Former President Obama Warns 'Disruptive' AI May Require Rethinking Jobs and the Economy (theverge.com) 151
This week the Verge's podcast Decoder interviewed former U.S. president Barack Obama for a discussion on "AI, free speech, and the future of the internet."
Obama warns that future copyright questions are just part of a larger issue. "If AI turns out to be as pervasive and as powerful as it's proponents expect — and I have to say the more I look into it, I think it is going to be that disruptive — we are going to have to think about not just intellectual property; we are going to have to think about jobs and the economy differently."
Specific issues may include the length of the work week and the fact that health insurance coverage is currently tied to employment — but it goes far beyond that: The broader question is going to be what happens when 10% of existing jobs now definitively can be done by some large language model or other variant of AI? And are we going to have to reexamine how we educate our kids and what jobs are going to be available...?
The truth of the matter is that during my presidency, there was I think a little bit of naivete, where people would say, you know, "The answer to lifting people out of poverty and making sure they have high enough wages is we're going to retrain them and we're going to educate them, and they should all become coders, because that's the future." Well, if AI's coding better than all but the very best coders? If ChatGPT can generate a research memo better than the third-, fourth-year associate — maybe not the partner, who's got a particular expertise or judgment? — now what are you telling young people coming up?
While Obama believes in the transformative potential of AI, "we have to be maybe a little more intentional about how our democracies interact with what is primarily being generated out of the private sector. What rules of the road are we setting up, and how can we make sure that we maximize the good and maybe minimize some of the bad?"
AI's impact will be a global problem, Obama believes, which may require "cross-border frameworks and standards and norms". (He expressed a hope that governments can educate the public on the idea that AI is "a tool, not a buddy".) During the 44-minute interview Obama predicted AI will ultimately force a "much more robust" public conversation about rules needed for social media — and that at least some of that pressure could come from how consumers interact with companies. (Obama also argues there will still be a market for products that don't just show you what you want to see.)
"One of Obama's worries is that the government needs insight and expertise to properly regulate AI," writes the Verge's editor-in-chief in an article about the interview, "and you'll hear him make a pitch for why people with that expertise should take a tour of duty in the government to make sure we get these things right." You'll hear me get excited about a case called Red Lion Broadcasting v. FCC, a 1969 Supreme Court decision that said the government could impose something called the Fairness Doctrine on radio and television broadcasters because the public owns the airwaves and can thus impose requirements on how they're used. There's no similar framework for cable TV or the internet, which don't use public airwaves, and that makes them much harder, if not impossible, to regulate. Obama says he disagrees with the idea that social networks are something called "common carriers" that have to distribute all information equally.
Obama also applauded last month's newly-issued Executive Order from the White House, a hundred-page document which Obama calls important as "the beginning of building out a framework." We don't know all the problems that are going to arise out of this. We don't know all the promising potential of AI, but we're starting to put together the foundations for what we hope will be a smart framework for dealing with it... In talking to the companies themselves, they will acknowledge that their safety protocols and their testing regimens may not be where they need to be yet. I think it's entirely appropriate for us to plant a flag and say, "All right, frontier companies, you need to disclose what your safety protocols are to make sure that we don't have rogue programs going off and hacking into our financial system," for example. Tell us what tests you're using. Make sure that we have some independent verification that right now this stuff is working.
But that framework can't be a fixed framework. These models are developing so quickly that oversight and any regulatory framework is going to have to be flexible, and it's going to have to be nimble.
Obama warns that future copyright questions are just part of a larger issue. "If AI turns out to be as pervasive and as powerful as it's proponents expect — and I have to say the more I look into it, I think it is going to be that disruptive — we are going to have to think about not just intellectual property; we are going to have to think about jobs and the economy differently."
Specific issues may include the length of the work week and the fact that health insurance coverage is currently tied to employment — but it goes far beyond that: The broader question is going to be what happens when 10% of existing jobs now definitively can be done by some large language model or other variant of AI? And are we going to have to reexamine how we educate our kids and what jobs are going to be available...?
The truth of the matter is that during my presidency, there was I think a little bit of naivete, where people would say, you know, "The answer to lifting people out of poverty and making sure they have high enough wages is we're going to retrain them and we're going to educate them, and they should all become coders, because that's the future." Well, if AI's coding better than all but the very best coders? If ChatGPT can generate a research memo better than the third-, fourth-year associate — maybe not the partner, who's got a particular expertise or judgment? — now what are you telling young people coming up?
