2016 Election -- Part II

I honestly don't know who I'm going to vote for. Hillary is going to be Obama 2.0. I don't think that's necessarily bad, but it's not good, either. I'm no Obama fan, but he's nowhere near the disaster a lot of people make him out to be. I think history will treat him as nothing but a caretaker president.

Trump sounds crazy, but I think he's going to reel it way in once he's got the nomination on lock. People are afraid of what Trump says he's going to do, but I think it's all an act. I'm really interested to see what the debates are going to be like. If Trump gets some good handlers to nail down his talking points and help him reel in the crazy, I think his charisma and outsider status could trounce Clinton.

Quote: AZDuffman

All I ever hear is that she is a woman or she was married to Bill and somehow that qualifies her for the job.

Being married to someone who was one of the most powerful people in the world for eight years is nothing to sneeze at... she's made a lot of friends in high places all over the world.

Also, she was a New York State Senator for eight years, and Secretary of State for four. I'd say those qualifications are pretty darn good for someone running for president. Whether or not she'd be any good at it is the real question.

Quote: beachbumbabs

Mass incarceration and the private prison system (worth 10s of billions to the contractors) is largely Republican legislation and lobbying.

Salon: The Clinton dynasty’s horrific legacy: How “tough-on-crime” politics built the world’s largest prison system

"The explosion of the prison system under Bill Clinton’s version of the “War on Drugs” is impossible to dispute. The total prison population rose by 673,000 people under Clinton’s tenure — or by 235,000 more than it did under President Ronald Reagan, according to a study by the Justice Policy Institute. “Under President Bill Clinton, the number of prisoners under federal jurisdiction doubled, and grew more than it did under the previous 12-years of Republican rule,combined,” states the JPI report (italics theirs). The federal incarceration rate in 1999, the last year of the Democrat’s term, was 42 per 100,000 — more than double the federal incarceration rate at the end of President Reagan’s term (17 per 100,000), and 61 percent higher than at the end of President George Bush’s term (25 per 100,000), according to JPI."

Democrats have this *image* of being more liberal than they actually are.

Quote: Wizard

I think the type of person to vote for Trump wouldn't care.

True, but with both candidates having awful favorability ratings, I think there's an enormous amount of people who are. A lot of factors could tip those people one way or another.

Also we saw record high turnout for the primary, I predict that the turnout will be a record low for the general.

Quote: Wizard

I think the type of person to vote for Trump wouldn't care.

I don't care about them, I am sure they are in order. I do care more about who the professional begging organization known as The Clinton Foundation has taken donations from and what kind of access it is buying.

Quote: beachbumbabs

You want billionaires running the country, vote for Trump.

Really, Babs? Have you looked at how much billionaires have paid Hillary for short speeches? She should have "PROPERTY OF GOLDMAN SACHS tattooed on her backside. But allow me to retort:


You wand sensible, legal immigration policy, vote for Trump.
You want open borders to anyone and everyone, vote for Hillary.
You want bank regulation strengthened, Dodd Frank enforced, vote for Hillary .

You want to be able to make your own choices in your health care, vote for Trump.
If you think the government can make the decisions better than you can, vote for Hillary.

You want a new idea in controlling college costs, vote for Trump.
You want the costs to continue to escalate on the path they have for 50 years, vote for Hillary.

You think that there are more ways to get trained than college, vote for Trump
You want even more underemployed grads with useless liberal arts degrees, vote for Hillary.

You want sensible abortion policy, vote for Trump
You want 13 year old girls getting abortions without their parents even knowing, vote for Hillary,

And the biggie:

You want someone who has executive experience running major corporations, vote for Trump.
You want a person who cannot figure out their secure email and fax, vote for Hillary.

Quote: AZDuffman

You want to be able to make your own choices in your health care, vote for Trump.
If you think the government can make the decisions better than you can, vote for Hillary.

I live in one of the fattest, most unhealthy States in the Union.... I see a lot of people that can't even take care of themselves; I don't see how the gub'mint can do any worse...!! Haha...

Quote:

You want a new idea in controlling college costs, vote for Trump.
You want the costs to continue to escalate on the path they have for 50 years, vote for Hillary.

I don't know anything about this issue. I thought the stereotypical liberal/democrat mantra was "free/low cost college for everyone!" But that is at odds with what you're saying here. Can you elaborate on this point?

Quote: TigerWu

I don't know anything about this issue. I thought the stereotypical liberal/democrat mantra was "free/low cost college for everyone!" But that is at odds with what you're saying here. Can you elaborate on this point?

Sure! The Democrat answer to college costs is always a little more grants and more loans. Yet college costs have skyrocketed for 45 years. Barely 50% of students graduate. Anyone who has gone to college knows the major dropout rate year 1 to 2. Then look at all the underemployed kids with useless degrees. I worked with several at the banks. One owed six Big Dimes in loans! Another had a masters in something some kind of language something. A temp sitting right in front of me.

The only way colleges will control costs is when they have 2,000 open slots and 1,800 students show up on Labor Day. Then they will get the message, As it is, we just subsidize failure.

Dirty little secret is probably half the incoming students do not belong there. Many of the girls are just majoring in husbandry. Many guys and girls are just going to 13th grade. We need more trades, not more liberal arts degreeholders working at Starbucks.

Quote: AZDuffman

You want someone who has executive experience running major corporations, vote for Trump.

Government is the only profession where people argue the person with no experience in it is better than someone with experience. So that would make it an exception to every other profession.

Since politics is unlikely to be the one exception, Trump is no better than a rank amateur in this regard. Hasn't even worked as a city councilman in a small town.

Quote: AZDuffman

Barely 50% of students graduate. Anyone who has gone to college knows the major dropout rate year 1 to 2. Then look at all the underemployed kids with useless degrees.

That's a worthless and misleading statistic, equivalent to saying that the average American is 51% female. The four-year matriculation rate for selective colleges is near 85%, and it shoots to well over 90% when extra time is considered. On the other hand, many schools have no screening whatsoever and even the worst students can enroll. Of course those schools will have more dropouts. There are solutions to college debt across that spectrum but it's a mistake to think there's a one size fits all.

The moral: don't argue using bad statistics on a math forum.

Also there's no such thing as a useless degree, and suggesting otherwise is a vicious rebuff of an entire discipline. The use one gets from an education is entirely dependent on how it is used. Someone who goes to school willing and able to learn critical thinking rarely fails. Only the closed-minded or lazy come away no better for the experience, but higher education has never been for those without the willingness to be there.

Quote: AZDuffman

You want someone who has executive experience running major corporations into the ground, vote for Trump.

Fixed that for you.

Seriously though, the brash executive policy of "go big or go home" has no place in the economic policy of this country. Overleveraging a casino and then filing bankruptcy is one thing. The corporate laws of this country provide for that. But there are no provisions to overleverage the national debt and then restructure it. We don't get to just stop paying our debt service to our creditors or really bad geopolitical events will occur. Like a global financial meltdown. Or war.