Politics: The Undiscovered Country

[Gfted1]

I really cant math so good.   3k x 12 = 36K! 

[Hurlshort]

Gfted having 17 other adults living under his roof explains a lot about him.  

edit: Ok, he fixed his math, but I still like my massive Gfted clan theory.

Edited September 15, 2019 by Hurlshot

[213374U]

43 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

Give me $1k a month for doing nothing and I'll quit my job and do nothing!

You say that now, but six months into retirement you'd be bored out of your mind. I got this crazy idea that you'll love: it's all just a scheme to drive you deep into alcoholism, so the problem the Democrats have with your guns kinda solves itself.

In any case, it's sad that you can only imagine putting yourself through the drudgery of wage labor until you can no longer physically do it -- or reach the arbitrary age for retirement. Because that's perfectly natural, right?

Edited September 15, 2019 by 213374U
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[smjjames]

3 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

Um, no. But you are correct about the inherent flaws in UBI. Give everyone $1000 for rent as an example. Everyone's rent will go up by $1000. 

Not entirely sure I buy that argument, I also haven't seen anything about that kind of thing in articles I've read about UBI. There may be articles that I haven't read that go deeper into details though.

A Vox article I read a few weeks ago made a point about how Alaskas version of UBI has warped it's politics. Granted, it's just at the state level and it got tied to oil, which the state is heavily dependent on, but still, there is that angle as well.

[Guard Dog]

1 hour ago, 213374U said:

You say that now, but six months into retirement you'd be bored out of your mind. I got this crazy idea that you'll love: it's all just a scheme to drive you deep into alcoholism, so the problem the Democrats have with your guns kinda solves itself.

I

If they want me to drink myself to death they had better pony up a bit more than $1k!  I've been building my tolerance over a lifetime! 

Actually I agree with your notion of being tied to wage labor. Three times in my career I've started my own business. The first two were failures but the third was quite successful. I very much wish I'd been able to stick with it because the business was really growing well and followed a very efficient model. It could not have lasted forever. 5G wireless will make the services we offered obsolete but I still think we sold too soon. It wasn't up to me in the end. 

The thing is, it should be left to each individual to decide what career path they follow. People who don't pursue higher education or vocational training, or attempt to take their lives into their own hands, and end up in low paying jobs have only themselves to blame. We are all 100% responsible for the choices we make. 

[Gfted1]

2 hours ago, Hurlshot said:

Gfted having 17 other adults living under his roof explains a lot about him.  

edit: Ok, he fixed his math, but I still like my massive Gfted clan theory.

Actually, I was wrong in the other direction. I had only multiplied by 6 months, for whatever reason.

[213374U]

1 hour ago, Guard Dog said:

If they want me to drink myself to death they had better pony up a bit more than $1k!  I've been building my tolerance over a lifetime! 

Actually I agree with your notion of being tied to wage labor. Three times in my career I've started my own business. The first two were failures but the third was quite successful. I very much wish I'd been able to stick with it because the business was really growing well and followed a very efficient model. It could not have lasted forever. 5G wireless will make the services we offered obsolete but I still think we sold too soon. It wasn't up to me in the end. 

The thing is, it should be left to each individual to decide what career path they follow. People who don't pursue higher education or vocational training, or attempt to take their lives into their own hands, and end up in low paying jobs have only themselves to blame. We are all 100% responsible for the choices we make. 

Well, imagine if you could just make a decent living out of brewing your own bourbon and selling what you can't drink yourself over the internets. And maybe helping out at a local dog shelter a few hours a week. Perhaps conducting energy efficiency studies from the comfort of your home. The only reason why that's not a "valid career path" is because current market conditions may not allow you to make enough money to support yourself doing that. But markets change, and what is valuable today may be worthless tomorrow as socioeconomic conditions evolve. How valuable would be a squire today? How valuable do you expect a commercial pilot will be in 30 years? Should everyone whose jobs are being overtaken by automation be blamed for not retraining into AI programmers and mechanical engineers?

[Maedhros]

Oligarch, or buisnessman?

https://fair.org/home/russia-has-oligarchs-the-us-has-businessmen/

[ktchong]

3 hours ago, Maedhros said:

Oligarch, or buisnessman?

https://fair.org/home/russia-has-oligarchs-the-us-has-businessmen/

 

I call them villainaires = villain + billionaires.

Usage: When David Koch died, I saw dozens of YouTube videos celebrating the villainaire's death.