While Obama believes in the transformative potential of AI, "we have to be maybe a little more intentional about how our democracies interact with what is primarily being generated out of the private sector. What rules of the road are we setting up, and how can we make sure that we maximize the good and maybe minimize some of the bad?"
AI's impact will be a global problem, Obama believes, which may require "cross-border frameworks and standards and norms". (He expressed a hope that governments can educate the public on the idea that AI is "a tool, not a buddy".) During the 44-minute interview Obama predicted AI will ultimately force a "much more robust" public conversation about rules needed for social media — and that at least some of that pressure could come from how consumers interact with companies. (Obama also argues there will still be a market for products that don't just show you what you want to see.)
"One of Obama's worries is that the government needs insight and expertise to properly regulate AI," writes the Verge's editor-in-chief in an article about the interview, "and you'll hear him make a pitch for why people with that expertise should take a tour of duty in the government to make sure we get these things right." You'll hear me get excited about a case called Red Lion Broadcasting v. FCC, a 1969 Supreme Court decision that said the government could impose something called the Fairness Doctrine on radio and television broadcasters because the public owns the airwaves and can thus impose requirements on how they're used. There's no similar framework for cable TV or the internet, which don't use public airwaves, and that makes them much harder, if not impossible, to regulate. Obama says he disagrees with the idea that social networks are something called "common carriers" that have to distribute all information equally.
Obama also applauded last month's newly-issued Executive Order from the White House, a hundred-page document which Obama calls important as "the beginning of building out a framework." We don't know all the problems that are going to arise out of this. We don't know all the promising potential of AI, but we're starting to put together the foundations for what we hope will be a smart framework for dealing with it... In talking to the companies themselves, they will acknowledge that their safety protocols and their testing regimens may not be where they need to be yet. I think it's entirely appropriate for us to plant a flag and say, "All right, frontier companies, you need to disclose what your safety protocols are to make sure that we don't have rogue programs going off and hacking into our financial system," for example. Tell us what tests you're using. Make sure that we have some independent verification that right now this stuff is working.
But that framework can't be a fixed framework. These models are developing so quickly that oversight and any regulatory framework is going to have to be flexible, and it's going to have to be nimble.
AI, man... (Score:2)
Very experts, much comments, so concern.
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I wonder if he's bought shares in AI companies & is using his public status to "raise awareness" about AI to increase said share prices?
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Not quite an expert and not really world-renowned on account of his work in the fields you name.
https://www.scopus.com/authid/... [scopus.com]
AI reducing jobs is obvious (Score:2)
All it takes is for the AI to get better than humans (or nearly as good as the humans and much cheaper) in each category of work, one by one, to get a pattern of hollowing out of the employment economy.
The idea that AI "will just create new kinds of jobs you didn't think of" has a certain validity in the first few years, or maybe even decades, of AI, but agai
what makes a former President qualified as an expe (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a common phenomenon that experts in one field think they're experts in other fields. Obama is a genius politician, but c'mon. He never took a single math or science class as a student.
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It's a common phenomenon that experts in one field think they're experts in other fields.
Because there can be no overlaps between fields of study. Everything is strictly bound to its category and cannot be used anywhere else.
Obama is a genius politician, but c'mon. He never took a single math or science class as a student.
Considering he went to Harvard and part of the admissions consideration is coursework in mathematics and science [crimsoneducation.org], I believe it is safe to say your comment is a lie.
Re:what makes a former President qualified as an e (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think Obama was a genius. He was somewhat of a one-trick pony, not unlike the former alleged president. They were elected because they were in the right place at the right time.
Obama came in after disgust at the policies of Bush Jr. that helped give us the Great Recession. That recession had many parents, including the American people who saw nothing wrong with getting in over their heads in debt so they could flip houses. The former alleged president came in after the Dems put up the banal Hillary and Bernie was a sore loser who would not campaign for her or tell his followers to vote for her. I mostly blame Bernie for inflicting the former alleged president upon us.
Obama had no coattails and neither did the former alleged president.
Re:what makes a former President qualified as an e (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think Obama was a genius. He was somewhat of a one-trick pony, not unlike the former alleged president.
