National Economy

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Nite

I don't believe the US even has 700B in discretionary spending much less 2T to make cuts to. Most of their spendings are things they can't cut easily.

Nonsense. Cut Social Security, Medicare, and Defense in half. Done!

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Nite

I don't believe the US even has 700B in discretionary spending much less 2T to make cuts to. Most of their spendings are things they can't cut easily.

Well you can cut "non-discretionary" spending and the military is a trillion on its own but yes DOGE isn't really putting either of those on the table so is mostly full of it. Taxation needs to increase in the US along with cuts in order to balance the budget though growing the economy as they have been doing helps a lot.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Well you can cut "non-discretionary" spending and the military is a trillion on its own but yes DOGE isn't really putting either of those on the table so is mostly full of it. Taxation needs to increase in the US along with cuts in order to balance the budget though growing the economy as they have been doing helps a lot.

Trump is planning on major tax cuts however and wants to use Tariffs as a major source of government revenue instead. the US imports 3.2T worth of goods and a 25% tariff on all imports would bring in 0.8T in revenue if trade volume didn't go down significantly, but they will with 25% tariffs. Tariffs are paid for by the American public and would cause major inflation as Americans would be paying 25% more on all imports

[Tvisforme]

Originally Posted by Build.It

I'd never heard of either of those and had to looknthem up. But does it bother you that reporters from online media outlets are allowed to ask questions, "tvisforme"?

Great deflection. Online news, of course not, but are you seriously suggesting that someone who leads with "Thank you Mr Poilievre for being our first and last line of defence" qualifies as a legitimate news source?

[Architype]

Originally Posted by Tvisforme

Great deflection. Online news, of course not, but are you seriously suggesting that someone who leads with "Thank you Mr Poilievre for being our first and last line of defence" qualifies as a legitimate news source?

Like it or not, online media is now more influential than legacy media. Joe Rogan's audience is reportedly 28X that of CNN's. It's an unbridled and volatile force, and those who can tame or manipulate it are ultimately the winners.

[Tvisforme]

Originally Posted by Architype

Like it or not, online media is now more influential than legacy media. Joe Rogan's audience is reportedly 28X that of CNN's. It's an unbridled and volatile force, and those who can tame or manipulate it are ultimately the winners.

Sorry, my post wasn't clear; "of course not" was in response to BI's "does it bother you that reporters from online media outlets are allowed to ask questions". The point stands, however, about how a site that asks questions framed with "first and last line of defence" cannot claim to be a legitimate news source.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Nite

Trump is planning on major tax cuts however and wants to use Tariffs as a major source of government revenue instead. the US imports 3.2T worth of goods and a 25% tariff on all imports would bring in 0.8T in revenue if trade volume didn't go down significantly, but they will with 25% tariffs. Tariffs are paid for by the American public and would cause major inflation as Americans would be paying 25% more on all imports

Yes but this is completely unrealistic. For consumer goods it would cause massive inflation but is possible but for intermediate goods and capital goods it would collapse the US economy. Look at Canadian exports to the US. Energy would cause massive inflation but also problems for business who depend on cheap energy. But in manufacturing and chemical industry we do a lot of making things together. If the US factories have to pay tariffs plus deal with all the paperwork they would become uncompetitive. Certainly the auto industry but it would be more widespread that that. The actual revenue from tariffs would be much much smaller. (Ignoring the retaliatory tariffs that would destroy other whole industries.

[Build.It]

Originally Posted by Tvisforme

Great deflection. Online news, of course not, but are you seriously suggesting that someone who leads with "Thank you Mr Poilievre for being our first and last line of defence" qualifies as a legitimate news source?

I honestly have no idea what you are talking about.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Build.It

I honestly have no idea what you are talking about.

He was suggesting that the outlets were sycophants not asking real questions, possibly akin to the “questions” asked by government backbenchers in Question Period.

[Build.It]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Nonsense. Cut Social Security, Medicare, and Defense in half. Done!

This is more or less what is required for them to balance their budget again.

US health spending is extremely inefficient compared to other countries for example.

US social security per capita is also significantly more than Canada's for example.

Countries like the US and Canada were established on the foundation of limited government and low taxes - this (among other reasons) was why so many people uprooted their lives to move here. So it's unrealistic think our populations will accept being a high tax high service state like Norway. That leaves us with the only other viable option, which is to cut services.

Of course the there is a third option which nobody wants, and that is perpetual borrowing and inflation.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by Architype

Like it or not, online media is now more influential than legacy media. Joe Rogan's audience is reportedly 28X that of CNN's. It's an unbridled and volatile force, and those who can tame or manipulate it are ultimately the winners.

And this is a huge problem. CNN employs hundreds of reporters who research, investigate and report stories. Joe Rogan spouts barely informed nonsense about things he's unqualified to comment on, as do his guests. Legacy media has its problems, but replacing it with a bunch of credulous and underinformed podcasters and streamers steering the national conversation by spewing half-baked tinfoil-hat commentary at millions of gullible and underinformed listeners and viewers is objectively much worse.

