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Donald Trump Is Elected President

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291–300 of 1001 posts

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#291

The valley need to get over themselves and learn to appreciate the lessons from the unlikely Trump victory. Trump is the quintessential startup success story. Jump in the ring, breaks shit (always easier to ask for forgiveness than permission) then somehow makes his way to a hit product. He disrupted the business of politics much in the same way that uber disrupted the business of transportation. Guess Peter Thiel re…

Having a population of idiots is not something Trump can claim responsibility for. He is simply an asshole who has exploited this for his own gains.

What exactly is there to learn from this? That democracy doesn't work when to large fraction of the electorate are ignorant fools.

The lesson should be a better school system for America. But of course that would not be in the interest of republicans. They rely on large number of idiots to win elections. So it is not going to happen.

They will make sure that there is an elite which gets good education which can run companies and create new ones. But there needs to be a large underclass of simpletons to keep the system going.

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#292
post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education. It's what Obama was emphasizing his entire presidency. Those jobs are never coming back, and even more are going to be automated. The education gap between rich and poor (and white and minority) is getting larger because of hoodlum-fearing mothers who support segregated neighborhoods and schools. Plus the poor-parent schools stay poor and the rich-parent schools stay rich. All of these factors together (wh…

You know, I used to think the same way --education. But Europe, Germany in particular, stresses education, and that has not saved them from having overqualified people and too few jobs for them. It also minimizes the fact that not all people have the aptitude to learn and obtain higher degrees. It's a race to the top and in that race there will always be people below who feel left out. So education can only offer so…

Education can mean vocational training too, not just university degrees.

A plumber or electrician in Seattle can pull in 100k/year and they are booked out for weeks to months.

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#293
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jobs that can't be exported are safe from movement. Hairdressing and cleaning for instance. That doesn't mean the person doing it can't be an immigrant, though, so perhaps by restricting immigration you reduce competition for it. Jobs that compete with similar jobs in other countries can potentially benefit from trade barriers. Make foreign cars expensive and there will be substitution with local cars. Long term it's…

> Make foreign cars expensive and there will be substitution with local cars. This is quite true, but the problem is those cars will be a lot more expensive. That means a small number of people employed making the cars benefit, while the vastly larger number of people buying them lose out in higher costs. This never works out to the benefit of the country as a whole and low wage earners are the ones that lose out the…

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Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#294

Now that the voices of the disenfranchised blue collar workers have been heard, what actually can be done to help them? I'm less worried about the accusations of racism, etc. because it appears to me a majority are voting because their livelihoods have been lost and, despite economics saying globalization will bring new jobs, they aren't showing up in the critical areas where they are needed. So, what policies can be…

I live in a relatively small suburb of Seattle. I'm a software developer. There are no jobs for me where I live. None. None within 20 miles. The only job for me is in Seattle or Bellevue or Redmond, an hour-long commute. I love where I live, and I don't want to live in Seattle (which I could barely afford anyway-- I like owning a house). I also don't want to exclusively work-from-home and be cut-off socially from my co-workers. It sucks.

(And as I've griped before, this is only true of a couple professions, and software developer happens to be one of them. If I had become a lawyer, I could work in any town in the US. Or a plumber, or a doctor, or a school administrator, or a tow truck driver, or a...)

I'd just be happy with some policy that spreads these companies out a bit. Maybe a tax benefit for opening office space in communities under a certain population size. I'm not sure how it would work. All those angel investors propping up tech companies could also be propping up small town economies merely by moving their offices outside of Seattle, Bellevue, Los Angeles, San Francisco, etc.

The last company I worked for had 55 employees, about a dozen of which were software developers. That 55-person company means nothing to Seattle. Not even to the South Lake Union neighborhood. It's not even a blip. But it'd be part of the lifeblood in a smaller town. It'd also help cut the commute for everybody, be able to recruit technical workers like myself who don't want to live in a big city, etc.

Anyway, just a thought, hopefully relevant to this site. Meanwhile I go back to the jobs site, sigh heavily, and judge positions on how close they are to the bus stops...

