Wdym?

The real action will be the 2024 republican primary, where a bunch of Chicago school neoliberals all compete to out-Trump each other.

Are you implying Trump won't be running?

I'm implying that the flyovers won't be able to abolish the 22nd amendment by 2024, and even though the judiciary no longer has the moral capacity to enforce the constitution, I also don't think the flyovers are ready to fight a civil war just to keep their government bad or orange.

This is appropriate for this thread

stop spamming the chat

As much as I despise Biden, I just don't share the widespread pessimism on the left about his election chances. He's a broadly popular and well known politician running against an unpopular president during a recession. Yeah, his brain's dying, but Republicans have already fully normalized having a president whose brain is dying.

I mean the issue is incumbents seem to win generally for the past decades. Since Reagan it's been only HW who served 1 term

HW was also the only first-term president since Reagan who had to run for re-election in the midst of a recession.

Then again, Trump’s gotten a bump from his from his handling of the Coronavirus. So far, at least.

Dude needs to work on his delivery when he tells intentionally bad jokes

I’m interested to find out if the standard recession rules still apply in the United States, too. Even if the US as a whole enters a recession on paper, that doesn’t mean the impact of the recession (or stock market crash, or pandemic measures) will be felt (or applied) uniformly across the US.

For example, it doesn’t mean much if the finance, goods importers, and service exporters in blue states get hammered, because those states weren’t voting republican anyway. Meanwhile, domestic consumption in red states won’t move much (because they are dumb and won’t do anything about the plague) and the swing states will probably see a domestic/export manufacturing pick up due to global supply chain disruptions (and also because they are dumb and won’t do anything about the plague).

So you're saying it's looking good?

Seriously, though, I don't know who would really want Biden. Reid seemed to dismiss my opinion about Biden loosing his mind, I think back in October, but since then I've enjoyed watching that witch on the young turks have melt downs over his collapsing faculties. It is, however, quite sad to see this man go through this ordeal so publicly. I really hope he is convinced to withdraw for his own dignity. I won't take any pleasure in watching Biden's continuing fall. I did happen to catch his recent interview on NBC and was a little encouraged that he balked at the question of whether or not Trump had blood on his hands as "a little too harsh".

As far as how this current economic situation is affecting us personally it's actually benefiting us. A significant portion of my income is completely passive veterans benefits that are unaffected. I'm actually getting a few more hours per week since all of our courses have gone online so my pay will be higher. Things are slowing down where my wife works, a dermatology clinic, but it sounds like they will be pulling most of the nurses into the actual hospital so her hours have remained mostly unchanged. And then, of course, it looks like we're about to get $2,900 in government cheese soon. Previous to this disaster we got a tax refund, a GI Bill refund, and an annual credit card rebate so, yeah, looks like I'll pay off that Outback I bought for my wife last year. Either that or make a down payment on a small house to move my mother into from Kansas (no, I'm not from Kansas).

Oh boy, I could write an essay on how quickly that situation could turn around.

Luckily I think I have a situation where theres a good chance I can get all my income from photosystems II and I

food printer go brrr

Of course it could. My wife and I could find ourselves out of work. The government could finally announce they are bankrupt and cease payments of all sorts. On top of that I guess a run on the banks and inflation could render the money I have in the bank worthless if not gone.

It absolutely could but it will, and already has, gone south for many others first. Or at least the ones that won't be making more on unemployment than they did working. But then that'll be gone too.

Don't take my post the wrong way. My point, which I did not state, is more along the lines that I'm not qualified to speak about how this current situation is hurting us financially just like I spoke relatively little about Obamacare because my health insurance wasn't disrupted by that program. My annual premium is less than most people's monthly premium. I'm always very grateful and humble about the situation I'm in and I would be in a vastly superior situation had I financially grown up and got my act together much sooner. Although I generally describe it as choosing to do one crappy job for 21 years for benefits so I would never have to work for benefits again.

The US can't go bankrupt.

Oh, thank God!

The US government prints its own currency and more importantly can borrow in that currency. It can't go bankrupt. It's literally impossible, by definition. The US always has the option of continuing to print more money as it is needed. See this helpful reference for more information:



The US can, however, elect for sovereign default. This is different from bankruptcy. It means the US has voluntarily chosen not to repay its obligations. This could happen by accident because the US is not a functional country anymore, but it would never happen on purpose because the US federal government is the lynchpin borrower of global finance (and because, again, the US can always just print more money). See this helpful reference for more information:

https://brrr.money/


So instead of worrying about fake things that can't happen, you should worry about real things that can, like a prolonged global supply chain disruption that forces you to pay for US labor instead of having your lifestyle subsidized by foreign USD demand. Like for example, if TFWs aren't allowed into the United States this summer and all of your food gets picked by American workers being paid American wages. Think you'll still be able to afford to eat?

Oh, thank God!

Review of Piketty's new book: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/03/economist-thomas-piketty-book-capital-ideology-review/

(new English translation of his newest book, that is, since we're so international here)

Piketty is a rockstar. I really ought to read that book given the description

I'm still trying to get through Capital in the 21st Century. It also took me four years to read Gravity's Rainbow though.

Additionally, MMT is real and it's strong and it's my friend.

ha ha money printer go brrr

The Revolution will not be televised... or on the ballot in November...

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/08/politics/bernie-sanders-drops-out/index.html

Sleepy Uncle Joe must be looking forward to November.

I look forward to Trump winning again.

democratic socialists: well it's going to be socialism or barbarism

barbarians: ooh i know this one

"For a minute there, my only options were a socialist jew, a billionaire jew, and a man who went to war for Israel"

https://youtu.be/BsqGITb0W4A?t=197

a good watch even if he talks like a bog

I know that's a troll video and I'm sure you could torture any kind of favorable explanation out of his meta-humor, so I'm just using it as a starting point to say something that should be obvious. You are free to assume I did or did not get his point, subject to your own political perspective.

The kinds of people who'd support both Trump and Sanders don't consider themselves leftists and would never recognize themselves in the caricatures being made of them by extremely online Democrats. So while I'm sure this sort of thing is extremely cathartic, judging by the roughly million times a day this exact political theory about Trump-Sanders swing voters is advanced on r/politics, the people it's mocking don't actually exist and it'll never reach the people that Democrats should actually be trying to convince.

"You're not voting for Biden, you're voting for RBG's replacement." Yeahhh that's a nice try, but you're selling to people who've already written down social progress this generation, so

It's weird to think what Biden will do if handed this economic crisis.

Probably install the same cabinet as Obama and they'll shrug their shoulders and say "I dunno, pump the stock market?"

“My name is joe Biden and I’m running for US senate”

“Joe, for gods sake, this is a cabinet meeting”

So you think Joe will actually be invited to those meetings? That's optimistic.

Oh, and that was pretty damn funny, btw.

I find it strangely funny that literally "his brain's dying" is casually stated.

yeah, that's better.