America Great Again

80watts

Well-known member
May 20, 2004
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Victoria
For the past couple of years the propaganda coming from the White house was to make "America Great Again".

In my opinion that would be to make the middle class stronger.

Which is kinda hard considering that most manufacturing jobs went overseas where the labour is cheaper then in America. The ma an pa retail store is almost non-existent except in very small towns. Big Box stores like Walmart, Home Depot etc have bacisly put these ma and pa stores out of business especially in the larger cities.
The online businesses of Amazon and ebay are hard to compete with due to the volume done and overhead savings due to bulk sales compared to ma and pa stores overhead and small volume of sales. Any type of retail store has to get into the online business or go under (Sear for example).

Education is usually the key to this, but is is further out of the reach of the average American family due to cost of secondary education. Low key loans and or scholarship will be helpful if available.

Manufacturing and mining are the key industries.. Manufacturing has migrated overseas and mining had made a environmental mess of the USA. Tax breaks have gone out to the large companies last year, and now they have the resources to buy overseas companies, not creating jobs in America (Walmart aquisition of an Indian company).

The past 6 to 10 years of fracking oil and gas in the US will leave the US in an large environmental disaster in the coming future. The global climate is changing and the US is facing more and more natural disaster like hurricanes and the damage/price/cost is getting bigger each year. (most likely due to global warming, where there is more water in the air due to the higher temperatures- where 1 degree rise in temperature means that the air holds 15-20% more water..). And yes the global ice sheets are melting at unprecedented rates....

How can that federal government keep up with that when it decreased its taxes... Its plan it to let future generation take care of the debt.

No matter what Canada is tied in with the US, our economy usually follows the US. The US is Canada's biggest trading partner. What happens there usually affect us here in Canada.

So any solutions how to make America Great Again?
 

se7landrover97

Well-known member
Jun 30, 2011
612
551
93
For the past couple of years the propaganda coming from the White house was to make "America Great Again".

In my opinion that would be to make the middle class stronger.

Which is kinda hard considering that most manufacturing jobs went overseas where the labour is cheaper then in America. The ma an pa retail store is almost non-existent except in very small towns. Big Box stores like Walmart, Home Depot etc have bacisly put these ma and pa stores out of business especially in the larger cities.
The online businesses of Amazon and ebay are hard to compete with due to the volume done and overhead savings due to bulk sales compared to ma and pa stores overhead and small volume of sales. Any type of retail store has to get into the online business or go under (Sear for example).

Education is usually the key to this, but is is further out of the reach of the average American family due to cost of secondary education. Low key loans and or scholarship will be helpful if available.

Manufacturing and mining are the key industries.. Manufacturing has migrated overseas and mining had made a environmental mess of the USA. Tax breaks have gone out to the large companies last year, and now they have the resources to buy overseas companies, not creating jobs in America (Walmart aquisition of an Indian company).

The past 6 to 10 years of fracking oil and gas in the US will leave the US in an large environmental disaster in the coming future. The global climate is changing and the US is facing more and more natural disaster like hurricanes and the damage/price/cost is getting bigger each year. (most likely due to global warming, where there is more water in the air due to the higher temperatures- where 1 degree rise in temperature means that the air holds 15-20% more water..). And yes the global ice sheets are melting at unprecedented rates....

How can that federal government keep up with that when it decreased its taxes... Its plan it to let future generation take care of the debt.

No matter what Canada is tied in with the US, our economy usually follows the US. The US is Canada's biggest trading partner. What happens there usually affect us here in Canada.

So any solutions how to make America Great Again?
Convince our American friends over there to impeach Trump. I can't understand why he is still in office? And their Republican Congress seems to be turning a blind eye on what he is doing. Gone are the days of responsibilities and accountabilities to the people in America. Sad to say, whatever happens there, affects us tremendously, I agree with you. He is making a mess on the entire world not to mention threatening Democracy in his own country and making it look like a 3rd world country. IMHO, their downfall is ours as well. :(
 

Crookedmember

I Don't Member
Sep 2, 2017
1,559
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The problem with the US is that the only issue that matters to a large number of Americans (Evangelicals, etc) is abortion.

So these people will vote for and support leaders who cheat on their wives raw-dogging porn stars and Senate candidates who rape kids in their cars. Anyone who claims to be "pro-life." It's really pretty sick.

For decades Republicans have abused the abortion issue to win elections and push through the only issue that matters to them--tax cuts for the richest.

America can't be great again until the Republican Party is flushed down the shiter.

Sadly the Harper/Scheer so-called conservatives are trying very hard to make abortion a much bigger issue in Canada.
 

Tim22

New member
Apr 25, 2018
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Im not a trump fan at all . I dont think they should impeach till midterm elections are over hopefully dems get control . Trump isnt a beleiver he just spews bullshit . Mike pence on the other hand i think belives in re educateing people that dont think like him. The guy has a scary look in his eyes .somebody like that with all the republicans behind him well i think we would all wind up being brainwashed into there beleif system shoot me now .
There doing enough damage right now even with trump causeing kaos in republican party. Mike pence and a calm republican party would be so bad.
 

badbadboy

Well-known member
Nov 2, 2006
9,544
306
83
In Lust Mostly
For the past couple of years the propaganda coming from the White house was to make "America Great Again".

