[awm]

Chas_P, on 2020-December-26, 19:56, said:

I have a question. And I'm not looking for a fight; I'm looking for enlightenment. Exactly how do you see life improving for the average American on January 21, 2020? What do you think Harris/Biden will do to make things "all better" for all of us? Ken, you go first. I respect your opinion.

The biggest immediate change will be the type of folks appointed in government. Most of Biden's appointees have significant experience in the area they are appointed to (either as a deputy in a previous administration or at the state level); there will be no more big donors with no government experience, media talking heads with no government experience, family members with no government experience, or white nationalists in the administration. We'll also be back to having regular daily briefings and government representatives who communicate (mostly) truthfully and through official channels. It will take some time for the higher degree of competence to have actual impact, but it will be reassuring to have a diplomat in State, a teacher in Education, and an economist in Treasury.

The tone from the White House will also be very different. When tragedies happen (like innocent people shot and killed by police for example), Biden will call the family of the victim and leave them feeling like he cares and will try to make things better. Trump was very much unable to do this! We will also see re-engagement with our traditional allies (like Canada and Europe) and acknowledgement of Russia's electronic attacks on the US (along with possible sanctions or other retaliation). Black Lives Matter rallies in the streets will be fewer and shorter (because the president knows how to tone things down instead of rile people up), the police response will be less violent, and we will slowly see real progress on police reform.

Shortly after Biden takes office, I expect a national plan to deal with Covid. There will be more federal money and support for testing and vaccination, and more uniform policies about opening schools and businesses. This will not immediately "make Covid go away" but people will know when their turn is to be vaccinated, and the federal government will model good behavior (mask wearing, social distancing, vaccinating when eligible) instead of being responsible for multiple super-spreader events. Case numbers should slowly start to decline, and will decline more rapidly in the spring as the vaccine rolls out.

Most importantly, we will be able to go a week without something the president said or did being the top headline in the news. It's hard to have a neutral opinion about Trump since he was basically always the headline (a lot of people absolutely hate him, a smaller number love him). But for Biden, I suspect it will be difficult for people to maintain a strong emotional opinion of him (one way or the other) and this might reduce the partisan fighting at least a little.

[pilowsky]

I spent a few moments watching another very enjoyable Paula White (spiritual advisor to POTUS) youtube video.
During her 'remarks' she commented that - and I quote from the subtitles - "I thought politics was for the big guys up there. Or the real smart ones.".
Apparently, she now realises that she was wrong. Anybody can be President.
I imagine it's the equivalent of sending me to represent Australia at the Olympic marathon - or the Bermuda bowl. The result would be similar.

[hrothgar]

Chas_P, on 2020-December-26, 19:56, said:

I have a question. And I'm not looking for a fight; I'm looking for enlightenment. Exactly how do you see life improving for the average American on January 21, 2020? What do you think Harris/Biden will do to make things "all better" for all of us?

The greatest issue with having Trump as president was always whether or not he was mentally and emotionally equipped to deal with a crisis. Absent a short term crisis, the American economy is able to stagger along relatively well. However, most presidents will be faced with one or more crises. Simply put, Trump is not the person that you want in charge at such a time. The horribly botched response to COVID is a perfect example why.

Trump has done enormous damage to the body politic. He is a natural divider and has helped to polarize America in ways that I hardly believed possible. I hope that not having him in office will allow us to start returning to normal. However, I fear that the damage is so great that the best that we can hope for is that things don't get any worse. Pay attention to this last point, because it cuts to a fundamental flaw with the question that you posed immediately: Breaking things is easy. Fixing them is hard. "All the King's horse and all the King's men, couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again".

With respect to specific policies:

Like Adam, I believe that the quality the staff and the bureaucracy can not be over stated. Not having a rogue's gallery of incompetent relatives, grifters, religious fanatics, and conspiracy theorists running the Federal government feels like a good thing.

I think that the Biden administration will be much better positioned to execute effectively with respect to the COVID response

I believe that climate change is an existential crisis and not having climate change denialists in charge can only be a good thing.

I believe that the actions of the President and their administration reflect on the country and help shape its moral tone. As such, having a President who is not building concentration camps, locking children in cages and practicing family separation as core elements of their immigration policy is a good thing. In a similar vein, having a President who pardon's war criminals like the Blackwater guards is bad.

