***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[frink85]

If he’s so upset about people being offended by offensive parodies of themselves, Cleveland should rename their team after him

Cleveland Trumps

 

[junglejim]

Not sure how that is a conflict of interest. It's a legitimate business. Tons of business owners received ppp loans for their business.

There's an entire thread on Niketalk about Stimulus checks and SBA loans/grants.

Not sure why who you support for president should change your eligibility

I will say that the PPP program has largely been rife with fraud. There were a lot of larger businesses who weren't supposed to qualify for it in the first place, but ended up fired a large portion of their staff to get under the 500 employee threshold to qualify for a loan. It's not necessarily a conflict of interest, but a considerable amount of fraud has occurred and there has been little government oversight regarding who qualified and received a loan.

 

[uncalled4boy]

Truly Amazing How He Slanders His Self In The Present With His Older Tweets. That's Foresight.

 

[whywesteppin]

Yes, this would be a start. A cap on profit percentage would be a good place to begin. I understand that these companies need money to fund their R&D expenditures, overhead costs, etc, but there needs to be a limit to the percentage increase that can be made on a given drug and it should be based on cost of production + a reasonable profit margin. These insulin manufacturers didn't even discover nor incur the cost of R&D related to insulin. It makes zero sense for them to pass on 4000% markups on life saving drugs.

Some of the most egregious, despicable tax schemes I've run into in my career came from Pharmaceutical companies. When I was working in public accounting, we had one client who made zero dollars in their 20 year existence. They didn't sell a single drug, patent, technique for manufacturing, etc. and all their revenue to fund their existence came in the form of government grants (state and federal). This was a pretty small operation with about 20 employees who were mostly all making more than a quarter of a million dollars a year being paid off of government grants and stock options from their publicly traded shares. Their entire existence was the research of and curing pancreatic cancer.

In 2014 during the Ebola outbreak, they ventured into research related to Ebola and had actually come up with a pretty promising drug to treat it and eventually sold it to Merck for a one time payment + royalties on the sale of the drug if it ever came into fruition. Prior to doing all this, they set up a tax haven in the Cayman Islands because they wanted to develop and sell the vaccine themselves for a handsome profit. I'm not sure your level of familiarity with the Cayman islands tax system, but they effectively tax income at 0% versus our current 21% tax rate + state tax rate. So not only did this company get 100% funded by state and federal grants, as soon as they were about to start making money they hired a law firm to off-shore their operations in a 0% tax jurisdiction so they didn't have to pay taxes to the US government, despite being fully funded by the US government. Thankfully this whole thing fell through, they ended up selling it to Merck, and ****ed themselves over in the process because they off-shored a bunch of losses that they couldn't use to offset the new US revenue stream from Merck.

A lot of these companies are the reason why the new GILTI tax regime exists and its ****ing despicable that we are not only funding these companies via grants, but they turn around and price gouge patients in return. **** Pharmaceutical companies and everything they stand for.

Sorry for the off topic rant, but I've never come across a more shady industry than this.

It's sad because those grants are a great way for individuals and small companies to get in on the competition. Funding start-ups this way, even if nothing comes of it for the first 5 or 10 years, is how we stay ahead in the development of new pharmaceuticals and other medical technologies.

I don't know the solution but closing tax loopholes seems like a good way to start.

 

[dwalk31]

I will say that the PPP program has largely been rife with fraud. There were a lot of larger businesses who weren't supposed to qualify for it in the first place, but ended up fired a large portion of their staff to get under the 500 employee threshold to qualify for a loan. It's not necessarily a conflict of interest, but a considerable amount of fraud has occurred and there has been little government oversight regarding who qualified and received a loan.

While this may be true this has nothing to do with the Kanye story unless you are saying he might be guilty of fraud. That's a pretty bold accusation without more.

 

[Upptempo]

This is what happened last time Natives protested against the Chief Wahoo mascot saying it was offensive (he has Red colored skin which is pretty blatant)

 

[IATT]

 

[frink85]

I saw the last line in the tweet about Bubba Wallace "That & Flag decision has caused lowest ratings EVER!"

Bruhs...we living in the Mojoverse for real

 

[boris]

I'll start deferring to you on the medical device stuff because I only really know second-hand info. But doesn't it seem like a reasonable solution is de-regulation, generics and legal protections for companies to increase competition?

Does that sound like it would help to decrease costs while allowing the companies to still maintain profits?

