Gas high........Joe low

I don't care about who is/was associated with "Drain the Swamp" because to me it only means that the US citizens have to enforce term limits. That is going to be difficult if they keep us divided and everyone keeps pointing fingers at the other side instead of them.

@nostradumbass

 Drain the swamp is a catch phrase for stupid narrow thinking people and that is why it worked for Trump and most of his followers. Term limits does not reduce the scale and size of government, term limits does not mean less is spent overall or that the needs of the citizens in society are less. Drain the swamp is moron speak because it does not address the real issue but it makes people MAD, like you and several in this thread...so it serves its purpose.

Trump played you all, he did not accomplish anything at all with regard to reducing the size and scale of government, nothing he did reduced taxes or reformed the corrupt nature of government because he never wanted to. The issue with government is not politicians, it is that we have allowed private corporate or dark unknown money to influence politics and the decisions of where government money goes and regulations or trade restrictions etc.

Every single thing Trump "did" was following the GOP narrative, directing flows and giving freebies to the interests that support, fund and keep the GOP in office, so they can keep supporting and funding their interests, the interest that pay their bills and FILL their swamp. Trump uses low level marketing catch phrases and turns people against each other because that is how you get elected, and that is all he ever wanted is more power and to build his families wealth and recognition.

Wake up...Trump is feeding you poison and you eat it because you are biased, angry and lacking intelligence to see how you are being played. The only way to improve the government is to rebuild the wall which separated lobbyists, private PACS, any financial connection from the corporate/private sector and politicians. That is the only way, term limits does not change anything and in fact there are long term politicians that do a good job, but most are slaves and are owned by corps, private interests and political parties.

Fools fall for catch phrases and dividing schemes, it turns the common citizen against each other, it destroys the strength and power that the common citizen has, it kills and wrecks society and yet so many people blindly follow these ploys, I wonder why that is.

@wallstreetcappers

And BTW Trump posed a threat to the Establishment (especially Big Business) with his ideas and that is why they hushed him and eventually bullied him out of office. You know what happened and you won't admit it until your echo chamber eventually tells you the truth.

@nostradumbass

 What was the threat he posed? This is another catch phrase that his campaign spun to make conspiracy theorists foam at the mouth. He has been part of the problem for decades he was never a solution. Trump has more insider friends than most corporate shills yet you soaked up his slogans and tripe. What was his threat?

Trump shuffled the freebies, he followed the GOP platform to shift spending to areas that your GOP side sees as deserving, there has never been an attempt to reduce government or reduce taxes from anyone but maybe Ross Perot. All politicians want to take from one area and put it in another, it is not accomplishing anything but where the money is spent...it is still being spent and more through debt.

Echo chamber is another stupid catch phrase meant to divide and confuse, it makes you angry it makes you feel cheated and taken advantage of by some system that did not serve the political party you support. The power is with the money not the people, term limits do exist it is called the political process, vote as a society and make your own way do not point fingers and blame some faceless system, clinging to catch phrases and stupid slogans. The MONEY grabbers are the problem, if you were to make political term limits 2 yrs across the board including president yet do nothing to remove the cash takers then nothing will be accomplished.

Move on from this stole garbage, the only person who gains from this lingering drama is Trump, it is not you it is not society it is Trump and his need for attention and to make more money for his family.

Echo chamber??

I SAW MY TAXES REDUCED!  And I didn't vote for Trump, actually thought it was a joke he was elected. NOT ANYMORE.

Congressional Democrats have argued that one of the best ways to pay for the legislation is to raise taxes on wealthy households, which, according to many on the left, have benefited disproportionately and unfairly from the 2017 Tax Reform Law passed by Republicans and signed by former President Trump. The latest data, however, proves that this claim is pure mythology.

Income data published by the IRS clearly show that on average all income brackets benefited substantially from the Republicans’ tax reform law, with the biggest beneficiaries being working and middle-income filers, not the top 1 percent, as so many Democrats have argued.

A careful analysis of IRS tax data, one that includes the effects of tax credits and other reforms to the tax code, shows that filers with an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $15,000 to $50,000 enjoyed an average tax cut of 16 percent to 26 percent in 2018, the first year Republicans’ Tax Cuts and Jobs Act went into effect and the most recent year for which data is available.

