Trump...Not GOP...Not Dem...Plutocrat

The reason pundits have had such a hard time placing Trump in the Democrat v. Republican framework is because he has never been either.

He is not Republican, he is not a Democrat...he is an Oligarch..To be specific Plutacratic Oligarchy.

And his cabinet picks have just driven home that fact..

Donald Trump’s cabinet of billionaires could be worth more than 100 countries’ GDPs
qz.com...

Trump's team of gazillionaires
www.politico.com...

Wilbur Ross, Billionaire Investor, Is Said to Be Trump’s Commerce Pick
www.nytimes.com...

Billionaire Betsy DeVos, Trump Education Choice
www.commondreams.org...

Trump eyes Goldman alum Mnuchin for Treasury secretary
www.politico.com...

Plutocracy (from Greek πλοῦτος, ploutos, meaning "wealth", and κράτος, kratos, meaning "power, dominion, rule") or plutarchy, is a form of oligarchy and defines a society ruled or controlled by the small minority of the wealthiest citizens.
en.wikipedia.org...

The last time the United States was similar to a Plutocracy was during the "Gilded" age starting after the civil war and culminating with the great depression.

Trump has argued for Trickle-Down economics or Reaganonomics...

Or what was otherwise known as "Horse and Sparrow" when it was first tried and failed in the 1800's...Feed the horse enough oats and the sparrows can live well from the seed left over in the horse droppings.

He is building a cabinet with more Billionaires than ever before in US history...and planning on massive tax cuts for those people and massive deregulation (including the banking industry)....

His argument is that Billionaires and bankers know best how to run the economy...and if they make money it will trickle down to the working man.

Interestingly...Even FOX NEWS is starting to ring a quite bell on what is to come...
Analysis: For some in middle class, Trump plan would mean tax increase

But for nearly 8 million families -- including a majority of single-parent households -- the opposite would occur: They'd pay more.

Most married couples with three or more children would also pay higher taxes, an analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found.

And while middle-class families as a whole would receive tax cuts of about 2 percent, they'd be dwarfed by the windfalls averaging 13.5 percent for America's richest 1 percent.

...

Unlike Trump's polarizing proposals on immigration and trade, his tax plan is in line with traditional Republican policy.
His steep tax cuts in many ways resemble those carried out by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, and the Republican-run Congress is expected to welcome them.
...

roughly 7.9 million families with children would pay higher taxes under his proposals. About 5.8 million are led by single parents.

An additional 2.1 million are married couples.

Other analysts, including economists at the conservative Tax Foundation and right-of-center American Enterprise Institute, have agreed with Batchelder's conclusions.

www.foxnews.com...

You don't have to be an economist to add it up...

Deregulating the banks to pre-2007 status...

Tax breaks that boost the 1% take home by an average 13.5%

And an increase on taxes for the lower and middle class...

A plan to massively increase military spending..

And all of it excused by the repeatedly failed "voodoo economics" of a proposed trickle down that has never happened despite being tried multiple times over hundreds of years?

I suspect we are entering a new economic era where the working men and women that elected Trump are going to feel severe pain.

All opinions welcome...and no doubt many will disagree...I only ask you explain why you disagree.

Trump said he would repeal the Dodd-Frank Act, which was enacted in 2010 to promote U.S. financial stability by improving accountability and increasing transparency in the financial system, by protecting consumers, by ending "too big to fail," and by eliminating bailouts.

Bailouts and shady gambling with consumers money?...Back in business..
ballotpedia.org...

a reply to: Indigo5

Sounds like another liberal rant,Trump is a libetarian he knows how to run a big corporation,which the US has turned into,I'm hoping for some fiscal changes,get these liberal bills we are taxed for,bring some fiscal responsibility,look at the idiot's that have been in office last 8 years spent money like a drunken sailor,then stuck us with the bill,I'm hoping his buisness sense will get rid of these liberal BS laws and taxes Dept of Educ and a bunch others,get rid of them,the day of the free lunch is over,work for your pay

Yep. As I've said before, it turns out that Trump was the useful idiot for the Koch Private Party.

