President Trump nixes federal workers pay raises,leftists lose their minds

[Ray From Cleveland]

When I was trading in the commodities market I mostly invested in grains since they were low priced contracts. Doing research, not all farmers can grow the same kind of crops. Then we started to burn up our food supply to create ethanol which did absolutely zero good when it comes to the environment, but it greatly increased our grocery bill.

Some crops are much harder to grow than others, and it heavily relies on weather. When ethanol hit the market, everybody dropped what they were growing to grow sugar cane. That left us depleted of other grains. The problem with that is what they used to grow was fed to livestock, so the price of pork, beef and chicken took huge hikes in price along with other items made from those grains.

So you are a farmer and after all the bills are paid, you want to make 60K a year. Not too unreasonable. But then you have a bad year and a low harvest. You only make 25K that year. The only way for you to survive is to more than double the price of your goods whatever that may be.

With government subsidies, they reimburse you that other 35K, and thus you don't really need to increase your prices to the consumer. It's safer to plant those harder to grow crops because you won't lose anything.

Ethanol is a complete scam, both parties love it. Democrats love pseudo environmental policies. Ethanol doesn't net reduce carbon emissions, but Democrats can talk about greenhouse gases with a fake program that doesn't work, their favorite kind. Republicans love farm subsidies. So we have a program that doesn't work and is expensive, politicians love it.

And bonus, it makes engines burn hotter which wears them out faster. A DC program that delivers nothing to the people except bills. Political dreams for politicians of both parties.

If we stopped subsidizing farmers, how they grow crops now would change. They would adapt and become more efficient. Government never drives down prices in the end. They prop up bad systems keeping them high

Either that or they would't grow anything at all. If you are a farmer hit with two or three bad seasons, you might as well sell the land to somebody that wants to put a mall there or something like that.

Yes, government subsidies and the commodities market do keep prices down for consumers. That's why both parties subsidize the farmers. The commodities market was created specifically to stabilize prices.

Of course farmers are always trying to improve farming for their advantage, but there is no magical cure to droughts or floods. At times it's an insect problem that kills crops. It's simply not predictable.

A lot of farmers do need to get out of farming. Government never spends money to help people. They do it to buy votes. Both parties do it that way. Their career is farming, they don't want to change professions. When cars came, we had too many blacksmiths. Technology changes the economics.

Farming should be done economically efficiently. Farmers would solve the problems. Some would get bigger, some would go under. That's the way capitalism works.

But congress NEVER drives down prices in the long run. Everything from airlines to telephones proves that deregulating reduces prices dramatically. Phones and planes are both cheaper now than when they were deregulated decades ago

Consumers can do without telephones, planes, computers, but everybody has to eat. The less food being grown, the higher the price for food.

You are going to pay one way or the other. If your weekly grocery bill is $100.00, imagine if it went to $150.00. Then what do we do about kids in school? If they can no longer buy a lunch for a $1.85, then we have to give them $2.50 everyday. We can't leave out those who receive free lunch, and that would still cost the taxpayers.

Food stamp allotment would have to increase as well. Maybe 70 billion a year to 100 billion a year. Food pantries would go dry as more people will keep their food purchases for themselves instead of donating them to charity.

You see, when it comes to starvation, nobody on either side of the political spectrum is going to let that happen. One way or another, subsides or not, Americans are going to eat.

I can't process the question that we end our socialist system and institute capitalism in food and prices will go up. Ending socialism has never led to higher prices ever just as instituting it has never led to lower prices ever.

Government pays farmers to not grow crops, they pay them to grow crops they can't sell. They keep too many farmers in business. They prevent optimization and realizing economies of scale.

Like all welfare whores, farmers gear their business plans to suckle government titties, not to serve markets.

And you ask so what if we end that and prices skyrocket? Why would that possibly happen?

Supply and demand. The less supply and more demand, the higher the prices go.

If you are a farmer and only produce one third of your normal harvest, the only way to maintain profit is subsidies or triple the price of your goods.

 

[kaz]

Ethanol is a complete scam, both parties love it. Democrats love pseudo environmental policies. Ethanol doesn't net reduce carbon emissions, but Democrats can talk about greenhouse gases with a fake program that doesn't work, their favorite kind. Republicans love farm subsidies. So we have a program that doesn't work and is expensive, politicians love it.

