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  • Originally posted by Albany Rifles View Post
    I'm an Old and know what I call it?





    My phone
    My phone currently is an old 15 year old flip phone. I rarely ever make calls from it. Recently my 33 year old niece kidded me about moving up with the times. So I went into a store, after thoroughly researching things, and presented what I was looking for exactly. Mind you this is a small window of opportunity given on how I operate. In short you don't want me to walk out. The sales kid went to check on what I wanted and was somewhat perplexed that I didn't not want unlimited data. I rather carry a book with me and I wanted minimal cost. He couldn't come up with what I was looking for nor a solution and I walked. Oops!

    I'm old like you but have a 10 year old who has discovered a new phrase that has become popular with some. He is not the correct age but he likes it nonetheless. Can you guess....?

    Boomer.

    Of course there is risk for him in using it...

    Comment


    • Originally posted by DOR View Post
      It's called a mobile phone, or "cell," Grandpa.
      Ask a teenager.
      And how's a cell phone a more innovative way of checking the time than a wristwatch?

      A quick flick of the wrist versus lugging a 6 oz black brick out of my pocket.
      "Every man has his weakness. Mine was always just cigarettes."

      Comment


      • Originally posted by Ironduke View Post
        And how's a cell phone a more innovative way of checking the time than a wristwatch?

        A quick flick of the wrist versus lugging a 6 oz black brick out of my pocket.
        There was never any discussion of being a better idea. It's just what people are more and more likely to do these days.
        Have a look at the wrists of 50 random people under the age of 40.
        Trust me?
        I'm an economist!

        Comment


        • U.S. Agriculture Secretary says no need for more farm aid after China trade deal

          AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - With China poised to increase purchases of U.S. agricultural goods this year as part of a Phase 1 China trade deal, the U.S. Agriculture Secretary said on Monday there is no need for a third year of trade-related aid for farmers.

          Farmers have increasingly relied on aid from the U.S. government to survive during the past two years as exports have lagged throughout the U.S.-China trade war. But USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue said China will soon begin buying U.S. farm goods to meet the $40 billion in agricultural purchase agreements it made, alleviating growers' need for more aid.

          China, which typically buys the bulk of its U.S. agriculture products during the fall and early winter, will likely change the timing of its purchases, Perdue said.

          "If China is going to achieve that, and we believe they are, we think they have to buy earlier than the traditional export season from the United States," said Perdue, speaking at the American Farm Bureau Federation's annual convention.

          His remarks came one day after U.S. President Donald Trump addressed the convention, promising farmers that the deal will be good for them.

          Washington and Beijing signed the pact on Jan. 15, though tariffs on major U.S. farm exports have not been removed and structural economic differences were not addressed.

          Perdue said the third tranche of a $16 billion aid package announced in May will be paid to farmers "imminently," but that they should not expect a 2020 aid package.

          China bought roughly 60% of U.S. soybean exports before the trade war and also was a major buyer of sorghum, dairy and pork.

          Chinese Vice Premier Liu He said Chinese firms will buy American products, "based on market conditions," raising doubts that the country will meet its commitments under the pact.

          Growers are used to dealing with seasonality in the export program and could afford to wait without fresh trade aid, said Lane Osswald, 44, a farmer from Eldorado, Ohio.

          "Everyone is prepared for the South American harvest to hit the market every year," Osswald said.Soybean futures have dropped 1.3% since the trade deal was signed.

          The China deal, and the recent passage of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, will allow farmers to prosper, Perdue said.

          Trump gained support among American farm families at the end of 2019, Reuters/Ipsos poll data showed, as Trump touted the trade deal ahead of its signing. Farmers broadly voted for Trump in 2016.
          ____________

          Looks like there will be an opening for a new Secretary of Agriculture...

          If anyone believes that Trump has "fixed" the clusterfuck he created, then I have some beachfront property in Kansas to sell you.

          Of course payments will be necessary in 2020 for farmers. This is an election year after all. Tucked in the article is that $16 Billion announced last May is due to be paid soon. Nice, but more will be needed in this election year.

          Now let's see the farmers take a "promise" from China to the bank. There's nothing to bind China to buying from US farmers now that they have been buying from Brazil and Russia.

          So if there is no longer a need for farm aid after the deal, that means the only reason was needed in the first place was cause of the trade war.

