2020 Elections - Trump FIRED

[a fan]

just to be clear.jpg

… got nothing to do with abortion. If YOU don't want to abort, don't. It is your choice. (See how that works?) Now feed, cloth and educate that child for a job market that is shrinking compared to the number of humans available to fill each available job. Oops, that job is no longer available, computer just filled it.

The unemployment rate was 3.5% which is basically full employment. Before you yo-yo’s started suppressing the economy. It’ll be back there soon.

… really, lot of good jobs with benefits and growth opportunity? sure there were. How much socialism was involved in providing those jobs where the pay and benefits were minimal?

You guys (including 6in and cradle and dump) must not cross very many streets. I don't see how any of you, with your inability to see what is coming, keeps from getting hit by traffic on a daily basis. Bus is coming guys!

How many evacuations have you witnessed up close and personal 72? I mean where you can get yer snoot right up there and watch the tiny little arms, the tiny little legs and watch the welter of the bloody gore pass right in front of your eyeballs. Easy for you to make your argument in the abstract never having had the balls to see what the procedure you love so much actually looks like up close.

… come on. What a weak argument. The mechanics of an abortion have absolutely nothing to do with the problem of the economic future of this nation. I made no argument about abortion, it is irrelevant to the discussion. Your buddy brought it up and I pointed out it was his choice - not mine. If you are afraid your buddy will have an abortion performed, take it up with him - would be my suggestion.

From the guy who says BLM will moderate and become more mainstream.

Like his support moderated from "safe and rare" to kill em all up until they're born. And sell their little body parts.

Do any of you want to explain why Catholics took this case to the Supreme Court?

What this tells me is: not using contraception is more important to the Church than preventing what it allegedly thinks is murder. They fought a case to the Supreme court to make it so contraception was LESS available.

This makes ZERO sense to this American.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/scotus ... n-coverage

[CU77]

What this tells me is: not using contraception is more important to the Church than preventing what it allegedly thinks is murder.

Yes of course!

That's because (as I've explained before) it's not really about the fetuses. It's about controlling sex, and punishing sex outside Church-sanctioned marriage.

This is not something that most Catholics understand themselves. They believe their motives are pure.

[cradleandshoot]

just to be clear.jpg

… got nothing to do with abortion. If YOU don't want to abort, don't. It is your choice. (See how that works?) Now feed, cloth and educate that child for a job market that is shrinking compared to the number of humans available to fill each available job. Oops, that job is no longer available, computer just filled it.

The unemployment rate was 3.5% which is basically full employment. Before you yo-yo’s started suppressing the economy. It’ll be back there soon.

… really, lot of good jobs with benefits and growth opportunity? sure there were. How much socialism was involved in providing those jobs where the pay and benefits were minimal?

You guys (including 6in and cradle and dump) must not cross very many streets. I don't see how any of you, with your inability to see what is coming, keeps from getting hit by traffic on a daily basis. Bus is coming guys!

How many evacuations have you witnessed up close and personal 72? I mean where you can get yer snoot right up there and watch the tiny little arms, the tiny little legs and watch the welter of the bloody gore pass right in front of your eyeballs. Easy for you to make your argument in the abstract never having had the balls to see what the procedure you love so much actually looks like up close.

… come on. What a weak argument. The mechanics of an abortion have absolutely nothing to do with the problem of the economic future of this nation. I made no argument about abortion, it is irrelevant to the discussion. Your buddy brought it up and I pointed out it was his choice - not mine. If you are afraid your buddy will have an abortion performed, take it up with him - would be my suggestion.

From the guy who says BLM will moderate and become more mainstream.

Like his support moderated from "safe and rare" to kill em all up until they're born. And sell their little body parts.

Do any of you want to explain why Catholics took this case to the Supreme Court?

What this tells me is: not using contraception is more important to the Church than preventing what it allegedly thinks is murder. They fought a case to the Supreme court to make it so contraception was LESS available.

This makes ZERO sense to this American.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/scotus ... n-coverage

"Do any of you want to explain why Catholics took this case to the Supreme Court?"