The obvious draw back in that scenario is the safety but I'm not really sure if that fear is over-stated

I would never recommend de-regulation in FDA regulated industries. Even with the strong regulations defective products make it into the market all the time. This one in particular always comes to mind: https://www.classaction.com/transvaginal-mesh/lawsuit/#transvaginal-mesh-lawsuits. Or J&J's talcum powder cancer lawsuit: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44816805.

As we get closer to a coronavirus vaccine, you'll probably start to hear more and more about how people are concerned about a "rushed" vaccine. It's important to note that any vaccine in development has to follow all of the same strict procedures as any other vaccine.

At the end of the day, it's not like these companies have well-meaning altruistic leaders at the top. They're the same bottom line executives that any other company would have, but they're held to guidelines that have been put in place by the FDA.

You wouldn't want de-regulation in aerospace (see: Boeing 737 MAX 8, or even the reports of quality issues with the 787). Similarly you don't want de-regulation in medical devices and pharmaceuticals.

From personal experience I can tell you that there are still people at these companies try to push shady practices. I've definitely had people come to me trying to get me to do **** that isn't right.

 

[IATT]

ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

 

[art vandelay]

ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

My question is what if they don’t.....

 

[aepps20]

She handled those unfair questions BEAUTIFULLY.

 

[dwalk31]

My question is what if they don’t.....

There are a lot of good reasons to push for re-opening. Often, for lower-income families, school is the only dependable place for children to get certain meals and provides a somewhat safe place for children while parents are at work.

In a perfect scenario, everyone would stay home indefinitely. But not sure how realistic that is.

 

[IATT]

 

[IATT]

 

[whywesteppin]

Trump: we must fight against cancel culture

Also Trump: we must cancel ______ because they hurt my feelings

a thread:

 

[RustyShackleford]

There are a lot of good reasons to push for re-opening. Often, for lower-income families, school is the only dependable place for children to get certain meals and provides a somewhat safe place for children while parents are at work.

In a perfect scenario, everyone would stay home indefinitely. But not sure how realistic that is.

You bring this up to back up Trump, yet...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...chool-lunch-free-trump-food-stamp/2457920001/

Nearly 1 million low-income students would lose automatic access to free school lunches under a proposal from President Donald Trump's administration that aims to limit the number of people receiving federal food stamps.

And advocates say even more could lose free meals as the implications of the cuts ripple across low-income schools. But the Trump administration says those concerns are overblown.

Stop injecting that **** into your veins, b.

 

[had pants]

 

[aepps20]

Getting da Trump fade this weekend. Beautiful #FREETIMID

 

[Upptempo]

I hope this was just for show and then immediately shaved off after the video ended. Because getting a man's face shaved into your head is just.....

 

[dwalk31]

You bring this up to back up Trump, yet...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...chool-lunch-free-trump-food-stamp/2457920001/



Stop injecting that **** into your veins, b.

This is misleading, the students would still be eligible for the free meals.

From the article you posted:

But U.S. Department of Agriculture officials said they expect the vast majority of schools using that provision to be able to do so even if the administration's proposal passes.

They also said the majority of children from households receiving SNAP benefits still would be eligible for free- and reduced-price meals in school. But their families would have to apply for them individually instead of being approved automatically.

So my initial statement still stands.

 

[RustyShackleford]

This is misleading, the students would still be eligible for the free meals.

From the article you posted:

But U.S. Department of Agriculture officials said they expect the vast majority of schools using that provision to be able to do so even if the administration's proposal passes.

They also said the majority of children from households receiving SNAP benefits still would be eligible for free- and reduced-price meals in school. But their families would have to apply for them individually instead of being approved automatically.

So my initial statement still stands.

Any economist will tell you that increasing transaction cost for a program makes people fall through the cracks. So in theory you can claim they will be still be eligible but in practice less students will be able to benefit from the programs.

So you trash *** opinion is based on ignorance of basic economics. Take that needle out your arm and do better Bubs.

Here is some more ******* I am sure you support though...

 

[junglejim]

There are a lot of good reasons to push for re-opening. Often, for lower-income families, school is the only dependable place for children to get certain meals and provides a somewhat safe place for children while parents are at work.

In a perfect scenario, everyone would stay home indefinitely. But not sure how realistic that is.

Well churches and rich donors would fix the hunger problem if school is cancelled so we should be good on that front.

 

[IATT]

 

[dwalk31]

Well churches and rich donors would fix the hunger problem if school is cancelled so we should be good on that front.

While clever, the issue here was the resulting social distancing as a result of COVID-19, not the funding portion.