The All Things Political Topic - Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you

[Gromnir]

aside, am recognizing is unfair and imprecise to say bank deregulation caused 2008. greater oversight and bank regulation woulda' lessened the impact o' 2008 and coulda even prevented it, but is inaccurate to say bank dereg caused the housing bubble burst. were a whole lotta causes and a mess o' willful stoopid necessary to make 2008 happen the way it did. what is mind blowing to us is the collective amnesia regarding 2008 mongst banks and legislators. 

maybe people at the top need to go to prison for them to stop playing lethal games with the economy? dunno, but greater regulation o' banks should prevent this kinda "thievery."

edit: mark grace, a player for the chicago cubs baseball team, once said, "if you're not cheating, you're not trying. and it's only cheating if you get caught." is a funny bit o' pith when is 'bout baseball, but am thinking at some point it should be beyond question that a large enough percentage o' america's ceo types is disciples o' mark grace. metaphorical locks on footlockers won't prevent all thievery by your ordinary bank ceo, but business is an extreme competitive sport and the ceo will do whatever they can get away with to "win." many is gonna push limits o' legal... and then go a bit beyond. 

yeah, too much regulation strangles business, but how many catastrophes do you need suffer before you realize railroads, banks and oil companies is gonna be reckless with the health, safety and welfare o' employees and customers if doing so means a positive quarterly report? we need safeguards and punishments to deter. we don't have safeguards or punishments? gosh, what could possible go wrong?

HA! Good Fun!

Edited March 14, 2023 by Gromnir

[BruceVC]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-64945819

@Gorth

Gorthfuscious this very good news for Oz, the US and UK are going to assist you guys with new nuclear- powered submarines

Also Oz is going allow US subs to be based  at Perth until your subs are ready. An important step in ensuring Oz has an effective and adequate military 

 

[Gorth]

12 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-64945819

@Gorth

Gorthfuscious this very good news for Oz, the US and UK are going to assist you guys with new nuclear- powered submarines

Also Oz is going allow US subs to be based  at Perth until your subs are ready. An important step in ensuring Oz has an effective and adequate military 

 

How I imagine an Australian submarine fleet...

 

[BruceVC]

10 minutes ago, Gorth said:

How I imagine an Australian submarine fleet...

 

Gothfuscious, do you know what this means? You can stop those weekly Mandarin classes you have been taking. Nukes are a deterrent to invasion and destruction of local culture 

[Gorth]

3 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Gothfuscious, do you know what this means? You can stop those weekly Mandarin classes you have been taking. Nukes are a deterrent to invasion and destruction of local culture 

I hate to bring this to you... but there is a difference between nuclear powered submarines and nuclear armed submarines.

Shivering at the thought of the next Scott Morrison having access to nuclear arms

The only things special about nuclear powered submarines are their range and their price tag (about 0.1 of Australia's GDP the next 30 years)

 

[BruceVC]

8 minutes ago, Gorth said:

I hate to bring this to you... but there is a difference between nuclear powered submarines and nuclear armed submarines.

Shivering at the thought of the next Scott Morrison having access to nuclear arms

The only things special about nuclear powered submarines are their range and their price tag (about 0.1 of Australia's GDP the next 30 years)

 

Oh, I see you right. Its not nuclear armed....my bad. Dont stop the Mandarin classes then 

[Gromnir]

am not an expert on campaign finance law particularly ny law. that said, am maybe knee-jerking on this, but am reminded o' when republicans were trying to burn hillary clinton for her email stoopidity. is unreasonable to expect a prosecutor to push new legal frontiers when seeking indictments, particularly when accusations o' political bias is inevitable.  you could make an argument for prosecuting hillary for her email negligence, but nobody had ever successful been prosecuted w/o actual intent to share secrets with foreign powers. nobody. evar. parse statutes as would a law school student is swell and all, but to explain how hillary were being treated different than defendants in every other previous case were gonna be an almost insurmountable hurdle, not to mention manifest unfair.

