Trump's Card

[anton pulisov]

The total population of the USA in 1990 was 250 million, and the population aged 15-64 was 161 million, so 64.4% was working age, roughly.

The same figures for 2016 are 323 million and 206 million, which works out at 63.7%. It's almost the same.

There is no lack of people of working age in the USA, it's a country with pretty healthy population pyramid as far as major economies go, i.e. compared to Japan, China (one child policy legacy is going to give them a headache in 20 or so years), western Europe.

And as the man points out, there are many unemployed people in the USA between the ages of 60 and 65. They are working age but there are simply no jobs for them. And then there's the fact that female participation in the workforce in the USA is 56%, compared to 61% in Sweden and Norway.

So there is no shortage of working population in the USA.

All the central bank debt that was pumped into the stock market bubble could have been invested in infrastructure, health care, paid maternity leave (which the USA does not have) and childcare. The latter two would immediately increase female participation in the economy.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Those under 18s are gradually coming into the labour market though. That's different from the over 65s who are mostly out of it and not coming back. Are you saying that it doesn't make any difference whether people are out of the labour market because they're 17 or because they're 67?

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/rele...b11-cn192.html

Between 2000 and 2010, the population 65 and older grew 15.1 percent, while the total U.S. population grew 9.7 percent. The opposite happened between 1990 and 2000 when the growth of the older population was slower than the growth of the total population, with growth rates of 12.0 percent and 13.2 percent, respectively.

I can't find more up to date figures, but I'd be surprised if the proportion of oldsters isn't going the wrong way, whereas in the 90s it went the right way. I think it went the right way in the 80s too, with those relatively high Reagan levels of growth.

It's not Italy, but then again nobody in Italy is talking about 5.3% growth till 2026.

[Tubby Isaacs]

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...us-population/

Median age US in 1990-32.9
2015- 37.6

But it seems to be stabilizing.

[caja-dglh]

And as the man points out, there are many unemployed people in the USA between the ages of 60 and 65. They are working age but there are simply no jobs for them.

I don't think this is true at all. There are no jobs that they are prepared to take, which is a rather different problem.

[Tubby Isaacs]

US employment rate 55-64 doesn't look particularly bad. Better than OECD average.

https://data.oecd.org/emp/employment...-age-group.htm

Sure, other countries do better, as with female workforce participation, and if you do better on everything, you get higher growth. And you might have some ideas about improving, but doesn't mean it'll work.

[Gerontophile]

So. A news conference saying precisely the square root of fuck all.

[anton pulisov]

I don't think this is true at all. There are no jobs that they are prepared to take, which is a rather different problem.

There's that as well. Secure, well paying jobs are being replaced by insecure, low paying jobs in fast food and the like. If you're 61, been laid off and your mortgage is paid off, you might just choose welfare for your final years before retirement.

[anton pulisov]

US employment rate 55-64 doesn't look particularly bad. Better than OECD average.

https://data.oecd.org/emp/employment...-age-group.htm

Sure, other countries do better, as with female workforce participation, and if you do better on everything, you get higher growth. And you might have some ideas about improving, but doesn't mean it'll work.

Well considering that the USA hadsno mandated paid maternal leave, I'd say introducing that would have benefits for the real economy pretty much overnight. Of course, it would eat into corporate profits a bit.

You have to ask yourself why the Democrats didn't get paid maternal leave, something that is considered a basic right in the rest of the developed world, introduced in 2009 when they controlled all branches of government. Could it be that they are beholden to certain interests...

edit: feckin autocorrect

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

Ouch.

http://maristpoll.marist.edu/820-ret...nia-wisconsin/

A year ago, Donald Trump had a -28 net favourability in Pennsylvania. In November, just before the election, Trump's favorability was 39% favourable, 56% unfavourable in Ohio, 37% favourable, 60% unfavourable in Pennsylvania, and 40% favourable, 57% unfavourable in Florida.

I mean, it's not unexpected that people who hated Trump the candidate mostly still hate Trump the president.

[MsD]

I love that Trump's supporters think the pics of him looking at the sun sans protection are "fake news", old library pictures.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Well considering that the USA hadsno mandated paid maternal leave, I'd say introducing that would have benefits for the real economy pretty much overnight. Of course, it would eat into corporate profits a bit.

You have to ask yourself why the Democrats didn't get paid maternal leave, something that is considered a basic right in the rest of the developed world, introduced in 2009 when they controlled all branches of government. Could it be that they are beholden to certain interests...

edit: feckin autocorrect

It was in this time. Whether as a response to Sanders or off Clinton's own bat, I don't know. Sanders was useful in putting pressure on of this sort, and Clinton made a reasonable response to it, by all accounts.

It was the dubious trade stuff from Sanders I object to. A gift to Trump.

[Tubby Isaacs]

A year ago, Donald Trump had a -28 net favourability in Pennsylvania. In November, just before the election, Trump's favorability was 39% favourable, 56% unfavourable in Ohio, 37% favourable, 60% unfavourable in Pennsylvania, and 40% favourable, 57% unfavourable in Florida.

I mean, it's not unexpected that people who hated Trump the candidate mostly still hate Trump the president.

True but the ratings did go up after the election. They've dropped from that very fast. No healthcare done, tax reform going to be just as hard. It's pretty bad for this stage.

[Tubby Isaacs]

There's that as well. Secure, well paying jobs are being replaced by insecure, low paying jobs in fast food and the like. If you're 61, been laid off and your mortgage is paid off, you might just choose welfare for your final years before retirement.

Median wage.

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/central.html

Not exactly shooting up, but doesn't suggest to me some nationwide degradation of jobs.