Last and not least, an awful lot of what happen's is going to depend on the Georgia elections in a week and a half. If the Democratic Party loses then Biden's ability to effect change in general is going to be incredibly limited.

[Winstonm]

We are a week away from entering Trump's Great Depression as his immaturity and immense narcissism has cost 9-12 million Americans to lose unemployment benefits as of today, and on January 1, 2021, the moratorium on evictions will expire throwing millions onto the streets - all during the height of a pandemic when jobs are simply not available.

[johnu]

Although the Manchurian President has no peers when it comes to incompetent, sociopath presidents, there are local examples scattered through history

When a Flat Earther Refused to Concede and All Hell Broke Loose

Quote

While physically barring their opponents from City Hall, the Theocrats started holding sham city government meetings. Due to an anti-Voliva attorney seizing the keys to the city’s lockboxes, the Theocrats lacked access to important documents like ballots. They attempted to hold a recount during a May meeting, but “having no records, no treasury, and no ballots, the council merely re-appointed A.K. Walker chief of police,” the Inter Ocean reported.

It took a 300-person fistfight to finally oust the Theocrats from office. Fed up with being called frauds, the independent mayor, five newly-elected independent councilmen, and hundreds of their supporters stormed city hall in an all-out melee: “With Bare Fists From Early Evening Until After Midnight,” one headline read. The report logged hundreds of injuries.

[kenberg]

Chas_P, on 2020-December-26, 19:56, said:

I have a question. And I'm not looking for a fight; I'm looking for enlightenment. Exactly how do you see life improving for the average American on January 21, 2020? What do you think Harris/Biden will do to make things "all better" for all of us? Ken, you go first. I respect your opinion.

You got a number of answers, maybe not exactly what you had in mind, There was no analogue of "A chicken in every pot". Apparently Hoover didn't say it either, just as apparently Marie Antoinette never said "Let then eat cake".

The responses are somewhat similar, perhaps all some sort of variant on "More stability". Something better than "I'm going to veto the rescue package unless you triple the amounts. Now I'm going gulfing, I will have a tremendous game". [Late edit: I see that he will sign it. Well, so he says today. Who knows. "Unstable" is a severe understatement. I suppose I could thank him for illustrating what I was getting at.] But yes, also appointing people who have experience in the job they are taking on and then respecting their efforts rather than insisting they spend their time telling everyone how brilliant the president's latest tweet was. And so on.


There have been some glitches in the vaccine distribution. They are being corrected. Nobody said anything about fake news or that the distribution is the best ever or the worst ever etc. , they just acknowledged some glitches and worked to fix them. This should be what we can expect, but it hasn't been. I like to think that we are getting back to sane discussions by sane and competent people. That will solve problems, some of them. A little luck would help.

Not that it is directly relevant, but Dave Barry has reviewed 2020.

https://www.washingt...20/?arc404=true

For those who can't access it I'll post a portion, hopefully stayng within legal limits

Quote

And then, sprinkled in amid all the political coverage, we begin to see reports that this coronavirus thing might be worse than we have been led to believe, although at first the authorities still seem to be saying that it's basically the flu and there is no reason to panic, but all of a sudden there seems to be no hand sanitizer for sale anywhere, which makes some sense although there is also no toilet paper, as if people are planning to be pooping for weeks on end (ha), and then we learn that Tom Hanks — Tom Hanks! — has the virus, and now they're saying it's a lot worse than the flu and we need to wash our hands and not touch our faces and maintain a social distance of six feet and use an abundance of caution to flatten the curve (whatever "the curve" is), but they're also saying we don't need face masks no scratch that now they're saying we DO need face masks but nobody HAS any face masks but hey here's a funny meme about toilet paper but ohmigod look at these statistical disease models WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE but Trump says maybe this hydroxysomething medicine will work no it won't work yes it will work no it won't and now they're saying there won't be enough ventilators or hospital beds or PPE and Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx are saying everybody has to shelter at home or else WE ARE ALL DEFINITELY GOING TO DIE hey here's another funny toilet-paper meme but seriously what is PPE and is that different from PPP and where will we get the ventilators and there won't be enough hospital beds and there is still no hand sanitizer and I keep touching my face and they just canceled the NBA can they even DO that wait now they canceled ALL the sports and closed all the schools the colleges the stores the restaurants the bars the theaters the hair salons the parks the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and now they're saying we need to stay at home for HOW LONG what about the toilet paper I can't stop touching my damn face are you seriously telling me all this is because somebody ate a freaking bat maybe Amazon has toilet paper ohmigod they're sold out too WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH THE TOILET PAPER not another Zoom meeting I am so tired of shouting at people in little boxes maybe I should take a shower but what's the point hey here's a bunch more funny memes ohmigod look at the stock market the price of oil maybe

