LogFAQs > #879948216

Zeus posted...

Which he can still do.

No, he really can't. Assuming the wall ever gets built (and I'm skeptical it ever will), there's no reasonable way Trump can extract money from Mexico to pay for it if they aren't willing. There's been talk of tariffs, but that's just taxing American consumers of Mexican goods - that's a very far cry from getting Mexico to pay as promised.

Zeus posted...

He's so far managed to push for new NAFTA negotiations, which is literally one of his other campaign promises.

He's "managed" to do something that he has always had the ability to do? Gosh, that must have taken some real effort.

And why are you even bringing this up? I never said anything about NAFTA in my posts.

Zeus posted...

Except for the fact that many of them weren't actually lost to automation and you're magically expecting him to do that the second he takes office. Plus blaming automation doesn't even come close to explaining the widespread abuse of the H-1B Visa Program (because apparently those whitecollar jobs were lost to automation!) which, by the way, Trump recently went into talks to change.

a) Lulz at thinking white collar jobs don't get lost to automation. Ever wonder how many engineers a computer replaces because they don't have to do calculations by hand anymore? Or how many lawyers were replaced by software that goes through the more tedious aspects of discovery? White collar jobs are absolutely just as prone to automation cutbacks as blue collar ones; it's just blue collar tends to be replaced by robots, whereas white collar tends to be replaced by software, meaning blue collar is the more visible change.
b) Most of the jobs Trump's trying to replace (notably coal jobs and blue-collar factory workers) aren't easily replaced. Some were lost to automation and those are gone for good; some were lost because the world is increasingly moving away from coal; some were lost to cheaper foreign labour and, contrary to his campaign promises, that's not something Trump can easily fix. Yes, he can push for tariffs and taxes on companies that manufacture overseas, but there's a few problems with that:
--The US is not an international company's only customer; it's still in their interest to use cheap labour for goods exported everywhere from China to Britain to India to Canada.
--Some of what Trump has proposed would never pass a WTO challenge. And yes, he is free to ignore the WTO, but that basically opens up the US to retaliatory measures from whatever country he's challenging that would be similarly against WTO regulations. Trade wars tend to be bad news for everyone involved - you can argue about who would come out worse, but that doesn't mean the US is going to be in a better position at the end of the day.
--Tariffs, again, are a tax on American consumers. Not exactly super-helpful to keeping the cost of living low.

Zeus posted...

Well, that's misleading and intellectually dishonest. Hillary's changes are more than just a matter of changing her mind when the facts change, it's changing when the polls change.

Again, so what? She's doing what the public wants her to do. Why is that a bad thing?

Zeus posted...

She has a "say anything" attitude which conceals her actual beliefs, if she has any; the fact that you're defending this when she's flat-out admitted it -- see her "public and private positions" statements -- is either stunning naivete or deliberate deception.

It's considered quite normal for politicians in most countries to have public positions that differ from their private opinions; I don't know why Americans find it odd or unusual.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!