What Would You Do as Dictator?

[Northern Light]

Immediately:
- increase taxes on the ultra wealthy and top tier companies
- limit political donations to the amount of the median household income
- eliminate corporate personhood and institute a new legal status for them that makes them less of a priority over human beings
- create price ceiling laws on pharmaceuticals
- transfer substantially more revenue to education and domestic infrastructure
- allow student debt holders to declare bankruptcy while instituting tuition freezes and price controls on education programs
- strategically withdraw from our wars in the middle east, reinvest some of the military budget into green energy projects as well as nuclear
- create more laws to not only protect but also restore the ecology within our borders
- restrict immigration to qualified individuals (plus their families) and reform the recertification processes for the top 20 occupations so that more immigrants can contribute to our society
- make planned obsolescence in consumer products illegal with fines and criminal penalties if violated
- give tax rebates or tax credits for people who enrol in fire arms safety and training programs

I could think of more.

 

[joko104]

As a dictator, like all dictators, my first priority would be making sure I stay in power. It wouldn't matter if I tank the economy so long as I'm protected. As many a banana republic has demonstrated - Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Myanmar - the country can be poor as hell but the leaders can cling to power.

So I would replace the judiciary with sympathetic judges, threaten the press with jail or closure, stir up anger against foreigners, pander to the moneyed elites, restrict or deny voting rights and encourage thugs to do violence on my behalf.

The economy? I can just take credit while it's doing well and when it tanks, blame that on my predecessor. But my job doesn't depend on it if I'm a dictator.

A lot of what Obama did such as order the FBI and DOJ to not investigation Russian involvement in the election as they poured tens of millions of dollars into the candidate I hoped to replace me.

I wouldn't do what Trump did, which is allowed the Mueller investigation to continue and then allow it to be released.

 

[TurtleDude]

Immediately:
- increase taxes on the ultra wealthy and top tier companies
- limit political donations to the amount of the median household income
- eliminate corporate personhood and institute a new legal status for them that makes them less of a priority over human beings
- create price ceiling laws on pharmaceuticals
- transfer substantially more revenue to education and domestic infrastructure
- allow student debt holders to declare bankruptcy while instituting tuition freezes and price controls on education programs
- strategically withdraw from our wars in the middle east, reinvest some of the military budget into green energy projects as well as nuclear
- create more laws to not only protect but also restore the ecology within our borders
- restrict immigration to qualified individuals (plus their families) and reform the recertification processes for the top 20 occupations so that more immigrants can contribute to our society
- make planned obsolescence in consumer products illegal with fines and criminal penalties if violated
- give tax rebates or tax credits for people who enrol in fire arms safety and training programs

I could think of more.

Define "Ultra wealthy"

and why would anyone loan anyone "student loans" if they can declare bankruptcy no matter what?

 

[bomberfox]

I would first abolish all private prisons then expropriate all of their ill gotten wealth then get rid of fox news and put up a conservative station that is not so viciously dishonest and corrupt. The endless propaganda from that station has ruined a generation of conservatives.

 

[Pippi Longstock]

If you we allowed to replace Donald Trump as dictator, what would you do to Save the US economy from bankruptcy?

You still have democratic institutions, but you can overrule any policy you want

First- make sure everyone knows what a dictator is and how they act.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

If you we allowed to replace Donald Trump as dictator, what would you do to Save the US economy from bankruptcy?

You still have democratic institutions, but you can overrule any policy you want

If you "still have democratic institutions, but you can overrule any policy", then you don't have democratic institutions anymore.
Jeezus Effing Christ on a crutch.

 

[Napoleon]

If you we allowed to replace Donald Trump as dictator, what would you do to Save the US economy from bankruptcy?

You still have democratic institutions, but you can overrule any policy you want

Reduce the term of patent from 20 years to 5 years.

Increase funding to NIH for the reasearch, development, and manufacture of pharmaceuticals.

Cut the DOD budget by 25%.

Compulsory apprenticeship, higher education, or military service.

