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Hank Chinaski

11-08-2024 11:01 AM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 534677)

Or if none of those, surely reaching their views as a result of subconscious or conscious racism, sexism, transphobia etc…

Because no smart person could disagree with our views!”

You understand a day or so ago Adder posted this exact thing?

sebastian_dangerfield

11-08-2024 11:39 AM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 534678)

You understand a day or so ago Adder posted this exact thing?

There was a time this country had actual elites. Smart people who passed things like Roe, which was legally imperfect, but took an unresolvable issue away from state and local politicians who are simply too stupid and petty to have sway over such things.

These were true elites. And these elites died off or gave up years ago.

In their place we now have False Elites. Credentialied screwballs who talk to themselves, tell each other how smart they are, embrace radical chic nonsense and elevate minor issues like trans stuff to the level of major national concerns.

I know them. If you're a professional or upper middle class or above, how can you not know them? They're the wingnuts who'll talk about pronouns, stake out an almost religiously unrealistic argument about climate, pervert good ideas like justice reform into bizarre "anti-racist" screeds, obsess over JK Rowling's alleged "sins," and insist they're both the most enlightened of any group that's existed.

They are not serious people. And, appropriately, they've got deeply unserious people countering them: MAGA.

The difference is, the Unserious Left had some power. Because govt is filled with people who do not wish to actually have to work hard for a living, make a payroll, or be subjected to metrics, and those who've studied frivolous things in college which private sector employers do not value, these people flooded govt, and thinktanks, and changed their branding from that of "Silly Liberal Arts Major" to "Policy Wonk" or "Technocrat."

And then they started telling everyone what to do. And they royally fucked it up, alienating and annoying everyone around them. Instead of critically examining whether they were incompetent, however, they instead became siloed, talking to each other in their little enclaves, and telling themselves that nothing was their fault. Everything was the fault of "others."

Well, MAGA appeared in 2016 and shocked them. Inflection point? Nope. They doubled down. "Everyone who doesn't agree with me is racist! Is dumb! Is sexist! It's the Russians!"

2024 rolled around and this wasn't enough. Now it's "Facist! Nazi!"

This worked out brilliantly for them.

What we have right now is two groups of know-it-alls, MAGA/Whatever the GOP Has Become and "Academe Faux Intellectuals"/Whatever the Democratic Party Has Become, fighting each other.

We in the middle have been telling both sides that down this road lies ruin. Compromise is essential. But the parties have abrogated their duty to control the crazies in their tents. The media have embraced division because it makes them money. And academia have lost their minds, embracing extremist left-wing fringe positions on everything.

To anyone asserting that this was all racism, or sexism, and that it's the country's fault, or Russia's fault, or disinformation's fault, please look in the mirror:

It is indeed, in part, those things. But more than all of them combined, It's You. You think you know a lot. And you don't. Your radical chic views have never held purchase beyond college campuses. And your strategy of shaming and guilting anyone who doesn't agree with you is a pitch any competent salesperson will tell you is assured to fail.

Feel superior to these know-nothings of MAGA. It's fun, I understand. I do it myself. But those of us in the middle are also laughing at you. Because you're the other side of this tango of idiot tribes. Without you, there is no MAGA.

Did you just call me Coltrane?

11-08-2024 03:23 PM

Re: If...

Quote:

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 534668)

I agree, 100%.

For the past couple of years, I have been quick to say I don’t see inflation. I also happen to live in a neighborhood where everybody drives a very expensive car, and lives in a big house. My reality is hanging out with people who all have college and graduate degrees, and earn a lot of money.

Back in the early 2000s, I would write, often here, that the little people just have to adjust themselves to globalization, and that they will lose jobs until the price of labor abroad reaches parity with that of domestic labor.

What an outrageously arrogant person I was. And how deluded, as well. I thought these people would just disappear. They would simply take their lumps, and fade away.

Inflation is very real for the average Joe. Things are more expensive, regardless of whether you or I notice.

The biggest lesson of this election is that the upper echelon of the Democratic Party need to stop engaging in a giant circle jerk where they analyze everybody outside their bubble using their own favored metrics. Apparently, navel gazing, and talking back back-and-forth with your affluent and frequently maleducated friends does not give you a clue as to what the rest of the country has in its head.

