11/14/15 Dem debate

[Pointedstick]

Individual polls are not reliable. In the aggregate, polls are very reliable.

Averaging together dogshit does not make a tasty chocolate cake, just super smelly dogshit.  I prefer to listen to the prediction markets instead of piehole flapping.  Prediction markets current say Rubio will be the nominee with Trump a distant second.  The only thing that can change this is a Black Swan.

The prediction markets have been roiling for months, and for a long period of time had Jeb Bush on top when the very notion of this seemed utterly farcical. This reminds me that I keep meaning to put a bunch of money on Trump winning.

[Reub]

And now this little salient tidbit from Hillary's email investigation:

Hillary's prize lackey and servant, Huma Abedin, emailed another associate telling her to keep an eye on Ms. Hillary because she's "easily confused". You can't make this stuff up!

[Pointedstick]

I now have money riding on Donald Trump winning the presidency. That's how confident I am in it happening. Do any of the the naysayers care to place bets on Hillary or Rubio?

https://www.predictit.org/Market/1234/W ... l-election

[Reub]

Is this betting a new iteration of Draftkings?

[Xan]

I now have money riding on Donald Trump winning the presidency. That's how confident I am in it happening. Do any of the the naysayers care to place bets on Hillary or Rubio?

https://www.predictit.org/Market/1234/W ... l-election

What odds did you get?

[Pointedstick]

See for yourself; the link is still current.

[Reub]

"You can also withdraw funds from your account on the Funds page. Withdrawals are subject to a 30-day holding period after your initial deposit and a 5 percent processing fee."

"Whenever you sell a share for a higher price than you paid, we charge a 10 percent fee on your profit. For example, if you buy a share at 36 cents and sell at 56 cents, you make a profit of 20 cents. Our fee is 2 cents. The same fee structure applies if you hold onto your shares until the closing date and they are redeemed for $1."

[Pointedstick]

Yes, I am aware that they run a business and must earn money in order to continue offering their services.

[Pointedstick]

Oh I am more than willing to encounter and evaluate information that's bad for Trump; in fact I relish it. Bring it on! I hate feeling wrong. If you can make me feel like I'm wrong about Trump, I'll dump him ASAP.

However, so far most of the anti-Trump arguments I've encountered have been weaksauce based on derision and the flabbergastedness of the people who don't know anything about him and are viscerally repulsed by his public persona, kind of like a lot of conservatives just detest Obama's scolding, contemplative, lecturing, professorial style. Very little of the anti-Trump arguments seem to revolve around substance. If you can provide me with some, I'll gladly peruse them.

On another note, let me mention that I have recently personally succeeded in selling Donald Trump to probably the two most liberal people I know: my father-in-law and my mother. Both of them now believe that a Donald Trump presidency is a distinct possibility and that maybe it wouldn't be as much of a disaster as they initially thought it might be. The man is easy to sell. After buttering them up with some of his much-more-moderate-and-even-liberal-positions-than-they-would-have-guessed, the killer argument for both of them was the fact that Trump and Clinton were both personally trained by the same persuasion master: Tony Robbins. It was like a lightbulb turned on in their minds.

[Pointedstick]

Trump is actually paying nobody. His campaign filings show that he actually hasn't paid any salaries at all. It's a 100% volunteer operation. Chew on that. Sort of amazing when you think about how much money the establishment cretins pay people to like them.

No, I do not believe that Donald Trump will build a wall between the USA and Mexico. I think that it is nothing more than a negotiating tactic to establish a bold but untenable position that he can then negotiate away to create the illusion of giving ground, while getting something that he really does want. Donald Trump wrote a whole book in which he explains that be does this every time he negotiates for something, without fail. I think he does this for basically everything where people fixate on one particular statement or position as being so ridiculous that it couldn't possibly be realistic. Maybe it's not. Maybe that's the point. Maybe he's just conditioning you to hate a particular thing so much that when he drops it, you feel relief and are willing to give him everything else he wants. His business life is full of this…

This leads to the obvious question of, "well, how can we trust anything he says, then!?" The answer is that of course you can't, but it doesn't matter. We already know this to be true for all other candidates, after all. Only a fool trusts what anyone running for office says. Anyone. They are all liars. Every single one of them. Total liars. Who believes any of the things that Hillary Clinton or Marco Rubio says? Only the naive or the stupid. People running for office are serial panderers who will say whatever they think people want to hear. They have to. That's how the game is played if you actually care to win. Now, we're all smart people here. Think about that fact that when you listen to Donald Trump you are inclined to actually believe him, or at least evaluate what he is saying within the rubric of truth and falsehood, unlike when you listen to any other politician and immediately assume that they are lying and probably planning to stab you in the back to boot. Even the people who don't like him are actually treating Donald Trump's statements with more credibility than any they assume for the other candidates. Ponder that a bit.

So how do you determine what a candidate would do with the power they're aspiring to wield? What you have to do is first examine their lives, experiences, and accomplishments. People don't change.To see what someone will do in the future, observe what they've done in the past. And to see what they might do in new situations where they've never been tested before (as all the other candidates have similarly not been tested), look at their basic personality traits to see what drives them, how they act, what makes them tick.

So let's see, what has Donald Trump done throughout his life? He has created, nurtured, and run multiple businesses. He has created tens of thousands of jobs. He has constructed a lot of buildings and infrastructure projects. He has transformed a large amount of money into a gigantic amount of money. He has been the host of a hugely successful TV show. These are all personal accomplishments, too. Without him--his input, his direction, his management, his money--these things would not have been. There are probably a bunch more impressive things that I'm forgetting.

