Politics, local-national-global-galactic

[Elerond]

8 hours ago, Chilloutman said:

well how are employment rates doing?

Soviet Union had 100% employment rate, its economy was also "booming" until it collapsed (meaning Soviet Union)

 

[Guard Dog]

3 hours ago, ComradeMaster said:

  I guess that's where Gen-Y comes in, let us clean the mess up with blood and honor naturally.

Blood and honor? Puh-leeeze. What are you going to do? Pick up a rifle and start a socialist revolution? I assure you that won't end well. Besides, are you personally ready to give your life for a political ideal? I wouldn't. 

Here is a little Gen X wisdom. Sooner or later you are going to realize the society you dream of is never going to happen in the US. Not in our lifetimes anyway. The US is not geared for big changes in short periods of time. And in what you desire you are in a very small minority. So the caring society where all your wants are seen to by the benevolent state (as if such a thing could ever exist) while we all live in harmony with mother nature  isn't coming. For the rest of your life you will live in a society very much like the one you live in right now and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. 

So. How does that tent and fishing pole and Coleman stove in Alaska sound now? Not so bad huh?

 

 

Edited February 20, 2020 by Guard Dog
Bad grammar

[Maedhros]

No government will ever be flawless, or even near flawless, but if you look at which countries attains the highest degree of happiness and democracy in polls and studies, they're countries with good welfare systems guaranteed by the government.

[Gromnir]

3 hours ago, Maedhros said:

No government will ever be flawless, or even near flawless, but if you look at which countries attains the highest degree of happiness and democracy in polls and studies, they're countries with good welfare systems guaranteed by the government.

keep in mind the US ain't selling universal happiness. never has. the sales pitch here is opportunity. the chance to change your stars is why most folks will accept less today in the hope o' a better tomorrow. look at the forbes list o' richest people in the world and you is gonna see more than one self-made billionaire from the USA. take a peek at jeff bezos' story if you are unfamiliar. 

not universal happiness. universal opportunity. the thing is, opportunity as the reward is not what it once were. most folks ain't aiming for billionaire status, but they want a legit shot at better. 

...

this is where it gets tough for us. we grew up poor. grew up poor not just by US standards but by freaking gaza standards. compare gaza to pine ridge by any traditional measure o' quality o' life standards and gaza wins... save for literacy 'cause they don't much care 'bout educating their women folk in gaza. possible you think Gromnir is exaggerating? 

mentioned in another thread how we were watching better call saul season 4.

 

character we most identify with ain't the lawyers but is gus. no coati, but we had coyotes and our home were a dilapidated patchwork structure with corrugated aluminum panels, and plywood salvaged from... various places. grandparents maintained as best they could with what they had. we were often hungry and during winters we were always cold. when we got old enough to realize how poor we were, we got very very angry. 

so at age 50, we give half our wealth away to a couple charities and retire. current have ~$3million in real estate and another near $3million in ira and other assets. have us try and tell you is impossible to improve your situation in 2020 US would be a tough sell. our relatives have no idea how much money we made in the past couple decades as we live relative humble (other than the 87 buick) and we don't intend on sharing such info. we went home to visit once in a rental car which were deemed too fancy and during the night the vehicle were demolished with frozen apples. why apples? apples is red, but only on the outside. get it?

the thing is, am knowing just how lucky we have been. stuff weren't handed to us on a silver platter and mom and dad didn't send us to best schools and pay for college. woulda' taken very little to derail our ambitions.

most important, our grandparents gave us hope. have tried to explain endemic hopelessness, but am thinking it is impossible to explain unless you lived in a place such as pine ridge or any o' the hundreds and thousands o' similar impoverished communities in the US. tell kids they may improve their situation when they live in conditions such as you see in linked images 'bove is a tough sell. tell kids they may improve their situation when they see their parents, uncles, aunts and cousins try and fail over and over and over again. if all the adults in your life has tried and failed, then what is the point o' trying in the first place? might as well make the best o' what little you got rather than wasting effort on hopeless. is entire communities in the US which has abandoned hope. those communities know (right or wrong) opportunity is a lie.

is two fed political issues we believe to be most pressing: national debt and income inequality. national debt issues should be self evident, but ain't. income inequality has reached a point where am believing national government need intervene.  mentioned previous in this thread how bernie likes to point out that the three richest people in the US own more than the bottom 50% combined. the thing is, if you have $1 worth o' assets and no debt, you own more than the bottom 50% combined. US manufacturing jobs are disappearing and won't be coming back no matter what trump promises. automation and ai will replace any number o' jobs in the coming decades, particularly those low skill jobs which require less education, which is gonna hit the bottom 50% harder, yes? 

just repeating self. regardless, selling overall happiness to Americans is not near as effective as you might believe. in the USA you gotta pitch opportunity as 'posed to general welfare. at same time, is a growing portion o' Americans who has complete given up on the opportunity sales pitch. is another cause o' divisiveness. 