You get the idea. I found it hilarious.

[shyams]

Chas_P, on 2020-December-26, 19:56, said:

I have a question. And I'm not looking for a fight; I'm looking for enlightenment. Exactly how do you see life improving for the average American on January 21, 2020? What do you think Harris/Biden will do to make things "all better" for all of us? Ken, you go first. I respect your opinion.

If I may (caveat: I am not American), my answer to your question is "not by much"; the average American is unlikely to be better off during the Biden administration.
0. Let me rush to define "better off" as something related to substance, not form. If we were focused on form, Biden would definitely be much better than Trump. He will say the right things, do some useful things to dampen the pandemic, and probably be good for race relations within the USA. However, such actions do not feed or house people --- ie. not substantively of benefit to the average American.
1. I agree with kenberg's first sentence in response to your question. Quote "[Americans] are in for an extremely tough time". If anything, Biden not having a Dem Senate on his side will be a major hindrance to any substantive policy actions.
2. This is a guess (and I hope I am wrong). I think Biden will display no courage during his Presidency. Note I don't mean courage in face of war or enemy attacks; I use it in the sense of willingness to go against the establishment. Curiously, given that he is likely to retire after only 1 term in office, he should be most willing to take bold, courageous actions.

As an aside, I don't think the Americans posting on this forum qualify as "average Americans" when it comes to the impact of the Federal Govt on their lifestyle or standard of living. Most of you are above average (some are significantly above) in terms of wealth, health, education, ability to fend off unexpected expenses or shocks, and other such factors. I think this is also true of non-Americans on this board; we too are probably not representative of the median population in our country and we probably are above average in terms of social/financial status. This matters because our views are often reflections of our life situations.

This brings me to:
3. I think the Biden administration will be too pliant when it comes to policy matters, especially foreign policy. Expect the new administration to roll back all the trade actions on China and (perhaps) look the other way when China or some other nation engage in anti-competitive trade actions. I expect the Biden administration to shelve all diplomatic contacts with North Korea (no big deal), reduce focus on Middle East (I don't mean Israel-v-Palestine) and generally take a laissez-faire approach when dealing with NATO. Some of these things will (directly or indirectly) hurt the average American.

4. I do agree with other posters that Biden will be able to repair much of the damage caused by Trump. Having competent people in office who have a clear understanding of their objectives and who know can align their policies to a broad vision is vital for the functioning of the Government. Also, all things considered, Trump is a clown. He was waaaayyyy over his head on matters relating to running the Presidency. And he made it all about him, rather than about helping the average American who he is supposed to serve. His (hopefully) one-term Presidency will get compared to Emperor Nero (who "fiddled while Rome burned").

[y66]

[barmar]

shyams, on 2020-December-27, 21:48, said:

3. I think the Biden administration will be too pliant when it comes to policy matters, especially foreign policy. Expect the new administration to roll back all the trade actions on China and (perhaps) look the other way when China or some other nation engage in anti-competitive trade actions. I expect the Biden administration to shelve all diplomatic contacts with North Korea (no big deal), reduce focus on Middle East (I don't mean Israel-v-Palestine) and generally take a laissez-faire approach when dealing with NATO. Some of these things will (directly or indirectly) hurt the average American.

Was Trump's foreign policy working? He instituted tariffs all over the place, mistakenly claiming that these are paid by the other country, but they're actually paid by us. As far as I can tell, they had limited impact on the trade balance -- they didn't bring lots of jobs home, they either forced us to find other suppliers, or the prices went up. His basic premise that a trade imbalance is a bad thing was way off.