And bonus, it makes engines burn hotter which wears them out faster. A DC program that delivers nothing to the people except bills. Political dreams for politicians of both parties.

If we stopped subsidizing farmers, how they grow crops now would change. They would adapt and become more efficient. Government never drives down prices in the end. They prop up bad systems keeping them high

Either that or they would't grow anything at all. If you are a farmer hit with two or three bad seasons, you might as well sell the land to somebody that wants to put a mall there or something like that.

Yes, government subsidies and the commodities market do keep prices down for consumers. That's why both parties subsidize the farmers. The commodities market was created specifically to stabilize prices.

Of course farmers are always trying to improve farming for their advantage, but there is no magical cure to droughts or floods. At times it's an insect problem that kills crops. It's simply not predictable.

A lot of farmers do need to get out of farming. Government never spends money to help people. They do it to buy votes. Both parties do it that way. Their career is farming, they don't want to change professions. When cars came, we had too many blacksmiths. Technology changes the economics.

Farming should be done economically efficiently. Farmers would solve the problems. Some would get bigger, some would go under. That's the way capitalism works.

But congress NEVER drives down prices in the long run. Everything from airlines to telephones proves that deregulating reduces prices dramatically. Phones and planes are both cheaper now than when they were deregulated decades ago

Consumers can do without telephones, planes, computers, but everybody has to eat. The less food being grown, the higher the price for food.

You are going to pay one way or the other. If your weekly grocery bill is $100.00, imagine if it went to $150.00. Then what do we do about kids in school? If they can no longer buy a lunch for a $1.85, then we have to give them $2.50 everyday. We can't leave out those who receive free lunch, and that would still cost the taxpayers.

Food stamp allotment would have to increase as well. Maybe 70 billion a year to 100 billion a year. Food pantries would go dry as more people will keep their food purchases for themselves instead of donating them to charity.

You see, when it comes to starvation, nobody on either side of the political spectrum is going to let that happen. One way or another, subsides or not, Americans are going to eat.

I can't process the question that we end our socialist system and institute capitalism in food and prices will go up. Ending socialism has never led to higher prices ever just as instituting it has never led to lower prices ever.

Government pays farmers to not grow crops, they pay them to grow crops they can't sell. They keep too many farmers in business. They prevent optimization and realizing economies of scale.

Like all welfare whores, farmers gear their business plans to suckle government titties, not to serve markets.

And you ask so what if we end that and prices skyrocket? Why would that possibly happen?

Supply and demand. The less supply and more demand, the higher the prices go.

If you are a farmer and only produce one third of your normal harvest, the only way to maintain profit is subsidies or triple the price of your goods.

No, you don't have triple the costs. Your fixed cost doesn't change, but your variable costs do. So let's say:

1) Normal year

Fixed costs: $1M
Variable costs: $3M
Required profit (income): $500K
Price required for crops: $4.5M

2) Bad year, you grow 1/3 the crops
Fixed cost: $1M
Variable costs $1M
Required profit (income): $500K
Price required for crops: $2.5M

That is about double the price, but it's not three times the price.

However, you ignored all the other factors I raised. There are too many farmers, government is paying them not to grow crops and government is paying them to pay crops they can't sell. All of that makes what they produced entirely waste.

If more farmers went out of business, as should happen, that would reduce the number of farmers wanting that welfare money. And also the successful farmers would become far more efficient reducing both fixed and variable costs.

Right now, any efficient farmer is punished by government giving out welfare checks to farmers who should be out of business growing crops anyway.

And this all still ignores the huge government saving of ending farmer welfare

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Either that or they would't grow anything at all. If you are a farmer hit with two or three bad seasons, you might as well sell the land to somebody that wants to put a mall there or something like that.

Yes, government subsidies and the commodities market do keep prices down for consumers. That's why both parties subsidize the farmers. The commodities market was created specifically to stabilize prices.

Of course farmers are always trying to improve farming for their advantage, but there is no magical cure to droughts or floods. At times it's an insect problem that kills crops. It's simply not predictable.