Filers who earned $50,000 to $100,000 received a tax break of about 15 percent to 17 percent, and those earning $100,000 to $500,000 in adjusted gross income saw their personal income taxes cut by around 11 percent to 13 percent.

By comparison, no income group with an AGI of at least $500,000 received an average tax cut exceeding 9 percent, and the average tax cut for brackets starting at $1 million was less than 6 percent.

AND I HAD MORE MONEY IN MY POCKET. NOW ON FIXED INCOME BY MONEY IS DROPPING IN ITS VALUE LIKE ROCK. THE EYE TEST BEATS BULLCRAP EVERYTIME.

@UNIMAN

 This is just a guess but I would bet your net worth is probably in the top 10% of the country. You worked hard for it I would imagine & now is the time to enjoy it.  Don't stress over things you have little or no control over because it will make you bitter as you approach old age.

Relish the time you have with your better half because no one is guaranteed of tomorrow. You and I will be gone someday & no one in these forums will give a shit.

If you don’t think Trump’s America First initiative and his tariff’s on China (just to begin with) weren’t a “threat” to every America big businesses bottom line then you need to change your handle because you know absolutely nothing about business or the stock market. Every CEO knows China is the key to their success (on the stock market and for expansion). Whether that is buying cheap goods from them, paying them pennies on the dollor to manufacture or building another mcdonalds (for example) for their massive population (they outnumber Americans 18-1 so that is a huge untapped market, if ya didn’t know!).

Now go back and listen to your "echo chamber" (yes echo chamber, go listen to the news cycle and they all repeat what the puppet master tells them to and it's also why all these MSM sites took away forums because they don't their followers to hear other opinions) tell you how good of a job this administration is doing when it’s so obvious they are not. For example, do you think Trump wouldve sent another 40 billion to Ukraine or solved the baby formula shortage her in our country? I know the anwser but I also know Russia wouldn’t of attacked Ukraine if Trump didn’t get cheated out of the election by the liars you worship so he wouldn't have to make that decision.

Our politicians are bought and paid for by big business and the Elites are all getting richer. Not having term limits becomes a major conflict of interest and it shows. We need a congress that does what is right for the country, not their individual bank accounts.

Last 5 years of employment would have me in upper middle class only because I was working and receiving a pension from a previous employer. Starting my 1st pension at age 18.

I saw my tax reduction before I had that final year peak. ( cashed in vacation and received half of my sick time, etc)

Your so right about the stress, my BP has never been so normal as it is now. And yeah, no guarantees. 

You know I want to see everybody have the opportunities I had and more. Wasnt easy though. Back in the 70's as a teenager knowing my parents couldn't afford anything better than community college I had no plan as most at that age. General Motors was the fallback plan. Very good wages and benefits for often times dirty hard work or boring assembly line. People of all walks of life worked for GM and had a good living. All gone now. And with it local machine shops that catered to GM. Then all of the appliance manufactures moved to Mexico. Ripped the guts outta the middle class. That is the main reason I now lean Trump. Sure he is a mouthy, egotistical moron at times, but he is the only one I see pushing to keep what little manufacturing we have and trying to create more. People are so much happier when good paying jobs are out there. Now see John Deere moving from Iowa to Mexico in 2024, 3000 jobs to be lost. 

Sorry, but I see Trump trying to rebuild the middle class and then I see Biden trying to make it suffer. Inflation, jobs, and crime so much more important than transgenderism, pronouns, and abortions. 

And yes Republicans have their baggage too. Resistance to better gun controls, some totally anti-abortion, that clashes with my beliefs. 

The filibuster cry really cemented my contempt. Used 314 times during the Trump admin suddenly its racist, gotta go. In 2005 Biden said he would use it to block a Repub. selected African American woman for Supreme Court. Politicians, you gotta love'em. 

