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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On March 06 2018 02:28 kollin wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2018 02:21 ticklishmusic wrote:On March 06 2018 02:14 kollin wrote:On March 06 2018 02:04 Gorsameth wrote:On March 06 2018 02:00 kollin wrote:On March 06 2018 01:03 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On March 06 2018 00:58 kollin wrote:
We don't have the necessary perspective to judge Obama because I don't think we can yet fully perceive the economic effects of his fiscal policies (low interest rates etc). I guess not all the effects, but we recovered from the recession at least. Absolutely and that's commendable but if in the next few years we crash again, then at best he provided a band aid to a structural problem. The structural problem being the existence of the Republican party? Not sure if its fair to expect Obama to 'fix' that problem. I mean this is purely speculative but IF there's a crash in the next few years I'd imagine, as shocking as this might be to some people in here, that that would mainly be due to the failure under Obama's presidency to bring the banking sector to heel. From my understanding of it, there's a lotttt of very cheap money sloshing around markets right now due to the lending policies of the central agencies of the US, UK, ECB etc and that could end up in a crash. If that were to happen, I think Obama (or at least what happened under Obama's tenure, meaning the Republicans too) would be responsible. There was a lot of financial regulation that came out of the financial crisis. To argue that another crash is Obama's fault you'd really have to be argue that financial regulation didn't go far enough, and the crash was in spite of what was done. I'm not sure how cheap money relates to risk of a crash. If another crash happened I think I would argue that, though again with the caveat of the obstructionism of the Republicans. From what I understand, when the supply of cheap money runs out after interest rates rise, this can result in fairly precipitous market drops which could turn to a crash (as the recent DOW drop might show).
Cheap money and low interests was a response to the financial crisis. The US government stepped in with QE and low interest rates in order to drive/ maintain short term and moderate term liquidity in response to the financial system not being able to. General consensus seems to be that these were appropriate actions that prevented things from getting worse.
But at some point, the interest rates need to go back up. The analogy I can think of is that when you're injured, you get handicapped parking for a short walk to the door b/c you need it. But when you get better, you lose your handicapped spot b/c you no longer need it and shouldn't complain about having to walk.
An interesting factor is that money/ debt becomes even more expensive when you take into account the new tax rules on interest deductibility.
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Attacking the tax bill is not a good idea. It's become quite popular now that people are seeing the actual effects and no longer have to rely upon the baseless, speculative hand-wringing from the media.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On March 06 2018 02:39 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2018 02:35 LegalLord wrote:On March 06 2018 02:33 LightSpectra wrote:On March 06 2018 02:26 LegalLord wrote:
Honestly if you can’t deal with the fact that family members will disagree with your politics, often aggressively so, then that’s on you. It’s not that they became neo-Nazis while you remained sane, it’s that you let the Trump psychosis permeate your life.
I guess the only consolation is that there are a lot of such individuals around so you have company. That's a great point, LegalLord. The problem isn't that my own family member is openly calling for my extermination (and presumably his own afterwards, though I am not sure if he's thought that far ahead); it's that I let the "Trump psychosis" permeate my life. I guess I'm the intolerant and insane one. Based on what you’re posting here? Damn straight you’re the insane one of the two. Complete with the requisite hyperbole. You know literally nothing about my family except what I've told you, but you're making a clear judgment about which of us is the sane one. Do you see the problem here? I hope Putin pays you to troll, because sounding like a complete moron for free is a bad deal.
... bless your heart.
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On March 06 2018 02:45 xDaunt wrote:
Attacking the tax bill is not a good idea. It's become quite popular now that people are seeing the actual effects and no longer have to rely upon the baseless, speculative hand-wringing from the media.
How popular exactly?
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On March 06 2018 02:45 ticklishmusic wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2018 02:28 kollin wrote:On March 06 2018 02:21 ticklishmusic wrote:On March 06 2018 02:14 kollin wrote:On March 06 2018 02:04 Gorsameth wrote:On March 06 2018 02:00 kollin wrote:On March 06 2018 01:03 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On March 06 2018 00:58 kollin wrote:
We don't have the necessary perspective to judge Obama because I don't think we can yet fully perceive the economic effects of his fiscal policies (low interest rates etc). I guess not all the effects, but we recovered from the recession at least. Absolutely and that's commendable but if in the next few years we crash again, then at best he provided a band aid to a structural problem. The structural problem being the existence of the Republican party? Not sure if its fair to expect Obama to 'fix' that problem. I mean this is purely speculative but IF there's a crash in the next few years I'd imagine, as shocking as this might be to some people in here, that that would mainly be due to the failure under Obama's presidency to bring the banking sector to heel. From my understanding of it, there's a lotttt of very cheap money sloshing around markets right now due to the lending policies of the central agencies of the US, UK, ECB etc and that could end up in a crash. If that were to happen, I think Obama (or at least what happened under Obama's tenure, meaning the Republicans too) would be responsible. There was a lot of financial regulation that came out of the financial crisis. To argue that another crash is Obama's fault you'd really have to be argue that financial regulation didn't go far enough, and the crash was in spite of what was done. I'm not sure how cheap money relates to risk of a crash. If another crash happened I think I would argue that, though again with the caveat of the obstructionism of the Republicans. From what I understand, when the supply of cheap money runs out after interest rates rise, this can result in fairly precipitous market drops which could turn to a crash (as the recent DOW drop might show). Cheap money and low interests was a response to the financial crisis. The US government stepped in with QE and low interest rates in order to drive/ maintain short term and moderate term liquidity in response to the financial system not being able to. General consensus seems to be that these were appropriate actions that prevented things from getting worse. But at some point, the interest rates need to go back up. The analogy I can think of is that when you're injured, you get handicapped parking for a short walk to the door b/c you need it. But when you get better, you lose your handicapped spot b/c you no longer need it and shouldn't complain about having to walk.
