Blackstone
Brigadier
This is good, Equation. We agree more than disagree, but it's a good point to have rational and maybe even fruitful discussions and debates.
Economic Predictions Thread
- Thread starter solarz
- Start date
Bernard
Junior Member
Have to say the part about America close to become a fail state is a load of bologna. Don't listen to the MSM. The same MSM that said, President Donald Trump had a less than 2% chance of winning the election. Same with his "low ratings", FAKE NEWS. Economy is doing great, consumer satisfaction is high, jobs are being built, there are trucker shortages, stock market UP^^^, snow flake liberals crying about everything is at record highs. An entire young generation, that has been given everything their whole lives and have been corrupted to believing democratic socialism is a good thing lol.
Equation
Lieutenant General
For now, his support is getting lower and he just pissed off the German Chancellor Angela Merkel the other day by calling German out. Those stock market upswing are due to his tax cut proposal, meaning it could go down by any destabilization threat news out there.
Blackstone
Brigadier
Congressional dysfunction for about a decade gets us close to one definition of "failed state." It doesn't mean many parts of US governance are "failed," but Capital Hill is a big one.
antiterror13
Brigadier
I think Trump knows too well that German military is weak .. so perhaps he believe he could bully her (Germany)
.. he is basically a bully in a big way
Blackstone
Brigadier
There's a "use by" date on Trump bullying Merkel for Germany's weak military, because once a US President publicly and continuously question existing European, Asian, and Middle Eastern alliance structures, s/he opens the door doubts of US commitments. It means nations with means would increase defense expenditures, and nations without means would look for other security blankets. That's why Germany is revamping its military while states like KSA divest weapon purchases away from the US.I think Trump knows too well that German military is weak .. so perhaps he believe he could bully her (Germany)
Incidentally, the rest of Europe can't be overly joyed about Germany once again having a dominant military, especially if the US pivots away and can't or wouldn't protect them from the Germans.
Instability emanating from Russia, the U.S. and the Middle East is waking Germany up from its post-Cold War slumber. Berlin is finally beginning to accept that it must take more responsibility for its own security. Nonetheless, the German military will remain weak for the foreseeable future.
A hint of realpolitik is returning to Germany’s security politics. While all NATO members were alarmed by Donald Trump’s victory, in Germany the consternation has been particularly profound – so profound that it has caused what could become a fundamental change in the way the country views its security.
A reflexive pacifism has resided deep within the German psyche since 1945. The country’s first overseas deployment – to Kosovo in 1999 – was extremely controversial despite its humanitarian nature. The end of the Cold War saw Bundeswehr (German military) personnel numbers drop by 70%. This decline accelerated in the wake of the financial crisis, which saw further spending cuts. The best equipment and personnel were funnelled into the Afghanistan mission, which cannibalised resources from units based at home.
German military personnel numbers, 1991-2014. Source: World Bank.
The deterioration of the Bundeswehr has occurred despite its increasing responsibilities. Since 2008 Berlin has deployed its military in Somalia, Mali, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and Lithuania. The armed forces coped by instituting a policy of “dynamic availability management”, which means that units must borrow from each other whenever they conduct exercises or are deployed. Warships returning from missions often see parts detached and disassembled as soon as they dock so that the next unit can use them. In one particularly striking example, the battalion that was to serve as the spear tip of NATO’s rapid-reaction Response Force had to borrow 15,000 items from 56 other units before it was ready for deployment.
Up until now such problems were viewed as lamentable but more or less acceptable by a Berlin whose priorities lay elsewhere. Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 rudely re-awoke Germany to geopolitical realities. In the following year, Germans began to feel the tangible effects of Middle Eastern turmoil when over one million refugees streamed into their country. Trump’s election, compounded by Washington’s of potentially “moderating its commitment” to NATO, has produced a sea change in Germany’s security discourse.
Let no thought be taboo
The strongest sign of this is the breaking of the nuclear taboo. The publisher of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a conservative newspaper, recently editorialised that the time had come to consider “the altogether unthinkable for a German brain, the question of a nuclear deterrence capability, which could make up for doubts about American guarantees”. A prominent foreign policy expert in Merkel’s party agreed and noted that the idea of a European nuclear umbrella “is being debated in the backrooms of Berlin”. The mainstream German media is with arguing for a radical rethink of the country’s security strategy. Even Der Spiegel, a left-leaning magazine, that reaching an understanding with Russia will only be possible if Moscow takes Europe’s military seriously. The Cold War concept of peace through deterrence is returning to Germany.
