There's still people out there that believe the west is a "democracy"?
People really think voting, elections, politics in general is even real and not a reality show/circus act put on for the masses?
If you don't see why Trump is worse than Kamala or Clinton would have been, I don't know what to say. The reputation of the US is in the gutter. Even European people are now openly expressing their hatred.
Even IF tomorrow would come a fresh "and super nice US president", Trump et al crushed so much that the damage is already severe and will be permanent for the future: US gov lost so much trust in more or less everything that was perceived as somehow reliable by others.
The damage is that big that -apart from BigTech- the US-industry will have a hard time coming
The US have been fooled by Israel for the past... thirty, forty years at least? Look who Trump is sending around the world to negotiate on behalf of the US: two committed Zionists, personal friends of Netanyahu and past financers of the Israeli army. The other negotiators regard them as Israeli assets, plain and simple. While they pretend to "negotiate", Israel launches surprise attacks that have not been agreed with the US and that forces them to intervene.
Either Russian propaganda is leaking into US, or people are being so easy to manipulate it's becoming scary.
What's the deal the US not having agency? Lol
Russia was manipulated by NATO and they were fooled over and over again, according to the state propaganda - if that was true, why are they still stuck with the fool who keeps being fooled? Isn't that the sign of a deficient leadership?
Same applies to the Trump administration, until when will that narrative stick?
Because the "common sense", a big trope used by both states propaganda, claims that you can only be fooled once lol
The US has an eternal fool on the throne. Common sense also claims that you can only declare bankruptcy once, and never with a casino, yet here we are.
It is also very clear that both the US and Israel have very different mission objectives, which is why there's no way out for this admin. A long war may destroy Iran but will also help them in the long run - a war that they're eager to fight. Furthermore it has been established that Trump was goaded into this war by his benefactors, as well as Netanyahu and Mohammed bin Salman.
What Israel and US (and MBS) don't understand is that they've just enabled a country 3 times the size of France to go militant, in their backyard.
So funny that you moved the discussion from Israel to Russia. But after checking your comments I see that Russia lives rent-free in your mind.
> Either Russian propaganda is leaking into US, or people are being so easy to manipulate it's becoming scary.
Manipulation, double standards and bias are very difficult to avoid and an average human with a job just have no time to verify everything, so they just consume and the more they consume the more they believe in it.
I read somewhere that Bush made this awkward figure of speech not because he didn't know the idiom, but because he realized too late that he'd be saying "shame on me" on air, which is apparently a phrase absolutely Verboten by political media advisors (because it could have been taken out of context and used by his adversaries). In a way that says a lot about the political culture that resulted in a figure like Trump, I think.
In fact no. It's well documented that the voters who put Trump in the White House weren't voting until Trump galvanized them. It's also been well known for centuries that white men are the single largest demographic in the US and that it is also the most fragmented one
>It's well documented that the voters who put Trump in the White House weren't voting until Trump galvanized them
It's even more well documented that Kamala is a "shallow-as-they-come transparently-just-a-puppet empty-headed political careerist", that even her own Party heads dismissed as inadequate decoration until Biden's faculties went even more downhill.
>It's also been well known for centuries that white men are the single largest demographic in the US and that it is also the most fragmented one
Which makes sense, since, native americans aside, it was such demographics that first populated and established the US, the overwhelming majority of the rest came later.
But it's irrelevant as an argument to what we're discussing.
There are plenty of excellent black women leaders - Kamala Harris was not one of those. Do not excuse the Democratic Party here with their dysfunctional internal infighting with just being down to racism.
Milquetoast uninspiring leader should still beat someone who outright hates everything about our country, divides rather than leads, and plans to sell our institutions for scrap value while putting the proceeds in his own pocket.
Although I think the people blaming it on racism are hopeful. The real answer is that it struck a chord with people who do not want women in leadership positions.
I remember reading an article when Harris was nominated, about how it was set up to be a "historic moment". Indeed, it was.
I hadn't heard that motive specifically, care to send any links that substantiate it?
(to be clear, the article was of course using "historic" in the sense of the DEI groupthink - since there's no way Trump could win then won't it be super historic to have a Black woman president)
(and disclaimer: criticism of DEI virtue signalling is in no way an endorsement of Maggot vice signalling)
This was not a move by Biden to position Kamala for a loss, but he certainly did not want Pelosi and the Democratic establishment to gloat on a win. Which is why he immediately endorsed Kamala for the presidency, right after announcing he was stepping down from the race.
Pelosi suggested there should have been an open primary after Biden dropped out. But Biden's endorsement ensured that they could not backtrack from Harris.
Selection as VP doesn't mean by default that the running candidate/party endorses the candidate. Most often, VPs are chosen because they are harmless enough to become opposition to them, as a concession to a former opponent, or in most cases to bridge the demographic gap and reach out to a particularly marginalized segment of voters who are not adequately represented in governance.
> she was a incredibly obvious choice and would have had a very strong likelihood of getting the nod had there been actual primaries.
Lol, hell no. She already lost the primaries multiple times. She was extremely unpopular. In the 2020 elections, running with Biden helped boost her profile slightly, but back then Biden was a much more stronger candidate and his choice of running mate wouldn't have mattered - Trump was extremely unpopular then.
While Democratic Party could have picked another candidate, to appease comments like this (I heard this too many times by a lot of very, very smart people so I am not demeaning your comment/opinion in any way) that other candidate would have been a white male
My point is that she was a poor candidate both times, and OP blaming this all on racism gives the DNC a pass when they really need to fix themselves. Obama would have beat Trump handily (a hypothetical), and not lost due to racism.
Is it strange that Obama and Harris are each only part black, but people refer to them as being black?
If we are like “black people can do everything” (which is true, of course), why are the political figureheads of that progressive dimension only half black?
And, beyond that, the black half of each is not even African American! Harris is African Jamaican, and Obama is African African.
If anything, in retrospect the birther thing back then seems like it may have been some absurdist well poisoning on totally valid criticism of Obama’s real heritage vs the media optics of same.
I thought civil rights was for African Americans? Why have all the political figureheads African Americans have, or have been, rallied behind, not themselves been African American at all?
> Is it strange that Obama and Harris are each only part black, but people refer to them as being black?
Yeah - the "One Drop" PoV was beyond strange:
The one-drop rule was a legal principle of racial classification that was prominent in the 20th-century United States. It asserted that any person with even one ancestor of Black African ancestry ("one drop" of "black blood") is considered black (Negro or colored in historical terms). It is an example of hypodescent, the automatic assignment of children of a mixed union between different socioeconomic or ethnic groups to the group with the lower status, regardless of proportion of ancestry in different groups.
> I thought civil rights was for African Americans?
It was for the benefit of anyone sent to the back of the bus, forced to drink from other fountains, lynched, etc. That included minorities other than "classic Black" and all the people treated as Black despite not appearing black.
I’m confused. From tone you seem to be comparing what I’m saying to the one drop rule as if this doesn’t support what I’m saying, but it does support what I’m saying.
They're not using it directly .. they're part of a wider society that has been using it less and less explicitily for hundreds of years - children speak as their paerents do.