HA! Good Fun!

[Guard Dog]

I cannot even imagine how the federal government could address wage disparity. The government has the power to tax, yes. But the top 10% income earners are already paying more than 90% of all the taxes. Making them pay a little more will not put one nickel in the pocket of anyone else except the government. The government does not and should not have the power to set wages. Except for people who work for the government of course. It’s bad business to place an artificial value on labor. And employees time has a absolute value to the employer. If the employer is compelled to pay more they will have fewer employees. It’s just basic economics. So what can be done?

The best way for wages to go up as for there to be more jobs available. When there is a competition for the services of the workforce the members of the workforce are able to demand higher wages. Once again just basic economics. So to get more jobs you need to make it more attractive to do business inside the United States. Well, countries like China has for all practical purposes a pool of slave labor for companies to take advantage of. You cannot do that here obviously. So you need to benefit the companies who might employ Americans in other ways. Once again the only power the government has the power to tax and regulate. So you have to ease off the taxes and ease off the regulations if they do their business inside the United States. You cannot change what China does to its people. Or any other country. All we can control is what we do here.

[Gfted1]

Should have given the 6M to me. I would have made sure it went to a good home.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

This quoting software is pretty bad.

39 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

The best way for wages to go up as for there to be more jobs available. When there is a competition for the services of the workforce the members of the workforce are able to demand higher wages. Once again just basic economics

The thing about basic economics is that they start falling apart when in the real world, it was funny how in econ 102 (not the actual name of the class) we learned how most of the assumptions we previously learned had to be "relaxed" in order to have a chance of a relevant conclusion. Anyways as hurlshot has somewhat said earlier, more jobs doesn't mean anything if you're already employed and struggling or if said jobs don't pay much. Given that labor is effectively a surplus in the US, in reality more jobs doesn't mean more competition between employers and real wages aren't going to necessarily slide up if there is an increase in employment opportunities because of things like sticky wages.

44 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

Well, countries like China has for all practical purposes a pool of slave labor for companies to take advantage of. You cannot do that here obviously

We have that here in the US, enshrined in the 13th amendment that allows involuntary servitude as a punishment for a crime. Given that we have both (one of) the highest rates of incarceration (.7% of total population) and and highest population numbers, it really makes you think something is ****ed.

[Gfted1]

Yeah, but ours only make licence plates.

[Elerond]

1 hour ago, Guard Dog said:

The best way for wages to go up as for there to be more jobs available. When there is a competition for the services of the workforce the members of the workforce are able to demand higher wages. Once again just basic economics. So to get more jobs you need to make it more attractive to do business inside the United States. Well, countries like China has for all practical purposes a pool of slave labor for companies to take advantage of. You cannot do that here obviously. So you need to benefit the companies who might employ Americans in other ways. Once again the only power the government has the power to tax and regulate. So you have to ease off the taxes and ease off the regulations if they do their business inside the United States. You cannot change what China does to its people. Or any other country. All we can control is what we do here.

1. That don't seem to work very well. Like for example USA's unemployment rate is much lower than Finland's and there are more fast food restaurants per capita but  median salary of Finnish fast food worker is almost 30% higher than in USA.

2. Then on IT sector Finland has more software engineer positions per capita than USA and almost every company is need of competent programmers and yet programmers median salary is almost 10% higher

Main contributing reason for 1. point is Finland's higher social benefits, which forces companies pay higher salaries for unskilled labor.  Main contributing factor for second is cost of living in cities that held most of the software engineers, which leads software engineers asks lower salaries.

As government also can use those taxes regulations to they collect and impose to skew economy in different directions, like paying "high" welfare in order to prevent people needing to work jobs that don't pay living wages and cutting cost of living by regulating cost of apartments, supporting people buying their own homes, with tax breaks and partial loan securities.  Using those taxes to keep cost of education and health care low even for people in high end of middle class.

