So, if I don't invent a product to sell for millions of dollars, I need to fight 1,000+ laws that create and continue income inequality? Got it!

Nothing you posted would involve the bar tab without being called at as such. Is it possible those aides where comped by the President personally? Sure it is, but the story would have been written differently and it still doesn't cover the issue of the amount of money being spent by foreigners at Trump properties nor the amount of Government business that is being funneled into Trump properties which his family still has a stake in.

First, he shouldn't have a company, that is the whole point. He shouldn't be allowed to decide that Government money gets spent in his businesses instead of anyone else's.

Second, the emoluments clause also speaks to payments, which is what his companies are receiving.

Not being able to see the unethicalness of this is again, more bad faith posting by the right.

Also pretty transparent way to get around the clause would be to start an LLC and then have whoever is doing the gifting actually "buy" LLC's service at a markup.

That's what Trump Sr. did to get around estate taxes to give money to his kids.

Didn’t state that either, you’re making stuff up. Still waiting for your cites on the accounting.

It's that. Like most fallacies, uses of 'whataboutism' are rivaled by incorrect assessments of 'whataboutism'.

The original 'whataboutism' used by the Soviets wasn't some coy game to justify their actions or assuage their guilt, it was just a big FU to capitalism and USA#1 (and a remarkably effective one imo, as far as FUs go).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_yo...nching_Negroes

Also,:

Which was doubly on-point because it turned out that it was $16 for the whole meal and it was just coded as "muffins" in the receipt.

Which of course right-wing media didn't care as they already got their one-week of disposable goldfish-memory outrage from it.

People don't even remember the details of that stuff, but the emotion just layers on and adds to the backdrop.

So, "what about the Clinton foundation" is a valid defense of Trump's behavior, in a context of having vigorous debate and a little bit of fun?

I wouldn't call it a defense.

Yeah, both legitimate what-about-blank questions and scathing whataboutism fallacies are hard to pull off well. I'd recommend leaving them to seasoned veterans.

Removing emotional bias - v good. Beware the results oriented bias.

Nothing biases as well (or badly) as contingent facts. Especially ones that match our emotional and/or other biases

Snopes Fact Check on TRUMP Spending

Quote:

The expenses incurred by United States presidents and their families on vacation trips and other travel away from the White House are an evergreen topic of partisan debate, given that much of those, including the requisite round-the-clock Secret Service protection and use of military aircraft for travel, are footed by the federal government. (By longstanding convention, even presidential vacation travel is categorized as “official business” for accounting purposes, since it is assumed, the Congressional Research Service tells us, that the president is always on duty.)
....
Looking at the information we do have, the Obama family’s travel expenses during the entire eight years of his presidency totaled approximately $106 million, according to the most recent FOIA numbers released by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, who kept close tabs on Obama’s spending. The Obamas’ travel expenses therefore averaged about $1.1 million per month over the course of his term.
...
Judicial Watch, who have vowed to monitor Trump’s travel expenses as closely as they did Obama’s (FOIA requests are already on file), reported in July 2017 that two months into Trump’s presidency taxpayers were already on the hook for $3.58 million in charges for air travel alone (i.e., excluding auxiliary costs such as Secret Service housing, local transporation, police protection, etc.) by the president, first lady, and vice president during February and March. That’s roughly $1.8 million per month, $700,000 more than the Obamas’ monthly average, which included the auxiliary costs we don’t yet have for Trump.
...
Focusing just on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago trips, of which there were seven between Inauguration Day and mid-August 2017, an attempt at a more comprehensive estimate by the progressive watchdog group Center for American Progress Action Fund settled on a cost of roughly $3 million per trip — a total of $21 million for all of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago stays through August, amounting to $2.6 million per month). The reliability of that estimate has been rightly called into question, given that it was generalized from a Government Accountability Office report written well before Trump took office, but it is indicative of how high the Trump family’s travel costs — when they are updated to include actual Secret Service expenses and incidentals might well go.

The latest on TRUMP Tavel/Entertainment spending I could find from Judicial Watch published in January of 2018:

Judicial Watch on TRUMP Spending

Quote:

Total Expenses are now $13,533,937.28

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it obtained travel records from the U.S. Department of the Air Force in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for President Donald Trump and his family. The total for President Trump’s travels in this production is $3,199,188.30. Added to the previously released costs, the known travel costs for President Trump’s political and leisure travel is now $13,533,937.28.