Edited September 15, 2019 by ktchong

[Gromnir]

8 hours ago, Maedhros said:

Oligarch, or buisnessman?

https://fair.org/home/russia-has-oligarchs-the-us-has-businessmen/

oligarchy gets used hyperbolic and prophetic for the US, but it doesn't make many traditional lists.

http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/oligarchy-countries/

the 2014 princeton article gets quoted frequent as support for notion US is deserving to be included, but representative democracy and lack o' any kinda unity 'mongst the US ruling class makes such stuff relative outlier material even if is deserving increasing attention.

so the obvious reason why russian's get oligarch label and americans don't is 'cause is still no more than fringe acceptance o' notion the US qualifies as an oligarchy... save for when somebody in the media is attempting to make a point 'bout evils o' the military-industrial complex or wall street or silicon valley or... whomever. makes it more difficult to affix the label when one news outlet is warning 'bout the oligarchs trying to force socialism, unnecessary vaccinations and windmills on an unsuspecting public while others is claiming the oligarchs is pushing bank deregulation and weapon sales to saudi arabia.

why no westerners? 'cause democratic institutions and process is excluding western nations from serious consideration o' the traditional oligarch label. however, the label does get applied in south america, mideast, asia and europe with equal verve.  so, pretty egalitarian if culturally questionable.

am thinking is worth considering US for oligarch status, but reasons why is less frequent than for russian and chinese and venezuelan business folks is hardly shocking and don't appear to have "ethnic connotations," as suggested in the article.

somebody else wanna get into subconscious impact o' coding and how western academics cannot be trusted with a definition which almost by necessity excludes the west? 

*shudder*

would rather chew on one o' those light bulbs which makes trump appear orange.

*eye-roll*

HA! Good Fun!

 

[Guard Dog]

14 hours ago, 213374U said:

Well, imagine if you could just make a decent living out of brewing your own bourbon and selling what you can't drink yourself over the internets. And maybe helping out at a local dog shelter a few hours a week. Perhaps conducting energy efficiency studies from the comfort of your home. The only reason why that's not a "valid career path" is because current market conditions may not allow you to make enough money to support yourself doing that. But markets change, and what is valuable today may be worthless tomorrow as socioeconomic conditions evolve. How valuable would be a squire today? How valuable do you expect a commercial pilot will be in 30 years? Should everyone whose jobs are being overtaken by automation be blamed for not retraining into AI programmers and mechanical engineers?

One reason why some of these suggestions and other endeavors like them are not valid career choices are the pesky, needless, and nanny state regulations that prevent people from pursuing them as side business ventures. For example I grow vegetables on a five acre garden. I can't eat nor store five acres worth of veggies twice a year but my state forbids me to sell to the public. It forbids local grocery stores from buying from me. I can and do sell to a local farmer's market but even that is technically illegal, they just look the other way because it falls under the description of a flea market. We have these restrictions and mine is one of the more permissive states in the Union. It's worse elsewhere.  It is still illegal to distill whiskey in the US unless you get down on your knees and beg for an expensive license. Can you even believe that? It is illegal in most states to sell your services as a handyman, or auto mechanic, or barber, or lawn cutter, or anything unless you buy an expensive license after leaping through flaming hoops and then prostrating yourself before the almighty government. 

Oh sure it's all for "our protection" they say. "We're just making sure you are dealing with legitimate professionals" they say. "They" do not give a s--t about that, it's all about money. Money for the license and the annual renewals. Tax on labor. Just goddamned money. The state and municipal governments do not give a rats butt about the skills and professionalism of the people they sell licenses to. The rest is just lies they tell us so often we forget they are lies. 

I designed and built a rainwater collection system (even applied for a patent) to use as a supplement to irrigation. Do you realize doing that is illegal in some states? In Utah it's a 3rd degree felony. Even if I had gotten a patent I could not have sold such a system there of I'd be in trouble. It's nonsensical. The single biggest road block to people improving their financial condition in this country IS the governments at all levels. 

Anyway... was kind of ranting there. You do have a good point that UBI in some form has to become a reality at some point. It is impossible to categorically state there will be fewer jobs than people to do them but it is looking that way. The company I helped build and later sold designed and installed wi-fi systems. 5G wireless is going to offer better throughput and combine indoor and out door CPRI (common public radio interface) into a single platform from a single provider. It really is a generational leap in cell service the likes of which the industry has never seen. And would have put us right out of business. But we knew it was coming. We Western Union guy driving the stage coach had to know something was up when he saw the trans-continental railroad being built. Ultimately the care of self and family is in the hands of the individual and they need to be cognizant of conditions that will change how they do that. It's just survival. Even that may not be enough. If that day comes we will need to do something new because without money there are no consumers and without consumption the whole thing collapses. 