I can take a stab at it but my information is 45 years old. The Catholic school I went to frowned on contraception as much as they did abortion. At that time the logic of the Catholic church was any attempt at preventing pregnancy or aborting pregnancy was against the beliefs of the church. They did allow for the rhythm method that was also called Catholic roulette. Contraception was frowned upon in the Catholic church I was raised in. If you want to ask me how many of us Catholic schoolboys had a trojan packed in their wallet...

[jhu72]

You don't have to be as well off as I am to have sufficient resource. None of my children (with one possible exception) will make as much money in their lives as I have. The each have jobs they like, take joy and pride in and make sufficient money. They have meaningful relationships with other human beings, lots of them (don't mean sexual - they have meaningful friendships male and female), hobbies and interests. All three are close to each other. Two of them have entrepreneurial spirits in different areas. They are succeeding at life while at the same time improving on their father and mother as human beings, each in their own way.

I wish more people would take to heart what you write here.


The following reality is what is driving most of our politics right now.

The current system is unsustainable. How do you grow an economy on consumer spending when you devalue labor? A child born today is worth less than a child born 100, 50, 25 years ago - inside the current system. How does that child obtain sufficient value to become a significant contributor to either side of the capitalist equation (consumer / producer)?? They are consumers with little to no value as producers which limits their ability to become significant consumers. It requires more investment in that child than we have been willing to make in the US. The investment we will have to make per child is growing everyday. Machines are far more economical.

We are eventually going to need to change our economy.

One way to deal with this is some variation of UBI. UBI offers a StarTrek-ish utopian world - and utopian strategies always scare me, because they rarely pan out that way. Mankind is just too flawed. A UBI based world would be great for artisits, but what about those who aren't artists, what do they do with their free time (idle hands....)

Another is to reduce the consumerism basis of our economy. Virtually all of our laws and regulations are bent toward the benefit of the consumer and (mostly) the capital holders. Across the world governments picked the winners and funny enough they picked the ultra-wealthy and paid off the masses with cheap trinkets. The alternative is to re-write the laws to benefit producers and labor.

- Fewer but better things.
- Better life/work balance.
- More small businesses.
- More connectedness.
- More of jhu's first paragraph.

… that need is sooner rather than later I think.

If you look around the world, we are awash in cash, in reality it is not really all that valuable, we are in significant surplus. The thing that is most valuable is what human beings aided by machines can do, there is immeasurable potential there. Our current system is a drag on the exploitation of this potential. Our current system devalues that which is most valuable!

[cradleandshoot]

What this tells me is: not using contraception is more important to the Church than preventing what it allegedly thinks is murder.

Yes of course!

That's because (as I've explained before) it's not really about the fetuses. It's about controlling sex, and punishing sex outside Church-sanctioned marriage.

This is not something that most Catholics understand themselves. They believe their motives are pure.

"This is not something that most Catholics understand themselves. They believe their motives are pure."

That certainly was true 45 years ago. I am not up to speed with what the Catholic church teaches now. Today with the shameful history of priests diddling young boys, I think the Catholic church opinion on sex is not really relevant anymore.

[kramerica.inc]

C&S, you beat me to the punch. That's my understanding of it too. More reading on why the Church feels the way it does:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religion ... nsequences.

As a Catholic, I agree the Church has lost all of it's authority on many issues incluiding most in the realm of sexuality/moral leadership by the way it handled/ignored the pedophile scandal.

The sharp declines in Catholic participation (and the rise of non-denominational christian "feel-good" community churches in their places) can be laid at the feet of their bankrupt leadership. It makes complete sense to why these "community churches" are spreading like wildfire and people are choosing to listen to Reverand Tim Tom instead. Can't trust the Catholic leadership downtown? Trust your neighbor. And you can keep an eye on them.

[cradleandshoot]

C&S, you beat me to the punch. That's my understanding of it too. More reading on why the Church feels the way it does:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religion ... nsequences.

As a Catholic, I agree the Church has lost all of it's authority on many issues incluiding most in the realm of sexuality/moral leadership by the way it handled/ignored the pedophile scandal.

The sharp declines in Catholic participation (and the rise of non-denominational christian "feel-good" community churches in their places) can be laid at the feet of their bankrupt leadership. It makes complete sense to why these "community churches" are spreading like wildfire and people are choosing to listen to Reverand Tim Tom instead. Can't trust the Catholic leadership downtown? Trust your neighbor. And you can keep an eye on them.

