Good Morning America

I just pray and hope a couple of things...

1. Trump as president is not equal to Trump as candidate, I hope he is going to positively surprise us all. Call me naiv.....

2. The Republican Party keeping the disaster under control by not supporting everything blindly...

3. Let it not be eight years, not even 4 years, can America come up with a new Monica Lewinsky and get to a successful impeachement....

4. The fire not to affect other elections, like the Dutch one...

5. Hopefully Putin will not make use of this different positioning in foreign politics...

Bad news already.

Apparently Washington DC is to be renamed Trumpton.

Wenger posted:

"Are you able to name one world leader,  who has ever won an election by telling the truth? ...... 

But you are quite happy for the much more diplomatic and but equally dishonest  Clinton to be president... 

Your not making any sense..."

What a glowing endorsement of Donald Trump! "No one has ever won an election by telling the truth", so that absolves him from my criticism about him as a pathological liar, a bully and a pretty horrible human being. I wonder if you happened to catch any of the documentary aired on Sky tonight - "Facing Donald Trump". Very revealing indeed, and a frightening insight about his egotistical and vengeful personality.

Clinton is certainly more diplomatic, but can you please give me an insight into her supposed dishonesty. She apparently showed a lack of judgment in respect of her use of a local email server, but how does that make her out to be 'equally dishonest'.

And by the way, would you call Trump's view of women in relation to his status ("as a Star"), and his open contempt, disdain and black humour directed at the disabled "undiplomatic"? I would call it something else entirely.

And I will take up your challenge in respect of naming one world leader who has ever won an election by telling the truth, by asserting that almost any PM who has won power in the UK has done so by promoting their own albeit inevitably biased version of the truth. Even those leaders I admire least, such as Margaret Thatcher, have not resorted to the overt litany of lies and "untruths"  that formed the basis of his campaign, and the blatant pandering to racism (his blanket description of the Mexican population in the USA) and downright hatred.

Just some comments on things I noticed and from this thread.  

• It was interesting watching the news last night and the measured reactions from all the commentators as a Trump presidency became a more likely outcome.  Fox news was measured as well ... except for their loud, large, and confusing (to me) graphics - hey I am their core demographic!    Maybe it just took to long for my glasses to adjust.  
• Pollster data?  Hah!  
• As Trump put away the middle of the country (N Dakota -> Texas) early, I was really amazed at the totals.  60-65% of the voters.  How does research miss this much of a result? 
• Stock Market:
  • 11pm (gmt -5) Tuesday ... Dow futures already down.  
  • 8:00-9:00am Wed morning ... futures recovered to -100.  By the opening bell, Dow up a few pts.  15 minutes later, Dow down a few points. When this occurred the ticker headline for a business show:    STOCK VOLATILITY.  
  • Seriously?!?  Because the market didn't plummet, there is a ridiculous tagline?  Or did someone forget to pull this graphic?  If a business network considers +/- 15 pts volatility, maybe they should look for different programming.  I haven't seen He Man cartoons in a long time.  
• As others have noted, I see this result as the country being fed up with politicians - their inability to actually govern for their constituents; the corruption that exists; etc.  Clearly a lot of people have felt ignored/unheard.  The wish for an outsider has been granted.  
  • How much of an outsider is he, I am not certain. 
• I care not for his demeanor.  I do hope the divisive rhetoric ceases.  
• We will have to hope he has the ability to identify and select talent for support and cabinet posts. 

HMACK, democracy has won, as has been stated.

If you think Clinton is honest, I'm astounded, suggest you go to Google. Maybe take off your Clinton rose coloured spectacles.

As for Trump,  despite everybody knowing what kind of person he probably is.....50% approx of voting Americans wanted him as president.

Just proves how disillusioned the American public are with main stream politicians.

And you cannot disagree,  however you want to water it down, no politician has ever won an election by telling the truth ...and to be fair it's not possible... 

OK - I have just googled 'Hillary Clinton honest' as suggested and this is the first result

https://www.theguardian.com/co...arency-jill-abramson

Where's the counter evidence?

One thing i found interesting; I waited all election cycle for Clinton to bring up Trump's connections to organized crime - as anyone knows, if you are in the construction business in the NYC area, you are going to deal with the mafia - as simple as that. And his relationships with some of the NY area mob bosses are fairly well known and easily documented. I thought it would be rather easy to show, and really damage his "brand"...but it never materialized.

