Trade War with Europe

[Helix]

The EC is a manipulative tool forced into the original Constitution of 1786 by the southern states. It was reformulated in 1812 (with the Electoral College) in the passage by Congress of the 12th Amendment.

Without a state-wide vote to recall the 12th Amendment nothing can be done. "They" (in this matter) don't exist. It is "we" who get to vote if ever a nationwide referendum could be mounted. And that alone has all the characteristics of a Mission Impossible.

We need simply, by law, stipulate that the Electoral College be constituted in number in "exact proportion" to the statewide popular-vote. Then assure (by law) ourselves that the statewide vote is not gerrymandered and remains purely an open vote of all citizens registered to vote regardless of address.

Then the "Electoral College" can all fancy-dress and report their results on a given post-election day to the HofR for all Americans to see on TV. Wow! What a performance!

Congress could do that. Methinks. Then we can all get back to worrying about other aspects of our voting procedure. For instance, why our percentage Executive (Head of state) vote is so low compared to other countries and does that not mean we need to make voting regulatory in the presidential election.

PS:
*Spending a lifetime in office, for instance, is yet another senseless facet of both Chambers of Congress. Enough is enough Playing-Politics as if it were a children's board-game.
*Worse yet is the amount of money that is spent on TV-commercials to swing votes because Americans spend more time watching the boob-tube than most other nations? (See infographic here.)

there will be resistance from the right because the EC generally benefits their candidate when they lose the popular vote. it has happened twice in twenty years now.

 

[Lafayette]

Did you vote in the last Presidential election? To which state did you apply and receive your ballot, if yes?

Americans abroad can vote - and you know it.

Anymore wasted bandwidth you wanna spend on this forum ... ?

 

[Lafayette]

Did you vote in the last Presidential election? To which state did you apply and receive your ballot, if yes?

See here and come off your high-horse ...

 

[AliHajiSheik]

Americans abroad can vote - and you know it.

Anymore wasted bandwidth you wanna spend on this forum ... ?

Voting isn't obligatory, so my question still goes unanswered. Which state did you select for the portal you linked? The portal question wouldn't matter without the Electoral College. I bet you didn't pay any taxes to that state...

 

[Lafayette]

Voting isn't obligatory, so my question still goes unanswered. Which state did you select for the portal you linked? The portal question wouldn't matter without the Electoral College. I bet you didn't pay any taxes to that state...

What taxes I paid in the US is none of your business.

But, yes, you mention precisely why the Electoral College vote does not matter and is of no national consequence (except to the Electoral College itself) in this age of ours.

Moreover, if you apply the convention provided by the portal cited (to vote in the US), the request goes directly to the city that is named in which was your previous residence upon quitting the US to live permanently abroad (which is more than six months). By law, your past city of residence is obliged to provide you with a write-in vote for the presidency.

(Which also means, btw, that as an American citizen living abroad my elected representatives to both chambers of Congress do not. Whereas Puerto Rico - as a territory - has direct representation in Congress but Americans living abroad do not. Moreover, we are estimated by the US government to be 9 million by the State Dept. - see here. That's the population of the state of New Jersey, whilst Wyoming contains only 58K souls!)

The rabid-Right repeats incessantly that it is because of this "right to vote" that Americans should be the only developed country to insist upon its citizens living abroad to pay not only taxes in their country of residence but declare both their Foreign and American income to the US for purposes of Income Taxation! Whereas it is patently impossible for the US to verify the Income earned abroad. (Btw, thank you Obama who negotiated the tax-arrangement with the EU, when he beat the bushes to find Americans millionaires/billionaires hiding their assets abroad!)

The only developed country in the world to do that mentioned above is the US ...

Now, you explain to me the logical reason behind the notion that I am not a patriot if I don't pay American taxes, given that taxes pay for Civil Services rendered ONLY to Americans living in the US. And I am not expecting the DoD to come save my sorry-derriere in France if the country is ever attacked ...!

I am expecting an answer to the question posed above. Why should Yanks be obliged to pay Income Taxation in the US if they live permanently in a foreign country and pay taxes there? Why cannot the IRS content itself by witch-hunting those American resident in the US hiding their money abroad!?!

 

[JONRID]

I agree with trump: "we already have a trade war and we are losing...."


Trump stands at the same crossroads as Abraham Lincoln when Abe said "a nation cannot survive half free and half slave"

Meaning the North could not compete with free labor from the South.

In today's global village the USA cannot survive with both (almost slave) almost free labor wages from the third world plus restrictive practices and tariffs against US products from our venial European allies.

Sure Trumps trade polices involve some risk and likely some pain.

But then NO PAIN - NO GAIN

 

[Lafayette]

But there are dozens of easy to find articles on the Jill Stein recounts. Trump campaign rallys were filling sports stadiums while Hillary was leaving high school gyms mostly empty. Yet she was the popular one... Ya right.