[Guard Dog]

3 hours ago, Elerond said:

 

As government also can use those taxes regulations to they collect and impose to skew economy in different directions, like paying "high" welfare in order to prevent people needing to work jobs that don't pay living wages and cutting cost of living by regulating cost of apartments, supporting people buying their own homes, with tax breaks and partial loan securities.  Using those taxes to keep cost of education and health care low even for people in high end of middle class.

Here is the problem. The people who pay taxes in the US are already paying between 35%-70% of every dollar they make. And we still fall farther and farther into debt at a rate of $62k per second just maintaining the status quo. How much more? 80%? 90%? 100%? If the federal government this very day seized every nickel in the private accounts of the 500 richest American, took their homes and assets, killed them and sold their organs on the black market and processed their bodies for pig feed we still could not come up with even a quarter of our current unfunded obligations. How much more can we go on the finger before the economy implodes and the currency collapses? The US is not and example of a well managed system where if everyone gives just a little more all will be milk and honey. We are spending ourselves into destruction just keeping what we have now. 

Edited February 20, 2020 by Guard Dog
Correction

[Guard Dog]

I approve of this idea:  https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/feb/19/secession-fever-spikes-conservatives-seek-escape-b/

[Zoraptor]

So, was Bloomberg's debate performance as bad as everyone seems to be saying? And if so was the DNC decision to parachute him into the debates not really typical corporate kowtowing but actually Big Brain getting him to torpedo his own campaign early on? Also, should people who ask a series of semi rhetorical questions on internet forums have something mildly unpleasant happen to them, like maybe stepping on an overripe plum and having it squish up between their toes and over the top of their feet?

[ComradeYellow]

22 hours ago, Elerond said:

Soviet Union had 100% employment rate, its economy was also "booming" until it collapsed (meaning Soviet Union)

 

In 1992, a Pakistani diplomat was reported to have said to a U.S. ambassador, with a sly wink: "You claim to have won the Cold War, but has it ever occurred to you that what has happened here is that the internal contradictions of Communism has caught up with Communism before the the internal contradictions of capitalism could catch up with capitalism?"

It's becoming very obvious at this point that that was a prophetic observation. 

[ComradeYellow]

21 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

Blood and honor? Puh-leeeze. What are you going to do? Pick up a rifle and start a socialist revolution? I assure you that won't end well. Besides, are you personally ready to give your life for a political ideal? I wouldn't. 

Not exactly.  It's just far right Americans have a habit of rebelling when we elect a progressive POTUS that they don't like (see, Lincoln).

So, when we elect a progressive POTUS that puts his money where his mouth is, do you not expect these far right reactionary idiots are gonna form terror cells on the new civic order?  Puh-leeeze.  Americans are great people but there's that "dark" side of us that always tests our better side.

[ktchong]

Michael Bloomberg is not just a Republican, (who has only recently changed his party affiliation in October 2018 to run in the Democratic primary, and at the time he was still donating money to Republicans to defeat Democrats in the mid-term elections.) He is the archetypal NEOCONSERVATIVE.

After Trump had taken over the Republican party, neocons like Bloomberg and John Bolton have been forced to either bend their knees to Trump -- or out of the Republican party. So neocons are looking for a new home. Bloomberg is making a leveraged buyout and hostile takeover of the Democratic Party, to turn it into the new home for neocon refugees. If Bloomberg successfully wins the nomination, he will take over the Democratic Party. Then, America will end up with a two-party system in which BOTH parties will be conservative: a Trump party, and a neocon party. It will be the end of liberal and progressive politics in America.

I would say the priority right now should be to defeat the neocon Republican who is trying to take over the Democratic Party rather than to defeat Trump.

[ktchong]

17 hours ago, ComradeMaster said:

Not exactly.  It's just far right Americans have a habit of rebelling when we elect a progressive POTUS that they don't like (see, Lincoln).

 

FDR.

President. 

Progressive. 

Democratic Socialist. 

Most beloved and popular president in US history. 

Won four terms, unprecedented, has never been and will never be repeated.   

Effectively President-for-life until he died in office.

Even if you want to dispute his "New Deals" accomplishments for saving America from the Great Depression, (which conservatives and libertarians love to dismiss by making wild and unproven assumptions like "the Great Depression would have ended sooner if not for his New Deals,")  you cannot deny that his socialist policies paved the way for the "Golden Age" of America and ushered in half a century of unprecedented growth and prosperity in America.