 Then I realized, that if they did that, can you imagine how many Democrat politicians in NY would inevitably get caught in that same net? I am willing to bet that is why that never saw the light of day in this mud slinging from both sides campaign.

..does Trump have the heart of a punk rock hipster deep down ..yes.  does he fully realise he is out of his play pen and facing the rest of the big world.....??

DrMark posted:

One thing i found interesting; I waited all election cycle for Clinton to bring up Trump's connections to organized crime - as anyone knows, if you are in the construction business in the NYC area, you are going to deal with the mafia - as simple as that. And his relationships with some of the NY area mob bosses are fairly well known and easily documented. I thought it would be rather easy to show, and really damage his "brand"...but it never materialized.

 Then I realized, that if they did that, can you imagine how many Democrat politicians in NY would inevitably get caught in that same net? I am willing to bet that is why that never saw the light of day in this mud slinging from both sides campaign.

That and the very real possibility of sleeping with the fish. 

We truly live in a post-fact society. It is not what we know that drives our behaviour. It is not even what we think. It is simply what we feel that is important......

"I feel angry so I'll vote for the most idiotic option that has been offered. That will make me feel better. Facts and logic be damned. And if I can hurt people that aren't like me, then that will make me feel best of all".

What is factual and logical about voting for Hillary Clinton?

She is totally beholden to the big banks who raped us in 2008 in the biggest open theft ever seen in human history, is a creature of the Deep State machinery, is all about war, is in bed with the neocon Cheney/Kagan cabal, has a record of failure in everything she has touched, was all about taking credit for Libya until Bengazi, then couldn't distance herself from it fast enough, played dirty pool with Bernie Sanders in the primaries, runs a corrupt NPO that is basically nothing more than a money laundering scheme, and appears to be a pathological liar. And that's just for starters.

But our girl sure has come a long way since the 70s from finagling on cattle futures for $100,000; couldn't get that b*tch to cross the street for that kind of money now. She and her husband came into the presidency with nothing, and now she can go home and count all of their $50 million.

There is a straight line from repeal of Glass-Steagall by the Rubin-Clinton democrats in the late 1990s through the resounding repudiations of the Clintons last night.

This string includes the M&A roll-up of the giant Wall Street banks after 1998; the subprime mortgage scams, housing booms and subsequent crash during the next decade; the panicked multi-trillion bailouts of the Wall Street gambling houses in the fall of 2008 and the lunatic spree of central bank money pumping that followed; the soaring stock market fueled by the Fed's free money that arose therefrom; and the egregious global fund-raising and shakedowns of the Clinton Foundation and personal wealth accumulations by the Clinton's personally, capped by Hillary's notorious $250,000 off-the-record speeches to Goldman Sachs.

And to be clear, I lost a $100 bet to a friend on this election, so I clearly thought she would win, and I STILL wouldn't vote for Trump...so nothing above indicates support for him. it just amazes me that she is seen as anything but the political vermin she is. In fact, if she hadn't been just that, Trump wouldn't be president-elect.

Even though the alternatives suck and always will, I hope we never see another Clinton or Bush ever again.

DrMark posted:

What is factual and logical about voting for Hillary Clinton?

She is totally beholden to the big banks who raped us in 2008 in the biggest open theft ever seen in human history, is a creature of the Deep State machinery, is all about war, is in bed with the neocon Cheney/Kagan cabal, has a record of failure in everything she has touched, was all about taking credit for Libya until Bengazi, then couldn't distance herself from it fast enough, played dirty pool with Bernie Sanders in the primaries, runs a corrupt NPO that is basically nothing more than a money laundering scheme, and appears to be a pathological liar. And that's just for starters.

But our girl sure has come a long way since the 70s from finagling on cattle futures for $100,000; couldn't get that b*tch to cross the street for that kind of money now. She and her husband came into the presidency with nothing, and now she can go home and count all of their $50 million.

There is a straight line from repeal of Glass-Steagall by the Rubin-Clinton democrats in the late 1990s through the resounding repudiations of the Clintons last night.

This string includes the M&A roll-up of the giant Wall Street banks after 1998; the subprime mortgage scams, housing booms and subsequent crash during the next decade; the panicked multi-trillion bailouts of the Wall Street gambling houses in the fall of 2008 and the lunatic spree of central bank money pumping that followed; the soaring stock market fueled by the Fed's free money that arose therefrom; and the egregious global fund-raising and shakedowns of the Clinton Foundation and personal wealth accumulations by the Clinton's personally, capped by Hillary's notorious $250,000 off-the-record speeches to Goldman Sachs.

