Would the country be better off if....
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I don't really think you're in a place to get sensitive about what exactly you did or did not say when your side of the discussion has always been about trying to convince everybody that it's silly to believe president A is better for the economy than president B. All other hand-wavy characterizations of whatever it is you think you're arguing against are straw men. ("A president's effect on the economy is overstated", etc.)
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@Horace Nice trolling. No one is sensitive. There’s a difference between what Larry said and what I said.
Larry thinks the economy is gonna tank like Krugman and others were predicting if the wrong side gets elected.
It’s a matter of perspective and proportion.
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@Horace said in Would the country be better off if....:
I'm not trolling, Xenon. I am noting that your side of this discussion (which you inherited from TG) has from the get-go been about trying to convince people that they shouldn't have an opinion about which president is better for the economy.
Well that’s your opinion about what I said and it’s wrong.
I also didn’t inherit it, that was the first time I talked about it with you.
I can find earlier threads with others.
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The discussion as it's gone back to the old forum has been about whether it's reasonable to think Trump would be better for the economy than his opponent. I struggle to imagine why anybody would care about a discussion of presidential effects on the economy in the abstract.
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@Horace well, I didn’t bring it up in this thread. I was specifically called out for having that belief.
If that’s the question, then I’d say - probably yes, since dems have a proclivity to ratchet up spending.
But even this round with Trump. I’m a fan of lower corporate tax. But the overall decrease in tax burden (across all types of tax) - lead to higher debt. Plus with the pretty cheap money floating around, companies didn’t even invest very much.
Better for the economy is a relative term (we talking near term or long term). I’d argue that if we’re not paying down debt at the top of biz cycle, we’ll never pay it and that’s bad for the economy in the long term.
Anyways - that’s all to say, in the arc of history it’s still too late to say if Trump was good or bad for the economy. If we hit another technology fueled productivity surge and outgrow our debt - sure, Trump would have overall been good.
If we get into a bad fiscal/monetary spiral caused by the debt in 10 years - he’s probably going to be seen as part of the problem.
But to answer your question - it’s reasonable to assume that Trump is better than a Democrat on the economy. And I’d probably think on-balance the same.
The best outcome would have been a Republican who kept the debt in the Overton window. Dems ain’t doin that. (Hell I’d take having an Overton window)
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Great. Glad to agree about that. But I have never cared much about anybody's opinion about which president or political party is better for the economy. I've more been arguing over the course of these threads that it's ok to have that opinion and consider it important enough to sway one's vote. Maybe nobody wants to own it now, but in fact the other side of the discussion has always been about hand wavy notions that Presidents have random, undefinable, or no important effect on the economy or voters' money in general.
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"I’m a fan of lower corporate tax. But the overall decrease in tax burden (across all types of tax) - lead to higher debt. "
That is flat out false. Lowering the amount of money the government takes out of the taxpayers pocket has absolutely nothing to do with how much the government spends.
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@Horace said in Would the country be better off if....:
Maybe nobody wants to own it now, but in fact the other side of the discussion has always been about hand wavy notions that Presidents have random, undefinable, or no important effect on the economy or voters' money in general.
Why do you think it is that the stock market has performed so much better under Democratic administrations?
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@jon-nyc said in Would the country be better off if....:
@Horace said in Would the country be better off if....:
Maybe nobody wants to own it now, but in fact the other side of the discussion has always been about hand wavy notions that Presidents have random, undefinable, or no important effect on the economy or voters' money in general.
Why do you think it is that the stock market has performed so much better under Democratic administrations?
Generally, because it takes Republican administrations to fix the Democrat mess, so the Dems can take advantage of the surging market?
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@jon-nyc said in Would the country be better off if....:
@Horace said in Would the country be better off if....:
Maybe nobody wants to own it now, but in fact the other side of the discussion has always been about hand wavy notions that Presidents have random, undefinable, or no important effect on the economy or voters' money in general.
Why do you think it is that the stock market has performed so much better under Democratic administrations?
Overall trends don't necessarily track minority contributors to those trends. But the discussions we've had about this originated in opinions about Trump vs Bernie or Warren. We don't have legitimate historical precedent for that comparison, even though you'd see that statistic trotted out by Dem voters every time the subject was broached. I don't anticipate Biden will be as drastic as those two would have been, at least by intention.