Obama knew what he was doing. He followed a clear path to presidency, going to the right schools, making connections, climbing the ladder willingly from the bottom, while staying under the radar as long as possible to prevent people from stabbing him in the back. He may have figured that out intuitively or he may have had good advisors, but he knew how to take power (also that's what Ivy League schools teach, and that's where he went).
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I don't think Obama was a genius. He was somewhat of a one-trick pony, not unlike the former alleged president.
Obama knew what he was doing. He followed a clear path to presidency, going to the right schools, making connections, climbing the ladder willingly from the bottom, while staying under the radar as long as possible to prevent people from stabbing him in the back. He may have figured that out intuitively or he may have had good advisors, but he knew how to take power (also that's what Ivy League schools teach, and that's where he went).
Wow, so when faced with one of the only Presidents to come from a somewhat non-privileged background you see a story of privileged connections. When seeing someone who played things pretty clean and didn't accumulate a closet full of skeletons you see a ruthless Machiavellian who hid from the limelight until he was ready to strike.
Could it just be that he was a smart kid who went to good schools and moved up the ladder because he was a smart kid? And then he entered/got recruited into politics, and when it
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Wow, so when faced with one of the only Presidents to come from a somewhat non-privileged background you see a story of privileged connections.
He went to Punahou. He's as privileged as they come. Turn your brain on.
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Wow, so when faced with one of the only Presidents to come from a somewhat non-privileged background you see a story of privileged connections.
He went to Punahou. He's as privileged as they come. Turn your brain on.
It's a school with 3,700 students.
And yes, the current tuition is $30k [wikipedia.org] but he attended on a scholarship. It's not privilege if you earn it!!
In contrast, Bush, an actual example of privilege, went to a school with a current tuition of $60k [wikipedia.org]
And Trump's school has a tuition of $40k [wikipedia.org].
Btw, I'm actually kinda curious. You made a point of the name and prestige of Obama's school but left out the fact he went on scholarship.
Did you really not know about the scholarship, or did you leave it off because it undercut your
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Alleged president? Are you saying Trump wasn't president? In this universe he certainly was.
Did Hilary secretly win and no one told me?
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Trump was the first president ever to challenge and call out China on their IP theft and massive undercutting pricing.
Yeah, that's what I want in a president. I want them to "call out China." That's real effective.
His tariffs must be working now because Biden kept them in place.
That's evidence that they're not working. The idea was to force concessions in exchange for lifting the tariffs. That Biden hasn't lifted them means that they haven't been useful to extract any concessions.
Before Trump, China was pretty much doing what they wanted.
During and after Trump, China was pretty much doing what they wanted. We have made no progress on this front.
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That was a trend that started during the Obama years and has nothing to do with either president. When automation can sufficiently supplant labor the advantages of China disappear. And while new factories do have economic benefits, it's not like the factories of old where they're providing large numbers of jobs that pay well.
Moving factories out of China is the result of advancements in robotics, not government policy. Also, this only applies to certain industries. For many, supply chains will force them to
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You need math to build or design an AI. You don't need that much math to understand how they work.
Mandatory car analogy: I don't need to know how to design a V8 to repair one, drive one or know how one works.
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You need sufficient math knowledge to understand what your "model" does, how and why, or roughly, the knowledge I've outlined above.
Mandatory car analogy: you don't need to know how to design a V8 engine to repair one, but please try repairing one without basic knowledge of how it operates, basic usage of the tools you need and a manual from the designer that you can understand.
Corollary: quite obviously, you don't know how to repair cars, or how to build models.
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>Anything less than that, and then passed with a good grade makes you unqualified to discuss the subject.
What aspect of the subject? How to build one, yes, quote probably! What affect they may have, given your talks with experts on what they can and may do, and your own experience? Policy decisions about what to do with this emerging new field? Sure!
You talk as if some AI researcher should come up with the regulations and policies for societal use of AI. Or that someone like that should be in charge
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Any aspect of the subject. If you don't know how the statistics of it works, you don't understand what "AI" can do and all your suppositions on the alleged effects of "AI" on the future are just bullshit.
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The bulk of ongoing "work" on model training is dominated by ignorance, and it shows.
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He is talking about what could be done as a response to what the "experts" have already said will happen.
Of course, all the wolf crying from said experts isn't exactly convincing in the first place. The chatbots seem pretty useless in reality.
The possibility of scaling up mass surveillance, though, seems far more likely to me.
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Someone asked Obama some questions during an interview and he responded. He didn't claim to be an expert.
