"What good is it to address the predictable?"

predictability is your friend. it's the basis for most of what you rely upon. if predictability is a crime, i hope i'm always guilty of it.

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I come here for the unpredictable. Most importantly I try to create the unpredictable. That is why my threads get so much attention. Notice how the Democratic National Convention thread died quickly were it not for my efforts to keep in on track. The RNC thread was a winner last week. I've been pretty busy with work and look how little activity there is.

---

---

"In the world I see you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Towers. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying stripes of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway." T Durden

Ladies and gentlemen, the Donald Trump of the LR. We could call him Forumpf.

---

Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

---

---

"In the world I see you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Towers. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying stripes of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway." T Durden

I am perfectly willing to also gloss over all the many, many, imperfections of the guy I'm voting for because I see this purely as a case of which candidate do I believe will push the country in the direction I desire. Hillary is a hard core socialist and has proven that every day of her public life. Deficits will rise, taxes will rise, freeloading on the Fed will rise, no one can dispute this will be the direction of a Hillary presidency. For all his assinine statements and foolish campaign promises, 90% of which will go by the wayside after the election, Trumps track record is that he has a corporate mentality and good CEO's establish policy and hire to make up for thier deficits. Trump will bring in the right people to manage foreign policy and not bring in a Hillary Clinton for SoS because he needed her endorsement in the general election. Look at it this way, Trump has not had to buy support to get the nomination and the reality is he's alienated more than he's befriended. Yet when the rubber hits the road and theTrump presidency becomes a reality, how many of these people that are truely deserving of a post like SoS are going to turn it down because Trump pissed them off in the primary. I'll take my chances on the guy that was about my 10th choice a year ago because is pretty damn clear that this guy gives us at least a chance at turning the enconomic ship around, unless of course you are a commited socialist and you like the 20 trillion dollar debt, which is certain to continue unabated under Hillary. I always like to point out to those that don't care about the debt that In my lifetime the Fed has had to pay 12-15% to service their bonds, and when the inevitable happens and it creeps back up to a mere 5%, it will then cost us 1 trillion dollars a year just to service the debt. Don't think for a minute I don't blame both parties for this.

---

Every night that I run, the thought crosses my mind that there's no way in hell I'll still be running a month from now.

Very good points.

---

---

"In the world I see you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Towers. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying stripes of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway." T Durden

"Hillary is a hard core socialist"

i stopped reading right there.

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

And yet I totally forgot to ask Slowman, since he feels he's doing a CEO hire with this election, since neither looks to really be the person for the job, which of these CEO's is going to hire all the right people to do the actual work and which one is going to put forth an endlist list of politically correct and previous support payoff choices to fill their cabinets. Think hard about all the favors owed by Clinton and her political machine for 30 years of support. How many of those cabinet positions are going to be filled by useless polical insiders that have spent millions over the years for the chance at a cabinet position. Compare this to how many favors has Trump had to promise, he's done nothing but piss people off. Yet in the end the truly deserving and qualified will have to dig pretty deep to turn down a chance to actually do some good for a change.

Slowman is way way off in his assessment of potential CEOs. Unless of course he is that committed socialist.

---

Every night that I run, the thought crosses my mind that there's no way in hell I'll still be running a month from now.

Convenient, but never forget that in the Billary presidency it was Hillary that made the hard push for a single payer health system.

---

Every night that I run, the thought crosses my mind that there's no way in hell I'll still be running a month from now.

"never forget that in the Billary presidency it was Hillary that made the hard push for a single payer health system."

you might not like single payer, and i might not either, but we have a large list of single-payer systems now and we hardly live in a hard core socialist system. when you start out a thesis with a provably wrong premise, that's not a platform for a fruitful discussion.

you are voting for the person you should be voting for. i'm not going to try to dissuade you.

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I consider the socialist movement to be a death by a thousand cuts to the country, we may not be in a hard core socialist system yet but it's pretty evident Hillary will move us in that direction. Some cuts are small and get ignored, some are large and get resistance but once you get cut the bleeding continues. I don't want to be Denmark with a 55.4% income tax, an 8% social security, AND a 25% sales tax rate. Sure, every freeloader born there gets free tuition through college, but, guess what, not everybody should go to college. It's direction that counts and her's is undeniably socialist.

If she's your choice that peachy, but don't get on your high horse and deny she's part of the socialist direction that this country has been moving in for the last 50-75 years. The size of her cuts are debatable but she's going to add to the bleeding.

---

Every night that I run, the thought crosses my mind that there's no way in hell I'll still be running a month from now.

I don't want to be Denmark with a 55.4% income tax, an 8% social security, AND a 25% sales tax rate.

Government spending as a percent of GDP for Denmark is in the 50-50% range. That number of the US is in the 38-40% range. For that additional 12-17% in spending Denmark pays for education thru college as well as has a better retirement plan and provides health care, family leave off and several other benefits.

While I wholly disagree with going in the direction of socialism the US additionally suffers from the blow of simply not delivering any bang for the buck. We'd be in the 60-65% GDP spending range to get what Denmark delivers in the 50-55% range and it would still likely be inferior services to boot.

Show me you can effectively deliver, run and deal with what you have before asking for more.

~Matt

"If she's your choice that peachy, but don't get on your high horse"

i do, in fact, have a high horse, he's a 16.2hh strawberry roan. but i'm not on him now, unless believing that "words mean things" places one on a high horse.

your guy just said, today, that putin is a better leader than obama. you vote for him. i think the U.S. under obama's leadership is better than Russia under Putin's. i'm just weird that way.

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

The bang for the buck is a real problem. We are already spending 2/3s of our money on entitlements. The reason the US number is so high is because we have the biggest military in the world. We have to spend the money to police the rest of the world and keep them from our boarders while a country like Denmark floats a few ships and prays that NATO will keep them safe. But make no mistake that the US being at the 38/40% is a horrible thing and don't forget how much of that is deficit spending. It's scary that with a 3 1/2+ trillion budget, 1.1 is considered discretionary and 55% of that goes to military. I think it's quite evident that we need to get in control of the non-descretionary budget first but no one has the balls to take that on.

---

Every night that I run, the thought crosses my mind that there's no way in hell I'll still be running a month from now.

I'll not deny that Trump can be an arrogant jackass that has made an art of pandering to the pissed off populace of this country that's tired of being stepped on by the progressive elites. I'll simply take the chance my arrogant jackass gives us a better chance to move the socialist balance of government spending in the reverse direction than the dishonest pay for play two face idiot you are voting for. I firmly believe that a Trump adminstration will field a stronger, more competent cabinet than a Clinton cabinet that will be stocked with incompetent politically correct choices and political hangers on that have supported her for 30 years as a path for this very pay off.

---

Every night that I run, the thought crosses my mind that there's no way in hell I'll still be running a month from now.

you have found the absolute right person for which you should cast your vote. it would be a sin and a shame for me to try to talk you out of it.

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

The reason the US number is so high is because we have the biggest military in the world.

Military spending accounts for only 4.2% of GDP. Denmark spends 1.41% making the difference a mere 2.79% of GDP. IOW military spending is not he problem. Yes we spend more then other countries and yes we could spend less by not being world police etc., but if we did we'd drop from 38-40% to 35-38%, not HUGE as the Donald would say.

~Matt