hate to say it, and gives us no pleasure in doing so, but if trump haters is hoping for a felony indictment based on a novel application o' law, am predicting disappointment.  a felony indictment is unlikely, and even if ny goes ahead with such an effort, am suggesting doing so would be unfair in same way were the calls to criminalize hillary.

the mar-a-lago documents case as well as the georgia election interference investigations look much more likely to produce felony indictments, so don't feel as if trump is getting away with something. 

aside: misdemeanor v. felony is poor understood. historical speaking, a felony by definition were a crime punishable by death. misdemeanor, from a legal pov, is crimes less serious than a felony. will surprise few to hear that not all 2023 US felonies is punishable by death, yes? today the ordinary dividing line for a misdemeanor v. a felony in most states is incarcerations o' more than a year. 'course most o' us likely see a year in prison as other than a minor penalty, yes? 

am admitted not sure what is the penalty for the misdemeanor charges trump is likely to face in ny, but am suspecting is well short o' a year. even so, am knowing people is often surprised when they discover a misdemeanor charge may result in as much as one year o' prison.

HA! Good Fun!

[Lexx]

What I find the most funny about the bank crash is that we experienced exactly the same about 10 or so years ago in our online game. We changed the economy system, and at some point something went wrong. Players noticed that something was up and started pulling out their money from the banks. Money was infused into the banks only at a very slow speed, which means we've quickly hit the threshold and banks couldn't pay out money anymore. This triggered a huge panic among players and then everything broke apart.

That was a very valuable economic lesson. Banks only work if people have trust in them. Let anything happen that makes lots of people lose trust in them and it's game over.

Edited March 14, 2023 by Lexx

[BruceVC]

7 minutes ago, Lexx said:

What I find the most funny about the bank crash is that we experienced exactly the same about 10 or so years ago in our online game. We changed the economy system, and at some point something went wrong. Players noticed that something was up and started pulling out their money from the banks. Money was infused into the banks only at a very slow speed, which means we've quickly hit the threshold and banks couldn't pay out money anymore. This triggered a huge panic among players and then everything broke apart.

That was a very valuable economic lesson. Banks only work if people have trust in them. Let anything happen that makes lots of people lose trust in them and it's game over.

Do you have an alternative for   the purpose and function that banks play in the sustainability of all our societies?

 

 

[Lexx]

No, I suck at this stuff and lack the bigger picture. I just know about a few scenario cases that for sure will ruin your day.

Here is the thing.. we fixed our situation with making banks pay out all money again. However, this caused huge inflation over a short time, and money pretty much became worthless again... which was the thing we wanted to get rid of in the first place. We pretty much just made everything worse.

[Zoraptor]

3 hours ago, Gorth said:

The only things special about nuclear powered submarines are their range and their price tag (about 0.1 of Australia's GDP the next 30 years)

How on earth do they get the unit cost to be 10x that of a Virginia class? A bit higher, fine, since it's a smaller production run. But ten times?

[Gorth]

41 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

How on earth do they get the unit cost to be 10x that of a Virginia class? A bit higher, fine, since it's a smaller production run. But ten times?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/14/aukus-nuclear-submarines-australia-commits-substantial-funds-into-expanding-us-shipbuilding-capacity

Fancy toys don't come cheap ($368bn) when you have no existing infrastructure to deal with new challenges, technological or otherwise.

Edit: I.e. the cost of ownership is not just acquisition, it's the construction of facilities for service and maintenance of the vessels, training of crew and mechanics etc.

[Gfted1]

SEE! Fatcats are going to run us into the ground again! Thats why I started buying 1g gold bars. Theyre silly small, and you have to watch the price fluctuations for the best deals, but they stack up over time. I was going to put them in a treasure chest (Amazon.com: Wood and Leather Treasure Chest Box Decorative Storage Chest Box with Lock | Handcrafted Decorative Boxes with Lids for Home Decor | Wood Box with Lid | Small Chest | Wooden Stash Box : Home & Kitchen) but common sense won out and into a fireproof safe they go.