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And still he's the most qualified president in the past 2 decades the US had.
Kinda sad if you think about it.
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Qualified to what? None of them were qualified at much of anything if they had to get a real job.
What is a real job? Most people end up developing a fairly narrow field of expertise and would not be successful deviating from it. That's pretty much the defining characteristic of civilization. Is software developer a real job? That job hasn't existed for very long. Politician, farmer, prostitute, tax collector, soldier, merchant. Those are some jobs that have been around longer than recorded history.
He has a platform and he's using it (Score:2)
At the very least even if you disagree with him and help
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Humans having a collaborative nature?
You've never worked in any corporation I was working for, very obviously.
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Sure they do. In most corporations they collaborate to stab someone in the back.
That stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum. You clearly know that. :-)
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Of course it does. How many countries with comprehensive welfare systems and sound economies exist that do not have a significant and successful business sector?
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That doesn't really answer the question though, it's just correlation. In fact it runs counter to the narrative of business theory itself which we usually understand that the businesses act's in the interest of it's their own revenues and profits.
What I would say the answer to why those countries have those systems is that they use legislation to align the businesses incentives with those of the greater economic and social outcomes we desire. We have the entirety of history, especially in the last 300 yea
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No, it isn't "just a correlation". It is a cause-and-effect relationship. You cannot build a strong society without a strong economic foundation (hello, Marx), and you cannot build a strong economic foundation without business - the history is littered with examples of failed attempts.
they use legislation to align the businesses incentives with those of the greater economic and social outcomes we desire
You do not quite understand how the modern world works, do you? Modern, efficient business simply doesn't exist outside a legislative framework that vigorously protects at least the basic human rights.
For a recent example of h
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The question was not "does a strong economic foundation require businesses" it was "A successful business acts in the interest of the greater economic and social good?"
To which we agree, the answer is "no". Thus you need "a legislative framework that vigorously protects at least the basic human rights." because the business is not going to consider those things (as a rule).
Maybe I "don't understand the modern world" but I do have reading comprehension.
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Hmm... compared with the alternatives before and after...
You're trying to sell us AI, I get it?
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That's a good idea.
Jobs (Score:5, Insightful)
If we simply don't need so many people to work then we're going to have to make big decisions, because right now your right to exist is predicated upon either working or being disabled. Only people with a disability, who are working, who have worked as much as society expects them to (and usually then some) or some combination of these things have enough money to live a decent life in most modern and developed societies and places. They are the ones that have government pension, employer pension, job income, or disability payments.
What's everybody else supposed to do? Just die? That's certainly one vision of the future. Another one might be UBI. The same people who are most against that, though, are also the ones who are against birth control, abortion etc.
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Re:Jobs (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, considering that the demographics are looking at a stagnation (US) or even a decline (EU) in population, this may not be that bad a thing as you may think.
And in the EU, you actually have a right to exist and live, unlike the US, so I kinda expect a lot of US people to migrate back to Europe in search of employment. And yes, we DO need well educated people. In my country, we lack about 20% of the people to replace the retiring workforce. For every 100 people going into retirement, only about 80 people join the workforce. And that will not change until at least 2035, and even then, it will only taper off and not recover. In the next 15 years, my country will lose about 20% of its workforce.
Someone has to compensate for that.
And the goat-herders we get right now as refugees are not going to be a suitable replacement for the retiring neurosurgeons and scientists. So if you're no longer needed in the US, come to Europe!
We're hiring!
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According to AI experts like Obama you won't need as many people working so a population decline would actually be a good thing to avoid millions of jobless in the future.
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We have always needed fewer people working to accomplish the same workload. In the past 50 years, productivity per person went up by 200 to 1000 percent, in some areas one person is doing the workload that 10 people accomplished around 1970.
That's not the point though.
The point is that people are not fungible. If they were, the refugee crisis wouldn't be one. What makes this a crisis is that the number of unemployables who don't know how to do jack is already sufficient in pretty much every country, what we
Re: Jobs (Score:2)
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And in the EU, you actually have a right to exist and live, unlike the US, so I kinda expect a lot of US people to migrate back to Europe in search of employment.
Wow! Talk about straight up delusional. Just wow. Europe doesn't want Americans that can't make it in their own country. How did you even get to this line of thinking? Reality check.