How the Koch network rivals the GOP

I think what the Fox article is doing is starting to herd Trump and his followers into the Paul Ryan-Koch Bros budget plan camp. Welcome to 'Koch-topia'

I fully agree.

I feel his "average" supporters are in for a shock.

And just wait when Net neutrality is gone.

Trump picks strike fear into net neutrality backers

Of course, we'll be told it's good for us.

originally posted by: desert
And just wait when Net neutrality is gone.

Trump picks strike fear into net neutrality backers

Of course, we'll be told it's good for us.

Sadly, I'm raising my grandson to fit into this world. To be one of the "counted ones".

Its gonna be a "Take No Prisoner" future. If you're not one of them, you're nobody.

a reply to: Indigo5

Tax cuts need to be accompanied by corresponding spending cuts. If Trump can't reduce government spending, especially on military, he won't leave us any better off than Hillary would have. Military spending is by far the easiest thing to cut with the least negative effects. A certain percentage of other spending types is actually beneficial in some small way.

But that said, NOBODY should be paying more than a 20% tax rate even according to most DEMOCRATS. Republicans want closer to 10%. So a compromise would be 15% average rate with a 20% cap when combining local, state, and federal levels. This would require a very massive budget chainsaw of something like 50% at the federal level. So, we do have a serious problem of excessive tax rates in the USA. I don't care if the system is progressive or flat, as long as I can opt out when they do things that are immoral like wars. At the very least the first $15,000 to $20,000 of people's income should be exempt or you have a total joke that anyone should be able to see (as opposed to just libertarians being able to see the problem). Considering a family needs $70,000.00 in income before tax to live comfortably in an urban area in the USA because of the $350,000 family-size house prices and expense of health insurance after Obamacare, this is a serious problem.

Anyone who thinks corporations are paying any tax at all are only fooling them self. Every business passes all costs on to consumers by definition of their accounting methods. This is reflected in long-term charts of corporate profits which by the way have almost always been LESS THAN 10%. More importantly, corporate profits do not change as the corporate tax rate changes for the obvious reason that these taxes are, and have to be by principles of for-profit business, passed on to consumers.

GDP is measured incorrectly. PRIVATE GDP is what represents economic wealth. Government spending GDP actually represents a reduction in wealth that should not be part of the measurement. Its quite foolish to think that when a government borrows billions or trillions for a war that somehow people are better off. The military's job is to destroy the means of production of enemies, not build any production. There were exceptions like in Rome when the military was tasked with road-building projects, but today's military projects consist of things like running in circles and repeatedly attempting to push the floors down with your bare hands after sitting around doing nothing too long in an attempt to make up for being lazy. I could go on forever and feel like I want a website for this, though Zero Hedge does such a great job of explaining all this.

a reply to: fractal5

You know ZeroHedge is "fake" ... right.

originally posted by: fractal5
a reply to: Indigo5

Tax cuts need to be accompanied by corresponding spending cuts. If Trump can't reduce government spending, especially on military, he won't leave us any better off than Hillary would have.

The Wall Street Journal sums it up..

That GOP Aversion to Debt? It’s Gone for Now
Donald Trump’s rise marks the demise of Paul Ryan’s fiscally conservative approach to government spending and debt
www.wsj.com...

It is indisputable that every plan on the table from Trump or GOP in Congress involves more spending and less revenues..

That is simply just going to happen..Fiscal Conservatism is dead in DC.

My worry is that the spending plans have been arranged to move money from the middle class to the 1%...And every plan looks perfectly aligned to do just that.

We'll have to wait and see.

But I did think that we wanted an independent to break up the two party system. Now we get one and it's the end of the world because he doesn't support the end of capitalism apparently.

I remember Reagan days and they were good, and Reaganomics worked, but the only problem that happened later was that Reagan expanded the size of government massively. That is what happened later to ruin his trickle down economics.

originally posted by: Annee

originally posted by: desert
And just wait when Net neutrality is gone.

Trump picks strike fear into net neutrality backers

Of course, we'll be told it's good for us.

Sadly, I'm raising my grandson to fit into this world. To be one of the "counted ones".

Its gonna be a "Take No Prisoner" future. If you're not one of them, you're nobody.

