Donald Trump's strongest support in California (for sale, wages, tax)

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by njbiodude

Donald is also largely self funded and not as beholden to special interest groups as Hilary.

I have particularly enjoyed this oft cited perspective. Touted rapaciously by the Donald's supporters. Ignoring, of course, that all Trump does by being self-funded is eliminate the traditional political middle man. Those who angrily protest the contributions of the filthy rich from the Koch brothers to George Soros somehow fail to recognize that Trump has been and now is [to himself] one of those "special interest" contributors from whom the elected then "owe" fealty.

Trump has long been a huge political contributor who, by his own bragging public admissions, leveraged political favors to his benefit. This election cycle his preferred candidate is himself. Which candidate's allegiance is his own narcissistic self. He continues to build his personal brand now at the expense of the dignity of America and the American electorate.

P. T. Barnum nailed it.

[njbiodude]

Originally Posted by acercode

That's pretty ignorant.

All the bills cited by economists as the reasons for the financial meltdown were drafted, supported and unilaterally passed by Republicans.


Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (Phil Gramm (R-Texas) Jim Leach (R-Iowa) Thomas J. Bliley, Jr. (R-Virginia))
Commodity Futures Modernization Act (Phil Gramm (R-Texas) Thomas Ewing (R-IL) Richard G. Lugar (R-IN))
American Dream Downpayment Assistance Act (Wayne Allary (R-Colorado))

"Last year I set a goal to add 5.5 million new minority homeowners in America by the end of the decade. That is an attainable goal; that is an essential goal. And we're making progress toward that goal. In the past 18 months, more than 1 million minority families have become homeowners. (Applause.) And there's more that we can do to achieve the goal. The law I sign today will help us build on this progress in a very practical way."
- George W. Bush at the signing of the 'American Dream Downpayment Act"

Why would Bush sign the largest housing welfare law in history? Two words: Roland Arnall, one of his largest political donors who just happened to own the largest subprime bank in the US at the time.


A major contributor to Republican Party causes and President Bush's campaigns, Arnall was appointed ambassador in 2006 after Ameriquest and its affiliated companies agreed to pay $325 million - without admitting wrongdoing - to settle complaints of predatory lending by attorneys general in 49 states.

Arnall built a fortune, estimated at $1.5 billion by Forbes magazine, writing loans for people with spotty credit, a type of loan later known as "subprime."

Perhaps his biggest contribution to history was pioneering the connection with Wall Street that opened the floodgates for subprime lenders, letting them make loans often with little concern about the borrowers' ability to repay.

Wall Street sold the mortgages as securities, fueling a real estate boom followed by the current bust that triggered worldwide economic turmoil, highlighted by this week's collapse of investment bank Bear Stearns Cos.

"The emphasis was on quantity rather than quality and that's what brought us where we are now," said Kurt Eggert, a professor of law at Chapman University.
Ameriquest founder was subprime "godfather" - The Orange County Register


Bush of course ignored the warnings as usual...

"As early as 2006, top advisers to Bush dismissed warnings from people inside and outside the White House that housing prices were inflated and that a foreclosure crisis was looming. And when the economy deteriorated, Bush and his team misdiagnosed the reasons and scope of the downturn. As recently as February, for example, Bush was still calling it a "rough patch."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/bu...3088.html?_r=0

The repeal of glass steagall and the passing of NAFTA absolutely decimated the American economy. It produced a temporary credit fueled high which temporarily covered up the loss of jobs and wages, but eventually crashed hard. Any economy based 40% on finance is not a good one and thats exactly what you got in the late 90s/ early 2000s. Now im no Bush fan either but our financial mess is a bipartisan effort (and useless wars in conjunction with tax cuts certainly made things worse). Remember Obama and Bush facilitated the bailing of banks out of their own bad decisions by taxpayers.

The sooner you accept both parties are shills of the same financial elite the better you will be. Having a parliamentary system where representatives with 5% or more of the vote getting seats is much better than our winner take all both are bribed crap.

Also a candidates donors say a lot about their future policies. And Hilary is financed by banking at a donor rate of 10x higher than Bernie or Trump. Say what you want about Trump but at least he ran a business, Hilary has done nothing aside from leeching off taxpayers (ie politics)

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by njbiodude

Say what you want about Trump but at least he ran a business, Hilary has done nothing aside from leeching off taxpayers (ie politics)

Well thank you. I will say what I want about Trump then: he's a pathological liar, an extreme narcissist, a demagogue, a sociopath, a bigot, sexist, and a weasel. For starters.

With that off my chest (and thanks for granting me permission to speak candidly), lemme mention another couple quick oddities about your observation that Trump's business experience is somehow in a plus column.

1. He inherited a crappot of money. I think his share was in the range of $40 million plus he had control of his father's company worth about $200 million at the time of the inheritance. There have been numerous studies made of his wealth which range anywhere from $4 billion, half of what the Donald claims, and as little as a paltry $150 million. In any case, analysis shows that had he done nothng but invest in a diversified portfolio of stocks and bnds, he'd be worth at least as much for doing nothng as he is for all his "deal makings". Some accounts argue that he has actually lost between $1 and $6 billion over his career.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-dru...usiness-career

So much for the value of his business acumen.

