Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Preach it.

Re: Fighting for our meals, out here in the fields.
 

"Trump wants to be president in the way children want to be astronauts: He likes the look of the job, but has no more interest in the actual work of it than 7-year-olds have in astrophysics."

Ezra Klein.

Not Bob, assume we can edit the thread title -- just DM me.

Re: Fighting for our meals, out here in the fields.
 

How about this instead?

Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.

I would also like to note that I came up with what I thought to be a good response to comments made by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross regarding our cruise missile attack on Syria.

"Has anyone found a gif of Mr. Ed sadly snorting "Oh, Will-burrrr"? Asking for a friend."

Anyway, carry on.

ETA: thanks, Ty. My post took too long to type.

Re: Fighting for our meals, out here in the fields.
 

Nor will those of Republicans here or right wing nationalists in Europe. The political problem is the economic problem is immune to a political fix. I surmise "Destroy all the robots" will be next, after we've savaged immigration for a few more years.

Businesses are necessarily efficiency junkies. Until we've cut to the marrow, and there's no one left to buy what they're selling, and monetary policy/buybacks/stock market "growth" begin to fail, businesses will engage in labor arbitrage with developing markets/frontier markets/robots.

I'm a broken record, but Bob Reich is right: We're in a "vicious cycle" where we need to be in a "virtuous cycle." (I'm intentionally not linking those terms because I think everyone should find and read/watch his eloquent little description of these things.)

Real growth starts with the consumer, who needs a job to afford to purchase things. We've completely forgotten that.

Hell yes. "The factory owned by private equity titans and managed by old white middle managers laid me off... This is the Korean bodega owner's fault!"

I think they're most interested in preservation of themselves. And not much else.

I disagree, but even if it did, nobody in the Democratic Party but Bernie will ever utter such a compelling message. They long ago tacked to the center, and they're bloodless. Schumer is their perfect leader. Lip service for the proles; owned by big money on all of the important issues.

She was tired iron in a change cycle.

That makes two of us. He had a great long game. His only failing was finding a proper heir. But that's not necessarily Obama's fault. Biden should've run. He'd be in the White House right now. (And not because he's got a penis... Because Joe is a good politician who can relate to everybody.)

He had the same problem as Al Pacino in Carlito's Way. He should've killed the Clintons when he had them under control. Instead, they blighted his legacy. But history will still be kind to him. Some Zinn will do a serious study of 2008, acknowledge it was more a mini-depression than mere recession, and credit Obama with guiding us out of it (oddly, by himself triangulating... but he had no choice there).

How are you going to make suicide bombers pay for their actions?

Neither's of much use against the robots. The conversation we should be having is a about whether we can use technology to enter Keynes' post-work world. But we'll never have that. Instead, those doing well right now will concentrate on how to Keep Things The Same. We'll invent new and innovative ways for those with capital to employ technology to use, abuse, and control everyone else.

The business of America is maintaining the status quo at all costs.

Re: Fighting for our meals, out here in the fields.
 

Nonsense. The economy's groundrules are determined by politics.

Republican politicians care more about preserving their jobs than anything else.

OK -- let's have that conversation. Can we use technology to enter Keynes' post-work world? And what does that mean?

Re: Fighting for our meals, out here in the fields.
 

Not anymore. We gave that job to the market a long time ago.

Ok. Immortal suicide bombers.

Not entirely post-work, but a 15 hr week. http://www.npr.org/2015/08/13/432122...as-he-so-wrong

My personal opinion is the Protestant Work Ethic is one of the most simultaneously diabolical and progressive concepts ever conceived. I still get creeped out in arguments with its advocates. You can cite them all the science, data, and logic in the world to prove they're toiling for the pointless, and all they can tell you is they know they're right. So many years of indoctrination... So frighteningly well developed and deeply driven into into their skulls. And over the very short term, they are right.

But then, over the long run, we are all dead.

Satan isn't the most compelling character since Milton's day without reason. He isn't loathed for his evil. He's loathed for telling the truth... that he doesn't exist, and nor does his divine opponent... And if time is all you have, foremost, to the cost of all other concerns which fall far, far below it -- have a good time.

Re: Fighting for our meals, out here in the fields.
 

Some people think Trump, among others, is trying to take it back.

Re: Fighting for our meals, out here in the fields.
 

