Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted
1 hour ago, wildcat09 said:

Full employment does not mean 0 unemployment. We were already at full employment.

And other countries putting tariffs on a few luxury goods that they import from us and don't produce themselves is literally not a fucking problem for anyone in America. You said it yourself, they don't make golf carts in Honduras and still buy them from American companies; their rich assholes just pay a little more for them. If you're talking to a conservative who thinks that's a problem, ask him why he wants to cut taxes on cartel bosses.

Great point about full employment.  We do need better jobs, though, and higher wages in the jobs we do have and any we "bring back."  Wages are really a separate issue from onshoring manufacturing.  As has been pointed out, there are a lot of offshored jobs we really don't want back, because they're inherently low-wage and/or hazardous to workers or to society at large.

But, a combination of bringing back, or at least to non-hostile neighbors like Canada and Mexico, manufacturing and industry that implicates national security and potentially provides higher-wage jobs is a reasonable goal.  But this assuredly is not the way to accomplish it.

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
1 minute ago, TwiceHorn said:

But, a combination of bringing back, or at least to non-hostile neighbors like Canada and Mexico, manufacturing and industry that implicates national security and potentially provides higher-wage jobs is a reasonable goal. 

Yeah, it was called the CHIPS act and it was fucking working

  • Hook 'Em 8
  • Like 1
Posted
15 minutes ago, StassneyHorn said:

The transgender prisoner operation turned out to be pretty expensive for all of us.

A great irony of this is that it has happened, I believe, exactly one time.  And that one time, it was ordered by a federal court after finding it was medically necessary and that to deny such care is cruel and unusual punishment.

It's never been a position affirmatively advocated by Democrats.  The closest Democrats have come to advocating for transsexuals is the position that the sex discrimination statutes, as written, prohibit discrimination against transexuals.

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 2
Posted (edited)
11 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Great point about full employment.  We do need better jobs, though, and higher wages in the jobs we do have and any we "bring back."  Wages are really a separate issue from onshoring manufacturing.  As has been pointed out, there are a lot of offshored jobs we really don't want back, because they're inherently low-wage and/or hazardous to workers or to society at large.

But, a combination of bringing back, or at least to non-hostile neighbors like Canada and Mexico, manufacturing and industry that implicates national security and potentially provides higher-wage jobs is a reasonable goal.  But this assuredly is not the way to accomplish it.

The thing is - most factories use orders of magnetude less labor than they used to. There's a whole phenomena of "lights out factories" where there's maybe a dozen people on-site to manage a whole assembly line. It takes less man-hours to build widgets than it used to, so building more factories doesn't really mean more jobs anymore either

Edited by Captainant
  • Hook 'Em 4
Posted
22 minutes ago, StassneyHorn said:

The transgender prisoner operation turned out to be pretty expensive for all of us.

States rights crew upset at how California chooses to spend its money. 

  • Hook 'Em 3
Posted (edited)
14 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

Yeah, it was called the CHIPS act and it was fucking working

Fucking this! It's fine to bring back strategic manufacturing to the stateside, but who cares about who makes the toys my kids will play with for a day or two? It's unimaginable to think that people in charge of running the treasury and the commerce department don't understand this.

Not a fan of what Elon has become but I like this post below by him where Friedman talks about the free market.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1909169096391811304?t=Bu5BrSF0jCT3xaEhqXtX6w&s=19

 

Edited by UTEE97
Posted
11 minutes ago, Jive Turkey said:

99% of MAGA don't give a flying fuck what's happening with the stock market.  on social media, they repeatedly point out that they live paycheck to paycheck.  the stock market going in the tank doesn't mean a thing to them because they're not in the game. it's only hurting the "elites," which pleases them.

now, they're too stupid to realize that what's happening now is going to increase the cost of everything they need to survive. but when Trump blames that on other people, MAGA believes him. completely. hell, he's convinced his followers that Canada is an enemy that has been taking advantage of us for years, and that Russia is our true partner.

and the 1% of MAGA that does care about the stock market collapse does not have the stones to say anything at all that questions Dear Leader's "plan." 

we're not even 4 months in to a 4 year term. this is pretty frightening.