How shocking.

That's why I'm sending the kids to Swarthmore...to get out of this bubble.

Adder

11-08-2024 03:26 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 534675)

I did not. Not on the Twitter much anymore. What did he say?

I don't give RFK Jr. very long in whatever role he craves, because his usefulness to Trump is over and his thirst for publicity will threaten the Orange One.

eta: A hugely important dynamic going forward will be that Trump will be term-limited, but will try to retain his top-banana status nonetheless, and will feel threatened by all the jockeying among conservatives to position themselves for a post-Trump world. It was a problem for W., too, and he was not nearly as sensitive about threats to his status as Trump is. J.D. Vance will be a big problem for Trump, because he can't fire him.

I have a hard time thinking RFK and Trump make it through a single meeting in which the latter enjoys a Big Mac and Diet Coke.

Adder

11-08-2024 03:28 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 534676)

Don’t be a twit. The Democrats did jack shit on immigration until politically forced to do so at the last second. Then in a politics-for-politics move, Trump fucked up their ability to have it both ways (to argue they did something based on a last second move while also having done nothing for three years).

The hypocrisy here was all around. Your party acted perfectly Trumpian on this issue and it got jammed up its ass by Trump. Deservedly.

Is this “both sides-ism”? Yeah. You know what else? Irrefutable facts.

Dems have been proposing comprehensive immigration reform for decades at this point, but sure.

Tyrone Slothrop

11-08-2024 04:02 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 534676)

I don't understand what you're talking about, or how it responds to what I said. I said the main obstacle to legislation on immigration is Republican opportunism. That is undeniably true. When was the last significant legislation on immigration? The law has been stuck in stasis for ever.

Without new legislation, both parties try to do immigration policy by changing enforcement of existing law. That's not legislation.

Enough with your both-sidesism. Democrats have been ready to deal on immigration for a long time. Republicans would rather have the issue than do a deal.

Tyrone Slothrop

11-08-2024 05:52 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Daren Acemoglu's take speaks to me:

Quote:

I feel anxious and saddened by Trump’s election. Years of turmoil and uncertainty await us. I have also come to believe that this is not Trump’s win. It is the Democrats who have lost this election.
This is not because Biden stayed on as a candidate despite his age. It is not because Kamala Harris is not qualified (I believe she’s amply qualified). It is because of Democrats’ campaign. Dems have been losing the American workers and did nothing to regain them in this election.
Dems have ceased to be the workers’ party long ago, owing to their support for digital disruption, globalization, large immigrant flows, and “woke” ideas.
The transformation is really striking, as I have argued before: now it is the highly educated, not manual workers that vote for Democrats, and if the center-left does not become more pro-worker, it and democracy will suffer: https://project-syndicate.org/commen...emoglu-2023-11
For a while it looked like Dems could still win elections with support from Silicon Valley, minorities, some portions of organized labor and the professional class in large cities. But this was never a healthy coalition, and even organized labor wasn’t going to remain faithful for long.
This coalition made Dems increasingly alienated from workers and the middle class in much of the country, especially in smaller cities and the South.
The message was loud and clear in 2016, and all of the soul-searching that followed was healthy. It was part of the reason why Biden adopted a pro-worker industrial strategy.
Biden’s economy delivered for the working class in terms of jobs and strengthening the industrial base of the country. Wages at the bottom rose rapidly. Policy started moving towards the views of the American workers on immigration, protectionism, support for unions and public investment.
And yet, I fear that Dem activists and the establishment never fully internalized the woes of the workers and never made enough of an effort to bring them back to the fold. They sounded distant and detached.
My test is the following: if stranded in an unknown city, would a Dem elite (typically a professional or bureaucrat from a coastal city, with postgraduate education) prefer to spend the next four hours talking to an American worker with a high school degree from the Midwest?
Or would he or she prefer to spend it with a professional with postgraduate education from Mexico, China or Indonesia? Or name your country? I asked this question to colleagues and friends, they all think is the latter --- as do I. Most Dem elites are now alienated from American workers.
It seemed at first that Harris-Walz may try to change that, emphasizing bolstering up the middle class and patriotism, in an effort to appeal to the working class deserting the party. A true effort in that direction would have been commendable, and if credible, perhaps win the election.
But at the end, the campaign focused on abortion and other issues appealing to the base. The main effort to broaden the base came from using Liz Cheney to appeal to suburban women *--- on abortion.
Of course, abortion is a critical issue. But focusing on it was never going to win the working class, and certainly not the working-class men.
On the economy, Dems can talk about opportunity and jobs (which they need to do). But they never distanced themselves from the Silicon Valley and the global business elite (but ironically, Silicon Valley started leaving them!)
I fear that, now, Trump and Vance’s Republican Party will be the main home for workers, especially manufacturing workers and those in smaller cities.
I am saddened and fearful for the United States, and I am deeply saddened about the Democratic Party --- unless this time it gets the message can truly change.
This is not just essential for the Democratic Party but for US democracy, which needs to refocus more on egalitarianism and voice for everybody, as I have argued recently: https://project-syndicate.org/commen...emoglu-2024-06 and https://nytimes.com/2024/07/19/opini...solutions.html
What is tragic is that Biden’s agenda had started paying off for workers already (and also proving that it was possible to adopt policies that would help workers and disproving the claim that globalization and inequality were acts of nature that could not be influenced).
What is even more tragic is that the Trump-Vance policies are likely going to be for the plutocrats and not for the American workers.