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Simply by watching our employee history lately? There've been quite a few US people coming over to work here.
But hey, if you want to stay over there, more power to you. Just send the ones who want, no need for those that don't.
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What has happened throughout history when countries have extra people doing nothing is they start a war with a neighbor.
Since that is now mostly out of vogue, rather than working people providing non working people with the same quality of life as working people (aka free loaders) like in some grand communist 5 year plan, the free loaders will just have to get jobs.
What jobs you say?
Obvious. Managing and maintaining all the AI.
Why would ANYONE spend their life working if they could live just as well on UBI
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Obvious. Managing and maintaining all the AI.
That sounds like a job for AI.
More seriously, it sounds like a job for a relatively small number of people.
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I figure we'll need about 15 people per AI on shifts plus management, of course.
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Yes, it's called a job. Try getting one sometime. Ask your boss if it's ok to get paid for not actually doing anything.
And your boss better pay you a living wage you can support your family of 4, with stay at home spouse and send 2 kids to college. In exchange for not doing anything. Because you have a right to other people's money.
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What's everybody else supposed to do? Just die?
Ummm, yeah? What else can they do after society abandons them? They have no resources so they can't take what they need by force, so they will just die. Did you have some sort of plan? Nobody else does.
It has already begun (Score:4, Funny)
Thousands of internet trolls have already been replaced by AI, easily recognizable because of correct grammar and punctuation.
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Cut them some slack, English is a rather complicated language for a Russian native speaker.
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Cut them some slack, English is a rather complicated language for a Russian native speaker.
Don't be ridiculous. If you see grotesque spelling and grammar errors, you can be sure it's been written by a "native" English speaker.
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The Russians weren't forward thinking enough to start TikTok.
Don't hold your breath (Score:3)
There are a few problems with Obama's observation:
1) The people in charge speak out of two mouths. One of them decries the risks we're taking with the continuing research into AI. The other is in a race to reach the finish line first before other countries do. Trust me when I say the latter is of far greater importance to them then the former. Risks be damned.
2) Those in charge of the US are completely incapable of coming together to deal with even the most basic of problems the country currently faces. Income inequality, inflation, the lack of mental health availability, a broken ( and predatory ) education system, the inability to curb spending leading to enormous amounts of debt, etc. etc. They neither understand what's coming nor, ( their constant bickering and infighting aside ) due to being pretty much owned by whichever corporate interest sends them the most money, will they be interested in doing anything about it.
We all better get used to the concept of " embracing our AI overlords " now because there is no putting the Genie back in the bottle once released.
Who knows, perhaps an AI would do a superior job of running this place. It certainly can't do any worse :|
Given the State of the World today, I would give a true AI ( not the silliness we have today ) a shot at the job.
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AI would be terrific to run countries and corporations.
Too bad the the people in charge who could put them there are also the ones that want those positions for themselves instead of AI.
I appreciate ... (Score:2)
lower full time to 32-35 hours? more workers get o (Score:2)
lower full time to 32-35 hours?
Make it so that more workers get ot?
add an X2 and X2.5 OT levels?
It's wonderful to see someone who believes in govt (Score:3)
...talk about serving in same.
It's almost as if he doesn't realize that government employees are bureaucrats that are specifically tasked with implementing policy and slowing any deviation from same policy to a crawl unless and if an elected or sufficiently high ranking appointed official gets personally involved in the issue.
What is inspiring about that kind of work, acting as a purposeful speed bump? Why would someone with talent and drive want to do that at all?
If he's suggesting getting one of those appointed offices, there aren't that many that have actual power and would transcend what I describe here.
First job to rethink: POTUS... (Score:2)
oh look ... (Score:2)
... another super interesting bullshit piece from the vergezzzzzz ...
ofc the headline includes "obama" so the clickbait already generated over 80 replies. i would bet hefty money that not one of those has even skim-read the obviously paid bullshit article from the well known (ironically soon to be replaced by ai, if not already) bullshit site that nobody ever reads, but gets systematically linked by click farmers.
AI Coding (Score:2)
Better late than never (Score:2)
Re:Rethinking Jobs and the Econonomy (Score:5, Informative)
I know Obama talked a lot about that but what did he produce?
More jobs [factcheck.org] than the great businessman [factcheck.org]. He also could speak far more coherently [imgur.com] and eloquently.