 

that 1% is about to buy up the repo homes of the other 99%

  • Hook 'Em 3
  • Haha 1
  • Rage+1 1
  • Fuck Around and Find Out 1
Posted
8 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Great point about full employment.  We do need better jobs, though, and higher wages in the jobs we do have and any we "bring back."  Wages are really a separate issue from onshoring manufacturing.  As has been pointed out, there are a lot of offshored jobs we really don't want back, because they're inherently low-wage and/or hazardous to workers or to society at large.

But, a combination of bringing back, or at least to non-hostile neighbors like Canada and Mexico, manufacturing and industry that implicates national security and potentially provides higher-wage jobs is a reasonable goal.  But this assuredly is not the way to accomplish it.

Fantastic post, all the way around.  We do not want to re-shore jobs stitching together Nikes or making plastic toy soldiers or screwing together small low-cost electronic components.  Industry that implicates national security provides higher wage jobs (read: "manufacturing jobs that require a bunny suit and/or real technical training")?  You bet.  And there are ways to do that......

6 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

Yeah, it was called the CHIPS act and it was fucking working

Bingo.  Capital is much easier to attract than it is to compel.  Because once you've held capital at gunpoint, it correctly fears that you'll do so again, so it is loathe to commit itself long-term.

Imagine spotting an attractive girl in a bar.  She's been talking to another guy.  So, you walk up to her, pull a gun, and say "you're coming with me.  You are going to move in with me, we're going to get married, and have a long and happy life together."  She will most likely go with you right then, because....you fucking have her at gun point.  But the minute she thinks she can get away -- not necessarily to run back to some other dude, but specifically to get away from YOU, the erratic psycho with a gun -- she will.  And she ain't coming back.

We are trying to force capital to do things that don't make long-term sense at gunpoint.  The only way that has any chance of success is to keep the gun on them, 24/7 for eternity.  And even then....they'll find ways to game the system and get as much as they can far away from the barrel of our gun.

We're doing this the completely wrong way.  Which is maddening, because the CHIPS act was an example of how to do it the right way.

And nevermind how counterproductive this is when it comes to immigration.  We want people from south of the border to stay home.  The KEY way to get them to do so is to help their countries become stable and prosperous.  So, what do we do?  Undermine their whole economy because they all are -- Mexico, Honduras, everyone on earth -- "ripping us off."  We're being "ripped off" by a country with a per capita income of $6,650.  Jesus monkeyfuck, the stupidity.

  • Hook 'Em 6
Posted (edited)
2 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Haha, she's actually one of my clients.  Good for her.

Bethany J. Babcock stage name BJ Bobscock

And I don't mean anything about this nice lady at all.  I mean if some other random stripper had that name. 

Edited by gernblansten
Posted
6 minutes ago, miguelito said:

Is she talking about you?

Haha no!  I did look at her Twitter and she has a number of posts about lawyers. though.  But I know she wasn't talking about me because one of them referenced billing in quarter hours and I bill in tenths. 😬

  • Haha 1
Posted
2 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Bingo.  The issue is not that we don't have jobs.  The issue is that our entire economy has tilted in a way where the wealth those jobs created does not go to the people performing those jobs.

wagescompensation-1200x1093.png?format=p

That's it.  "Bringing back" jobs sewing shoes together doesn't fix that problem.  It doesn't even scratch the surface.

This admin defined the problem wrong, measured it wrong, and came up with a "fix" that is SO wrong...it's not just wrong because they're trying to fix the wrong problem, it's wrong even if they defined the problem correctly.

God we are so fucked.

it’s like saying, let’s return to the days of our patriot forefathers and I will use tariffs to change America into a small agrarian farm economy.

We aren’t going back to small family farms and we aren’t going back to giant factories full of machinists and sewing machines.  It’s almost like we had an industrial revolution that replaced the agricultural revolution, and that future technological advances changed our economy away from an industrial one.     

I have it on good authority that the orange God will bring back coal, so phone me when that happens so I can cheer on the industrial revolution.

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
2 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

have it on good authority that the orange God will bring back coal, so phone me when that happens so I can cheer on the industrial revolution.