+1 I could not agree more. I will say that with all of the priests I interacted with in my years none of them were anything less than servants of their church. They never stepped out of line with me. There were harsh words but never any funny stuff.

[a fan]

+1. Our latest hire is a part time minister at a Unitarian-type church. Putting Christianity back into Christianity. He's a fine man.

[a fan]

What this tells me is: not using contraception is more important to the Church than preventing what it allegedly thinks is murder.

Yes of course!

That's because (as I've explained before) it's not really about the fetuses. It's about controlling sex, and punishing sex outside Church-sanctioned marriage.

This is not something that most Catholics understand themselves. They believe their motives are pure.

"This is not something that most Catholics understand themselves. They believe their motives are pure."

That certainly was true 45 years ago. I am not up to speed with what the Catholic church teaches now. Today with the shameful history of priests diddling young boys, I think the Catholic church opinion on sex is not really relevant anymore.

Thanks for answering, fellas. CU77---I don't understand it. Not even a little. It's not even a close call as to which is the greater sin. Get rid of unwanted pregnancies above all else should be the call here.

[jhu72]

just to be clear.jpg

… got nothing to do with abortion. If YOU don't want to abort, don't. It is your choice. (See how that works?) Now feed, cloth and educate that child for a job market that is shrinking compared to the number of humans available to fill each available job. Oops, that job is no longer available, computer just filled it.

The unemployment rate was 3.5% which is basically full employment. Before you yo-yo’s started suppressing the economy. It’ll be back there soon.

… really, lot of good jobs with benefits and growth opportunity? sure there were. How much socialism was involved in providing those jobs where the pay and benefits were minimal?

You guys (including 6in and cradle and dump) must not cross very many streets. I don't see how any of you, with your inability to see what is coming, keeps from getting hit by traffic on a daily basis. Bus is coming guys!

How many evacuations have you witnessed up close and personal 72? I mean where you can get yer snoot right up there and watch the tiny little arms, the tiny little legs and watch the welter of the bloody gore pass right in front of your eyeballs. Easy for you to make your argument in the abstract never having had the balls to see what the procedure you love so much actually looks like up close.

… come on. What a weak argument. The mechanics of an abortion have absolutely nothing to do with the problem of the economic future of this nation. I made no argument about abortion, it is irrelevant to the discussion. Your buddy brought it up and I pointed out it was his choice - not mine. If you are afraid your buddy will have an abortion performed, take it up with him - would be my suggestion.

From the guy who says BLM will moderate and become more mainstream.

Like his support moderated from "safe and rare" to kill em all up until they're born. And sell their little body parts.

Do any of you want to explain why Catholics took this case to the Supreme Court?

What this tells me is: not using contraception is more important to the Church than preventing what it allegedly thinks is murder. They fought a case to the Supreme court to make it so contraception was LESS available.

This makes ZERO sense to this American.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/scotus ... n-coverage

Yup, ain't dogma a wonderful thing. It's the same old anti-woman nonsense. Put an asprin between your knees.

This makes ZERO sense to a majority of women. There will be a price to pay.

[Farfromgeneva]

Fair enough. I’m open to ideas but we have different visions which isn’t the end of the world. Though....if we find it necessary to change paradigms what does that say about generations up to this point? Even if your vision came true are we running away from the current one or truly towards another one?

I would add though that I take the position that George Will often took opposite (uber smug and annoying, his Nobel prize in economics is a joke IMO) Paul Krugman who spent probably a decade on This Week w Brinkley/Donaldson/Steph declaring capitalism has failed to which Will, more of a pure libertarian, would promptly reply “No, this bastardized hybrid self serving and subsidy heavy form of capitalism has failed. We haven’t tried anything close to capitalism in a pure form” (which please no one, especially looking at AFan, confuse with no rules, no government spending of any kind, that’s not what he was saying, rather that we quickly strayed far from the intent and platonic ideal of democratic organized capitalism like 100yrs ago).

