DanG 1 #26 February 15, 2016 QuoteAlthough we disagree on many levels, you usually have well reasoned posts. So my question to you is this, what are your objections to Ted Cruz? How does he enhance your fear/anger, to borrow from winsor? [reply/] First of all, I'm not afraid or angry. I'm mostly happy, with some occasional frustration and disappointment. I object to Ted Cruz because he has no respect for the Constitution, despite being well educated on the subject. He wants to fundamentally change this country. In that respect, I object to him for the same reasons you object to Obama. I also object to him because I think he allows his religious fundamentalism to color how he wishes to direct our secular country. - Dan G Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites lurch 0 #27 February 15, 2016 Re: Cannot win... Wanna bet? Never underestimate the insane behavior possible by a population maddened by parasites. Billvon NAILED it and Won The Internet a minute ago. I think we have to elect Trump, because then, only then, will the population understand what happens when you try to take a reality TV-show and apply it to reality. Or LET reality be run by the kinds of rules you'd use to run a reality TV show... the greatest amusement for the largest number of profitable idiots. "Dumb down everything" has been sold relentlessly to the american population for my entire life. Fuck Shakespeare, that's too challenging, give us Honey Boo-Boo and "Duck Dynasty"... when I was a kid it was Geraldo, Donhue and Oprah, trashy idiocy sold as virtue. High school graduates who can't fucking read, let alone think. Meritocracy of intellect productivity and achievement has been replaced by meritocracy of the victim, meritocracy of mediocrity, meritocracy of trash. And the people and systems responsible for this? They wanted it, they worked for decades to create it, and now, they're gonna get it. Good and hard. Ayn Rand was an almost insane egotist, and taken to their logical conclusions her philosophies would end in genocide of the unproductive, but she had some wondrously accurate understanding of human nature and how human systems work. She saw today coming, and I have -watched- "Atlas Shrugged" play out in real life, but without most of the heroic industrial figures. And as I watch reality march inexorably toward the inevitable and obvious conclusion of a society that runs like this one does, I am reminded of a scene in Atlas Shrugged during the accelerating collapse stage of that society where a distressed woman asks Francisco D'Anconia, "What is going to happen to this country?" And he replies, "Exactly what it deserves." That's us, that's Trump. Case closed. Look on the bright side: We all get a front row seat to the greatest show on earth. The truth is starting to sink in. The population is starting to become aware of just how thoroughly screwed, they really are. And now, they're mad enough about it to take the clown and put him in charge. History has caught up with us at last. This is gonna be one hell of a ride. -BLive and learn... or die, and teach by example. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites 434 2 #28 February 15, 2016 why have Obama been so bad? We thought Bush was bad? The later one of course. Dick Cheeney, Donald Rumsfeldt and George W. Bush, was an dissaster! And you guys say Obama have been bad? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites quade 3 #29 February 15, 2016 lurchAnd as I watch reality march inexorably toward the inevitable and obvious conclusion of a society that runs like this one does, I am reminded of a scene in Atlas Shrugged during the accelerating collapse stage of that society where a distressed woman asks Francisco D'Anconia, "What is going to happen to this country?" And he replies, "Exactly what it deserves." That's us, that's Trump. Case closed. You, as an individual, may want it all torn down in some post-Randian-strike apocalypse fantasy, but that is simply not going to happen. You may even find a portion of the populace who also want the same thing. That number, however, will not add up to 270 electoral college votes. The VAST MAJORITY of people do want to see improvements in their lives. They are not willing to risk anarchy to get them. No matter what any crazy billionaire wants (and we have a lot of them supporting all sorts of candidates), none of them want anarchy. Anarchy doesn't make money.quade - The World's Most Boring Skydiver Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites RonD1120 58 #30 February 15, 2016 Thank you.Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites lurch 0 #31 February 15, 2016 I don't want anarchy either. And I don't want a collapse. But that's what I -see-. I'd like to see the factories come back, I'd like to see the return of the kinds of conditions this society had between the late 40's and the 80's, with explosive prosperity, explosive expansion of the numbers of people who aren't worried about where next week's food is coming from. The explosive reduction in the number of people living by the railroad tracks. But I think you and I both know that's not going to happen. I think we are going to see some form of collapse, I think we are already seeing it, in Bernie Madoff and Enron and hundreds like them, seeing it in Ferguson and Detroit. In Flint. Like the Soviet Union, I don't see any way to fix the accelerating failure of this system without that happening. No politician has anything like a plan to actually fix the geometrically expanding debt. Their idea of "doing something" is to promote some watered down measure that may slightly retard the