If Net Neutrality goes, America will have the internet of China. Seriously, the entire idea of an open market will disappear if you start letting cable companies divide up access to sites and make the internet alacarte. Do you think ATS will be able to stay up if they have to pay each cable company to carry them? The entire internet would devolve to subscription models where you could only use a few sites.

Ironically, this is one thing that would actually shut down the fake news issue, because alternative sources wouldn't be able to afford access.

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: Annee

originally posted by: desert
And just wait when Net neutrality is gone.

Trump picks strike fear into net neutrality backers

Of course, we'll be told it's good for us.

Sadly, I'm raising my grandson to fit into this world. To be one of the "counted ones".

Its gonna be a "Take No Prisoner" future. If you're not one of them, you're nobody.

If Net Neutrality goes, America will have the internet of China. Seriously, the entire idea of an open market will disappear if you start letting cable companies divide up access to sites and make the internet alacarte. Do you think ATS will be able to stay up if they have to pay each cable company to carry them? The entire internet would devolve to subscription models where you could only use a few sites.

Ironically, this is one thing that would actually shut down the fake news issue, because alternative sources wouldn't be able to afford access.

We can go back at least as far as 2001, Michael Powell and the FCC. Clearchannel is Right Wing Christian owned. They systematically bought up radio stations across the country. Small public radio stations buy their air from bigger stations. Public radio stations that did shows about sex ed, LGBT issues, etc were cut.

I don't think there's any major Left leaning radio programming today. Only online, but ... as you say ... that could now end too.

originally posted by: NoCorruptionAllowed
I remember Reagan days and they were good, and Reaganomics worked, but the only problem that happened later was that Reagan expanded the size of government massively. That is what happened later to ruin his trickle down economics.

The Reagan days were good until suddenly they weren't. Reagans trickle down economics ended with the highest unemployment since the Great Depression. The architect of Reagans econic plan and chief economic advisor admitted Reagonimics was a disaster for the economy. Trumps plan is Reagonimics on steroids...and that is a view held by far right economic analysts along with everyone else.

a reply to: Annee

NPR is the closest thing we have today to left wing radio, but they're publicly funded.

Some left wing radio has been attempted, but it's never really caught on. I would say it's similar to how the Daily Show was attempted for the right, but also never caught on.

Net Neutrality would actually favor center/left online publications because that's the majority of the large networks. Only Fox leans right. What you would likely see, is the cable companies that serve cities would offer up CNN, MSNBC, NYT, etc... while the isp's that target a more rural audience would offer up Fox.

I don't get the obsession with removing Net Neutrality though. It literally does nothing other than remove competition from the market by placing a high barrier to entry on distributing a website.

originally posted by: Aazadan

Some left wing radio has been attempted, but it's never really caught on.

I know, part of it is they've lost airways because of Clear Channel (obviously I've been following this a long time].

But, their audience is different. Both newscasters and listeners tend to be more passive.

I ended up listening to Michelangelo Signorile on OutQ XM. He's now on Progressive Talk, but I don't have XM right now.

The Right Wingers want a "show". When I was in AZ - - even the Jack-in-the-Box played FOX news on their TV.

It was difficult to have a conversation, cuz they all sounded like Bot Talking Point Robots.

originally posted by: Aazadan

NPR is the closest thing we have today to left wing radio, but they're publicly funded.

Do rural areas even get NPR?

I know Clear Channel was booting them off their airwaves.

It was very quiet and methodical.

originally posted by: Annee

originally posted by: Aazadan

NPR is the closest thing we have today to left wing radio, but they're publicly funded.

Do rural areas even get NPR?

I know Clear Channel was booting them off their airwaves.

It was very quiet and methodical.

I think NPR has an XM station so it's everywhere. Where I am, I actually get NPR on two different FM stations, in the signal overlap area.

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: Annee

originally posted by: Aazadan

NPR is the closest thing we have today to left wing radio, but they're publicly funded.

Do rural areas even get NPR?

I know Clear Channel was booting them off their airwaves.

It was very quiet and methodical.

I think NPR has an XM station so it's everywhere. Where I am, I actually get NPR on two different FM stations, in the signal overlap area.

No, not XM.

Just free radio.