5 ms·

When everyone is screaming how much Trump is literally making the sky fall 24/7 on all media and water coolers, none of the legitimate problems pack any sort of

When everyone is screaming how much Trump is literally making the sky fall 24/7 on all media and water coolers, none of the legitimate problems pack any sort of punch. Nothing causes panic because panic is the new baseline.

make3 9y ago
to be fair, trump is fucking up a lot of you guys' institutions, like foreign policy, immigrant policy, ecological policy, gender & racial (civil) policy, etc.
- michaelchisari 9y ago
  More importantly, pointing out the damage being done to America's democratic institutions and civil society should not be dismissed as hysterics or simply "panic." The consequences will be greatest in the long term. That we aren't feeling them yet does not absolve the situation.
  - lxcid 9y ago
    I guess this is the calm before the storm.
  - averagewall 9y ago
    Can you give specifics? As far as I know, nothing's changed. They still have democracy in America, and it still works in exactly the same way it used to, doesn't it? They still have civil society don't they? There are occasional riots and ongoing violent crime but that's been the norm for decades at least. Do you predict a transition to a single party system or more crime in the long term because of Trump's actions? Without specifics and concrete problems, it's just more hysteria like the OP was talking about.
    - michaelchisari 9y ago
      > As far as I know, nothing's changed. As a single example to start, I would recommend looking into the staffing problems at the the state department. A lot of people don't think about the state department, but they are the first line of diplomacy on the world stage. There are hundreds of positions left unfilled, a severe lack of focus, the requirement of keeping up with major foreign policy pronouncements through twitter by the POTUS and a disengaged secretary of state with very little experience. World diplomacy is the kind of thing that does not blow up overnight, but has a ripple effect for years and possibly even decades to come, as we've seen with our middle east policies. All of American democracy shouldn't have to crumble into ashes before we express concern.
      - somecontext 9y ago
        For some recent historical context, the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/03/us/politics/top-posts-remain-vacant-throughout-obama-administration.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/03/us/politics/top-posts-rema... reported in May 2013 that "John Kerry is practically home alone at the State Department, toiling without permanent assistant secretaries of state for the Middle East, Asia, Europe and Africa" and "One of the worst backlogs is at the State Department, where nearly a quarter of the most senior posts are not filled, including those in charge of embassy security and counterterrorism."
        michaelchisari 9y ago
        The key difference is that the Obama administration was working on staffing the state department (a difficult task to be sure), whereas it's become clear that the Trump administration and Rex Tillerson are doing the opposite, focusing on cuts and issuing a hiring freeze instead. Tillerson has also proposed a 31 per cent cut to the department’s budget and an 8 per cent staff cut. So the context you provide requires it's own context. All of which does not speak to the volatile situation of the commander-in-chief of the most powerful military in the world making improvised foreign policy declarations over twitter. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/17/magazine/rex-tillerson-and-the-unraveling-of-the-state-department.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/17/magazine/rex-tillerson-an...
- Aloha 9y ago
  anything that is changeable within the term of a presidency is also easy to undo within the term of a presidency.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - klipt 9y ago
    It's easier to break things than rebuild them.
    - erikpukinskis 9y ago
      You shouldn’t be comparing DEMOLISH vs BUILD though. You should be comparing DEMOLISH plus BUILD vs RETROFIT. It’s sometimes easier and cheaper to demolish and build a new house than remodel the existing one.
- hiram112 9y ago
  Could you name one actual policy or law that has been passed which has made a significant difference, so far, in any of the issues you claim Trump has 'fucked up'. The only thing I can think of that might actually have caused some issues for some businesses would be the rejection of TPP. And that is something almost all Americans wanted abolished. Tweets, Executive Orders, and hyperventilating journalists do not actually affect US policy.
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    The repeal of the clean power plan seems like it could lead to many deaths: https://qz.com/943988/trumps-rollback-of-the-clean-power-plan-is-statistically-likely-to-lead-to-thousands-of-preventable-american-deaths/ https://qz.com/943988/trumps-rollback-of-the-clean-power-pla... Not sure if that’s proximal enough for you. It’s true it will take some time to feel the effects of Trump’s choices. That doesn’t mean they’re not quite harmful some of them.
nerdponx 9y ago
This is by design.
hsod 9y ago
I don't think anyone, myself included, knows how to quantify the risk of something terrible happening due to Trump's unprecedented Presidential demeanor and the associated erosion of institutions and norms. It's quite likely that many people, including the media, overrate that risk. On the other hand, many of the stories you read in the media are true. Discounting or ignoring them because you associate them with emotionality or hysteria would be fallacious.
- candiodari 9y ago
  I think the article is much more concerned with the fact that, for about 13 years now ("since" the great financial crisis, but starting before it) we have been running economic policy that would have been seen as lunacy in 2000 by ... well, by everyone. In fact, it pretty much still is. Free money is to capitalism what "let's just use a random function as a cost function" is to a neural network. It takes away the intelligence, the adaptation. It will explode, slowly. It does not make much sense, however, that the economy takes/took this long to crash as a result. We should (and do, according to quite a few economic journals, and that's in a way also what this article is complaining about) have an economy that doesn't make sense given the world we live in. That the connection between reality and our economic system acting on reality is getting looser and looser. There must come a point where it suddenly, violently stops working and vast shortages suddenly manifest everywhere. Just like any learning algorithm when you take away it's direction: it goes insane, and not in a way you can debate whether it's insane. Think epileptic seizure, not general weirdness.
  - AstralStorm 9y ago
    Free (or too cheap) debt is free money too. However removing this with current "market" pricing in the US is extremely hard. The market will actively work against any price reductions with all available economical and political pressures. Most developed countries have been running on huge excess public debt already. And in case of US there is not a lot to cut, unlike EU where a lot of public services got optimized. Education? Ha. The only budget that could be cut is police, army and intelligence. But not compatible with US ambitions of being the world power.