Now, to predict how Donald Trump will react in a new situation, what is his personality like? He can make friends out of his adversaries. Relentlessly optimistic. Canny exploiter of good opportunities. Unabashed capitalist. Incredible persuader and negotiator. Not dissuaded by failure. Enormous energy and endurance. Frustrated by broken things; ceaseless builder and fixer. Expands to fill a room. Fascinates everyone, even his enemies. Comfortable directing people and managing huge enterprises.

Anyone wanna compare this to the list of real accomplishments and personality traits of any of the other candidates? Seriously. Give it a whirl. Start with Marco Rubio for maximum effect!

[MachineGhost]

On another note, let me mention that I have recently personally succeeded in selling Donald Trump to probably the two most liberal people I know: my father-in-law and my mother. Both of them now believe that a Donald Trump presidency is a distinct possibility and that maybe it wouldn't be as much of a disaster as they initially thought it might be. The man is easy to sell. After buttering them up with some of his much-more-moderate-and-even-liberal-positions-than-they-would-have-guessed, the killer argument for both of them was the fact that Trump and Clinton were both personally trained by the same persuasion master: Tony Robbins. It was like a lightbulb turned on in their minds.

That's stretching things.  He just did some seminars along with Robbins (and other people).  That's not being specifically trained by Robbins.  It was probably that MLM scheme a couple of years ago...  Trump University or something like that?

[WiseOne]

There are specific stances he's taken that I agree with as well.

* Immigration - I am appalled at both Republican and Democrat pro-immigration stances.  You can't, on the one hand, bemoan the lack of jobs, and complain about high unemployment while simultaneously increasing the supply of workers.  I might feel differently in different times, but today, automation and cost cutting to serve the financialized economy are just lopping off whole swaths of people from the employment ranks.  This needs to stop, for both the people affected and the country as a whole.  Trump seems to have a plan.

I've been thinking along these same lines - so count me in PS's corner too.  He is a bit of a loose cannon and that was coloring my initial impressions of him, but when you ignore the headlines and the media's sound bites and look at what he has to say when he's in serious interview mode, it makes FAR more sense than anything I've heard from other candidates.  The above is perhaps the best example.

I also really, really like the idea of having someone who is probably one of the world's best negotiators and experienced business leaders in the Oval Office.  Think of who we've had in there recently and their qualifications.  There is the idealist law professor with fresh views, and the career politician +/- old-money & privilege.  Where has that got us?  Why NOT try something different this time around?  The one thing we know for sure is that repeating one of the previous formulas isn't likely to accomplish anything.

And yes I'll go out on a limb and predict that Trump can easily win the general election.  Hillary Clinton is doing well now mainly because she's a known quantity and has been a favored candidate for 8+ years now, but once the spotlight of the campaign hits, well, we'll see what happens.  I just don't think she has anything of substance to say, in comparison with Trump.  She also represents the status quo, which I don't think most people are too happy with.

[Reub]

The Clintons are worth more than $3 billion, most of it in the Clinton Foundation.  Good luck claiming that you're fighting for the poor.

[Pointedstick]

If you throw away your vote because your ideal candidate never materializes, you might as well not vote. There will never be an ideal candidate because political candidates are drawn from the pool of people who are so fucked up in the head that they want to run for office. They are all problematic, it's just a matter of degree and focus. I have to imagine that you dislike Hillary Clinton more than Donald Trump and think she would make a worse president. If this is the case, I think it makes sense to express this opinion at the ballot box. You don't have to love Trump to want someone who'd be even a bit better than Hillary to win. Back in 2012, I didn't particularly like Mitt Romney or feel any excitement at all for the guy, but voting for him instead of Obama was a no-brainer.

[I Shrugged]

If you throw away your vote because your ideal candidate never materializes, you might as well not vote. There will never be an ideal candidate because political candidates are drawn from the pool of people who are so fucked up in the head that they want to run for office. They are all problematic, it's just a matter of degree and focus. I have to imagine that you dislike Hillary Clinton more than Donald Trump and think she would make a worse president. If this is the case, I think it makes sense to express this opinion at the ballot box. You don't have to love Trump to want someone who'd be even a bit better than Hillary to win. Back in 2012, I didn't particularly like Mitt Romney or feel any excitement at all for the guy, but voting for him instead of Obama was a no-brainer.

Some of us live in states where the presidential vote outcome is a forgone conclusion.  In that case, voting your way or voting one's conscience or for protest... they're all good.

[MachineGhost]

Oh, good point.  Do I want to decide between Bernie and Hillary, or between Trump and Rubio.

Somebody make it stop. 

Are you a libertarian?  Quit your whining.    Trump is the best of the sorry lot if you would stop letting your personal feelings get in the way.  Hint: How well did those work out for you in investing? 

[MachineGhost]

Yes, Trump is the best thing to happen to me, if I just stop letting my brain cells get in the way.   

And my investing is going just fine, thanks for asking.

I'm sorry, how well did your FEELINGS work out for you in investing BEFORE you adopted the PP or your PP derivative?

I win. 

[Mountaineer]

I agree we can't believe what politicians say.  They are salespeople, with all the moral elasticity that is intrinsic in that profession. 

Moral elasticity!  That has got to be one of the best descriptors of current day politicians I've ever heard or read. 

... M