What has faded is the habit of exactly breaking down the bloodlines of anyone of mixed blood - mulatto, quadroon, octoroon, hexadecaroon and such terms are no longer in common use in this epoch.
So your theory is that the people who seem to center their worldview on racial equality (along with equality of the sexes) are subconsciously using racist language?
I mean, that’s possible, but I think a more plausible explanation is that the bulk of them are just getting riled up by media and aren’t really paying close attention to what’s going on.
No. That's clearly your framing - don't draw me into your strawman.
> but I think a more plausible explanation is that
Or, that a majority people in the USofA that are described as black in the USofA have embraced that term, own it, and have used Black Twitter etc. while those adjacent to them ( the "progressives" ? ) use that term as for the most part the "black people" are comfortable with and haven't told them to bugger off and stop using it.
Late to reply, but assuming you are not American, Black folks in America are quite a spectrum of mixed race from their history. It's not unreasonable to call/identify themselves as black in this situation. I would not extrapolate to the extremes like some repliers are talking about "one drop", etc. That's not practically what the situation is.
> gives the DNC a pass when they really need to fix themselves
I've been saying this since 2016, when HRC ran on a campaign of calling her opponents sexists and then blaming Russia for her loss. Sadly, they just shuffled aparatchniks around instead of cleaning house. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was put on the House Appropriations committee after stepping down from DNC chair. Donna Brazile was rewarded with the DNC chairmanship after slipping CNN town hall questions in advance to HRC. I suspect that the self-reflection to fix themselves is just not in the DNC DNA, sadly.
America runs better when both parties are effective. Currently, neither are.
I talked about DNC governance and accountability after the 2016 primary, not denying that Russia conducts influence operations or that sexism exists in politics. Pointing to Russian interference in 2024 does not answer whether the DNC cleaned house after 2016, and it does not change the fact that Wasserman Schultz landed on Appropriations and Brazile became interim DNC chair.
Weird that you would divert main factual points into non-sequiturs and then accuse me of cognitive dissonance. If you are free of cognitive dissonance, you can now address the points I made, not ones I did not.
> There are plenty of excellent black women leaders - Kamala Harris was not one of those. Do not excuse the Democratic Party (...)
As a non-USian this blend of opinion just reeks of blame-shifting.
You guys have a two-party system. One proposed a candidate that continued Biden's administration. The other was this hot mess. You guys picked this hot mess over Biden's regime.
If you looked at Trump and somehow decided a second Trump administration was better than a continuation of Biden's administration, the blame lays square on you. Not on Kamala. Not on the democratic party. Not on DEI. Nothing.
We prefer to be called Americans, which is also the correct demonym; it derives from United States of America, and isn't used by any other country in English. If you can call someone from South Africa a "South African" instead of an "SAian," then the same logic applies to make someone from the United States an "American."
However, Canada and Mexico are also in the North American continent, so "North American" also refers to Canadians and Mexicans, and that's specifying which part of the Americas we're talking about. The term "American" can equally apply to someone living in Brazil or Peru (or at least "South American").
To my mind, it always strikes me as hubris for the USA to pretend to be the whole American continent.
To be fair, we also ended up with a proven con-man because Southern Democrats don't approve of gays enough to win the primary for Buttigieg and we ended up with Biden only 1 term.
This both sides thing is stupid. Though there's always some form of military actions under either Democrats or Republicans, Republicans consistently start unilateral (and illegal) wars that leave us in massive quagmires, leave power imbalances in the middle east, and destabilize things considerably.
> And they'll get wars and the same shit after they vote the other way too
Eh?
Are you seriously comparing the disaster that is Mango Mussolini to the likes of (practically any) former president of the USA?
My friend, if all candidates are crap, you vote for the one that will do least harm. And then look at reforming a political system which leaves voters with such a poor choice.
> In fact they precisely voted someone promising no more wars, no more foreign meddling, and so on.
In fact they voted for a convicted felon and rapist that lies to everyone as soon as he opens his mouth. A serial bankrupt that stole money from a charity.
That was all on the table and yet his voters said loud and clear: That guy, that criminal, that one full of hate and anger, who lies and does about everything if it is in his self interest, that's the guy that represents us best.
e:
"No more wars" didn't seem to be their main issue. Just imagine, Trump won the war after a week of bombing. The Iran regime is toppled and a US-friendly dictator is installed.
Are really sure his voters would not celebrate the war and great general Trump?
I'm sorry but this is silly. I didn't vote for Obama either time but there is no comparison between Trump and Obama. Nothing Obama did had the negative impact like Trump's attack on Iran.
If you take Russia as a boilerplate; never. Trump will "trickle down" the corruption to just enough people to keep everyone complacent and do as he wills.
I think "humiliation ritual" is a hugely important concept to keep in mind these days: It has a lot of explanatory power for the stuff we're seeing in politics. (For example, televised Trump cabinet meetings where the brown-nosing is almost beyond parody.)
A cult will demand members do things to "fit in", especially things that have a cost ("prove your sincerity") and also things which alienate them from the non-group. The latter is a ratcheting trap, leading to: "We are your only home now, nobody else will have you."
It’s the psychological effect of a Mormon mission. Spend two years getting hate from all angles, teaching you just how good your home, family, and church are. Every ex-mormon I know contemplated suicide on their mission. Every practicing Mormon I know has a story about “their lowest point” and how actually it was a really really good thing if you think about it sideways
> As long as their leaders care more about Israel than the nation they were sworn in to serve.
Trump's wars and military threats (Greenland, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, etc) have more to do with Trump's ties to Epstein than Israel's foreign policy. The extent to which Russia and Israel manipulate Trump with kompromat is to be determined.
So the Iraq war also was not tied to Israel's foreign policy? So it was just a coincidence that Netanyahu had been advocating for these wars? It was just a coincidence that the US got involved in last years 12 day war after Israel initiated the bombings in Iran?
Epstein represented the Rothschildes, the family that founded Israel. His girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell is a Mossad asset. Separating Trump’s influence by Epstein from Trump’s influence by Israel isn’t possible. The two are intertwined.
So many people make so much money from it. I don’t personally this time but I did last time working for tech. Maybe I will again next time. This is the third time America been “humiliated” in my life and my life is awesome and getting better.
/s
But that is the overall sentiment if I had to describe it without pretense
The whole Western power against a deserted country and the USA will send young walking soldiers. AI, robots/drones, space tech, international hegemony, all inferior to a guy with a long gun.
Can there be any acceptable way out of this that doesn’t look like the Nuremberg trials?
It’s not like there can be any doubt about the criminality of all this, especially after Hegseth's “no quarter” comments. Hegseth explicitly stated that the current US policy is to summarily execute surrendering combatants!
It’d be convenient though, we could even use the same rope to hang both Trump and Putin.
White House said they'll bomb the energy sector if Iranians don't comply. That would be a war crime. Yes, Russia has been doing that for years, but a US president saying that is a new low.
the only way cheeto is going to peacefully leave office is force. he's facing so many incredibly felonies, as does his family and associates, that he / they cannot.
they will burn the US to the ground before they face justice. it will require force, and once you have a mob angry enough to do that we'll see Nuremberg. Or perhaps something closer to Spanish or French revolutionary actions.
sending young americans off to die for israels relgious war and bury epstein news. the entire usa still operating my team vs your team. president trump is pedophile child rapist and noone can bother to care. sad times all around
Far too calmly. This is exactly why the Constitution requires Congress to declare war - so that we can't wind up in a war because of the decisions of one man.
