• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Trumps Top Issues

The Great Zaganza said:
The funny thing is that "America first" has always been our policy - it's right there in the Oath of Office.

By declaring it openly, Trump is putting the US in a worse negotiation position: before, we used to appeal to common ideals and mutual benefits.
But if the US admits to being only interested in furthering its own goals, other countries will dig in their heels and negotiate twice as hard.
Click to expand...

Is that what passes for logic in progressive circles?
 
sunmaster14 said:
Is that what passes for logic in progressive circles?
Click to expand...

No it's what passes for reality. Do you think the countries Trump is going to negotiate with are going to be quivering in their boots because he's Donald Trump? That's laughable.
 
Spindrift said:
No it's what passes for reality. Do you think the countries Trump is going to negotiate with are going to be quivering in their boots because he's Donald Trump? That's laughable.
Click to expand...

China in particular. If he think he can bully China, he has another thing coming.
What Trump seems not get is that Trade Wars go both ways.
 
I believe it is more this:

1. Stroke ego, repeat until orgasm occurs.

2. Think hard about daughter. repeat until orgasm occurs.

3. Repeal Obamcare. Get other stuff good for the hoi polloi repealed until orgasm occurs.

4. Blow the Koch brothers until they orgasm. Accept money, orgasm.
 
WilliamSeger said:
At 12:01pm EST, the new White House website was activated. All mentions of "climate change" have been scrubbed, including a detailed information page. In fact the only mention of "climate" on the entire website is the pledge to repeal Obama's Climate Action Plan.

Bet you'd never guess what it does have now: White House website touts Melania Trump’s modeling and jewelry line
Click to expand...

Wow - advertising your business on the White House page?

This is truly deplorable.
 
WilliamSeger said:
At 12:01pm EST, the new White House website was activated. All mentions of "climate change" have been scrubbed, including a detailed information page. In fact the only mention of "climate" on the entire website is the pledge to repeal Obama's Climate Action Plan.

Bet you'd never guess what it does have now: White House website touts Melania Trump’s modeling and jewelry line
Click to expand...

The Great Zaganza said:
Wow - advertising your business on the White House page?

This is truly deplorable.
Click to expand...

Drain the Swamp?
 
Trump is going to send invites to every foreign leader he can find in his rolodex, with a less than subtle hint that they should stay at his DC hotel.
 
Spindrift said:
Making Our Military Strong Again - Because we don't have the same number of ships and planes we had in 1917. Let's ignore that we have more aircraft carriers than the rest of the world combined and lots of other ships. But we don't have coal tenders anymore. And how is that going to be paid for?
Click to expand...

Well, Coal Tenders will be needed for all the extra coal.
Returning the fleet to coal fired boilers kills two birds with one stone. All the extra coal gets used and all the Stokers needed will provide jobs.
 
Coal fires 33% of US electricity even with the war on coal. To say nobody wants it is just emotional twaddle. As an export too, a good trade. That's what we're doing mostly. In my neighborhood.

Exporting to Chile, South Korea, Japan - pacific rim countries mostly.

Most of the boys I know have heavy equipment, including a 19 year old across the road from me. We like to think in terms of loading railroad cars, makin' $135 an hour revenue, clearing over $100 an hour if we're going to bother working with something like coal.

I use the ash from the Healy coal mine and power plants to build roads. When I am on that side of the valley. They got loaders that make my 55,000 lb dump truck look like a Tonka toy. This is the one they load me with:

e-exc_cat994d.jpg



I see this dredge every day in the summer when I am on the North side of Denali National Park building roads:

e-exc_be1300w.jpg


You are looking at where I build most of the time. On the other side of that valley. I dug the basement for one of the Usibeli's that own this mine, this piece of equipment pictured above. Do you see the truck in the foreground? These are the jobs that come with with coal. Operating, maintaining, fabricating for this scale of production. I know the lead fabricator at the main road building outfit for them - he's over $50 an hour base pay. The two power plants at the face of the mine - all great jobs.

Inside the plants and mine offices you have all the college educated people. Quality control people, engineers, water, financial analysts, division managers, etc. Six figure jobs.

The railroad jobs that take the coal out. The merchant seaman on the ships. The crane and equipment workers at port - everywhere you look is highly paid work even a high school graduate can do, all stemming from coal and its ancillary industries.

The regular guys at the mine operating equipment with any kind of seniority like me are about $34 an hour and obscene benefits. They clock a lot of overtime, a lot of $50 + an hour days. A ten hour day on overtime? $500. I could hire on there, but I am a contractor and like what I am doing just fine.

There isn't a Wal-Mart. There isn't a McDonald's. Off the highway, there's not one traffic light in town. People stock up. There's almost zero low-wage employment except for the summer when foreign workers come in to the hotels and t-shirt shops at the entrance to Denali National Park.

Then you have the school teachers, the public administration, the police and fire yadda yadda - all great jobs too, stemming from coal. There's no sales taxes, no property taxes, because they tax coal production. There's no income taxes because it is Alaska. The school is free. Coal means free schools.

Not only are these great paying jobs, but there are no taxes at the state and local level. So you can bank more of your pay. Free heat too, for mine workers and coal pickers.

Can you imagine? No property taxes. No sales taxes. Because of coal. There's a hotel-motel tax too, to stiff the tourists. But coal is king.

This is what the coal seams look like, they go for over 100 miles:

fc3ed50a404c88462707b9d89f24f036.jpg


Me, the wife and kids went up to that very set of seams last summer and got some coal. They'd had a flood at the base of it and we couldn't get the truck right up to the face. I can come in there with a loader though and take a dump truck load out, nobody cares.

All the workers get free coal so there isn't much personal use harvesting. Plenty of trees around close to people's cabins for firewood too. We mostly sled trees home in the winter but I thought about swinging by this spot for a load of coal I could take home at the end of the season. We had to pull out early, family medical emergency, but will be back next season.

Between those coal seams is volcanic ash: telling a fascinating story. The organic material is growing along minding its own business, and staggering amounts of volcanic ash is produced from eruptions to bury it all and make coal. A new layer of organics manages to populate the barren wasteland, and then another eruption(s). Three layers of coal that you can see at the base of this spot above.

We have, as a practical matter, a billion years of coal. In a lot of places around this state there are seams free for the taking. The ones jutting out by the ocean are the easiest to get at, seems to me. The ocean does all the work for you.

No need to hate on coal, the PC era of virtue-signaling is over. It's like the people cutting their backs in the name of Christ. Making electricity more expensive, gutting these high-paying jobs to show how "environmentally conscious" we are. ********. Coal can burn clean and carbon dioxide is plant food. It's nonsense.
 
Last edited:
No need to hate on coal, the PC era of virtue-signaling is over.
Click to expand...
No, the era of coal needs to be over. We can no longer afford to use it.

It's like the people cutting their backs in the name of Christ. Making electricity more expensive, gutting these high-paying jobs to show how "environmentally conscious" we are. ********.
Click to expand...
Translation, make the planet less habitable in the long term for short term comfort.

Coal can burn clean and carbon dioxide is plant food. It's nonsense.
Click to expand...
So is water, so giant floods are okay?
 
Last edited:
Plenty of Open Cast but Trump was talking about opening deep mines.
Can't see it happening.

In the UK the profitable coal is all Open Cast even in the old shaft mine areas.
New open pits have revealed old workings as they have quarried down, there is more coal left than was taken out even in the goafed areas.
 
Last edited:
There is a single issue on which Trump and the GOP have to let themselves be measured: healthcare.
Plenty of ACA recipients voted for Trump because they expect him to deliver the same coverage or better for less money.
If he can deliver he'll be a hero.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom