OT: Predictions for 2016 Presidential Election

[flyer]

FIH, to your point concerning looking back on growing up in LJ, as I recall, everyone was pretty much at the same level from a financial perspective, including the value of our homes, etc. Most everyone I grew up with went to college, had great careers and did very well in life, as their parents had.

I would have to say that I probably experienced a more diverse degree of socioeconomic exposure through experiences during college, and later in life, rather than during my early years.

Have read Piketty and others with varying pov’s, and it will be interesting to see if anyone (candidates included) can actually execute a plan that will solve the wealth gap issue, since it does seem to be a problem that does currently or will affect a huge portion of the population per this LA Times article:

“Wealth inequality is also an artifact of income inequality; the two trends work together to magnify the former. As the bottom 90% struggle to make ends meet on stagnant incomes, they’re unable to accumulate savings. Today, the top 1% save about 35% of their income, while the bottom 90% of families save about zero.”

“Ten or twenty years from now, all the gains in wealth democratization achieved during the New Deal and the post-war decades could be lost. While the rich would be extremely rich, ordinary families would own next to nothing, with debts almost as high as their assets.”

[FlyerInHi]

Other issues having to with be wealth gap are
Assortive mating
Delayed child bearing among the more educated and wealthier classes, so their kids start off with more advantages.
Better health and higher life expectancy at the top.
All that translate to higher inheritances over generations.

[livinincali]

[quote=FlyerInHi]Flyer, that’s a feature of capitalism as described by Thomas Pikety in his book.

The New Deal gave the vast majority of Americans opportunities to move up the social ladder. But as capital and establisment become ensconced, then the wealth gap widens. Think back of how you grew up and the exposure to different social economic classes. There weren’t any gated communities or vast housing tracts where all the houses are worth about the same like there are now.

If we believe that the wealth gap is a problem, then only a new New Deal will solve the problem.[/quote]

You keep making this claim that the new deal solved the problem and that a another new deal will solve the problem now but there’s no real evidence that it solved the wealth gap issue. The stock market crash of 1929, World War II, the 2001 stock market crash all did more to solve the wealth gap problem than the new deal ever did.

Suppose for a moment that increasing various taxes was indeed the solution. Increase capital gains taxes, create higher marginal income tax rates, add financial transaction taxes, something of this nature will solve the problem. I think this is what most of you are proposing to solve the wealth gap. You may indeed need some of these proposal to keep it from growing too fast again in the future.

Now think about what holders of wealth are going to do if there’s a serious discussion about this and there’s government in place that might actually act down this path. Well the logical thing to do would be sell assets at the current lower tax rates in an effort to beat facing those higher taxes. It would also be logical to deploy less capital into production/investment at least until you figure out exactly what the ramifications of these proposed tax increases are. Those dynamics would change the supply demand equation in the stock market and bond market. That change has a reasonably decent chance of creating a stock market/bond market crash which would solve the problem to begin with.

Honestly how many jobs are lost if AMZN stock trades at a P/E of 10 instead of a P/E of 1000. Jeff Bezos wealth is effected a great deal, people that are heavily invested in AMZN lose a tremendous amount of wealth as well, but I don’t think that breaks the main street economy. It does help with the wealth gap though.

I honestly don’t see a solution that keeps asset prices high yet also shrinks the wealth gap. That’s what everyone wants to do. They want their 401K to grow at 8-10% but they also want the wealth gap to shrink. Obviously that cant’ happen if wages and the GDP are growing at 2 to 3% per year. Therefore why overthink it. Just wait for the next crash and then don’t so anything about it when it happens. Don’t attempt to reflate it again with Negative Interest Rate policy or some other crazy scheme.

[FlyerInHi]

livinincali, the wealth gap, per se, is really not relevant here. We need policy making because we want to provide opportunities for people to move up the social ladder. That means tuition free college, affordable health care, child care, etc.. And of course, we need a tax regime to fund those programs.

It’s fiscally foolish, intellectually and morally suspect to want a crash/depression to narrow the wealth gap. Yeah, it works because people at the bottom have zero wealth. But imagine the amount of human suffering.