rate of expansion. Their idea of a budget "cut" is limiting their rate of expected -increase- in spending. If you cut it all in half- every last bit of it, with no mercy to the weak, the sick, the dependent, the elderly on their pensions... The entire multitrillion-dollar boondoggle we call a government, and returned those dollars to whoever they were taken from, (or whatever distant descendant they actually expect to have to pay that debt) you might make the empire last a bit longer. Come the day that simply servicing the interest on the national debt consumes more than the entire US GDP... when we owe more in just interest payments on our debts than all the wealth we even MAKE... And the global financial system processes that fact, We're fucked. Can you think of anyone the US can elect, any action, at all, by anyone, that will stop this? The only model I have for the future, is to look at how Russia turned out after the USSR fell apart. I think that's us. The country will end up run by whatever kleptocrats happened to be at the controls when the core of the system fails. Life will go on... but at a much reduced level of prosperity because the minimum price for entry into the middle class has hit a million or more a year. What is it now, really? Close to a hundred grand? More? When I was a kid, $30,000 a year was enough for my stepdad to support 4 kids, a wife, two cars and one house while building another. Now, $30,000 a year a single person could barely afford a CAR nevermind that many kids, homeownership... $70,000 is still lean if you're trying to pay off a house or replace your car or raise a kid... Even 100 grand a year, there's gonna be shit you need and can't afford to do. By now I think the borderline for income where you just don't have to worry about money anymore and can afford everything you need, not ritzy, just basic secure middle class prosperity where you can send your kids to school and have a decent house is somewhere around a quarter million a year. If you've got any suggestions of anything that might slow or reverse these sorts of effects, I'd love to hear 'em. I think we're looking at historical-scale forces. Not a damn thing is going to stop 'em. Automation will keep getting better and rendering ever-larger portions of the population obsolete, uneconomic to employ for anything. The iron laws of economics will continue to move jobs to the lowest paying places on earth for the greater and greater profit of fewer and fewer people. The poverty stricken people in these places will continue to try to migrate to where they think the money is. The southwest will become Mexico. Europe will be overrun by Islam and unstoppable population pressure from Africa. Living standards everywhere we call "First World" will fall... as low as they can. Trump is a symptom, not the cause. I can't think of anything that will address THAT. -BLive and learn... or die, and teach by example. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites quade 3 #32 February 15, 2016 lurchI don't want anarchy either. And I don't want a collapse. But that's what I -see-. I'd like to see the factories come back, I'd like to see the return of the kinds of conditions this society had between the late 40's and the 80's, with explosive prosperity, explosive expansion of the numbers of people who aren't worried about where next week's food is coming from. The explosive reduction in the number of people living by the railroad tracks. That has zero to do with today's government and everything to do with basic capitalism / price of labor. When multi-nationism first took place the jobs went overseas simply because labor was so cheap in those foreign countries companies could make products there, ship them here, and they'd still be less expensive than if they were made here to begin with. And no, labor unions had nothing to do with it. The price of labor in India can still be had for less than minimum wage in the US. Some factories are, in fact, coming back, but the days of factories employing thousands of people to do repetitive assembly line work is over. Why? Robots. So even though the factories are starting to come back, there's never going to be work for the low skill worker in them and they'll be employing a tiny fraction of people they used to. Time marches on. I'm not saying you have to like it, but wistfully hoping the boom of the 50's to'70s return is folly. It's just not going to happen.quade - The World's Most Boring Skydiver Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites lurch 0 #33 February 15, 2016 I disagree. I think the destruction of the american middle class has everything to do with today's government. That government, with all its red tape and arbitrary imposed expenses of legitimacy are what -make- it cheaper to run a factory somewhere else. I read somewhere that Denver considered itself "small-business friendly" because measures were taken to reduce the "taxes-and-fees-and-permits" load on starting a small business to "Only" two years and one hundred eighty separate permits taxes environmental impact studies and fees. Meanwhile, in China, you want to start a small factory, you get a loan from the local crooks, pay off the local party bosses, rent a space, buy a couple of molding machines, hook up with a customer broker who will feed you contracts for X number of cheapshit knockoff widgets per month, and go into business... polluting freely, paying your people nothing... 