I understand what happened post-crash, my point is that if the solution Obama (and I guess to an extent Gordon's Brown) implemented - despite its short term success - does not result in the kind of structural change that would prevent a future crash, ultimately he has not been enormously successful. Like you said, a crash would presumably come out of a lack of financial regulation implemented at the time which combined with the fiscal policy results in overheated markets. This would probably be as much of an indictment on Obama-ERA politics as the man himself, though.
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On March 06 2018 02:45 xDaunt wrote:
Attacking the tax bill is not a good idea. It's become quite popular now that people are seeing the actual effects and no longer have to rely upon the baseless, speculative hand-wringing from the media.
Absolutely. They should keep the popular parts of the tax bill that boosts people paychecks and just talk about imposing new taxes on the hyper wealthy to pay for it. Just go in there with the intent of balancing the budget and forget railing against the tax bill.
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On March 06 2018 02:39 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2018 02:35 LegalLord wrote:On March 06 2018 02:33 LightSpectra wrote:On March 06 2018 02:26 LegalLord wrote:
Honestly if you can’t deal with the fact that family members will disagree with your politics, often aggressively so, then that’s on you. It’s not that they became neo-Nazis while you remained sane, it’s that you let the Trump psychosis permeate your life.
I guess the only consolation is that there are a lot of such individuals around so you have company. That's a great point, LegalLord. The problem isn't that my own family member is openly calling for my extermination (and presumably his own afterwards, though I am not sure if he's thought that far ahead); it's that I let the "Trump psychosis" permeate my life. I guess I'm the intolerant and insane one. Based on what you’re posting here? Damn straight you’re the insane one of the two. Complete with the requisite hyperbole. You know literally nothing about my family except what I've told you, but you're making a clear judgment about which of us is the sane one. Do you see the problem here? I hope Putin pays you to troll, because sounding like a complete moron for free is a bad deal.
Dude regularly makes these disingenuous "golden mean" couched judgments all the time, best just ignore his encouragement of Danglar's similar tack. Plenty of posters here no doubt sympathize with your personal tale of a family divided along potentially incoherent and self-debasing lines. Sadly, I doubt many have good solutions, these are long-running problems in this country.
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On March 06 2018 02:45 xDaunt wrote:
Attacking the tax bill is not a good idea. It's become quite popular now that people are seeing the actual effects and no longer have to rely upon the baseless, speculative hand-wringing from the media.
As I addressed already. The tax break for 'joe average" was put in there to sell the rest of the package (tax cuts for the rich and corporations) to the people because they see a little bit more money on their bank account.
Which of these 2 is set to expire and actually turns into a tax raise to make the measure revenue neutral over 10 years?
"Joe Average' tax break or the Corporate/rich tax break?
The fact that people are to stupid to understand economics 101 and can't look further then their finger is no a defense of the GOPs actions.
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On March 06 2018 02:49 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2018 02:39 LightSpectra wrote:On March 06 2018 02:35 LegalLord wrote:On March 06 2018 02:33 LightSpectra wrote:On March 06 2018 02:26 LegalLord wrote:
Honestly if you can’t deal with the fact that family members will disagree with your politics, often aggressively so, then that’s on you. It’s not that they became neo-Nazis while you remained sane, it’s that you let the Trump psychosis permeate your life.
I guess the only consolation is that there are a lot of such individuals around so you have company. That's a great point, LegalLord. The problem isn't that my own family member is openly calling for my extermination (and presumably his own afterwards, though I am not sure if he's thought that far ahead); it's that I let the "Trump psychosis" permeate my life. I guess I'm the intolerant and insane one. Based on what you’re posting here? Damn straight you’re the insane one of the two. Complete with the requisite hyperbole. You know literally nothing about my family except what I've told you, but you're making a clear judgment about which of us is the sane one. Do you see the problem here? I hope Putin pays you to troll, because sounding like a complete moron for free is a bad deal. Dude regularly makes these disingenuous "golden mean" couched judgments all the time, best just ignore his encouragement of Danglar's similar tack. Plenty of posters here no doubt sympathize with your personal tale of a family divided along potentially incoherent and self-debasing lines. Sadly, I doubt many have good solutions, these are long-running problems in this country.