And to be clear, I lost a $100 bet to a friend on this election, so I clearly thought she would win, and I STILL wouldn't vote for Trump...so nothing above indicates support for him. it just amazes me that she is seen as anything but the political vermin she is. In fact, if she hadn't been just that, Trump wouldn't be president-elect.

Even though the alternatives suck and always will, I hope we never see another Clinton or Bush ever again.

 

You've convinced me. Trump was the best choice after all. How could I have been so naive?

While I would have preferred Clinton as president, Trump will not be as bad as perceived during the campaign (just like Obama didn't turn out to be the Messiah as we all hoped). Trump will hopefully not start a 3rd world war, on the contrary, he will probably withdraw the US from international conflicts and be more isolationistic.

And in 4 years everything is over anyway.

The Brexit however will have impact for the next generation and I felt much more devastated about that.

DrMark posted:

She is totally beholden to the big banks who raped us in 2008 in the biggest open theft ever seen in human history

Is it the government's or bank's responsibility to protect consumers from themselves? There were obviously a lot of financially naïve home buyers more than willing to jump in over their heads and spend beyond their means. A con game only works if there are willing marks. The sad result for me as a fiscally responsible credit user was that I had to help fund the bail-out of half-witted consumers.

Putin is the danger here and he will be Hitler to Trump's Chamberlain.

Russian forces are already (huge manoeuvres since June) massing on the borders of Ukraine, Armenia, and Finland, and acting unilaterally in Syria. By the time President Trump - with his newly imasculated: quote "obsolete" NATO - and the world, realise, and acknowledge, what is going on, it will be too late. There will be World War within two years.

jfritzen posted:

While I would have preferred Clinton as president, Trump will not be as bad as perceived during the campaign (just like Obama didn't turn out to be the Messiah as we all hoped). Trump will hopefully not start a 3rd world war, on the contrary, he will probably withdraw the US from international conflicts and be more isolationistic.

And in 4 years everything is over anyway.

I still think it beggars belief that the Democrats and Republicans thought Clinton and Trump were their best possible candidates for the presidency, they had plenty of opportunities to drop them both.....

As for Obama not being "the Messiah".  He was severely restricted by the fact that both the Senate and House of Representatives had Republican majorities and appeared to be able to block him almost at will.  Trump will obviously not be hamstrung in the same way so let's hope they are able to keep him under control for the next 4 years.  Unfortunately, given the level of toadyism that Republican senators have shown in the last few months I'm not so sure they will.

JamieWednesday posted:

Bad news already.

Apparently Washington DC is to be renamed Trumpton.

I think, if true, that could be wonderfully funny news!

Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, Grub   ..............   

Just an observation/question on the election. Maybe for DrMark

Previous years (and other Republican candidates for nomination this year) have heavily played the religion card and courted the very politically active more extreme Christain right wing. Seems as an outsider this has not been the case this time, I've not heard anywhere near as much God in the election speeches etc. Even more unusual it seems the religious conservatives have ignored Trumps 3 divorces and obvious infidelities to still support him.

Why?

Adam Meredith posted:

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

... but isn't it refreshing to see someone challenge the politically correct perhaps increasingly self serving establishment

Possibly, but "My enemy's enemy is my friend" has lead to some unfortunate alliances.

"During the Afghan civil war, cold war was still going on between US and Soviet Union. Mujahideens were fighting against Soviet Union so US supported Mujahideen to fight against their enemy. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. The Soviets and Americans were involved in the Cold War."

My answer is also potentially - possibly!

However, reality kicks in when I realise that the "increasingly self serving establishment" has been replaced by possibly the most blatantly self serving and egotistical individual in the US. Does Trump's past and present behaviour, with his many and repeated, sexist, racist and other comments lead you to believe that he is the right person to replace the establishment?  

Will he be moderated by the responsibility of Government? I guess this is a possibility. However, the underlying nastiness will still be there, and will almost certainly surface from time to time.   

By the way, Simon, I would argue that much of Trump's election rhetoric about women, Mexicans and the disabled is a little worse than just "politically incorrect".

Better brush up on those reading comprehension skills winky. There was NO best choice - that is my point. Your inference (if not outright statement) that voting for Trump is based strictly on feeling while voting for Clinton is somehow "factual" is only because you think your opinion is always right, and anyone who disagrees with you is beneath you. My point is logic and facts applied to either candidate lead to a "NO" answer. They were both terrible, each in their own special way.

