Trump's Second Term

JayUtah said:
She's not stupid. She knows exactly what she's doing. She knows full well that little if anything she says is factually true. Her job is to maintain the Trump narrative at all costs. She counts on her audience being stupid, and to keep supporting Trump policies no matter what the facts. She has to think on her feet to give a natural-sounding (albeit bogus) answer to any question that taps into one of the Trump talking points: immigrants, DEI, Joe Biden, etc. It can be argued that it takes a fair amount of intelligence to so effortlessly and convincingly lie in response to every question.
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Perhaps we need to qualify different types of stupidity. Perhaps tactical versus strategic stupidity. Some of those lying, treacherous, anti-democratic scoundrels in office right now may not be tactically stupid. They're clever and good at achieving their goals. But on a larger, strategic scale, if what you want is stupid, how smart is it to be good at getting it?

My mom once had a dog that learned the first notes or words of TV ads for pet food and other things involving dogs or horses (she loved horses), and would come running from anywhere within hearing distance to come and jump up and down and bark furiously at the TV screen where, one supposes, she thought real dogs and horses resided. She never got it wrong. A smart dog is still a dog.
 
ash.renee411
Trump was the perfect target: rich, obsessed with attention, and easy to manipulate.While he chases cameras and applause, people like Stephen Miller and Russell Vought got to work behind the scenes—writing the policies, purging the government, and replacing experts with loyalists.He doesn’t lead. He performs. And while he performs, they dismantle everything. Quietly. Systematically. Legally.That’s the plan. And it’s working.

www.threads.com

Ashley Renee (@ash.renee411) on Threads

Trump was the perfect target: rich, obsessed with attention, and easy to manipulate. While he chases cameras and applause, people like Stephen Miller and Russell Vought got to work behind the scenes—writing the policies, purging the government, and replacing experts with loyalists. He doesn’t...
www.threads.com www.threads.com
Comment:
pizzasquirrel40
As DJT would put it: he doesn't know
 
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bruto said:
Perhaps we need to qualify different types of stupidity. Perhaps tactical versus strategic stupidity. Some of those lying, treacherous, anti-democratic scoundrels in office right now may not be tactically stupid. They're clever and good at achieving their goals. But on a larger, strategic scale, if what you want is stupid, how smart is it to be good at getting it?

My mom once had a dog that learned the first notes or words of TV ads for pet food and other things involving dogs or horses (she loved horses), and would come running from anywhere within hearing distance to come and jump up and down and bark furiously at the TV screen where, one supposes, she thought real dogs and horses resided. She never got it wrong. A smart dog is still a dog.
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imo entirely too much time is spent in debating whether or not they're stupid or liars telling stupid lies, and what they're true motivation in their heart of hearts is. to me they're bad and i'm trying to insult them. we don't really need to categorize any of that.
 
JayUtah said:
She's not stupid. She knows exactly what she's doing. She knows full well that little if anything she says is factually true. Her job is to maintain the Trump narrative at all costs. She counts on her audience being stupid, and to keep supporting Trump policies no matter what the facts. She has to think on her feet to give a natural-sounding (albeit bogus) answer to any question that taps into one of the Trump talking points: immigrants, DEI, Joe Biden, etc. It can be argued that it takes a fair amount of intelligence to so effortlessly and convincingly lie in response to every question.
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She has an audience of one...
 
dirtywick said:
imo entirely too much time is spent in debating whether or not they're stupid or liars telling stupid lies, and what they're true motivation in their heart of hearts is. to me they're bad and i'm trying to insult them. we don't really need to categorize any of that.
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I do agree, basically. I am just aware that expertise can make a stupid person look smart if you focus too closely. The finer points of stupid and wrong and mistaken, and just plain evil, blend together if you stand back a little. It's much the same in the end, and as even the poster child of American anti-intellectualism said, stupid is as stupid does.
 
bruto said:
Perhaps we need to qualify different types of stupidity. Perhaps tactical versus strategic stupidity...
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As was the credo in one company I worked for. The design department blamed a project failure on the manufacturing department. When I looked into it seemed that the allegations weren't true. The manufacturing guys followed the written procedure; it was a design flaw. But as one of the top guys explained to me at the time, facts didn't matter. This was BIZ-ness and the design people had more clout than the manufacturing people. Better to pin it on manufacturing so my report got buried.