Hank Chinaski

11-08-2024 07:28 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 534684)

Daren Acemoglu's take speaks to me:

How many Trump commercials have you seen? Politics today is sound bytes.

Tyrone Slothrop

11-08-2024 07:39 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 534685)

How many Trump commercials have you seen? Politics today is sound bytes.

Those of you who live in the seven swing states get to see the commercials and have a vote that matters. I did see a few commercials, but whoever paid for that was squandering money.

Adder

11-08-2024 08:47 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 534686)

Those of you who live in the seven swing states get to see the commercials and have a vote that matters. I did see a few commercials, but whoever paid for that was squandering money.

Maybe Dems have lost workers, but they've definitely lost Silicon Valley billionaires. I'm much more concerned about those people's ability to shape "worker's" beliefs than I am whether Dem policy and messaging appeals to "workers."

More than two decades ago, anti-immigration nonsense was standard fodder for the comment sections of econ blogs, even while the authors of those blogs held more sophisticated views. Watching how the most base of those opinions has become the majority view of the right has been frustrating and confusing.

Elon, Thiel, Ellison, Andreesen, Zuck, Bezos el all know that's nonsense, but it helps them elect the guy who won't bother them and apparently do not care who it hurts.

Hank Chinaski

11-08-2024 08:54 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 534686)

Those of you who live in the seven swing states get to see the commercials and have a vote that matters. I did see a few commercials, but whoever paid for that was squandering money.

I tried to find the most impactful commercial, but could not. It starts with Harris, not clear in what capacity, talking to a trans woman at something called (I think) Transnation. She assures the person she made it so tax dollars will pay for sex change operation for inmates. It then cuts to two young black men on a talk show talking about how they are not okay with tax dollars being used for sex realignment surgery. AND they don’t want their daughters having to play sports against men. Then it switches to an image that is a man with a beard who must be 40 and probably 6’ 5” in a basketball uniform with what seem to be her junior high girl team mates.

The point was to drive votes, and in particular black male votes to Trump. Or at least to cause them not to vote.

Hank Chinaski

11-08-2024 09:09 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 534687)

When Sebby posts about how liberals/lefties see the world I don’t take it as accurate about Ty or RT, but he has you nailed. Do you actually know any people who are in labor jobs? Ever known any? You don’t, no matter what you say.

Tyrone Slothrop

11-08-2024 10:04 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 534687)

Then we're all fucked, because figuring out how to bring those billionaires back into the fold is not the path to any kind of political success.

eta: I do think the media environment is a huge thing to solve, and the best thing I've seen about that is this piece by Brian Beutler.

A taste:

Quote:

Every honest person working in politics, including the remaining few honest Republicans, knows which party is mission-driven to help working-class people directly, and which party is not. Some of these Republicans might claim to believe that the GOP’s austere, plutocratic goals are in the long-run interest of the working class; that catering to the productive rich produces trickle down benefits for those who pick themselves up by the bootstraps, etc. But everyone at the professional level knows the score: When Democrats win power, they reach for levers that direct more economic and political support to they working class. They reach for the minimum wage (though have lacked the votes to overcome a filibuster), for food support, for improving health and child benefits, and so on. Republicans reach for tax cuts and deregulation.

Thus, it should not be controversial to stipulate here that if working-class people without firm partisan attachments studied and understood these two parties and their budgets, they’d view Democrats as the better steward of their interests every time. They’d never drift secularly toward the GOP.

But of course, that’s exactly what’s happened.

So what’s gone wrong then? As I see it, at least one of these things is true:

1. Working Americans either can’t perceive the differences between Democrats and Republicans because Democrats don’t deliver enough, or workers don’t think the Democratic agenda is sufficiently better than the GOP agenda to merit partisan loyalty. The Democratic agenda lacks zhuzh or oomph, or ideal indicators of class-based solidarity. Without radical change, workers will vote on other bases.
2. Too many working Americans don’t know elemental facts about the parties’ economic commitments. The problem is mostly about information. Perhaps a weakness in Democratic messaging or a triumph of obfuscatory right-wing propaganda or a combination of the two.
3. People’s perceptions of the economy don’t form solely on the basis of their material well-being—they can be made to feel insecure or aggrieved even when their standards of living are on the rise.
4. The theory is wrong—working class people do not dependably cast votes on a single-issue class basis. Improving their understanding of the differences between the parties through platform changes, policy reforms, and/or better messaging will not translate into a political re-realignment.
There may be some merit in all of these, but I believe this election strained the first explanation to its breaking point. And if the story is mostly a mix of 2, 3, and 4, the counsel is similar: flood the information zone, ideally with credible messengers. Either you need these voters to absorb the binary truth about partisans politics and the material state of the world, or you need them to like you on other bases, or both. And the only way to do that is to clean up misperceptions with constant reminders. That is, through media. ...

sebastian_dangerfield

11-08-2024 11:24 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 534690)

Drivel. Occam’s Razor applies.

Minority voters finally grasped that neither of these parties really cares about them. But under Trump, they’ve got a better chance of making it.

Making it is a term of art here.

People don’t want a handout or a socialized system that helps them. They want a chance. The Democrats continue to think the poor are rational handout junkies. “If we just give them something, as Cass Sunstein says, they’ll be properly nudged.”

Your party’s problem is it thinks the American Dream is about comfort. Ya dumb fucks. If were that, this place would’ve collapsed decades ago.

Tyrone Slothrop

11-10-2024 05:09 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 534691)

In other words, Beutler's #2. Got it.

eta: Your use of "socialized" in this context is, clinically, bullshit. Look it up, if you must.

Adder

11-11-2024 10:44 AM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 534691)

The Democrats continue to think the poor are rational handout junkies.

Almost zero democrats think that.

sebastian_dangerfield

11-11-2024 10:46 AM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 534692)

In other words, Beutler's #2. Got it.

eta: Your use of "socialized" in this context is, clinically, bullshit. Look it up, if you must.

You keep telling yourself that.

The Ds' messaging worked. People understood that they were offering more safety nets, a more managed European economy, etc. Nobody missed this. They rejected it. Different thing.

Call them fools for this. See how that works for the Democratic Party. Being scolds has delivered brilliantly for it so far.

Unions, for example, spoke very clearly, and rationally. They preferred to get more projects, more work, that they believe they will receive under Trump, based on Trump's past time in office. This may be a wise or very unwise bet. But it's not a result of "misinformation." They aren't rubes. They just see it differently than, say, the average "intellectual yet idiot" at the top of the Democratic Party hierarchy.

I know, I know... It's all so unfair. The hoi polloi defied their betters. How dare they!

Customer's Always Right. The Ds couldn't close. No coffee for the Ds, and no steak knives. Trump gets the Cadillac, the Ds get fired. Don't like it? Sell something more people want to buy and maybe the results will be different. Or keep telling the people you're trying to sell to that they're fools or deluded if they don't buy what you're offering. People love that approach.