Taxing capital the same as labor won’t have much of an effect on the stock market. Our trade deficit, the Dollar’s role as a reserve currency, and foreigners recycling Dollars into our economy are much more important.

And if higher taxes on capital cause the Dollar to weaken, then all the better because that would help our export economy, and create jobs.

Here’s a timely article on living in a global economy:

[FlyerInHi]

Flyer,
Here’s a good article about populist anger, especially on the Republican side. I agree that there’s anger “on both side”. But the anger is not symmetrical.

On the right, we have angry Trump supporters who want jobs back from China and Mexico. Seriously, they want those jobs back? And a wall, a very tall beautiful wall.

On the left, we have less angry Sanders supporters who want affordable education, health care for all, higher minimum wages, renewable energy, etc…

[joec]

Both these articles I think really just deal with the root cause of the problem (similar to politics and adults) which is kids today are terrified as to what kind of job they will get if they don’t ace everything.

Bottom line is, as I’ve mentioned, there is an oversupply of labor and good/decent jobs are much harder to find. Yes, unemployment is lower now than 7-8 years ago, but a lot of the jobs people working in now aren’t as well paying or as good. There are so many articles detailing that. A no benefit part-time gig with Uber is not an old 90s job with full benefits.

I know of kids in high school who are at that breaking point and having mental and health issues because the classes are getting too hard and they aren’t able to deal with it.

Parents just want to get them help to fix the problem or find a Band-Aid from the teachers by giving them a pass, but at the end of the day, if you give one kid a pass, how is that fair to everyone else or the kid? It leads to more kids like this expecting that Band-Aid or pass because so and so got a “B”. A while back, so many people flunked engr classes that getting a B was probably top 25% for sure…

In my day (over 20 years ago), getting a few bad grads didn’t mean you couldn’t get work, but as college is now like a high school degree, you’re simply competing with all those other grads as well as probably an equal amount of foreign grads too. Not to mention the cost has gone up by 10x I think from when I went and you also need grad school. Lose the whole resort type of campus I feel…

On the money side, what I feel needs to be done isn’t a stock market crash to bring asset equality to everyone, but some safety net issues and people deciding if it’s ok again to pay more for stuff compared to outsourcing everything to get the lowest priced goods.

Every industry nowadays is a race to the bottom and outside of a few areas, nearly all businesses are being strained I think.

It’s not a surprise that if you can make a widget in the US for $20, but in Mexico, it will cost $1.50, companies will do it and people who used to make $20 are going to be screwed. In a global economy, this is a race to the bottom and once you are left behind (this is happening in China now), people will start killing themselves if they get too desperate and depressed.

Some things that should probably be done is eliminate the number 1 reason for bankruptcy, healthcare cost. Go single payer, decrease benefits for all (like low success operations), limit procedures if they won’t make a life last much longer, etc…I don’t know if that will fly in America, but keep all the basic needs and just cut out leading tech or very expensive stuff.

For the very rich, they can “pay” to get it done. Poor people will just die, but again, in these cases, the chance to survive is extremely low anyways. It’s sorta like rich people cut in line anyways for organ donors too.

A lot of healthcare places will probably be hurt, but I think the whole middle man that Blue Cross/Blue Shield is, is a scam anyways and those should just dissolve. Work directly with hospitals (very hard), but see how every other country does it and still have lower mortality rates than the US. Give more pay for prevention vs procedures and don’t rush to do stuff that we do now. Prevent frivolous lawsuits so Doctors won’t feel like they have to order 20 tests, etc…

Eliminate taxes completely under a certain income limit…I think Trump supports this, but his plan has more benefits for the rich actually so you need to also keep taxing social security, and the financial tax in the UK has been working pretty well I’ve read. Change long term stock gains to be much higher so you don’t have people like Buffett paying less than the simple middle class guy.

As someone who has made good money and very bad money, poor people don’t save because they really don’t have enough to save…It’s just not a mindset or problem when you are paycheck to paycheck.

Try to discourage young girls from having kids. Kids are a life changer and having kids young is very very bad. Encourage birth control (pill/patch whatever (since kids will always have sex…) No chance for kids will give these kids a higher chance for a better future.