Politics destroy families. Always have and always will. There are times when I wonder if my parents being alive is the only thing that keeps my brother and I talking. And that we will be strangers once they pass away.
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On March 06 2018 02:49 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2018 02:39 LightSpectra wrote:On March 06 2018 02:35 LegalLord wrote:On March 06 2018 02:33 LightSpectra wrote:On March 06 2018 02:26 LegalLord wrote:
Honestly if you can’t deal with the fact that family members will disagree with your politics, often aggressively so, then that’s on you. It’s not that they became neo-Nazis while you remained sane, it’s that you let the Trump psychosis permeate your life.
I guess the only consolation is that there are a lot of such individuals around so you have company. That's a great point, LegalLord. The problem isn't that my own family member is openly calling for my extermination (and presumably his own afterwards, though I am not sure if he's thought that far ahead); it's that I let the "Trump psychosis" permeate my life. I guess I'm the intolerant and insane one. Based on what you’re posting here? Damn straight you’re the insane one of the two. Complete with the requisite hyperbole. You know literally nothing about my family except what I've told you, but you're making a clear judgment about which of us is the sane one. Do you see the problem here? I hope Putin pays you to troll, because sounding like a complete moron for free is a bad deal. Dude regularly makes these disingenuous "golden mean" couched judgments all the time, best just ignore his encouragement of Danglar's similar tack. Plenty of posters here no doubt sympathize with your personal tale of a family divided along potentially incoherent and self-debasing lines. Sadly, I doubt many have good solutions, these are long-running problems in this country.
Oh I'm perfectly aware LL is just trolling. And as I said, I'm of the mind that talking to enthusiastic Trump supporters is absolutely pointless. In addition to the parallel realities point I've already made, it's also the case that the pro-Trump Republicans have promulgated such nasty, hateful things about Democrats/left-wingers (either personally, or by tacit approval of what others have said) that it's almost impossible for them to turn back now. It would be an absolute humiliation for either side to concede that they've been wrong about (just about) everything, so it's not going to happen. Best case scenario is that when the Baby Boomers die out, cable news and AM radio go with them, and that the younger generations aren't total amnesiacs about the whole ordeal.
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I think we're gonna have to wait 40 years to determine whether Trump was more divisive than Obama.
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Well played, Doodsmack.
Also, I don't understand how Trump continues to contradict himself with single tweets, like "I did nothing wrong but Obama didn't do anything about my collusion with Russia."
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Facebook has admitted it was a “mistake” to ask users whether paedophiles requesting sexual pictures from children should be allowed on its website.
On Sunday, the social network ran a survey for some users asking how they thought the company should handle grooming behaviour. “There are a wide range of topics and behaviours that appear on Facebook,” one question began. “In thinking about an ideal world where you could set Facebook’s policies, how would you handle the following: a private message in which an adult man asks a 14-year-old girl for sexual pictures.”
The options available to respondents ranged from “this content should not be allowed on Facebook, and no one should be able to see it” to “this content should be allowed on Facebook, and I would not mind seeing it”.
A second question asked who should decide the rules around whether or not the adult man should be allowed to ask for such pictures on Facebook. Options available included “Facebook users decide the rules by voting and tell Facebook” and “Facebook decides the rules on its own”.
In neither survey question did Facebook allow users to indicate that law enforcement or child protection should be involved in the situation: the strictest option allowed involved turning to the social network as arbiter.
Yvette Cooper MP, chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, condemned the survey. “This is a stupid and irresponsible survey,” she said. “Adult men asking 14-year-olds to send sexual images is not only against the law, it is completely wrong and an appalling abuse and exploitation of children. I cannot imagine that Facebook executives ever want it on their platform but they also should not send out surveys that suggest they might tolerate it or suggest to Facebook users that this might ever be acceptable.”
Other parts of the survey asked similar questions about content glorifying extremism, and asked users to rank how important they felt it was that Facebook’s policies were developed in a transparent manner, were fair, took into account different cultural norms, and achieved “the ‘right outcome’”.
Facebook’s vice president of product, Guy Rosen, said the surveys were “a mistake”.
“We run surveys to understand how the community thinks about how we set policies,” he said. “But this kind of activity is and will always be completely unacceptable on FB. We regularly work with authorities if identified. It shouldn’t have been part of this survey. That was a mistake.”
