Trump Economy and Poker

Possibly the worst thread of all time on this forum that has been around for nearly 30 years. Impressive

Just give it 18 months, you’ll see he was right

Obviously the gambling insertion in the bill is bad for poker/gambling. Hopefully it will get recinded sometime in the future.But everything else relative to the Trump economy seems to be right on schedule.

Actually, I only vote for Milton Friedman. However, if I don't see him on the ballot, I then vote for who I think is the closest to him.

This might be the dumbest post ever.

What's your take on the cuts to Medicaid and the ICE funding?

Lol right on schedule. Don't recall too many Trumpers saying we'd have the first quarterly GDP decline in 3 years and the dollar would lose 10% in 6 months because of instability and perceived risk and incompetence in US governance. But hell, if you;re going to pretend like growth was terrific in Trump's first term you can just make up whatever you want.

He is a pos and doesn't care about poor or brown people.

lol the cope is unreal

never meet your heroes :(

...by intellect?

Nothing say market-based Friedman-style economy like this administration which never intervenes or injects itself into anything.

A lot of you reading these posts might be newish to 2+2

So I will take this moment to share with you that this stupid ****ing scumbag I have quoted has chosen as his business partner and his BFF a creepy old **** who:

1. Flosses with his parrot
2. Insisted to his sugar baby that she commit suicide (which she did)
3. Had a live-in woman who is mentally disabled that he dressed up like a doll

This is the guy who wants you to think he is the smartest guy in the room and the moral arbiter

Yeah. Friedman wanted rule based automated monetary policy divorced from political whims and pressure. Literally the exact opposite of Trump's approach. This would be a huge deal like Obama ruining the economy if Mason wasn't so irrational and prima facie pro Trump economic policies to the point of absurdity.

Or put another way:

So aside from the provision that will cripple the poker industry, Trump is on schedule to do great things for the poker industry.

This gambling losses addendum aside, it is very hard for a layman such as myself to estimate the broad impacts of the BBB for the country. If only there was someone who worked at the Census for a few months back in the 1970s who could unpack it for me. Or failing that I would settle for somebody who has read the first 10 pages of the Fountainhead a few times.

Ask Mason what Friedman thought about tariffs also

Friedman thought that tariffs just for the sake of tariffs were very bad. But the Trump tariffs are different. They are reciprocal and are being used to force good trade deals where the tariffs will come off or at least be adjusted in a fair way.

As an example, whenever one of our books is sold in Europe, the amount of money that we get is reduced, and reduced by a lot, by something called a value added tax (VAT). When a European publisher sells a book in the US, there is no such thing (unless Trump has just changed it). These VATs are not fair and they not only hurt our publishing company, but they hurt our authors as well.

Trump: Implements arbitrary blanket tariffs

Mason: Arbitrary blanket tariffs are bad but these aren't that

You just fell 100% in my estimation. I've never read such a stupid comment from an intelligent man. VAT is a purchase tax just like similar taxes in your country. Goods from European suppliers are also subject to VAT, so it isn't a tariff under any definition.

Also I just discovered that books are zero rated for VAT. (And US books are subject to state purchase taxes)

I would think that "your authors" would be more hurt by the realisation that they are in a business relationship with an ignoramus or something worse.

They are not reciprocal, they are based on trade deficits not on the other side having tariffs.

the VAT is paid by european publishers as well. You aren't getting ripped off, you are competing on the same ground everyone is competing on for the european customer.

It's a ****ing sales tax, do you count state sales tax as tariffs when they apply on imported products???

Trump wanted to do tariffs for the sake of tariffs. When you talk about putting tariffs on to “collect money” and “bring manufacturing back” you are talking about precisely the tariffs that were opposed by Friedman.

They usually use the chinese tariffs which MIGHT have some non-economic sense under a "potential war in the future" vision, with absurdities like tariffs on vietnam or turkey or brazil.

And the most insane tariffs are the agricultural ones for products *you literally cannot grow*. Those are something that is utterly indefensible.

The USA putting tariffs on cocoa or coffee or pineapple is simply ******ed, there are no other words for it.

12 months from this post I will be out of the job

Maybe in the future when you’re as wrong about something as you can possibly be, you would sit on that and reflect rather than how right you are about something else. Maybe you wouldn’t feel as attacked as often if you ruminated on your mistakes snowflake