Leaving the Iran nuclear deal and imposing new sanctions didn't put a stop to Iran's nuclear ambitions. It was basically replacing a carrot with a stick, and that's not usually effective.

Trump buddied up with NK and Russia. He claimed that making friends with our enemies would solve the problems, but actually they just took advantage of him (and therefore, us).

We need policies from someone who actually understands how the world works, not just how corrupt businesses work. Biden has been at this for 40 years, and he's putting people in place who know what they're doing.

[pilowsky]

Trump did not appear, as if by magic, out of a vacuum. Only about 1/3 of people in America that had the capacity to vote voted for him. Another third voted for Biden, and the rest couldn't be bothered. We have the same problem in Australia.
Also, many people that are equally capable of understanding the political situation are disenfranchised either because of age, prior convictions, or because they aren't allowed to vote even though they live there and must suffer the consequences of others decisions (a very odd state of affairs in a country whose existence is premised on the idea of 'no taxation without representation').

This raises the question: would the reaction amongst the American people to the current pandemic (the primary reason that Trump lost - and I'm no fan) have been any different had Obama or Biden been President?
The rights-based individualistic attitude where "you can't tell me what to do" would still be there.

The pandemic would still rage, the economy would still tank. We'll all have to wait and see now.
When America roars, the whole world is affected - for good or bad.

[johnu]

barmar, on 2020-December-28, 13:35, said:

Trump buddied up with NK and Russia. He claimed that making friends with our enemies would solve the problems, but actually they just took advantage of him (and therefore, us).

When Russia and N Korea build a lot of Trump hotels in payment for services rendered, you will see that the Manchurian President was in a symbiotic relation with our enemies.

[Chas_P]

kenberg, on 2020-December-27, 15:46, said:

You get the idea. I found it hilarious.

I love Dave Barry.

[thepossum]

APologies for not having followed the Covid relief politics closely. But is it possible to give a very simple breakdown of the shenanigans between Whitehouse and Congress and which parties were involved in trying to do what and why

Maybe there needs to be a new franchise of the West Wing to help explain the last 4 years

[Chas_P]

barmar, on 2020-December-28, 13:35, said:

Leaving the Iran nuclear deal and imposing new sanctions didn't put a stop to Iran's nuclear ambitions. It was basically replacing a carrot with a stick, and that's not usually effective.
We need policies from someone who actually understands how the world works, not just how corrupt businesses work. Biden has been at this for 40 years, and he's putting people in place who know what they're doing.

Yes. Let's send John Kerry over there with James Taylor to do a lengthy rendition of "You've Got A Friend". I'm all for it.

[shyams]

barmar, on 2020-December-28, 13:35, said:

Was Trump's foreign policy working? He instituted tariffs all over the place, mistakenly claiming that these are paid by the other country, but they're actually paid by us. As far as I can tell, they had limited impact on the trade balance -- they didn't bring lots of jobs home, they either forced us to find other suppliers, or the prices went up. His basic premise that a trade imbalance is a bad thing was way off.

Leaving the Iran nuclear deal and imposing new sanctions didn't put a stop to Iran's nuclear ambitions. It was basically replacing a carrot with a stick, and that's not usually effective.

Trump buddied up with NK and Russia. He claimed that making friends with our enemies would solve the problems, but actually they just took advantage of him (and therefore, us).

We need policies from someone who actually understands how the world works, not just how corrupt businesses work. Biden has been at this for 40 years, and he's putting people in place who know what they're doing.

My point was in no way intended as a "compare and contrast" with Trump's foreign policy or absence of one. It was my assessment that Biden will probably not take up some diplomatic battles merely because of who he is.

For all of Trump's mad ramblings, he (at least initially) put the ball firmly in NATO's court on matters of defence spending as % of GDP. His underlying point that some Western European countries do not spend enough is true. Almost all countries that are physically near Russia (i.e. Eastern European countries) regularly spend 2+% of GDP. However, countries like France and Spain routinely under-spend and under-contribute on the defence of their NATO allies.