[Build.It]

And yet all the legacy broadcasters predicted Harris would win, while many of the online media correctly predicted that Trump would win.

Any form of media needs to be taken with a grain of salt - the onus is on the viewer to form their own opinion, and decide who they trust.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_the_press

I personally use legacy media for the dry live updates of the facts only - however I do not pay much attention to their analysis of the facts as I've found it to be unreliable.

Conversely I find that online media's analysis of known facts tends to be more accurate, however they do a poorer job of unveiling new facts.

So basically the winning recipe (for me at least):

Legacy - finds the facts
Online - analyzes the facts

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Build.It

And yet all the legacy broadcasters predicted Harris would win, while many of the online media correctly predicted that Trump would win.

Any form of media needs to be taken with a grain of salt - the onus is on the viewer to form their own opinion, and decide who they trust.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_the_press

I personally use legacy media for the dry live updates of the facts only - however I do not pay much attention to their analysis of the facts as I've found it to be unreliable.

Conversely I find that online media's analysis of known facts tends to be more accurate, however they do a poorer job of unveiling new facts.

So basically the winning recipe (for me at least):

Legacy - finds the facts
Online - analyzes the facts

The moral of the story is that it's preferable to inform oneself with as many different sources as you have time for, and to take everything with a grain of salt.

Unfortunately, most people seem to only want to inform themselves with sources that agree with them, and are even afraid of being "contaminated" by exposure to different opinions.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Build.It

And yet all the legacy broadcasters predicted Harris would win, while many of the online media correctly predicted that Trump would win.

Any form of media needs to be taken with a grain of salt - the onus is on the viewer to form their own opinion, and decide who they trust.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_the_press

I personally use legacy media for the dry live updates of the facts only - however I do not pay much attention to their analysis of the facts as I've found it to be unreliable.

Conversely I find that online media's analysis of known facts tends to be more accurate, however they do a poorer job of unveiling new facts.

So basically the winning recipe (for me at least):

Legacy - finds the facts
Online - analyzes the facts

The "legacy" media didn't predict a Harris win. They said it was too close to call and the past polling errors favored Trump but a polling error could also favour Harris. That was a fact. The online media claimed trump would win post debate as the polls were fake. The polls were off by less than 2% which means Harris would have won big if election day was post debate.

[Build.It]

Actually the legacy media polls were consistently predicting a Harris popular vote win (within the margin of error, but consistent nonetheless), and none of them projected Trump to win all 7 swing states.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Nite

Trump is planning on major tax cuts however and wants to use Tariffs as a major source of government revenue instead. the US imports 3.2T worth of goods and a 25% tariff on all imports would bring in 0.8T in revenue if trade volume didn't go down significantly, but they will with 25% tariffs. Tariffs are paid for by the American public and would cause major inflation as Americans would be paying 25% more on all imports

It's effectively a regressive sales tax. Nice for the rich though.

Also economically inefficient.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Build.It

This is more or less what is required for them to balance their budget again.

US health spending is extremely inefficient compared to other countries for example.

US social security per capita is also significantly more than Canada's for example.

Countries like the US and Canada were established on the foundation of limited government and low taxes - this (among other reasons) was why so many people uprooted their lives to move here. So it's unrealistic think our populations will accept being a high tax high service state like Norway. That leaves us with the only other viable option, which is to cut services.

Of course the there is a third option which nobody wants, and that is perpetual borrowing and inflation.

Yeah, slash everyone's benefits and throw a bunch of the military out of work. They'll have plenty of time to sharpen their guillotines.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Build.It

Actually the legacy media polls were consistently predicting a Harris popular vote win (within the margin of error, but consistent nonetheless), and none of them projected Trump to win all 7 swing states.

Not true. It was very common to say a slight polling error could give either side a sweep of the swing states. Agreed Harris was ahead in popular vote but Trump will win by 1.5% so not a huge error.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FpZbtzFI2g

In case you can't watch here they say 300+ electoral votes is a 60% chance. Average polling error is 3.4 pts and historically they go in one direction so if all battleground states go in one direction Trump would get exactly 312 electoral votes which is his result. This wasn't a one off it was there last week consistent message on CNN.

You should ask yourself why the media you consume is telling you that the legacy media was saying something else.

[MolsonExport]

Alternative facts!

[Build.It]

That's not really a prediction, saying "one of the two parties is going to win, and there's a 60% chance that the winning party will have 300 seats".

There were tons independent guys analyzing the data and showong how the polls consistently underestimated Republicans in previous elections and how there was a high probability of the election being a Republican blowout, which turned out to be correct.

I think it was in late Sept or early Oct that I posted that it will almost certainly be a Trump win, and you guys laughed at me. That wasn't me being a genius - I just listened to the correct sources.