Luckily, consumption can be treated with ivermectin 

  • Haha 1
Posted
20 minutes ago, Hornius Emeritus said:

 

"A strong man came up to me, tough kind of a guy, with tears in his eyes and cuts and puncture wounds on his fingers from twelve hour days in the sewing shop and said: 'I want to thank you, Mr. President, for saving our country.'" 

  • Haha 1
Posted
12 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

I have it on good authority that the orange God will bring back coal, so phone me when that happens so I can cheer on the industrial revolution.

So, you HAVE figured out how we make America Great Again.

1) Bring back brutal, low-wage jobs.

2) Need people to do them.

3) Eliminate public education.

4) Repeal all child labor laws.

hine.jpg

PROFIT!

 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
1 hour ago, UTEE97 said:

That's not a country I would want to visit now. If you decide to explore the towns where your ship docks, perhaps stay with a group of people. Good luck!

When I'm shopping for a vacation I look for places I don't want to go and then hit "buy" on the cruise ship website.

  • Haha 2
Posted
Just now, Bullneck said:

When I'm shopping for a vacation I look for places I don't want to go and then hit "buy" on the cruise ship website.

So....cruises up the Brazos to College Station are a thing now?

Posted

My previous two stops were at companies that sold products exclusively sourced from China. I had no idea we were getting financially raped by China when we took those products and sold them from four to twenty times more than we paid for them. In the case for medical supplies sometimes even more than that. I guess those millions of dollars of profits and hundreds of jobs were just the lube China used as thy were screwing us. Who knew?

  • Fuck Around and Find Out 2
Posted
3 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

"Before the president makes a big mistake based on bad math."

Dude.  Who in the FUCK do you think you're talking about?  "Big mistakes" and "bad math" are the core of his very being.

Nope, you fuckers hated uppity minorities and queers SO MUCH - about shit that really didn't even affect you, except you couldn't use slurs in the workplace - that you had to vote for Trump.  And we hear talk of "kitchen table issues," which is things like prices, and income levels, and educational availability, and the ability to retire without having to eat cat food.  NONE OF THOSE FUCKING MATTERED, AT ALL.  IT WAS A LIE.

And now, those people who SAID those things mattered ("muh price of eggs!") aren't going to have kitchen tables anymore, much less stuff to put on them. 

God we are so fucking dumbstupididioticmoronicgalacticallyfuckingstupid.

 

3 hours ago, Beantown Express 2.0 said:

You know, I don't know what everyone else on this board thinks, but I am starting to think you aren't much of an optimist.  

Him? I fully believe we aren't going to have an election in 28, and are in the beginnings of full blown Nazi Germany.

Posted
1 minute ago, Thatguy said:

Him? I fully believe we aren't going to have an election in 28, and are in the beginnings of full blown Nazi Germany.

Historically speaking, that's usually what happens after an authoritarian fascist leader is in power for an economic collapse. It's just in this case, he had to DIY his economic collapse

  • Hook 'Em 5
Posted
Just now, Captainant said:

Historically speaking, that's usually what happens after an authoritarian fascist leader is in power for an economic collapse. It's just in this case, he had to DIY his economic collapse

Fucking....THIS.

Posted
6 hours ago, Pig Bellmont said:

He literally believes that a trade deficit means the US is losing money. Wharton should retract his degree because surely no one with that degree would say something so stupid… and yet

This is Trump:

And Congress and businesses are too cowardly to do any damn thing about it. 
 

I know I’m repeating myself but this is all just so fucking dumb

Someone should remind him that his first round of Chinese tariffs resulted in a record trade deficit. 

  • Fuck Around and Find Out 1
Posted
2 hours ago, UpperWestside said:

Here is the difference. Our conversation was centered on friends of his that live in a Scandinavian country. They were explaining why socialized health care was easier to implement after World War II. It was the government telling their citizens we can help you. Most everything was in disarray so they accepted what the government asked of them. Collectively their way of thinking became to trust the government to make good decisions on behalf of the population. That, to me, is an example of how society can function when people all share in each other’s collective well-being.

