What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Barrister]

Carson for  housing 

Put the black guy in subsidized housing.  Makes complete sense.

That does seem to be the reasoning here. 

[CountDeMoney]

That does seem to be the reasoning here. 

This is how he thinks.

[Zanza]

Trumps reall skillset, that both made him a billionaire, won him the primaries, and won him the general are a PT Barnum style carnival barker's salesmanship ability. If you read about a lot of his business career, there's a ton of instances where he inexplicably convinces people who should've known better (big money investors and banks) to believe whatever he's pitching, sometimes his projects worked out and everyone made money, but sometimes they didn't. He's also savvy at legalized graft, but that's more of a learned behavior from his dad (the Trump family had long relied on close work with local government and government special treatment to get profits on its real estate projects.)

It's somewhat questionable whether that works on foreign policy though. The other side will have smart advisors and negotiating international deals takes ages for a reason, namely that everybody is very seriously checking every aspect of the agreement. Being a good salesmen only goes so far when the other side is inherently distrustful.

[OttoVonBismarck]

It's somewhat questionable whether that works on foreign policy though. The other side will have smart advisors and negotiating international deals takes ages for a reason, namely that everybody is very seriously checking every aspect of the agreement. Being a good salesmen only goes so far when the other side is inherently distrustful.

Of course it won't.

I do think Trump could be an improvement in dealing with foreign issues because I don't think he's cautious at all. But he'll need a good advisor who has some smart FP knowledge and caution to rein in his innate instincts.

Obama was the exact opposite, he was extremely cautious, and had to be prodded at times to do the right thing, and sometimes still didn't. We actually had a bunch of career State department diplomats write an anonymous cable denouncing Obama's refusal to act, and these career State Department civil servants are genuinely liberal guys who would be very much at home in Euroweenie circles, so for them to call Obama out really shows how overly cautious he was in many areas during his Presidency.

About the only positives I give Obama for foreign policy is he avoided the temptations to get involved in another ground war in the Middle East, but he largely bungled everything else of consequence in terms of areas where our enemies pushed us. He did better at improving relationships with existing allies, but that's only notable because W. Bush fucked that up so much.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

China will dump all the stuff they cannot sell in America on the European market. That is probably not good for our own industries.

all the more reason for Europe to not declare China's economy a market economy.

[MadImmortalMan]

I don't think you can simply say all the junk China makes will be sold to Europe instead. Things are made for a purpose. For a customer. Some dude in San Jose designs a thing, sends the specs to Shenzhen and the factories tool for it to make it for him. If manufacturers in the EU want to take advantage of that method, there is nothing stopping them from doing it now. Presumably, the ones who don't have good reasons for not doing so that aren't going to go away if trade is disrupted between the US and China.

[mongers]

I don't think you can simply say all the junk China makes will be sold to Europe instead. Things are made for a purpose. For a customer. Some dude in San Jose designs a thing, sends the specs to Shenzhen and the factories tool for it to make it for him. If manufacturers in the EU want to take advantage of that method, there is nothing stopping them from doing it now. Presumably, the ones who don't have good reasons for not doing so that aren't going to go away if trade is disrupted between the US and China.

Yeah, there are only just so many surplus Halloween costumes we can take. 

[Zanza]

I don't think you can simply say all the junk China makes will be sold to Europe instead. Things are made for a purpose. For a customer. Some dude in San Jose designs a thing, sends the specs to Shenzhen and the factories tool for it to make it for him. If manufacturers in the EU want to take advantage of that method, there is nothing stopping them from doing it now. Presumably, the ones who don't have good reasons for not doing so that aren't going to go away if trade is disrupted between the US and China.

That scenario isn't what I meant. I meant a scenario where a dude sits in Guangdong, designs a thing for his own factory and then needs to find a customer somewhere. It's not like China is just the workshop of the world anymore waiting for orders from the West.

[jimmy olsen]

So Trump is apparently serious about the 35% tariff?   

Is that a presidential prerogative? I can't see Congress passing that. It's so boneheaded.

No. Anything related to money needs Congressional approval.

Dubya slapped tarrifs on Chinese steel without congressional involvement didn't he?

[Valmy]

So Trump is apparently serious about the 35% tariff?   

Is that a presidential prerogative? I can't see Congress passing that. It's so boneheaded.

No. Anything related to money needs Congressional approval.

Incorrect--don't spout off like this in the future lest you look the fool.

The President has broad powers, granted by statute, to levy tariffs. Bush used it to levy tariffs on steel, he argued American steelmakers were being victimized by dumping. He lost his case at the WTO and thus we were hit with retaliatory tariffs that cost us billions, but many think the steel tariffs he enacted for one year were at least part of what pushed Bush over the top in Ohio '04.

I apologize. I was thinking of the battle over the tariffs in the 19th century being a congressional battle. I was not aware the President had been granted that power.

[CountDeMoney]

I do think Trump could be an improvement in dealing with foreign issues because I don't think he's cautious at all.

Taiwan's not the table to play that card, though.

But he'll need a good advisor who has some smart FP knowledge and caution to rein in his innate instincts.

Too late for that as well.

[Valmy]

He has to be able to be controlled and take advice. He has not exactly shown a propensity for either of those things 

But I mean he has not even been sworn in yet. So we shall see.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Well, that's not entirely true. They kept him quiet the last 10 days of the campaign, which was clearly a strategy to "let Comey's latest revelation sink in, without the candidate saying something controversial again." I think the biggest issue with his executive leadership of the campaign is he seemed to vacillate wildly between believing one advisor and the other (he's often accused of going with the last opinion he heard), so it's difficult to exert any long-term controlling influence on him.

[jimmy olsen]

Freedom Caucus wants to blow up Obamacare immediately. No phase out period like the GOP wants.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/obamacare-replacement-freedom-caucus-gop-232215

[Valmy]

That is definitely a group to keep an eye on.