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Who cares about weather trump is such a moral person on his own free time? Who cares what he does at night? We had some really good presidents who were much worse, like JFK. What we should care about are his policies. And yeah, it would be nice to have a very moral president, but there really are none to chose from. So now that we don’t have our ideal president, we should chose the one that has good policy, not one with bad policy and such perfect morals.
Not caring about the poor and the middle class is not a good policy and this good economy is only temporary and personally it does not affect me. I see, being on Social Security, prices are going up. It does not boost the economy by increasing consumption. The rich become richer not doing capital investment but buying back stock. The deficit and thereby the national debt is driven sky high.
There are individuals on both sides of the partisan aisle with both good morality and good policies. Sadly most of them have little or no charisma or generate the type of energy/enthusiasm that it now takes to win elected office in the U.S. and perhaps EY as well. Elections are more like a blood sport where the audiences in the coliseum aren’t satisfied with pure intellectual and civil debate. They want the equivalent of political blood to be drawn and then vote thumbs up/down on the two survivors with all the more reasonable options long gone.
Also, read judge ABJ’s sentencing order from last week where she responded to the Roger Stone defense argument that “even if Stone lied to Congress and threatened witnesses, “WHO CARES”? as long as his motives were to support and advance the President’s agenda.
The problem is that you can’t run on a platform complaining of a behavior that you yourself condemn.
This is not a comment on you personally. I do not mean to impugn your integrity. This is merely an observation of the behavior of our political leadership and media talking heads, which is mimicked by many people.
In general there is absolute transparency when it comes to this discussion. Historically, it has always been this way. Members of the President’s party say, “As long as <my guy> is doing a good job as President, who cares about his character/morality?” At the same time, members of the opposing party decry the damage <this lowlife> is doing to the Presidency, and, by extension, to Western Democracy itself.
We need only to remember the late 1990’s to see everyone wearing their shoes on the other feet, as was in fact documented on the record during the Trump impeachment trial.
So forgive me for yawning at this as politics as usual.
Trump’s policies have been very good for the poor and middle class. He lowered unemployment, especially of non-white minorities discriminated in the past, to record LOW levels. The Democrats often welfare crumbs, Trump offers the loaf of full employment. The major tool he used was to reduce immigration (legal and otherwise), which hurts economic growth by cutting off the supply of cheap, easy-to=exploit workers, but it does help the poor and middle class.
His tax policies made the better off classes in the blue states scream loudly by taking away deductions that most Americans aren’t rich enough to exploit. Sounds pretty moral to me.
As for what he did in bed, especially when younger, and his rude speech on social media (proving our gedolim right in objecting to social media), that is somewhat irrelevant to qualification for president, at least in a country where running the government is done by the president. His public policies are what matters, and his are quite moral (BTW, did I mention he’s against killing babies, unlike his opponents).
akuperma, you must be a millionaire, because I don’t feel the benefit of his policies. The smallest fear causes the stock market to crash.
The narrative that the TRump economic policies have been “good” for the lower and middle class and minorities is a classic case of choosing your data series to make a preconceived point. I often make the same case to the Bernie Bros who argue that there has been zero change in real income in over 40 years and blames it on policies of BOTH parties. The reality is that there have been marginal improvements but the tax bill and other Trump policies vastly benefited the more affluent than working people. This is a case of missed opportunities. Trump could have used his mandate to promote real change and improve life for tens of millions of Americans. Yes, they are somewhat better off but the benefits have been vastly exaggerated.
“The smallest fear causes the stock market to crash.”
It’s always been that way.
But overall, the market has done well under Trump.BTW I think the Corona virus will cause a huge market drop.
I sold off everything last week.
I felt the same way when Clinton was in office, that a President’s policies were the only relevant thing. Upon further reflection, it becomes obvious that in a society, every person’s conduct contributes to the atmosphere of the society, leading it further in one direction or another. A President has an outsize influence and his conduct, good or bad, will have that much greater an impact on the climate of society. It’s therefore in everyone’s interest that the President, whoever he is, should conduct himself in a respectable fashion, as his example will influence people. Since morals always tend to degrade over time, proper conduct is of profound importance.
Trump is exactly what we don’t want our children to be. He’s a serial liar with no moral compass.
I’m middle class and both this year and last I am paying more in Federal tax because of the Trump rich peoples tax cut. The $10k cap on deduction of taxes really hurts.“I’m middle class and both this year and last I am paying more in Federal tax because of the Trump rich peoples tax cut. The $10k cap on deduction of taxes really hurts.“
You’re middle class but you itemize your deductions?
Additionally a tax that only caps at 10k helps the rich?
True the president has some effect on the morals of our country
But Hollywood has much more effect.
Whew you have a democrat party that will demonize the president before he says or does anything, shame has been lost, honesty has been lost
When you have a film industry that glorifies murder mayhem and debauchery, society has been lost. The president is but a tiny part in the moral fabric of society when compare to those titans.
On the other hand the president sets actual policy for the country. Over there the president has out sized influence.
So when I need to chose a president if my choices are
Bad morals but good policy Vs good morals but bad policy,
Good policy wins hands down.
All the more so that my choice really is bad morals with good policy vs bad morals bad policy.
I mean who am I going to choose?
Someone who is openly what the Torah calls an abomination?
Someone who doesn’t believe in personal property rights?
Someone who wants to legislate every move anyone makes? An old bumbling, perhaps, has been?
A shrill lying attention seeker who doesn’t believe in personal property rights either
Or klobuchar who I know zero about?Tax policies that benefit the affluent trickle down due to increased investment. This, in fact, was what JFK proposed although it took LBJ to get it through.
They found that it did not increase investment but was used mostly for stock buyback.
Avi
Can you provide a reference that JFK propsed it ?
BJ famously criticized the silly theory “”Republicans […] simply don’t know how to manage the economy. They’re so busy operating the trickle-down theory, giving the richest corporations the biggest break, that the whole thing goes to h— in a handbasket.””Anyway it Is rarely accepted by anyone today after it has been proven over and over to not be true aka “voodoo economics” Even Republicans no longer claim that
There is a big argument what drives the economy, supply (Milton Friedman) or demand (John Maynard Keynes)? There is no incentive to invest if there is no indication that it could be sold. If people will have more money, demand will increase thereby increasing consumption and investment with the multiplying effect. Investment generates consumption generates investment etc.
Economy = Consumption + investment + Government Spending
The depression came through abundance and overproduction. They could not sell what was produced, so the multiplying effect went in reverse.According to the above, the economy grows from bottom up and not from top down.
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