In my opinion that would be to make the middle class stronger.

Which is kinda hard considering that most manufacturing jobs went overseas where the labour is cheaper then in America. The ma an pa retail store is almost non-existent except in very small towns. Big Box stores like Walmart, Home Depot etc have bacisly put these ma and pa stores out of business especially in the larger cities.
The online businesses of Amazon and ebay are hard to compete with due to the volume done and overhead savings due to bulk sales compared to ma and pa stores overhead and small volume of sales. Any type of retail store has to get into the online business or go under (Sear for example).
The new tax bill does not support your theory. The top 5% earners in the USA got the tax break they wanted while the middle class got a very small token amount that is only temporary.

http://time.com/money/5071344/gop-tax-bill-middle-class/

Americans sold their manufacturing of products down the river a long time ago because the cost of the product was King. No one ever considered American jobs were at risk for buying products made in Asia. The ROW followed suit with Europe, Canada and Australasia having similar problems.

The new NAFTA deal is supposed to bring a lot more American made components in to the Car Industry. This will negatively effect both Canada and Mexico. A lot of vehicles are made on both sides of the US border. Now they want to export parts to Canada and Mexico to be installed in Cars coming back to the US? Seems Ass Backwards to me. Canada has had a good automobile industry manufacturing parts and assembling vehicle as per the Auto Pact for decades. We shall see where this deal ends up.

America's innovation in high technology is where they still rule. One thing I was happy to see was America is no longer allowed to sell American components to ZTE in China. ZTE have undercut every Cellular Base Station manufacturer in the world by reverse engineering the competition's Base Stations. Now #45 wants to save ZTE. Go figure who's side he is on?

You are incorrect on the Walmart effect on small communities. It is widely known once a super box store moves into a State, the Small Town Ma and Pa shops soon lose all their business. Walmart and Home Depot are widely known for low wage jobs. So it effects the economies of both small and large cities. More money goes to the big Box stores and lower wages are paid which reduces the tax base. Again another result of everyone wanting the lowest price rather than supporting local merchants and their jobs.

https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/2405-real-cost-walmart.html

Consumers Reap the Seeds they Sow. You can not have it both ways: High local wages and Low Cost imported Goods are simply incongruent. Bringing back manufacturing to the USA will result in increased cost of goods with wages that have not kept up. This so called 'trickle down economy' will most likely result in a spike in inflation which will effect world markets with lending rates making a significant jump. That is of course if #45's plans are implemented in a re-election. There is little chance of it happening during this administration due to other distractions.
 

clu

Active member
Oct 3, 2010
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Rose tinted rear view mirror.

There's a theory that the "great" America that people are longing for is a fiction. Television in the 50s painted a pretty picture of what life was supposed to be like. A young and naive audience bought into the "Leave It to Beaver" fiction the way younger people these days buy into the Kardashian fiction.

It says something that in the years that MAGA has been a thing that they don't point to the specific time they're trying to recapture. It's a feeling not a concrete economic or social target. At best, they're just trying to recapture the naivety and optimism of youth.
 
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Ray

Well-known member
Dec 21, 2005
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vancouver
The irony is, MAGA was in fact taking place under the Obama administration.

The unemployment rate was starting to decline, wages were increasing, more and more Americans had medical insurance so they wouldn't have to go bankrupt when they got sick, the economy was doing really well.

Then the Republicans got in and decided to undo everything Obama did, because it really hurt them to see a black man leaving a positive legacy, so they set about to destroy.

The Republicans seem to really hate the middle class, with their anti-union rhetoric, which proposes that the country's wealth should only be in the hands of the 1%, and promptly squirrelled into off shore accounts out of reach of the tax man. The hatred and disdain for the poor has even convinced a good portion of the poor that the hatred isn't directed at them, but at 'other folks' who are poor but look different, and so they support politicians that make life even harder for themselves.
 

sensualsixty

Active member
Nov 26, 2007
444
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Read the fine print!!!!

What Trump did not tell the middle class is that he took away as much or more than he gave them. Federal income tax rates may have decreased at bit, but significant tax deductions were removed e.g. the property tax deduction, along with others. Many in the middle class will be paying more in income tax than they were in past.
 

se7landrover97

Well-known member
Jun 30, 2011
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Vanity Fair has a good article asking if the Chinese have outright bribed Trump.