Edited September 16, 2019 by Guard Dog

[Guard Dog]

10 hours ago, ktchong said:

 

I call them villainaires = villain + billionaires.

Usage: When David Koch died, I saw dozens of YouTube videos celebrating the villainaire's death.

Of course. If you don't like someones politics then it's good they die right? We're not quite a nation of heartless savages... yet. Getting there though. 

[Bartimaeus]

3 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

Of course. If you don't like someones politics then it's good they die right? We're not quite a nation of heartless savages... yet. Getting there though. 

I mean...not really, but maybe under certain/extreme circumstances? If I thought a person were advocating for and advancing some actually evil ideas and policies, the fact that it's over politics is kind of irrelevant, isn't it? I'm hardly likely to shed a tear for Duterte when he goes, for example, seeing as he has advocated for murdering people in the streets during his presidency, and that's over a matter of "politics". Being glad someone is gone is also not the same as being glad if they were murdered or something - as much as I despise Trump on a political and personal level, for example, I certainly do not want him to be murdered for a variety of reasons. I don't know specifically about David Koch, but I'm less concerned with the specific individual than I am with understanding your general reasoning here.

Edited September 16, 2019 by Bartimaeus

[Hurlshort]

3 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

Of course. If you don't like someones politics then it's good they die right? We're not quite a nation of heartless savages... yet. Getting there though. 

They seem to have spent $127 billion dollars funding climate change denial stuff. That's more apocalyptical than political.  

[ktchong]

China sold those drones to the Yemeni Houthis - China has been strategically flooding the Middle East with cheap, advanced drones, but the US just wanna blames Iran because the US really, really wants a war with Iran, which suits China just fine.

Here:

• https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-06-03/cheap-drones-are-changing-calculus-war-yemen
• https://www.apnews.com/1da29d68e3cc47b58631768c1dcfa445
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/dominicdudley/2018/12/17/china-fueling-drones-arms-race-middle-east/
• https://fpif.org/china-is-flooding-the-middle-east-with-cheap-drones/
• https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/indepth/2019/7/4/China-is-heavily-contributing-to-Middle-East-drone-proliferation

 

As a retaliation for: 

• The US keep selling weapons to Taiwan
• Detaining the Huawei CFO because she violated the US sanctions on Iran - i.e., unilateral sanctions that were not recognized by China and that even the EU court had ruled were illegal.
• Recruiting Uyghur from Xinjiang to fight in Syria since 2009, training them to be jihadists and then secretly sending them back into China to commit a series of escalating terrorist attacks between 2009 and 2016, and trying to build Islamic terrorist cells and networks in the mainland to destabilize China, (which ultimately led to the current mass crackdown in Xinjiang since 2016 as China decided to use a sledgehammer to put a stop to the CIA's plan;)
• Planting and fueling the protests and riots in Hong Kong, (which was the last straw; actually, the US and the CIA might not be directly involved in Hong Kong - it's the NED, which is "loosely" connected to the US and actually does not directly report to the US, but China still blames the US nevertheless.)
• Etc., etc.

 

My conjecture: China's strategy is not to get directly involved in the Middle East, but to indirectly support rebels and insurgents against the US, while making money at the same time.    Basically, to use the exact same tactics the US had used to defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.   The US will have to commit more and more money and resources in the Middle East, which will ultimately bankrupt the US.  That's the gist of it.  Which is not a bad plan.

 

 

Edited September 16, 2019 by ktchong

[Pidesco]

On 9/13/2019 at 6:40 PM, Gromnir said:

the trump years has resulted in a misleading impression o' Gromnir positions. am fiscal conservative even by American standards, albeit with a few caveats.

for instance, the proposed wealth tax is stoopid. is not stoopid 'cause it is a bad idea to tax the ultra-wealthy. is stoopid 'cause is largely ineffective. the ultra-wealthy typical do not have large taxable income, relative speaking. rich folks don't like taxes anymore than does the middle class, but the rich got far more options for avoiding paying. the ultra-wealthy, for instance, rare earn exorbitant amounts in the way o' income yearly; they don't get a paycheck for going to their 9-5 (7-8 for many o' us) as does the average American. live in the foundation/corporate house and use the foundation jet to fly to wherever is stuff which is trappings o' rich but is not ordinary taxable. fed doesn't tax rich for stuff they own and the rich know how to keep income low. if you wanna tax the ultra rich, capital gains is where you first need make changes. max capital gains rate is 20% on property held over a year. 

just one issue. heck, business losses being able to apply to personal taxes (and carried forward almost indefinite) is another serious loophole which needs be addressed.

