dr p runs for president

[Avatar4321]

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2016/05/daniel-c-peterson-for-president.html

need a running mate?

[thesometimesaint]

I honestly fear for my country.

[Tacenda]

https://olddominionlibertarian.wordpress.com/2016/01/14/how-the-constitution-could-let-the-house-stop-both-clinton-and-trump/

[The Nehor]

On 5/6/2016 at 10:03 AM, thesometimesaint said:

I honestly fear for my country.

We've survived far worse.

On 5/6/2016 at 10:10 AM, Tacenda said:

https://olddominionlibertarian.wordpress.com/2016/01/14/how-the-constitution-could-let-the-house-stop-both-clinton-and-trump/

Very unlikely. This was an argument Perot supporters threw around when I was young. With the way the electoral college works you would have to convince an entire state to vote for someone over the two party candidates. Possible but very unlikely.

[Jeanne]

The past six months though..for me..have been so enjoyable.  What i mean is..this is history happening and though it is scary in a way...I am so anxious to see what happens.  This country just doesn't know..that Henrietta Bowlregard (that's me)   Henny the baker, would make great president!!  Free doughnuts!  How about as VP for Dr.  Peterson Joe the Plumber or Pat Paulsen...????

Edited May 8, 2016 by Jeanne

[Stargazer]

According to the news I have seen, William Kristol (editor of the conservative Weekly Standard) has been trying to talk Mitt Romney into an independent run for President.  Mitt has said he won't run, though.

If Mitt did run, then there would be a strong likelihood that no candidate would attain a majority in the Electoral College.  This would throw the election into the House of Representatives, and there's a good chance if that happens that Mitt would be elected President (since the House is majority GOP).

[TheSkepticChristian]

55 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

If Mitt did run, then there would be a strong likelihood that no candidate would attain a majority in the Electoral College.  This would throw the election into the House of Representatives, and there's a good chance if that happens that Mitt would be elected President (since the House is majority GOP).

Peterson and many more in Utah are absolutely certain that their conservative views are correct. 

[Jeanne]

I heard something about Scott Bradley here in Logan wanting to be VP...to who, I don't know.

[The Nehor]

8 hours ago, Jeanne said:

The past six months though..for me..have been so enjoyable.  What i mean is..this is history happening and though it is scary in a way...I am so anxious to see what happens.  This country just doesn't know..that Henrietta Bowlregard (that's me)   Henny the baker, would make great president!!  Free doughnuts!  How about as VP for Dr.  Peterson Joe the Plumber or Pat Paulsen...????

I was really hoping for a Trump vs. Sanders election as the political theater would have been beautiful. I guess I look like Nero fiddling while Rome burns except I don't think in this case that Rome is actually burning. Every election I have witnessed has been elevated by some saints to be an apocalyptic choice between good and evil and if we lose the nation was doomed. I don't know how they keep believing the same thing every election cycle.

[Jeanne]

18 hours ago, The Nehor said:

I was really hoping for a Trump vs. Sanders election as the political theater would have been beautiful. I guess I look like Nero fiddling while Rome burns except I don't think in this case that Rome is actually burning. Every election I have witnessed has been elevated by some saints to be an apocalyptic choice between good and evil and if we lose the nation was doomed. I don't know how they keep believing the same thing every election cycle.

Trump vs. Sanders doesn't seem too impossible..the man is hangin' in there..I keep waiting for Hillary's arrest.  Interesting times.

[The Nehor]

7 hours ago, Jeanne said:

Trump vs. Sanders doesn't seem too impossible..the man is hangin' in there..I keep waiting for Hillary's arrest.  Interesting times.

They are not going to arrest her. Nor do I think they should. Her actions were stupid but almost certainly not malevolent.

[Meadowchik]

On Monday, May 09, 2016 at 7:34 AM, The Nehor said:

I was really hoping for a Trump vs. Sanders election as the political theater would have been beautiful. I guess I look like Nero fiddling while Rome burns except I don't think in this case that Rome is actually burning. Every election I have witnessed has been elevated by some saints to be an apocalyptic choice between good and evil and if we lose the nation was doomed. I don't know how they keep believing the same thing every election cycle.

It's a tendency not limited to LDS but many. The problem is that we are watching how it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy: 

Obama is seen as a messiah figure by some supporters, this gets trumped up and opponents liken him to an anti-Christ. What can you do to counter the effects of an anti-Christ? Who is better?

For some, apparently, no one could be worse than Obama or Clinton. Anyone would be better.

That's how Trump is winning. He taps into that same irrational zeal that makes Obama a savoir or anti-Christ, sideways: since the war is on, it's become acceptable and even desirable to push a despicable candidate, as long as he is perceived as a fighter who stubbornly refuses compromise, concrete or rhetorical.

We now have quite likely the worst nominee in history ready to take the helm of a major political party. It's bad.