This was true of past conflicts as well. Doe v. Bush tried to challenge the Iraq Resolution because Congress had not declared war, but the US Court of Appeals dismissed the case because Congress had not opposed funding the war. The sad reality is that this is what the people had voted for, and the government is still working as intended.
Sure, but do we agree that the unitedstatesian's (pet peeve: they shouldn't be called americans, per definition) Congress could at least stop one side of the war (the one that initiated the aggression). The Iranians would probably call that a victory, and probably not pursue further retaliation.
The US would then need to comply with whatever sanctions the UN might apply due to them having started an illegal war.
> The Iranians would probably call that a victory, and probably not pursue further retaliation.
I highly doubt it. Here are the facts from the viewpoint of Iran:
- The US and the UK overthrew the democratic iranian government of Mohammad Mosaddegh
- The US terminated the working nuclear deal.
- The US ambushed Iran twice in the midst of ongoing negotiations.
- Israel is on a conquest to annex new land and to rule over the middle east. At least that is likely there goal.
Iran clearly stated their demands. The US should pay up for the damage they caused and the US should give up its military bases in the Arab countries.
While the money will probably not be that big of a problem to negotiate, the military bases will be. At least Iran will insist on something substantive that guarantees that they are not ambushed a third time.
But from the non-Iranian point of view, those countries want those bases to protect them against Iran. So that's going to be problematic.
I mean, the US could unilaterally decide "no, we're not going to defend the Middle East anymore, good luck everybody" and leave. But it's not like the US is oppressing, say, Qatar by having a base there. They willingly let the US stay there.
> those countries want those bases to protect them against Iran.
As far as I know: Israel and Saudi Arabia want these bases. I do not know the current opinion of the other Arab countries.
> Qatar by having a base there. They willingly let the US stay there.
At least they are now noticing that there are risks in hosting the US military too.
> “One of the most significant outcomes of this war is the shattering of the concept of a regional security system in the Gulf region,” Mr. al-Ansari said. “The regional security framework in the Gulf was based on certain axioms. Many of these axioms have been bypassed in the current war.”
> Is it just me, or are we taking the beginning of Iraq War v 2 very calmly?
Iraq war is not a suitable comparison. That event was a decisive US victory that resulted from thorough planning, extensive international support and collaboration, and total commitment from all parties.
Trump's wars are none of the above. Mobilizing a couple thousand troops here and there for a war that can be orders of magnitude more intensive than Iraq War V2 and without any semblance of support is a clear sign of starting a war while signaling their own impending defeat.
Let's not fool ourselves: the only parties benefiting from this nonsense is Russia and China.
> Iraq war is not a suitable comparison. That event was a decisive US victory that resulted from thorough planning, extensive international support and collaboration, and total commitment from all parties.
I think you mean the Gulf War in the early 1990s. The Iraq War, 2003 - ~2011, had relatively little international support, was poorly planned (they promised no more than 6 weeks, had no plans for occupation, etc.), and was spent fighting Iranian-backed militias and ISIS.
The 2003 Iraq war was a pretty decisive military victory for the invaders. Iraqi command and control destroyed in the opening stages. About a month to complete occupation of the country.
The subsequent years were a complete clusterfuck. Largely because of a missing theory of victory, the inept neocons the administration selected to run the civilian side, and the lack of strategic military-civilian coordination.
What you say is essentially accurate and we're debating semantics, but about those semantics:
Wars end with political solutions (otherwise, people keep fighting), and the US didn't achieve a political solution the first month, and never achieved a particularly desirable one. One step they took was dissolving the Iraqi army or military, and those people reformed into militias that continued fighting the US. Was the war really over?
The US won initial battles, as expected. The war lasted much longer.
Granted! But that's insurgencies vs wars IMHO. In one, you have irregulars trying to bleed an occupying power. In the other, you have regular military forces.
The US is great at winning the latter, but sucks at winning the former (largely because of a lack of coherent political-diplomatic-military fusion on the US side).
> The US is great at winning the latter, but sucks at winning the former
Also, enemies aren't suicidal. Why would they take on US tanks, fighter planes, missiles, satellites, etc. for more than five minutes? They know they can't win that way so they quickly abandon it for what does have some success, irregular warfare / insurgency.
IIRC, the US debt is at 39 trillion right now, with no plan to pay it back. Which is logical, because it's unpayable. There's no way in the world that will ever be paid back. I still haven't seen anybody properly analyze how high the debt can go before it actually can't go any higher, but we're going to find out.
The problem is that the constitution doesn't allow for a wealth tax. If you remember, we had to pass an amendment to be able to levy a tax on income, and that amendment is clear in that it only applies to income.
Interestingly, it was also promised to be only 1% or so on the richest households, and it has become, er, different.
But more important to the point, as the government already taxes about 20% of income, that is equivalent to holding about 20% of the wealth, as the wealth is just an income generating device and the value of the wealth is the flow of income it generates, of which 20% is already taxed.
What I'd like to know is why people are obsessed about stocks and flows in completely different ways. For example, not caring about the deficit but worrying about the debt, or vice versa, or focusing on taxing wealth but not really caring about taxing income.
I think the idea of taxing income makes a lot of sense, and don't want the government to try to value assets, particularly illiquid assets. And if it was up to me, I would dramatically simplify the tax code to eliminate all deductions and tax all income at the same rate, regardless of source. No reason to have one tax rate for carried interest, another tax rate for dividend payments, a third tax rate for wage income. Treat all income the same, and apply a progressive rate to the total income. Your tax form should not be more than a page long.
Contemporary interpretation of the Constitution does not allow a wealth tax.
From Section 8: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States...
A future Congress could interpret this to mean paying off the debt is in the general welfare of the country. And if SCOTUS wants to beef, Congress could craft "exceptions" and "regulations" to their appellate power which is power explicitly granted to Congress.
"3 equal branches" is modern propaganda. Congress is the more powerful branch given its explicit power to control Executive function through budgets and strip SCOTUS justices of all but a few ceremonial powers to do with ambassadors and other foreign states. Then we might actually have a Judiciary again instead of Executive, Legislative, and SCOTUS.
But Congress is full of rich people who intentionally avoid flexing the full power against the other two branches.
> What I'd like to know is why people are obsessed about stocks and flows in completely different ways...focusing on taxing wealth but not really caring about taxing income.
Because wealth grows faster than income.
r > g
It's easy, especially for rich people with lots of wealth, to have low taxable income.
I disagree that r > g over long periods, rather there are some periods where it is less and others where it is more and it basically averages out to r = g. If you do not believe that, then you have to think that capital income will be larger than GDP, which is mathematically impossible, as capital income is one component of GDP and the ratio is relatively stable over time.
More importantly, it does not matter at all whether r > g, because both capital income and wage income are taxed. If you don't believe that, try not reporting your capital income and see how that works out.