          Did this do anything other than bring us back where we were before?
          “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

          Comment


          • Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
            U.S. Agriculture Secretary says no need for more farm aid after China trade deal

            AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - With China poised to increase purchases of U.S. agricultural goods this year as part of a Phase 1 China trade deal, the U.S. Agriculture Secretary said on Monday there is no need for a third year of trade-related aid for farmers.

            Farmers have increasingly relied on aid from the U.S. government to survive during the past two years as exports have lagged throughout the U.S.-China trade war. But USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue said China will soon begin buying U.S. farm goods to meet the $40 billion in agricultural purchase agreements it made, alleviating growers' need for more aid.

            China, which typically buys the bulk of its U.S. agriculture products during the fall and early winter, will likely change the timing of its purchases, Perdue said.

            "If China is going to achieve that, and we believe they are, we think they have to buy earlier than the traditional export season from the United States," said Perdue, speaking at the American Farm Bureau Federation's annual convention.

            His remarks came one day after U.S. President Donald Trump addressed the convention, promising farmers that the deal will be good for them.

            Washington and Beijing signed the pact on Jan. 15, though tariffs on major U.S. farm exports have not been removed and structural economic differences were not addressed.

            Perdue said the third tranche of a $16 billion aid package announced in May will be paid to farmers "imminently," but that they should not expect a 2020 aid package.

            China bought roughly 60% of U.S. soybean exports before the trade war and also was a major buyer of sorghum, dairy and pork.

            Chinese Vice Premier Liu He said Chinese firms will buy American products, "based on market conditions," raising doubts that the country will meet its commitments under the pact.

            Growers are used to dealing with seasonality in the export program and could afford to wait without fresh trade aid, said Lane Osswald, 44, a farmer from Eldorado, Ohio.

            "Everyone is prepared for the South American harvest to hit the market every year," Osswald said.Soybean futures have dropped 1.3% since the trade deal was signed.

            The China deal, and the recent passage of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, will allow farmers to prosper, Perdue said.

            Trump gained support among American farm families at the end of 2019, Reuters/Ipsos poll data showed, as Trump touted the trade deal ahead of its signing. Farmers broadly voted for Trump in 2016.
            ____________

            Looks like there will be an opening for a new Secretary of Agriculture...

            If anyone believes that Trump has "fixed" the clusterfuck he created, then I have some beachfront property in Kansas to sell you.

            Of course payments will be necessary in 2020 for farmers. This is an election year after all. Tucked in the article is that $16 Billion announced last May is due to be paid soon. Nice, but more will be needed in this election year.

            Now let's see the farmers take a "promise" from China to the bank. There's nothing to bind China to buying from US farmers now that they have been buying from Brazil and Russia.

            So if there is no longer a need for farm aid after the deal, that means the only reason was needed in the first place was cause of the trade war.

            Did this do anything other than bring us back where we were before?
            They'll work it out. One way or the other, they'll work it out.
            Hit the grape lethally.

            Comment


            • I wouldn’t discount China taking a page from Japan’s playbook, section Rice (1980s):
              Buy US soyabeans (etc) and just dump it on the world market.
              Problem solved.
              Trust me?
              I'm an economist!

              Comment


              • Looks like there will be an opening for a new Secretary of Agriculture...

                If anyone believes that Trump has "fixed" the clusterfuck he created, then I have some beachfront property in Kansas to sell you.

                Of course payments will be necessary in 2020 for farmers. This is an election year after all. Tucked in the article is that $16 Billion announced last May is due to be paid soon. Nice, but more will be needed in this election year.

                Now let's see the farmers take a "promise" from China to the bank. There's nothing to bind China to buying from US farmers now that they have been buying from Brazil and Russia.

                So if there is no longer a need for farm aid after the deal, that means the only reason was needed in the first place was cause of the trade war.

                Did this do anything other than bring us back where we were before?
                BTW, just for context: we've spent more on the bailouts for farmers than we do for the entire US State Department, or for the US Navy shipbuilding program.

                or, to put it in conservative speak, about 60 Solyndras.
                There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

                Comment


                • Originally posted by Wonderful Plans View Post
                  They'll work it out. One way or the other, they'll work it out.
                  Really? That's your response? That's what you're pinning your hope on?
                  “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by astralis View Post
                    BTW, just for context: we've spent more on the bailouts for farmers than we do for the entire US State Department, or for the US Navy shipbuilding program.

                    or, to put it in conservative speak, about 60 Solyndras.
                    Let's not talk about the Trump Party's socialism. It's a dirty word and makes them look like massive hypocrites on several levels.
                    “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                    Comment


                    • Donald Trump is ‘just wrong’ about the economy, says Nobel Prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz

                      President Donald Trump told business and political leaders in Davos, Switzerland last week that the economy under his tenure has lifted up working- and middle-class Americans. In a newly released interview, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz sharply disagreed, saying Trump’s characterization is “just wrong.”