The current system is unsustainable. How do you grow an economy on consumer spending when you devalue labor? A child born today is worth less than a child born 100, 50, 25 years ago - inside the current system. How does that child obtain sufficient value to become a significant contributor to either side of the capitalist equation (consumer / producer)?? They are consumers with little to no value as producers which limits their ability to become significant consumers. It requires more investment in that child than we have been willing to make in the US. The investment we will have to make per child is growing everyday. Machines are far more economical.

Again, I don't disagree with the diagnosis, but the conclusion that "capitalism doesn't work" is what I challenge. This hybrid form we've been messing around with a lot for the last four decades doesn't work, but those aren't the same thing and I would strongly argue isn't anything close to a "distinction without a difference". Though the child/value suggestion I don't fully follow in what way that is quantified. I doubt the legal system would apply analysis that would come up with that conclusion in civil cases, for example. We, collectively, on average, have more wealth, up until now.

To me a lot of this is demographics. We've spent a lot of time below the replacement rate in population terms before we even had the borders get closed off the last couple of years. Like the life cycle of a business, so to speak, from growth to stabilization and monetization to cash flow stripping. That's a function of smaller populations coming behind and more people hitting retirement age. I don't know if that means change paradigms or refine and fix what's been screwed up until now. I'd tend to prefer looking to fix first because I have to believe the dislocation of turning it all over is far greater than anyone wants to acknowledge who'd be a proponent of a new paradigm. Andrew Yang was the only person on either side (other than maybe Mitch Daniels back in the day) really talking about helping the transition for people and retraining. The right generally wants to just keep on trucking and the left wants pure wealth transfers. Neither seem right to me as a long term solution.

What's really scary is when AI iterates free will and makes us question our consciousness. Far more insidious than this economic issue IMO. But I see that as a problem of over-reliance on engineering and related technology professions taking optimization too far for any human being society.

It's not like I'm far out on this compared with many, heck, one of my two favorite books is Player Piano by Vonnegut which would imply in our world we have continuous revolution attempts with or without success.

[Farfromgeneva]

just to be clear.jpg

I'm like three more posts like this from going out and offering to pay for the next ten abortions for women who need them.

[CU88]

WOW

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObqBtoz_fRA

Shining City on a Hill?


Ronald Reagan spoke often of America as a shining city on a hill: a prosperous, free, and virtuous model for the nations of the world. Is Trump's Republican Party living up to that vision of our potential? Has your party left you?

[a fan]

The right generally wants to just keep on trucking and the left wants pure wealth transfers. Neither seem right to me as a long term solution.

This isn't correct. What the left is asking for is a return, ironically, to the 1950's economy in terms of what you call wealth transfer.

What did we have in the 1950's?

-Corporations paid the lionshare of taxes, both at the State and Federal level. Happy to share documents showing that. People forget that's how it was
-Unions were king, propping up salaries and bennies
-Health care was cheap
-College was free for millions of Americans....GI Bill
-infrastructure was the best in the world
-1%ers didn't exist, and were taxed heavily

Isn't this ironic as all hell? The right and left are asking for the same thing. A return to the economic success of the 50's.

[Farfromgeneva]

Is that what Bernie and Elizabeth Warren, not to mention AOC, are asking for? I don't agree. What they propose is the very defintion of a wealth transfer. Some of that is fine, the question is how and in what ways.

What was the avg life and quality re: healthcare in 1950? This system may not work but neither does that. What was the population back then. Density on average?

GI Bill, still covers a decent amount of state schools. Private colleges have gotten into an arms race while Harvard has a $40Bn endowment, they're a corporation not a non-profit, Mohammed El Erian worked for the endowment for gods sake. Increases in DOEd subsidies and cheap debt had an awful lot to do with the cost of college and that was from well intention-ed "everyone needs a degree", just like subsidizing home buying was well intentioned but caused a significant part (massive proportion) of the abilities of colleges to jack up tuition and get into an arms race. A very cirumspect president of the business school at Temple (Ron Anderson) who's a buddy of mine talks to me about his belief that 2/3 of colleges that remain after the shakeout coming will be more like trade schools (not a good sign for generic liberal arts colleges at all) and that makes all the sense in the world. They'll be held more accountable under that structure than they are today.