This is the wisest thing I think I've ever "heard" you say. It's so good that I am willing to overlook the fact that you completely disagreed with me last year when I said Biden would have crushed all Republican comers.

TM

Re: Fighting for our meals, out here in the fields.
 

I like Uncle Joe, but I'm not sure why we've collectively forgotten that he's a gaffe machine.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Matt Levine on what Cantor is buying:

Re: Fighting for our meals, out here in the fields.
 

The best candidate is always the one who didn't run.

In the post-McGovern world of my teen years, Dems answer to getting beaten was, very consciously, to run white southern men. There was very open discussion about needing a white male candidate from the south, and it gave both Carter and Clinton big boosts in the primary. I really don't want the party to be consciously choosing to shun women and minority candidates out of political expediency, as we have in the past.

Re: Fighting for our meals, out here in the fields.
 

His opponent would've been Trump. (Micdrop here?)

Re: Fighting for our meals, out here in the fields.
 

I was wrong. As more info has emerged about the Trump voters, its pretty clear Biden would've taken at least 15% of them, more than enough to win.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

So sayeth a guy on a billionaire's payroll.

Re: Fighting for our meals, out here in the fields.
 

Because that's been proven to matter by Frederick Douglass and Andrew Jackson.

TM

Re: Fighting for our meals, out here in the fields.
 

So the one thing we actually learned on Nov. 9 is that Trump is actually a fairly effective campaigner.

It sounds like garbage to us, but a significant segment of voters actually likes him (because he hammers away on Fox News-style talking points).

Re: Fighting for our meals, out here in the fields.
 

You and I think those are gaffes. The Trump voter does not.

Re: Fighting for our meals, out here in the fields.
 

Perhaps there's an ebb and flow. The economy runs unrestricted for a time, goes too far and is adjusted (for good or ill) by policy initiatives.

Or maybe we're defining economics and policy too narrowly, and viewing them too much as discrete rather than inextricably intertwined things. Policy is of course an element of economics. And economic considerations inform policy (above almost everything else).

This is excellent, by the way:

"If the previous era was a debtor’s paradise, where inflation made it cheaper to pay back debts, Blyth and Matthjis identify the current order as a creditor’s paradise where the real value of debt is maintained (on the struggle between creditors and debtors, see also James Buchan’s wonderful and neglected book on money, Frozen Desire). Thus, the current regime is pursuing a “policy of price stability in an environment of wage stagnation and rising debt levels driven by the [regime] itself” (p. 22). Stagnant wages and low job security led people to borrow money to retain their ability to consume, helping lead to the financial crisis. The policy responses to this crisis – which have boosted returns to asset holders, while imposing austerity on others – have not eased the systemic problems of the new regime, but rather worsened them."

This is status quo preservation defined. It's also a neat little explanation of why it won't work. I mean, sure -- it'll work for now. It may work for the next decade. But those forces cited above, moving in exactly the fashion described, are fixing nothing.

This selective asset reflation, a Potemkin recovery, is like watching the housing run-up in the early 2000s. You knew it couldn't hold. You knew the economy could not replace lost wages with dollars mined from HELOCs on rapidly appreciating residential properties. In that instance, we saw a financial collapse. Now, this time, perhaps we see the political collapse.

Don't you think that it'd be smarter, if instead of Jimmy Carter ....
 

I agree with you about Clinton (and Gore in 1988), but the Democratic establishment hated Jimmy Carter in 1975-76. I don't think his southerness won him the nomination and election; it was that he was seen as the anti-Nixon (a lay Baptist minister! "I'll never lie to the American people!" etc.) and was as progressive as a Southern governor could be.

But the DLC had a point. George McGovern and Walter Mondale (and maybe even Michael "Michael" Dukakis, the worst Democratic candidate in my voting life*) were probably "better" Democrats than Clinton and Gore were. But you gotta get elected to do anything.

*I'm not even thinking about the tank picture. To enrage my inner undergrad, just whisper two words: "Bernie Shaw." Asshole.

Re: Fighting for our meals, out here in the fields.
 

Right. Or they don't care. Trump is sui generis, as the lawyers say. I'm too tired to list the million things he's said or done ("grab them!" Trump Univeristy, etc) that would have ended the career of anyone other than Trump.