make3 9y ago

to be fair, trump is fucking up a lot of you guys' institutions, like foreign policy, immigrant policy, ecological policy, gender & racial (civil) policy, etc.

michaelchisari 9y ago
More importantly, pointing out the damage being done to America's democratic institutions and civil society should not be dismissed as hysterics or simply "panic." The consequences will be greatest in the long term. That we aren't feeling them yet does not absolve the situation.
- lxcid 9y ago
  I guess this is the calm before the storm.
- averagewall 9y ago
  Can you give specifics? As far as I know, nothing's changed. They still have democracy in America, and it still works in exactly the same way it used to, doesn't it? They still have civil society don't they? There are occasional riots and ongoing violent crime but that's been the norm for decades at least. Do you predict a transition to a single party system or more crime in the long term because of Trump's actions? Without specifics and concrete problems, it's just more hysteria like the OP was talking about.
  - michaelchisari 9y ago
    > As far as I know, nothing's changed. As a single example to start, I would recommend looking into the staffing problems at the the state department. A lot of people don't think about the state department, but they are the first line of diplomacy on the world stage. There are hundreds of positions left unfilled, a severe lack of focus, the requirement of keeping up with major foreign policy pronouncements through twitter by the POTUS and a disengaged secretary of state with very little experience. World diplomacy is the kind of thing that does not blow up overnight, but has a ripple effect for years and possibly even decades to come, as we've seen with our middle east policies. All of American democracy shouldn't have to crumble into ashes before we express concern.
    - somecontext 9y ago
      For some recent historical context, the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/03/us/politics/top-posts-remain-vacant-throughout-obama-administration.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/03/us/politics/top-posts-rema... reported in May 2013 that "John Kerry is practically home alone at the State Department, toiling without permanent assistant secretaries of state for the Middle East, Asia, Europe and Africa" and "One of the worst backlogs is at the State Department, where nearly a quarter of the most senior posts are not filled, including those in charge of embassy security and counterterrorism."
      - michaelchisari 9y ago
        The key difference is that the Obama administration was working on staffing the state department (a difficult task to be sure), whereas it's become clear that the Trump administration and Rex Tillerson are doing the opposite, focusing on cuts and issuing a hiring freeze instead. Tillerson has also proposed a 31 per cent cut to the department’s budget and an 8 per cent staff cut. So the context you provide requires it's own context. All of which does not speak to the volatile situation of the commander-in-chief of the most powerful military in the world making improvised foreign policy declarations over twitter. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/17/magazine/rex-tillerson-and-the-unraveling-of-the-state-department.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/17/magazine/rex-tillerson-an...
Aloha 9y ago
anything that is changeable within the term of a presidency is also easy to undo within the term of a presidency.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- klipt 9y ago
  It's easier to break things than rebuild them.
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    You shouldn’t be comparing DEMOLISH vs BUILD though. You should be comparing DEMOLISH plus BUILD vs RETROFIT. It’s sometimes easier and cheaper to demolish and build a new house than remodel the existing one.
hiram112 9y ago
Could you name one actual policy or law that has been passed which has made a significant difference, so far, in any of the issues you claim Trump has 'fucked up'. The only thing I can think of that might actually have caused some issues for some businesses would be the rejection of TPP. And that is something almost all Americans wanted abolished. Tweets, Executive Orders, and hyperventilating journalists do not actually affect US policy.
- erikpukinskis 9y ago
  The repeal of the clean power plan seems like it could lead to many deaths: https://qz.com/943988/trumps-rollback-of-the-clean-power-plan-is-statistically-likely-to-lead-to-thousands-of-preventable-american-deaths/ https://qz.com/943988/trumps-rollback-of-the-clean-power-pla... Not sure if that’s proximal enough for you. It’s true it will take some time to feel the effects of Trump’s choices. That doesn’t mean they’re not quite harmful some of them.

nerdponx 9y ago

This is by design.

hsod 9y ago

I don't think anyone, myself included, knows how to quantify the risk of something terrible happening due to Trump's unprecedented Presidential demeanor and the associated erosion of institutions and norms. It's quite likely that many people, including the media, overrate that risk. On the other hand, many of the stories you read in the media are true. Discounting or ignoring them because you associate them with emotionality or hysteria would be fallacious.

candiodari 9y ago
I think the article is much more concerned with the fact that, for about 13 years now ("since" the great financial crisis, but starting before it) we have been running economic policy that would have been seen as lunacy in 2000 by ... well, by everyone. In fact, it pretty much still is. Free money is to capitalism what "let's just use a random function as a cost function" is to a neural network. It takes away the intelligence, the adaptation. It will explode, slowly. It does not make much sense, however, that the economy takes/took this long to crash as a result. We should (and do, according to quite a few economic journals, and that's in a way also what this article is complaining about) have an economy that doesn't make sense given the world we live in. That the connection between reality and our economic system acting on reality is getting looser and looser. There must come a point where it suddenly, violently stops working and vast shortages suddenly manifest everywhere. Just like any learning algorithm when you take away it's direction: it goes insane, and not in a way you can debate whether it's insane. Think epileptic seizure, not general weirdness.
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  Free (or too cheap) debt is free money too. However removing this with current "market" pricing in the US is extremely hard. The market will actively work against any price reductions with all available economical and political pressures. Most developed countries have been running on huge excess public debt already. And in case of US there is not a lot to cut, unlike EU where a lot of public services got optimized. Education? Ha. The only budget that could be cut is police, army and intelligence. But not compatible with US ambitions of being the world power.