You apparently do not know how to count election-voter tallies.

Results of the popular-vote for PotUS in 2017:
Hillary - 65,853,516
Donald Dork - 62,984,825

Popular -vote plurality winner: Clinton by just less than 3% (2.87 to be exact).

America's voting system is a mockery of electoral fairness and justice as regards its vote for the presidency!

Wakey, wakey ...

 

[Peter King]

It's about time...

what? To seriously destroy the US economy?

 

[AliHajiSheik]

What taxes I paid in the US is none of your business.

But, yes, you mention precisely why the Electoral College vote does not matter and is of no national consequence (except to the Electoral College itself) in this age of ours.

Moreover, if you apply the convention provided by the portal cited (to vote in the US), the request goes directly to the city that is named in which was your previous residence upon quitting the US to live permanently abroad (which is more than six months). By law, your past city of residence is obliged to provide you with a write-in vote for the presidency.

(Which also means, btw, that as an American citizen living abroad my elected representatives to both chambers of Congress do not. Whereas Puerto Rico - as a territory - has direct representation in Congress but Americans living abroad do not. Moreover, we are estimated by the US government to be 9 million by the State Dept. - see here. That's the population of the state of New Jersey, whilst Wyoming contains only 58K souls!)

The rabid-Right repeats incessantly that it is because of this "right to vote" that Americans should be the only developed country to insist upon its citizens living abroad to pay not only taxes in their country of residence but declare both their Foreign and American income to the US for purposes of Income Taxation! Whereas it is patently impossible for the US to verify the Income earned abroad. (Btw, thank you Obama who negotiated the tax-arrangement with the EU, when he beat the bushes to find Americans millionaires/billionaires hiding their assets abroad!)

The only developed country in the world to do that mentioned above is the US ...

Now, you explain to me the logical reason behind the notion that I am not a patriot if I don't pay American taxes, given that taxes pay for Civil Services rendered ONLY to Americans living in the US. And I am not expecting the DoD to come save my sorry-derriere in France if the country is ever attacked ...!

I am expecting an answer to the question posed above. Why should Yanks be obliged to pay Income Taxation in the US if they live permanently in a foreign country and pay taxes there? Why cannot the IRS content itself by witch-hunting those American resident in the US hiding their money abroad!?!

Your ability to read what I wrote is disappointing, you write a lot, but you don't say much. I never asked you how much you paid, I ask to what jurisdictions you paid. My claim is that you pay US income taxes but that you don't pay any state income taxes, yet your ability to vote is impacting the numbers of that state. I accept that as part of the system and that you have the right to vote. A right that many others who are expats from other countries do not have.

I never said you were or were not a patriot, so that straw man doesn't fly. So which topic is this, a trade war with Europe or the incessant, and will never change in your lifetime, complaints about the Electoral College. The Electoral College isn't the reason you are paying US income taxes and it isn't the reason for EU tariffs on US goods.

 

[Casca XV]

You apparently do not know how to count election-voter tallies.

Results of the popular-vote for PotUS in 2017:
Hillary - 65,853,516
Donald Dork - 62,984,825

Popular -vote plurality winner: Clinton by just less than 3% (2.87 to be exact).

America's voting system is a mockery of electoral fairness and justice as regards its vote for the presidency!

Wakey, wakey ...

Yes, and maybe some day we will know what the Honest vote tally was.

 

[JONRID]

Yes, and maybe some day we will know what the Honest vote tally was.

Thank God for the electoral college. But for the electoral college John Kerry would have been president on 9/11.

 

[Lord of Planar]

I agree with trump: "we already have a trade war and we are losing...."


Trump stands at the same crossroads as Abraham Lincoln when Abe said "a nation cannot survive half free and half slave"

Meaning the North could not compete with free labor from the South.

In today's global village the USA cannot survive with both (almost slave) almost free labor wages from the third world plus restrictive practices and tariffs against US products from our venial European allies.

Sure Trumps trade polices involve some risk and likely some pain.

But then NO PAIN - NO GAIN

Well said!

 

[Lord of Planar]

You apparently do not know how to count election-voter tallies.

Results of the popular-vote for PotUS in 2017:
Hillary - 65,853,516
Donald Dork - 62,984,825

Popular -vote plurality winner: Clinton by just less than 3% (2.87 to be exact).

America's voting system is a mockery of electoral fairness and justice as regards its vote for the presidency!

Wakey, wakey ...

I get pretty damn tired of this exceptionally ignorant viewpoint.

The rules were the winner is who takes the most electoral votes.

If the winner was required to have the greatest popular vote, campaign strategy and votes per state would have been far different.