Of course you create an education system that is designed to produce people who are only smart enough to fill out the forms and run the machines and be good little corporate drones, and you get people who cannot think. On both sides of the political divide. Well played, Elites.

Republicans don't know how stupid they are, and democrats don't know how smart they aren't.

Joerand- go watch the Big Short - and if you've already seen it, then watch it again. And be careful, you're sounding like a republican because that was a republican argument in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. And many of the loans were made to people who had no business getting a loan, and in many cases I agree - and I said that at the time, because you could literally declare bankruptcy one week, and get a mortgage the next. (I was in IT in the mortgage industry.) But the government regulators approved these policies and also approved the foolish negative amortization/teaser rate/interest only loans.

The crime was actually started in the Bill Clinton administration with the Gramm-Leach-Bailey Act, which essentially trashed any semblance of underwriting standards. Then of course during the Bush II years they kept the party going because it gave the illusion of a strong economy.  The crimes were packaging garbage loans made to people (whether through lying about their income and buying a big house, or lower income folks who just couldn't afford any house) and packaging them into securitized financial instruments and conning the ratings agencies into labeling them AAA quality investments when they all KNEW they were crap, and selling them to pension funds, etc. 

Then they lost out on their gamble, and you and I and everyone else bailed them out, and no one of consequence went to jail. In fact Citi hid $70 billion in losses at the time - did their CEO get in trouble? No, Jacob Lew is now the Treasury Secretary...part of the revolving door of Wall St and the Cabinet.

Then there is the whole robo-signing thing going on where banks had NO legal right to, but were STEALING homes in foreclosure. All this fueled (as is the current mess we are about to go into) by artificially manipulated low interest rates from central banks, most notably the Fed. And it is all going to happen again, because the SAME thing is going on right now. Debt is being substituted for actual capital and now the time is coming to pay it back, and many of these corporations and companies will default - especially if market forces take over (and eventually they will) and interest rates start to rise.

But don't worry - the 1% will front run it and it will all become a bigger theft than the first time. It will happen again.

And Trump has no answers - he is like the people who voted for him; he knows something is wrong, but has no real comprehension of what it is. And even less how to fix it, which will be impossible, because no one is willing to go through the pain it will take.

So it will continue until it blows up, and then everyone will cry to the engineers of the problem who profited immensely from it to save them - yeah, that makes sense. About as much sense as asking a sex offender to babysit your 10 year old.

wenger2015 posted:

HMACK, democracy has won, as has been stated.

If you think Clinton is honest, I'm astounded, suggest you go to Google. Maybe take off your Clinton rose coloured spectacles.

As for Trump,  despite everybody knowing what kind of person he probably is.....50% approx of voting Americans wanted him as president.

Just proves how disillusioned the American public are with main stream politicians.

And you cannot disagree,  however you want to water it down, no politician has ever won an election by telling the truth ...and to be fair it's not possible... 

Wenger,

I’m so sorry. The penny has just dropped. I guess I’m getting on a bit and so a little slow to catch on.

What you have been trying to tell me is the simple fact that ‘Truth’ is simply not an attribute that needs to apply to politics. After all, if loads of people are gullible enough to believe what I say, then that’s their problem. If they can’t be bothered to research the truth for themselves, then why should I worry about misleading them by whatever I decide to say, however objectionable that might be.

It’s so obvious.  Why didn’t I think of this before.

I invite you to join me in an initiative I’m thinking about. I am going to set up a new political party – the UKSAP (the “UK Send Aliens Packing” Party).

As proven by many respected journalists, the Earth, and the UK in particular) has been subject to an increasingly pervasive invasion by Aliens (nasty, nasty lizards) from their base on Epimetheus, one of Saturn’s moons. Our best guess is that this invasion began roughly at the end of the 2nd World War, when our defences were at their weakest.  The Royal Family were amongst the first casualties in this secret invasion. The whole Royal Family has now been, with one brave exception, completely replaced by lizards (nasty, nasty lizards) with the exception of Prince Harry who is fighting a brave rear-guard action. However, he has now begun to be targeted by the right wing gutter press which is now fully under the control of the nasty, nasty lizards. The one International leader who has not been compromised by the lizards is President Putiin. We must do everything we can to aid Putin in his mission to rid us of the aliens.

Some of you may find all of this difficult to believe, but if you don’t believe me, just Google the following:

‘David Icke’; ‘ much respected BBC Journalist’; ‘The secret invasion’, Epimetheus, and ‘what the lizards don’t want you to know’,

If you do so, you will understand why it is so important that you vote for my party, and not for the right wing parties whose traitorous leaders have formed a pact with the lizards.