"You won't come home with me? Well, you just don't know how much better I am in bed than anyone else in this bar! Your loss." Works every time.

Replaced_Texan

11-11-2024 01:07 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 534675)

Agreed. The easiest way to get rid of Musk, for example, will be to continuously ask Trump about what Musk thinks of his policies or if he went through Musk first. Neither likes being number two. Throw Peter Thiel in the mix and we have an entertaining ego-off, if the stakes weren't so damned high.

Tyrone Slothrop

11-11-2024 01:56 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

A lot to digest here.

eta

Lawrence Weschler:

Quote:

So, a guy goes to see the rabbi, who has an apprentice rabbi sitting in on the meeting, and the guy goes off on his wife, how horrible she is and inconsiderate and profligate and so forth, and at length the rabbi tells the fellow, “You know what, you’re absolutely right,” and the guy leaves completely satisfied. A few hours later, the wife arrives, and now she tears into her husband, contradicting his every claim and supplying all sorts of countervailing instances, and at length the rabbi tells her, “You know what, you’re absolutely right,” and she too leaves, completely satisfied. At which point, “But wait a second,” the assistant rabbi challenges his master, “the two of them came in here making diametrically opposite claims and you told each of them that they were absolutely right, and that’s impossible, they can’t both be right.” The rabbi rubs his chin, sagely, considering his apprentice’s argument at length before eventually responding, “You know what, you’re absolutely right.”

Which is kind of how I feel about the various contending autopsies on the recent campaign....

Did you just call me Coltrane?

11-15-2024 11:29 AM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 534696)

A lot to digest here.

eta

Lawrence Weschler:

I think the American experiment is over. These are not serious people who are going to be running our government.

Tyrone Slothrop

11-15-2024 06:21 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane? (Post 534697)

I think the American experiment is over. These are not serious people who are going to be running our government.

Obama and Biden seemed to think that if they ran a competent government, voters would notice and reward them, which always seemed naive to me, and the Republicans are going to see if the voters will notice rank incompetence.

Watching him prepare to wreck the DOJ breaks my heart.

Replaced_Texan

11-16-2024 03:57 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 534698)

Same with HHS. There's very, very good work done by NIH, FDA, ONC, & CDC. And good people. I'm horrified at what's going to happen there.

There were some awesome HIPAA/privacy jobs posted on USAjobs earlier in the year that I would have jumped on to apply for if the possibility of this administration wasn't looming. I'm sure I'm not the only excellent candidate who gave pause to working for the federal government as recently as a year ago. Much fewer now. And these are not political jobs. They're the jobs of keeping the country running.

I don't know what is going to happen, but I do know a lot of good, innocent people are going to be hurt by this change in administration, and if the dust ever settles, it will take a lot to get people to trust that their world isn't going to be upended every four years.

Hank Chinaski

11-16-2024 07:25 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan (Post 534699)

Working at the Government is a choice where you won't make the really big bucks, but mostly secure. This will be fucked up.

Tesla's patents are valued at 3 billion so I am hoping he'll leave that office alone? Although 3 billion maybe isn't too much for him?

sebastian_dangerfield

11-18-2024 11:33 AM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane? (Post 534697)

I think the American experiment is over. These are not serious people who are going to be running our government.

I think it's more of an interregnum. Neoliberalism had delivered for a few decades, but did so in a very uneven manner that a lot of the population found unfair. At the same time, the Democratic Party had pivoted toward the center, governing during Clinton's and Obama's administrations in an almost "liberal Republican" manner. The usual counters to globalization and free trade savaging workers, unions, were also marginalized.

Net result: Massive inequality.

This led to populism on the left (Bernie) and right (Trump). But it didn't work, as Trump largely governed as a garden variety Republican, effecting little more than a typical GOP tax cut. Neoliberalism remained the economic policy de jour. In fact, manufacturing jobs left the country during his tenure.

Covid undid some of the inequality, temporarily. People had cash and got a respite from the daily grind, and a lot of them liked it... a lot. Now the free $$$ is over, however, and most of the people long ago exhausted their excess Covid savings. Now many of them, the lower working classes most notably and acutely, feel the pinch from an absence of Covid stimulus and the inflation that stimulus caused. And as this happens, all that excess liquidity caused by the Covid stimulus enriches the already affluent even further.