                      “The Washington Post has kept a tab of how many lies and misrepresentations he does a day,” Stiglitz said of Trump last Friday at the annual World Economic Forum. “I think he outdid himself.”

                      In Davos last Tuesday, Trump said he has presided over a “blue-collar boom,” citing a historically low unemployment rate and surging wage growth among workers at the bottom of the pay scale.

                      “The American Dream is back — bigger, better, and stronger than ever before,” Trump said. “No one is benefitting more than America’s middle class.”

                      Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University who won the Nobel Prize in 2001, refuted the claim, saying the failure of Trump’s economic policies is evident in the decline in average life expectancy among Americans over each of the past three years.

                      “A lot of it is what they call deaths of despair,” he says. “Suicide, drug overdose, alcoholism — it’s not a pretty picture.”


                      The uptick in wage growth is a result of the economic cycle, not Trump’s policies, Stiglitz said.

                      “At this point in an economic recovery, it’s been 10 years since the great recession, labor markets get tight, unemployment gets lower, and that at last starts having wages go up,” Stiglitz says.

                      “The remarkable thing is how weak wages are, how weak the economy is, given that as a result of the tax bill we have a $1 trillion deficit.”

                      As the presidential race inches closer to the general election in November, Trump’s record on economic growth — and whether it has resulted in broad-based gains — is likely to draw increased attention.

                      “The middle class is getting killed; the middle class is getting crushed," former Vice President Joe Biden said in a Democratic presidential debate last month. "Where I live, folks aren't measuring the economy by how the Dow Jones is doing, they're measuring the economy by how they're doing," added Pete Buttigieg, a Democratic presidential candidate and former Mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

                      Trump has criticized Democrats for tax and regulatory policies that he says will make the U.S. less competitive in attracting business investment.

                      “To every business looking for a place where they are free to invest, build, thrive, innovate, and succeed, there is no better place on Earth than the United States,” he said in Davos.

                      Stiglitz pointed to Trump’s threats last week of tariffs on European cars to demonstrate that turmoil in U.S. trade relationships may continue, despite the recent completion of U.S. trade deals in North America and China.

                      “He can’t help but bully somebody,” Stiglitz said.

                      ____________
                      “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                      Comment


                      • The US economy in 2019

                        The US economy grew 2.3% in 2019, about the same as in 2017 but down 0.6 percentage points from 2018. Although these first estimates are subject to revision, they will form the basis upon which markets move in the near term.


                        Private consumption grew 2.6%, down from 3% previous year. Capital investment dropped from 5.1% real growth in 2018 to less than 1.9% last year. Exports fell slightly while goods and services imports rose 1%. As a result, domestic demand rose 2.6%, down from 3.4% in 2018.

                        In the final quarter of the year growth was marginally better (2.3%, compared to 2.1% in Q-3, both figures being year-on-year; quarter-to-quarter annualized expansion remained steady at 2.1%). Consumption rose 2.6% (barely above Q-3) but capital investment fell for the first time in three years, by 1.9%. Exports remained flat while imports fell 2.2% from four quarters earlier.


                        Among the most robust sectors was federal government spending, up 4.3% from 3.7% in Q-3. As measured by the national accounts, the federal deficit in the last two years, an average of 5.2%, is ever so slightly higher than in 2010-17, when Mr Obama ran the show. That is due to the Republican tendency to keep spending high while slashing revenues in the most economically unhelpful way possible.


                        Consumer prices rose just 1.8%, down from 2.4% a year earlier Unemployment was 3.7%, down from 3.9% in 2018 largely due to slower growth in the labor force as baby boomers retire. In international commerce, exports were down 0.9% on a customs cleared basis and imports off by 1.7%. The trade deficit amounted to $845.6 billion.
                        Trust me?
                        I'm an economist!

                        Comment


                        • The US Budget Outlook (CBO Data, Jan 2020)

                          Here's what the Congressional Budget Office thinks of the federal budget and economic outlook.
                          Attached Files
                          Trust me?
                          I'm an economist!