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#295
post #87

I'll probably stop working for a while. I really don't want to support these creepy people in small town and rural america. They should no longer get my tax money to prop up their almost non-existent economies, and they certainly shouldn't enjoy a 1st world lifestyle on my back. No more 60-hour weeks for me. I'm retiring. I hope other follow. Maybe they'll finally get off their couch, turn off breitbart, and actually…

Many of these rural people aren't looking for you to prop up their economies. They are eager for you to stop outsourcing their jobs, demeaning their existence, lowering their wages so executives can get large bonuses, and in general acting like you are much better/above them. Even more so they are eager to get to work and have a representative government that listens to them and isn't trying to push an elitist global…

Except that they are expecting California and New York and other states to pay for their federal government services, while our own states lose money.

> Dominated by Republican voters who profess their distaste for the federal government and its social programs, these are the very states that rank highest on the dependency index.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/3...

I don't consider this a definitive source, but it's what I found fast enough to continue the dialog.

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#296

Now that the voices of the disenfranchised blue collar workers have been heard, what actually can be done to help them? I'm less worried about the accusations of racism, etc. because it appears to me a majority are voting because their livelihoods have been lost and, despite economics saying globalization will bring new jobs, they aren't showing up in the critical areas where they are needed. So, what policies can be…

I believe you're incorrect in asserting that the election was about "disenfranchised blue collar workers". My daughter and her husband make about $200k per year and they voted for Trump.

She's describes Trumps win as a great big middle finger to career politicians.

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#297

Now that the voices of the disenfranchised blue collar workers have been heard, what actually can be done to help them? I'm less worried about the accusations of racism, etc. because it appears to me a majority are voting because their livelihoods have been lost and, despite economics saying globalization will bring new jobs, they aren't showing up in the critical areas where they are needed. So, what policies can be…

Dramatically increase the amount of housing in urban areas so more people can move there and away from the places without any industry left.

People _can't_ move away. A large portion of their net worth is tied up in their house. They don't have the cash they need to move. There's no way you can reduce prices of housing in urban areas to match what the empty suburbs are at already. Not to mention the psychological issues of telling people they won't have a lawn or a house any more.

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#298
post #70

As someone who's actively vocalized his support for Trump in the past, both here[1] and in my meat space life, I'm ecstatic with the results of this election. Not just the POTUS, but the trifecta of the house and senate as well. That's as loud of a mandate as can be expected from a strongly divided country. On top of all that, with the SCOTUS picks that are expected in the next few years, this election is going to be…

> both sides can leave behind the incessant name calling and hate that's plagued this election

Trump ran his campaign on incessant name calling and hate. If you voted for him, that means you're OK with letting the incessant name calling and hate continue.

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#299
post #70

As someone who's actively vocalized his support for Trump in the past, both here[1] and in my meat space life, I'm ecstatic with the results of this election. Not just the POTUS, but the trifecta of the house and senate as well. That's as loud of a mandate as can be expected from a strongly divided country. On top of all that, with the SCOTUS picks that are expected in the next few years, this election is going to be…

I can't fathom you interpreting the result as a "loud mandate." The presidential race has been extremely tight with ~200,000 separating the two. Is that a clear mandate? No, it is a clear indication of the divisions in our country.

>> Not just the POTUS, but the trifecta of the house and senate as well. That's as loud of a mandate as can be expected from a strongly divided country

> I can't fathom you interpreting the result as a "loud mandate." The presidential race has been extremely tight with ~200,000 separating the two. Is that a clear mandate?

> No, it is a clear indication of the divisions in our country.

Yes, the country is divided. A single party taking all three major government divisions is as loud a mandate as you can expect in a strongly divided country.

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#300

So, I voted for DJT (I like calling him that, for some reason). I didn't vote for him because I agreed with any of his policies (as best I can tell he never actually presented any during the course of his campaign) or because I thought he was the best representative for the people of this country. I did so for a couple of reasons: 1. I like a good underdog story. The people that support him, for a multitude of reason…

> . Yeah, there are some loud one saying some ridiculous things, but I refuse to believe that close to half the country hates people of color and wants to completely isolate us from the rest of the world by closing our borders. It just can't be true. You've never been to the deep south, much the south, have you? > 2. I believed he was the candidate with the biggest chance of winning that would bring about the biggest…

> Obama was voted in on the promise of change, as all we got was a watered down health care bill and the ability for gays to get married.

While I agree with the general sentiment, specially since they had majorities and they couldn't get a much better health care bill, we got more than that. For instance:

- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

- Dodd-Frank

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