I argued, "Yeah, but if it doesn't seem to be true? I have a problem with that." He explained to me:
"Look. newyorkguy, we believe what we need to believe when we need to believe it. If the situation changes?" He shrugged. "Then we believe something else."
 
Trump to cut drug prices!
It will probably not work. If you tell a company to lower US prices, and it holds the world wide patent, it will just raise the prices elsewhere. They ownbthe drug. Once the prices say EU negotiated expire, they will raise those.

And, were we not told to quit getting chronic diseases?
 
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newyorkguy said:
As was the credo in one company I worked for. The design department blamed a project failure on the manufacturing department. When I looked into it seemed that the allegations weren't true. The manufacturing guys followed the written procedure; it was a design flaw. But as one of the top guys explained to me at the time, facts didn't matter. This was BIZ-ness and the design people had more clout than the manufacturing people. Better to pin it on manufacturing so my report got buried.

I argued, "Yeah, but if it doesn't seem to be true? I have a problem with that." He explained to me:
"Look. newyorkguy, we believe what we need to believe when we need to believe it. If the situation changes?" He shrugged. "Then we believe something else."
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Electric Monks.
 
Tero said:
Trump to cut drug prices!
It will probably not work. If you tell a company to lower US prices, and it holds the world wide patent, it will just raise the prices elsewhere. They ownbthe drug. Once the prices say EU negotiated expire, they will raise those.

And, were we not told to quit getting chronic diseases?
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The statement,
I will be instituting a MOST FAVORED NATION’S POLICY whereby the United States will pay the same price as the Nation that pays the lowest price anywhere in the World
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Would be a disaster. Many companies sell drugs at a for cost price to the developing world e.g. AIDS drugs.

For many reasons the US market is more expensive, direct to patient advertising which doesn't happen to the same extent elsewhere, the the risks of litigation (US punitive damages are hugely higher than elsewhere), the US market with multiple parties to negotiate prices with, the requirement to do drug trials in the US (expensive). US healthcare is expensive not just because of the cost of drugs.

Vaccination demonstrates the problems. The risk of litigation nearly drove companies out of the US market, if they had raised the cost of vaccines to meet the risk of litigation then the cost of vaccinations would have been prohibitively expensive.

The US Medical Liability System—A System in Crisis - PMC

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
 
JayUtah said:
She's not stupid. She knows exactly what she's doing. She knows full well that little if anything she says is factually true. Her job is to maintain the Trump narrative at all costs. She counts on her audience being stupid, and to keep supporting Trump policies no matter what the facts. She has to think on her feet to give a natural-sounding (albeit bogus) answer to any question that taps into one of the Trump talking points: immigrants, DEI, Joe Biden, etc. It can be argued that it takes a fair amount of intelligence to so effortlessly and convincingly lie in response to every question.
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She's the Julius Streicher analogue for Trampy. The chances of her not being as stupid as all get out are infinitessimally low.
 
Planigale said:
The statement,

Would be a disaster. Many companies sell drugs at a for cost price to the developing world e.g. AIDS drugs.

For many reasons the US market is more expensive, direct to patient advertising which doesn't happen to the same extent elsewhere, the the risks of litigation (US punitive damages are hugely higher than elsewhere), the US market with multiple parties to negotiate prices with, the requirement to do drug trials in the US (expensive). US healthcare is expensive not just because of the cost of drugs.

Vaccination demonstrates the problems. The risk of litigation nearly drove companies out of the US market, if they had raised the cost of vaccines to meet the risk of litigation then the cost of vaccinations would have been prohibitively expensive.

The US Medical Liability System—A System in Crisis - PMC

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
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Not sure what mechanism can be used to suppress the free market in this way but faced with being forced to sell at, or below, cost price in a highly litigious market, the big pharma companies may elect to withdraw those drugs from sale in the US market.
 
Big Pharma wants all the benefits with no of the drawbacks - it could just give the patents to the government for the cost of development plus a bonus depending on impact and let it sort out the litigation.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
Big Pharma wants all the benefits with no of the drawbacks - it could just give the patents to the government for the cost of development plus a bonus depending on impact and let it sort out the litigation.
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Define "cost of development". Is it just the cost of developing that one drug or do you include (in some pro rata way) the costs of developing all the drugs that failed to reach market because they didn't do what they hoped or had really bad side effects?
 