However, you will say, long term dividend income is taxed at a lower rate, whereas wage income is taxed at a higher rate. Correct! That is why I said that the solution to that is not to impose a wealth tax, but to tax them at the same rate. All market income should be taxed at the same rate, and that solves your r > g non-problem.
Personally I feel that by using an asset as collateral the person is essentially “realizing” the gain (the person is formally and contractually saying the asset is worth at least this much and using it to exchange something of value, even if only in case of default) and should pay capital gain tax for however much the gain was based on assessed collateral value minus the cost basis. And the cost basis steps up to the assessed collateral value.
Yes, let's discuss this. By the way, for the r=g, head on over to measuringworth.com, which has long term GDP and interest rate data, and run the calculations, you'll see how r = g over long periods but swings above and below, it doesn't track it exactly. I used to be fascinated by this stuff and generated lots of charts and even had an econ blog but that was a long time ago. The data is out there.
In terms of borrowing against assets to "escape" paying taxes, I wonder if you have a problem with someone who borrows to pay their taxes. It's the same thing. At the end of the day, they will need to pay interest on the loan, and that rate will be more than the risk free rate.
What is strange is that you never hear the opposite argument:
If you want taxation to be based on spending rather than income, then you want consumption taxes. Now a lot of economists hate income taxes as a group and think only consumption should be taxed, in which case you make a billion but only pay taxes on what you spend.
Overall, do you think billionaires would fare better with consumption only taxes or with income only taxes? How many assets pay no interest ever? It's a weird argument to be making, that billionaires escape consumption taxes when they spend down their savings.
But even here, people are making a mistake, because eventually you need to sell assets to dispose of the loan, and that's when you pay taxes on the realized gains, with interest. And the interest rate charged to the billionare will be more than the risk free rate which the government can use to borrow, so if the government just borrows the expected amount of taxes and rolls over the loan, the government will outlive the billionare and when the estate is settled, all that spending, plus interest, will be realized gains (100% gains, remember) and the tax bill will be paid in full.
This is really no different than borrowing to pay your taxes. Sure, in a sense you "avoid" paying taxes, but not really.
So what you really want is to close the income tax loopholes. Treat inheritance income as income. Ban non-profits. Ban "foundations" that don't pay tax, etc. All you need to do is treat all income equally for tax purposes and you are fine. No one can escape taxes, even if they borrow to pay their taxes.
For rich individuals it could be the risk free rate. Banks can curry favor with rich individuals and gain other business if they do this.
> are making a mistake, because eventually you need to sell assets to dispose of the loan, and that's when you pay taxes on the realized gains, with interest
You seem clued in to this stuff. You really haven't heard of Buy-Borrow-Die?
The deficit/debt exist because US tax rates (even including fed+state+local) are so low compared to every other major advanced economy in the world, even before last year's "One Big Beautiful (Ugly?) Bill". In fact, the US could have raised rates by more than 15% and still been the lowest. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2025/ap...
If US tax rates were even just the average among other G7 countries, it would be trillions more than the deficit per year.
(The US also has the lowest spending (fed+state+local) among them as well, but even though our spending is the lowest among them, the tax rates are so very low they're still not enough to cover even the lower spending compared to them. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2025/Ap... )
Without any funny business (meaning no re-valuation of the debt, which I guess there are strategies for) and assuming an interest rate on the debt of between 3-5%, I figured between 10-20 years before the interest payments eat up most essential services.
Monetize it or default are the only options I think. Monetizing affects everyone while default only (directly) affects bond holders. Monetizing is much easier to obfuscate though so that is probably what will happen.
Perhaps, but the monetization would have to be pretty extreme. And that would send interest rates to the moon, making further borrowing difficult.
While these things are impossible to predict, my guess is that in a couple decades the government will do some sort of technical default. Force Treasury bond holders to exchange their current holdings at par for new bonds with longer maturities and artificially low interest rates. Politicians will be able to claim that no one has lost money since the nominal bond values will remain the same even though the market values will be much lower.
The other thing I expect to happen is that the government will force retirement accounts (both defined benefit pension plans and defined contribution 401k plans) to purchase Treasury bonds. Because of course they're so much "safer" for retirees than risky stocks.
the US has run deficits for years, so it's not reckless taxation in the form I think you mean. "Pay for its bills" would be a novel concept, involving undoing various "give money to rich people" tax cuts.
I think their point is that by giving the gov control of monetary policy, you give the executive branch access to an unrestricted lever of taxation. They support "normal" taxation because they are easier to control than inflation
It’s just embarrassing at this point. How long will the Americans put up with this humiliation ritual?
As long as a significant portion of the population continues voting for it.
There's still people out there that believe the west is a "democracy"? People really think voting, elections, politics in general is even real and not a reality show/circus act put on for the masses?
If you don't see why Trump is worse than Kamala or Clinton would have been, I don't know what to say. The reputation of the US is in the gutter. Even European people are now openly expressing their hatred.
Had the same thoughts earlier:
Even IF tomorrow would come a fresh "and super nice US president", Trump et al crushed so much that the damage is already severe and will be permanent for the future: US gov lost so much trust in more or less everything that was perceived as somehow reliable by others.
The damage is that big that -apart from BigTech- the US-industry will have a hard time coming
Well let’s hope, as Bush once said, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice… can’t get fooled again.”
Hopefully. They've bene fooled into voting for him 3 times already.
The US have been fooled by Israel for the past... thirty, forty years at least? Look who Trump is sending around the world to negotiate on behalf of the US: two committed Zionists, personal friends of Netanyahu and past financers of the Israeli army. The other negotiators regard them as Israeli assets, plain and simple. While they pretend to "negotiate", Israel launches surprise attacks that have not been agreed with the US and that forces them to intervene.
Either Russian propaganda is leaking into US, or people are being so easy to manipulate it's becoming scary.
What's the deal the US not having agency? Lol
Russia was manipulated by NATO and they were fooled over and over again, according to the state propaganda - if that was true, why are they still stuck with the fool who keeps being fooled? Isn't that the sign of a deficient leadership?
Same applies to the Trump administration, until when will that narrative stick?
Because the "common sense", a big trope used by both states propaganda, claims that you can only be fooled once lol
The US has an eternal fool on the throne. Common sense also claims that you can only declare bankruptcy once, and never with a casino, yet here we are.
It is also very clear that both the US and Israel have very different mission objectives, which is why there's no way out for this admin. A long war may destroy Iran but will also help them in the long run - a war that they're eager to fight. Furthermore it has been established that Trump was goaded into this war by his benefactors, as well as Netanyahu and Mohammed bin Salman.
What Israel and US (and MBS) don't understand is that they've just enabled a country 3 times the size of France to go militant, in their backyard.
So funny that you moved the discussion from Israel to Russia. But after checking your comments I see that Russia lives rent-free in your mind.
> Either Russian propaganda is leaking into US, or people are being so easy to manipulate it's becoming scary.
Manipulation, double standards and bias are very difficult to avoid and an average human with a job just have no time to verify everything, so they just consume and the more they consume the more they believe in it.
Coming from a 4 day old account with comments defending the capitulation of Ukraine.
> defending the capitulation of Ukraine
Could you elaborate on that? I never said anything negative about Ukraine. Your manipulation is not working.