Here you can’t tell an entire population what would be best for them because you say socialism and you hear the Nazi comparison come out from 80 million people. That leads to the less educated/F you pay me types that will vote for an orange clown instead of making the choice that would help more of the population. That’s ’Merica at its most selfish. We’re kinda stuck right there. If there is one thing I have learned in my travels across this country in the places I have lived it is that we just refuse to agree on a society that benefits all of us. The inherent selfishness that permeates America is antithetical to how a modern society needs to be able to get along on basic things.

No-It's easy to pitch socialized healthcare when everyone in the population looks the same and  a good chunk of the population feels like the others should be excluded from any benefits. THAT's the problem with America. You see NO white people not accepting benefits because they don't want them. They just don't want the browns getting them.

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted
3 hours ago, UTEE97 said:

The problem with you is that you are not very intelligent. You didn't understand a single point of my posts. I pointed out what caused swing voters to tilt the election. You can feel one way and still understand what motivates the others. I put you on ignore because you're not worth my brain cells. You can do the same and move one.

Part of the problem here is that you are so convinced that you are correct that you leave no room for dissent without feeling attacked.  Your posts are very offensive/defensive minded.   But let me address a few other things:

I think you have fallen into the trap of what Tahoe and Anastasis and others of their ilk would lay out.  "You forced me to vote for the worst person, because....." and then they would rattle off something to try to appear reasoned while ignoring the real truth, they were never going to vote non-R because that is their identity.   

You place more faith and belief in swing-voters than I do.  I tend to believe whoever gets on TV and has the most fear-based commercials is going to win, content or facts need not apply.  This is why we see so many people in shock about losing their status, their security, their assets because they never were interested in looking at the whole candidate and instead just latched on to what they thought was cool/trendy and what their favorite influencers/podcasters claimed.   I tend to think the swing-voters are just trying to get attention.    For example, we have communities like Muslim-Americans who voted for Trump because they thought he would be their guy.  They convinced themselves he would be their guy.  All evidence was to the contrary, but still they voted for him.  The message was out there, but they lied to themselves.  They protest voted against the Democratic Party demanding that they needed to be heard.  And they stuck their stupid right into the lion's jaws.  No amount of facts were going to get through to irrational people who voted irrationally because they convinced themselves of the 'signs' were there that he would do their bidding.   

If you want to say the left has a problem with messaging, it does.  It is an inherent flaw with reasoned, qualified, logical positions.  They don't fit on a bumper sticker and they don't rhyme.  It is why former Republican strategist Michael Steele even repeated "facts have a liberal bias."   The other problem is when you have ethical standards you tend to live by them.  You don't create TV ads with some lying scumbag in a military hat telling people that public schools are performing sex-change operations on children without consent.   Lying about school vouchers scams as freedom.   All funded by the people who want their hands on the government's cash earmarked for education.   

 

  • Hook 'Em 6
  • Like 2
Posted
1 minute ago, Thatguy said:

No-It's easy to pitch socialized healthcare when everyone in the population looks the same and  a good chunk of the population feels like the others should be excluded from any benefits. THAT's the problem with America. You see NO white people not accepting benefits because they don't want them. They just don't want the browns getting them.

No. White people absolutely do accept their benefits (which come in many variable ways), but they'll say stuff like, "well, I paid into it and deserve my check," while pretending others don't also contribute to our national well-being because anyone who isn't white must necessarily be a welfare queen and, therefore, is wholly undeserving of any sort of assistance.

 

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 1
Posted

Moving shit in at assisted living for my MIL and one resident has Fox News blasting.

The TLDR:

Liberal billionaires creating this economy where they have all the wealth but redistribute money as welfare. Cletus is offended at receiving welfare so Trump is creating an economy where jobs paying welfare level wages will exist so Cletus can gratefully earn his welfare check through hard work like god intended.

Posted (edited)
55 minutes ago, Nivek said:

Part of the problem here is that you are so convinced that you are correct that you leave no room for dissent without feeling attacked.  Your posts are very offensive/defensive minded.   But let me address a few other things:

I think you have fallen into the trap of what Tahoe and Anastasis and others of their ilk would lay out.  "You forced me to vote for the worst person, because....." and then they would rattle off something to try to appear reasoned while ignoring the real truth, they were never going to vote non-R because that is their identity.   

