The All things Political Topic - The Night never knew that its end was fleet.

[Guard Dog]

2 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

GD dont feel bad about being a Libertarian because its not so much about them finding a winning candidate but rather the right candidate at the right time. I remember  Gary Johnson and he seemed okay but didn't inspire confidence and  if someone is going to change to vote Libertarian then the candidate must represent the value system and come across as sincere ....and of course believable 

But I am not sure if Libertarian's expect a presidential candidate to continue to support the ideology , surly you must have candidates that people must vote for if they believe in Libertarian values, other US friends of mine who are also Libertarian dont seem to concerned about this?

I think running for president is probably a waste of time and money for the LP. A much smarter strategy would be to concentrate on winning a power base in a particular region. Probably the western states like Idaho, Montana, Wyoming where the LP is an actual player at the state level. Take whatever resources the party has and focus on candidates there for state wide and Congressional offices. Get a handful of congressional candidates into office and you can form a coccus. Now you’re in a position to actually affect change. Such a coccus could be a swing vote between an evenly divided Congress. That brings political clout name recognition for the party etc. I understand why it is necessary to run a presidential candidate. The LP is not a movement it’s a political party. And a party needs a face. I still think it’s a waste of time. And its certainly a waste of resources.

philosophically libertarian thought is a hard sell to most people. People want a government that does things. Gives them things. Punishes people they don’t like.  A society where the NAP is successfully realized probably can’t exist. Humans cannot just “live and let live”.  A Libertarian society is likely as big a pipe dream as a communist economy where there are no shortages and no repression. The theory sounds good on paper but fails in actual application to humans.

Besides, I don’t think the libertarian party deserves to have success. This is a highly dysfunctional organization incapable of getting out of its own way.  I voted for Jorgensen last year because I found both Trump and Biden to be equally unacceptable for different reasons. But if I had any notion that my one vote might’ve made the difference and made her president I probably would’ve stayed home that day.

[BruceVC]

25 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

I think running for president is probably a waste of time and money for the LP. A much smarter strategy would be to concentrate on winning a power base in a particular region. Probably the western states like Idaho, Montana, Wyoming where the LP is an actual player at the state level. Take whatever resources the party has and focus on candidates there for state wide and Congressional offices. Get a handful of congressional candidates into office and you can form a coccus. Now you’re in a position to actually affect change. Such a coccus could be a swing vote between an evenly divided Congress. That brings political clout name recognition for the party etc. I understand why it is necessary to run a presidential candidate. The LP is not a movement it’s a political party. And a party needs a face. I still think it’s a waste of time. And its certainly a waste of resources.

philosophically libertarian thought is a hard sell to most people. People want a government that does things. Gives them things. Punishes people they don’t like.  A society where the NAP is successfully realized probably can’t exist. Humans cannot just “live and let live”.  A Libertarian society is likely as big a pipe dream as a communist economy where there are no shortages and no repression. The theory sounds good on paper but fails in actual application to humans.

Besides, I don’t think the libertarian party deserves to have success. This is a highly dysfunctional organization incapable of getting out of its own way.  I voted for Jorgensen last year because I found both Trump and Biden to be equally unacceptable for different reasons. But if I had any notion that my one vote might’ve made the difference and made her president I probably would’ve stayed home that day.

So I am seeing real interest in this party and I dont need to know much to about it to recognize it appeals to people I know and that means it must be credible which I would guess is always a good thing to have choices in the US

Something else I have noticed and its more on this forum is that some members criticize the possibility of a serious Libertarian candidate as an alternative to the established parties and  I remember Gromnir pointing out how  uninformed Johnson was in a video when he didnt know much about Syria. Now was that a fair criticism of any potential US president .....some may think its petty and unfair  because do Americans know much about the Syrian conflict ? Why would most people when its not  a primary US conflict and the US was not going to illegibly go to war with anyone. He was asked about Aleppo and yes its part of the Syrian war but I dont think many Americans followed that conflict ?

But their are some valid concerns towards both the Democrats and Republicans and what they seem to support ideologically. I want to support the GOP but not under any Trumpism ....I believe Trumpism undermines the real Republican ethos which is more convincing and reasonable 

And when I want to support the Democrats I feel they need to be more realistic about the SJ problems and ways to reduce inequality. I dont see how they can become a party for all types of transformation and they should consider cutting ties with the more " progressive "  members like the comments from Ihan Omar which still concern me because most US forum members dont seem concerned about what she said.....and that surprised me but people see things differently but this what she said 

"Here's the truth. For far too long we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen and, frankly, I'm tired of it, and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it. Cair was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties."