Considering president Trump effectively didn't waste any effort on a state that would go democrat, no matter what he did, in focusing on the other 49 states, he won the majority of them. Republicans didn't even have anything important to vote on in California.

Trust me, the popular vote doesn't say squat with the rules that were played.

 

[Lord of Planar]

what? To seriously destroy the US economy?

We will be the victors in trade wars with nations we have a trade deficit with. We do a tit-for-tat until there is no more deficit.

 

[Peter King]

We will be the victors in trade wars with nations we have a trade deficit with. We do a tit-for-tat until there is no more deficit.

That of course is nonsense, if the US is picking a fight with the entire world and the rest of the world only with the US, it is the US who will loose out.

Just look at Harley, they are moving production capacity to outside of the US to not have to be hit by the import duties in Europe. That is jobs that could have been in the US but now are in another country. And that will happen more if US companies want to avoid import punishment from other countries.

And the US customers will have to pay more for their products. On top of that they are angering their allies and that will set bad blood and that is not in the US's best interest.

 

[Lafayette]

I agree with trump: "we already have a trade war and we are losing...."


Trump stands at the same crossroads as Abraham Lincoln when Abe said "a nation cannot survive half free and half slave"

Meaning the North could not compete with free labor from the South.

The North was not competing with the South. The North never produced cotton, which is highly labor intensive.

The South from the very beginning did not give a damn about a "United States". They were more concerned, when the Agricultural Age was coming to a close, about producing cotton. Which went north to be made into garments.

And the reason that the warped Electoral College voting was concocted was the only way to get the southern states to sign the Constitution.

In today's global village the USA cannot survive with both (almost slave) almost free labor wages from the third world plus restrictive practices and tariffs against US products from our venial European allies.

It doesn't have to. You don't understand what is happening.

We are in an "age-shift". Just as the Agricultural Age was replaced by the Industrial Age in the latter half of the 19th century, we are now moving into the Information Age. Manufacturing barely employs 10% of the American workforce:

The Information Age requires a very different, and higher level of competencies that are typical of the Services Industries, which employs the much larger part of Americans today.

Sure Trumps trade polices involve some risk and likely some pain.

But then NO PAIN - NO GAIN

Can't see how. He struck a respondent chord when he told people working in manufacturing that he was going to bring jobs back to America. That aint gonna happin. The industrial jobs are gone forever. (And the Chinese are already worried about the lower-cost labor that is being replaced by Vietnam!)

Trump also told the coal-miners that he was going to protect their jobs as well. Great - the US is off on quite another tangent. It is obtaining energy directly from non-carbon based sources, like the sun, and water.

He told people what they wanted to hear, because frankly he didn't give a damn - all he wanted was their vote.

All of his shenanigans did not win him the popular-vote (which most developed democracies employ to determine the Executive). But the "magic" of the illegitimate Electoral College did win him the presidency.

Will wonders never cease? Nope, not for as long as we Yanks think we have the Greatest Democracy on Earth.

But we don't - we have one where votes are manipulated by gerrymandering and an Electoral College vote that does not even remotely resemble that of the popular-vote ...

 

[Casca XV]

Thank God for the electoral college. But for the electoral college John Kerry would have been president on 9/11.

I know they are equal on the dip s**t level. But you should know the difference between John Kerry and Al Gore.

 

[Lafayette]

Yes, and maybe some day we will know what the Honest vote tally was.

Agreed, but that too is a result of past laxism. Still, given the numbers, the final tally is that Hillary won and Donald Dork lost is a definitive truth. But that Hillary is NOT PotUS is also a yawning truth.

We, as a nation, have always refused the necessity of having an "Identity Card". Without that established at birth, there is no precise way of knowing surely either one's real identity or nationality. (And, even if a woman might want to "give up" her baby, her identity as the mother could be kept secret on any well-protected database.)

Maybe Americans don't care. But this American living in Europe has seen how "Europeans care" a great deal about their national identity. Of course, "supra-national identity" in 27 countries with a large plurality of languages is a bit less quick in establishing an overall identity-plurality.

It seems, in America, that identity is very largely established - I am not criticizing that fact. I am criticizing nonetheless the American belief that what is good for the individual is good for the country. That just aint so in a country where major divisions exist on a state-level where income-diversity is far too acute to dismiss without careful thought. Something is dreadfully wrong.

Donald Dork is of a generation (post WW2) that thought the US (having defeated the Nazis) was "tops". That was a facile thought in a nation that continued for the longest time to compare its evolution to that of Europe. And Europe was indeed devastated from the mid-1940s to the early 1960s as it rebuilt itself. Today it has totally recovered from the unfortunate passage emotionally of a very ugly WW2.