[Gromnir]

our post 2008 solution to avoiding another banking crisis is we keep all our money with tony. 

downside is he is always asking us to do one more job, for old time's sake. 

HA! Good Fun!

[Gfted1]

A man of your means should be stacking 1 kilo bars like Fort Knox: Buy Kilo Gold Bars | JM Bullion™

[Zoraptor]

13 hours ago, Gorth said:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/14/aukus-nuclear-submarines-australia-commits-substantial-funds-into-expanding-us-shipbuilding-capacity

Fancy toys don't come cheap ($368bn) when you have no existing infrastructure to deal with new challenges, technological or otherwise.

Edit: I.e. the cost of ownership is not just acquisition, it's the construction of facilities for service and maintenance of the vessels, training of crew and mechanics etc.

Why not just buy some more Virginias then since the US is obviously willing to sell them?

(I know Australia has a bit of an obsession with having its own arms industry- we were, after all, strongarmed into buying ANZAC frigates to support it. You'd think after the unadulterated mess that was the building of the far, far simpler Collins' class that they might admit that subs were a step too far though)

[Gorth]

12 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

Why not just buy some more Virginias then since the US is obviously willing to sell them?

(I know Australia has a bit of an obsession with having its own arms industry- we were, after all, strongarmed into buying ANZAC frigates to support it. You'd think after the unadulterated mess that was the building of the far, far simpler Collins' class that they might admit that subs were a step too far though)

Explain that to Scott Morrison... heck, even the French subs were a fraction of the price. Of course, they wouldn't buy Australia membership of AUKUS which I personally believe it was all about.

[Gorth]

Most for my fellow Aussies... the upcoming state election in NSW

 

 

[Malcador]

3 hours ago, Gorth said:

Most for my fellow Aussies... the upcoming state election in NSW

 

 

"We said 'Yolo'", describes my provincial government.

[Gromnir]

am extreme disappointed in the uc davis protesters. owning the libs is the goal o' folks such as charlie kirk, an uneducated yutz who likely could not gain admittance to uc davis as a student. nevertheless, kirk managed to reveal young and s'posed educated liberals as intolerant, violent and woeful ignorant regarding the meaning o' free speech on a public university campus.  

outmaneuvered by charlie kirk and the proud boys? the protesters at uc davis should be embarrassed by how easily they were manipulated. is nothing subtle or clever 'bout charlie kirk's provocations. nevertheless, young libs insist on allowing themselves to be baited by obvious provocations after which they got the temerity to blame the school chancellor for their own lack o' impulse control. 

owned by charlie kirk and the proud boys? owned by charlie kirk and the proud boys again. 

HA! Good Fun!

[BruceVC]

2 hours ago, Gromnir said:

am extreme disappointed in the uc davis protesters. owning the libs is the goal o' folks such as charlie kirk, an uneducated yutz who likely could not gain admittance to uc davis as a student. nevertheless, kirk managed to reveal young and s'posed educated liberals as intolerant, violent and woeful ignorant regarding the meaning o' free speech on a public university campus.  

outmaneuvered by charlie kirk and the proud boys? the protesters at uc davis should be embarrassed by how easily they were manipulated. is nothing subtle or clever 'bout charlie kirk's provocations. nevertheless, young libs insist on allowing themselves to be baited by obvious provocations after which they got the temerity to blame the school chancellor for their own lack o' impulse control. 

owned by charlie kirk and the proud boys? owned by charlie kirk and the proud boys again. 

HA! Good Fun!

@Lexx@Gorth @Malcador

We were discussing this a while ago but here is another example of the radical left in the US and what they believe and how it manifests itself. They so " woke " they dont even believe in freedom of speech anymore or the principle of debate which means by definition listening to someone who has a different opinion to you 

 

 

[Malcador]

Truly they are totalitarian.

 

[Lexx]

If this is the worst that the radical left is doing... Meanwhile, the radical right is killing people.

