims and building walls like the SJW's would have you believe. Those things were just headline makers. As Bill Clinton said, when it comes to winning elections "it's the economy, stupid."

[leicsmac]

23 minutes ago, Sharpe's Fox said:

That's the point. If you have to pay tariffs on imports it makes it less cost effective to make stuff in another country and bring it in. Combined with Trumps plans to halve business taxes to 15% and you bring manufacturing back, or at least halt the momentum.

 

As for the reasons why they left well Trump came to the conclusion that NAFTA and other free trade agreements which abolish tariffs gave the impetus for manufacturers to take their jobs to Mexico. This is basically what Trump won the election on, protectionist Keynesian economics, not banning muslims and building walls like the SJW's would have you believe. Those things were just headline makers. As Bill Clinton said, when it comes to winning elections "it's the economy, stupid."

 He may have won it on economics, but let's not forget nor downplay the very real social consequences those in his party would like to apply now they have the mandate.

[Sharpe's Fox]

10 hours ago, leicsmac said:

 He may have won it on economics, but let's not forget nor downplay the very real social consequences those in his party would like to apply now they have the mandate.

Social unrest is birthed by economic disenfranchisement. If you balance wealth distribution you give people a reason to believe in the system they will otherwise protest against. I don't think Trump will come anywhere near to doing that but he's halfway there with a rejection of free markets.

[leicsmac]

1 minute ago, Sharpe's Fox said:

Social unrest is birthed by economic disenfranchisement. If you balance wealth distribution you give people a reason to believe in the system they will otherwise protest against. I don't think Trump will come anywhere near to doing that but he's halfway there with a rejection of free markets.

No disagreement there, one does lead very often to the other. Mainly because human use material wealth as a gauge of happiness way too much.

 

I stand by what I said though in that the social consequences of a Trump presidency could very well vastly overshadow the economic ones.

[SMX11]

10 hours ago, Sharpe's Fox said:

That's the point. If you have to pay tariffs on imports it makes it less cost effective to make stuff in another country and bring it in. Combined with Trumps plans to halve business taxes to 15% and you bring manufacturing back, or at least halt the momentum.

 

As for the reasons why they left well Trump came to the conclusion that NAFTA and other free trade agreements which abolish tariffs gave the impetus for manufacturers to take their jobs to Mexico. This is basically what Trump won the election on, protectionist Keynesian economics, not banning muslims and building walls like the SJW's would have you believe. Those things were just headline makers. As Bill Clinton said, when it comes to winning elections "it's the economy, stupid."

'They' don't pay anything, tariffs are paid by the consumer. The foreign manufacturer will get hit by less sales (assuming the tariff discourages people enough to look for a cheaper alternative). Here is a good article discussing this issue:

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-trump-mexico-auto-jobs/

 

I agree on why Trump won, but that doesn't actually mean his policies are going to help. Reducing taxes and regulation fine but he is still going to run huge deficits and spend more on the warfare state so there isn't going to be this unleashing of the private sector that some are predicting. Also I am not sure his threats of punitive tariffs is actually legal under WTO rules, if you are going to have tariffs against a certain product I think it has to be across the board. Hoover & FDR tried the Keynesian & protectionist approach and perpetuated a depression across a whole decade.    

[Sharpe's Fox]

1 hour ago, SMX11 said:

'They' don't pay anything, tariffs are paid by the consumer. The foreign manufacturer will get hit by less sales (assuming the tariff discourages people enough to look for a cheaper alternative). Here is a good article discussing this issue:

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-trump-mexico-auto-jobs/

 

I agree on why Trump won, but that doesn't actually mean his policies are going to help. Reducing taxes and regulation fine but he is still going to run huge deficits and spend more on the warfare state so there isn't going to be this unleashing of the private sector that some are predicting. Also I am not sure his threats of punitive tariffs is actually legal under WTO rules, if you are going to have tariffs against a certain product I think it has to be across the board. Hoover & FDR tried the Keynesian & protectionist approach and perpetuated a depression across a whole decade.    

Agree on running Reagan style deficits in sort of ideological crusade won't work. Maybe I should have said I wasn't endorsing the economics merely observing them.