That's a recipe for really angry middle and working classes.

The pundits like to focus on wokeness as a cause of Trump's win. That's part of it, of course, but not for the reasons pundits assume. I'd surmise people who are upset with out of touch progressives are also upset with out of touch conservatives. Nobody wants to hear progressive culture nonsense because it's not a solution to any of the problems in the country. No one wants to hear from country club Republicans about how free trade is the answer because that's not a solution, either.

Mercantilism and curbs on immigration all but assuredly aren't solutions either, but they're ideas that haven't yet been attempted.

People want ideas that they think will lead to broad prosperity. And neither party, pitching either of their preferred forms of capitalism, is meeting the demand. Because they can't.

AI is going to render a lot of white collar folks obsolete. And at the robotics level, it's going to do the same to blue collar folks. We don't have these conversations because there's no easy solution, and politicians would rather avoid them. But the public isn't entirely stupid. They know that what we're doing is unsustainable.

We will have to modify the current systems, somewhat significantly, going forward. Will we be more socialist? More libertarian? Will the future be rule by strongmen? Who knows. But Trump's stickiness (I figured him a spent force after Jan 6) and broadening appeal speak to a desire, IMO, by much of the public to see the system shaken up and reordered. They don't want more of the same, only run better. They want different.

Trump, of course, is not the answer. He's the hatchet man who precedes what I think will be the next phase of governance. The Chainsaw Al Dunlop of DC for the next four years who'll (probably unwittingly) create the environment in which a subsequent more serious President and Congress start running a country for a 21st century reality, instead of based on policies and assumptions of the mid to late 20th Century.

The past 80 years were an artificially prolonged status quo. The experiment isn't over. It's just starting.

sebastian_dangerfield

11-18-2024 11:49 AM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 534700)

Working at the Government is a choice where you won't make the really big bucks, but mostly secure. This will be fucked up.

Isn't this part of the problem? Suppose we'd a govt that actually paid for talent? You'd need far fewer people if you focused on keeping the 20% of people who do most of the work in any organization.

The only counter to it that makes some sense to me is the argument that a large % of govt workers are transfer recipients in disguise... people getting middle class pay and benefits they'll spend, with a decent multiplier effect. People who'd otherwise not have jobs and therefore not have multipliers.

Did you just call me Coltrane?

11-18-2024 12:32 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 534701)

The pundits like to focus on wokeness as a cause of Trump's win. That's part of it, of course, but not for the reasons pundits assume. I'd surmise people who are upset with out of touch progressives are also upset with out of touch conservatives. Nobody wants to hear progressive culture nonsense because it's not a solution to any of the problems in the country. No one wants to hear from country club Republicans about how free trade is the answer because that's not a solution, either.

I don't know - it seems like Biden was trying to do something with student loans, which is a huge economic issue for younger generations. Further, Harris at least made proposals to make housing more affordable and to punish companies for price-gouging. People apparently didn't care about these real-world economic issues (or thought the proposed solutions were dumb). Or maybe she never effectively got the message out on these issues.

She should have said she'd make weed legal on a federal level.

Hank Chinaski

11-18-2024 02:47 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane? (Post 534703)

Further, Harris at least made proposals to make housing more affordable and to punish companies for price-gouging.

"Made proposals" or "made commercials that said she would?"

sebastian_dangerfield

11-18-2024 02:59 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane? (Post 534703)

How does student loan forgiveness work? It's untenable on its face. If I happen to be a lucky person who comes thru the system while forgiveness is offered, great. But what about the kid who graduates a year or two later?

And why forgive debt as a solution? The problem is with management of the schools. Academia isn't a bastion of shrewd cost-policing CFOs. It's filled with people who've never had to meet a payroll, never been subjected to metrics. And whom all sit above a giant spigot of free money known as the student loan system. It's a candy-land of opportunists and fiscal illiterates.

Idk about the weed thing making a difference. Weed is so ubiquitous it's basically de facto legal everywhere. Even Trump is supports its legality. (The bro vote would not countenance deviation.)