In a statement, a Facebook spokesperson added: “We understand this survey refers to offensive content that is already prohibited on Facebook and that we have no intention of allowing so have stopped the survey.
“We have prohibited child grooming on Facebook since our earliest days; we have no intention of changing this and we regularly work with the police to ensure that anyone found acting in such a way is brought to justice.”
Source
Several humans with what I assume to be college degrees worked on this survey and sent it out into the world while representing a billion dollar company. And somehow the person who made the decision to do this will keep their job.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
Generally absolutes like "politics destroys families" are a great excuse for not admitting that letting politics define your own identity to the point that political disagreements are grounds for destroying family ties is what's really at fault here. I mean, if I can get along with certain family members with roots in the Ukraine, I'm sure you can manage to bridge a mere left/right divide to be a family. Some people do have the sense not to let politics dominate in their interactions if it'd be so painful, and to talk about any of the literally every other topic that there is to talk about with family. Some don't, to be fair, and that's usually the ones that come and complain about how they've stopped talking to close family and how they're all Trump-loving nincompoops.
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On March 06 2018 03:14 LegalLord wrote:
Generally absolutes like "politics destroys families" are a great excuse for not admitting that letting politics define your own identity to the point that political disagreements are grounds for destroying family ties is what's really at fault here. I mean, if I can get along with certain family members with roots in the Ukraine, I'm sure you can manage to bridge a mere left/right divide to be a family. Some people do have the sense not to let politics dominate in their interactions if it'd be so painful, and to talk about any of the literally every other topic that there is to talk about with family. Some don't, to be fair, and that's usually the ones that come and complain about how they've stopped talking to close family and how they're all Trump-loving nincompoops.
I have a cousin who constantly post things about how Muslims need to die and how Mexicans are a stain on the nation. How am I supposed to get a long with someone who hates people who are my friends and loved ones? (Muslims and Mexicans). Not just hates but would be glad if they died?
I think you are underestimating how bad some people can be
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On March 06 2018 03:14 LegalLord wrote:
Generally absolutes like "politics destroys families" are a great excuse for not admitting that letting politics define your own identity to the point that political disagreements are grounds for destroying family ties is what's really at fault here. I mean, if I can get along with certain family members with roots in the Ukraine, I'm sure you can manage to bridge a mere left/right divide to be a family. Some people do have the sense not to let politics dominate in their interactions if it'd be so painful, and to talk about any of the literally every other topic that there is to talk about with family. Some don't, to be fair, and that's usually the ones that come and complain about how they've stopped talking to close family and how they're all Trump-loving nincompoops.
If the other person is literally defending Charlottesville it's a little difficult not to let that impact your relations with them imo. I don't know if I agree with you because I agree with your general rule or if I disagree with you because you're clearly not putting exceptions for capital P Politics in there and I really think you should.
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There is a huge difference between being civil and wanting to be around the family member that voted to protect their own gun ownership at the expense of their nephew possibly losing healthcare. Knowingly voting in a way that risked real hardship on their only family members because they didn’t want to risk gun control laws. The entire argument is based on a fallacy that people let politics define them. Politics shape the country we reside in and impact how we live our lives. The Muslim family that has to move to a new community because of increased bigotry after 2016 isn't letting politics define them. Politics came for them.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On March 06 2018 03:19 IyMoon wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2018 03:14 LegalLord wrote:
Generally absolutes like "politics destroys families" are a great excuse for not admitting that letting politics define your own identity to the point that political disagreements are grounds for destroying family ties is what's really at fault here. I mean, if I can get along with certain family members with roots in the Ukraine, I'm sure you can manage to bridge a mere left/right divide to be a family. Some people do have the sense not to let politics dominate in their interactions if it'd be so painful, and to talk about any of the literally every other topic that there is to talk about with family. Some don't, to be fair, and that's usually the ones that come and complain about how they've stopped talking to close family and how they're all Trump-loving nincompoops. I have a cousin who constantly post things about how Muslims need to die and how Mexicans are a stain on the nation. How am I supposed to get a long with someone who hates people who are my friends and loved ones? (Muslims and Mexicans). Not just hates but would be glad if they died? I think you are underestimating how bad some people can be
I know how bad some people can be; I've seen it myself. It's the ones who can't keep from letting it permeate their every interaction, regardless of where they stand on the political spectrum, that are the worst. Incidentally those often tend to be the people ranting and raving about how bad [insert evil boogeyman here] has made their life, and how they stopped talking to their family because of it.
Having an opinion like that and keeping it to yourself for the most part? Not even remotely problematic. Complaining about someone valuing their own gun rights over a family member's healthcare in voting decisions that are not the slightest bit personal? A different story.
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Most people I know who have had problems with family and friends since the 2016 political dumpster fire have said it was a slow process. It isn’t a singular event, but a slow attrition of tiny moments, social media posts and so on.
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EPT