the thing is, get up in front o' Americans and explain a rational and effective tax overhaul is not gonna resonate. "tax the rich" is easy to understand and most Americans realize they ain't rich. so sure, tax the rich.

am also not in favor o' raising corporate tax rates. most business is not the monolithic organizations we immediate think o' when imagining big companies, which is different from corporation. raise corporate tax rate disproportional hurts smaller business, which is a majority o' corporations btw, but again, explain nuances to voters is ignored in favor o' a message which will resonate. 

furthermore, warren's plans is too complex and interdependent, and she is too focused on domestic issues. she gots a wonderful complex house o' cards. tax on rich will pay for X, which will raise standard o' living for Y which will... unfortunate, the US political landscape don't make such possible. warren is never gonna get what she wants, not any o' it. every success she achieves would be altered by necessary compromise. her tax on rich, even if it made it through Congress, would not be as she describes, which would necessarily impact her plans for universal health care and student loan forgiveness and would likely have further debt increases and...

obama and trump has provided a somewhat distorted perspective o' the Presidency to Americans and europeans. most o' the stuff warren wants to change domestic is requiring Congressional action. we do not have a parliamentary system where our President is head o' the controlling party/parties. we got genuine separation o' powers and even our legislature is further divided.  President warren would not be able to wave a magic wand and implement tax changes and universal health care and free educations with student loan forgiveness. look what happened with trump during his first two years. he had BOTH house and senate majorities and he still couldn't get anything done domestic other than a last-minute and cobbled together tax reduction along with appointments o' judges and Justices... and the judges thing is owed to mitch more than any other single politician.  oh, and first two years is when most Presidents get their signature programs implemented, 'cause even if a President gets a second term, is first two years o' first term when they historical have most influence with Congress. afterwards, is foreign policy which dominates Presidential agenda. warren is kinda light on foreign policy, other than wanting to get troops home which is, once again, gonna resonate during an election but rare works out as planned.

raise fed minimum wage is crude and will hurt as many as it helps, but again, it sounds compassionate and is easy for voters to understand.

etc.

can go down list o' warren positions and...

warren is smart and am agreeing with her regarding the need for bank regulation, 'cause so many people has already forgotten the major causes o' great recession.  unfortunate, is too many issues 'pon which we disagree.

'course, as 'tween trump and warren, we would vote warren with recognition that assuming we vote in CA, our vote wouldn't matter save as a way to further inflate the inevitable popular vote fail for trump. popular fail is actual more important than many realize. is precise because trump were relative unpopular that so many in his party were willing to vote against party during all important first two years. as terrible as has been trump's trampling o' the Constitution and his maximization o' american divisiveness, situation woulda' been far worse if trump were elected with the proverbial mandate from the people kinda popular vote. every vote for the democrat opposing trump will weaken trump political even if he manages to get elected again. keep trump as impotent as possible is a good thing.

HA! Good Fun!

 

Thanks for the extended explanation.

The only point I have to make is that as far as I understand what I've read, Warren's wealth tax would apply to accumulated wealth (not sure how they'd count wealth exactly, and how they'd fight avoidance to relocation), not yearly earned income.

[smjjames]

Would Iran allow them to buy Chinese drones though? I mean, I suppose civilian grade drones could have been bought from China, but Iran wouldn't appreciate China messing around with their proxies as far as military grade stuff.

Also, the Hong Kong protests would be too recent to be a direct reason for it, it'd just be another reason added to the rest.

Edited September 16, 2019 by smjjames

[Gromnir]

1 hour ago, Pidesco said:

 

Thanks for the extended explanation.

The only point I have to make is that as far as I understand what I've read, Warren's wealth tax would apply to accumulated wealth (not sure how they'd count wealth exactly, and how they'd fight avoidance to relocation), not yearly earned income.

has always been great resistance to taxing accumulated wealth. is difficult to do fair and is expensive. how much is that classic car worth, or the matisse hanging in the foyer, or even the house? takes an additional army o' appraisers who is gonna be applying an artform to appraise value, which will no doubt lead to considerable litigation. absolute logistical and legal nightmare.

tax capital gains ignores need for appraisers and avoids problems o' applying value. when rich person sells his/her car or stocks or painting or house, the government taxes the money generated by the sale.

attempting to implement an accumulated wealth scheme is another reason to be concerned 'bout warren, 'cause accumulated wealth schemes is universal derided and unavoidable expensive. 

HA! Good Fun! 