Edited February 21, 2020 by ktchong

[ComradeYellow]

1 minute ago, ktchong said:

 

FDR.

Four-term president.

The stock market crash of 1929 and Great Depression is what saved us from a 2nd Civil War at that time period, conservatives had no political clout at that time.  Not to mention the fact that FDR kinda hijacked the Democratic Party (which was technically the right wing party up until him) so he was able to cleverly outmaneuver opponents on either side.  Luckily it was the Germans who decided to go full retard in that phase, we got off easy.

[ComradeYellow]

18 minutes ago, ktchong said:

I would say the priority right now should be to defeat the neocon Republican who is trying to take over the Democratic Party rather than to defeat Trump.

The priority right now for progressives is to stop even looking at the Blue Party as a platform and to start voting Green.  Very simple solution.

[ktchong]

59 minutes ago, ComradeMaster said:

The stock market crash of 1929 and Great Depression is what saved us from a 2nd Civil War at that time period, conservatives had no political clout at that time.  Not to mention the fact that FDR kinda hijacked the Democratic Party (which was technically the right wing party up until him) so he was able to cleverly outmaneuver opponents on either side.  Luckily it was the Germans who decided to go full retard in that phase, we got off easy.

 

Your timelines were off; more likely, you just made up BS as you went along -- like most conservatives I know do.

 

Here are some historical FACTS and timeline LOGIC:

 

FDR was elected AFTER the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression.  In 1929, the Republican Herbert Hoover was the President (1929-1933).   Hoover was a businessman-turned-President, the only one before Donald Trump.

Before Hoover, Calvin Coolidge had been the President, also a Republican (1923-1929). 

Before Coolidge, Warren Harding had been the President,  yet another Republican (1921-1923). 

(Just so you can't pin the blame of the crash and depression on a Democrat President; BTW, nowadays all three of Harding, Coolidge and Hoover are generally considered as among the worst presidents in US history, as their successive conservative policies ultimately led to the Great Depression.)

 

FDR became the President in 1933, four years after 1929 and the Great Depression had started after a decade of Republican policies.   Before FDR, Republicans had been one President after another and in power for over a decade.  So I assured you conservative had plenty of "political cloud".

(In contrast to his three Republican predecessors: nowadays FDR is generally considered as among the best presidents in US history.)

 

The US entered World War II in December 1941, which was FDR's third term -- so he was already a very popular president.  He was the first President to win a third term, (other previous Presidents had tried to win a third term, and failed.)

 

Woodrow Wilson was the Democratic President in 1913 to 1921 -- and a leader and pioneer of the progressive movement.  He is called the "Godfather of Liberalism".  Wilson was before FRD, Hoover, Coolidge and Harding.  So, long before FDR, the Democratic Party  was already the progressive party (NOT a "right wing party" as you claimed.)  So, saying that FDR "hijacked" a "right-wing party" and turned it into a progressive party was a LIE.

Edited February 21, 2020 by ktchong

[Guard Dog]

[ComradeYellow]

Wow what a load of strawman robot garbage.  I guess I'll ignore ktchong from now on as it's apparent that he's just a Sino-bot.

[Malcador]

20 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

I approve of this idea:  https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/feb/19/secession-fever-spikes-conservatives-seek-escape-b/

So the NSF's forming, we have a dangerous illness spreading...

[ktchong]

26 minutes ago, ComradeMaster said:

Wow what a load of strawman robot garbage.  I guess I'll ignore ktchong from now on as it's apparent that he's just a Sino-bot.

↑ ↑ ↑ DESTROYED by FACTS and LOGIC.

 

P.S. a "Sino-bot" who knows US history better than you do.

Edited February 21, 2020 by ktchong

[Guard Dog]

A wise man once said "never play chess with a chicken. They will just kick over the pieces, s--t on the board, then strut around as if it won" 

[ComradeYellow]

43 minutes ago, ktchong said:

↑ ↑ ↑ DESTROYED by FACTS and LOGIC.

 

P.S. a "Sino-bot" who knows US history better than you do.

Better to be "destroyed by facts and logic" than to be "augmented by lies and stupidity" which is clearly where you're going here.

Meanwhile the rest of us PEEPS will be realistic on where the United States go in the future.  The Blue and Red Party are clearly the retarded options so there's this sort of calling for a 3rd Way that's grounded on common sense.