And this type of uninformed and revisionist history you dont come across it much anymore. But what it translates to indirectly and by using innuendo is

1. How is she second class citizen in the US and in what way do US muslims live with it? Of course US Muslims are US citizens and people will be rude and generalize through ignorance. But its not the majority of Americans who act like this?
2. And then the most offensive thing anyone can say but especially when you immigrated to the US  is when you deny or claim to not understand 9/11 and how the US was attacked by AQ

Surly this should be included in the US citizen tests to become a citizen, its not complicated or something that can be questioned? 

 

 

[Darkpriest]

9 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

When it comes to universal basic income we are going to have to get there. As problematic as it is. In the post industrial world we are going to reach a level of technology and automation where there will literally be more people than there are paying jobs for them to do. Personally I think the only way it could possibly be successful is if it is the entirety of one’s income rather than a supplement of it. For example if we were to give everyone across-the-board $1000 a month are the cost of rent in large cities will increase by $1000 a month so fast it will make your head spin. Prices of things which are normally restrained by the mechanics of market would almost immediately go nuts trying to deprive everyone of that thousand dollars for no more goods or services than they were already getting.

but we have to get there at some point. I don’t know how it will work and I don’t see any way around it. I haven’t looked that book up yet but I definitely will do that. I am a voracious reader.

The UBI will not work for a simple reason, that for it to work, you'd have to have it done on a global scale, tied to a heavy police state (need to remove crime and circulation of goods and services outside of the tracked money and goods flows) and population control (both migratory and demographic). 

Earlier, there is a higher chance of a societal collapse, when the social contract will break, as you get more and more people non-working to be sustained by those who do work and pay taxes. You can print all the money in the world you want, but you only have so much resources. And with less reward for high risk, you will have lower incentives to increased productivity. Land, housing, food, eneregy - the more tangible ones. 

If I would get enough money from non-working to satisfy my needs, why I would want to do anything productive and exhausting? Why would I sacrifice my time for anything else, which is not benefiting just me? 

 

 

[Hurlshort]

7 hours ago, Darkpriest said:

If I would get enough money from non-working to satisfy my needs, why I would want to do anything productive and exhausting? Why would I sacrifice my time for anything else, which is not benefiting just me? 

I've never really understood this mentality. I mean, if this is true, why do people do charity work? Why do rich people get off their couches? Why did I get into education?

Money does not need to be the only motivator to be productive. The idea that you need to exhaust yourself just to satisfy your basic needs doesn't sound very good. It sounds like a great deal for the people at the top but not so much for the working class.

I'm not saying UBI is the solution, of course. But I certainly would like to see a more equitable distribution of wealth. We are way out of whack. 

[Gfted1]

We need to snatch those fatcats monies from them and setup UBI! Its the only fair and reasonable course of action.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

47 minutes ago, Hurlsnot said:

I've never really understood this mentality. I mean, if this is true, why do people do charity work? Why do rich people get off their couches? Why did I get into education?

Financial dip****s have lizard brains that renders them incapable of understanding people.

Anyways most proposals I've seen for UBI aren't enough to live off of for most people. For the most part UBI proposals are a bandaid on the increasing cost of living (particularly housing) and most people would still need to work in order to live reasonably. The idea that UBI would lead to a mass exodus of the work force is about as realistic as Bill Gates turnings everyone into thralls with microchips smuggled in vaccines.

[Hurlshort]

Also, DP listed land, housing, food, and energy as the tangible rewards for hard work. But the costs of those rewards has outpaced the money you get for working hard. 

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

Anyways most proposals I've seen for UBI aren't enough to live off of for most people. For the most part UBI proposals are a bandaid on the increasing cost of living (particularly housing) and most people would still need to work in order to live reasonably. The idea that UBI would lead to a mass exodus of the work force is about as realistic as Bill Gates turnings everyone into thralls with microchips smuggled in vaccines.

Exactly.

[Hurlshort]

There is this strange indignation around programs that help the lower classes. This idea that people who get welfare or UBI will just take advantage of the situation to loaf around on the couch. And yet, nobody seems to mind when billionaires find every loophole in the book to avoid paying taxes. We elected a President who bragged about not paying taxes in a debate.

 

[Darkpriest]

2 minutes ago, Hurlsnot said:

Also, DP listed land, housing, food, and energy as the tangible rewards for hard work. But the costs of those rewards has outpaced the money you get for working hard. 