Remember he has not divested himself of his business interests. He has a stake in a resort park in SE Asia that was having problems. Suddenly a billion dollar investment appears, courtesy of people linked to the Chinese state.
Meanwhile Jared Kushner has secured hundreds of millions in financing for his failing office tower in NYC. Made a deal in his spare time while in the Middle East on government business, supposedly.
And the trailer park trash still love Moscow Donny.
Not only that, look at Mitch Maconnel's Wife Elaine Chao who is currently Transportation Secretary, whose family business is in direct conflict, so I read. The father just happened to be the founder of a shipping company called the Foremost Group that is benefiting from some questionable business expansion lately in cooperation with the China State Shipping Corporation.

http://commonsensenation.net/peter-...and-his-wife-takes-millions-from-the-chinese/

If there is one thing I learn while I was working in Asia is you scratch my back I scratch yours. How many other GOPs are being benefited from a Trump presidency while the country is melt down? Or can anybody please explain to me why some intelligent, respectable, decent, patriotic Republican Leaders still support him and are part of the problem??? They lose decency and doesn't care anymore? I just can't imagine there are people like that. :(
 

licks2nite

Well-known member
Nov 30, 2006
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Getting a space program with live crews going again the way that the Apollo missions to the moon did would likely "make America great again". Empires seem to thrive on individuals putting their own lives on the line for stunning achievements. That said, America doesn't necessarily have to be an empire. Make no mistake, America is an empire with bi-lateral agreements with nearly every nation on earth including Canada. NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command is an exclusively U.S.-Canadian endeavor that tracks every scrap of junk, and there's plenty of it, orbiting earth to discern and detect an incoming hostile airplane or missile. Empires aren't cheap. Britain agreed to protect Poland from Hitler but in the end Britain was no protection to Poland at all and Britain was sucked into a war with Germany that was headed to fight the vicious dictator Stalin. Britain lost its empire including Canada who became widely called a "satellite" of the United States. Stalin's progeny went on to rule a Soviet empire that collapsed under its own weight of intrinsically inefficient and inherently corrupt central bureaucracy. Rome lost control of its remote provinces and ceded the eastern half to the Greeks. The Mongols made the biggest empire the world had ever seen in one life time that included China, India and Russia and seemed to end as quickly for the same reason that the Roman empire ended. Shear lack of communication. The life of a charismatic leader ended and so did the empire. America works hard to maintain communications with powerful military and police services and varying degrees of success. The price of empire at times seems too high. Britain's gratitude to America in World War II will likely take Britain anywhere America can go. Doing regime change today on uppity dictators that don't have their financial system tied to the world banking system isn't exactly stunning achievement unless you're a banker. Low employment in America maintains a source of military replacement personnel. America needs to bring back the military draft to be great so that the rich have "skin in the game" and a better vision of going forward.
 

Ray

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Dec 21, 2005
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Make no mistake, America is an empire with bi-lateral agreements with nearly every nation on earth
America is an empire by virtue of having a military presence in over 180 countries.

Rome lost control of its remote provinces and ceded the eastern half to the Greeks.
Rome divided it's empire between east and west because it was too big. Communications between east and west would take almost a year. The eastern Roman empire was still ruled by Romans, even though they adopted Greek culture. While the western empire got sacked by the Germanic tribes, the eastern empire lived on until almost 1500.

The Mongols made the biggest empire the world had ever seen in one life time that included China, India and Russia
The Mongol empire never included India. The Khilji dynasty destroyed the Mongol armies.

Low employment in America maintains a source of military replacement personnel.
The unemployment rate is among the lowest in US history right now.
 

licks2nite

Well-known member
Nov 30, 2006
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As I was saying, Ray, the Mongols left descendants in the Indian sub-continent to rule from early 16th to early 18th centuries. The labour participation rate in the United States is as low as it has ever been since 1978 regardless of what unemployment figures say. Moreover, the jobs are a low paying "waiters and bartenders" recovery since 2008. United States doesn't operate any military bases in Canada, although considerable effort was made to place nuclear weapons in Canada that resulted in a compromise. U.S. nuclear weapons were placed on Canadian built CF-104 Starfighter aircraft stationed in Germany throughout the 1960s. The experience of 2 nations, the U.S. and Canada, handling nuclear weapons together in a foreign environment was subsequently used by the United States to arm other nations, varying lengths of time with U.S. supervision. That all ended with the end of the "Cold War" in the early 1990s. More recently, many in the United States argue that the United States doesn't need to be running an empire. The Republic has evolved into an oligarchy. The U.S. middle class is in poverty. Less than 1% control something like 90% of U.S. wealth or more. The glory and responsibilities of empire fixates the oligarchy overseas while millions at home live in ruin. Analogously, "Nero fiddles while Rome burns".
 

licks2nite

Well-known member
Nov 30, 2006
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To stay on topic, the opening poster wants to "make America great again" to aid Canada's future that OP thinks is tied to the United States. Currently 75% to 80% of Canada's trade is with the United States. That one statistic alone is likely reason enough to believe that Canada's future is tied to the United States. Realistically, if I should give the United States a boost, Canada should also be tying its future to all its allies in the European Union, the Commonwealth and stable free loving democracies. But I'd content that that is what empire does, or at least what empire proclaims to want to do. And there's the rub. Empires are intrinsically inefficient and lack transparency and therefore inherently corrupt. Nobody at the top is smart enough to make a calculation that can make so much function properly. The do-gooders who think otherwise are naive and the remainder are sociopathic frauds that are in that game for themselves. Canada, I would expect has to attend to its own affairs and so does British Columbia. Provinces and territories are fortunate to have rights guaranteed by a constitution.
 
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