Probably nothing is possible in our government and division and special interests, and we’ll just grind it worst and worst till it pops.

[njtosd]

[quote=FlyerInHi]Other issues having to with be wealth gap are
Assortive mating
Delayed child bearing among the more educated and wealthier classes, so their kids start off with more advantages.
Better health and higher life expectancy at the top.
All that translate to higher inheritances over generations.[/quote]

Higher life expectancy would tend to cause a diminution of resources, wouldn’t it? More years of car payments (or purchases), electricity and food – and generally during the non-earning years.

Assertive mating has always occurred.

[flyer]

I think the wealth gap may be with us for a long time, and, hopefully, will be solved.

In the meantime, as most Piggs, I’ve always tried to make sure my family, as well as extended family and some friends and I are pretty much set for life to the best of my ability.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=joec]Both these articles I think really just deal with the root cause of the problem (similar to politics and adults) which is kids today are terrified as to what kind of job they will get if they don’t ace everything.

Bottom line is, as I’ve mentioned, there is an oversupply of labor and good/decent jobs are much harder to find. Yes, unemployment is lower now than 7-8 years ago, but a lot of the jobs people working in now aren’t as well paying or as good. There are so many articles detailing that. A no benefit part-time gig with Uber is not an old 90s job with full benefits.

I know of kids in high school who are at that breaking point and having mental and health issues because the classes are getting too hard and they aren’t able to deal with it.

Parents just want to get them help to fix the problem or find a Band-Aid from the teachers by giving them a pass, but at the end of the day, if you give one kid a pass, how is that fair to everyone else or the kid? It leads to more kids like this expecting that Band-Aid or pass because so and so got a “B”. A while back, so many people flunked engr classes that getting a B was probably top 25% for sure…

In my day (over 20 years ago), getting a few bad grads didn’t mean you couldn’t get work, but as college is now like a high school degree, you’re simply competing with all those other grads as well as probably an equal amount of foreign grads too. Not to mention the cost has gone up by 10x I think from when I went and you also need grad school. Lose the whole resort type of campus I feel…

On the money side, what I feel needs to be done isn’t a stock market crash to bring asset equality to everyone, but some safety net issues and people deciding if it’s ok again to pay more for stuff compared to outsourcing everything to get the lowest priced goods.

Every industry nowadays is a race to the bottom and outside of a few areas, nearly all businesses are being strained I think.

It’s not a surprise that if you can make a widget in the US for $20, but in Mexico, it will cost $1.50, companies will do it and people who used to make $20 are going to be screwed. In a global economy, this is a race to the bottom and once you are left behind (this is happening in China now), people will start killing themselves if they get too desperate and depressed.

Some things that should probably be done is eliminate the number 1 reason for bankruptcy, healthcare cost. Go single payer, decrease benefits for all (like low success operations), limit procedures if they won’t make a life last much longer, etc…I don’t know if that will fly in America, but keep all the basic needs and just cut out leading tech or very expensive stuff.

For the very rich, they can “pay” to get it done. Poor people will just die, but again, in these cases, the chance to survive is extremely low anyways. It’s sorta like rich people cut in line anyways for organ donors too.

A lot of healthcare places will probably be hurt, but I think the whole middle man that Blue Cross/Blue Shield is, is a scam anyways and those should just dissolve. Work directly with hospitals (very hard), but see how every other country does it and still have lower mortality rates than the US. Give more pay for prevention vs procedures and don’t rush to do stuff that we do now. Prevent frivolous lawsuits so Doctors won’t feel like they have to order 20 tests, etc…

Eliminate taxes completely under a certain income limit…I think Trump supports this, but his plan has more benefits for the rich actually so you need to also keep taxing social security, and the financial tax in the UK has been working pretty well I’ve read. Change long term stock gains to be much higher so you don’t have people like Buffett paying less than the simple middle class guy.

As someone who has made good money and very bad money, poor people don’t save because they really don’t have enough to save…It’s just not a mindset or problem when you are paycheck to paycheck.

Try to discourage young girls from having kids. Kids are a life changer and having kids young is very very bad. Encourage birth control (pill/patch whatever (since kids will always have sex…) No chance for kids will give these kids a higher chance for a better future.

