Originally Posted by Pouffy
Seriously, who's supposed to believe that a billionaire who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth is anti-establishment?
I think you underestimate someone as successful as Trump in a leadership position. Most people do politics as a career, they have to suck up to 'x' and 'y' to get ahead, which means obligations later on. Eventually, when you get to the top, you have tons of people with dirt on you that you have to appease.
Sponsors also become a major issue, since you have to do as they say in order to stay funded.
Then you have Trump. Doesn't owe anybody anything, doesn't give a flying fuck about his political career because he's already massively successful. He can do what he wants, how he wants it (within the confines of the system of course) without an image to uphold, or a career to take into consideration while doing it.
I'm a huge fan of making politics a non-paying job*, so only those without self-interest can take part. Corruption would still be somewhat of an issue, but you'd get a lot of people that want that power to do something meaningful, rather than be an empty suit collecting a paycheck.
*(In Hungary, being a member of the Assembly is a job, with pay. Not sure about other places, such as the US. )
Originally Posted by ynvaser
I think you underestimate someone as successful as Trump in a leadership position. Most people do politics as a career, they have to suck up to 'x' and 'y' to get ahead, which means obligations later on. Eventually, when you get to the top, you have tons of people with dirt on you that you have to appease.
Sponsors also become a major issue, since you have to do as they say in order to stay funded.
Then you have Trump. Doesn't owe anybody anything, doesn't give a flying fuck about his political career because he's already massively successful. He can do what he wants, how he wants it (within the confines of the system of course) without an image to uphold, or a career to take into consideration while doing it.
I'm a huge fan of making politics a non-paying job*, so only those without self-interest can take part. Corruption would still be somewhat of an issue, but you'd get a lot of people that want that power to do something meaningful, rather than be an empty suit collecting a paycheck.
*(In Hungary, being a member of the Assembly is a job, with pay. Not sure about other places, such as the US. )
I think that's a fair point, but you also have to consider who is buying off politicians and why. People like Trump. This could easily be him cutting out the middleman. So, although he doesn't have the same tangled connections lifelong politicians might, he's still part of the establishment and part of the problem.
As for making sure people don't become entangled in corrupt practices in office, that seems to me more like a problem of moneyed interests than compensation. I'd almost agree if we were saying that compensation for legislators should be more based on economic performance and social polling so they have a vested interest in bettering the country, but giving them no incentive at all might create more problems than it fixes. A good place to start would be to publicly fund elections and ban all campaign donations, lobbying, and potentially even the appearance of corruption with threat of removing the eligibility to hold or run for office and maybe jailtime depending on severity.
Originally Posted by Pouffy
A good place to start would be to publicly fund elections and ban all campaign donations, lobbying, and potentially even the appearance of corruption with threat of removing the eligibility to hold or run for office and maybe jailtime depending on severity.
Yes, this is how it works in most of Europe to be honest. Copying some stuff like state-funded healthcare and no lobbying seems sensible to me at least, and would probably save the US some money in the long run. Seizing insurance companies' assets in the process, which would be out of business this way could be used to fund the new system + maybe 10-20 feet of height to the Mexican wall. (Kappa)
I never got why political lobbying is there in the first place in the US system, it's inherently corrupt and steers legislation.
Originally Posted by Pouffy
I think that's a fair point, but you also have to consider who is buying off politicians and why. People like Trump. This could easily be him cutting out the middleman. So, although he doesn't have the same tangled connections lifelong politicians might, he's still part of the establishment and part of the problem.
I don't really understand where you are coming from. What makes you think he bought off anybody?
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/08/17...e-casinos.html
curious.............
and yeah agreed on the first part of your post, its ridiculous
curious.............
and yeah agreed on the first part of your post, its ridiculous
Originally Posted by ynvaser
Then you have Trump. Doesn't owe anybody anything, doesn't give a flying fuck about his political career because he's already massively successful. He can do what he wants, how he wants it (within the confines of the system of course) without an image to uphold, or a career to take into consideration while doing it.