You place more faith and belief in swing-voters than I do.  I tend to believe whoever gets on TV and has the most fear-based commercials is going to win, content or facts need not apply.  This is why we see so many people in shock about losing their status, their security, their assets because they never were interested in looking at the whole candidate and instead just latched on to what they thought was cool/trendy and what their favorite influencers/podcasters claimed.   I tend to think the swing-voters are just trying to get attention.    For example, we have communities like Muslim-Americans who voted for Trump because they thought he would be their guy.  They convinced themselves he would be their guy.  All evidence was to the contrary, but still they voted for him.  The message was out there, but they lied to themselves.  They protest voted against the Democratic Party demanding that they needed to be heard.  And they stuck their stupid right into the lion's jaws.  No amount of facts were going to get through to irrational people who voted irrationally because they convinced themselves of the 'signs' were there that he would do their bidding.   

If you want to say the left has a problem with messaging, it does.  It is an inherent flaw with reasoned, qualified, logical positions.  They don't fit on a bumper sticker and they don't rhyme.  It is why former Republican strategist Michael Steele even repeated "facts have a liberal bias."   The other problem is when you have ethical standards you tend to live by them.  You don't create TV ads with some lying scumbag in a military hat telling people that public schools are performing sex-change operations on children without consent.   Lying about school vouchers scams as freedom.   All funded by the people who want their hands on the government's cash earmarked for education.   

 

Is your position that no matter what the dems did they could not win the election because of stupid voters? This is where I disagree. There is and will always be uneducated, stupid and biased voters. A smart leader is able to overcome it. Muslim voters felt like they were not being heard, and they wanted to punish the incumbent. That's usually the natural outcome when a demography feels like they are not being heard.

The problem going forward is going to be how dems can relate to people who feel like they are not being heard. Do you accept it as inevitable and blame the "stupid' or do you craft a strategy to overcome it? We lost a few important supporters like Musk and Ackman with a huge following during the last election. These people are not stupid. They just formed an alliance that they thought would benefit them more. Ackman was pleading Biden to drop out for months and then he switched sides. To ignore the mistakes as someone else's problem is the recipe for failure again.

 

 

Edited by UTEE97
Posted
15 minutes ago, UTEE97 said:

The problem going forward is going to be how dems can relate to people who feel like they are not being heard.

The plan is super-easy:

1) Give them someone to hate/blame.

2) Feed the hate.  Shovel coal onto the hate constantly, as fast as you can.  Never pause, never let up.

The problem is, all the easy-to-hate groups are already taken by the right: minorities, gays, trans, anyone weak really.  So, now we've got to find some groups the GQP doesn't already own the "we hate 'em" license for.  

That pretty much leaves billionaires, which is not a great choice because they have the means to fight back.  The right wins this, because they picked the target of the people who really can't fight back.  They won.  That's why it's over.  We are a country governed by decisions made based on who you hate and blame for everything wrong, even things that haven't gone wrong/don't exist (kitty litter boxes in classrooms).  We can't overcome that.

  • Haha 1
Posted
13 minutes ago, immamac said:

There's a whole fucking election thread, use it. 

Remember when Matthew Broderick got stung by a bee in that one. Crazy town. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Haha 1
Posted
30 minutes ago, immamac said:

There's a whole fucking election thread, use it. 

To be fair, you created this monster stanning for our reluctant friend.

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
3 hours ago, Thrawn said:

we took those products and sold them from four to twenty times more than we paid for them

Sounds like there’s plenty of room to absorb a 50-100% tariff without increasing  retail price then, still selling product for 2-10x what you paid. 

Posted

Bessenet suggests that fired fed workers will supply the labor for new factories and I cannot emphasize enough that sending cancer researchers and biologists and international development pros to staff steel mills is literally fucking Maoism.  The entire MAGA movement is teeteting that way. .

image.thumb.png.2d64fb2861da967827ae1a2faf23669b.png

  • Rage+1 1


×
×
  • Create New...