[Gromnir]

apologies for double, but deserves its own post

Adam Schiff says DNI cited "higher authority" in refusal to turn over whistleblower complaint

so, somebody with more secular authority than the acting director o' national intelligence ordered him to not comply with the reporting requirements o' the whistleblower statute. is made more concerning 'cause inspector general did initial investigation o' the whistleblower complaint and found there to be merit in the claims. "credible." and reporting isn't being withheld based on some nebulous threat to national security, but rather 'cause o' executive privilege?

am not sure why this isn't a bigger story. has situation gotten this bad?  how is this a relative under-the-radar story and not headlines and front page?

HA! Good Fun!

[Zoraptor]

5 hours ago, smjjames said:

Would Iran allow them to buy Chinese drones though? I mean, I suppose civilian grade drones could have been bought from China, but Iran wouldn't appreciate China messing around with their proxies as far as military grade stuff.

There's very little chance of the Chinese supplying anything without the approval of the Iranians and it's doubtful if they even could. It would be far more likely they'd supply the Iranians and then Iran would on supply the Houthis using their back channels. But even then the Iranians cannot get much at all into Yemen through the blockade and 99% of the stuff the Houthis use is still old Yemeni army stuff and ghanima off raids.

The wreckage doing the twitter rounds is close to definitely of a Quds-1 Yemeni cruise missile rather than a drone, though the pictures are unverified and it's marginal whether the Quds 1 could have that range. It near definitely isn't the native/ acknowledged Iranian version of the same missile though as there are distinctive differences including size. The Quds-1 is probably an Iranian design as well, but there's no evidence that they provide anything apart from engines (extremely likely) and guidance (very likely) nor that Iran itself has any as opposed to supplying proxies.

And the satellite pictures provided as evidence that Iran attacked directly from their territory are kind of lol too. Direction of impact is very marginal evidence when guided munitions are used anyway but WNW impact is more consistent with coming from Yemen or Iraq at a pinch than Iran, which is to the NE to SE . Plus any missile fired from Iran would have to go very close to competent military forces- US bases or fleets basically- instead of just toodling across desert while Saudi radar operators are playing minecraft or online poker on their screens. Still, whoever did it their accuracy was impressive and it would definitely be goodbye to most of Saudi's oil infrastructure, power plants and desalination plants in a shooting war.

 

[ktchong]

 

 

 

Edited September 16, 2019 by ktchong

[Volourn]

"EU court had ruled were illegal. "

 

I don't take Nazi courts seriously.

[ShadySands]

Since we haven't talked about this in a while

 

[Guard Dog]

21 hours ago, Hurlshot said:

They seem to have spent $127 billion dollars funding climate change denial stuff. That's more apocalyptical than political.  

It's his money. If he wants to spend it to advance an idea it's his business. It does not make it true and it does not compel anyone to believe it. And even if they did it wouldn't make it true BECAUSE they believe it. 

It's a problem when we begin to be happy someone died because they thought "wrong". If someone like that with money and "wrong" thoughts is so dangerous that we're happy they died maybe we shouldn't wait for nature to take it's course. Maybe we should all just kill the bastard and be done with it? Of course that would be murder so we'll have to have some kind of trial first. Then kill him. Not a criminal trial. They are not breaking the law after all. But it should sound legit. Hmmmm.... what's the latin word for "investigation"?

In all seriousness if we have reached the point where we wish death on someone for exercising free speech even if we think it's wrong then we're already half way down the slippery slope to a bad place. 

[Guard Dog]

22 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I mean...not really, but maybe under certain/extreme circumstances? If I thought a person were advocating for and advancing some actually evil ideas and policies, the fact that it's over politics is kind of irrelevant, isn't it? I'm hardly likely to shed a tear for Duterte when he goes, for example, seeing as he has advocated for murdering people in the streets during his presidency, and that's over a matter of "politics". Being glad someone is gone is also not the same as being glad if they were murdered or something - as much as I despise Trump on a political and personal level, for example, I certainly do not want him to be murdered for a variety of reasons. I don't know specifically about David Koch, but I'm less concerned with the specific individual than I am with understanding your general reasoning here.

What is evil? Words? If they compel action like "let's go kill this person" it's already illegal and they will spend longer years in prison that the people who actually do it. And we're not talking about world leaders here. People with the actual means to do harm. That is a different story. The context of this conversation is the people who were rejoicing Koch and Pickens' deaths because people with "wrong" opinions and who have the money to advocate them are somehow deserving of death.

The thing is I really do think we are in that dark place where people really do think that. And like I said before if they are really that bad in their thoughtcrime maybe the world will be a better place if right thinking people killed them for their wrong thoughts. I hear burning them alive at the stake was once an effective way to get large numbers of people thinking correctly.