You are right that Trump's actions were always ham-handed and often counter-productive. Yet, it is reasonable to say that China did change some of their policies and practices to make them less unfair. One can debate whether Trump caused this shift or some other world leader; the end result is that it did happen. Another example is NAFTA. I am not clued in on the new policy replacing NAFTA but perhaps by sheer luck it might be a bit better for Americans.

My next point about Russia & North Korea is likely to be controversial. Most people will disagree with this. However, here goes. Neither Russia nor North Korea are the USA's long-term strategic enemies (they haven't been for over a decade). Your biggest worries should be Iran, China, then the Middle East & North Africa region. Americans are fascinated by Russia's meddling in your politics even as your country has consistently meddled in other nations' politics for decades. So if during this multi-decade dominance there are some short spells when your nation is the statue & not the bird, perhaps you should just learn to deal with it. We all know that the default situation will return shortly.

Trump is no paragon of foreign policy. However, by sheer luck or otherwise, he blindly stumbled into what could be strategically advantageous positions. My point is Biden will undo all this simply to comply with the mantra "If Trump wanted it, it must be bad"

[Winstonm]

IMO, the best thing about Joe Biden's victory over Donald Trump is that Saturday Night Live can go back to being parody instead of a reality show.

[kenberg]

A couple of things I would like to see addressed:

1. It now seems to be part of standard political practice to approach a government shut-down before an agreement is reached. And in the case of the covid release package to run that right up to the edge. As we watch it unfold, we have to listen to our elected representatives tell us that they will be working right up to Christmas to get this done. They seem to expect praise for actually working the week before Christmas. No. They owe us all an apology and, far more important, a ;pledge to do better in the future. Renters, to use one example, should not be wondering on December 23rd if the are going to be evicted on the 31st.

2. They need todo better wiht the laws that they do pass. When Trump threatened to veto the covid relief bill I said that the Ds and Rs should immediately announce they would stick with the agreement that they had and would override any veto. That was not because I thought it was a good bill. I thought it was the best that these morons could do and (see point 1)it needed to be finished. Preferably it needed to be finished by early December but lacking that it needed to be finished. Here is one thought among many that as far as I know has not even been discussed. Both renters and landlords are facing a serious crisis. Evictions are bad for everyone and will not lead to landlords recovering their losses. So: Consider the renters who have really been wiped out. How about an agreement where the government sends a check to the landlord for 75% of the back rent, the landlord agrees to accept that and forget the other 25% ? The renters get to stay, the landlord gets more than he gets by evicting the. For others who perhaps have been seriously impacted but not totally wiped out, perhaps the agreement could be that the renter comes up with 40%, the government another 40$, the landlord forgets the remaining 20%. The money would go directly from government to landlord. If this solution seems wrong, ok, maybe another. But right now the choice seems to be between protecting the tenant and the landlord gets nothing, or if the bill had not passed then the tenant gets evicted and, well, the landlord probably doesn't get much that way either. back in March this was all new. But now our representatives have had the better part of a year to think this through. They don't have to do it my way, but they should be expected to do better than they are doing.

Trump is a hopeless jerk. I have never said otherwise. But he is not the only problem and now, with a new administration coming in, I hope we can do better in many ways.

And to address shyam's concern, " My point is Biden will undo all this simply to comply with the mantra 'If Trump wanted it, it must be bad' ", well, I hope it doesn't go that way. We really need todo better than that. Will we? We shall see.

[Winstonm]

shyams, on 2020-December-29, 04:53, said:

My point is Biden will undo all this simply to comply with the mantra "If Trump wanted it, it must be bad"

Biden is not Trump - Trump is a little man in a job way too big for him; Biden is a wiser man who understands he does not know everything and will listen to advice. My only hope is that Biden and his AG pick do not sweep the criminality of Trump and Associates under the rug with a "look forward, not back" slogan to justify not doing the difficult task of determining malfeasance.

[y66]

Paul Krugman said:

Maybe it was the visuals that did it. It’s hard to know what aspects of reality make it into Donald Trump’s ever-shrinking bubble — and I’m happy to say that after Jan. 20 we won’t have to care about what goes on in his not-at-all beautiful mind — but it’s possible that he became aware of how he looked, playing golf as millions of desperate families lost their unemployment benefits.

