Yes, it’s happening. To what extent, and how serious the consequences will be, I don’t know.
Therefore, it makes sense to address it in cost-effective ways. Nuclear is cost-effective, wind and solar are not, and won’t be in the near- or medium-term. Therefore, if we do anything, it should be to push nuclear.
Also keeping in mind that China and the Third World will swamp any changes the US makes.
I don’t think much about them. How worried should they be? It depends on what they are worrying about. If it is gay marriage, then feel free to worry - my ideal solution would be to make gay marriage or its absence a matter for the states, not the federal government. If you are worried about someone who won’t bake you a cake, or you can’t use the ladies’ room, get over yourself.
It depends on what is put in place to replace the ACA. Fear that one is going to die because you don’t have health insurance are more than a little exaggerated.
Sure, it’s possible. What started the whole mess was the government encouraging lenders to extend mortgages to people who would not otherwise qualify, and then assigning wildly less risk to the derivatives thereof. Refraining from such policies is a good start. But the next financial crisis will be something else, not from MBS.
I hope that’s helpful. Trump didn’t do much about real policy discussion during the campaign, which is much to his discredit.
We heard, over and over, how Trump was a straight shooter, he says what he means. So that was a lie?
As far as growing up, Trump needs to stop tweeting how unfair the world is. He’s about to become the most powerful man in the world. He needs to not be the Whiner-In-Chief.
The one thing Trump will do is make deals - 24 hours a day if he can: loves it, lives for it. Is there anyone who doesn’t understand that.
Also, pretty well everyone he needs to make deals with the republicans as well as whoever else is involved. This is not news. Again: all of this is posturing before the deal. If you genuinely don’t grasp that, you best stay out of politics.
Probably quite a bit more than Clinton was during the election. I think he likes press conferences, where he can razz them a bit, not always in a friendly way.
When some random stranger in the road yells a slur at you, or the guy two cubicles over at work does like something about you it’s one thing. When the guy who doesn’t like you is your boss, or someone in government passing laws that will hurt you, it is another matter entirely.
The LGBTQ folks know some other people hate them, Muslims know some people hate them, rinse and repeat for Jews, Hispanics, women, and so forth. That’s entirely different than government enacting laws that say “hey, go ahead and shit on people you don’t like and cast them out of society”.
There are 7 billion human beings on this planet. It is not possible to feed that many people without the internal combustion engine. Unless one is willing to commit genocide, schemes to fix global warming are nothing but empty theatrical gestures. I am not advocating genocide. I am advocating skipping the empty theatrics.
I am in favor of gay marriage. I am against job discrimination. But I think these should have been achieved through legislation, not litigation. A right given to you by five unelected judges, can be taken away by five unelected judges. If you devoted more energy to the ballot box, you would not have to panic every time there is a vacancy on the Supreme Court.
Trump is a city slicker. He believes in “traditional family values” about as much as I believe in the tooth fairy. He may not help LGBTs, but I would be surprised if he devotes any energy to oppressing them.
When I had no insurance, a trip to the local poverty clinic cost me $50. Once I obtained ACA-compliant insurance, the same trip to the same clinic was $250, and my co-pay was $180. Looking around at my friends and co-workers, I see many costs, and few benefits.
That is not a “serious policy type question”. That is an appeal to emotion. National policies should be based on data, not anecdotes.
Of course another crisis is possible. We spent decades trying to prevent a 1929-style stock market crash, only to have a junk-bond crash. We spent years trying to prevent another junk-bond crash, only to have a real-estate crash. There will be another crash, and it will come from some direction nobody expected.
All the government can do is to make simple and clear rules, and then enforce them fairly. The government should be draconian in enforcing truth-in-advertising. Sellers should be honest about what they are selling. Buyers should be honest about their ability to pay. People and companies who make bad choices should face the consequences of those choices.
Recessions suck, but recessions don’t last forever. Capitalism can be a harsh taskmaster, but overall, in general, in the long run, it does a better job of feeding people than the bleeding-heart touchy-feely stuff.
So, so true. As an aside, I was not un-surprised when my senior-in-high-school daughter came home with stories or heart-wrenching agony in class Wednesday morning - people sobbing, hugging, consoling each other. These are 17 and 18-year-old’s. They are (for the most part) not old enough to even understand most of the issues at all. Where do they get if from? Their liberal parents, of course.
The next generation of pie-in-the-sky voters is coming up fast.
To the mbh quote above: that was not my intent. My intent was to get a sense of how you’d explain your policy positions to one directly affected by it, because right now, those people feel they are just being abandoned to die so you can save a few bucks, and I’m pretty sure most don’t see it that way.
IOW, I wasn’t really interested in how their story would affect you. I’m interested in how you come to your policy conclusions and justify them, for you to demonstrate that no, you really don’t want them to “just die,” BUT there is X, Y, and Z to consider.
Maybe I should’ve phrased it differently, but others seemed to get what I was going for.
Climate change is a serious threat, but the public does not actually seem to regard it as such and aren’t willing to pay so much as $10 a year more to mitigate it.
That being said, it seems to me that the best policy to combat climate change is a revenue neutral carbon tax. Tax fossil fuels directly at the pump, in people’s electric bills, corporate emissions, etc., but reduce the payroll tax to compensate so that the average energy user shouldn’t see an increase. Bob Corker has favored a carbon tax in the past, and he’s being considered for Trump’s cabinet.
I have no problem with gay folks and I don’t think Trump does either. Transgenderism I’m less sure about and my instincts lean towards “people can live how they want as long as they don’t hurt others but we don’t have to recognize their mental illness”. But that could just be me being a middle aged dude who is behind the times. Transgendered folks are probably going to be waiting at least a few more years to get the rights they seek and the bathroom regulations are probably not going to be implemented, although the courts may make rulings in some places and states will pass laws in favor of the transgendered. As far as what I’d tell gay or trans friends? Not much is really going to change. Things aren’t going to actually become more dangerous, but don’t expect progress either.
ACA has to be replaced, not just repealed, so the vast majority of people who are worried about losing their health insurance should be able to keep it or get an alternative. I can’t reassure them though, because Republicans are only clear on the repeal part.
I see no bubbles on the horizon, much less bubbles that could cause a financial crisis. We are due for a recession though, but it should be a normal, cyclical recession. Historically, recessions have come about every 7-10 years and the last one was 2009. So Trump will very likely experience one. And no, I don’t think the government should do anything about normal recessions except let people stay on unemployment longer.
Transgender reform is already progressing in the U.S. military. They led civil rights reforms for blacks and other minorities from the 30’s onwards. This will soon become a non-issue for the country at large as well - regardless of who sits in the Oval Office.
Kinda. We might be able to make a small change. But until we figure out how to put a thermostat on the Sun, what we do is not that big a deal.
I’ll piss a bunch of people off with this. I think they are an expression of a serious mental disorder. As such, I have yet to understand why people think that bowing to mental disorder and trying to make them the new norm is a good thing.
They are at fear of their lives under the ACA. Many, many people have lost their insurance because of the ACA, far more than gained insurance. The ACA should never have been implemented; it fucked over far more people than it helped.
Anything is possible. However, given Trump’s pro-business stance vs. Obama’s anti-business stance, I don’t think one will happen.