Re:Rethinking Jobs and the Econonomy (Score:5, Insightful)
The great business man also declared bankruptcy 4-6 times: https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
In typical fashion, he declared the first 3 to be 1 bankruptcy. The State judge in NYS also has determined his financial statements were financial horseshit. The entire family did nothing this past 2 weeks (in the rest of the trial to determine damages) but blame the accountants. His entire "business" was nothing more than a bunko scheme. In fact, if he'd had just taken the blob of money he got from his old man and just invested in the stock market, he'd have come out ahead of where he is now.
Everything he touches has the stench of corruption. And he wants to do to the country what he has to his "businesses" and those around him.
Re:Rethinking Jobs and the Econonomy (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a reason why everyone who ever done business with him is on a "cash only or fuck off" policy with him.
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Re:Rethinking Jobs and the Econonomy (Score:5, Informative)
The judge who has no finance background and determined his Mar a Lago property was only worth $18m when nearby normal sized houses are going for $20-25m?
He based that number based on what the assessed value was. He was literally going by what the government was saying it was worth [politifact.com]. That may be lower compared to other surrounding properties, but that isn't the point. The point is the orange goon was claiming the property was worth multiple times what it was worth when trying to get loans or hoodwink investors, but when it came time to pay taxes would repeatedly devalue the property. From the above link:
New York Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron’s Sept. 26 ruling stated that from 2011 to 2021, the Palm Beach County property appraiser determined Mar-a-Lago’s value was "between $18 million and $27.6 million." But Trump’s statements of financial condition presented to investors stated that it was worth between $426 million and $612 million, "an overvaluation of at least 2,300%" Engoron wrote.
. . .
Engoron asked the media to stop attributing the $18 million figure to him.
"Please, press, stop saying that I valued it at $18 million," he said in court Oct. 2. "That was a tax assessment. Or, something in that range."
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Assessed value has nothing to do with real world fair market value.
Have you ever owned any real estate or paid any property taxes in the US? Apparently not.
And even if that ridiculously stupid method was proper (it isn't) the judge still made a flip decision without a trial, expert witnesses or anything else normally done in a court case. On that basis alone the judge is a low grade incompetent moron and biased as fuck.
We have court procedures and standards for a reason. To come to a just conclusion that
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Assessed value has nothing to do with real world fair market value.
Have you ever owned any real estate or paid any property taxes in the US? Apparently not.
And even if that ridiculously stupid method was proper (it isn't) the judge still made a flip decision without a trial, expert witnesses or anything else normally done in a court case. On that basis alone the judge is a low grade incompetent moron and biased as fuck.
We have court procedures and standards for a reason. To come to a just conclusion that we can all agree was fairly arrived ant even if we don't like the result. Just declaring a defendant guilty with no witnesses or trial is Soviet era star chamber bull shit of the highest order.
Bench trials are extremely common in the US, especially in civil law. Trump and his attorneys could have requested a trial by jury in his civil case, and while its an open question whether that would have been granted he didn't even bother. He and his legal team agreed to a bench trial up front. You're bitching about him being treated in the manner he and his attorneys asked for.
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Re:Rethinking Jobs and the Econonomy (Score:5, Informative)
By the same logic, if Trump died of COVID in April 2020 and Pence became president and followed Trump's policies to the letter, he would have been the greatest job creator in American history.
Unemployment rate and start of presidency (Obama - red, Trump - green, Biden - purple): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/gr... [stlouisfed.org]
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Six former VPs have gone on to be elected to the office of President. Adams, Jefferson, Van Buren, Coolidge, Bush Senior, Biden. Nine others have inherited the office. Being VP is like being the second son of the king. You may not matter at all, but you also may end up very important.
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Bush was gifted the job following on Reagan, yes. Biden didn't even run for the job.
The others are from a different time and place and even so it seems like you're more likely to be president if you're not VP than if you are. How many VP ran for office and lost?
The terminal heart beat promotions are not relevant to leadership or the electoral process.
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I disagree on the promotions being irrelevant, as many of them have gone on to win the subsequent term on their own. T. Roosevelt, Coolidge, Truman, Johnson, and the initially not-elected Ford. Especially in that last case, becoming VP was the most important thing that happened to set them up for being the President.
Coolidge probably doesn't belong on the first list, and I'm missing someone but I don't know who, since he both inherited the position and then was elected as the incumbent.
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87% of our presidents were not a VP.