1.3 billion people doing this turned China into the world's factory virtually overnight and resulted in the single greatest expansion of the middle class (in china) that the globe has ever seen. I think the only thing that would hold those global economic forces at bay would be a return to American isolationism. Build Trump's wall and cut off the Mexican and south American demographic invasion and illegals- Brutally fine anyone employing them. Put the National Guard to work actually guarding the national- At the border. The problem with that approach is, it would work. Immediately. The system DEPENDS on its current level of functional corruption and exploitation of whoever is being exploited... Half the nation's food producers, landscapers and meat packers would go tits-up overnight. Suddenly we'd be face to face with the hypocrisy of demonizing the illegals we depend on. Instead of sitting on their asses sucking up X-box Live, legally forbidden to be employed, let the kids who want the menial labor jobs, have them. Then, massive tariffs on imports to make it more expensive to import your shit from china than to produce it here. Massive tax breaks to anyone still willing to operate here, put up with the insane bureaucratic task-loading and employ americans. People DO want to make money... and it is cheaper to buy a few politicians to smooth the way for a profitable exit, than it is to make it competitive to make stuff here again. So General Electric offshores everything and legally kites out on 80 billion in taxes... while the IRS mercilessly hunts down and destroys a guy who tried to dodge a couple thousand in taxes so he could hang onto his home and small business for another year. The government in this country of ours declared economic warfare on its own population a long time ago. That may not have been the intention, but that has been the effect. Nothing personal, it is just that it has been too profitable to do so, to simply leave it on the table unexploited. They killed the golden goose of american industry for short term profit. Used to be, there was no motivation. Henry Ford wanted to pay his workers a fat wage so they could afford to buy his cars! Not anymore. There's nothing to stop it, because now, with globalization, they'll just market their shit to whoever is the latest rising star economy. Who gives a damn if 100 million americans end up homeless, when you've got the combined markets of India and China to sell to? It is a runaway positive feedback effect with no phenomena arising to hold it back. The way it looks to me, our system is, in effect, a ver slow-motion nuclear chain reaction that has gone off and is in mid-detonation. The chain reaction has already taken off, is accelerating geometrically, and cannot be stopped. Until this system is willing to address those effects, the economic mathematics are utterly without mercy. The standard of living of the rest of the world will rise, some places steeply, some places minutely- while all of the USA is slowly pounded back down to a pakistani bricklayer's idea of prosperity. The next thing that history tells us ought to happen, is, we elect a completely insane tyrant who promises to protect us from all this. Meet Trump. If he's not it, he certainly is the prototype. If he's not elected, an even worse wacko will be next time around. -BLive and learn... or die, and teach by example. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Darius11 12 #34 February 16, 2016 Americans have voted for bush twice, invaded the wrong country, and people would actually get mad when some of us mentioned Sarah Palin is an idiot. So yes it can happen, But honestly its sad all around. I feel strongly negative about every candidate. Simple answer generally the world is dumber, its not just income equality that has become an increasing distance intelligence seems to have followed the same graph.I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not." - Kurt Cobain Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites DanG 1 #35 February 16, 2016 Just thought I'd pass along this article about how your two favorite candidates' tax plans would ruin America. Yes, I know it is from the Washington Post, but they are quoting a non-partisan tax policy think tank. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/02/16/cruz-tax-plan-would-cost-8-6-trillion-second-only-to-trump/ - Dan G Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites quade 3 #36 February 16, 2016 DanGJust thought I'd pass along this article about how your two favorite candidates' tax plans would ruin America. Yes, I know it is from the Washington Post, but they are quoting a non-partisan tax policy think tank. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/02/16/cruz-tax-plan-would-cost-8-6-trillion-second-only-to-trump/ You knew it was a bullshit plan when it came out to be a perfect 10%. Come on now. In what reality is anything ever that neat and simplistic? Sure it sounds good to morons who can only count to 10, but FFS, what's so special about 10?quade - The World's Most Boring Skydiver Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites RonD1120 58 #37 February 16, 2016 DanGJust thought I'd pass along this article about how your two favorite candidates' tax plans would ruin America. Yes, I know it is from the Washington Post, but they are quoting a non-partisan tax policy think tank. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/02/16/cruz-tax-plan-would-cost-8-6-trillion-second-only-to-trump/ It's like winsor's post in his thread on Fear/Anger, a plane is rapidly descending from 12K feet and passing through 1K and we are trying to determine who will take the controls to determine the angle of impact. I am not optimistic regardless of who wins the presidency.Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites CanuckInUSA 0 #38 February 16, 2016 Trump is a jackass. Cruz is an asshole that nobody likes. Rubio isn't disliked like Cruz is, but he carries a lot of the same baggage. Sanders is clueless. Clinton is a criminal. But what difference does it make? The POTUS is just a puppet and it's already been decided. Billary will be king. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites nolhtairt 0 #39 February 16, 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGTznIy6i4w Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites DanG 1 #40 February 16, 2016 QuoteIt's like winsor's post in his thread on Fear/Anger, a plane is rapidly descending from 12K feet and passing through 1K and we are trying to determine who will take the controls to determine the angle of impact. I am not optimistic regardless of who wins the presidency. If you really believed that you wouldn't be so upset about Obama being president now. - Dan G Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites 434 2 #41 February 16, 2016 I thought it always have benn HillBill, and not the other way! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites 434 2 #42 February 16, 2016 Cant stop laughing. Brilliant ending. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites kallend 1,623 #43 February 16, 2016 434I thought it always have benn HillBill, and not the other way! Hmm - that made me think the debates would go well with this musical accompaniment:... The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites billvon 2,393 #44 February 16, 2016 >It's like winsor's post in his thread on Fear/Anger, a plane is rapidly descending >from 12K feet and passing through 1K and we are trying to determine who will >take the controls to determine the angle of impact. Good question. So who do you want as a pilot? The woman who is a lying schemer and has been flying planes for the last four years The guy who is a lying schemer and has never flown a plane before, but says that he will make this airplane great again? And mentions you shouldn't trust pilots because, after all, a pilot must have gotten this airplane into the air to begin with? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites quade 3 #45 February 16, 2016 billvon>It's like winsor's post in his thread on Fear/Anger, a plane is rapidly descending >from 12K feet and passing through 1K and we are trying to determine who will >take the controls to determine the angle of impact. Good question. So who do you want as a pilot? The woman who is a lying schemer and has been flying planes for the last four years The guy who is a lying schemer and has never flown a plane before, but says that he will make this airplane great again? And mentions you shouldn't trust pilots because, after all, a pilot must have gotten this airplane into the air to begin with? To be fair . . . there are some who actively want the plane to crash. I'm not one of them, but there are some people who really do believe the only hope is just to let the plane go down in flames. Personally, I think they're f'in' nuts.quade - The World's Most Boring Skydiver Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites ryoder 1,381 #46 February 17, 2016 OK, Trump is still an asshole, but this is funny: http://www.newstatesman.com/world/2016/02/jeb-bush-forgot-renew-his-website-so-now-it-redirects-you-donald-trumps"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites CornishChris 5 #47 February 17, 2016 I hope Trump finds out what's going on... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG94GJT8okE CJP Gods don't kill people. People with Gods kill people Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites mr2mk1g 10 #48 February 17, 2016 ryoderOK, Trump is still an asshole, but this is funny: http://www.newstatesman.com/world/2016/02/jeb-bush-forgot-renew-his-website-so-now-it-redirects-you-donald-trumps As amusing as that is, it really ought not be allowed under the election laws. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites wolfriverjoe 1,340 #49 February 18, 2016 And today Trump said he'd torture people. He says that torture works. Believe him, it works. Except that it doesn't . And it's a crime."There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites StreetScooby 5 #50 February 18, 2016 I work at Bloomberg in NYC. About a week ago, I was coming up from my desk to get some breakfast around 7am (...I'm in the office around 6am). In one of the main conference rooms, there were 10 people in the room, all of them wearing suits and ties, with a camera guy taking pictures. They were clearly political operatives going over Mike's bid to run for president. I've seen Mike several times now in my 10 months with the company. He's a guy who has complete command presence. The first few times I saw him was when he was winnowing out his media business (...a long time money losing operation, but important to his brand). There were clashes going on between the NYC office and the Washington office, and he set about to clear matters up. Every time I saw him during this period, he was talking to someone and laying down the law. Calmly, laying down the law. That matter has been sorted out now, and widely published for those who read those kind of articles. If he runs, and wins, things will be different. And, for the most part, better than they are now. I don't agree with him on all of his issues. But, he is a guy who gets it done. In my 22 years on the street, there are very few people I've come across who has what he has (...he's not the first billionaire I've come across). If he decides to run, it won't be a Ross Perot run. He'll be in it to win it, and will walk the walk. Like he does every day, and has done every day of his life.We are all engines of karma Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next Page 2 of 20 Join the conversation You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account. Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible. Reply to this topic... × Pasted as rich text. Paste as plain text instead Only 75 emoji are allowed. × Your link has been automatically embedded. Display as a link instead × Your previous content has been restored. Clear editor × You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL. 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lurch 0 #27 February 15, 2016 Re: Cannot win... Wanna bet? Never underestimate the insane behavior possible by a population maddened by parasites. Billvon NAILED it and Won The Internet a minute ago. I think we have to elect Trump, because then, only then, will the population understand what happens when you try to take a reality TV-show and apply it to reality. Or LET reality be run by the kinds of rules you'd use to run a reality TV show... the greatest amusement for the largest number of profitable idiots. "Dumb down everything" has been sold relentlessly to the american population for my entire life. Fuck Shakespeare, that's too challenging, give us Honey Boo-Boo and "Duck Dynasty"... when I was a kid it was Geraldo, Donhue and Oprah, trashy idiocy sold as virtue. High school graduates who can't fucking read, let alone think. Meritocracy of intellect productivity and achievement has been replaced by meritocracy of the victim, meritocracy of mediocrity, meritocracy of trash. And the people and systems responsible for this? They wanted it, they worked for decades to create it, and now, they're gonna get it. Good and hard. Ayn Rand was an almost insane egotist, and taken to their logical conclusions her philosophies would end in genocide of the unproductive, but she had some wondrously accurate understanding of human nature and how human systems work. She saw today coming, and I have -watched- "Atlas Shrugged" play out in real life, but without most of the heroic industrial figures. And as I watch reality march inexorably toward the inevitable and obvious conclusion of a society that runs like this one does, I am reminded of a scene in Atlas Shrugged during the accelerating collapse stage of that society where a distressed woman asks Francisco D'Anconia, "What is going to happen to this country?" And he replies, "Exactly what it deserves." That's us, that's Trump. Case closed. Look on the bright side: We all get a front row seat to the greatest show on earth. The truth is starting to sink in. The population is starting to become aware of just how thoroughly screwed, they really are. And now, they're mad enough about it to take the clown and put him in charge. History has caught up with us at last. This is gonna be one hell of a ride. -BLive and learn... or die, and teach by example. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
434 2 #28 February 15, 2016 why have Obama been so bad? We thought Bush was bad? The later one of course. Dick Cheeney, Donald Rumsfeldt and George W. Bush, was an dissaster! And you guys say Obama have been bad? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
quade 3 #29 February 15, 2016 lurchAnd as I watch reality march inexorably toward the inevitable and obvious conclusion of a society that runs like this one does, I am reminded of a scene in Atlas Shrugged during the accelerating collapse stage of that society where a distressed woman asks Francisco D'Anconia, "What is going to happen to this country?" And he replies, "Exactly what it deserves." That's us, that's Trump. Case closed. You, as an individual, may want it all torn down in some post-Randian-strike apocalypse fantasy, but that is simply not going to happen. You may even find a portion of the populace who also want the same thing. That number, however, will not add up to 270 electoral college votes. The VAST MAJORITY of people do want to see improvements in their lives. They are not willing to risk anarchy to get them. No matter what any crazy billionaire wants (and we have a lot of them supporting all sorts of candidates), none of them want anarchy. Anarchy doesn't make money.quade - The World's Most Boring Skydiver Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
RonD1120 58 #30 February 15, 2016 Thank you.Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lurch 0 #31 February 15, 2016 I don't want anarchy either. And I don't want a collapse. But that's what I -see-. I'd like to see the factories come back, I'd like to see the return of the kinds of conditions this society had between the late 40's and the 80's, with explosive prosperity, explosive expansion of the numbers of people who aren't worried about where next week's food is coming from. The explosive reduction in the number of people living by the railroad tracks. But I think you and I both know that's not going to happen. I think we are going to see some form of collapse, I think we are already seeing it, in Bernie Madoff and Enron and hundreds like them, seeing it in Ferguson and Detroit. In Flint. Like the Soviet Union, I don't see any way to fix the accelerating failure of this system without that happening. No politician has anything like a plan to actually fix the geometrically expanding debt. Their idea of "doing something" is to promote some watered down measure that may slightly retard the rate of expansion. Their idea of a budget "cut" is limiting their rate of expected -increase- in spending. If