                          Comment


                          • A timely fiscal reminder

                            A bit of fiscal history to ponder as we wade through election promises.

                            Exhibit A
                            President Clinton’s FY2000 budget envisaged the economy growing by 4.4% per year in nominal terms in 2000-09 (real growth is less useful when analyzing budgets, since revenues and spending much more closely track the nominal economy). That forecasts was a bit high. The actual outcome was 4.1% p.a.

                            A slower economy generates less tax revenue and triggers higher social support payments, so all else being equal (it never is), revenues should have been lower and spending higher than what was in the budget.

                            The actual outcome went in a different direction for one very important reason: on January 1, 2001, the GOP took over.

                            Instead of revenues rising 4.2% per annum under President’s Clinton’s more optimistic scenario, they rose 1.4% p.a. A very small part of that is due to slower growth; the majority is because GOPers love to give massive tax breaks to large corporations and high-bracket tax payers. So, revenues crept up just 1.4% p.a.

                            Pro Tip! Budget deficits are almost never about spending, which takes much too long to kick in. They are about the slaughter of innocent revenues, which happens in a flash.

                            Back to the facts of history.
                            Spending in 2000-09 should have increased 3.2% p.a., slower than revenues since Democrats are the fiscally responsible party (President Clinton reversed the Reagan-Bush deficit blow-out, remember?). Instead, spending shot up 7.5% per annum. A very small part of that is due to slower growth; the majority is because GOPers love to spend like "their side" will never have to foot the bill.

                            So, over the decade in question, the anticipated 66.7% reduction in the Federal Debt turned into a 121.3% increase. As a result, instead of debt of $1,168 billion debt in 2009, it was $7,545 billion.

                            (If this reminds you of the last Carter budget and the ensuing Reagan-Bush era, you're probably an economist.)

                            Exhibit B

                            President Obama’s FY2016 budget envisaged the economy growing by 4.4% per year in nominal terms in 2016-19, which was exactly right, which is pretty rare.

                            As a result, revenues were projected to rise 3.6% p.a. and spending 5.0% a year. The actual outcome went in a different direction for one very important reason: on January 1, 2017, the GOP took over.

                            Instead of revenues rising 3.6% per annum under President’s Obama’s fiscal plan, they rose 1.6% p.a. Absolutely none of that was due to slower growth; rather, all of it was because GOPers love to give massive tax breaks to large corporations and high-bracket tax payers. So, revenues crept up just 1.6% p.a.

                            Spending should have increased 5.0% p.a., faster than revenues since Democrats pay attention to the needs of the people, and the recovery in household incomes since the Second Bush Depression had been quite slow. (President Bush blew up the economy just as he was leaving office, remember?). Instead, spending rose 4.8% per annum, and absolutely none of that was due to slower growth.

                            So, over the four years in question, the anticipated 22.2% rise in the Federal Debt turned into a 28.1% increase. As a result, the national debt in 2019, was $800 billion more than it should have been, and the annual deficits are in the $1-1.5 trillion level for as far as the eye can see.

                            Which brings us to the obvious conclusion: GOPers are bad for the economy.

                            The Congressional Budget Office (CBO.GOV) has all the numbers you might want to prove it to yourself.
                            Trust me?
                            I'm an economist!

                            Comment


                            • Congressional GOP response to the Trump budgets has been very educational for me.

                              i used to think that there were members of the GOP whom were for deficit-reduction above all-- a position I think is wrong-headed, but it was at least a policy position.

                              now it's pretty clear to me that they weren't really for deficit-reduction so much as they were for handicapping a political opponent.
                              There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

                              Comment


                              • Just to lay the GOPer National Defense bogey man to rest once and for all ...

                                National Defense federal government spending
                                _ % of Total Spending _ _ % of GDP
                                1940s _ _ 57.8% _ _ _ _ _ _ _16.7%
                                1950s _ _ 58.3% _ _ _ _ _ _ _10.1%
                                1960s _ _ 46.9% _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 8.4%
                                1970s _ _ 28.8% _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 5.6%
                                1980s _ _ 26.0% _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 5.6%
                                1990s _ _ 19.0% _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 3.8%
                                2000s _ _ 18.8% _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 3.7%
                                2010s _ _ 17.2% _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 3.7%
                                Official (White House) estimate for 2020-25: 15.3% and … 3.1%
                                See Table 6.1 https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/historical-tables/
                                Trust me?
                                I'm an economist!

                                Comment

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