[Jeanne]

9 hours ago, The Nehor said:

They are not going to arrest her. Nor do I think they should. Her actions were stupid but almost certainly not malevolent.

Kinda sorta..One would have to wonder if this had been someone else...would they be in more trouble??

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, Jeanne said:

Kinda sorta..One would have to wonder if this had been someone else...would they be in more trouble??

Possibly, and her being that careless definitely makes me not want to vote for her. They might be in a little more legal trouble but in a lot less media trouble. There were plenty of people gladdened that it happened because it gave them ammunition. The desire for our enemies to be as bad as possible and taking secret glee in it is the kind of thinking that turns people into Devils both metaphorically and literally.

[Jeanne]

48 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Possibly, and her being that careless definitely makes me not want to vote for her. They might be in a little more legal trouble but in a lot less media trouble. There were plenty of people gladdened that it happened because it gave them ammunition. The desire for our enemies to be as bad as possible and taking secret glee in it is the kind of thinking that turns people into Devils both metaphorically and literally.

I agree with you there...it is scary that the attacks are so bad and we can't get any real good consistent answers to the real issues that need to be dealt with.  I don't necessarily want her in jail or for president but I think our laws should be fair to rich and the poor.

Edited May 10, 2016 by Jeanne

[The Nehor]

8 hours ago, Jeanne said:

I agree with you there...it is scary that the attacks are so bad and we can't get any real good consistent answers to the real issues that need to be dealt with.  I don't necessarily want her in jail or for president but I think our laws should be fair to rich and the poor.

My honest guess is that if it was found that someone else lower on the totem pole was caught doing this they would be fired as quietly as possible.

[Robert F. Smith]

On 5/9/2016 at 11:34 PM, The Nehor said:

I was really hoping for a Trump vs. Sanders election as the political theater would have been beautiful. I guess I look like Nero fiddling while Rome burns except I don't think in this case that Rome is actually burning. Every election I have witnessed has been elevated by some saints to be an apocalyptic choice between good and evil and if we lose the nation was doomed. I don't know how they keep believing the same thing every election cycle.

Except when Adolf Hitler was democratically appointed as Chancellor of Germany.

[The Nehor]

8 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Except when Adolf Hitler was democratically appointed as Chancellor of Germany.

He wasn't elected. President Hindenburg appointed him Chancellor in the hopes he could form a working government in the politically fractured country. The Nazis had a majority partially due to the Brownshirt reign of terror to intimidate opposing voters. To be fair they just were better at it then the thugs in the other parties.

If Clinton or Hillary form groups of thugs to intimidate voters I will start comparing them to Hitler. Voter ID laws are the closest we have come lately.

[Stargazer]

On 5/9/2016 at 5:39 PM, TheSkepticChristian said:

Peterson and many more in Utah are absolutely certain that their conservative views are correct. 

And by and large, they are correct!

[TheSkepticChristian]

1 hour ago, Stargazer said:

And by and large, they are correct!

Are you sure? Economics is not Science, there is no empirical evidence for many of the economic proposals. 

[Stargazer]

On 5/12/2016 at 11:33 PM, TheSkepticChristian said:

Are you sure? Economics is not Science, there is no empirical evidence for many of the economic proposals. 

Not sure that you can say that economics is not science.  Economics is largely based on human psychology, and it's true we don't have a very good handle on some of that, but there are things which can be depended upon.

• What you pay for, you get more of.  Illustrations:
  • the horseless carriage was an innovation that few people were interested in, but as more people were willing to shell out cash for them, the number of manufacturers increased, which caused competition, which caused prices to drop, which required increased efficiencies in manufacturing, which caused further drops in prices, leading to more people being able to afford automobiles, which caused more manufacturers to enter the market, and so on.  
  • the War on Poverty was intended to help fatherless households, and while it did help some of them, what it caused more of was fatherless households, since mothers could replace sometimes unreliable male partners with reliable government handouts -- the whole program preferred single mothers over married mothers, and led to an enormous increase in illegitimate births, children growing up without fathers, and created a multi-generational epidemic of dependence on government largesse.  The side effect of creating more Democrat voters might have been unintentional.  Or maybe not.
• Increased taxation causes loss of revenue
  • In 1990, when the Bush administration raised the federal luxury tax on yachts costing more than $100K was increased to 10% in order to bring in more revenue, yacht buyers started buying cheaper yachts, bought them from non-US suppliers, or stopped buying yachts entirely.  As a result, far less tax revenue was collected than before, many workers were laid off (losing the tax revenue from their income), and some businesses went bankrupt (and came off the tax rolls).
  • When President Kennedy lowered income tax rates, ironically revenue to the federal government did not go down, it went up.  Obviously, you can't keep lowering rates forever, since eventually it reaches 0% and there's no revenue.  But you can reach a "sweet spot", where taxation does not drag down innovation and productivity.  Unfortunately, some of our politicians forget that the purpose of taxation is to raise revenue for government operations, not to punish the rich so their constituency will cheer them for "socking it to the fat cats."  