Except he owes a lot of people a lot of money. Trump has gone bankrupt in America six times, and it's made it really hard for him to take out loans with American banks. As such, he's turned to other places to get his money for his business ventures. Namely, he has a lot of debt with Russian oligarchs. Furthermore, he has yet to release his tax returns, so it's entirely possible he's indebted to even more people that he has yet to disclose.
On the topic of success, Trump's successes are few and far between, and it's actually somewhat mind boggling how he's not penniless. Here's a list of a bunch of his failings: Trump Steaks only lasted a year, and they were god awful quality that he got sold at a "as seen on TV" store. GoTrump.com was a travel site that made no money and was closed in a year. Trump Airlines was born by buying out a successful company, then promptly running it into the ground 4 years later by doing a complete 180 on what made the company successful. Trump Vodka lasted 5 years before collapsing because of non-existent sales. Trump Mortgage was literally formed just before the housing bubble collapsed, thus closing 1 and a half years after starting. Trump: The Game, a direct rip off of Monopoly, was produced for a year and sold by Milton-Bradley before it was taken off the shelves because people would rather play actual Monopoly. Trump Magazine lasted 2 years, as apparently it's too hard to understand that marketing luxury purchases like yachts is not the best business practice during a recession. Trump University is being investigated for being a fraudulent university that actively tried to scam students out of money. Trump Ice, literally bottled water with his face on it, collapsed after a year. Trump purchased a football team that was competing in a league to challenge the NFL's dominance over the market, and managed to cause the collapse of the team, and likely the entire league, because he made poor business decisions trying to get the team into the NFL, undermining the competing league in the process. The Tour de Trump (literally, that's what he called it) had to be sold off after 2 years because he couldn't maintain supporting it. Trump on the Ocean was a huge restaurant that nobody in the surrounding community wanted, and never opened because it was demolished by Hurricane Sandy, causing Trump to finally give up on the idea, much to the communities delight (they had denied him 4 times previously). The Trump Network was literally a pyramid scheme based around selling nutritional supplements, and folded after 2 years because it was literally based around selling nutritional advice, and then just taking the money and running. Trumped! (yes, with exclamation point) was a radio talk "show" that lasted 2 minutes (sponsored by Office Depot), and was essentially Trump ranting about whatever he wanted, closed after 2 years. Trump New Media was an attempt to get into the ISP business, failed to even come to fruition because it was competing against vastly more competent companies. Trump's Taj Mahal casino went bankrupt 6 months after it opened, bankruptcy law letting him keep the building for whatever stupid reason. He had to file for bankruptcy again for the Taj Mahal casino a year later. He had to declare bankruptcy on two more casinos in the Atlantic City area a year later. He declared bankruptcy on the Plaza Hotel in New York the same year. He declared bankruptcy on Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts in 2004. And he declared bankruptcy with Trump Entertainment Resorts in 2009.
For those not keeping count, that's 21 prolific business flops. He's 70 years old. Assuming he entered business ~18-20 years old (which is about accurate, as he started working as an undergraduate), it means he's started and failed more than 2 business ventures for every year he's been in business.
"Massively successful" is a load of bullshit. He was born into privilege, and has taken advantage of a broken economic system born from poor regulation to avoid becoming destitute from his colossal failures. The only reason people even consider him successful is because they're either unaware of the extent of his failures, or point at them and say "it shows he's successful because he's rich despite these failings" rather than a more logical "this system is broken if somebody can fail huge business ventures and run massive debts, underpay employees, commit fraud multiple times under different companies, and not be in prison by the end of it."
Literally the only reason Trump isn't broke with nothing to his name is because of bankruptcy laws allowing him to keep the buildings he defaulted on, even though he never finished paying for it, and will never need to finish paying for it. He single-handedly bankrupted dozens of small businesses because of his own bankruptcies because it voided the payments he needed to make to them, despite the work having already been done. Not only that, the people he did pay he often paid significantly less than promised under contract, which is a breach of contract, and illegal.
When people say he's not corrupt, I can't help but roll my eyes. He's just as bad as the next person, if not worse, because he has no shame about what he's done.
nyan :3
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