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Take a look back through history and realize that ever since Johnson, VPs were mostly assassination deterrents.
Aka "ok, I could off that bozo... but then THIS bozo takes over. Nope, not worth it".
Re: Rethinking Jobs and the Econonomy (Score:2)
There's this thing called the business cycle. During upswings, people get hired. During downswings, people get laid off. I don't know what possesses you people to think that all of this is controlled by whoever the sitting president is.
I was watching the democratic primary debates at my college back in 03, and the talking point made by all but one of them was "Bush cost 3 million jobs!" Every time I heard that I was thinking "wtf? how? The dot-com crash started before he was even in office, and I get that e
Re: Rethinking Jobs and the Econonomy (Score:2)
Re:Rethinking Jobs and the Econonomy (Score:5, Interesting)
I have my own law firm. The reason I was able to take the early pay cut and do that is because of 1) The Affordable Care act, and 2) Income Based Repayment for student loans. Thanks to those two I was able to keep some form of health insurance during the new venture and what would have been a $2,000+ a month student loan payment was only about $300.
Without those two items I wouldn't have been able to afford to start my firm.
I'd vote for Obama a third time if I could.
Also we were able to go to Cuba on a cruise in 2019 due to his relaxation of the travel rules.
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Some people can look more than three inches in front of their own face.
One of the supposed goals stated by every politician going back a century is to nurture and encourage people to start small businesses. By helping to remove some of the high barriers to entry those businesses can grow, hire more people, and pay more taxes which are used in turn to help other people do the same. And that is exactly what has happened here.
You may find this shocking but your taxes are used *all the time* in the form of SB
Re:Rethinking Jobs and the Econonomy (Score:5, Informative)
I voted for Obama twice so I get all that, but coherence and eloquence didn't produce anything meaningful for me.
Directly, no.
But those qualities demonstrated that person in charge actually understood the things going on in his administration, which made him capable of effectively managing it.
Trump on the other hand was a parade of bad ideas thwarted by his own incompetence in getting them implemented.
I mean he literally tried to do a rush withdraw from Afghanistan before he was kicked out of office (and you think Biden's withdraw was bad!). But the "body man" (guy who carried his bags) he gave the job to didn't understand where Presidential directives came from, so he effectively ended up forging the order even though he got Trump's signature [vanityfair.com] and the grownups were able to scuttle it.
To be honest George W. Bush had a bit of the same problem, not that Bush was nearly as dumb as people implied, but he wasn't sharp enough for the job. The Iraq war was a terrible, terrible decision where they assumed they could just pop in, install a friendly democracy, and pop out. A more coherent and eloquent thinker might have been able to think about the repercussions in a bit more depth.
Just think of how many people died as a result of that decision. Not to mention the fact that it probably factored into Putin's subsequent willingness to invade Georgia and Ukraine.
Oh, and here's another thing I just found out [wikipedia.org]:
In May 2003, shortly after the US invasion of Iraq, elements of the government of Mohammad Khatami made a confidential proposal for a "Grand Bargain" through Swiss diplomatic channels. It offered full transparency of Iran's nuclear program and withdrawal of support for Hamas and Hezbollah, in exchange for security assurances from the United States and a normalization of diplomatic relations. The Bush administration did not respond to the proposal, as senior US officials doubted its authenticity. The proposal reportedly was widely blessed by the Iranian government, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
Wow...
Just imagine if the US had been led by a competent President at the time who thought it prudent to confirm if that offer was legit or not, instead it was a simple "you don't think it's a serious offer? OK! Lets move on!"
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Don't know if you're including this or not, but there's also the intentional slow-walking by his staff to carry out his poorer directives. Which worked well because "distract then change subject" is known to be effective on DT.
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Don't know if you're including this or not, but there's also the intentional slow-walking by his staff to carry out his poorer directives. Which worked well because "distract then change subject" is known to be effective on DT.
For sure, assuming you like DT's policies the disadvantage of his incoherence is that he's fairly easily managed by more sophisticated operators.
Cheney and The Rummy are the ones who thought pop-in-pop-out would work. And GWB wasn't one to question his bosses.
I don't quite buy that. Iraq was always Bush's dream (finish what his daddy started) and he wasn't so simple as to be managed by his underlings.
Bush was in charge, but his limitations became his administrations limitations.
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Trump printed TONS of money while he was in office to prop up the economy.