A lot of farmers do need to get out of farming. Government never spends money to help people. They do it to buy votes. Both parties do it that way. Their career is farming, they don't want to change professions. When cars came, we had too many blacksmiths. Technology changes the economics.

Farming should be done economically efficiently. Farmers would solve the problems. Some would get bigger, some would go under. That's the way capitalism works.

But congress NEVER drives down prices in the long run. Everything from airlines to telephones proves that deregulating reduces prices dramatically. Phones and planes are both cheaper now than when they were deregulated decades ago

Consumers can do without telephones, planes, computers, but everybody has to eat. The less food being grown, the higher the price for food.

You are going to pay one way or the other. If your weekly grocery bill is $100.00, imagine if it went to $150.00. Then what do we do about kids in school? If they can no longer buy a lunch for a $1.85, then we have to give them $2.50 everyday. We can't leave out those who receive free lunch, and that would still cost the taxpayers.

Food stamp allotment would have to increase as well. Maybe 70 billion a year to 100 billion a year. Food pantries would go dry as more people will keep their food purchases for themselves instead of donating them to charity.

You see, when it comes to starvation, nobody on either side of the political spectrum is going to let that happen. One way or another, subsides or not, Americans are going to eat.

I can't process the question that we end our socialist system and institute capitalism in food and prices will go up. Ending socialism has never led to higher prices ever just as instituting it has never led to lower prices ever.

Government pays farmers to not grow crops, they pay them to grow crops they can't sell. They keep too many farmers in business. They prevent optimization and realizing economies of scale.

Like all welfare whores, farmers gear their business plans to suckle government titties, not to serve markets.

And you ask so what if we end that and prices skyrocket? Why would that possibly happen?

Supply and demand. The less supply and more demand, the higher the prices go.

If you are a farmer and only produce one third of your normal harvest, the only way to maintain profit is subsidies or triple the price of your goods.

No, you don't have triple the costs. Your fixed cost doesn't change, but your variable costs do. So let's say:

1) Normal year

Fixed costs: $1M
Variable costs: $3M
Required profit (income): $500K
Price required for crops: $4.5M

2) Bad year, you grow 1/3 the crops
Fixed cost: $1M
Variable costs $1M
Required profit (income): $500K
Price required for crops: $2.5M

That is about double the price, but it's not three times the price.

However, you ignored all the other factors I raised. There are too many farmers, government is paying them not to grow crops and government is paying them to pay crops they can't sell. All of that makes what they produced entirely waste.

If more farmers went out of business, as should happen, that would reduce the number of farmers wanting that welfare money. And also the successful farmers would become far more efficient reducing both fixed and variable costs.

Right now, any efficient farmer is punished by government giving out welfare checks to farmers who should be out of business growing crops anyway.

And this all still ignores the huge government saving of ending farmer welfare

Not really. First of all, farmers have no control over the price of what they sell. That's what the commodities market is for. If a farmer makes 70K a year selling wheat at 50 cents a bushel, and the commodities price drops to 20 cents a bushel, then the farmer is screwed without subsidies even if he has a great crop that year.

That brings us to paying farmers not to grow food. Why should a farmer plant crops that are just going to rot in some silo anyway? If the crop costs more to make than it does to sell, it's silly to do that. It's like Apple making five million iPhones when most people already have one; of course, the iPhones won't rot away.

So government pays farmers not to grow their crop if the prices are low and there is an abundance of such crop. After all, food has a certain lifespan. In most cases, it can't be stored away and sold the following year or when the commodity is in shorter demand.

 

[Coyote]

What gets me is they always try to say "your guy did this" or "your gal is against that" forgetting what their representatives have done in the past.

How is that any different from what you do? Good grief - you wasted taxpayer money and how many years of investigation on a presidential sex scandal. You want on and on about how bad that was. Now you - the SELF PROCLAIMED party of family values and fidelity suddenly - you don't care. That's downright laughable. I could not care less about Trump's sex life - it is not a surprise, given his marital history - and frankly it's between he and his wife. So...now these "Drumpf" voters think it's fine to cheat on your wife. When it's your guy. Can you be anymore blatent?