No, I won't elaborate.
Stick to the topic instead of trying to deflect.
What did I say from my comment that was wrong regarding the propaganda trope?
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I read somewhere that Bush made this awkward figure of speech not because he didn't know the idiom, but because he realized too late that he'd be saying "shame on me" on air, which is apparently a phrase absolutely Verboten by political media advisors (because it could have been taken out of context and used by his adversaries). In a way that says a lot about the political culture that resulted in a figure like Trump, I think.
Seems like the better option is to simply say, "you know the rest of the saying".
Perhaps he actually just flubbed. Many such cases.
Meet the new boss…
That's not why they got this.
In fact they precisely voted someone promising no more wars, no more foreign meddling, and so on.
And they'll get wars and the same shit after they vote the other way too. Just like they got wars under Obama.
No matter who they vote, the bastards always win.
They voted for a proven con-man because they hated the idea of a black woman being president. US Racism - still going strong after 250 years...
>They voted for a proven con-man because they hated the idea of a black woman being president. US Racism - still going strong after 250 years...
Same US that put a black man in the house for two terms?
Maybe they just hated the idea of a shallow-as-they-come transparently-just-a-puppet empty-headed political careerist being president...
In fact no. It's well documented that the voters who put Trump in the White House weren't voting until Trump galvanized them. It's also been well known for centuries that white men are the single largest demographic in the US and that it is also the most fragmented one
>It's well documented that the voters who put Trump in the White House weren't voting until Trump galvanized them
It's even more well documented that Kamala is a "shallow-as-they-come transparently-just-a-puppet empty-headed political careerist", that even her own Party heads dismissed as inadequate decoration until Biden's faculties went even more downhill.
>It's also been well known for centuries that white men are the single largest demographic in the US and that it is also the most fragmented one
Which makes sense, since, native americans aside, it was such demographics that first populated and established the US, the overwhelming majority of the rest came later.
But it's irrelevant as an argument to what we're discussing.
There are plenty of excellent black women leaders - Kamala Harris was not one of those. Do not excuse the Democratic Party here with their dysfunctional internal infighting with just being down to racism.
Milquetoast uninspiring leader should still beat someone who outright hates everything about our country, divides rather than leads, and plans to sell our institutions for scrap value while putting the proceeds in his own pocket.
Although I think the people blaming it on racism are hopeful. The real answer is that it struck a chord with people who do not want women in leadership positions.
I remember reading an article when Harris was nominated, about how it was set up to be a "historic moment". Indeed, it was.
It was historic in the sense that there were no primaries, and that she was chosen by an embittered Biden to precisely result in this outcome.
I hadn't heard that motive specifically, care to send any links that substantiate it?
(to be clear, the article was of course using "historic" in the sense of the DEI groupthink - since there's no way Trump could win then won't it be super historic to have a Black woman president)
(and disclaimer: criticism of DEI virtue signalling is in no way an endorsement of Maggot vice signalling)
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/15/politics/joe-biden-legacy...
This was not a move by Biden to position Kamala for a loss, but he certainly did not want Pelosi and the Democratic establishment to gloat on a win. Which is why he immediately endorsed Kamala for the presidency, right after announcing he was stepping down from the race.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9fSK2AR594
Pelosi suggested there should have been an open primary after Biden dropped out. But Biden's endorsement ensured that they could not backtrack from Harris.
chosen by an embittered Biden? what kind of crazy hot take is this?
she was the VP of the US and 2nd in line for the presidency and had been hand picked for her role previously.
she was a incredibly obvious choice and would have had a very strong likelihood of getting the nod had there been actual primaries.
> she was the VP of the US and 2nd in line for the presidency and had been hand picked for her role previously.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/15/politics/joe-biden-legacy...
Selection as VP doesn't mean by default that the running candidate/party endorses the candidate. Most often, VPs are chosen because they are harmless enough to become opposition to them, as a concession to a former opponent, or in most cases to bridge the demographic gap and reach out to a particularly marginalized segment of voters who are not adequately represented in governance.
> she was a incredibly obvious choice and would have had a very strong likelihood of getting the nod had there been actual primaries.
Lol, hell no. She already lost the primaries multiple times. She was extremely unpopular. In the 2020 elections, running with Biden helped boost her profile slightly, but back then Biden was a much more stronger candidate and his choice of running mate wouldn't have mattered - Trump was extremely unpopular then.
you should familirize yourself with Kamala Harris before saying she is not a leader - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_Harris
While Democratic Party could have picked another candidate, to appease comments like this (I heard this too many times by a lot of very, very smart people so I am not demeaning your comment/opinion in any way) that other candidate would have been a white male
My point is that she was a poor candidate both times, and OP blaming this all on racism gives the DNC a pass when they really need to fix themselves. Obama would have beat Trump handily (a hypothetical), and not lost due to racism.
Is it strange that Obama and Harris are each only part black, but people refer to them as being black?
If we are like “black people can do everything” (which is true, of course), why are the political figureheads of that progressive dimension only half black?
And, beyond that, the black half of each is not even African American! Harris is African Jamaican, and Obama is African African.
If anything, in retrospect the birther thing back then seems like it may have been some absurdist well poisoning on totally valid criticism of Obama’s real heritage vs the media optics of same.
I thought civil rights was for African Americans? Why have all the political figureheads African Americans have, or have been, rallied behind, not themselves been African American at all?
Quite strange.
> Is it strange that Obama and Harris are each only part black, but people refer to them as being black?
Yeah - the "One Drop" PoV was beyond strange:
~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule> I thought civil rights was for African Americans?
It was for the benefit of anyone sent to the back of the bus, forced to drink from other fountains, lynched, etc. That included minorities other than "classic Black" and all the people treated as Black despite not appearing black.
I’m confused. From tone you seem to be comparing what I’m saying to the one drop rule as if this doesn’t support what I’m saying, but it does support what I’m saying.
Why are progressives using the one drop rule?
> Why are progressives using the one drop rule?
I suspect you meant to ask "Why are people using the One Drop Rule" ? - in no way is its use exclusive to ( USofA? ) "progressives".
No, I mean it is in line with the general character of conservatives to use the one drop rule, so I’m not surprised if they are using it.
Why are progressives using the one drop rule?
They're not using it directly .. they're part of a wider society that has been using it less and less explicitily for hundreds of years - children speak as their paerents do.
What has faded is the habit of exactly breaking down the bloodlines of anyone of mixed blood - mulatto, quadroon, octoroon, hexadecaroon and such terms are no longer in common use in this epoch.
So your theory is that the people who seem to center their worldview on racial equality (along with equality of the sexes) are subconsciously using racist language?
I mean, that’s possible, but I think a more plausible explanation is that the bulk of them are just getting riled up by media and aren’t really paying close attention to what’s going on.
> So your theory is ...
No. That's clearly your framing - don't draw me into your strawman.
> but I think a more plausible explanation is that
Or, that a majority people in the USofA that are described as black in the USofA have embraced that term, own it, and have used Black Twitter etc. while those adjacent to them ( the "progressives" ? ) use that term as for the most part the "black people" are comfortable with and haven't told them to bugger off and stop using it.