Guess what one of the easiest ways to cause rampant inflation is?
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Yes, rampant inflation creates jobs.
Fuck off with those data points.
I voted for no one and am glad.
Obama presided over a period of historically low inflation. If anything his administration and fed appointees have been accused of holding back economic growth coming out of 2008, which was slow and steady relative to the economic meth binges and crashes of administrations before and since.
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Oh yay, a proud non-voter, and by that decision a supporter of every ass-hat politician in the country who hoped everybody would just sit on their self-pitying duffs come election day.
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The US economy was merely coasting along, not 'singing along'. GDP increased along the trend line established in 2010. Unemployment decreased along a similar trend line. Meanwhile interest rates were kept artificially low, and the federal deficit immediately began to increase year after year beginning in 2016.
Re: Trump had the economy singing along (Score:2)
Re:Trump had the economy singing along (Score:4, Informative)
until it got derailed by Covid. If it hadn't been, Trump's record on job creation would have been stellar. Not that I'm a Trump supporter - but let's do our arguments well rather than grab partisan claims which whilst true, are ultimately illegitimate.
Maybe, although there's a pretty good chance the economy would have flown off the rails as well. Trump dumped huge sums of money into the economy via his tax cut and subsidy bonanza, at a time when virtually all economists were saying it was unnecessary. Then he meddled with the fed to pressure them to keep interest rates low and continue QE, again when economists were saying it was well past time stop those policies and slow growth to prevent overheating. Asset inflation was accelerating long before COVID, I remember remarking to friends in 2019 that buying a house was easily the best paper investment I'll ever make at the rate of return I had gotten.
Every president wants to provide over accelerating growth, and Trumps ego around being a "smart business leader" made him particularly susceptible to that particular brand of hubris. But the reality is economies shouldn't grow on an exponential ramp, and things were going perfectly fine economically after Obama, at a high level. It was time to start touching the brake gently, not slam the accelerator.
Really? (Score:2)
Interfering with the Fed? Nah - pretty much EVERYBODY was in favour of the policy keeping interest rates nailed to the floor and QE for the duration of Trump's presidency. And he certainly couldn't have interfered with the Fed's independence.
You're right that he pushed through tax cuts and expenditure rises. Of course pretty much noone opposed them at the time, especially not denying the need for them. Or at least that's my memory.
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Really? You don't remember the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as Obama Care? It hasn't been that long...
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Really? You don't remember the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as Obama Care? It hasn't been that long...
The Affordable Care Act was a joke. While it removed barriers for some folks, what it did for those of us who had played the shell-game of health insurance most of our lives is price us out of healthcare altogether. Costs increased faster under the ACA than they did before. From the promised public option, we instead got a private mandate: buy insurance from a for-profit scum-sucking coverage denier or else.
What's hilarious to me about the ACA is the number of Democrats still declaring it a huge win. It was
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The Affordable Care Act was a joke.
Yes, massively expanding healthcare coverage in the US was a "joke". Give me a fucking break.
Dont get me wrong we would have been much better off with the much lower price tag of socialized medicine but the extent that proper healthcare insurance was expanded by said act is quite a lot and the fact is that anything better probably wouldnt have passed as Democrats are hardly the Leftists that Republicans like to make them out as.
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He produced perhaps the most reasonable presidency anyone alive today can remember. Was he able to lead the charge with transformative policy that brought about utopia? No. But he appointed respectable experts, he made measured and well thought out decisions, and he made positive strides towards bettering the country. That's a hell of a lot more than any other president I can remember has done, and he did it despite the fact that the voters who propelled him to office never turned out during the mid-term ye
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Why only at the border?
Seriously, we need a prez who isn't half-assing everything.
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It is worse, you can sometimes find a reasonably good example or reference on stack exchange.
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Well... yes.
Why, did anyone not know that yet? What else would be the reason to have it?
2011 Open letter to M. Obama on socio-techo change (Score:2)
"Long discussed, little acted on" is so true.
James P. Hogan brought these issues up in his 1982 sci-fi novel "Voyage from Yesteryear" (and others), talking about a "phase change" in human society caused by a combination of cheap fusion energy, automation, and, in general, improved know-how.
"Voyage from Yesteryear"
https://web.archive.org/web/20... [archive.org]
A physical example of a phase change is liquid water boiling into steam instead of just being hotter water -- where gaseous steam has very different properties, dyn