Because you have limited supply of those, and greater demand by those who have enough other assets to acquire those. 

Try telling Beyonce to move to a 40sq meters apartment and divide all the rest of housing space for people who work base salary so they could also live in a 40sq meters apartment. 

See how well electricity and water perseverance goes in California in times of need? How many people would forgoe such if not forced to? 

 

Charity by wealthy individuals is a PR stunt in vast majority of cases or something to occupy time for those, who do not actively run business anymore. 

What's the percentage of people who are working for free to help others? Do they have other sources of sustaining themselves? 

How many of those chairtable people would be willing to share house with a currently homeless person? 

Or would it be similar to a ratio as the ones who want to have clean energy, as long as the power plant is not in their neighbourhood? 

[Hurlshort]

8 minutes ago, Darkpriest said:

Try telling Beyonce to move to a 40sq meters apartment and divide all the rest of housing space for people who work base salary so they could also live in a 40sq meters apartment. 

Why do you immediately go to "Everyone lives in a 40 sq ft apartment"? 

The reality is Beyonce is growing her square footage at a tremendous rate while base salary workers are losing square footage. Equity versus equality. 

[Gfted1]

DANG, Beyonce is worth 400M and thats not fair!

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

21 minutes ago, Hurlsnot said:

Also, DP listed land, housing, food, and energy as the tangible rewards for hard work. But the costs of those rewards has outpaced the money you get for working hard.

I make just a bit more than the median income for my age and really inheriting my parents house is pretty much the only reasonable way I'm going to be a home owner. You and your wife work your asses off as educators and if my obsidianstalking.txt is accurate, you think you'll be renting forever. Fact of the matter is that hard work doesn't pay what it used to, to buy something like my folks house would cost me over double what it cost them 20 years ago and I sure as **** ain't making twice what they did. UBI isn't going to fix that, at best it'll make my rent payments a little easier.

[Malcador]

23 minutes ago, Hurlsnot said:

There is this strange indignation around programs that help the lower classes. This idea that people who get welfare or UBI will just take advantage of the situation to loaf around on the couch. And yet, nobody seems to mind when billionaires find every loophole in the book to avoid paying taxes.

Envy is a powerful thing.  As for the billionaires, the people I work with (fintech) tend to say the billionaires worked for it whereas the poor people are just parasites.  As KP alluded to, a particular type of individual ends up in this field, heh.

[Hurlshort]

11 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

DANG, Beyonce is worth 400M and thats not fair!

Honestly Beyonce isn't a great example. The money she makes from music and touring is definitely hard earned, and the entire team that helps her is probably well compensated. Her endorsement deals are going to be a bit shadier, since you probably have a huge discrepancy in pay between the people creating the products and what she gets for them using her picture and name.

There is a reason people go after Jeff Bezos. The guy built Amazon from the ground up. He deserves to be rich. But at what point is that wealth obscene in the face of what his workers make? 

[Darkpriest]

21 minutes ago, Hurlsnot said:

Honestly Beyonce isn't a great example. The money she makes from music and touring is definitely hard earned, and the entire team that helps her is probably well compensated. Her endorsement deals are going to be a bit shadier, since you probably have a huge discrepancy in pay between the people creating the products and what she gets for them using her picture and name.

There is a reason people go after Jeff Bezos. The guy built Amazon from the ground up. He deserves to be rich. But at what point is that wealth obscene in the face of what his workers make? 

People confuse NetWorth with being able and access such to spend. 

 

Imgine J. B. liquidating his assets to actually have cash to spend. Immediate crash of stock prices, stock indexes, liquidity tsunami and crashed economy. All thanks to yours truely FED, which printed so much money, that the only place sheltering from rampant inflation is the boost in asset value growth, such as stocks, various coins, or ven recently worthless crap like doge coin or NFTs. 

 

Problem is, that eventually excess money sips through to the real economy, creating real inflation of prices and those who had not much, will have even less as their relative purchasing power will decline, even if their nominal pay would somewhat increase.

 

Printing money never ends well. 

Likewise, socialists experiments also never end well. 

What's more productive? Someone spending money as he intends i full and making best judgement for how to place own disposable income, and spending more directly in the economy

 

OR

 

Someone taking someone elses money, wasting half of it on non-productive beurocracy, and then sending the remaing part based on not, whats highest return on cash spend, but basically spreading across like butter on a too large sandwitch, and wasting it completely?