"It jeopardizes the hundreds of billions our member companies are planning to invest in America"
Tero said:
Trump to cut drug prices!
It will probably not work. If you tell a company to lower US prices, and it holds the world wide patent, it will just raise the prices elsewhere. They ownbthe drug. Once the prices say EU negotiated expire, they will raise those.

And, were we not told to quit getting chronic diseases?
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Stephen Ubl, CEO of PhRMA, the industry’s main trade group, said in a statement. “It jeopardizes the hundreds of billions our member companies are planning to invest in America, making us more reliant on China for innovative medicines.”​
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Have to admit not heard "sales and marketing campaigns" described as "innovative medicines" before now - must be industry jargon.
 
jeremyp said:
Define "cost of development". Is it just the cost of developing that one drug or do you include (in some pro rata way) the costs of developing all the drugs that failed to reach market because they didn't do what they hoped or had really bad side effects?
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How do the companies at the moment define it in their balance sheets?
 
Tariff agreement reached with China for 90 days.

Both countries have agreed to cut by 115%.

US tariffs on Chinese imports will fall to 30%, while Chinese tariffs on US goods will fall to 10%.
 
Can an EO do this? Wouldn't this be a matter for the legislative branch? (I mean in the old days of myth when people still believed in the tooth fairy and "checks and balances".)
 
For those that don't want it on Twitter

The text of Donald's "MOST IMPORTANT AND IMPACTFUL TRUTH EVER ISSUED"20250512_112646.jpg
 
Darat said:
Can an EO do this? Wouldn't this be a matter for the legislative branch? (I mean in the old days of myth when people still believed in the tooth fairy and "checks and balances".)
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Just about everything Trump has done should have been legislation. They are so scared of him they don't do anything about it.
 
Andy_Ross said:
He said the same thing in 2020, even signed an executive order for "Most Favored Nation" pricing.
It went nowhere.
Pharma sued, prices stayed high.
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I'm surprised that I have no recollection of that. Is there any reason to think his current sharpie emits stronger magic than his 2020 version did? Or is this purely smoke to cover his reversal on Chinese tariffs?
 
Jack by the hedge said:
I'm surprised that I have no recollection of that. Is there any reason to think his current sharpie emits stronger magic than his 2020 version did? Or is this purely smoke to cover his reversal on Chinese tariffs?
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I thought exactly the same about it being a distraction from China
 
The Don said:
Not sure what mechanism can be used to suppress the free market in this way but faced with being forced to sell at, or below, cost price in a highly litigious market, the big pharma companies may elect to withdraw those drugs from sale in the US market.
Click to expand...

The Great Zaganza said:
Big Pharma wants all the benefits with no of the drawbacks - it could just give the patents to the government for the cost of development plus a bonus depending on impact and let it sort out the litigation.
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After all, the Trump regime is all about letting the free markets set the prices of everything.

Farquing LOL
 
You never had it so good!

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

DRUG PRICES TO BE CUT BY 59%, PLUS!
Gasoline, Energy, Groceries, and all other costs, DOWN. NO INFLATION!!! LOVE, DJT
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Why do the Democrats want to pay top dollar for a new aircraft. Donald got one for free!

Donald J. Trump
@realDonald Trump
So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the Crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane. Anybody can do that! The Dems are World Class Losers!!! MAGA
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Notice the DoD only get the aircraft 'temporarily'
When his term is over he gets to keep it.
 
How much will it cost to fit it out with the extra's found on Air Force One?
Things like the communications, defensive systems etc. It's not just a standard aircraft with an office and bed room in it.
 
Tero said:
I don't know that anyone has to follow executive orders, other than government workers.
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Correct, and even then it's iffy. Executive orders do not have the force of law, but they nevertheless must be lawful. An order simply directs some office of the executive to carry out the law in a particular fashion. They have no effect to bind any other portion of the government, or the people. They have no direct effect on businesses.

Further, Republicans love to whine about price controls. What are they saying about this?
 
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