Theresa May and Nigel Farage are still human (if you can apply the word human to traitors who are in league with the nasty, nasty lizards), but many of their senior party members are in fact lizards. in disguise If I get to power, then I will put all of the traitors in jail, every last one of them.

If my party wins, we will immediately construct a wall around the UK. No wait, that won’t work! If we win, we will immediately construct a mesh dome above the UK that will prevent all communication by the aliens with their allies (May, Farage and Fallon- they should all be in jail!)

The Global warming debate, as you know, is a complete fallacy, promoted to make it look as though the Human Race is responsible. Every genuine human scientist knows that Global Warming is very real, but that it is as a result of the lizards gradually commencing their strategy of terraforming the Earth to suit their kind.

Donald Trump is in league with them (we are not yet sure if he himself is a lizard, or just in league with them). He has openly announced a policy of increasing fossil fuel production in order to help speed up this terraforming process and Global Warming.   

If we win the election, then all aliens will be forced to leave. That goes without saying. However, we will also repatriate all of the human traitors to Epimetheus. However, we will not do this ourselves, or pay for it to be done. We will force the lizards to do this for us.       

Hey, I find not having to tell the truth or the semblance of truth so liberating.

I now find myself with a whole arsenal of tools to work with at the next election:

Racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and goodness knows what else.

I’m sure I’ll get a few people to vote for me. Now if I just had a few Billion to fund my campaign!

Hmack posted:

wenger2015 posted:

HMACK, democracy has won, as has been stated.

If you think Clinton is honest, I'm astounded, suggest you go to Google. Maybe take off your Clinton rose coloured spectacles.

As for Trump,  despite everybody knowing what kind of person he probably is.....50% approx of voting Americans wanted him as president.

Just proves how disillusioned the American public are with main stream politicians.

And you cannot disagree,  however you want to water it down, no politician has ever won an election by telling the truth ...and to be fair it's not possible... 

Wenger,

I’m so sorry. The penny has just dropped. I guess I’m getting on a bit and so a little slow to catch on.

What you have been trying to tell me is the simple fact that ‘Truth’ is simply not an attribute that needs to apply to politics. After all, if loads of people are gullible enough to believe what I say, then that’s their problem. If they can’t be bothered to research the truth for themselves, then why should I worry about misleading them by whatever I decide to say, however objectionable that might be.

It’s so obvious.  Why didn’t I think of this before.

I invite you to join me in an initiative I’m thinking about. I am going to set up a new political party – the UKSAP (the “UK Send Aliens Packing” Party).

As proven by many respected journalists, the Earth, and the UK in particular) has been subject to an increasingly pervasive invasion by Aliens (nasty, nasty lizards) from their base on Epimetheus, one of Saturn’s moons. Our best guess is that this invasion began roughly at the end of the 2nd World War, when our defences were at their weakest.  The Royal Family were amongst the first casualties in this secret invasion. The whole Royal Family has now been, with one brave exception, completely replaced by lizards (nasty, nasty lizards) with the exception of Prince Harry who is fighting a brave rear-guard action. However, he has now begun to be targeted by the right wing gutter press which is now fully under the control of the nasty, nasty lizards. The one International leader who has not been compromised by the lizards is President Putiin. We must do everything we can to aid Putin in his mission to rid us of the aliens.

Some of you may find all of this difficult to believe, but if you don’t believe me, just Google the following:

‘David Icke’; ‘ much respected BBC Journalist’; ‘The secret invasion’, Epimetheus, and ‘what the lizards don’t want you to know’,

If you do so, you will understand why it is so important that you vote for my party, and not for the right wing parties whose traitorous leaders have formed a pact with the lizards.

Theresa May and Nigel Farage are still human (if you can apply the word human to traitors who are in league with the nasty, nasty lizards), but many of their senior party members are in fact lizards. in disguise If I get to power, then I will put all of the traitors in jail, every last one of them.

If my party wins, we will immediately construct a wall around the UK. No wait, that won’t work! If we win, we will immediately construct a mesh dome above the UK that will prevent all communication by the aliens with their allies (May, Farage and Fallon- they should all be in jail!)

The Global warming debate, as you know, is a complete fallacy, promoted to make it look as though the Human Race is responsible. Every genuine human scientist knows that Global Warming is very real, but that it is as a result of the lizards gradually commencing their strategy of terraforming the Earth to suit their kind.