@UNIMAN

 Not going to point fingers because I think the reality is taxes go up regardless of who is in power because it isnt about which party is in control, BUT Trump engineered the overhaul of the tax system which raised my taxes and I am middle class. The elimination of deductions was a shift of power to GOP interests and it was framed as a tax decrease but it isnt and wasnt and really did zero to change anything, it was a waste of time. 

My taxes keep going up and that includes property tax, sales tax, car registration, luxury tax if you take a vacation, taxes go up the only difference is how the money is spent.

@nostradumbass

 No I do not think China tariffs are a threat to big business, but it sounds soooo GOOOOD doesnt it? tax those China companies because they are screwing big business, they are taking money from America right? How old are you, do you not remember that before China we got cheap goods from other sources?

It is funny how China is labeled as all these bad things when they do stuff we are against but they are our best buddies when they buy or debt and provide cheap finished goods which make corps monster profits and provide inflation reducing stuff we like to buy. These antics of pitting one against another is a lazy ploy which is intended for you to dislike someone else and vote for your party. I dont fault China for plotting against other countries for their benefit, its our job to not allow them and to safeguard our interests..but that would mean at a cost to corps and political interests so we dont do it. We cherry pick how we hate China and what we let them do and not do. They can buy our real estate property but not certain kinds because that is anti-American, they can invest in our debt and certain instruments but not others because that is anti-American, they can provide us with cheap junk toxic goodies but they cannot do other things because that is anti-American. Its all semantics and you have to see through the noise and understand that your own party is playing you, the GOP plays their followers, the DNC plays theirs, both parties are playing citizens to get what they want. Trump is a moron user who played you...there is little good about him and the crap coming out of his mouth is not helping you it is not helping this country, it is not America First, it is GOP first, GOP private interests first, GOP corporate agenda first...they dont give a crap about you.

@wallstreetcappers

Those tariffs were put in place to encourage businesses to produce in America. Almost everything Americans buy is made in China. FYI, to anyone who believes the Establishment, that is so the rich can get richer. They don’t care about the middle class anymore because the Chinese are now their slave laborers. If they did care, then they wouldn’t have orchestrated two fake impeachments and when that didn’t work, use a manmade a virus to change voting laws just so Trump didn’t win the election in a landslide. If they didn’t oust him he was a major threat to their cushy jobs and big businesses bottom line. 

Big Business/Wall Street is the problem in this WORLD.  It’s also precisely why we can’t drink water from our own faucet. They own the politicians so they control the policies (the FDA even allows trace amounts of carcinogens in our food because it helps big business make a profit). The other major problem is many, like WallSt believe their lies so it’s an impossible battle to try and enforce term limits on Congress when they continuously have us divided. 

We all need to stop fighting over parties, they are both crooked, we need to fight against Congress and demand term limits. It might not eliminate all the lies and cheating but it will certainly curtail them... and hopefully one day we can drink water from our faucet

@nostradumbass

 You can drink water from your faucet they just scared the shit out of you so you won't. Have been in the clean water business my entire life, doesn't mean I am right but have seen it through a different lense.

Take that killer mineral Aresnic. Back in the 90's environmentalists wanted to stop strip mining and one of their concerns was arsenic levels increasing in tailings. The allowable threshold at that time was 50 parts per billion ( ppb). They had the Clinton admin and congress reduce it to 10 ppm, several European countries had it that low. The law was delayed when they realized over 2 million Americans were drinking well water with Aresnic in the 13 to 20+ ppb range. All of the small rural communities, schools, churches, etc. are now required to remove the arsenic. Fly by night companies emerged selling arsenic removal systems. Many flushed the now concentrated arsenic down the sewer. Sewer plant operators cried foul, can't put it here! Now most goes in hazardous landfills. So was there ever evidence drinking 20 ppb arsenic water harmful? Not really. Oh you can find someone who received grant money who said so. Has cancer been reduced by this folly? I am not seeing it. 

Everything is a danger in the right proportions. Iron is toxic but needed in your blood. Pure water is highly reactive. Everything in California causes cancer, that I do know. Bought a slab door for my home, sticker on door says California has determined drilling a hole through that door can cause cancer! 