But, I am left to wonder where the US is going. With its present flurry of hatefulness stimulated by many factors:
*The Great Recession that left a profound injury upon people, as well as a "lack of faith".
*An unwanted challenge as the Internet has prompted age-change. We are leaving the Industrial Age and its relative employment security for the Information Age, which is One Big Question Mark.
*Profound Income Disparity that has and will continue to fan discontentment among the poorest of the nation. That is fully 14% of the population that live below the Poverty Threshold (meaning around 45 million American men, women and children!)
*The abiding questioning of how a man who lost the national popular-vote can parade around DC as if he were a legitimate "PotUS".
*The unwanted reality of a nation where 0.1% of us own as much wealth as the other 90%! What the hell is happening!

I could go on, but enough-is-enough for most eyes ...

 

[JONRID]

USA has to pick a fight with the whole world because have whipped everyone else.

The USA is king of the hill. Every one gangs up on the king of the hill. It is the nature of the game.

The USA has been the worlds post WW II piggy bank. We rebuilt the post WW II free world. There was no one else to do it. To do that we gave our allies sweet heart deals which we can no longer afford. Our allies are no longer teens living at home. They are adult mature competitive economies.

The time has come for RECIPROCAL trade agreements.

Why should Europeans have national health care, while the USA pays for 90% of their defense ?

 

[Geoist]

Why should Europeans have national health care, while the USA pays for 90% of their defense ?

Wait, you think USA doesn't have national health care because it has to pay for everyone else's defense? That makes no sense.

 

[HowardBThiname]

Wait, you think USA doesn't have national health care because it has to pay for everyone else's defense? That makes no sense.

I think you understood his comment much better than you're letting on.

 

[Geoist]

I think you understood his comment much better than you're letting on.

I understood his comment but it has no basis in reality or common sense. No US politician has ever said, "Sorry, we can't fund X because we're too busy defending Germany from the terrorists."

 

[JONRID]

Harley has been off shoring production for years. They have mfg in Australia and Thailand for starters.

This is a really shrewd marketing ploy for Harley. They get to do in Europe what USA automakers have been doing for years with NAFTA.

Our automakers have been making parts for domestic cars at 7 bucks an hour in Mexico and shipping them to the USA for finial assembly so they are "made in America".

Now Harley gets to ship Thiland made parts to Europe for final assembley and claim "made in europe" without hurting the Harley Brand...

Clever, eh ?

 

[Lafayette]

My claim is that you pay US income taxes but that you don't pay any state income taxes, yet your ability to vote is impacting the numbers of that state.

Were you living abroad, you would have Social Insurance, if you were working and contributing taxes.

Which means you would have free Healthcare and your kids could go to university for as little as $1K a year.

You would have no burden whatsoever toward the state, but, yes, to the IRS if you earn more than $100K per year.

Most yanks living here don't make that sum of money, but, then again, some do. Which simply means that management-level Americans will want to avoid double taxation - so they mostly won't be coming to work in Europe. (No big-deal, except in reverse, those Europeans going stateside to work do not pay taxes back in their home countries, and when they come back they have a far more prestigious resumé with which to find another job.)

The consequence of FATCA has been that it has created a horrible situation for resident Americans in the EU. Most of them are not "avoiding taxation in the US". But part of the FATCA agreement, if a country refuses to sign, allows the IRS to go after foreign banking operations of countries that do not accept FATCA! I cannot imagine on what basis, since a Foreign Bank in the US has mostly only foreign-nationals as customers. And, I am sure they have rid themselves of any Americans living in Europe who might have a bank-account in the US with a European bank of their country. (A lot of Europeans who worked in the US adopted US nationality, which they kept when returning to Europe.)

Finally, those Americans like myself are not allowed in France full banking freedom. For instance, my bank will not invest my money in American stocks. It doesn't want any headache back in the US where it has offices - even if I have no account with that bank. (Which simply means that for investing purposes, we find ... uh, other alternatives. And, yes, they exist.)

FATCA was passed in the dead of night, without any discussion whatsoever. Obama was trying to get at some BigSpenders with BankAccounts abroad. And frankly, I have no evidence whatsoever of this, but I'll bet Donald Dork's distaste for all-that-is-Obama comes from FATCA; which has somehow affected him.

The Dork is that way: "You do it to me and I do it twice to you!"

 

[JONRID]

The USA does the heavy lifting of free world defense spending. Has done since the end of WW II.

It was not NATO forces who sacrificed 95% of the blood and treasure in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq with token troop commitments from the USA.

Europeans don't even manage to come up with their NATO agreed 2% of their GDP for their national defense budgets.

It is ironic that Eisenhower warned the nation of the growing Military Industrial Complex. We never spent more than 7% of USA GDP on defense.

The crowning irony is that today we spend 18% of GDP on our Medical Industrial Complex.

Worse --- we have a lower life expectancy in the USA than the EU.