As happened with "ginger" and "nagger".
Late to reply, but assuming you are not American, Black folks in America are quite a spectrum of mixed race from their history. It's not unreasonable to call/identify themselves as black in this situation. I would not extrapolate to the extremes like some repliers are talking about "one drop", etc. That's not practically what the situation is.
0% chance Obama would have beat DJT in 2024, 0!
> gives the DNC a pass when they really need to fix themselves
I've been saying this since 2016, when HRC ran on a campaign of calling her opponents sexists and then blaming Russia for her loss. Sadly, they just shuffled aparatchniks around instead of cleaning house. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was put on the House Appropriations committee after stepping down from DNC chair. Donna Brazile was rewarded with the DNC chairmanship after slipping CNN town hall questions in advance to HRC. I suspect that the self-reflection to fix themselves is just not in the DNC DNA, sadly.
America runs better when both parties are effective. Currently, neither are.
> I've been saying this since 2016, when HRC ran on a campaign of calling her opponents sexists and then blaming Russia for her loss.
Trump's admin is overtly sexist, and Russian interference in the 2024 elections is extensive and well documented.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20...
You need to take a hard look at yourself and iron out all that cognitive dissonance.
I talked about DNC governance and accountability after the 2016 primary, not denying that Russia conducts influence operations or that sexism exists in politics. Pointing to Russian interference in 2024 does not answer whether the DNC cleaned house after 2016, and it does not change the fact that Wasserman Schultz landed on Appropriations and Brazile became interim DNC chair.
Weird that you would divert main factual points into non-sequiturs and then accuse me of cognitive dissonance. If you are free of cognitive dissonance, you can now address the points I made, not ones I did not.
> There are plenty of excellent black women leaders - Kamala Harris was not one of those. Do not excuse the Democratic Party (...)
As a non-USian this blend of opinion just reeks of blame-shifting.
You guys have a two-party system. One proposed a candidate that continued Biden's administration. The other was this hot mess. You guys picked this hot mess over Biden's regime.
If you looked at Trump and somehow decided a second Trump administration was better than a continuation of Biden's administration, the blame lays square on you. Not on Kamala. Not on the democratic party. Not on DEI. Nothing.
Own your mistakes. Do better.
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> non-USian
We prefer to be called Americans, which is also the correct demonym; it derives from United States of America, and isn't used by any other country in English. If you can call someone from South Africa a "South African" instead of an "SAian," then the same logic applies to make someone from the United States an "American."
However, Canada and Mexico are also in the North American continent, so "North American" also refers to Canadians and Mexicans, and that's specifying which part of the Americas we're talking about. The term "American" can equally apply to someone living in Brazil or Peru (or at least "South American").
To my mind, it always strikes me as hubris for the USA to pretend to be the whole American continent.
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But they had voted for a black man a few elections ago?
if racism is the main driver then why did Hilary lose?
Because the misogyny is even more pervasive.
Must be good to have an answer putting others down for everything without ever considering their perspective
I voted for kamala but i didnt find her appealing at all. i could never get a read on her, it was so strange.
To be fair, we also ended up with a proven con-man because Southern Democrats don't approve of gays enough to win the primary for Buttigieg and we ended up with Biden only 1 term.
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This both sides thing is stupid. Though there's always some form of military actions under either Democrats or Republicans, Republicans consistently start unilateral (and illegal) wars that leave us in massive quagmires, leave power imbalances in the middle east, and destabilize things considerably.
Trump won on anti-war talking points. His owners had other ideas.
Anyone that believed that should be locked in a psycward
They voted to "stick it to the libs" because of how much podcasts made them feel upset.
If it wasn't so tragic, it would be funny.
> And they'll get wars and the same shit after they vote the other way too
Eh?
Are you seriously comparing the disaster that is Mango Mussolini to the likes of (practically any) former president of the USA?
My friend, if all candidates are crap, you vote for the one that will do least harm. And then look at reforming a political system which leaves voters with such a poor choice.
> In fact they precisely voted someone promising no more wars, no more foreign meddling, and so on.
In fact they voted for a convicted felon and rapist that lies to everyone as soon as he opens his mouth. A serial bankrupt that stole money from a charity.
That was all on the table and yet his voters said loud and clear: That guy, that criminal, that one full of hate and anger, who lies and does about everything if it is in his self interest, that's the guy that represents us best.
e:
"No more wars" didn't seem to be their main issue. Just imagine, Trump won the war after a week of bombing. The Iran regime is toppled and a US-friendly dictator is installed.
Are really sure his voters would not celebrate the war and great general Trump?
Why on earth would anyone vote based on a Trump campaign promise?
I'm sorry but this is silly. I didn't vote for Obama either time but there is no comparison between Trump and Obama. Nothing Obama did had the negative impact like Trump's attack on Iran.
It’s been going on for a very long time. Remember USS Liberty?
It's everything they voted for...
If you take Russia as a boilerplate; never. Trump will "trickle down" the corruption to just enough people to keep everyone complacent and do as he wills.
I think "humiliation ritual" is a hugely important concept to keep in mind these days: It has a lot of explanatory power for the stuff we're seeing in politics. (For example, televised Trump cabinet meetings where the brown-nosing is almost beyond parody.)
A cult will demand members do things to "fit in", especially things that have a cost ("prove your sincerity") and also things which alienate them from the non-group. The latter is a ratcheting trap, leading to: "We are your only home now, nobody else will have you."
It’s the psychological effect of a Mormon mission. Spend two years getting hate from all angles, teaching you just how good your home, family, and church are. Every ex-mormon I know contemplated suicide on their mission. Every practicing Mormon I know has a story about “their lowest point” and how actually it was a really really good thing if you think about it sideways
As long as their leaders care more about Israel than the nation they were sworn in to serve.
The response from Ted Cruz in the interview with Tucker Carlson was glaring, yet refreshing - it went from silly conspiracy to fact, overnight.
> As long as their leaders care more about Israel than the nation they were sworn in to serve.
Trump's wars and military threats (Greenland, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, etc) have more to do with Trump's ties to Epstein than Israel's foreign policy. The extent to which Russia and Israel manipulate Trump with kompromat is to be determined.
So the Iraq war also was not tied to Israel's foreign policy? So it was just a coincidence that Netanyahu had been advocating for these wars? It was just a coincidence that the US got involved in last years 12 day war after Israel initiated the bombings in Iran?
Epstein represented the Rothschildes, the family that founded Israel. His girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell is a Mossad asset. Separating Trump’s influence by Epstein from Trump’s influence by Israel isn’t possible. The two are intertwined.
Quit it. Peddle your antisemitism elsewhere.
They’ll call you an antisemite, but never a liar.
Right, because we do believe that you believe what you're saying.
20 years.
So many people make so much money from it. I don’t personally this time but I did last time working for tech. Maybe I will again next time. This is the third time America been “humiliated” in my life and my life is awesome and getting better.
/s
But that is the overall sentiment if I had to describe it without pretense
Who are the hackers?
The whole Western power against a deserted country and the USA will send young walking soldiers. AI, robots/drones, space tech, international hegemony, all inferior to a guy with a long gun.
Can there be any acceptable way out of this that doesn’t look like the Nuremberg trials?