you cut it all in half- every last bit of it, with no mercy to the weak, the sick, the dependent, the elderly on their pensions... The entire multitrillion-dollar boondoggle we call a government, and returned those dollars to whoever they were taken from, (or whatever distant descendant they actually expect to have to pay that debt) you might make the empire last a bit longer. Come the day that simply servicing the interest on the national debt consumes more than the entire US GDP... when we owe more in just interest payments on our debts than all the wealth we even MAKE... And the global financial system processes that fact, We're fucked. Can you think of anyone the US can elect, any action, at all, by anyone, that will stop this? The only model I have for the future, is to look at how Russia turned out after the USSR fell apart. I think that's us. The country will end up run by whatever kleptocrats happened to be at the controls when the core of the system fails. Life will go on... but at a much reduced level of prosperity because the minimum price for entry into the middle class has hit a million or more a year. What is it now, really? Close to a hundred grand? More? When I was a kid, $30,000 a year was enough for my stepdad to support 4 kids, a wife, two cars and one house while building another. Now, $30,000 a year a single person could barely afford a CAR nevermind that many kids, homeownership... $70,000 is still lean if you're trying to pay off a house or replace your car or raise a kid... Even 100 grand a year, there's gonna be shit you need and can't afford to do. By now I think the borderline for income where you just don't have to worry about money anymore and can afford everything you need, not ritzy, just basic secure middle class prosperity where you can send your kids to school and have a decent house is somewhere around a quarter million a year. If you've got any suggestions of anything that might slow or reverse these sorts of effects, I'd love to hear 'em. I think we're looking at historical-scale forces. Not a damn thing is going to stop 'em. Automation will keep getting better and rendering ever-larger portions of the population obsolete, uneconomic to employ for anything. The iron laws of economics will continue to move jobs to the lowest paying places on earth for the greater and greater profit of fewer and fewer people. The poverty stricken people in these places will continue to try to migrate to where they think the money is. The southwest will become Mexico. Europe will be overrun by Islam and unstoppable population pressure from Africa. Living standards everywhere we call "First World" will fall... as low as they can. Trump is a symptom, not the cause. I can't think of anything that will address THAT. -BLive and learn... or die, and teach by example. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
quade 3 #32 February 15, 2016 lurchI don't want anarchy either. And I don't want a collapse. But that's what I -see-. I'd like to see the factories come back, I'd like to see the return of the kinds of conditions this society had between the late 40's and the 80's, with explosive prosperity, explosive expansion of the numbers of people who aren't worried about where next week's food is coming from. The explosive reduction in the number of people living by the railroad tracks. That has zero to do with today's government and everything to do with basic capitalism / price of labor. When multi-nationism first took place the jobs went overseas simply because labor was so cheap in those foreign countries companies could make products there, ship them here, and they'd still be less expensive than if they were made here to begin with. And no, labor unions had nothing to do with it. The price of labor in India can still be had for less than minimum wage in the US. Some factories are, in fact, coming back, but the days of factories employing thousands of people to do repetitive assembly line work is over. Why? Robots. So even though the factories are starting to come back, there's never going to be work for the low skill worker in them and they'll be employing a tiny fraction of people they used to. Time marches on. I'm not saying you have to like it, but wistfully hoping the boom of the 50's to'70s return is folly. It's just not going to happen.quade - The World's Most Boring Skydiver Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lurch 0 #33 February 15, 2016 I disagree. I think the destruction of the american middle class has everything to do with today's government. That government, with all its red tape and arbitrary imposed expenses of legitimacy are what -make- it cheaper to run a factory somewhere else. I read somewhere that Denver considered itself "small-business friendly" because measures were taken to reduce the "taxes-and-fees-and-permits" load on starting a small business to "Only" two years and one hundred eighty separate permits taxes environmental impact studies and fees. Meanwhile, in China, you want to start a small factory, you get a loan from the local crooks, pay off the local party bosses, rent a space, buy a couple of molding machines, hook up with a customer broker who will feed you contracts for X number of cheapshit knockoff widgets per month, and go into business... polluting freely, paying your people nothing... 