Donald Trump is in league with them (we are not yet sure if he himself is a lizard, or just in league with them). He has openly announced a policy of increasing fossil fuel production in order to help speed up this terraforming process and Global Warming.   

If we win the election, then all aliens will be forced to leave. That goes without saying. However, we will also repatriate all of the human traitors to Epimetheus. However, we will not do this ourselves, or pay for it to be done. We will force the lizards to do this for us.       

Hey, I find not having to tell the truth or the semblance of truth so liberating.

I now find myself with a whole arsenal of tools to work with at the next election:

Racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and goodness knows what else.

I’m sure I’ll get a few people to vote for me. Now if I just had a few Billion to fund my campaign!

I don't actually disagree with a lot of what you have to say.... The problem with telling the truth is, you have to except the consequences eg their might be a sugar shortage ....what immediately happens everyone goes out and buys sugar. 

Therfore politicians tend to say 'what people want to hear'  which is exactly what Trump has done..I don't recall hearing any explanation regarding his plan to make America great again....  Possibly he was never asked...

As for Clinton... people just dont like or trust her.....they prefer the atrocious Mr Trump,  maybe because what you see is what you get... and maybe he doesn't pretend to be somebody he isn't.. That said he's already toned down the rhetoric 

As Obama has rightly said, as he feasts on his humble pie, the sun will still come out tomorrow  or words to that effect ....

DrMark posted:

Better brush up on those reading comprehension skills winky. There was NO best choice - that is my point. Your inference (if not outright statement) that voting for Trump is based strictly on feeling while voting for Clinton is somehow "factual" is only because you think your opinion is always right, and anyone who disagrees with you is beneath you. My point is logic and facts applied to either candidate lead to a "NO" answer. They were both terrible, each in their own special way.

Of course you create an education system that is designed to produce people who are only smart enough to fill out the forms and run the machines and be good little corporate drones, and you get people who cannot think. On both sides of the political divide. Well played, Elites.

Republicans don't know how stupid they are, and democrats don't know how smart they aren't.

Joerand- go watch the Big Short - and if you've already seen it, then watch it again. And be careful, you're sounding like a republican because that was a republican argument in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. And many of the loans were made to people who had no business getting a loan, and in many cases I agree - and I said that at the time, because you could literally declare bankruptcy one week, and get a mortgage the next. (I was in IT in the mortgage industry.) But the government regulators approved these policies and also approved the foolish negative amortization/teaser rate/interest only loans.

The crime was actually started in the Bill Clinton administration with the Gramm-Leach-Bailey Act, which essentially trashed any semblance of underwriting standards. Then of course during the Bush II years they kept the party going because it gave the illusion of a strong economy.  The crimes were packaging garbage loans made to people (whether through lying about their income and buying a big house, or lower income folks who just couldn't afford any house) and packaging them into securitized financial instruments and conning the ratings agencies into labeling them AAA quality investments when they all KNEW they were crap, and selling them to pension funds, etc. 

Then they lost out on their gamble, and you and I and everyone else bailed them out, and no one of consequence went to jail. In fact Citi hid $70 billion in losses at the time - did their CEO get in trouble? No, Jacob Lew is now the Treasury Secretary...part of the revolving door of Wall St and the Cabinet.

Then there is the whole robo-signing thing going on where banks had NO legal right to, but were STEALING homes in foreclosure. All this fueled (as is the current mess we are about to go into) by artificially manipulated low interest rates from central banks, most notably the Fed. And it is all going to happen again, because the SAME thing is going on right now. Debt is being substituted for actual capital and now the time is coming to pay it back, and many of these corporations and companies will default - especially if market forces take over (and eventually they will) and interest rates start to rise.

But don't worry - the 1% will front run it and it will all become a bigger theft than the first time. It will happen again.

And Trump has no answers - he is like the people who voted for him; he knows something is wrong, but has no real comprehension of what it is. And even less how to fix it, which will be impossible, because no one is willing to go through the pain it will take.

So it will continue until it blows up, and then everyone will cry to the engineers of the problem who profited immensely from it to save them - yeah, that makes sense. About as much sense as asking a sex offender to babysit your 10 year old.

I'd agree on there being no best choice. Just the least worst. Doesn't make my point invalid. It was an election decided on feelings not facts. Positions not policies. It was all so dire so as to be a farce.

"Them" -  To truly underestimate and undermine the intelligence of the others is essentially the same as underestimating and undermining the intelligence of - "us".    Broken system in a nutshell.