These Bill Clinton voters are constantly telling us how Trump cheated on is wives. They cry about the separation of children from parents at the border as if DumBama kept them together.

You believe everything Trump says even when it is a lie don't you? There was NO 100 percent seperation of children at the border. Seperation occurred when there was reason to believe there was trafficking. Either show me proof of large scale seperation like we saw with Trump or admit you are lying (something not unusual amongst Trumpsters apparently).

They tell us how Republicans are against minorities when it's their representatives that were not only a against school vouchers, but sued in court to try and take those vouchers away from minority kids. They say they are for the working man while sneaking in more illegals through our southern border, given them sanctuary and drivers licenses to get around and take their jobs.

The Democrats let down a big chunk of their traditional base - they deserved to lose as a result. Hopefully, the wake up call will lead to some big changes. On the other hand what really have the Republicans done beyond rhetoric? How has the tax cut benefited the average worker? How about those promises to bring jobs back to the US...let's examine some of this.

How about healthcare? What are the Republicans doing there? Rolling back medicare expansion...or gutting it? ACA WAS for the working person who could not afford insurance. The right (you guys) are doing everything possible to destroy the ACA rather than fix it. I can say for a fact that in my state thousands of people have access to decent healthcare that never did before. Because of ACA. My state is full of “little guys”....miners battling black lung, small farmers, etc and a lot of people employed at the margins who were not poor enough to qualify for Medicare and could not afford insurance. My state is full of stories on how it has improved their lives. We rank at or near the bottom of the list for health...among the highest for diabetes, obesity, smoking, etc. we are a very red state who adores Trump. Do you think those people want to lose their health care and do you think the right gave a damn about them when they proposed such ridiculous schemes such as tax credits for people who can’t afford it up front to begin with and don’t earn enough to bother with deductions? ACA was good for many people, but there were some who were adversely affected, no denying that. Every program proposed helps some, hurts some. In this case the number of people who gained access to affordable healthcare far exceeded those who ended up paying more. And most of those who benefited were what you would classify as the “little guy”.

And look at jobs...how the Right ignores market realities. Coal is never going to come back because natural gas is much cheaper, coal burning has clearly been shown to contribute to climate change and automation has taken most of the coal jobs. Why does the right IGNORE those factors that have also contributed to the closing of coal plants? Why does the right consistently block or refuse to support energy and economic diversity in states like mine? Why aren’t they supporting job retraining, improving our infrastructure to attract new well paying industries to replace coal? Doesn’t make a good bumper sticker I suppose. Instead it's tax cuts for the wealthy - gotta keep the doners happy.

Oh...and bringing jobs back to the US...looks like companies receiving top dollar contracts with the Trump administration are the ones off shoring at a record pace - isn't that special. Way to go Rightists.

The Companies Offshoring Jobs at a Record Pace Under Trump

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

How is that any different from what you do? Good grief - you wasted taxpayer money and how many years of investigation on a presidential sex scandal. You want on and on about how bad that was. Now you - the SELF PROCLAIMED party of family values and fidelity suddenly - you don't care. That's downright laughable. I could not care less about Trump's sex life - it is not a surprise, given his marital history - and frankly it's between he and his wife. So...now these "Drumpf" voters think it's fine to cheat on your wife. When it's your guy. Can you be anymore blatent?

And the sex scandal (which was not the reason for the investigation) revealed that YOUR president lied under oath. He lost his license to practice law in his state. All this talk about Republican's war on women, and you stick up for a guy who refused to apologize to a woman he made a lewd pass at. He lied to the American people eye to eye about it.

You believe everything Trump says even when it is a lie don't you? There was NO 100 percent seperation of children at the border. Seperation occurred when there was reason to believe there was trafficking. Either show me proof of large scale seperation like we saw with Trump or admit you are lying (something not unusual amongst Trumpsters apparently).

There was no 100% separation of children and parents under Trump either. In fact, your precision MSM used a picture of kids in chambers that took place under DumBama and tried to pass it off as if Trump was responsible. Furthermore when we had this discussion before, I posted the USA today link on what was happening on the border, but I seriously doubt you even clicked the link yet alone read it.

