How is it that Jobs and the economy could be growing, and yet, support for Donald Trump has gone down? There's many reasons for this, or reasons that one should dislike Trump. From economical to immigration polices, from environmental to healthcare. To the hatred of a man who makes everything about him. Including, thousands dying in Puerto Rico.
According to Bob Woodward, Donald Trump called his Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a "dumb southerner," and "mentally retarded." It's not to say that an Obama, Clinton, or a Bush would have cynical views about Americans. But it makes perfect sense that Trump would. He was the man who bragged that his Trump Tower became the tallest because of 9/11.
Maybe people don't like him, because they thought he would drain the swamp, but have realized that he is not their to drain the swamp. Rather, there to make the swamp larger. Rich people are able "to exploit charitable giving rules to hoard their fortunes," and the economy is fundamentally the same as it was even before Obama. To believe in Trump's economy, you'd have to believe that a sociopath will have your best interests in mind. To believe in something without empirical evidence.
Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of California at Riverside, Howard Sherman, on Trump's economy in an interview:
Trump is terrible for the economy because his policies increase inequality, which reduces the demand from wages relative to the supply of goods on the market. A few statistics may help to clarify why the US economy is in trouble and why Trump is making it worse.
Today, 42 percent of all wealth is held by the richest 1 percent of citizens. The percentage of wealth held by a tiny portion of the population has been rising as a long trend ever since 1980. That top 1 percent of all wealth-holders have a majority of their income in the form of profits, rent and interest. For the rest of the population — that is the other 99 percent — the bulk of all income comes from wages and salaries. Thus, the inequality of income and wealth in the US reflects the struggle between capitalist owners and employees, or, in popular language, the 1 percent vs. the 99 percent.
Trump's policies are skewed to the rich, so even if wages have been rising, it's been incredibly modest, and has not correlated with inflation. "While Trump keeps saying wages are rising," writes David Cay Johnston. "The official government data show that's just not true."
Johnson explains:
Consider a worker paid the median wage, half make more and half less, of $600 a week in round numbers. If she got the average 2.8% raise on July 1, her gross pay rose by a bit under $17.
Now consider inflation since her last raise a year earlier. Inflation ran 2.9%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
That means our model worker is actually making less in real wages. Its only 60-cents less each week, not that she’d notice, but less is less and most definitely is not more no matter how often Trump says otherwise.
When I hear people talk about how well the economy is doing, in my mind I'm giving them the "what the fuck are you talking about" face. I had no idea that Scranton or Youngstown, Ohio, were booming again? Camden, New Jersey, use to be where Campbell's soup was canned and shipped out. Now, it's a designated area for drug abuse, crime, and prostitution. I don't meant to sound rude or corse. It's just to point out that when people say the economy is great. They're completely ignoring the scale of poverty, and suffering that is happening in our country. It's why people voted for Trump, and it's why they were played by him.
Corporate media showed Trump visiting the Indiana Carrier factory, telling the workers that he would do everything to prevent their jobs from being "outsourced" to Mexico. The media did not go back to report that Trump lied to their faces, and that those jobs left for Mexico anyways. Instead of keeping the jobs in Indiana, Carrier pocketed $7 million dollars. Classic profit over people, and community. What makes those Carrier workers story, and all those who have experienced the same a tragedy. Is that the Democratic Parties abandonment of the working class of America planted the seeds for a Donald Trump. Certainly the Republican party and its media deserves the most blame, but the Democratic Parties best case was "we're not as bat shit crazy as them."
The "economy" may be doing well, meaning, the rich and the stock market. But it's not just the low wages that communities struggle with. Cities fight over getting an Amazon factory with taxpayer money. In return for giving Amazon massive tax breaks, Amazon will repay the city by providing workers with shit pay, shitty labor practices, followed up with polluting the community. Creating a trifecta of shit for a community.
Although staying in the Paris climate deal would have had benefits for many of reasons, Trump has instead lied to the public about it, and will make things worse. That's because Trump is a sociopath who is doing things for fellow sociopaths. Like, the financial institutions that brought us the 2008 Recession. Bipartisan Representatives, and Donald Trump, have given those who destroyed the economy in 2008, the ability to do it all over again.
"Bank deregulation 1.0" writes David Dayen:
Was known as the Crapo bill, as much a commentary on its content as its main author, Senate Banking Committee Chair Mike Crapo. It significantly degraded Dodd-Frank, stripping enhanced regulations from banks with up to $250 billion in assets and reversing data disclosures that could have detected lending discrimination.
In other words, the risks and the racism that was occurring pre-2008, is allowed again. Some type of conservatism.
The second bank deregulation bill came in the form of an Orwellian tile, the Jobs and Investor Confidence Act. Politicians will say this will create jobs, but some find that claim to be dubious. The bill "meaningfully weakens some investor protections and changes the structure of securities markets in unjustified ways," wrote the Americans for Financial Reform in opposition to the bill.
Dayen writes of what the second bill means:
This includes doubling the length of time that startups have before their auditors must attest to the accuracy of the company’s financial reporting, giving more leeway for deceptive accounting and shady practices that rip off investors.
Never mind consumers and investors that will get ripped off by polices supported by Trump blindly and stupidly. Trump's policies also want to rip off veterans, which should be enough for anyone to find Trump unworthy of the Oval Office. That could certainly be a reason why people stopped supporting Trump. Who cares if an economy is doing well when it's designed to benefit those who have no shred of ethics or morals? While people bitch about Colin Kaepernick taking a knee, and support Trump. The man they support wants to do things to veterans that Kaepernick couldn't even come close to doing. Kaepernick may have offended veterans, or hurt their feelings. Trump wants policies that could cause veterans to go under on their home mortgages by predatory lenders.