Doesn't mean that Biden couldn't have beat him. But his gaffes would matter. And you can be sure that Trump would have been ranting about "Cheatin' Joe" - who maybe had an issue at Syracuse and definitely stole Neil Kinnock's speech.

Re: Fighting for our meals, out here in the fields.
 

Did we switch subjects? Isn't this my point?

TM

Re: Fighting for our meals, out here in the fields.
 

YMMV, but I've concluded it's a lot easier for a dumb guy to play smart than for a smart cat to dumb it down. Trump and Biden are just sophisticated enough to impress Joe Sixpack without seeming "elite."

If you tried to dumb it down, they'd see right through you and become suspicious. I think it has a lot to do with vocabulary.

(One brilliant exception is Austin Goolsbee. He can expound on complex economic theory while sounding like a trucker talking traffic. It's fucking genius.)

Re: Fighting for our meals, out here in the fields.
 

Joe would've held and turned out more of the union and union members' families' votes. That's all you needed to beat Trump.

Re: Fighting for our meals, out here in the fields.
 

They care about the "civil war maybe didn't need to happen" thing. They like it.

They like that too. Damn uppity women are all sluts anyway. Why shouldn't he be able to joke about it? Heck yeah I'd grab 'em too if I could get away with it!

We'll never know, but I guess I don't think of Biden as being all that strong of a candidate, given that he never was during his previous runs.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

The message this sends to people of color:

https://theestablishment.co/the-far-...s-90194cfddba6

TM

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Have we seen any person of color or woman, other than Liz Warren, attack Obama for this?

I know, I know, women and people of color are all "establishment"* folks so they don't count.



* For Republicans, replace "establishment" with "pussies and goat-humpers". See, the Berners are much more civil in their bigotry. Progress!

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

This. And somehow it's her fault.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Yup. 100x.

One of my favorites from yesterday was Glenn Thrush's reaction to a speech in which Hillary said point blank that she accepted responsibility for the loss and discussed the many causes. He tweets four points, one of which was along the lines of "it's everyone's fault but hers", the exact opposite of what she said (but, of course, it's the Thrush's NYT's position, its everyone's fault but theirs).

Misogyny was the most looked up word in Webster's yesterday.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

That's disheartening, as "automation" should hold that title by many multiples of its closest challenger.

I'm not downplaying the seriousness of misogyny. But we're engaged in conversation regarding asteroids at the cost of neglecting a planet sized pile of economic problems and environmental concerns barreling toward us.

Maybe it's time we wake up and stop allowing the tail (real, but still secondary social issues) to stop wagging the dog in terms of policy debate? Maybe use Maslow's Hierarchy as a start:

First we talk economics, which controls everything (and we stop dithering around tired talking-point solutions like 'education,' and directly address automation);
Then we get to civil rights - most notably the emergence of a police state within our borders;
Next on to the environmental crisis (anyone else notice summer came two months early this year?);
Then on to privacy rights, as in the right not to be spied on by domestic agencies, and a woman's absolute right to make all decisions regarding her body AND any fetus within it.

After we tear through all of those, I think it's time to debate the crisis of flyover state misogynists. I'm not saying it isn't problem. I'm saying it appears to me, that if I wanted to divide and conquer people, and keep them from the discussing the more immediate and dire issues, it's the kind of subject I'd encourage the masses to argue.

We need to prioritize a bit better in this country. We allow ourselves to be divided and conquered on so many secondary matters and rarely discuss the really serious shit. Seeing so much ink spilled on the issues lower down the ladder of importance reminds me of listening to gold bugs. One can't help thinking, "If the possible events of which you're so concerned occur, gold won't be worth shit... the currency will be seeds and bullets." If we don't address automation and the environment, in the not too distant future, debating whether a head of state acquired that position via sexism or unfairness of the media will be the most decadent of parlor conversations.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

You really need to take a step back and get some perspective, Chicken Little.

The asteroid you're warning about hit 20+ years ago. So far we've been generally okay weathering the ripple effects.

Yes, super secondary to the white, straight, cis guy.

First we smash the looms.

If only everyone cared enough to vote for the candidate who at least wasn't promising to make it worse...

If only everyone cared enough to vote for the candidate who at least wasn't promising to make it worse...

If only everyone cared enough to vote for the candidate who at least wasn't promising to make it worse...