How about healthcare? What are the Republicans doing there? Rolling back medicare expansion...or gutting it? ACA WAS for the working person who could not afford insurance. The right (you guys) are doing everything possible to destroy the ACA rather than fix it.

Oh please. Commie Care was for likely Democrat voters; french fry makers and shelf stockers. Trust me, I signed up for Commie Care. They wanted over 20% of my net pay for a plan with 7K out of pocket, 7K deductible, no dental, no prescription, and even a $50.00 doctor visit copay. I'm a working American, and I can't afford an extra house payment. That's on top of the fact I was insured my entire life with preexisting conditions through my employers until Commie Care became the law of the land. Millions of working Americans lost their employer provided coverage.

Like I said, it's only affordable to those who work minimum wage jobs. That's about it. For the rest of us, screw them, they are middle-class people and likely vote Republican.

Fewer Americans Have Private Health Insurance Now Than in 2007

We rank at or near the bottom of the list for health...among the highest for diabetes, obesity, smoking, etc

LOL, smoking and obesity is Trump's problem?

Oh...and bringing jobs back to the US...looks like companies receiving top dollar contracts with the Trump administration are the ones off shoring at a record pace - isn't that special. Way to go Rightists.

Well we have the lowest unemployment in many years, we have consumer and corporate confidence up we haven't seen in a very long time. We have more jobs than people to do them. The stock market still setting records. I'd say Trump is doing a bang up job.

 

[eagle1462010]

EWG's Farm Subsidy Database

EWG's Farm Subsidy Database

The point being that we've always subsidized farmers (including your hero) so don't act like this is something Trump invented. If you look at the link, you will see under DumBama, we subsidized farmers more that 12 billion for 2016.

We also subsidized farmers more that 12 billion for 2018, the 12 billion is in addition to the normal subsidized amounts.


So, about this comment you made in this thread...

The raises this year alone would be three times that amount....

There are around 2.1 million non-military Fed employees. If their raises this year would be 3 times 12 billion, that would be 36 billion.

That would make the average raise for each Fed employee $17,000, and at 2% of their salary that would make the average Fed salary roughly $857.000 a year. That is bullshit, so your "3 times as much" number is bullshit.

As temporary relief as a result of ongoing negotiations............Canada did the same in some areas..........

It is not the same argument.............and my points on the issue stand............

Let's try this again. You stated that the raises that Trump is trying to stop would be 3 times "that amount" (with that amount being 12 billion dollars" this year alone.

So, lets do the math one more time and see if you stick with your claim...

there are 2.1 million Fed Employees. If their raises this year totaled 36 billion dollars, as you claimed, then each Fed employee would get on average $17,000 raise. And since the raises were only 2% of their salary, that would mean that the average wage for a Fed employee is $857,000.

We all know that the average wage for a Fed employee is not $857,000.

So, do you still stand by your claim that the raises this year alone would cost more than 3 times the 12 billion dollars given to farmers?

I never said 3 times that amount..........other people were doing that.........

And on the other thread on this..........Trump is proposing a Freeze on the raises.........I quoted the 25 Billion they were saying and found that as part of the cuts on overall spending.............on the other thread.......

So............he's looking to FREEZE their pay........under Proposal........as we go into the budget battle...........

He is also looking to cut grants.

Been digging this morning........not so easy to dig it out.

 

[eagle1462010]

http://www.usmessageboard.com/threa...s-for-the-worker-just-like-fdr.706780/page-16

Substantial Cuts to Federal Employee Benefits Proposed in FY 2019 Budget : FedSmith.com

The Rumor was True: FY 2019 Budget Proposes Pay Freeze : FedSmith.com

 

[eagle1462010]

Pay Freeze for Federal Employees in 2019? : FedSmith.com

OMB rejected the Department’s request for a 2019 pay raise for Border Patrol Agents, ICE
Agents, CBP Officers, and other DHS employees, and refused an increase for CBP health
benefits. The President’s FY 2019 budget proposal will seek a
government-wide pay freeze for all
civilian federal employees, potentially impacting the Department’s ability to recruit and retain
qualified employees

 

[eagle1462010]

Proposed cuts in discretionary spending.......again....proposed.

Budget 2019: Major Savings and Reforms | Medicare (United States) | Appropriations Bill (United States)