While the stock market does well, the working class hangs on by a thread. Any little thing wrong that could happen in their lives could make them drop right into poverty, if they aren't already there. ObamaCare is by no means what we should be striving for in terms of healthcare, but Trump and the Republicans want to make it worse for millions. Especially, for those with preexisting conditions.
Trump is making it harder for those with preexisting conditions to afford the cost for health insurance. Insurance companies want to only cover healthy people, because this will allow the insurance companies to make a fuck-ton without having to do much work. If insurance companies are forced to cover people preexisting conditions. That will cut into their profits, and make them do more work.
For those who have preexisting conditions, or have family members and friends that do. Why would you support Donald Trump?
As costs for living increases, and wages keep those in poor. Donald Trump is running a disinformation campaign arguing "that no even the poor are poor."
David Dayen writes:
In March, the Congressional Budget Office found that nearly half of social safety net payments are going to people that the federal government once considered "middle class."
Think about that: At a time when even the middle class is starting to look poor, the administration argues that not even the poor are poor so that federal officials can move to cut programs that both groups now rely on to stay afloat.
What happens when people lose these programs? This is class warfare. It's not a war on poverty, but a war against the poor.
Of all the things that have people growingly against Trump. His tweets, his immigration policies, and his corruption are probably the top reasons.
His tweets about Puerto Rico, saying that 3,000 people didn't die, and that it's the Democrats just trying to make him look bad. They are tweets that are good way to see how his thought process works. He created conspiracy theories. He was paranoid that everyone is after him. Made people's suffering about himself. What is their not to like about this man?
The Trump administrations immigration policies has been an unnecessary-repugnant tragedy unfolding before our eyes, and gives our nation a black eye. It highlights his racism, his incompetence, and his disregard for the rule of law.
Trump and his sycophants want to act like he has been treated more unfairly than any president in history, but the facts say otherwise. Even though the Trump administration was ordered by a judge to reunite all 2,654 children that had been separated from their family. They have yet to fully comply, which makes you wonder how many administrations have just brazenly ignored court orders? Trump's immigration policies show how cruel and incompetent they have been.
Splinter News on reunifying immigrant families:
“It appears only 12 or 13 of over 500 parents have been located, which is just unacceptable at this point,” Judge Dana Sabraw said on a conference call following the release of the last status report earlier this month. “And it appears that there is not a plan in place.” According to the new report, the parties have a “telephonic status conference” scheduled for today at 1 p.m. PST.
Fixing the incompetence would be impossible for incompetent people to fix. It would be like trying to get a survivalist to support reforms on gun laws. Good fucking luck. So instead, the Trump administration proposed a rule that would allow them to detain undocumented children indefinitely. This rule was proposed by Homeland Security, and the Department of Health and Human services.
Of the proposed new rule, Splinter writes:
A version of the rule available on the Federal Register’s site says it would “terminate” the Flores Settlement Agreement, which predates the Department of Homeland Security’s founding. That agreement was reached after a case in the 1980s where a 15 year old girl named Jenny Lisette Flores was detained with adults for two months, during which she was subjected to strip searches. Still, the proposal claims the rule change would still “satisfy the basic purpose of the FSA in ensuring that all juveniles in the government’s custody are treated with dignity, respect, and special concern for their particular vulnerability as minors, while doing so in a manner that is workable in light of subsequent changes.”
Why would immigrants care about how the economy is doing, when they're being terrorized by an administration that wants them out. Only the Ben Carson's of the Immigrant community would still be supporting Trump at this point.
The main reason people probably hate Trump, or should, is his corruption. From profiting from the presidency, to all the people from his campaign who has been found or have plead guilty.
When it comes to Mueller's investigation. Trump has tried to make it sound like it's partisan "witch hunt," but that simply isn't true. Trump's former campaign chair Paul Manafort failed to register as a foreign agent. The reason one would not register as such, is because you want to hide something.
Manafort plead guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice, and conspiracy against the United States. But in the plea, it has become clear that someone else connected to Manafort failed to register as a foreign agent.
CNN writes:
Federal prosecutors in New York are weighing criminal charges against former Obama White House counsel Greg Craig as part of an investigation into whether he failed to register as a foreign agent in a probe that is linked to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Greg Craig, was a White House counsel member under Obama, and he lobbied for a group associated with the Ukraine, and failed to disclose this information.
CNN writes of how Craig is connected:
prosecutors in the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York are considering taking action against powerhouse law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, where Craig was a partner during the activity under examination. Prosecutors are considering a civil settlement with the firm or a deferred prosecution agreement with Skadden, these sources said.
And:
According to the filing, which charged only Manafort, in 2012 Manafort "solicited" a law firm on behalf of the then-president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, and the Ukranian government's Ministry of Justice. The firm, which was Skadden, according to people familiar with the matter, was hired to write a report on the trial of Yulia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister of Ukraine and political rival of Yanukovych.
God what a fucking shit show..
Donald Trump and his acolytes can act like they are victims, but it was Trump who chose people like Manafort to be in his campaign. People with connections to Ukrainian and Russian oligarchs. I'm not a fan of the Fed's like those on MSNBC, but if they were to not look into Trump's campaign. What would be the point of having them?
In reality, Trump is likely a money launderer for the Russians.
What's to like about him?
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