This is one reason why the American demand that NATO allies increase military spending to at least 2% of GDP has actually been well-received in Berlin. Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen declared that “we Germans, we Europeans, must invest more in our own security…it is unfair that the Americans spend double as much as all of Europe put together.” Germany’s finance minister added that continually rising defence expenditures are possible within the context of a balanced budget – a major admission from a government obsessed with fiscal responsibility.
Nonetheless, powerful factors militate against the realisation of these intentions. The most immediate of these is the politicisation of military spending in this year’s federal elections.
Defence spending as a political football
Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, leader (though not candidate) of the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), has come out swinging against his colleagues in Berlin. He has called von der Leyen’s ideas about German security politics “naive” and warned against “blind obedience” to Washington. Gabriel is attempting to cast resistance to increased defence spending as resistance to Trump – a sure-fire vote-winner. His party has stuck to the post-Cold War mantra of peace with Russia through engagement. The SPD puts less stock in the hard-headed logic of deterrence than Merkel’s Christian Democrats. Moreover, the Social Democrats will have to form a coalition with The Left and The Greens – two doggedly pacifist parties – to have any chance of unseating Merkel.
Merkel’s problem is that the SPD’s criticisms will fall on receptive ears. A 2015 revealed that only 38% of Germans would support defending NATO allies bordering Russia if they were attacked. Last year another found that 53% of Germans thought that NATO reinforcement of Poland and the Baltics was a bad idea. Barely a of the population supports higher military spending. The chancellor will therefore have to walk a fine line between appeasing Washington and pleasing her constituents. The defence budget is set to rise by 5% this year, but only from 1.19% to 1.22% of GDP.
Even if Merkel wins September’s election and decides to boost spending sharply, it would take over a decade for the Bundeswehr to become a capable fighting force. Any funding increases will first go towards buying ammunition, hiring long-needed personnel, replacing worn-out equipment and generally refilling the military’s hollowed-out structure. The decay must stop before repairs can begin.
Instead, Berlin is likely to focus on European military integration. It is currently committed to developing submarines, naval missiles, and transport aircraft together with other EU nations. This will help begin to address the inefficiency costs stemming from Europe’s fragmented arms industry (EU member states operate different weapons systems, while the U.S. only has 27). Germany also is exploring forming units with its neighbours. Now that the UK’s opposition to a permanent EU military headquarters has been made irrelevant by Brexit, Germany and France can forge ahead with building a unified European command structure.
German soldiers during exercises as part of NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force in Poland. Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images.
While these initiatives are helpful, they will not compensate for Germany’s continued unwillingness to pull its weight in the EU and NATO. While the Berlin elite might have hit an inflection point in its outlook on security, this will not translate into remilitarisation until popular opposition weakens. A sea change may have occurred, but only in thought – not in deed. Germany has finally realised it must improve its military fitness, but – despite earnest resolutions to the contrary – it isn’t planning on going to the gym anytime soon.
Yay
Norquist reckons Trumps Policies will see him returned with greater numbers in 2018 and 2020
Remember the date of March 13, 2017. It was the day President Trump was guaranteed his re-election and Republican congressional gains in 2018 and 2020.
It's not complicated. Follow along.
The Congressional Budget Office released its study of Trump and Paul Ryan's plan to repeal Obamacare and begin to reform our healthcare system. It had many numbers. Only two mattered: taxes and spending.
CBO announced that the repeal bill reduces taxes by almost $900 billion and reduces federal spending by $1.2 trillion over the next decade. This reduces deficit spending by $300 billion over the next 10 years. Thus the CBO, as official umpire, announced that the GOP Obamacare repeal plan may be enacted through "reconciliation," the process that requires a simple majority in the House and only 51 votes in the Senate. No filibuster allowed.
erhaps equally important, the $300 billion in deficit reduction gives Republicans a great deal of wiggle room to amend their basic plan to win votes in the House and Senate to win those 218 congressmen and 51 senators. Tax cuts can be added into the mix. Thanks to the CBO score and the underlying power of the legislation, Obamacare repeal will now pass. The path is clear.
Yes, Democrats tried to focus on the CBO's guestimate as to how many Americans would choose to buy Obamacare insurance without the threat of fines and taxes. Answer: very few. This speaks to how unattractive Obamacare insurance products were and are.
The GOP legislation empowers, strengthens, and expands Health Savings Accounts and other consumer-directed tools such as Flexible Spending Accounts, and creates high-risk pools to take care of those with pre-existing conditions without burdening all other insurance buyers with those costs. Tax credits will help lower-income Americans afford the insurance they want.