1.3 billion people doing this turned China into the world's factory virtually overnight and resulted in the single greatest expansion of the middle class (in china) that the globe has ever seen. I think the only thing that would hold those global economic forces at bay would be a return to American isolationism. Build Trump's wall and cut off the Mexican and south American demographic invasion and illegals- Brutally fine anyone employing them. Put the National Guard to work actually guarding the national- At the border. The problem with that approach is, it would work. Immediately. The system DEPENDS on its current level of functional corruption and exploitation of whoever is being exploited... Half the nation's food producers, landscapers and meat packers would go tits-up overnight. Suddenly we'd be face to face with the hypocrisy of demonizing the illegals we depend on. Instead of sitting on their asses sucking up X-box Live, legally forbidden to be employed, let the kids who want the menial labor jobs, have them. Then, massive tariffs on imports to make it more expensive to import your shit from china than to produce it here. Massive tax breaks to anyone still willing to operate here, put up with the insane bureaucratic task-loading and employ americans. People DO want to make money... and it is cheaper to buy a few politicians to smooth the way for a profitable exit, than it is to make it competitive to make stuff here again. So General Electric offshores everything and legally kites out on 80 billion in taxes... while the IRS mercilessly hunts down and destroys a guy who tried to dodge a couple thousand in taxes so he could hang onto his home and small business for another year. The government in this country of ours declared economic warfare on its own population a long time ago. That may not have been the intention, but that has been the effect. Nothing personal, it is just that it has been too profitable to do so, to simply leave it on the table unexploited. They killed the golden goose of american industry for short term profit. Used to be, there was no motivation. Henry Ford wanted to pay his workers a fat wage so they could afford to buy his cars! Not anymore. There's nothing to stop it, because now, with globalization, they'll just market their shit to whoever is the latest rising star economy. Who gives a damn if 100 million americans end up homeless, when you've got the combined markets of India and China to sell to? It is a runaway positive feedback effect with no phenomena arising to hold it back. The way it looks to me, our system is, in effect, a ver slow-motion nuclear chain reaction that has gone off and is in mid-detonation. The chain reaction has already taken off, is accelerating geometrically, and cannot be stopped. Until this system is willing to address those effects, the economic mathematics are utterly without mercy. The standard of living of the rest of the world will rise, some places steeply, some places minutely- while all of the USA is slowly pounded back down to a pakistani bricklayer's idea of prosperity. The next thing that history tells us ought to happen, is, we elect a completely insane tyrant who promises to protect us from all this. Meet Trump. If he's not it, he certainly is the prototype. If he's not elected, an even worse wacko will be next time around. -BLive and learn... or die, and teach by example. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Darius11 12 #34 February 16, 2016 Americans have voted for bush twice, invaded the wrong country, and people would actually get mad when some of us mentioned Sarah Palin is an idiot. So yes it can happen, But honestly its sad all around. I feel strongly negative about every candidate. Simple answer generally the world is dumber, its not just income equality that has become an increasing distance intelligence seems to have followed the same graph.I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not." - Kurt Cobain Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DanG 1 #35 February 16, 2016 Just thought I'd pass along this article about how your two favorite candidates' tax plans would ruin America. Yes, I know it is from the Washington Post, but they are quoting a non-partisan tax policy think tank. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/02/16/cruz-tax-plan-would-cost-8-6-trillion-second-only-to-trump/ - Dan G Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
quade 3 #36 February 16, 2016 DanGJust thought I'd pass along this article about how your two favorite candidates' tax plans would ruin America. Yes, I know it is from the Washington Post, but they are quoting a non-partisan tax policy think tank. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/02/16/cruz-tax-plan-would-cost-8-6-trillion-second-only-to-trump/ You knew it was a bullshit plan when it came out to be a perfect 10%. Come on now. In what reality is anything ever that neat and simplistic? Sure it sounds good to morons who can only count to 10, but FFS, what's so special about 10?quade - The World's Most Boring Skydiver Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