Did you just call me Coltrane?

11-18-2024 05:07 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 534704)

"Made proposals" or "made commercials that said she would?"

Yes.

Did you just call me Coltrane?

11-18-2024 05:09 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 534705)

And why forgive debt as a solution?

Because the government uses it as a solution all the time?

Replaced_Texan

11-19-2024 03:58 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane? (Post 534703)

She did: https://x.com/KamalaHarris/status/1853195722864132590

Hank Chinaski

11-19-2024 07:05 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan (Post 534708)

She did: https://x.com/KamalaHarris/status/1853195722864132590

I saw a gazillion Harris commercials. Never saw that mentioned.

Replaced_Texan

11-20-2024 11:01 AM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 534709)

I saw a gazillion Harris commercials. Never saw that mentioned.

If you look at the date of the tweet, it was very late in the campaign. I think they realized the Joe Rogan demo was bigger than they thought and were trying to make up for not reaching out earlier to the potheads.

sebastian_dangerfield

11-20-2024 01:19 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan (Post 534710)

I doubt it'd have made a difference. Ty's earlier post is best explanation - this was the product of a confluence of numerous issues, desires, and events some of which would seem to contradict or work against each other.

The reason du jour is Harris' voters stayed home. On the math, yeah, 11 million Joe voters didn't vote for her. But that assumes they'd have voted for Joe, or a candidate like him, if offered. If one looks at the polling, however, she was far more popular than Joe. If Joe had stayed in the race, that basket of lost voters might've been 15 million or more.

Also, in 2020 people had nothing better to do than vote, as we'd been in a pandemic. This time around, people weren't stuck in their homes with endless time on their hands.

I am, however, shocked that the bro vote actually materialized. Even R strategists believed that demographic would no-show.

sebastian_dangerfield

11-20-2024 01:26 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane? (Post 534707)

Because the government uses it as a solution all the time?

In bankruptcy, yes. But wholesale debt forgiveness is a new thing. It's a jubilee - the ultimate "moral hazard" according to ardent capitalists.

I also forgot to note, how can one assume it's tenable to give away that much cash to people who chose the higher education route while giving nothing commensurate to those who didn't? A guy who went to trade school, got an HVAC certificate, and took out bank loans to start his contracting business should then also get the same equivalent benefit from the government.

But those people were not on the radar of the architects of Democratic policy.

Replaced_Texan

11-20-2024 02:57 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 534713)

Harris tried to reach out to the non-traditional education route people too.

Free community college has been a Democratic policy priority for at least two presidential cycles. I don't know about where you live, but here, Houston Community College is the route to a lot of the trade and health certifications.

From the platform:

Quote:

Four year college is not the only pathway to a good career, so Democrats are investing in
other forms of education as well, including career and technical education. The
Administration is expanding job training partnerships that connect high schools, local
businesses, and labor unions to prepare students for good jobs in high-skill, high-wage, and
in-demand industries. It’ll make trade school and community college free for every
American. And it’s making record investments in registered apprenticeships – which already
train more than one million Americans a year across industries, including cutting-edge
industries. Some 90 percent of them stay on as full hires, earning an average starting salary
of $80,000 a year. That’s a path to the middle class that families can count on

Did you just call me Coltrane?

11-20-2024 04:07 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 534713)

In bankruptcy, yes. But wholesale debt forgiveness is a new thing. It's a jubilee - the ultimate "moral hazard" according to ardent capitalists.

The government bails out businesses all the time, e.g., banks, airlines. Why can't it bailout taxpayers? As George Will described the bailouts: “Here comes capitalism without risk: profits private, losses socialized.”

Hank Chinaski

11-20-2024 11:21 PM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane? (Post 534715)

Well we need banks and airlines. Art history majors, not so much.

Did you just call me Coltrane?

11-21-2024 11:10 AM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 534716)

Well we need banks and airlines. Art history majors, not so much.

I majored in art history. And look at me now. I'm very wealthy. Full head of hair. Young and spry.

Adder

11-21-2024 11:20 AM

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

Quote:

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 534713)

But wholesale debt forgiveness is a new thing. It's a jubilee

Strange how we have a word specifically for an entirely new thing.

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