2. "Business" and government are anathema to each other. They are both critical to society's development and growth and security. But they have entirely different purposes and operative requirements and responsibilities. The purpose of business is to maximize profits and serve investors through any legal means. Government's role is to serve and protect all its citizens equally. It has no mandate for profit.

Whatever you might think of Trump's business experience, he has zero experience acting responsibly toward the national interest and the interests and security of the nation's people.

As for Hillary's leeching - societies any larger than cave clans require governing. And all nations have goverments. Governments all run by political mechanisms - which require politicians. Of which Hillary is one. And an extraordinarily competent one, at that. She's not my pick. But she's no more a leech than any other politician. And considerably less than many.

[njbiodude]

https://www.opensecrets.org/politici...9&cycle=Career

Government is not the anathema of business in 2016 America. Government is run by our business leaders. If you think someone with the above donors is going to help the "common man" youre literally delusional. Expect more "free trade" agreements (which trump hates), spiraling out of control cost of living and more wasteful government agencies addressing womens liberation and other junk.

The reason silicon valley supports Trump? First its a pro-business area. Second, lots of American tech workers are being displaced by H1-B visa holders to suppress their wages (if you try to argue this with they have to be paid "market rate" I can provide evidence they dont). So were sick of immigrants being used as a weapon by our employers as well as illegals being given drivers licenses out of literal desperation due to so many hit and run unlicensed accidents. He struck a nerve with many.

Also since when do all politicians have to be lawyers?

[bigdumbgod]

Originally Posted by njbiodude

https://www.opensecrets.org/politici...9&cycle=Career

Government is not the anathema of business in 2016 America. Government is run by our business leaders. If you think someone with the above donors is going to help the "common man" youre literally delusional. Expect more "free trade" agreements (which trump hates), spiraling out of control cost of living and more wasteful government agencies addressing womens liberation and other junk.

The reason silicon valley supports Trump? First its a pro-business area. Second, lots of American tech workers are being displaced by H1-B visa holders to suppress their wages (if you try to argue this with they have to be paid "market rate" I can provide evidence they dont). So were sick of immigrants being used as a weapon by our employers as well as illegals being given drivers licenses out of literal desperation due to so many hit and run unlicensed accidents. He struck a nerve with many.

Also since when do all politicians have to be lawyers?

They don't all need to be lawyers, but they ought to know something about the law. Simply being loud and obnoxious shouldn't be enough. Otherwise: Nugent for President! Woohoo!

[aboveordinary]

Donald Trump's campaign is about to get stupider Is Sarah Palin going to endorse Donald Trump? - CBS News

[bigdumbgod]

Originally Posted by aboveordinary

Donald Trump's campaign is about to get stupider Is Sarah Palin going to endorse Donald Trump? - CBS News

Running mate! Please, gods of unintentional politicomedy, grant us this treasure of glorious unending horse****!

[BayAreaHillbilly]

Mustering my best Bavarian Putsch leader's inflection:

"AMERIKA needz unt strongmahn! Vee will GEET ZEES TINGS DONE!!!!"

(massive mass hysterical applause from crowd of sheep ..... )

[BayAreaHillbilly]

Originally Posted by njbiodude

https://www.opensecrets.org/politici...9&cycle=Career

Government is not the anathema of business in 2016 America. Government is run by our business leaders. If you think someone with the above donors is going to help the "common man" youre literally delusional. Expect more "free trade" agreements (which trump hates), spiraling out of control cost of living and more wasteful government agencies addressing womens liberation and other junk.

The reason silicon valley supports Trump? First its a pro-business area. Second, lots of American tech workers are being displaced by H1-B visa holders to suppress their wages (if you try to argue this with they have to be paid "market rate" I can provide evidence they dont). So were sick of immigrants being used as a weapon by our employers as well as illegals being given drivers licenses out of literal desperation due to so many hit and run unlicensed accidents. He struck a nerve with many.

Also since when do all politicians have to be lawyers?

Actually the Silicon Valley real money wants to have nothing to do with Trump.

Now, if we are talking socially impaired nerds ... that's a different story.

[njbiodude]

Originally Posted by bigdumbgod

They don't all need to be lawyers, but they ought to know something about the law. Simply being loud and obnoxious shouldn't be enough. Otherwise: Nugent for President! Woohoo!

And lawyers that dont know anything about international finance other than raising money from banks in exchange for promises of deregulation are any better? Hilary isnt exactly of high moral character either, she lied about Benghazi and ran a private email server to cover her a$$. To me thats worse than Watergate. She also voted for Iraq.

The only politician in the race with real integrity is Sanders and he wont win. So youre left with the other 2 clowns. At least Trump recognizes illegal immigration and biased "free trade" are problems. From Hilary we get promises of affordable college and the helping the working man, meanwhile while taking huge bribes from the likes of Sallie Mae and Goldman Sachs (ahem yeah right). One could argue Donald will at least be able to close some tax loopholes hes familiar with and make a fair corporate tax structure which disincentivizes offshoring of American jobs.