[Gromnir]

2 hours ago, Lexx said:

If this is the worst that the radical left is doing... Meanwhile, the radical right is killing people.

the radical left, as well as the young & stoopid left, is indeed abandoning +200 years o' american free speech values. am appalled. am guessing john lewis is rolling in his grave, and zombie bernie sanders is not too happy as well. no doubt most dead and undead libs is united in their disappointment at the diminution o' american free speech values by the young and/or extreme.

however, is mainstream conservatives who is pushing the right's crusade versus speech. the war on wokeism, as well as the misguided and and ignorance based crt bans, not to mention the militarization o' suppression o' protests which were applauded by our resident south african, the oath keepers, maga and trump, represent real threats to US speech and even american democracy itself which is far more serious than the comical and self-defeating efforts o' a handful o' antifa clowns. 

vile and willful efforts to gut historic american values in general and free speech in particular should be condemned regardless o' party affiliation. isn't happening. instead from local school board meetings to red state governors and even the previous POTUS, there has been a conscious effort to knee-cap free speech in the US. the most serious threats is coming from the right and is a mainstream push as 'posed to a fringe movement.

'course not all conservatives has joined the battle to undermine free speech and core values. general mattis reaction to lafyette square:

I have watched this week's unfolding events, angry and appalled. The words "Equal Justice Under Law" are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand — one that all of us should be able to get behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values — our values as people and our values as a nation.

When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens — much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.

We must reject any thinking of our cities as a "battlespace" that our uniformed military is called upon to "dominate." At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict — a false conflict — between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part. Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them.

James Madison wrote in Federalist 14 that "America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred thousand veterans ready for combat." We do not need to militarize our response to protests. We need to unite around a common purpose. And it starts by guaranteeing that all of us are equal before the law.

Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that "The Nazi slogan for destroying us ... was 'Divide and Conquer.' Our American answer is 'In Union there is Strength.'" We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis — confident that we are better than our politics.

Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.

We can come through this trying time stronger, and with a renewed sense of purpose and respect for one another. The pandemic has shown us that it is not only our troops who are willing to offer the ultimate sacrifice for the safety of the community. Americans in hospitals, grocery stores, post offices, and elsewhere have put their lives on the line in order to serve their fellow citizens and their country. We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority that we witnessed in Lafayette Square. We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution. At the same time, we must remember Lincoln's "better angels," and listen to them, as we work to unite.

Only by adopting a new path — which means, in truth, returning to the original path of our founding ideals — will we again be a country admired and respected at home and abroad.

antifa morons and college-aged idiots ignore the obvious lefty role-models which is john lewis and zombie bernie sanders? those uc davis protesters should be double embarrassed that a guy such as mattis is doing more to champion american values than is the radical and young left. that said, it is the current mainstream right which represents the most obvious, organized and immediate threat directed at american speech values since ww1. mainstream right is attacking teachers, journalists as well as military leaders mattis, kelly, mcmaster and mcraven.

‘Greatest threat to democracy’: Commander of bin Laden raid slams Trump’s anti-media sentiment

even so, am increasing disappointed in far too many university students at yale, stanford, berkeley and uc davis who has embraced a view o' free speech which we most assured would not have expected to become prevalent on college campuses during our lifetime. the mainstream right and their war on speech in no way absolves college kid ignorance. am genuine shocked by an anti-liberty trend 'mongst young people, regardless o' political affiliation; is unhealthy and unamerican. no excuse. no equivocation. 

a parting fyi for the afrikaners and maga crowd:  just 'cause fox news pundits talk 'bout the right's championing o' core american values don't make it true. in case you is still unaware, fox lies. 

HA! Good Fun!

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

5 hours ago, Lexx said:

If this is the worst that the radical left is doing... Meanwhile, the radical right is killing people.

There's a curious phenomenon in American politics where some folks believe that college students wield more power and have more responsibility than people currently in power. I dunno, the likely establishment Republican presidential contender banning books and teh gheys seems like a bigger deal than some college students mad at Charlie Kirk.

Meanwhile....