RonD1120 58 #37 February 16, 2016 DanGJust thought I'd pass along this article about how your two favorite candidates' tax plans would ruin America. Yes, I know it is from the Washington Post, but they are quoting a non-partisan tax policy think tank. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/02/16/cruz-tax-plan-would-cost-8-6-trillion-second-only-to-trump/ It's like winsor's post in his thread on Fear/Anger, a plane is rapidly descending from 12K feet and passing through 1K and we are trying to determine who will take the controls to determine the angle of impact. I am not optimistic regardless of who wins the presidency.Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CanuckInUSA 0 #38 February 16, 2016 Trump is a jackass. Cruz is an asshole that nobody likes. Rubio isn't disliked like Cruz is, but he carries a lot of the same baggage. Sanders is clueless. Clinton is a criminal. But what difference does it make? The POTUS is just a puppet and it's already been decided. Billary will be king. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nolhtairt 0 #39 February 16, 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGTznIy6i4w Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DanG 1 #40 February 16, 2016 QuoteIt's like winsor's post in his thread on Fear/Anger, a plane is rapidly descending from 12K feet and passing through 1K and we are trying to determine who will take the controls to determine the angle of impact. I am not optimistic regardless of who wins the presidency. If you really believed that you wouldn't be so upset about Obama being president now. - Dan G Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
434 2 #41 February 16, 2016 I thought it always have benn HillBill, and not the other way! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
434 2 #42 February 16, 2016 Cant stop laughing. Brilliant ending. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kallend 1,623 #43 February 16, 2016 434I thought it always have benn HillBill, and not the other way! Hmm - that made me think the debates would go well with this musical accompaniment:... The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
billvon 2,393 #44 February 16, 2016 >It's like winsor's post in his thread on Fear/Anger, a plane is rapidly descending >from 12K feet and passing through 1K and we are trying to determine who will >take the controls to determine the angle of impact. Good question. So who do you want as a pilot? The woman who is a lying schemer and has been flying planes for the last four years The guy who is a lying schemer and has never flown a plane before, but says that he will make this airplane great again? And mentions you shouldn't trust pilots because, after all, a pilot must have gotten this airplane into the air to begin with? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
quade 3 #45 February 16, 2016 billvon>It's like winsor's post in his thread on Fear/Anger, a plane is rapidly descending >from 12K feet and passing through 1K and we are trying to determine who will >take the controls to determine the angle of impact. Good question. So who do you want as a pilot? The woman who is a lying schemer and has been flying planes for the last four years The guy who is a lying schemer and has never flown a plane before, but says that he will make this airplane great again? And mentions you shouldn't trust pilots because, after all, a pilot must have gotten this airplane into the air to begin with? To be fair . . . there are some who actively want the plane to crash. I'm not one of them, but there are some people who really do believe the only hope is just to let the plane go down in flames. Personally, I think they're f'in' nuts.quade - The World's Most Boring Skydiver Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ryoder 1,381 #46 February 17, 2016 OK, Trump is still an asshole, but this is funny: http://www.newstatesman.com/world/2016/02/jeb-bush-forgot-renew-his-website-so-now-it-redirects-you-donald-trumps"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CornishChris 5 #47 February 17, 2016 I hope Trump finds out what's going on... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG94GJT8okE CJP Gods don't kill people. People with Gods kill people Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mr2mk1g 10 #48 February 17, 2016 ryoderOK, Trump is still an asshole, but this is funny: http://www.newstatesman.com/world/2016/02/jeb-bush-forgot-renew-his-website-so-now-it-redirects-you-donald-trumps As amusing as that is, it really ought not be allowed under the election laws. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
wolfriverjoe 1,340 #49 February 18, 2016 And today Trump said he'd torture people. He says that torture works. Believe him, it works. Except that it doesn't . And it's a crime."There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
StreetScooby 5 #50 February 18, 2016 I work at Bloomberg in NYC. About a week ago, I was coming up from my desk to get some breakfast around 7am (...I'm in the office around 6am). In one of the main conference rooms, there were 10 people in the room, all of them wearing suits and ties, with a camera guy taking pictures. They were clearly political operatives going over Mike's bid to run for president. I've seen Mike several times now in my 10 months with the company. He's a guy who has complete command presence. The first few times I saw him was when he was winnowing out his media business (...a long time money losing operation, but important to his brand). There were clashes going on between the NYC office and the Washington office, and he set about to clear matters up. Every time I saw him during this period, he was talking to someone and laying down the law. Calmly, laying down the law. That matter has been sorted out now, and widely published for those who read those kind of articles. If he runs, and wins, things will be different. And, for the most part, better than they are now. I don't agree with him on all of his issues. But, he is a guy who gets it done. In my 22 years on the street, there are very few people I've come across who has what he has (...he's not the first billionaire I've come across). If he decides to run, it won't be a Ross Perot run. He'll be in it to win it, and will walk the walk. Like he does every day, and has done every day of his life.We are all engines of karma Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