The attractiveness of consumer-driven healthcare and the failure of Obamacare's insurance products — on price and quality — will drive Trump's plan forward. Name-calling and dire predictions will not survive contact with reality, or be remembered two Novembers from now.
Passage of Trump's repeal of Obamacare means the baseline for revenue — against which tax reform must be compared for it to pass inside reconciliation — is about $1 trillion lower. This means that the tax cut/tax reform package will also pass as the power of the lower business tax rate, the immediate full business expensing, and the abolition of the Death Tax and AMT will drive House and Senate members to pass the bill that will spur economic growth in time for the 2018 and 2020
Norquist reckons Trumps Policies will see him returned with greater numbers in 2018 and 2020
Remember the date of March 13, 2017. It was the day President Trump was guaranteed his re-election and Republican congressional gains in 2018 and 2020.
It's not complicated. Follow along.
The Congressional Budget Office released its study of Trump and Paul Ryan's plan to repeal Obamacare and begin to reform our healthcare system. It had many numbers. Only two mattered: taxes and spending.
CBO announced that the repeal bill reduces taxes by almost $900 billion and reduces federal spending by $1.2 trillion over the next decade. This reduces deficit spending by $300 billion over the next 10 years. Thus the CBO, as official umpire, announced that the GOP Obamacare repeal plan may be enacted through "reconciliation," the process that requires a simple majority in the House and only 51 votes in the Senate. No filibuster allowed.
erhaps equally important, the $300 billion in deficit reduction gives Republicans a great deal of wiggle room to amend their basic plan to win votes in the House and Senate to win those 218 congressmen and 51 senators. Tax cuts can be added into the mix. Thanks to the CBO score and the underlying power of the legislation, Obamacare repeal will now pass. The path is clear.
Yes, Democrats tried to focus on the CBO's guestimate as to how many Americans would choose to buy Obamacare insurance without the threat of fines and taxes. Answer: very few. This speaks to how unattractive Obamacare insurance products were and are.
The GOP legislation empowers, strengthens, and expands Health Savings Accounts and other consumer-directed tools such as Flexible Spending Accounts, and creates high-risk pools to take care of those with pre-existing conditions without burdening all other insurance buyers with those costs. Tax credits will help lower-income Americans afford the insurance they want.
The attractiveness of consumer-driven healthcare and the failure of Obamacare's insurance products — on price and quality — will drive Trump's plan forward. Name-calling and dire predictions will not survive contact with reality, or be remembered two Novembers from now.
Passage of Trump's repeal of Obamacare means the baseline for revenue — against which tax reform must be compared for it to pass inside reconciliation — is about $1 trillion lower. This means that the tax cut/tax reform package will also pass as the power of the lower business tax rate, the immediate full business expensing, and the abolition of the Death Tax and AMT will drive House and Senate members to pass the bill that will spur economic growth in time for the 2018 and 2020
How rich is US? Have you included the cost of the delayed maintenance of such objects as the Oroville dam and ten thousand others? Correcting the lack of maintenance of the Washington DC metro will cost billions. Paying for very inadequately financed pension schemes by all kinds of local authorities would bankrupt them. Not paying for them will mean poverty of tens of millions of pensioners and great damage to the economy of US. In the Netherlands we are concerned about some pension obligations being covered for only 97%. The pensions for the firefighters in Dallas are covered for some 30%. This is a Ponzi scheme.
It can't be Realpolitik to think there is a danger of Russia trying to conquer one or more of its neighbours. It would not provide any advantage unlike the situation a century and a half ago when taking Alsace-Lorraine was advantageous for Germany or when in 1898 US took Puerto-Rico, Cuba, the Philippines and Guam from Spain. Russia reacted to Georgian aggression in 2008. It interfered in Ukraine to avert the loss of its main naval base in the Black Sea after the US organized coup in Kiev. It helps Syria to prevent the country becoming a haven for terrorists - it has the experience with Saudi supported terrorists in the Caucasus - just as happened to Libya after terrorists destroyed the country with NATO support.
Don't forget that already the European NATO countries spend more on "defence" than Russia and China together.
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Blackstone
Brigadier
When it comes to Russia, Ukraine is a special case, because it was/is an important buffer zone for Imperial Russia, the Soviet Union, and post-Cold War Russia. NATO unwisely expanded to Russia's doorstep and unnecessarily made itself a strategic threat to the Kremlin, and now its reaping the folly of its own making. Don't get me wrong, I'm for a weak (but not too weak) Russia, because it's in US interests to face a weak but not too weak Russia (and China), but NATO's unbridled expansion at the expense of a weakened Russia was a big strategic mistake.