There is simply no going back. 1950s was before the boomer generation was even in the workforce.

Taxes are a function of many things in society. It's not just some scam to help certain people. Just comparing a number in isolation or a rate doesn't mean a thing to me nor would it to any economist on either side of such a conversation. Parity is more important than rate, Bush cutting the cap gains tax was a huge mistake. As was tying deductions to companies on health care and lacking portability.

We needed all politicians to do a lot less, not more, over the past 3-4 decades, almost everything they've touched have had some major negative consequences in the name of selling the American Dream.

Again, answer me this: How many companies exist today that did before I was born - 1978? Not a huge number. Any structure that relies on 50yr or longer obligations to businesses is destined to fail. That's more easily understood than proving the correlation between tax rates and some definiton of better lives (which is still debateable on many levels - JHU72 insists and I tend to agree that on a social side each generation is qualitatively "better", the averages show us we are wealthier and live longer lives of a higher quality today than that decade).

[HooDat]

If the GOP doesn't get over its fear of leading, the Dems will continue to do so.

Conservative values do no mean we have to live in a free-for-all, winner-take-all, welcome to the Thunderdome world.

Conservatives should GOVERN from a place of conservatism.

Legislate to preserve things.

Legislate in favor of ordinary people (you know: of, for and by the people)

Legislate laws that promote community

Legislate spending that supports those communities

Legislate to protect the rights of the individual not the corporation, and get away from the idea that a corporation is a person.

You know ... do conservative stuff. But DO

The only thing the GOP has had going for it in decades is that is was not the Dems. Now it doesn't even have that going for it.....

[Peter Brown]

The right generally wants to just keep on trucking and the left wants pure wealth transfers. Neither seem right to me as a long term solution.

This isn't correct. What the left is asking for is a return, ironically, to the 1950's economy in terms of what you call wealth transfer.

What did we have in the 1950's?

-Corporations paid the lionshare of taxes, both at the State and Federal level. Happy to share documents showing that. People forget that's how it was
-Unions were king, propping up salaries and bennies
-Health care was cheap
-College was free for millions of Americans....GI Bill
-infrastructure was the best in the world
-1%ers didn't exist, and were taxed heavily

Isn't this ironic as all hell? The right and left are asking for the same thing. A return to the economic success of the 50's.

Gee the '50's sound great, what with rampant racism, redlining, polio, widespread poverty, women not happy about being limited to the role of housewife, McCarthyism, political corruption, fear of the atomic bomb, and low life expectancy. Wow, where does one sign up!

By any standard imaginable, the United States has improved in every metric since the 'grand old 1950's, not that the negative nabobs of the DNC would ever tell you this.

The Golden Age is never the present age because people aren't bright enough to appreciate how great things are today.

Also the tax code had so many carveouts and exemptions (only for those who could access the politicians of course) as to make a mockery of the rates. gtfooh with this stupidity a fan; if you tried to launch a new spirits company in the so-called great '50's, some hired Pinkerton boys would come and burn your new facility down.

Today is the best day you ave ever had in America! Tomorrow will be even better!

[ardilla secreta]

The word from my friend in Arizona is that as the state turns blue the Dems are getting extra help from older Republicans, those that aren’t Trumpaholics, who don’t like being sacrificed to the Covid gods because of their advanced age.

[6ftstick]

just to be clear.jpg

I'm like three more posts like this from going out and offering to pay for the next ten abortions for women who need them.

Then you're a ghoul.

[ggait]

What this tells me is: not using contraception is more important to the Church than preventing what it allegedly thinks is murder. They fought a case to the Supreme court to make it so contraception was LESS available.

This makes ZERO sense to this American.

Fan -- those very smart Jesuits that I had in college all said the position on contraception (as compared to the position on abortion) was complete theological BS. Especially the lame distinction between "natural" contraception (which was OK) versus un-natural. Basically, it is only OK to use contraception that doesn't work very well.

Of course it was all about keeping the sex horse in the barn.

Because once you have effective contraception widely available, well then how exactly are you going to possibly keep those kids from having sex outside of marriage? You need the spectre of unwanted pregnancy and abortion to get the girls to keep their knees together.

I'm sure your Jesuits thought the same thing.