There's always been churn where firms (and the public sector too) try to get rid of older people on high wages. A Keynsian stimulus could be good for all sorts of reasons, but why is it going to stop this happening?

I agree that maternity pay might raise the participation of women, but we don't know how much. I can't see anybody is near 5.3% yet.

[Lang Spoon]

By the tone of Kirsty "almost as nice as Annie Lennox" Wark on Newsnight, it would seem the one thing Trump can do to gain bipartisan cooperation and the grudging approval of Concerned Citizens like her is to get his war on in Afghanistan/Pakistan. The Black Watch naturally don't recruit in her kids' school (okay maybe OTC shite goes on). Then she had some Blackwater ghoul coming on with a Bannon approved plan for a "Viceroy" structure for the US presence in Afghanistan, naturally involving East India style private armies (not mercenaries, oh no). The questioning from (please pension her now, and sack that sickly looking Dragons Den arse yesterday) Wark was pitiful, shitebag stuff.

[ursus arctos]

Was the Blackwater ghoul Erik Prince (aka Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos' brother)?

He tried that same wheeze here a couple of weeks ago without gaining any real traction.

[Lang Spoon]

Didn't catch the name, may well have been. Caption describes him as Blackwater "founder".

[Satchmo Distel]

Afghanistan announcement is desperate bollocks. Breitbart has supposedly denounced the U-turn but that might be Bannon playing good cop, bad cop.

On polls, it must be unprecedented for a new President's numbers to go down in his first year. Even the doomed one-termers like Jimmy Carter had a Honeymoon period before the shit hit the fan for them (and I think Carter was still favoured to win in 1980 before the Iran hostages calamity, despite bad economic numbers). One reason is that Clinton is no longer there as a GOP bogey figure that makes Trump seem a lesser evil to leaning-GOP-but-dislike-Trump voters.

But, as was said above, the Dems just need to sort out their turnout issue in the rust belt states they should have romped home in. Which means nominating someone with some charisma and no obvious baggage. Political experience less important than just not looking like a charisma vacuum.

[Lang Spoon]

She'd have won 2008, if she hadn't fucked up the Primary. But no way should Clinton have been the candidate in 2016. She was exactly the wrong candidate for the Dems to back when it was obvious long before Brexit the tide had turned against the 90s triangulators. That a mood of anti establishment was in the air. Apart from their Blairy avarice, there is Hillary's dog whistle bollocks against black men so handily exploited by the GOP, and Bill's so cynical I almost hope there is a Hell so the fucker can burn, action of killing an intellectually disabled (black? Surely not) man on death row while Governor of Arkansas). But above all his downright evil enabling of the needless incarceration of countless folk (guess what! Disproportionately black!) through his three strikes and you're out bullshit etc.

I'm shocked, shocked, that African Americans didn't share the enthusiam that it was Her Turn. If there's such a thing as history books in 30 years, I think the Democratic establishment will be treated with the same disdain as Captain Hindsight popular histories treat the Not Nazi Weimar Republic parties. I'm sure I remember before the vote though, grauniad types confidently telling us that Hillary was more popular with minorities than Obama.

[ursus arctos]

This is Erik Prince, and that's "Blackwater Founder" is usual calling card

[Lang Spoon]

Think that's the bunny. They all look the same with that Quiet American buzzcut but.

[anton pulisov]

Median wage.

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/central.html

Not exactly shooting up, but doesn't suggest to me some nationwide degradation of jobs.

There's always been churn where firms (and the public sector too) try to get rid of older people on high wages. A Keynsian stimulus could be good for all sorts of reasons, but why is it going to stop this happening?

I agree that maternity pay might raise the participation of women, but we don't know how much. I can't see anybody is near 5.3% yet.

adjust it for inflation and household you must

As for how he gets the 5.3%, I dunno. I've never run an economic model.

[San Bernardhinault]

She'd have won 2008, if she hadn't fucked up the Primary. But no way should Clinton have been the candidate in 2016. She was exactly the wrong candidate for the Dems to back when it was obvious long before Brexit the tide had turned against the 90s triangulators. That a mood of anti establishment was in the air. Apart from their Blairy avarice, there is Hillary's dog whistle bollocks against black men so handily exploited by the GOP, and Bill's so cynical I almost hope there is a Hell so the fucker can burn, action of killing an intellectually disabled (black? Surely not) man on death row while Governor of Arkansas). But above all his downright evil enabling of the needless incarceration of countless folk (guess what! Disproportionately black!) through his three strikes and you're out bullshit etc.

HRC was a useless candidate, but it's still fucking horrifying that in 2016 that people on the left judge a woman by what her husband did.

[Hot Pepsi]

She went from having no major experience in political office to being the senator from a huge state that she'd just moved to.

She could do that because she counts being First Lady as a major political position, which it absolutely is. But if she wants credit for serving in that administration she can't choose to act like she wasn't part of that administration whenever it's convenient.

It's no different than judging a Vice President or Secretary of State for policies of the president they served. It's not entirely fair, but unless they explicitly repudiate something their president did while they were VP or SOS, the general assumption is that they will follow that policy too.

[Seven Saxon Kings]

By far the worst aspect of what she had to put up with was all the innuendo around their private lives and the way her opponents used things Bill did against her. It was really awful for a woman to have to put up with that.

Policy though, I think is much fairer game. If you're seen as part of a 'political dynasty' you'll be judged against those who came earlier in the dynasty - Jeb Bush was judged against his father and brother just as much as Hillary was judged against her husband, perhaps even more so. This may not necessarily be fair but I don't think gender is the key angle on it.

[Patrick Thistle]

Have you guys done the staring at the sun thing? I don't really follow this thread.