Probably nothing is possible in our government and division and special interests, and we’ll just grind it worst and worst till it pops.[/quote]

Joec, what you said is very interesting and shows that the bar has been raised and the workforce needs higher skills and/or self initiative. The world has changed; and we need policies that reflect the new reality.

But as the Trump phenomenon shows, there is a whole class of low-skill people who disdain education because they feel looked down upon by the educated “elite.” So their defense mechanism it to be against education. These people want an impossible return to a world where a C level high-school education allowed entry into the middle class. And the irony is that they call that “hard work.”

BTW, I know a guy who owns an engineering firm. He says “I’m not smart or hardworking. Young engineers now are a lot smarter. I’m just rich and I employ smart people.”

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=njtosd]
Higher life expectancy would tend to cause a diminution of resources, wouldn’t it? More years of car payments (or purchases), electricity and food – and generally during the non-earning years.
[/quote]

yes, at the lower rungs.

The issue here is the life expectancy gap between rich and poor. The people at the top tend to like their jobs (if we can call making business deals or stumbling onto deals “regular jobs”), and they work well into old age, thus accumulating larger estates.

[quote=njtosd]
Assertive mating has always occurred.[/quote]

I’d have to look for data, but I believe since women entered the workforce, it’s become more prevalent, especially among the professional upper middle or low-level millionaire classes.

Edit: I did a quick search and found this.
My brother lives in La Jolla and sometimes they have school meetings that I attended — lots of parents from the UC and tech areas. The “new assortative matting” that I observed is by education rather than phenotype.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/29/new-academic-study-links-rising-income-inequality-to-assortive-mating/

[svelte]

So Cruz picks Fiorina for VP. In April.

This sure looks like a Hail Mary pass out of desperation.

If he doesn’t take Indiana next Tuesday, I don’t think there is any stopping Trump.

[5yearwaiter]

[quote=svelte]So Cruz picks Fiorina for VP. In April.

This sure looks like a Hail Mary pass out of desperation.

If he doesn’t take Indiana next Tuesday, I don’t think there is any stopping Trump.[/quote]

Even if Cruz holds Indiana I believe it is bit hard to stop Trump. How many delegates he gets from Indiana and how the math looks to stop Trump? Trump needs only 300 and there are still 632 remained for elections including Indiana.

[livinincali]

[quote=5yearwaiter][quote=svelte]So Cruz picks Fiorina for VP. In April.

This sure looks like a Hail Mary pass out of desperation.

If he doesn’t take Indiana next Tuesday, I don’t think there is any stopping Trump.[/quote]

Even if Cruz holds Indiana I believe it is bit hard to stop Trump. How many delegates he gets from Indiana and how the math looks to stop Trump? Trump needs only 300 and there are still 632 remained for elections including Indiana.[/quote]

Most of the projections I’ve seen show Trump needing to win Indiana to be assured to getting to 1237. There are other ways including getting some of the unbound delegates (i.e. PA). Cruz can’t get there mathematically. Only way he gets the nomination is through a brokered convention. If it gets to that point the republican establishment would probably try to do some back room deal giving the nomination to Kasich. Kasich is far more likely to win at the national level compared to Cruz.

[FlyerInHi]

Giving the nomination to Kasich would demoralize Republican voters and they will stay home. Trump is getting low-education Whites to come out and vote.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/04/27/donald-trump-will-get-more-primary-votes-than-anyone-in-history-because-more-people-are-voting/

I have the feeling Hillary will win by a landslide. You go girl!

[livinincali]

[quote=FlyerInHi]Giving the nomination to Kasich would demoralize Republican voters and they will stay home. Trump is getting low-education Whites to come out and vote.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/04/27/donald-trump-will-get-more-primary-votes-than-anyone-in-history-because-more-people-are-voting/

I have the feeling Hillary will win by a landslide. You go girl![/quote]

If the republican party does anything that isn’t nominating Trump and backing him hard they’re are likely to lose the election in a landslide. If they do nominate Trump and get behind him I think we could see an interesting close election.

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