 

[Northern Light]

Define "Ultra wealthy"

The 1% who own 60% of our nation's wealth.

and why would anyone loan anyone "student loans" if they can declare bankruptcy no matter what?

Because most people will try to repay their loans in earnest, if they can. There are a lot of graduates who have repaid the principle amount but they still owe more than the original amount due to interest. People should not have to sign contracts for obscene usury in order to get a qualified education. Reform is needed.

 

[TurtleDude]

The 1% who own 60% of our nation's wealth.



Because most people will try to repay their loans in earnest, if they can. There are a lot of graduates who have repaid the principle amount but they still owe more than the original amount due to interest. People should not have to sign contracts for obscene usury in order to get a qualified education. Reform is needed.

so you want punitive taxes on people making 350K a year? the group making 350k-to about 8 million make up the vast majority of the top one percent and is the most taxed group in the country in terms of percentages. While these people are wealthy, they don't have the power to influence tax policy, set their own salaries (as Buffett does) etc.

But you proved what I thought. If you think anyone in the top one percent is ultra rich, you have proven you really don't know much about them

 

[Bullseye]

If you we allowed to replace Donald Trump as dictator, what would you do to Save the US economy from bankruptcy?

You still have democratic institutions, but you can overrule any policy you want

Send every quasi-socialist to the Scandinavian country of their choice. One way ticket, of course.

 

[Peter King]

act 1. end the practice of giving tax exempt status to those who do not deserve to have one (cults)
act 2. change the electoral system
act 3. hold elections and give over power to the newly elected civilian government

But as a Euro I would never be able or willing to do that, that is down to the US public itself to free itself from false tax exempt groups and (if desired) change the electoral system to their liking.

 

[Northern Light]

so you want punitive taxes on people making 350K a year? the group making 350k-to about 8 million make up the vast majority of the top one percent and is the most taxed group in the country in terms of percentages. While these people are wealthy, they don't have the power to influence tax policy, set their own salaries (as Buffett does) etc.

But you proved what I thought. If you think anyone in the top one percent is ultra rich, you have proven you really don't know much about them

The national average of the top 1% of earners is $1-1.3 million, net.

It wouldn't be fair to expect taxing the wealthy to take care of everything, which is why I recommended other policy changes. Higher taxation of those who can afford it while stemming corruption could get things back on track. People who make the most money off of our population have a fiduciary responsibility to this country if it's in hardship.

 

[Bullseye]

Stimulate the economy with increased consumer spending. Increase consumer spending with $15 an hour minimum wage across the country. Initiate a tax responsibility based on a sliding scale, the higher your annual gross earnings, the higher percentage tax rate you have to pay. Increase consumer spending with lower interest rates on home mortgages and credit cards.

That's just a few I'd start with.

You do know we already have that tax system, right? Wouldn't increasing minimum wage also increase prices? Reducing interest rates on credit would likely mean fewer folks would qualify.

 

[Sabre]

Maybe I am being overly generous but I didn't read it as him saying Trump is a dictator. I read it as him saying YOU get to replace Trump AND you get to have the powers of a dictator at your disposal to get done what you want. Unless he has made anti-Trump posts in other threads, which would color the tone a bit.

No you are generous at all, just seem to be suffering from poor reading skills or purposely choosing to misread. Suggest you reread the OP and do a side by side comparison with the rewrite you wrote. There are two direct supposition's there;

1) If you weRE allowed to replace Donald Trump as dictator: supposition, Trump is a dictator. ( the red is a correction that anyone should recognize as a mistype by the OP)

2) what would you do to Save the US economy from bankruptcy?: supposition, the US economy is or is headed for bankruptcy.

Neither supposition is correct.

 

[TurtleDude]

The national average of the top 1% of earners is $1-1.3 million, net.