It’s not like there can be any doubt about the criminality of all this, especially after Hegseth's “no quarter” comments. Hegseth explicitly stated that the current US policy is to summarily execute surrendering combatants!
It’d be convenient though, we could even use the same rope to hang both Trump and Putin.
White House said they'll bomb the energy sector if Iranians don't comply. That would be a war crime. Yes, Russia has been doing that for years, but a US president saying that is a new low.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/trump-iran-trade-t...
Nuremberg trials sounds good to me. Not that it's realistic though.
the only way cheeto is going to peacefully leave office is force. he's facing so many incredibly felonies, as does his family and associates, that he / they cannot.
they will burn the US to the ground before they face justice. it will require force, and once you have a mob angry enough to do that we'll see Nuremberg. Or perhaps something closer to Spanish or French revolutionary actions.
Dunno. After Jan 6th we got Merrick Garland going um, er... for a few years until it was too late. I'm not holding my breath for Nuremberg 2.
sending young americans off to die for israels relgious war and bury epstein news. the entire usa still operating my team vs your team. president trump is pedophile child rapist and noone can bother to care. sad times all around
Is it just me, or are we taking the beginning of Iraq War v 2 very calmly?
Far too calmly. This is exactly why the Constitution requires Congress to declare war - so that we can't wind up in a war because of the decisions of one man.
Sure wish that was still in force...
Congress can stop it at any time. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5799286-iran-war-powers-...
This was true of past conflicts as well. Doe v. Bush tried to challenge the Iraq Resolution because Congress had not declared war, but the US Court of Appeals dismissed the case because Congress had not opposed funding the war. The sad reality is that this is what the people had voted for, and the government is still working as intended.
>Congress can stop it at any time.
No. Your congress can't stop it because it takes two to tango and Iran is clearly not willing to end the war just like that.
You people should have stopped that criminal long ago.
Sure, but do we agree that the unitedstatesian's (pet peeve: they shouldn't be called americans, per definition) Congress could at least stop one side of the war (the one that initiated the aggression). The Iranians would probably call that a victory, and probably not pursue further retaliation.
The US would then need to comply with whatever sanctions the UN might apply due to them having started an illegal war.
> The Iranians would probably call that a victory, and probably not pursue further retaliation.
I highly doubt it. Here are the facts from the viewpoint of Iran:
- The US and the UK overthrew the democratic iranian government of Mohammad Mosaddegh
- The US terminated the working nuclear deal.
- The US ambushed Iran twice in the midst of ongoing negotiations.
- Israel is on a conquest to annex new land and to rule over the middle east. At least that is likely there goal.
Iran clearly stated their demands. The US should pay up for the damage they caused and the US should give up its military bases in the Arab countries.
While the money will probably not be that big of a problem to negotiate, the military bases will be. At least Iran will insist on something substantive that guarantees that they are not ambushed a third time.
you also left out all of the now-burning Middle Eastern powers, all of whom also hate Iran, and who won't just go away.
The US can take their ball and go home to a different hemisphere, but ME violence will continue.
IMO the real question is how long the Arabs will let Israel dictate their foreign policy via the US
- Israel killed Irans negotiations last year as well.
But from the non-Iranian point of view, those countries want those bases to protect them against Iran. So that's going to be problematic.
I mean, the US could unilaterally decide "no, we're not going to defend the Middle East anymore, good luck everybody" and leave. But it's not like the US is oppressing, say, Qatar by having a base there. They willingly let the US stay there.
> those countries want those bases to protect them against Iran.
As far as I know: Israel and Saudi Arabia want these bases. I do not know the current opinion of the other Arab countries.
> Qatar by having a base there. They willingly let the US stay there.
At least they are now noticing that there are risks in hosting the US military too.
> “One of the most significant outcomes of this war is the shattering of the concept of a regional security system in the Gulf region,” Mr. al-Ansari said. “The regional security framework in the Gulf was based on certain axioms. Many of these axioms have been bypassed in the current war.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/24/world/middleeast/qatar-us...
> Is it just me, or are we taking the beginning of Iraq War v 2 very calmly?
Iraq war is not a suitable comparison. That event was a decisive US victory that resulted from thorough planning, extensive international support and collaboration, and total commitment from all parties.
Trump's wars are none of the above. Mobilizing a couple thousand troops here and there for a war that can be orders of magnitude more intensive than Iraq War V2 and without any semblance of support is a clear sign of starting a war while signaling their own impending defeat.
Let's not fool ourselves: the only parties benefiting from this nonsense is Russia and China.
> Iraq war is not a suitable comparison. That event was a decisive US victory that resulted from thorough planning, extensive international support and collaboration, and total commitment from all parties.
I think you mean the Gulf War in the early 1990s. The Iraq War, 2003 - ~2011, had relatively little international support, was poorly planned (they promised no more than 6 weeks, had no plans for occupation, etc.), and was spent fighting Iranian-backed militias and ISIS.
The 2003 Iraq war was a pretty decisive military victory for the invaders. Iraqi command and control destroyed in the opening stages. About a month to complete occupation of the country.
The subsequent years were a complete clusterfuck. Largely because of a missing theory of victory, the inept neocons the administration selected to run the civilian side, and the lack of strategic military-civilian coordination.
What you say is essentially accurate and we're debating semantics, but about those semantics:
Wars end with political solutions (otherwise, people keep fighting), and the US didn't achieve a political solution the first month, and never achieved a particularly desirable one. One step they took was dissolving the Iraqi army or military, and those people reformed into militias that continued fighting the US. Was the war really over?
The US won initial battles, as expected. The war lasted much longer.
Granted! But that's insurgencies vs wars IMHO. In one, you have irregulars trying to bleed an occupying power. In the other, you have regular military forces.
The US is great at winning the latter, but sucks at winning the former (largely because of a lack of coherent political-diplomatic-military fusion on the US side).
> The US is great at winning the latter, but sucks at winning the former
Also, enemies aren't suicidal. Why would they take on US tanks, fighter planes, missiles, satellites, etc. for more than five minutes? They know they can't win that way so they quickly abandon it for what does have some success, irregular warfare / insurgency.
Not to mention the first gulf war had UN support. (Back when the USA respected international law).
Including USSR!
I think this war has been planned copiously and the fact that the front man makes it look stupid and takes all the blame is part of the plan
this never ends well....
Yeah but he painted himself into a corner with the Hormuz thing.
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IIRC, the US debt is at 39 trillion right now, with no plan to pay it back. Which is logical, because it's unpayable. There's no way in the world that will ever be paid back. I still haven't seen anybody properly analyze how high the debt can go before it actually can't go any higher, but we're going to find out.
Private US wealth is in the range of 200-400 trillion. A blanket 1% annual wealth tax would wipe out the debt in 10-20 years.
75% of US debt is held domestically. So most of that money will go back into the country.
It's highly unlikely a lucrative revenue stream like this would ever go to paying off the debt. But theoretically the money exists.
The problem is that the constitution doesn't allow for a wealth tax. If you remember, we had to pass an amendment to be able to levy a tax on income, and that amendment is clear in that it only applies to income.
Interestingly, it was also promised to be only 1% or so on the richest households, and it has become, er, different.