 

 

Edited September 1, 2021 by Darkpriest

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, Hurlsnot said:

Honestly Beyonce isn't a great example. The money she makes from music and touring is definitely hard earned, and the entire team that helps her is probably well compensated. Her endorsement deals are going to be a bit shadier, since you probably have a huge discrepancy in pay between the people creating the products and what she gets for them using her picture and name.

There is a reason people go after Jeff Bezos. The guy built Amazon from the ground up. He deserves to be rich. But at what point is that wealth obscene in the face of what his workers make? 

Got another book recommendation for ya

[Gfted1]

22 minutes ago, Hurlsnot said:

But at what point is that wealth obscene in the face of what his workers make?

Who gets to decide that? Oh right, the nobodies with their hands out. Gimmiegimmiegimmie that sweet UBI.

[Hurlshort]

24 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

Who gets to decide that? Oh right, the nobodies with their hands out. Gimmiegimmiegimmie that sweet UBI.

Right now it is very clearly the people with all the wealth that decide who gets the scraps. Or rather, they give some bigger scraps to the politicians to control it.

[Hurlshort]

39 minutes ago, Darkpriest said:

Someone taking someone elses money, wasting half of it on non-productive beurocracy, and then sending the remaing part based on not, whats highest return on cash spend, but basically spreading across like butter on a too large sandwitch, and wasting it completely?

You seem to misunderstand me. I did not support UBI. I want Amazon to pay their workers a wage that reflects the money they are generating. It isn't someone else's money. Amazon is hugely profitable. Jeff Bezos has ridden that wave to tremendous heights. But the employees have seen very little growth in their wages. It is pretty simple.  

edit: UBI is like putting a bandaid on a cancerous tumor. GD is right, it will just lead to higher rents. Although those rents are already skyrocketing without UBI.

Edited September 1, 2021 by Hurlsnot

[Gfted1]

Now we just need to strip them of their wealth and redistribute it to the worthy (the line forms behind me). 24k/year would change my life.

[Darkpriest]

6 minutes ago, Hurlsnot said:

You seem to misunderstand me. I did not support UBI. I want Amazon to pay their workers a wage that reflects the money they are generating. It isn't someone else's money. Amazon is hugely profitable. Jeff Bezos has ridden that wave to tremendous heights. But the employees have seen very little growth in their wages. It is pretty simple.  

edit: UBI is like putting a bandaid on a cancerous tumor. GD is right, it will just lead to higher rents. Although those rents are already skyrocketing without UBI.

What's a fair share? Who decides that? Isn't this the contract between two parties involved? 

 

What's an alternative cost to the company then?  

Hiring 20x 50k workers and paying that annually? 

OR

Hiring 2x150k,workers and paying that annually and paying additionally one time CAPEX of 1mil and deprecating that over 5-10years?

 

If you are in the line of business, where your job can be easily replaced, either by tech or by scores of other people, then it's time to upskill or find a nieche for oneself. 

 

I value highly people in education and I'd rather pay them more than some entertainer monkey throwing a ball, kicking a ball or shaking near naked ass while mumbling something incoherent. 

Problem is, that if the supply of historians, linguists, political sciences etc. is large, then the wages have hardly a reason to move and bargaining power is low. 

 

For example I started seeing trends that Chemists, IT teachers, math and physics teachers are getting a better bargaining positions as for them it is easier to pick in alternatives for hire, and some schools have really hard time filling the vacancies. Once that will make a political problem affecting wide swaths of voters (parents of kids, who do not have a math teacher) , money will be found for those teachers. 

 

You can also find this shift in blue vs white collar jobs. The median now points to blue collar jobs being better paid than the median of white collar. (the high end is still in favor of the office jobs though). Since women in vast majority go into office and lab jobs, the supply in this place flatlined the growth of median salaries for a long time, while the median of blue collars, like plumbers, electricians, truckies went steadily up, and a lot of paer pushing jobs pay much less. Associate level junior accountant pays much less than a job for a bloke carrying bricks. 

 

[ComradeYellow]

Not sure how I feel about the supreme courts decision to allow Texas to outlaw abortions.

On one hand I find it morally bankrupt, on the other hand the U.S. could be moving more towards decentralization (of some form) in the near future so this could be a certain symbolic demonstration of that,.  A part of me says "Just leave Texas if you don't like it".

[Raithe]

For the diversion from economic matters to....

 

And here I thought the Handmaid's Tale was written as a warning, not a bloody instruction manual.

Edited September 1, 2021 by Raithe

[ShadySands]

And here I thought that snitches got stitches and not a bounty

Edited September 1, 2021 by ShadySands