If only everyone cared enough to vote for the candidate who at least wasn't promising to make it worse...

And yes, I know, you think Hillary wasn't going to make any of those things actually better (I think we can all agree that you're probably mainly wrong), but again, the other guy was explicitly promising to move in the opposite direction on these things.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

But the email!

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Actually, misogyny is absolutely critical for understanding economic problems in this country.

Right now, the most significant constraint on the growth of the tech industry is availability of talent, and the biggest reason tech companies take good jobs abroad is not to find cheap labor but to find good engineers and scientists. China's production of engineers is mind-boggling.

In the US, I don't think we're going to significantly increase the number of white boys who go for tech or science careers. Huge numbers of them have the opportunity and support (100% in most suburban areas), and choose to do something else.

The largest untapped source of tech talent inside the US right now is girls who are being dissuaded from pursuing tech careers by misogyny. That number is huge. Watching what my daughter has to deal with in her engineer training you get a good sense of how many barriers there are. You want lower immigration? Train young girls in science.

The second largest untapped source of tech talent inside the US is African American and Hispanic, but that's not about misogyny, that's something else.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

To what exactly are you referring? I recall the mid 90s being pretty glassy seas.

Did you just drop "cis" on me? Seriously?

No. First we discuss guaranteed income. Or at least discuss something about automation. It's been the 800 lb gorilla for a decade now, and yet everyone avoids constructive conversation regarding it. "Oh, let's just avoid that... It can't be fixed, or alternatively, it'll go away... Like that hysteria over the environment. Thank God we ignored that."

If we're too dumb to respond to anything until it's a horrific crisis, and that is clearly the case, perhaps he's that total fucking train wreck we've needed all this time...

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Anything hampering innovation is a serious problem. But misogyny in tech is a narrow phenomenon. (I also don't want to lower immigration. That'd really fuck innovation.)

It just seems that the sooner we get ahead of planning for automation, the more we might be able to harness it for progress, rather than view it as some enemy of workers.

Why not have the conversation, nationally, loudly, about how we can move forward toward Keynes' 15 hour workweek? Why is that only the subject of TED talks, or weirdos like us? Are we afraid that people might not be receptive to the idea of working 1/4 what they do right now? That there's a majority of people anywhere in the world who'd say, "I do not wish to hear about how I might work less and spend more time with my family! I do not want to spend more of my time in leisure, thank you very much... I prefer to have technology continue enslaving me and causing me to work nearly around the clock instead of putting it to use for me." A person of such demented mindset would be committed!

ETA: We have this really dumb view that creativity and great developments, great art, etc. accrue from people putting in endless hours. (Fuck you very much, Malcolm Gladwell's 10k Hr. Rule.) Of course you have to work to see good results. But a harried, multitasking, endlessly-on-call worker is not a fount of innovation. He's a guy treading water. His juices are spent, and he's not recharging enough to have necessary insights to create anything innovative (excellent proof is the LSD micro-dosing going on in Silicon Valley... if you need to drop a quarter hit of acid to find your creative and productive self, you're in a malfunctioning system [not that there's anything wrong with taking hallucinogens, which everyone should be required to do for the benefit of society generally]).

If we can sleep, if we can slow down from time to time... if we can be at peace for just a bit of time every day, we can do in 15 minutes what our burned-out selves take 2 hrs to complete. And the scientific proof of what happens to a mind absorbing too much short bit information and never sleeping is right before us: Trump.

On Noember 13th, Young Adder was asked to remove himself from his place of residence
 

I recall suggesting several years ago that I should pitch a remake of "the Odd Couple" starring TM and someone else.*

Forget that nonsense (sorry TM) - I would happily tune into premium cable each week to watch the wacky hijinx of Sebby and Young Adder.

*It may have even been Sebby.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

There is no more important issue in tech today.

The emergence of the Bro-Cos like Uber is just one symptom of the problem. But at the end of the day, women are barely breaking out of single digits in the tech workforce.

That loss of talent is mind-boggling in a talent deprived industry.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

It goes the other way too. Some of the fastest job growth areas have been traditionally "female" and a lot of men won't take them or train for them. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/04/u...-by-women.html

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Ah. I'm glad I have this handy list of what my priorities should be. Do you have a laminated version?

FoH.

TM