But more important to the point, as the government already taxes about 20% of income, that is equivalent to holding about 20% of the wealth, as the wealth is just an income generating device and the value of the wealth is the flow of income it generates, of which 20% is already taxed.
What I'd like to know is why people are obsessed about stocks and flows in completely different ways. For example, not caring about the deficit but worrying about the debt, or vice versa, or focusing on taxing wealth but not really caring about taxing income.
I think the idea of taxing income makes a lot of sense, and don't want the government to try to value assets, particularly illiquid assets. And if it was up to me, I would dramatically simplify the tax code to eliminate all deductions and tax all income at the same rate, regardless of source. No reason to have one tax rate for carried interest, another tax rate for dividend payments, a third tax rate for wage income. Treat all income the same, and apply a progressive rate to the total income. Your tax form should not be more than a page long.
Contemporary interpretation of the Constitution does not allow a wealth tax.
From Section 8: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States...
A future Congress could interpret this to mean paying off the debt is in the general welfare of the country. And if SCOTUS wants to beef, Congress could craft "exceptions" and "regulations" to their appellate power which is power explicitly granted to Congress.
"3 equal branches" is modern propaganda. Congress is the more powerful branch given its explicit power to control Executive function through budgets and strip SCOTUS justices of all but a few ceremonial powers to do with ambassadors and other foreign states. Then we might actually have a Judiciary again instead of Executive, Legislative, and SCOTUS.
But Congress is full of rich people who intentionally avoid flexing the full power against the other two branches.
> What I'd like to know is why people are obsessed about stocks and flows in completely different ways...focusing on taxing wealth but not really caring about taxing income.
Because wealth grows faster than income.
r > g
It's easy, especially for rich people with lots of wealth, to have low taxable income.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Ce...
> not caring about the deficit but worrying about the debt
Are there people like that? The debt is the sum of all deficits.
I disagree that r > g over long periods, rather there are some periods where it is less and others where it is more and it basically averages out to r = g. If you do not believe that, then you have to think that capital income will be larger than GDP, which is mathematically impossible, as capital income is one component of GDP and the ratio is relatively stable over time.
More importantly, it does not matter at all whether r > g, because both capital income and wage income are taxed. If you don't believe that, try not reporting your capital income and see how that works out.
However, you will say, long term dividend income is taxed at a lower rate, whereas wage income is taxed at a higher rate. Correct! That is why I said that the solution to that is not to impose a wealth tax, but to tax them at the same rate. All market income should be taxed at the same rate, and that solves your r > g non-problem.
You can choose not to realize capital income. Borrow against assets.
If we're treating that as income too, then this is a different conversation.
Personally I feel that by using an asset as collateral the person is essentially “realizing” the gain (the person is formally and contractually saying the asset is worth at least this much and using it to exchange something of value, even if only in case of default) and should pay capital gain tax for however much the gain was based on assessed collateral value minus the cost basis. And the cost basis steps up to the assessed collateral value.
Yes, let's discuss this. By the way, for the r=g, head on over to measuringworth.com, which has long term GDP and interest rate data, and run the calculations, you'll see how r = g over long periods but swings above and below, it doesn't track it exactly. I used to be fascinated by this stuff and generated lots of charts and even had an econ blog but that was a long time ago. The data is out there.
In terms of borrowing against assets to "escape" paying taxes, I wonder if you have a problem with someone who borrows to pay their taxes. It's the same thing. At the end of the day, they will need to pay interest on the loan, and that rate will be more than the risk free rate.
What is strange is that you never hear the opposite argument:
If you want taxation to be based on spending rather than income, then you want consumption taxes. Now a lot of economists hate income taxes as a group and think only consumption should be taxed, in which case you make a billion but only pay taxes on what you spend.
Overall, do you think billionaires would fare better with consumption only taxes or with income only taxes? How many assets pay no interest ever? It's a weird argument to be making, that billionaires escape consumption taxes when they spend down their savings.
But even here, people are making a mistake, because eventually you need to sell assets to dispose of the loan, and that's when you pay taxes on the realized gains, with interest. And the interest rate charged to the billionare will be more than the risk free rate which the government can use to borrow, so if the government just borrows the expected amount of taxes and rolls over the loan, the government will outlive the billionare and when the estate is settled, all that spending, plus interest, will be realized gains (100% gains, remember) and the tax bill will be paid in full.
This is really no different than borrowing to pay your taxes. Sure, in a sense you "avoid" paying taxes, but not really.
So what you really want is to close the income tax loopholes. Treat inheritance income as income. Ban non-profits. Ban "foundations" that don't pay tax, etc. All you need to do is treat all income equally for tax purposes and you are fine. No one can escape taxes, even if they borrow to pay their taxes.
> that rate will be more than the risk free rate.
For rich individuals it could be the risk free rate. Banks can curry favor with rich individuals and gain other business if they do this.
> are making a mistake, because eventually you need to sell assets to dispose of the loan, and that's when you pay taxes on the realized gains, with interest
You seem clued in to this stuff. You really haven't heard of Buy-Borrow-Die?
https://smartasset.com/investing/buy-borrow-die-how-the-rich...
> Treat inheritance income as income
That works too.
> it's unpayable
The deficit/debt exist because US tax rates (even including fed+state+local) are so low compared to every other major advanced economy in the world, even before last year's "One Big Beautiful (Ugly?) Bill". In fact, the US could have raised rates by more than 15% and still been the lowest. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2025/ap...
If US tax rates were even just the average among other G7 countries, it would be trillions more than the deficit per year.
(The US also has the lowest spending (fed+state+local) among them as well, but even though our spending is the lowest among them, the tax rates are so very low they're still not enough to cover even the lower spending compared to them. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2025/Ap... )
Without any funny business (meaning no re-valuation of the debt, which I guess there are strategies for) and assuming an interest rate on the debt of between 3-5%, I figured between 10-20 years before the interest payments eat up most essential services.
Monetize it or default are the only options I think. Monetizing affects everyone while default only (directly) affects bond holders. Monetizing is much easier to obfuscate though so that is probably what will happen.
Perhaps, but the monetization would have to be pretty extreme. And that would send interest rates to the moon, making further borrowing difficult.
While these things are impossible to predict, my guess is that in a couple decades the government will do some sort of technical default. Force Treasury bond holders to exchange their current holdings at par for new bonds with longer maturities and artificially low interest rates. Politicians will be able to claim that no one has lost money since the nominal bond values will remain the same even though the market values will be much lower.
The other thing I expect to happen is that the government will force retirement accounts (both defined benefit pension plans and defined contribution 401k plans) to purchase Treasury bonds. Because of course they're so much "safer" for retirees than risky stocks.
the US has run deficits for years, so it's not reckless taxation in the form I think you mean. "Pay for its bills" would be a novel concept, involving undoing various "give money to rich people" tax cuts.
In the current environment, very unlikely.
Printing money is monetary policy. Running a huge debt is fiscal policy.
You're advocating for more taxation to cover the debt, yes?
I think their point is that by giving the gov control of monetary policy, you give the executive branch access to an unrestricted lever of taxation. They support "normal" taxation because they are easier to control than inflation