President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump flew to his Bedminster golf club on June 30 and returned July 3. Flight time was 2.8 hours at $15,994 per hour for a total of $44,783.30.
President Trump and Melania Trump flew various trips between Bedminster and New York for a vacation on August 4 through August 21. Flight time was 5.9 hours at $15,994 per hour for a total of $94,364.60.
President Trump flew to Yuma, AZ, to meet with Marines and then attended a campaign rally in Phoenix on August 22. He flew 10.6 hours at $142,380 per hour for a total of $1,509,228.
President Trump flew to Springfield, MO, on Aug. 30 to appear at a rally as a kickoff for tax reform at the Loren Cook Company. He flew 3.8 hours at $142,380 for a total of $541,044.
President Trump flew to Huntsville, AL, on September 22 to campaign for Sen. Luther Strange. He then spent the weekend at Bedminster, returning to the White House on September 24. He flew 6.8 hours at $142,380 per hour for a total of $968,184.
President Trump flew to Bedminster on September 29 through October 1. Flight time was 2.6 hours at $15,994 per hour for a total of $41,584.40.
“The president is accountable to the taxpayers – they spend our hard-earned dollars and that’s why Judicial Watch keeps track of certain travel costs,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Trump’s regular trips to his homes are adding up to a hefty sum.”

The Secret Service has not yet provided to Judicial Watch documents requested through FOIA in conjunction with these trips.

Judicial Watch has also monitored travel for President Obama’s family and found a total of $114,691,322.17

Pretty sad that it takes FOIA requests to get at least a somewhat accurate accounting. Also, FWIW, the way the Federal Government accounts for this stuff is pretty loose and shabby, not detailed enough.

The Mother Jones article wasn't about Trump's vacation spending.

Eyeroll

If one has two stable parents and a stable household and a stable environment to grow up in, then one has benefited from welfare for its entire life up until the point in which they are now "on their own". Even then, they are still on welfare because their parents are going to bail out their ****ups and leave them an inheritance. It's an insurance policy for the duration of their parents' lives...

One literally can't fail in life unless they're a monumental ****up in that scenario

I think a lot of people don't realize that they themselves are the beneficiaries of welfare for basically their entire lives. It breeds self sufficiency. It provides a safety net where there is almost no pressure to take risks and fail. Try taking a risk when you know the debt will crush you for the rest of your life...

If you take any kid from any ghetto and swap him or her for any kid from any upper middle class or higher family, then that kid will literally not fail. Ever. They have a safety net for life and a safe environment to learn, grow, and be mentored. Poor people don't have any of that, and even worse, the lack of any of that actually works in the reverse in terms of quality of life or the potential thereof. They just suffer, die, or end up in jail...And people think their lives will improve if they'd just live under austerity forever and ever and save money they don't even ****ing have

It isn’t just about iPhones. Many rent or own houses or cars they shouldn’t. How often they are eating out, etc.

The poor and middle class in general are financially illiterate. I’m not saying it is easy to move up classes but in comparison to all other countries in the world and all times in the history of the world it is relatively extremely easy.

Not totally sure how you arrived at that conclusion.

I wouldn’t say you have to fight the 1000+ laws. In some cases a law may help you while others hurt you. In some cases a law may help some poor people and hurt other poor people (think minimum wage).

I think you are taking my second post in stark contrast to my first post, instead of within the confines of the stated parameters. The debt I took on to "leverage my future" was certainly a potential risk of being a life long burden.

The idea of victimizing entire swaths of our population is a dangerous proposition. There was a time where I had to rotate 0% balance transfer CC deals to keep my head above water, while at the same time, I was taking on student loan debt to hopefully maybe have a career.

It's almost not possible to be less accurate than this. Economic mobility in the US declined consistently from the 1940s to the 1970s and has been steady or slightly decreasing since then. The US is also one of the worst relative to other countries as well - faring worse than basically everywhere in western Europe and Canada.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioe..._United_States

https://www.forbes.com/sites/aparnam...omic-mobility/

Wiild, both of your examples look at kids today compared to their peers and compares that to their parents compared to their peers.

