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PoliGAF 2017 |OT2| Well, maybe McMaster isn't a traitor.

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Is there any truth to "Obamacare will implode if we don't do anything!"? I keep hearing it, and my dad loves repeating it.

My uneducated guess is that the only thing that would cause it to implode would be republicans crippling it in some way. Am I wrong?

There's some truth to it. The penalties for healthy, young people not buying insurance aren't strong enough so the pools have too many old, sick people which drives costs up. That combined with the Trump administration actively working against the ACA could really weaken the plan. Which will drive millions of people out of insurance and increase overall healthcare costs. Yay?
 

Grym

Member
Is there any truth to "Obamacare will implode if we don't do anything!"? I keep hearing it, and my dad loves repeating it.

My uneducated guess is that the only thing that would cause it to implode would be republicans crippling it in some way. Am I wrong?

http://www.businessinsider.com/cbo-report-insurance-market-death-spiral-obamacare-trump-2017-3

In their sales pitch for the American Health Care Act, House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republicans have maintained that replacing the Affordable Care Act is necessary because the healthcare law, better known as Obamacare, is "collapsing."

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, evidently, disagrees.

In the CBO's report predicting the effects of the AHCA, the nonpartisan budget office on Monday said the individual health-insurance marketplace under both the current system and the proposed system would be stable.

<snip>
 

Vixdean

Member
The biggest current threat to Obamacare right now is Republicans trying to get rid of the cost-sharing subsidies, which help low income people pay their deductibles and co-pays. The real problem with that one is it's currently being contested in court, so all the administration has to do is stop defending it.

The problem for them is that even though they didn't repeal it, they still own anything that happens in healthcare, especially if they keep actively sabotaging it via executive actions. Trump's "blame the Democrats" plea just doesn't fly when you control the entire government.
 
while yeah, technically the middle class are the bourgeoise, it is quite common amongst the middle class and those under to think that bourgeoise are the 0.1%, a la rich kids of instagram

Was errywhere when i was in a private school, oddly.

I particularly like how old money despises new money.
It's the same problem with people thinking "Hoi Polloi" refers to the rich. It means the masses, or the common people, the proletariat!
 

kirblar

Member
I mean, the New Dealers did a pretty good job of it and we got the postwar economy at the same time so I don't think this is true? I don't think monopoly power is a natural consequence of urbanization.
In the New Deal era, the current state of technology and communications (i.e., there wasn't much) strengthened locals' bargaining position. That doesn't exist in today's world.

Centralized power is also not monopoly power. We're not a nation of farmers anymore. It IS a consequence of urbanization because the breakdown in social networks/norms you get means that you need a stronger police force and stronger economic regulation and enforcement.

Inequality between firms as an explanation for what's going on here is something people are looking at, and they're finding that it's driving part of this - https://hbr.org/cover-story/2017/03/corporations-in-the-age-of-inequality?utm_campaign=hbr&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social (I think the conclusions at the end are....not very well thought out and sort of ridiculous, but the data is interesting.) If companies and industries are largely having results pushed by superperformers with the rest playing catch-up, it has a lot of implications that need to be taken into account.
IT and automation. This dynamic appears to be driven largely by technology. My research and other studies suggest that between-firm pay inequality has grown faster in industries that spend more on IT. Investments in technology allow successful online firms to rapidly scale up and reap the benefits of network effects. In this way, leading companies such as Amazon and Facebook dominate their markets. Offline, improved enterprise software and automation of routine tasks make it far easier to manage and grow large businesses, from Shake Shack (burgers) to Xiaomi (smartphones).
 

DonShula

Member
Trump surrogates are now accusing Obama of being a time traveler (not an Onion article). There's video at the linked tweet.

"A Trump surrogate accused Obama of golfing after Daniel Pearl's murder – 6 years before he was elected president" https://www.buzzfeed.com/tasneemnas...earl-harbor?bftwnews&utm_term=4ldqpgc#4ldqpgc https://twitter.com/BuzzFeedNews/status/846745665019564033/video/1"

https://twitter.com/BuzzFeedNews/status/846745665019564033

As much as I hate the shill in question, this is the type of stuff people should let go. She used the wrong journalist's name, but what she claims still happened to another journalist. Making fun of her on Twitter and turning it into a "Obama golfed when JFK was shot" meme is petty and serves no purpose. It just gives the right (edit: followers on the right) fuel to claim that they aren't taken seriously.
 
Who cares when the president golfs. It's not worth discussing. Trump's incompetency has nothing to do with his weekend schedule, and Obama's competency had nothing to do with his.
 
House Majority Whip: "We are closer to repealing Obamacare today than we were on Friday."


....

hVYYpMIprcL_YFkSDleUL3HWToY=.gif


Who cares when the president golfs. It's not worth discussing. Trump's incompetency has nothing to do with his weekend schedule, and Obama's competency had nothing to do with his.

It's a hypocrisy story and ,for whatever reason, hypocrisy stories are the life blood of D.C. reporting.
 
Who cares when the president golfs. It's not worth discussing. Trump's incompetency has nothing to do with his weekend schedule, and Obama's competency had nothing to do with his.
It should be a non-issue but Trump made it one by spending his time tweeting about how useless Obama was due to the amount of time he was spending on the golf course.

So /of course/ he's gonna get called out about it now that he spends every weekend golfing. More importantly - doing so at Mara-a-lago which is costing the taxpayer obscene money.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
I agree, I can't wait to move! I don't think anyone was really disagreeing with cities being awesome.