Much of this is just plain common sense.  Also, there is the fact that it is difficult to only do one thing.  Unintended consequences plague many attempts by government to pursue one policy or another.  

Many of our politicians have never run businesses before, and they propose all kinds of nutty, counterproductive ways of screwing up economies.  I have to say that the left is most guilty of this, but the right is not without fault, either.

Also, many economists have come up with theories based not on facts, but on airy wishes.  Karl Marx and Maynard Keynes being good examples.  Marx took the "labor theory of value" as a true axiom -- which is stated that the value of a thing is indicated by how much labor is poured into it -- because he wanted the worker to be preferred over the industrialist or bourgeoisie. Unfortunately, though mud pies and bread may require similar amounts of labor to produce, their value is completely different.  Also, two chefs can take the same ingredients and produce completely different products.  One might be a delectable apple pie, but the other might be an inedible mess.  Regardless of whether both took the same amount of effort to make.

I guess that you might be righter than you know, however.  Marx is still considered by many to be a great genius, despite the fact that his proposals have caused nothing but misery everywhere they were tried.  There is certainly no empirical evidence that Marx made any kind of sense.  But there is empirical evidence that a free-market economy benefits practically everyone.  You live in a place where that has been proven.

[TheSkepticChristian]

53 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

  Economics is largely based on human psychology,

Economists, entrepreneurs, and business managers have their ideology. Some are conservative, others are progressive, others are libertarian. 

52 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Not sure that you can say that economics is not science.

I say economics is not science because many economic theories have not been empirically verified.

54 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

• Increased taxation causes loss of revenue
  • In 1990, when the Bush administration raised the federal luxury tax on yachts costing more than $100K was increased to 10% in order to bring in more revenue, yacht buyers started buying cheaper yachts, bought them from non-US suppliers, or stopped buying yachts entirely.  As a result, far less tax revenue was collected than before, many workers were laid off (losing the tax revenue from their income), and some businesses went bankrupt (and came off the tax rolls).

The world is more complicated than that, it's not black and white. You can point to some examples, but I can point to other examples. 

[Stargazer]

3 hours ago, TheSkepticChristian said:

Economists, entrepreneurs, and business managers have their ideology. Some are conservative, others are progressive, others are libertarian. 

I say economics is not science because many economic theories have not been empirically verified.

The world is more complicated than that, it's not black and white. You can point to some examples, but I can point to other examples. 

Of course it's not black and white.  It is fairly reliable, however, to say that when government imposes "brakes" such as taxation and regulations, the economy will slow down.  Sometimes what is intended to help will hinder.  

But on the other hand, can you point to situations when increasing taxation caused economic growth, reduced unemployment, and increased prosperity?  I doubt it.  You can probably point to situations when the economy was already on an upswing and additional taxation did not cause it to slow down appreciably -- but it hardly proves that taxation is good.  

I can tell you all about economic theories that have not been empirically verified, and ones that are clearly bogus, but they still have their fanboys.  Karl Marx is still counted as a minor deity in some quarters, even though his theories have proven again and again to cause nothing but disaster.  The free market system, however, while of course imperfect has provided more benefits for more people than any other economic system ever invented.  Even Ben and Jerry, avowed socialists, have to provide decent products or else they would go out of business.  There are facts which remain facts even if some people don't like them.  For example, for any given commodity at a given time there is a price which will clear the market.  That price may be high or it may be low, but if a commodity is judged to have a fair price by consumers, the manufacturer will be able to sell as much of it as it can produce, depending upon need.  If such a commodity is taxed, however, this may distort the market for it by raising the price above the market-clearing price, and the manufacturer may not be able to sell as much as it produces.  At that price.

[TheSkepticChristian]

7 hours ago, Stargazer said:

 however, to say that when government imposes "brakes" such as taxation and regulations, the economy will slow down.  Sometimes what is intended to help will hinder.  

That is not true, there are a lot of business owners, economists, and even CEOs that disagree. For example Harvard economists endorsed Sanders, the CEOs Ben and Jerry also endorsed Sanders.

Look at the minimum wage, when the minimum wage was worth 11 dollars  an hour (adjusted to 2016) in 1968 the unemployment rate was decreasing. 

 

 

 

Edited May 15, 2016 by TheSkepticChristian

[The Nehor]

On May 12, 2016 at 1:33 AM, TheSkepticChristian said:

Are you sure? Economics is not Science, there is no empirical evidence for many of the economic proposals. 

Economics is a funny field. The first premise in prediction is that people are rational. Economists know they are not but that is the only good starting place. Economics is applied psychology and people be crazy.