It wouldn't be fair to expect taxing the wealthy to take care of everything, which is why I recommended other policy changes. Higher taxation of those who can afford it while stemming corruption could get things back on track. People who make the most money off of our population have a fiduciary responsibility to this country if it's in hardship.

right now the middle class consumes the most government services,and yet it pays the lowest percentage of the national income tax at any time in the last 60 years. the top one percent pays the highest percentage of the income tax now. Seems to me the place taxes need to be raised is on the middle class.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

and why would anyone loan anyone "student loans" if they can declare bankruptcy no matter what?

Because bankruptcy is not a good thing by any stretch of the imagination, even if one discharges a student loan.
Three to seven years of TOTALLY screwed credit and a bankruptcy on your record, you think people are eager to do that?
Are you really serious?
You can't be serious, because if you are, then I was completely wrong about you and you really ARE so ultra wealthy that you have no earthly idea what life is like for the little people.

And good for you if you really are that wealthy. I don't hold your extreme wealth against you but apparently you've never had to worry about bankruptcy, because it is a very very serious thing.

It is the financial equivalent of getting out of a police pursuit by driving your car off a cliff, only MAYBE seven years later you might get to come back to life at 70-80 percent of your original vitality if you're lucky, seven years older, seven years behind all your peers, at or near destitution.

Yes, of course SOME people are able to recover from bankruptcy VERY quickly. You know which ones those are?
The ones who do not really need to ever declare bankruptcy and instead use it as a tool.
Ordinary people, the people who toil for a median and barely livable wage never EVER emerge from bankruptcy that way.

The overwhelming majority of people who take out loans, including student loans, struggle to pay them off.
That's because having a decent credit rating is important to them if they want a decent job, or if they want to rent an apartment, or buy a house, or a car, or just about anything that would involve a credit check.

 

[jimbo]

Rough day, Cap?

Sounds honest and factual to me.

 

[jimbo]

Yeah, I'm getting a bit put off by the multitudinous anti-Trump threads littering the Forum these days...even this one which had to add the unnecessary "Trump is a dictator, if you were one what would YOU do" nonsense.

It's why I am posting less and less in the Forum, sadly.

You're not alone, and this forum is not the only one. Even on Facebook it seems like every thread turns into a Trump bad rant. Most of them reposts of unfounded media articles.

 

[Skeptic Bob]

Sounds honest and factual to me.

I didn't read the OP as saying Trump was a dictator, just that we get to be a dictator in the scenario, so Cap's post seemed disproportionately harsh to me. But it seems Cap's interpretation of the OP is in the majority so my interpretation of it is probably the wrong one. We are more than 1/3 of the way through the year so I was due to be wrong about something.

 

[jimbo]

I didn't read the OP as saying Trump was a dictator, just that we get to be a dictator in the scenario, so Cap's post seemed disproportionately harsh to me. But it seems Cap's interpretation of the OP is in the majority so my interpretation of it is probably the wrong one. We are more than 1/3 of the way through the year so I was due to be wrong about something.

I took it as a Trump comparison, especially in context with the second phrase. " what would you do to Save the US economy from bankruptcy"

Do you consider that also a theoretical?

 

[Skeptic Bob]

I took it as a Trump comparison, especially in context with the second phrase. " what would you do to Save the US economy from bankruptcy"

Do you consider that also a theoretical?

I viewed the whole OP as a hypothetical.

 

[jimbo]

I viewed the whole OP as a hypothetical.

Maybe the OP could enlighten us as to intent.

But if it's all hypothetical, why bring up Trump at all?

 

[Skeptic Bob]

Maybe the OP could enlighten us as to intent.

But if it's all hypothetical, why bring up Trump at all?

Fair point. Like I said, I am probably wrong in my initial interpretation. The OP is new and hasn't been here in a couple weeks so I wouldn't hold my breath on clarification.

 

[jimbo]

Fair point. Like I said, I am probably wrong in my initial interpretation. The OP is new and hasn't been here in a couple weeks so I wouldn't hold my breath on clarification.

I took him as a hit and run never Trumper. I thought he would get to his real agenda around post 7 or 8.

 

[CommunityStanda]

I would put all the liberals into concentration camps and let Sherrif Joe run them.