IMO, The real concern is pharmaceuticals pissed into our water. Mood altering drugs in ppm and ppt. After all we live on a Peach Tree Dish called earth. (petri dish)

My advise is to get an undersink reverse osmosis system, it will remove most including chlorine also deemed toxic at very low levels. 

The source water where I live starts at 700+ ppm it is awful and the municipality does not want to invest to provide better source water. In another city in this very metro area the source water was like 150 ppm, I have a water softener (salt based) and that does little even with a resin wash, my faucets get build up and I refuse to drink water which is not run through my RO.

Getting a generic RO is also not enough unless your source water is under 200 ppm, anything higher and the end product is still too high. Most membranes will improve 90-92 percent so if your source water is over 200 that is still too high and mine I have to purchase a 97 percent rejection membrane to get my PPM into a zone which is reasonable. It is shocking most people are not educated about the quality of the water they drink from the tap or that they think the crappy refrigerator filters are enough and its worse that massive municipalities do not invest in water treatment equipment to provide safe clean water for citizens and they know that cost is too high so they will say nothing and hope citizens stay uneducated versus investing in the proper necessary equipment AND keep it running properly if they have it.

@wallstreetcappers

 700 ppm of what exactly? Hardness I would imagine. In grains per gallon though.

Wally, 

Tell us what you like about what Biden has done. 

“The issue with government is not politicians, it is that we have allowed private corporate or dark unknown money to influence politics” 

Term limits addresses this and makes it harder for them to influence. 

How the fuck are you in the middle class after what happened from 2009-2021 with a name like WallStreetCappers? 

Maybe you should stop pretending that you know everything and start listening. 

Shots fired. This is a unflinching valid question. "Middle-class" has become a very dynamic, very subjective term but I would be considered above middle class, wealthy by most metrics and standards and I'm a black kid from Oakland with no over-archint knowledge of the financial sector. I know enough. Definitely mire that the average bloke.i didn't go to school for the shite though, nor am.I some idiot savant. It hasn't taken a rocket surgeon in the span of time Tox referenced. I think some people have the book learning but lack the instinct. The gift.

Some people have an encyclopedic knowledge of the Xs and Os of football but can't pick a winner to save their lives.

I don't know. I think you both bring value and insight to the forum but personal... misgivings, and bickering, some politically based, but clearly some that is downright personal, it always overshadows this. You two have both been a part of the community for longer than I. I have used the site for two decades but wasn't an active poster. So I chalk it up to years and years of contentiousness.

Trump was a threat to the NATO slush fund 

Trump was a threat to their fake climate change narrative/slush fund and withdrew from the Paris accord fraud 

Trump was a threat to the never ending supply of illegal/legal immigrants coming from central/South America 

He was a threat to the ‘business as usual’ oil industry — Canada/OPEC/Mexico. You’ll argue this fact but he wanted to do things differently and history is starting to show that he was right 

Massive deregulation. This brings in competition and hurts the giants. Nobody can keep up with over-regulation better than the giants 

Withdrew from TPP 

Replaced NAFTA 

Tariffs on Chinese goods and started to penalizing them for always stealing intellectual property 

Net energy exporter 

This Ukraine proxy war/slush fund would have never went down this way 

He was a threat to the establishment — that’s just a fact 

@I_Need_A_Detox

 I'll pass on your attempt to provoke, but the line is thin and I dont care if you are in the box or not the terms still exist with regard to previous discussion.

Trump was a threat to a different narrative, to a different agenda and that is all he was and is. Trump is all about Trump and doing what he was told to do. All you listed as his big threat is merely a different narrative, his agenda and the agenda of the GOP is a similar threat to a different narrative.

Brilliant summary as usual..

Textbook response from Wally. I could’ve wrote it for him he’s so damn predictable. Moving on, nothing to see here 

The establishment had control of both parties. 

 Bush/Gore, Bush/Kerry, Obama/McCain, Obama/Romney … all establishment candidates. 

Trump single-handedly broke the establishment’s stranglehold on the GOP and for the next few elections at least it will be an anti-establishment candidate that gets nominated. 

Trump wasn’t perfect and he did a lot of dumb shit … like bringing in all of the generals, Bolton, etc but he did a lot of good things that took big balls and he risked a lot.