I mean, the New Dealers did a pretty good job of it and we got the postwar economy at the same time so I don't think this is true? I don't think monopoly power is a natural consequence of urbanization.

I think large cities are very compatible with what we consider "democratic socialism", don't get me wrong. That last bit was more about the sort of people who unironically talk about the need to "dismantle the state"
 
CBS has the receipts:

@CBSNews
JUST IN: A 3/24 letter from DOJ to Sally Yates states she must get authorization from WH to testify about convos w/ WH, CBS News can confirm

C8BD1dRWkAINS8e.jpg


This is the first real piece of evidence showing that the White House is attempting to stop Congress' investigations. It's going to be more and more difficult for them to run from this. Even if Yates is never able to testify to Congress on this, she will just end up testifying to Scott Pelly. The WH can't unfuck this chicken.
 

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
CBS has the receipts:

@CBSNews
JUST IN: A 3/24 letter from DOJ to Sally Yates states she must get authorization from WH to testify about convos w/ WH, CBS News can confirm

C8BD1dRWkAINS8e.jpg


This is the first real piece of evidence showing that the White House is attempting to stop Congress' investigations. It's going to be more and more difficult for them to run from this. Even if Yates is never able to testify to Congress on this, she will just end up testifying to Scott Pelly. The WH can't unfuck this chicken.

LOL
 

rjinaz

Member
Trump surrogates are now accusing Obama of being a time traveler (not an Onion article). There's video at the linked tweet.

"A Trump surrogate accused Obama of golfing after Daniel Pearl's murder – 6 years before he was elected president" https://www.buzzfeed.com/tasneemnas...earl-harbor?bftwnews&utm_term=4ldqpgc#4ldqpgc https://twitter.com/BuzzFeedNews/status/846745665019564033/video/1"

https://twitter.com/BuzzFeedNews/status/846745665019564033

An honest mistake. But fuck, she deserves it. She was vocal about Obama playing golf and now has no problem with Trump doing it so often it's comical.
 

thefro

Member
CBS has the receipts:

@CBSNews
JUST IN: A 3/24 letter from DOJ to Sally Yates states she must get authorization from WH to testify about convos w/ WH, CBS News can confirm

C8BD1dRWkAINS8e.jpg


This is the first real piece of evidence showing that the White House is attempting to stop Congress' investigations. It's going to be more and more difficult for them to run from this. Even if Yates is never able to testify to Congress on this, she will just end up testifying to Scott Pelly. The WH can't unfuck this chicken.

I think legally the WH can't stop Yates from testifying since she's doing it voluntarily... worst that could happen to her is she'd be disbarred and her testimony about contacting the senior official wouldn't be admissible in a court case involving some of the Trump WH cronies. But typically they stay hands-off when Congress does stuff.
 

Dan

No longer boycotting the Wolfenstein franchise
US Economic Confidence Drops to Lowest Level Since Election
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Americans' confidence in the U.S. economy tumbled along with the Dow Jones industrial average last week. Though still in positive territory, Gallup's U.S. Economic Confidence Index (ECI) dropped six points to a score of +5 for the week ending March 26. This is the lowest weekly average since the presidential election in November.

...

Still, confidence did not drop evenly across party lines. Rank-and-file Republicans became significantly less confident in the economy last week, with their index score falling to a still-robust +42 from +52 the week before. Independents, too, lost confidence, with their score retreating back into negative territory to -1 from +6 the previous week. Democrats' confidence in the economy changed little, with their current -20 score similar to the -18 they had in the week prior.

...

Americans' assessments of current economic conditions took a seven-point hit for the week ending March 26 after reaching a high of +17 in the prior week. This loss marked the largest drop for this component since the federal government shutdown in October 2013. The current +10 score is the result of 32% of Americans rating the economy "excellent" or "good," and 22% rating it "poor."
Interesting look at how some people are losing confidence in the economy. Trump's honeymoon period imploded last week.
 

Vixdean

Member
I just don't know how anyone could be confident about anything. While the underpinnings of the economy are strong and there's good momentum, our executive is being run by idiots. So far that's actually prevented them from doing as much damage as they could have, but when a real crisis needs managing, it's going to be a shit show.
 
CBS has the receipts:

@CBSNews
JUST IN: A 3/24 letter from DOJ to Sally Yates states she must get authorization from WH to testify about convos w/ WH, CBS News can confirm

C8BD1dRWkAINS8e.jpg


This is the first real piece of evidence showing that the White House is attempting to stop Congress' investigations. It's going to be more and more difficult for them to run from this. Even if Yates is never able to testify to Congress on this, she will just end up testifying to Scott Pelly. The WH can't unfuck this chicken.
WH instead made Nunes pull the hearing in order to not respond to Yates. No meeting, no authorization!
 
Who cares when the president golfs. It's not worth discussing. Trump's incompetency has nothing to do with his weekend schedule, and Obama's competency had nothing to do with his.

It's the amount that he golfs. It's absurd. He's going to absolutely shatter the record for # of vacation days taken at this rate going at least once every week.

But I'm not complaining. More time he spends vacationing and not doing his job the better, honestly.
 

ZOONAMI

Junior Member
I think the issue with Trump is that he is promoting his own brand and properties on American tax payer money.

Yep, not just that, but if foreign governments are paying trump properties for lodging or other amenities it's in direct violation of the emoluments clause.

Not to mention the increased security costs of doing everything in Florida instead of camp David or the WH.
 
So do we think they roll the next ACA repeal attempt into tax reform? Or, even with Scalise chirping about being close to repeal, they'll still never get anything through the Senate, so I have no idea why I'm worried about this.
 
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