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Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

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Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#301

If the Secretary of the Treasury designates China as a currency manipulator, your new iPhone will wind up costing you $2000. What madness.

Actually, i would like to know what this "currency manipulator " labeling really means ? Will goods from china be taxed more ? if so, how much more ?

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#302
post #95

A lot of what's in there seems pretty reasonable, but: 1) The whole border wall thing is just ridiculous. I thought he had given up on that. Why would Mexico have to pay for that? If the US wants to build a wall, fine, build it and pay for it. It doesn't make sense to demand that Mexico pay for it. It's like building a wall on your property and demanding your neighbors pay for it. 2) The FDA thing is scary. Regulatio…

> I thought he had given up on that. FWIW this document isn't dated that I can see but it does refer to election day like so: "On November 8th, Americans will be voting for this 100-day plan to restore prosperity to our economy, security to our communities and honesty to our government" So I assume it was written before the election

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Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#303
post #6

Whatever you think about Trump or the policies in that document, it's clearer and more concise than anything I've seen from an elected official.

Really? Can you explain what this means then? "All vetting of people coming into our country will be considered “extreme vetting""

> Can you explain what this means then

Who's this "you" you are talking to? Unless DT's been hanging out in HN, there's no way you're going to get an accurate answer.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#305
post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that the term "clean coal" can be bandied about with a straight face says something about the state of science education of the general public. (Pretty much the same knowledge needed to instantly realize that various wind/solar operated water-from-air devices and Solar Freakin Roadways aren't viable from back of the envelope calcs.)

Coal mining and related production is a large employer. It's about propping up small coal-towns.

Brief research suggests there might be a few tens of thousands of new jobs if the industry massively expands using the average level of automation of existing plant (of course the expansion will use higher levels of automation).

I guess from many perspectives that is a lot of jobs, but it isn't that many jobs.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#306
post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coal mining and related production is a large employer. It's about propping up small coal-towns.

Put out of work coal miners on social security early at their full benefit and fund it with a carbon tax. This doesn't even need to be a carbon tax; simply a transfer from the general fund. The average coal miner salary is ~$22/hr, or ~$42k/year. 174,000 coal workers in the US @ $31,668k/year (the max SS benefit permitted) = $5.5 billion/year. This is not expensive, nor in perpetuity, only the years from now until th…

  and it is laughable that we can't afford to take care of those no longer employed within the economy
But that would shift power away from entrenched industries. Big money is lazy.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#307
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd actually be surprised if there were many of those. Regulations are constantly being codified into the Code of Federal Regulations. It's about 175,000 pages. It's printed at about 55 lines per page, which makes it about 10 million lines. About the same size as the Linux kernel. That's big, but it's not "we don't even know what's in here" big.

> I'd actually be surprised if there were many of those. There are entire books written filled with silly, outdated, or absurd laws and regulations (both federal and state). Here's just a taste[1]: > 18 USC §1382 & 32 CFR §636.28(g)(iv) make it a federal crime to ride a moped into Fort Stewart without wearing long trousers. > 16 USC §551 & 36 CFR §261.16(c) make it a crime to wash a fish at a faucet if it's not a fis…

I keep seeing this mistake made over and over again. Regulations are not laws like the above, which are written by the legislature. The vast majority of regulations are written by experts in the relevant fields working for agencies in the executive branch. The legislature grants regulatory agencies jurisdiction and provides general guidance/intent but the most of the specifics are left to the regulatory body to decide.

The job of the SEC, for example, is to provide a framework for the public to safetly invest in and own parts of corporations while providing qualified investors more freedom to invest in riskier ventures. The SEC decides what financial disclosures best fulfill its job requirements and imposes fines on violators. However, the laws that actually punish executives for breaking SEC rules are written by Congress and the courts are the last step that decides whether Congress or the agency are overstepping their bounds.

Regulations as a landscape change much faster than laws and are consolidated all the time so there's a lot less cruft than the rest of our legal code would lead you to believe.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In France Hollande have been moving goal posts every time these 'N days' plans failed. He's now thinking about a second mandate. Out of curiosity, in this era of disruption (for better or worse) where are the plans to disrupt politicians ? So many flaws yet we keep believing in the same democratic design every election.

> So many flaws yet we keep believing in the same democratic design every election. There are two ways of changing the fundamental issues in a constitution: 1) violent revolution, 2) changes getting done in democratic process. 1) obviously works, but rarely (you need a LOT of support in the population in order to stage a coup). 2) I am afraid to say doesn't really work in America (or for that matter any major nation)…

True, very true, too many high tension relationships between agents to evolve deeply and softly. But this is why I asked about weird yet new ideas about politics. For the sake of thought experiments. Should we have complexity dampening sub structure to ensure a form of fluid stability. Limiting group sizes, enforcing a structural clarity that can be communicated to the public in clearer and faster ways so we don't rely in behind the curtain representatives.

Today's politics are black boxes, form people to deal with it, elect some of them, let them do what they want, suffer the consequences. I don't think it's an adequate form of democracy for this century, it was alright before, with different economic structures, pace and technological basis; but today .. maybe it's my CS cursus speaking, maybe a more peer to peer system is needed.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or for ballooning the size and complexity of each regulation, as each new regulation has to fold into itself two existing regulations that need to be removed for the sake of this plan.

That's been happening forever. Have you ever wondered why the law that says you can keep your healthcare when you leave your job is called the Combined Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA)?

If it's cheaper for employers to buy insurance why is cobra always so expensive?

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#310
post #95

A lot of what's in there seems pretty reasonable, but: 1) The whole border wall thing is just ridiculous. I thought he had given up on that. Why would Mexico have to pay for that? If the US wants to build a wall, fine, build it and pay for it. It doesn't make sense to demand that Mexico pay for it. It's like building a wall on your property and demanding your neighbors pay for it. 2) The FDA thing is scary. Regulatio…

> It doesn't make sense to demand that Mexico pay for it. It's like building a wall on your property and demanding your neighbors pay for it. When buying a house, wouldnt you try to negotiate for seller concessions like paying for repairs? Trumps wall comments were always in conjunction with discussing the massive trade deficit with Mexico. If we are in a stronger position to negotiate with Mexico, why wouldnt we neg…

> If you really think about it. We only need this wall because of Mexico, so why should we pay if we dont have to?

People flee Mexico because it's an extremely poor country with a horrible government and is controlled by drug cartels. Screwing the country over further economically sounds like the worst way to solve this problem. In fact, it seems like a very good way to exacerbate the problem.

Perhaps that's why private prison stocks are up so much on Trump's election. His actions are clearly going to increase the flow of illegal immigrants into the US, and now that these people can be tossed into federal prison for mandatory minimum sentences. So the end result is, the federal government will be on the hook for something like a quarter million dollars for each one of the people caught crossing the border.

Trump just created a (12 million illegal immigrants * $250k/yr each * 5yr minimum sentences = $15 trillion) market.

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