Whatever the reason, on Sunday he finally signed an economic relief bill that will, among other things, extend those benefits for a few months. And it wasn’t just the unemployed who breathed a sigh of relief. Stock market futures — which are not a measure of economic success, but still — rose. Goldman Sachs marked up its forecast of economic growth in 2021.

So this year is closing out with a second demonstration of the lesson we should have learned in the spring: In times of crisis, government aid to people in distress is a good thing, not just for those getting help, but for the nation as a whole. Or to put it a bit differently, 2020 was the year Reaganism died.

What I mean by Reaganism goes beyond voodoo economics, the claim that tax cuts have magical power and can solve all problems. After all, nobody believes in that claim aside from a handful of charlatans and cranks, plus the entire Republican Party.

No, I mean something broader — the belief that aid to those in need always backfires, that the only way to improve ordinary people’s lives is to make the rich richer and wait for the benefits to trickle down. This belief was encapsulated in Ronald Reagan’s famous dictum that the most terrifying words in English are “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

Well, in 2020 the government was there to help — and help it did.

True, there were some people who advocated trickle-down policies even in the face of a pandemic. Trump repeatedly pushed for payroll tax cuts, which by definition would do nothing to directly help the jobless, even attempting (unsuccessfully) to slash tax collections through executive action.

Oh, and the new recovery package does include a multi-billion-dollar tax break for business meals, as if three-martini lunches were the answer to a pandemic depression.

Reagan-style hostility to helping people in need also persisted. There were some politicians and economists who kept insisting, in the teeth of the evidence, that aid to unemployed workers was actually causing unemployment, by making workers unwilling to accept job offers.

Over all, however — and somewhat shockingly — U.S. economic policy actually responded fairly well to the real needs of a nation forced into lockdown by a deadly virus. Aid to the unemployed and business loans that were forgiven if they were used to maintain payrolls limited the suffering. Direct checks sent to most adults weren’t the best targeted policy ever, but they boosted personal incomes.

All this big-government intervention worked. Despite a lockdown that temporarily eliminated 22 million jobs, poverty actually fell while the assistance lasted.

And there was no visible downside. As I’ve already suggested, there was no indication that helping the unemployed deterred workers from taking jobs when they became available. Most notably, the employment surge from April to July, in which nine million Americans went back to work, took place while enhanced benefits were still in effect.

Nor did huge government borrowing have the dire consequences deficit scolds always predict. Interest rates stayed low, while inflation remained quiescent.

So the government was there to help, and it really did. The only problem was that it cut off help too soon. Extraordinary aid should have continued as long as the coronavirus was still rampant — a fact implicitly acknowledged by bipartisan willingness to enact a second rescue package, and Trump’s grudging eventual willingness to sign that legislation.

Indeed, some of the aid we provided in 2020 should continue even after we have widespread vaccination. What we should have learned last spring is that adequately funded government programs can greatly reduce poverty. Why forget that lesson as soon as the pandemic is over?

Now, when I say that Reaganism died in 2020 I don’t mean that the usual suspects will stop making the usual arguments. Voodoo economics is too deeply embedded in the modern G.O.P. — and too useful to billionaire donors seeking tax cuts — to be banished by inconvenient facts.

Opposition to helping the unemployed and the poor was never evidence-based; it was always rooted in a mix of elitism and racial hostility. So we’ll still keep hearing about the miraculous power of tax cuts and the evils of the welfare state.

But while Reaganism will still be out there, it will now, even more than before, be zombie Reaganism — a doctrine that should have been killed by its encounter with reality, even if it’s still shambling along, eating politicians’ brains.

For the lesson of 2020 is that in a crisis, and to some extent even in calmer times, the government can do a lot to improve people’s lives. And what we should fear most is a government that refuses to do its job.

[pilowsky]

Trump not being President will not make more than 70,000,000 people suddenly believe in the virtue of rational thought. No matter how wonderful Harris and Biden are. I don't want leaders with their hearts in the right place.
I want people that know what they're doing and have a background in STEM running the show. Not Scotty from marketing/Slomo or Trump. A wet bag of wilted lettuce would do a better job than Trump, but will this instantly cause an outbreak of thinking?
This is where greed gets you.
Give me liberty or give me death - but oh no, 70+ million had to have it all - now we have liberty and death. Excellent.