Both of them completely ignore the fact that if we look at inflation adjusted dollars the poor and middle classes are shrinking. This means that the upper class is growing and the new upper class is coming from the two lower classes. Many people love saying that middle class incomes haven’t significantly grown recently and they always ignore the fact that the upper class is growing since it doesn’t fit their agenda.

That should be easy for you to produce a citation for, perhaps a graph of some kind?

"The truth is that the American middle class is shrinking. But the major cause of this is that large parts of the population are simply becoming too rich to be considered middle class any more."

share of each class - % in 1979 - % in 2014

rich - 0.1% - 1.8%
upper middle -13 -29
middle- 39-32
lower middle- 24-17
poor-24-20


https://www.forbes.com/sites/timwors.../#4aa0d9e421c8

"The poor shrank by 4.5 percentage points, the lower middle class by 6.8, the middle class also by 6.8% But the upper middle class got a lot bigger, expanding by 16.4 points, and the rich by 1.8 points."

https://www.aei.org/publication/the-...-to-the-story/

For those surprised by these numbers: in the second article the author gives a theory why so many people aren't aware of these amazing changes. I hope it didn't surprise you that his theory is that it doesn't fit the very common narrative of the 1% vs the 99%. By pounding their hand on a podium and (accurately) saying middle class incomes aren't significantly growing politicians can lead you to believe that the average American isn't actually better off over the last 30-40 years, but they know the secret to making the middle class better.

Trump retweeted this.



I believe there is a real risk to the peaceful exchange of power if trump loses in 2020. He has already shown a disregard for it with his role in the birther movement and is now floating trial balloons about extending his current term past 2020.

My post wasn't directed at you I just quoted your post bc the thoughts from my post popped in my head while reading your post.

It's really a response to bahbah and John21. Bahbah is acting like the financially illiterate can magically become literate or else inequality will just get worse and that taxing the rich won't do anything...That's flat out false. The rich have kids too, and they shower them with money and education from birth. That is the definition of welfare. They can do the same thing through government spending too. They just don't want to because **** anyone who isn't family is how they act. I do agree through gov't is less effective and I hate gov't corruption and how it spends but it can be improved and it does work. We have the data to prove that, just not the political will (of which is stunted by said corruption).

So bahbah and John21 will argue taxing the rich hurts investment, etc...Yes, yes it will in one way, but it will help in others. I ****ing hate the government in a sense because yes they are ****ty stewards of capital, but the government has to do something if the people won't. John just said the conditions are there but aren't in place or sth like that. He's basically repeating what I bitched about with the Notre Dame crowdfund. The power to help the downtrodden in a robust, meaningful way is there, but the will is not. They chose a church...And today, tomorrow, and the next day they will NOT choose a more helpful cause...

Point being there is debate on where to draw the line on taxation and what will and won't be effective, but don't tell me taxing the rich won't do anything. That's bull****. Taxing the rich will do a mega****ton even if we agree gov't is a poor steward of capital. It isn't always and a lot of that is corruption that needs to be eliminated no matter how you view taxation.

What you just said is true, yes, but you cannot expect a single mother in a ghetto (who is probably financially illiterate) to raise a kid while living in a terrible environment with terrible schools surrounded by more terrible people and a government that wants to say you should've closed your legs and **** your SNAP benefits because you're lazy and daddy isn't in the picture.

The whole point is it serves no purpose to repeatedly state a fact that isn't achievable unless there is a way to get to that mentality and an environment which produces and preserves the repetition of it. The mother and the kid are ****ed because nobody is willing to take the time to support and educate either and it's a damn near impossible cycle to break if nobody wants to actually step in with the bolt cutters and break the chain.

Yes, people are lazy, stupid, and ignorant. Reduce the environmental factors that lead to the proliferation of those traits and maybe in a few generations the ghettos will shrink instead of the middle class. It's not enough to just say "well obviously you have to be financially literate in order to be financially sufficient..."

Thank you, Captain Obvious, but that's not leadership. That sounds like someone who refuses to do someone else's work for them. And you and everyone else has every right to feel that way, but if you have a true interest in making a difference, then yes the **** you do actually have to do other people's work for them. That's how they learn, from example, mentorship, and actual financial support - for the entirety of the first couple decades of life at least.